Tracking the 2013 Twins' Spring Training Roster Battles

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

-Emily Dickinson

Spring Training time is one of my favorite baseball times during the season (or is it "off-season", or "pre-season"?)This is the time where all the teams have the same record and all 60 players or so who are invited in the Major League camp hope that they will be part of the major league roster. Some positions in the Twins' 25-man roster are chiseled in marble; however some are written in pensil, and some others are wide open for the taking. Last season, I used dashboards to quantify Spring Training performance of the combatants in both the position player and pitching battles. I am planning on doing the same this Spring training, but before starting quantifying, I'd like to qualify and see what potential battles there might this Spring.

Position Players (13)

The following six players (barring injuries and late trades) are locks to stay in the Twins' 25-man roster (all lists alphabetically) :

Jamey Carroll
Ryan Doumit
Joe Mauer
Justin Morneau
Trevor Plouffe and
Josh Willingham.

Drew Butera
Darin Mastroianni and
Chris Parmelee

are penciled in and only a horrible appearance might derail them coming up North, but they are not 100% locks (they are in the 80% range)so I will keep track of their performance.

The potential battles in the Twins' 2013 Spring Training as far as position players go are for the following seven positions:

3 outfield positions, including a back up
2 infield positions, including a back up
and one additional bench bat that would be a third Catcher (Mr Butera for example) or a bat off the bench/DH (like Chris Colabello) or an additional infielder or outfielder.

Pitchers (12)

I do assume that the Twins will take 13 position players and 12 pitchers; however, potentially they will forgo the bench bat or the third catcher and go with 13 pitchers. Time will tell.

The following two starters and three relievers are pretty much locks:

Kevin Correia
Vance Worley

Jared Burton
Brian Duensing
Glen Perkins

The following two starters are locks, other than the fact that might not be ready:

Scott Diamond
Mike Pelfrey

So there are battles from one to three starting positions and at least four bullpen spots.

Potentially up to seven position player and seven pitcher spots on the 2013 Opening Day Twins 25-man roster will be decided this Spring, which is more than in the recent seasons, at least on paper... Interesting times indeed and sure to make this Spring more fun to watch closely.