Minor league Thoughts after Sunday's game

Just a bunch of thoughts about the minor leagues, after the end of the series with the Royals today. I will probably write more about the state of the big club tomorrow, but I strongly believe that the big club is as strong as its whole organization, so I will start with the minors

• Juan Morillo after he was outrighted to Rochester, he appeared in two games for the Red Wings pitching one and two-thirds innings of perfect baseball. No walks, no strikeouts. So far he has been used as a middle reliever in both occasions. I strongly believe that his coupling with Bobby Cuellar, Rochester's pitching coach and the man who taught Johan Santana the change up, would be a great think for Morillo. To accommodate Morillo in the roster, the Red Wings released Carmen Pignatiello, a LHP with 14.14 ERA and 2.15 WHIP and one of the never-had-beens that Jim Rantz likes to accumulate in Rochester every season


• Speaking of Jim Rantz' rejects, Rochester has been horrible this season. If Twins' fans are concerned about the major league team, Red Wings' fans have many more reasons of concern. The team is 9-12, nine games behind Scranton in 5th place, below the lowly Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Is there a reason for Twins' fans who are not really concerned with minor league matters to be concerned about this? Yes. Since the 71 year old Jim Rantz, the Twins minor leagues director discovered Shane Mack as a minor league free agent 28 years ago, he repeats the practice of signing 5-10 aging minor league free agents every season. Nobody the last 28 years of the practice panned out. The closest was Randy Ruiz last season. Singing minor league free agents might be a good practice if: a. the player has some upside and b. the player is young enough to potentially realize that upside. For example, the singing of Justin Huber, a 26 year old OF/1B, former minor league All Star, who has a power right hand bat was great. That of the likes of Carmen Pignatello, Sean Henn, Bobby Keppel, Mike Gosling, Reid Santos, all pitchers at or beyond their primes were not for a pitching-rich organization.


• There are several problems with this practice:
  
  
  1. It keeps talented players from advancing in the organization (e.g. Rob Delaney is setting up Anthony Slama who is closing at New Britain, when either of them could close in Rochester instead of Sean Henn and both of them are more capable pitchers than any of Rantz' 5 never-had-beens in Rochester and they are not spring chicken either: Delaney is 24 and Slama 25 years old
  
  
  2. This practice creates a Domino effect throughout the organization, keeping players like the 23 year old Steve Hirshfield (0.69 ERA, 0.538 WHIP), the 22 year old Carlos Gutierrez (0.78 ERA, 0.652 WHIP) and the 24 year olds Henry Arias and Blair Erickson in Ft. Myers instead of New Britain, and someone like Tom Stuifberger, the guy who held the powerful Dominican Republic lineup scoreless in the WBC for the Netherlands, in extended spring training
  
  
  3. One of the worse parts of this practice is that when the major league club needs a player in case of injury or bad performance, a suitable replacement has to be found outside of the organization, because the best players are usually in AA, with AAA filed up with lesser quality players
  
  
• The Twins need to re-evaluate the way they are doing things as an organization. Here is an example: Once a player is put in the 40-man roster, he has 3 years of "options" and evaluation before he either has to be part of the major league (25 man) roster practically for the rest of his career, or be released. The Twins have 2 players in that roster who are in Ft. Myers (D. Romeiro) and in New Britain (W. Ramos), while players with iffy future with the organization who are not part of the 40 man roster (Machado, Christy) are in Rochester. It should practically be a rule that if someone is on the 40-man roster he better be either in the majors or in AAA (potentially AA the first year he is added) so that the team properly evaluates him.


• The Twins' bullpen might need some help at this point. Nobody in Rochester, other than Anthony Swarzak, is ready to answer the call.

Update: The Twins re-activated Crain and send Jose Morales to the minors. Morales has been batting .238 OPS points higher than Redmond and .180 OPS points higher than Brian Buscher, but he is the one to go. This is not the way to win games. You have to put the best 25 man in the majors and at this point neither Redmond nor Buscher are part of the 25 best players in the organization. As I have indicated previously Morales should have stayed ahead of both Redmond and Buscher. And there is something else to consider: Morales is leading the team in batting average. His reward? A $350K pay cut. This in not how a top organization should reward its top performers.

The Numbers Game

When Joe Mauer returns, as early as a week from today, a spot should open on the 25-man roster to accommodate him. I think that there are three potential candidates for that spot, in alphabetical order: Brian Buscher, Jose Morales and Micheal Redmond.

Here is how they have been performing this season:

Brian Buscher: 18 PA, .200/.333/.333 (.667 OPS). He swung at 37.5% percent of the pitches he faced, making contact on 66.7% of those, so he made contact with 25% of the pitches he saw

Jose Morales: 26 PA .250/.308/.333 (.641 OPS). He swung at 56.3% percent of the pitches he faced, making contact on 81.6% of those, so he made contact with 45.9% of the pitches he saw

Mike Redmond: 31 PA .214/.290/.250 (.540 OPS.) He swung at 41.1% percent of the pitches he faced, making contact on 89.7% of those, so he made contact with 36.9% of the pitches he saw


As far as plate performance goes, Morales has been making more contact with the ball than Redmond and Redmond has been making more contact with the ball than Buscher. One might argue that it is a small sample size, but Buscher's career contact% on all pitches he saw is 35.3% far bellow Morales' and still below Redmond's.

At this point, Morales and Buscher are playing at replacement level, Redmond below replacement level.

Redmond brings veteran leadership and clubhouse presence. Morales brings a live bat, upside, a spanish-speaking catcher who can communicate with Ayala, Liriano, Mijares and Morillo better than Redmond or Mauer. He is a switch hitter. Buscher brings in a left hand bat from the bench. Both Morales and Buscher still have minor league options.

Redmond and Morales are adequate defensively. They will not throw runners out but will not make errors. Buscher is a defensive liability who does not belong on the field in a major league stadium.

There is more than one way to make that decision and it will be a hard decision to make, since there are advantages and disadvantages to all 3. I think that Morales' bat and the fact that is adequate defensively as a catcher, as well as Redmond's veteran leadership should be chosen over Buscher's LH bat off the bench. Morales has a better LH bat off the bench (as a LH hitter he is batting .300/.333/.400, .733 OPS in 21 PA) than Buscher, anyways, and he is more versatile. If I were to rank the 3 in order of who should stay, it would be: Morales, Redmond, Buscher.

What do you think? Feel free to comment and vote on the poll at the upper left hand side of the blog.

One spring training position battle was won today; and another round of cuts.

José Morales was told today, according to La Velle Neal III, that he will make the 25-man roster and will be Mauer's temporary replacement. La Velle, in his article indicated that it was a hard decision for the Twins. Drew Butera had a better offensive spring and is regarded as a better defensive catcher, but the facts that Morales: a. is a switch hitter and has been better offensively b. has more experience in higher levels of the organization that Butera and c. at some point in his career caught all the Twins' starters regularly, weighted on his favor. I was not surprised by the move, regardless the buzz that Butera might be the choice. I actually had Butera starting the season in Rochester, when I posted my take on the Rochester Red Wings roster last week. The fact that it was a difficult decision is a good problems for the Twins to have. It seems that Jeff Christy will still stick around the major league camp until it breaks, while Drew Butera was optioned to Rochester.

José Mijares, in an anticipated move, was optioned to Rochester and Alejandro Machado was reassigned to the minor league camp. There were indications that the bullpen battle for the last 2 spots will be settled by today, but this does not appear to be the case. Also the last position player spot on the bench will be settle no earlier than the end of the week.

Catcher profile: Number 58, José Morales

Because of the ongoing saga with Joe Mauer, and the high likelihood that he will not start the season up North, I am starting a series of profiles of the three most likely candidates to replace him in the start of the season: José Morales, Drew Butera and Wilson Ramos. This is the first of the 3 and it profiles José Morales. Drew Butera and Wilson Ramos will follow tomorrow and Friday.

José Morales turned 26 years old last February 20th. He was drafted by the Twins in the 3rd round in 2001 out of Academia de Providencia High School. He is Puerto Rican, and Puerto Ricans (unlike the other Latin Americans) are subjected to the Major League amateur draft. He was drafted as a second baseman and played 2 years as a second baseman with the Gulf Coast Twins in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 he hit .248/.285/.333 in 117 AB and in 2002 .309/.335/.371 in 175 AB. The next year, the switch-hitter was converted into a catcher and started the season with the Quad Cities River Bandits (Midwest League, A), where he hit .271/.291/.376 in 179 AB and hit his first 2 professional career home runs. Once the River Bandits' season was over, he played 12 games with Miracle at Ft. Myers in the Florida State league (high A) where he had 42 AB and hit .357/.372/.476 (.848 OPS). In this season, Morales played 33 games as a catcher, 4 games at 3B and 4 games a 2B. That stint at Ft. Myers opened a lot of eyes and Morales was fast-tracked as a catcher. It was his age 20 season and the last time that Morales would take the field without catcher's gear (other than one inning with the Rock Cats at second base in 2006).

In 2004 Morales was the starting catcher with the Miracle where he spent his whole season and hit .287/.344/.387 with 4 HRs. He threw out 42% of would be base stealers and was named to the Florida State All Star team. He was promoted to New Britain in 2005, but landed in the DL after 7 games and 20 AB with a back issue (does that sound gravely familiar?) His total production was .209/.273/.306 in those 20 ABs. Next season, 2006, he repeated in the Eastern League (AA) with the Rock Cats, where, still bothered by his back, he hit .211/.276/.311 with 3 home runs. Regardless, he was promoted to Rochester for 2 games in September out of a need because the team had run out of catchers, since Chris Heitz was called up to the Twins and Shawn Wooten quit. For all it matters, he had a single in 7 AB. Next season, however, he was the starting catcher with the Rochester Red Wings (International League, AAA) and put some impressive numbers: .311/.366/.399 (2 HR) in 376 AB. He was an international league All-star in 2007. This earned him a spot on the 40-man roster and a promotion to the Twins, where in his single Major League game, he went 3 for 3 (one double, 2 singles) off José Contreras of the White Sox. Unfortunately, in a Jason Tyner sacrifice bunt attempt in this game, after Morales' last single, while on first base trying to reach second, his cleats were caught in the Dome turf resulting to a broken left ankle. He spent the 2007 off-season recuperating his ankle and reported to Rochester for 2008. In Rochester he hit .315/.348/.426 with 4 HRs and 30% of the would be stealers thrown out, before aggravating his left ankle injury last June 12.

Morales is finally healthy and trying to win a spot with the Twins this season in spring training. Morales is a true switch hitter who utilizes the whole field. here are his spray charts from his 2008 season (click on the spray chart link.) Earlier in his career he has been a better left handed batter, but now he bats equally well from both sides of the plate, even-though he is a better and more powerful RHB. His 2008 splits were .340/.386/.472 against LHP and .303/.331/.400 against RHP. He is not a type of a catcher that will hit the long ball a lot, but one who will make solid contact and will hit several doubles and occasional home runs. Think Brian Harper. One think of note: Morales would be out of options after the 2009 season, so he projects to replace Redmond in the Twins' 25-man roster for 2010.