May 8, 2012

Morneau’s latest injury leads to Dozier’s arrival and roster shakeup

Justin Morneau exited last Monday's game with soreness in his surgically repaired left wrist, immediately flying from California to Minnesota to be examined by team doctors and admitting that the injury had been bothering him for several days. At the time I wondered why the Twins wouldn't just put him on the disabled list for two weeks if the situation was serious enough for a cross-country flight and an MRI exam for a chronically injured player.

Instead, as they've done far too many times with far too many injured players during the past few seasons, they kept Morneau on the active roster for a week despite his being unavailable to actually play and then, only after completing an entire West Coast road trip with a one- or two-man bench, finally put him on the DL. Sadly when it comes to both Morneau's health and the Twins' handling of injuries, it turns out not much has changed.

When the Twins finally decided to shut down Morneau it set in motion a series of moves that reshaped the roster following an MLB-worst 7-20 start. Brian Dozier was called up from Triple-A and handed the starting job at shortstop, shifting Jamey Carroll into a utility man role that will also involve pushing second baseman Alexi Casilla and third baseman Danny Valencia for playing time.

Scott Diamond joined Dozier in being promoted from Triple-A and will step into the rotation for Liam Hendriks, who allowed 18 runs in 18 innings replacing the injured Scott Baker. And then just for good measure the Twins swapped backup outfielders too, designating Clete Thomas for assignment three weeks after claiming him off waivers from the Tigers and replacing him by claiming Erik Komatsu off waivers from the Cardinals.

Dozier arrives with inflated expectations thanks to assorted fans who don't know any better and media members who should know better touting him as a top prospect. In reality Dozier is 25 years old with limited upside and was at Single-A as of the middle of last season. He can certainly be a valuable player and ranked 10th on my annual list of Twins prospects coming into the season, but he hit just .276/.339/.371 in 28 games at Triple-A before the call-up.

There are also plenty of questions about Dozier's defense, with many prospect analysts believing he's better suited for second base than shortstop. Ron Gardenhire has been publicly clamoring for Dozier since last season, so it's not surprising that the manager would anoint him the starting shortstop upon arrival, but it's worth noting that Carroll was perfectly solid defensively even if he wasn't hitting.

Whenever a 38-year-old hits .208 through 27 games it's natural to wonder if he's simply washed up, particularly since Carroll was never exactly a star-caliber player to begin with, but drawing 13 walks with just 14 strikeouts in 116 plate appearances are positive signs at the plate and while he's in no danger of reminding anyone of Ozzie Smith range-wise his defense was hardly a major weakness at shortstop.

By signing Carroll to a two-year, $6.5 million contract the Twins committed to him as more than just a short-term stop gap, as he's both in their plans for next season and being paid way too much for a typical backup role. In other words, expect to see Carroll in the lineup plenty even if Dozier sticks at shortstop and expect to see plenty of speculation about the Twins parting ways with Casilla and/or Valencia in the near future.

Hendriks' struggles are more a confirmation that he wasn't ready to thrive in the majors than an indictment of his future value. He remains a potential mid-rotation starter, perhaps as soon as later this season, but at 23 years old and with just nine starts at Triple-A pushing him to the big leagues was always an iffy idea. Diamond is 25 and a lesser prospect with 39 starts at Triple-A, so turning to him while giving Hendriks a chance to develop further makes sense.

Last year the Twins selected Diamond in the Rule 5 draft, decided they couldn't keep him in the majors all season, and traded former second-round pick Billy Bullock to the Braves for the ability to stash him in the minors. That move made no sense to me at the time and was even weirder when they called up Diamond in July anyway. He didn't pitch well at Triple-A last year and struggled in seven starts for the Twins, but did some nice work in Rochester this season.

Diamond was my 35th-ranked Twins prospect coming into the season and projects as a potential back-of-the-rotation starter who'll hopefully make up for modest velocity and poor strikeout totals by inducing lots of ground balls. He posted a 2.60 ERA and 26-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 35 innings for Rochester before the call-up, but that only improved his career Triple-A numbers to a 4.50 ERA with just 6.3 strikeouts per nine innings.

Three weeks ago the Twins claimed Thomas off waivers from the Tigers because they decided he was much better suited for a little-used bench role than Ben Revere, who at 24 years old deserved a chance to continue developing by playing regularly at Triple-A. Thomas homered in his second at-bat for the Twins and they proceeded to give him more starts than Revere was getting, but when he followed the homer by going 3-for-26 with 16 strikeouts they cut bait.

Thomas isn't as bad as he looked for the Twins, mostly because it's nearly impossible to actually be that bad, but as I noted at the time of the waiver claim he's a 28-year-old with a mediocre track record in the minors and majors who rates as essentially a replacement-level outfielder. In designating Thomas for assignment they removed him from the 40-man roster and exposed him to waivers again, assigning him to Rochester after he went unclaimed.

They filled his spot by claiming Komatsu, who's now with his fourth team in 10 months after the Nationals acquired him from the Brewers for Jerry Hairston last July only to lose him in the Rule 5 draft when they opted not to protect him with a 40-man roster spot. Rule 5 picks must remain in the majors all season or be offered back to their original team, which means the Twins won't be able to send Komatsu to the minors if they sour on him like they did Thomas.

It's also worth noting that the Twins picked second in the Rule 5 draft and passed on Komatsu to select Terry Doyle, whom they returned to the White Sox. None of which means Komatsu isn't a useful player. He lacks Thomas' power, but is four years younger with much better plate discipline. Because he skipped Triple-A it's tough to get a feel for Komatsu's readiness, but he plays all three outfield spots and hit .302 with a .389 on-base percentage in the minors.

Much of that was in the low minors and isn't particularly relevant now, but Komatsu spent all of last season at Double-A as a 23-year-old and hit .277/.367/.382 with 21 steals and nearly as many walks (64) as strikeouts (66). Commanding the strike zone that well is impressive for a hitter with just seven homers in 124 games, as pitchers certainly weren't afraid to throw him strikes. He doesn't project as a regular, but Komatsu's skill set fits the backup outfielder role.

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7 Comments »

  1. Maybe the Twins’ downturn during the last year and a half is inevitable, as professional sports franchises often experience ebb and flow cycles. It’s sad to consider what could have been, during the past decade. The bad trades, bad signings, missed signings, non-tenders, and stalled stadium construction, all combined to make a potentially great decade-long run into only a good one, which now appears to be over. The next resurgence is a few years in the future. Maybe Mauer and Morneau will still be cornerstones when the new wave arrives, but they’ll no longer be in their prime years.

    Comment by jfs — May 7, 2012 @ 11:15 pm

  2. The thing that is really hard to think about is that the Twins aren’t just in for a bad year. They are in for a bad five years. We aren’t even ready to start from scratch because there are tens of millions tied up in multi-year contracts that we can’t dump. We have to pay Nick Blackburn $5.5 million next year. Morneau is getting $14M.

    If you think the Twins are bad, go take a look at the stats for the AAA team.

    http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&cid=534&stn=true&sid=t534

    11 home runs in 30 games? Good to see that Nishioka is putting up a .203/.299/.237 at AAA for the $3 million he is being paid. He’ll get another $3M next year too.

    Comment by Pedro Munoz — May 7, 2012 @ 11:36 pm

  3. Carroll’s BABIP is ridiculously low right now, but so is his line drive rate. And he already has as many popups as he averaged over the last 3 years. If we really expected the .360 OBP to continue, then we had to expect the .350 BABIP to continue, and that was a dubious assumption at best.

    I still would rather see Dozier playing 2B for Casilla, though. Even hitting .210, Carroll is still getting on base more than Casilla, and if you have no power, OBP is pretty much everything.

    Comment by Brian — May 8, 2012 @ 8:38 am

  4. ditch valencia for SANO.

    Comment by sparks — May 8, 2012 @ 9:50 am

  5. ^Settle down Bill Smith – Sano has only played 30 games in A ball. Probably don’t want to rush that one…

    Any more word on Valencia trade rumors?

    Comment by Scott Stahoviak — May 8, 2012 @ 12:04 pm

  6. Was at the game last night – a few things.

    1) Jered Weaver is nasty – fastball at 93, change at 71 – enough said. Huge bronx cheer when the Twins finally got their first hit in 10+ innings off of him.

    2) Im assuming that Maicer Izturis and Alberto Callaspo are the smallest left side of the infield in the majors. They are (generously) listed at 5’8″ and 5’9″. Both could fit inside of a hot water heater easily. Having said that – Callaspo’s homer was crushed – not in the moon shot way, but in the the ball was out in 1.02738 seconds kind of way.

    3) Mike Trout was the only Angel to sign autographs during/immediately after BP. It was wierd that they all avoided the fans along the 3B line like the plague. Trout came over to say hi to his uncle, then proceeded to pose for pictures and sign for every kid that ran down. He was nice enough to sign a ball for me too. Torii signed for a little while right before first pitch.

    4) Dozier looked really comfortable at short, even yelling at Valencia/Carrol to cover second when Dozier went out to get the cutoff on a single to center. He also showed good range to his left on a shot up the middle late.

    5) Pujols hit some BOMBS into LF during BP. My god, were they crushed – like the exact opposite of every twins middle infielder ever. Pujols was also heads up after Dozier hit his single late – immediately calling for the ball from the cutoff man and making a point to get Gardy’s attention and toss him the ball.

    6) Peter Bourjos can catch everything that doesn’t leave the playing field. He is also faster than Revere in my opinion – can’t understand why they were shopping him (I know he is “blocking” Trout), but my god is he the prototype CF as far as range, fielding, base running and bunting. He is really struggling against all non-twins pitching right now though with an ugly .192/.259/.288 line for a guy with his skill set.

    Comment by Karl — May 8, 2012 @ 12:21 pm

  7. But but the key stat that hasn’t been mentioned: will Dozier take as many pitches as Carroll?

    Comment by bohemian club — May 9, 2012 @ 7:53 pm

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