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For the second time in a week the Twins moved quickly to fill a hole with a low-cost free agent, signing Ryan Doumit to a one-year, $3 million contract after previously signing Jamey Carroll to a two-year, $6.75 million deal. Doumit, like Carroll, was a player I recommended targeting in my position-by-position breakdown of inexpensive, realistic free agent options and $3 million is an absolute bargain for the flawed but very useful 30-year-old.

Doumit has been a catcher for most of his career, making 403 starts and logging 3,513 innings behind the plate during seven seasons with the Pirates, but his defense has always been a weakness. His arm is decent enough, as Doumit threw out 24 percent of steal attempts this year and 25 percent for his career, but his passed ball and wild pitch totals aren't pretty and a study by Mike Fast of Baseball Prospectus showed Doumit as MLB's worst at framing pitches.

Ideally he'd see minimal action behind the plate, but if Joe Mauer spends time on the disabled list again and his backup is forced into an extended role Doumit will allow the Twins to sacrifice defense for offense with a better alternative than Drew Butera. And if Mauer can stay mostly healthy the Twins can keep Butera in a limited backup role and plug Doumit into the lineup as a corner outfielder, first baseman, and designated hitter.

Doumit isn't going to be a standout defender away from catcher, but he's logged 489 innings in right field and 251 innings at first base and should be passable at worst in either spot. And his bat is strong enough to be an asset anywhere, as Doumit is a switch-hitter with a career .271/.334/.442 line and batted .303/.353/.477 this year. For comparison, Michael Cuddyer is a career .272/.343/.451 hitter and batted .284/.346/.459 this year.

Doumit's overall numbers and Cuddyer's overall numbers are almost identical, but within that are very different hitters. Cuddyer destroys left-handers and is mediocre versus right-handers, while Doumit is very good against righties and mediocre off lefties. That means Doumit doesn't fit quite as well in a Twins lineup heavy on lefty bats, but even in a different form production is still production and a poor man's Cuddyer who can also play catcher is a great fit for $3 million.

Along with shaky catching his injury history is another reason Doumit was available so cheaply after the Pirates declined his $7.25 million option. He broke his ankle this year, broke his wrist in 2009, and has had concussions. However, the fractured ankle came when a runner plowed into him at the plate and the concussions stemmed from foul tips to the mask, so transitioning away from catching regularly should significantly increase Doumit's odds of staying healthy.

And if Doumit can stay healthy he's capable of posting some very nice numbers. He's been an above-average hitter in four of the past five seasons, batting .280/.337/.454 during that time while averaging 20 homers and 37 doubles per 500 at-bats. He's a free-swinger, drawing just 43 walks per 600 plate appearances over that four-year span, but Doumit also leans into quite a few pitches to boost his on-base percentage and doesn't strike out much.

Doumit is far from a perfect player, but he hits well enough to replace Cuddyer or Jason Kubel if they go elsewhere as free agents, can also fill in at first base if Justin Morneau's concussion symptoms persist, has enough catching experience to be far better than Butera if needed to replace Mauer behind the plate, and brings some much-needed versatility to a roster filled with health questions. For a modest one-year commitment that's some good shopping on a budget.

• Matt Tolbert, Jason Repko, Anthony Slama, and Rene Rivera were passed through waivers unclaimed and sent outright to Triple-A as part of the Twins' initial 40-man roster trimming and they've since done the same with Phil Dumatrait and Brian Dinkelman. Some of the six guys may stay in the organization, but they've all been removed from the 40-man roster and Tolbert quickly opted for free agency after spending his entire eight-year pro career with the Twins.

Dumatrait had a nice-looking 3.92 ERA for the Twins, but didn't actually pitch well with an awful 29-to-25 strikeout-to-walk ratio and seven homers in 41 innings. Even the 1.15 ERA he posted at Triple-A to coax the Twins into calling him up involved just 15 innings and a horrible 12-to-11 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Dumatrait is a 30-year-old journeyman with a 6.20 ERA and nearly as many walks (90) as strikeouts (97) in 151 career innings as a major leaguer.

Dinkelman is a similar story, as his .301 batting average vastly overstates how well he actually played in 23 games for the Twins. All but one of his 22 hits were singles, producing a measly .315 slugging percentage, and Dinkelman drew just four walks while striking out 14 times. His call-up never made much sense in the first place, as Dinkelman is 27 years old and has hit just .255/.327/.353 in 264 games at Triple-A while being iffy defensively at second base.

Of the six players dropped from the 40-man roster Slama is the only one with any sort of shot to be more than a marginal big leaguer and the Twins avoiding the status quo with their own collection of replacement-level talent is a positive thing. And even after those moves they still have plenty of fungible non-prospects taking up space on the 40-man roster, including Drew Butera, Jim Hoey, Jeff Manship, Kyle Waldrop, and Esmerling Vasquez.

• During a recent radio interview on 1500-ESPN general manager Bill Smith confirmed that the Twins will not make any changes to the training staff following one of the most injury wrecked seasons in team history. Smith noted that "there's nothing from a training standpoint that you can do to prevent" what he called "collision injuries" such as Tsuyoshi Nishioka fracturing his leg while trying to turn a double play or Michael Cuddyer injuring his wrist on a hit by pitch.

As he's done multiple times since the end of the season Smith suggested that Alexi Casilla's hamstring strain was the only prominent example of a non-collision injury, but as Phil Mackey of 1500-ESPN pointed out that's inaccurate. Casilla, Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker, Jim Thome, Francisco Liriano, Delmon Young, Nick Blackburn, and Glen Perkins each required disabled list stints and missed significant time with non-collision injuries.

I'm not really in a position to say whether the Twins need to dramatically shake up the training staff, but for Smith to dismiss the never-ending flood of health problems as simply bad luck and spin the situation with misleading information is disappointing. Yes, many injuries were of the collision variety, but most of those players missed far more time than the initial diagnosis and there were also plenty of non-collision injuries that kept players out far longer than expected.

• Smith also revealed a few other tidbits during that same interview, admitting that the Twins "will be looking" for a veteran shortstop who can provide "solid leadership and solid defense." No surprise, as entering 2012 with Nishioka or Trevor Plouffe atop the shortstop depth chart was never going to happen, but after botching the J.J. Hardy situation upgrading the position is once again a priority. If history is any indication the next shortstop will be underwhelming.

Asked about upgrading the depth at catcher Smith called Butera "a wonderful backup catcher" despite a .178/.220/.261 career line making him one of the worst hitters ever. Of course, more important than the silly platitudes is Smith admitting that "we've got to have more offense out of that backup position" and "are looking to add that." If they aren't willing to cut Butera loose that points to keeping three catchers or at least two catchers and a catcher/designated hitter.

• Last week I wrote about how the Twins' minor league player of the year winners have been a mixed bag during the past decade. David Winfree is perhaps the least successful recipient during that time, winning the award in 2005 thanks to a nice-looking RBI total at high Single-A masking unspectacular overall production and an ugly 93-to-22 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Winfree never even reached the majors, leaving the organization as a free agent in 2009.

He's played at Triple-A for three different organizations during the two seasons since then, but put together a good 39-game stretch for the Diamondbacks' affiliate this season and somehow convinced them to add him to the 40-man roster. Winfree is a 26-year-old first baseman/corner outfielder with a .287/.331/.484 mark in 264 games at Triple-A, so even if he finally makes it to the majors in Arizona don't expect the former 13th-round pick to haunt the Twins.

• LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that the Twins are giving rookie-ball center fielder Eddie Rosario some reps at second base in instructional league games. Rosario had a monster season for Elizabethton as a 19-year-old, batting .337 with 21 homers in 67 games, and given the organization's solid outfield depth and longstanding inability to develop quality infielders it's worth a try while he's on the bottom rungs of the minor-league ladder.

• John Bonnes, Seth Stohs, Nick Nelson, and Parker Hageman are taking pre-orders for their annual "Offseason GM Handbook." I'm not part of the TwinsCentric group and have nothing to do with the handbook, but can absolutely vouch for product as a worthwhile investment. Plus, in addition to 135 pages analyzing offseason possibilities and all things Twins the e-book also features a foreword by Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune and 1500-ESPN. Check it out.

• If the Twins' season was a fight the corner would've thrown in the towel several rounds ago, as they've now lost 12 of the past 13 series, including seven in a row. Since climbing to 50-56 on July 29 to convince the front office not to become sellers at the trading deadline the Twins have gone 9-31, which is the second-worst 40-game stretch in team history ahead of only the miserable 1982 season.

That year the Twins lost 100 games for the first and only time, going 60-102 while trading both Roy Smalley and Butch Wynegar to the Yankees and breaking in rookies Kent Hrbek, Frank Viola, Gary Gaetti, Tom Brunansky, Randy Bush, and Tim Laudner. In retrospect that mess was the start of a rebuilding process that led to a championship five years later and a second title four years after that, but it's hard to imagine 2011 in similar context.

There are 16 games remaining and the Twins must go just 4-12 to avoid the second 100-loss season in team history, which sounds fairly simple except for the fact that they're 4-12 in their last 16 games and also went 4-12 in the 16 games before that. They've already lost five more games than any other team in the Ron Gardenhire era and are a near-lock to finish with the fewest wins since the 1999 team went 63-97 under Tom Kelly.

I was born in 1983, so there's a good chance this will be the worst Twins team of my lifetime. They're now in last place, two games behind the Royals, and in a virtual tie with the Orioles for the AL's worst record. They won't be able to catch the Astros for baseball's worst record, but the Twins' run differential of -160 is within range of Houston at -163. Toss in the $115 million payroll with contender expectations and this might be the worst season in Twins history.

• As ugly as things are in Minnesota they weren't any prettier at Triple-A, where manager Tom Nieto and hitting coach Floyd Rayford got fired after Rochester had consecutive 90-loss years for the first time since 1903/1904. Wins and losses aren't the most important aspect of minor-league coaching, but the Twins have been critical of the job the Rochester staff did preparing prospects for the majors and recent talk of a "shakeup" in the farm system sealed Nieto's fate.

Nieto can't be blamed for nearly all of his best players being called up to Minnesota because of the Twins' never-ending injuries and the Triple-A roster was hardly filled with top-notch young talent to begin with, but that doesn't preclude Rochester's staff from also doing a sub par job. Minor league director Jim Rantz explained that "these changes in Rochester are just part of an overall directional change that's being implemented throughout the minor league system."

• After firing Nieto and Rayford general manager Bill Smith talked about how the Twins "aren't living up to our end of the affiliation" with Rochester, which he discussed much further during a lengthy interview with Jim Mandelaro of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Smith made it clear that the Twins want to continue their partnership with Rochester, but the affiliation deal ends after next season and they haven't had a winning record since going 74-70 in 2008.

• Phil Mackey of 1500-ESPN wrote an interesting article about the Twins' training staff, which has come under fire in a big way this season after several years of occasional criticism. Mackey notes that they'd already added a part-time chiropractor and part-time deep-tissue massage therapist in addition to a third trainer who "stays behind at Target Field with injured players to do more one-on-one work."

• Chuck James was designated for assignment to clear a 40-man roster space for September call-up Liam Hendriks and passed through waivers unclaimed, so he remains at Triple-A but is no longer on the 40-man roster. James was fantastic at Rochester, throwing 63 innings with a 2.30 ERA and 67-to-27 strikeout-to-walk ratio, but he struggled in 10 innings for the Twins and they never seemed particularly interested in giving the 29-year-old lefty an extended chance.

• Tigers manager Jim Leyland is "thrilled" with what he's seen from Delmon Young so far:

We're thrilled with that acquisition. It's worked out pretty good so far, and when he steps in that batter's box he's a man. He's going to get his rips and has a pretty good idea how to hit and what pitchers do.

Obviously seeing Young play well elsewhere is frustrating for Twins fans, but his convincing the Tigers to keep him for $7 million next season and perhaps even give him a multi-year contract might not be such a bad thing over the long haul. Young is hitting .297 with a .465 slugging percentage in 25 games for Detroit, but also has just one walk and a .305 on-base percentage in 110 plate appearances.

• Jim Thome hasn't fared nearly as well in Cleveland, batting just .239/.314/.348 in 13 games, and the Indians haven't been able to keep pace with the suddenly unbeatable Tigers. When the Indians acquired Thome they were 6.0 games out of first place with 35 games to play, yet despite going 9-8 since the trade they're now 11.0 games back with 18 games to play. Thome is in danger of finishing with an OPS below .800 for just the second time in his career.

• Joe Mauer has played in 71 of 78 games since coming off the disabled list in mid-June and is batting .316/.388/.412 in his last 260 plate appearances, including .354 with two homers, four doubles, and seven walks in his last 14 games. Even in what has been an incredibly frustrating and disappointing season for Mauer he leads the Twins in batting average (.290) and on-base percentage (.358). His future defensively is unclear, but it's nice to know the bat still works.

• Ben Revere has a .283 slugging percentage, which is the lowest mark by any MLB outfielder with at least 400 plate appearances since Gerald Young of the Astros slugged .276 in 1989. Revere also has a .295 on-base percentage and the last MLB outfielder to bat 400-plus times with a slugging percentage below .283 and an on-base percentage below .295 is Gary Pettis of the Tigers in 1988. Also in 1988? Revere was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 3.

• Drew Butera went 0-for-2 yesterday and is hitting .161/.198/.232 in 225 plate appearances overall. To put that in some context, NL pitchers are hitting .141/.177/.184 this season. Here's a list of all the players since 1920 to bat at least 225 times with an OPS of .430 or lower:

                  YEAR      PA      OPS
Brandon Wood      2010     243     .382
Tony Pena         2008     235     .398
Ray Oyler         1968     247     .399
John Vukovich     1971     233     .400
DREW BUTERA       2011     225     .430

Four players in the past 92 seasons have batted as many times as Butera with a lower OPS.

• Brad Pitt plays A's general manager Billy Beane in the soon-to-be-released Moneyball movie, but who should play Gardenhire in the movie version of Gardyball? I vote for Jeff Bridges.

• Last but not least: This might qualify as "not safe for work" depending on where you work, but Michael Cuddyer posted a picture of the Twins' annual hazing ritual of rookies dressing up in costumes. It's a lot bigger group than usual this season because at this point half the roster is rookies, including Rene Tosoni dressing up as a trench coat-wearing flasher who appears to have gone to the same prosthetic maker as Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights:

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• To put the Twins' current 11.5-game AL Central deficit into context consider that they're 15.0 games ahead of the Astros for the worst record in baseball. They're also just 3.0 games ahead of the Royals for last place in the AL Central and 5.5 games ahead of the Orioles for the worst record in the AL. There are 43 games remaining and the Twins would have to go 29-14 just to finish .500. In their last 43 games the Twins are 20-23.

• Alexi Casilla spent two weeks on the disabled list with a strained right hamstring and then aggravated the injury in the seventh inning of his first game back Friday, immediately returning to the DL. Trevor Plouffe, who was optioned to Triple-A to clear a roster spot for Casilla, was called right back up and will hopefully get more of an opportunity than last time, when he often found himself on the bench in favor of Matt Tolbert.

Plouffe has plenty of flaws and is hardly guaranteed to become a solid big leaguer, but if ever there was a time for the Twins to find out it's when the division title is out of reach and their primary alternative is a 29-year-old career .235/.291/.326 hitter. Using the final six weeks to see if Plouffe can be a part of the team's plans in 2012 and beyond is far more valuable than giving Tolbert more time to cement his status as the definition of a replacement-level player.

• Kevin Slowey's long-awaited return to the Twins' rotation technically never happened, as he allowed one run in two innings yesterday before the game was washed away by rain.

• Denard Span is 2-for-35 (.057) with nine strikeouts versus three walks since spending two months on the disabled list, telling LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he's still having post-concussion symptoms and is struggling with new medication. Not good.

• Justin Morneau returned to the lineup six weeks after surgery to remove a herniated disk fragment from his neck, but told Neal that he still doesn't have feeling in his left index finger because of nerve damage. Despite that Morneau went 11-for-30 (.367) with a homer and four doubles in seven games rehabbing at Triple-A.

• Joe Nathan became the Twins' all-time saves leader Wednesday with his 255th since joining the team in 2004, moving past Rick Aguilera. Nathan is definitely the most dominant closer in Twins history--and one of the most dominant in baseball history, for that matter--but his save total and Aguilera's save total isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. Here's an explanation of the differences from my write-up of Aguilera as the 18th-best player in Twins history:

It's important to note that Tom Kelly used Aguilera much differently than Ron Gardenhire has used Nathan. Nathan has inherited a grand total of 54 runners in seven-plus seasons with the Twins, which works out to one per eight innings. Aguilera inherited 38 runners in his first year as closer, and then saw 37 and 40 more in the next two years. In all, Aguilera inherited 207 runners during his time in Minnesota, which works out to one every 2.5 relief innings.

The vast majority of Nathan's saves involved starting an inning with a clean slate, but Aguilera often saved games he entered with runners on base. That goes a long way toward explaining his seemingly mediocre save percentage and Aguilera also deserves credit for stranding more than three-fourths of the runners he inherited.

In addition to being more difficult than Nathan's saves, on average, Aguilera's saves were also longer, as he recorded 55 more outs in his 254 saves than Nathan has in his 255 saves.

• Glen Perkins might be wearing down in his first full season as a reliever. He allowed eight runs in 43 innings through August 5, including 37 scoreless appearances in 45 total outings, and never gave up more than one run in a game. And now Perkins has allowed six runs in his last four innings, including four straight outings with a run and multiple runs in two of them. David Ortiz's homer was the first served up by Perkins in 178 plate appearances this year.

• Amelia Rayno of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote an interesting article about the pitcher-catcher relationship and specifically Carl Pavano picking Drew Butera as his personal catcher. Near the end of the article she noted Pavano's respective ERA with different catchers, but it's worth repeating: Pavano has a 4.26 ERA in 35 starts with his preferred catcher, Butera, and a 4.09 ERA in 31 starts with Joe Mauer. And this year's numbers skew further in Mauer's favor.

• MLB suspended Twins minor leaguer Kennys Vargas for 50 games after he violated the drug prevention and treatment program by reportedly testing positive for phentermine, which can be used to speed metabolism for weight loss. Vargas is 6-foot-5 and Seth Stohs notes that his weight has been an issue. Vargas, a 20-year-old first baseman who was signed out of Puerto Rico in 2009, was hitting .322/.377/.489 in 44 games at rookie-level Elizabethton.

• Ted Uhlaender is the only outfielder in Twins history to get 200-plus plate appearances in a season with an on-base percentage below .300 and a slugging percentage below .300, hitting .226/.280/.286 in 403 plate appearances in 1966. Ben Revere is hitting .245/.294/.285 in 298 plate appearances. And his noodle arm was in right field Wednesday because Ron Gardenhire refuses to move Delmon Young there. Don't mess with success. Or something. How silly.

• Jim Thome has faced three pitchers at least 70 times in his career. One is Tim Wakefield, whom he faced last week, and the other two are Roger Clemens and Brad Radke. Thome has hit just .185 off Wakefield and .225 (with good power) off Radke, but crushed Clemens to the tune of .355/.438/.855 with eight homers and seven doubles in 62 at-bats. Among all hitters Clemens faced at least 50 times Thome is the only one to top a 1.000 OPS. And he's at 1.293.

• Tonight is the deadline for MLB teams to sign draft picks and the Twins' first-rounder, North Carolina junior shortstop Levi Michael, remains unsigned, as do supplemental first-round picks Travis Harrison and Hudson Boyd. Their next six picks are all signed.

• While watching Tom Kelly fill in for Bert Blyleven during one of the recent FSN broadcasts I looked up his old minor-league numbers and the former manager hit .272/.406/.436 with more walks (538) than strikeouts (429) in 782 games at Triple-A. Of course, he was a first baseman, which is why Kelly spent 13 seasons in the minors and 47 games in the majors. Offensively at least he was a poor man's Doug Mientkiewicz.

• Why was Chuck Knoblauch a no-show at the 1991 team's reunion last week? Because "he's considerably out of shape," according to Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Which is smart, because Kent Hrbek would have really goofed on him.

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• They still have the worst record in the league at 26-39, still are on pace to go 65-97, and still would need to go 59-38 from here on out to finish with even 85 wins, but by going 9-3 to start June the Twins have at the very least put off a potential fire sale for a while and made their games fun to watch again. Baby steps, sure, but 26-39 looks a whole lot prettier than 17-37 and as usual the thoroughly mediocre AL Central makes much bigger steps seem possible.

• Francisco Liriano had a panic-inducing April, posting a 9.13 ERA with as many walks (18) as strikeouts (18) as the Twins tried to convince him to "pitch to contact" with terrible results. His first May start was a no-hitter versus the White Sox and Liriano flirted with a second no-hitter yesterday against the Rangers, giving him a 1.89 ERA in six starts since May 1. And as Liriano explained after racking up nine strikeouts, his success has come from not following advice:

I've always been the power pitcher, trying to strike out people. I feel more comfortable pitching like that. I'm trying to be me, [the way] I used to pitch last year and the year before. I'm not thinking about contact at all.

Good. It never made much sense that the Twins would try to force Liriano into the same strike-throwing, contact-inducing mold they use for pitchers with inferior raw stuff and less ability to overpower hitters, so thankfully he stayed with the approach that led to so much success last season.  Liriano has allowed two runs or fewer in five of six starts, with the lone outlier coming after throwing 123 pitches in the no-hitter, so hopefully they'll stop trying to fix him for a while.

• Carl Pavano has also put together a strong six-start stretch since beginning the season 2-4 with a 6.64 ERA, logging 43 innings with a 2.49 ERA and just two homers allowed. However, his lack of missed bats continues to be worrisome from a 35-year-old pitcher set to earn $8.5 million in 2012. Pavano has just 16 strikeouts in those 43 innings, which is a minuscule rate of 3.3 per nine innings and even lower than his 3.6 per nine innings through seven bad starts.

Pavano can still be effective by limiting walks and homers, but it'll be tough for the Twins to get their money's worth over the next season-and-a-half if he can't get back to at least 5-6 whiffs per nine innings like 2009 and 2010. Not only are his 3.5 strikeouts per nine innings this year the lowest rate in baseball, no other pitcher is below 4.0 and the last pitcher to qualify for the ERA title with a lower strikeout rate was Livan Hernandez at 3.4 in 2008 ... for the Twins.

• Denard Span's collision with Royals catcher Brayan Pena didn't look like much at the time. In fact, I was watching on television alongside a handful of other Twins bloggers and a few beat reporters, and no one seemed to think much of it beyond Span not turning Pena into Buster Posey with a bigger collision. Span stayed in the game and even played a few days later, but then complained of dizziness and was put on the new seven-day disabled list for concussions.

Span told reporters that he's "definitely scared" about the situation and it's easy to see why. One reason is that Justin Morneau missed the final three-plus months of last season and was sidelined for a total of nine months following a concussion last July and still hasn't gotten back on track 11 months later. Beyond that, Span described what he's currently going through as "a familiar feeling" to when he missed time with vertigo in 2009:

I feel a little like somebody's kind of pushing me from the back a little bit. I'm not going to fall over, but it's the same exact feeling. I want to get this checked out. I'm frustrated, all those things. There's something wrong. I don't know what it is, so I want to get it taken care of.

Span, who'd bounced back from a disappointing 2010 to be the Twins' best all-around player through 60 games, also revealed that he still experiences symptoms related to the vertigo two years later, saying: "It's calmed down a lot and it's manageable, but it's been something I've dealt with since then." That's news to me and is a glimpse into the type of health information players and teams tend to keep to themselves whenever possible.

• Alexi Casilla continues to play very well since escaping from the doghouse thanks to Trevor Plouffe's mistake-filled attempt to replace him and is now batting .337/.401/.421 in 27 games since mid-May. His defense is also improved and Casilla is finally using his elite speed. Despite great stolen base percentages Casilla attempted just 21.5 steals per 600 plate appearances prior to this year. This season Casilla has already tried 12 steals in 198 plate appearances.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka is finally on the verge of returning 10 weeks after an injury expected to last 4-6 weeks and once that happens Casilla seems destined for second base despite starting 10 straight games at shortstop. Nishioka looked shaky at second base before fracturing his fibula thanks in part to incorrect double play positioning, so the Twins presumably wouldn't have him playing shortstop while rehabbing if they planned to bring him back as a second baseman.

• Ron Gardenhire has dropped some strong hints recently about being unhappy with Danny Valencia and Nishioka returning provides an opportunity for the Twins to keep Matt Tolbert as the utility man and Luke Hughes as the starting third baseman while demoting Valencia back to Triple-A. Hughes has hit well in a part-time role of late, but hasn't been impressive overall with a .270/.311/.360 mark and 23-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 33 games.

What's funny about Valencia's situation is that his power and plate discipline have been fine, but whereas an unsustainably high .345 batting average on balls in play fueled his better than expected rookie season an unsustainably low .239 batting average on balls in play has him fighting for his job now. Ultimately the "real" Valencia is somewhere in between and his career line of .270/.321/.397 is close to both his minor-league track record and Hughes' likely upside.

• Barring a setback it looks like Joe Mauer will come off the disabled list Thursday, returning to the lineup after missing 57 games with complications following offseason knee surgery. In his absence the Twins have gotten the worst production in baseball from their catchers, as Drew Butera and Rene Rivera (and Steve Holm, briefly) have combined to hit .178 with a .497 OPS. To put that in some context, Al Newman has the lowest OPS in Twins history at .581.

They've both done a good job defensively, particularly when it comes to controlling the running game, but Butera has hit .174/.207/.261 in 40 games and Rivera has hit .196/.262/.304 in 20 games. So naturally in discussing Mauer's impending return yesterday Gardenhire talked about what a "tough decision" it will be choosing which replacement-level catcher gets to avoid a trip back to Triple-A and stick around as the backup:

Oh, absolutely. You want tough decisions though. I don't like it when it's carved out, "this is going to happen." You want tough decisions. That means both of them are doing OK, and when Joe comes back, sure, we're going to have to make a tough decision. And both of them have done their parts and they continue to. But it's not going to be easy no matter which way we go.

"Both of them are doing OK" and "both of them have done their parts" is an interesting way to describe two players who've literally combined for the worst production in baseball. How much worse than a .497 OPS could they get before it no longer qualified as "doing OK"? In reality it's only a "tough decision" because neither Butera nor Rivera have played well enough to warrant sticking around, in which case "stub your toe or get a paper cut?" is also a "tough decision."

• Speaking of Rivera, last night he tweeted this charming picture of Ben Revere at Morneau's annual casino night charity fundraiser:

Is that a better or worse look for Revere than this little number from his rookie hazing?

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