January 28, 2015

Twins Notes: Parmelee, Swarzak, Pelfrey, Boyd, Gladden, and Santana

Chris Parmelee Twins

• Dave St. Peter and Jacque Jones were great guests at the second annual "Winter Meltdown" event Saturday night, but unfortunately due to technical issues their interviews were not properly recorded for "Gleeman and The Geek" purposes. We'll do our best to recap all the details on the next episode, but for better or worse the only people to hear the pair of half-hour interviews will be those who attended the event.

• Let go by the Twins after a combined 20 years in the organization, Chris Parmelee signed a minor-league deal with the Orioles and Anthony Swarzak signed a minor-league deal with the Indians. Parmelee, who was the Twins' first-round pick in 2006, hit .249/.317/.390 in 273 games. Swarzak, who was the Twins' second-round pick in 2004, posted a 4.48 ERA in 440 innings. They were both essentially replacement-level players in Minnesota.

• On a related note, Parker Hageman of Twins Daily looked at the Twins' bad run of drafts from 2006-2011 and how it helped lead to their current struggles.

• General manager Terry Ryan continues to ride the Mike Pelfrey train, telling reporters asking about a potential move to the bullpen for the rehabbing right-hander that he's "more interested to see what he can do as a starter." Pelfrey is 5-16 with a 5.56 ERA in 34 starts for the Twins and has a 4.55 ERA in 183 career starts. He's owed $5.5 million for 2015 because Ryan misguidedly signed him to a two-year contract extension in December of 2013.

• Hudson Boyd, who was the Twins' supplemental first-round pick out of a Florida high school in 2011, has been suspended 50 games after a second positive test for a "drug of abuse." Boyd was billed as a big, hard-throwing starter prospect with lots of upside, but he's yet to advance beyond low Single-A and has a 4.27 ERA with just 153 strikeouts in 219 innings as a pro.

• Johan Santana's latest comeback attempt has been derailed by more shoulder problems, but let's not lose sight of how amazing he was before his body broke down. Careers, compared:

                      IP     ERA+     WAR     WIN%
Sandy Koufax       2,324     131     53.2     .655
Johan Santana      2,026     136     50.7     .641

Sandy Koufax was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1972.

• Zero players received enough votes to be inducted into the Twins' team Hall of Fame this year and the player getting the most votes was Dan Gladden, who hit .268/.318/.382 in five seasons for the Twins and is now their radio analyst. In terms of on-field performance, Gladden is not one of the top 50 players in Twins history.

• David Schoenfield of ESPN.com tried to figure out "who had the worst defensive season ever?" and his answer is going to rile up a lot of Twins fans.

• With a month and some change before Opening Day, my best guess at the 25-man roster the Twins will start the season with includes a few potential moving parts.

• For anyone who felt that FanGraphs' projections for the Twins were too pessimistic: Baseball Prospectus projects the Twins to have MLB's worst record.

This week's blog content is sponsored by Uber, which is offering a free ride to first-time users who sign up with the promo code "UberGleeman."

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