A trade could yield a closer to replace Joe Nathan and would protect the franchise in the future from having one player on their roster consuming 20 to 25 percent of their payroll, a formula that rarely works in baseball.

This is mind-bogglingly dumb, of course, and Rob Neyer is quick to tell us why:

You know what’s an even better idea: Not targeting a reliever when trading your single most valuable commodity. Trading for a reliever would be a terribly short-sighted move, designed to net an extra two or three wins in one season (granted, two or three wins might make a difference this season). Trading Mauer, if it simply must be done, should be designed to net the Twins twice that, at the very least.

The disposition of this situation will go a long way toward determining the future of this franchise. Signing Mauer would be good. Trading Mauer for a scad of talented young players could be good. Trading Mauer for a reliever might set the franchise back five years.

But let’s assume that Bill Smith is smarter than Souhan, and wasn’t planning on trading the best player in baseball for a relief pitcher. Can we reasonably assume, though, that he’s smart enough to get more than two draft picks’ worth of value in a trade?

Don’t forget about the Garza/Bartlett for Young trade, which has looked pretty bad so far. Perhaps the better comparison, though, is the Santana trade,* which has also looked awful.

* It’s kind of remarkable, actually, that the Twins had the best pitcher in the league and were essentially forced to trade him — and then, just two years later, they have the best player in the league and may well be forced to trade him too.

I wouldn’t be too confident in Smith’s ability to land any mega-prospects in return for Mauer; the same problem that cropped up in the Santana negotations could crop up here too: namely, teams will be unwilling to give up much in a trade* because they also want to spend a huge sum on a long-term contract for Mauer.

* Is it just me or does this scenario only seem to happen to the Twins? When other teams are trying to unload a star in a rent-a-player type deal, they actually get prospects in return as opposed to having to thank a richer team for giving their best player some money and taking him off their hands for nothing.

Obviously, the best thing for the Twins would be to sign him to a team-friendly contract … but that’s unlikely. Given Smith’s trade-making ability, it’d probably be best to just wait out this season and take the draft picks. But what if they did sign him?

If the Twins signed Mauer to a deal worth $25 million a year — which might be what it takes — what might they have to pay to keep Morneau, who was considered the more valuable player until last season?

Okay, first of all, “considered more valuable by whom?” Morneau only beat Mauer for the 2006 MVP because writers like Souhan don’t understand that the only reason Morneau’s RBI totals were so lofty was because Mauer was always on base in front of him. I don’t need to go over this argument again, I hope, but the point is this: Mauer is more valuable than Morneau, and everybody knows it.

Secondly, Morneau is already under contract through 2013. He’ll be 33 years old the next time he’s on the market. It’s really not worth thinking about right now, since it’s a few years away, but have you seen what’s happened to the market for sluggardly sluggers who are past their prime? Let me give you a hint: Morneau probably won’t be signing a Mauer-sized deal when he’s 33 years old in 2014.

Plus, everyone’s making a bunch of noise about Mauer’s $25M salary taking up too large a percentage of the team’s payroll. But the Twins have been contending for a decade with payrolls of $60M — is it unrealistic to think that they could raise the payroll to $90M or so (which they’ve already done), pay Mauer his huge salary, and continue to contend?* It’s not the ideal model, probably, but the Twins have shown that they can build a 25-man roster for $60M and contend; wouldn’t you expect them to be able to build a 24-man roster for $60M, add the best player in the game, and still be able to contend?

* I’m using the word “contend” here, because I think it’s accurate. If the Twins have such a huge chunk of their payroll tied up in Mauer, and he’s healthy, I believe they’ll be a contender in basically every year of Mauer’s contract. But if he gets hurt or becomes ineffective, this all goes out the window. The Twins are basically screwed — and that’s a gigantic risk for a team that simply can’t afford to make big mistakes.

It’s a tough decision, another one for Bill Smith, who’s had plenty of these franchise-altering decisions to make in his brief tenure at the top of the Twins. On the one hand, do you take the biggest PR hit any team could possibly suffer, while simultaneously taking a huge step back for the current season (when you’re moving into a new taxpayer-funded stadium, no less), by trading your homegrown superstar? Or, on the other, do you sign him to a deal you can’t afford, for more years than you’re comfortable with, and risk having to explain to those same fans 8 years from now that the payroll is basically sunk because we’re paying $25M for an injured 3B/1B who doesn’t hit home runs? Or do you go for broke now, let him go to free agency at the end of the year, and move on without him, letting the payroll peak in 2010 and dwindle afterwards once The Hope Named Mauer has left the state?

It’s easy for us, as fans. We’re going to be fans either way, and the only thing that’s really at risk is our enjoyment during September and October — that’s not a lot at risk. For Smith, it’s his reputation, his career, his life that hinges on this decision, and on others like it. It’s not an easy choice, or an obvious choice.

But he kind of has to get it right.

The problem, though, is the context of that link. He did it in a post called “HireGardy.com” in which he lumps us in with a bunch of crazed anti-Gardenhire internet people. He defends Gardy, who he likes as a manager, against the attacks of bloggers and commenters around the world. And he calls us the “informal” anti-Gardy blog, which is funny given that of the other two sites he points to, one is hosted on blogspot and the other is just a one-page site that complains about Gardenhire but has no other content or usefulness. I guess that means he didn’t spend much time reading.

My dad has frequently told me that I should change the name of the blog — that people are turned off when they hear that the site is called “Fire Gardy,” and perhaps don’t even visit (thus discovering that we don’t actually want Gardy to be fired). He also made the valid point that Gardy will someday not be the manager any more, thus making the website pointless. Those are all good points, of course, but I think the name has a nice ring to it.

I actually think Gardy is a good manager — in the past I’ve tried to quantify the contributions a manager makes and found that Gardy is consistently one of the top managers. It seems like every year, he’s voted 2nd or 3rd in the AL Manager of the Year voting, and I’ve never had reason to quibble with the selection.

Of course, I have a bunch of reasons why I don’t like the things Gardy does — the name doesn’t exist solely because it sounds good. For a team that’s consistently one of the youngest in the league, he has far too much of a preference for veteran players (despite talent). The players in whom he places his undying trust — like when he says Punto needs his at bats because he’ll bat with the game on the line a lot and he needs to be ready for it — well, let’s just say they’re not the players I would choose to trust. I think I’d handle the bullpen differently, with less of an emphasis on predefined roles and faith in the magic of the later innings … but I suppose you can’t really argue with his results.

He rips apart one comment, taking it down point-by-point; that comment basically touched on every weak argument people have against Gardy, which is presumably why Posnanski picked it.

I don’t mean to pick on one comment — the point is we get a LOT of seemingly angry anti-Gardy stuff like that around here. And a lot of it just seems petty to me. Look, I think he’s a great manager. A lot of people think he’s a fraud. That’s fine. I can point to five division champions. A lot of people can point to his weak division and playoff failure. That’s fine. I can point to a team that has consistently won and players who consistently play well for him as the season goes along. A lot of people can point to Gardy’s bizarre individual decisions and they would rather credit other people for the Twins’ success. That’s fine too.

And yes, I think it’s funny that people seem to go to Posnanski to complain about Gardenhire. Maybe it’s because he likes Gardy, and is one of the few people to admit that on the internet. Maybe it’s because he’s just the biggest person to admit it on the internet.

I wish Gardy were better at dealing with young players — it happens to be my opinion that he destroyed Alexi Casilla and would have destroyed Carlos Gomez if he hadn’t been traded. I wish he cared more about “getting outs” than “eating innings” … perhaps saving us from watching guys like Carlos Silva, Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz, and Livan Hernandez go out and lose baseball games. I wish he at least gave the impression that he’s thought through how he wants to handle a pitching staff, rather than just leaning against the conventional wisdom — after all, conventional wisdom isn’t going to help you win when you have fewer resources than your competitors. You have to do something new!

But without a doubt, something Gardy does is working. And it’s working great. And anyway, if Gardy did everything the way I would, then what would I hve to write about? My favorite thing about Gardy — aside from, you know, all the winning — is that he’s a constant, undying source of fun things to write about.

He came in in the 3rd inning, struck out the first batter, then walked the next two and was taken out with right elbow soreness. He’s gone back to MN to get an MRI.

One theory is that this is just a normal setback after his offseason surgery to break up scar tissue in that elbow. Another is that it’s a more severe injury. There’s no real information about it, but it’s definitely a reason to worry.

My optimism was invalid, though, now that we’ve learned that Nathan actually has a torn UCL, which is the very same ligament that needs to be repaired in Tommy John surgery.

They’re not certain if it’s a full tear or a partial tear — Gardenhire called it “significant” — and Gardenhire says it’s the sort of thing you can’t tell until you get in and do surgery. Tommy John surgery.

Apparently, they’re saying it’s “totally Nathan’s decision” as to whether to have surgery or not. The plan, for now, is to try to avoid surgery:

While surgery certainly looks to be imminent, Nathan will take two weeks to let the swelling in the area subside. He’ll work with the trainers to strengthen the muscles around the elbow. And then he will try to pitch. He’s prepared to pitch in pain – given the huge expectations placed on the 2010 Twins – and is prepared to tests the limits of his tolerance level.

Personally, I’d be shocked if he’s able to pitch with a torn UCL … and perhaps more shocked if the Twins even let him. The Twins famously prefer to let pitchers do several months rest & rehab prior to doing the surgery that was obviously necessary from the start (see Crain, Neshek, Liriano, Bonser) … and that looks like what’s going to happen here. I kind of expect them to string us along until June, when they finally have the surgery they should be having now, delaying Nathan’s eventual return to the second half of 2011, at which point he still won’t even be full strength. Nathan should have the surgery now, and Nathan won’t be part of it.

Or at least, that’s my opinion. I know the Twins don’t share it. But that raises the question about what the Twins should do for a closer this year. Here are the options, as I see them:

• Blindly hope Nathan is okay
• Neshek
• Rauch
• Crain
• Mijares
• Slama or Delaney
• Someone else from the minors
• A new acquisition
• Closer by committee

Alright … so I’m guessing most teams who lose an elite closer like Nathan don’t have so many internal options to choose from,* so the Twins probably aren’t totally screwed here.

* It’s worth noting that there aren’t very many teams with an elite closer like Nathan, and that they are probably really deep. The Yankees and Red Sox probably do have similar bullpen depth … only the Royals have a closer of Nathan’s caliber without a bunch of bullpen arms behind him. Maybe the Mets. So maybe I’m wrong to make that statement.

I think Mijares is out, given that Gardy doesn’t trust him and he’s a lefty, which will be more useful in a non-closer role. I don’t think much of Crain at the moment, and I don’t think Gardy does either.

If it were me, I’d go with the committee. La Velle disagrees:

I don’t think the Twins will go with a closer-by-committee. They had all kinds of trouble in 2008 when they tried a set-up man by committee, and Gardenhire regretted doing that. We’ll be on the watch for any signals that point to whomever fills that role.

And that’s a good point, though it explains more why the Twins won’t than why they shouldn’t.

So I don’t know what the Twins are going to do. We’ll keep you posted on the news as we know more. But I don’t believe this sinks the Twins’ playoff hopes; regardless of how great Nathan is, the Twins have a deep bullpen, some good arms, and even the best relievers don’t make a huge difference. Given the same innings and leverage, Nathan isn’t much more valuable than a healthy Neshek, for example.

According to a tweet from Joe C:

The #Twins have signed Nick Blackburn to a four-year, $14 million contract. The deal includes an $8 mil club option for 2014.

At the moment, that’s all the details I have on his deal. But let’s take a look at it, shall we?

He has two years of service time, which means he’s currently entering his third and final pre-arbitration year. Thus, this 4-year deal buys him out through all three arbitration years, plus an option for his first year in free agency.

Normally, arbitration salaries are set at 40%/60%/80% of your free agent value in each year. Blackburn produced 2.5 WAR in 2008, and 3.0 WAR in 2009 (and is currently projected for 2.5 WAR in 2010). If we set his true talent level at 2.5 WAR, this four year contract should look something like this:

1. $1M (typical value for final pre-arbitration year, this could go up or down by a few hundred K)
2. $3.5M (2.5 WAR x 40% == 1 WAR … free agent salaries are $3.5M/win this winter)
3. $5.25M (2.5 WAR x 60% == 1.5 WAR at $3.5M/win)
4. $7M (2.5 WAR x 80% == 2 WAR at $3.5M/win)
5. $8M team option (2.5 WAR at $3.5M/win is $8.75M)

As you probably noticed, these values add up to more than $14M. Normally, players give a discount for the security of a long-term contract. This deal is about 83% of what Blackburn could have expected if he’d gone year-to-year (and performed as well as he has the last two years every single time). That seems like a larger-than-normal discount, which means the Twins did a good job at the negotiating table (even the option is discounted from his expected value).

It’s possible that the Twins have managed to value wins at an even lower rate than this discounted winter shows … the value of this contract makes sense at about $3.2M/win.

So the Twins negotiated themselves a good, team-friendly contract here. Maybe all that practice trying to deal with Mauer has been good for them. But is the value of the contract really the most important consideration here?

For starters, they’ve now locked up perhaps their most consistent starting pitcher for four seasons; Blackburn has also shown himself capable of stepping up in big games (which can’t be measured, but teams and teammates and managers and fans all love those guys). Blackburn is the team’s only groundball pitcher, during an offseason in which they’ve re-upped on infield defense with the addition of Hardy & Hudson. If they expect to make a commitment to Hardy, it makes sense to lock up Blackburn. Plus, this will lend some consistency to the starting rotation. They’ve got a solid, consistent starter for his age 28-31 seasons, which are often a pitcher’s best.

Of course, there are downsides — Blackburn could get hurt or be ineffective. He hasn’t shown much risk of injury, but that could happen at any time for a pitcher. Plus, it blocks the pipeline of pitching talent. With both Baker and Blackburn signed to long-term deals, the space in the rotation for younger (perhaps more talented) pitchers is pretty thin; especially until Baker and Blackburn are considered “veteran presences,” thus removing the need to sign a guy like Pavano (or Livan Hernandez, or Ramon Ortiz, or whatever other guy they feel will give them a 5.95 ERA every 5 days).

I think you can’t be too worried about injuries in this situation. They could happen, but if you go by that logic you’d never sign anyone. And if a group of young pitchers starts knocking hard on the door and Blackburn seems like he should be the odd man out, plenty of teams are looking for consistent workhorses who are groundball machines, excel in big moments, and are signed to team-friendly deals — it shouldn’t be hard to find a taker in a trade and get something back for Blackburn. Especially if he pitches well, besting his 2.5 WAR valuation.

I didn’t really expect to like a long-term deal for Nick Blackburn, but I do. This was a good move for the Twins, and hopefully is an indication of the kind of successful negotiations they can execute, when it comes to the Mauer deal.

* And that seems to be increasing in recent years, though part of that could just be due to more reporting during the winter and spring thanks in large part to the internet, and also to the ever-increasing demand for Twins-related information by the team’s excellent fanbase.

He showed his age, I think, by bringing up Michael Cuddyer — who’s not young — but his thoughts were interesting.

“Now,” Killebrew continued, “the real secret in this game, with hitting, is to be consistent. Can you come back and have a better year than you did the year before? That’s the tough part of the game. I hope Michael is still healthy. I know he can. Physically, he’s capable of hitting a lot more than he did last year.”

As everybody knows, Cuddyer put together a great season in 2009, putting up a career high 32 home runs. If anything, Cuddyer has seemingly shown himself not to be particularly consistent, as the perception is that he put together a pair of disappointing seasons in between his two great ones,* but Killebrew’s theory that Cuddyer is “capable” of hitting a lot more homers than he did last year warrants further investigation.

* He broke out in 2006 with a 3.1 WAR season, and 2009 was highly regarded but worth just 2.0 WAR. His 2007 was actually better, worth 2.1 WAR, though a big part of that was probably positional; in 2009, he filled in for Morneau at 1B for a month, which brought down his positional adjustment and counteracted some of the awesome work he did with the bat. He produced a career high 23.2 batting runs in 2009, vs 22.6 in 2006 and 10.5 in 2007. His 2008 was mostly a throwaway year, lost to injury.

Of Cuddyer’s 32 homers in 2009, 13 of them were “no doubt,” according to Hit Tracker — tied for 3th in the AL, behind Mark Teixeira, Miguel Cabrera, and Carlos Pena. And that was my impression as well: when Cuddyer connected with a ball, it went a mile. 11 of his homers were “plenty,” which means he got enough of them to get it out of basically any park; these are the standard home runs. Just 8 of his homers were “just enough,”* or balls that barely cleared the fence.

* Compare that to Mauer, whose 11 “just enough” shots were good for 5th in the AL.

But hitting “just enough” homers is not a criticism — you basically need to hit a bunch of them in order to rack up a big HR total. Prince Fielder had 16 of them, Albert Pujols and Mark Reynolds had 14, Kevin Youkilis had 13, Kendry Morales had 12, Alex Rodriguez had 11 … these are all pretty big home run hitters.

What Cuddyer needs to do is put more balls in the air, to give himself a better chance of a handful or two of them carrying just over the fence. If he can do that, while continuing to make the good solid contact he made in 2009, Killebrew could very well be right about his ability to hit more homers. I just don’t know what he means by “a lot more.” It could be similar to what he means by “young,” which apparently includes guys who are 31 years old.

Plus, with the addition of Jim Thome and JJ Hardy to the lineup as well as the potential for an emergence by Delmon Young, Cuddyer could see even more protection than he’s been accustomed to. That can only help.

One final note

in his first time in the cage, Cuddyer laid his bunts down, then immediately drilled a hard liner to center. Thome, with 564 homers in a 19-year major league career, looked up and said, “How do you do that?”

Dear Jim Thome: you don’t care! If Gardy’s plan for you as a pinch hitter involves any bunting whatsoever, that’s his fault. Not yours. Just focus on what’s made you a potential (probable?) hall of famer: smashing the crap out of the ball.

Apparently, Vegas thinks that people with money hate the Twins. If there’s one over/under that stands out like a sore thumb, it’s Minnesota at 82 wins. 82 wins – the same as the White Sox, one win more than the Tigers, tied for the seventh best record in the American League. Really? Seriously?

In addition to listing the Twins’ additions, he lists the Tigers’ subtractions, and is confused as to why Vegas would have both teams dropping by the same number of wins.

CHONE has the Twins as an 86 win team, and there’s certainly upside beyond the expected performances of guys like Young, Liriano, and Hardy. My back of the envelope calculations have them at something more like 87 or 88 wins.

I don’t have a projection system of my own,* so I generally don’t like to pull numbers out of my ass … but if I were going to do just that I’d say 87-91 wins sounds about right.

* Maybe I should make my own projection system, though. That could be a really fun project.

That said, Vegas sure isn’t alone in projecting a sour season for the Twins. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system* projects the Twins to “win” the division with 83 wins, just one more than Vegas projects.

* Yes, this is the same projection system that thought Matt “God” Wieters would bat .850 in his rookie year, be immediately elected to the Hall of Fame, and then rise into heaven on a cloud of virgins. So take from it what you will.

Perhaps this interview with Howard Norsetter, specifically when he’s talking about Dutch pitching prospect Tim Stuifbergen, will shed some light on the divergence of perception and reality surrounding the Twins.

This year, some of his control numbers were other-worldly. One game, he threw his fastball 41 times — 39 of them were strikes. He didn’t even make the top 30 lists for some pundits, which is weird.

Part of the problem is that he is an international player without a draft round associated to him, or a high bonus pedigree. At the World Junior Championships in Cuba a few years back, he was named the Most Valuable Pitcher. He pitched successfully against the Cuban senior team when he was 17.

That’s a salient point, and one that gets to the heart of the point. Without a way to accurately measure how good these young players are, analysts have to fall back to indirect measurements, like draft round and signing bonus. Since the Twins rarely even try to compete in that arena, it leaves people wondering “how in the world can the Twins compete when they have so few players we consider important?”

I personally don’t think that’s the whole reason, especially when it comes to PECOTA,* but it stands to reason that it could be part of it. And remember, we’re talking about Vegas here — which bases their picks not on what they think about baseball, but on what they think most people think about baseball.

* I’ve said it before, but I remain convinced that Baseball Prospectus’ roots on the south side of Chicago and ongoing loving relationship with the White Sox cloud its views of the AL Central, and the Twins in particular.

When I was younger, I used to think the national analysts were actively “against” the Twins, which in retrospect just seems foolish. It seems to me now that for the Twins, perception and reality are simply widely divergent; everyone’s opinions are honest and well-formed, but are simply based on information that doesn’t apply, or ignores important data that does. So if you were a gambling man — and for the record, I’m not — you may well be wise to take advantage of this perception gap and take the “over.”

Oh, and one more thing: if you were looking for a new young player to be excited about, Stuifbergen just may be the one. If only because of this:

The first words out of his mouth when he walked off the mound in Holland’s historic win against the Dominican Republic in the WBC last year were “I’m gonna take Papi off my fantasy team — he can’t hit an inside fastball.” And at the World Cup in Europe last year he was outstanding.

Oh yeah. I’m a fan of this guy already.

But beyond individual players, the things that stood out for me were his ideas on the international version of the business of baseball, and the Twins’ approach to it.

There is also another dynamic at work; the teams that spend the most get the most attention from the agents. I know a few teams that spent a lot of money in Latin America the last couple of years essentially just to broadcast to Buscones that they are in the market and will spend money like the big boys. The hope is that the Buscones start delivering the better prospects to team’s doorstep.

It seems to me that those teams run the risk of sending a different signal: “we’re willing to spend money, and it doesn’t have to be the best players.” So sure, the buscones will bring you someone, but they’re still bringing their best players to the big teams who’ve shown they’re at least trying to only spend money on talent. They’re bringing middling guys to you and calling them good so you’ll waste your money.

There are agents in Asia who feel like the Twins aren’t worthy of their attention because we haven’t signed the most expensive players. They don’t even bother trying to sell their players to us. Which is a bit short sighted because we have shown that if we think a player is worth the money, we will spend the money to get the player. Sometimes an agent will get offended if you don’t think a player is worth the money they are looking for. If they know that you are willing to spend money in general, they don’t get as offended-they will still come back to you with their next guy. If they don’t think you are ever going to be a player in the market, they won’t waste their time.

Stories like this one are another big reason the system seems so broken. The buscones and amateur agents hold too much power over the young players and over the teams. I’m against an international draft, but something needs to change. Maybe there should be an open combine where all the players can show what they’ve got, followed by an auction where all the teams bid on all the players. In order to level the playing field, perhaps each team is allowed to spend only a certain amount of money in total,* so if you sign a Strasburg-level talent you won’t be able to afford much else that year, or something.

* I don’t know if I really like that, but at least it would protect the new system from the inevitable cries of “well the Yankees would just overbid us and buy all the good players!” which, of course, is what’s happening with the current system. Wait, no, the opposite of that. Not happening.

After trying to defend the Twins from an accusation that they haven’t shown interest in Cuban players (and getting the interviewer to admit that by “interest” he actually meant “successfully signing Cuban amateurs to mega-deals”), Norsetter explains the Twins’ fundamental interest in European players:

You mentioned earlier that you thought that the Twins didn’t have much interest in Cuba: If there were to be pitcher throwing 94-96 with an 87 slider who defects from the Cuban team, we would not be able to sign him. That is why we are in the developing markets like Europe. You hope that you can get a player like Loek [Van Mil] when there isn’t much interest in him, and develop him into somebody who demands a lot of interest.

As you could probably guess, I think that’s brilliant. There are, at the base of things, a few ways to compete on the international markets:

1. Have enough money to sign the players you think are the best, after letting everyone agree on who’s the best
2. Work harder than everyone else to find the best players in known markets, and hope to sign them before the bigger teams learn of them
3. Work even harder than that, to find bargain players that you think will be good but that the big-money teams wouldn’t be interested in
4. Find an entirely new market where nobody else is scouting, and take the top talent without competition

Option #4 takes a lot of guts (what if there aren’t any good players in Europe or Australia this year?), and you’ll only have a temporary advantage in each region. If Loek Van Mil and Max Kepler quickly become good players, other teams are going to flood Europe with scouts and essentially drive the Twins out. Which presumably means they’re going to have to find another untapped source of talent without competition, which will again be a gutsy move (who knows how good the baseball players are in Africa, or Iraq?). But it very well may be the right move.

The current major league roster offers plenty of reason to hope for 2010, but more and more, it seems like the Twins are setting themselves up with a strong pipeline of high-octane talent for the future. The development of a strong international scouting and development program is instrumental, and right now the Twins are the biggest players in under-developed markets like Europe and Australia.

One of our top prospects, Danny Valencia, plays third, so why should we give up prospect to get Lowell for part of a season?  If our production from whoever plays third this year is Punto-esque (which is possible since Punto will likely be getting a lot of starts at the hot corner), wouldn’t you rather they give Valencia a chance than trade for Lowell?  I like Mike Lowell, but I don’t think its the right move. I think the rest of our lineup is good enough where we can afford to have a black hole at the bottom of the order.  It would be nice if Punto (or Harris) could give us something close to league average numbers, but I’m not holding my breath. 

Not really a whole lot to discuss on this topic, but I thought I’d point it out as we gear up for the season and I shake off the blogging rust.

• Pitchers and Catchers reported.  Whoo hoo!!  Baseball has started.  Mijares was, of course, late.  He got held up at security because he had hair gel that wasn’t allowed by what TSA incarnation he was up against.  The good news is he is in camp, not in the best shape, but what did everyone expect?  He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who has any plans to slim down.
• Joe Mauer still doesn’t have a contract, but he did show up with a kickass beard.
• Justin Morneau plans to “take it easy” this spring.  His hope is to not break down in September.  Let’s hope it works. I trust him, I think he knows what he has to do to keep himself healthy all season.
• According to Denard Span’s twitter feed, Hudson is a great clubhouse presence.  He got Span into the weight room bright and early the other day.  Good to know he already is exerting himself as a team leader.
• Spring training is shaping up to only have a few position battles.  Third base is the big one.  The two candidates are Harris and Punto.  Both will make the team, its just a matter of who Gardy and co. want to start.
• The final bench spot is also up in the air. Will it be the out of options Alexi Casilla? Or a backup centerfielder?  I vote for an additional CF. Does Gardy think Span won’t need any days off?  Or does he think Punto can spell him every once in a while? I cringe at the thought of an outfield defense consisting of Young, Punto and Cuddyer.
• Pitching wise there are many more questions.  Who is the fifth starter? I think we can all agree that Baker, Slowey, Pavano, and Blackburn are guaranteed spots.  So it comes down to Liriano, Duensing, and Perkins for the final spot.  Unless someone like Manship or Swarzak really steps up this spring and takes the final spot.
• I am assuming that Condrey is all but guaranteed a spot in the bullpen, so there aren’t too many questions there.
• Did I miss anything?

I’m sure Punto is a very nice guy, but why in the hell does everyone love him so much? He tries hard. So what.  So do a lot of people.  It doesn’t mean we should cheer for them  This isn’t little league where everyone gets a trophy.  He is an adequate defender at 3 infield positions.  So what? It doesn’t mean I should be cheering for him. I think the biggest problem is Gardy’s inability to gauge his actual value. Which is that of a utility infielder.  Not a starter on a contender.

So is this Nick Punto obsession based in his halfway decent 2006 season (which wasn’t really all that good when you factor in he was playing third base) where he was one of the sparkplugs to a team that won the division on the last day of the season? If it is that is BS.  Not only has be done very little to help the team since then, I would argue that he has had two seasons that really hurt the team.  Everyone has bemoaned our general badness at the infield positions lately.  If we simple had league average, or even replacement level production instead of the stinkers Punto put up in 07 and 09 who knows what might have happened.  He was a complete black hole offensively, a free out if you will.  There is no level of defense that would make Puno 07 or Punto 09 an acceptable major leaguer.  I understand the importance of defense, but I also understand that it is half the game. 

So can someone  explain to me why people love Punto so much?  Are there several no talent players who try hard that have a irrational fanbase?  Overall I think he is a useful player to have on the team, shouldn’t be starting nor should he be making 4 million dollars a year.  I also don’t get why we have him AND Tolbert.  Seems like overkill.