Twins Big Board, Briefly(?), Position Players

With Hardy in and Gomez out, who do the Twins have under control for 2010? For today, I'm going to focus on the position players.

Taking a quick glance at the 40-man roster, the Twins have a lot more infielders than outfielders listed, but some of those players aren't under team control past this year and might be unlikely to return. I'm not necessarily going to limit myself to players on the 40-man roster if I think that someone not on the 40-man might be ahead of them on the depth chart.

If a player has a star next to his name, I am guessing that he still has options left. Feel free to list mistakes I've made in the comments. (I am definitely unsure about Pridie, but I'm guessing he's got one more option.)

C: Joe Mauer, Jose Morales, Drew Butera*, Wilson Ramos*
Corner IF: Justin Morneau, Brendan Harris, Danny Valencia*, Luke Hughes*, Deibinson Romero*
Middle IF: J.J. Hardy, Nick Punto, Alexi Casilla, Trevor Plouffe*, Matt Tolbert*, Steven Tolleson*
CF: Denard Span, Jason Pridie*
Corner OF: Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Delmon Young

On 40-man but not under team control for 2010:
Mike Redmond (C), Justin Huber (1B), Orlando Cabrera (SS), Joe Crede (3B)

If we look at it from a 25-man perspective, the Twins will have either 13 or 14 position players next year. I would really love for them to have an 11-man pitching staff, but that's probably too much to hope for, since my sense is that the Twins won't have enough top pitchers in the bullpen for Gardenhire to feel comfortable without playing matchups incessantly. Right now, I figure that the following players are mortal locks for next year's roster:

C: Joe Mauer (L)
Corner IF: Justin Morneau (L)
Middle IF: J.J. Hardy (R), Nick Punto (S)
CF: Denard Span (L)
Corner OF: Michael Cuddyer (R), Jason Kubel (L), Delmon Young (R)

Those eight are pretty likely to start on Opening Day and play 130+ games each if healthy.

That leaves five spots left up for grabs. Those five spots seem to be tied to the following roles:

Starting 3B -- Free Agent, Valencia, Hughes, Romero, Harris, Punto

This could go any number of ways. I list Punto because the Twins could put him here if they acquire a free agent 2B to start, but middle infielders are generally harder to acquire than corner infielders, so I'm guessing that they'll wind up picking up a free agent to cover 3B. I don't think that the Twins are going to be comfortable enough with any of their minor league options to break camp with them. However, I kind of suspect that their long-term plan is to use one of the internal options in 2011 and beyond. Valencia seems like a good bet for 2011, and if he doesn't work out, I could see the Twins looking at Deibinson Romero in 2012. I don't think the Twins are willing to entrust Dirty Harry with the starting job out of Spring Training.

A one-year stopgap would make sense here. Someone like Joe Crede, maybe. He produced while he was on the field, and with Harris/Valencia/Hughes available to cover when Crede is injured, I wouldn't worry about the injuries so much. Having to deal with Scott Boras makes it kind of a pain to plan on Crede, though. The Twins aren't especially left-handed at the bottom of the order, so I'm not all that intent on securing a right-handed hitter here.

Backup C -- Morales, maybe Redmond, (please, please not) Butera, Free Agent

I'm guessing that Morales is out of options, so I think he's pretty likely to be the backup. Fun fact! Drew Butera "hit" .211/.268/.292 in AAA last year as a 25-year-old. I strongly suspect that the Twins could slip him through the waiver wire if they wanted to move him off the 40-man roster. He can't be that good defensively.

Backup 1B/3B -- Probably Harris

I figure that Harris will probably be back next year, since his ability to cover any of 1B/2B/3B/SS in a pinch makes him a good bench player to have when you're playing with a short bench. They could potentially deal him (maybe for pitching?), but that doesn't seem especially likely.

Backup CF -- Pridie?, Free Agent?

For their backup outfielder, I think that the Twins should push for a left-handed hitter who can cover all three outfield positions comfortably. (That is, he is at least somewhat above average in CF.) Now, Gardy being Gardy, even if the backup is better than Span in CF, Span is not going to play anywhere other than CF next year. And since Span is probably going to play 150+ games if healthy, I think that in terms of handedness, we only need to worry about the backup outfielder hitting for either Delmon or Cuddyer, or filling in for Span long-term. Cuddyer and Delmon are going to need days off, even if they are both playing well, and it makes the most sense to give them days off against right-handed pitching, so having a left-handed backup would be nice. Someone like Endy Chavez (though not Endy himself, since his knee got Yuni-bombed this year) would fit this role pretty well.

It would make me a lot more comfortable if we could add another backup outfielder who hits lefties well (so a right-handed hitter) and can play average or above-average defense in a corner. He would push Delmon to DH on days where we faced LHP, which would help keep Kubel's knees resting on the bench, and it'd help keep Kubel's bat out of the lineup against left-handed pitchers. Rocco Baldelli would seem to fit this role pretty well. Having an extra backup outfielder also means that you could do something like pinch-hit for Punto with Baldelli and then put the backup middle infielder in for Baldelli.

But that would require going with an 11-man pitching staff and I don't know if the Twins have the cojones for that. With only one outfielder after Span/Cuddyer/Delmon/Kubel, I think that the three most important qualities are A) to have someone who can fill in for Span if he goes on the DL and B) have someone who can come in for Delmon as a defensive replacement and C) give Delmon and Cuddyer days off against right-handed pitching.

Backup Middle IF -- Alexi Casilla?, TOLBOT?, Trevor Plouffe?, Free Agent?

The Twins often like to go with internal options when they are available, especially at backup spots. My guess is that they'll try to trade Casilla, probably fail to find any worthwhile offers, and they'll try to sneak him through waivers at the end of spring training, ala J.D. Durbin, Michael Restovich, etc. Gardenhire-clone Matt Tolbert would seem to be the frontrunner for this job, but if he got injured in spring training, I could maybe see the Twins keeping Casilla around in the meantime, sort of like what they did with Philip Humber this year.

OVERALL

Given budget constraints and reasonable expectations about what the Twins might do (e.g. the Twins like Punto and he'll probably start at some position next year), I expect this to be the Opening Day set of players, barring injury:

C: Mauer, Morales (or similar)
CIF: Morneau, Crede Clone, Harris
MIF: Hardy, Punto, TOLBOT
OF: Span, Cuddyer, Delmon, Kubel, Endy Chavez Clone

This is pretty close to what we had last year, but with the one big change made on the position side already, I expect that the Twins will switch their focus on the pitching staff. It would be really nice to add a 2B that pushes Punto to utility duty and Tolbert out of the picture, but I'm not sure that that would fit the budget, and as mentioned above, I don't think the Twins want to do that to Punto. And in the unlikely (but non-zero) chance the Twins go with 11 pitchers, add a Rocco Baldelli clone to the OF list.