Major Roster Moves

I slept in this morning (it's spring break around these parts) and woke up to the announcement that some major cuts had been made this morning. While some of them were routine (you mean Brad King wasn't in the running for a roster spot?), some of them were so surprising as to constitute a genuine shock.

First, here's the list courtesy of La Velle E. Neal at the Strib:

Mike Venafro - LHP
Matt LeCroy - DH/1B
Brad King - C
Tommy Watkins - IF
Glenn Williams - 1B/3B

The shocker is, of course, Venafro. With the self-destruction of J.D. Durbin over his last two appearances, and with Venafro's 0.00 ERA, it looked like a pretty sure bet that the Twins were going to go with Venafro as the 12th guy on the pitching staff. On the positive side, Venafro likes the organization and seems at least to be considering the possibility of accepting an assignment in Rochester rather than electing free agency as Randy Choate did. While he probably wouldn't have a hard time hooking on with another team, at this point in the spring it would probably be a pretty bad team. Venafro might prefer going to Rochester and staying in the Twins organization in hopes that a spot opens up later in the season, allowing him to pitch for a contender. We'll find out fairly soon.

Matt LeCroy looked terrible for most of the spring, and he really shouldn't have been in camp as long as he was. About 2 weeks in it was clear that he just doesn't have the bat speed to be an effective major league hitter any longer. I suggested when the Twins signed him that this might be the prelude to a retirement (and possibly a career coaching) -- it will be interesting to see whether the Twins offer him a minor league roster spot, or if LeCroy does indeed hang 'em up.

King, Watkins, and Williams were all pretty much just filling spots on the roster. None had a legitimate chance of making the team (although at one point fairly early in the spring I had suggested that Watkins might be a better choice than Luis Rodriguez for the backup middle infielder spot -- Tommy proved me very wrong on that one).

By my count, this leaves Matt Garza, Chris Heintz, and Josh Rabe in camp on the outside looking in, assuming that Carlos Silva gets the 5th starter slot and J.D. Durbin gets the 25th roster spot. Garza and Rabe could still easily end up slotting in. Incidentally, if anyone knows who the 29th guy in camp is, please let me know . . . my count has been one off from the major media count for most of the spring.

Who's going to get that last spot? Honestly, I still think it's J.D. Durbin. La Velle says there is no way that it's going to be J.D., and that because Durbin has pitched so poorly this spring he might even clear waivers. I have to respectfully disagree. Durbin is a notoriously slow starter, and I imagine there are still a fair number of executives who think he could be helpful down the road. You can't tell me the Washington Nationals or Kansas City Royals couldn't find a place for him somewhere. The Twins basically are down to choosing between Durbin or Rabe, and I think they'll take Durbin and give him until Lew Ford gets healthy to increase his value, and then try to spin him off in a trade.

The other alternative, which I think is very bad, would be to have both Matt Garza and Carlos Silva on the team, one as the 5th starter and one as the 12th pitcher. This makes no sense to me, even if Garza were the one starting. Garza needs to be starting, either at the Major or Minor league levels. Considering how the Twins handled the Alexi Casilla situation, I think they understand that . . . then again, they did keep Francisco Liriano around last year in a very similar situation to be used out of the bullpen. At the time, however, there were no other lefties in the 'pen, so the situation was a bit different.

The roster should be set soon, and it will be interesting to see which direction the Twins decide to go.