Multiple Roster Moves

I commented on this in the Nightly Notes post immediately below, but it's a big enough deal that I thought it deserved its own post as well. In case you hadn't yet heard, both Jeff Cirillo and Rondell White have been placed on the disabled list. These moves both needed to happen -- the Twins have been significantly limited over the last few days, and that just couldn't continue.

First, the good news: Josh Rabe, who I think is a heckuva ball player, is back on the 40-man roster and should get a chance to play quite a bit over the next couple of weeks. My hope is that Rabe hits a bunch and makes the Twins have to think a little bit about keeping Lew Ford on the roster when he gets healthy. He proved last year that he's capable of hitting at the big league level, so let's hope he can do it again.

Now, the somewhat baffling news. When the Twins sent Alexi Casilla to Rochester at the end of spring training, they justified the decision (rightfully so) by saying that Casilla needed to play every day. I'm not sure what changed over the last couple of weeks, but nonetheless, the Twins have called him up. I would have gone with Mike Venafro to add some pitching depth, but the Twins obviously thought it made sense to go in another direction.

While I'm opposed to the move generally, I don't think it's terrible. Two weeks on the bench (which is likely to be about all Casilla spends at the big league level on this stint) isn't going to hold back his development too much, and there is no question that he'll give the Twins more options off the bench with his speed. Somewhat surprisingly, then, I find myself not being as upset by this move as I thought I would be when I first read about it, at least so long as it doesn't drag out for a month with Casilla doing nothing more than pinch running every couple of games.