Venafro Accepts Assignment

I'm going to give myself a pat on the back on this one, as I think I was one of the only people out there actually predicting that Mike Venafro was going to accept the assignment to Rochester that the Twins offered him. Today, Terry Ryan announced that Venafro did, indeed, decide to stick with the Twins. We don't know what options (if any) were available for Venafro, but what is clear is that none of them must have been that appealing. I wouldn't have wanted to go pitch for a bad team either, and I suspect that the only offers he would have received at this late point just before the start of the season would have been for teams whose bullpens are in disarray. The upshot of all of this is that the Twins get the best of both worlds -- they didn't have to carry 12 pitchers (something Ron Gardenhire hates), but they keep a guy who looks pretty sharp around in case a spot opens up due to injury later. Kudos to Terry Ryan for accurately gauging that he wasn't going to lose Venafro if he cut him.