Morales on the Way

Just yesterday, it sounded as if Terry Ryan was rather adamant about not calling up a fourth catcher to help the Twins through the Joe Mauer and Mike Redmond injuries. In fact, after reading Ryan's comments in the Strib, I almost posted something speculating on why the Twins wouldn't call up a fourth catcher, despite the fact that it makes so much sense to call up Jose Morales to fill this role.

My decision to hold off on writing that article paid off today when the Twins announced that Morales will be added to the roster in time for tomorrow night's game against the White Sox. That will fill the Twins roster at 40, and make any other non-roster additions highly unlikely for the remainder of the season (for the simple reason that the Twins probably aren't going to drop anyone from the roster over the last 3+ weeks of the season to make room for someone).

I think adding Morales to the roster makes tremendous sense. He would have been a minor league free agent (originally misstated as "eligible for the Rule 5 draft -- thanks to Anon for the catch) this winter if he hadn't been added, and after the season he had in AAA, it's very unlikely that he would have remained the property of the Twins. With the Twins in a bit of a catching quandary, why not call him up now? I suspect that the only reason TR hesitated was due to service time -- once Mauer and Redmond are healthy again, neither Heintz nor Morales is going to play much, so the argument against adding them to the roster would be that you're wasting a few weeks of service time rather unnecessarily. Since it's such a small amount of time, however, I'm not that worried about the implications. Clearly, after thinking about his options, TR decided it wasn't that big of a deal either. I can't wait to see Morales make his debut -- maybe he'll get his shot on Friday.