The Minnesota Twins are progressing and the team is coming together as they get ready for the season. Ron Gardenhire has named four of the five starting pitchers by adding Nick Blackburn to the rotation of Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano and Brian Duensing. He is talking about including high draft pick Kyle Gibson in the fight to become fifth starter. It doesn’t look good for Brad Radke facsimile Kevin Slowey. Scott Baker has more dominating stuff than Slowey and still retains an upside. And should Baker fail in securing a starting job, Gibson brings his youth and high expectations into the equation. It also doesn’t help Slowey that he is often quite articulate about himself and the Twins. Pat Neshak found that out spending parts of the last two years trying to get out of Gardenhire’s doghouse. I don’t think it would take very much of an offer for the Twins to trade Slowey and his salary to another club for prospects or a solid middle reliever.
Gardenhire has also solidified his starting infield, assigning Tsuyoshi Nishioka to second base and shortstop to Alexi Casilla. The Twins stuck their neck out this season in dismissing both starting middle infielders Orlando Hudson and J.J. Hardy along with utility man Nick Punto. I still don’t understand why they let Hardy go. What caused them to sour on good-fielding, decent-hitting Hardy, who reminded me a lot of Greg Gagne, who anchored the Twins’ infield on the World Series champs of ‘87 and ‘91?
The official explanation is that Hardy was too expensive and they were able to acquire Nishioka for less money. In an interview with Twins’ blogger Twinkie Town, Rob Anthony Twins’ Assistant General Manager, had this to say: "In the J.J. Hardy situation we just looked at it and said, we may need to take that $6 million and go another route." That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. They paid Tsuyoshi Nishioka $3 million this year. They also had to pay around $5 million for the right to negotiate with Nishioka. Granted, they were able to shed Brandon Harris’s salary in the trade, but my Minnesota math, (to steal from TV announcers Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven), puts Nishioka cost at $8 million after adding $3 million and $5 million together, leaving a cost of $2 milllion over Hardy’s salary. Anthony explained that away by saying the $5 million didn’t come out of payroll. That’s true, technically it didn’t, but that’s just an accounting manipulation. The $5 million doesn’t just disappear; somewhere it cost the Pohlads five million.
It seemed to me that there may have been another reason they didn’t want Hardy back. Here is a possibility: Ron Gardenhire is probably as sick or sicker than we are, of losing to the Yankees. Not only that, he is only human and doesn’t want his epitaph to read: he was a good manager, but couldn’t beat the New York Yankees. His teams have proven over the years that they couldn’t get by the Yankees or compete in the playoffs. Well, Gardenhire, may have thought, "O.K., let’s change the makeup of the team." Nishioka and Casilla are a big change from Hudson and Hardy. It also allows Gardenhire to be a National League-type manager with more control of the game what with hit and run, steals, and bunts. He will have three speedsters in a row with Casilla batting ninth, Span leadoff and Nishioka second in front of Mauer and Morneau.
To give Gardenhire credit, if that was his and General Manager Smith’s plan, it may work. No matter what, it will be fun to see the speedsters in front of the heart of the order. And certainly they can do no worse than they have in the past against the Yankees.
