Teams always need pitching depth, so it was certainly puzzling to see the Twins attempt to outright Pat Neshek and trade flamethrower Billy Bullock for the rights to keep Scott Diamond. However, while we were all raging about losing Bullock, this trade allowed the Twins to quietly remove Diamond from the 40-man roster. This means that the Twins now have 2 open spots on their 40-man roster.
The first options I see for the Twins would be to fill these spots with any combination of Kyle Gibson, Carlos Gutierrez, and Kyle Waldrop (my guess would be Gibson and Waldrop). However, as Seth Stohs pointed out to me, it’s very possible that the Twins will search for any other castoffs from the other teams around the league in case someone intriguing pops up.
Right now is a time where all teams are finalizing their rosters, and inevitably some players will be released, or will refuse assignments to the minors. I don’t consider this likely, but the Twins may find someone worth looking at and will extend a 40-man roster spot in order to lure a player into the organization. However, I still feel that they’ll remain in-house with just giving up the spots to one of those three pitchers I mentioned above.
We all knew that Gibson would be in the majors at some point this season, but we rarely talked about how he wasn’t on the 40-man roster. Someone would eventually be removed to make room for him, and now that roadblock has been passed. So while we may still express our displeasure over losing Bullock and Neshek, remember that it likely just made room for two of our pitchers of the future.
Off The Mark 
March 29, 2011 at 6:18 pm |
Thats a good way to look at things but we could have lost Diamond and kept Bullock and still had an extra 40 man roster spot available. Diamond will be more valuable next year as a 5th or 6th starter, I guess, should the Twins start trading Slowey, Baker, Blackburn as they are going to get even more expensive next year. You should put together a budget 2012 to help justify the trade
March 29, 2011 at 8:13 pm |
Yes, money is a good point. Baker will make $6.5 million and Blackburn will be at $4.75 million. I don’t know if the Twins would be able to or would be willing to trade either of them, though.
Also, the Twins certainly could have let Diamond go back to the Braves and keep Bullock. They also could have agreed to send someone else to the Braves. They just liked him too much to let him go, and the Braves were definitely disappointed to see him leave as well.