Twins-Yankees: Spring Training Notes

—Carlos Gomez is not ready to be a Major League player.

He needs at least a half season at AAA to start getting his baseball brain working.

At centerfield in this game he looked terrible.

—Personally, in my mind, the competition for the CF spot is over, it should go to Jason Pridie. Denard Span is just not an option, as he's not talented enough at the plate.

—The Twins aren't hitting yet.

This isn't to say they won't start hitting, but the team looks bad at the plate right now.

—Despite what some might say, spring training stats and wins do matter, just not nearly as much as regular season stats.

When veteran hitters with good MLB track records have a tough spring, who cares?

When some teenager hits really well in spring, ditto.

However, for some guys the stats are truthful. Last year Nick Punto had a terrible spring and followed it up with a terrible regular season.

It takes some meditation to discern when the stats mean something and when they don't, but valuable insight to a team can be gleaned from spring training stats.

—A team's record in spring training also matters.

The year to year correlation is very low (around .10) but once you start aggregating numbers, the correlation increases (from memory, it goes up to about .40).

Spring training doesn't predict how strong a team is in one year, it is a bellweather for an organization's health.

Having a bad spring won't effect a team the year it happens, it simply means four or five years down the line, when all those prospects start taking MLB jobs, that the organization will have work to do.

—In this light, the Twins are depressing.

I'll be waiting until later in spring to make a full analysis for the Twins organizational health but right now, offensively at least, it looks terrible.

—Pitching is the most interesting contest this spring, as the Twins have lots of young MLB-ready pitchers.

Personally, I think Livan Herandez was a poor choice, I would have much preferred just going with a young rotation.

—Brendan Harris didn't look good at 2nd base, but I would start him over Punto any day.

In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing Punto out of a Twins uniform.

—I would really like to see Brian Buscher in a Twins uniform this year.

—Garrett Jones hit a really long home run.

Jones looked really bad last year and he still doesn't seem to have the plate discipline he needs to be a major leaguer, but when he gets a handle on a ball, wow.

He reminds me Joaquin Phoenix's character in Signs.

—With Tolbert and Casilla getting some time at shortstop, I don't see any reason to have Nick Punto on the roster.

—Delmon Young is not a question mark (other than psychologically, that is).

—Neshek looks good, maybe someone could talk Gardy into making him the Twins closer in 2009.

—Twins win 7-5.