La Velle E Neal III is reporting that Denard Span,  Brian Buscher, Jason Pridie, and Philip Humber have all been optioned to Class AAA Rochester this morning. That means Carlos Gomez will start the year out in center field this year and Matt Tolbert will make the squad as a utility player.

Denard Span had a nice spring training but Carlos Gomez just shows so much more of an upside. Carlos will be a bit raw in center and over-matched at times at the plate, but he will no doubt provide excitement and speed we have never seen in a Twins uniform. There is a legitimate chance that Carlos could break Chuck Knoblauch’s stolen base record of 62 in 1997 for the Twins.

Coming into spring training this year odds were that Brian Buscher would make the team as a backup 3rd baseman and utility guy. Brian just didn’t get things going this spring though batting just .143 with a .250 OBP and .229 SLG. With Buscher not stepping up it was Matt Tolbert that caught the eyes of Ron Gardenhire and is showing solid all around play and ability to play many positions. Matt is batting .250 this spring with a .314 OBP and .281 SLG.

The 25 man roster is about sewn up now, just a couple pitching spots to solidify. The biggest question that remains now is whether Francisco Liriano will make the rotation. There is also question about whether Scott Baker will be ready for the start of the season after a bit of a set back with a sore back and a bout of the flu. My guess is he will be ready and jump into the end of the rotation coming out of Spring. I also think Liriano will get his pitch count up enough to make it. That would give the Twins a rotation of Hernandez, Bonser, Baker, Liriano and Slowey.

Tags: Brian Buscher, carlos gomez, Denard Span, Jason Pridie, Matt Tolbert, philip humber, roster cut

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 8:46 am and is filed under players, roster, spring training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.