While checking out the website MLBTradeRumors.com earlier today I came across a pair of Twins stories that disappointed me a bit. The first story announced that the club had signed former Minnesota outfielder Jacque Jones to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. The second story had to do with the Twins losing minor league outfielder Jason Pridie to the New York Mets on waivers. Pridie had been released to make room on the 40-man roster for recent free agent acquisition second baseman Orlando Hudson.
I hadn’t even considered Pridie as one of the likely candidates and I’m just a bit baffled by the move. He hit a line of .265/.295/.382 with 25 stolen bases during a full season of play last season for the Twins’ farm facility Rochester Red Wings – a Triple A club. Now that’s not very promising at all, in fact it just doesn’t grade out to suggest any success at the plate in the majors. Jones was not active in the majors at all last season, playing instead for an independent team, the Newark Bears. In 2008 he hit a line of .147/.239/.207 in a split season with Detroit and Florida, later that year turning down a minor league assignment in the Marlins system.
Looking a bit further back…during the 2006 season with the Chicago Cubs, Jones was in the starting lineup nearly every day as the right fielder, clubbing 27 HRs and hitting for a .285 average; in ‘07 he appeared regularly as either the starting center or right fielder hitting only 5 HRs but once again logged a respectable .285 batting average. The 27 homers match his career best, reached in the Twins 2002 season.
The Twins do not have any depth in the outfield at the minor league level – there aren’t any outfielders playing at any level that I would consider major league ready. Pridie was easily the head of his class as far as the Minnesota farm system went and I figured the Twins to hold on to him. If we were to lose either Denard Span or Michael Cuddyer for any length of time I’d always counted on Pridie being there to plug the hole defensively at least. Now that he’s gone Jones actually moves to the top of the list of callups should the Twins need one in 2010…and of course you know they will. Someone will miss time for some reason – it happens! An injury, a leave of absence for a funereal, etc.
Joe Christensen, a Minneapolis Star Tribune sports writer, reported in his blog, Around The Majors, that Jones has agreed to play at Rochester if he doesn’t make the Opening Day roster. And I have to believe he would be an extreme longshot to make it unless he has the absolute best spring training season of his professional career. Minnesota has Delmon Young, Span and Cuddyer penciled in as the 2010 starting outfield with Kubel as the fourth outfielder. Nick Punto and potentially Matt Tolbert could also play the outfield if necessary. For the record, Punto has logged 46 innings of centerfield play with no errors for the Twins over the past four seasons. Not a large sampling I admit, but it does testify to his ability to play there when needed.
A bit off-topic: One of the quotes Christensen includes in his blog is from Twins GM Bill Smith who said that Jones was looking to continue his career and that he’s been a good player. Smith further stated that Jones was one of the reasons the Twins became competitive earlier in the decade and that they’re glad to have him back in Minnesota. Well, that could be said about many of the former Twins from the 2001, ‘02, ‘03,’04 and ‘o5 seasons that are still active professionally – most of them looking for an opportunity still. Smith has a bad habit of sounding chummy & folksy, and trying to put a kind of, touchy-feely ‘one-from-the-heart’ spin on too many of his moves. I wish he’d stop that. Christensen has the same tendency too…read the blog for yourself and see.
Well, provided Jacque can give the Twins the defensive stop gap measure they’re likely to need at some point in the outfield during 2010, it really doesn’t seem like a bad move in retrospect. Jones does have considerable MLB experience and the fact that he can play all three outfield positions is a big plus. We’re not likely to miss Pridie in the future, and besides the club can still work out a trade for an extra outfielder sometime before the start of the season. And worst case scenario: one of the outfielders gets injured and has start off 2010 on the DL…which would free up a roster space and create a situation where a trade or watching the waiver wire as teams break camp and see who’s available.
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