Overreacting

This is a cautionary tale about two players the Twins signed as free agents this past off-season as free agents. One, Tony Batista, is off to a pretty good start—batting .297 and slugging .568. The other, Rondell White, is off to a start that can best be defined as Antarctic-like—hitting a whopping .085 and getting on-base exactly one time out of ten.

Not surprisingly, the player hitting well has been getting a lot of credit. The player hitting poorly on the other hand is already being compared to Butch Huskey. Which seems a little bit odd to be doing in April.

I feel a little bit bad for pointing out that an 0-10 stretch puts Batista’s line at .234/.294/..447. Almost vintage Batista numbers, plus we know from Spring Training how prone Batista is to 0-10 stretches. At the same time Rondell White is only a 10/10 spurt away from .246. Not great still, but hey it’s a start back to respectability.

The numbers may not shape it up that way right now, but Batista was the far greater mistake. His 41 plate appearances thus far would have been better used to see if Michael Cuddyer is going to be a member of the 2007 Twins or not. And Cuddyer’s 19 plate appearances thus far would have thus trickled down to developing Jason Kubel. Instead, Batista’s presence has clogged right field with two players who have an upside worth trying to tap, and a third who’s pretty useful in Lew Ford.

White wasn’t a mistake perse. I’ll be shocked if he isn’t hitting .280 with 20 homeruns when the year is over and done.  But the Twins did mess up by not hedging their bet. Ruben Sierra is a complete waste of a roster spot, especially when hitters like Hee Seop Choi or Carlos Pena could have been had for nothing in the last month.  Ideally, you want David Ortiz or Travis Hafner DHing for your club. And while the Twins could afford to sign neither of those two at this point in time, it’s worth noting that neither was anywhere near this valuable when their current club rolled the dice on them. In fact, is it really all that surprising to see Choi’s upside go to Boston?

Ryan made a good move this offseason in getting Luis Castillo, and a fairly average one in grabbing White. But at the same time he made a bad one grabbing Batista and an ugly one getting Sierra. All totaled up, that gives you a .500 team. Is it really that big of a coincidence the Twins are sitting at .500 12 games into the season? The early results shouldn’t change that.

In other news, I think I’m going to start referring to Castillo, Batista and Sierra as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from now on.