Fire Gardy

The Twins are obviously scrambling for ideas in the wake of Nathan’s injury, desperate to find a guy they can call their “closer” in 2010. One of those ideas, apparently, is to move Carlos Gutierrez back from the rotation to the bullpen.

“This might change our thinking,” said Jim Rantz, the Twins director of minor leagues. “For now, he’s a starter. We might have to revisit that.”

Gutierrez was drafted in the first round, and was a closer in college; however, the main reason he was a closer in college was because he had had Tommy John surgery and they were limiting his innings. I think it’s likely that the Twins wouldn’t have drafted him so high if they thought he was just a reliever.

So it made perfect sense to make him a starter and see if he could stick; he has a worm-killing sinker, but needs to develop a secondary pitch (or two) to really have a legitimate shot. He shouldn’t have been on the Major League radar for this season; 2011 at the earliest.

But now, the Twins are letting their trepidations about 2010 interfere with their plans for the future. That’s a serious problem.

It was more than possible that Gutierrez eventually returned to the bullpen — in fact, it was likely. One possible reason they have him starting in the first place is just to let him face more batters. But it’s important to let a player’s performance dictate whether his role changes, especially at this stage in his development.

The Mets make mistakes like rushing their prospects — and it wrecked Gomez and Guerra before we ever got our hands on them. The Twins should avoid those same mistakes. I mean, if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the Twins should not try to emulate the Mets.

I’m probably overreacting to this news. But I think about trends a lot — I’ve been encouraged by the trend that the Twins seem to be targeting high-upside talent more than they had in the past — and this seems like something we should keep an eye on.