SB Nation - Ross Gload

Kiko Calero is gone

craig — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:06:01 -0000

It seems that Kiko Calero's performance last season means he won't be a Marlin in 2010.

Don't look for the Marlins to offer salary arbitration to any of their four free agents -- Kiko Calero, Brendan Donnelly, Ross Gload and Nick Johnson -- at Tuesday's deadline. However, the Marlins remain very much interested in re-signing Gload to a two-year deal similar to the one granted last year to his mirror opposite on the bench, Wes Helms.

The Marlins won't offer arbitration to any of the players. Kiko and NJ especially, they are type B free agents and if the Marlins offered them arbitration, the worse could happen, in the club's eyes, they might take it. Even if they didn't that would mean the Marlins would be awarded a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds of the draft. Wouldn't won't that to happen, those guys cost money in the way of signing bonuses.

The only one we could see back is Gload, don't have a problem with him off the bench, but other clubs can read the stats tables and may offer a better deal. The only thing the Marlins have going for them is that they may be willing to go two years.

Marlins make an offer to Ross Gload

craig — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:38:09 -0000

The Marlins looked it over and wondered if they could get Ross Gload for Wes Helms money.

The Marlins have extended an offer to Ross Gload, their top left-handed hitter off the bench last season when he led the majors in pinch hits. The offer is thought to be similar to the one received last year by Wes Helms, who agreed to a two-year deal for $1.9 million.

Gload said toward he end of the season that he would prefer to remain with the Marlins, especially if he could work out a deal early in the free agency process, thus relieving him of any uncertainty.The Marlins' exclusive negotiating window with Gload closes at midnight Friday, at which point any team can start discussing financial terms with the free agent

I'm kinda pressed for time here, but if the Marlins can signed him, I'm all for it. Pinch hitting is really tough, and I don't think most understand how hard it is. Gload is good at it, actually, very good. While past results don't guarantee future performance, I am hard pressed to think of another left-handed bat who can hit coming off the bench and would do better, in our price range.

Daily Roundup

Eli Greenspan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:57:53 -0000

More photos » by Tom Olmscheid - AP

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FOXSports.com is reporting that Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez has exercised his 20 million dollar player option for the 2010 season. Ramirez missed 50 games for violating the leagues drug policy, but ended the year with a .290 average and 19 home runs.
The Twins exercised Michael Cuddyer's 2011 option after he put up career numbers over the 2009 season. Cuddyer will make 8.5 million in 2010 and 10.5 million dollars in 2011. Cuddyer hit 32 home runs this past season.
The Nationals have declined Austin Kearns' 10 million dollar club option, giving him a 1 million dollar buyout instead. Kearns has struggled to stay healthy since joining the Nationals, posting just 174 at-bats this past season.
MLB.com is reporting that the Marlins declined Ross Gload's 2.6 million dollar option for the 2010 season. Gload was a pretty solid pinch-hitter this past season, and will find a job in a similar role in 2010.
The Rockies declined options on Alan Embree and catcher Yorvit Torrealba. Torrealba could emerge as an option for the Mets this offseason.
The Tigers released catcher Matt Treanor and outfielder Marcus Thames. It is possible the Tigers would bring back Treanor on a one year deal, but Thames is a defensive liability and likely won't return.

Marlins file for free agency

craig — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:55:51 -0000

All of the Marlins eligible for free agency have filed, as expected.

Nick Johnson made an impact with the Marlins. But unless Florida works out a contract with the veteran, those 35 games may be the extent of Johnson's tenure with the organization.

Johnson formally filed for free agency on Friday, along with reliever Kiko Calero, who became a valuable performer in the back end of the bullpen.

The filing period began on Thursday, and now all four of Florida's eligible free agents have placed themselves in position to test the market. Reliever Brendan Donnelly and first baseman Ross Gload filed on Thursday.

By league rule, the Marlins hold exclusive negotiating rights with all four through Nov. 19. If no deal is reached by then, the players can talk with all 30 teams.

Johnson is gone. Donnelly and Calero are probably both looking for multiyear deals, so they may be gone too. I think the Marlins will offer Gload the Wes Helms package, but whether he takes it or not will depend on if he can do better elsewhere.

It's the usual for a Marlins offseason.

Building A Cubs Champion: 2010 Edition

Al — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:15:22 -0000

by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Like it or not, one of the keys to the Cubs' success in 2010 is a resurgence by Alfonso Soriano. Here, he launches his game-winning grand slam vs. the Astros last July 27.

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Last year about this time, I made this post discussing what I thought should be the makeup of the 2009 Cubs.

Brave, isn't it, of me to post that link when I'd just as soon forget about it. I was shouted down and laughed at (people are still giving me grief for the Kevin Millar thing, and they were absolutely correct), and had the Cubs put that 25-man roster on the field last April, they'd undoubtedly have had a much worse season than they did in real life (case in point: Alex Hinshaw, who I thought was an up-and-coming LOOGY, threw only six major league innings in 2009, posting a 12.00 ERA).

So let me go about this project this year in a different sort of way. A year ago (actually, October 20, 2008 was the date I wrote the post about my proposed 2009 roster) we were all still stunned and angry that the 97-win team that had dominated the National League all season went three-and-out in the playoffs. This was before Lou's "we've gotta get more lefthanded" mantra led us to the Milton Bradley disaster, before popular favorites Kerry Wood and Mark DeRosa were let go, and a lot of us were wondering, "How can we make a team that good into one that will win 11 games in October?"

Jim Hendry and Co. were asking themselves the same question, obviously, but came up with the wrong answer. Without rehashing what we've rehashed all summer long, clearly, it didn't work -- and not just because of Hendry's moves, but because players like Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto and Mike Fontenot seriously underperformed their 2008 numbers by considerable margins and for various reasons, and because Aramis Ramirez, who is the Cubs' best hitter, missed 50 games with a dislocated shoulder and wasn't at full strength the rest of the season, eventually playing in only 82 games.

I believe in what new owner Tom Ricketts said at his introductory press conference: that the Cubs already have the talent that can win the World Series, and only need a few tweaks to bring the club back to pennant-contending level. I'm also going to assume that what we've heard about player payroll is correct: that it will be increased, if only "slightly", from 2009, and thus will wind up at (approximately) $145 million. That will rank third in baseball, behind the Yankees and Red Sox.

Thus, instead of trying to build a roster simply by picking pieces from here and there, let's use that $145 million to put together a winning team.

Let's begin with players we know will be with the team next year, and their payroll figures (all numbers from the excellent site Cot's Baseball Contracts). These players are under contract for 2010 and will definitely be on the team, followed by their contract amounts:

Alfonso Soriano, $19,000,000
Carlos Zambrano, $18,875,000
Aramis Ramirez, $16,500,000
Kosuke Fukudome, $14,000,000
Ryan Dempster, $13,500,000
Derrek Lee, $13,000,000
Ted Lilly, $13,000,000

That's $107,875,000 for seven players. The Cubs also owe Jeff Samardzija $1,000,000 on the major league portion of his deal (whether or not he throws a major league inning) and $500,000 to the long-ago-released Luis Vizcaino, who pitched 3.2 innings in a Cub uniform. We're now at $109,375,000, leaving "only" $35,625,000 for 18 more players to fill out the Opening Day 25-man roster. That means there are going to be a fair number of minimum-wage players in 2010, because among the players remaining, a number of them are arbitration-eligible, meaning they will be in line for raises.

The first order of business is to remove Milton Bradley from the premises. We have had many long debates about whether and for whom he should be traded, but I believe this is top priority for Jim Hendry and will happen sooner rather than later. Disagree if you wish, but I think the best of many not-so-great scenarios is to send him -- and Aaron Miles -- to the Giants for Aaron Rowand. Between Bradley and Miles, they are owed a total of $23.7 million; Rowand is owed $36 million. Since in doing a deal like this, you would be relieving the Giants, essentially, of $12 million (approximately) by taking the third year of Rowand's contract, Hendry should ask the Giants to split the difference and pay half of Rowand's 2012 contract, which would split the total dollars (approximately $60 million) between the two teams, about $30 million each.

This would also accomplish equalizing the 2010 payroll -- or come close -- to what Bradley and Miles would have been owed ($11.7 million) and what Rowand is owed ($12 million). I think the Giants would be willing to do this, because you are taking $6 million off their 2012 payroll, while leaving their 2010 and 2011 payrolls where they are now, since Bradley is owed $12 million in 2011.

I concede that Rowand has had two pretty poor offensive seasons in San Francisco (at least in part due to injuries). But in 2007, he had a fine hitting year in Philadelphia, and I believe that he has at least a chance to return to that level in Chicago. If you were looking at the possible acquisition of Rowand in a vacuum, you wouldn't do it -- but the necessity of removing Bradley from the team makes this probably about the best way to accomplish that. At best, this could turn into a Hundley-for-Grudzielanek-and-Karros sort of deal.

So, now the Cubs have a center fielder (with Fukudome moving back to his original position, right field, improving the outfield defense at two spots), but we are now at eight players and have only $23,625,000 left. They're fortunate that Geovany Soto is not yet arbitration-eligible, so let's say the Cubs bump him up to $825,000 from the $575,000 he made in 2009. That's a pretty good raise, given the bad year he had. Now we're at $22,800,000. Backup catcher Koyie Hill made $475,000 in 2009 and had a good year for a backup. Let's move him up to $600,000, leaving $22,200,000.

I'm going to leave the double-play combination alone for 2010. It's likely that by 2011, Starlin Castro will be the Cubs' starting shortstop -- but for now, because Lou and Jim like them, Jeff Baker and Ryan Theriot will return. Baker made $415,000 in 2009 and had a good run after he was acquired from Colorado -- one of Hendry's best moves last year. Let's pay him $500,000, and Theriot $700,000, both up from 2009. That's 12 players, and $21,000,000 remaining for the other 13 -- we're getting to the point where we can actually think about signing a free agent or two or making a deal.

Among our 12 signed players so far are nine hitters -- so, given the current fad of having 12 pitchers on your staff, we have room for four more offensive players. I like Andres Blanco and Sam Fuld -- both performed well in backup roles in 2009. Neither hits much, but both play outstanding defense and neither is going to be expected to start more than a handful of games. Fuld made $401,500 and Blanco $400,000 (the minimum) in 2009, and let's give them both raises to $425,000. We are at 14 players and have $20,050,000 left. We'll need one more outfielder and also a guy who could fill the role that was filled in 2007 and 2008 by Daryle Ward, and in 2009 by Micah Hoffpauir.

Sad to say, I'm non-tendering Micah. He's 30 in March and didn't really do well most of last year -- he's a one-dimensional player, since he's really not a very good outfielder, and didn't do well in the dimension (hitting) he was supposedly good at. Since we're no longer locked in to the "lefthanded" mantra of a year ago, the Cubs can put the minimum-wage Jake Fox -- bumped up to $500,000 for his good performance of a year ago -- in this slot, and re-sign Rowand's close friend Reed Johnson for $3 million to fill in when his buddy hits the brick wall at Wrigley too many times.

So, we now have $16,550,000 left for nine pitchers -- which means we're going to have to fill most of the bullpen with minimum-wage guys. That's actually fine with me -- look at the disaster that was Aaron Heilman last year (in my opinion, Heilman should be non-tendered) -- and the Cubs have a couple of real good prospects, in my opinion, to fill middle-relief roles in Justin Berg and Esmailin Caridad. They get the minimum $400,000 each, leaving $15,750,000 for seven more pitchers. It was reported earlier this week that the Cubs are negotiating a two-year deal with John Grabow; reported figures are "between $6.5 and $7.5 million" for the two years. Let's assume for this post that it's in between, and Grabow gets $3.5 million for 2010. We've got $12,250,000 left and six spots to fill on the pitching staff. Carlos Marmol is going to close; he made $575,000 in 2009, so let's bump him to $800,000. Angel Guzman will be his primary right-handed setup guy (Grabow's the lefty setup guy, or should be, if Lou would ever use him right). Guzman made $421,500 in 2009; he could be renewed at $500,000.

Our payroll drawer is nearly empty (you can almost count the remaining Benjamins, right?); we have $10,950,000 remaining and still need to fill three spots, one in the pen, and two in the starting rotation, and here's where it gets a bit dicey (and this is why I left this part for last). First, you can fill one of the starting spots with Randy Wells, who made the minimum last year and certainly deserves a raise; let's put him at $750,000 (or maybe even a bit less; he's renewable, meaning you don't have to give him that much of a raise until he's arb-eligible next year), leaving $10,200,000. The Cubs have five free agents: Rich Harden, John Grabow, Kevin Gregg, Chad Fox and Reed Johnson. I already re-signed Johnson and Grabow above; Gregg and Fox, thanks for your service, see you in another uniform next year (and please, Jim, not another minor-league invite for Chad Fox. He's done).

But what to do with Harden? If you offer him arbitration, he'll almost certainly accept. To paraphrase Longfellow's nursery rhyme, "When he's good, he's very, very good; when he's bad, he's horrid". If Harden accepts arbitration, he's likely to get pretty close to all the remaining dollars in the drawer -- so reluctantly, we say goodbye to Rich, without the arb offer, unless you can somehow agree ahead of time to get him to sign for $8 million or so. That's not unreasonable given his $7 million salary in 2009 and his mediocre performance.

For the sake of argument, then, let's say we have this $10,950,000 available for our two remaining spots. One of those spots is going to go to Sean Marshall, who, I believe, deserves another shot at the starting rotation after doing a good job as a swingman in 2009. Lou misused him as a LOOGY -- Marshall can clearly do better than getting one LH batter out -- and I'd like to see Sean, now 27 and with four major league seasons under his belt, get a shot at starting. Sean made $450,000 in 2009, and could be paid $600,000 in 2010. In this scenario Samardzija makes the team, likely because the Cubs are paying him the $1 million whether he makes it or not. Otherwise there are other possibilities, including Arizona Fall Leaguers John Gaub and Andrew Cashner, or maybe someone else who will have a good spring (and please, let's not have another David Patton scenario), for this final spot.

That leaves $10,350,000 (or just under $10 million if you use Gaub or Cashner, who would make the minimum). You could consider signing someone like Jon Garland, who just got his option declined by the Dodgers and is a free agent. Garland made $7.25 million in 2009 and had a "typical" Garland year, which is as an inning-eater; you could probably get him for about $8 million for 2010. Garland has made at least 32 starts for eight straight years, and has pitched no fewer than 191.2 innings in any of those eight. Doing that would take the pressure off the staff, especially if Ted Lilly isn't ready for Opening Day, and would let Marshall play the "swingman" role again. Or you could give that last rotation spot to Tom Gorzelanny, who made $433,000 in 2009, and save the money for a midseason acquisition.

Note that I haven't gone all DeRomantic here and proposed bringing back Mark DeRosa, although I think he'd still be a solid addition, even at age 35, for the right price, and a note in this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article indicates the Cubs may indeed make DeRo an offer. I also haven't retained Mike Fontenot, who could probably be traded -- I mentioned above non-tendering Heilman, but it may be possible that both Fontenot and Heilman could be dealt, even for low-level prospects. In fact, my 2010 team as proposed above has only two players (Rowand and Garland) who were not with the Cubs at some point in 2009 -- unless they decided not to go with Jake Fox in the bench role and instead signed a free agent (or one who soon will be) such as Ross Gload or Chad Tracy, whose option was declined by the Diamondbacks yesterday. Still, despite all the travails, injuries and bad performances in 2009, the Cubs won 83 games. With performances returning to career norms, better health and a little luck, just a few tweaks could have us returning to the postseason in 2010.

This Blows Up to 11: Marlins 7, Phillies 6

dajafi — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:12:07 -0000

More photos » by Alan Diaz - AP

2 months ago: Philadelphia Phillies' Ryan Howard prepares to round third base after hitting a two-run home run against the Florida Marlins in the seventh inning of a baseball game in Miami, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009. Phillies' Chase Utley also scored on the hit. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

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A gutty start from Cole Hamels and another big game from Ryan Howard all went for naught Wednesday night as Brad Lidge blew save number 11 in a dispiriting come-from-ahead loss to the desperate Marlins before a crowd of hundreds in south Florida.

It was about as surprising as the sun coming up this morning. With the Marlins trailing 6-5, pinch-hitter Ross Gload led off with a double over the first-base bag. Chris Coughlan, batting something like .450 against the Phillies this season, somehow only got Gload to third with a hard out to right. John Baker, pinch-hitting for Cameron Maybin, struck out on a borderline full-count pitch that got Florida manager Fredi Gonzalez ejected, and for an instant it looked like Lidge might escape. But he walked Hanley Ramirez on another full-count pitch, quickly gave up a game-tying single to Jorge Cantu, and then after getting ahead of pinch-hitter Brett Carroll 0-2, surrendered the game-winner.

Howard had driven in four runs earlier, two on a one-handed two-run double off the left-field wall in the third, and two more on a homer over that wall in the seventh. Hamels threw seven innings, allowing eight hits and four runs in severe Florida heat, and helped himself with two hits and an RBI. But as usual in 2009, all that was wasted on the altar of Lidge's ineptitude and, sad to say, Charlie Manuel's obstinacy. Insanity, indeed.

Ross Gload and Wes Helms closing in on record

craig — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:14:42 -0000

Ross Gload and Wes Helms are closing in on the major league record for hits by a pinch-hitting tandem.

They have combined for 34 pinch hits, four off the major league record Ed Coleman (20) and Roy Pepper (18) set with the 1936 St. Louis Browns, according to Stats Inc.

Gload has 19 and Helms 15.

The record is doable but it isn't going to be easy. Then again, pinch-hitting isn't easy and the Grits make it seem like it is. With Gload's next pinch-hit he will break the Marlins record for pinch-hits in a season.

Helms is signed for next season at $950,000. Gload has a $2.6 million club option, which the Marlins will all but surely decline. They likely would want to bring back Gload, who for the first time will be eligible for free agency, at a lower price.

Considering they signed Helms last offseason to a two-year, $1.9 million deal, the Marlins could try to entice Gload to stay put with a similar multiyear offer.

It would have to be multiyear to get his interest. But given that it is his first time at free agency he might like to test the waters, and you couldn't blame him if he did. We will see how the club handles this, but I wouldn't mind having him back. With him and Helms on the bench it guarantees the bench spots won't be manned by some young player who needs to playing everyday.

Yarrr, Reds be walkin' the plank, blow another win late, lose 3-2

Slyde — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:06:57 -0000

More photos » by Tom Uhlman - AP

Drew Stubbs led off the game with his 8th home run of the season. Literally dozens of fans got to see it.

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The Reds broke out their freshly minted vinyl single and flipped it over to hear the B-side, only to find out that it was the same song they played last night. Drew Stubbs gave the Reds the lead with his 3rd lead-off home run of the season, but that was basically all the offense the Reds saw in the first 7 innings.

Bronson Arroyo had another outstanding start. He surrendered a single run in the 5th on a Jorge Cantu's 16th home run of the season, but shut the Marlins down for the rest of the night, until the 8th. After Ryan Hanigan had given the Reds their 2nd lead of the game on his 3rd home run of the season, a solo shot, Arroyo promptly gave the lead back up in the 8th. Emilio Bonifacio led off with a double and then scored on Ross Gload's one out home run, his fifth of the season. Those two runs gave the Marlins their only lead of the game, but it was enough to take home the victory.

This game was the 7th time in Arroyo's last 9 starts that the offense has scored 3 runs or fewer. It's amazing that he had 8 wins midway through the season when his ERA was nearly 6, but he's just 5-5 since then with an ERA of 2.21. Clearly, the offense hates good pitching.

Tonight's loss guarantees that the Reds won't have a winning season for the 9th season in a row. But hey, they can still go .500 if they win the rest of their games, right? Shiver me timbers!

Royal Embarrassment

Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:35:04 -0000

It has been a tough season to be Royal's fan, but I read a stat today that put me over the edge. It wasn't Miguel Olivo's well documented plate discipline (here and here and here), Zack Greinke's WAR (8.3) being higher than the entire offense (6.0) or that of the bottom 5 players in WAR (>200 AB), the Royals take up 2 of them (Jose Guillen being #1 at -1.9 WAR). Nope none of that fazed me. My disbelief started by reading baseball-refence.com's Stat of the Day that stated the Royal's production from the clean-up spot is the worst in baseball. No surprise that the worst offense has the worst clean up spot. This is where it got worse. Fellow blogger, RoyalRetro, who has a great website of Royal history, took it one step further and found that it is one of the worst batting order positions in baseball period. He has given me his blessing to take his analysis and go a little further.

Let's begin by looking at the rankings of the 270 (9 batting positions * 30 teams) batting positions this season. The batting positions are ranked according to OPS and here are the low-lights (link to entire list):

256 to 270 - The 9^th batting spot for 15 of the 16 NL teams (OPS of 0.431 to 0.543)
255 - 9^th spot at Detroit (0.556)
254 -- 7^th spot at Seattle (0.566)
253 -- 4^th spot at KC (0.573)
252 -- 9^th spot at KC (0.574)
250 -- 9th spot at Colorado (0.599)
248 -- 2^nd spot at KC (0.600)
176 -- 8^th spot at KC (0.721)

The forth spot in the lineup is supposed to be one of the teams 3 best players, but it is the worst of the Royals Colorado's pitchers in the 9th spot hit better.

What sort of talented players take up this spot daily for the Royals? Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs each batted 49 times in the cleanup spot and the ever dangerous Mark Teahen batting there there 26 times. Recently Guillen and Jacobs took it to a whole new level as they fought over who sucks the most in the cleanup spot (I am not sure what they fought over, but you never know). True to their baseball form, they both swung and missed.

The Royal's let an answer to the cleanup spot slip through their hands this past off-season when they traded Ross Gload and cash for a player to be named later. Since the trade happened on April 1^st, fans thought it was a joke. Once it was determined not to be a hoax, there was much rejoicing in Royal's land.The joke ended up on us Royals fans as Ross could have been an improvement to the Royals if he was used instead of Guillen and Jacobs.

I did a lineup analysis of the Royals if Gload, using his 2009 Florida numbers, had batted in the 4^th spot. Also, I swapped that 248th ranked #2 spot (usually Willie Bloomquist) with the 8^th spot (usually Miguel Olivo). I used the lineup calculator at baseballmusings.com to run the estimates. The runs per game total goes from an estimated 4.25 runs per game (actual season number is 4.10 runs per game) to 4.55 runs per game. Over the course of a season that would be 50 additional runs [162 * (4.554 - 4.248)] or 5 more wins (assuming 10.5 runs will yield one addition win). It is pretty sad when that just batting Bloomquist 8^th and replacing Guillen and Jacobs with Gload in the cleanup spot could lead a team to 5 more wins. Embarrassing really.

I know I am putting my reputation on the line by bad mouthing the Royals as they will not tolerate criticism. First Rany Jazayerli gets banned for bad mouthing the process. Last week Keith Law was told that he was banned. There has even been rumors of stadium ushers being fired at the stadium who were bad mouthing Hillman withing ear shot of his wife. I will wait my punishment from Dayton Moore like a man, but I can't take the complete front office ineptitude any more. I just hope they don't make me go across the parking lot and watch the Chiefs.

Meet: Justin Huber

Jesse — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:45:54 -0000

It's always fun watching new guys.

If you check out the page with the Twins' active roster page, you'll find the latest addition: one Justin Huber, infielder, number 19. Welcome back to the bigs, Mr. Huber.

Huber was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Mets back in 2000, as a catcher. He made his professional debut the following summer, playing 47 of his 52 games for Kingsport, New York's rookie league squad. Just 18, he batted an impressive .314/.415/.528 with 17 walks against 42 strikeouts.

The next summer, 2002, the Mets started him in A-ball. He complimented good power for a guy his age (and at his position) with good strike zone judgement and more than a adequate penchant for taking a walk, and he followed up a brilliant rookie year with a .291/.408/.470 campaign. After 95 games there he was promoted to high-A ball, where his numbers weren't as impressive but still showed a lot of promise for a 19-year old kid: .270/.370/.400 in 28 games. The power had disappeared, but it was only an outage, not a cut.

Starting at high-A St. Lucie in '03 he picked up where he left off, and was promoted to double-A halfway through the season after posting an .884 OPS. A good but unimpressive stint there meant he would start a second cosecutive season in St. Lucie in '04, but that lasted all of 13 games. By July of 2004 the 21-year old Huber (22 by the time he got there) was getting his first taste of triple-A. That stint lastest three games, as he was traded to the Royals at the deadline (for Jose Bautista of all people). Unfortunately for Huber (and the Royals), torn cartilage in his knee ended his summer. He went under the knife, and as a result his career as a catcher came to an end.

If there were any adverse effects the following year, Huber didn't show them. Starting in double-A for the Royals, the 22-year old now-first baseman raked. The patience was there, as were his raw hitting skills, but the best news was that he displayed the power that he'd shown throughout his first few years in the minors. It was exactly how you'd want a guy like Huber to perform following a surgery. Over 88 games he belted a .343/.432/.570 line in 335 at-bats, notching 16 homers, 22 doubles and 51 walks. It couldn't get much better than that, and he was promoted to Kansas City's triple-A squad (.274/.374/.531) before getting called up to the majors for the first time.

In his age-22 season, Justin was 23 by the time he saw his first plate appearance for the Royals, but he was exactly on-track for where a hitter of his abilities should have been. Sadly, back in 2005 professional softball player Matt Stairs was getting most of the time at first base for the Royals. Stairs wasn't exactly an offensive threat, but with Mike Sweeney in the midst of his last productive year of his career to date, Stairs actually led the team's qualifying hitters with a .373 OBP. I can understand how the Royals wanted him in the lineup, but he was 37. For whatever reason, Huber was only awarded 85 plate appearances that year, and he struggled.

Over the next two seasons, Huber's OPS at triple-A would be solid (.838 in '06, .853 in '07), but he only saw 21 plate appearances with the Royals in that span. Doug Mientkiewicz and newly-acquired slugging pospect Ryan Shealy saw most of the time at first base in the former, while Shealy and Ross Gload bogarted the time in the latter. So as for the reason why Huber never had a chance, I have no answer.

In March of 2008 the Padres purchased the contract of Huber, where he managed to hit his first major league career home run off of Randy Johnson. He was granted free agency following the season, and joined the Twins.

It's been another typical season for Huber at triple-A, hitting a "pedestrian" .273/.354/.483 with 22 homers, 22 doubles and 49 walks in 439 at-bats. His wOBA? An impressive .361. In his age-26 season, Huber is about to see time with his fourth franchise and should get another opportunity to get his long overdue major league career off the ground.

Since 2006 Huber has been shifted between first base and the outfield defensively, while maintaining very good power numbers. His isolated power has consistently scored out higher than .200 in the minor leagues with few aberrations, including this summer with Rochester (.209).

There's a lot of raw hitting talent about to be sitting on Minnesota's bench tonight, and although he hasn't really shown anything at the major league level so far, he hasn't really been given a decent chance. Huber could be seen as just "another one of those guys", in the mold of a Garrett Jones or Randy Ruiz, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking that. But his potential for plate discipline and ability to consistently adapt to better competition as he came up through the minors gives me hope for something better.

Welcome to the Twins, Mr. Huber.