This report posted by Twayn, on assignment for Bat-girl.com.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. –- As Major League Baseball’s annual winter meetings wrap up at the Disney Dolphin and Swan Resort, the Minnesota Twins announced that they have signed right-handed pitcher Doodley Squat to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. The move, while widely anticipated, has been characterized as “underwhelming” by top baseball analysts and pundits. But Twins general manager Terry Ryan disagrees.
“We came down to Orlando with every intention of getting Doodley Squat,” said Ryan. “And getting Doodley Squat to help fill one of the holes in our roster is exactly what we managed to accomplish.”
The 32-year old Squat, once a promising prospect drafted out of Trinidad State Junior College by the Rockies, toiled for several years in Colorado’s minor league system before being traded to Kansas City. The Royals released him from their AAA affiliate three years ago. Since then, he has pitched for various independent minor league, semi-pro, and exhibition ‘donkey baseball’ teams across the country, with a four-month stint as a starter and long reliever for the Seoul Searchers of the Korean Baseball Organization two years ago.
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire took the signing of Doodley Squat in stride.
“We’ve heard okay things about him. He’s an innings eater, he’s durable, he doesn’t walk many hitters, he works fast, he throws strikes, he keeps the ball down in the zone, he knows how to get after it, and he battles his tail off. What more could you want in a pitcher?” said this year’s runner-up for AL Manager of the Year honors. “Sure, his ERA is a little high, and he gives up the long ball a little too much, and he doesn’t have the experience of, say, a Terry Mulholland, but what are you gonna do? And besides, how many big league managers can say they have a Boof and a Doodley on their pitching staff?”
While the Twins dealing for Squat during the winter meetings is typical of the budget-constrained franchise, they did turn heads early in the week after a New York Times article suggested the perennially contending small-market Twins would be a good fit for aging free-agent slugger Barry Bonds, who is closing in on the career home run record held by Hank Aaron. Bonds eventually signed a new one year, $16 million deal with the San Francisco Giants late in the week. Ryan dismissed the Times story as pure speculation.
“For the Twins to make a deal for Barry Bonds was never anything more than a clueless East Coast reporter’s pipe dream,” Ryan commented. “And I won’t bother to guess what kind of pipe was involved.”
Ryan did express disappointment that the Twins were unable to finalize a deal for third baseman Dick Bupkis.
“We were hopeful that we’d be able to get Dick at the winter meetings, but you never know in this atmosphere what’s going to shake out,” said Ryan. “The good news is he didn’t sign with any other team, so he’s still available. We’ll just keep moving forward and try to get Bupkis before we come back down here for spring training in a couple of months.”