Max Ramirez Released

It doesn't feel like so long ago that Max Ramirez was a well regarded catching prospect. Signed by the Braves out of Venezuela back in 2002 as a 17 year old international free agent, Ramirez quickly made a name for himself as a good hitting catcher and became a much sought after commidity. In 2006, the Braves traded him to Cleveland for closer Bob Wickman. A year later he was sent to Texas to bring back long time Indians star Kenny Loften.

Though his defense was roundly regarded as poor, with an arm and release that both graded out as below average along with poor defensive instincts, he continued to be a desirable commodity. This off season after being placed on waivers by Rangers he was picked up by the Red Sox (who now sport another once highly regarded Texas catching prospect behind the plate), waived again, and picked up by the Cubs. Now, he's been released.

Up and Coming Third Basemen: Part 1

Last year when I started Central In Focus, one of the first series I ran covered the American League Central's quartet of promising young catchers. I wrote about Alex Avila of the Tigers, Tyler Flowers of the White Sox, Wilson Ramos of the Twins, Carlos Santana of the Indians. And I never even mentioned the Royals Wil Myers who exploded onto the mega-prospect scene after demolishing two levels of A ball during the 2010 campaign in his introduction to full season baseball.

One year later Santana appears to be headed for the stardom that so many expected, and no one would be surprised to see Ramos win the opening day job in Washington after his mid-season trade. Avila remains a platoon option at catcher for the Tigers and with Victor Martinez's presence, that's unlikely to change for the next year or two. Flowers unfortunately saw his persistent problems with strikeouts catch up to him at AAA this year. He remains a prospect but will need to make fundamental improvements to his offensive game if he's ever to become a viable Major League backstop.

This year the Central heads toward 2010 sporting another impressive area of strength, this time at third base. A recent MLB.com article listing their Top-10 third base prospects had the top three spots, four of the top five, and five of the top ten filled with AL Central talent. It's an incredibly impressive layout and all five Central teams are represented. It only seems right that such a talented group of players deserves the same kind of coverage the catchers got last year. Just like last year I'm going to go ahead and run through the five players, in reverse order by the rankings given in the MLB.com article.

Nick Castellanos

Mauer Out, Twins fly out Wilson Ramos

The Twins have been battling injuries all season long. First they lost all-star closer Joe Nathan. Then setup man Jose Mijares went down, followed by opening day third baseman Nick Punto, and another setup man, Pat Neshek has been unavailable for the past couple weeks. On top of that tonight's starter, Jeff Manship is only with the team because regular pitcher, Nick Blackburn is on leave to attend to family matters.

Now it appears that they might have an issue with MVP catcher Joe Mauer. According to Joe Christensen of the Star Tribune, Mauer will miss tonight's game because of a heel injury suffered while running through first base in last nights 9-3 win over the Indians.  The injury certainly doesn't sound severe, but apparently it's got the team concerned.

As a precaution they have brought top prospect Wilson Ramos up from AAA to Cleveland. While Ramos has yet to be officially added to the roster, the Twins could make room for him by optioning tonight's starter, Jeff Manship, back to AAA after his start tonight.

For now, Drew Butera will make the start in Mauer's place and the Twins will then have four days to evaluate Joe and make a decision on whether they need to send him to the disabled list and keep Ramos long-term.

Ramos had a very good spring training, but was beaten out by Butera because the Twins wanted to have Ramos play every day and probably at least partially because they wanted to push back his arbitration clock. But the Twins may have been on to something too, because for as much as he succeeded in spring training, he has struggled mightily in AAA. With three home runs the power is encouraging, but with 15 strikeouts and just three walks in 67 plate appearances, his discipline has been questionable.

In all likelihood, Ramos isn't quite ready for this level, and without a proven veteran behind the plate, the Twins would be hard-pressed should Mauer miss any extended amount of time.

AL Central's Top Trade Chips

MLB Trade Rumors has posted it's "Top Trade Chips" article for the AL Central.

Some thoughts:

- Axisa speculates that the Indians might try and trade Jake Westbrook for prospects. Could they really get anything legitimate in return? And who would take his 11m salary? I'm sure the Indians would LOVE to be able to dump his contract and get players back, but I don't know if thats really a possibility. Prior to his injury, Westbrook was a consistent sub 4.00 xFIP pitcher but he missed all of 2009 and has really struggled so far this year.

- The speculation that the Royals could look to deal - well, essentially their entire outfield - sounds about right. If Jose Guillen continues to hit, I'm sure the Royals would jump at the chance to move his contract. If Rick Ankiel proves healthy and effective with the bat, he too could be moved with Mitch Maier taking over in center. And of course, I already touched on a possible David DeJesus trade.

- Speculation about the Twins moving Wilson Ramos and Glen Perkins seems just about right. Many have speculated that the Twins would deal him for a closer. I doubt that. High end catching prospects should be able to yield a much larger return than that. Maybe not by himself, but in a package, he should be used to return either an elite third baseman or starting pitcher. Perkins has fallen out of favor with management, and the Twins would love to trade him, but the way he's pitched lately, I don't know who would want him or why.

- As for the White Sox, Axisa names Tyler Flowers and Daniel Hudson as his two best, most advanced prospects, and he's right. But he's also right in the sense that you never have any clue what Kenny Williams is going to do. The White Sox could use some offensive help, but it's probably too early to begin speculation.

Up and Coming Catchers, Pt. 3

Wilson Ramos

The Twins are blessed with a pretty good catcher already, you might have heard of him, he's the reigning AL MVP and just came off an absurdly good season where he hit .365 with 28 home runs and won a Gold Glove. The fact that they have ultra toolsy prospect Wilson Ramos nipping at his heels at a position where most teams can't find one good catcher almost seems unfair.

Behind the plate Ramos boasts a strong arm, consistently throwing out over 40% of runners throughout his minor league career. Though during spring training Twins coaches noted that they'd like to have the youngster work on his overall receiving skills. That's not terribly surprising given Ramos' age, he's just 22, but Gardenhire has also praised his strong work ethic and ability to make corrections on the fly.

Offensively Ramos' ceiling is much higher than his minor league track record might suggest. Ramos has consistently hit for solid average, posting a .317 mark last year at AA (as a 21 year old) with a career .294 average. While his power hasn't really manifested itself yet - his ISO last year was just .137 - everyone is in agreement that he can hit the ball a long ways. To that end, he's impressed the organization this spring by hitting .400 in 30 at-bats with four doubles (two off the very top of the wall) and two annihilated home runs, the last of which was hit well OVER the batters eye at the Twins spring training facility in Ft. Myers.

If his arm and his power are his two greatest strengths, Ramos still has some holes to his game. Besides needing to improve some facets of his defensive game, he also struggles as most kids his age do, with command of the strike zone. While Ramos took a major leap forward last year by slashing his K rate in half from the year before, and all the way down to a very good 11.2%, his walk rate also tumbled to a nearly non-existent 2.8%. While the low walk rate wont keep him from being a very good Major Leaguer as long as his average continues to stay where it is and he can develop his power some more, it can't hurt. He's also not the fleetest of foot, though that's hardly uncommon at the position.

Ramos' spring had Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire pleading with GM Bill Smith to let him take the kid north. Smith wisely declined, likely realizing that he still needed plenty of work at AAA to polish off his game. As it stands the Twins will open the season with Drew Butera as Mauer's backup until Mauer's regular caddy, Jose Morales (another solid young catcher for the Twins) returns from off-season wrist surgery. Morales should be back by the time the calendar turns over at the end of April.

The problem for the Twins - if this can really be described as a problem - is that they don't really have anywhere to put Ramos once he is ready. They're pretty set at catcher with Mauer who just re-upped for another eight years in his hometown, and they have a pretty good first baseman as well in Justin Morneau, and at DH they have Jason Kubel. All three are very good hitters who have long-term contracts.

So the question Twins fans are asking is, "where does Ramos fit in?" It's a tough question. Clearly there is no spot for him right now, and despite the main stream media pushing the 'move Mauer to a different position,' meme, there are few ideas that could be more absurd than that, and the Twins front office agrees. Mauer isn't moving anywhere for a long time.

So with the Twins roster as currently constructed, one must believe that a trade will eventually happen. But when and to where and for what kind of return? I can't say for certain where, but generally speaking, players of Ramos' caliber are the kind that can headline all-star trades. There has been some speculation that the Twins might trade him for a closer - Heath Bell is the most common name bandied about - but I believe the Twins would be foolish to trade a prospect of Ramos' caliber for just a closer.