Minnesota Twins Daily Clips Monday, March 18, 2013 Twins take pitchers to new heights. StarTribune.com (Miller) pg. 1 Souhan: Trade to Twins gives Worley new lease on life. StarTribune.com (Souhan) pg. 2 Twins hammered by Baltimore. StarTribune.com (Miller) pg. 3 Twins cut 7 non-roster players, reduce roster to 42. StarTribune.com (Miller) pg. 4 Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer, Glen Perkins return, take a day. PioneerPress.com (Berardino) pg. 5 Minnesota Twins’ Deolis Guerra OK after surgery, sent to minors. PioneerPress.com (Berardino) pg. 6 Minnesota Twins’ Scott Diamond back – in Class A. PioneerPress.com (Berardino) pg. 6 Minnesota Twins’ Ron Gardenhire has a houseful. PioneerPress.com (Berardino) pg. 7 Minnesota Twins pitcher Vance Worley hopes less is more this season. PioneerPress.com (Berardino) pg. 8 Joe Soucheray: Francis, pray for Twins fans April 1. PioneerPress.com (Soucheray) pg. 8 DR can get payback against Dutch in semifinals. MLB.com (Frisaro) pg. 10 Diamond, Swarzak expected to start season on DL. Twinsbaseball.com (Bollinger) pg. 11 Mauer, Perkins return to Twins camp after Classic. Twinsbaseball.com (Bollinger) pg. 12 Worley could be in line to start Opening Day. Twinsbaseball.com (Bollinger) pg. 12 Twins send seven players to Minor League camp. Twinsbaseball.com (Bollinger) pg. 13 Worley tosses four innings in loss to Orioles. Twinsbaseball.com (Bollinger) pg. 13 Slugging first baseman Chris Colabello among Twins’ lastest roster cuts. 1500ESPN.com (Mackey) pg. 14 Vance Worley serves up HR to J.J. Hardy in Twins’ loss to Orioles. 1500ESPN.com (AP) pg. 14 Twins outlast Pirates, top pitching prospect. Foxsportsnorth.com (AP) pg. 15 Minnesota Twins assign two pitchers to Rochester Red Wings. DemocratandChronicle.com (Mandelaro) pg. 16 Twins take pitchers to new heights Phil Miller / StarTribune.com – 3/18/13 FORT MYERS, FLA. – Some were good, some were bad, but Twins pitchers for a long time seemed to have their basic averageness in common. There were exceptions, of course, but most were medium height, medium build, a squad of Brad Radkes. Even the great Johan Santana had to fib a little to reach 6 feet tall. But something has changed on the Hammond Stadium pitchers mound. As a pitching staff, the Twins look like a pretty decent basketball team these days, lanky and imposing, and it’s not a coincidence. “You look for power arms, and a lot of times, the power pitchers are tall guys,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We definitely did talk about body types, and finding people who can throw the ball hard. We’ve got a few of those types now.” More than a few. The Twins this spring could fill almost an entire pitching staff with pitchers 6-5 or taller in their camp, and perhaps they will soon. Over the winter, they signed 6-7 starter Mike Pelfrey from the Mets. They added 6-6 Kyle Gibson and 6-7 Michael Tonkin to the 40-man roster. And they traded two of their smallest players, outfielders Denard Span (6-0) and Ben Revere (generously measured at 5-9) to acquire 6-5 Trevor May and former high school center Alex Meyer, 6-9 and perhaps still growing. ~ 1 ~ “It’s really different, isn’t it?” pitching coach Rick Anderson marveled. “It seems like [it’s] just about everybody.” So much so that 6-5 relievers Jared Burton and Tyler Robertson appear almost average size. “If there’s a brawl,” Gardenhire joked, “we’ve got protection.” Height is handy, no question, if you’re looking for dunks and rebounds. The critical question for the Twins, however, is: Can it translate into outs? The Twins believe it can, especially for such hard throwers. Simple geometry says it’s an advantage, points out Gardenhire. “As a hitter, a tough pitch to hit is a ball going down,” Gardenhire said. “You get a big guy who’s got a bit of an angle, he can get away with a little bit more than a little guy, even if he throws it just as hard.” “We talk about it all the time — angle, angle, angle,” Anderson added. “It’s nice to get these guys with some size to them, because we’re seeing them throw the ball down. The shorter you are, the flatter the pitch appears as it comes toward [the hitter].” Anderson even preaches widening that advantage when possible. He and lefthander Scott Diamond — a relatively diminutive 6-3 — were watching Meyer throw in the bullpen, when they made a suggestion. “[Diamond] said, ‘Have you ever thought about standing taller on your back leg, just to make sure you get a little more tilt?’ ” Meyer said. “I told him I had, but hearing from a guy like that convinced me.” Meyer and his fellow big men all throw relatively hard, and their velocity is accentuated by their size. The ratio of height to miles per hour isn’t definitive — 6-10 former Twin Jon Rauch topped out at only 91 mph when he was in Minnesota — but Gardenhire believes the illusion of speed can be as important as the real thing. “It’s like being side-armed — you put a little fear in the hitter when you’re bringing the ball he doesn’t see that often,” he said. The classic disclaimer about tall pitchers, however, holds that gangliness equals wildness, that the longer the limbs, the greater the chance for something to go wrong. “You look at [6-10 former Cy Young winner] Randy Johnson — he was out of control for a while until he got all the parts moving in synch,” Anderson pointed out. “Sometimes long arms and legs don’t repeat a motion very well, so we try to keep it simple for them. The guys we have, all are pretty repeatable deliveries.” Pelfrey made it a point to keep his delivery as stripped down as possible for that reason. “I always heard that, but I’ve been a guy who’s always been able to repeat it pretty close, pretty consistently,” Pelfrey said. “No long windup, no unusual delivery. My height hasn’t been a problem that way. I’d say it’s a real advantage.” Well, with one exception. He owns an .098 career batting average, and being tall has definitely not helped. “If you’re smaller, you have a smaller strike zone at the plate,” Pelfrey said. “Mine is too big.” Souhan: Trade to Twins gives Worley new lease on life Jim Souhan / StarTribune.com – 3/18/13 SARASOTA, FLA. – Some ballplayers scrawl a word or two inside of their baseball caps. Vance Worley is working on a graphic novel. He’s written his initials, even though he prefers his nickname, “Vanimal.” He’s written a rude two-word command to himself, to make his adrenaline spike. “I flip the switch as soon as I take the rubber,” he said. “You have to have the mentality that ‘I’m better than you.’ ” He’s stenciled in the initials of his aunt, who has been recovering from tumors in her stomach, and the name of his fiancée’s father, who has been in a coma for more than a year, and the name of his grandfather, who beat mouth and throat cancer after surviving diabetes and heart attacks. “I look at this every day,” he said, gazing at his writing. “It keeps me driving.” ~ 2 ~ The list of inspirational phrases and names is indelible. He’s learned that everything else in a baseball life can be erased with a phone call. On Dec. 6, he was working out on the elliptical machine at the Phillies’ facility in Philadelphia, and planning to pick up an engagement ring, when he noticed a 215 area code popping up on his phone. The third time the number flashed, he finally answered. It was Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro, who told him he’d been traded. Worley’s reaction: “What? I’m rehabbing here for you, and you traded me? Uhhhhh. OK. I’m not going to fight you.” He hung up and remembers “instant panic in the air. I need to get the hell out of all these leases and get the heck out of here.” Like most people, Worley had built his life around his job. He had just moved his stuff from California to a rented home in Jersey, and had rented a condo in Clearwater, Fla., where the Phillies train. He had met a local girl and settled down. One phone call left him paying on two leases and looking to buy a condo in Fort Myers, where the Twins train. “But I can’t get credit,” he said with a smile. “They won’t let me buy a condo. They say my contract isn’t guaranteed enough.” If the Twins correctly evaluated Worley, he should be able to sign a lease for three or more years in Minneapolis. While the Twins had been looking for the right deal for center fielder Denard Span for some time, they shocked fans by trading Span’s heir apparent, Ben Revere, to Philadelphia for Worley and pitching prospect Trevor May. May adds to the Twins’ growing array of talented arms in their farm system, and Worley, they hope, will help immediately improve one of baseball’s worst rotations. Worley finished third in the National League rookie of the year voting in 2011. In 2012, he pitched despite a sore elbow and had bone spurs removed in September, ending his season. He stayed in Philadelphia during the winter to rehabilitate his elbow, feeling he might as well be close to his home base.