Twins Sign Grudzielanek

Posted by John on July 20, 2009 under John | Read the First Comment

I just said if the Twins win from now until the trade deadline that the front office would make a move to improve this team. I guess it only took two wins, but I also was expecting something a little more than Mark Grudzielanek.

Grudzielanek was signed yesterday to a minor league deal and will report immediately to the Golf Coast League. Now I don’t have anything against Grudzielanek, in fact, as a backup role player I really like the signing. However, this has got to be just a chip in GM Bill Smith’s gameplan to improve the ball club.

Grudzielanek hasn’t played a baseball game at any level in 2009 and played in just 86 big league games in 2008. He’s not a MLB starter and you know what, neither is Nick Punto, Matt Tolbert, and in 2009 Alexi Casilla either. This offseason I was very opposed to the Nick Punto signing and if you want a refresher you can read about it here. In retrospect I would have loved to see the Twins sign Mark Grudzielanek for $1 million rather than Punto for $8.5 million, and then use the other $7.5 million to sign a real middle infielder and still have extra left over for another bullpen arm.

I don’t want to be too hard on Grudzielanek. In fact, I’d love to see him make the club and succeed, hopefully at the expense of Punto, Casilla, or Brian Buscher’s roster spot. I just hope Bill Smith has another trick up his sleeve.