Plouffe to the outfield

GM Terry Ryan indicated that Trevor Plouffe will be an outfielder this coming season. He had better start shagging fly balls now, because he needs actual experience playing in the outfield. It is very alarming that Plouffe was allowed to stay at shortstop throughout his entire minor league career when he is this bad. And worse at 2B, somehow. This organization just has significant trouble with middle infielders, period.

I can hope against hope that this means a Revere-Plouffe platoon in LF. That could be a remarkably productive platoon as Revere is bound to improve upon that .624 OPS against right-handed pitchers given his minor league track record, and Plouffe is already solid against lefties (.782).

This may mean that my hope that the Twins add 5 position-playing free agents is probably dashed. There would likely be no need to add a RH OF like Andruw Jones or Magglio Ordonez. David DeJesus and Laynce Nix are two candidates to fill RF from the left side of the plate. Plouffe could platoon there as well.

Aside from that, I am still perplexed by the desire to resign Cuddyer to what could be a $13/year contract. For $13 million, the Twins could likely add Derrek Lee, Ryan Doumit, Andruw Jones and Laynce Nix, or Lee, Kelly Shoppach, and David DeJesus. And doing so would eliminate the need to overpay Kubel (in years). Cuddyer is due for a sub-par year and Kubel is injury-prone.

One thing is clear already, though, and that is the addition of Carroll and the potential platoon situation for Plouffe means the Twins should improve their offensive production against lefties.