Laffee Tiffee

I guess word must have filtered down to Fort Myers that Stick & Ball Guy is bored with the spring training bit. So just to add a little more spicy drama to the final two weeks of exhibition baseball, Gardy now tells Mark Sheldon at mlb.com that Terry Tiffee is mos def a primary contender to play 3rd base or make the club as the lefty bat off the bench.

"I'm not stuck on sending him to Triple-A if he's not one of my starters," Gardenhire said. "If he looks like he's going to be one of the better players down here and I can use him off the bench, I would do that with Terry Tiffee. It's not set that he has to go to Triple-A to play every day."

Tiffee may have felt his nerves yesterday as he muffed a couple choppers at the hot corner in the 3rd inning, but he compensated by going 3-for-3 at the plate, including a double, and scoring two runs. It's really the potential usefulness of that bat coming off the bench that Gardy is evaluating anyway, right?

In that regard, Tiffee has little competition stacked against him so far. The man who was brought in possibly to fill that role of backup corner infielder and lefty pinch-hitter, Eric Munson, has yet to make an impression in camp, and Michael Ryan is scuffling, while Tiffee is hitting .308 and offers the appealing versatility of being a switch-hitter. Of course if he could win the fulltime job at 3rd base and move Cuddyer to 2nd, he'd deserve my deepest thanks for finally bumping Tattoo Louiee to the bench... but I know I'm getting ahead of myself.

The bad news is that if both Jason Bartlett and Tiffee make the Opening Day roster, it's almost certainly the end of the line for Michael Restovich in a Twins uniform. Juan Castro has to be a roster lock because of his two-year contract, and if Gardy is thinking that Nick Punto is in the mix to start at 2nd base then he must have decided that he wants him at least as a utilityman. Factor in Matt LeCroy and Mike Redmond, and if Bartlett is the regular SS, there can only be room for one more player on the bench. If it is Tiffee, or it has to be a lefty bat, then Resto has to go.

It's sad that Restovich, formerly a blue-chip prospect and yet blocked on the organizational ladder even by the likes of Dustan Mohr, would finally have to get the boot because Gardy has a fetish for stockpiling futility infielders. I don't care that Resto did have a poor season in AAA last year. The upside to keeping a solid righthanded bat who can play OF is still greater than the benefits of keeping Nick Punto (or Juan Castro, or Luis Rivas) hanging around. But there it is. Throughout the season, every time you see Jacque Jones flailing at a lefty slider in the dirt, and the only late-inning substition option may be to bat LeCroy for him once then play the rest of the game with Punto in his spot, bow your head and think about the decision they're about to make here.