As Twins prepare for camp, things seem back to normal

FORT MYERS, Fla. — It isn't starting a month late and being compacted into four harried weeks, there won't be any mask requirements or social distancing in the dugout, and let's all hope that the whole enterprise isn't shut down three weeks early. After three consecutive spring trainings disrupted by factors both contentious and contagious, the Twins gather in southern Florida this week for a training camp that they are determined will be defined by one simple word:

Normal.

"That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?" Derek Falvey, the Twins' president of baseball operations, daydreamed. "Everyone deserves a lot of credit for adapting to some difficult circumstances with the lockout and COVID, but I think we're all ready to just settle in and have a normal camp this year."

But normal doesn't mean uneventful. When the Twins' pitchers and catchers conduct their first formal workout on Thursday — the position players follow suit four days later — they will begin the six-week process of whittling their roster, onboarding the newcomers, sharpening skills and absorbing some radical new rules.

Two consecutive seasons have ended with losing records and postseason absences, and just a month ago, most fans would have resigned themselves to a third. But Carlos Correa's return to Minnesota after two higher bidders withdrew their offers electrified the team, the front office, and much of the fan base. What seemed a cross-your-fingers route to success now appears much more plausible.

"I really am proud of the work that our crew put in, our player personnel group put in, that Rocco [Baldelli, the manager], the staff, everybody put in to try to get us to a place where we feel we have a really deep roster and a really talented roster," Falvey said. "So I'm excited about it. Now we've got to go play the games and prove it. But we think our team is ready to compete this year, for sure."

With bats and balls being unloaded in Fort Myers, then, here are a few factors that could make this entirely normal spring stand out.

In addition to committing to six more seasons of an All-Star shortstop at the highest salary in team history, the Twins also enticed an accomplished, veteran catcher to sign for three years, traded for a versatile backup infielder who has been a starting shortstop for two years, then swapped a prospect for one of the few outfielders whose defense rivals Byron Buxton's.

Yes, Carlos Correa, Christian Vazquez, Kyle Farmer and Michael Taylor all help to give the Twins an up-the-middle defensive backbone that figures to snuff out plenty of rallies.

"You always want to be strong up the middle. But getting someone like Vazquez, who could really control the running game," makes him a timely pickup, Falvey said. And with defensive shifts being reined in, adding players with the range of Correa, Farmer and Taylor could help limit the number of balls the defense won't be able to cover.

"So yes, we think our team is better defensively than where we were last year," he said.

Along with the trade acquisition of Pablo Lopez and the expected return to health of Buxton, Kenta Maeda, Tyler Mahle and Alex Kirilloff, though, the Twins might open camp with few unclaimed spots — perhaps only one or two — on the 26-man Opening Day roster to dole out.

Nick Gordon, off a breakthrough 2023, could find himself competing for the final utility spot, perhaps with outfielders Trevor Larnach or Matt Wallner or Kyle Garlick. Bailey Ober is a question mark, too; can he oust one of the five veterans from the starting rotation, or earn a temporary bullpen spot?

Absent a surprise, that may be all the mystery to the team's final cuts in March.

The Twins believe they added lots of depth during the offseason, much needed after one of the most injury-plagued seasons in franchise history.

They also added what they hope is their secret weapon to make that depth far less necessary.

Nick Paparesta, who once helped try to keep Baldelli healthy in Tampa Bay, will now head the Twins' trainers room as the new head athletic trainer.

"He's always impressed [me]. I was pretty confident we were getting one of the best athletic trainers in baseball," Baldelli said of Paparesta, who spent the past dozen seasons in the same job with the Athletics. "The way he establishes our training room, almost the ground rules and the way we're going to operate, he's been laying that out since the first day he came aboard. I think our guys will respond well to his direction."

No trainer can prevent every injury, but the Twins believe Paparesta's relationship with players will lead to better evaluations and better decisions about courses of action to take when injuries occur.

"He's going to have a huge impact," Baldelli said.

On their first day in camp, Baldelli is planning tutorials, almost graduate-level classes, in the new rules that MLB has adopted for 2023: Bigger bases, new limits on defensive shifts, and a pitch clock. And once players begin to master the nuances of the new rules, many of them will leave camp for a week or two.

Yes, new rules and the upcoming World Baseball Classic will give this spring camp a unique flavor. The rule changes are unfamiliar to most veteran players, so they will spend plenty of time adjusting to the 20-second-between-pitch limits imposed on both hitters and pitchers, and learning how best to position themselves with a rule mandating that all infielders must have their feet on the dirt as the ball is pitched, and two must be stationed on either side of second base.

Pitchers will learn to cope with limits on pickoff throws, and stepping off the rubber, too.

"We've had a lot of discussions about how it will impact the game," Baldelli said, "but in a lot of ways, you won't really understand until you live under them."

Meanwhile, seven players currently on the 40-man roster, plus camp invitee Jose De Leon, will depart camp in early March to represent their home countries in the fifth WBC tournament, this one delayed for two years by the pandemic. Oddly, aside from top infield prospect Edouard Julien being selected to Team Canada and Pablo Lopez pitching for Venezuela, the rest of the Twins — Jorge Lopez, Jose Miranda, Jovani Moran, Emilio Pagan and Vazquez — will all be a part of the Puerto Rican team, along with former Twins Jose Berrios, Eddie Rosario and Hector Santiago.