who is going north?"After a couple weeks of spring baseball are in the book

It’s a three way battle Fred Lynn Jersey , but s, the most intriguing position battle for the Minnesota Twins is probably at first base. Returning slugger Tyler Austin is competing with waiver claim C.J. Cron and veteran Lucas Duda to earn the nod as the Twins primary first base option—and with Marwin Gonzalez, Mitch Garver, and eventually Miguel Sano all able to handle the position—quite possibly only one of the three will make the squad.Here are the three viable options for the Twins’ “regular” first baseman’s spring training (through Wednesday night) batting line, presented without names:Player A .313/.476/.438Player B .364/.533/.909Player C .211/.211/.263It sure looks like we already have an odd-man-out, but spring training stats are meaningless and highly variable, so let’s look at a couple larger samples. The players are in the same order.Last season:Player A .241/.313/.418Player B .253/.323/.493Player C .230/.280/.471Career:Player A .242/.337/.452Player B .260/.311/.461Player C .232/.290/.469Are you starting to see the same pattern I am? Players A and B are far superior bats to Player C, with a slight edge going to Player B. You also may have figured out by now who the players are. Player A is Lucas Duda, Player B is C.J. Cron, and Player C is Tyler Austin.Defensively, all three players profile similarly, with a slight edge going to Austin, but not by nearly enough to offset the offensive gap. Despite the fact that he is the youngest of the three options Wade Boggs Jersey , I don’t see an obvious path for Austin to land on the 25-man roster, and he will likely be traded or lost on waivers before the end of March. That leaves us with Cron, the obvious favorite anyway due to the contract he signed with the Twins this offseason, and Duda. Since Cron has outperformed Duda consistently, he is likely the top option even with the contract factor taken out. Duda being on a minor league contract means he can start the season in Rochester, and step up in case of injury or poor play. There is a chance, however, for the Twins to build a great platoon. Duda is a left-handed batter with strong splits. Cron hits from the right-handed side of the plate, but has nearly no platoon split for his career. DH Nelson Cruz, however, is a right-handed batter with a heavy platoon split. Could you use Cron more-or-less every day, while bringing in Duda as either the first baseman (with Cron at DH) or as the DH on days when tough lefties are pitching? I think it makes a lot of sense.If you keep Duda on the bench, you do lose a bit of versatility — at this point in his career http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-dustin-pedroia-jersey , its probably a stretch to ask him to even fake it at any other position, but a team with Marwin Gonzalez and likely either (or both) of Ehire Adrianza and Willians Astudillo has plenty of positional flexibility anyhow, and allows the Twins the luxury of carrying an old-school “bench bat.” In all likelihood, Cron will go to Minneapolis at the end of the month, while Duda and his minor-league contract will be sent a few hours east, to Triple-A Rochester. Austin, who is out of options, will likely not make the cut, and will be traded or lost on waivers. Which player do you think the Twins will make their first baseman to start camp? A couple of news hits come out as camp opens"With camp officially opening on Wednesday but many players having been down there for at least a couple of days, we already have some bits of news coming out from the beat reporters. A couple of things from Tuesday stood out to me, which we’ll talk about in this space.Steven Wright’s knee is still bothering himOne of the big parts of camp opening is that we start to get some news on injuries for guys that have been dealing with ailments over the winter. One of them is Steven Wright, who spoke with reporters on Tuesday. The news wasn’t terrible, and it seems the knuckleballer is at least a bit upbeat. If you’ll recall Pedro Martinez Jersey , Wright has been dealing with knee injuries for the last couple of years (this isn’t the shoulder injury that came from the John Farrell pinch running incident, which I’ve seen a few times on the interwebs). Last season, he was on and off the mound all year and was taken off the ALDS roster just one game in and didn’t come back later in the postseason. Wright made clear his goal this year is to be “game ready.” His frustration the last couple seasons has largely stemmed from being on and off the DL, and he doesn’t want to deal with that again. It certainly seems like his plan and the team’s plan is going to be to take things slow and make sure he’s ready to ramp up before he actually does. There is still a long way between today and Opening Day, of course, but with this talk I’m starting to think he might not be ready right at the start of the year. If he has to miss a few weeks at the start of the year to make sure he can be “game ready” the rest of the year, that’s certainly a trade-off the team will make. Remember, he is one of the three guys (along with Matt Barnes and Ryan Brasier) who has been mentioned as an in-house closer candidate. The Red Sox are big believers in Wright, and they’re going to do what they can to get the most out of him in 2019.The Red Sox could really use a healthy Steven WrightPhoto by Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesRed Sox shopping catchers for starting pitching helpThis one comes from Sean McAdam of the Boston Sports Journal, and is very interesting. According to McAdam’s reporting, the Red Sox are indeed shopping one of their catchers and are looking for rotation help in return. The first part about shopping a catcher is certainly no surprise, but looking for rotation help is surprising. The assumption was that, if they could get a major leaguer at all (which I’ll get to in a minute) Hanley Ramirez Jersey , it would be relief help. That doesn’t appear to be the plan here, though, as McAdam reports that Dombrowski has let it be known he wants young starting pitching in any trade. The reasoning is that they’d like to have a backup plan in case either or both of Chris Sale and Rick Porcello leave in free agency. The other part, which isn’t mentioned in the report but can be inferred, is that any starting pitcher could be converted to a relief role if necessary in 2019.The issue here, of course, is that another team has to be willing to give up a young, controllable starting pitcher for one of these catchers. I can’t see that happening without it being part of a much bigger deal than a one-for-one swap. McAdam mentions that he’s heard Blake Swihart and Christian Vzquez are more likely to be dealt than Sandy Ln, which is a little surprising but makes more sense if they are trying to maximize their return. It’s a little surprising that Vzquez in particular was singled out as a guy they could move if the return is right, as he seemed like he had the inside track for the top spot on the depth chart after his postseason. Whoever they trade, none of them have more value than a low-level lottery ticket or another Triple-A reliever to add to the pile.