Glen Perkins' latest trip to the disabled list set off a series of moves that sent Jeff Manship to the big leagues with Anthony Slama moving up to replace him at Triple-A and Loek Van Mil replacing Slama at Double-A. All three promotions are worth discussing, so let's start at the top and work our way down. Coming into this season Manship ranked ninth on my annual list of the Twins' best prospects, with the following write-up attached:

An elite high-school recruit whose career at Notre Dame was delayed by Tommy John elbow surgery, Jeff Manship came back with a strong sophomore season and was selected by the Twins in the 14th round of the 2006 draft. Signed for third-round money in the form of a $300,000 bonus, Manship made his full-season pro debut in 2007 and went 15-6 with a 2.30 ERA and 136-to-34 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 149 innings between two levels of Single-A.

He stayed back at Fort Myers to begin last year, but was promoted to Double-A after posting a 2.86 ERA with zero homers allowed in 13 starts. Manship hit the first real roadblock of his career at New Britain, going 3-6 with a 4.46 ERA while serving up eight long balls in 14 starts, but still posted a solid 62-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 76.2 innings. With a career-high 155.1 innings already under his belt, Manship made nine more starts in the Arizona Fall League, including the championship game assignment.

Manship has gone from Tommy John survivor to innings eater, logging 341.1 frames over the past two years without any injury concerns. His strikeout rate has been modest since moving past low Single-A, but he's walked just 2.3 batters per nine innings as a pro while always inducing a high percentage of grounders. Manship is already 24 years old despite not yet debuting at Triple-A and no longer has the upside he did coming out of high school, but is close to arriving in the majors as a mid-rotation starter.

Since then Manship has made 21 starts between Double-A and Triple-A, with a 3.86 ERA and 75-to-37 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 126 innings while serving up just three homers and inducing slightly over 50 percent ground balls. Managing a measly 6.1 strikeouts per nine innings at Double-A and Triple-A has lowered Manship's long-term ceiling considerably, but he continues to throw enough strikes and coax enough grounders to potentially be a fourth or fifth starter if things go smoothly.

For now he'll likely work in long relief while being on call in case the Twins need a fill-in starter, and Manship may end up in the bullpen to stay at some point depending on who emerges from the current collection of back-of-the-rotation options that also includes Anthony Swarzak, Kevin Mulvey, and Brian Duensing. Mulvey in particular profiles as a similar pitcher to Manship, but Manship has slightly better control and less of a platoon split against left-handed hitters.

Manship replacing Perkins in Minnesota opened up a spot on Rochester's staff for Slama. Finally. He's dominated at every level, posting a 1.71 ERA and 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings as a pro--including a 2.48 ERA and 93 strikeouts in 65.1 innings at Double-A this season--yet the former 39th-round pick is just now getting his first crack at Triple-A four months before his 26th birthday. Clearly the Twins don't believe that he's the real deal, but not even testing him at the minors' highest level until now is absurd.

New Britain will miss their too-old reliever with twice as many strikeouts as hits allowed, but replacing Slama with a 7-foot-1 Dutchman should hopefully ease the pain. As the tallest pitcher in professional baseball Van Mil is definitely a project, but his results have actually been very good thus far. Signed out of the Netherlands as a 21-year-old in 2005, he has a 3.06 ERA in 147 minor-league innings. Van Mil doesn't have overpowering stuff or miss tons of bats, but has still been extremely tough to hit thus far.

Van Mil earned the promotion to Double-A by posting a 2.86 ERA and 23-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 34.2 innings out of the bullpen at high Single-A, and I'm very curious to see if his success continues against stronger, more experienced competition that perhaps won't be quite so overwhelmed by a guy whose release point is basically home plate. And in one last bit of roster shuffling, 2008 third rounder and No. 35-ranked prospect Bobby Lanigan has moved up to Fort Myers as Van Mil's replacement.

Some notes I typed up last night while trying to ignore the Twins getting blown out by the Royals ...

Signed to a minor-league contract last month in the hopes that he could provide a viable alternative at second base down the stretch, Mark Grudzielanek was released Monday after going 8-for-30 with zero extra-base hits and two errors in eight games at Double-A. Twins minor-league director Jim Rantz explained that "it just wasn't the right fit." Grudzielanek had a slightly different take, saying that "they just wasted my time." Sounds like both were probably right and 12 months off hurt the 39-year-old. Oh well.

David Eckstein apparently turned down a potential July 31 trade to the Twins, telling Padres general manager Kevin Towers that he'd prefer to stay in San Diego for the rest of the season. You may recall that Ron Gardenhire campaigned for the Twins to sign Eckstein two years ago, so it's not surprising to hear that they went after him again. Gardenhire has always loved speedy, diminutive middle infielders who have no power and look like they're trying really hard, and Eckstein is the king of that group.

Russ Springer and David Weathers can be added to the long list of quality veteran relievers who've changed teams for little in return while the Twins fail to address their bullpen issues for the 15th month in a row. Also on that list: Cla Meredith, Rafael Betancourt, Joe Beimel, Tony Pena, and John Grabow. And that's just from the past month. They won't part with a mid-level prospect for a veteran arm and they won't call up Robert Delaney or Anthony Slama from the minors, which is a maddening combination.

There's been little said about contract negotiations with first-round pick Kyle Gibson, but that figures to change one way or another because the deadline to sign him is Monday. Gibson's agent explained recently that the University of Missouri right-hander is "100 percent" recovered from the forearm stress fracture that caused him to drop from consensus top-10 pick to the Twins at No. 22 overall. Talks with Gibson will apparently go down to the wire, but the Twins have already signed their next nine picks.

Speaking of draft picks, 2003 fourth rounder David Shinskie has opted to retire from baseball at the age of 25 to compete for the starting quarterback job at Boston College. Shinskie led his high school team to the Pennsylvania state championship as a senior and has four years of eligibility remaining after the 6-foot-4 right-hander went 24-30 with a 4.61 ERA and 224-to-101 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 336 innings spread over seven seasons as a minor-league pitcher.

Gardenhire ripped into both Nick Punto and Brendan Harris following Sunday's loss to Detroit and a few days before that Mike Redmond came as close to ripping into Gardenhire as you'll see. Redmond had an unproductive at-bat as part of the Twins going 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position in a loss to Cleveland and then hinted afterward that he shouldn't have been in the lineup against right-hander Fausto Carmona to begin with. Here's some of Joe Christensen's game story:

Redmond cited some numbers, explaining why Fausto Carmona was a tough assignment for him in the first place. ... Redmond is 0-for-6 in his career against Carmona, including another failed chance with a runner on third base and one out in the fourth inning.

"I did the best I could," Redmond said. "That's a tough draw for a backup player. That guy's nasty. I haven't hit a ball out of the infield off him yet. That's the way it goes. Righties hit .170 off him, and lefties hit about .370 off him."

Redmond's own splits are just the opposite. He is batting .181 against righthanders, .382 against lefties. But with Joe Mauer getting a day at designated hitter, Redmond drew the righthanded Carmona after missing lefthanders David Huff and Aaron Laffey earlier in the series.

I'm happy to see this issue brought up by Redmond and Christensen, because it's something that I've complained about for years now. During their careers Joe Mauer is 25 percent better against righties than lefties and Redmond is 26 percent better against lefties than righties, which makes them an ideal combo if used correctly. However, as the above excerpt notes Gardenhire often ignores that in planning Mauer's rest and Redmond's starts. Redmond facing a righty like Carmona is all kinds of wrong.

Last week longtime Twins reliever Eddie Guardado became just the 21st pitcher in baseball history to appear in 900 games, which is pretty amazing for a former 21st-round pick who had ERAs of 6.18, 8.47, 5.12, and 5.25 in his first four seasons. Guardado is the Twins' all-time leader in games pitched with 648, which is 32 percent more than second place Rick Aguilera at 490 and 67 percent more than active leader Joe Nathan at 387. Everyday Eddie ranks 26th on my list of the top players in team history.

Matthew Futterman of the Wall Street Journal wrote a very nice article about Rick Knapp, who after a dozen years as the Twins' minor-league pitching coordinator left the organization to become the Tigers' pitching coach. Normally it'd be easy to root for Knapp, who got his first big chance at the age of 47, but unfortunately for the Twins he's helped the Tigers go from 12th in runs allowed last season to sixth in runs allowed this year while not surprisingly cutting their walks by eight percent.

Arizona has always fancied claiming discarded Twins prospects off waivers and the Diamondbacks now have both Alex Romero and Trent Oeltjen playing regularly in their banged-up outfield. Romero is batting .291/.349/.380 in 86 plate appearances and Oeltjen is 12-for-24 (.500) with three homers since being called up last week. Back in 2007 my list of the Twins' top prospects included Romero at No. 18 and Oeltjen at No. 23, but neither ever made it to Minnesota.

Bloomberg News reports that "the Pohlad family ... stands to gain about $110 million from PepsiCo Inc.'s takeover of PepsiAmericas Inc., the second-biggest bottler of Pepsi-Cola." My suggestion? Take that money, let it collect interest for about six months, and then give everything to Mauer.

Most of the e-mails, comments, and tweets sent my way Friday afternoon weren't particularly enthused about the Twins shipping a player to be named later to Cleveland for Carl Pavano, which makes sense given his lengthy injury history and ugly looking 5.37 ERA in 21 starts with the Indians. However, even before shutting out the first-place Tigers in his Twins debut Saturday night there were plenty of reasons to like the Pavano deal.

For one thing, the price was right. Pavano signed a one-year deal with the Indians this winter that pays $1.5 million in guaranteed money and $5 million in potential incentives based on starts and innings. Because he's been healthy and effective for the first time since 2004 those incentives began to kick in recently and Cleveland's rough financial situation made shedding that commitment a no-brainer. From the Twins' point of view, Pavano costs $500,000 up front and is then basically paid on a per-start basis.

If he pitches well and stays healthy for the remainder of the schedule Pavano will take the mound 10 or 11 times for the Twins while costing around $1.5 million, because under the terms of the deal they're on the hook for just one-third of his salary, base or incentives. Toss in a PTBNL that's not expected to be a significant prospect and for a couple million bucks the Twins get a veteran starter for the final third of the season. Of course, whether that's a worthwhile investment depends on his performance.

Certainly his 5.37 ERA in 21 starts with the Indians wasn't pretty, but that doesn't accurately portray how he's pitched this year. Pavano had a brutal Indians debut, coughing up nine runs while recording three outs on April 9, and finished the first month at 0-3 with a 9.50 ERA. However, in his final 17 starts for the Indians he went 9-5 with a 4.68 ERA and 72-to-18 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 107.2 innings. Plus, even with April included Pavano had a 4.15 xFIP with the Indians that would have led the Twins' rotation:

                    xFIP
Carl Pavano         4.15
Scott Baker         4.17
Kevin Slowey        4.44
Francisco Liriano   4.69
Nick Blackburn      4.99
Glen Perkins        5.07
Anthony Swarzak     5.38

Perhaps it says more about how disappointing the Twins' rotation has been this season than how well Pavano has pitched, but either way it's not tough to make a case for him being an upgrade with Kevin Slowey out following wrist surgery and Nick Blackburn, Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins, and Anthony Swarzak struggling recently. According to xFIP the Twins' top starter has been Scott Baker at 4.17 and Pavano is nearly identical at 4.15, which is interesting given how similarly their seasons have gone.

Through four starts Baker went 0-4 with a 9.15 ERA, but he's gone 9-3 with a 4.05 ERA and 93-to-22 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 starts since. Through four starts Pavano went 0-3 with a 9.50 ERA, but he's gone 10-5 with a 4.40 ERA and 77-to-18 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 starts since. Obviously at this point in his career it would be silly to suggest that Pavano has the ability to be an impact starter, but while in Cleveland he pitched far better than his 5.37 ERA and far better than most of the Twins' starters.

His acquisition improves the rotation at a relatively minimal cost both in terms of money and prospects, and the move looks particularly shrewd now that Perkins is facing more arm issues. When the Twins pulled the trigger on Pavano they did so with the intention of making either Liriano or Perkins a reliever, which may have strengthened the bullpen and rotation. Thanks to Perkins' shoulder problems what the move does instead is keep the Twins from turning to Kevin Mulvey or Brian Duensing in the rotation.

I'm much higher on the Pavano trade than the Orlando Cabrera deal, because while somewhat similar in theoretical value their actual usefulness to the Twins is much different. Pavano upgraded the rotation and allowed the Twins to either add Liriano/Perkins to the bullpen or avoid turning to an untested, likely poor starter. On the other hand, Cabrera didn't really upgrade much of anything, because rather than simply replacing Nick Punto he just moved Punto to another position while benching Brendan Harris.

Prior to the Cabrera trade shortstop was split evenly between Punto (54 starts) and Harris (49 starts). In theory Cabrera's arrival allowed the Twins to shift Harris to second base and make Punto a backup, but because Ron Gardenhire is uncomfortable with Harris' defense there what we get instead is Punto or Alexi Casilla at second base and Harris on the bench (or at third base, whenever Joe Crede is hurt). In other words Cabrera replaced Harris, not Punto and Casilla, and that's hardly a huge upgrade.

Both trades were reasonable low-wattage pickups, but Cabrera involved giving up the 60th pick in last year's draft whereas Pavano cost a marginal prospect and some cash. Beyond that, Pavano is a clear upgrade to a sagging rotation while Cabrera merely shifts a problem to a new spot. And perhaps most frustratingly both deals show that slightly above- or below-average players are more available and less expensive to acquire than the Twins' maddening lack of action over the past 15 months suggests.