Let’s suppose Gardenhire’s love-of-grit means Tolbert keeps his job (and actually manages to be decent when called upon) and Hughes goes to AAA. Let’s suppose Hughes tears it up. Let’s further suppose that while Casilla is actually decent and Nishioka’s pretty good, (I raise this because I think this is firmly in the realm of the possible) Michael Cuddyer spends the first half of the season (say, until mid or late July) sucking as much as he did last year (when he posted an atrocious .4 WAR in SIX HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE PAs).

Is there ANY chance the Twins cut bait outright on Cuddyer, give Kubel the RF starts v. RHP and call up Hughes as full time RH DH/RF (rather than utility guy)?

In other words, is Hughes's only hope of regular playing time on a team already effecitvely carrying 2 DHs a Casilla fail, and how deep does the organization’s love of Michael Cuddyer’s declining sub-averageness and its inability to identify such go? Is there another organization in baseball (other than KC w/Jason Kendall) who would have so constantly and insistently touted the virtues of a guy who was by every objective measure a pretty bad MLB player? (team MVP barf)

EDIT: Since I'm not sure I made it clear enough, I am talking about a mid-season scenario, NOT the Opening Day Roster.