Twins option Ryan LaMarre to Triple-A

After cancelling Friday night’s game against the White Sox due to weather, the Twins announced that they have optioned fourth fifth outfielder Ryan LaMarre to Triple-A Rochester. LaMarre was a dark horse candidate who made the Opening Day roster out of Spring Training, and has remained hot during his limited playing time during the season, hitting 4-for-8 over six games. The Twins did not announce a corresponding move, and plan to keep LaMarre’s spot on the roster open for now.

The move both makes sense, and doesn’t make sense. With tonight’s game being snowed out, and a strong possibility the game on Saturday (and maybe even Sunday) will be snowed out too, it makes sense to leave some flexibility with the roster as we wait and see what the Twins will need when they actually play again. On the other hand, all of these cancelled games means nearly all of the Twins pitchers are fresh and ready to go. Heck, a lot of these guys will probably end up under-worked by the end of the weekend.

With all the pitchers fresh and available, it seems the Twins would opt to fill the empty roster spot with a position player. But why wouldn’t they just keep LaMarre? It’s not like he’s been struggling.

I might be a lunatic, but I have a suggestion: call up Kennys Vargas.

In many ways, it does not make sense. The Twins already have plenty of first base/DH types with Joe Mauer, Logan Morrison, and Miguel Sano on the roster. Vargas would also need to be put back on the 40-man roster, so the Twins would have to make room for him there too. Vargas would then have to stay on the 25-man roster, unless the Twins wanted to DFA him yet again to send him back down to the minors.

Yeah, this doesn’t make sense — but screw it. I want Vargas to go to Puerto Rico.

In case you forgot, the Twins are travelling to San Juan next week to play two games against the Indians at Hiram Bithorn Stadium. The Twins already made a specific effort to set up their starting rotation to allow Puerto Rico native Jose Berrios start one of the two games in front of his countrymen. Eddie Rosario, also Puerto Rican, will most likely start both games in the outfield.

Kennys Vargas? He’s also Puerto Rican, and he was pumped to play these games in his native land. He promoted the games a lot, along with his efforts to help the island recover from the devastating hurricanes last year.

So I say, bring Kennys to Puerto Rico! It doesn’t entirely make sense, and the Twins might lose him and another player trying to do it, but whatever. Would you rather watch Logan Morrison start those games as the DH? Some things are just bigger than baseball anyway.

What do you guys think? If the Twins didn’t call up Vargas, who do you think should fill the empty spot on the roster?