Fanfare For The Journeyman

Yikes. Plouffe is classified and grouped with Schafer and Robinson. That has gotta sting a little.

Nice discussion of journeymen and Trevor Plouffe, but I wouldn't put them in the same group.  Plouffe's salary for this year is $4.8 million.  He's made over $7 million just in the last two years and he's certainly been a solid regular.  

I don't think there's any doubt Plouffe will get that long-term multi-million dollar deal you mention, though it certainly might not be with the Twins.

Not by any definition of the term is Trevor Plouffe a journeyman.  A journeyman is  player who has just enough skills, on rare occasions displays them at important times, to continue to interest other teams in a non-starting role.  Plouffe, from what I can see, has always been in the Twins system and a starter since, 2011.  Maybe.  He is an average player. 

"Superprospect Miguel Sano" ?  The history of baseball is littered with former "superprospects".  He and Buxton are not worthy of such nomenclature until they prove their MLB worth in the upper levels of MiLB.

plouffe is a good piece to have on a good club, now that his defense has improved

I like the article and share in the hat tip to players like this, no matter how people feel the need to define them.

Plouffe feels like someone who is going to latch on with the cardinals or Giants and hit a big playoff homer someday.

Proud de is hard to get past auto correct.

I don't believe that Plouffe will be forced out upon Sano's arrival. More likely, IMO, Plouffe will stick around at 3B and Sano will have a different position.

Jamey Carroll is a journeyman. Orlando Cabrera is a journeyman. Have been with multiple organizations, come off the bench, have had moments of starting. Solid, dependable players.

Plouffe could've become a journeyman early, another Ron Washington or Denny Hocking. Instead, he played where the Twins put him and learned. He didn't have to be great as long as he showed signs of striving (Hey, Killebrew started at second, was a first and thrid baseman and outfielder...did he shine defensively anywhere).

Plouffe is being pushed like Mientkiewicz was with Morneau, A.J. with Joe.  He will become expensive. He may be worth more. He may be worthless. His first free agent contract will bear that out. Happily he doesn't have to worry about overpricing himself out of a job, except with his hometown Twins (where you can't cut a player's wages more than 20%, for example, arbitration foolishness that often happens, etc.).

When he finishes his time with the Twins, will we put him in the same category as, say, Gaetti or Koskie. He is not a Buscher or Valencia.

And a step above being a journeyman is probably the category Roy SMalley fell into. He still played a lot of positions, moved around a bit, but he always managed to find a better than half-time job for his services.

Now Nick Punto...there's a journeyman!

I don't believe that Plouffe will be forced out upon Sano's arrival. More likely, IMO, Plouffe will stick around at 3B and Sano will have a different position.

Have you or anyone else here seen what Sano's throwing is like? 

Have you or anyone else here seen what Sano's throwing is like?

Actually I have seen him play a bit in person. His arm is good. I'm more concerned that he doesn't have the agility necessary to play an adequate third base.

Kinda ironic how there was just a new article on this website about an underrated player who's next in line to receive a new contract - Trevor Plouffe. That's a pretty stark contrast to him being called a journeyman here. You usually don't see two articles with opposite points on one website.

The article I was talking about: http://twinsdaily.com/blog/536/entry-6476-warne-the-minnesota-twins%E2%80%99-secret-extension-candidate/

By "Baseball Definition" a Journeyman is someone who has been around for a long time and been in a whole bunch of different organizations. 

There it is. Journeyman. You can't just use the dictionary for every word's application. You could be an all star and still be a journeyman if you play for a different team every year. The "been around for a long time part" is the lessor part of the definition, I think. Will Myer is almost a journeyman already. Delmon Young is a journeyman.

Laborers in the Middle Ages were organized into guilds with three levels of expertise. New recruits were apprentices taken in by a Master who would teach them a trade. The new Apprentice was not given the freedom to work independently but was closely supervised until they reached the skill level of a Journeyman, one who was adequate to do the job independently but not as skilled as a master. These Journeymen might continue to work for the same Master or they might move from Master to Master or even city to city seeking to learn enough to establish themselves as a Master eventually and become independent instead of employed.

Similar systems still are in place today. My brother in law is a master electrician in the state of Minnesota with his own business. Until he gained the license as a Master electrician, he was a Journeyman and had to work under a Master Electrician. My Mom was a Minnesota Master gardener and opened her own greenhouse.

All the arguments over journeyman miss the real story line.  In today's world we call them replacement players - the ones that score zero.  They fill the places and are neither positive or negative.  Plouffe is a replacement player and has value as that.  

He is not a journeyman, a star, an all-star, but he is good and he has a place.