Newly signed Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Livan Hernandez is one of the best innings-eaters in baseball.

Former Twins Johan Santana and Carlos Silva tossed a combined 421 innings last year. Hernandez would throw that many by himself if you let him. This guy doesn't ever want to come out of a game. I don't know how many times I've looked at a boxscore to see that he got shelled for five runs in the first inning and then kept going through the eighth inning.

Hernandez is not a low earned-run average, high-strikeout guy like Santana. After all, there is only one Johan Santana. Hernandez is more like Silva than Santana.

Don't go thinking that this is a signing like the Ramon Ortiz or Sidney Ponson deals last year. Hernandez is 33 years old, but he's way solid. See his statistics at http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=115817.

He's like a Brad Radke, capable of winning 15 or 17 games, posting as low as a 3.20 ERA, and showing brilliance once in a while. He's also had bad years, like the past two, when his ERA has risen well above his career ERA of 4.25.

But there are benefits to having Hernandez in the Twins rotation.

One, he'll save your bullpen arms. Glen Perkins (if he's in the pen rather than the rotation), Dennys Reyes, Joe Nathan, Jesse Crain, Juan Rincon, and Pat Neshek are going to see a lot of work this year. Young kids, which fill in the starting five after Hernandez, are apt to implode once in a while. If Hernandez implodes, he pretty much finishes the game anyway. In each of the past eight years, he's thrown no fewer than 200 innings. This 6-foot-2, 245-pound man eats more innings than country apple pies. Crazy but also true.

Two, the Twins have had success with getting the most out of aging arms. Kenny Rogers, Jack Morris, and Bert Blyleven are prime examples of key pitchers who pitched great here during important winning seasons and probably taught the rest of the pitchers a thing or two, too.

Think of the amazing younger pitchers who turned in stellar years alongside these guys -- Scott Erickson and Kevin Tapani, Frank Viola and Allan Anderson, Santana and Silva. If a young rotation is to turn into a formidable one, a veteran presence is key. I guess that's point No. 3.

Four, it doesn't hurt publicity to have a pitcher in the rotation that we're sure we're going to see for more than five innings. Big media has been fond of saying lately, over and over and over, that we would've had a rotation with Boof Bonser and Scott Baker, a career total of 48 starts to each of their names, as the most veteran pitchers. Hernandez has 350. Who's going to buy tickets to see a team that can't show it'll be close to winning?

The Twins are making some gutsy moves, bringing in some veteran talent, and hoping to win against the powerful squads in Detroit, Cleveland, and elsewhere. Your local nine will field a younger, faster, better-hitting team than last year. The pitching will be worse than last year. Defense is up in the air -- at least Michael Cuddyer and Craig Monroe are not really in the hunt for becoming centerfielders.

And the rotation will be better than projected. Good move, Twins. Not a blockbuster or season changer, but every little bit helps. We have lots of the pieces of a competitive club. Whether it's enough to battle for the division lead, who knows?

Either way, I can't wait for the season to start.