Only the most committed optimist genuinely sees the Twins as a threat to win AL Central at this point.

Realistic goals for this team are:

• to develop a starting rotation that is capable of contending for a divisional title. They have a lot of young talent from which to sculpt that rotation, but they have to pick the right pieces and see who can handle the workload.

• to develop Carlos Gomez. Go-Go is capable of changing games in either direction. He has had some dismal at-bats and shown abilities that the Twins have never had in my 40 years of following them.

• to figure out what they’re doing in the middle of the infield.

The first two have fairly obvious directions to take. The infield issue does not.

The Twins have changed three of the four regular infield spots from last season. It’s Morneau and the imports — Adam Everett, Brendan Harris and Mike Lamb, with holdover Nick Punto and fringe prospect Matt Tolbert in reserve.

None of those five is a complete player.

Lamb has been a platoon player for eight seasons with the Rangers and Astros and carries a reputation as a defensive liability. (From my limited observation, the issue with him in the field is with his throwing.) Everett and Punto are equally impotent at the plate but are good defensively. Harris, like Lamb, can hit but appears to be barely passable in the middle infield. And Tolbert is something of a mystery, although he has provided some sound, professional at-bats in the first week.

This is a challenge for Ron Gardenhire, who has exhibited little inclination in his time at the Twins helm to use structured platoons. His preference is to find “the hot hand” and ride that player until he cools off. This collection doesn’t fit that model. This is a collection of specialists, demanding a manager capable of shuffling the pieces around.

Here, for example, is a puzzle to consider: Defensive specialist Punto has played strictly at third base so far. Subbing for Lamb makes sense; putting one of the infield’s two most reliable glovemen at third while leaving Harris or Tolbert at second largely wastes Punto’s strength.

Fans old enough to remember Earl Weaver’s work with the Baltimore Orioles in the late ’70s and early ’80s can quickly decipher what the Earl of Baltimore would do with such a collection. Lamb and Harris would platoon at third. Everett and Punto would be the regulars in the middle infield, and if the Twins were behind or tied late, Weaver would deploy waves of pinch hitters for his middle infielders — as he did for the likes of Mark Belanger and Rich Dauer.

Gardenhire lacks the inclination to platoon even the most obvious candidates — witness his stubborn use of Jacque Jones against lefties. But he couldn’t use the Weaver recipe even if he wanted to.

Weaver seldom carried as many as 10 pitchers, preferring to go with nine or even eight. He could — and did — load up his roster with outfielders and first basemen. Gardenhire — unable, as Weaver could, to assume that his starters would consistently get through the seventh inning — feels compelled to carry 12 pitchers.

Twelve pitchers mean four reserve position players at the start of the game. And that’s not enough to manage a game the way Weaver did.