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Series Preview: The Angels By The Numbers

92.5 – The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Angels will win this year. That’s the highest number of any team in the AL West.

73 - The “over/under” estimate from casinos on the number of games the Twins will win this year.

Offseason

317,500,000 – The dollars the Angels guaranteed to pitcher CJ Wilson and slugger Albert Pujols when they signed them this offseason.
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I know this comes as a shock to a lot of you, but I like to eat. And drink. And I like baseball. And especially outdoor baseball. So when I find out there is a Food Preview at my favorite outdoor baseball park, there is roughly a 3050% chance the I'm going to be there, with or without access. That's how yesterday played out, but I was conscientious enough to at least tweet about it and take a bunch of pictures. Let's roll through them and you can pick out for yourself what you're craving this year ...

Pioneer Press sports reporter Ben Goessling joins Aaron and John to talk about the Twins final roster decision and media access. Here are:

• the podcasts
  
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
  
• the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

I know the Twins still have five days until they get to play the Orioles, but I can’t wait. The roster is set. There are a couple more meaningless games against the Rays, because you can’t play enough meaningless games against the Rays. And then a game versus the Miracle? Really? I’ll be damned if I’m not going to look forward to Friday.

Orioles By The Numbers

Overall
69.5 – The over/under Vegas set for Orioles wins this year. Which means if they go 70-92, they ...

"My gawd - THEY are afraid of US? Really?"

That's the thought that went through my head last night when a flame war broke out on Twitter between two local groups that had established a uneasy truce in recent years: corporate media and independent writers, commonly labeled bloggers. The critical topic? Baseball.

Or rather, that’s the subject matter about which the involved parties write. The topic was the power of independent writers and the checks and balances ...

Five weeks. Just five weeks. Here's what you magnificent people have been doing in the five weeks since pitchers and catchers reported:

• We’re up to 1100 registered members, and nearly 500 of them have contributed to the community.
• The forum holds 500 discussion threads that have generated over 5000 individual posts, or about 100/1000 per week.
• 321 individual blog posts by our members on 62 blogs, or about nine every day.
• Those have been read by 34,765 unique visitors who have

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Big roster announcements prompt a debate about the Twins making decisions based on spring training performances. Here are:

• the podcasts
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
• the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

Fueled by interviews with assistant GM Rob Antony and manager Ron Gardenhire, yesterday became the best day of the year for Twins spring training news. The result? Almost every projected lineup you saw this offseason was probably wrong. Instead, you’ll like see a whole lot of Josh Willingham playing left field, Ryan Doumit playing right field, Justin Morneau as the designated hitter and Chris Parmelee playing first base.

The shakeup happens twelve days before the regular season starts ...

When the Twins sent Tsuyoshi Nishioka down, they admitted that they might need to replace him with a guy from another team’s roster. They’re right. Looking at the guys that remain in camp, there isn’t another really good option, at least not one that can play shortstop.

Fortunately, this is the right time to find just such a player. At the end of spring training, teams make all kinds of guys available: players without options, Rule 5 draft picks or just guys that are dropped from the ...

In this week's episode, John and Aaron sip some Nordeast and talk about Nishi's demotion, Baker's injury, some surprising Twins performances, and what it all means for the Twins Opening Day roster. Here are:

• the podcasts
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
• the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

The news that Scott Baker is injured….
Geek Chorus: Hold it – NEWS? Is that really news? At this point, wouldn’t it be news if Baker got out of spring training completely healthy? Isn’t “Scott Baker is injured in spring training” the status quo? Nobody says it’s news when it’s 70 & sunny in San Diego. It’s only news here because it’s March and Minnesota.

Touché. Anyway, with Baker taking those first critical steps to yet another underachieving and frustrating season, ...

It’s still early in spring training – early enough so that our eyes could be fooling us from this bright sun thing – but maybe there’s some hope for the Twins bullpen after all.

The bullpen has been a sore spots for Twins fans for…wow…how long has it been? This offseason, obviously. Last season, for sure. 2010 was a bit of respite, though there was enough panic to trade away Ramos Wilson for Matt Capps. In 2009 it struggled beyond Joe Nathan and Matt Guerrier. 2008 was REALLY bad up ...

Aaron & the Twins Geek discuss Perkins' new contract, the Twins history of long-term contracts and then review Vegas' over-under predictions for the Twins and the rest of the AL. Here are:

• the podcasts
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
• the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

Let’s be clear: ultimately, it’s about the wins. I get into at least a half dozen debates per month where I feel the need to remind people that all this fun baseball stuff we analyze – coaching tactics, offseason pickups, roster changes, revenue tendencies, trades, minor league development – are not goals in and of themselves. They are the means to an end. And that end is wins.

That said, even if the Twins somehow win the AL Central, 2012 will answer several questions that will seriously ...