Two weeks ago on Gleeman and the Geek, Aaron Gleeman and I argued about Francisco Liriano. In Liriano's previous outing he had struck out 15 batters but lost the game when he gave up a grand slam in the fourth inning. Aaron chaffed at the portrayal of Liriano as "mentally weak" while I felt that Liriano, at the very least, had trouble pulling himself out of a nosedive when he started struggling. Anyone who listens to the podcast knows that Aaron and I arguing some perceived point into ...
Today is the July trade deadline. At 3:00 this afternoon (central time), the non-waiver trade deadline will come and go. The Twins have already traded Francisco Liriano. That was a given. The Twins needed to deal him before July 31 regardless of the 10 (or more) things that we hate about the actual deal itself. What would your reaction be if the Twins did not make another trade before the 3:00 deadline? What if Terry Ryan does not get an offer for Denard Span, Josh Willingham or Glen ...
The Twins got a very nice 7-6 win over the Chicago White Sox on Monday night. But the offense and defense of Denard Span and some great ninth inning work from the bottom of the order gave the Twins a walk-off win. Danny Valencia led off the ninth with a line drive single. Alexi Casilla pinch ran for him. Brian Dozier laid down a perfect bunt that AJ Pierzynski threw into right field, allowing both runners to advance. Jamey Carroll stepped up and flew out to right field, deep enough for Casilla to ...
Updated 07-31-2012 at 09:50 AM by Seth Stohs
Tomorrow is July 31, 2012 and we all might have this date branded into our memory if things don't play out right. Liriano: As we all know, Liriano pitches against us tomorrow, less than 3 days after we traded him. If real life was a movie in the making - this would be the stage for Liriano to throw a no hitter or a shutout with double digit K's. Seemingly for most of us, this trade stung a bit and seemed unnecessary because of the return. Yeah, I get it... Liriano ...
Here's my updated Twins 2012 Draft Power Rankings. I intended to update weekly, but I moved and was without internet for about a week which actually turns out nice, seems like Mondays would be a better day to update the rankings rather than Thursdays. Since the first look at our new prospects (on 7/19), five have began their professional careers. They are marked with an asterisk (*), and bring the total to 26 players. All stats were taken from BaseballReference.com and the stats for the players ...
Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- This continues the dialy trade talk updates for the Twins and of action around the league that influences the Twins trade moves, up until the deadline. You can find all the older updates here, in reverse chronological order. Here is the Twins Trade Talk the past 24 hours or so: Fransisco Liriano to the Chicago White Sox is old news. Here are profiles of the players the Twins received in return. ...
Original post from North Dakota Twins Fan ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The moment many Twins fans had been waiting for over the course of the last week finally happened during the weekend; Francisco Liriano and his expiring contract were dealt away from the Twins. After seeing other teams walk away with huge halls for rental players like Liriano, the expectations were decently ...
When the news came down this weekend that the Twins had traded Francisco Liriano to the White Sox for a pair of middling 23-year-old prospects, the reaction around here was understandably negative. The same questions echoed in the minds of fans across the state. Why did the Twins deal Liriano in the wake of his worst start of the season? Why did they back away from their stated goal of adding young, high-upside talent? And why – ...
Originally posted at k-bro's baseball blog I suppose you probably already know by now that the Twins traded Francisco Liriano, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. As I was thinking about getting ready for bed on Saturday night (yeah, this was at about 10pm; I'm a fuddy-duddy), I went to check Twitter quick before plugging in my phone. And in the five minutes since I had previously checked Twitter, it had exploded with news that the Twins had traded Frankie ...
Updated 07-30-2012 at 12:57 AM by Kirsten Brown
Aaron and John talk about the Francisco Liriano trade, break down the prospects from the White Sox and the Twins' reasoning for the deal, get sad with Otis Redding, welcome back Danny Valencia, look ahead to potential other moves before the deadline, marvel at Lew Ford, update Alex Wimmers' health, and then John leaves and Aaron does a solo podcast with the help of Twitter questions. Here are: the podcaststhe rss feed if you want to subscribe andthe podcast on iTunes. ...
The Liriano deal is done. When I heard this deal, and the timing of the deal I was quite surprised. First, why are we trading top tier potential pitching to the AL Central? Why are we trading before his next scheduled start? Are you sure there isn't going to be a better deal out there? I can't answer these questions but I can speculate. My speculation is that Liriano is hiding an injury, didn't want to take the chance at him putting a stinker out there vs the Indians and lose all ...
Ok. So Liriano has been traded to the White Sox for two marginal prospects. Let's look at at a few things we can assume to be correct: 1) The Twins were not going to offer Liriano the $12.5 mil qualifying offer at the end of the year. 2) The Twins do not want to roll the dice with Liriano in the future (ie long term contract). 3) The Twins made the best deal they could as the deadline approached. Like it or not, 2 low level prospects was it. Now, Let's look ...
The Twins finished their sweep against the Indians this afternoon (in dominant fashion too, outscoring the Indians 28-6), but that’s not nearly the biggest news to transpire since Saturday evening’s convincing win. At exactly 10pm last night – exactly the time I decided to go to bed a little early – the White Sox announced on their Twitter account that they had acquired Francisco Liriano for Eduardo Escobar and Pedro Hernandez. It didn’t take long for everybody to hate ...
I just finished looking through the stats of our minor league affiliates from AAA down to the Appy League. When looking at pitchers I first look at WHIP, then k's to innings ratio and finallly k's/bb's ratio. I know there are many other stats/metrics but it's quick and easy to see who's having a good year and who isn't. So, give me some reason to be optimistic about our minor league pitching at this point. I'm not seeing much reason and really not seeing much dominance on anyone's part. It's ...