Minnesota Twins

You only have two choices: will he be better or worse in 2013?

2012 Recap
Given the clustermess that was 2011, most Minnesota Twins fans would have been happy just to see Joe Mauer on the field last year. They did - kinda.

Mauer not only stayed healthy, but set a career high with 647 plate appearances and 147 games played. However, exactly half of his starts were at catcher (72 games), with the rest happening at designated hitter (42 games) and first base (30 games). I'll leave you to debate how that impacts his value.

What is not debatable is the he returned to being elite offensively. He was in the AL batting race until the last weekend. His .416 on-base percentage led the league. He hit double-digit home runs (albeit barely) for the first time since his MVP campaign. And he posted an 861 OPS, tops for AL catchers.

Why He'll Be Worse
Don't look now, but like a certain blogger, our boy Joe turns ...

The Twins have been busy adding mediocre arms to their starting rotation this offseason but off in the wings Scott Diamond is preparing for his second full seasons as a big league starter. Diamond burst onto the scene last season with a very impressive first half of the season. He would come back down to earth a little bit in the second half but he was still the best starter out of a very mediocre starting core. In his second full season as a starter, Diamond will have to find a way to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
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A new year is upon us, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine the Twins' resolution for 2013: Get better. After consecutive putrid seasons that were essentially over by the All-Star break, the club is aiming to field a more competitive group in the coming campaign and beyond.

Certainly they've made some nice moves to address the "beyond" part, but what about the short-term? As I discussed with Aaron on the Gleeman and the Geek podcast over the weekend, there's a sizable difference between striving to compete and actually contending. For Minnesota, the latter is highly unlikely this year but the former should be expected.
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The New Year generally brings with it new beginnings. As we enter into a new year of Twins baseball, I can’t help but think Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire might be a little concerned about a new beginning in his future. For the first time in his decade-plus tenure as manager, Gardenhire will enter the 2013 season without a contract extension in place that carries him beyond the coming year.

Following an AL worst 96-loss season, Twins General Manager Terry Ryan promised to make improvements to the team. Ryan began by shaking up the coaching staff. Not wasting anytime, Ryan handed bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek, third base coach Steve Liddle, first base coach Jerry White and head trainer Rick McWane their pink slips on October 4, one day after closing a second consecutive losing season with a 1-2 road loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Scott Ullger and Joe Vavra were also reassigned to coaching first and third base respectively. ...

2012 has come and gone and there were plenty of story lines that comprised the year that was for the Minnesota Twins. After a decade of winning baseball, the Twins have suffered through back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 2000. Minnesota has been the worst team in the American League for two seasons but there were still some signs of life from the hometown nine.

Willingham's monster year: Last offseason the Twins had a choice to make when it came to free agent outfielders. Michael Cuddyer had been with the team since he was drafted and he had become a fan favorite but it was time to go in another direction. Josh Willingham became the man for the job and to say it was quite the year for the burly outfielder would be an understatement. ...

Jayson Stark of ESPN likes to try and find some strange but true things that happened in the baseball season. He picks out his strange but true player of the year, game of the year, injury of the year, etc. There are some entertaining items included in his list and I encourage you to check out his entire post over at the four-letter network's site.

One of his strange but true tidbits from this season revolves around Ryan Doumit and a strange feat he was able to accomplish in 2012. At the beginning of September, the Twins were playing at US Cellular Field against the Chicago White Sox. Minnesota would easily handle Chicago in the game by a final score of 18-9 and the lopsided win helped Doumit to reach his accomplishment. ...