Minnesota Twins

The Twins invited a staggering 66 players to big-league camp this year, which seems more than a little excessive when you consider that only 25 will make the Opening Day roster and very few of those spots are legitimately up for grabs.

So why the prodigious assembly at Lee County Sports Complex? I'd guess it has something to do with the coaching staff wanting a chance to familiarize themselves with as many guys as possible. Forty-five different players either took a swing or threw a pitch for the Twins last year, and while the team is hoping for better health this time around, nothing is guaranteed and they'll want to know what's going to be available when help is needed.

Today, I'll take a look at some of the positions and players worth keeping an eye on over the next six weeks, eventually taking a stab at projecting the Opening Day roster.
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When the Twins acquired Carl Pavano in August of 2009, his fastball was averaging almost 91 miles per hour and he was striking out 16 percent of the batters he faced. In two seasons since, his velocity has dropped by two miles per hour and his K-rate has descended steadily, to 13 percent in 2010 and 11 percent in 2011.

Among qualifying major-league starters, only Brad Penny had a lower K/9 mark last year than Pavano's 4.1. A lack of whiffs isn't necessarily a death knell, especially when you can limit walks and homers, and Pavano's propensity for pitching to contact has helped him efficiently rack up 220 innings in consecutive years, but in order to succeed with this style a pitcher needs help from his defense and a certain measure of luck.
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Don't believe the hype. There might be 66 guys in Twins spring training, but they aren't really competing for roster spots. In fact, there may not be a single roster spot to compete for.

How come? Because of "options." Options are a MLB administrative rule that limits how long a team can keep a player on their 40-man roster but keep them in the minors. Basically, they have three years before they need to commit to bringing that player to the majors. For a little more on it, check out this entry, where I compared it to the amount of time before you move from dating to married.
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Twins Rule 5 draft pick Terry Doyle was the star guest on last night’s SethSpeaks.net Weekly Minnesota Twins Podcast. The right-hander comes to the Twins organization after spending the past few seasons in the Chicago White Sox organization. The New Hampshire native went to Boston College where he went four years, was drafted twice and graduated with a math major. He teamed with the Twins prospects on the Mesa Solar Sox roster in the Arizona Fall League where he went 4-0. All told, last season, he passed the 200 innings pitched count. He is certainly ...

Aaron's car finally kicked, so we take this opportunity to go through each of the Twins players and talk about our expectations, including which car we would compare them to. (It's better than it sounds.) 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).

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As many can tell I am not a typical Twins blogger in that my posts are very infrequent. That is because I go to school in Texas and am very busy. I know everybody is busy, but for me my blogging is a hobby that I only do if I have time for it. I will blog more in the summer when I don’t have classes, but I felt the need the need to write my feelings with how everything is going with the Twins right now.


As many of you know I was 30 years old when I went back to College and will ...