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The Butera problem goes like this - Drew Butera is both horrible at hitting baseballs and beloved by Twins fans. If only there was a way to keep him around Target Field without letting him get to the plate . . . Guess what? There is. Drew Butera should be the Twins mascot. There are lots of reason why Butera could step into TC Bear's shoes without much difficulty. -- He's kind of a wee little guy, and it seems like that helps with fitting into mascot suits. -- Whenever I'm at a game, i
This is a regular weekly feature at The Tenth Inning Stetch and is partially reposted here. You can find the original here Here is this week's installment (heavily influenced by Spring Training) : Wishing my best to Joel Zumaya, who's career with the Twins for all practical purposes ended last Sunday. Several media outlets have mentioned that he is considering retiring from baseball and becoming a professional fisherman. Terry Ryan indicated that the Twins most likely will replace Zumaya
The following was originally posted at http://www.knuckleballsblog.com I realize I’m several days late to the party in terms of discussing the arbitrator’s ruling in favor of Brewers’ star Ryan Braun, but it took me a while to come to grips with exactly how I feel about it. I’ve now done that and I’ve concluded one thing for certain… I want the movie rights. Before you scoff, remember that Hollywood made a successful movie last year about Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane. Sure, it helpe
Well, I have exactly a week left before spring training and, I’m sure just like many of my teammates, there are plenty of things on my mind. The Emotions At one end of the spectrum, spring training brings about feelings of excitement and readiness that I cant really put into words. We’ve all quietly prepared ourselves. We know what we need to do. We can’t get moved up levels while were at home in the off-season. This is what its all about. It’s go time. At the other end of the spectrum, however
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q9yTJA0HubY/T0u2kqT2SdI/AAAAAAAABGo/0my5j4SyCow/s320/Dozier+Twins.jpg One of the Twins biggest offseason investments was in the form of 38-year old middle infielder Jamey Carroll. The versatile free agent was brought to the organization to help solidify a middle infield that waffled through a gargantuan amount of issues in 2011. He seems to get better with age and the Twins are hoping their two-year investment in the elder statesman can continue to lead to success from
Aaron and John talk about pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training, Justin Morneau's discouraging quotes about his health status, Sean Burroughs' odds of making the roster, Aaron's ongoing car saga, John's marriage, and a bunch of mailbag questions. 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 get this one out of the way before the season starts. Some knowledge about baseball is much easier to get from personal observation than from statistics. (Does he look good in the field? Is he a confident or tentative baserunner?) Other knowledge of baseball is much easier to get from statistics than from personal observation. (How often does he hit into double plays? How many defensive plays does he make in a season?) In those situations where you can go either with what you see on th
It is easy to question the motive behind some of the moves that the Twins have made. Many people get caught up in the moment and feel that a move needs to be made. After Prince Fielder signed with the Tigers, many fans expressed disappointment in the Twins' front office. I assure you that Terry Ryan knows what he is doing. He is responsible for six division titles and much of the success over the past decade. He did it by building from within, not by making a big splash in Free Agency. The Twins
Twins Daily’s Seth Stohs tweeted that this morning on ESPN1500’s Judd & Phunn show, co-host Joe Anderson, aka “Phunn”, “just bashed blogs and big-timed all fans for not being in the clubhouse.” Anderson apparently said that only then could bloggers and fans have opinions. Not having heard the rant live (you can likely go to the show’s webpage and catch it on-demand shortly), I cannot comment on the overall tone of Anderson’s remarks. He’s a radio guy that is likely making a statement just
In his efforts to augment a bullpen that last year ranked last in the league in ERA, FIP and WHIP, Terry Ryan's moves essentially amounted to re-signing Matt Capps and adding Joel Zumaya to replace the departed Joe Nathan. That was hardly a recipe for guaranteed substantial improvement, and now with Zumaya's unfortunate yet unsurprising injury news, Ryan's passive approach to addressing this unit in a buyer's market looks all the more irresponsible. With their sole bullpen pickup gone for
If you're a Twins fan, you've questioned Ron Gardenhire's ability to manage. Even if you didn't question it before 2011, you do now. After a catastrophic season, any reasonably minded baseball fan would wonder if the man leaning on the dugout fence is going to fix his team or make it worse. If you're a fan like me, you're not in the dugout with Ron Gardenhire. Gardy has never coached me, nor has he attempted to coach me. I can analyze his performance based on what I see on television and read
This was originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch and partially reposted here for space considerations. The original can be found here. Joel Zumaya left the mount on Saturday with elbow discomfort, cutting his workout short. Terry Ryan announced on Sunday that an MRI showed that he has torn his UCL, will undergo Tommy John surgery and not pitch for a month. It is unclear whether the Twins released him yet, but at this point that is a technicality, because by releasing him they will sa
We used to bike to the Denver, Iowa, Kwik Trip (before it became Kwik Star) to buy baseball cards. I'd prop my dirt bike up on its kick stand, ignore it when it fell over anyway, and scramble into the store to buy packs of Topps and Donruss baseball cards. I didn't really know baseball at the time, so every card boasting a name I'd heard of was pure gold to me. I thought I had a pretty sweet collection going until my friends told me all I had were a bunch of commons. I couldn't even pretend l
Originally posted at k-bro's baseball blog. I didn't intend to start up the paper doll machine until the season started. After all, the point of it is to show who's been put on the Disabled List, and they don't really do that during Spring Training. But this one is a special case because ... well, I just feel so darned bad for him. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-apx70TKPH68/T0rm0Zrp9yI/AAAAAAAABvk/Uwl6BRMBAkY/s400/zumayaucl.PNG Joel Zumaya tore his right ulnar collateral ligament of th
One of my favorite spring training activities is looking to see how former Twins are faring with their new team. Box scores of spring games, especially those of teams you would not normally follow, tend to be pretty boring—lots zeros and ones. So, for me, I like to keep tabs on some “old friends”. In most cases, I really enjoy seeing former Twins players doing well, so I silently cheer them on as I watch for their name in the box scores. I suppose you could go the other way and say to yourse
Well, it took all of two days for the first major injury of Twins’ spring training to impact the 2012 season. That’s even fast by the Twins’ 2011 standards. As most are now aware, Joel Zumaya’s MRI showed a torn ulnar collateral ligament and will be out for this season. I suppose it’s possible, maybe even likely, that he never throws an MLB pitch again. For those of you playing Zumaya Injury Bingo, does UCL surgery give you the win? The bigger question for me: Is it too early to worry about
The TwinsCentric GM Offseason Handbook listed 23 right-handed relievers, sorted in descending order by what we thought they would receive on the open market. The 23rd was Joel Zumaya. He was listed last because of the obvious injury risk he represented. But Zumaya wasn't the 23rd one signed. Twins General Manager Terry Ryan was aggressive, like he had been all offseason, and Zumaya signed relatively early given his status. That signing was almost universally praised because Zumaya has such
One of my fantasy leagues started its draft this past week, so I thought it might be a good time to start writing a little about fantasy baseball. I will likely participate in three or four leagues this year, and each is a little bit different. One of my leagues is a keeper league with major and minor league rosters. It is a 5x5 roto league. Another league is a weekly head-to-head, points league. Another league is only on the weekend. I’m in one ten team league and two 14-team leagues. There are
I just read the news about Joel Zumaya. I suppose none of us should be surprised Zumaya could be injured. Some will use this as an opportunity to say that the twins should have signed more help for the bullpen. While that may be true, I think it ignores the bigger picture. The Twins need to improve their teaching staff as a whole and two thirds of the innings of a pitching staff come from starters. Now I've heard it said that the Twins have five number four starters. I think this is a litt
Not that it matters right now, but… It’s always nice to know what you’re going to be dealing with going into next offseason. And although teams might say the service clock doesn’t matter… we all know that it does. The Twins have 5 pending Free Agents: C Ryan Doumit, SP Carl Pavano, LSP Francisco Liriano, SP Jason Marquis and recently injured RP Joel Zumaya. The Twins have options on 2 players next offseason: SP Scott Baker ($9.25m team option or free agency) and RP Matt Capps ($6m team o
I constantly ask myself what does our organization need to differently in the draft to become dangerous in October. Well, in my opinion, we need to draft three types of players. Player type 1: No contact power starting pitchers. The Twins have proven that a staff completely made of "pitch to contact pitchers" will get you to the first round of the playoffs and then lose badly. The Twins need to have a slight change in philosophy regarding their pitching staff. Draft strikeout pitchers-
On Saturday, the 2025 top pick went 3-for-3 with two stolen bases. It is his third three-hit game in his past 11 games played. In his past 5 games, he is 9-for-21(.429) to raise his average from .279 to .297.
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.
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hello Seth......you'll wanna correct the date in headline of today's minor league report. :-) Brad· 0 replies
I am not a follower of Donald Trump. I have participated in several no kings rallies and am disgusted with what he and his followers have done to our country and the world. I would like to know what most Brazilians feel about the United States now and about the folks our citizens have elected to represent us.· 1 reply
