Brandon

Here's some mindless fun with stats. The Twins are 29-29 since starting the season 6-16 and they are 19-12 in their last 31 games including tonights game against Detroit. (question here is can 1 or 2 more starting pitchers push us to the next level as our hitting, defense, and bullpen seem good enough to contend) Gray has a 4.08 era and most bloggers can't wait to get rid of him, but take out his worst appearance and he has a 2.80 era and 5 vulture wins. Waldrop tied Butera in K's this evening. which player is this Valencia or Parmelee: 100AB 19H 5 2B 1 3B 1 HR The Twins could actually have 6 players with 10+ stolen Bases on the team by the end of the season. When was the last time the Twins had that many Pirahnas? (I don't know that answer) but here are the candidates: Revere and Casilla with 10+ already and Span, Caroll, Dozier, and Mastroianni. A fun exercise: Rank the Twins starting pitchers from best to worst and beyond.... 1. Cole Devries 2. Brian Duensing 3. Anthony Swarzak 4. Francisco Liriano 5. Jason Marquis 6. Carl Pavano 7. PJ Walters 8. Liam Hendriks 9. Nick Blackburn 10. Scott Diamond Tyler Robertson pitched in 5 of his first 6 games after being called up. The Twins are taxing their bullpen. One last thought should the Twins go to a 4 man rotation and bring up a 9th reliever? or go to a 14 man pitching staff at some point to help the bullpen with some of their workload?

If Capps continues to pich the way he has so far this year. The Twins will pick up his option. Management likes him and he has been effective and 6 million isn't necessarily that much for a closer.

Why doesn't someone post players list and their correspoding salaries or estimates for next year so we can all see all of the calculations and discuss from there.

I mentioned Soriano as the Cubs are mentioned as wanting to trade him several times on mlbtraderumors.com. They mentioned being willing to eat most of his remaining salary 45million of the 54 remaining on his contract. The Cubs are looking to blow up their team as they are really far from contending so I think they are looking for prospects and cash relief to get the process fuly underway. And I imagine it would take someone like a 7 to 10 ranked prospect, A reliever prospect, and a throw in of some kind that is useful Manship maybe. I am actually more interested in someone like Sanders for the rotation. Fixing the rotation would get us back into contention or atleast give us the best chance to get back. Its obvious we do not have enough pieces right now, but another .800 OPS bat and 2 starting pitchers would just about do the trick. And the starting pitchers don't need to be great, just not terrible. I think Hendricks could be one of those 2 pitchers I am talking about too.

Right now our offense is hitting on all Cylindars since Plouffe at 3rd and Revere in RF started hitting. Right now I feel our offense is a little "Piranha" heavy as we have 4 "piranha's" in the lineup any given night if not 5 or 6 (Span, Revere, Dozier, Carrol, Casilla, and Mastoianni) We also have 4 versatile solid power type of hitters Morneau, Willingham, Doumit, and now Plouffe with Parmalee trying to join the crowd. And we have 1 all round high average Mauer. If Parmelee could make his way to the starting line up consistantly then we could have a CF (Span or Revere) available to trade for SP. The bullpen has been lights out as we can say we have 6 guys who have done an above average to great job so far this year. (Burton, Burnett, Capps, Deunsing, Perkins, and Swarzak after you subtract out his starting stats you will see his era in the pen has been pretty good) 1 below average Gray and 1 with the jury out Manship. We also have several prospect ready to come up just in case Slama, Oliveros, Guerra. And these guys are under team control for the next 2 to 3 seasons, and they are cheep comparitavely speaking. One other great thing about our pen is that they make the game a 5-6 inning game for the starting pitching instead of 6-7. The rotation is where the main issues on this team lie. Lucky for us Bill Smith traded a relief prospect for Diamond against our better judgement and PJ Walters has filled in well too. Now if Liriano can continue his turn around and Blackburn is healty enough to give the team 5-6 innings a start. Like I said earlier with the bullpen giving the team a chance if the starters can go 5-6 innings makes it easier for Blackburn who got a win after getting lifted after 5 innings vs giving up 3 runs in the 7th against Baltimore in his first start of the season. We can get by with an average rotation. There are several pitchers available to consider. Joe Saunders of Arizona is available and has about 4 million left on his contract this year. Az wants to bring up their top pitching prospect in Bauer. I bet the salary relief would lower the asking price. Milwood should be available from Seattle after the all star break since he just help pitch a no hitter. I am sure there are other Plus Pavano could come back from injury. There is also a hitter available on the trade market that could hit 20-25 HR drive in 80-85 RBI with a .760-.820 OPS at a cost of 4-5 million per season for the next 2 years and may not cost much in prospect but Soriano of the Cubs is available and he just hit 3 HRs at our ballpark so he can hit here. I think that is cheep for Cuddyer type production. We are currently 2.5 games out of 3rd and 8.5 out of first place where the White Sox have 2 great starting pitchers and 3 who have era's near or over 5.00. I believe with a little reinforcement and not a major overhaul, we can get back in the race and compete this year.

Right now our offense is hitting on all Cylindars since Plouffe at 3rd and Revere in RF started hitting. Right now I feel our offense is a little "Piranha" heavy as we have 4 "piranha's" in the lineup any given night if not 5 or 6 (Span, Revere, Dozier, Carrol, Casilla, and Mastoianni) We also have 4 versatile solid power type of hitters Morneau, Willingham, Doumit, and now Plouffe with Parmalee trying to join the crowd. And we have 1 all round high average Mauer. If Parmelee could make his way to the starting line up consistantly then we could have a CF (Span or Revere) available to trade for SP. The bullpen has been lights out as we can say we have 6 guys who have done an above average to great job so far this year. (Burton, Burnett, Capps, Deunsing, Perkins, and Swarzak after you subtract out his starting stats you will see his era in the pen has been pretty good) 1 below average Gray and 1 with the jury out Manship. We also have several prospect ready to come up just in case Slama, Oliveros, Guerra. And these guys are under team control for the next 2 to 3 seasons, and they are cheep comparitavely speaking. One other great thing about our pen is that they make the game a 5-6 inning game for the starting pitching instead of 6-7. The rotation is where the main issues on this team lie. Lucky for us Bill Smith traded a relief prospect for Diamond against our better judgement and PJ Walters has filled in well too. Now if Liriano can continue his turn around and Blackburn is healty enough to give the team 5-6 innings a start. Like I said earlier with the bullpen giving the team a chance if the starters can go 5-6 innings makes it easier for Blackburn who got a win after getting lifted after 5 innings vs giving up 3 runs in the 7th against Baltimore in his first start of the season. We can get by with an average rotation. There are several pitchers available to consider. Joe Saunders of Arizona is available and has about 4 million left on his contract this year. Az wants to bring up their top pitching prospect in Bauer. I bet the salary relief would lower the asking price. Milwood should be available from Seattle after the all star break since he just help pitch a no hitter. I am sure there are other Plus Pavano could come back from injury. There is also a hitter available on the trade market that could hit 20-25 HR drive in 80-85 RBI with a .760-.820 OPS at a cost of 4-5 million per season for the next 2 years and may not cost much in prospect but Soriano of the Cubs is available and he just hit 3 HRs at our ballpark so he can hit here. I think that is cheep for Cuddyer type production. We are currently 2.5 games out of 3rd and 8.5 out of first place where the White Sox have 2 great starting pitchers and 3 who have era's near or over 5.00. I believe with a little reinforcement and not a major overhaul, we can get back in the race and compete this year.