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Tuesday, 4/15 vs Blue Jays at 7:10 Tuesday night, the Twins not only play the Blue Jays but celebrate the life and impact of Jackie Robinson. It’s suitable that a Minnesota team plays a Canadian team on this celebration, since both areas played key roles in baseball’s integration and supported to the rise of three African-American superstars, only two of which were baseball players. When Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers owner, signed Jackie Robinson, the Dodgers has two AAA clubs to which Robinson could report for the 1946 season: the Montreal Royals or the St. Paul Saints. He chose the Royals, believing that the American Association wasn't ready for an African-American player. But two years later, that barrier was broken too, by the Saints and Roy Campanella. Covering Campanella that year was Carl Rowan, an African-American journalist who had recently received a degree from the University of Minnesota. Rowan covered the team for the Minneapolis Spokesman, an African-American newspaper, including Campanella’s promotion to the majors in June, writing “the Saintly City’s baseball fans weren't the least bit happy about it. Although the fans admitted they disliked the move, many paused to say that they wished Campy a lot of luck in the big show.”

Aaron and John are joined live onstage at Twins Daily's inaugural "Winter Meltdown" event by special guests Twins president Dave St. Peter, former Cy Young runner-up Scott Erickson, and Miguel Sano documentary filmmaker Jon Paley, along with Parker Hageman, Seth Stohs, and 300 of their closest friends. You can listen by clicking below, download us from: iTunes, Stitcher or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

First, a quick reminder: tickets go on sale at 8AM on Thursday (today). There are a limited number and they'll sell out, possibly very quickly. So you might want to go take care of that right here before you get to the rest of the story. I'm not kidding. Fire codes exist and we believe in them. Now let's get to the fun part: The Beer If you do make it, you'll be very happy to hear that 612 Brew has stepped up to be the primary sponsor of the Twins Daily Winter Meltdown. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Attendees will be getting their choice of Six, 612 Brew's American pale ale, or Rated R, their Rye IPA (Editors note: and Twins Geek's personal favorite). Both are brewed locally out of their NE Minneapolis Brewery. And of course you'll be able to get as much other food and drink as you want from Mason's, who has been the best event partner possible. You'll especially want to support them if you bought tickets today, because they closed down to make those extra tickets possible. The Pint Glasses 612 Brew has also really outdone themselves on the pint glasses, as you can see above. And I'm afraid the only way you can get one of these beauties is to buy a ticket and come to the event. The extra tickets we sold have soaked up most of th extra inventory. The Speakers We've got three fantastic speakers who not only have firepower, they have brainpower. You're going to love listening to: Dave St. Peter (5:30-6:00) Scott Erickson (6:15-6:45) Jon Paley (7:00-7:30) Click on the links to see the announcement about each one and learn more. And notice that we're starting fairly early in the event. The Basics I probably should have started with this, huh? I get excited sometimes. First, it's Saturday, Jan 25th from 5:00-8:00 PM at Mason's Bar and Restaurant on 6th and Hennepin. You can walk over from TwinsFest. Second, you won't be receiving a ticket - just show up with your name and ID. More Free Stuff 612 isn't the only sponsor that wants to throw stuff at Meltdown attendees. And I rather like the symmetry of these new two. Proximo Spirits is going to be giving away tequila - and Uber is going to be giving you rides home. Proximo will be handing out samples of Maestro Dobel, "The Diamond Tequila" which is one of the nation's fastest growing ultra-premium tequilas. If you are a tequila connoisseur, you probably want to know that it is sourced from single estates, double-distilled, and matured in Hungarian White Oak barrels. If not, you'll want to know that the samples are free. And Uber will be offering a $20 credit to anyone that signs up at the Meltdown to try Uber out. (Tip: In fact, you can sign up for it even if you aren't at the Meltdown, right now, by clicking here.) If you're not familiar with Uber, they're an app that connects you with a driver via your smartphone. You can track the arrival of your ride, payment is cashless (no need to tip!), and you’ll receive a text message when your driver arrives. And Yet More Free Stuff And throughout the event we'll be giving away prizes via a raffle. They include Twins tickets, 612 gear, Mason's Gift cards, Maestro Dobel gear, Uber rides and three items that Jon Paley is donating: Ballplayer: Pelotero DVD signed by directors and Miguel Sano "ask me about my #powerbanana T-shirt" (http://t.co/QUmur6xzli) and.... Ballplayer: Pelotero FULL SIZED movie Poster signed by directors and Miguel Sano. Whew. I think that covers it. If you can make it, please introduce yourself to us all. We can't wait to meet you. And if you have any questions, please add them to the comments below. Thanks!

I’ve got great news and really great news. Which is which depends on whether you already have a ticket for the Twins Daily Winter Meltdown or not. We’ve added a third speaker: Minnesota Twins pitcher Scott Erickson. In his second year in the majors, Erickson won 20 games and a World Series Championship which included starting the memorable Game 6 which Kirby Puckett won with a home run. Erickson pitched fifteen years in the majors, won 142 games and married Lisa Guerrero. So his life has turned out quite a bit better than yours, most likely. Hopefully, in addition to talking about pitching for the Twins, he’ll share some life secrets. But the next news is even bigger, because until now only 200 of you could come to the Meltdown. Not any more. Masons has agreed to shut down the entire restaurant for the event, which means we will begin selling more tickets at 8AM on Thursday morning. I don’t know how many just yet, but it will be more than a handful and could be as many as 100. You will be able to purchase them for $20 each by clicking on this link. But remember, we had a lot more to sell last time and the entire batch sold out in four hours, resulting in a lot of disappointed fans, and we had a lot more available. The event is January 25th at Mason’s Bar and Grill from 5:00 to 8:00. It’s just two blocks from TwinsFest. An advanced ticket gets you two craft brews, a Twins Daily Winter Meltdown Pint Glass, lots of baseball talk, and presentations from Minnesota President Dave St. Peter, Scott Erickson and Pelotero filmmaker Jon Paley. Plus we have some stuff we haven’t unveiled yet. You can find more information here. We’ll see you at the Meltdown!

With four days to the #Meltdown, we’re very excited to announce that Jon Paley, the co-director of Pelotero, will be joining us to talk about the making of Pelotero and of the sequel, The Miguel Sano Story. Pelotero is an acclaimed documentary that shows the pressures that ballplayers from the Dominican Republic face when trying to escape poverty by drawing a major league team’s attention - and the resulting life-changing money. It follows two Dominican prospects, one of whom is Miguel Sano, the #2 prospect in the Minnesota Twins farm system. The sequel, which will follow Sano through his minor league career to the major leagues, was funded as a Kickstarter project and completed funding last April. Filming will continue until Sano is called to the major leagues, after which the film will be edited and released. Paley will answer questions about Sano, the process of being an independent filmmaker and give insights to the rewards and challenges that Sano faces making his way through the Twins minor league system. Paley will follow Minnesota Twins President Dave St. Peter, who will be speaking and also answering questions from the Twins Daily faithful. If you can’t be there, don’t sweat it – you can submit questions in our forum. And the event will also feature lots of baseball socializing with two complimentary craft brews and a free Twins Daily pint glass. And we may have some additional giveaways, too…. For those of you who were lucky enough to get tickets, the festivities start at 5:00 on Saturday, January 25th at Mason’s Barre and Restaurant. And for those that didn’t – stay tuned. I really hope go give you some better news later this week....

The Minnesota Twins have reached agreements on one-year contracts with all three of their arbitration eligible players, according to Phil Miller of the Star Tribune. Brian Duensing, who was in his second turn at arbitration, will earn $2 million in 2014. Trevor Plouffe and Anthony Swarzak, both eligible for the first time, will earn $2.5 million and $935K, respectively. With that, the Twins have wrapped up one of their last internal procedures of the offseason. Now, the focus shifts to remaining free agent targets and preparing for spring training, which is suddenly only about a month away. The salaries for Minnesota's three arbitration eligible players are basically in line with expectations. The agreements serve as a reminder that in many cases compensation is determined more by role than effectiveness. Duensing and Swarzak both had better seasons than Plouffe, but as full-time relievers they received much smaller raises than the regular third baseman. One interesting wrinkle is that Swarzak's contract includes a $25,000 bonus if he makes 10 or more starts this year, another indication that the Twins may still view him as a starter despite his success in the bullpen.

The 2012 Minnesota Twins starting rotation was 29th our of 30 MLB teams in ERA. They identified this as their number one issue and responded with a major trade, several free agent signings, and a top prospect’s promotion. The result? The 2013 Minnesota Twins starting rotation ranked 30th in ERA. Not all the moves were fruitless. The Twins biggest free agent acqusition of the offseason – signing starting pitcher Kevin Correia to a two-year deal – looked solid through the first year of the deal. He led the team in innings and compiled a league average 4.18 ERA. The most pleasant surprise of the year was when Andrew Albers, who had been rescued from the Can-Am independent league, provided some midseason excitement and ended the year with a 4.05 ERA. And Sam Deduno, when he was healthy, rode his eclectic pitches to an ERA under 4. But those positive developments were buried under an avalanche of disappointments. Vance Worley, who had been acquired in a trade with the Phillies and was the Opening Day starter, was brutal for 10 starts and didn’t look much better in AAA. Scott Diamond, the only member of the 2012 rotation who thrived, started the year hurt and bounced between AAA and the majors. Free agent signing Mike Pelfrey, rushing a return from Tommy John surgery, was brutal in April, and merely below average the rest of the year. And top pitching prospect Kyle Gibson made 10 late starts without generating much momentum. Those four were supposed to be the 80% of the rotation behind (and in front of) Correia this year. But you don’t finish dead last without a lot of additional support. Pedro Hernandez, who the Twins acquired for Francisco Liriano, had the 5th most starts on this team. He also had a 6.83 ERA. Liam Hendriks started eight games: 6.85 ERA. PJ Walters at least was under a 6 ERA in his eight starts. Cole de Vries was mostly hurt, still started two games late, and had a 10.43 ERA. Finally, lottery ticket Rich Harden never threw a pitch at any level. For the third year in a row, the story of the Twins season was the story of a starting rotation that failed. This offseason, the front office has been more aggressive financially in addressing this ongoing issue. That’s an appropriate response. Twins Territory hopes there is an appropriate result and that we’re not writing this story again next year.

Two of the biggest stories from 2012 led to one of the biggest (and worst) stories of the Minnesota Twins 2013 season. Last winter, just one week separated the trade of center fielders Denard Span and Ben Revere to NL East teams. At that point, the writing was on the wall: Twins fans would see center field prospect Aaron Hicks in 2013.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The watch started in spring training and expectations sky-rocketed after he hit three home runs early in Grapefruit League action. His performance encouraged the Twins to start Hicks in center field on Opening Day, skipping AAA completely. The fairy tale for which Twins fans were hoping ended there. Hicks didn’t get a hit on Opening Day, and though he got his first hit by the end of the series, it was one of only two he had in his first 48 at-bats. He gradually improved, but the key word is “gradually,” reaching a .179 batting average by June ninth when he left the second game of a doubleheader with a hamstring strain. He returned in July, hitting .230 with a 671 OPS for the month, before being demoted to Rochester at the beginning of August. He was almost immediately benched with a quad strain followed by a heel injury followed by a sore wrist. He finished the year hitting just .222 in Rochester and .192 in the majors. And when the Twins traded Justin Morneau, they acquired Alex Presley, a 28-year-old center fielder who finished the season as the Twins starting center fielder. Hicks has some serious challenges facing him. Prior to his 2012 breakout campaign in AA-New Britain, scouts wondered if he should remain a switch-hitter, since he hit so poorly from the left side of the plate. His .559 OPS in the majors versus right-handers resurrected those concerns. He needs to show he can handle AAA pitching, let alone major league pitching. And with top minor league prospect Byron Buxton charging through the farm system, he can no longer count on being the organization’s future center fielder. On the other hand, he’s still just 24 years old, still a #1 pick and still the guy who came into last year as the 72nd best prospect in baseball. He now has a better idea of what is required to reach and survive in the majors, and demonstrated his speed/patience/power skill set last year, even if he forgot to hit. Finally, he was limited to 124 days of service time, meaning the Twins have several more years to see what they have or ease him into the majors as a fourth outfielder, if need be. In fact, he was only added to the 40-man roster last November, so the Twins can have him spend a couple years in AAA if necessary. It was a disappointing step backwards for Hicks and the organization, but perhaps that was a result of trying to take such a giant step forward. He’ll begin 2014 in the place where he clearly should have begun 2013: on the cusp of a promising major league career. That’s not such a bad place to be, even after a lost year. ~~~ More Top 13 Twins '13 Stories #13 – Twins in the WBC #12 – Drew Butera Traded to Dodgers #11 – Twins Sign Kubel, Trade Doumit #10 - Brian Dozier Breaks Through #9 - Kyle Gibson Promoted #8 - Aaron Hicks' Lost Year #7 - Twins Draft Kohl Stewart

There was one 2013 Target Field game that felt like an event. It was June 29th, the opponent was the Royals and the Minnesota Twins starting pitcher was Kyle Gibson. The promotion of Gibson was anticipated for months, which is what led to it being such a big story. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Objectively, he was far from the best prospect in the organization, and ranked just 68th overall in the minor leagues by Baseball America. Furthermore, he was battling his way back from Tommy John surgery, and approaching a predetermined innings limit by the time he made his major league debut. But we had waited for this one; oh, how we had waited. A week before, we howled whe Pedro Hernandez was promoted over Gibson. Before that, Sam Deduno had taken precedence. Going into spring training, people wondered if Gibson might make the opening day roster. In 2012, before his elbow injury, we wondered how few starts in AAA he might make. Heck, go back to 2009, when the 1st round pick signed literally at the deadline. As the lone pitching prospect making his way through the high minors, Gibson received an undue amount of mindshare. For as long as the Twins have needed starting pitching, their fans have had basically one prospect from whom they could anticipate some help: Kyle Gibson. No wonder his promotion was announced a week early. His first start, which also happened to fall on a beautiful Saturday, was electric. He didn’t disappoint, recording a quality start with six innings, two earned runs and five strikeouts. He also got his first “Win” as his teammates jumped on Kansas City early, scoring five runs in the first inning on their way to a 6-2 victory. It felt like a long anticipated jump start to a bright future. But the rest of the year was considerably less hair-raising, and Gibson’s bright future is now less clear. In his next start he was knocked around for eight runs. His ERA never fell below 6 after that and he never pitched more than six innings in a start. He was shut down for the year after throwing 152.2 innings between AAA and the majors. Next year, he will likely begin the year back in the minors. He’ll be battling for the final rotation spot against three pitchers who have had more major league success than him – Sam Deduno, Scott Diamond and Vance Worley. He will be further hampered by a roster status that allows the Twins to safely stow him in Rochester. But Gibson’s promotion and initial success was a hopeful distraction in a gloomy season. That hopeful promise should yet provide some similar relief to tired Twins' fans in the future.

Once again, this year's Offseason Handbook will include a 30+ minute interview with Minnesota Twins General Manager Terry Ryan. It was conducted Tuesday, shortly after it was announced that Paul Molitor would be joining the Twins coaching staff. Ryan talked about the Molitor hire and very candidly about the decision to bring back Ron Gardenhire, how he evaluated the coach of a 90-loss team and how much it reflected on himself. Parker: Switching gears: Ron Gardenhire had a very successful run, followed by three straight very bad years. How do you evaluate a manger’s performance that goes beyond the record? Ryan: If Ron wasn’t coming back, I probably shouldn’t be back. Now, Jim Pohlad and Dave St. Peter invited me back, so I brought Ron back with me. A lot of time you should evaluate a manager on the personnel he has. And unfortunately, we’ve fallen a tad short here as far as productivity. And I take total responsibility on that, so I shouldn’t pass the buck on the manager and the coaching staff. So, you evaluate him on discipline and respect and organizational skills and how the clubhouse sets up and are we prepared – all that stuff that you evaluate anybody’s job on. Same stuff. How does he handle the media? How does he handle a player that doesn’t want to get in line? How does he run spring training? How does he set up strategy? What does he do with his bullpen? Now I’ve never managed. And it’s easy to sit up there about 50 yards from the game and second-guess everything that goes on. I’ve got a lot of respect for him. And he’s an up-front guy. He’s accountable. I think players enjoy this organization. I don’t have any problem ever in luring a guy here if we’re close in the dollars and stuff like that. They never say “I wouldn’t want to play for him.” If I would’ve gone a different direction and somebody would have said “What are you looking for in a manager?”, I’d say “A lot of traits Ron Gardenhire has.” Parker: Speaking of your coaching staff, you just added Paul Molitor to it. What is he going to bring? Ryan: He’s a very good baseball mind Parker. He’s a very smart guy. He looks at the game differently than a lot of people. He and Tom Kelly watch games different than I do. I’ve always respected that, his baserunning intelligence, bunting and he’s going to be responsible too. He’s going to be in the dugout with Gardy and [Terry] Steinbach. He’s been with us for quite a long time. He knows our minor league system and stuff like that. He’s got a lot of knowledge that I think will benefit the organization. That’s why I put him on here. Parker: You guys got seven guys now in the dugout? You going to have to expand the dugout? Ryan: No. Almost all of the clubs – not almost all, but most of the clubs – have seven coaches now. Major League Baseball changed the rule early April, which was funny timing. They allowed teams to go. We didn’t. We chose not to and now we’re going to do it. We’ve got Paul in the system here, so it makes sense. He’s a good baseball man. He’s been our baserunning and infield instructor for the last – I don’t know – eight, nine years. There’s some continuity here with bringing [Miguel] Sano and [byron] Buxton and [Eddie] Rosario and those types of guys. They’re very familiar with him. I don’t think that’s all of a bad thing. Parker: Was that a big factor? Ryan: Not a big factor. It happens to be a convenient factor. No, his baseball IQ is the big factor. You can find a lot more in the Offseason Handbook from this far-ranging interview, and it will be shipped to you on the first day of the World Series if you order it today. TwinsDaily would like to thank Terry Ryan for taking 45 minutes for a very candid interview, as well as the Minnesota Twins for their recent efforts to reach out to and accommodate independent media and bloggers.

The Minnesota Twins announced today that they have added Paul Molitor to Ron Gardenhire's coaching staff. Molitor will oversee bunting, base-running and infield positioning. He was added as part of a new MLB rule which allows teams to have a seventh uniformed coach on the bench during games. Molitor last coached with the Twins in 2000 and 2001 as Tom Kelly's bench coach on the same staff where Gardenhire was the third base coach. When Gardenhire was named coach for the 2002 season, Molitor was also a candidate. He was also a candidate last year to join the coaching staff this last year when three new coaches were added. Molitor is a Hall of Fame player who played for Milwaukee, Toronto and Minnesota during a 21-year career. He has recently been working as a roving minor league instructor in the Twins organization.

Recently, we've had a lot of internal debate about how to handle some challenges in the forum, partly due to increased traffic. As a result, we have updated our Comment Policy. The changes address two areas and are bolded in the updated policy: 1. A more robust definition of trolling, along with some examples and 2. An explanation of why we don't want users to "police" threads themselves. Please stop by HERE and reacquaint yourself with the policy as well as view the new changes. You'll also find a link there where you can provide feedback and thoughts. Thanks as always for your input, participation and cooperation. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Seth Stohs is reporting that the Minnesota Twins are promoting Byron Buxton from Low-A Cedar Rapids to High-A Fort Myers in time for the Miracle's next game on Tuesday. Buxton has dominated the Midwest League with the Kernels, hitting .340 with 8 home runs and getting on base in 43% of his plate appearances. He’s also shown his top-rated speed, playing center field and stealing 32 bases in a little more than half a season. The 19-year-old’s success has moved him to the top of national prospect lists, including second overall in Keith Law’s midseason review. His promotion means he will be one of the youngest players in High-A ball. Buxton is expected to fly to Florida on Monday morning, but will not be in Palm Beach in time to play in the Miracle's noon game. He will make his Florida State League debut on Tuesday night in Palm Beach. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Update - SD Buhr tweeted that he has heard from Kernels manager Jake Mauer that the move has been made.

John Bonnes sat down with the Sportive podcast crew on Thursday night to talk for nearly two hours on blogging, Twins Daily, baseball and a whole bunch of nonsense. You can listen/subscribe here or you can check out their web site here. If you're looking for a whole bunch of Twins talk, you can probably skip it. But if you're looking for talk about some of the history of Twins blogging, where it's going and the challenges that some of the writers here face, you might find it entertaining. Thanks very much to The Sportive for inviting John on.