Thrylos

Yeah Blyleven is close with Kaat and John. Here are his numbers: 22 seasons, 287-250, 3.31 ERA, 1.198 WHIP, 6.7 K/9, 2.8 K/BB, 2 All Star appearances, 4 ranked Cy Young votings. Best 3rd twice, one 20-win season I never thought that he was a Hall of Famer either. If you have him in, hard to keep the other 2 out...

We have heard rumors that the Twins might be shopping "outside the organization" for a utility infielder after the demotion of Nishioka. These rumors have just started a couple days ago, and are fairly interesting. If I had to venture a guess, the Twins will not have to search far to find a utility infielder and the "new" utility infielder would not even need to move far to join the Twins' camp in Spring Training. The writing in the wall is almost getting clear: Looking across the street in the other Fort Myers' spring training team, it looks like MikeAvila, Jose Inglesias and Pedro Ciriaco are ahead of our old friend Nick Punto for the 3 Red Sox vacancies of starting short stop and potential bench spots. Is there a reunion of the Twins with Nick Punto in the cards? Only time will tell, but I do not discount the possibility... [video=youtube;OnA-N-YyBE8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnA-N-YyBE8

We have heard rumors that the Twins might be shopping "outside the organization" for a utility infielder after the demotion of Nishioka. These rumors have just started a couple days ago, and are fairly interesting. If I had to venture a guess, the Twins will not have to search far to find a utility infielder and the "new" utility infielder would not even need to move far to join the Twins' camp in Spring Training. The writing in the wall is almost getting clear: Looking across the street in the other Fort Myers' spring training team, it looks like MikeAvila, Jose Inglesias and Pedro Ciriaco are ahead of our old friend Nick Punto for the 3 Red Sox vacancies of starting short stop and potential bench spots. Is there a reunion of the Twins with Nick Punto in the cards? Only time will tell, but I do not discount the possibility... [video=youtube;OnA-N-YyBE8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnA-N-YyBE8

I think that Kaat is one of those pitchers who are in-between (like Blyleven also)... Lots of wins via longevity but no Cy Young awards, only 3 All Star appearances in 25 seasons and a career 4.9 K/9 do not make a Hall of Famer. If you look at his numbers: 25 seasons 283-237, 3.45 ERA, 1.259 WHIP, 4.9 K/9, 2.27 K/BB, 3 All Star appearances, lots of gold gloves, once placing in CY vote 4th. 3 20-win seasons. Are extremely close to those of Tommy John. 26 seasons, 288-231, 3.34 ERA, 1.283 WHIP, 4.3 K/9, 1.78 K/BB, 4 All Star appearances, 4 times placing in Cy young vote twice second. 3 20-win seasons. You cannot put Kaat in the Hall and leave TJ out...

If they take 3 catchers: I would rank the bench options: 1. Carroll (Dozier starting) 2. Parmelee (Morneau DH and Doumit bench/OF) 2. Rivera 3. Towles 4. Butera If they don't necessarily take 3 catchers, I would rank them: 1. Carroll 2. Hollimon 3. Parmelee (Morneau DH) 4. Rivera 5. Burroughs (but his defense bothers me) 6. Chang 7. Dinkelman 8. Florimon I don't see Benson making the team unless someone is injured.

Seems like someone (almost) gave the correct answer but in the wrong place

If the Twins are not in the race by the end of July, I see Span traded for a young up and coming SP. If the Twins are in the race by the deadline, I see someone like Hicks get traded for an established SP. I don't think that Marquis will last the season either way

Clayton Kershaw. He is 24. Second youngest is 3 years older

I think going outside the organization will be a mistake... They already went outside the organization for a utility infielder, but just handed him the starting SS role. Burroughs has been from average to below average on the field, but seems to be picking up some steam with the bat. Will be an interesting ST to watch

Here is this week's installment (also heavily influenced by Spring Training) : I am on my way to Fort Myers this weekend. There will be in situ coverage of the Twins major league and minor league camps, as well as games all next week from there. So make sure that you check here early and often. This will also give me a chance to update my Fort Myers Spring Training Guide for next season. I am also planning on a few surprises, but those will have to wait. I will be tweeting a lot during the games and as I get news about the Twins, so feel free to follow me on twitter @thrylos98 or come back here and see my latest Twins tweets at the left hand side of the page. By now we all know about the second round of the Twins' cuts, and I suspect sending Nishioka to Rochester was a bitter pill to swallow, but the right decision. This opens the door for someone like Mike Hollimon to win a roster spot. At this point, the Twins might want to take Nishioka off the 40-man roster as well. If he gets claimed, he does, if he does not, nothing lost and a spot gained... I also suspect that there might be a trade or 2 before the rosters get finalized. Speaking of Nishioka, I sure hope that the Rochester Red Wings are now paying his translator instead of the Twins. They can afford him with all the income they are getting by the Yankees and by selling Yankee paraphernalia in their web site. Speaking of the cuts... the one that I kinda find unreasonable at this point is Aaron Bates. He has been outperforming a lot of people, and it is a shame he was cut, while Matt Carson, Brian Dinkelman and Danny Lehmann are still around. This is a killer video of the Twins' Spring Training. A MUST watch. Twins' LHP pitching prospect Ryan O'Rourke, blogged about his first days in the Twins' minor league camp in Fort Myers. So does fellow pitching prospect Dakota Watts. At least certain Twins' players enjoyed St. Patric's day. Can you identify the one not identified? Hint: all 3 of them were in Rochester for at least parts of last season, and 2 of them were cut yesterday. Meanwhile another Twins' player, was at least thinking of sporting the Jose Reyes look (before haircut). I would not "panic about Justin Morneau" (and I do not "panic"), but I might be a tad concerned about Jason Marquis and Carl Pavano at this point. A quote by Marquis from that ESPN1500 link with the Morneau story: "I worked in my slider and today was the first day I used it. I wouldn't say excessively, but I felt like it was where I needed it to be. So I was pretty excited about it." All I have to say is that I am glad to see that he is pretty excited about the outcome... Meanwhile, both Cleveland and Kansas City lost their closers for a while and the White Sox have traded theirs a while ago... On the other hand the Royals' Broxton is having a nice Spring Training. Additionally, the new Tigers' third baseman, loves to stop line drives with his face. If you live around the Twin Cities area and have a taste for Twins' minor league ball, make sure that you check out Territory Train. I think that they follow the major league team around too. It started yesterday, but I think that since the Do you know your Twins? challenge has been a hit, and since I have lots of Twins' memorabilia to give away, I may continue doing that. At least on a monthly basis Continuing the Twins' product of the week feature. Because there are so many out there and some of them are, well... interesting. But this one, I ordered one for myself. This weeks' winner is: MLB Minnesota Twins Classic Baseball Bracelethttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B001CG2W98 The parting shot today is of dearly departed (to Rochester) Tsuyoshi Nishioka in full Chiba Lotte Marines regalia. I hope he returns to the performance he had then, via Rochester, soon. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Tsuyoshi_Nishioka_2010.JPG/399px-Tsuyoshi_Nishioka_2010.JPG

Here is this week's installment (also heavily influenced by Spring Training) : I am on my way to Fort Myers this weekend. There will be in situ coverage of the Twins major league and minor league camps, as well as games all next week from there. So make sure that you check here early and often. This will also give me a chance to update my Fort Myers Spring Training Guide for next season. I am also planning on a few surprises, but those will have to wait. I will be tweeting a lot during the games and as I get news about the Twins, so feel free to follow me on twitter @thrylos98 or come back here and see my latest Twins tweets at the left hand side of the page. By now we all know about the second round of the Twins' cuts, and I suspect sending Nishioka to Rochester was a bitter pill to swallow, but the right decision. This opens the door for someone like Mike Hollimon to win a roster spot. At this point, the Twins might want to take Nishioka off the 40-man roster as well. If he gets claimed, he does, if he does not, nothing lost and a spot gained... I also suspect that there might be a trade or 2 before the rosters get finalized. Speaking of Nishioka, I sure hope that the Rochester Red Wings are now paying his translator instead of the Twins. They can afford him with all the income they are getting by the Yankees and by selling Yankee paraphernalia in their web site. Speaking of the cuts... the one that I kinda find unreasonable at this point is Aaron Bates. He has been outperforming a lot of people, and it is a shame he was cut, while Matt Carson, Brian Dinkelman and Danny Lehmann are still around. This is a killer video of the Twins' Spring Training. A MUST watch. Twins' LHP pitching prospect Ryan O'Rourke, blogged about his first days in the Twins' minor league camp in Fort Myers. So does fellow pitching prospect Dakota Watts. At least certain Twins' players enjoyed St. Patric's day. Can you identify the one not identified? Hint: all 3 of them were in Rochester for at least parts of last season, and 2 of them were cut yesterday. Meanwhile another Twins' player, was at least thinking of sporting the Jose Reyes look (before haircut). I would not "panic about Justin Morneau" (and I do not "panic"), but I might be a tad concerned about Jason Marquis and Carl Pavano at this point. A quote by Marquis from that ESPN1500 link with the Morneau story: "I worked in my slider and today was the first day I used it. I wouldn't say excessively, but I felt like it was where I needed it to be. So I was pretty excited about it." All I have to say is that I am glad to see that he is pretty excited about the outcome... Meanwhile, both Cleveland and Kansas City lost their closers for a while and the White Sox have traded theirs a while ago... On the other hand the Royals' Broxton is having a nice Spring Training. Additionally, the new Tigers' third baseman, loves to stop line drives with his face. If you live around the Twin Cities area and have a taste for Twins' minor league ball, make sure that you check out Territory Train. I think that they follow the major league team around too. It started yesterday, but I think that since the Do you know your Twins? challenge has been a hit, and since I have lots of Twins' memorabilia to give away, I may continue doing that. At least on a monthly basis Continuing the Twins' product of the week feature. Because there are so many out there and some of them are, well... interesting. But this one, I ordered one for myself. This weeks' winner is: MLB Minnesota Twins Classic Baseball Bracelethttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B001CG2W98 The parting shot today is of dearly departed (to Rochester) Tsuyoshi Nishioka in full Chiba Lotte Marines regalia. I hope he returns to the performance he had then, via Rochester, soon. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Tsuyoshi_Nishioka_2010.JPG/399px-Tsuyoshi_Nishioka_2010.JPG

nah.... wrong ( ) And I hate to give hints about that

Frankly, I am so much more interested in seeing how he will react to the next slow bunt coming his way

The other way around... Sano has really smooth hands. Harrison not so much

Here are the members of the Minnesota Twins' Hall of Fame: Harmon Killebrew Rod Carew Tony Oliva Kent Hrbek Kirby Puckett Calvin Griffith Herb Carneal Jim Kaat Bert Blyleven Tom Kelly Bob Allison Bob Casey Earl Battey Frank Viola Carl Pohlad Zoilo Versalles Gary Gaetti Jim Rantz Rick Aguilera Brad Radke George Brophy Jim Perry Greg Gagne Camilo Pascual Here is the challenge: Find the one who is different than the others. That's the game. I'll let it run until I return from Fort Myers early April. The first person who will guess who is different that the othersand why, will win a game used bat of a Twins' first round pick. And you have to guess in the comments section here. Shoot the winner will be announced early April

There are a couple of players in the list who have not played a single game of pro ball... I am really excited to see Harrison this summer. I am venturing to guess that by this time next year he will be one of the top 5 Twins' prospects in a lot of lists.

John, you might not know it yet, but you just have became "John Bonnes of the Minneapolis Star Tribune", per MLB trade rumors. Congratulations!!!!

He so misjudged that ball... look where his hands are and how he is holding them (and I know that you played some at third, so you know what I am talking about). Look at his reaction. Look at his (gard darn) sunglasses. I'd say about 50% of MLB third basemen (including Danny V) make that play and 99.99% of MLB third basemen do not head butt that ball. This is vintage Brian Buscher only worse in some ways...

The thing is that he can quit. And (caveat: I have not seen that contract) if he quits (per posting rules - and that is for sure) the Twins will recover a pro-rated part of the posting money from his previous team and (per MLB rules) will not be responsible for a dime for his contract. If that is the case, his former team (because had to pay back the posting money) will still hold his rights in Japan.

So... you are saying/implying that Ron Gardenhire is stupid?

hope he is ok, but hope he continuously butchers the ball at 3rd and stays there for the rest of the season (and longer)

Well... lots of options: Start Casilla at SS, bring up Dozier (might not be ready but right now is better than Nishi), bring up Florimon (Same bat as Nishi, better defense).

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- This is the latest update of the Twins' Bench Battle and the Bullpen Battle Dashboards, to track player performance to date this spring. Performances include those in the last game vs the Red Sox earlier this afternoon. You can read the basic premise behind the Bench Battle Dashboard here and behind the Bullpen Battle Dashboard here. I will be updating them daily and post daily updates. Players who were assigned to the minor league camp were removed from the dashboards but kept in the rankings, denoted by "(MILB)". Also, I have denoted today's cuts the same way as well. One thing I am doing differently from now on (Because if I kept the old way these would be very hard to read and very small) is to not denote performance on a particular day (and use DNP if someone did not play or MILB if they were assigned to the minors) but list them sequentially. An advantage of this way of listing is to see which players played more, which means that the Twins are interested enough to have many looks. As a bonus, because it is getting close to the season and the pitching staff has been somewhat of a concern, I am listing the performances of the pitchers who are "locks" to make the team, but do not include them in the rankings. Here is what the Bench Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6109/6851900434_d115b66d9e_o.jpg Here is what the Bullpen Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7180/6998025627_68d74596ca_o.jpg Here is the ranking of the position player combatants today (based on position) : Catchers: ----- Rene Rivera 2.5 Drew Butera 1.0 J.R. Towles 0.97 Daniel Rohlfing 0.67 (MILB) Danny Lehmann 0.28 Chris Herrmann 0.1 (MILB) ---- Danny Rams -0.98 (MILB) Infielders: Chris Parmelee 3.2 Mike Hollimon 2.5 ---- Aaron Bates 1.3 (MILB) Ray Chang 1.3 Luke Hughes 1.3 Sean Burroughs 1.1 Brian Dozier 1.1 Brian Dinkelman 0.89 Tsuyoshi Nishioka 0.84 (MILB) Pedro Florimon 0.63 ---- Steve Pearce -0.31 (MILB) Outfielders: Joe Benson 2.2 ---- Wilkin Ramirez 0.43 (MILB) Matt Carson 0.37 ---- Darin Mastroianni -0.01 (MILB) Rene Tosoni -0.07 (MILB) Oswaldo Arcia -0.33 (MILB) Here is the ranking of pitcher combatants today: Matt Maloney 54.6 Liam Hendriks 54.5 P.J. Walters 54.3 (MILB) Casey Fien 53.6 Jeff Manship 52.5 Samuel Deduno 52.3 Jared Burton 51.7 Carlos Gutierrez 51.3 (MILB) Luis Perdomo 51.3 (MILB) --- Esmerling Vasquez 51 (MILB) Daryl Thompson 50.8 (MILB) Kyle Waldrop 50.8 Lester Oliveros 50.3 (MILB) Aaron Thompson 50 (MILB) Tyler Robertson 49.7 (MILB) Scott Diamond 49 (MILB) --- Jeff Gray 48.3 Brendan Wise 47.8 Phil Dumatrait 46.2 Alex Burnett 45.8 Deolis Guerra 42 (MILB) Jason Bulger 38.3 (MILB) Terry Doyle 31.3 As always you can find all Spring Training coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch here.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- This is the latest update of the Twins' Bench Battle and the Bullpen Battle Dashboards, to track player performance to date this spring. Performances include those in the last game vs the Red Sox earlier this afternoon. You can read the basic premise behind the Bench Battle Dashboard here and behind the Bullpen Battle Dashboard here. I will be updating them daily and post daily updates. Players who were assigned to the minor league camp were removed from the dashboards but kept in the rankings, denoted by "(MILB)". Also, I have denoted today's cuts the same way as well. One thing I am doing differently from now on (Because if I kept the old way these would be very hard to read and very small) is to not denote performance on a particular day (and use DNP if someone did not play or MILB if they were assigned to the minors) but list them sequentially. An advantage of this way of listing is to see which players played more, which means that the Twins are interested enough to have many looks. As a bonus, because it is getting close to the season and the pitching staff has been somewhat of a concern, I am listing the performances of the pitchers who are "locks" to make the team, but do not include them in the rankings. Here is what the Bench Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6109/6851900434_d115b66d9e_o.jpg Here is what the Bullpen Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7180/6998025627_68d74596ca_o.jpg Here is the ranking of the position player combatants today (based on position) : Catchers: ----- Rene Rivera 2.5 Drew Butera 1.0 J.R. Towles 0.97 Daniel Rohlfing 0.67 (MILB) Danny Lehmann 0.28 Chris Herrmann 0.1 (MILB) ---- Danny Rams -0.98 (MILB) Infielders: Chris Parmelee 3.2 Mike Hollimon 2.5 ---- Aaron Bates 1.3 (MILB) Ray Chang 1.3 Luke Hughes 1.3 Sean Burroughs 1.1 Brian Dozier 1.1 Brian Dinkelman 0.89 Tsuyoshi Nishioka 0.84 (MILB) Pedro Florimon 0.63 ---- Steve Pearce -0.31 (MILB) Outfielders: Joe Benson 2.2 ---- Wilkin Ramirez 0.43 (MILB) Matt Carson 0.37 ---- Darin Mastroianni -0.01 (MILB) Rene Tosoni -0.07 (MILB) Oswaldo Arcia -0.33 (MILB) Here is the ranking of pitcher combatants today: Matt Maloney 54.6 Liam Hendriks 54.5 P.J. Walters 54.3 (MILB) Casey Fien 53.6 Jeff Manship 52.5 Samuel Deduno 52.3 Jared Burton 51.7 Carlos Gutierrez 51.3 (MILB) Luis Perdomo 51.3 (MILB) --- Esmerling Vasquez 51 (MILB) Daryl Thompson 50.8 (MILB) Kyle Waldrop 50.8 Lester Oliveros 50.3 (MILB) Aaron Thompson 50 (MILB) Tyler Robertson 49.7 (MILB) Scott Diamond 49 (MILB) --- Jeff Gray 48.3 Brendan Wise 47.8 Phil Dumatrait 46.2 Alex Burnett 45.8 Deolis Guerra 42 (MILB) Jason Bulger 38.3 (MILB) Terry Doyle 31.3 As always you can find all Spring Training coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch here.

I think that such a move could be a win-win for the Twins. Someone claims him, he is gone (clean slate, other than the signing bonus.) He will probably not be claimed and will open another spot. Thoughts?