With his job on the line I thought he might mix things up with the lineup. I guess the writing is on the wall and he'd rather go out doing things is way and not change.
That's what I thought and his problems in my opinion would have kept him from ever being Mr. Twin. He did some really horrible things that are hard to ignore.
When the country is usually an also ran like Italy the great great great grandfather connection doesn't bother me. I believe Team USA players are suppose to volunteer to be on the team. Mauer mentioned talking to Joe Torre last year about playing. Other than Prince Fielder there's a pretty strong argument that Adrian Gonzalez was the best US born first basemen available. So it wouldn't surprise me if he was indirectly asked at some point.
It don't think it's that overblown. He's really struggled with throwing out runners and he's looked Posadish (lazy) at times behind the plate. Hopefully he can work with Terry Steinbach and get some of the defensive mojo back.
This a group that I'm interested in seeing how they progress this year. Which ones are given the opportunity to start and which ones are sent to the bullpen. I'm thinking of best case scenario and Bard and maybe another one become valuable pitching prospects, and "Rice Duo" end up being part of a Braves Lite bullpen in the future.
He mentioned that he hadn't talked to Ron Gardenhire. Is it common for a manager to not get in touch with a newly acquired player? I just assumed the the manager would want to touch base with his newest player over the phone.
So K-Twin gets the one thing that's of real significance? I didn't expect 1500 to say FU, but I thought they'd put some distance between themselves and the Twins. Treat them like they would the Vikings, or any other team in town.