LoganJones

Absolutely. It looks like Miguel Sano will be the next great Twins first baseman, but that's still probably 3 years away. Give Morneau a 2-3 year extension this summer if he's hitting. Justin provides the team a lot more potential for value by being on their roster and healthy than he does in a potential trade. Willingham makes a lot more sense to be traded, as the team picking him up will be getting a cost controlled slugger for a year and a half. I could see Baltimore being very interested if their season breaks good again this year. Or perhaps Texas, who will likely be in the need for some RH bats once Nellie Cruz gets suspended and or hurt like he does. Heck, they could probably use him already.

Simple matter of "the food here is terrible, and the portions so tiny."

He also appears to be an acceptable fielder in his limited OF duty.

Plouffe is gonna be fine over there. He won't be as good offensively as Miggie. He won't be as bad defensively, either. 30 Bombs is a real possibility for him. Now let's just hit a few more of those with runners on.

The part of the equation that fans are consistently overlooking is the quality of the team's opponents really hasn't changed much. If anything it stands to go down. The Tigers had a guy win a triple crown and still had the same basic offensive performance as the Twins (who lest we forget had 90 games with 5 or more runs allowed) who were nearly always behind in early innings. I know the Tigers have a much better pitching staff, but their O won't be much better, probably could be scheduled for worse, since a guy is likely to regress from a tripe crown season. Also, the Tigers lost basically 7 games to injury in their front line starters. Expect that number to go up. And if it's Verlander? sub .500 is very likely. Does anyone really expect the White Sox to be that good again? The Royals added 1 pretty good starter, but didn't adress their offense. Cleveland? They've added a bunch of people, but they surrendered even more runs than the Twins. It's very likely the Tigers will have a better season overall, since the division is in pretty bad shape, but there's hope. If the Twins can avoid a 6-16 april and a 9-19 August, things could get interesting. Get in, get lucky and it's 1987 all over again.

He's the sort of fellow who very easily could flip the switch and make the rotation much better.

Well, He has been put on a team that is closer to his home and will very likely challenge for a world series title. Twins did pretty good by him, all things considered.

Seriously, man. Why even waste your time directly replying to stuff like that? It's obviously from someone who either is actively saying obnoxious stuff or from someone who can't think things through properly.

One's fandom is only as valid as they think it is. If someone telling you you're not a true fan raises your hackles, you've got some issues that you need to investigate.

I think he will outshine DSpan for sure. Maybe Torii, too.

Lots of 'boo-hoo' in that article. There is seriously no point to following something that makes you miserable. None. Then again, the poor guy does still work for a newspaper, and the Twins are a big part of his job, so I imagine his life is pretty well full of gloom and doom all day. Spending your days on the constant edge of finding out this is the week that the powers that be have decided you're out of work would turn anyone into a bitter person. Howard's major logical failing, along with all the people who seem to enjoy baseball doomsday prophecy, is that uncertainty does not predict failure. Past performance does not predict future results. The evidence currently suggests the 2013 Minnesota Twins will not win many of those 42 'difference maker' games, and thus this season will be yet another disappointment. Thing is, 29 teams every year ultimately have disappointing seasons. Fan bases all over the country have had to live with much more 'disappointment' than we. Yet with two whole down seasons behind us and staring at what might (ok, probably will) be another one, people are crying like babies. It's almost as though it's been 20 years since the team has had a winning record. You'd think that our top player signed with a division rival, and another top player was facing a 50 game PED suspension. Oh the owners are spendthrift misers who just love to make you miserable? They are cheap, no denying it. But with all the head banging you'd think they just traded the whole team to a business buddy in canada for pennies on the dollar. Or that they signed an aging steroid user through age 43 and still owed him more than whole team's annual payrolls. Everyone has misfortune in baseball, but in the end it's a drama, that gets better when things you don't expect happen. By all means be miserable about it if that's how you roll. Feel entitled to howl at the ownership because they didn't sign this free agent or spend x amount of money. You have that right if you buy anything in Hennepin County. I'm not going to tell you you can't. I am going to disagree with you, though.

Since 0 teams throw 100% of their innings to one catcher, we'd have to factor that in, but that don't look good for Dooms.

Cedeno was a terrible hitter in the minors, too. His numbers get puffed up a bit from playing in the PCL, but beyond that his track record looks pretty much the same. I'm not hating on the guy, he's a fine slick fielding no-hitting big league shortstop. I just don't see where he's worth a look when Florimon is following in his footsteps.

Well, the only player who the Twins have who has comparable data for the past 3 seasons is Carroll. He's been worth 2.6,2.2 and 2.4 WAR Compared to Johnson's 5.8, 2.2, .7. I do have to take back my claim he's only had good fielding years on turf. He actually was rated highly in 2010 in the field, too. Thanks to a strong 2010 He's been worth one win more than Carroll. Florimon was worth .3 win last year based on defense and base running. Weird.

If we buy the idea that Ronny Cedeno is suddenly getting better at hitting, just kinda out of the blue, then we also have to consider the idea that Florimon can get better with some time. The reason I'm not jumping off the Correia cliff is that I see him as a worthy upgrade over what the Twins had to offer. Cedeno & Johnson? Not true upgrades. If they'd signed Johnson, I would have been cool with it, as he's likely to hit some key homers. Cedeno would have mystified me since they already have him in Florimon.

I see the idea that Johnson might provide some slight value upgrade, but it's tiny, considering he's been a bad defender on grass, and he's only hit in launching pad situations.

Another question is what kind of impact on Johnson's OPS would Target Field have? I think it's fair to say that Kelly Johnson is an adequate defender on artificial turf. He will likely be a pretty good player for Tampa.

You do realize, this is why 'fan outrage' doesn't register with team decision makers, right? With one hand, you're lambasting them for signing players to deals, and then having said players explode on them. With the other, you're suggesting they sign players who have proven to be bad for major chunks of their careers. Or in the case of Cedeno, for every single season until the 130 AB stretch last year.

Or, he thinks the players he has in house will get the job done and that the currently unsigned (apart from Saunders, obviously) fellows are no upgrade over who might come available over the course of the spring. But I suppose the idea that he decoded to come back out of retirement just to intentionally jerk around a fanbase makes a lot more sense.

Ronny Cedeno's career OPS plus is 71. What insurance does he provide over Florimon?

Gotta be Brian Harper taking a close pitch. He always looked it back into the catchers glove. That or his confrontation at home in the 91 world series.

What would Kelly Johnson - a not particularly good fielding left-handed, strikeout prone pull hitter - give the Twins in Target Field?

It's a bummer that Marcum isn't going to be suiting up for the Twins. Particularly at that price.

I don't care if someone is angry about it. I don't see any point in being perpetually angry about baseball, so I don't want to talk baseball with someone who is. One thing I find really interesting about Correia is in arguably his worst season ERA wise, 2010, he posted his highest K rate and walk rate. He also lost his brother. Up til the date where he died, the season was rolling along pretty well. Not great, but Sub 4 ERA. People can tend to get away from the impact these things can have on a player, since we routinely dehumanize them for our own enjoyment.

I was going crazy on the couch when he went yard! Might have tried to be cooler since i was in Highschool, but eh.