Teflon

Blackburn's and Nishioka's bad performances are significantly more chronic than just a "rough spell at your job" to use your analogy. To put it in more accurate terms of those real world jobs, If the Twins were Allstate Insurance, Blackburn would be the salesman with the lowest sales totals for the last two years - not in the company - but in the entire insurance industry. If Nishioka waited tables at Applebees's he would try to hit on your wife, mess up your dinner order and then spill your tray of dishes on the way out from the kitchen. Employers don't hesitate to dismiss those kinds of employees rather quickly. The main thing keeping the Twins from acting sooner was the financial obligation to both.

Nice piece Cody.

In Sunday's game versus the Royals, in the bottom of the 2nd, Mauer uncharacteristically jumped on Bruce Chen's first pitch to him in the 2nd inning, sending a deep shot to straight-away CF that was caught at the track. In Mauer's remaining at-bats, the KC pitchers went to 2-0 counts in all three, not coming in with any first-pitch strikes. To me, it seemed similar to showing bunt to get the third baseman to play in farther. You're not going to bunt all the time, but you still show it sometimes to keep them guessing. I don't know if that was actually Joe's intent or if the first pitch from Chen was just unavoidably fat. Either way, it worked well for Joe in his subsequent at-bats. Of course on Friday, Mauer hit a double and a triple after first TAKING two strikes in each at-bat so it really didn't matter how the Royals started him off, I guess. His first pitch swinging percent this year is 10% which is higher than it's been since 2008. To put that in some context, however, Justin Morneau has sung at 33% of the first pitches he's seen over his career and was swinging at 43% this year. Joe has typically driven in around 18% of the batters on base when he bats. The league average is around 15%. This year Joe is driving in 20% (12 of 59) so the impression than he is leaving more men on base is false. Maybe his fails are in more dramatic situations causing the fans to perceive them more dramatically, I don't know.

No surprise. The novelty factor only lasts two years with a new ballpark. Then attendance goes back to being mostly influenced on competitiveness. The Brewers dropped from 2.8 million their first year in Miller Park to 1.7 in their third with a 68-94 record, the Pirates dropped from 2.4 million to 1.6 by their third season (75-87) at PNC, the New York Mets dropped from 3.2 million to 2.4 million by their third year (77-85) and the Tigers dropped from 2.4 million to 1.5 million by their third season in Comerica (55-106) to cite a handful of similar situations.

Pavano is probably gone either way. It would only make sense for the Twins keep him beyond the trading deadline if they were in a pennant race. Otherwise, he's a great back of the rotation add-on for some team in need. Doumit could go if there is another Buster Posey-like situation where a top-level team loses a starting catcher and the Twins could get some desperation value in return - but we wouldn't get enough back otherwise to justify the revisions to the organizational catching plans. (I'm assuming we have organizational catching plans.)

Fun to think about. You're optimistic the Twins will resign Morneau in 2014, I see. Unless he takes a pay cut, his age and likely salary ($10 million+?) would make that an uncharacteristic signing by the Twins considering their past history with players at that stage like Torii and Cuddyer. I'd more expect Mauer to fill in at 1B/DH and still catch some. The Twins also still have an option on Span in 2015, who will only be 31, so I would think it's likely he's still in the outfield somewhere. What about the pitching staff?

Shouldn't the Twins be considering a 4th catcher? If Mauer and Doumit both get hurt in a game, that leaves us dangerously thin.

For the pure love of the sport, a person could spend their evenings at the charming ballparks in Jordan or Chaska watching townball. The professional ballparks we build are pure hubris, however. You can say whatever you want to try and rationalize it, but these places are more about making us feel signficant than anything else. I love Target Field - but I can also acknowledge the absurdity of spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars on it.

It could be worse than Carl Pavano. (Bruce Chen is the opening day pitcher for the Royals.) I too was a little surprised to see Burroughs hack at the first pitch considering Lindstrom had started off both Valencia and Parmelee with balls.

Having this woman as your in-game reporter (Laura McKeeman- Tampa Bay Rays) instead of Robby Incmikowski would be a start. http://hall-fame.com/tampa_babe_rays.jpg

Other t-shirt options for this year (If we can get similar pictures): Plouffe is my Goof Blackie is my Lackey Casilla was my Idea Frankie Makes Me Cranky http://hall-fame.com/casilla.jpg

I envy your optimism. Relief pitching is so hard to evaluate in one-inning increments especially if you get used to start those innings.

Two things are in the Twins favor. The AL Central offers 19 games each against KC, Cleveland, and Chicago as opposed to Boston, New York, or Tampa Bay if we played in the East. The other is the introduction of the 2nd wild card - as the Twins have shown an affinity for game #163.

I would add fishnet stockings to the list - although they excite me most other years, as well. If we're limiting it to just Twins-related things, I'm excited about having a real play-by-play guy doing the radio broadcasts this year.