Teflon

Rogers Hornsby has the top 5 OPSs and eight of the top ten OPSs ever recorded by a 2B. (minimum 400 ABs) Who are the only two other 2B to crack the top 10? (Answers below) Nap Lajoie in 1901 (Philadelphia A's) and Jeff Kent in 2000. (San Francisco Giants)

I knew Sano was getting big, but he seems to be getting Delmon Young kind of big now. Looks like he's proficient at hitting taters as well as possibly consuming taters.

In just isolating pitchers it looks weighted to recent performances and longevity. (44) Sandy Koufax and (32) Bob Gibson being so significantly down the list from (7) Clemens is plain wrong. (100) Phi Niekro and (79) Robin Roberts also seem to be concessions to longevity.

As long as we're signing the likes of Scott Elarton and Michael O'Connor to minor league contracts why not extend an olive branch to Kevin Slowey? If he pitches well we look like geniuses. If he doesn't, we get the satisfaction of cutting him again.

What about Rick Sofield? When he retired he was the all-time leader in homeruns for players born in Wyoming. He's got to bump Adam Everett off this list who's only tied for the 41st most homeruns for players born in the state of Georgia with Desi Relaford and Bucky Dent.

Don't knock paradigms. After all, Carl Pohlad got richer than Midas getting a quarter back on all the paradigms he lent. (Plus foreclosing on the occasional farm here and there.)

I would take Liriano back if modern day technology has come up with one of those devices like they had in Star Trek to control Spock's body after his brain was stolen.

Great opportunity for Span. What a solid team Mike Rizzo has assembled.

If Joe Mauer played for Boston, they'd have to rename the Green Monster to something nicer.

And I would respectfully contend that Greinke is only consistent when he isn't being inconsistent. (Compare his 2009 to his 2010 or his ERA's ballooning over 5.00 in both July and August this year) I do see the advantage of having a Verlander or a Sabathia but to put Greinke on that plateau is being overly generous, especially considering pitchers V and S are both all-out gamers while Greinke has a history of being a less-than-uplifting teammate and emotionally fragile. He will get paid (overpaid) big dollars by somebody, but in the Twins case, it would cripple their ability to address other roster deficiencies.

I believe the numbers quoted for the Dodgers TV contract is an average over the 25 years of the proposed contract with Fox. These start at a much lower level, however and escalate over time so the Dodgers wouldn't be starting with $280 million the first year. This is assuming a $7 billion dollar deal which would mean Fox just capitulates to the Dodgers demand. Hopefully, there will be some negotiation involved. Also, any MLB payrolls over $180 million (or thereabouts) get hit with the luxury tax which extracts 40% to 50% of the over-spend and redistributes to the rest of the league. Still, the Dodgers will have a Yankee-like payroll if they want one, thanks to Fox hoping to become another ESPN. (PS - Fox bought half of YES from the Yankees)

Greinke has never won more than 16 games in a season. For the same money they'd end up paying a year for Greinke, the Twins could sign two competent 12-14 game winners.

To me, Brian Dozier looks like an apt comparison of how Trout might have progressed with the Twins. Also taken in the 2009 draft, Dozier moved through the minors at the same speed and was given an MLB starting position in a similar time frame as Trout. The difference is that Dozier was drafted as a 21-year old while Trout was 17 - although I don't know that the Twins would have a different strategy for the development of collegians versus high-schoolers. Or international players.

What if the Twins, with the 22nd overall pick in the 2009 MLB June Amateur draft, had taken Mike Trout (drafted three picks later) instead of Kyle Gibson? Would Trout have made as quick a debut and as immediate an impact with the Twins as he did with the Angels or would he just now be getting promoted to New Britain?

Never mind.

With Rick Anderson being the only Twins coach to retain his 2012 position, I wondered if his retention, aside from being a concession to Gardy, was also intended to make a re-signing with the Twins a decision with less uncertainty for Scott Baker. Thoughts?

Doesn't seem fair that Scott Diamond gets an award that bears his name while the other winners don't. Perhaps if the Twins renamed the yearly awards the Blackburn awards there would be no chance of that happening again.

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?1136-Tigers-Have-No-Interest-in-Bringing-Back-Delmon-Young

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2592[/ATTACH] As reported in the Detroit Free Press, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski (who I occasionally confuse with this guy or this guy) announced that the Tigers weren't planning to bring back American League Championship Series MVP Delmon Young next season. Young, playing out a 1-year 6.75 million dollar contract, hit .267/.296/.411 in 151 games for the Tigers in 2012 with 18 HR, 74 RBI and a 20/112 walks-to-strikeouts rate. He began the season as Detroit's starting left fielder but was soon swapped with Andy Dirks and moved to DH limiting his defensive "exposure" to only 31 games. Delmon negated some of his lackluster performance over the regular season by putting together his best stretch of baseball in the postseason. Young went 6 for 17 with a pair of homeruns and 6 RBI in the ALCS and 5 for 14 with another homeun in the World Series. I'm assuming that Dombrowski and the Tigers saw beyond Young's one atypical week and a half of October hitting and instead saw a player who at only 27 can no longer can play defense and who produced worse offensive results over the 25 weeks of the regular season than the proverbial "replacement player." (-1.2 WAR) I'm assuming that unlike a lot of casual fans, the Tigers front office has not forgotten about this little incident, either. Who is the real Delmon Young? Is he a much-talented player that squandered what could have been a great career through indifference and an unstable temperament - or a vastly overrated prospect that couldn't live up to unrealistic expectations? (And what lies ahead for Delmon?)

I'm putting together a deal to make a "Moneyball" sequel based on Terry Ryan and the Twins. One of my favorite scenes is when Ryan (Kurtwood Smith) tells Billy Smith (Joel Murray) to go sign the Greek God of Walks and Smith signs the Greek God of Balks by mistake. P.S. Who is this pitcher Will Chase?

Delmon barely managed a .700 OPS in his 600 regular season plate appearances and put up a negative wins above replacement player value despite being paid 12 times the salary of a replacement player. Same old Delmon. More slug than a slugger. Just got Adam Kennedy-kind-of-lucky in the ALCS.

Q: Why do the Twins insist on playing Ben Revere in the outfield position that takes the least advantage of his elite range and puts the most emphasis on his weak arm?

Given Revere's much higher zone rating, it follows that he would have put up better quantity-driven numbers (dWAR, DRS) than Span if given the bulk of playing time in CF as opposed to RF.