John Bonnes

So, you think you know what's going to happen in the AL Central? Let's find out. Every year Vegas takes bets on how teams will do over a full year. This represents an unbelievable opportunity for someone who iss super confident in their baseball statistics, because it eliminates the "sample size" excuse. So have at it. We'll start on the south side of Chicago. The White Sox won 85 games last year, finishing second in the AL Central. However, their expected wins, which can be a slightly better indicator of the next year's record, was 88 wins. In fact, sabrmetrically, the White Sox might have been a little better than the Tigers who only had 87 expected wins. The Sox lost the division because they lost 12 of eighteen head-to-head matchups versus the Tigers. If they're 9-9, we would have had another Game 163 in the AL Central. But that success was a huge surprise. Vegas pegged them to only win 74.5 game last year, but enormous years from Adam Dunn, Alex Rios, Jake Peavy and AJ Pierzynski, as well as the midseason pickup of Kevin Youkillis, propelled them to unforeseen heights. Your belief in the White Sox depends on what you think of those years. Pierzynski and Youkillis are now gone, and the White Sox had a very quiet offseason. Almost be definition that means there should be some regression. But how much further will it go? Far enough that Rios goes back to to his .265 on-base percentage or Dunn hits .159 or Peavy nibbles at just 111.2 inning? Because that's what happened the year before. Vegas sees some regression, giving an over/under of 80.5. I felt the regression would be a little worse, down to 78 - but I have to be honest with myself: I hate that damn team. While I'd love to root for them to finish under .500, I don't trust myself to be totally subjective when it comes to these kind of back-of-the-napkin evaluations. So ultimately, this is one I probably don't bet on. You, however, kind of can. click on the survey below. Make your voice heard on which way the White Sox season will go. And then right it down in the comments so you can check it again in six months. We'll relook at each of these next October and see how we did. Get the Poll Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

So, you think you know what's going to happen in the AL Central? Let's find out. Every year Vegas takes bets on how teams will do over a full year. This represents an unbelievable opportunity for someone who iss super confident in their baseball statistics, because it eliminates the "sample size" excuse. So have at it. We'll start on the south side of Chicago. The White Sox won 85 games last year, finishing second in the AL Central. However, their expected wins, which can be a slightly better indicator of the next year's record, was 88 wins. In fact, sabrmetrically, the White Sox might have been a little better than the Tigers who only had 87 expected wins. The Sox lost the division because they lost 12 of eighteen head-to-head matchups versus the Tigers. If they're 9-9, we would have had another Game 163 in the AL Central. But that success was a huge surprise. Vegas pegged them to only win 74.5 game last year, but enormous years from Adam Dunn, Alex Rios, Jake Peavy and AJ Pierzynski, as well as the midseason pickup of Kevin Youkillis, propelled them to unforeseen heights. Your belief in the White Sox depends on what you think of those years. Pierzynski and Youkillis are now gone, and the White Sox had a very quiet offseason. Almost be definition that means there should be some regression. But how much further will it go? Far enough that Rios goes back to to his .265 on-base percentage or Dunn hits .159 or Peavy nibbles at just 111.2 inning? Because that's what happened the year before. Vegas sees some regression, giving an over/under of 80.5. I felt the regression would be a little worse, down to 78 - but I have to be honest with myself: I hate that damn team. While I'd love to root for them to finish under .500, I don't trust myself to be totally subjective when it comes to these kind of back-of-the-napkin evaluations. So ultimately, this is one I probably don't bet on. You, however, kind of can. click on the survey below. Make your voice heard on which way the White Sox season will go. And then right it down in the comments so you can check it again in six months. We'll relook at each of these next October and see how we did. Get the Poll Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

It's questionable if the Twins should get "credit" for having the highest amount of spend for international and domestic prospects. The amount that they have to spend is essentially predetermined by other factors. All one can do is budget to that limit and cut payroll accordingly if it is too high. (This, by the way, is exactly what the Twins did last offseason. They claimed that part of the reason payroll fell from $112 million to $95 million is because they needed to budget so much for the drafts. And this year, when they don't have as many commitments - it fell another $15 million.) Here's roughly how it works: 1) The domestic draft has slots associated with each pick through something like 10 rounds. The higher the pick, the higher the amount of money. Teams have the sum of that slot money to spend on all those picks and they dare not go over it because it can cost them picks in future drafts. So the Twins didn't spend so much because they were aggressive. They just had a lot of very high picks. They had a lot of high picks because they had the second worst record in baseball and because they were awarded extra picks when they let free agents like Michael Cuddyer walk because they didn't want to pay them. I suppose one could argue that the Twins should get credit for paying their draft picks the slot money instead of just pocketing it, but that's organizational suicide; the whole point of these slot values is that they're holding down salaries so teams can get a bargain. 2) As for the international draft, every team has the same amount of money to spend. They can't go over it. I think it's about $3M. To not spend that is even dumber - the talent received per dollar spent is an unbelievable bargain. So yes, the Twins spend a lot on their draft picks last year, but it wasn't because they saved a lot of money and were being aggressive towards their future. The cause and effect is mixed up. They spent the money they were allowed by MLB to spend on the draft, and then claimed they cut back spending slightly to accommodate that. (And then ignored that claim when draft costs went down this year.)

This is a pretty fair point. I don't trust Selig, and I certainly don't trust his motives, but he has been pretty straight-forward on this stuff since overlooking it for the first decade of his tenure. (Personally, I think it's because he likes to embarrass the Player's Union, but still...)

Thanks for the feedback. We struggle with this nearly every week as we get feedback both ways. On the one hand, we get all kinds of feedback from people who say the opposite and then we get those who want us to play it straight. But I value the feedback, just like I value the other side. I think we're looking for a balance ourselves.

...and I'm not sure he's wrong. Christina De Nicola (who I'm assuming is the backup Twins beat reporter for MLB.com) covered today's game and got some quotes from Cole De Vries about his two perfect inning, two strikeout, no walk, outing today: De Vries didn't get the hype Deduno did last year, but his overall numbers might surprise you: 87.2 innings, 6 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 4.11 ERA. What hurt him most were home runs (1.6/9). That seems fixable. He doesn't have the most upside, but I'll take a steady back of the rotation starter at this point. For instance, Hendrick numbers in the majors: 108.2 IP, 5.5 K/9, 2.7 BB/9. 5.71 ERA. De Vries vies for spot in rotation | twinsbaseball.com: News

Patrick Reusse profiles BJ Hermsen. He steers clear of the disappointing strikeout numbers and focuses on the results, his size and his future: It's a good profile that told me a lot more than I knew before, but doesn't really change the limited ceiling I see him having. Iowa pitching legend helped Hermsen's rise | StarTribune.com

There have been lots of stories about players that might find their way onto Gardy's team as a bench bat: Phil Miller profiles Jeff Clement, who at one point profiled very similar to Joe Mauer... He hit his second home run of the spring today, one from each side of the plate. The interesting thing here is that all three should get some extra time over the next 10 days while Morneau is toiling away with Team Canada. Anyone got any preference here (assuming it's not Thome)?

Tom Powers starts a narrative on Joe Benson that is likely to gain a lot of steam, because it's just such an approachable story. Joe Benson could succeed - if he would just get out of his own way: It's time like this that I really want Bat Girl back. I expect Kung Fu was a little before her time, but a Kung Fu mashup featuring Joe Benson walking across the rice paper without leaving a mark would make my day, week and maybe month. Honestly, wouldn't Terry Ryan make a great Kung Fu Master Teacher? This is a gimme. http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_22710517/tom-powers-twins-outfielder-joe-benson-finally-good

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1428-Blog-Links-3-4-13

It seems to me you were very clear on your criteria: "From there, I included only players who could match or exceed Gagne's career fWAR, his 5-year-peak fWAR, or are active players with three seasons greater than 3.0 fWAR (pro-rated based on how many seasons the player has actually played). I call this the Gagne Threshold." Was the 3rd Twins player Bartlett?

I don't know how many wins or losses a manager can really impact and nobody (as far as I know) has really been able to quantify that. Also, the concept of a "replacement level manager" is interesting. Is it the "best manager not in the majors" which puts the onus on the team to identify that guy? Or is it the average guy who got fired from the year before, which would a lower level, I would think. Here's what I do know: managers can make a tremendous difference in every other field, and I don't know why it wouldn't in baseball. I suppose one could say that statement isn't true, because a replacement level manager is just about the same as most managers. But a good manager can lead a team to do remarkable things that a replacement manager can't do. And it also isn't a science, it's an art, with different managers doing things in different ways, so you end up needing to judge them by their results. So I guess I agree about the norm, but I think we're understating the extremes, if that makes sense.

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]3390[/ATTACH]Aaron and John talk about Ron Gardenhire's future, the latest with Jim Thome, Tom Kelly's opinion of Brian Dozier, Liam Hendriks' place in Australian history, late-night World Baseball Classic watching, storming the court, Joe Mauer's twins, questionable television viewing habits, one half of the podcast's "official couple" looking for new league members, going global, and being full of beans. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes.

But everyone swears it's temporary. They just need someone to fill in there since Morneau, Mauer and Colabello are all in the WBC for the next 10 games. In fact, it's all hands on deck to find warm bodies.... FWIW, Parmelee doesn't seem to mind. Shortage sends Parmelee back to first, for a bit | StarTribune.com

With the Twins facing the Marlins today, Phil Miller talked with Mike Redmond about what he learned from Gardenhire, and with Gardenhire about how Redmond prepared to become a coach. Redmond praised Gardenhire's loyalty to his players: I like Redmond a lot, and feel like he could be a very good coach. But I gotta say, I don't think this Marlins gig is going to go too well for him. It isn't just the cutbacks. It's also that the front office and ownership seem to be fairly miserable. Redmond's routine as Miami manager has a Gardy baseline | StarTribune.com

La Velle E Neal has referenced a "B" game in which Alex Meyer and JO Berrios were impressive. He expounds a little on how people reacted to Meyer: I'll be shocked if the Twins see him at any point this year, but I'll be paying attention to how he's doing in High A or Double A this year. Twins center field battle, Morneau, Thome, Meyer, Berrios, Gibson | StarTribune.com

Not a lot of new insights, but Duensing has been told that whatever role he has, he's going to have it all year: Reusse is very clear that he things Duensing should be in the 'pen. I think most would agree. As short-handed as the Twins might be in their starting rotation for left-handers, they might be even shorter in their bullpen. (That is, if you don't count the closer, Perkins. And I don't.) Duensing in bullpen isn't official ... yet | StarTribune.com

Relative to other MLB teams, I think the Twins have been pretty gracious about allowing fans to bring their own food and water to games. I've brought a Jimmy John's in several times last year.

What can we reasonably expect from Kepler this year, if we want him to stay on the prospect path?

My best guess it that Thome's primary role would be that of pinch hitter for whoever is starting at middle infield. From a WAR standpoint that might not mean much, but from a WPA standpoint, it can make an impact. Certainly enough of an impact to justify a major league deal, especially given the surplus the team has. But he could also be the first guy off the bench for a couple of our more fragile guys.... - Mauer needs a day off? Doumit to catcher and Thome to DH. - Morneau? Maure to first, Doumit to catcher and Thome to DH. - Doumit? Thome is the DH. There is also plenty of room for him. Leaving Butera off the roster (and having Hicks in CF) would give two bench bats (Thome and Mastorianni) and two middle infielders to cover for the two guys most likely for whom to pinch-hit. That makes the most sense. But they could go with one extra-middle infielder (leaving someone in AAA to work on getting ready) or even go with (gasp) just six relievers. (They might even be able to get by with four starters if they get a little luck on some early season cancellations.) I don't see the downside here.

He's older than I would like, but he's shown he can hit if he cas stay healthy. And it seems like he can stay healthy if he isn't catching so much. I like the system the Twins are using with he and Mauer - it seems like it brings out the best in both of them. I'll put my money down on the "over".