Brad Swanson

Download attachment: Revere_Ben_Sliding_US_720.jpg We are nearing the end of this endeavor, which means we are also nearing the actual 2013 draft. I know that I am very excited to see who the next wave of future Twins will be. In the meantime, here are my recaps from 2005 and 2006, to tide you over. Just click the years and enjoy the beautiful layout. Here is 2007: The 2005 and 2006 drafts were Snickers bars, just packed with peanuts. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]In this analogy, players are peanuts. The Twins added 2 current Twins and 10 more former Twins. While there were no superstars added to the organization, this is still a windfall of peanuts/players. The 2007 draft is more of a tumbleweed or perhaps a Milky Way with a rogue peanut. Only two players have reached the majors and realistically, maybe two or three more have a chance to join them. However, one of the more popular recent Twins was added... 1st Round Pick The Twins selected the diminutive (required adjective) Ben Revere with the 28th overall pick in the 2007 draft. Revere was a high school kid out of Kentucky. He's small, listed at 5' 9" and 170 lb, but that is part of what made him so much fun to watch. Revere has crazy range in the outfield and could track down fly balls like a homing beacon. Plus, he was kind of clumsy, so he'd fall and do somersaults and whatnot. It was all very entertaining. ~~~ Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! ~~~ Ah, but what if? The Twins pretty much nailed the Revere pick. If you can get a starting player with the 28th pick, it's a success. However, since I am legally obligated to present a "what if" scenario, you could make the case that Giancarlo Stanton would have been a nice selection. Stanton went 76th overall, which was somehow in the second round because there were roughly 400 compensation picks in 2007. For serious, take a look (at the bottom). Stanton is an excellent power hitter, but rarely falls down while trying to make amazing catches. Just stating the facts. Best Player Drafted Well hey, welcome back Ben Revere! I think I need to change these categories for the more recent drafts. The Twins finally rid themselves of the malcontent that is Ben Revere last off-season, acquiring Trevor May in a trade with the Phillies. Worst Player to Reach MLB Worst At Hat-Wearing I apologize for the previous section. Ben Revere is neither a malcontent or a "worst player" in any way. However, he is the only player who the Twins signed in 2007 who also made it to the majors. Thus, in a totally unfair way, and based on an extreme technicality, he is the worst player to reach the MLB from this draft. More accurately, he always wore his hat poorly, and that cannot go unpunished. So, Revere is not the worst player, but he was the worst hat-wearer from the '07 draft. The One Who Got Away The only other Twins' 2007 draftee to make the Majors (so far) is Mickey Storey. Storey was drafted in the 22nd round, and went back to school to become a senior and thus the "top dog" on campus. If I have learned anything from movies, he wasted this year partying before ultimately learning a lesson right before finals. He was drafted in the 31st round just one year later. Storey is currently pitching for the Blue Jays organization, and has a career ERA of 4.24. He strikes out a lot of batters. Best Name With the 1453rd overall pick in the 2007 MLB draft, the Twins selected Christopher Freshcorn, a catcher out of Alonso High School in Alonso, Florida. The Twins' 50th round selection does not have any stats. Fun Facts Despite Ben Revere being the only player from the 2007 draft to play for the Twins, he still has a higher WAR than all seven players drafted in 2006 who also played for the Twins combined. Andrew Schmiesing, the Twins' 11th-round pick, went to St. Olaf College and played for the St. Paul Saints. He's from Northfield, Minnesota! So many local angles! Third-round pick Angel Morales is currently playing with Fort Myers. He is a local Angel. He has played over 260 games in Fort Myers. He's spent more time in Fort Myers than long-time Fort Myers Mayor Randy Henderson, Jr. EEEYYY-OOO! That's actually not true. Twins' 8th-round pick and current Rochester Red Wing Danny Lehmann has hit eight career Minor League home runs in over 1000 at-bats. Twins' 14th-round pick Dan Rohlfing was playing in New Britain but just got the call to Rochester. He has seven career Minor League home runs in over 1100 at-bats, but of course, he hit one in his first AAA game. Your move, Danny Lehmann. Twins' 16th-round pick Nelvin Fuentes has never hit a professional home run. He's a pitcher, so that's not a fair way to assess him. In the 28th round, the Twins drafted Seth Rosin out of Mounds View High School. I went there! He did not sign and went to the University of Minnesota. I went there! In 2010, Rosin was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the 4th round. Rosin is pitching well at AA for the Phillies now. This is more of a fun fact for me. I am going to really enjoy reading it later.All those drafted who made it to the Bigs (so far) Ben Revere and Mickey Storey. One Sentence Summary The 2007 draft was all about Ben Revere and that wonderful smile. Link to the Twins' 2007 draft from Baseball Reference Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Gibson_Kyle_Original.jpg Weekend Recap The best thing I can say about the Giants series is that the Twins did not lose more games than they played. If they had done that, I would have been really upset/confused. The Twins didn't put up much of a fight this weekend, but the Giants are one of the best teams in baseball. Plus, San Francisco is windy. Wind is nature's biggest bully. I'm just glad the Twins escaped with their calculators. Does Kyle Gibson have the Radke Syndrome? Everyone remembers the odd affinity that Brad Radke had for giving up first inning runs. In fact, why weren't Brad Radke brand peanuts more popular? Because if you got to the game after the first inning, they'd already be shelled. Radke was an excellent pitcher, despite this odd quirk. Kyle Gibson is a promising pitcher and I think he's going to be good, but his first inning troubles are starting to become a trend. Actually, he has troubles in all of the early innings. Here's an ERA breakdown by inning in 2014: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD=align: left]Split[/TD] [TD=align: center]G[/TD] [TD=align: center]IP[/TD] [TD=align: center]ER[/TD] [TD=align: center]ERA[/TD] [TD=align: center]PA[/TD] [TD=align: center]AB[/TD] [TD=align: center]R[/TD] [TD=align: center]H[/TD] [TD=align: center]HR[/TD] [TD=align: center]BB[/TD] [TD=align: center]SO[/TD] [TD=align: center]SO/W[/TD] [TD=align: center]BA[/TD] [TD=align: center]OBP[/TD] [TD=align: center]SLG[/TD] [TD=align: center]OPS[/TD] [TD=align: center]TB[/TD] 1st inning[TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]9.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]7.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]48[/TD] [TD=align: right]40[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].325[/TD] [TD=align: right].438[/TD] [TD=align: right].450[/TD] [TD=align: right].888[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] 2nd inning[TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]9.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]38[/TD] [TD=align: right]38[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right][/TD] [TD=align: right].289[/TD] [TD=align: right].289[/TD] [TD=align: right].474[/TD] [TD=align: right].763[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] 3rd inning[TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]8.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.75[/TD] [TD=align: right]37[/TD] [TD=align: right]33[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].273[/TD] [TD=align: right].351[/TD] [TD=align: right].394[/TD] [TD=align: right].745[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] 4th inning[TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]7.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.86[/TD] [TD=align: right]29[/TD] [TD=align: right]28[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].214[/TD] [TD=align: right].241[/TD] [TD=align: right].321[/TD] [TD=align: right].563[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] 5th inning[TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]7.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.29[/TD] [TD=align: right]28[/TD] [TD=align: right]24[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.50[/TD] [TD=align: right].208[/TD] [TD=align: right].321[/TD] [TD=align: right].250[/TD] [TD=align: right].571[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] 6th inning[TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]17[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].000[/TD] [TD=align: right].118[/TD] [TD=align: right].000[/TD] [TD=align: right].118[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] 7th inning[TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.75[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].333[/TD] [TD=align: right].368[/TD] [TD=align: right].389[/TD] [TD=align: right].757[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] 8th inning[TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right][/TD] [TD=align: right].333[/TD] [TD=align: right].333[/TD] [TD=align: right].333[/TD] [TD=align: right].667[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] Innings 1-3[TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]26.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]6.58[/TD] [TD=align: right]123[/TD] [TD=align: right]111[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]33[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.25[/TD] [TD=align: right].297[/TD] [TD=align: right].366[/TD] [TD=align: right].441[/TD] [TD=align: right].807[/TD] [TD=align: right]49[/TD] Innings 4-6[TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]19.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.89[/TD] [TD=align: right]74[/TD] [TD=align: right]67[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].164[/TD] [TD=align: right].243[/TD] [TD=align: right].224[/TD] [TD=align: right].467[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] Innings 7-9[TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]5.40[/TD] [TD=align: right]22[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.00[/TD] [TD=align: right].333[/TD] [TD=align: right].364[/TD] [TD=align: right].381[/TD] [TD=align: right].745[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/25/2014. Now, he also hits a wall around the 7th inning, but that is somewhat common. More troubling, his first three innings are terrible and the middle innings are great. Bert Blyleven posited that Gibson is too amped up when starting a game and it leads to the ball being up. When he fatigues, his pitches drop and he gets more ground balls and more outs. It makes sense, but then again, Blyleven got to about the 5th inning of Saturday's game before he stopped calling Pablo Sandoval "Sandsobal" so who really knows. Whatever the issue, Gibson and his coaches need to iron it out because he doesn't have Brad Radke's command and therefore, his ability to overcome a bad first inning. Sam Deduno There should be a term for the last guy who joins the bandwagon. Mr. Last Jerk or something. Mrs. Last Jerk if it's a female. Well, we can work on that nickname later. If the Sam Deduno bandwagon is rolling along down the street, I'm running my little heart out alongside trying to decide if I should risk my health to jump aboard. Deduno appears to be a perfectly acceptable back-end starter. I certainly prefer him to Mike Pelfrey or Kevin Correia. He looked fine on Saturday, not great, but good enough to keep the Twins in the game. I still worry about how many walks he issues, but he seems to have the ability to induce double plays because he induces so many ground balls. As a reliever, his ground ball rate had declined, but since moving back into the rotation, that rate is starting to climb back to elite levels. Plus, he's generating more strikeouts this season. I fully believe in jinxes and I fully believe that I am a massive jinx. If I decide to run alongside the bandwagon for a few more months, there is a completely scientific reason why. Josmil Pinto I don't curse a lot. I am a teacher. I try to be mindful of the fact that my students may read this if they are extremely bored. Therefore, I try to keep this part of the web clean. That said, doggone it to heck, why is Josmil Pinto rotting on the bench?!? Pinto had one hit last week. One. That would be a troubling number if he hadn't gotten only six at-bats and one start. That one hit was Pinto's seventh home run, good for second on the team with ease. Kurt Suzuki has continued to be great, but keeping Pinto on the bench 80% of the time in favor of Suzuki is just crazy. Pinto is too young and too talented. He should have been alternating starts with Suzuki on the road trip. I worry that with Oswaldo Arcia and Josh Willingham coming back and Chris Herrmann sent back to AAA, Pinto will continue to sit more than he starts. If that happens, you can expect the darn cursing to increase. Beans. Madness Former Twin Update - Liam Hendriks He's back! Liam Hendriks was added to the Blue Jays' active roster when they outrighted Esmil Rogers (a player I advocated the Twins trading for, thank you very much) to AAA. Hendriks made his 2014 debut on Friday and threw 5.2 innings, giving up just 3 hits, 3 walks, 1 earned run, all while striking out 3 (well, not while, he just struck out three guys, the other stuff happened around those strikeouts). I liked Hendriks even though he was never good with the Twins. It would be cool if he found some success in Toronto. I just love people. Random Link - McCovey Chronicles My beloved Grant Brisbee wrote about the Twins-Giants rivalry that doesn't exist. He posted this prior to the weekend series and I read it on Friday, but it's still worth reading even though the Twins and Giants likely won't play each other again for a long time. It's always fun to rehash the A.J. Pierzynski trade, but this time it's from the perspective of the losing fan base. Here's the link. Random Top 17 List Top 17 lists are so popular right now. Joe Mauer happens to have the 17th worst isolated power among all qualified MLB players. Isolated power basically measures a hitter's raw power. Mauer's is currently 0.081, which rates just above "awful" on this chart. Somehow, Mauer has an above-average OPS+, even with awful power. I was shocked on Saturday when Mauer hit a double and the graphic stated that he had hit just his 5th double of the season. I hope Mauer's extra-base power starts to come back because he's basically an average hitter without it. Here's the top 5 on this top 17 list that I never actually provided (through Saturday's games): Ben Revere - .034 Derek Jeter - .043 DJ LeMahieu - .047 Martin Prado - .058 Norichika Aoki - .059#Eddie400 Update This is by far my most successful half-hearted campaign. Eduardo Escobar is still on fire. When I proposed the Eddie 400 back in January, it was more a "why not" idea based on the idea that Pedro Florimon wasn't very good and Escobar was a couple years younger. Escobar has made me famous beyond my wildest dreams (I have very depressing dreams). He is still hitting like a champ and still getting regular plate appearances. In fact, he is currently on pace for about 350 at-bats, but with his recent uptick in playing time, he should plow past the 400 ABs that I requested for him. I am so great. I take full credit for all of his successes. Random Idea to Change Baseball I love baseball, but I admit that it is not a perfect game. Thus, from time to time, I have some craaaaaazy ideas to make the game better. Here's one. What if one baseball per game was made of like really hard cake. This would take some engineering, but the weight and feel would have to be the same, so the pitcher doesn't realize the difference. The ump just has that cake ball in his bag and eventually it comes into the game. Once the ball is thrown, it would either explode with cake in the catcher's mitt, or better, off the batter's bat. Cake balls are really big right now, so why not capitalize? I'm not sure what the outcome would be, maybe it would just be a short comedy interlude, everyone cleans up and we just move on like it didn't happen. If a player had a flour allergy, it would be particularly compelling every time he came to the plate. It's just an idea, so obviously it needs some fine tuning. Just imagine how much old school ball guys would hate that cake ball. Parting Thought I am not an overly patriotic person, or an overly political person or really, an overly emotional person. I have many family members who have served in the U.S. military and I am fortunate enough to have never lost a loved one during service. As a social studies teacher, I felt an obligation to remind students why we had this long weekend in late May. For some, they knew all too well and for others, it gave them something to think about as they enjoyed one of the final weekends before summer. I don't feel that obligation as a Twins blogger or whatever, but I don't mind taking a few minutes away from the Twins to do as much as I can to reinforce the meaning of this holiday. To those who are remembering someone important on this very powerful holiday, my thoughts are with you. Have a great week, everyone! Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Ventura_Robin_600.jpg Welcome to 25 drafts in 25 days! Over the next few weeks, I will be writing brief recaps of the last 25 drafts in Twins' history. This will all culminate with the 2013 draft, when the Twins will select 4th overall. I know that the MLB draft isn't as hyped as the NBA or NFL draft, due to the age and experience of the players involved, but the draft is an important tool used to build a franchise, especially for the Twins. This coming draft is extremely important, as the Twins have the opportunity to add to an already stacked farm system. Twins Daily, I don't want to bombard you with these recaps, so I'll just post one every 3-4 days. I'll have links to those that I do not directly post here, but you can always check each year out daily at my blog: Kevin Slowey was Framed! I plan to post each of these around 11am for the next 25 days at that site. You can stop crying now. Housekeeping aside, we'll start back in 1988 and work our way to the present. 1st Round Pick The Twins drafted right-hander Johnny Ard out of Manatee Community College in Bradenton, Florida with the 20th overall pick in the 1988 draft. Manatee Community College. Unfortunately, Johnny didn't want to put in the Ard work it takes to get to the Bigs. I don't know that to be true. Glancing at his Minor League stats tells a lot, as he walked a lot of batters and didn't strike many out. Pretty Ard sell for me. Ah, but what if? Well, the 1988 draft kinda sucked. Robin Ventura was by far the best player, but he was drafted 10th overall. Alex Fernandez posted a 28.9 WAR for his career and went 24th overall to the Brewers. I am guessing the Twins would have preferred Fernandez to Ard, but only in hindsight of course. Best Player Drafted In the 11th round, with the 284th pick, the Twins selected J.T. Bruett. Bruett posted a career WAR of 0.2. That was the best number of any player that the Twins actually drafted and signed in 1988. A couple of their 1988 draftees had better careers, but we will get to that in a bit. Worst Player to Reach MLB In the 9th round, the Twins selected Doug Simons. Simons posted a -1.5 WAR, thus hurting the teams he played for, just by being around. He never pitched for the Twins, luckily. Simons posted a career 6.68 ERA in 66 career innings. Tons of sixes aside, he didn't really do much. The One Who Got Away The Twins drafted Aaron Sele in the 37th round, but he chose to be a dork and go to college. He was later selected 23rd overall by the Red Sox, so who's a dork now? He won 148 career games and was a player I often heard Twins fans long for. He had a career ERA+ of 100, which is league average, but compared with the entire remaining Twins' draft, he was Roger Clemens. Best Name Deryk Gross - 12th Round - What a difference one "y" makes. Fun Facts 6th Round pick Pat Mahomes had a better career batting average than 4th round pick Steve Dunn, who was a first baseman The Twins selected Steve Dunn in the 4th round and then Steve Dean in the 5th round. Someone found that funny, I bet. Steve Dean did not make it to the Majors, thus having a WAR of 0. Steve Dunn did make it to the Majors and posted a WAR of -0.4, thus making him the less valuable Steve. Alan Newman was drafted 50th overall. Everyone remembers Alan Newman. He was 6' 6" and 240 lb out of La Habra, California. He was not Al Newman. The Twins drafted Scott Stahoviak in the 27th round, but he did not sign. He'd be back. A guy I went to high school with had a Scott Stahoviak jersey. Seriously.All those drafted who made it to the Bigs Alan Newman, Steve Dunn, Pat Mahomes, Doug Simons, J.T. Bruett, Scott Stahoviak and Aaron Sele One Sentence Summary The Minnesota Twins drafted some players in the 1988 draft and all of those players were horrible. Click here to view the article

I wrote about Kyle Gibson's road struggles on Friday and then he totally redeemed himself by breaking the Twins' five-game losing streak with an excellent road effort. The rest of the series was a real drag, although Jorge Polanco's triple in the ninth on Friday was pretty exciting. In fact, Jorge Polanco's everything is pretty exciting. Joe Mauer Over the last ten games, Mauer has raised his average about 15 points. If he maintains that pace, he'll be hitting over .400. So yeah, pretty good. That's probably not realistic, but it does seem that Mauer is getting his proverbial stuff together. His line drive rate has been slowly climbing and it seems that he has been finding more holes on the field. Maybe he is figuring out the "Mauer shift" or maybe his luck is evening out or maybe nothing is different at all. No one is happy that Mauer is having a bad season (even if it seems like some revel in it at times) and a productive Mauer is extremely important to the success of the Twins. It seems that he could be on the path back to his old self. I hope so. Sam Fuld So you know when you join a new website and you have to create a password? If you don't set up a proper password, you get that red "x" next to your choice and you have to enter a new password. I think baseball lineups should be entered in the same manner. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ro5KLD8Qqgs/U6-ISV8QEpI/AAAAAAAABhc/quzgLxGk0Jo/s1600/fuldleadoff.png There are literally 11 better options than Fuld. Fuld's OPS is better than only Kendrys Morales and Pedro Florimon. One of those is a fluke and the other is a from a guy who probably shouldn't have a Major League job (more on that shortly!). Fuld plays center, runs fast and is short. Those three things alone should not overshadow that Fuld plays poorly, can't run when he isn't on base, and, well...I can't think of something that pairs with his height. It's almost as if the Twins are on a runaway bus that is set to explode if anyone thinks outside of the box. Pop quiz hot shot: Isn't it bad enough that the lineup options are so limited that Sam Fuld has to simply be in the lineup every day? It doesn't mean he needs to be put in a position where he could bat upwards of five times in one game. How's that for a 20-year-old reference? Pickles Dillhoefer Oh my goodness. I hate when people say "it was better in my day" or "they don't make things like they used to" because there's some serious confirmation bias working there. However, it's a scientific fact that nicknames were better in the early 1900s. I found Ol' Pickles up there because I was doing some Pedro Florimon research. Florimon is currently hitting under .100. His OPS is just barely above .300. If Florimon can somehow get to 100 plate appearances this season (and I think we all hope he doesn't), he'll be the first player since 1931 to hit under .100 and have an OPS under .300 with 100 or more PAs. Unreal. It wasn't Pickles, it was Ed Connolly, but Pickles did hit .126/.144/.158 in 104 plate appearances in 1917. He's also went by "Pickles." If Florimon starts going by "Pickles" Florimon, he'll become my favorite player, even with a .100 BA. Former Twin Update - Ryan Doumit I think it's safe to say the Twins sold Doumit at the right time. When they originally signed Doumit, I thought it was a safe, smart signing. He performed well for the Twins to start the 2012 season and earned an extension. However, he was always a comedy act in the field and his value as a batter was tied up in his power. The Twins unloaded Doumit for Sean Gilmartin this past December and if Gilmartin can simply perform as a sign post, he'll provide more value than Doumit has in 2014. Doumit isn't playing very often, shocking considering his defense and the lack of a DH in the NL. He currently has a strikeout-to-walk ratio over ten. TEN!!! He wore number 9 in his final season with the Twins, so I'd like to see that ratio dip just a tad in honor of his Twins' career. Random Top Ten List - BB/9 in a season since 1961 [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TH=align: center]Rk[/TH] [TH=align: left]Player[/TH] [TH=align: center]BB9 ▴[/TH] [TH=align: left]Year[/TH] [TH=align: center]Age[/TH] [TH=align: center]Tm[/TH] [TH=align: center]GS[/TH] [TH=align: center]W[/TH] [TH=align: center]L[/TH] [TH=align: center]IP[/TH] [TH=align: center]H[/TH] [TH=align: center]ER[/TH] [TH=align: center]BB[/TH] [TH=align: center]SO[/TH] [TH=align: center]ERA[/TH] [TH=align: center]FIP[/TH] [TH=align: center]ERA+[/TH] [TH=align: center]BA[/TH] [TH=align: center]OBP[/TH] [TH=align: center]SLG[/TH] [TH=align: center]OPS[/TH] [TH=align: center]OPS+[/TH] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: left]Carlos Silva[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.43[/TD] [TD=align: left]2005[/TD] [TD=align: right]26[/TD] [TD=align: left]MIN[/TD] [TD=align: right]27[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]188.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]212[/TD] [TD=align: right]72[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]71[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.44[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.18[/TD] [TD=align: right]130[/TD] [TD=align: right].290[/TD] [TD=align: right].300[/TD] [TD=align: right].441[/TD] [TD=align: right].741[/TD] [TD=align: right]93[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: left]Bret Saberhagen[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.66[/TD] [TD=align: left]1994[/TD] [TD=align: right]30[/TD] [TD=align: left]NYM[/TD] [TD=align: right]24[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]177.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]169[/TD] [TD=align: right]54[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] [TD=align: right]143[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.74[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.76[/TD] [TD=align: right]153[/TD] [TD=align: right].254[/TD] [TD=align: right].271[/TD] [TD=align: right].389[/TD] [TD=align: right].660[/TD] [TD=align: right]75[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: left]Cliff Lee[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.76[/TD] [TD=align: left]2010[/TD] [TD=align: right]31[/TD] [TD=align: left]TOT[/TD] [TD=align: right]28[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]212.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]195[/TD] [TD=align: right]75[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] [TD=align: right]185[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.18[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.58[/TD] [TD=align: right]133[/TD] [TD=align: right].240[/TD] [TD=align: right].255[/TD] [TD=align: right].363[/TD] [TD=align: right].618[/TD] [TD=align: right]66[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: left]Bob Tewksbury[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.77[/TD] [TD=align: left]1992[/TD] [TD=align: right]31[/TD] [TD=align: left]STL[/TD] [TD=align: right]32[/TD] [TD=align: right]16[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]233.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]217[/TD] [TD=align: right]56[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]91[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.16[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.13[/TD] [TD=align: right]158[/TD] [TD=align: right].248[/TD] [TD=align: right].265[/TD] [TD=align: right].353[/TD] [TD=align: right].618[/TD] [TD=align: right]81[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: left]Greg Maddux[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.77[/TD] [TD=align: left]1997[/TD] [TD=align: right]31[/TD] [TD=align: left]ATL[/TD] [TD=align: right]33[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]232.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]200[/TD] [TD=align: right]57[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]177[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.20[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.43[/TD] [TD=align: right]189[/TD] [TD=align: right].236[/TD] [TD=align: right].256[/TD] [TD=align: right].311[/TD] [TD=align: right].567[/TD] [TD=align: right]50[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: left]Bob Tewksbury[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.84[/TD] [TD=align: left]1993[/TD] [TD=align: right]32[/TD] [TD=align: left]STL[/TD] [TD=align: right]32[/TD] [TD=align: right]17[/TD] [TD=align: right]10[/TD] [TD=align: right]213.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]258[/TD] [TD=align: right]91[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]97[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.83[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.36[/TD] [TD=align: right]103[/TD] [TD=align: right].301[/TD] [TD=align: right].318[/TD] [TD=align: right].412[/TD] [TD=align: right].730[/TD] [TD=align: right]102[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: left]David Wells[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.85[/TD] [TD=align: left]2003[/TD] [TD=align: right]40[/TD] [TD=align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=align: right]30[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]213.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]242[/TD] [TD=align: right]98[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]101[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.14[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.94[/TD] [TD=align: right]106[/TD] [TD=align: right].286[/TD] [TD=align: right].306[/TD] [TD=align: right].442[/TD] [TD=align: right].749[/TD] [TD=align: right]96[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: left]LaMarr Hoyt[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.86[/TD] [TD=align: left]1985[/TD] [TD=align: right]30[/TD] [TD=align: left]SDP[/TD] [TD=align: right]31[/TD] [TD=align: right]16[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]210.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]210[/TD] [TD=align: right]81[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]83[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.47[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.44[/TD] [TD=align: right]102[/TD] [TD=align: right].261[/TD] [TD=align: right].280[/TD] [TD=align: right].386[/TD] [TD=align: right].666[/TD] [TD=align: right]91[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: left]Phil Hughes[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.87[/TD] [TD=align: left]2014[/TD] [TD=align: right]28[/TD] [TD=align: left]MIN[/TD] [TD=align: right]16[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: right]103.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]110[/TD] [TD=align: right]41[/TD] [TD=align: right]10[/TD] [TD=align: right]88[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.58[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.60[/TD] [TD=align: right]112[/TD] [TD=align: right].273[/TD] [TD=align: right].289[/TD] [TD=align: right].397[/TD] [TD=align: right].686[/TD] [TD=align: right]91[/TD] [TD=align: right]10[/TD] [TD=align: left]Jon Lieber[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.92[/TD] [TD=align: left]2004[/TD] [TD=align: right]34[/TD] [TD=align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=align: right]27[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]176.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]216[/TD] [TD=align: right]85[/TD] [TD=align: right]18[/TD] [TD=align: right]102[/TD] [TD=align: right]4.33[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.71[/TD] [TD=align: right]104[/TD] [TD=align: right].301[/TD] [TD=align: right].317[/TD] [TD=align: right].442[/TD] [TD=align: right].758[/TD] [TD=align: right]97[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: left]David Wells[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.92[/TD] [TD=align: left]2004[/TD] [TD=align: right]41[/TD] [TD=align: left]SDP[/TD] [TD=align: right]31[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]195.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]203[/TD] [TD=align: right]81[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]101[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.73[/TD] [TD=align: right]3.88[/TD] [TD=align: right]104[/TD] [TD=align: right].266[/TD] [TD=align: right].285[/TD] [TD=align: right].410[/TD] [TD=align: right].694[/TD] [TD=align: right]89[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: left]Greg Maddux[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.99[/TD] [TD=align: left]1995[/TD] [TD=align: right]29[/TD] [TD=align: left]ATL[/TD] [TD=align: right]28[/TD] [TD=align: right]19[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]209.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]147[/TD] [TD=align: right]38[/TD] [TD=align: right]23[/TD] [TD=align: right]181[/TD] [TD=align: right]1.63[/TD] [TD=align: right]2.26[/TD] [TD=align: right]260[/TD] [TD=align: right].197[/TD] [TD=align: right].224[/TD] [TD=align: right].258[/TD] [TD=align: right].482[/TD] [TD=align: right]29[/TD] [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used Generated 6/29/2014. Phil Hughes is doing something borderline historic this season. Only eight pitchers have qualified for the ERA title and posted a lower BB/9 in a season (since 1961). Obviously, this season is only roughly halfway over and Hughes has a lot of innings left to throw, but it's still crazy just how great he has been at limiting walks. It's still shocking to see Carlos Silva at the top of that list. Hughes already has more strikeouts this season than Silva had that season. Wild. Wait, no, not wild. In control, but wild. The other wild. Get Excited About a Prospect - Nate Roberts Roberts is not a household name, like say, Coke or Tide, but he is a very intriguing baseball player. He returned to action last week after missing roughly 45 seasons due to injury. Roberts is so interesting because he's an absolute Minor League OBP Machine. His career OBP is over .440, just a ridiculous number even for an older guy at lower levels. Baseball karma owes this guy some good fortune, so I'm just going to hop headfirst onto his bandwagon. Even if he makes his MLB debut at 50, I bet he'll walk in his first plate appearance. AIM Chat with 12-Year-Old Brad http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jLn2X8agM74/U6-IBFxK91I/AAAAAAAABhU/Kyp1hjtG5_0/s1600/aimtop.png KPuckFan34123456: Hey Future Brad. BSwanson0928: Oh hey, I don't have a lot of time, I have to go to the Twins game. KPuckFan34123456: Oh fun, lucky! BSwanson0928: Eh, I guess. KPuckFan34123456: You aren't excited? BSwanson0928: Well, it's a work night and traffic is awful and I'll have to walk from the ramp or pay a lot. KPuckFan34123456: But you get to go to the game. BSwanson0928: Well, yeah, but it's not that great. KPuckFan34123456: Why not? I love going to the Dome. BSwanson0928: Well, the Dome is gone, it was replaced with Target Field, an outdoor stadium. KPuckFan34123456: Oh, even better! Isn't it really nice outside in June? BSwanson0928: Eh, it's a little hot, sometimes buggy. It might be a little too sunny too. KPuckFan34123456: Sounds rough... BSwanson0928: Are you being sarcastic? Do 12-year-olds use sarcasm? KPuckFan34123456: It's just lame that you're being lame about going to a baseball game. I wish I was going to a game tonight. BSwanson0928: You'll learn new adjectives soon. Well, it's different when you're older. KPuckFan34123456: Why? Do I start to not like baseball? BSwanson0928: No, I still like baseball a lot. I write about it like three times a week. KPuckFan34123456: You'd rather write about it than go to a game. You're weird. I'm going to be weird. BSwanson0928: I'm probably being a baby. It will be fun once I get there. It always is. KPuckFan34123456: Always, how often do you go? BSwanson0928: 4-5 games a year, although in college I went to like 15-20 games a year. KPuckFan34123456: College sounds fun. We had a math test today. It was easy. BSwanson0928: Math is cool. KPuckFan34123456: No it isn't. I'm going to go now. Have fun at the game. BSwanson0928: Thanks, I will. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d6WkUdiwjpg/U6-H52vC6oI/AAAAAAAABhM/mUBxOa0S3wg/s1600/aimbottom.png Random Baseball Card from the Past - David Arias I think I figured out why David Ortiz didn't become Big Papi with the Twins. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jl4LFDWicms/U6-OrjenDeI/AAAAAAAABhs/jR-Z1PZbSt0/s1600/david+arias.jpg It's one thing to keep the bat on your shoulder, it's another thing to keep the bat near both shoulders. Plus, that's a great way to break a finger. This card is either shockingly expensive (like $30!), or I don't know how much cards are worth. For the record, I have no clue how to re-size a photo here. I wish I could make this bigger. Plugging My Way - Brian Dozier is interesting Last week, I wrote about Brian Dozier and what a handso...I mean interesting man he is. Statistically, he's having a good, but super weird season. If you want more details, just click here. Also, I may have uncovered the fact that Brian Dozier is Mike Schmidt. This would be a pretty big discovery. Parting Thought The Twins are awful on the road lately. They return home for this week and I hope they can pick up a lot of wins. The Royals have cooled off and the Yankees are hardly scary, but it's still two winning teams coming to town. If the Twins have any ambition of being in the Wild Card race, they need to have a great week. I hope you have a great week too! Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! [/hr] Twins ended their losing streak yesterday so celebrate with a half-price L or XL pizza from PapaJohns.com by using the promo code 'TWINSWIN'! Click here to view the article

I hold out hope for Arcia because of his style and athleticism. It seems like he could be coached. I think he's better suited for left though. But yes, this season has been very disappointing.

Warning: Stats ahead! If you prefer to learn about Scott Diamond's unique place in baseball history, you can read it here. 2012 was a completely lost season for the Minnesota Twins. I don't need to rehash all the details, as we all lived it together. One of the few bright spots was a 26-year-old former Rule 5 draft pick in Scott Diamond. Diamond shined brightly for the Twins in 2012. He won 12 games, posted a 3.54 ERA and dazzled hitters and fans alike with his pinpoint control. Diamond will go into the 2013 season as the only certainty and likely would have been the Opening Day starter, had he been healthy. As it stands, the expectations for Diamond are high. Should we expect to see a repeat of 2012, or will he revert to pre-2012 Scott Diamond? Let's use any and everything FanGraphs.com has to offer to find out. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] This article was originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! The very first thing I see when I look at Diamond's stats is his below-average strikeout rate. Diamond posted a 12.6% strikeout rate in 2012, where league average was around 19%. This stat alone means only one thing - Scott Diamond doesn't strike out a lot of batters. Not exactly breaking news. However, the rate is so far below the league average, that it bears a closer inspection. Here is a list of "successful" pitchers with a career K rate of 13% or lower (from 1993-2012). I used an ERA- of 100 or less as the gauge for success, but within that number there is much fluctuation. A 100 ERA- is considered league average. I used ERA- instead of FIP- because I wanted to reflect actual performance and not peripheral skill. I only looked at pitchers who were considered starters through the majority of their career. Download attachment: diamond.jpg Note: ERA- is a stat that standardizes ERA for park factors and era. It is a great way to compare ERA from players in multiple seasons and eras. A smaller number is better and 100 is always the average, much like IQ. [TABLE=width: 163] Aaron Cook Chien-Ming Wang Mark Gubicza John Lannan Jon Garland Paul Byrd Dennis Martinez Tomo Ohka Butch Henry [/TABLE] 9 names and no one that really jumps off the page. We can add players who posted a 13 to 14% K rate and then these names appear: Mark Buehrle, Kenny Rogers, Orel Hershiser, Ken Hill, and Jarrod Washburn. The names are a bit more impressive, but we are also talking about a 10% increase in K rate. It is possible to have success with such a low strikeout rate, but it is pretty rare. However, K rate is just one part of the puzzle. What else should we look at? Diamond's walk rate was 4.3% last season, almost half of the league average of 8.1%. How rare is a walk rate that low? Looking at the same sample as before, here is a list of pitchers who posted a walk rate as low as Diamond's 4.3%? [TABLE=width: 163] Bret Saberhagen Bob Tewksbury Kevin Slowey Greg Maddux Scott Sanderson Josh Towers Brad Radke [/TABLE] 7 names, and all but Towers and Slowey won at least 100 career games. Sanderson doesn't really fit, as the sample was from the tail end of his career. Towers and Slowey couldn't keep balls in the park, something Diamond did at roughly the league average. Maddux, Saberhagen and Radke are the class of this group. Each had a significantly higher K rate than Diamond. However, it is clear that Diamond had elite control last season. If he can maintain that control, he should remain effective. Limiting walks as Diamond does really keeps runners off of the bases. The low walk rate masks his low strikeout rate a bit. His 2.9 K/BB ratio last year was well above league average. in our 1993-2012 sample, only 75 pitchers had a K/BB ratio higher than 2.9. Of those 75 pitchers, only 6 posted an ERA- over 100: Kevin Slowey, Ricky Nolasco, Bob Tewksbury, Josh Towers, Scott Sanderson and Steve Woodard. We discussed Slowey, Towers and Sanderson in the prior paragraph. What is the deal with the other three? Let's talk a bit about LOB% or left on-base percentage. This is basically the percentage of batters that pitchers put on-base, but then strand. Low strikeout pitchers often have troubles with LOB% because they can't just rear back and get a strikeout when they need it. This seems to be why Tewksbury was only league average. He had a 11.6% career K rate, even lower than Diamond. Nolasco and Woodard have low LOB% as well, but did not have the same issues with strikeouts, as each approached league average. Their low career LOB% could indicate that they pitch worse out of the stretch, or perhaps they just pitch poorly with runners on base. Whatever the reason, this seems to be hurting their overall performance. Scott Diamond has a LOB% above league average. Now, that could regress a bit, but if he can maintain that rate, he could continue to succeed as a low-strikeout pitcher. Another reason for Diamond's success was a significantly improved ground ball rate of 53.4%. Only 58 pitchers in my 1993-2012 sample posted a rate that high. High ground ball rates mean fewer line drives and fly balls, therefore leading to fewer extra-base hits. Here is a list of pitchers from my sample who posted a ground ball rate comparable to Diamond's with a walk rate in his neighborhood: Roy Halladay, Kevin Brown and the oft-injured but always effective Brett Anderson. Not bad. Each of these pitchers gets more strikeouts, but no one limited walks like Diamond did in 2012. So, why was Diamond more effective in 2012? Why did he get more ground balls? Why did his walk rate dip? Let's look through some PitchF/x data and see if we can figure it all out. A couple factors jump out at me. Diamond has a great curve ball. He gets far more swinging strikes on that pitch than is considered normal. Batters swing at roughly half of his curve balls outside the strike zone (30% is about average), but only make contact on those half the time (68% is about average). This is pretty impressive. His fastball doesn't generate many swings and misses at all, but the fastballs that are put in play against him are mostly ground balls. This improved ground ball rate on fastballs pretty much explains his overall increase in ground ball rate. Is this something he is doing differently with his fastball? The heat charts are not perfect because the sample was much smaller in 2011, but it seems that he is working away from left-handed batters more and working in on right-handed batters a bit more. It also seems that there is a trend toward him working lower in the zone, which certainly could explain the extra ground balls. There are a couple other items I learned looking at his PitchF/x data. First, he almost exclusively uses his change-up against right handed batters. He keeps it low and away and works that pitch mostly out of the strike zone. He induces mostly weak contact with that pitch, making it an out pitch of sorts. He likes to put his curve ball down and away from left-handed batters and down an in on right-handed batters. This indicates a match in approach with his fastball. Consistently keeping the ball down is a great way to get ground balls. Looking at two specific games shows the two sides of Scott Diamond. On June 24, against the Cincinnati Reds, Diamond was efficient. He went 8 innings, struck out 7 and walked just one. PitchF/x shows that he worked the outer parts of the strike zone, kept his curve ball down, but not too far down, and ran his fastball in on righties. He kept the ball away from lefties as well. On September 16, the White Sox tagged him for six runs in 5.1 innings. Against righties, His curve ball was all over the place and his fastball was out over the middle of the plate. Against lefties, the ball was up more over the middle of the plate. A few other items. Diamond didn't have much of a platoon split in 2012, showing relatively equal effectiveness against lefties and righties. Lefties actually made better contact, but Diamond gets more strikeouts and walks against lefties as well. Home/road splits don't vary much either, although he did get hit a bit more on the road. Diamond's walk rate increased and his ground ball rate decreased as the year went on. This would help to explain his ever increasing ERA. Diamond's FIP (fielding-independent pitching, which measures peripheral skill) was pretty comparable to his final ERA. His extra-base hit rate was in line with league average, as was his home run to fly ball ratio. His BABIP was around league average as well. Basically, when Diamond was effective, he wasn't lucky, he was good. 2012 Scott Diamond started hot and cooled off as the year went on. He gets a lot of ground balls with his fastball and he has a really good curve ball. He doesn't get a lot of strikeouts, but his curve ball generates a lot of swings and misses. He has truly elite control.. He can overcome the lack of strikeouts when he keeps his pitches down. He is an efficient pitcher who can go deep into games. If 2012 Scott Diamond is the real Scott Diamond, the Twins have found a uniquely effective pitcher who can defy a lot of widely-held notions about starting pitchers. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: canada.gif The Twins dropped two of three in their series against the Blue Jays and in the process, they dropped to eleven games below .500. The Twins are on a 70-win pace, which would be a huge improvement and a giant disappointment at the same time. Prior to the season, if you had told me the Twins were going to win 70 games, I'd have laughed so hard that my pants would have fallen down. I never wore belts. After the first third of the season, I had officially adjusted my expectations and pants. Now, I don't know what to think or what to wear in preparation. Here are a few thoughts I had from the Blue Jays series.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Scott Diamond Scott Diamond was brutal on Sunday. He was brutal in the innings when he gave up runs and he was equally brutal in the innings when he didn't give up runs. After the first inning, I looked down at my dog and said, "Diamond doesn't have it today." He looked up at me, yawned, and went back to sleep. He was walking batters and he wasn't getting ground balls. Those two factors pretty much ruin a Scott Diamond start. He earned the right to be in the rotation last season, but that right is slipping away quickly. If he throws like this through July, I'd call up Liam Hendriks and see if he's learned anything new with Rochester. Mike Pelfrey Pelfrey got much better results compared to Diamond this weekend, but I thought he looked pretty awful as well. He didn't give up any runs and he wiggled out of some jams, but I thought that he was getting hit pretty hard and things could have been a lot different if a few balls had been hit into different locations. They weren't, so you have to credit Pelfrey with a good start. However, I'm not convinced that he is back on any sort of right track at this point. We'll see; I am always wrong, so that's a point in Pelfrey's favor. Brian Dozier Who the raspberries is this Dozier character lately? Here is Dozier's wRC+ broken down by month (100 is league average): April - 66 May - 38 June - 151 July - 184My goodness. Dozier has been a great hitter for the past month or so. It's never really as simple as one stat, but here are Dozier's line drive rates in those same months: April - 22.8% May - 14.5% June - 20% July - 30.4%Bonanza! Just watching Dozier hit, you can see that he looks more comfortable and he is really laying into the hittable pitches that he gets. It's been fun to watch him succeed, as he has a winning smile and great head of hair. Oh yeah, and having a good second baseman is cool too. Joe Mauer and Glen Perkins Congratulations to two very deserving All-Stars in Glen Perkins and Joe Mauer. I'm sure they will read this, right? Mauer was a no-doubter, and was voted in by the fans. Perkins was selected because Jesse Crain was hurt. Perkins deserved it without being a replacement, but it's still cool that he has been honored. I hope he gets to pitch in the game. He's probably my favorite Twin pitcher since Johan Santana. Now that we have honored these Minnesota heroes properly, let's get to some madness! Random Photoshop http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TrJ5I_NjV0w/UdoUsS4Gj6I/AAAAAAAAAv0/Ks34KTSWrQI/s320/denny+hockingbird.jpg What do you think? I call it "Denny Hockingbird." He has frosted feathers and frosted tips! If you like player heads on bird bodies, then make sure to check out my blog, Kevin Slowey was Framed!, on Thursday. I've got something special for you. Answering a Random Facebook Question Ugh. I'm not sure why I keep doing this. Going to the Twins Facebook page and looking through the comments is like repeatedly rubbing your face onto a dirty block of ice. Regardless, I found this gem and I have a decent answer for this "fan." Question - Sorry am a MN fan but don't see why? Perkins could see going but Joe? Pay him way too much! As not produced! Answer - He's the best catcher in the American League and it isn't really all that close. They already did pay him way too much, so you got your wish! Congrats! Two Twins make the All-Star game and most of the comments are about how undeserving Mauer is, how it doesn't matter because the team sucks and that more ex-Twins made it than current Twins. This is a Facebook "fan" page. I'm exhausted. Fun Stat Caleb Thielbar pitched two scoreless innings on Satuday, bringing his streak to 19.2 innings to start his career. Since 1916, only five pitchers have had longer streaks to start their career. Brad Ziegler has the record, at 38 innings. Here is the rest of the chart, with a list of players Thielbar still has to conquer: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TH=align: center]Rk[/TH] [TH=align: left][/TH] [TH=align: right]Strk Start[/TH] [TH=align: left]End[/TH] [TH=align: center]Games[/TH] [TH=align: center]IP ▾[/TH] [TH=align: center]H[/TH] [TH=align: center]R[/TH] [TH=align: center]ER[/TH] [TH=align: center]BB[/TH] [TH=align: center]SO[/TH] [TH=align: center]HR[/TH] [TH=align: center]ERA[/TH] [TH=align: center]Tm[/TH] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: left]Brad Ziegler[/TD] [TD=align: right]2008-05-31[/TD] [TD=align: left]2008-08-12[/TD] [TD=align: right]29[/TD] [TD=align: right]38.0[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]17[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]OAK[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: left]Fernando Valenzuela[/TD] [TD=align: right]1980-09-15[/TD] [TD=align: left]1981-04-09[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]26.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] [TD=align: right]2[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]LAD[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: left]Dennis Eckersley[/TD] [TD=align: right]1975-04-12[/TD] [TD=align: left]1975-05-25[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]23.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]1[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]12[/TD] [TD=align: right]20[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]CLE[/TD] [TD=align: right]4[/TD] [TD=align: left]Victor Santos[/TD] [TD=align: right]2001-04-09[/TD] [TD=align: left]2001-05-12[/TD] [TD=align: right]8[/TD] [TD=align: right]22.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]3[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]15[/TD] [TD=align: right]11[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]DET[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: left]Victor Cruz[/TD] [TD=align: right]1978-06-24[/TD] [TD=align: left]1978-07-29[/TD] [TD=align: right]13[/TD] [TD=align: right]21.1[/TD] [TD=align: right]9[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]14[/TD] [TD=align: right]21[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]TOR[/TD] [TD=align: right]6[/TD] [TD=align: left]Caleb Thielbar[/TD] [TD=align: right]2013-05-20[/TD] [TD=align: left]2013-07-06[/TD] [TD=align: right]17[/TD] [TD=align: right]19.2[/TD] [TD=align: right]5[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]7[/TD] [TD=align: right]17[/TD] [TD=align: right]0[/TD] [TD=align: right]0.00[/TD] [TD=align: left]MIN[/TD] [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used Generated 7/7/2013. Who thinks he can get there? Fun Baseball Card from the past One of my all-time favorite baseball cards is this one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dbn4xfoaB8k/UdoVB-l_CNI/AAAAAAAAAwI/_9gkuq8zi3Y/s320/gary-pettis.jpg Man, what charisma! It's a great card because of the story behind it. That is not Gary Pettis. It's his 15-year-old brother. If you can't tell that this is a child by looking at this image, then you don't know how old people look. The switch-a-roo is one thing, but the pose by the younger Pettis is the icing on the cake. Then, I found out that Topps decided to make a deliberate error card in their Archives set this year to memorialize this Pettis error. Here is the card, this time with Dylan Bundy's little bro: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_6Ef59u4qQY/UdoVBm8AeGI/AAAAAAAAAwE/_GK4wHDi-fM/s1600/2013-Topps-Archives-Errors-Dylan-Bundy-215x300.jpg Pretty cool, Topps. The original, as always, is still the best. No one has the natural charisma of Gary Pettis' brother. Parting Thought I try very hard to remain non-controversial. However, it seems that when I applaud Joe Mauer for being great, it draws the most negative response. I guess I don't get it. The simple fact remains that the Twins will be a much worse team when Mauer isn't on it. He makes outs at a lower rate than anyone in Twins history. Here is the list of Twins with the highest career OBP (minimum 2500 plate appearances): Mauer - .404 Rod Carew - .393 Chuck Knoblauch - .391 Harmon Killebrew - .383 Matt Lawton - .379Hey, Matt Lawton! The point is, Mauer is great. Sorry if that is too controversial for you. Have a great week, everyone! Click here to view the article

A mailbag on a Saturday? WHAAAAAAA? I know, I know, mailbags are for Fridays, but yesterday was Independence Day and that day deserves to be free from fake mailbags. In this installment, I have TWO actual questions! One is from a family member, but it still counts. Enough dilly-dallying, let's answer some questions. Escobar has been one of the most consistent bats in the lineup and boasts the 3rd highest OPS on the team. If Oswaldo Arcia can't find a way to produce by the time Plouffe returns from the DL, should Gardy consider playing Eddie in RF to keep his bat in the lineup? -Duncan An actual question! Send me something and I'll answer it. Thank you for your question, Duncan and thank you for being a big supporter of this blog! This question was sent about two weeks ago, and Escobar has cooled significantly since then. He is batting just .143/.163/.190 over the last 14 days. Even before that, I would have probably tried to keep Arcia in the lineup, just because I like his power potential and hairstyle. But so much has happened since I received this question! Plouffe and Eduardo Nunez are back. Danny Santana is hurt. Jorge Polanco was here and gone. Chris Parmelee is suddenly hitting. With Parmelee hitting, he fits nicely in right if Arcia doesn't start to produce. If Parmelee cools, Santana returns and Arcia isn't producing, I could see trying Escobar in right, provided he's hitting again. I like when managers try to move people around to see how it works. It never hurts to try to make your players and roster more versatile. Worst case, you put an infielder in the outfield and he can't find the warning track and the team loses. But, really, how often does that happen? The Twins have had a plethora of shortstops on the roster this year. Please rank the many shortstops in the order of your preference. Thank you, I really enjoy your 3:1 puns-to-analysis ratio. Brad S., St. Paul, MN 3:1 seems low, but thanks for the compliment! It's actually crazy to think that the Twins have had 6 different shortstop this year. That position has been a problem for the Twins for almost two decades and now they have some pretty impressive organizational depth. Here are my rankings for this year: Eduardo Escobar - The Eddie 400 has been a rousing success, even if Escobar has cooled off in recent weeks.Danny Santana - Would probably be number one if I wasn't so connected to the powerful Eddie 400 movement. Very exciting player to watch.Jorge Polanco - Would probably be number one if he wasn't still two years from regular MLB duty. Very exciting player to watch.Eduardo Nunez - Would probably be number one if he was better than the first three guys on the list. He seems like a nice guy.Pedro Florimon - What a disaster. A loyal reader suggested we create the "Florimon Abyss" for players who the "Mendoza Line" doesn't do justice. I love it. I'm in.Jason Bartlett - Yeah, remember this? All your anger about scholarships and country clubs is just rushing back!Derek Jeter is in town this week and I really want to get him something nice to celebrate his retirement. Can you suggest a gift or 10 for me? Thanks! Brad S., St. Paul, MN Wow, you are in luck! I literally wrote on this very subject yesterday! What a wonderful coincidence! Here's the link to that piece, complete with images of Jeter enjoying his new stuff. For the record, I would give him the 25 hand-drawn pictures. It would be an amazing spectacle. Hey Brad you think you're so smart about what the Twins need & how to build their team. What about all those rotten softball teams you played for & all along you knew someone close to you that was a career .700 hitter & classic #3 guy for his teams for 20 plus years. Yeah maybe he pulled his hammies often, usually both at the same time, but I still say I'm good for 5 runs a game. Dad S., St Paul, MN Another real question, from my actual Dad! I'm going to address this in a few parts: 1. One of those "rotten" teams won the Shoreview Slow-Pitch Co-Red D Softball League in 2010. I have the shirt to prove it; I got bleach on it. We won the championship game 2-0. A 2-0 shutout in slow-pitch! What a team! 2. I regret my decision to keep you off the team. What we really needed was veteran presence and I was too brash to know it at the time. There's a reason we moved to that Fall League and completely self-destructed. There's a reason we haven't played in that Shoreview League since winning the title. We didn't even defend! I couldn't get a team back together. That was on me. I was riding high after our title. I started referring to myself as "Rickey," I recorded that bluegrass album with one of the guys in Steely Dan, and I bought so many gold chains. My neck still hurts. I should have focused on our dynasty. What a monster. I have a follow-up to your Dad's question. Since you're such a super baseball genius who can't even plant a tree, what is the first thing you would you do if some moron decided to actually put you in charge of their baseball team? By the way, there's still a bunch of your lame stuff in our basement. Mom S., St. Paul MN Ok, that question might not be real. It is an excellent question, however. My very first move would be somewhat minor, but very impactful. I'd take a look around the proverbial room, see what I see, take it all in. Then I would get to work on organizing and designing my office. I always envisioned an entire wall of bookshelves, filled with all kinds of different books. I'd have a bunch of Vonnegut novels that I'd never finish, some baseball books that make me look smart, some books from other sports to give the appearance that I'm looking for new ideas and a whole mess of childrens' books to show that I have a playful/confusing side. You know what, let's just line three walls with bookshelves. I do need one wall for something else. Once the books are in place, a good desk is really important. L-shaped desks are popular because they add space, so I'd push two L-shaped desks into a square for maximum space. Sure, I'd have to crawl under by desk square every day, but that would be a fun thing for reporters to witness and hopefully comment on. Again, the playful/confusing side. Finally, I'd need something to write with and write on. That fourth wall would just be a giant chalkboard, a call-back to my previous position as a teacher where I never once used any chalk. I could get a bunch of that colored sidewalk chalk to write with. That way, every time I shake hands with someone, I would literally leave my mark in pink and purple chalk dust. Once my office is set, I'd probably DFA Mike Pelfrey just for kicks. The Twins are currently significantly below .500, but they're also within "striking distance" of the second (and first) Wild Card. With this being their reality, how should the team determine when they are buyers or sellers? Brad S., St. Paul, MN This requires a nuanced perspective, something I am not known for. The additional Wild Card basically keeps all non-Cubs teams in the race for much longer than they probably should be. Hypothetical scenario: The Twins tread water for the next week and enter the All-Star Break seven games under .500 and eight games back in the Wild Card standings. Technically, they're still in it, but does that mean they should start buying? I don't think they should. I mean, a couple of minor moves would be fine, but they shouldn't trade anyone of any prospect significance. The move they made for Eduardo Nunez earlier in the season would be a good barometer. Trading a low-level prospect for someone of value is always a good move. However, trading a top ten, or even top twenty prospect to upgrade the bullpen or outfield would be unwise. When it comes to selling, they don't have to go full "fire sale" mode. If the right deal comes along, they should take it. Most importantly, they shouldn't turn down a trade for one of their players because they're "still in it." Seven games under .500 is not really in it, even if they are only eight games back. I don't think this team is capable of playing 10-15 games over .500 in the second half, which is likely what they would need to do to actually win a Wild Card spot. Simply put, they aren't in a position to sacrifice the future for the present, even if it hurts for a few more months. Next year, they might be sitting at .500 in mid-July, just five games out. At that point, I'd be interested in doing some serious buying. Follow-up to that previous question. If the Twins do become sellers, who do you hope they trade? Thanks, I'm psychic. Mr. Magic, St. Paul, MN Wow, two follow-ups within something printed! History! My feeling is that no one should be untouchable. It really depends on who is being offered. For instance, I don't want the Twins to trade Phil Hughes. However, if the Nationals call and say "we're goin' fer it." and offer Lucas Giolito, the Twins have to take that offer. So while the Twins should keep players like Hughes, Glen Perkins and Brian Dozier to build around, you can't turn down the so-called "Godfather" offer. Of the more reasonable trade chips, I would be willing to part with everyone for the right price. Kurt Suzuki? Thanks for the surprising season! Josh Willingham? I enjoyed your home runs and outfield runs. Kendrys Morales? Maybe we can be pen pals. Kevin Correia? I hope the nightclub scene is great wherever you land. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IHxe91CxyP8/U7MDQdMo_3I/AAAAAAAABjQ/9eNFSBvADcI/s1600/CorreiaDanceLights.gif That's all I have time for today, thank you so much for all the wonderful and intelligent questions! I'll be back next month, ON A FRIDAY, to answer more questions. Have a nice long weekend, everyone! Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Click here to view the article

Judging by the guy who ended up with the ball and how proud he was of himself, I'm thinking he just went home with a sore back.

Absolutely, and I'll admit that Dozier is the better overall player right now. Arcia could become a much better offensive player if given time to make adjustments.

Weekend Recap Ugh, not great. The Twins got two pretty poor starts from their two most consistent starters and dropped two of three to the lowly Astros. Houston has one of the worst offenses in the AL, but they looked like a powerhouse this past weekend. Oh well, it's just one series. The Twins did make a pretty significant move to upgrade their roster, so that's nice. Kendrys Morales And one that came out of nowhere. Everyone knew that Morales would sign very soon after the draft, because the draft pick compensation attached to him would expire. However, I didn't see one rumor linking the Twins to Morales. I'm quite pleased though. I don't think this changes the Twins' 2014 ceiling a ton, but having a professional hitter as the everyday DH is never a bad thing. Morales has a career OPS+ of 120 and has basically met that figure each of the last two seasons. He's a much better hitter from the left side, but he's competent from the right side as well. The Twins DFA'd Jason Kubel to make room for Morales. This is something I had advocated for a few times over the last couple weeks. I was actually sad after it happened, as I really do like Kubel. Unfortunately, a DH has to hit and Kubel hasn't hit since a hot start. Of course, Kubel isn't the only player affected by this signing. I had been up in arms about Josmil Pinto's lack of playing time, but much of that was because he was losing starts to far less talented players. Now, he's competing for ABs with a very talented hitter. I would still like to see Pinto in the lineup more often than not, and I think that might start to happen naturally, as I still don't think Kurt Suzuki is capable of a full season at the level he's been hitting. Now, the Twins have five above average hitters in their everyday lineup (Morales, Brian Dozier, Oswaldo Arcia, Josh Willingham and yes, Joe Mauer). Pinto should provide good offense when he's in the lineup and Trevor Plouffe has been pretty good so far this year. If the shortstops and center fielders can be halfway decent, the Twins' lineup could be very potent. I'm excited, can you tell? [/hr] Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! [/hr] Kyle Gibson Gibson was great on Saturday, leading the Twins to an 8-0 victory and winning his fifth game of the season. Gibson matched a career-high with five strikeouts. He also issued his first walk since May 16, snapping a string of 23 consecutive innings without giving a free pass. Gibson has done a much better job of limiting walks since April. He hasn't improved his overall strikeout rate, but he has totaled four or more strikeouts in four of his last five starts. Gibson will never be a high strikeout guy, but if he can manage about six per nine innings, he could have a really nice career. Right now, his 54.1% ground ball rate is fifth in the American League, so he already has one elite skill. His walk rate is no longer in the bottom ten and should continue to improve. While he was getting dynamic results early in the season, he's actually pitching better now. Danny Santana Santana hit his first major league home run on Friday night. He went 4-5 with a double and five RBI on Saturday. Sunday...well Sunday wasn't really great for anyone. Santana is quite fun to watch. He's young, he's fast, he's new. New toys are always exciting. I thought Santana would be with the Twins for a couple weeks and then he would head back to Rochester until September. However, he's been great and Ron Gardenhire seems to like and trust him. It would be very hard to send him back to AAA right now. Look, you know I love Eduardo Escobar. However, Santana is not a long-term option in center. Byron Buxton owns that position from 2015 to 2035 (hopefully). Santana is a long-term option at short and I don't think Escobar is. Perhaps it might be time to get Santana a few starts at short, possibly transitioning him to that position full-time in the next couple weeks. Santana isn't as good as Escobar defensively, but he also needs reps to actually get better. Escobar has cooled off a bit at the plate and Santana profiles as a better hitter anyway. I'm not sure this matters a whole lot over the course of the next decade, but I'd hate to stunt Santana's growth just because he is very fun to watch and a utility guy is going through a hot streak. Madness Former Twin Update - Johan Santana This sucks. Johan Santana was about a week from making his 2014 MLB debut when he tore his Achilles trying to make a defensive play. Santana is an excellent athlete and made some great plays in the field in his day, but this one cost him the rest of the 2014 season and could be his final play as a professional athlete. I hope that is not the case. I'd like to see Santana come back for 2015 (with the Twins, please) because I am a huge fan of his and I want him to have more success as a pitcher. Ah, so awful, let's move on. Random Link - Grant Brisbee's Draft Analysis On the much lighter side, Grant Brisbee analyzed the first round of the MLB draft. Here's the link. The article itself is outstanding, although it could be a bit confusing if you aren't familiar with his work. The comments from the article are great, but the Facebook comments on the article are gold. It's never fun to be the guy who isn't in on the joke, but being one of the guys who is in on the joke, watching the guy who isn't in on the joke is quite amusing. Anyway, the article is fun on its own, even if you don't like making fun of innocent people. What kind of food is Glen Perkins? A brand new feature! Glen Perkins is pizza. He's simple, but versatile. He's basically fastball/slider (cheese and sauce), but he throws those pitches like he doesn't give a what (pepperoni?). BUT, he also can adapt. He can be a BBQ chicken pizza, he can be a Hawaiian pizza, he can be a garbage pizza. He can be anything! He's funny, he's personable, he's charismatic and he's awesome. Plus, everyone loves him. I have found few people in this world who dislike pizza and even fewer who dislike Glen Perkins. Glen Perkins, the pizza of the Twins. Fun Stat - Power-Speed Download attachment: Power-Speed Leaders.PNG No one has the Power-Speed of Brian Dozier! What is Power-Speed, you ask? Well, it's the harmonic mean of home runs and stolen bases, of course! It's a Bill James stat designed to look at which players provide the best combination of these two skills. Of course, there's a ton more to power and speed than just home runs and stolen bases, but it's still fun to see Dozier at the top of the list. Someone should really teach that Bill James guy about sabermetrics. Improving Celebrations? Last year, I proposed silly hats to improve celebrations. I even made a picture: Download attachment: walkoffhats.jpg Fun, right? Well, every coin has a heads and a tails. Download attachment: MoralesHats.jpg See, now they don't add a whole lot. Super unprofessional, trainer. By the way, this is the last time I'll reference this event, Kendrys. I promise. Plugging My Way I did a mailbag last week. It was about 1300 words and 500 were about snow pants. You'll just have to read it to figure out why. I also answered questions about Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia, Nick Gordon and Mike Pelfrey. Woof, that list tapered off hard. Here's the link. Parting Haiku Morales is nice Not going to win it all Still great for the fans Have a nice week, everyone! Click here to view the article

Over the course of consecutive weekends, the Twins have proved that they can defeat teams of the quality of the Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox. I'm not sure what that means, but I guess it could signify that the Twins have vacated their position within the dregs of the league; a position they had held for the prior two seasons. Whatever the wins mean in the cosmos, they are enjoyable for us fans no matter what. Why is there no baseball hump when teams improve slightly? Morneau's Power and Trade Value? Justin Morneau has had a hot August, boosting his slugging percentage up to almost .430 and adding a few dingers along the way. As a result, he may be boosting his trade value as well. Although, while he has had a recent power surge, he hasn't really hit all that much differently, as he hasn't raised his batting average or OBP. It's hard to imagine that a 2-3 week "hot stretch" would do much to his perceived value, but as a Twins fan, I guess I hope it has. It's somewhat sad that Morneau's Twins career has reached this stage, but getting value for Morneau is likely best for the Twins' future. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Liam Hendriks Hendriks was recalled for the second game of Friday's doubleheader and I thought he looked pretty good. He gave up a couple solo home runs, but mostly avoided damage as he navigated a semi-decent White Sox lineup. The TV broadcasters seemed somewhat surprised with Hendriks' performance. I guess I was too. I was most surprised to see him actually pitching with the Twins. I hope he gets a few more starts this season as well. Hendriks isn't likely to be much different than he has been, but I still think he can become a fifth starter. That upside is higher than some of the other guys who have gotten starts this season, so why not? Would you pick up Correia's option? Obviously, Kevin Correia does not have an option, so this is a hypothetical. Correia pitched well on Sunday, but has been mostly awful since his solid April. If the Twins held a 2014 team option for Correia, at that same $5 million, would you pick it up? We know that he can give the team innings and we know that the Twins are unlikely to sign anyone better, so would Correia be worth another season, if the Twins had that choice? I'd probably bring him back, as much as I don't enjoy watching him pitch. If he could at least give the Twins a decent first half in 2014, he might be worth it. According to FanGraphs, Correia has been worth $4.5 million this season, even with some really poor performances in May and July. Madness? Fun Stat - Better than a cycle The cycle is a fun occurrence. When a player hits for the cycle, there is recognition and applause and praise and general excitement and then sometimes pies. However, there are non-cycles that are actually much more impressive and impactful than an actual cycle. We remember the cycles that we have seen: Kirby Puckett's, Jason Kubel's, Carlos Gomez's... Rod Carew, Michael Cuddyer, Larry Hisle, etc. However, do you remember Rich Becker's July 13, 1996 game? In that game, Becker went 4-6, had a double, triple and TWO home runs. He didn't hit a single, instead adding a second home run. So, which game was better? Which game is more rare? Rarity is certainly on Becker's side. There have been 10 cycles in Twins' history, but Becker's feat has never been replicated. Fun! WE HAVE A TRADE! Jamey Carroll was sent away on Sunday. He will join the Royals and he and Miguel Tejada can talk about how prohibition affected their lives. The Carroll trade will not be revisited in years to come, but it does show that the Twins are serious about getting money improving for the future. If nothing else, the team has a 40-man spot open and can finally get Nick Blackburn back onto the active roster without disrupting the rest of the team or losing a Joe Benson-type player. I can't really even tell if I am serious about anything Twins related anymore. Random Photoshop - Arcia Gnome There was a fun article on Twins Daily about possible promotions and giveaways that the Twins could employ. I agreed with all of the possible giveaways and hope the Twins will use some of the ideas. In the comments, John Bonnes requested an Oswaldo Arcia Garden Gnome. So, this is my thank you to John for all the articles that he has promoted on Twins Daily for me: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zjf49Ise18U/UgjpVWqnMaI/AAAAAAAAA3s/AFJiOyW1JxU/s320/gnomearciayellow.jpg Of course, he asked for someone with good photoshop skills, so that offer is still wide open. Former Twin Update - Tsuyoshi Nishioka Back in 2010, in Nishioka's final season with Chiba Lotte, he posted a .346/.423/.482 triple slash and earned a sweet contract from the Twins to come play in the Majors. We have all suppressed what happened next, but Nishioka returned to Japan for the 2013 season and many thought he would return to glory in the Japanese League. I think we broke him permanently. He currently has a .275/.340/.362 triple slash with no power and no speed. At least he will go down as a punch line in Twins' history. Random Top 5 List - Top 5 wRC+ (similar to OPS+ but better) in the last 30 days (100 is average) Brian Dozier - 129Joe Mauer - 128Chris Colabello - 117Justin Morneau - 115Ryan Doumit - 108By the way - Trevor Plouffe - 14. Gross. Links to Something I wrote - HOF Stuff I wrote about current players who I think will one day be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. I looked at olderand younger players and you can click those words to get to the posts. If you disagree with my thoughts, please give me a call. I can't keep getting away with terrible takes. Parting Thought This is a huge stretch for the Twins! 16 of their next 17 games are against Central opponents. If the Twins are going to get back into this thing, they need to win 30-35 of those 16 games. If the Twins can somehow pull off that feat, they will be right there with the leaders of this division. I'm confident. As they say, stranger things have happened. Have a nice week, everyone! Click here to view the article

Download attachment: nick-punto-slide.jpg There was blood in the water. A.J. Pierzynski was still warm. The Twins had just turned one soon-to-be-expensive player into three shiny new parts, each carrying a much smaller price tag. The Twins were carrying a seven-figure pitcher who was going to get even more expensive. Why not swap him for a couple shiny new parts as well? The Trade: BREAKDOWN! The Minnesota Twins traded Eric Milton to the Philadelphia Phillies for Carlos Silva, Nick Punto, and a player to be named later (Bobby Korecky).[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed!I also wrote about the two Luis Castillo trades this week. It's a bit long, but there were two trades, SO GIVE ME A BREAK. Here it is, enjoy. Silva immediately joined the Twins rotation and had a successful 2004 season, winning 14 games. He then set the Twins single-season BB/9 record in 2005, while posting a 3.44 ERA in 27 starts. His ERA kind of ballooned from there, but the Twins wisely let him leave as a free agent after the 2007 season. Punto was a mythical figure in Minnesota. Some loved him, others hated him. Punto was both an inexpensive and productive utility player and an expensive, miscast starter, often going back and forth between the two. Korecky was just a throw-in who threw 17.2 innings for the Twins in 2008. Milton was nothing special to begin with and never posted an above-average ERA+ for the remainder of his career. He did lead the league in home runs allowed in 2004 and 2005. The Phillies let Milton walk after the 2004 season and the Cincinnati Reds signed him to an insane three-year deal worth about $25 million. How did I feel at the time? Eric Milton: not a fan. I didn't like him very much, so I wasn't hurt when the Twins sent him away. Plus, I was still reeling from the All-Star A.J. trade. I had dyed my hair purple, was wearing nose gauges and really, really tight pants. Like, super tight pants. It was a time of turmoil. I hardly even let the Milton trade register. I was too jaded. Why make the trade? Sadly, as is true with so many Twins trades, this trade was money-related, according to this story from ESPN.com: "By trading Milton, the Twins are trying to make room to re-sign their top two free agents, All-Star closer Eddie Guardado and outfielder Shannon Stewart. General manager Terry Ryan added that it gives Minnesota more flexibility to go after other players. 'It gives us the ability to at least pursue that," Ryan said. "You've got to give up something to get something.'" This was back in the Metrodome days, so the payroll wasn't massive like it is now. Wait, forget I said that. However, the Twins were working with a budget and they did have to give to get. In this case, they gave the right piece. Silva and Stewart were productive the following year. However, the Twins were not able to re-sign Guardado, as he left for Seattle. However, they had just traded for Joe Nathan, so that worked out well. The Phillies thought they had hit the jackpot. Trade a spot starter and a utility guy for a quality lefty? Sign them up! "Eric is a quality left-handed starter who will definitely be a plus for us in 2004," Wade said. "Our scouts, particularly Gordon Lakey and Charlie Manuel, really like this guy. We like the thought of having two left-handed starters near the top of the rotation." Randy Wolf was the other "top of the rotation" lefty on the Phillies. Wolf was the only starter on the 2004 Phillies with an ERA+ over 100, at 105. Milton did give the Phillies 34 mediocre starts though. Here's why they needed him: "The Phillies have been seeking another starter for the top of their rotation since Kevin Millwood filed for free agency last month. Philadelphia was interested in Curt Schilling, but the right-hander went to Boston in a trade with Arizona last week." The pain of missing out on Schilling was soothed with Eric Milton. Eric Milton: soothing ointment! Milton was happy: "I'm happy for the opportunity. I'm glad the Phillies wanted me this badly," Milton said. "I'm just going to come there and try to win." Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eric, no one said anything about wanting you that badly. They traded Carlos Silva and Nick Punto to get you, so settle down a hair. He did win 14 games and the Phillies were so enamored that they let him walk at the end of the season. It sounds like I'm being overly critical of Eric Milton, which might be a bit unfair. I just wonder how much love he'd get if he had just been an average to below-average right-hander? "He's a very good pitcher, a classic left-hander," said Phillies pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who saw Milton in the American League and who was with him on the 2000 Japan All-Star tour. "Eric has a solid, clean delivery with good arm speed and a very good change-up. He's quality." The degree of quality is up to you to determine. The 2000 Japan All-Star tour was epic, and thus, hard to shake from your memory. I don't blame Kerrigan. Analysis This was a sneaky great trade for the Twins. Milton was declining and getting to be outrageously expensive. Silva and Punto weren't stars, but each provided cheap value for good Twins teams. This is the kind of unsung deal that Terry Ryan doesn't get proper credit for. He turned an overpaid, overrated starting pitcher into a younger starter who was actually better and a super utility guy who while frustrating, was often productive. This trade also proves that a team doesn't always need to acquire hot prospects to make a good deal. Silva wasn't a great pitcher, but the Twins got a couple productive seasons out of him and cut bait before investing too much into him. Plus, one of my friends in high school called him Car-lose Silva, which made great sense in his later years. Punto likely should have never been a starting player. He was more of a guy who could move around the infield, giving guys days off when they need them, all the while providing excellent defense wherever he was needed. When the Twins signed him to that 2 year, $8 million dollar contract, the perception of Punto as a player got turned on its head. He didn't merit that deal, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a nice player for a lot of years. Who won the WAR? Milton for the Phillies: 1.4 WAR Silva for the Twins: 9.0 WAR Punto for the Twins: 10.2 WAR Korecky for the Twins: 0.2 WAR WAR won by the Twins! One Sentence Summary Nick Punto was not the anti-Christ and Carlos Silva looked like a pirate; easily enough value for the soothing Eric Milton. Click here to view the article

Remember that song "December" by Collective Soul? This mailbag is dedicated to that song. As is typical, these are actual questions that will be actually answered by me. This month, I even have some questions written by others! Fame! FAME! Download attachment: 172567_1_f.jpg The Twins have been surprisingly active this Fall, adding two starting pitchers and cutting one Australian. What do you think the Twins' next move will be? Also, what do you hope the Twins' next move will be? Thanks, I am an avid scanner of your work. Brad S., St. Paul, MN What an intelligent question-set! I think the Twins will make their next move this week and I think it will be something relatively minor. I could see the Twins adding a veteran backup catcher like John Buck or Kurt Suzuki, but no one overly sexy. If not a catcher, I'll bet that the next move will be for one more starting pitcher. The Twins have watched injuries and suckiness decimate their rotation for three years now. I'd guess that adding one more arm to the rotation will be a priority. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! My hope is that the next move the Twins make is really smart. As opposed to a dumb move, of course. I'd like to see the Twins target a starting pitching reclamation project to use in the rotation until Alex Meyer is ready, hopefully in July or August. I think there are three interesting names: Shaun Marcum, Johan Santana and Scott Baker. Each has talent and each has major injury issues. When Colby Lewis signed a minor league deal, I was slightly surprised. I'd say each of these three are in the Colby Lewis range of talent/injury concern. I'd like to see the Twins land one on either an MiLB deal or a deal in the one year, $1-3 million range. Seems like a decent investment. Real Questions! - Thanks to Paul and Eric Pleiss of the always entertaining Talk to Contact podcast and Puckett's Pond and Knuckleballs, respectively. Check out their work on the internet. Do you think the Twins will sign a 1B/DH type guy, or even a 3B or middle infielder off the free agent market? Essentially what I want to know is, will Nick Punto or Mark Reynolds be a Twin in 2014? -P The greatest flaw in a fake mailbag is that while you wait for questions to answer, things actually happen. Thus, Nick Punto signed a very fair contract to hustle for the As in 2014 and probably 2015 because they will fall in love with him like everyone else does. Reynolds is still a free agent and I don't hate the idea of bringing him in on a small deal. Reynolds mostly sucks, but he does have massive power. He has 20 or more home runs in each of the last six seasons. Sure his career batting average is .233 and he strikes out more than I fail to come up with analogies, but his awesome right-handed power could play well at Target Field. That said, I think that Jason Bartlett will be the only Twins' infield signing this off-season. Joe Mauer moving to first closed off that position for the next half-decade, Brian Dozier is entrenched at second and the left side can be cobbled together with Trevor Plouffe, Pedro Florimon, Eduardo Escobar and possibly Bartlett. Twins HOF voting is open on Facebook (Facebook voting is, obviously, the best way to make any decision), who are you voting for besides Chuck Knoblauch? -Eric Don't forget about Twitter! I remember when everyone thought Thomas Dewey beat Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election, but everyone forgot about the Twitter results. I actually wrote an entire post about my Twins Hall of Fame ballot. If you missed it, you can find it here. If you don't like reading, I would vote for Knoblauch, Shane Mack, Tom Brunansky, Brian Harper and Corey Koskie. I would not vote for Dazzle. I have standards. What does the former Minnesota Twin Matt Fox say? -Eric Ok, I did not get this reference. I listen to "The Starters," a truly glorious NBA podcast. One of their promos has Rick Fox (former NBA player and "actor") saying, "The dog says woof, the cat says meow, but what does the Fox say?" He laughs like a total knob after he says it too. Real creepy laugh, like he's going to try to steal your significant other. Anyway, the reference comes from a viral video seen by literally millions of people and not by me. I prefer , with just over 17,000 views, mostly from me. I have every intention of re-casting this video with current Twins players. Just be patient. That said, I am guessing Matt Fox would say "thanks for giving me one start, Twins." Or, he might say, "why couldn't I have been born just three years later when the Twins really sucked and could have used a random AAA starter for a few months." It just depends on how negative he is. The Twins missed out on Jarrod Saltinecracker and I am bummed out. I am not ready for the Josmil Pinto era and I think the Twins need Salty or the veteran presence/punch-ability of A.J. Pierzynski. What do you think? Brad S., St. Paul, MN Not to go all meta and disagree with mysel...I mean a reader, but I am glad the Twins didn't land Saltalamacchia. I outlined five very reasonable reasons why in a post here. More self-promotion! Basically, I don't think Saltalamacchia is that great and much of his success in the past has a flukiness to it that scares me away from a three-year deal when Pinto could end up being a better offensive player as early as 2014. I'm sure he'll enjoy his two months with the Marlins. Ok hotshot, you always think you're so smart. I have report cards that say otherwise. How many games do the Twins win in 2014? Don't be gutless like you usually are and give a range. Pick a number. Put your name on it. Brad S's Mom, St. Paul, MN First off, most of my teachers were out to get me. Second, I'm going to be brave and say 74 wins. The additions of Nolasco and Hughes might be somewhat overrated for 2014. My opinion is that each pitcher is pretty good and could be better than that if things break correctly. I am more excited about their signings as a symbol of a potential shift in thinking within the Front Office. The Twins either see that free agency is an important component in building a team or they feel the team is close to contending and need to fill remaining holes quickly. Either way, I prefer that to treading water. Back to 2014. The Twins won 66 games in 2013, but their Pythagorean record gave them 63 wins. Those figures are pretty close, so I don't put too much stock in the difference. Replacing Mike Pelfrey and Vance Worley/Scott Diamond/Pedro Hernandez with Hughes and Nolasco has to add a few wins to the total. It just has to. I mean, look at those names. Gross. In addition, the Twins played all of September without their best player (Mr. Charisma himself, Joe Mauer!). The Twins were 8-20 in September. Mauer last played on August 19. The Twins were 54-69 on that day, good for a 71-win pace. I don't really think Mauer was the sole reason why the team fell off that pace, but he was likely part of the reason. In addition, a bad team is likely to use a lot of odd pieces in September, which could explain why guys like Doug Bernier, Eric Fryer, Cole De Vries, Pedro Hernandez, Shairon Martis and Liam Hendriks were playing in September. The team I watched in 2013 was more competitive than the team I watched in 2012. Both teams won 66 games. I believe the Twins were better in 2013 and could have won more games if the needed/wanted to. I think that the team will be trying a bit harder to win in September of 2014 and I think the roster will be more talented as well. 74 wins seems reasonable. Both the real and fake mailbags have been emptied and I feel very satisfied. If you want to contribute a question to a future mailbag, feel free to send me an email at kevinsloweywasframed@gmail.com. Or, you can find me on Twitter - @bridman77. Or, you can come to my house. It's a little messy right now. Have fun, everyone! Click here to view the article

YOYOYO everybody! The off-season is upon us and the Twins have a lot of work to do. Coming off of another raging failure, the Front Office will need to pull off some sweet moves in order to make this team a contender. I have no clue what they will do and I have no desire to guess (at least not until later). Instead, I thought it would be fun to head back down Memory Lane and analyze each off-season since the Twins' last World Series. I'm not going to get too bogged down in the minor moves, but I'll investigate the moves that shaped the franchise and led us to where we are today. Strap in. Download attachment: 2077137_crop_650x440.jpg State of the Team 1991 Record: 95-67, first in the American League! 1991 Overview: Uh, they won the World Series, which is pretty good. 1992 Outlook: Strong Originally posted at K-Slow was Framed! Players Lost - Free Agency The Twins lost a starting outfielder, a workhorse starting pitcher, a former ERA champion, and a guy who once caught a ball while running on the rolled-up tarp (at least, that's how I remember it). Dan Gladden wasn't very good by 1991. His 80 OPS+ in 1991 was brutal and his defense wasn't great. He only made slightly over a million bucks, but that was a decent chunk of cash in those days. The Twins basically replaced Gladden with Pedro Munoz, who posted a 96 OPS+ in 1992. Munoz had more power, but somehow was worse at getting on-base. Kind of a wash, but at least Munoz was younger/cheaper. Jack Morris' last act of business with the Twins was pitching 10 innings in Game 7 and leaving with a World Series win. Morris was basically a mercenary and left after one historic season. The Twins basically replaced him with John Smiley (more on him later) and Smiley was great. Morris' 1991 and Smiley's 1992 were eerily similar, although Smiley was 10 years younger. The Twins also lost Allan Anderson, who had won the ERA title in 1988 and won 33 games between 1988 and 1989. He also hadn't pitched well since then. Al Newman and Junior Ortiz left, but they were bench players. They also lost Steve Bedrosian and Terry Leach from the bullpen. Players Gained - Free Agency The Twins did not make a big splash in free agency. I know. I'm shocked too. Although, the year before, they had signed Chili Davis and Jack Morris, so maybe this isn't a fair fake shock at this time. The Twins did bring Brian Harper and Mike Pagliarulo back. Harper was his typical mustachioed, high-contact self and Pagliarulo was just mustachioed and literally nothing else. Here's a list of players the Twins signed during this off-season: Bob Kipper, Luis Quinones, Mauro Gozzo, Donnie Hill, Keith Hughes and Bill Krueger. It's hard to add that much talent and incorporate it successfully within the existing team. Krueger was decent, going 10-6 with a 4.30 ERA in 27 starts. Kipper was ok, with a 4.42 ERA in 38.2 innings. The other four guys made little impact. Although, Gozzo didn't walk a single batter in 1992! What control! He only threw 1.2 innings and gave up seven hits, but still, no walks! Reverse Moneyball! Plus, he has a great name. TRADEZ! Trades are exciting. The Twins made two significant trades during the 1991 off-season and both trades happened during Spring Training. On March 17, 1992, the Twins traded Midre Cummings and Denny Neagle to the Pirates for John Smiley. As I stated earlier, Smiley was great for the Twins in 1992. He replaced Jack Morris handily. Of course, he left for the Reds after the '92 season, so that kind of sucked. Cummings had a long career, mostly as a reserve. NBD. The Twins may regret trading Neagle though. It took a few years, but Neagle blossomed into a really good pitcher. From 1995-2000, he was 89-47 and posted a 3.64 ERA in just under 1200 innings. You may remember 1995-2000 as the "whatever the opposite of glory years" era of Twins baseball. Less than two weeks later, the Twins traded Paul Sorrento to the Indians for Curt Leskanic and Oscar Munoz. Leskanic never pitched for the Twins and Munoz threw 35.1 mediocre innings in 1995. Sorrento was blocked by Kent Hrbek, so it made sense to get some value for him. Sorrento wasn't a bad player though. For the next six seasons, he posted a .267/.347/.477 triple slash, hit 129 home runs and had 439 RBI. From 1992-1994, Sorrento and Hrbek were basically the same offensive player. Hrbek had a slightly higher OBP, but Sorrento had a better batting average. Both hit 50 home runs and drove in around 190. Both had a 112 OPS+. Sorrento was six years younger and quite a bit cheaper. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Biggest Splash The Smiley trade qualifies as a splash. Smiley made $3.4 million and cost the team two decent prospects. He was coming off a 20-win season and a third place Cy Young finish. The trade worked out really well in 1992, but definitely hurt in the long-term. Had the Twins extended Smiley, it might look different in hindsight. Smiley was awful in 1993 (likely because he missed the culture of the Twin Cities), but then great from 1994-1996. Back to '92, the Twins lost Morris and needed a replacement to defend their World Series crown. Smiley fit the bill quite nicely. Biggest Miss The Twins gave Bob Kipper a million bucks and I can't really see why. I'm not old enough to remember Kipper, but looking at his Baseball Reference page, I can't figure out why he was worth signing. I know the Twins had lost Bedrosian and Leach, but Kipper just doesn't look good on paper. He wasn't awful, but he wasn't good either. Kipper was fine until July, when he completely fell apart. The Twins released him on July 31 and he never pitched another MLB inning. He literally disappeared (not literally, or at all). My Own Personal Heartbreak I was ten, Dan Gladden had a mullet and I was only human. Gladden leaving saddened me. Arbitrary Overall Assessment: C+ The Twins didn't do anything of note, but they did replace Morris with Smiley. The team was already really talented, so that, plus minor tweaks was really all that needed to be done. Did it work out? Well, somewhat. The '92 Twins were really good, just not as good as the A's. They missed the playoffs and wouldn't get back for over a decade. Next week, we'll look at the 1992 off-season. See you then! Click here to view the article

So, I guess I have to be the one to do this, huh? No one else wants to write this? No one will take the obvious grief that will accompany the following 800 or so words. I guess in some way it makes sense. I do hold the distinction of having the least reliable and most obnoxious Twins blog in the stratosphere (using a word like stratosphere is obnoxious). I am more known for putting Twins player heads on bird bodies and writing about chance encounters with talking pumas so I can't imagine anyone comes to this blog for actual Twins roster coverage. Download attachment: robinson-cano.jpg It doesn't really add up. I'm going to do it anyway: The Twins should sign Robinson Cano. There, I said it and now no one else has to. All you gutless members of the lamestream media can retreat to your cushy mansions and eat your duck eggs or whatever and I'll do all the controversial "reporting." I'll take the heat; enjoy your cashmere. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Fact: The Twins have the money. With Justin Morneau ($14 million), Nick Blackburn ($5 million) and Mike Pelfrey ($4 million) coming off the books, the Twins have $23 million to spend, not even accounting for the money they were under budget last season. It's estimated that the Twins will have $40-50 million to spend this off-season. If that's the case, they could easily throw $25-30 million at Cano and add an MVP quality bat to the lineup for the next half-decade. The tough part is convincing Cano to answer a phone call from the Twins, much less signing an actual contract. Therefore, the Twins have to overpay. Here's what I would offer: Austin Powers is 16 years old?!? Yeah baby. Actually, I'd offer 10 years, $300 million. Now, just calm down for one moment. I'm not crazy and you should keep reading. Here's the case for Cano: He's really freaking good. I get all the reasons not to sign him: he's going to be 31 in a couple weeks, he's super expensive, the Twins don't really need a second baseman, he doesn't pitch, he smells like Yankees...I just think the positives outweigh the negatives. The Twins would be adding a second perennial MVP candidate to their lineup, along with a premier defensive player. Let's get back to that phone call I mentioned. What would happen if Terry Ryan called up Cano in a misguided attempt to actually woo him to Minnesota? I think it might go down like this: Robinson, how are you today, it's Terry Ryan...No Terry Taylor was the Red Rooster, how do you know about that? I'm Terry Ryan, Twins General Manager...Minnesota Twins...It's in the North...You come here every year...Yes, it's cold, but not in the summer...Sure, there are penguins everywhere. Look, we want to offer you a contract to play for the Twins...Yes, we are a baseball team...Joe Mauer...Yeah, sideburns. Listen, we have a what I think is a very fair offer for you. We're building a winner here. We want to add you to a lineup with Mauer, with Miguel Sano, with Byron Buxton. We're going to have a powerful lineup and we want you to be a part of it...No, it's not Canada, just one set of taxes...I mean, some penguins...We can work out the logistics later, but we want to offer you a ten year contract worth a total of $300 million...No, you can live wherever you want, you just have to play here...I have never seen an igloo...Yep, actual houses...Sure, how many penguins? And so on. Basically, you give in to his demands and you pay him a lofty salary and you get another MVP on this team. Of course, I can hear it now..."But (sniffle) what about Brian Dooooooooozier (sniffle) (tear)?" I like Brian Dozier. He's great. His hair is beautiful. However, he's not the type of player that would keep me from looking at someone like Cano. You can still upgrade second base; Dozier isn't the best guy at that position. Plus, are we 100% sure that Dozier can't play short? I thought a lot of his struggles in 2012 were mental, not physical. What if we just move Dozier to short, use Florimon as a super-utility guy and dominate the American League like champs do? Peep this potential lineup (likely around midseason when Buxton and Sano are ready): Byron Buxton - CF Joe Mauer - 1B Josh Willingham - DH (if there is a God) ROBINSON CANO AND HIS MVPNESS - 2B Miguel Sano - 3B Oswaldo Arcia - LF Brian Dozier - SS Josmil Pinto - C Aaron Hicks - RF Hot dog. That lineup is fresh. Now, much of the 2014 season would be played without that lineup, but you could conceivably run that lineup out for the 2015 season, with some other guy in place of Josh Willingham. Perhaps you blow another 30 mil the following off-season on someone. Another point: You can deal with Mauer's lack of "power" (which isn't even true, he lacks home run power, but still slugs .450ish every year) because you'd get so much power from your second baseman. It's a trade-off, and we all need to learn to make trade-offs. Logical retort to all of this: Cano doesn't pitch, you dingus. True. I can't argue with that. I looked very closely at Cano's Baseball Reference page AND his FanGraphs page and I can find no evidence that he is a pitcher. Thus, the Twins' starting pitching would still be a problem. Remember, they're only spending $30 mil on Cano. That still leaves $10-20 mil for a good starter, a decent starter, some snacks and a Playstation 4. Why not grab Cano, add Matt Garza, pick up Scott Feldman and get ready to roll. It's all so simple! Overpaying for Robinson Cano is not the Twins' way. It would be the single most shocking moment of my life, and I've been struck by lightning four times. It would be such a departure from "business as usual" and it would really build some interest in the brand. If the Twins can execute this maneuver, they would instantly become the most interesting franchise in baseball. Signing Robinson Cano is a social contract with the fans and I would love to sign on that dotted line. Now, who wants to help me track down some penguins? Click here to view the article

Who won the most recent game? Those of us with a healthy recency bias are pretty high on the Twins right now. Everyone else? Not so much. Logan Darnell...sort of Congratulations to Darnell for making his first MLB start on Saturday. Darnell, Yohan Pino and Kris Johnson have all deserved their starts. That said, can we please have Trevor May and Alex Meyer now?Darnell, Pino and Johnson are deserving, but Meyer and May are more talented and much more likely to be in the rotation for a long time. Pino is 30, Johnson joins him at 30 in October and Darnell actually has a higher AAA ERA than either Meyer or May. I understand being patient with prospects, but at this point in the season, Meyer and May need to be on the active roster, learning how to get MLB hitters out. If the Twins have any shot of contending in 2015, one or both of these talented pitchers need to contribute. Brian Dozier and Oswaldo Arcia Here's an old Bill Simmons trope for you: Player A - .230/.325/.418Player B - .221/.303/.385Player A is Dozier, Player B is Arcia. Player A was elected President of Twins Territory, Player B is having an abysmal sophomore season. At least, that's how I've read and heard things. Since May 21, when Dozier's line peaked at .263/.377/.480, he is batting .211/.290/.383. This isn't even meant to be a criticism of Dozier, more of a call to "back off" of Arcia. I'm glad to see Arcia in the lineup most days, something I called for last Monday. He rewarded the Twins with a pretty decent week. The major difference between Dozier and Arcia is the Twins' willingness to let Dozier work through his slumps. Arcia needs to be afforded the same opportunity, especially if the Twins want him to be a cornerstone player in the near future. Why I hated 2011-2013 You may have already picked up on a trend from these past two sections, but the thing that bothered me most during the crummy 2011-13 seasons was the Twins' unwillingness to commit to young players with an eye toward the future. To me, a disappointing season is a great time to see what you have in a young player. I'll give the Twins a pass in 2011, because they didn't think they would be bad. 2012-13? No pass. Oswaldo Arcia was shuffled from AAA to Minnesota routinely in 2013. Liam Hendriks wasn't given a chance to work through struggles in 2012 or 2013. Brian Dozier wasn't even on the Opening Day roster in 2012, which I had actually forgotten about. When Josmil Pinto was called up in September of 2013, it didn't seem like he was going to get much playing time. Then, he hit like freaking Ted Williams and the Twins had no choice but to give him more playing time. The better plan would have had Pinto as the primary catcher from the start of September. Well, at least they tried with Aaron Hicks. Of course, they also gave up in the middle of the 2013 season. Granted, he was awful, he had hit better as the season had went on. As such, the Twins came into 2014 with no clue how Hicks would perform. He performed as the baseball equivalent of Courtney Love. Maybe these guys hadn't fully earned their chances. They almost certainly should have played better when they actually arrived. But what was the point in either waiting on them or not giving them opportunity to adjust? It wasn't an effort to win games because if it was, it was a massive failure. After the trade deadline later this week, the Twins should be prepared to commit to their young players. Meyer, May, Arcia, Pinto, Danny Santana, Michael Tonkin, maybe even Kennys Vargas. There is no way the Twins plan to be bad in 2015, so they need to figure out if any of these guys are going to be reliable next year and after next year. Or, they can just call up a bunch of AAA duds and watch the fans enjoy the Vikings pre-season. It's really up to them. Former Twin Update - Trade Deadline Next week, I'll have a current Twin to profile in this section. Kendrys Morales was traded last week and he won't be the only 2014 Twin on a different team by the end of this week. The Twins appear to be fully committed to selling, something I applaud them for. Anyone who isn't a part of the future should be jettisoned. I hope that I'm picking between a few different guys for this section next week. For this week's update, Kendrys Morales continued to be Kendrys Molasses with the Mariners. Random Gif - Totally Worth It http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qS177k8ViQM/U9Wu5UbwKpI/AAAAAAAABko/HHdj2M5BCEw/s1600/guyfalldown.gif People love baseballs that are discarded into the stands. This clip is proof. A few things. One, the guy was okay. Two, the guy to his left (from his perspective while laying in traction on the ground) seemed legitimately concerned. Three, hey guy who got the ball, it's actually pretty bad form to hold your trophy over the carcass of the guy who fell neck-first into metal seats to make sure the ball got to you. Four, Willingham smoked one of the next pitches into the bullpen. Ryan Presley resisted the urge to try to back flip into the bleachers to catch the ball. Get Excited about a Prospect - Lewis Thorpe For those who aren't in the know, Lewis Thrope is an 18-year-old Australian lefty who is making his full-season debut with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. While you may not get excited about a guy with a 4.91 ERA in 9 starts, I am ecstatic. Thorpe had a rough outing on Thursday, but his overall numbers are pretty impressive. He was a little wild in his first two starts, but since then, he's thrown 29.1 innings over seven starts, has a 4.30 ERA with 32 strikeouts while allowing just 12 walks (4 on Thursday). I cannot remind you hard enough (can one remind hard?) that Thorpe is a full four years younger than the average player in the Midwest League. He may not be dominating like he did in the GCL in 2013, but he's more than holding his own against much more advanced players. And, he's dominating at times too. On July 2, he went just 4.2 innings, but he struck out 8 and walked just one. This guy could be special. Let's get excited! Plugging My Way I really love plugging my own writing. It's kind of my thing. Last week, I wrote about Trevor May and the value of a good, cheap, durable 4th starter. I did some crude research and found that shockingly, they are very valuable. If you missed it and want to criticize my research skills, just click here. n = the sample size, I'm pretty sure of that. Everything else I cobbled together from Moneyball and cereal boxes. Parting Haiku Last weekend was lame Now they go out on the road Time for BBQ --- Twins took the final game from the White Sox, so you can get a large or extra-large pizza from PapaJohns.com by using the promo code TWINSWIN on Monday. Click here to view the article

As always, these are actual questions written by someone and answered by me. I may also be that other someone. It's not a big deal. Justin Morneau recently passed Bob Allison for fourth all-time in Twins' career home runs. Of course, he's still behind Allison in franchise history, but whatever. Morneau has 212 home runs and counting. Who will be the next Twins' player to pass Morneau on the all-time home run list? [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Brad S., St. Paul, MN Download attachment: justinmorneau.jpg Great Question! Mauer is only about halfway there, and I don't think he gets to 200 in his career. The next active player on the list is Josh Willingham at 45 and then Trevor Plouffe at 44. I don't think either guy plays long enough to get to 200. 200 is a big number, only Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Kent Hrbek, Allison, Morneau, Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti have reached that figure. However, there is a big powerful man in Connecticut who will need some official Twins jerseys in the very near future. I think Miguel Sano will play long enough and hit many, many bombs. If he averages 30 home runs for the seven years under team control, he'd hit 210. I think that seems reasonable. He might not hit 30 as a rookie, but he might hit more than 40 at his peak. Averages! Prediction! I catch Sano's 200th home run ball. Instead of giving it to him like a normal person, I go home and tear off the cover. I knit him a tiny sweater from the threads. I head to Target Field to present him with his 200th home run sweater and I am immediately arrested. I represent myself at trial. I'm dynamic. After my sentence ends, I tour the nation speaking of the danger of trying to be thoughtful, but actually being creepy. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Drew Butera was traded on Wednesday. What will you remember most about Butera? Brad S., St. Paul, MN For me, I will always remember Butera as the Francisco Liriano whisperer. At least, that was how he was presented by the duo of commentators on FSNorth. They made it seem like Liriano was some wild stallion and that Butera was the guy to say "whoooooooooaaaa buddy" when he would freak out. It was almost as if they thought Liriano would just turn around and wander into the outfield, or throw the ball straight up into the air instead of toward home plate, or just go to the concourse and grab a hot dog, or just sit down on the mound and take off his shoes. Of course, that was if Butera wasn't there to keep him focused. That always amused me. The Twins were very quiet at the deadline, only trading away Francisco Liriano's Adderall. Were you suprised? Brad S., St. Paul, MN See! The Liriano thing is real. Anyway, no, I was not surprised at all. The Twins' three best assets were either unavailable altogether or would have required a blockbuster trade that just seemed too unlikely. Joe Mauer isn't going anywhere, and probably shouldn't. Josh Willingham is hurt. Glen Perkins is likely more valuable as a player than a trade chip. Outside of those guys, who on this team would other teams really want? Justin Morneau and his 40-year-old Ichiro impression? Jared Burton, the guy who couldn't handle the set-up role? Brian Duensing, the lefty who can't get lefties out? Ryan Doumit and his Popsicle stick glove? Casey Fien might be valuable, but who has ever heard of Casey Fien? Perhaps the Twins will make a deal in August. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't either. By the way, I did live-blog the trade deadline, if you want to experience that memorable day once more. Just click here; I locked myself out of my house at one point. Find out why! Where you sit right now, what do you think the Opening Day lineup will be in 2014? What do you think it should be? Brad S., St. Paul, MN I would not expect wholesale changes and I would not expect a ton of rookies either. That's not really how the Twins do business. So, this is what I think it will look like: CF - Aaron Hicks 2B - Brian Dozier C - Joe Mauer LF - Josh Willingham RF - Oswaldo Arcia 3B - Trevor Plouffe DH - Ryan Doumit 1B - Chris Parmelee/Chris Colabello SS - Pedro Florimon In other words, a lot of the same. I do think Morneau will be elsewhere and that Arcia will be in the everyday lineup. Hicks in the leadoff spot might seem crazy, but they have to try him there again at some point. As far as what I think it should be? I would probably move Doumit to the bench, Plouffe to DH, Dozier to the 8th spot, everyone else moves up a notch, then use Miguel Sano at third, bat him cleanup. Why not? He'll hit a bunch of home runs and that could be fun. Of course, this whole exercise is useless because the Twins are going to spend massive money this off-season and completely overhaul the roster, right? What has been worse for longest: The Mets outfield or the Twins middle infield? Willihammer, Twins Daily Forum This comment was inspired by the Matt Lawton trade to the Mets back in 2001. I made fun of the Mets' outfield. I was too lazy to look this up before, so I saved it for today. I made a chart. I used WAR. Save your breath. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 557] [/TD] Twins' MI Mets' OF Twins/Player Mets/Player Winner? 1998 2.1 2.8 1.05 0.93 Twins 1999 -2.2 1.1 -1.10 0.37 Mets, Geez Guzman… 2000 1.2 5.8 0.60 1.93 Mets 2001 4.6 -0.8 2.30 -0.27 Twins, Hey, Guzman! 2002 1.2 2.9 0.60 0.97 Mets 2003 [TD]1.2 0.00 0.40 Mets 2004 2 3.1 1.00 1.03 Mets 2005 2.7 8 1.35 2.67 Mets 2006 5.1 8.4 2.55 2.80 Mets, Beltran 2007 5.9 7.9 2.95 2.63 Twins, Bartlett! 2008 3.8 9.6 1.90 3.20 Mets 2009 -1.6 5.5 -0.80 1.83 Mets, yikes 2010 3.9 8.4 1.95 2.80 Mets 2011 -0.4 5.3 -0.20 1.77 Mets 2012 2.8 -1.2 1.40 -0.40 Twins [/TABLE] Winner: Mets, by a score of 11-4. It really was a cakewalk. What an honor. Of course, this was not a perfect research study. I just picked the players who were listed at those positions on Baseball Reference and I used WAR which has a slight bias toward the middle infield. It does show that each of these teams have had holes in these areas for quite some time. Although, the Mets had more overall success with their weak position. In summary, that was fun. Hey dummy, remember how upset you were when the Twins released Joe Benson? Yeah, you were all crying and whining and sobbing and what has he done since then? Nothing! You suck. Brad S's Mom, St. Paul, MN I deserve that. Benson was hurt for over a month, so his progress stalled out a bit with the Rangers. After his recovery, he crushed rookie ball. Crushed it! Is it possible to be a professional rookie ball hitter? He's doing fine in AA, but he's 25 and has played in the Majors. I guess he could still become something, and I'll always be allured by his power/speed combo. But, I was probably too upset about a player who wasn't worth getting upset about. I'm sorry, I live in the moment. That's what makes me such a bombastic personality. Thank you for all the questions, they are much appreciated. If you have a question that can wait an indeterminate period of time, please let me know and I will address it at some point in the future. Click here to view the article

Weekend Recap Who won the most recent game? Those of us with a healthy recency bias are pretty high on the Twins right now. Everyone else? Not so much. Logan Darnell...sort of Congratulations to Darnell for making his first MLB start on Saturday. He got lit up, but it's still a great moment for him. Darnell absolutely deserved this opportunity. He's slowly climbed through the Twins' system since being drafted in the 6th round in 2010. In 2014, he's made 17 AAA starts and has a 3.43 ERA. When the Twins needed a starter on Saturday, Darnell was a logical choice. In fact, Darnell, Yohan Pino (who was great on Sunday) and Kris Johnson have all deserved the starts they have received. Each has pitched well at AAA and each has paid their Minor League dues. That said, can we please have Trevor May and Alex Meyer now? Darnell, Pino and Johnson are deserving, but Meyer and May are more talented and much more likely to be in the rotation for a long time. Pino is 30, Johnson joins him at 30 in October and Darnell actually has a higher AAA ERA than either Meyer or May. I understand being patient with prospects, but at this point in the season, Meyer and May need to be on the active roster, learning how to get MLB hitters out. If the Twins have any shot of contending in 2015, one or both of these talented pitchers need to contribute. Brian Dozier and Oswaldo Arcia Here's an old Bill Simmons trope for you: Player A - .230/.325/.418 Player B - .221/.303/.385 Player A is Dozier, Player B is Arcia. Player A was elected President of Twins Territory, Player B is having an abysmal sophomore season. At least, that's how I've read and heard things. Since May 21, when Dozier's line peaked at .263/.377/.480, he is batting .211/.290/.383. This isn't even meant to be a criticism of Dozier, more of a call to "back off" of Arcia. I'm glad to see Arcia in the lineup most days, something I called for last Monday. He rewarded the Twins with a pretty decent week. The major difference between Dozier and Arcia is the Twins' willingness to let Dozier work through his slumps. Arcia needs to be afforded the same opportunity, especially if the Twins want him to be a cornerstone player in the near future. Why I hated 2011-2013 You may have already picked up on a trend from these past two sections, but the thing that bothered me most during the crummy 2011-13 seasons was the Twins' unwillingness to commit to young players with an eye toward the future. To me, a disappointing season is a great time to see what you have in a young player. I'll give the Twins a pass in 2011, because they didn't think they would be bad. 2012-13? No pass. Oswaldo Arcia was shuffled from AAA to Minnesota routinely in 2013. Liam Hendriks wasn't given a chance to work through struggles in 2012 or 2013. Brian Dozier wasn't even on the Opening Day roster in 2012, which I had actually forgotten about. When Josmil Pinto was called up in September of 2013, it didn't seem like he was going to get much playing time. Then, he hit like freaking Ted Williams and the Twins had no choice but to give him more playing time. The better plan would have had Pinto as the primary catcher from the start of September. Well, at least they tried with Aaron Hicks. Of course, they also gave up in the middle of the 2013 season. Granted, he was awful, he had hit better as the season had went on. As such, the Twins came into 2014 with no clue how Hicks would perform. He performed as the baseball equivalent of Courtney Love. Maybe these guys hadn't fully earned their chances. They almost certainly should have played better when they actually arrived. But what was the point in either waiting on them or not giving them opportunity to adjust? It wasn't an effort to win games because if it was, it was a massive failure. After the trade deadline later this week, the Twins should be prepared to commit to their young players. Meyer, May, Arcia, Pinto, Danny Santana, Michael Tonkin, maybe even Kennys Vargas. There is no way the Twins plan to be bad in 2015, so they need to figure out if any of these guys are going to be reliable next year and after next year. Or, they can just call up a bunch of AAA duds and watch the fans enjoy the Vikings pre-season. It's really up to them. Former Twin Update - Trade Deadline Next week, I'll have a current Twin to profile in this section. Kendrys Morales was traded last week and he won't be the only 2014 Twin on a different team by the end of this week. The Twins appear to be fully committed to selling, something I applaud them for. Anyone who isn't a part of the future should be jettisoned. I hope that I'm picking between a few different guys for this section next week. For this week's update, Kendrys Morales continued to be Kendrys Molasses with the Mariners. Random Gif - Totally Worth It http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qS177k8ViQM/U9Wu5UbwKpI/AAAAAAAABko/HHdj2M5BCEw/s1600/guyfalldown.gif People love baseballs that are discarded into the stands. This clip is proof. A few things. One, the guy was okay. Two, the guy to his left (from his perspective while laying in traction on the ground) seemed legitimately concerned. Three, hey guy who got the ball, it's actually pretty bad form to hold your trophy over the carcass of the guy who fell neck-first into metal seats to make sure the ball got to you. Four, Willingham smoked one of the next pitches into the bullpen. Ryan Presley resisted the urge to try to back flip into the bleachers to catch the ball. Get Excited about a Prospect - Lewis Thorpe For those who aren't in the know, Lewis Thrope is an 18-year-old Australian lefty who is making his full-season debut with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. While you may not get excited about a guy with a 4.91 ERA in 9 starts, I am ecstatic. Thorpe had a rough outing on Thursday, but his overall numbers are pretty impressive. He was a little wild in his first two starts, but since then, he's thrown 29.1 innings over seven starts, has a 4.30 ERA with 32 strikeouts while allowing just 12 walks (4 on Thursday). I cannot remind you hard enough (can one remind hard?) that Thorpe is a full four years younger than the average player in the Midwest League. He may not be dominating like he did in the GCL in 2013, but he's more than holding his own against much more advanced players. And, he's dominating at times too. On July 2, he went just 4.2 innings, but he struck out 8 and walked just one. This guy could be special. Let's get excited! Plugging My Way I really love plugging my own writing. It's kind of my thing. Last week, I wrote about Trevor May and the value of a good, cheap, durable 4th starter. I did some crude research and found that shockingly, they are very valuable. If you missed it and want to criticize my research skills, just click here. n = the sample size, I'm pretty sure of that. Everything else I cobbled together from Moneyball and cereal boxes. Parting Haiku Last weekend was lame Now they go out on the road Time for BBQ

My memories of John Moses John Moses was a more notable former Twin to me than to just about anyone else in the World. The reason why comes from my Grandmother. She thought I looked like him. I remember being told that as a child and it confused me as an adult. Of course, I looked back at some images of myself from childhood, and you be the judge: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-adyk2veuRmI/UjC_oIw1eXI/AAAAAAAABAg/_kL1wxvxUCQ/s320/twomoses.jpg Perhaps she had a point. As far as remembering John Moses as a player: who knows? He wasn't very good and he wasn't a Twin for very long. And, apparently I looked like him. Other than that, he was just some guy. Therefore, we need to research! Baseball Reference Wow, Moses played eleven seasons, three with the Twins! I thought he was just a one- or two-year wonder. I know squat. For his career, he posted a .254/.313/.333 triple slash, but in that awful 80s hitting era, that worked out to a 187 OPS+. Moses wasn't a show-off like some other players. He saved home runs for special occasions, hitting one per season, with a career high three in 1986 and 1987. He lead the AL in caught stealing in 1986 with 18. Black ink! Moses was a Twin from 1988-1990, narrowly missing out on Championships at both ends. What luck! Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Wikipedia Moses has one of those sweet, easy-to-read one paragraph Wikipedia pages. Again, not a show-off. Essentially, we can learn that Moses was in fact a former baseball player and that he did spend a lot of time coaching after playing. There was a lot more information about his coaching days, so that probably says a lot about his playing career. Not mentioned in the text of his page is the fact that he was a member of the 1980 Arizona Wildcats College World Series Champions. This was the biggest story in sports in 1980, so that's pretty cool. He played with Craig Lefferts, Casey Candaele and future MLB manager/chipmunk Terry Francona (who was MVP). Google Googling John Moses is like googling a bunch of random letters. There are results, but most are irrelevant or nonsense. I did find this blog though. The author was counting down the 81 most forgettable Twins. He stopped at 46. It's an interesting concept, but incomplete. If I start a Kickstarter to help this guy finish the list, who will contribute? I'll kick in 4 bucks. That's half of my net worth, so help out, others. For what it's worth, John Moses checked in at 74, right in front of Bernardo Brito (El Pupo) at 75. What a list! I just want to know who number 1 was going to be! Bing Bing is Google, so the results are exactly the same. However, I did find a John Moses who was the 22nd Governor of North Dakota and a John Moses, comedian. According to the comedian's website, he had "the one album from 2012 you should get by a comedian you probably never heard of." I can't decide if that's a backhanded compliment or not. A compliment is a compliment, as I have come to learn. Bing images brings back a lot of old dudes, many holding guns. There are quite a few mug shots too. There are very few images of our John Moses, but I did find this amazing notebook sketch that was probably drawn by a scout when Moses was a youngster. Amazing; such impressive detail! eBay Hmm, lots of assorted baseball cards. Some are autographed, some are not. This listing is pretty incredible. It's so odd because I was just thinking of going to eBay and looking for 3 baseball cards. I didn't care what year, what kind, who, anything, I just want three baseball cards. Lucky me. Wait, jackpot! I found an autographed John Moses card from when he was a coach with the Albuquerque Isotopes. It's just six bucks shipped. It's pretty much one of a kind. He looks really happy too. Side note: Wasn't Albuquerque the potential destination for the Springfield Isotopes? Isn't that why Homer went on his hunger strike? Was Homer's strike all for naught? Why does no one tell me these things?!? Facebook This John Moses has a Facebook page. He comes without exceptions. He seems to be incapable of looking at a camera. It's a disorder. John Moses the singer has 439 likes and John Moses the comedian has 227 likes. It's clear: singing > comedy. Our John Moses does not have a Facebook page. There is a Moses John who is from Minneapolis. Perhaps our John Moses was just too famous to have a Facebook page, so he flipped his name. Twitter John Moses the comedian has twitter. He's the only comedian on twitter. He doesn't tan, he roasts! See, roast has a double meaning. Here's a link to roast's definition. But seriously, he is very kind, as you'll see below. Sadly, for my purposes, he's getting in the way of real John Moses research. Luckily, this MN Twins Zealot has a fun John Moses Fact: John Moses pitched 3 times (twice in 1990), the most for a Twins position player: http://t.co/ggBmhvRF0N — MNTwinsZealot (@MNTwinsZealot) August 6, 2013 Black ink! Also, if you are interested, this guy is giving away a John Moses card: I'm giving away: 1989 Donruss #626 John Moses - Minnesota Twins. Check it out - http://t.co/PJCcmeZIiU — Stephen Kurnock (@StephenKurnock) May 29, 2013 I wonder if he's had any luck finding a taker... I'm giving away: 1989 Donruss #626 John Moses - Minnesota Twins + 4 Random Twins Cards. Check it out - http://t.co/cAP6fXDxxx — Stephen Kurnock (@StephenKurnock) September 11, 2013 Nope. Of course, it's only been about three and a half months, so give it time. Or, act fast. Actually, I'd give it time, you might be able to milk a few more cards out of the deal. YouTube YouTube is devoid of John Moses the baseball player. There are some party videos from John Moses, former Governor... There's more from John Moses, comedian and John Moses, singer, but nothing from John Moses, baseball player. Here's what I can't figure out. There are quite a few results for Ying Yang Twins songs when I search John Moses. Is this some sort of default setting on my account? Do I have the "if no results, then Ying Yang Twins" setting enabled? If so, can someone help me turn it off? It's not what I want. Random Person Who's more random than one of the other John Moses's? I sent him a Tweet, just to see if he was aware of his namesake. @bridman77 i am, i used to have his baseball card as a kid. 2nd base? — JohnMoses (@JohnMoses) September 11, 2013 Success! This should have been obvious to me. If there was a Brad Swanson in the Majors when I was a kid, I'd have heard of him and I'd have every single card. I'd have four of every card. I was a very self-involved child. Unfortunately, this was the only famous Brad Swanson. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tiPUmZz0uEc/UjDDUg_kcMI/AAAAAAAABAs/RYKi46yJ330/s1600/brad_swanson.jpg Not the same. Verdict John Moses has been forgotten by the vast majority of us. It's sad but true. John Moses the comedian and I might be the only people left who remembers John Moses the player. In reality, there isn't room in this world for all these John Moses's. There's a singer, a comedian, a former Governor and a former baseball player/coach. It's too much. However, if I ever wanted to start some form of Baseball Cabaret, I could do a lot worse than John Moses. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: 8fb4411d248d2f69b95a0b3317628126.jpeg The 2013 MLB draft has come and gone. The Twins have added somewhere between 20 and 40 new players to their organization and I have no clue who 99% of them are. I do have access to Baseball Reference and the internet as a whole. In an effort to better acquaint myself with some future Twins, I will subject each of you to a bunch of clumsily constructed jokes and feeble attempts at punnery. In that way, we all benefit. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] I also plan to make statements regarding players I have never seen. But then, that's what makes me such a colorful character/scamp. I also threw together some 25 Drafts in 25 Days Bonus Features, as if that were a thing that anyone would want. You can find it here: 25 Drafts DVD Bonus Features. It's easily the most self-indulgent thing I have ever done; I once made a t-shirt of my own face. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! 1st Round Pick With the fourth pick in the 2013 MLB Rule 4 draft, the Minnesota Twins selected Kohl Stewart, a right-handed starting pitcher out of St. Pius X High School in Tomball, Texas. Now that all the formal stuff is out of the way, I need to figure out a good way to work in a Kohls "joke." Stewart is an exciting young player. He throws hard and apparently has a nasty slider. I watched some video of him and I don't see any future loose or torn ligaments, so that's positive. I feel a bit badly for him, as he has to follow the legend of Byron Buxton, but hopefully everyone will remember that each player is different and we're all humans and be kind rewind, and whatnot. I know that I am excited that there is even a possibility that the Twins just selected a player who could one day become an Ace. Ah, but what if? The 2013 draft was characterized by the emergence of a "big three." Mark Appel and Jonathan Gray are two college pitchers considered to be high-end talents with great stuff and great command. Each could move through his new system quickly. Kris Bryant is a power-hitting third baseman. Power-hitting is an understatement. At one point, he had hit more home runs than about 75% of college teams. Teams, Jerry! Each was drafted in the top three, so the Twins did not even have an opportunity to grab them. But what if they had dropped? It seems the Twins would have taken Stewart anyway, which would have opened them up to criticism. Luckily for everyone, Stewart was the best available player at 4 and the Twins liked him a lot. Win win. Best Late Round Pick The guy from Minnesota, right? Logan Shore pitched for Coon Rapids High School and the Twins drafted him in the 29th round. From what it sounds like, he will not sign with the Twins and instead will head to the University of Florida. I had a mean Coon Rapids joke here, but I don't have the heart for it. I love Coon Rapids. They have a Popeyes. Who'll be the first to reach the Majors? I have no clue. However, second-round pick Ryan Eades seems like he could make it to Minnesota before anyone else. Eades is far from MLB-ready, but he is older than many of the players the Twins drafted. Age is more than a number, Aaliyah. Eades didn't strike out a lot of batters in college, but coming to the Twins organization should solve that issue. Plus, he has already had his major arm surgery, so that certainly gives him an additional boost. If he is good enough, he could be the first. Best Prospects Kohl Stewart is by far the best prospect from this group. That doesn't mean that a couple guys can't jump up and join him, but when you look at this equation, it's hard to argue for anyone else: age + stuff + delivery + Texas + pitcher + upside + name starts with K + K stands for strikeout = best prospect. Ryan Eades seemed to be a bit of an unpopular pick. His strikeout rate made everyone nutty, assuming the Twins had reverted back to their P2C ways. However, I actually like this pick. Eades has performed well in college and has held up after his labrum surgery. The 43rd pick is hardly a place where all-stars are consistantly found. If Eades can be a 4th or 5th starter, this would be a fantastic pick. 4th-round pick Stephen Gonsalves could be a guy who jumps up the Twins' prospect list, if he develops. Check out his . There's a lot going on in that wind-up, but his delivery looks fine. Working with pro coaches can only help. Anyway, he looks projectable, he's 6'5", he's left-handed, he throws in the 90s already, he looks athletic and he has a sweet name. I'm drooling. This could be a great pick. 3rd-round pick Stuart Turner, 6th-round pick Brian Navarretto, and 9th-round pick Mitchell Garver all share one quality: they protect the umpires. As catchers, they also represent one of the weaker areas in the Twins' system. Each is considered a good defensive catcher, while Navarretto probably has some added offensive upside. He has also already punched at least one opposing player. Turner had great stats, but isn't considered to have much offensive upside. However, if any of these three can become even a quality backup catcher, it would be a win. Everyone loves home runs, but singles and walks win games too. Analogy!Best Name 35th-Round Pick Nick Lemoncelli Fun Facts The Twins selected Tanner Vavra in the 30th round. Not only is he Joe Vavra's son, but he is also blind in one eye. That's amazing. I literally have better than perfect vision (20/15, I know, bragger) and I can't hit a baseball to save my life. Good for him, I hope he makes it. Torii Hunter Jr was drafted in the 36th round, by Torii Hunter's Detroit Tigers. If you asked me, "Brad, what is Torii Hunter's son's name? Bear in mind, you get one guess and if you are wrong, I get to punch you in the trachea," I would guess Torii. In fact, it wouldn't shock me if Torii names all his kids, pets, bats, gloves, and just about anything Torii. The man loves Torii. Proof of concept - I asked my wife the same question (no trachea threat). Her response - Torii Jr. She didn't even hesitate. Zack Granite was drafted in the 14th round. If baseball doesn't work out, he would make a beautiful statue. The Twins did not draft Cory Hahn. The Diamondbacks selected him in the 34th round. If you don't know his story, Hahn was paralyzed when he slid into second base in his third college game with ASU. Hahn was a legit player, winning California's Mr. Baseball in 2010 and playing for Team USA while in high school. He wore number 34 for ASU and the Diamondbacks took him in round 34. Very cool. They want to get him into their front office. Baseball is cool.2013 Twins? 2015 Twins? It's lunacy to think that any of these guys will play for the Twins in 2013. However, I do think there is an outside chance that Eades and/or Turner play for the 2015 Twins. If Turner is as good defensively as advertised, he might be able to back-up Joe Mauer in a couple seasons. If Eades is as "Twinspitchery" as advertised, he could be a spot starter by 2015. One Sentence Summary Twins Daily dominated 2013 Twins draft coverage. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Mauer_Joe_orig.jpg Sometimes inspiration strikes in odd ways. Today, Rhett Bollinger, the Twins' MLB.com beat writer, sent out this tweet: Joe Mauer just popped out. Something he did only once last year in 641 plate appearances. #MNTwins — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 Wait, what? I saw that come through my feed and I was immediately interested. Was it true? @bridman77 Yep. It's actually only once in the last two years. Fangraphs has the stats. — Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) February 26, 2013 That seems so unlikely. Even by raw luck, one would think that Mauer would pop out a few times each year. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Mauer was the best in the AL last year at not making outs. He only made an out 58.4% of the time. He had 641 plate appearances and only one resulted in an infield fly ball, which is what I will now be using to describe a pop up (at times). He struck out 88 times, so he still made over 300 outs with his bat. And yet, only once did he make an out by flying out in the infield. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! How rare is this? I was inspired to investigate. I started doing some research. Mauer has only 20 infield fly outs in his nine-year-career. Crazy. I decided to look at how many players had 20 or more infield fly outs last season. Forty. Forty players! Forty players popped out as much or more than Mauer has in his entire career, and all just last season. Now I am really intrigued. Here's a spreadsheet that resulted from my intrigue: Infield Fly Ball Nerd Spreadsheet Looking at the spreadsheet demonstrates just how rare this feat or accomplishment or freak occurrence really is. In fact, take a look at this chart: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]Mauer Infield Fly Balls # of Players > 20 IFFB that season Mauer Infield Hits 2004 1 87 4 2005 3 62 6 2006 2 73 8 2007 1 62 5 2008 6 57 10 2009 2 50 8 2010 4 46 12 2011 0 56 6 2012 1 40 8 Total 20 533 67 [/TABLE] Mauer has had 20 infield fly balls in 9 years, and 533 players have had 20 or more infield fly balls in a season during that same span. I threw in a BONUS! column that shows Mauer has over 3 times as many infield hits than infield fly balls. How crazy. Before I go further, this data does not necessarily mean these were all pop outs. They are simply infield fly balls. Some may have dropped, although it stands to reason that the vast majority were converted into outs. So, when I use these terms interchangeably, I apologize. This isn't an academic journal. Since we are all in love with this stat at this point, I looked at who created the most infield fly balls per plate appearance. Basically, these are the Pop-Up Kings: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Eric Byrnes 273 3478 7.85% Tony Batista 180 2315 7.78% Mike Rivera 45 593 7.59% Todd Greene 58 841 6.90% Mike Moustakas 64 979 6.54% Rod Barajas 234 3642 6.43% Joe Crede 212 3307 6.41% Drew Butera 33 531 6.21% John Flaherty 43 692 6.21% Lenny Harris 34 555 6.13% [/TABLE] Do you prefer volume pop-up hitters? Here is the chart for you! [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name Career IFFB Vernon Wells 277 Carlos Lee 255 Eric Byrnes 245 Albert Pujols 239 Johnny Damon 221 Alex Gonzalez 212 Jimmy Rollins 210 Yuniesky Betancourt 207 Aramis Ramirez 206 Rod Barajas 205 [/TABLE] A few familiar names indeed! Personally, I'd rather remember Eric Byrnes for his extreme pop-up-edness, rather than for his current gig at MLB Network. Tony Batista would have absolutely been my first guess as a Pop-Up King. The way he stands would seem to lend itself to popping up a lot. The leaders pop-up about every 13 plate appearances. What about the players with the lowest rate of infield fly balls? WordHippo tells me that the opposite of a King is a Subject. So, here are the Pop-Up Subjects (that sounds terrible): [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Name IFFB PA IFFB/PA Larry Bigbie 1 1218 0.08% Julio Franco 4 1517 0.26% Ben Revere 3 1064 0.28% Joey Votto 11 3064 0.36% Howie Kendrick 13 3232 0.40% Ryan Howard 19 4701 0.40% Joe Mauer 20 4552 0.44% Derek Jeter 34 7644 0.44% Jose Tabata 6 1197 0.50% Buster Posey 7 1255 0.56% [/TABLE] Mauer, even with all his anti-pop-up glory, is only 7th. Larry Bigbie had one pop-up in his career. Here is the box score from that game, in case you want to frame it. Many of the names on this list are players who just don't hit a lot of fly balls at all. Just looking at last year, Ben Revere had the lowest fly ball rate, Jeter was second lowest, Kendrick fourth and Mauer sixth. Votto, Howard and Posey seem like the anomalies, as they are all powerful hitters. Votto and Posey post lower than average fly ball rates, and Howard is right at average. The fact that each hits a lot of homeruns is quite impressive, as they just hit fewer balls in the air than most power hitters. I refuse to try to make sense of anything related to Julio Franco. Back to Mauer. Mauer hits an infield fly ball once in every 227 plate appearances. So, today's event was pretty rare. In fact, we might not see another one until around June. The real question is why is he such a Subject of Pop-Ups? I really hate that name. Let's call them No Pop-Up Dudes going forward. A bigger picture can be seen with all of his batted ball data. Here are his batted ball rates compared with league average: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] Rates Mauer League Avg LD 23.10% 20% GB 50.30% 44% FB 26.60% 36% IFFB 2.20% 10% [/TABLE] This helps to explain his lack of home run power, but overall great hitting. BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?!? I don't know, nothing? Well, the best contact hitters seem to be good at avoiding the worst type of contact. It stands to reason that the infield fly ball is the worst type of batted ball. It doesn't get converted to hits or runs unless there is some sort of hilarious infield mishap and they almost never lead to sacrificed runners. Mauer likely avoids this type of contact because he has such a great approach and he doesn't deviate from it. He swings easily and tends to swing at only pitches he can handle. The fact that he doesn't hit a lot of fly balls to begin with helps as well. Overall, Mauer seems to be a hitter who knows exactly what he wants to do, and stays within that approach in nearly all cases. Or, he's a wizard. Upon further review, Grant Brisbee, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Passan all wrote about Joey Votto's extreme aversion to pop ups. You could argue that he was the original No Pop-Up Dude. In addition, Sullivan wrote about how remarkable Joe Mauer is. You can say I stole from everyone and no one. Click here to view the article

Since I am filled with useless snark, I stated back on August 12 that if the Twins could win 30-35 of their next 17 games, they could get back in the Central race. See, the joke is... Anyway, with three games remaining in that 17 game stretch, the Twins will win no more than seven games. Whatever. Perhaps the team isn't good enough to win two games every game. However, the Twins are still on a 72 win pace (actually 71.5 but I'm rounding up to get the fan vote). It's a small improvement, but improvement is always good. Unless it's Home Improvement. The show. Mike Pelfrey What if the Twins had signed Pelfrey to Kevin Correia's contract and Correia to Pelfrey's? I think that having Pelfrey around for a second year wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. He's certainly better than Correia and he is younger too. However, there is simply no way that both guys can be in the rotation next year. The options outside of these two won't make you dance in your underpants, but they are worth giving starts to. Thus, Correia stays due to his contract and Pelfrey will almost certainly be gone. Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! Anthony Swarzak One guy who was nowhere near my starting pitching radar is Anthony Swarzak. Starting pitching radar is a conspiracy theory; Swarzak would know. However, it's hard to look at Swarzak's performance this season and not have a slight inclination to see if he could put together some solid starts. I hesitate to move people from roles where they have found success, but long-man isn't exactly a hot commodity. If Swarzak got a few starts in September, I'd be cool with it. Brian Dozier As Twins Daily member stringer bell stated over the weekend, Brian Dozier is likely the biggest positive development from this season. Dozier looks great at second base and has started to produce surprising power at the plate. You'll see just how good Dozier is below, but needless to say, the Twins have found a solid second baseman. You should read stringer bell's recap, as it's much better and much more detailed. Time for Madness Fun stat - Twins 20/20 Guys No, not eyesight. 20 home runs and 20 steals. Now, we don't really talk about 20/20 guys because some dudes have hit 30/30 and 40/40. However, the Twins need to be graded on a curve. Small market, greedy owner, Metrodome, stuff like that. So, here are the guys in Twins history who have achieved this outstanding feat: Larry Hisle - 1977: 28 HR, 21 SB Kirby Puckett - 1986: 31 HR, 20 SB Marty Cordova - 1995: 24 HR, 20 SB Corey Koskie - 2001: 26 HR, 27 SB Torii Hunter - 2002: 29 HR, 23 SB Torii Hunter - 2004: 23 HR, 21 SBCould Brian Dozier join this group one day? Half-hearted Rant The Ryan Dempster/Alex Rodriguez situation worked up a rant in my brain. I'm more offended by someone throwing a baseball at someone than by someone taking illegal substances. If we are genuinely concerned with player safety when it comes to steroids, why aren't we worried when it comes to chucking baseballs at people. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm against both actions. I just find it odd that steroids = 50 game suspension, throwing a baseball at another human = one delayed start. For many, the issue comes down to "how do I explain this to my child(ren)?" Well, I find one of these instances to be a lot easier to explain than the other. Join me as I walk through two scenarios where I explain these issues to my daughter: Daughter: Why isn't Nelson Cruz playing tonight? After all, he is my favorite player. Me: Well, he took steroids, so he was suspended. Daughter: Why was he suspended for that? Me: Because Steroids are against the rules and he took them anyway. He deserves to be punished. Daughter: Why are they against the rules? Me: Steroids make you better at baseball. Daughter: Isn't that a good thing? Me: Well, they also do bad things to your body and they hurt the competitive balance of the game. Daughter: I suppose that makes sense.Now, unless my small child is a tiny libertarian, she is probably fine with this exchange. Here's how I would explain the Dempster issue: Daughter: Why is Ryan Dempster, my second favorite player after Nelson Cruz, allowed to throw a baseball at Alex Rodriguez? Me: Well, A-Rod cheated, so Dempster is getting back at him for ruining the integrity of baseball. Daughter: How does throwing a baseball at him accomplish that goal? Me: It's just how things have always been done. Daughter: Didn't we used to ride horses everywhere? Before that, we just walked around. Why don't you walk to work? Me: Well, I have a car. Daughter: But people haven't always had cars. Things change. Things evolve. To me, throwing a baseball at someone is vigilante justice. Shouldn't the police do the policing? Me: Go to bed.My daughter is two months old, so you have to take a bit of a leap here. I simply feel that one action is easier to explain but both actions have no place in baseball. To summarize, I am anti-steroids and anti-beanings. Random Photoshops I wrote about birds playing baseball a couple months ago. I'm not going to link to it because I've linked to it many times before and it's starting to look desperate. That being said, these two should have made the cut Rich Woodpecker http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ouksDoGVLPE/UhqYtZGn_PI/AAAAAAAAA48/-HGMWnzxucI/s1600/richwoodpecker.jpg Drew Bupterodactyl http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-slMKAPZpPLc/UhqYyCI3EHI/AAAAAAAAA5E/LbFKf6hgR-0/s320/drewpterodactyl.jpg The last one doesn't really count because everyone knows that Drew Butera is extinct. Random Top 10 Here are the top 10 second-year players in Twins history, sorted by rWAR: Tom Brunansky - 5.6 WAR Chuck Knoblauch - 5.3 WAR Lew Ford - 4.4 WAR John Castino - 4.4 WAR Jimmie Hall - 4.0 WAR Rich Rollins - 4.0 WAR Tim Teufel - 3.8 WAR Butch Wynegar - 3.8 WAR Denard Span - 3.7 WAR Kent Hrbek/Lyman Bostock - 3.6 WARBrian Dozier is currently at 3.2 WAR. If he finishes the season as well as he has played in June-August, he'll reach 4.0 WAR at least. That puts him in the top five. He's having a great season. What's ahead? I have a few things in the works. It's the first week of school this week, so no promises. I am currently G-Chatting with my 9-year-old self. I think I might write about that. I'm also investigating a forgotten Twin named John Moses. Finally, I am looking at how I can tie Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development to the above scenarios involving Ryan Dempster and Alex Rodriguez. Crazy stuff; keep your eyes peeled. Parting Thought Are the Twins going to make any tradez? I am bored with this lack of trading. In my fantasy football league, we put in a mandate that every team has to make at least one trade. Everyone hates it. Maybe Major League Baseball should consider something like this. Every team needs to make one trade in July and one in August. That way, all fans get to talk trades. Win win. Have a nice week, everyone! Click here to view the article

We can finally put the "could the Twins even beat a AAA team" jokes to bed. They can. The Astros are pathetic, even if their rebuild strategy is being lauded by many. While that strategy might work out long-term, the current team is rotten and I can't even imagine being an Astros fan right now. At least the Twins have a couple players worth watching while they flail. Anyway, the Twins rebounded nicely after the Royals series and if that matters to you, then you are probably quite happy.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Kyle Gibson Kyle Gibson's MLB career is not off to the start that he likely dreamed of. Unless he suffers from night terrors. Looking just at this season and comparing these 36.1 MLB innings to his AAA stats, the differences are kind of staggering. His strikeout rate has dipped from 21.3% to 11.9%. His HR/9 went from 0.39 to 1.24. His BABIP was .285 at AAA and is .344 with the Twins. His strand rate has dropped from 72.7% to 63.2%. His walk rate has actually decreased slightly, from 7.6% to 7.1% (this is a great reason to use K% and BB% instead of K/9 and BB/9, btw, as his BB/9 is slightly up). Originally posted at Kevin Slowey was Framed! It all adds up to a 6.69 ERA and a memorable debut for all the wrong reasons. Slightly encouraging is his 4.97 FIP and the hope that the more luck-based stats like strand rate and BABIP could even out. However, he needs to strike out more batters or he'll become just another Twins starter. We all know that we hoped for better than that. Colabello's Power? I can't say I watched a ton of Chris Colabello at AAA, so you might have to help me out with this one. Does he have any pull power? He stands very far from the plate, which is fine, but it would seem that would make it harder to pull the ball over the fence. The two home runs he has hit with the Twins and the two I happened to see while watching AAA games were muscled to right or right-center. It's not to say that he can't hit for power, but having a right-handed hitter with pull power certainly plays well at Target Field. I'm not really sure what my point is here, to be honest. Should we be expecting a lot of home runs from Colabello? Plouffe Vs. Righties Trevor Plouffe now has 845 career plate appearances against right-handed pitching. In those plate appearances, Plouffe has posted a .216/.277/.377 triple slash, with 29 home runs and 187 strikeouts. His BABIP is .249, but I can't believe this is a luck thing. His line drive rate is actually better as a righty, but his strikeout and walk rates are worse. Platoon splits are normal, but with a borderline MLB player like Plouffe, this split makes me wonder if he needs to actually be part of a platoon, just to provide value. We can't even say these stats are the remnants of his poor MLB start, as he has posted similar numbers this season, with a .213/.272/.351 triple slash in 247 plate appearances. It's a shame he's on the wrong side of the platoon because he does crush lefties. Ugh, enough sadness. More madness! Fun Stat - Deduno is Rare Sam Deduno is having a magical season. For real, it seems like he's getting by on magic. He doesn't get hit hard. In fact, he has pitched to a .242/.322/.344 triple slash. That looks great, as it's about what Clete Thomas produces. When Deduno takes the mound, the entire opposing team becomes a mess of Clete Thomas's. Fun, terrifying, but how rare is this? I pulled the data using Baseball Reference's play index and here is a link to the results. As you can see, these numbers have only been posted by 15 pitchers in the last 30 seasons. Wild. Of course, rarity is not exactly the friend of replication. Poll Results - What do you think of Joe Mauer? I forgot to include this last week, so my blog has gone a whole week without a poll! Sad! Here are the results of the Mauer poll: I love him; I'll name my first born "Seven" in his honor - 3 votes Hall of Fame Talent - 18 votes He's great, but overpaid - 8 votes He's a bum - 0 votes Who is Jo Mauer? - 0 votesI expect to see those kids named "Seven" pop up in my future social studies classes. I'm pleased that no one resorted to calling him a bum. I posted a new poll, please take some time to vote. Democracy. Random Image I found this picture of the Twins battling: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3R-HQCQ8L1Y/Uf6sGKAMqbI/AAAAAAAAA3M/GMf5FIBDBXU/s320/twinsbattle.jpg Hard to say if they are winning, but they certainly are battling. Answer to a hypothetical Facebook question Going to the Twins' Facebook page is like going to the dentist. It sucks, it's going to be painful, but you just gotta do it. Preferably you go just once per six months though. Here's a cool question: Question: Gatorade shower for BARELY beating the worst team in the league?? Stay classy Minnesota.. Answer: First off, an ellipsis has three dots. Second, does a second question mark make this a special double question? Third, good gravy do some people hate fun. I imagine that some people only enjoy World Series clinching games and nothing else. Besides, the Twins win so infrequently that they have fewer chances to celebrate. When the Rays win in a walk-off, its one win of like 100. When the Twins win, it's one in 60. Think about that. Or, just calm down and enjoy the baseball game. Even sucky teams should be allowed to enjoy their victories. I mean, people cheer for the Vikings and Timberwolves and they've pretty much always sucked. Baseball Card from the Past http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gp2xFfRQrTk/Uf6sN42XpDI/AAAAAAAAA3U/cT-VlyjkKGQ/s320/Liranorookie.jpg Look at that dude! Francisco Liriano is pitching as well as he ever has with Pittsburgh this season. He's a huge reason why they have one of the best records in baseball. It's hard to believe that he's been in pro baseball for over ten years. He was probably 18 or 19 in that picture. I tried to look up how much that card is worth on eBay but there were like fifteen different versions and I just got bored. You can own it for somewhere between 8 and 2 million dollars, but if you want to narrow it down, do your own research. The Week Ahead I have some stuff planned for the week. I wrote about the Hall of Fame and some current players who I think will be enshrined one day. On Tuesday, I plan to post the older guys and on Wednesday, I'll post some younger guys. I'm recapping two Twins trades on Thursday and Friday. One trade is pretty minor and the other might be the most controversial trade in Twins' history. I hope you are adequately salivating right now. Parting Thought I'm in love with the Casey Fien-Glen Perkins 8th and 9th inning combo. Fien is fired up from the jump and Perkins is chill as what. However, both guys just come in and say, "hey man, here's my stuff, try to hit it, yo." Most can't. Fien has been a revelation, in my opinion. With Fien and Perkins both under team control for the foreseeable future, the back-end of the bullpen is an part of the team that the Twins can rely upon, possibly even when the team is good again. It would be nice to have some pieces in place, right? Have a nice week, everyone! Click here to view the article