TwinsMusings

There is another factor that shouldn't be discounted. Perkins himself credits the change in his off-season (2010-11) workout routine for his velocity improvement. He did less weight training and more flexibility work as well as participating in other sports activities. He did the same this past off-season and so far he looks good in ST games. If he can stay healthy and if he is not overused, I look for him to have another excellent season.

According to Dustin Morse of the Twins, Span is out with a stiff neck (day-to-day) and Joe Benson will play CF today. Will he lead off or will the lineup be juggled?

I'm also concluding that puck34 is right. Ray Chang may have to be the middle infield utility guy until Dozier is ready.

Interesting analysis. Thanks for sharing it.

Good job. Looking forward to more.

For what it is worth, I seem to be able to remain logged in day after day. Does it make a difference what browser we use? I'm using Chrome.

It appears to me that Terry Ryan likes Plouffe a lot more than Revere, and Gardenhire likes Revere a lot more than Plouffe. Might be interesting to see how this difference of opinion plays out.

The real culprit in this issue is the FCC. They established the Sports Blackout Rule following 1999 legislation. Here is the page where you can find the detailed documents. According to news reports a couple of weeks ago, there is a move by five Democratic Senators to get that rule changed. Those of us in Iowa are also caught in this blackout rule for the Twins, but in our case it includes 6 major league teams because Iowa is supposedly in the media market for all of those teams. I'm really hoping for a change soon, but not holding my breath.

I agree with you, thrylos98. The good news is starting with the game Saturday, we will have radio broadcasts and even a few FSN TV games.

Excellent article, Seth. As I have said on other threads, I'm one who supports your point of view because there is enough upside to the group mentioned to give it a month of spring training outings to see who develops and stands out before deciding if any trade is necessary. Nick, for what it is worth, I do not find your response to roger's comment helpful to the discussions. In fact, it comes off to me as defensive. You write well enough and do enough research to support your opinions that you don't need to be defensive. All of us who have come to this site are testing to see if it is a site we are going to visit and comment at regularly, and the general tone of posts and comments is one factor that will influence our decisions. I am here looking for well written, well reasoned opinions and ideas about Twins baseball whether they are supportive or critical of the Twins. This post by Seth is an outstanding example. Roger, I hope you continue to read and post on this site because I am interested in reading your thoughts and points of view. Thanks again to all of the TwinsCentric gang for putting together this site. I believe it has great promise for being exactly what many Twins fans and would-be bloggers are interested in.

For the most part I agree with you on your bench projections. I think Nishioka should start in AAA or maybe even AA so he doesn't hold Dozier back, but I do not expect the Twins to do that. He is not of much value as a utility guy, but that is what is most likely. By the way, I think you might have meant 12 pitchers going north, not 13, unless the roster max. is now 26 for opening day.

I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I meant the Twins' free agents (Cuddyer, Kubel, Nathan) when I wrote "The price tag for the free agents...". I agree with you, Nick, about the reliever free agent market being oversaturated. I am just not convinced that some of those guys are better bets than what the Twins have in camp. We'll eventually find out as the season goes along.

I'm afraid it is just wishful thinking that Liriano will ever be anything but inconsistent. On the other hand, the fact that Morneau crushed a few in live BP is enough to say this was a good day.

Once again, I agree with Seth. We just do not know yet how the current options are going to develop this year. As far as the Twins being in rebuilding vs. winning mode, I don't think they really had much of a choice but to basically tweak and hope this year. The price tag for the free agents was higher than they are worth, in my opinion (both this year an last), so I'm ok with not signing them, and there a too many unknowns with key players to just hang it up and rebuild. Mauer, Morneau, Span, Baker, Liriano, etc. could go either way and it is unrealistic to think that any GM would spend a bunch of money on various plan B scenarios to cover all the unknowns when there is a decent possibility that some, if not all, of these guys perform much better than they did in 2011. I'm fine with the approach Terry Ryan has taken, but also am well aware that if the Twins have the rough start I expect them to have, given their first 30+ game schedule with so many games against the AL East, the Twins will be in full blown rebuilding mode by the middle of June. I'd love to see them win, but it is inevitable that some year rebuilding is going to be necessary.

Parker, thanks for posting the link and quote from the Brandon Warne piece. I read that a while back and have a much better perspective on Vavra and how he goes about working with hitters as a result. I also think we need to remember the context of Hardy and his beginning with the Twins. He was coming off some horrendous hitting problems that developed when we was with the Brewers, who demoted him. He, and others, said he lost his confidence and really did not have a good approach at the plate. It makes sense that he start regaining confidence by hitting to all fields. One other thing to remember, when he was with the Twins, he dealt with the wrist injury for a good part of the year. That almost certainly had an impact on his power numbers. Pulling the ball can be good and it can be bad. If you are trying to pull everything, you will not hit well even if you hit a few home runs. I think Danny Valencia slipped into that "pull the ball" mindset last year and that is one reason he struggled. Ultimately, each player has to find his own best way of hitting with the help of the coaches.

I'm with Seth and others who are interested in seeing how spring training works out for some of these guys. It's not like the Twins have never had success putting together a bullpen from their own developed player pool before, in spite of how bad last year was. I'm probably in the minority here, but I think the bullpen with Capps (rebounding from a down year), Perkins, Duensing, Swarzak, Burnett and two from the long list of possibilities, is already better than the opening day bullpen of 2011. And lest we all lose perspective on the loss of Zumaya, it is still going to be the starting pitching and offense that determines whether or not the Twins will be contenders this year.

Update: In the BP video posted by Phil Macke at 1500ESPN, Danny is wearing #22, but the MLB Twins Web site still shows him with 19. We'll see how it turns out.

I believe Danny Valencia has also changed his number from 19 to 22.

After listening to the whole 14+ minute interview with Morneau, I think he is mostly upbeat and excited to be back on the field doing the same things as the rest of the players. He is also just being realistic about the concussion related issues. If they return, he is not going to continue to battle back in spite of how much he loves to play. He was pretty clear, though, that he feels much better than he did last year and does not expect to have any set-backs as spring training progresses. I happen to think that hitting will be the real test of whether or not he is back 100%. He was never close to full recovery from concussion symptoms last year even before the infamous first base diving incident. You could see, even just on TV, that he was not able to react quick enough to hit well. He missed or fouled off pitches he would have killed previously. He could not catch up with balls on the outer half of the plate and pitchers quickly figured that out. This year, there is reason to be more optimistic than last year because he is starting ST in good shape and able to do from day one all the same workouts as every other player. He says the wrist is about 90%, but it is only strength and endurance for repeated swings that is not 100%, and expects to be full strength by opening day. I hope he gets opportunities to face live pitching every day so he can continue to improve his ability to see the ball, identify pitches and get around on the ball. Since I believe hitting and base-running will be almost as high risk as playing first base is, I don't think being the regular DH will do much to avoid future concussion symptoms. I expect him to play in the field, with an occasional game at DH, or else not be in the line-up at all.

I agree the Twins should carry only two catchers, but I do not expect that to be the case at the beginning of the season. If they have three on the roster, Rene Rivera should be ahead of Butera as the third because he seemed to be good for Liriano last year. If Rivera calling the game and calming him down in his native language is what it takes to keep Liriano consistent, it might not be a wasted roster spot after all. I also think the Pavano personal catcher thing is blown out of proportion. For example, there is no way Mauer does not start opening day (unless he is injured again). Didn't happen last year and won't happen this year.

Cool! Does this thing miss bats, too?

I think Nishioka will be on the opening day roster if he has a decent spring training. One of the reasons I think that is I believe the Twins want Dozier to play at Rochester. If Nishioka is in AAA to get playing time, that would mean Dozier would repeat at AA because he needs regular playing time as well. I don't think Nishioka is worth the risk of holding back development of Dozier. Another reason I think he makes the roster is he can learn maybe as much from watching the solid pro, Carroll, and how he goes about his business. It will be interesting to see how much playing time he will be given in the spring games and if he will play both second base and shortstop. My guess is he will play shortstop in all the B games.