Sometimes you take a little business trip and pull back from the blogging thing for a few days and almost lose track of what’s going on with the Twins. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of great Twins blogs and podcasts to help bring you back up to speed. Of course, there also are some great Twins beat reporters that also keep us abreast of Twins news. So now that I’ve had a couple of days to get caught up, I’ve got some thoughts to share.
About those beat reporters
When one local newspaper announces a change in assignments for its Twins reporter, you don’t really give it much thought. When a second newspaper does the same, it may or may not raise an eyebrow.
But, while I don’t really keep close tabs on who is or isn’t covering the Twins for which traditional media outlet, I think a third Twins beat reporter took a different assignment last week… and I’m not sure he ever really started covering the Twins full time before he got his new gig.
Now Phil Mackey of 1500ESPN also is dropping the Twins beat, in favor of a switch to afternoon drive-time slot for his radio show. I understand that “drive-time” is a big deal to radio folks, since for many of us, the only time we even listen to the radio any more is during our commutes to/from work. And of course, the fact that 1500ESPN won’t be carrying Twins games going forward might have a little something to do with this change at Mackey’s station.
In fact, I’m sure there were plenty of good reasons for each of these moves… some apparently at the request of the respective reporters themselves, but FOUR beat reporters dropping the Twins beat? If it’s all a coincidence, it’s one heck of a coincidence, isn’t it?
By January, I’ll officially be following more FORMER Twins reporters on Twitter than current Twins reporters.
And some people say bloggers tend to come and go quickly.
Twins Moves… And Lack Thereof
When I boarded my flight for St. Petersburg FL about a week ago (which, as it turned out, did not actually land in St. Petersburg, but that’s not important here), Terry Ryan had recently traded away his second center fielder, Ben Revere, for another pitching prospect and for Vance Worley, who projects to slot in ahead of Scott Diamond in the Twins rotation. Not many were excited about losing Revere, but Ryan was generally praised for the bold move because, unlike his trade of Denard Span, this deal also helped address the 2013 pitching rotation.
We also tried to guess what Ryan’s next move would be. Certainly, he would need to wade in to the free agent pitching market if he intended to make good on his public promises to add enough starting pitching talent to assure the Twins can at least be competitive in 2013.
Worley was just the start. Of course Ryan would add more pitching, but we had to be patient. After all, Zack Greinke hadn’t signed anywhere yet, so the market for pitching hadn’t been set. Once that first domino fell, Ryan would know what the going rate for second tier pitching would be and he’d make his moves. Yes, more pitching help was coming. We just needed to be patient.
Since that time, Greinke has signed with the Dodgers, Anibal Sanchez has agreed to terms with the Tigers (and, perhaps the Cubs, too?), Ryan Dempster has signed with the Red Sox, Brandon McCarthy has joined the D’Backs, Joe Blanton has become an Angel, and Dan Haren has been inked by the Nationals… just to name a few. All in all, you’d have to say the market has now been set.
Even the Royals pulled off a big trade this week, sending a boatload of prospects to Tampa Bay in return for TWO starting pitchers. Say what you wish about how wise or unwise the Royals were for giving up what they did, but they made one thing clear to their fans… they are planning on competing in 2013.
The Twins? Well they haven’t stood idly by either. They signed Kevin Correia to a two-year contract. He wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and my initial reaction was pretty much as negative as most others, but I actually have little problem with the Twins signing Correia. I think they overpaid, but as we’ve mentioned before, they’re the worst team in the AL and that means they will have to overpay for pretty much any free agent. Correia doesn’t have good “peripheral stats” so he’s certainly not a darling of the saber-metric community, but I do think he could well be better than most of the in-house options the team has.
My problem at this point isn’t with signing Correia, it’s with NOT signing other… better… pitchers.
Right now there’s no indication that the Twins are even thinking about Shawn Marcum, Edwin Jackson or anyone else of any quality. They are being linked to various has-beens, never-will-bes, and long-shot reclamation projects. The consensus seems to be that they’ve been scared off by the high prices being demanded by the remaining pitchers who could actually be… well… good at pitching.
In other words, they waited for the market to set the price of pitching and then decided that price was too high. What a surprise that is, right? How un-Twinslike! Now aren’t you glad we were patient?
Twins Hall of Fame
While the General Manager’s office has been busy dumpster diving this week, the PR folks have opened up public voting for this year’s Twins Hall of Fame inductions. I haven’t quite figured out how much say the fan voting has in determining who eventually garners enough support to be added to the club’s HoF, but if nothing else, the ballot certainly brings back a lot of memories. You should check it out.
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably already saw who I voted for, but here’s the list of my choices: Dave Boswell, Dave Goltz, Mudcat Grant, Chuck Knoblauch, Shane Mack, Cesar Tovar.
There were others I could certainly support. Dean Chance, Corey Koskie, Jeff Reardon, Roy Smalley and Al Worthington are quite possibly worthy… some perhaps even more worthy than a couple of guys I voted for.
I personally feel Tovar and Mack are among the most underrated players in Twins history and deserve to be in the Twins’ Hall, but I’m not sure voters will agree. The one player that is, as always, the most controversial is Knoblauch.
Knobby certainly didn’t endear himself to Twins fans during his messy exit from Minnesota and he has the PED thing tarnishing his image further. Maybe some people don’t like voting for “cheaters”, but I’ll bet all my money against all of yours that the Twins HoF has several players already in it that were aided by taking amphetamines and if you don’t think those are “performance enhancing” drugs, you’ve never taken them.
Knoblauch was the best second baseman in club history this side of Rod Carew and he was a critical member of the 1991 championship team. So, yeah, he wanted out of Minnesota in the end. But frankly, the Twins showed absolutely no interest in fielding a competitive team in the mid 1990s and if I had been a member of the Twins then, I almost certainly would have done anything I could do to get out of town, too.
It’s too bad Knoblauch wasn’t born a few years later. Think of how much more fun he would have been having with the Twins now, what with the organization’s new commitment to competitiveness.
– JC
So, looks like the 2013 Twins rotation will be Diamond, Worley, Pelfrey, Correia, and a wild card. And the lineup is shaping up to feature Mauer, Morneau, Willingham, Plouffe, Carroll and scrubs in the middle infield, Mastro/Hicks in CF, and Parmelee/Doumit in RF, and Doumit also at C and DH.
It’s hard to picture that group chasing down the Tigers next season. Still, I prefer Terry Ryan’s methodical, long-range maneuvering, so far, to Dayton Moore’s misbegotten efforts at “winning now.” Of course, I wish Ryan had signed better pitchers than Pelfrey and Correia. But at least he didn’t throw a lot of money at Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie, and trade away the farm for two years of James Shields. That’s “planning to compete” by a club that hasn’t really been competitive in at least 20 years, right there.
Fun read, thanks. Chuck Knoblauch was a great hitter. He was already getting a reputation as a bad seed, though, by the stone-throwers, even before his requested trade (which came out pretty good for us). Did he threaten a kid or something?
And – to throw out another of the names from the past that make me smile – happy birthday Leo Cardenas. The Cuban shortstop from our ’69-’70 playoff teams is 74 today.
Man, I hadn’t thought about Cardenas in a long time. Thanks for the reminder, Craig.
Frightwig, I do wish Ryan had “thrown some money at” someone. There’s plenty of payroll room to afford to throw a bit around. I simply can’t think of any way to justify settling for the likes of Correia and Pelfrey. Maybe he’ll surprise me and sign one of the real pitchers still on the market, but I doubt it.
If Ryan is going to throw money at pitchers, I’d just hope he’s not getting guys who aren’t likely to be much better, if at all, than the bargain bin pitchers he’s actually brought in. Santana & Guthrie, for the rates Moore will be paying? Yuck.
I’ll worry more about Ryan’s approach if he’s still filling his rotation with Diamond/Correia/Pelfrey types when the next farm crop looks ready to make a push. For now, I take it that he’s decided that his team needs more pieces than he can afford to acquire this winter, so he’s signing cheap placeholders (and counting on at least one more high 1st round pick), and possibly planning to trade veteran assets like Morneau/Willingham, until his longterm plan is ready to mature.
Btw, one reason I believe that Ryan realizes the way to build his next contender is not with the pitch-to-contact types: look at the pitchers he’s been acquiring in trades and the draft, lately. They’re not like Diamond, Correia, and Pelfrey. He’s not looking for the next Brad Radke. The young guys he’s picking up, the ones at the foundation of his longterm plan, they strike guys out.