Unbelievable that on a weekend when some people might actually be able to WATCH or at least participate in a spring training game, there is no TV OR radio broadcast. I don’t understand how they make these broadcast decisions because FSN is showing the next two Monday games in a row on television for you – while most of you are at work. I can’t put my finger on why this spring is frustrating me more than most but I think it’s not just the lack of availability but the scheduling of what they did decide on. [/Venting]
I guess it’s all just building my anticipation for the regular season, right?
The big news today is the lineup! Yes, that is Justin Morneau’s name signed in there for the first A squad game in 8 months. Delmon is also coming back and it looks like his foot is doing well. Still no Cuddyer or Mauer but they are both on the practice field participating in regular workouts.
Also in the lineup today is Tsuyoshi Nishioka. I’m not sure what I would expect on a day like today when all of us are thinking about the disaster in Japan but he likely more than the rest of us. For whatever his reasons for deciding to play, our thoughts are with him, his family and his friends in Japan.
Well that was a FUN game! I am sure that Morneau was ecstatic and I’m sure he’ll be equally annoyed with how many people are asking him how he’s feeling tonight and tomorrow. But it was a good day regardless. And we’ve tied the record for the Mayor’s Cup at 2-2 against the Red Sox now.. considering we’ve lost it for the last 4 years straight, I would like to come out on the winning end this year.
Naturally, the big news coming out of the Twins’ “B” game against the Pirates Tuesday… the thing that had Twitter thumbs getting a workout… was the triumphant (and more importantly, healthy) return of first baseman Justin Morneau. Delmon Young’s debut, with a couple of walks in his two plate appearances, was less dramatic, but still noteworthy and smile-inducing. But once the dust settled on their stories, we started reading what arguably could be the most intriguing news to come out of that game, played before just a couple of hundred sets of eyes on a distant practice field that, starting this weekend, will be used exclusively for putting 18 and 19 year old minor leaguers through drills.
Is Kevin Slowey on the market?
It seems not all of the folks watching that game were vacationing Twins fans. Among the observers were a handful of people with well trained eyes focused on Twins starting pitcher Kevin Slowey, who according to reports from those in attendance, pitched an effective few innings against the Pirates’ “B” line-up. Reportedly, several scouts from the Blue Jays were watching Slowey and even videotaping his performance. The Rockies also apparently had a scout at the game.
The Twins entered Spring Training with two rotation spots nailed down and a number of other pitchers, with varying degrees of Major League experience, competing for the other three starting pitcher jobs. Carl Pavano and Francisco Liriano were considered locks, while Nick Blackburn, Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, and Brian Duensing constituted the pool of arms from which the remaining three rotation jobs would be drawn. Top prospects Kyle Gibson and Alex Wimmers would be waiting in the wings for opportunities later in the season and the Twins also have a group of pitchers (for example, Glen Perkins, Kyle Waldrop, Jeff Manship, and perhaps others) that are initially competing for bullpen jobs but could be called upon in a pinch to start games, if need be.
It was a solid, if unspectacular, group of starting pitchers and the plan looked and sounded like a reasonable approach to get through the spring and probably through the first couple of months of the season, at least. Many of us think the Twins may still need a true top-of-the-rotation guy to carry the Twins beyond the first round of the playoffs, but that’s a need that is always easier to address in July, when a number of teams have fallen out of contention and enter cost-cutting mode, than it is in March when hope springs eternal in camps all over Florida and Arizona.
Pitchers and catchers had barely put on practice jerseys when media speculation about a possible trade of Liriano to the Yankees began to circulate. Those rumors have quieted now, but in the mean time, manager Ron Gardenhire has gone on record committing two more of those coveted rotation spots to Brian Duensing and Nick Blackburn. If Gardy sticks to those commitments (which I don’t think is necessarily as certain as people may tend to think), that leaves just one remaining starting role up for grabs between Baker and Slowey.
That’s one too many roosters for the rotation henhouse and thus the scouting eyes focused on Slowey’s performance Tuesday and the inevitable speculation that Slowey may be on the verge of being traded to Toronto in return for some of the Jays’ surplus of bullpen arms.
That seems to make sense to a lot of people. In fact, during his podcast last night, Jack Steal (Twins blogger “Fanatic Jack”) voiced a number of concerns that I think a lot of Twins fans have. (TwinsCentric blogger John Bonnes, of “TwinsGeek” fame, and I sparred with Jack on this and other issues… you can listen to the archived podcast at 612sports.net.)
People still aren’t comfortable with the prospect of letting Gardy and pitching coach Rick Anderson sift through the large group of relatively unknown options that GM Bill Smith brought in to camp to compete for the middle relief roles behind Joe Nathan, Matt Capps and Jose Mijares. So why shouldn’t the Twins go ahead now and trade their surplus starting pitcher to strengthen their questionable bullpen?
I’m glad you asked.
Let’s start with a basic truth. Starting pitchers good enough to hold down a spot in a Major League rotation are more important, more valuable, more difficult to find, and more difficult to replace when you need them, than even the best middle relief pitchers. They just are.
Second, you need more than five starting pitchers. Remember Scott Baker going on the Disabled List just before the Twins broke camp in 2009? Remember Nick Blackburn needing a family medical leave last April? Having six starting pitchers with a history of having success at the top levels of baseball should not be considered a luxury, it should be looked at for what it is… a potential significant advantage over the competition. Every team, including the Twins, is likely to need at least six starting pitchers, even during the first couple of months of the season. The difference between the Twins and other teams is that they have the depth to meet that need when it arises.
Will Liriano be ready to lead in April?
Has anyone read the reports about Liriano’s lack of offseason preparedness and his shoulder discomfort and not come away with some level of concern over whether he’s going to be reliable when the season opens in April? How many of the projected starting pitchers had some sort of “clean up” done on their elbows this winter? If we’re uncomfortable with the prospect of Perkins, Manship, Waldrop, et al, coming in for a couple of innings in the middle of games, just how comfortable are we going to be if those are the options to plug the holes in the rotation?
Does this mean the Twins shouldn’t ever consider trading one of their starting pitchers? Of course not. But why hurry? We’re still about three weeks away from Opening Day. Nobody can say with any certainty what the Twins’ real needs will be by then. The relief arms in camp right now have thrown about 4-5 innings each. That’s not nearly enough to conclude that the bullpen is going to need shoring up. What if one of the big sticks blows out a knee over the next three weeks? If guys like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Danny Valencia or Denard Span are forced to miss significant early time, don’t we think a surplus starting pitcher to deal away for a legitimate everyday replacement might be a nice option to have?
Making a trade now would also unnecessarily limit the market. When the Liriano rumors started flying, all anyone talked about was that the Yankees needed rotation help. Then the Cardinals lost Adam Wainright and the potential bidders doubled. Just in the last few days, the Cardinals have seen Chris Carpenter miss time with a hamstring issue, the Dodgers have found out they’ll start the season without Vicente Padilla and Jon Garland, and the Brewers announced Zack Greinke will miss time with a rib injury. How many more teams will figure out they’re short handed in their rotations over the next few weeks?
It just makes no sense to me to trade any of the Twins’ starting pitchers until (a) the Twins themselves are 100% certain they don’t need that pitcher themselves, (b) Opening Day is close enough on the horizon that the Twins know exactly what the most important position to fill via trade is, and (c) the market for starting pitchers is given enough time to fully develop, maximizing the number of potential bidders for a pitcher and therefore maximizing the value received in return.
There may come a time when it makes sense to trade from a perceived surplus of starting pitching. Now is not that time.
So that start time is a little bit of a lie because the game is currently in a Rain Delay. However, game play is expected to begin shortly. However, the full out thunderstorm did change some things as the Twins decided to pull a few of their starters out of the lineup, likely due to field conditions, including Jim Thome, Nishioka and Delmon Young who was supposed to make his A team debut today. At any rate, these are things that baseball knows how to handle and the game should get going any time now.
The team felt a little tired out there today but it was still an interesting game. Great to see Nathan have another solid outing. Blackburn did ok but gave up a couple long shots. Luke Hughes looked great – again – which is definitely speaking well for him so far. Butera continued to look good behind the plate if not so hot at the plate. It was a pretty typical spring training game actually. I guess those happen.
I’m sure most of you follow a number of other Twins blogs (and if you don’t, you should) so you probably already know that several of said bloggers are currently basking in the glow of sunshine and baseball down in Ft. Myers.
Amazingly, some of them have taken the time to post to their blogs while down there and several of them have also been giving their Twitter thumbs a workout, as well.
While we always want you to make Knuckleballs a daily stop on your daily virtual baseball tour, here are a few links you should definitely be looking in on this week as these bloggers give us on-site reports from the Twins’ spring home:
Seth Stohs (sethspeaks.net) had a very long day as he started Tuesday with a 2:45 am alarm clock setting and followed that up with a couple of flights, an eventful first day at the Lee County Sports Complex, and a post-game gathering at a sports bar near the stadium. Seth also relates how he and other bloggers down there narrowly avoided suffering the infamous anti-blogger/twitter wrath of Ron Gardenhire as Gardy tried in vain to run the guys down on his golf cart. (OK, yeah, maybe a bit of embellishment on my part… but it makes for a better story!) Follow Seth on Twitter at @SethSpeaks.
Nick Nelson (nickstwinsblog.com) arrived at the back field where Justin Morneau and Delmon Young made their debuts in a “B” game with the Pirates Tuesday morning just in time to see Justin slide in to home and score from second base, ending his 4 inning performance. Follow Nick on Twitter at @nnelson9.
Parker Hageman of Over The Baggy is also down in Florida, but it looks like he’s dogging it so far, in terms of posting his adventures on his blog. I suggest continuing to check in at OTB periodically, though, and you can follow him on Twitter at @OverTheBaggy.
Like a lot of people, I’m sure, I’m jealous of all those folks currently soaking up the sun and baseball, but I take some solace from knowing it will be my turn in less than a week. I head to Ft. Myers on the 15th and will be over at Hammond Stadium the following day.
A couple of months ago, in the first of my 3-part “Spring Training Guide” series of posts, I wrote that I break the Spring Training schedule down in to three parts. Well, we’re starting to transition from the first part to the second, as the Twins have played 10 Spring Training games heading in to today’s game in Sarasota vs. the Orioles. As I wrote back in January, this middle portion of the ST schedule is really my favorite part.
We’re winding up the initial stretch of games where starting pitchers have been throwing only 2-4 innings and regular position players take a seat after just a couple of plate appearances. The minor league camp officially opens at the end of this week and that’s when we’ll start to see some of the 3,961 pitchers (ok… a slight exaggeration… maybe) that started ST in the Major League clubhouse move their equipment across the complex to their minor league lockers.
This is also when we should start seeing the regular position players getting an additional plate appearance during each game. Of course, this spring has been somewhat of an unusual situation with regard to the Twins position players because so many of them are coming off of injuries and are just now starting to get cleared to play in games. It will be interesting to see how many swings guys like Morneau, Young, Cuddyer and Mauer get during games as they each make their belated debuts on Gardy’s line-up cards.
This year, my trip to Spring Training is going to end up straddling the second and third parts of the schedule, as games 18-23 will be played while I’m in the Sunshine State. Right now, I’m planning on catching home games against the Mets and Rays, on the 16th and 19th, respectively, and road games against the Tigers (17th), Orioles (18th), Blue Jays (20th) and Pirates (21st). I admit, though, that I’m giving some thought to skipping the Tiger game… it’s the longest drive of the bunch and just hanging out in Ft. Myers and watching the workouts back there that morning might not be a bad decision.
In any event, I’ll be posting regularly here at Knuckleballs and I’ll also be filing some reports with Howard Sinker for his “A Fan’s View from Section 219” blog over at the Strib site.
One final programming note… I’m scheduled to join the TwinsGeek, John Bonnes, on Fanatic Jack’s “Twins Talk” podcast tonight at 9:00 (I’m tentatively scheduled to join in the discussion at 9:20). You can find it under the 612 Sports Radio tab over at 612sports.net.
Well after seeing Justin and Delmon come back for their first appearances of the spring yesterday, we get to see Liriano make his first A squad appearance today. I think the only folk we have yet to see have some playing time are Mauer & Cuddyer. I’m starting to get a little overly-excited for baseball season to start!
Yeah, we’re just going to put this down as a bad outing for Liriano…. and my BIG favorite – LOB – yeah, going to have to get Kbro to make me that shirt yet. Seven men left on base is just not ok.. but it looks like Hughes and Dinkelman continue to have good springs. I don’t know that that actually means anything but it has to be better than a bad spring!
It’s not like we really need an EXCUSE to party tonight, but we might as well get in the Mardi Gras spirit, right!?
I may not be the biggest party animal in Twinsville, but there are plenty of reasons for Twins fans to be celebrating tonight!
First and foremost, there was the return of Justin Morneau to the playing field. Check out the video of both of Doc’s plate appearances this morning in the ‘B’ game with the Pirates!
This got everyone pretty excited!
It doesn’t take much to get the Twinsville Tweeters’ fingers going (much to Gardy’s chagrin, at times… does anyone else find it just hilarious that he hasn’t quite come to grips with the fact that things he tells reporters no longer take 18 hours before those words become public?) and we certainly had reactions flying across the airwaves today. Here’s just a sampling of today’s revelry:
Justin was all smiles after the game… at least I THINK there’s a smile under that fu manchu somewhere. Check out the pic link:
Naturally, Carl “the ‘stache” Pavano, himself, was not easily impressed:
@JoeCStrib Pavano on Morneau: “He shaved into a handlebar moustache. You gotta be feeling really good if you are going to be wearing that around here.”
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Joe Mauer was duly impressed… kind of:
@JoeCStrib Huge crowd was watching Mauer take swings in batting cage. I told him Morneau hit a 3-run 2B. “Did he?” Mauer said. “That’s pretty good.”
OK, so I’m not really sure this falls under the category of “revelry”… but it’s interesting anyway:
@JoeCStrib Blue Jays had 3 scouts watching B-game, one with a video camera. I’m told they like Slowey and have relievers to spare. #stribtwins
Tsuyoshi Nishioka got in to the Mardi Gras spirit:
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@TwinsNow Japanese media said Nishioka was very excited today because, for the first time with the #Twins, he started a double play.
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and…
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@JoeCStrib Nishioka lines an opposite-field single to left and is replaced by a pinch runner. He was 1-for-2 today. #stribtwins
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Ben Revere had his own way of celebrating:
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@PMac21 Ben Revere just made a ridiculous diving catch on the left-field warning track.
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Gardy was in a jovial mood, as well:
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@TomPelissero#Twins manager Ron Gardenhire when asked how Justin Morneau looked in his spring debut: “Canadian. Real Canadian.”
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Of course, Gardy made sure everyone knew Doc wasn’t the only guy making his spring debut today:
@TwinsNow Gardy on DY’s 2 walks today: “Haven’t seen that in a long time, ever maybe. … We thought that was historic.” #Twins
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OK I guess that’s enough celebrating for this old man tonight… and enough of stealing others’ work to fill blogspace here at Knuckleballs.
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So let me leave you with this final Mardi Gras thought… and image.
These darn noon games are killing me! I can’t always work out the early lunch schedule in order to get the lineups up. At any rate, here’s how we STARTED and then I put up an early boxscore just so you can see where we’re at right now if you are away from a radio!
Well that game just kind of sucked.. Pavano looked good, Butera had fun, Neshek looked a bit like the Neshek you remember pre-surgery – gave up a giant solo homerun, a strike out, a walk and two regular outs – I little inconsistent but improving… Oh man, there are days when I really wish I wasn’t listening on the radio and I would have given a lot to see Revere’s catch in the 7th. Dazzle thought it was out of the park the whole way and then gave the shocked alert that Ben had actually CAUGHT it! Apparently he cut up his hands on the play – not the greatest part of the body for a baseball player to sacrifice but Gardy says he is going to be fine. Manship got the loss by giving up three runs in the final inning from what had been a tie game.
OH, and just in case you missed the post before this, Delmon Young AND Justin Morneau both played in the B game this morning… sounds like both looked pretty darn good. Can’t wait to get them and our other starters in the regular lineups!
UPDATE: LaVelle E. Neal over at the Strib had a pretty entertaining postgame wrap – I encourage everyone to go check it out.
Both Justin Morneau and Delmon Young are in the line up this morning for the Twins during a “B” game against the Pirates on a back field at the Twins’ complex in Fort Myers, FL.
Justin is back! (Photo: @MinnesotaTwins)
Young is hitting 3rd and Morneau 4th. Morneau is also playing first base. According to Star Tribune reports from the Twins complex, Morneau is expected to get two plate appearances in the game.
Just seeing that Morneau is back on the field in a game might just be the best news to come out of the Twins spring training site thus far.
Let’s hope all goes well and this is a sign of better days ahead for Doc and the Twins!
– JC
UPDATE: And now, thanks to @MinnesotaTwins, we have visual evidence. What a terrific sight to see!
UPDATED UPDATE: Morneau played four innings in the field and hit a bases-loaded double down the right field line in his second plate appearance. Terrific return for the big Canadian!
The Twins and their consensus AL Central Division challengers, the White Sox and Tigers, are all about 25-30% of the way through their Spring Training exhibition schedules, so maybe now is a good time to sneak a quick peek at how they’re measuring up. With the caveat being, as always, that you really shouldn’t read too much in to Spring Training performances, at least we aren’t having to do all of our evaluation “on paper”, as we did all off-season.
A lot of us were pretty harsh in our evaluations of the Twins’ moves (or lack thereof), especially during the first couple of months of the off-season. The Twins lost over half of their historically reliable bullpen and both of their starting middle infielders. With only one exception, the plan clearly became to replace those vacancies either from within or with spare parts picked up from other teams’ cast-offs. That strategy could very well work, at least in the bullpen, where there are a couple of guys with pretty good track records looking to regain past levels of effectiveness.
Tsuyoshi Nishioka (Photo: C Krupa/AP)
That one exception, Japanese batting champion Tsuyoshi Nishioka, comes with his own set of question marks, though the biggest is not necessarily one of his own making. Nishioka is relatively young for a guy making the transition from the NBL to Major League Baseball. He’s had a successful career in Japan, though he’s had some trouble staying healthy at times. The relative lack of experience, compared to other Japanese stars who’ve made the jump to the US, makes it impossible to know just how good he really is. On the other hand, it’s pretty tough to find comparable Japanese position players who have come over and become true stars at the MLB level. There’s Ichiro and… well… nobody else, really. The result is that American fans rightfully take a “show me” attitude toward Japanese imports.
Early returns are mixed on Nishioka. Scouting reports that his arm strength made him a better match for second base than shortstop have been somewhat backed up by his performance and after just a couple of games at each position, manager Ron Gardenhire announced that Nishioka would, indeed, play second base. Alexi Casilla, who broke in to the Angels organization as a shortstop, has the stronger arm and shortstop is his position to lose, at this point. But Nishioka seems to put bat on ball pretty well and that’s going to be critical if he hits in the #2 spot in the order.
Nishioka may be the lone “big addition” to the Twins roster over the winter, but the two biggest additions to the Twins’ 25-man roster entering the season stand to be names very familiar to Twins fans… Joe Nathan and Justin Morneau. Some of us tend to forget that the Twins essentially won the AL Central last season with little contribution from two of their biggest stars. Nathan missed the entire 2010 season and Morneau missed the last half of the year. While Nathan appears to be back and ready to reclaim his closer role, Morneau has yet to be cleared to play in games. If the Twins have a healthy Morneau on the field most of the season (especially at the end, for a change) and if Nathan’s arm stays intact and he maybe gets a little help from Pat Neshek, who’s also hoping to return to past levels of effectiveness, there’s no reason the Twins shouldn’t be considered the favorite to defend their Division Championship.
The Competition
The Indians and Royals should be interesting to watch this season. Both have some very highly regarded young players, though it’s too early to know for sure how much time those prospects will see at the Major League level in 2011. In any event, it would surprise just about everyone if either of those teams was in contention for the AL Central title in September. But the White Sox and Tigers almost certainly will be.
A year ago, it seemed like everyone was handing the Division to the White Sox, on the strength of their starting rotation. The Sox’ brain trust (yeah, I know, referring to Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen as a brain trust is downright giggle-inducing) apparently felt their pitching was so good that they could and should dump Jim Thome from his DH spot and replace him with Mark Teahan… no, seriously, that’s what they thought! I don’t believe even the Sox fan base was surprised when they turned out to be wrong.
This year, the Whities have tweaked the pitching staff a bit, including signing away Jesse Crain from the Twins, but their biggest addition (both figuratively and literally) is 6’6” hitting machine, Adam Dunn. Dunn sees himself as a complete player, capable of playing defense as well as hitting, and hoped to stay in the National League, where he’s played his entire career. But he got only a token offer from the Nationals, while several AL teams made significantly higher offers, virtually all of which came with the catch that he’d primarily be a DH. Dunn may be reluctant to embrace that role, but make no mistake, he will excel at it. In his last six seasons, Dunn has hit 40, 40, 40, 40, 38 and 38 home runs. Hmmm… I wonder how many he’s likely to hit for the White Sox, especially in that Little League ballpark they have on the South Side.
The White Sox definitely should be better this year, but the Twins still have one thing going for them… that “brain trust” (giggle) can probably be counted on to screw things up somehow.
Speaking of screwing things up, I’m not sure whether Vegas let’s you bet on who will lead the Divisions at the mid-point of the season, but if they do, you can pretty safely put your money on the Detroit Tigers. Absolutely nobody will be shocked if the Tigers come out of the gate strong and lead the Twins and White Sox in to July. Likewise, absolutely nobody will be shocked if they go 10-20 in August and fade away in September.
How and why they do it is always a mystery. Maybe their pitching will fade, maybe a star player will need to detox. Every season we get to watch a new drama unfold in Detroit.
Again, make no mistake, the Tigers made some moves that look to improve themselves. Victor Martinez will make hitters around him better and Joaquin Benoit should improve their bullpen. I’m just not sure it will be enough to keep the Tigers in contention all year. Benoit can’t do it all himself and the rest of the Tigers bullpen isn’t terribly scary. Joel Zumaya throws serious heat, but the only thing he’s reliable at is getting hurt at some point. In fact, he’s already had the predictable “setback” in his recovery from elbow surgery. And let’s face it, Miguel Cabrera is a time bomb waiting to go off on that organization and, from all appearances, Tiger management’s plan to deal with his drinking problem consists of sticking their heads in the sand. Good luck with that.
So far this spring, the Tigers’ rotation is looking pretty good. Justin Verlander, Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer are all throwing strikes and getting outs. The guy to watch the rest of the spring, though, might be former Yankee Phil Coke. He’s looked pretty good over his first three starts and if he carries that performance in to the season, he could make an already strong rotation a very, very good rotation. On the offensive side, things aren’t so rosy yet. The three big bats in the middle of the Tiger order, Martinez, Cabrera and Ordonez, have accumulated OPS’s of .566, .334 and .286, respectively. Yes… those are the SUMS of their on-base percentages and slugging percentages. Ouch. Then again, small sample size. One of the games I’m planning on attending down in Florida in a couple of weeks is a Twins/Tigers matchup in Lakeland. I’m anxious to get a look at this year’s edition of the Tigers as we get deeper in to the exhibition season.
Over in Arizona, the White Sox are not having fun (at least not during the games). They’re 1-6, heading in to this week, and much of the blame for that lies with their vaunted rotation. While Peavy, Danks and Jackson got through their first starts without incident, Mark Buehrle and Gavin Floyd got beat around pretty good. Mr. Crain hasn’t looked too good yet, either, by the way. Dunn hasn’t gotten untracked either yet and, in fact, their only regular with a respectable showing with the bat so far is Juan Pierre, who’s OPS is north of .900. Alex Rios has the only HR for the White Sox in their first seven games.
To wrap things up on a positive note, I thought I would share this video from Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, evaluating the Twins prospects for defending their Division Championship. – JC
P.S. I did a guest spot on Seth Stohs (Sethspeaks.net) Sunday night podcast and you can click here to listen to the half hour program, during which Seth and I touched on a number of Twins topics. I’m also scheduled to appear with John Bonnes (TwinsGeek) on Fanatic Jack’s podcast at 9:00 this Wednesday night. – JC
