Minnesota Twins Talk

The Twins recalled Parmelee today, as Morneau has started his three day paternity leave. Best wishes to Justin and his family!

I'd like to throw a shout out to the victims and families of the Aurora, Colorado shooting massacre. My heart goes out to all of them.

Are we really a bigger market and bigger revenue team than all of them awarded? http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/07/competitive-balance-lottery-results.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MlbTradeRumors+%28MLB+Trade+Rumors%29 I'm at work = don't want to do any fangraphing

With the Rays looking to dump Bj Upton, could They be in market for Span. Looks like TB holds club options for Shields for $9 million for 2013 and $12 million for 2014. I'v seen fom sources that Their RH starters could be available.

One thing to watch for when Nick Blackburn takes the mound tonight against Luke Hochevar and the Kansas City Royas is how often he uses his cutter. When he first came up to the Twins in a September call up, he used the pitch and it was quite good. In recent years, he has gone away from the cutter. I'm not optimistic about Blackburn, but reportedly he and Bobby Cuellar did work on getting him to use the cutter more frequently. He had the success in AAA. Could incorporation of that pitch into his repertoire help him become at least bearable to watch? We shall see.

There's an interview with TR on the PP: http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_21113174/twins-gm-terry-ryan-we-need-starting-pitching I found this quote particularly interesting: "Well, I don't know what you're talking about with a very good offense but we're averaging four runs a game. That isn't a very good offense," he said. "I don't want to berate my own organization here but I have to be honest; we're not scoring runs. We score 19 the other day and then we come back last night and score one. That's the type of stuff we're dealing with here." Thank you, Mr. Ryan, for not trying to convince us that the Twins' problems are only ONLY starting pitching and defense.

Let me be clear, absent a trade (of Burton for a valuable SP) I would like the Twins to pursue the extremely unlikely closer by committee (of two) next year. But failing that: Should the Twins lock one or the other as closer and the other as setup guy and then deal the likes of Guerra, Robertson, Oliveros, and/or Burnett (by "and" I don't mean ALL of them)? I ask because the Twins have a bunch of guys who may be capable in middle relief, ranging from Swarzak and Blackburn (lot of money for that role, but if he can be effective there, why not try it out?) on one hand to Slama, Perdomo, Vasquez, Thielbar, Sattler, Waldrop, Pugh, Watts, and Albers on the other hand. Th…

Next year the Twins obviously need to blow up the starting rotation. Pavano, Liriano are good as gone. Any trade is unlikely to return a starter for next season. At this point Diamond is a lock, Hendricks is a probability, Gibson is unlikely until May or June, Blackburn has shown nothing this season (with luck maybe we can trade him this winter), and even if they bring back Baker on a new contract with incentives, it will be at earliest July before he's recovered to a point of being an okay pitcher. The Twins will need to be active in the free agent market this winter as they don't have any trade chips that can return a good starter for next season (unless they use som…

Plouffe hasn't homered since before the All-Star break and considering how many he hit in June and early July, one would have to consider this a drought. However, he is carrying a 16? game hitting streak and has fielded his position better and better (IMHO). In my view, things are normalizing. He will hit home runs, but I doubt he'll approach 40 and he may not even hit 30. The batting average is going up and his OBP is remaining reasonable. Without home runs, of course, the slugging is decreasing, but I think he is now moving toward the reasonable range there, rather than the inflated number he had two weeks ago. So far, the disappointing thing has been his pe…

Presuming there are equally reasonable offers for both: Who would you prefer to go and who to stay? I would vote to keep Span and trade Willingham, because of Denard's defense and reliable record as a leadoff hitter. Trading Willngham opens up left field for the weak armed but speedy Ben Revere. The Twins have Trevor Plouffe to provide power from the right side of the plate, Aaron Hicks may develop power as a switch hitter (he's showing some power in AA-Ball) and it's likely that a right handed power-DH will be available in future free agency.

We knew Matt Capps was going on the DL. Now we know the other half of the transaction. RHP Nick Blackburn, who pitched well and ate innings in his two AAA starts since his demotion, will return to the Twins. Most likely Blackburn would replace Brian Duensing in the starting rotation with Duensing returning to the bullpen. With Deduno's rough start tonight, it will be interesting to see if he remains in the rotation, maybe goes to the bullpen of if they would DFA him (can't imagine anyone would claim him so he should be able to go back to Rochester). Jeff Manship started in Rochester and pitched well again giving up two runs in six innings.

I really like the new highlight realz they've done between innings. It just gives a cool little recap with extra footage we don't always see, with sweet music. I'd like to see this continue with the same people in charge.

Per a Twitter post from Aaron Gleeman, Fan Graphs has Joe Mauer on pace to be worth $24 million this year. A reminder to everybody that he is making $23 million this year. Where are all of "Mauer is overpaid" comments now? (That sound you hear is the crickets chirping in the background.)

Well this signing has worked out like gangbusters.

Joe Mauer Is The Most Overrated Player In Baseball! Or at least the most overpaid! http://www.facebook.com/JoeMauerIsMostOverratedPlayerInBaseball Let's see you guys put together a "good" argument or stats to prove these statements to be false.

LaVelle Neal posted the Twins starting rotation as they come out of the All Star break: Friday - Francisco Liriano Saturday - Cole De Vries Sunday - Brian Duensing Monday - Scott Diamond Tuesday - Sam Deduno That's how they come out of the break. Thoughts? What are your thoughts on how the rotation will play out over the course of the second half? Will Nick Blackburn and Liam Hendriks get back to the Twins? If so, when? How about Carl Pavano? Will any other starters get an opportunity, such as Aaron Thompson or BJ Hermsen?

Here is a nice story on the former Twins backup catcher who last year managed in the Midwest League and this year manages in the Florida State League. Dunedin is playing in Ft. Myers against the Miracle and News Press's David Dorsey caught up with him in this story. http://www.news-press.com/article/20120717/SPORTS/307170017/0/COLUMNISTS16/Former-Twins-catcher-Mike-Redmond-back-town?odyssey=nav|head If ever Ron Gardenhire decides to resign, Mike Redmond would be high on my list to replace him.

The heat has been unbearable at Target Field lately and no doubt GM Terry Ryan is feeling it in the front office as he fields phone calls from other teams. However, the kind of heat Ryan is feeling is not weather related, but has to do more with the upcoming trade deadline. There are many decisions that need to be made over the next two weeks about players like Liriano, Span, Carroll, Casilla, and Capps (no value). My hope is with Ryan in charge the Twins will take positive steps to rebuild this organization from the minors on up. Sometimes a team gets lucky with a player out of options who is sent down or released. There is no doubt relief pitcher Jared Burton has be…

With the elimination of the Type A/B free agents and most draft pick compensations, what do you think the long-term impact will be on mid-season trades? It already seems like a lot of teams are more reluctant to get "rental players". Will we start seeing a lot fewer mid-season trades, at least big name ones?

Again, not sure how willing the Twins are to move him but a package around Zach Lee could be interesting. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/danny-knobler/19590756/dodgers-like-hamels-but-may-not-have-enough-to-get-him

Just curious what people think. Do the recent injuries to Votto (torn cartilage in knee - out 4 weeks) and Bautista (unknown wrist injury, but he appeared to be in significant pain) have any effect on the Twins trade market? Does it make the Reds more desperate for another power bat like Willingham? Are they maybe now even interested in Morneau? Same for the Jays, with Bautista possibly out for a while does that make them more willing/desperate to make a move?

I was perusing baseball stats this morning and came across this oddity: Justin Morneau has this slash line against lefties:[TABLE=class: sortable stats_table] [TD=align: right].137[/TD] [TD=align: right].170[/TD] [TD=align: right].221[/TD] [TD=align: right].391[/TD] [/TABLE] No big surprise there, right? But here is his slash line against left-handed starters: [TABLE=class: sortable stats_table] [TD=align: right].203[/TD] [TD=align: right].268[/TD] [TD=align: right].351[/TD] [TD=align: right].620[/TD] [/TABLE] Still bad but not nearly as "oh my god, he's clueless" as his overall slash line. The odd thing is that he has 82 PAs against left-han…

OK, here is the concept of this thread. Please answer the question with Yes or No and then post no more than 3 sentences to explain your answer. I'll start. Should the Twins trade Francisco Liriano? No. The Twins need quality starting pitching and Liriano fits the bill. Any trade of Liriano would likely include a starting pitcher in return, probably of lower quality than Liriano. Trading him would be a net loss to the starting rotation. >Next<

8 relatively solid starts now for Frankie since being reinstated. 49.2 IP 30h 15er 2.72ERA 52k 24bb.....99.25pitches per start He can only screw up a deal 4 more times..... If he woulda started the season like this, would he have gotten an extension???

ttt

The smart move would be to deal him now with supposedly 6 teams interested in his services. There can't be a better start than his 15K start to be his final start for the Twins. You hate to think of him like a roller coaster but that is the best way to think of it he is at the top and move while the getting is still good. I would have like to seen him in a package to Toronto involving Travis d'Arnaud, but he may be done for the season.

Lots of Twins fans pine away for the Pohlad's to spend more money on payroll. Did you ever stop and think about the transactions that must take place before they can do that? In other words, where does the money come from? The Minnesota Twins LLC is a limited liability corporation. Jim Pohlad is the CEO, Dave St. Peter is the President. The board of directors include Jim Pohlad, Bob Pohlad, Bill Pohlad, Dave St. Peter, and Jerry Bell. It is likely that these five individuals own stock in the LLC and that the Pohlad's own a controlling interest. There are probably other shareholders as well. So if the Twins want to increase payroll they have to find the money somewhere.…

Q&A: Terry Ryan, Twins general manager

Obviously proposing trades without any information that is relevant to actual possible or actual negotiations is ridiculous. And it is even more ridiculous when trying to think of trade packages (in the NBA it is much easier, but for MLB it is very difficult). But still, I just want to point out that maybe we should think of Twins trades as not A for B, but maybe AB or ABC for D or DE. What I mean is that someone like Matt Capps might not garner much attention, but adding a guy like Mastroianni (for instance) might be a tiny bit more of an enticement for some contending team looking to add a setup man and potentially OF depth or pinch-running capability. Capps and Burton …

Rather than focus on the negative and speculate on which Twin you hate and think should be dumped...who would you like to see in Minneapolis when the rosters expand in September?