Minnesota Twins Talk

According to Baseball America's research, Target Field gave left-handed hitters the fits the past two seasons. In his piece regarding how ballparks effect young hitters, BA's Matt Eddy notes that despite only two years in existence, the Twins home field muted left-handed power like no other, allowing a home run once every 61 plate appearances. Part of that certainly is personnel-related as the Twins were limited from the left-side without Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Jason Kubel for extended stretches in the past two seasons. Eddy notes that the confines did not stifle every Minnesota left-hander: I'm guessing that Parmelee will not likely be tested in the cool Minn…

Ben Revere made a big impact on the field for the Minnesota Twins in 2011. We keep hearing about players who need more time in the minor leagues to develop and Revere is no different. He played in only 126 games between New Britain and Rochester before being called up in May at the young age of 23. He played 117 games for the Twins and hit .267/.310/.309. He also set a new team record with 34 stolen bases. Truthfully Revere is ahead of where Hunter and Span were at their age. However, nobody is going to compare Revere to Hunter and Span because that is crazy talk. Revere has many obvious flaws like no power, low OBP, and probably the weakest arm ever. Revere worked on his…

Deolis Guerra, Lester Oliveros, Scott Diamond, Tyler Robertson, Darin Mastroianni, Oswaldo Arcia, Aaron Thompson, Steve Pearce, Danny Rams were reassinged to the Minor League Camps today

A few weeks ago, my friend (A White Sox fan) and I were having a conversation about the Twins and White Sox. We reminisced about a conversation we had in January of 2010. As a Twins fan, I was optimistic about the 2011 because of the strong 2010 season. He was feeling optimistic about the Sox because of their 2010 season and some off-season additions (i.e. Adam Dunn). We had a fierce debate about which team was going to win the division, and obviously it was limited to the Twins and the Sox. Obviously, we were both way off base on this conversation. By contrast, we started talking about what would happen in the 2012 season. This year, we decided to place a frie…

I just saw this article through Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Talk, Joe Christensen reporting that the Twins are monitoring Baker after some "red flags" during last Saturday's game against the Pirates. Go here for Parker's write up.

Today, we'll round out the infield and vote for the preseason AL Central third baseman. Let's get the discussion going on "Which AL Central Third Baseman will be the best in 2012?" Vote now and comment your rankings. The Candidates (2011 stats) Minnesota Twins - Danny Valencia - .246/.294/.383 (.677) with 28-2B, 2-3B, 15-HR, 72 RBI Chicago White Sox - Brent Morel - .245/.287/.366 (.653) with 18-2B, 1-3B, 10-HR, 41 RBI Cleveland Indians - Jack Hannahan - .250/.331/.388 (.719) with 16-2B, 2-3B, 8-HR, 40 RBI Lonnie Chisenhall MLB - .255/.284/.415 (.699) with 13-2B, 0-3B, 7-HR, 22 RBI Lonnie Chisenhall MIL…

So far we have voted on the Preseason AL Central Catcher, First Baseman and Second Baseman choices. Now let's get the discussion going on "Which AL Central Shortstop will be the best in 2012?" Vote now and comment your rankings. The Candidates (2011 stats) Minnesota Twins - Jamey Carroll - .290/.359/.347 (.706) with 14-2B, 6-3B, 0-HR, 17 RBI Chicago White Sox - Alexei Ramirez - .269/.328/.399 (.727) with 31-2B, 2-3B, 15-HR, 70 RBI Cleveland Indians - Asdrubal Cabrera - .273/.332/.460 (.792) with 32-2B, 3-3B, 25-HR, 92 RBI Detroit Tigers - Jhonny Peralta - .299/.345/.478 (.824) with 25-2B, 3-3B, 21-HR, 86 RBI Kansas City Royals - Alcides Escobar - .254/.290/.343 (.633…

Can someone please give me more info on this guy? I really like him as a possible RH Setup Guy or a RH bullpen guy but I don't know what he throws, how fast, his stats, why he was released from the reds? What are his chances at this point of making the bullpen? It would kill me if a Terry Doyle or a Swarzak made it in over this guy. Please any info you have I would love to hear or if you have seen him pitch in person that would be even better. Thanks,

Twins said "at least a week", which means that he is not making the team; not he had much of a chance that far. My latest Dashboard has him battling Florimon for the worse performing infielder this spring. With Parmelee and probably Bates, Burroughs and Hollimon in Rochester, he might be fighting for a job soon...

I thought I'd start a new series here and see how it plays out. I thought it would be fun for Twins Daily readers to vote on the preseason All AL Central team. The question with each of these rankings will be "Which player do you think will have the best season in 2012?" In other words, it has nothing to do with what happened in 2011 or earlier, and it isn't asking which you would build a team with. It is, which player will be the best in 2012. Let's start with the Catcher candidates: Minnesota Twins - Joe Mauer - (2011 numbers - .287/.360/.368 (.729) with 15-2B, 3-HR, 30 RBI) Cleveland Indians - Carlos Santana - (2011 numbers - .239/.351/.457 (.808) with 35-2B, …

When did this happen? Not that I'm upset or anything. In fact, I'm kind of glad. My wife got a #22 jersey for free- one of the white throwbacks from the last year in the Metrodome- and hasn't had a player to wear it for. And she likes Danny V, so it works out. I'm just curious if there was any reasoning behind it. Darin Mastroianni is the new #19... that wasn't part of his signing bonus (the right to wear that number) was it?

The voting for preseason AL Central catcher will continue for another day, but let's get the discussion going on "Which AL Central First Baseman will be the best in 2012?" Vote now and comment your rankings. The First Basemen (2011 stats) Minnesota Twins - Justin Morneau - .227/.285/.333 (.618) with 16-2B, 4-HR, 30 RBI Chicago White Sox - Paul Konerko - .300/.388/.517 (.906) with 25-2B, 31-HR, 105 RBI Cleveland Indians - Casey Kotchman - .306/.378/.422 (.800) with 24-2B, 2-3B, 10-HR, 48 RBI Detroit Tigers - Prince Fielder - .299/.415/.566 (.981) with 36-2B, 1-3B, 38-HR, 120 RBI Kansas City Royals - Eric Hosmer - .293/.334/.465 (.799) with 27-2B, 3-3B, 19-HR, 78…

1500ESPN.com's Darren Wolfson tweets that the Twins may be one of several teams looking at free agent Michael Wuertz's tryouts next week. In our TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook, here's what I wrote about him: Dating back to 2009, the Austin, Minnesota native held baseball's highest swinging strike rate (15.9%) according to Fangraphs.com's data. The right-handed Wuertz leaned heavily on a slider throughout his career and tossed it 63.4% of the time in the past three seasons, which considering his hand and wrist injuries may have made that particular pitch harder to throw. It is hard to tell where he is at in this point of his career but with a vacancy left by Z…

Here's former New York Times baseball writer Murray Chass gushing over the Twins system in his recent conversation with Terry Ryan, which is interesting because of that. Of course, it wouldn't be a Chass piece without him showing some contempt for the "Moneyball" method: If I've said this once, I've said it a million times: It's not an either or situation. It's both. Every organization should strive to be top of their class in both scouting and statistical analysis, not choose one over the other.

You can find the link here. Vegas is setting the over/under for Twins wins at 73 this year, which is the least number of any AL Central team. I gotta say, this seems really low to me, though I suppose one could argue that if they sell at the trade deadline, they could suffer an August and September similar to last season. Still, I think the over is a lot more likely.

The voting for preseason AL Central catcher and first basemen will continue for another day, but let's get the discussion going on "Which AL Central Second Baseman will be the best in 2012?" Vote now and comment your rankings. The Second Basemen (2011 stats) Minnesota Twins - Alexi Casilla - .260/.322/.368 (.691) with 21-2B, 3-3B, 2-HR, 21 RBI Chicago White Sox - Gordon Beckham - .230/.296/.337 (.633) with 23-2B, 0-3B, 10-HR, 44 RBI Cleveland Indians - Jason Kipnis MLB - .272/.333/.507 (.841) with 9-2B, 1-3B, 7-HR, 19 RBI Jason Kipnis MILB - .280/.362/.484 (.846) with 16-2B, 9-3B, 12-HR, 55 RBI Detroit Tigers - Brandon Inge - .197/.26…

Thanks to lumbering livestock like Mo Vaughn or David Ortiz who are put out onto the field as first baseman (and even fielding the position in tonight's game as well), people seem to think playing first base is one of the easier positions on the diamond. Well, yeah, it's not difficult. In fact, according the defensive spectrum, it ranks first base as just above designated hitter in terms of difficulty. That's not to say first base is not without its nuances that some players find hard to adapt to. Put Ryan Doumit in that category as well. According to 1500ESPN's Judd Zulgad, here's what the new Twin said: Doumit's track record at first is just 251 innings long a…

The Twins will make their first Spring Training cuts next week sometime. Based on their minor league spring training schedule, the first minor league games this Spring is next Wed. the 14th. I suspect that the first cuts will be made as early as Monday, or as late as Tuesday to accommodate those games (there are no official announcements yet from the Twins.) I have been creating dashboards to track the performance of pitchers who are battling for the 3 bullpen spots and for the position players who are batting for the 2-3 bench spots, and I think that it is pretty clear who the first cuts will be. Here is my take: I think that the position player cuts (all relegate…

There are a lot of question about the pitching staff going into this season. Will Liriano bounce back from last year? Will Baker stay healthy? Can Blackburn go back to his ole 4.00 ERA days? Can Pavano repeat his 2010 success? What will Marquis be able to do in the AL? Which of these starters will have the best season in 2012?

A few weeks ago I posted an article suggesting Liriano's 2012 success was very dependent on his fastball. The biggest difference between 2010 and 2011 was that (1) his velocity was down and (2) his control was off. Mechanical glitches and injuries were held responsible for the decline. His winter league did not hold too much promise that he had corrected any of this as his velocity was sub-90 and his command was well off base (walking 16 in 24 innings in the Dominican). However, after his second start of the spring, things are looking much better for his potential. Check out Joe Christensen's report: Again, to me, his fastball is the catalyst and foundation. If he's un…

It is a 3 year $10.3 Million dollar extension. Smart deal for the Twins

This morning when I was trying to compile a scorecard for the pitchers who are battling for bullpen spots, I realized that Sam Deduno has yet to appear in a game this Spring. There have been no news of an injury or another issue and he did report, so things are not clear about what's up. When I asked one of the beat reporters, he said that he things that there might be a hamstring issue and he will check out. I know that he has been pitching batting practice for sure, including yesterday. (so if he is injured he probably would not do that, unless he is getting better and we will see him in a day or two in a game.) Any ideas of what is going on? Just curious, bec…

we lost one of the greatest legends in Minnesota sports history. Try to watch Game Six's walk-off home run without getting the chills, I dare you. Outside of that memorable one, what's your favorite Kirby Puckett moment?

It is hard to believe, but from 2003-2007, we took it to the AL East to the clip of 94-75. Proof that we have and can beat the AL East in the regular season, we just need to learn how to do so in the postseason.

I hope this isn't an abuse of this forum -- I stand to gain very little, and only indirectly, from more pageviews on this -- but I thought people might be interested in my (free) article over at Baseball Prospectus today on why I think people are giving up on the Twins too readily, and why I still hold out some hope for 2012. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16164 When people have asked me, I've been giving my outlook in percentages. I think there's about a 40-50% chance that they're very bad again (let's say 50), and a 35% or so chance that they're improved and healthier enough to get back to mediocre, somewhere within a few of .500. But, that le…

For those of us who are fortunate enough to live in the Twin Cities area, I'm curious how many of us on Twins Daily have season tickets. I have a 20 game plan (Package D) and I am in section 225. I've had season tickets since 2010.

After struggling as a starter and missing almost all of 2010, Glen Perkins came back in 2011 with a new role and, seemingly, a new arm. His added velocity from pitching out of the bullpen helped his slider become a wicked, plus pitch. Now he's one of only a few proven relievers coming out of the bullpen this year. His surprising performance last year brings up a good question: Who could be the Glen Perkins of 2012?

I have been smiling from ear to ear since the Twins announced Terry Ryan was coming back as the GM to replace Bill Smith. I believe it will take Ryan four years to rebuild this organization into an A.L. Central powerhouse like it was a decade ago. Smith is an affable guy but clearly was in over his head as the GM of the Twins. He decimated the depth of the team with some very bad trades. I really like the additions of Carroll, Doumit, and Willingham to provide more offense to a club that struggled to score runs in 2011. There is no doubt Ryan takes the moneyball approach when he evaluated these players because all three of them get on base at a very high clip. He also…

I gotta say, I'm a little taken aback by how much ink and breath I'm seeing wasted about why Josh Willingham shouldn't be playing right field. The primary argument seems to be: he hasn't played there much, so he probably shouldn't. C'mon. There are a couple of differences, to be sure. But tell me which of these are dealbreakers? - Right fielders generally need stronger arms, because they need to make a further throw to third base. - The ball curves toward the line a bit more, because it does so when being hit by right-handers. Left-fielders see the same thing when a left-handed batter hits the ball, but there are fewer left-handed hitters. - The size of the field ca…

I created a few Twins quizzes on Sporcle a while back and thought I'd link to them here. They're still relevant and updated! Twins HRs in 1990s: http://www.sporcle.com/games/glanzerr/twinshr1990s Twins Pitching Wins in 1990s: http://www.sporcle.com/games/glanzerr/twinstwins1990s Twins HRs Since 2000: http://www.sporcle.com/games/glanzerr/twinshr2000s Twins Pitching Wins Since 2000: http://www.sporcle.com/games/glanzerr/twinswins2000s