Twins

In this week's No Juice Podcast episode, Dan Anderson and Parker Hageman discuss the week's Minnesota Twins talkers.

Topics include shutting down Glen Perkins for the year, the shift from New Britain to Chattanooga, thoughts on Danny Santana at short and #HotTwinsTakes from the Twins Daily forum from members Mike Wants Wins and jaimedude2.

Listen below.

This post is part of a series in which Mark Armour and I count down the 25 best GMs in history, cross-posting from our blog. For an explanation, please see this post.

Frank Cashen had two stints running a big league baseball operation. In his first job he oversaw a budding great team as president and later kept it contending while in the GM role as well. At his second stop he took over a long-struggling franchise that needed a complete transformation. He succeeded at these two opposite challenges masterfully, meriting his status as one baseball’s best baseball ops executives.

The Minnesota Twins have announced that they will recall right-handed reliever Alex Meyer prior to Friday night's game vs. the Milwaukee Brewers. Meyer was Twins Daily's #5 Twins prospect before the 2015 season and this will be his first time with the big league club.

Meyer was acquired in a trade with the Washington Nationals for Denard Span in November of 2012. Armed with a 95+ mph fastball, he was considered a top starting pitching prospect and was moved up to Triple-A Rochester last year where he posted a 3.52 ERA and 153 strikeouts in 130.2 innings.

Danny Santana and Kennys Vargas were both in Minnesota's Opening Day lineup this year, batting leadoff and fifth. Following impressive rookie campaigns, both were viewed as important young staples for the rebuilding Twins.

Now, nearing the end of tumultuous sophomore seasons, both return from the minors as September call-ups, needing to prove that there's still a place for them in the team's plans.

There is a lot of groaning among Twins fans right about now. The Winter Caravan gets started next week. Twins Fest is just three weeks away. The Twins haven’t made a big transaction since early November when they announced three deals in three days.

Last week, Nick wrote that there are still players out there that the Twins can go after. But, what if they are done? What does the Twins lineup look like, and what kind of depth do they have?

On Monday afternoon, the Minnesota Twins announced the former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire had accepted a position with the organization.

Gardenhire will serve as a Special Assistant to the General Manager, Terry Ryan.

It's no secret that Minnesota's pitching was bad this season. They tied with Arizona for the worst ERA in baseball. Since the Twins last made the playoffs in 2010, every pitching staff has posted an ERA of 4.07 or higher. The only year the staff managed an ERA below 4.55 was the 2015 club. Pitching continues to be a giant hole for the Twins.

The Twins Daily writers including minor league writers, voted for their top three pitcher of the year candidates. Three points were given for first place votes, two points for second place votes, and one point for third place votes. All seven ballots and point totals can be found below. In the end, Ervin Santana was the unanimous choice for the Twins Pitcher of the Year.

Here is a quick reminder of our previous 2016 Twins Daily award winners:

Most Improved- Brian Dozier

Rookie of the Year- Max Kepler

In a way, Thursday’s outing in Sarasota was a microcosm of Phil Hughes’ previous two seasons.

His velocity was down, he threw a ton of strikes, and he struggled to put hitters away. Nevertheless, Hughes left the game after 45 pitches -- 30 of which were strikes -- and felt that he had made significant progress towards returning to his pre-injury form.

“Compared to last time, it was miles better,” said Hughes.

For the past week, Nick and I have taken turns reviewing the players that the Twins could look to acquiring in trades from the various divisions. When that series of articles began, the team was just a ½ game out of first place. As the series came to a conclusion yesterday with a look at the American League East division, the Twins found themselves nearly six games out and four games out of a wild card spot.

At this point, the strategy has likely changed. Instead of being buys, the Twins are taking calls from teams to find out which players the Twins might be willing to “sell” by Monday afternoon’s trade deadline.