Tweets of the Week

I’m known on Twitter for doing a lot of tweeting and retweeting. For those who are not on Twitter, it simply means that I tweet something that someone else already tweeted. I retweet Twins related articles and blogs or general comments that I tend to agree with. If you’re interested in following me on Twitter, you can click the “Follow” button here, or you can simply bookmark my twitter page and check it from time to time. Today, I wanted to go back to Saturday and blog many of my retweets from the week. Hopefully you enjoy the variety of topics!

SATURDAY

• It was Saturday afternoon that I found out I had been included in Top Prospect Alert’s Top 50 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts. Quite an honor! You’ll want to check the link out just to see who else made the cut!
  
• Here is a nice article on Scott Diamond’s 2011 season and becoming the first player from Binghamton University to play in the big leagues.
  

SUNDAY

• Puckett’s Pond continues its look at the Twins non roster invites by writing about OF Matt Carson.
  
• I exchanged a few tweets with Jon-Paul Morosi (from Fox Sports) And Seth Everett. My opinion is the Raines is an easy choice for Baseball’s Hall of Fame. To this point, voters don’t necessarily agree. Rained was overshadowed by Ricky Henderson as a leadoff hitter, and he was much more of a Hall of Famer than former Expos and recent Hall of Fame inductees Andre Dawson and Gary Carter.
  

MONDAY

• NoDak Twins Fan blogged his first of a three part series on Justin Morneau.
  
• Todd Van Steensel wrote about his release by the Twins. More unfortunate, arguably, was the manner in which he found out. Sadly, I’ve heard a few other similar stories from former Twins minor leaguers.
  
• The Puckett’s Pond Non-Roster invite of this day was Ray Chang, who is from Kansas City. He was terrific last year until a broken fibula cost him two months of his season.
  
• Travis Aune and I co-hosted a special offseason Twins Minor League Weekly. We weren’t sure how much there would be to be said, but we went 90 minutes and filled the time fairly efficiently.
  
• Check out the new DiamondCentric t-shirt showing Timberwolves rookie sensation, Ricky Rubio!
  
• There were several tweets regarding Reds SS Barry Larkin entering the Hall of Fame. I was always a big Larkin fan, and I think it goes back to my baseball card collecting days. I thought his 1987 Topps and Donruss cards were so cool. It’s kind of how I became a big Roberto Alomar fan, because of his cool mustache thingy on his 1988 Donruss card! I thought Larkin was a definite Hall of Famer, and it was good to see him get such support from the voters too.
  
• Often I hear Twins fans frustrated by how slowly they perceive the Twins to be when promoting prospects. I think the opposite side of that spectrum is what the Mets did five years ago. Aaron Gleeman and I had a fun-filled exchange on Twitter after the Mets DFAd former huge prospect Fernando Martinez, the Mets top prospect at the time. (Aaron sent me a link to an article I wrote at that time.) In the Johan Santana trade, the Twins got the Mets #2 prospect according to Baseball America (Deolis Guerra), their #3 prospect (Carlos Gomez), their #4 prospect (Kevin Mulvey) and their #7 prospect (Philip Humber). That would be the equivalent of them trade Joe Benson, Eddie Rosario, Aaron Hicks and Kyle Gibson. At the time, Tyler Robertson was my #1 Twins prospect which indicated how much the Twins needed to restock their farm system. Guerra was clearly rushed by the Mets. Gomez was pushed to the big leagues far too fast. Mulvey went from being a 2^nd round pick straight to AA. And Humber had Tommy John surgery.
  
• ManCenter.com posted its Top 10 Twins prospect list.
  

TUESDAY

• Are you following the log entries of former Twin R.A. Dickey as he and Kevin Slowey are currently climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro?
  
• Check out this photo that the North Dakota Twins Fan is calling “Pot of Gold.”
  
• NoDak Twins fan posted Part 2 of his Morneau Chronicles series.
  
• Paul Boye (Phrontiersman) tweeted: “Greg Maddux should be the first unanimous Hall of Famer and I won’t hear otherwise.” I concur!
  
• John Manuel was in charge of putting together Baseball America’s Top 10 Twins Prospect list. 1500espn got their copy in the mail and posted the list.
  

WEDNESDAY

• Here is the newest episode of Gleeman & The Geek.
  
• Puckett’s Pond Non-Roster invite of the day was Brian Dinkelman.
  
• NoDak Twins Fan posted Part 3 of his Morneau Chronicles.
  
• Some Twins fans are down on our favorite team and its minor league system, but hey, at least we aren’t White Sox fans!
  
• Knuckleballs’ Jim Crikket posted his Top 10 Twins Prospects list.
  
• Hudson Boyd, Dakota Watts, Kyle Gibson and David Bromberg joined former Twins 3B (and lifetime .357 big league hitter) Tommy Watkins for the Ft. Myers portion of the Twins Winter Caravan.
  
• Here’s a pretty cool Sports Illustrated picture of Kevin Garnett’s shoe tribute to Kirby Puckett after his death.
  
• Starting next week, the Twins Winter Caravan will begin throughout the Upper Midwest. Here is the list of locations, times and dates for the caravan. It’s a great time, so if you get a chance to go to one, be sure to do so.
  
• Twins International scout Howie Norsetter posted a tremendous response to an angry blog commenter regarding the Twins and their Australian signings. Well worth the read!! Upon reading this blog, Todd Van Steensel, who the Twins just released last week, tweeted to me, “I loved the Twins and had a great time there, had great coaches and made great friends, just wish it ended a little better.”
  
• Thrylos98 informed us that former Twins catcher Mike Redmond was promoted to Dunedin to manage the Blue Jays Hi-A affiliate in the Florida State League.
  

THURSDAY

• North Dakota Twins fan wrote about the pursuit of a little white spherical object (sometimes referred to as a baseball.
  
• Brian Dozier was the subject of the Puckett’s Pond Non-Roster invite of the day.
  
• Baseball America’s Ben Badler informed us that the Twins signed Mauricio Silva, a 16-year-old right-handed pitcher from Venezuela, for $370,000. It makes me happy every time that I see the Twins sign one of the top 20 or 30 prospects from Latin America.
  
• Puckett’s Pond also posted several Thursday links.
  
• According to the Baseball Hall of Fame, it was 30 years ago (on Thursday) that the Twins drafted Kirby Puckett with the 3^rd overall pick in the now-defunct January draft.
  
• Had a good Twitter discussion with FSN’s Robby Incmikoski. He posted a couple of pictures from the arena in Chicago and commented on Jordan’s 6 NBA titles and called him the best athlete ever. I said I thought that Bo Jackson was the best athlete. Others chimed in with discussion on how winning NBA titles has to do with being an athlete, and I think the word “athlete” refers to strength, speed, power, and everything that Bo Jackson was. I just wish the guy wouldn’t have had the hip injury because he was incredible. Few remember he had a 32 home run, 105 RBI season with the Royals. The man was amazing. As I tweeted, “Bo Jackson was 6-1 and 230+ pounds and ran a 4.2/40. He hit a bunch of HR before “the era”, had a big arm, knocked down LB and out-ran DBs.”
  
• Bob Nightengale tweeted that the Twins and Target Field will host the 2014 All-Star game. Later, Twins President Dave St. Peter tweeted that nothing was official yet.
  
• Phil Dumatrait, who spent much of 2011 with the Twins, is the non-roster invite of the day at Puckett’s Pond.
  

FRIDAY

• Parker’s TwinsCentric blog of the day is titled Coffey is for (setting up for) closers.
  
• Nick’s Twins Blog discusses payroll.
  
• NoDak Twins Fan posted his Friday Links-n-Thinks.
  
• Aaron Gleeman posted, at Hardball Talk, that Johan Santana still isn’t sure when he’ll be able to pitch again despite having surgery 16 months ago.
  
• Joe Christensen wrote a very nice article on Dan Johnson, from Blaine, and his career which has been up and down but full of some big moments.
  
• Phil Mackey wrote about the Twins’ Pitch-to-Contact philosophy.
  
• If you’re heading down to Ft. Myers for spring training, tickets go on sale tomorrow morning.
  
• You can now vote for Prospect #29 in the Twinkie Town Community Top 50 Prospect voting!
  

FINALLY – I’ll be editing the Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook 2012 all weekend, so look for much more order information on Monday!

Twitter is awesome… Way better than Facebook, which I’m also on from time to time. If you’re interested, you can follow me at www.Twitter.com/SethTweets. If you have any questions, please let me know!