Ten Years of TD: The Top 5 Twins Daily Articles from 2013

In some ways, I feel like Twins Daily was built for times like 2013. The team was on its way to a third straight 95+ loss season. Casual fans tuned out, and so most major outlets understandably scaled back their coverage. It was tough to find much Twins content.

We dug in our heels. And our top articles of the year illustrate that: profiles of lesser-known prospects, dreaming on future outcomes, and nitty-gritty payroll analysis. TD became a place to talk about the Twins without talking about the (waves hand in direction of awful 2013 team) Twins.

That's not to say it's an ideal scenario. As we'd later learn, running this site is a lot more fun when the team is good (and our traffic certainly benefits). But in Twins Daily's second year, as the team continued to spin its wheels, we were finding our stride.

5. Minnesota Twins Top 50 Prospects: 21-25

By Seth Stohs

Prior to partnering on Twins Daily, Seth had built up a sizable audience on his personal blog, Seth Speaks. One thing people loved about it was the extensive coverage of the minor leagues, going well beyond the ballyhooed top prospects. So many players grind away in relative anonymity to pursue their dreams, and Seth was one of the few to shine a light on them.

This article, and its popularity, exemplify the resonance of this content, and why it's a crucial aspect of Twins Daily's identity. There were no amazing prospects in this lower-tier group, which included future major-leaguers Felix Jorge and Michael Tonkin. But I remember them all, because I followed Seth and TD. 

4. Minnesota Twins Top 50 Prospects: 31-35

By Seth Stohs

Here Seth dives deeper yet into prospect obscurity, with an article that performed even better than the last. This group also features two players who eventually reached the majors, including Luke Bard who is still hanging around with the Angels. (It might be his relation to Daniel Bard, a star reliever for the Red Sox around that time, that made this installment especially magnetic.)

This is another reason hardcore fans have always enjoyed the more extensive prospect coverage: even in these deeper pockets of the system, you find guys who become contributors. And I like to think that Twins Daily readers feel they're equipped with special intel when such players arrive and have the casual crowd going, "Who?!"

3. Twins To Sign Phil Hughes

By John Bonnes

It was fairly obvious from almost the moment it happened that signing Phil Hughes would be one of the best free agent moves of Terry Ryan's tenure as GM. Even though Hughes was coming off a so-so final season in New York, it was fairly stunning to be able to lock up a 27-year-old pitcher with his pedigree for three years at just $24 million TOTAL.

In his writeup on the move, John explained the upside of signing Hughes with a callback to recent history:

"In 2008, the Yankees weren’t willing to trade Hughes for (Johan) Santana. Read that last sentence again. Actually, let me rewrite it, with the hidden words shown. In 2008 (eight years into their “drought” of not winning a championship), the Yankees (for whom dollars are nothing more than monopoly money) were not willing to trade (21-year-old pitching prospect) Hughes (with all of 72 innings of major league experience) for Santana (who had finished in the top five of Cy Young voting for four consecutive years)."

Ironically, Hughes went on in 2014 to have the best season for any Twins starter since Santana left town. 

2. Five Offseason Predictions

By Nick Nelson

Ahh, who doesn't love a predictions piece? Especially in the wake of a third straight last-place season that everyone wanted to forget. In this mid-October article, I laid out five prognostications for the upcoming offseason. Since we're bringing it up, we might as well look back and grade my work:

1. The Twins will make a bid for Masahiro Tanaka but will come up short of the winning post: It's unknown whether Minnesota made any offer, but they weren't mentioned openly as bidders. The Yankees ended up posting $20 million and then signing him to a massive seven-year deal. 
2. A veteran catcher will be signed: One was indeed, with Kurt Suzuki inking a one-year, $3 million contract in January. (He shockingly became an All-Star the next year!) By then the need was obvious; about a month after this article was published, it was announced Joe Mauer would be moving to first base. 
3. Terry Ryan will hand out the largest free agent contract in franchise history: He sure did, signing Ricky Nolasco to a four-year, $49 million deal. Let's not talk about it. 
4. Miguel Sanó will emerge as the favorite to start 2014 at third base: Semi-plausible notion, as Sanó was one of the best prospects in baseball, coming off an explosive showing in Double-A. Trevor Plouffe hardly had an iron grip on the third base job. Unfortunately, Sanó never had a chance to mount his bid, tearing his UCL the next spring.
5. Brian Duensing will be non-tendered: Nope. They paid $2 million and were happy enough to have him around in 2014, where he posted a 3.31 ERA as a lefty specialist in the bullpen.  

1. Minnesota Twins Roster & Payroll 2013 

By Jeremy Nygaard

As a refuge for fellow hardcore fans and nerds, we at Twins Daily specialize in serving up numbers, data, and analysis. The Offseason Handbook project that basically sparked the site's inception (and ranked as the #1 article in our first year) was founded on this idea, providing roster and payroll details to inform your Hot Stove hypothesizing.

This top-visited article from 2013 (which was actually posted by Jeremy on the final day of 2012) encompasses that specific type of appeal. I will say that if you click through and read the article now, it will look like a bit of a garbled mess. Twins Daily has evolved technologically over the years and sometimes that means old formatting and code get left behind. But you'll get the idea.

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