SurroundedByTigers

3 stars: Colabello - 3rd star; Beresford - 2nd star; Meyer - No. 1 star. I'm putting Beresford on my watch list.

This is shaping up as a beautiful spring, even if the weather is crappy. Who woulda thunk the Twins take two from Angels, and the franchise's minor league teams are on fire (except Rochester). Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Arcia's job is to force the Twins to make a tough decision. If he hits, he stays. There's no other way around it, especially if the Twins get pounded a couple more times by the Angels. The big message that Arcia's arrival sends throughout the organization is that there are jobs available at the Big League level. I expect more young talent to be fast-tracked through the system. If the Twins are going to lose, at least do it with the young studs. That means guys like Sano and Rosario have a chance to make it to the bigs this year.

Why should we be patient? We're asking for performance - good at-bats, grounds balls, something. Right now, Hicks is overmatched, and needs to get his act together and show us he WANTS to play in the majors. If Hicks can't perform, he's got to go back to AAA or wherever to learn what he needs to do to be successful. Parmalee was not hurt by bouncing back and forth between AAA and the majors. Hendricks is not hurt by bouncing between AAA and the majors. Here's the bottom line - I want Hicks to succeed, and I hope he succeeds. Patience lasts only so long. Then he's got to do it, or send him down. PS - Same for Dozier.

Let's get back to the issue at hand, and that's whether Hicks should be in the minors for a 6 weeks or so before coming up to the BIGS, AND saving some bucks, or starting the BIGS in CF in MN. I agree with Ryan. You give Mauer and Morneau some hope by not holding back Hicks when it obvious he is ready for the BIGS. Let's also be honest - we have 2 or 3 pitchers in the minors who will be in the BIGS in another year, if not sooner. That makes us competitive. That gives us some hope. That's why you play your best players, and PAY your best players in order to keep them.

As the resident Tiger expert, I'm going under (which means I'll probably be wrong because I never get these predictions things right) because you just can't trust the Detroit bullpen. They have some good people in the pen but nobody consistently great. So they will lose some games late, and I also think the rest of the Central teams are better, and finally, the White Sox are my pick to run the Tigers down this season.

I'm going postal on this line of thought. Talk baseball, Go Twins, and hope we find some pitching.

Let's enjoy the fact this kid gets people out, and looks like he'll fit into the starting rotation some day, hopefully soon. Let's not try to read tooooooo much into quotes from beat writers from sources. The kid is confident, competent and shows no signs of arrogance. That's enough for now.

Really an impressive list, and a whole bunch of guys left out. My personal favorite not-on-the-list player is Kennys Vargas. I think Vargas has a ton of upside.

How long does anybody think Rosario sits in the minors while the Twins pile up losses again. Fans are looking for signs of life and some hope, and that's what Rosario (and Arcia, Hicks, Meyer, Gibson, etc.) provides. If he's hitting and working hard on his defense at 2B, then he's going to be promoted from Single-A to Double-A by mid-season. If he's really good this year, Rosario could climb all the way to the majors. His only roadblock would be Dozier suddenly developing into a competent, reliable player.

Suggest we call them the Roadrunners - because with this pitching staff, they're going to be running down a lot of balls. Either that or the Wallbangers - because they're liable to be hitting the wall often.

I figure Tigers and White Sox don't have a chance if half of these predictions come through. Weird as it sounds, it is easy to envision all of these players - Hicks, Arcia, Benson, Parmalee, Plouffe, Dozier - having strong seasons. But my whopper pick for 2013 is Morneau. He's going to prove to everyone that he's still got it.

Reading this, it just strikes me that what we saw in Beloit out of Sano is the bottom range of his capabilities, and that if we see a repeat of those numbers this season, that is pretty much what we can expect Sano to do when he reaches the majors: 25+ homers/yr with 80-100 RBIs. But what if ... what if he does what Arcia did last year, and everything starts coming together for him at the plate this year. We're talking 30+ homers/100 RBIs/yr being his typical season, while carrying a .280+ batting avg. If he hits over .300 consistently, then we're talking Cabrera territory.

Explain to my how Twins fans, who put their own hard-earned money down, shouldn't sue either MLB and/or the NY Yankees for fraud, unnecessary suffering, and denial of future opportunities because the Yankees used a juiced-up player in A-Rod. How many playoff games did the Twins lose to the Yankees? The Yankees received all the benefit from having a player in their lineup that was a known juicer, who gave the Yankees a competitive advantage, and profited from using this player. Why shouldn't Minnesota season-ticket holders feel defrauded? Yankees need to be penalized, and all titles, games won, etc., need to be wiped from their records. In addition, the Yankee franchise needs to be punished by loss of draft picks or something.

I was an early advocate for moving in the fences at Target. Moving in the fences would force our pitchers and pitchers throughout the organization to become better at throwing strikes and keeping the ball down. Why were our pitchers better in the Dome? Because they threw strikes, kept the ball down, and the organization attempted to find people who could throw with some velocity. Sounds strange, but moving the fences in a little bit might on the surface make people think it would help the offense. But I believe it would force the organization to go back to the fundamentals, and that's getting better pitching and better defense, and those 2 factors keep you in games and in pennant races.

Morneau or Willingham are the only two Twins that can be traded to acquire pitching, and we should trade one of them this offseason to get as much pitching for next season or the future. Trading Perkins creates a big hole in the bullpen.

Trade Willingham now - we need that mustache in left.

Everybody - please relax. Ryan is making quality decision,s and undoubtedly, there's more deals / trades to come. Does anybody seriously miss Span or Revere? If Blackburn does something good, it solves a problem. Ryan is loading up with arms, which is what this franchise needs. We're going to see some of these pitchers by midseason 2013. Now if we catch a break and swing a deal for one or two infielders, and some combo of Hicks-Arcia-Benson-Mastro develops into a reliable outfield rotation, Twins could be a surprise. Definitely not a 90-loss team in 2013.

This means Hicks is the new starting centerfielder and lead-off man for Twins. He will probably struggle, and flop spots for Benson in the minors, but both will be up here by midseason. Next up to leave is Morneau, unfortunately. Twins might be able to solve a bullpen spot, and 3B for Morneau, with Parmalee moving to 1B. All these moves make the Twins more than competitive in 2nd half of 2013 moving forward.

The path to winning involves pitching, pitching, pitching. The Twins have 2 choices: trading best marketable talent (Morneau, Willingham, Revere) and get the best young pitching prospects in return, or, fork out the money and sign 3 solid pitchers with the intent to win now. Given the current marketplace, I don't think the Twins could sign 3 pitchers that would give them a shot at beating the Tigers. Much as I like Morneau, I would make the trades with the expectation that the Twins would have the pitching staff to complement the good young talent that should be ready to contribute at the big leagues within 2 years. That would ensure another long run at winning and the playoffs.

I'm not in awe of the Tigers. The White Sox could have easily won the division but went into a tailspin the last two weeks of season. The Tigers have two great players, Verlander and Cabrera, and a bunch of solid players surrounding them. Detroit is one bad hop (Cabrera taking one off the shins at 3B), and a sore shoulder (Verlander has logged a tremendous number of innings past 3 seasons) from being a .500 team with a bloated payrool. Twins need to upgrade pitching staff, period, get a little more production on offense, and they can make the division race interesting again.

Nice bunch of outfielders. In fact, I like a lot of the depth that the Twins organization is developing in the minors. But the bottom line is, you won't see this franchise turn around until we have a post that shows a similar depth with pitching.

As crazy as this sounds, I would consider trading Sano for a couple of top, AND I MEAN TOP!!!, pitching prospects. We have some really top notch hitters coming through the system, so I think we can afford to deal on some of these hitters. Sano's my choice to deal. ... One other thing, nobody's talking about Kennys Vargas, but I think he can be a stud-and-a-half player for the Twins.

Power pitchers may only be part of the solution. But what I want to see is the Twins put 2-4 rows of special seating on the field, in left, say about 30 feet inside the left-field pole, and 30 feet inside the right-field pole, and then running maybe 100 feet toward centerfield.These become premium seats, and would be our equivalent to the Green Monster seats in Boston. Tigers also brought their fences in in left field after they realized nobody could hit them out to left. These field level seats would create new bounces and odd caroms and make the game more interesting. It also would make the pitchers pay much closer attention to keeping the ball down.

Look, by May Day, if the season's a trainwreck, we can begin the fire sale, and bring up Dozier, AS WELL AS, 3B Sano (he should have 20 homers by then), 2B Rosario, and Benson, Hicks, etc., and any arms you can find in the minors who do a good impersonation of starting pitchers. It would make the Twins interesting again. Detroit-Dombrowski is showing the Twins how to get a return on investment.