Are you listening?

December 26, 2007 – OK, Twins management, I give up, what is your big plan to make the Twins competitive this year? The Twins preach pitching and defense and now you sign Mike Lamb to play 3B. I can see signing a 3B that is not a strong fielder if he is going to hit 30 or more home runs and knock in 100+ runs, but a 32 year platoon player who committed 33 errors at 3B in Texas when the Rangers tried to give him a full time job back in 2000? The day before you acquired Lamb you signed Adam Everett because he was a stellar shortstop and now you plan on putting Lamb next to him? Lamb has not been a regular in the past because he has proven he cannot play 3B. The Astros were desperate for a 3B in 2007 and yet Lamb was not given the job full time, you have to ask why!

It is so frustrating for me as a Twins fan to see the Twins just like clockwork throw a few bucks each spring at several free agent players that no other team seems to be interested in. Why not pool that money, throw a little more in the pot and go out and sign a real free agent that fills a hole and can play! This year the Twins have already lost Torii Hunter and. Johan Santana will be traded soon and Joe Nathan may follow. How can you with a straight face say we are not rebuilding? The Twins have a number of good young players and should be looking to fill holes to become more competitive with teams like the Tigers who have reloaded, Kansas City that is getting stronger, and the Indians who are looking to upgrade their outfield. Sure, I like the trade with Tampa, but that did nothing to fill holes at 3B, 2B, and CF and actually created a hole at SS.

Twins ownership has been saying for years that if they got that new stadium it would generate more revenue flow and we will be able to be more competitive in signing players. Mr. Pohlad, signing the Everett’s and Lamb’s of the world does not qualify. Now as I sit here in Plymouth and look east towards downtown Minneapolis I see a new stadium going up and Twins salaries going down. Tell me sir why that is the case. You want to own a major league ball club, then start acting like a major league owner. You are the richest MLB owner on the Forbes 400 list with about $2 billion in you coffers, spend a couple million (maybe sell one of your lots on Lake Minnetonka) and make the Twins the competitive team they should be. I am a baseball fan and as pathetic as it may sound, I will still go out and buy my season tickets and keep cheering for the Twins but I gotta say this Carl, you are tearing my heart out. You keep raising the Twins ticket prices year after year and who knows what they will be in 2010 when the new stadium opens. It does however; appear that you are raising ticket prices as much as you can each year before the new ballpark opens so that when the new park becomes a reality you can do a modicum increase and tell us all how little you are raising the price of the tickets at the new ballpark. It is appropriate then at this time of the year Mr. Pohlad that you look in the mirror, and then I want you to tell me that you really are not Minnesota’s Ebenezer Scrooge.

Twins deal with Tampa

December 5, 2007 -A week ago today, in their first ever deal with Tampa Bay, the Twins acquired Delmon Young a 22 year old outfielder that bats and throws right, Brendan Harris a 27 year old who has played some 2B, SS, and 3B and bats and throws right handed and minor leaguer Jason Pridie a 24 year old outfielder that bats left and throws right.

Bill Smith’s first big trade is a nice deal with the Twins getting a potential superstar outfielder in Young who is just scratching the surface of his baseball abilities. Granted, Young has had some distractions in his very short career but the potential seems worth the risk. What I like best about Young is that he played in all 162 games this year and the fact that he drove in 93 runs with only 13 home runs. You have to figure his home run count will climb as he matures and he slides very nicely into the middle of the Twins line-up. Harris, I am not that excited about as he appears to me to be another Nick Punto coming off a career hitting year but with no where near the defensive skills that Punto has. I see Harris as a utility player at best. Jason Pridie was picked up by the Twins once before I believe as a Rule 5 pick and then returned to Tampa and here he once again surfaces as a Twin so the Twins brass must like something about this 24 year old with some speed but little power. Not to sure where he fits in either since he does not have the power to play a corner outfield position and he does not appear to be a center fielder either.

In return the Twins gave up stud pitching prospect Matt Garza, shortstop Jason Bartlett, and minor league relief pitcher Eduardo Morlan. Giving up Matt Garza must have been a difficult decision for Smith but we all know that you have to give up something to get something in return. To my way of thinking, Young has more up-side then Garza does. Bartlett will be missed at shortstop but he seemed to be a hot and cold player and this year seemed to have more injuries then most players his age should have. I liked Bartlett but he did not seem to have that fire that I think a good shortstop needs. Eduardo Morlan has potential to be a closer but has had no major league experience to-date.

Bottom line? I think this trade helps both teams and at first blush there does not appear to be a clear cut winner or a loser in this trade, time will tell.

My very first post as I trying blogging about the Minnesota Twins

My take, such as it may be!

November 25, 2007 – Torii Hunter was fun to watch and I will miss him patrolling center field at the Dome for the Minnesota Twins in 2008 and beyond. Having said that, I have to agree with Twins management on this one, the Twins are not in a position to give a 32 year old outfielder a five year $90 million deal when they have a number of good young players that they need to sign in the next few years. We just can’t tie up that kind of money even if it is Torii Hunter. Torii apparently wants to play for a championship team and his perception is that the Twins can not attain that status over the next few years, time will tell, so he probably would have passed on the Twins even if they had offered him the big bucks. A number of former Twins players that left here via free agency have stated publicly that leaving the Twin Cities was a mistake. we will see what the future holds for Torii. This may sound like sour grapes but I think that Torii has lost a step the last year or so, maybe it’s the ankle he broke in Boston or maybe it is just time, but there have been balls that have dropped in for hits recently that would have been caught by Hunter in the past. We also need to remember that we did not win the division with Torii last year and resigning Torii to take an even larger piece of the financial pie still leaves us with huge holes at 3B, DH, and possibly 2B to fill.

Most Twins fans wish the best for Torii and I think they will welcome him back when he runs out to center field at the Dome on March 31 to open the 2008 season, but this time as a member of the opposition when the Twins open their 2008 season against the Los Angeles Angels.

Baker on a roll

Scott Baker

Scott Baker pitched five scoreless innings to lead the Twins to a 4-1 victory over the Tigers yesterday afternoon. It marked the third consecutive start that Baker has not allowed an earned run. Over the last 35 seasons, only two other Twins pitchers have had a streak of three consecutive starts without allowing an earned run in a single season. Francisco Liriano had two three-game streaks in 2010 and Johan Santana did it in four straight starts in 2004. Source: Elias

Color Delmon Young gone

Delmon Young
Delmon Young

The Twins payroll reduction began yesterday when the Twins finally gave up on Delmon Young whom they had acquired from Tampa in 2007 for pitcher Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett and sent him packing to the first place Detroit Tigers of all places. The Twins acquired High-A ball pitcher Cole Nelson, a Minnesota native and a player to be named later who was announced today as minor league reliever Lester Oliveros.

Cole Nelson is a 22 year lefty and stands 6’ 7” and goes about 235. The Twins like their pitchers big and Nelson fits the mold. Nelson played baseball at Edina High School and went on to play for Des Moines Community College before moving on to Auburn. Nelson was drafted in the 10th round in 2010 by the Tigers and started his pro career in rookie ball in 2010.

Lester Oliveros was signed by the Tigers as an amateur free agent in 2005 and has been working his way up the Tigers minor league system since 2006. The 6’ 225 pound Venezuelan right-handed Oliveros has been used exclusively as a relief pitcher since 2006 and he has struck out 317 batters in 254+ innings and has a 3.22 ERA. On the down side, Oliveros averages 4 walks per 9 innings.

It would be easy to say that GM Smith should have traded Young after last season when he hit 21 home runs and knocked in 112 runs but it did not happen so now we have to hope that one or both of these prospect pitchers come through. I think that the Twins have a bad habit of holding on to players and prospects too long and then getting nothing for them when they have a bad season or do not live up to their potential. I would rather see the Twins trade a player a year or two too early verses holding on to them too long and walking away empty-handed.

Lots of smoke but no fire

GM Bill Smith
GM Bill Smith

As the July 31 trade deadline approached, the Twins seemed to be in the middle of a number of possible trade discussions with players such as Kevin Slowey, Denard Span, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, Jose Mijares, Delmon Young, and Jim Thome all supposedly in the mix to change uniforms. But the Twins and GM Bill Smith found themselves between a rock and a hard-spot on what to do with a team that seems to have hit a plateau at 6 games out after coming out of the chute like a herd of turtles and found themselves 20 games under .500 on June 1st. According to a recent clip I saw on TV, no team in MLB history that has been 20 games under has ever come back to finish above the .500 mark. But on the other hand, no one in the Central Division seems to want to take the lead and run with it. The Kansas City Royals started the season hot as a pistol but soon tanked and found themselves rebuilding with some young and up and coming stars. The Chicago White Sox can’t seem to get their act together and struggle to hang around the .500 mark. The surprising Cleveland Indians are probably in over their heads but have been putting up a good fight but they have too many injuries to key players and are too young to be taken too seriously. The Detroit Tigers are leading the pack right now and as I see it, will win the division just because they are the best team in a bad division in 2011.

But getting back to Minnesota, what was Smith to do? I can see no way that with the way the Jekyll and Hyde Twins have played this season that ownership would authorize the payroll to increase by any substantial amount. So if Smith wanted to make some additions to say the relief core, he would also have to move some payroll to free up some dollars. On the other hand, the Twins could have become sellers and started a rebuilding process but the fans in Twins Territory would have gone “nuts” if the Twins threw up the white flag while being only six games out on July 31. The Twins sell out almost every home game and giving up just does not seem like the right thing to do even though the chances of this team winning the division are slim and none. So what should be done?

The solution as it turns out was relatively simple, the answer was to be neither a buyer nor a seller and just let things continue the way they are for the time being. All Smith had to do is keep saying no to any deal that was not stacked in favor of the home team and the only deal he would make would be on where the Twins came out smelling like a rose. Like the deal that was much ballyhooed where the Twins would send Span to Washington and hopefully get closer Drew Storen, outfielder Roger Bernadina, and 2B Steve Lombardozzi. But Washington did not want to part with Storen and Smith passed on Troy Clippard. If a miracle happens and the Twins catch fire, just play it out and hope for the best. If the Twins tank, there is always the waiver wire or just let the season come to a merciful end and deal with your potential free agent fallout. Besides, this team can’t be this bad again next year, the team was snake bit with injuries in 2011 and what are the odds of it happening again? But the Twins do have holes and a bit of a tune-up with some new parts just might make this sputtering 4 cylinder engine come to life again as the V-8 that all of us Twins fans expected in 2011.

GM Bill Smith isn’t as dumb as some make him out to be, he went from being in an impossible situation of deciding between buying and selling to finding himself in the position of being right no matter where the Twins finish in the standings. If the Twins don’t win the division and finish third or fourth, he was right not to be a buyer, why waste the money. If the Twins make a serious run but still lose, he can take the position that we did not need to make any moves, we just needed our players to get healthy and start playing the way they are capable of playing and it is a good thing that he wasn’t a seller or the Twins would not have made this great come-back.

But Mr. Smith is not totally off the hook here. Sure the Twins had their run of injuries, but their play in 2011 is not all about injuries. There are questions that need to be asked. Is Nishioka really as bad as he has played in 2011? How do the Twins avoid a repeat of the 2011 bullpen woes? Is the Twins starting staff going to take a step forward or is it time to blow it up? What does he do about Cuddyer and Kubel as they enter free agency?

What would I have done if I had been in Smith’s shoes? I would have done pretty much what Smith did, nothing, but I am working at a disadvantage here, I don’t know what the other teams offered for Kubel or Cuddyer. For sure I would have sent Thome packing; he is just wasting a roster spot as the Twins wait for him to hit home run number 600. I assume they were offered next to nothing for Slowey or he would be gone by now, but now that Blackburn has pitched so poorly of late, maybe it is time to give Slowey a shot at Blackie’s spot?

Minor League Player of the Week

Tyler Robertson
Tyler Robertson

New Britain left-handed pitcher Tyler Robertson is the Twins Minor League Player of the Week for July 23-30. Robertson, 23, was 1-0 with one save in three appearances for the Rock Cats. Tyler did not allow a run and recorded seven strikeouts while walking three batters in his 5.0 innings of relief work last week…Robertson was selected by the Twins in the third round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft out of Bella Vista (Ca.) High School. Robertson entered 2011 with a career 30-32 minor league record and a 3.71 ERA over 98 appearances (95 starts).

Rangers show Twins no mercy

The Rangers scored three runs in each of the first three innings, then added five runs in the fourth inning and four more in the fifth inning, on their way to a 20-6 win over the Twins yesterday. Only two other teams since 1900 scored three-or-more runs in each of the first five innings of a game: the 1900 Phillies (July 13 vs. Pirates) and 1991 Athletics (September 29 vs. Rangers). The Rangers also became only the third team in American League history to have seven different players with three or more hits in a nine-inning game. The others were the 1939 Yankees and 1955 White Sox, who each coincidentally did so against the Athletics. Source: Elias

Minor League Player of the Week

pitcher BJ Hermsen
pitcher BJ Hermsen

July 24, 2011 – Beloit (Midwest League – Single-A) right-handed pitcher B.J Hermsen is the Twins Minor League Player of the Week for July 16-22. Hermsen, 21, was drafted in the sixth round of the of the 2008 First-Year Player draft out of West Delaware High School in Iowa. Hermsen was 1-0 in one start for the Snappers as he recorded five strikeouts while walking just two batters in the 7.0 inning win. B.J. is 10-6 in his second season with Beloit with a 3.14 ERA in 106 innings of work while giving up 110 hits, 28 walks and 68 strikeouts.

Homers fly as temps soar at target Field

Asdrubal Cabrera and Austin Kearns homered in the Indians’ 5-2 win at Minnesota (first game of double-header), where the game-time temperature was 90 degrees. It was only the third time that the Twins hosted a game at Target Field for which the first-pitch temperature was in the 90s, and a total of nine home runs were hit in those three games. The average in the other 123 games at Target Field has been 1.5 home runs. Source – Elias