Taylor's Twins Talk

Like a Phoenix

2009-10-09T22:06:00.002-06:00

It's a double-reference. I'm hoping, for one thing, that the Twins will rise from the (largely self-created) ashes of the current 2-0 deficit to the Yankees and hand the Bombers a drubbing in Games 3 and 4 at the Dome.

But . . . the reference is also to this blog. Or, at least, the spirit of this blog. I've decided to start the blogging life up again, although not at this URL. You can find the new Taylor's Twins Talk over at taylorstwinstalk.wordpress.com. If you liked what you read here, hop on over. Hope to see you there!

The End

2009-02-01T10:22:00.003-07:00

It's been a good ride, folks, but it looks like I'm joining the long list of bloggers who burn out after awhile and move on to other pursuits. While I still enjoy writing my thoughts down, the rarity of my posting since the end of the season is a pretty clear indication that I don't enjoy it enough to actually sit down and do it. It seemed appropriate to pull the plug now rather than get into the start of Spring Training when traffic usually picks up and people started wondering where I was. I certainly could continue to operate the blog on a part-time basis, but I think if I dragged things out I would come to resent blogging rather than leaving having enjoyed it. So, thanks to all of you who checked in from time to time -- and go Twins!

Boxing Banter

2009-01-25T17:35:00.002-07:00

The first big fight of the year was held yesterday, but aside from that there's not a lot of in-ring action to discuss this week. Here's the (short) return of Boxing Banter:

1.) Shane Mosley (46-5-1; 39 KO) won his first full-fledged (i.e. non-interim) championship belt since 2004 by defeating Antonio Margarito (37-6; 27 KO) at the STAPLES Center last night to take the WBA Welterweight crown. That puts Mosley at 7-1 since losing multiple light middleweight belts to Ronald Wright in '04. His only loss in that stretch was, incidentally, to Miguel Cotto -- who in turn has only lost to Antonio Margarito in his 33 fight career. That makes for a rather interesting triangle, and could mean that a rematch between Mosley and Cotto is in order. Certainly that fight, won by Cotto via a narrow unanimous decision, was closer than yesterday's drubbing of Margarito by Mosley, which ended in the 9th round. Mosley says he wants big fights, and if Cotto gets past Michael Jennings on February 21, I would think that rematch would fit the bill.

2.) The only title fight on the schedule next week is for the vacant IBF Junior Welterweight crown, and will Herman Ngoudjo (17-2; 9 KO) against Juan Urango (20-1; 16 KO). Urango's sole loss came two years ago against Ricky Hatton, in a decisive unanimous decision. Ngoudjo, meanwhile, has a split decision loss to Jose Luis Castillo and a fairly narrow unanimous decision loss to Paulie Malignaggi on his record over the past two years. I'm going to give the edge to Urango going in, but I don't know much about these two fighters and what sort of matchup they'll have.

3.) Remember Francois Botha? He's perhaps best remembered for being on the losing end of fights with Michael Moorer, Mike Tyson, and Lennox Lewis between 1996 and 2000. Botha returned to the ring from a five year absence with a unanimous decision win against Bob Mirovic (28-18) in 2007. He'll be facing the similarly uninspiring Ron Guerrero (20-15; 14 KO) in South Africa on January 30. Believe it or not, the fight will be for a "world title" of sorts, as the World Boxing Federation has decided to award the winner its vacant crown. If it isn't WBO, WBA, WBC, or IBF, however, nobody cares.

4.) There was some hope that Manny Pacquiao's next fight would be against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. -- but if that fight is going to happen, we'll have to wait. Pacquiao's first order of business will be to take out Ricky Hatton on May 2. This fight should be interesting as well, but I expect Pacquaio to solve Hatton without much trouble. I hope that's the case -- a convincing win over Hatton could open the door to Mayweather, since it would make it more likely the money for a huge purse would appear.

5.) Mark your calendar for March 21, when WBC Heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko will defend his belt against Juan Carlos Gomez. As I've said in the past, I'm a sucker for heavyweight bouts, and I think this one will be entertaining. David Haye might be waiting in the wings for the winner, especially if the winner is Klitschko.

Kubel Re-Ups

2009-01-20T17:22:00.002-07:00

In an off-season that has been disturbingly light on Twins news, today's announcement that Jason Kubel signed a two-year deal with a 2011 team option was a jolt -- a reminder that the Twins are, in fact, still operating a baseball club in Minneapolis and that Spring Training is just around the corner.

It's hard to evaluate this deal without knowing the terms, and as of yet they haven't been disclosed (probably since the deal isn't official just yet). However, my immediate reaction is positive. Kubel does not appear to be headed towards the stardom that was predicted for him when he was an up-and-coming prospect in the farm system. Nonetheless, he is moving towards becoming a very solid big league player who retains the potential to break out and have at least a few special seasons. Last year, Kubel hit .272 with an 806 OPS and 20 homeruns. Those are respectable numbers, and if he can dublicate them over the next few years I'll be perfectly happy with the result (unless we overpaid for him, which we'll find out later).

Of course, the Twins didn't have to buy out Kubel's last arbitration years -- but in so doing they gained cost-certainty and presumably answered the question of whether Kubel remains in the team's plans in light of the "glut" of outfielders on the roster. I like the fact that the Twins are sticking by him. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this topic once the terms become available and there's something to really evaluate. As I said, though, I like the idea of getting cost-certainty on Kubel and of keeping him around to DH and play in the field on occasion. Consider that a conditional thumbs-up while we wait for news on how much was actually spent to keep him around.

Blog Update

2009-01-19T16:31:00.002-07:00

Hello all -- just wanted to let you know that I'm still around and plan on resuming a more normal blogging schedule over the next few weeks. I will cover "big news" as normal, and also plan on posting on other topics when I get the chance. Unfortunately, studying for the Bar Exam is a definite chore, so even though I'm not officially in school anymore, I might as well be. Hopefully in the next few days I'll get my first "Organizational Database" post up. I also plan to be back with a Boxing Banter post next Sunday (didn't get around to it yesterday -- first time I've missed since I started it!).

Spring Invitees

2009-01-14T19:22:00.002-07:00

The Twins announced non-roster invitees to Spring Training today. I'm not going to have a chance to give my thoughts on the list tonight, but I'm hoping to do so tomorrow. Here's the list if you haven't seen it yet. Be back tomorrow!

Hall of Fame Results

2009-01-12T12:17:00.003-07:00

Congratulations are in order for Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice, who were elected today to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither selection is unexpected, although the decision on Rice -- who was on the ballot for the last time -- could have fallen on either side of the 75% line. Here are some thoughts on newsworthy topics from the results:

Henderson's Vote Total
A commenter on my predictions post (where I predicted that Henderson would get 96% of the vote) clearly thought I was overstating Henderson's likely support. While I did go a bit high, Henderson received 94.8% of the vote. That's close enough that I think it justifies my prediction; the point was that Henderson was a well-respected player whose credentials would be clear. I think that's borne out by his total.

Rice's Vote Total
I also overstated Rice's eventual total (this will be a recurring theme). I thought Rice would get 78%, while he ended up with just 76.4%. Nonetheless, that keeps the trend alive -- if you get to 70%, you're going to be elected the next year.

Dawson Next in Line
Andre Dawson reached 67% in this year's election. With no dominant players coming onto the ballot next year, that should put Dawson into a good position to get the 8% bump he needs to get elected next year (the list of players who are eligible starting next year is discussed at the bottom of this post). Dawson should benefit from Rice's election, because they are often discussed as similar players. Just as Bruce Sutter opened the door to Goose Gossage, I suspect Rice will open the door for Dawson.

Blyleven Gains -- But Not Much
I wish the news on Blyleven was a little better. On the plus side, he went from 61.9% to 62.7%, which is at least in the right direction. But he remains over 12% away from election, and he has just three years of eligibility remaining. Still, Blyleven is probably in pretty good shape -- two years ago, Jim Rice was at 63.5%. That means that as Blyleven gets onto his last few years on the ballot he's more likely to be considered. Also, 2010, 2011, and 2012 all seem to be good years for veterans like Dawson and Blyleven -- there aren't dominant players like Henderson to brush the veterans off to the side a bit. It might take a couple more years, but I am now pretty confident that Blyleven will get into the Hall.

No Bump for John
At least not much of one. Tommy John, in his final year of eligibility, garnered 31.7% of the vote. That's up from the 29.1% he received last year, but was obviously nowhere near enough to get him elected. His only shot now will be through the horribly broken Veteran's Committee -- a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Stingy Voters
Somewhat surprisingly, both Tim Raines and Mark McGwire lost support from a year ago. Raines fell from 24.3% to 22.6%, while McGwire went from 23.6% to 21.9%. I suspect that Raines lost some support because a few voters compared him (somewhat unfairly) to Rickey Henderson, and so didn't check him off this year. I don't know why McGwire lost support, after staying steady in his first two years. Neither lost enough support to worry about dropping off the ballot, however, and they still have many years for people to consider their candidacies. A few other players, including Alan Trammell, Dave Parker, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy also lost support this year. Harold Baines bucked the trend at the bottom of the ballot, gaining slightly from 5.2% to 5.9%.

Other First Timers
Aside from Rickey Henderson, the voters didn't much care for the new candidates. All of them were booted off the ballot, with Mark Grace (4.1%) and David Cone (3.9%) coming the closest to sticking around. I thought both Grace and Cone would last another year, and that Matt Williams would come close -- guess I was wrong on that count!

New Next Year
Here's the list of eligible players, most of whom will probably end up on the ballot (only to be quickly ushered off after one cycle): Roberto Alomar, Kevin Appier, Andy Ashby, Ellis Burks, Dave Burba, Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Mark McLemore, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Robin Ventura, Fernando Vina, Todd Zeile.

There are some interesting names on the list -- I expect to look hard at Roberto Alomar, Andres Galarraga, Barry Larkin, and Edgar Martinez when I think about it next year. But none of these players have the "without question" quality to them of a Rickey Henderson, Tony Gwynn, or Cal Ripken, Jr., to name a few from the past couple of years who have been obvious. That could make things interesting next year -- and I hate to say it, but it seems entirely possible that no one could get elected next year. I sincerely hope that's not the case!

Boxing Banter

2009-01-11T18:05:00.002-07:00

Relatively quiet week to report on, but there are some bigger fights coming up in the next few weeks that should be interesting. Here are this weeks notes:

1.) In a battle of undefeated fighters, Hungarian Karoly Balszay (20-0; 14 KO) won a unanimous decision over Denis Inkin (34-1; 24 KO) to snag the WBO Super Middleweight belt. I thought Inkin would get the win in this fight, but I suspected it would be a close bout. It was a fairly close fight, 115-113, 116-112, 116-112, so I wouldn't be all that surprised if the two fought again in a year or so.

2.) The second scheduled title fight was turned into a non-title bout after the challenger failed to make weight. WBO Light Heavyweight champ Zsolt Erdei (30-0; 17 KO) remained unbeated by winning a unanimous decision over Yuri Barashian (25-5; 17 KO). The result wasn't particularly surprising, but Barashian's inability to make weight was. How do you miss your weight in a title fight? Sheesh.

3.) Two title fights next weekend, both on Saturday night. The first will present undefeated WBC Welterweight champion Andre Berto (23-0; 19 KO) making his second title defense since winning the belt in June. His opponent will be 27-year-old Luis Collazo (29-3; 14 KO), the #1 contender for the belt. Collazo hasn't won a fight against a real quality opponent in a few years, so I would expect Berto to retain.

4.) Finally, in a battle for the vacant interim WBO Cruiserweight title, Alexander Alexeev (16-0; 15 KO) will battle Victor Emilio Ramirez (13-1-0; 11 KO). Alexeev has the more impressive pedigree and a few years of experience on Ramirez. He's also more respected by the WBO ranking committee, coming into the fight with the #1 ranking against Ramirez's #7 slot. My money's on Alexeev to become the new "interim" champ.

Hall of Fame Predictions

2009-01-09T20:13:00.003-07:00

The results of this year's Hall of Fame voting will be announced Monday, so it's time to make my predictions. Last year, I correctly predicted that Goose Gossage would get in, but I also thought Jim Rice would sneak in and so missed that call. I had a few solid percentage predictions for the guys that didn't make the list, but also missed big on a few guys (like Blyleven -- I didn't see his dramatic increase in votes coming). We'll see if I can do better this year. If you're interested in reading about who I would vote for if I had a vote, you can click here.

My projections are largely based on general impressions from articles I've read along with trends from the past few years of voting and some educated (I hope) guesses as to what could happen given this year's particular dynamics. As a quick refresher, a player must receive at least 75% of the vote to be elected to the Hall, and a player must receive at least 5% of the vote to remain on the ballot next year. Also, a player has only 15 years of eligibility on the ballot, so any player failing to reach 75% in his 15th season on the ballot will not be back next year. Players who I am predicting will be elected are in bold, and players who will not be on the ballot next year either for failing to reach the 5% threshold or because they've run out of years of eligibility will appear in italics. My predicted vote total appears right after a candidates name, with the totals for the previous five years following in parentheses -- most recent listed first.

Ricky Henderson - 96%
Jim Rice - 78% (72.2/63.5/64.8/59.5/54.5)
Andre Dawson - 70% (65.9/56.7/61/52.3/50)
Bert Blyleven - 67% (61.9/47.7/53.3/40.9/35.4)
Jack Morris - 46% (42.9/37.1/41.2/33.3/26.3)
Lee Smith - 42% (43.3/39.8/45/38.8/36.6)
Tommy John - 35% (29.1/22.9/29.6/23.8/21.9)
Tim Raines - 32% (24.3)
Mark McGwire - 24% (23.6/23.5)
Alan Trammell - 21% (18.2/13.4/17.7/16.9/13.8)
Don Mattingly - 17% (15.8/9.9/12.3/11.4/12.9)
Dave Parker - 17% (15.1/11.4/14.4/12.6/10.3)
Dale Murphy - 12% (13.8/9.2/10.8/10.5/8.5)
Mark Grace - 8%
David Cone - 6%
Harold Baines - 5% (5.2/5.3)
Matt Williams - 4%
Jesse Orosco - 2%
Mo Vaughan - 0.8%
Jay Bell - 0.4%
Ron Gant - 0.2%
Greg Vaughan - 0.2%
Dan Plesac - 0%

RIP Carl Pohlad

2009-01-05T15:32:00.006-07:00

I just went to the Star Tribune's website to check out if there was any news on the Senate recount/contest/imbroglio and saw the banner headline about the passing of Twins owner Carl Pohlad. I wish his family, and the extended Twins family, my condolences.

Pohlad's legacy is mixed, in my opinion. On one hand, this is a man who first sought to move his team and then actively promoted contraction. Throughout the 1990's, he was viewed as shamefully cheap, putting a team on the field with a miserly payroll and no chance to win. On the other hand, I don't think there's any question that he loved baseball and the Twins (despite the contraction efforts). He was the owner during the Twins two world title runs in 1987 and 1991. He authorized his GM to go over budget several times in the 2000's when the team finally started winning again. If nothing else, Pohlad provided a stable figure from 1984 to 2009. There are many worse owners throughout the sports world, and in a way I will miss him. Undoubtedly, the 2009 season will be dedicated to him.

UPDATE: My apologies if I missed it, but how is it that ESPN at no point today had this on the front page anywhere? The death of the 25-year owner of a team that twice won the World Series in that span strikes me as newsworthy enough to get at least a few hours on the front page, but I looked for this several times today on ESPN and could only find it in the MLB section. In contrast, CNNSI still has the story on the front page after a good half-day, and for a few hours after the news came out MSNBC had it in their major headlines section on the front page, meaning it penetrated not just sports news but actual news news. Ultimately this is pretty inconsequential, but it strikes me as a tremendous oversight on ESPN's part. I'll score that as an error to the webpage headlines editor for ESPN.

UPDATE 2: Talk about weird timing -- this morning I checked ESPN and, whatdya know, ESPN has finally put Pohlad's death on the front page. This leads me to believe this really was a "whoops" moment on the part of whoever was editing the headlines yesterday, because certainly Pohlad's death didn't become more newsworthy overnight. I'm guessing someone with some clout in the baseball section noticed the oversight and found a way to get the news on the front page. Better late than never, I suppose.

Boxing Banter

2009-01-04T19:32:00.002-07:00

Well, so much for that Vikings playoff run I was hoping for (not that I expected it). Now, onto the boxing:

1.) I went 2-for-3 on my title bout predictions from a week ago. First up, Denkaosan Kaovichit took the WBA flyweight crown off of Takefumi Sakata with a 2nd round knock out. I also correctly predicted that Toshiaki Nishioka would succesfully defend his WBC interim junior featherweight title against Genaro Garcia. My incorrect pick came in the WBA "regular" lightweight championship fight, which I thought would be won by the defending champ, Yusuke Kobori. It seems I disregarded challenger Paulus Moses' undefeated record (built mostly against less-than-steller competition) at my peril, as Moses picked up the crown and now sits at 24-0. At least I can say it was a close call, as the fight went to the cards, with Moses getting the unanimous decision.

2.) I mentioned that Evander Holyfield was contesting the decision in his December 20 fight against Nikolai Valuev, and it seems the WBA is taking things seriously. A panel of judges will apparently review the fight, and I would imagine that they'll actually consider whatever the panel says (this being boxing, though, maybe I'm giving them too much credit -- I suppose it's possible that this was done just to shut Holyfield up). Again, I don't really have a dog in this fight; it sounds like neither fighter was very good. However, I don't think the decision of the ringside judges should be overturned unless it is absolutely clear that their decision was wrong, and I don't think this fight rose to that level. A bad decision? Quite possibly. A clearly, obviously, unequivocally wrong one? No.

3.) There are two title fights in Germany on Saturday. In the first fight, WBO light heavyweight champ Zsolt Erdei (29-0-0; 17 KO) will defend against the WBO #10 contender Yuri Barashian (25-4-0; 17 KO). Erdei has held the title since January 2004, with 10 succesful defenses behind him. I would be stunned if he lost the title to Barashian, who only the WBO and IBF have even bothered to rank.

4.) The second title fight on the German card will see WBO super middleweight champion Denis Inkin (34-0-0; 24 KO) make his first defense since winning the title in September against Fulgencio Zuniga. His opponent will be undefeated Karoly Balzsay (19-0-0; 14 KO), the WBO #1 contender and Intercontinental champion. I love fights between undefeated competitors, and this one should be entertaining. Both of these guys seem to have some finishing power, and they're about the same age (Inkin is a little older). I'm going to give the edge to Inkin to retain.

5.) Finally, Friday night brings the season premier of ESPN's Friday Night Fights, which will see Yuriorkis Gamboa and Odlanier Solis in action. Free fights are always welcome!

Top 10 Sports Moments of 2008

2009-01-03T19:24:00.004-07:00

It's a few days late, but I finally got a chance to sit down and put together my list of this year's top 10 sports moments. I wanted to get it up on the 31st, but that wasn't going to happen thanks to what was a ridiculously busy schedule over the Holidays. If you want to reminisce a bit, you can check out my 2007 Top 10 here. Feel free to let me know in the comments whether I left something off that you would have included. Now, for my favorite moments of 2008:

#10 - Pacquiao Pounds De La Hoya (12/6/08)
By no means was this the best fight of 2008 -- not even close. In fact, it wasn't even really a fight so much as a beat down by Pacquiao. Why, then, does it make my list? How about the fact that it likely ended the career of the most marketable fighter boxing has ever seen. Or the surprising dominance of Pacquiao, who was supposed to be the weaker fighter due to his naturally smaller size. Or the fact that it cemented Pacquaio's place as the best active pound-for-pound fighter in the business. All of these reasons factored into my decision to include this fight on the list, but the thing that sealed the deal is that this fight opened the door for the possible return of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who would like to test Pacquiao's claim to that pound-for-pound crown.

#9 - Davidson's March Madness Run (3/20 - 3/30/08)
It's not unprecedented for a small school to make a big run in the NCAA Tournament, but the 10th seeded Davidson Wildcats, led by Guard Stephen Curry, didn't just make a run -- they nearly knocked off the eventual champions in the Elite Eight. Davidson took out Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin on the way to facing Kansas in the Midwest Regional Final, and ended up losing by a slim 59-57 margin. That was enough to get Davidson in my top 10 -- but to be fair, I should split the #9 spot and give the National Championship game some credit as well. Kansas ended up taking out Memphis in overtime after trailing by 9 points with just 2:12 left to go. The finish of regulation was remarkable, with Memphis choking by missing four of five free throws to end regulation. I'm giving Davidson the headline, but really this spot belongs equally to that great championship game.

#8 - The 50th Daytona 500 (2/17/08)
The finish of the Daytona 500 is always pretty interesting, but this year's Daytona 500 probably wouldn't have made my list if it hadn't been the 50th running of the sport's biggest race. Ryan Newman ended up getting the win with an assist from teammate Kurt Busch, giving team owner Roger Penske his long sought first restrictor plate victory. The fact that the "new car" (a.k.a. the Car of Tomorrow) made its Daytona debut in this race also spiced things up somewhat. Really, though, it's the nostalgia involved with a major anniversary that gets this year's relatively pedestrian running of the race on my Top 10 list.

#7 - Celtics win the NBA Championship (6/17/08)
The Finals matchup between the Celtics and Lakers was a dream come true for the NBA, but notice that I didn't put the series itself on the list -- this spot goes exclusively to the Celtics for winning the banner. I didn't start to pay attention to the NBA until after the Celtics were already in a serious decline from the championship era, and before last summer the team hadn't hoisted a trophy since 1986, and hadn't won a conference crown since 1987. The extreme makeover that brought Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in to join Paul Pierce made Danny Ainge look like a genius (and Kevin McHale look very, very bad). It was a notable return to form for the Yankees of the NBA (17 championships -- wow).

#6 - Jimmie Johnson/Lewis Hamilton Championships
I'm cheating by putting both racers togethers in one slot, but I couldn't pick which one I preferred. Johnson made history by doing the unthinkable and winning his third straight NASCAR championship, something that seemed unthinkable in the modern era with so many competitive teams. Hamilton, on the other hand, won his first Formula 1 Championship in just his second year in the sport, becoming the youngest driver to pull that off. Hamilton narrowly pulled off the win over Ferrari's Felipe Massa in the championship, winning by just one point after a last lap pass netted him a fifth place finish in the Brazilian Grand Prix. The motorsports world might look very different in 2009, but 2008 brought two brilliant and historic championship runs.

#5 - Rays win the Pennant (10/19/08)
The World Series proved to be a bit of a dud, but the Rays 4-3 series victory over the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS was anything but. After narrowly losing the first game of the series, Tampa Bay clobbered Red Sox pitching in Games 2-4, scoring 9, 9, and 13 runs respectively in those games. That was enough to give the Rays a 3-1 series lead and seemed to indicate that the Rays had figured out how to score enough runs off of Boston to make it to the World Series. The veteran Sox wouldn't quit, though, and undoubtedly had visions of a 2004-like comeback flashing through their minds as they won games 5 and 6. In the end, the Rays would ride series MVP Matt Garza and rookie David Price to the game 7 win. And just like that, the Rays threw off the shackles of the first 10 years of team history. No longer are the Rays a laughingstalk. Hopefully they can continue terrorizing the Yankees and Red Sox for years to come.

#4 - Michael Phelps / Usain Bolt
The Olympics deserve a spot on this list, and without question the stars of the Beijing Olympics were these two guys. Phelps, of course, set the record for excellence by striking Gold in 8 different events. Bolt won "only" three medals, but his 9.69 second 100 m time (while showboating at the end!) broke his own World Record and inspired praise (for the sheer brilliance of his achievment), criticism (for his showboating), and concern (about the possibility that Bolt's time was aided by performance-enhancing drugs -- something for which there is no evidence). If I had to pick just one single event to put on this list, it probably would have been Phelps' 100m Butterfly victory over Milorad Cavic by just 1/100th of a second -- it was the most exciting 50 seconds of the Olympics for me since I was rooting hard for Phelps to break the medals record. Bolt's achievment is nothing to sneeze at, but I couldn't get overly excited for a 10 second event.

#3 - U.S. Open Golf Championship (6/12 - 6/16/08)
By far the most exciting golf event of the year. In case you've somehow managed to forget, this was the great battle between an injured Tiger Woods (who would submit to season-ending surgery a couple of days after winning the event) and the surprising Rocco Mediate. Woods' improbable victory probably would have been enough to get the event on this list by itself (how on earth do you win a golf tournament with a double stress fracture of the tibia and an ACL injury!?!), but the way it was done made it even more special. The unheralded Mediate finished the Fourth Round in a tie with Woods, requiring a Fifth Round the next day. The two golfers were still tied after the extra 18 holes, so in the end it came down to a playoff hole that was won by Woods. Mediate proved to be a popular foil to Woods, and I suspect many were rooting for David rather than Goliath in this battle. Woods victory over the field despite his injuries simply shows how very much better he is than everyone else in his sport. That's not exactly a revelation, but last year's U.S. Open served as yet another amazing reminder.

#2 - Wimbledon Men's Final (7/6/08)
An instant classic, this battle between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer is now considered by most pundits I've read to be the best Tennis match ever played. The event took all day to complete, as rain delayed the proceedings several times. In the end, Nadal would win by the unbelievable score of 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7. Nadal had been nipping at Federer's heels for some time, and this unbelievable match was the culmination of that fight. Federer had been invincible on the Wimbledon grass. While they likely will never duplicate the 2008 Wimbledon final, I hope they have a few more great bouts before Federer hangs 'em up.

#1 - Super Bowl XLII (2/3/08)
The Super Bowl is the undisputed King of sporting events in the United States. Nearly half of the people in the United States watch at least part of the game every year, a mark that nothing else comes close to. But really, the Super Bowl is popular in spite of itself. The game is usually a long, boring dud with bad halftime entertainment and far too many commercials (which usually are nowhere near as entertaining as they are expected to be by the fans, some of whom tune in solely to watch them). That's what makes last year's Super Bowl the #1 event of the year -- not only was it an "event" in the sense that everybody was watching, it was a great game that saw a tremendous upset. The New York Giants 17-14 win over the previously undefeated New England Patriots denied Bill Belichick's squad perfection, and created the legend of Eli Manning. The Giants final drive, notable for Manning's evasion of a seemingly sure-thing sack and David Tyree's circus catch off his helmet, was astounding sports theater. For once, the Big Game lived up to the hype, setting a new bar for greatness. It easily deserves the #1 spot on my list this year.

Boxing Banter

2008-12-28T10:59:00.002-07:00

Like many of you, I'm sitting down to see if the Vikings can salvage a playoff berth today. Hopefully they can pull off the win against a Giants team that doesn't have a lot to play for -- I'd rather see them get in that way than through a Bears loss (although a Bears loss might be wishful thinking anyway). Now, enough on football -- time to get to boxing. Another abbreviated schedule this week means another short Boxing Banter post:

1.) The only fight of any significance this week was WBC flyweight champion Daisuke Naito's title defense against Shingo Yamaguchi. Last week I suggested that Naito was probably the prohibitive favorite due to the comparative records and strength of prior opponents, and that turned out to be the case -- Naito won the fight via an 11th round stoppage and doesn't seem to have ever been in any trouble.

2.) Fight News reports that Evander Holyfield is contesting the result of his December 20 fight against Nikolai Valuev. I would guess he has virtually no chance of suceeding. I don't know the rules that are in play for a sanctioning body to review a ring-side ruling, but I would guess the judges would have had to be horribly off to be reversed. I know that a few people, like ESPN's Dan Rafael, believe that Holyfield should have won the fight -- but I've read plenty of reports from other people that say the fight was either a draw or a Valuev win. My point is that this doesn't seem to have been a case where Holyfield won the fight without any doubt, and I think that's what it would take for the judges at ringside to be overruled.

3.) There are three title fights in Japan this week, and as with last week's fight I don't know much of anything about the fighters. First up is the WBA flyweight defense of champion Takefumi Sakata (33-4-2; 15 KO) against Denkaosan Kaovichit (45-1-1; 19 KO). Sakata has had the belt since 2007, and hasn't knocked anyone out in a title defense. With his record, that would seem to suggest that Kaovichit has a good shot of knocking Sakata off, but that record is built mostly against bad fighters and it's unclear just how good he is. These two fighters have met before, going the distance in a draw in November 2007. That suggests the fight is indeed closely matched. I'm going to predict a title change.

4.) Next up, Toshiaki Nishioka (32-4-3; 19 KO) defends his WBC interim junior featherweight title against Genaro Garcia (36-6-0; 20 KO). It will be Nishioka's first defense after winning the title September 2008. Garcia hasn't fought since December 2007, and has lost two of his last three fights. Nihioka, on the other hand, has been on a decent run recently. I would be somewhat surprised if Nishioka didn't retain.

5.) The WBA has a strange policy (designed to get more sanctioning fees out of fighters) that allows it to have multiple champions in a weight class. If the WBA champion in a class wins another major belt, he's declared the "WBA Super Champion," and a new "WBA Regular Champion" will be crowned. WBA "regular" lightweight champion Yusuke Kobori (23-2-1; 12 KO) will defend that so-called "title" against undefeated Paulus Moses (23-0-0; 17 KO) in the final interesting fight of the week. Moses has a couple of solid wins, but I wouldn't look at the undefeated record and get all starry-eyed -- he has a lot of cheap wins in the record as well. Kobori seems to have faced stiffer opposition in his career, and I think he'll emerge from this fight with the win.

Dickey Redux

2008-12-26T09:14:00.003-07:00

I wasn't paying any attention to the Twins on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, so I missed until this morning the fact that the Twins have agreed to terms with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. Last year, of course, the Twins signed Dickey before the Rule 5 Draft only to see the Mariners select him (in what to me was one of the most unusual Rule 5 selections ever -- I'm not saying it was a bad move, but Dickey doesn't exactly fit the profile of the standard Rule 5 pick).

It's not immediately clear what role Dickey is expected to play in the bullpen next year, but I don't think it necessarily has to be clear at this point. It's never a bad thing to go into Spring Training with more Major League caliber pitchers than there are available roster spots, and the 'pen that the Twins looked to be ready to go with wasn't exactly filled with 7 All Stars anyway. There's room for a guy to get pushed out by Dickey if it looks like he's better. If he's not, then the Twins can get rid of him instead. I can't imagine the money is going to be much of a deterrent.

This was a quirky little Christmas present from the Twins to those fans who were excited by the Dickey signing last year only to see him snatched away by the Mariners. We'll see how he does when the season rolls around.

Boxing Banter

2008-12-21T09:59:00.005-07:00

Very little to talk about today, as there was only one major fight this weekend and there's only one next weekend. Here goes:

1.) I said last week that if Evander Holyfield was even remotely competitive in his fight with WBA Champion Nikolai Valuev, that heavyweight boxing should give up and crawl away. I guess it should start crawling, because Holyfield was far more than competitive yesterday. According to several sources, he should have won the fight. Not everyone agrees -- ESPN comentators seem to be split on the subject. The point is that Holyfield survived for 12 rounds against a champion, and had a legitimate chance to win the fight and a belt at 46. It seems clear that Holyfield was better than he has been in quite awhile, but he was by no means championship caliber. Instead, Valuev was exposed as a sham champion. I didn't know much about Valuev before this fight other than that he was a monstrous fellow with a strap around his waist. Now, I know that despite his size he's not much of a fighter, and also that he ducks legitimate fights. Those two things tend to go hand-in-hand; he's not very good, so why bother fighting a legitimate fight? This makes me wonder whether there's any possibility he'll fight one of the Klitschko's -- I imagine the money would have to be huge to force him into a fight he'd go into knowing he was going to lose. As for Holyfield, he should leave now. This fight was nearly as good as a win for his legacy. He didn't get squashed, and if he left now he could retain some dignity. If he fights anyone better than Valuev, he'll almost certainly be down in a hurry. It's well past time to hang 'em up, Evander.

2.) The only fight of any consequence this week will be on Tuesday, when WBC flyweight champ Daisuke Naito (33-2-3; 21 KO) defends against Shingo Yamaguchi (23-5-2; 9 KO). I've got nothing on this fight; I don't know anything about either fighter. This will be Naito's fourth defense since winning the belt in July of 2007 from Pongsaklek Wonjongkam. He's won two of the fights and retained via draw in the other. Yamaguchi does not seem to be a serious threat to take the strap.

Blog Update

2008-12-18T18:42:00.002-07:00

First things first -- when I changed templates all of my links disappeared. I'm going to be reconstructing them over the next couple of weeks, but here's my request to those of you who I may have linked to in the past: if you still want to be linked to, please let me know with an e-mail to taylorjs@colorado.edu (or a comment on this blog would probably work too, I suppose). This doesn't mean I won't link to anybody that doesn't contact me -- it just means that I'm less likely to accidentally overlook someone if you remind me!

Second, I'm heading back to Minnesota tomorrow for the holidays. I still intend on blogging a bit during the next two weeks, but I'm less likely to catch any breaking news as quickly as I normally would.

My 2009 Hall of Fame Ballot

2008-12-17T22:02:00.003-07:00

It's coming a day earlier than I had originally announced, but here is the ballot that I would cast if I were a voter for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The format is the same as last year -- first, I'll list the players that I would cast a vote for if I had a chance, then the players who I would consider to be possibilities for the future, and finally I will name those players who I would remove from the ballot entirely. Also, just so you're aware, I've plagiarized the comments that I made last year on many of the names who are still on the ballot.

Hall of Famers

Bert Blyleven (12th Year) -- 61.9% in 2008
Despite some difficulties with Blyleven's candidacy, I think the scales come down on the side of Bert being a Hall of Famer. Whether this determination is colored by my Twins bias and my enjoyment of his color commentary for the Twins - well, that's for others to decide. On the plus side, Blyleven is 5th in career strikeouts (3,701) and no one is going to catch him anytime soon (with the retirements of Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina, Jamie Moyer is the closest active player with 2,248). He also struck out 2.8 batters for every batter he walked - that puts him miles ahead of all-time K leader Nolan Ryan (just over 2.0), in the neighborhood of Roger Clemens (2.96), and well below Randy Johnson (3.2). Looking at the pitchers near Blyleven on the K list, he's better than the majority of the top 20 - Fergie Jenkins beats him, as does Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez utterly blows everybody out of the water with about a 4.2. But Blyleven is clearly amongst the best in terms of K-BB in the history of the game.

Blyelven is also 9th All-Time with 60 shutouts - the man liked to finish what he started. The amazing thing about this stat is that it is incredibly predictive of Hall of Fame pitchers. Other than Blyleven, the top 23 pitchers in this category are in the Hall of Fame. Luis Tiant, at 24, is the first guy besides Bert who isn't in the Hall. Standing alone, that means nothing - but it is another indication that Blyleven's stats are in the same league as other Hall of Famers.

As for ERA, Blyelven's career 3.31 ERA isn't great by Hall of Fame standards - but it's better than quite a few players (Early Wynn, Fergie Jenkins, Dennis Eckersley, and Lefty Grove for example). In other words - I'm neutral on ERA.

The most oft-heard argument against Blyleven is that he won just 287 games, and this doesn't meet the magic number of 300. But that number didn't prevent Fergie Jenkins (284), Juan Marichal (243), or Jim Palmer (268), amongst others, from getting into the Hall. Bert pitched a couple more years than Jenkins, so one argument could go that someone with 22 years in the game should have crested 300 - but with his other numbers being so solid, I find it hard to argue that the lack of wins is entirely Blyleven's fault.

Perhaps more compelling is the argument that Blyleven was never a truly dominant pitcher - he finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting twice, and that was as good as it got - and he was an All-Star just twice. He also never led his league in ERA, Wins, or even K/9. Nevertheless, that doesn't take away from the fact that he put up some brilliant numbers in his career, not all of which were dependent simply on longevity (as his 3.31 ERA shows). Bert belongs in the Hall, and with last year's roughly 14 point jump in his vote total, I'm hopeful that he'll make it in one of his last four years on the ballot.

Andre Dawson (8th Year) -- 65.9% in 2008
After putting Dawson in my maybe category in 2007, I moved him into my "yes" category last year. Nothing has changed my mind since I made that decision. Dawson was a career .279 hitter with 438 HR's over 21 years. In that time, he also picked up 8 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers, Rookie of the Year honors in 1977, an MVP award in 1987 (along with 2nd place finishes in 1981 and 1983) and topped it all off with 8 appearances as an All-Star. His 2,774 hits in 21 years are a litter lower than I would expect from a Hall of Famer, but the total package is outstanding, and I'm now convinced.

Ricky Henderson (1st Year)
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. He is the best base stealer of all time with 1406 steals, and with the changes in the game is likely to forever be so. He revolutionized the lead-off position, hitting 297 homers primarily from that spot. He won an MVP and finished second and third in the voting two other years. He made 10 All-Star teams in his 25 year career. It's almost irrelvent to add that he also had 3,055 hits and 2,190 walks (second most all time). If he didn't have the steals, maybe there would be a little bit of doubt in my mind (I'd probably vote for him anyway). But the steals are there, and they are relevant -- don't forget that in the era he played, the stolen base was a much more vital part of the game. There is absolutely no question in my mind that Henderson belongs in the Hall.

Jim Rice (15th Year) -- 72.2% in 2008
Last chance on Rice, and boy is this one tough. Rice's numbers (.298/382/2452) are actually fairly close to Hall of Famer Al Kaline's (.297/399/3007) - except for the hits, but Rice played 6 fewer seasons than Kaline. Last year, I said the difference between Kaline and Rice was Kaline's greatness in the field -- he won 10 Gold Gloves, and Rice never won one. However, Rice won an MVP award and finished in the top 5 of the MVP voting 5 other times. To me, that shows that Rice was an extremely respected hitter for a sufficiently long stretch of time to justify a Hall of Fame vote. Having fully considered the issue, I'm now convinced -- Rice belongs in the Hall. The sportswriters are likely to agree with me this year, as he's likely to retain the support he picked up last year while gaining a few last chance votes.

Hold-Overs (a.k.a. the Maybe's)

David Cone (1st Year)
A Cy Young winner in 1994, twice a twenty-game winner, five times an All-Star -- Cone is not a shabby candidate. I had planned to place Cone in my "no" list straight out, but he had some sustained success and I would want another year to consider his candidacy if I were a voter (yes, I understand that voters don't actually get to choose a "hold him for a year" option when voting). His 194 wins in 17 seasons are probably not enough, but this is not the shut and dried case it would appear. Next year, I'll probably say no flat out (assuming he hits the 5% mark and makes it onto the 2010 ballot) -- but for now I'm putting him in my Maybe column.

Don Mattingly (9th Year) -- 15.8% in 2008
This one is fairly difficult for me. His .307 career batting average fits comfortably in with the current Hall-of-Famers, and he hit 222 HR, so he wasn't a slouch in terms of power. He also won 9 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers, and an MVP Award. But I just can't pull the trigger - his BA/Power numbers are more in line with a Hall of Fame 1B from the 1910's than with one from the 1980's. This is closer than I originally thought it would be - I'd put him in the top 5 of the "best of the rest" on my ballot - but in the end I have to leave him off, at least for this year.

Mark McGwire (3rd Year) -- 23.6% in 2008
The McGwire saga in the Hall of Fame voting remains one of the more intriguing things to watch each year. After a year in which the question of performance enhancing drugs first exploded and then seemed to disappear (who was talking about it in August, September, or October?), will McGwire benefit? Or will voters continue to keep the issue alive and shun him in large numbers? It seems likely that McGwire has polarized the electorate -- he won 23.5% in 2007 and 23.6% in 2008, so voters don't seem to be very willing to change their minds on him. I've stated before that I wouldn't base my decisions on PED use, but my stance has changed slightly -- if there was a fair amount of proof (and I'm not talking the amount or kind of proof that would be necessary to convict in a court of law; I just want something more than a wink and a nod allegation) that McGwire used PED's for a significant part of his career, I would at that point likely exclude him. If he's only linked to use late in his career, or for only limited periods of time, I would be more inclined to vote for him. Part of the reason I put him on my maybe list, then, is because I just don't know where he fits on that spectrum -- and after all, there's nothing wrong with using those 15 years of eligibility to fully consider his candidacy.

Of course, there's also the issue of his performance on the field and whether it's enough to get him in. Last year, I stated that a player with a career batting average as low as McGwire's (.263) was to me a dubious Hall of Famer. I'm going to stand by that as a general proposition, but I've largely been swung around to the view that great performance in another area can compensate for a low batting average. That's why I am now convinced that Harmon Killebrew (.256 career BA) is still Hall of Fame worthy -- because 573 HR's for the era he played in was a remarkable number. Do McGwire's 583 HR's measure up?

For now, that's the question I can't answer. McGwire hit a bunch of homers, to be sure, but he did it in an era when homerun numbers have become inflated. It's also the statistic that would benefit the most from juicing. More than likely I would eventually support McGwire's inclusion in the Hall as one of baseball's great sluggers, but there are just far too many questions about his candidacy to say that I would support his election this year.

Jack Morris (10th Year) -- 42.9% in 2008
Another close one - but Morris' 3.90 career ERA is a bit too high, and his 1.78 K-BB ratio is a bit too low to earn him consideration for his control. He did win 254 games - which I don't think disqualifies him at all, since he has a .577 winning percentage. His failure to ever win a Cy Young (like Bert, he finished 3rd twice) is another strike against him, because unlike Bert he doesn't have a dominant category to boost his candidacy. Borderline, but probably not quite a Hall of Famer. In the last five years of his candidacy (starting next year) my focus as a voter would be on whether Morris should get in as one of the great pitchers of the 1980's and early 1990's -- but again, the fact that he doesn't have a Cy Young to back that up is problematic.

Dale Murphy (11th Year) -- 13.8% in 2008
His .265 batting average is a concern, but his 398 HR, 5 Gold Gloves, 2 MVPs, and 4 Silver Sluggers make him a serious candidate. I have reservations about Murphy having just 2111 hits in 18 seasons, though. If I had to make a final decision on Murphy right now, I'd vote no -- but I'm willing to reconsider.

Dave Parker (13th Year) -- 15.1% in 2008
No glaring weakness, like Murphy's batting average. Parker hit .290, with 339 HR and 2712 hits in 19 seasons, while picking up an MVP award, 3 Gold Gloves, and 3 Silver Sluggers. But, while those numbers are very nice, what exactly makes him a Hall of Famer? He was a very good, but not great hitter. He had very good, but not great, power. He could field pretty well. In the end, I think he misses the cut - he's a great player, but not a Hall of Famer.

Tim Raines (2nd Year) -- 24.3% in 2008
Raines played for 23 years and compiled a .294 batting average, 170 homers, and 808 stolen bases (good for 5th all time). He was basically the National League version of Ricky Henderson, and while he's nowhere close in terms of stolen bases, he has a much better batting average than Henderson and was a more patient hitter (Henderson walked a lot, but he struck out a ton, too). Raines also went to 7 All-Star Games, picked up a Silver Slugger award, and had one top 5 finish in the MVP voting. I'm inclined to put him in the "great, but not Hall-worthy" category for now, but as with the rest of those players I'm sticking him in my "Maybe" list in case I later change my mind on him.

Lee Smith (7th Year) -- 43.3% in 2008
Smith picked up 478 saves in his 18 years, which was the record until Trevor Hoffman passed him in 2006 and kept piling on in 2007 and 2008. His career ERA is also solid -- but when you compare Smith with the dominant closers of this era (Mariano Rivera, Hoffman, Billy Wagner) he doesn't quite match up ERA-wise. His 2.57 K's per BB is also a bit low. My biggest problem with Smith last year was that he has 21 more losses than wins, but it was a mistake for me to focus on that category because it's pretty meaningless for closers (heck, it's pretty meaningless for all pitchers). I think Smith is stuck between era's a bit -- he was a closer as far back as the early 80's when the position was first starting to evolve into what it is today, and he closed games out into the 90's when that evolution was pretty much complete. I lean towards a no vote for Smith, but he's close enough that I reserve the right to change my mind in future years.

Alan Trammell (8th Year) -- 18.2% in 2008
Solid career numbers (.285/185/2365) and awards (4 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers). But like Parker, Trammell is a really good player who I just don't quite consider to be a Hall of Famer right now. If someone can come up with a compelling argument in his favor, I would certainly consider it.

Mo Vaughn (1st Year)
Mo Vaughn doesn't exactly scream "Hall of Famer!" to me, but I find his numbers and his career interesting enough to include him on my "Maybe" list. He finished with a .293 career average and 1620 hits in 12 seasons (lower than I would like, but he didn't play for all that long). More interestingly, he had a four-year stretch in which he won and MVP and finished 4th and 5th in the voting two other years. If you ask why I put Vaughn in my "Maybe" list and banish Harold Baines to my "No" list, it's that four year stretch that I'd point to. Baines never was considered one of the top players in his league -- Vaughn clearly was. Vaughn also contributed by playing first base, and I'm a bit biased against DH's in that regard (although you could fairly ask whether it actually HURT his teams to have Vaughn at first base -- but I don't remember him being a complete and total farce at the position). If push came to shove I would say no on Vaughn, but it's also not quite clear cut.

Matt Williams (1st Year)
I'm not thrilled with his batting average (.268) or total hits (1878 in 17 seasons). However, he was a consistent power hitter (378) who won 4 Gold Gloves and finished in the top 6 in MVP voting 4 times. As with Vaughn, if push came to shove that wouldn't be enough for me, but he's also not a categorical no. I would want to continue considering his candidacy.

Off the Ballot

Harold Baines (3rd Year) -- 5.2% in 2008
Baines was in my "maybe" category two years, but I've thought about him some more and decided that I can make a firm decision on him. His .289 BA and 384 HR's are arguably suitable -- but he spent most of his career as a DH, played 22 years and only picked up 2866 hits, never finished higher than 9th in the MVP voting, and won just 1 Silver Slugger award. In the end, that's not good enough.

Jay Bell (1st Year)
He's a career .265 hitter who picked up just 1963 hits in 18 seasons. Bell had solid power for a guy who spent a large chunk of his career as a shortstop (195 HR's), but those numbers aren't enough to compensate for what is an otherwise extremely lackluster Hall of Fame resume.

Ron Gant (1st Year)
Open and shut case in my book. He was a career .256 hitter who had only one season where he even made it into the top 5 in the MVP voting. His 321 homeruns aren't shabby, but you don't build a Hall-of-Fame worthy career on 321 homeruns and not much else.

Mark Grace (1st Year)
In my head, I associate Mark Grace with Don Mattingly. Looking at Grace's numbers, though, he just doesn't stack up to the comparison. Grace had a .303 average and hit 173 homeruns (to Mattingly's .307 and 222), never won an MVP award or even finished in the top 10 in voting (Mattingly won an MVP), made the All-Star game just 3 times (which stunned me when I looked it up -- Mattingly doubled that, by the way), and won 4 Gold Gloves compared to Mattingly's nine. While these two have long gone together in my mind, it's clear that Grace's credentials fall short of Mattingly's. For that reason, he falls short of even my "Maybe" category.

Tommy John (15th Year) -- 29.1% in 2008
John is not a bad Hall of Fame candidate. His 288 wins are over 26 Major League seasons (although he didn't win many games over those last few years), and he has a 3.34 career ERA. He also finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting twice. Basically, John is Bert Blyleven without the strikeouts. In the end, that's not enough - Bert's Hall credentials are largely dependent on his strikeout and control numbers, and John can't compare in that regard. I've had John in my "maybe" category for a couple of years, but 2009 is his last year of eligibility so an up-or-down decision on his candidacy is appropriate. I would not cast a vote for Tommy John. He was a very good pitcher who doesn't quite rise to Hall of Fame levels.

Jesse Orosco (1st Year)
Looking only at Orosco's early career, the Hall of Fame might not seem like such a far-out suggestion. From 1983-1987 he picked up 102 saves with an ERA as low as 1.47 and usually in the mid-2.00's. After that, he became the situational lefty most of us remember. His career 3.16 ERA isn't bad, but there's just nothing in his career that would lead me to believe that it was Hall-worthy.

Dan Plesac (1st Year)
The poor-man's Orosco. Like Orosco, Plesac started off getting saves and posting solid ERA's. He then transformed, just like Orosco, into a situational lefty. His career 3.64 ERA shows that he wasn't as effective, as does the fact that his career was 6 years shorter. If Orosco isn't Hall-worthy, Plesac certainly isn't either.

Greg Vaughn (1st Year)
Vaughn finished fourth in the MVP voting in 1998 and 1999, laregly because of his power (50 and 45 homers respectively). Other than that and his 355 homers, he has virtually nothing on which to hang his Hall candidacy. He finished with just 1475 hits and a .242 batting average in 15 seasons. In no way does that measure up.

Playing Around

2008-12-14T20:16:00.002-07:00

It was time for a new look for the site, so I will likely be playing around for a few days with different looks, colors, etc. I got a kick out of the grey, blue, and red scheme that was up for the last year or so -- but it really got old (my apologies for those of you who hated the look). A big goal of mine is just to clean things up a bit. You'll notice the advertising is gone -- I got a very nice check for a year from one of the advertisers, but my commitment has been up for awhile and the other two ads were just wasting space.

So, please pardon any strange things that you might see for the next week or so as I play around. And if by chance you see something you really like, let me know.

Boxing Banter

2008-12-14T19:54:00.002-07:00

A shortened BB post tonight as I prepare for my last final (ever!) as a law student tomorrow. Here are some brief thoughts on what we saw the past few days:

1.) I hope you had a chance to watch Tomasz Adamek take the IBF Cruiserweight title off of Steve Cunningham on Thursday night. The card was on Versus, and also included an IBF Bantamweight fight won by champion Joseph Agbeko. Both fights went the distance and were entertaining (this was a great free card), but the Adamek-Cunningham matchup provided a great deal of drama. ESPN's boxing page even lists it as a contender for fight of the year. Adamek managed to knock Cunningham down three times (I believe he had only been down once in his entire career to that point) while staying on his feet despite absorbing a lot of punishment, and that proved to be the difference. A stunning round 4 sums up the fight -- Cunningham dominated the round, to the point that the announcers were discussing awarding the round to him 10-8 instead of the standard 10-9. Then, out of nowhere at the end of the round Adamek landed a right to the face that dropped Cunningham. Under the scoring rules in effect, that mandated a round victory for Adamek, and he ended up winning the round 10-9. That was a three point swing in that one round, and had he not picked up the knockdown (all other things staying the same) the fight would have ended in a draw -- one judge for each fighter and one with an even card. Great fight, great card, great job by Versus putting it together.

2.) Wladimir Klitschko easily defeated Hasim Rahman in Mannheim, Germany yesterday to hold onto his IBF and WBO belts. Rahman was a replacement fighter for Alexander Povetkin, who was supposed to get the mandatory fight against Klitschko but was injured in training. This was a ho-hum fight that was never in doubt, as Rahman spent painful amounts of time against the ropes and Klitschko was clearly the better, stronger fighter. It ended in the sixth roung when the referee stopped it following three brutal shots from Klitschko.

3.) Elsewhere in heavyweight land, it was all about the old guys. Riddick Bowe returned to the ring for the first time in three years and picked up an 8-round unanimous decision, while James Toney beat Fres Oquendo by split decision in a 12-rounder. I would like to say that these results are meaningless because both fighters are far beyond their prime, but with Evander Holyfield getting a title shot next weekend I guess I can't quite make that statement.

4.) The Kendall Holt-Ricardo Torres rubber-match was called off because Torres was hurt, but Holt still faced a challenge on the Showtime card on Saturday night when he faced previously undefeated challenger Demetrius Hopkins. Holt retained his WBO Junior Welterweight belt by split decision. The judge ruling for Hopkins was sort of on an island, with her point spread very different from what the other two judges had. Normally with a split decision in that situation I'd say a rematch is likely, but the cards of the other two judges weren't that close. Still, a rematch would be nice to see if Holt could do it again. I'm guessing Holt still wants Torres for a third time, so maybe that will come next.

5.) There are some fights next weekend, but there only appears to be one world title on the line -- WBA Heavyweight champ Nikolai Valuev defends his belt in a sham fight against Evander Holyfield, who came out of nowhere when he signed this fight. This thing has no business going beyond three rounds, if that. Holyfield is 46 and hasn't been a meaningful fighter in years. Valuev is a monster who is 11 years younger and has 34 KO's in 51 matches. The only reason this fight was signed at all was that Holyfield needed money and Valuev needed an easy end-of-year opponent, presumably for a tuneup. If Holyfield is even remotely competitive in this fight, Heavyweight boxing should just give up and crawl away.

New Look Organizational Rankings

2008-12-14T00:24:00.004-07:00

For the last two years, I've put together Organizational Rankings posts (they were linked on the right side of the page, but my messing around has temporarily removed them). Unfortunately, this year I never got around to getting the relief pitcher post up (if you're clever, you can get to the page that has about 1/4 of the players listed, but I never activated the link because it was never completed). Equally unfortunately, the idea suffered from my inability to determine exactly what information I wanted to convey on the pages. On the one hand, the lists have been put together in the order of my rankings -- which is great if you want to see who I valued going into each season. At the same time, however, I've been trying to use those pages as a player transactions database. While there is a LOT of information on the players in the organization available on the web, some basic information is widely scattered and requires some actual digging to get at.

I legitimately want to service both of the goals mentioned above -- I enjoy ranking players, but at the same time I think its nice to be able to go to one site to see transaction information, rather than trying to track it down from multiple sources. As a result, I've decided to change the way that I present the information.

First up, in January I will be unveiling my new "Organizational Database." No, it will not be a true database. It will not be searchable in the way a true database is -- it'll just be like one of my long "Organizational Rankings" posts, but it will be organized by last name rather than by my rankings so that it will be significantly easier to find the player you're looking for. No more guessing whether Nick Punto is listed as a 2B, SS, or 3B if you want to see info on him. More than likely, I'll put the data into 4 or 5 separate posts broken down in some fashion like "A-E, F-K," and so on.

Here's the kicker: my goal is to keep the Database as up-to-date as possible. I will include a link to a page (probably The Baseball Cube) where you can easily see historical stats. I will include all the basic vital information. Most importantly, however, I'm going to do my absolute best to give you information like what year the player will become Rule 5 eligible, how many options years the player has used, and so on. I will also make an effort to regularly update all transactions for all players at the Rookie League level and above. This is all information that I keep track of anyway, but other than a half-hearted effort to track transactions I generally haven't made it available on the site. I might as well try, and see if anyone finds it useful.

As for the Organizational Rankings, they will survive in a different format. Starting in early February I will begin putting out the rankings using some of the same rules as I've used in the past, such as deciding which one position a player belongs in and not changing the rankings during the year. The posts will be much more in the nature of a simple list than they have previously been, however, and more than likely will include only a paragraph or two of explanation at the bottom to give some insight into why I ranked Player A higher than Player B, and so on.

I sincerely hope that once I get these two projects up and running that those of you who visit this site will find them to be useful. In any case, they should be much more user-friendly (and informative) than they have been in the past.

Seth's Book -- Downloadable!

2008-12-13T19:03:00.002-07:00

Hey folks -- if you're looking for a great Twins minor league resource, you need to check out Seth Stoh's Prospect Handbook 2009. I went with the hard copy, but if you want to save a couple of bucks and like reading material on your computer, Seth has now made a downloadable copy available for $8.00 at this link. I strongly recommend the book -- very few people (and maybe none not employed by the Twins) know as much about the Twins minor league system as Seth.

Rule 5 Thoughts

2008-12-12T11:33:00.003-07:00

A little later than promised, here are my thoughts on this year's Rule 5 Draft:

The Losses

It seemed coming in like there were a number of players who the Twins could lose, but by adding so many players to the 40-man roster in November the Twins were able to take most of the most susceptible players off the board. As a result, the Twins lost three players overall -- not a great number, but not terrible either.

The sole Twin taken in the Major League phase of the draft was 24-year-old Dominican Jose Lugo, a lefty reliever with a middling career ERA but excellent K-BB numbers -- last year he struck out 76 and walked just 33 in 69 innings, and he's consistently shown that those numbers are about what can be expected from him (at least at the minor league level). The Royals drafted Lugo and then sent him to the Mariners, so for the second year in a row the Mariners will have a Rule 5 draftee who needs to stick on the big league roster or be offered back to the Twins. Last year, you may recall, the Mariners unexpectedly took recent signee R.A. Dickey from the Twins, and when they couldn't find room for him on the big league roster they worked out a trade that netted the Twins catcher Jair Fernandez. I would expect something similar to happen again this year, since Lugo is seemingly nowhere near ready for the major leagues -- he spent last year in High A Ft. Myers, and it's an awfully big jump from there to the big show.

The Twins also lost two players in the AAA phase of the draft, meaning they won't be coming back. First up is righty reliever David Shinskie, a 24-year-old Pennsylvanian who has been in the organization since he was drafted in the 4th round of the 2003 draft. Shinskie's 2008 was limited by injury, but he had a very solid 2007 season (3.36 ERA in 64.1 innings).

Finally, infielder Juan Sanchez was also taken in the AAA phase, heading to the Brewers. Sanchez was initially signed as a free agent in 2004, but didn't get to the US until 2008, where he hit .314 in 137 AB's with the GCL Twins. While those are nice numbers, it's hard to feel the loss of a guy who wasn't that well known in the organization.

The Gains

The Twins picked up two players yesterday as well. Jason Jones, a right-handed starter out of the Yankee organization, was first up. He was a fourth round draft pick back in 2004, and has risen fairly steadily through the organization. He's already 26, so it's getting to the time where he'll need to take the next step. He'll get that chance this spring with the Twins, where the word is he'll be thrown into the bullpen mix and given a chance to earn a spot on the big league roster. Jones is not completely unfamiliar with a relief role, but he's been used far more often as a starter to this point -- he has 104 starts against just 20 relief apperances. His K-BB numbers are excellent, although he's not an overpowering pitcher as evidenced by his K/9 numbers. At this point, I don't expect him to make the roster (so he may be on his way back to the Yankees at some point), but anything is possible if he has a solid spring and there are injuries or disappointments involving other players.

Finally, the Twins selected righty reliever Henry Arias from the Reds in the AAA phase of yesterday's draft. Picks below the major league phase rarely pan out to much, but remember that a couple of years ago the Twins selected Brian Buscher from the Giants at this level, and he's now spent some reasonable time in the big leagues. In other words, unexpected things can happen. Count me a bit underwhelmed by the soon-to-be 24-year-old Arias -- he has ok K-BB and K/9 numbers, but his ERA and WHIP have generally not been that great (although he spent the first part of last year in A-ball with the Royals and actually pitched reasonably well). Ultimately, there's just not enough information on Arias to know whether he's worth much. With a AAA phase rule 5 pick, though, there's not much to lose -- so I look forward to seeing how he performs once the season starts.

Punto Returns to the Fold

2008-12-11T17:46:00.004-07:00

In a move that is undoubtedly making many Twins fans shudder in fear of what's to come in 2009, the Twins today brought Nick Punto back under a two-year, $8.5 million deal with an option for 2011. The fact that Punto is back on the roster is bad enough for many of you, but the fact that the Twins are talking about him like he's the presumptive starting shortstop for 2009 is even worse.

Now, I can't deny that Punto has had some miserable performances with the Twins. His 2007 season (and his .210 batting average) won't soon be forgotten. But let me point out that Punto hit .284 last year with a 726 OPS (admittedly not great, but not deadly). He stole 16 bases. His Range Factor at shortstop (4.92) and his zone rating at shortstop (.865) both would have led the league at that position if he had been a regular starter. In other words, Punto remains an outstanding defensive shortstop, he has speed, and two out of the last three years he's hit at least .284. I am not arguing that the man is a Hall of Famer, or even that he'd be my first choice to play the position. What I am saying is that, by my reckoning, he's worth $4 million and is a far better choice to start at shortstop than Adam Everett ever was.

I know many of you wanted the Twins to make a splash by landing a third baseman or a different shortstop at the Winter Meetings. I also know that Nick Punto doesn't qualify for most of you as a big deal signing (and I'm really not trying to argue that he is). All I'm trying to say is that, compared to many of the free agent acquisitions the Twins have made the last few years, this one actually stands a chance of working out exactly as they expect it to.

Now, hopefully Punto doesn't go out and make me look like a complete fool by reverting to his 2007 form . . .

As for the Rule 5 Draft, I'll have some thoughts up by tomorrow morning. Rough cut: Not as painful as I'd feared, not as painless as I'd hoped.

Rule 5 Draft

2008-12-10T20:15:00.002-07:00

I wish I could tell you that I'll have up-to-the-minute commentary on tomorrow's Rule 5 Draft, but unfortunately I won't. I have a final in Indian Law tomorrow from 1:15 to 4:15 mountain time, and before that I'll be doing last minute prep. I expect to have a full recap of any Twins-related draft picks (coming or, much more likely, going) after I get home. Hopefully the Twins don't get ravaged -- there are definitely some guys I hope don't get taken. Be back tomorrow!

No Surprise

2008-12-07T22:46:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure why Dennys Reyes and his agent decided to wait until what seems like the very last instant to decline the Twins offer of arbitration, but it seems they did just that. Reyes is a lefty with a good track record, and should be able to get a nice, juicy contract on the open market. As such, there was no real reason for him to accept the Twins arbitration offer. From the Twins side, while I'm sure they wouldn't have minded getting Reyes back for another year, they really made the offer to protect the draft pick compensation they'll receive when he signs elsewhere. Really, this is a win-win for both sides. The Twins seem interested in adding a reliever during the Winter Meetings, so we'll see if that (or anything else) happens starting tomorrow.

Boxing Banter

2008-12-07T16:48:00.003-07:00

It's a little later in the day than I normally post, but I've been busy studying for my last set of law school finals (Family Law is not as interesting as sports, sadly). Here are some notes from the last few days of fights:

1.) Obviously, the De La Hoya meltdown is foremost on the mind of anyone who follows the sweet science today. As I mentioned last night, I expected this to be a joke of a fight, and I apologize to Manny Pacquiao and his fans for doubting his ability to be competitive against the naturally bigger De La Hoya. There's no reason to recap the fight -- all you need to know if you didn't watch is that Pacquiao won virtually every round and De La Hoya at the end wasn't doing much more than hiding behind his gloves hoping for the fight to end.

There were a few things that interested me about this fight that aren't getting quite as much attention, though. First, HBO weighs the fighters before the fight, showing how much weight was gained from the weigh-in the day before. Stunningly, Pacquiao actually entered the fight last night as the heavier fighter, a remarkable fact in a fight where he should have been struggling to get up to an appropriate weight, and considering that he was actually about five pounds below the max limit in the weigh-in. De La Hoya only gained a couple of pounds from the weigh-in, and while he obviously retained his height and reach advantage, the commentators mentioned several times that they expected him to be at least 10 pounds heavier than he was by the time the fight rolled around. I don't think it would have made much difference -- he certainly wouldn't have been any faster if he had been heavier -- but its an interesting point of curiosity.

I was also somewhat amazed by Pacquiao's approach when he had De La Hoya at the limit. With the exception of a flurry at the end of the eighth round when it looked like Manny really wanted to end the fight, he tended to back off after delivering key blows when De La Hoya was in trouble against the ropes. It's almost as if he couldn't believe that De La Hoya was in as bad a position as he really was, like he was thinking that De La Hoya might have been playing possum. There were several moments when it looked like Pacquiao could have pressed when De La Hoya was defenseless and either scored a knockdown or a stoppage from the ref. I would be interested in knowing what exactly was going through Pac-man's head in those moments. Maybe he already knew that he had won the fight, and didn't want to embarrass De La Hoya any more than he already had. If so, that's a stunning testament to how out of the fight Oscar was by the end.

De La Hoya should be, and almost certainly is, done as a fighter. Pacquiao, however, should have many years of big fights left. It sounds like Ricky Hatton might want a piece of him, and that would be an interesting fight. I imagine Manny will go for whatever is going to net him some major cash. It'll never happen, but last night's result leaves me wondering what a Pacquaio/Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fight would look like.

2.) The undercard for HBO last night was horrid. The first fight, featuring Daniel Jacobs (who fought 12 fights in 2008!), was what was expected -- a dominant performance from the undefeated super middleweight. The other two fights, though, were absurd. At the junior welterweight level, Victor Ortiz very well may have ended the career of Jeffrey Resto by finishing him off quickly in the second round. Resto just didn't get much offense in, and for a fighter who was looking to rebound and prove he deserves promotion by Golden Boy, it was a mess. Even worse, the WBO junior featherweight championship fight between Juan Manuel Lopez and "Argentinian Champion" Sergio Medina was possibly the worst fight I've ever seen. After seeing this fight, I can now say that Punch-Out!'s "Glass Joe" is real, and he hails from Argentina. Somehow, Medina entered the fight with a 33-1 record, but after what looked like one glancing blow from Lopez, he ended up on the ropes cowering. After being knocked down three times in 98 seconds, the referee stopped the fight. Medina's stats -- he landed one punch out of six thrown in the fight. Ouch. I believe it was also Medina who gained a whopping 16 pounds from the weigh-in the day before -- I guess eating like a glutton in the 24 hours before a fight isn't the best plan.

3.) I would have loved to see the Carl Froch/Jean Pascal WBC supper middleweight championship fight yesterday, but unfortunately it wasn't available anywhere that I normally look for fights. The Fight News account of it sounds intriguing, and hopefully I'll get to see Froch's next fight. Froch picked up the unanimous decision and the vacant belt. The WBO interim strawweight title was also up for grabs last night, and Manuel Vargas took out champion Daniel Reyes to win the strap. So far as I know, those were the only major belts that were up for grabs on the weekend.

4.) It looks like two IBF titles will be defended on free TV this Thursday night on Versus, including what should be one very fun fight at the Cruiserweight level. IBF Cruiserweight champ Steve Cunningham (21-1), who hasn't stepped into the ring since knocking out Marco Huck last December, will face Tomasz Adamek (35-1) for the strap. On the same card, IBF bantamweight champ Joseph Agbeko (25-1) returns to the ring for the first time since September 2007 when he defends against William Gonzalez (21-2). For a free TV card, this thing is awfully promising.

5.) Next Saturday features cards put on by HBO, Showtime, and Versus yet again. Unless you're a big James Toney fan, the Versus card isn't anything to shout about this time. There are some interesting fights on HBO and Showtime, however. First, I'm a sucker for Heavyweights, so the HBO main event featuring Wladimir Klitschko (51-3; 45 KO's) defending his IBF and WBO belts against Hasim Rahman (45-6; 36 KO's) is compelling even though it's unlikely to be much of a fight. Rahman, remember, is only getting this fight because mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin was injured while training. HBO's card also features the return of Riddick Bowe after three years absence. Yeah, I'm not quite as excited about that one. Showtime counters with a third match between Kendall Holt (24-2; 13 KO's) and Ricardo Torres (32-2; 28 KO's) for Holt's WBO junior welterweight title. The last fight, in July, was bizarre -- Holt won in 61 seconds with a KO, but he was knocked down twice before getting the win. A third fight in those circumstances makes a lot of sense.

Wow

2008-12-06T21:46:00.002-07:00

I figured tonight's De La Hoya/Pacquiao fight would be a lopsided affair. I was right -- but I backed the wrong fighter. De La Hoya just quit after the eighth round, after a fight in which he didn't just lose every round, he lost humiliatingly. The standard round loss is scored 10-9 for the winner unless there is a knockdown. De La Hoya lost at least one round 10-8 despite staying on his feet, and that's an indication of how much punishment he was taking. I'll have more on this tomorrow in my Boxing Banter post, but I couldn't leave it alone tonight. Remarkable result, and Pacquiao clearly showed that he fully deserves the title of the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Goodbye Randy

2008-12-05T15:25:00.003-07:00

La Velle reported last night that Randy Ruiz was waived by the Twins yesterday, removing him from the 40-man roster and making him a free agent. While I found Ruiz to be an interesting player (if you remember, I was rather enamored of him during spring training), and I'm glad the Twins gave him a shot at the big league level this year, I also am not upset by this development. Ruiz would not have made the big league roster in 2009 barring a catastrophic series of injuries, and he's old enough that it doesn't look like he's going to suddenly break out as a must-have player. Keeping him around didn't really make a lot of sense, so I support the move.

Of course, if you wanted to read something more into this you probably could come up with a conspiracy theory or two. The Twins might be on the verge of signing Casey Blake and might think Dennys Reyes could accept arbitration, for instance, in which case they would have needed to clear one spot on the 40-man. Or, they might have wanted to make some extra room going into the Winter Meetings so that they had spaces available in the event of a trade that netted them more players than they lost. This is all idle speculation, though; I don't actually think the Twins needed much of an ulterior motive to part ways with Ruiz.

Holding My Fire

2008-12-03T20:54:00.002-07:00

The Twins world is abuzz with talk of a possible Casey Blake signing, but I'm not going to comment until and unless the Twins actually pull the trigger and sign him. I will say this -- I think he'd be their best free agent signing of the last few years, by far, but his age certainly worries me and giving him a guaranteed deal for three years is probably a bridge too far in my mind. I guess if I were the GM, I'd probably try to sweeten the pot money-wise on a 2 year deal with either a vesting option or a team option and see if he bites. That's all I'm saying unless and until a deal is struck.

Reyes Offered Arbitration

2008-12-01T17:34:00.003-07:00

No surprises today, which was a good thing -- the Twins offered Dennys Reyes arbitration, guaranteeing them either another year of Reyes or a sandwich pick in the 2009 draft. As I said yesterday, this made perfect sense. Reyes has 6 days to accept or decline the offer. Normally I would expect Reyes to reject the offer -- he almost certainly can get a multi-year deal with another team, and that would probably be more desirable for him than sticking around in Minnesota for one year (even if it would be for an arbitration inflated price). However, the slow development of the market this off-season might at least make it somewhat tempting for Reyes to take the offer. I still expect him to decline, but maybe his agent will have to think a bit harder about his recommendation. Either way, the Twins made the right move.

Hall of Fame

2008-12-01T11:41:00.003-07:00

One of my favorite events of the off-season is the announcement of the new Hall of Fame inductees, which this year will be made on January 12. Today, the process started in earnest with the announcement of the official 2009 Hall of Fame ballot. These ballots are never exactly surprising -- thanks to the requirement that a player be retired for five years before being eligible, we know well in advance which players will be appearing on which year's ballot. Still, it's a blast seeing the names made official and knowing that the process has begun.

As has been my custom for the past couple of years, I'm not going to post my thoughts on the nominees just yet. With 42 days before the announcement, I want to draw things out a little bit. Here's the calendar for my anticipated Hall of Fame related posts:

December 19: Who I'd vote for.

January 9: Predictions of actual vote totals.

January 12: Reaction to the official announcement.

Until then, if you're interested in my thoughts on how to evaluate a player's Hall of Fame credentials, you can check out this post that I originally wrote in November 2006. My thoughts are essentially the same now as they were then.

Aribtration Deadline Looms

2008-11-30T16:15:00.002-07:00

The deadline for teams to offer arbitration to free agents is tomorrow at midnight eastern. The only Twins player that this really affects is Dennys Reyes, a type B free agent. If the Twins don't offer Reyes arbitration, they won't receive any compensation when he signs with another team. If they do offer him arbitration, they would either get Reyes back (if he accepted), or they would get a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds of the 2009 draft.

Some of you may remember the days when a free agent had to be offered arbitration or be unable to sign with his original team until May 1 of the next year. The last CBA removed that requirement, however, so a guy like Nick Punto could be re-signed by the Twins even if he's not offered arbitration tomorrow.

Should the Twins make any arbitration offers? I'll deal with the easiest question first -- they shouldn't even consider it for anyone other than Reyes. There's no reason to offer Nick Punto arbitration, even if they want him back. Come to terms on a fair deal -- and if he doesn't like the offer, let him walk. I suppose an argument could be made that Punto would be more likely to return if he were offered arbitration, but it doesn't make much sense to put his salary in the hands of an arbitrator who very well may overvalue his ability to play all over the field. I'm not taking a position in this post on whether the Twins should bring back Punto or not -- I'm just saying that regardless of their plans, they shouldn't offer him arbitration.

As for Reyes, I don't actually think it's that hard of a decision either. If Reyes was some sort of albatross, the team would have to think twice about making him an offer that he just might accept. He isn't, however -- he's a valuable lefty who could contribute in the bullpen next year if he decided to come back. Reyes has now had three seasons with the Twins -- one spectacular, one pretty good, and one on the bad side of so-so. Since he bounced back last year from his so-so 2007 season, it appears that he still has the ability to be a useful situational lefty out of the bullpen. If the Twins offer him arbitration, then, they'll either get back a useful lefty or they'll gain a draft pick. To me, that's a win-win.

On the other hand, if the Twins fail to offer Reyes arbitration, they would be guaranteed nothing -- they could try to re-sign him as a free agent, but he's likely to get better offers elsewhere. If they fail, they'd get nothing. If Reyes were to accept arbitration he'd probably get a pretty solid salary from the arbitrator -- but it isn't likely that the salary for a middle reliever, even if arbitration inflated, is going to bankrupt the team. It's almost not even worthy of calling a "risk."

I expect that tomorrow will produce little drama -- Reyes will most likely be offered arbitration, and everyone else is likely to be offered nothing. I'd be perfectly happy with that result.

Boxing Banter

2008-11-30T10:24:00.002-07:00

Sadly, my computer is dead (fried motherboard), but a couple hundred dollars later I spruced up my old one with a new battery and power cord, and I pulled my data off the dead one with a SATA-USB dock (handy little things -- I recommend having one around). So, I'm back in the blogging game with my old computer and a fancy new one on the way. Not that I've had much to say for most of the off-season -- hopefully that will change soon!

Now, onto some fight notes. I didn't get to see any of these live, but there were some interesting results to comment on:

1.) Paul Williams is something of a beast, and now he has the WBO interim Junior Middleweight title to lug around and possibly entice people to fight him. This is one of those troublesome interim titles -- the actual titleholder, Sergiy Dzinziruk, is out fighting and defending his title. Why is there still an interim belt when the real title-holder isn't hurt or otherwise out of the picture? And why would the WBO bother with the extreme farce of a "vacant" interim title? These are the mysteries around which boxing is made. If the world made any sense, this would lead to a mandatory fight between Dzinzurik (36-0-0) and Williams (36-1-0) -- but that would probably make too much sense for the WBO. Anyway, based on the results of this fight, Williams isn't going to have any problem with his move up from welterweight.

2.) Maybe I should give Cristobal Arreola more credit than I did in last week's post. After knocking out Travis Walker last night, he's 26-0 with 23 knockouts. He did the deed in the third round after Walker sent him to the canvas in the second, so he would seem to have some staying power. I still doubt that Arreola would have much of a chance against either Klitschko or Nikolai Valuev -- but it's starting to look like we'll get a chance to find out.

3.) This fight wasn't on my radar, but WBC junior flyweight champion Edgar Sosa handed mandatory challenger Juanito Rubillar his 11th loss on the way to defending the title.

4.) I'm looking forward to December 6. The headline fight for most is the Oscar De La Hoya/Manny Pacquiao tilt -- but I tend to agree with the commentators who think that the natural size difference is too much and that De La Hoya will dominate. Far more interesting to me is the Carl Froch/Jean Pascal fight for the vacant WBC Super Middleweight belt. Both fighters are undefeated, and I think sup mid is an interesting weight that can produce some good fights, so that could be interesting. The vacant WBO Cruiserweight belt will also be contested in a fight between Enzo Maccarinelli and Johnathan Banks. Maccarinelli comes in at 28-2-0 with 21 KO's, while Banks is undefeated with 20 wins and 14 KO's. The WBO junior featherweight belt will also be defended by Juan Manuel Lopez against Sergio Medina.

Blog Update

2008-11-26T18:24:00.002-07:00

This is not an excuse for my lack of off-season blogging to this point (that's been due to a combination of being busy and a lack of major off-season news), but my computer screen just went belly up tonight. I'm down to using a very unreliable backup, and will probably not be blogging much at all until I get my computer fixed (hopefully by next week). If something major happens I'll do my best to get on and talk about it.

Boxing Banter

2008-11-23T15:18:00.003-07:00

Short post today -- it's my birthday and I'm off doing a number of things. I did want to comment briefly on three fights from this weekend:

1.) Ricky Hatton/Paulie Malignaggi was a non-starter for me. The fight just wasn't all that exciting, with Malignaggi diving inside a ton to try to short-arm Hatton, and with Hatton (especially early) grabbing Paulie whenever that happened. After the first round, Hatton dominated the fight (which contributed to the lack of excitement). I expected something better out of two fighters who had only two losses between them coming in, but the combination of styles just didn't lead to a great fight and I ended up being relatively disappointed. Bizarre decision by Paulie's corner to wave the towel in the middle of the 11th round, also. Malignaggi wasn't going to win the fight, and doesn't have the power to legitimately hope for a miracle knockout, so on that level I understand. However, at the time he wasn't really in danger physically, and I'm not sure why they wouldn't have let him keep going until and unless he did get himself in trouble.

2.) Speaking of bizarre fights, the James Kirkland/Brian Vera fight that came right before the Hatton/Malignaggi main event qualifies. Kirkland hammered Vera mercilessly, and knocked him down three times, but two of those falls looked more like slips or pushes and Vera took punch after punch after punch. The referee ended up stopping the fight in the 8th after a defenseless Vera took a particularly nasty punch. For several rounds before that, the british announcers who I was listening to were mortified that Vera's corner wasn't stopping the fight -- but I understood their decision. Vera was occasionally landing big right hands to Kirkland's chin, and Kirkland was occasionally getting winded. Whereas Malignaggi in the main event had no realistic hope of landing a knock out punch, Vera did seem to have that hope. The referee made the right decision in stopping the fight when he did, but I also think Vera's corner was correct in keeping their fighter in the bout.

3.) I didn't get to see the Celestino Cabellero/Steve Molitor junior featherweight unification fight, but I wish I had. Caballero dominated the previously unbeaten Moliter, knocking him out in the fourth round. It sounds like he wants to fight the other champions in the division, and I'm hopeful we could see a fully unified junior featherweight champion in a year or so.

4.) There aren't a lot of big fights next weekend, but HBO's November 29 card has a couple of semi-interesting bouts. Verno Phillips and Paul Williams will battle for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title, and that's a weight that I enjoy watching. There's also an IBF heavyweight eliminator on the card between Cristobal Arreola and Travis Walker. Neither one has a hope of beating IBF champ Wladimir Klitschko if they get a title fight, but at least this is a heavyweight bout between what passes for a couple of high level fighters -- it probably won't be that entertaining but I'll still give it a shot. And don't forget that in two weeks we'll all get to witness the likely disaster that will be De La Hoya/Pacquiao. How great would it be if Pacquiao somehow pulled off an upset in that fight, by the way? I'd find it hilarious, although it'll almost certainly never happen.

Roster Explosion

2008-11-19T18:43:00.002-07:00

Since tomorrow is the deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft, we knew that the Twins would be making some roster additions. What's a bit surprising is that they added so many players -- a whopping eight, which brings the 40-man roster to 39 players. That leaves one spot open for a potential free agent acquisition (and I would expect they'll add at least someone in that spot, although it remains to be seen whether it will be someone like Casey Blake or someone like Nick Punto). Anything beyond one addition, though, will now have to be accompanied by taking someone off of the roster, so we'll see how they handle that situation if it becomes necessary.

Here's the list, if you haven't yet seen it:

C - Drew Butera
C - Wilson Ramos
IF - Luke Hughes
IF - Trevor Plouffe
IF - Deibinson Romero
IF - Steven Tolleson
LHP - Brian Duensing
RHP - Anthony Swarzak

All of those names appeared as at least possibilities on the list I put together a week ago, with five of them on the list of players I personally would have picked. I didn't have Drew Butera, Trevor Plouffe, or Deibinson Romero on my list, but I understand the reason for protecting each of them. Butera is a solid defensive catcher who should be able to make it as a scrappy backup in the big leagues at some point. Plouffe had a rough stretch early in his professional career after being a high draft pick, but has bounced back reasonably well over the last few years. Romero had a disappointing and injury filled 2008, but was considered a high-end prospect entering the year and the Twins are obviously still high on him.

The only player who I had stated I would protect that the Twins left off the list is lefty Ryan Mullins. As I acknowledged at the time, I have a weakness for left-handed starting pitchers. I still think the Twins could wind up seeing Mullins disappear in the draft, but clearly they're not that worried about the possibility either because they don't think he'll be taken, they don't think he'll last a full year with a big league club if he is taken, or they don't care if he's taken. Certainly, if the Twins were going to protect just one lefty starter, Duensing was the right choice.

Will anyone be taken from the Twins in the draft? It seems quite likely. Aside from Mullins, who I think has a chance of being selected, one possibility is Tim Lahey, who was drafted last year before being returned to the Twins. He's been just ok in the Arizona Fall League (a 3.97 ERA but a highish .289 batting average against and an underwhelming 8-6 K-BB ratio in 11.1 innings) and didn't pitch well at all in Rochester in 2008. That might discourage anyone from taking him. I also wonder a bit about Matthew Fox and Jay Rainville, around whom there might at least be a nibble or two. Erik Lis is a left-handed hitting masher, and that might be attractive to someone. Beyond that, any other picks would probably be a bit of a stretch -- but you never know. Who thought that R.A. Dickey would be taken by the Mariners last year?

I like that the Twins added so many players to the roster, and I hope it pays off when the draft rolls around.

Quick Thought on Draft Picks

2008-11-19T10:52:00.002-07:00

There's an interesting draft-related tidbit buried in this ESPN article on the length of the first round of the playoffs. The article's main point of discussion is the suggestion from A's owner Lew Wolff that the first round of the playoffs be shortened to one game so as to shorten the post-season (I'm not even going to bother discussing how bad this idea is -- suffice it to say I can think of about five reasons, ranging from issues of competition to finances to better alternatives, that make this a non-starter).

What I found much more interesting, though, was Wolff's statement about his intentions regarding the recently-acquired Matt Holliday. Says Wolff: "I'd rather take the two draft choices than lose him in the middle of the season." He's referring to the possibility that Holliday could be traded at the deadline, spun off for prospects in the way that pretty much anyone who has any talent is always spun off by the A's (lest anyone think a Twins fan calling out the A's for this is the pot calling the kettle black, let me point out that the Twins signed Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, and Joe Nathan to long term deals -- yes, they traded Johan Santana, but there were a lot of factors involved with that decision). If Holliday is dealt, the A's could get some prospects for him -- but even if they don't trade him, they'd get draft pick compensation when he signed elsewhere before the 2010 season.

I think this is interesting because it's a somewhat unusual way of looking at the situation. Teams can't trade draft picks directly, but what Wolff is essentially suggesting here (indirectly) is that he picked up Matt Holliday with an eye towards those picks. Unless you think the A's are somehow going to be able to compete with the Angels next year, the Holliday pickup was not made to get the A's into the playoffs. That led many (including myself) to conclude that this pickup was designed to give the A's trade bait either before the start of the 2009 season or at the deadline in July. We all know, after all, that the A's are obsessed with making trades for prospects. But if Lew Wolff isn't just blowing smoke, it suggest that they love draft picks even more.

Now, I'm not belittling the draft. Organizations must rely on the draft to have any chance of being effective in the long term. But if you have any faith in your scouting department, wouldn't you be more inclined to make a deal for known commodities through a trade than taking a chance on two draft picks which be no higher than the mid-point of the first round? My guess is that Wolff is just playing his cards close to the vest, and that if GM Billy Beane comes to him in July with a good trade, Wolff will sign off without whining too much about losing the draft pick compensation. If not, the A's have an even stranger philosophical approach than I thought.

Seth's 2009 Prospect Handbook

2008-11-17T11:44:00.003-07:00

I've mentioned it before, but I wanted to mention once again that Seth Stohs of Sethspeaks.net is now taking pre-orders on his prospect handbook. Seth is a dedicated fan and an expert in the Twins minor league system. If you're interested in finding out information on the over 175 players in the Twins minor league system, or if you know someone who is, I recommend you order the book. Find out more information at:

http://www.sethspeaks.net/ProspectHandbook2009PreOrder.htm

Boxing Banter

2008-11-16T14:39:00.003-07:00

I would like to introduce a new regular Sunday feature of this blog -- a boxing "notes" post which, as you can see, will be called Boxing Banter (I'm all about alliteration). I plan on putting a Boxing Banter post up every week, with a few observations on the events that took place over the previous few days (the schedule for most weeks includes fights from Wednesday to Saturday, with the big events usually on Saturday). I am by no means as versed in boxing as I am in baseball, having been a fan for a much shorter period of time. Also, while I get to watch a fair number of fights, I don't get a chance to watch them all, and there should be no expectation that I've seen all the fights I'm talking about. These aren't meant to be recaps of fights, anyway, but thoughts on the implications of fights and on the events yet to come. Here goes:

1.) With the heavyweight division in such a state of stagnation (Evander freakin' Holyfield is getting a title shot against Nikolai Valuev on December 20 -- and his last significant win came in 2002 against Hasim Rahman), it was good to see David Haye make a definitive statement in his full-time heavyweight debut against Monte Barrett. Barrett isn't exactly a title contender, but he's a solid enough fighter to debut against. Haye knocked Barrett down five times before the fight was stopped in the fifth round. I don't know what Haye's ceiling is as a heavyweight, but I look forward to his eventual contest with Valuev and/or one of the Klitschko's. Haye has already challenged Vitaly, but he'll have to wait in line for at least one more fight. Hopefully he doesn't move too soon -- but you bet I'll be watching when he gets his shot at a title.

2.) Another heavyweight who might get some notice is Denis Boytsov. He's undefeated at 23-0 with 18 KO's, and so far has only been ranked by the WBA and WBO. At some point I'm guessing he'll get some love from the WBC and IBF. That recognition will come if he starts beating some bigger names. He beat Vinny Maddalone on Saturday night.

3.) The big fight of the week was between Jermain Taylor and Jeff Lacy in a WBC super middleweight eliminator. Taylor won big on points, but now might not pursue the title fight against an as-yet-to-be determined champion. The reason? ESPN's Dan Rafael reports that Taylor wants a piece of Joe Calzaghe at light heavyweight. Ironically, the belt Taylor would be fighting for if he accepted the fight he's earned would be a belt vacated by Calzaghe when he moved up in weight. I understand why Taylor wants Calzaghe -- it's all about the payday, and he could undoubtedly make more bank against Calzaghe than he would against the winner of the fight between Carl Froch and Jean Pascal. I don't begrudge him that; boxing is a violent sport that messes up competitors, and grabbing the cash while you can makes sense. It's frustrating, however, that so many boxers have to ignore weight classes and mandatory fights (or, in Taylor's case, possible title fights) to go make money in one-off challenges. In some cases, this impulse gets us freak-show fights like the looming disaster that will be De La Hoya-Pacquiao. In other cases, it just means good fighters aren't identified with a particular weight class. Either way, it's frustrating. I wish there was a solution, but I doubt there is.

4.) Next week, undefeated IBF junior featherweight champion Steve Molitor faces WBA junior featherweight champion Celestino Caballero in a unification fight. The fight also has ramifications for The Ring rankings, as Caballero is the Ring #2 and Molitor the Ring #4 in that division. My dream would be for the winner to face WBC/Ring champion Israel Vazquez in a further unification sometime in April or May -- but we'll see what Vazquez has in mind coming off of three straight fights against Rafael Marquez.

5.) Next week will also see Ring junior welterweight champion Ricky Hatton defending his title against Paulie Malignaggi. Both fighters have one blemish on their record -- Hatton's is a 2007 loss to Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and Malignaggi's a 2006 loss to Miguel Cotto. Malignaggi enters the fight as the #1 contender to Hatton's belt, so this should be a heck of a fight. My guess is that Hatton will retain, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised either way.

Gardy Re-Ups

2008-11-13T12:16:00.003-07:00

It's been expected for quite awhile, but the Twins announced today that Ron Gardenhire has been locked up through 2011, with the coaching staff in place through 2010. While I generally feel like the Twins fan base supports Gardy, there are a few naysayers out there who don't. That'll always be the case, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. For my money, though, Gardy is a solid manager, and I'd much rather have him in charge of the team than about 90% of the other guys in the league. Yes, he has his particular hangups and he occasionally drives me craazy. That's pretty much par for the course with a manager, though. I'm glad that Gardy will be around for at least a few more years -- and hopefully one of these years he'll be able to guide his team to a World Championship.

Neshek Out for '09

2008-11-11T16:42:00.002-07:00

The fears of Twins fans were confirmed today when the Twins announced that Pat Neshek will miss the 2009 season due to a complete tear of the ulnar collateral ligament. The only good thing about the timing is that the Twins now know entering free agency that they won't get anything out of Neshek, which means there is plenty of time to design the bullpen without him. Clearly, I'd rather have Neshek available, because when pitching well he's capable of being a phenomenal setup man for the team. I wish him the best of luck in his recovery, and hope he's ready to bounce onto the field when the new stadium opens up in 2010.

My Rule 5 Protection Picks

2008-11-11T14:49:00.003-07:00

The Rule 5 Draft takes place on December 11 this year, but even though it's still a month away the deadline to add a player to the 40-man roster to protect him from the draft is on November 20. The Twins have already added Armando Gabino to the 40-man, and while that does protect him from the Rule 5 draft that move was made early to prevent him from becoming a minor league free agent. This post ranks the top players who I would protect if I were the Twins, and throws out a list of a few more players who could be added as well. With just 31 players on the 40-man roster, the Twins have the room at add 5-6 guys to the roster while still leaving spots open for a few free agent acquisitions. Here's my list:

1.) Luke Hughes - 3B
Despite being just 24, Hughes has actually been Rule 5 eligible for a few years now, having been originally signed by the Twins out of Australia back in 2002. He's had a few good years and a few bad years since starting his playing career in the organization in 2003, but 2007 and 2008 were both very solid, and he's now moved up to Rochester, where he can be expected to play next year. With the Twins third base situation far from settled, and with Hughes recent success, I'd add him to the 40-man roster in a heartbeat. I'd be surprised if the Twins took a chance and left him unprotected this year.

2.) Brian Duensing - LHP
The first of two lefties drafted in the 3rd round of 2005 who I expect to see protected by the Twins this year. Duensing didn't have a great 2008 in Rochester, posting a 4.28 ERA and 1.33 WHIP. Still, he's been an effective starter everywhere he's pitched in the minor leagues, and will be entering his second full season in AAA in 2009. As an effective lefty starter at the AAA level, I'd guess Duensing would be drafted if left unprotected. I expect him to soon be on the 40-man roster.

3.) Ryan Mullins - LHP
Duensing will likely be joined by fellow 2005 3rd round pick Ryan Mullins. Unlike Duensing, Mullins spent the 2008 season in AA New Britain -- but like Duensing he had a bit of an off-year, posting a 4.31 ERA and 1.54 WHIP in 148.1 innings. I still expect him to be a high profile commodity on the Rule 5 market if not added to the 40-man roster. Since I'm a fan of lefty starters, and since I think Mullins has a high upside, I'd add him to the roster.

4.) Steven Tolleson - 2B/SS
Tolleson was a 5th round selection in 2005, and has hit pretty well while healthy. He had a nice 2008 season in New Britain, with a .300 average and 848 OPS. He's bolstered his odds by playing well in the Arizona Fall League. He's probably above Mullins on the Twins list, but he's right behind him on my list. Either way, I expect the Twins will add him, as would I.

5.) Wilson Ramos - C
This one is tricky for two reasons -- first, while I believe he's rule 5 eligible this year, I don't know that for sure. He was signed as a 16-year-old in 2004, which makes this year's rule 5 draft the fifth since he signed with the Twins. That should make him eligible, but there may be some unusual rules with international signings that I haven't taken into consideration. Second, he's a bit on the unseasoned side to protect by placing him on the roster; he hasn't played above High A ball. Most team's also couldn't afford to hold a young (he's 21), untested catcher on the roster for a full season, as would be required if he were drafted. Still, he's got a lot of potential, and there might be a fear that he could be taken if he's in fact eligible. I could see either decision being justified, but I'd probably add him to be on the safe side. That would give him three option years to develop into a big league caliber player (after which he could either backup Mauer or be in a position to replace him if Mauer had departed by a free agent by then). It'll be interesting to see what the Twins do with him.

6.) Anthony Swarzak - RHP
Swarzak had a bizarre year, pitching very poorly in New Britain (5.67 ERA/1.60 WHIP in 101.2 innings) before being promoted to Rochester and pitching very well (1.80 ERA/1.22 WHIP in 45 innings). Swarzak has been extremely solid since being drafted in the 2nd round of the 2004 draft as a high schooler, so I expect that his poor performance in New Britain will largely be discounted and that he's still a highly-valued prospect in the organization. He'd probably be the final player I protected if I were running things, and I expect he'll also make the Twins list.

Other Possibilities
Here are the other names who are Rule 5 eligible (I think) that I could see potentially being protected by the Twins. There are a variety of reasons they wouldn't make my cut, from performance issues to inexperience (and therefore not being likely targets). They are in no particular order:

Drew Butera - C
Trevor Plouffe - SS
Matthew Fox - RHP
Zach Ward - RHP
Tim Lahey - RHP
David Winfree - 1B/OF
Brock Peterson - 1B
Alejandro Machado - SS
Deibinson Romero - 3B
Erik Lis - OF
Yohan Pino - RHP
Jay Rainville - RHP

We'll find out what the Twins decide to do in the next week or so.

Minor League Free Agents

2008-11-11T11:05:00.003-07:00

I'm slowly starting to catch up to the point where I can think about blogging again, which is good since free agency begins in three days and a number of things are actually likely to start happening which deserve some attention. For starters, I wanted to get a post up on a story where I'm once again a bit behind the curve -- minor league free agency and the players who are no longer the exclusive property of the Twins because of it.

You've probably seen the list already, either at Baseball America or on Joe C's Twins blog or over at Seth Speaks or any of a number of other outlets for it. I'm not going to try to do a lot with the information, but here's the list in case you haven't seen it, and some brief thoughts afterwards.

RHP: Julio DePaula, Danny Graves, Tom Shearn
LHP: Ricky Barrett, Carmen Cali, Mariano Gomez, Jason Miller
1B: Garrett Jones
2B: Felix Molina
SS: Sergio Santos; Howie Clark
OF: Joe Gaetti, Darnell McDonald, Tommy Watkins

Two of these names are immediately recognizable because they were recently removed from the 40-man roster -- Julio DePaula and Sergio Santos. As I said at the time, though, there was no reason to keep either of these players on the 40-man, and losing them as minor league free agents doesn't hurt the team. DePaula's 5.70 ERA and 1.64 WHIP in 77.1 innings represented a marked regression from the numbers that he had put up in 2007 and earlier, so there's some chance that he could regain his form. However, it wasn't worth keeping him on the 40-man roster to find that out, and if the Twins want to they can try to re-sign him and not have to worry about having him take up valuable roster space. Santos, meanwhile, was seemingly picked up off waivers as a stopgap for the Rochester infield. Like Chris Basak the year before, the acquisition never really made sense, and I doubt the Twins will make much of an effort to reacquire him.

Danny Graves, Tom Shearn, and Howie Clark were all veteran minor leaguers who were mostly filling spaces on minor league rosters. Clark got 8 AB's as a Twin this year, but that was due to unusual circumstances. None of them will be brought back, although there will be other players like them signed by the Twins this off-season simply as roster filler.

The four lefties are interesting. Carmen Cali is probably the most familiar name because of his stint with the Twins in 2007, but he wasn't needed in 2008 at the big league level, and probably wouldn't have been able to provide much there anyway (he has a career 11.80 big league ERA). The Twins might, however, go after Ricky Barrett if he has any interest in returning to Rochester in 2009. He had a solid season in 2008 (3.21 ERA/1.33 WHIP/81-38 K-BB in 70 innings). While he's not one of the most dynamic prospects in the organization, he consistently posts a K/9 ratio of over 9.00, and usually keeps his ERA and WHIP in check. Considering that he's also a lefty, and at 27 isn't exactly too old to contribute, I would like to see him back in the fold. Mariano Gomez put up a solid year in 2008, his first in the Twins organization, but not enough to deserve a spot on the roster. I could see the Twins trying to bring him back, but at just 25 he'll probably get a few offers from around the league, and he doesn't exactly have a strong connection with the organization. Jason Miller has a nice 2007 and then found himself busted down to AA in 2008 in spite of that. He didn't find easier competition at the lower level -- he had a very poor 5.61 ERA and 1.58 WHIP in 85 innings. He might be brought back for another go-round in AA, but I doubt it will be a top priority for him.

Garrett Jones put together his best minor league season since 2004 in New Britain with his 2008 work in Rochester, hitting .279 with an 821 OPS and 23 HR's while striking out 98 times in 527 AB's. Those are solid numbers, but Jones is seriously blocked in the Twins organization by Justin Morneau and the plethora of good outfield options. He's probably better off leaving the Twins and trying to find a better situation.

Felix Molina was somewhat surprisingly re-signed by the Twins after becoming a minor league free agent last season. I liked the idea at the time, but he had a pretty bad year, hitting .247/636 in 300 AB's. I would guess that he won't be back. The same is probably true for long-time Twins minor league fixture Tommy Watkins, who had a feel-good big league debut in 2007 only to be converted to primary use an outfielder in 2008. His struggles at the plate (.219/596 in 233 AB's) and his increasing age (he's 28) make him a somewhat unlikely target for the Twins to retain.

Depending on where they feel the organization is with outfield depth, the club could potentially go after free agents Darnell McDonald and Joe Gaetti, however. Gaetti was acquired from Oakland in July for "future considerations" (I haven't seen what those considerations are yet). He then had 1 at-bat with New Britain before being shut down for the season. I would have to think the Twins saw something in Gaetti that made them want to pick him up, so I expect them to push to bring him back. McDonald is pushing 30 and hit just .268 this year. He doesn't seem destined to break through as a likely big league regular (or even as a big league backup), so the Twins would probably only try to retain him if they wanted some AAA outfield filler.

Seth's 2009 Prospect Handbook

2008-11-10T16:59:00.002-07:00

For my money, Seth Stohs over at Seth Speaks is the hardest working, most informed Twins blogger out there. It's my pleasure, then, to wholeheartedly endorse his 2009 Prospect Handbook, which is available for pre-order now at his website. With a forward from Pat Neshek and profiles over 175 minor league players, it's sure to be a valuable addition to any fan who enjoys the minor leagues as much as the MLB. Seth also offered me a page to include a top 30 prospect list, and I happily agreed. Check out his site to find out more about what's included in the book. Good luck to Seth on book sales!

Congrats to the Gold Glover

2008-11-06T17:25:00.002-07:00

I wanted to post a congrats to Twins Gold Glove catcher Joe Mauer -- I imagine this will be the first of many for a guy who is rightfully one of the best catchers in baseball. There is a good argument put forth by folks like Marty that Mauer also deserves this year's AL MVP award, but this is a nice consolation prize since the MVP is pretty unlikely.

As for this blog, expect light blogging to continue at least through Saturday. I take the MPRE on Saturday -- it's the first of the tests required of those who want to be lawyers. There's a joke somewhere in the fact that ethics are tested using a 60-question multiple choice exam, but I'll leave that for others. Hopefully when the exam is done and I'm not taking practice tests anymore I'll get a chance to write a few longer posts. See you then!

Blog Update

2008-11-03T20:10:00.002-07:00

I had planned on getting up a "roster additions" post by yesterday, but that didn't happen. Now, I'm in full on election mode (not to mention homework mode), so don't expect anything for the next few days. Hopefully Thursday. Whatever your political affiliation, get out and vote tomorrow if you haven't already. Can't wait to see how things unfold tomorrow!

Addition and Subtraction

2008-10-31T18:01:00.003-06:00

Adam Everett unsurprisingly filed for free agency today, briefly dropping the Twins 40-man roster down to 30 players. That spot was filled rather quickly, however, by the addition of Armando Gabino to the 40-man, as reported by LaVelle Neal. I was caught a bit back on my heels by the Twins addition of Gabino today -- I thought I'd have a few more days before the club started adding players to the roster for Rule 5 protection purposes. It'll force me to rush a bit, but I hope to get an article up by Sunday discussing who else I think should make the roster.

As for Gabino, his addition probably makes sense considering his performance over the last two years. He spent 2008 in AA New Britain and was pretty solid (81.1 innings, 3.10 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 61-31 K-BB, 49 appearances) but not amazing -- and his low K/IP number marks him out as something less than overpowering on the mound (although the K-BB ratio itself is fine). That followed a 2007 season which saw Gabino dominant over 12 games in Beloit before getting promoted to Ft. Myers and pitching well there for most of the rest of the season. Considering how depleted the Red Wings bullpen seems to be, he's a virtual lock to be in a Red Wings uniform next year. Obviously, the Twins got a little worried that someone would see Gabino was on the fast track and be willing to stash him deep in their bullpen by taking him in the Rule 5.

40-Man Roster Down to 31

2008-10-31T07:32:00.002-06:00

To the surprise of no one, three of the Twins four free agent-eligible players filed for free agency yesterday. That move takes Dennys Reyes, Eddie Guardado, and Nick Punto off of the Twins 40-man roster -- at least for now. Adam Everett has yet to file, but he undoubtedly will. There's very little drama in the decision over whether or not to file; even if a player things he might get an offer from his current team, filing is just a formal step and there would never be a reason not to do it. Players have 14 more days to get the paperwork in, though, so we'll continue to hear stories until the end about players who have made the decision to file.

Of course, the other thing that can happen over those 14 days is that the team who a player filed for free agency has an exclusive negotiating window. The Twins could decide, for instance, to bring Reyes or Punto back into the fold -- and at least with Punto I'd go so far as to say I think this is likely (I'm not commenting in this article as to whether or not I think that's a good idea).

The only other thing about this process that's interesting is that it opens up more available slots on the 40-man roster which the Twins can use for protecting Rule 5 eligible players. The other day I mentioned that I thought the Twins would protect 3 or 4 guys -- but to be honest I forgot that the free agents were about to drop off the list. After Everett files, there will be 10 spots open, and the Twins will probably protect at least 6 guys from the Rule 5 draft using some of those spots. I'll have a post up on who those guys should be in the next few days.

Congrats to the Phillies

2008-10-29T20:12:00.003-06:00

I was rooting for the other guys, but I'm happy for the folks in Philly tonight. That city was due for a championship, and I just can't feel all that bad about them getting the win instead of the upstart Rays. Hopefully Tampa Bay will be competitive again next year -- how great could next year's AL East race be, by the way? -- because that team has a lot of young studs on it who are a lot of fun to watch.

Now we can all turn the page on the season and move onto the off-season. The free agent filing period starts tomorrow, and in 16 days we'll start to see how the 2009 season is shaping up. I can't wait to see what Bill Smith has up his sleeve. Let's hope this is the start of another Twins world championship for next season!

Something I Missed

2008-10-28T10:37:00.003-06:00

I'm about five days late to the party, but I finally realized that last Friday the Twins made a few expected roster moves to clean up the 40-man roster. None of the moves was all that surprising. The day after the season ended, I suggested that there were five players who could be removed from the 40-man roster to open up space for players who needed to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft. Of the five guys I identified, four of them were in fact removed from the roster last week by being outrighted to AAA.

Three of those names -- RHP Julio DePaula, C Ryan Jorgensen, and IF Sergio Santos -- were virtual locks to be removed. Jorgensen was simply added as insurance as a third catcher during September, Santos was an odd waiver claim mid-season who didn't add much to the roster, and DePaula was just not effective in Rochester last year. I expected each of them to be removed.

The fourth player -- RHP Oswaldo Sosa -- was a bit more surprising, although I identified him as a possible cut. He surprises me more not because he was all that effective (he wasn't), but because he had two options year left. Sosa would have been entering his third option year in 2009, but would have had a fourth available in 2010 due to his lack of service time (like Philip Humber had this year). Sosa was once a fairly highly regarded prospect, so with two more years available to turn him around I figured the Twins would keep him on the roster. By my count, Sosa is now Rule 5 eligible, so removing him from the 40-man opens him up to be taken. Of course, as badly as he pitched in 2008 that's a pretty unlikely scenario, so the Twins may have just figured they'd slide him through this year and re-add him next year if he recovers his form.

The Twins also activated Pat Neshek from the 60-Day DL, meaning he once again counts against the 40-man roster. This had to be done, because players can't be on the disabled list through the off-season. If Neshek were unable to pitch when the season started next year, the Twins could place him back on the list in the spring.

These moves leave the team with 34 players on the 40-Man Roster. They will probably leave a few spots open for free agent acquisitions, but I'd expected 3-4 players to be added to the list by November 15 to protect those players from December's Rule 5 Draft. In the next few days, I'll post my thoughts on who should be protected.

Selig Speaks

2008-10-27T22:40:00.002-06:00

Jayson Stark has an interesting piece up on ESPN that focuses on Bud Selig's response to tonight's Game 5 suspension, including this line: "We'd have sat here . . . The game would have been in a rain delay until the weather conditions allowed us to continue. And that could have been 24 hours or 48 hours or whenever." Selig went on to say that "I have to use my judgment here . . . This is not a way to end the World Series." Selig, of course, was discussing the possibility that the game wouldn't have been tied when the weather finally forced the game to stop to night -- something that nearly happened.

Now, certainly, Selig could be posturing. He knows that he was saved by the 2007 rule change which calls for games to be suspended even if the tying run was scored in a partial inning (thanks to the Fox announcers for pointing that one out), and by the Rays scoring a run in the sixth. He could say anything he wanted to about what he would have done, because the decision was taken away from him. I choose to take him at face value, though, and will assume that he really meant what he said. Considering that this is the man responsible for the infamous tie All-Star game a few years back, it seems that our good friend Bud has learned a few things. The fans in Tampa -- and really, everywhere else -- deserve to see their team get beat on the field with the full number of outs available to them.

My stance on this might surprise a few of you who know (1) that I'm a budding lawyer, and (2) that I believe following the rules is important. In this case, had the Phillies been leading after five innings were complete and the weather got too rough, the rules state pretty clearly that the game should be over. That rule, however, is just as clearly meant to be an expedient for a league that has 30 teams playing 162 games each. While I haven't even attempted to look at the number of games that end early due to rain each year, my guess is that there would be enough to cause some serious havoc in the schedule if the rule weren't in place.

It's just as clear, however, that weather isn't meant to determine a World Series champion. Selig says he would have just called the possibly two day delay a "rain delay" rather than a "suspension," although that clearly would not have been what was happening. Why bother with the semantics? The Commissioner has the authority to do what's in the best interests of the game -- and ending the deciding game of the World Series in the 6th inning would have been embarrassing and amateurish. In this case, the applicable rule would get in the way of the right decision, and it sounds like Bud recognizes that pretty clearly. For the first time in a long time, I find myself siding with the Commish.

Does Baseball Need a Game 6?

2008-10-27T11:00:00.004-06:00

This morning on Colin Cowherd's ESPN radio show, one of the topics under consideration was whether baseball needed the World Series to extend at least to a sixth game. Cowherd felt that another short series (the World Series hasn't gone past 5 games since 2003), combined with late start times, has contributed both to a decline in ratings overall AND a decline in the critically important (for sporting events) young male demographic. Over the long term, the lack of young males watching a sport is likely to reduce the overall ratings in a significant way, of course, as those young males age without having picked up the habit of watching baseball. Cowherd's shorter-term thesis, however, was that if the series ends tonight it could very well mean that FOX will bail completely from the baseball broadcasting game -- and he also feels that ABC, CBS, and NBC will stay away as well. Cowherd sees a future with the World Series being aired on ESPN or TBS, and posits that such a result would lead baseball in the direction of hockey -- a fairly marginalized sport.

There are two things to ask here: first, is it likely that such a result will occur; and second, would the World Series being on cable matter all that much?

On the first, my guess is that baseball is secure on one of the "Big Four" networks for some time. Certainly, none of the networks is likely to pay a king's bounty for the rights -- but they will probably pay more than one of the cable nets would pay, simply because they can still get advertising money and draw bigger ratings than could be achieved on cable. The preliminary rounds might get moved off of the broadcast nets (we've already seen that happen to a great degree, with TBS airing a sizable chunk of the playoffs this year). This makes sense -- FOX has realized that tearing up its fall schedule is not a smart investment, because it reduces ratings on the fall series that have to take a 3-4 week break in a critical month to for building audiences (and coming right before the crucial "sweeps" period that falls in November and determines ad rates). Airing just the World Series, though, doesn't present such a problem -- it's at most a 9-day event (7 games and 2 off days), which any of the networks could absorb. I strongly suspect, then, that the World Series itself will remain within the Big 4.

But what if the Series did move? Let's say TBS made a huge offer to try to draw in bigger ratings for itself, and suddenly the series was not on one of the Big 4 networks. The ratings still demonstrate that the major networks draw bigger audiences for events, but the quality of the sports airing on cable versus the major networks also hasn't exactly been equal to this point. In other words, there hasn't been a fair test to this point. While it's probably true that the World Series ratings would be lower on TBS (there are, after all, still a lot of people who don't have cable), I'm not convinced it would be a huge difference. More and more people are getting cable or satellite television, making networks like ESPN and TBS available. I don't even distinguish between the traditional "cable" and "broadcast" networks anymore -- and what channel the World Series is actually on doesn't affect me one way or the other. So long as it's on, I'll find it.

My conclusion: I want the Rays to win tonight both because I want them to win the Series (and still hold out hope) and because I just want more baseball. If the Phillies pull it off tonight, however, I'm not a fatalist. Baseball will not shrivel up and die if the poor fans of Philadelphia finally get a celebration for the first time in 25 years.

World Series (and more) Notes

2008-10-23T20:53:00.002-06:00

Thankfully, we know that this year's World Series will not end in a sweep, as has happened far too often over the past few years. Here are a few more notes on tonight's Rays victory:

1.) The results of the first two games of this series weren't really all that surprising, and were largely dictated by starting pitching. Cole Hamels gave the Phillies the edge over the Rays and Scott Kazmir in game 1, while James Shields (pitching in the Trop, where he's most effective) gave the Rays an edge over Brett Myers in game 2. If that trend holds, it should be a very interesting (and long) series. Matt Garza has a definite edge over Jamie Moyer in Game 3, but the game 4 matchup between Andy Sonnanstine and Joe Blanton should be very evenly matched, and a treat to watch. The Rays should win the series if the starting pitching does in fact hold up -- but there are always surprises, and somebody is bound to have a disappointing start at some point. I certainly wouldn't mind a dramatic seven-game series.

2.) He wasn't needed tonight, but Evan Longoria has started off the World Series 0-for-8 and has a post-season batting average floating around .200. Meanwhile, Carlos Pena has been 0-for-7 hitting in front of Longoria, and Carl Crawford has gone 1-for-8 behind him. That's not a lot of production from the heart of the Rays order. They didn't need it tonight, but if that continues they will have great difficulty winning this series.

3.) Can I just say that while I'm rooting hard for the Rays, I hate the cowbells? They aren't nearly as annoying as those idiotic Thunder Sticks that the Angels first made infamous, but they are still pretty bad. Although, the fact that the "more cowbell" sketch from SNL involving Christopher Walken is a big part of the reason the cowbells are used in Tampa at least gives the cowbells an interesting backstory. Give me a homer hanky any day -- much better for visually distracting the opposition, and nowhere near as gimmicky as the cowbells.

4.) I guess David Price isn't quite infallible, eh? Still, a solo homer isn't such a horrible thing to give up, and Price made it through the eighth without any other problems. He also managed to get out of a bit of a mess in the ninth, although he had some help from the home plate umpire. Imagine if Jimmy Rollins had actually been given first base, as he should have been? That would have made things very, very interesting.

5.) Speculation is that Game 3 could be rained out on Saturday night. I had forgotten that a World Series game was postponed by rain as recently as 2006, when Game 2 between the Tigers and Cardinals was delayed by a day. If it happens, it should be no big deal -- Monday would just turn into a game day instead of a travel day. Of course, I'd rather things just stay on schedule, so hopefully nature will cooperate.

6.) I watched the Versus boxing event tonight, which featured three interesting fights. The first wasn't really all that notable, with two young and inexperienced fighters dueling for 8 rounds to a split decision. The last two fights of the night, however, were pretty fun to watch. In the first, Olympian Demetrius Andrade made his pro debut and destroyed Minnesotan Patrick Cape with a TKO coming 24 seconds into the second round. Cape was very angry with the ref when the fight was stopped, but he was toast no matter what. Andrade looked pretty good already, so with some experience under his belt he could be a very interesting Middleweight prospect.

The second fight was a solid battle between veterans Orlando Salido and Cristobol Cruz for the vacant IBF Featherweight belt. Salido was favored coming into the match (he was the #2 contender for the IBF title and ranked 9th in the division by The Ring, while Cruz was unranked by The Ring and came in as the IBF's #3 contender -- the #1 contender position was not filled in the most recent IBF rankings). The fight went the distance, and Cruz won the belt in a 2-1 split. Throughout the match, the fight stayed close, with both fighters throwing and landing similar numbers of punches. Cruz almost certainly won the fight by tiring out Salido and going strong in the last three rounds. Not a great fight, but pretty fun for two guys who came in with 20 losses between them.

7.) Sorry to see the Wild lost tonight in OT. At least they picked up a point for their troubles, but it sure would have been nice to beat the Sabres and run the season-opening undefeated streak to 5 games.

Rays vs. Phillies!

2008-10-19T21:39:00.002-06:00

Well, I'm thrilled! Major League Baseball and nearly all of the elite baseball journalists wanted Red Sox/Dodgers in the series, but instead, they're going to get Rays/Phillies. The league wanted Red Sox/Dodgers for the ratings -- undoubtedly, that pairing would have been higher rated than what will actually happen now. The writers, on the other hand, wanted Sox/Dodgers because of all the built in storylines. In other words, they didn't want to actually have to work to come up with compelling stories -- or, heaven forbid, to let the game sell itself. I know that I'm a fan of storylines -- but I think this Rays team (and the Phillies, for that matter) have plenty of them.

I'm also delighted about this win because it defied expectations. The Rays weren't supposed to be able to beat the Red Sox in a 7 game series because of their inexperience. Forget that. Then, they were supposed to fold like a paper bag after they collapsed in Game 5 (I admit that I bought into this idea a bit). Never mind. The big, bad Red Sox were supposed to have the better starting pitching (nope), the more fearsome hitters (nope again), and the experience necessary to push them through to yet another World Series (guess not). To me, the Rays are a far better story than the Red Sox would have been. I'm rejoicing tonight.

Another thing -- I'm proud of Matt Garza (after all, he started off his professional career as a Twin), and I'm pleased that Jason Bartlett was picked up after his 8th inning error (he didn't deserve to be the goat of the off-season, which would have happened if the Sox had come back in that situation).

So, I guess the sports writers had better get busy; they're not going to be able to rely on the same old tired, worn down stories they've been using so much since the Red Sox finally figured out how to win in the post-season. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Nightly Notes

2008-10-18T22:43:00.002-06:00

Nothing like blogging while watching SNL. Here are some thoughts on tonight's Game 6 (and some other things):

1.) It sure feels like the Red Sox are headed to the World Series, doesn't it? I'm not going to go so far as to blame tonight's Rays loss on the epic Game 5 collapse -- sometimes a loss is just a loss -- but I think the collective results of Games 5 & 6 will inevitably weigh on the Rays. While the Rays may win tomorrow, if I had to bet on the result of the game I'd go with the Sox. I have a feeling that Matt Garza is going to get overhyped and have some control issues tomorrow. If Jon Lester doesn't have similar problems, the Sox will probably roll. I'm still hoping for a Rays victory, but I'm not very optimistic.

2.) I don't know enough (or, really, anything) about the technical side of TV broadcasting, but you have to think that it would be possible to have a system in place that would prevent what happened to TBS tonight, don't you? I'm not going to talk about how annoyed I was to miss the start of the game (in the end, did missing an inning really hurt anything?) -- but MLB has to be annoyed. And to go with an episode of "The Steve Harvey Show?" Really, TBS? I mean, really? I actually called Comcast to see if the problem was on their end, and they politely told me they had no idea what was going on, but it was TBS's fault. I'm guessing the poor folks were flooded with calls.

3.) I also watched the Caesar's Palace boxing card tonight (yes, I was watching them at the same time). I was pretty disappointed with the fights. Overall, there was a lot of grabbing and not a lot of action in the last three fights of the night. I also didn't see the Bernard Hopkins win coming, but it was very decisive. So was this an expose of Kelly Pavlik as an overrated fighter (as the folks in Hopkins' corner felt), or was it more the result of Pavlik fighting at a higher weight than he's been used to? Either way, it could spell trouble for Pavlik. From what I've read, it's historically been difficult for fighters to move back down in weight after going up -- although Pavlik has done it before. It'll be interesting to see what happens with each of these guys next, although Pavlik probably has a mandatory defense or two to take care of before he gets to think about another vanity fight like tonight's Hopkins mess.

4.) The Wild are 4-0! Nice to see. By the way, I know that the media has long since picked "The Wild is" as the proper grammatical form. I don't care. When I reference a team, I'm referring more to the group of people who make up the organization -- the players, coaches, front office, and everyone else involved with the team. So, whether grammatically correct or not, I will continue to say "The Wild are . . .".

5.) Hilarious opening skit on SNL, in my opinion. Whether you like Sarah Palin or not, she was a good sport in going on a show that is clearly hostile territory for her. I doubt it's going to change anyone's opinion of her, but it was funny (unlike the rest of the show, which was pretty horrid). And when are they just going to start calling SNL "The Kristin Wiig Show"? It sure seems like she features in a vast majority of the skits.

Mostly Non-Baseball Nightly Notes

2008-10-16T22:09:00.002-06:00

There are just a few things from the world of sport I wanted to comment on tonight, but baseball is mostly an afterthought in this list (unless the Red Sox/Rays game finished up as I write this). I will start off with a baseball note for you, though:

1.) The MLBPA continues it's Barry Bonds/collusion pity party, saying that they've "found evidence teams acted in concert against signing Barry Bonds." I've said before that I don't think collusion was necessarily involved with Bonds not getting a job -- there were a lot of reasons for a team not to sign him. That said, if the teams actually did collude, they were unbelievably stupid and deserve whatever penalty the union can get an arbitrator to award. The bottom line is that the issue of collusion was collectively bargained -- and the owners categorically barred themselves from engaging in collusion (backed up by a substantial penalty for colluding). The owner's need to follow the rules that they agreed to with the union. I still don't think the union actually has any real evidence -- but as the article linked to above points out, the union has won three collusion cases in the past, so maybe they actually have the goods. Regardless of what happens with this story, I pretty much just wish that Barry Bonds would go away. I'll be happy enough to talk about him again when he becomes Hall of Fame eligible in a few years.

2.) Well, the Red Sox just won Game 5, so I guess I should talk about that. I don't want to say too much, but I have a few thoughts. First, from the standpoint of a fan of the game, more playoff games = better post-season. For that reason, I'm glad we're getting at least a Game 6 in the ALCS. Also, it might be nice for the Rays to celebrate a pennant at home in front of the newfound fans of the club, rather than in Fenway. My biggest concern (since I'm rooting for the Rays) is that tonight's epic 7-run collapse (8 runs if you count the winning run) sure feels an awful lot like a momentum changer. Psychologically it might be tough for the younger, much less experienced Rays to bounce back. I'd still much rather be in the Rays shoes than the Red Sox shoes, though, and I don't believe for a second that the Sox have the Rays right where they want them.

3.) I'm not much of a high school football fan, but this NY Times article on the rising popularity of something called the A-11 formation caught my eye and made me wonder about what lies ahead in the college and NFL games. If you're a football fan who likes innovative offense, you need to check out the article.

4.) Nice to see the Wild get off to an extended winning streak yet again to start the season. Two road wins in a row down south coupled with the season opener against Boston makes for a nice 3-0 start, with a game still to come against Tampa Bay before the roadie ends. Considering that the Wild have been dealing with some injury issues already this year, and played 2 of their 3 games on the road, the start is reasonably impressive.

5.) The WBC Bantamweight and WBC Featherweight champions both retained their titles in defenses taking place in Japan earlier today. The Bantamweight champ (Hazumi Hasegawa) was favored, and this marked his seventh successful defense of the belt. The Featherweight champ (Oscar Larios) seems to have been the beneficiary of some bad judging, however. Larios is not particularly well respected for holding a belt (neither ESPN or The Ring have him ranked in their Featherweight rankings). His opponent, Takahiro Aoh, is another story. He came into the fight undefeated, and was ranked 8th by The Ring (and 9th by the WBC, incidentally -- obviously, Larios was unranked by the WBC since he holds the belt). Larios only ended up with the strap after reigning champion Jorge Linares moved to a higher weight class. The few articles I've read on him suggest that he's a competent fighter, but not really title-worthy. Aoh probably should have left the ring with the belt -- but that's Boxing for you! I guess if Aoh really wanted it, he should have knocked out Larios and taken the decision away from the refs.

6.) BYU got clobbered tonight by TCU to lose any hope of playing in a BCS game this year. That leaves Utah, Boise State, Ball State, and Tulsa amongst the teams that have a shot of crashing the BCS this season -- although even going undefeated probably wouldn't be enough to get Ball State or Tulsa in the dance because of their weak schedules. I think TCU deserves some love from the rankings committees, though. Look at their schedule: their 7-1 with their lone loss coming to Oklahoma (not exactly an embarrassment to lose to the Sooners), and with solid wins over every other opponent (including BYU and Stanford) except for Colorado State, who they beat by just 6 points. If they win their last four games, it would mean they'd add quality wins against Utah and Air Force. Honestly, even with 1 loss that team would in my mind deserve serious consideration for a BCS spot. Can the winner of the Big East honestly say they had a tougher schedule? Obviously it isn't going to happen -- an undefeated season is a virtual necessity for a non-BCS school that wants a BCS berth. Still, it's not obvious to me that TCU wouldn't be worthy if they finished up 11-1.

Nightly Notes

2008-10-15T22:12:00.002-06:00

It may be the off-season, but that doesn't mean I can't post a Nightly Notes column. Some of this is Twins related -- some decidedly isn't.

1.) I'm glad to hear that Gardy is getting another extension (barring a major foul-up in the negotiations, which seems exceedingly unlikely). I know there's a lot of second-guessing of him, and to be certain he does things that drive me crazy sometimes. Still, I think he's been a great manager since taking over for Tom Kelly. No manager is perfect, but I'll take a fiery, player-friendly manager like Gardy any day -- especially when he delivers wins at a rate that usually exceeds expectations. Now, if he continues to abuse his bullpen as he did for much of this summer, I might rethink things -- but for now I couldn't be happier that the Twins are committing to bringing him and his coaching staff back into the fold.

2.) That sound you hear is Bud Selig hyperventilating over the prospect of a Rays-Phillies World Series. Halfway there! Hopefully the Rays can take care of business tomorrow night and make this thing a reality. Maybe only five people outside of Pennsylvania and Florida will watch -- but we'll sure have fun!

3.) How much you want to bet the Yankees are going to look more than ever like an All-Star team next year? Look at the list of folks the team is going after through free agency -- Sabathia, Burnett, Sheets, Teixeira. In a perverse way, I hope they do get all those guys; if they did and won, I could write it off as the Yanks buying a Series. If they did and LOST, however, it would just add to the joy of watching the Bronx Bombers fail.

4.) Staying in the AL East for a second, is it possible that the Red Sox are about to enter an awfully rough phase? The Yankees look set to go hog-wild in free agency. The Rays seem to be built to be good for a number of years. The Red Sox, while they have a number of very exciting young players, also are getting older at some key positions. The Sox could easily find themselves as the third best team in the AL East next year, with the Blue Jays right behind them. I'm not saying it will happen that way, but it certainly doesn't seem far fetched. It's going to be an interesting winter out east.

5.) Tonight's Presidential Debate was much, much more watchable than the first two. There were good moments for both candidates, and there were gaffes from both candidates that will probably be used in campaign commercials over the last three weeks of the race. My personal favorite moment of the night was John McCain looking flabbergasted after Barack Obama answered a question regarding health care. McCain looked like he had swallowed a fly, and I can easily see an SNL spot built out of his reaction shot. Like I said, though, there was plenty there for either side to like (and to be balanced, I think McCain actually got off the best line of the night when he told Obama that if he wanted to run against Bush he should have ran 4 years ago). Good times, but I'm glad that Debate Season has ended. Now we can start looking at the polls for real. I can't wait for the 4th.

6.) Great college football game tomorrow night between BYU and TCU. This game is one of two that should present real challenges to the Cougars as they try to break into the BCS, with the season ender against a very tough Utah squad to end the regular season on November 22 being the other. This will probably divert some of my attention from the Red Sox-Rays Game 5, especially if one team gets a big lead.

7.) I might as well also mention that there's a low key boxing card taking place in Japan tomorrow, with the WBC bantamweight and WBC featherweight titles on the line. So far as I know it's not televised anywhere in the States, but it still serves as a nice little appetizer for this weekend's Bernard Hopkins-Kelly Pavlik fight.

8.) I'm a big fan of Formula 1 racing, so the last couple of weeks have been frustrating for me. This isn't because of what's happening on the track -- the last two races (taking place in Singapore and Japan, respectively) have been filled with intrigue and points jockeying. I really can't complain at all about the product on the track. No, what's bothered me is what's happening with the 2009 schedule. First, the provisional schedule was released -- and inexplicably included no race in North America. There was no US Grand Prix this year, but at least there was a race in Canada. For 2009, however, that race was removed from the schedule. Ironically, the biggest market for many of the auto manufacturers that compete in F1 (names like Mercedes and Ferrari) remains North America. Then, today, I got the even worse news that for financial reasons, the French Grand Prix has been canceled for 2009. This is bad for several reasons. First, it probably means one less race -- unless the FIA changes its mind and begs Canada to host a race, after all. Since I like watching F1, I obviously want as many races as possible. It's also bad, though, because it means that I won't get a chance to properly say goodbye to the French track at Magny-Cours, which would have hosted it's last race next year. Magny-Cours is not a particularly well-loved track, apparently, but I don't think it's all that bad. While the racing isn't always great due to a fairly narrow track that's hard to pass on, it has produced good races in the rain (and frankly that's all I've seen there, really). I'll be sad to see it go. Regardless, it was a bad day to be an F1 fan.

Slate's Takedown of Baseball Analysis

2008-10-14T22:39:00.002-06:00

I spent the night watching the returns in tonight's Canadian election (yes, I'm serious -- I'm probably more of a politics junkie than I am a baseball junkie), but I did see quite a bit of the Rays pummeling of the Red Sox to take a 3-1 lead (thank God -- who cares if baseball is about to get the exact opposite of the World Series they wanted; I can't handle another Red Sox title). I also noticed a takedown of baseball pre-game and analysis shows (think the 15-30 minute shows that air before playoff games on FOX and TBS for the first kind of show, and Baseball Tonight for the second kind) on Slate that I wanted to direct your attention to.

The basic premise of the Slate article is that football has a bunch of great analysts (Ron Jaworski and Chris Collinsworth are specifically called out) and shows designed to highlight "smart" analysis of the game, while baseball has nothing similar. Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Jayston Stark, and Buster Olney are all given some credit for not being idiots, but Jon Kruk and Joe Morgan get hit pretty hard, as does the basic method of operation for baseball analysis generally.

One other thought sparked by the article -- is the NFL really so much more popular than MLB, as we always hear (and often assume)? One of the key takeaway lines from the Slate piece is the following:

And with so many fans, football shows can afford to devote screen time to relatively esoteric subjects that will appeal to the die-hards. With baseball's playoff games routinely rated lower than regular-season football, producers have obviously decided to appeal to the dreaded "casual fan."

Now, I can't argue with ratings. That's pretty good empirical evidence. But does it really mean what the author suggests (i.e. that football has a vast majority of fans while baseball is toddling along)? I think the answer is probably no. For one thing, look at revenues -- according to this CNN Money article from last October, baseball revenues are running just a tad behind football revenues (both right around $6 billion a year). Of course, baseball is spread out over 6 months and 162 games per team, but why is that relevant? That's just the structure of the sport.

How about attendance? The NFL drew 17,345,205 fans to regular season games in 2007. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, drew more than 79.5 million fans. Again, with 10 times as many games, baseball of course has many, many more chances to sell seats (and football per-game attendance is obviously significantly higher). But if baseball is making nearly as much revenue, and is selling more tickets in total, is it really so obvious that there are fewer fans, or that the NFL has supplanted baseball in the hearts and minds of Americans?

For me, the nature of the two sports is sufficiently different that it's hard to measure this kind of thing. Football is a spectacle -- with just 16 games a year in the regular season, fans can never get enough -- as a result, they watch the playoffs no matter what happens with their favorite team. In baseball, while there are plenty of fans who watch no matter what, there are also a lot of folks who don't care unless the local team gets in to the playoffs. I think this accounts for the lower playoff ratings. Baseball demands more of its fans; it's more of a commitment.

Anyway, I've rambled on for long enough tonight. Hopefully it's somewhat coherent. Now, I'm back to reading about Canada, and pondering the US Election in 20 days. Here's hoping the Phillies close out the Dodgers tomorrow, and the Rays do the deed in Boston on Thursday night.

Emeritus Champion No More

2008-10-11T16:11:00.002-06:00

Boxing has always fascinated me, probably because I can't imagine anyone wanting to step into the ring knowing that even on a good day, you're going to leave the ring in rough shape. This afternoon I watched WBC Champion Samuel Peter lose his belt to WBC Champion Emeritus Vitaly Klitschko (in German nonetheless!). The fight was . . . bad. There wasn't clutching and grabbing, which is the bane of so many major heavyweight fights -- but Peter got pretty much no offense in over the course of the 8 rounds that the fight lasted. He couldn't answer the bell for the ninth. It was pretty much the equivalent of watching Ohio State lose to LSU in the NCAA Football National Championship game. Oy.

Boxing has bigger problems, though. For one thing, the idea of having a "Champion Emeritus" in the first place. Nearly four years ago, Klitschko "retired" due to injuries while holding the WBC belt. As a result, the WBC needed to strip him of the title -- but named him "emeritus" champion so that if he chose to come back, he could demand a title fight. The WBA did the same thing with injured champion Ruslan Chagaev, although they deemed him the "Champion in Recess." By my way of thinking, getting hurt is part of boxing. If you can't defend your title, you should lose it -- and when you come back, you should at least have to fight someone before getting a title shot again. Four years gone and then right back to a title fight? Of course, Klitschko's win today hurts my argument a bit.

The bigger problem is the one that has long plagued boxing. How can you get anyone to follow your sport when you have four major sanctioning bodies (WBO/IBF/WBC/WBA) and countless minor sanctioning bodies? This problem was made worse tonight with Vitaly's win, because the possibility of unifying the titles has now disappeared until either Vitaly or his brother Wladimir (holder of the WBO and IBF titles) loses their belts or retires, since they've long refused to fight one another. I've read enough boxing articles recently to know that even boxing journalists were hoping that Peter would retain his belt to hold open the possibility of a unified title.

I will continue to watch fights when I get the chance, because I remain fascinated by the sport. It's no surprise, however, that the sport seems to be slowly dying. Maybe someone new and exciting will step up and electrify the sport. I suppose Alexander Povetkin, a 29-year-old Russian with a 16-0 record, could step up and stun Wladimir Klitschko in December to start a run as a monster in the sport -- but it seems unlikely. Maybe David Haye can step up into heavyweights and electrify the division -- but before he's fought a single fight at that weight it seems premature to pin the sports' hopes on him.

My suggestion? A way should be found to eliminate at least two of the major sanctioning bodies. Combining four into two would reduce some of the redundancy and make the sport easier to follow, while leaving some of the intrigue of having dueling sanctioning bodies. That won't happen unless all parties agree, but it would help immensely. The sport should also try to get some major heavyweight fights back on free TV. How else are you going to convince people that it's worth watching? If you charge people $50 for Evander Holyfield's latest return fight, or a Mike Tyson freak show, or an underwhelming battle between two lumbering fighters, you'll only get the hardcore supporters. Get some of the younger, up-and-coming heavyweights on Friday Night Fights. Maybe be really radical and put a title fight on free TV. Do something to spark interest!

As for me -- I'm still hooked. I can't wait for the flurry of heavyweight fights in November and December that could make things interesting in the division. I just hope something changes before the sport suffocates itself.

Redmond back in the fold

2008-10-09T17:41:00.003-06:00

From the department of "That Was Easy," the Twins today officially picked up Mike Redmond's 2009 option, keeping him in the fold as the backup catcher for $950,000. I don't think anyone will be surprised by this move -- Redmond has been a great backup for the Twins over the last few years, and with no ready replacement in the system (Jose Morales or Drew Butera might eventually be in that position, but neither is ready yet), this was a no brainer. If all personnel decisions were this easy, even I could be a GM.

Ducking My Responsibilities on the AFL

2008-10-07T20:24:00.002-06:00

I'm in the middle of grading 75 essays from students about the connection between cars and culture in the United States, so I don't have the time to put up a post on the Arizona Fall League tonight. As a result, I'm going to pass it on to La Velle Neal, who has a nice writeup on the players the Twins sent to the AFL in his Strib blog. I plan on talking a bit about who the Twins sent (and why!) along with how they perform over the course of the AFL season this fall. Now, back to grading . . .

The Vikings Won, But . . .

2008-10-06T22:04:00.002-06:00

Actually, forget the "But." I'm happy with the win, since I think the Vikings are a decent team and I'd like to watch them in the playoffs (that'll be awfully tough, but I can dream). I don't read much on the Vikings -- certainly no blogs and very little coverage in the papers. As a result, I'm not really dialed in on where fans stand on Brad Childress. My dad and I were talking about this tonight and we've pretty much settled on the idea that he's an anchor on the team and should probably be removed from his post. Of course, if he had anything to do with that bizarre TD play where the receivers both converged on the same point, maybe he's better than I think.

So, any thoughts? Is Childress to blame for the weak start to any extent? Are the Vikings a legitimate playoff caliber team? Does anyone miss the Twins yet (I do!)?

Blog Update

2008-10-05T23:06:00.003-06:00

It's been a pretty quiet few days for me on the blogging front, and it may stay like that for another few days while I just take the chance to unwind and not think about posting. However, as I've done over the previous couple of off-seasons, I plan to run a pretty regular blogging schedule through the winter months. By the end of this week, expect regular posts to resume as I comment on the post-season, awards, impending free agents, minor league performances from this summer, and potential additions to the 40-man roster (not all at once, and not necessarily in that order). I will also, of course, be discussing any roster moves that happen. Until then, enjoy the American League playoff games tomorrow (go Rays!) as well as what I hope will be a Vikings win on Monday Night Football.

First Round Dud

2008-10-04T09:35:00.003-06:00

I love the MLB Playoffs. Whenever possible on the first day, I try to stay home and watch all three games back-to-back-to-back (wasn't able to make it happen this year, sadly). I was really looking forward to all the action this year as well, since there were (and still are) a whole bunch of great story lines to follow.

That's why it breaks my heart to say that what we've seen has just flat out been a dud. In fact, it's been worse than that for me -- it's been a dud with bad results. The teams that I want to win are, with the exception of the Rays, losing. We have four series that have all gone to 2-0, and I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see at least three sweeps. We haven't seen walkoffs. For the most part, we haven't even seen close games! To me, what we've seen so far is as disappointing as going through the first round of March Madness with no upsets or buzzer beaters would be.

I'm hopeful that this weekend will bring some better action. Maybe this dud of a post-season can still be saved. Help me, Torii. Help me, Aramis. Help me, Prince. As for the White Sox? You guys can go ahead and get swept.

The State of the Twins Roster

2008-10-01T17:00:00.001-06:00

The end of a season is really just the beginning of the next season, as the moves that are necessary to reshape the team for 2009 will begin fairly quickly. As the Twins enter the off-season (a considerably calmer off-season than what faced them a year ago, I might add), it's a good time to take a look at where things stand and what will need to be done moving forward.

40-Man Roster
As of this moment, the Twins have 37 players on the 40-man roster, with Pat Neshek still sitting on the 60-Day DL. The disabled list cannot extend into the off-season, however, so Neshek will be "activated" from the list at some point in the next couple of weeks. This is really just a paper move, but it has to happen. As a result, you might as well just count the Twins as having 38 players on the 40-man roster at this moment.

Potential Free Agents
Very little happens automatically in the MLB, and players have to actually take the step of filing for free agency before they hit the market and come off the 40-man roster. Nonetheless, there's no reason not to file, so each of the 4 players who are eligible for free agency will undoubtedly file for it after the World Series ends unless the Twins re-sign them first. The free agents to be on the roster currently are Nick Punto, Dennys Reyes, Adam Everett, and Eddie Guardado (in no particular order).

There's no way the Twins will make any move to bring back Everett or Guardado, so once they file for free agency the Twins will get 2 more roster spots back, dropping them to 36. Punto and Reyes are somewhat more difficult to read. Reyes will turn 32 next season, so even though it seems like he's been around forever he's probably at the back end of his "prime." He's been a solid contributor for the Twins and lefties are always valuable. That said, the emergence in September of Jose Mijares, and the likely return of Craig Breslow to the bullpen next year, might mean that the Twins will let Reyes go.

As for Punto -- what to say? Punto has been a controversial figure with the Twins since at least the start of 2007. There an awful lot of folks who just want him gone. I'm not sure where I stand; Punto is a great defensive player, and he has two big league seasons with a batting average over .280 (nonetheless, his career big league average is south of .250). His value as a utility player is sky high -- but will he take utility player money? And if he's brought back, will Gardy actually use him as a utility player, or will he once again find himself in a regular role? For the right price, I actually am fine with bringing Punto back in. I don't think there are very many big league players who can play everywhere like he can, and I don't think he's as bad as a lot of people think he is. If I had to guess, I'd say Punto is the free agent most likely to be brought back by the Twins -- but I'd also put the odds at no better than 50-50 that he returns.

Contract Options
There's only one player with an option that has to be decided on by the Twins, and it's pretty much a no-brainer. Mike Redmond has a team option for $950,000 on his contract for 2009, which is the same salary he made this year. Redmond continues to be a great backup catcher for the Twins, and at that price he's a bargain. The Twins will pick up this option without hesitation (for all I know, they already have done so -- I haven't seen a story saying they have, but it seems like an obvious move). I'd be stunned if Redmond wasn't back next year.

Arbitration Eligibles
The Twins have at least 2, and possibly 3, players eligible for arbitration this off-season. The two players who are definitely eligible are outfielder Jason Kubel and reliever Matt Guerrier. Depending on how many other players throughout the league are eligible, starter Scott Baker may also qualify as a "Super-2," but he's at the very bottom of the line in terms of eligibility, having 2 years and 128 days of service time -- the bare minimum possible. We'll find out pretty quickly whether there are enough other "Super-2's" out there to drive the minimum service time line up a little bit -- if so, Baker will be stuck for another year without arbitration, so from a salary standpoint the Twins are undoubtedly hoping that's the case.

Arbitration eligible players are often cut by teams who don't want to start paying major salaries to certain players. If I remember correctly, David Ortiz was cut from the organization after he became arbitration eligible because the Twins didn't think he would be able to stay healthy, and he hadn't lived up to his potential -- but he was due for a big raise nonetheless. Obviously, that decision didn't pan out so well, but teams have to evaluate the player's likely salary against the player's likely contribution and decide whether it's justified to bring a guy back despite the inevitable raise.

The easiest answer amongst the bunch of guys the Twins have to worry about would have to do with Scott Baker. While the Twins obviously hope he's NOT arbitration eligible, there's no chance that they would cut him to avoid giving him a raise. In fact, the Twins could even decide to try to sign him to a longer term deal to avoid future arbitration if he is in fact eligible this year. Either way, I have no doubt that he'll return to the team next year.

Jason Kubel is a slightly trickier player to evaluate, because his production has been solid enough that he's undoubtedly due for a big raise. Nonetheless, the Twins currently have a bunch of outfielders, and Kubel has still never lived up to the expectations that were placed on him a few years ago (although in my mind, this year wasn't too shabby). I'm pretty sure that the Twins will keep Kubel around, because his left-handed power bat is a valuable asset. Nonetheless, the team may not quite view this as a no-brainer -- and there's also a distinct possibility in my mind that the Twins could shop Kubel around to see what they could get in return for him. I'd be shocked if they just outright cut him like they did with David Ortiz, though. Expect him to be back, therefore, barring a trade.

Matt Guerrier is by far the most difficult player to evaluate. Guerrier was terrible in August and September -- but ironically, that might have been enough to make him more affordable in an arbitration hearing, so the Twins may gamble for this year on getting him for a reasonable price in 2009. It all depends on how the Twins internally evaluate what happened to Guerrier -- is he a good pitcher who was overused for the first four months, resulting in his collapse for the last third? Or has he somehow lost what he had for the past couple of years, when he was an asset in the bullpen and an above average reliever? Guerrier is by far the most likely of the arbitration eligibles to simply be let go by the Twins -- but I suspect they'll keep him and hope that he can return to form next season. Again, I think the gamble is a relatively small one because of his poor numbers for the season (especially the ERA above 5.00 for the year). He'd get a raise through arbitration, but the nature of his position and his poor season should mitigate that raise to the point where it's worth it to take the chance on him.

Clearing out the Deadwood
There are always players on the 40-man roster at the end of the year who don't really belong there, and who are likely to be removed from the roster (likely via unconditional release waivers). There are several players on the roster right now for whom this seems like a likely (or at least a possible) fate.

The first player who faces this possibility is reliever Julio DePaula. DePaula, who has one option year left, had a terrible year in Rochester. He posted a 5.70 ERA and gave up 86 hits and 41 walks in 77.1 innings of work. He never put himself into a position to repeat the callup that he earned in 2007, and he's fallen far, far down the organizational depth chart. The Twins may decide to keep him around to see what one more year would do (under the theory that they have the option year available, so why not use it). However, I suspect that whether DePaula stays around probably depends on how many Rule 5 Eligible players the team wants to protect before the November 20 deadline to get guys on the roster. I personally don't see much reason to keep DePaula around, and I think there's a good chance the Twins will sever ties with him soon.

The Twins have another tough decision in starter Oswaldo Sosa, who like DePaula will be entering his third option year in 2009 if he stays on a roster (although unlike DePaula, Sosa should have a fourth option year available in 2010 due to the number of "full seasons" he will have played in the minor leagues). Sosa regressed this year, starting off in New Britain and being demoted to Ft. Myers after putting up a 5.81 ERA in 62.0 innings. He didn't do much better with the Miracle, with a 5.44 ERA in 43 innings. He also had a poor K-BB numbers at both levels, which is usually not a good sign (and which is different from his 2006 and 2007 performances). With Sosa seemingly so far away from being big league ready, will the Twins want to continue stringing him along on the roster? I actually think they'll keep him around for another year, but I wouldn't be surprised if they cleared him off the roster.

Recently added catcher Ryan Jorgensen is the poster child for the kind of guy likely to be removed from the roster quickly. Jorgensen was added to the roster to give the Twins a third catcher in September, and he was virtually unused. He's a journeyman veteran who should be able to be easily replaced, and with Jose Morales already on the roster (and hopefully in recovery mode from his season-ending injury), the Twins don't need Jorgensen on the roster anymore. I'd be stunned if he wasn't removed.

Randy Ruiz presents another interesting question. Ruiz had a very nice year for the Red Wings, and he performed reasonably well after being called up at the beginning of August. However, he barely played in September and it's unclear what kind of future he has with the team. I'd like to see the Twins keep him around for another year, and I think the Twins will do so -- but I also wouldn't be surprised if his lack of playing time was indicative of the Twins intention to let him go.

Finally, the Twins need to make a decision on what to do with Sergio Santos, the middle infielder claimed from Toronto earlier this year. Santos is out of options going into next year, so he'd have to make the big league club out of spring training or be exposed to waivers -- but as with Chris Basak last year, it's unclear why the Twins claimed him or what role he really plays in the organization. He doesn't seem likely to play a significant role with the team, and so there seems to be a good chance that Santos will be removed before November to make room for someone else.

Rule 5 Additions
Since the deadline to add players to the roster in order to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft isn't until November 20, I'm not going to make my predictions on who the Twins will add for protection purposes until that date gets closer, so that I have a better idea of just how many slots they actually have to play with. Certainly, though, the Twins should have at least 4 or 5 spots open (even if they want to keep 2 or 3 spots available for potential free agent additions).

Playoff Predictions

2008-10-01T00:00:00.001-06:00

The playoffs get underway today, and even though the Twins aren't going to be part of the fun, I'm still pumped for the start of the best post-season of any professional sports league. Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I figure I should give my predictions for how the next few weeks will play out. If I'm lucky, I'll be a little closer than I was when I predicted who would make the playoffs in the first place.

For the record, here's who I predicted would get into playoffs at the beginning of the year:

NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers (92-70)
NL East: Philadelphia Phillies (94-68)
NL Central: Houston Astros (88-74)
Wild Card: New York Mets (93-69)

AL West: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (93-69)
AL East: Boston Red Sox (100-62)
AL Central: Detroit Tigers (99-63)
Wild Card: Cleveland Indians (95-87)

So, I did alright -- at least I got half of the participants correct. That's not exactly a shining example of accuracy in predictions, though. Nonetheless, here's my guess on how the post-season will turn out:

American League Division Series
Tampa Bay Rays (3-1) Chicago White Sox
Los Angeles Angels (3-2) Boston Red Sox

National League Division Series
Chicago Cubs (3-1) Los Angeles Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies (3-2) Milwaukee Brewers

American League Championship Series
Los Angeles Angels (4-2) Tampa Bay Rays

National League Championship Series
Chicago Cubs (4-1) Philadelphia Phillies

World Series
Los Angeles Angels (4-2) Chicago Cubs

This isn't what I'm rooting for, mind you -- I want the Cubs to win the world series, and as much as I'm growing to dislike the Red Sox, I have to admit that a Cubs/Red Sox series would be great. I'm also rooting for the Rays, because as I mentioned previously the Rays were my backup team back in the day in case the Twins moved away or were contracted. I wouldn't mind a Cubs/Rays series because of that, but such a series would have a bit less cache than Cubs/Red Sox. Worst case scenario -- somehow the White Sox win the World Series. A close second -- the Red Sox do it again. Can't wait to see how it plays out!

Nightly Notes: Game #163

2008-09-30T19:44:00.002-06:00

And so it ends. This season was both exhilarating and frustrating. In my opinion, the Twins dramatically outperformed expectations this season, thanks in large part to unbelievably timing hitting and, until recently, consistently good performances from their starters. Unfortunately, they couldn't quite make the push into the playoffs -- but I'm incredibly excited about next year. Here are some notes on tonight's season finale:

1.) Tonight isn't a night to blame anyone for the loss. Obviously, the hitters didn't get it done tonight -- but that was mostly because John Danks was fantastic tonight. He was much, much better than predicted (by anyone!), and he just beat the Twins hitters. There were individual approaches that I wasn't pleased with (Delmon Young swinging on the first pitch to start the 8th inning, for instance), but for the most part the Twins just got beat. There's not a lot you can do when the opposing pitcher throws a gem.

2.) Kudos to Nick Blackburn for defying expectations as well. This would have been Kevin Slowey's start but for the wrist injury, but Blackburn stepped up and delivered a great performance. Yeah, he threw a bad pitch to Thome that ended up leaving the yard, but one big mistake in 6+ innings of work is pretty commendable in the circumstances he faced today. Thanks for the effort, Nick.

3.) Perhaps the most interesting question tonight was whether Michael Cuddyer should have been sent home on Brendan Harris' short fly to center that resulted in an inning ending double play when Ken Griffey, Jr. nailed Cuddyer at the plate and A.J. hung onto the ball. Like the TBS announcers, I don't have a problem with sending Cuddyer in this situation. The Twins weren't doing anything at the plate, and Nick Punto was coming up next. The Twins had to be aggressive and take a chance. Of course, Gardy could have been really unconventional and put someone fast on 3rd as a pinch runner for Cuddyer -- but it was just the 5th inning, and Cuddyer was the only guy who had done anything good offensively against Danks. Talk about risk/reward. It's easy in hindsight to say that it was a mistake to send Cuddyer, or even not to get creative and pinch run for him, but at the time I think it was handled about as well as it could have been.

4.) Even though this thing didn't end the way I wanted it to, I have to acknowledge that this game was a blast to watch. There was tension in every inning, every at bat, every pitch. That's what a game like this is supposed to bring, and it delivered. You better believe I'm a Rays fan starting Thursday, though.

5.) Incidentally, there's been a lot of talk about whether the Twins got screwed over by the coin flip. While I think there are better ways to decide where to play a playoff game like this, I think it's pretty weak to complain about it. The Twins had a chance to make the playoffs by winning another game against the Royals in that final series. Unfortunately, they didn't get the job done and so fell into a position where the coin flip mattered.

That's about all I have the gumption to write tonight. I plan on enjoying the post-season, rooting for the Cubs and Rays and against the White Sox. I'll be back in the next day or so with a look at what faces the Twins in the post-season ahead, and plan on continuing regular posts as I have in each of the last few off-seasons. I hope you keep stopping by in the long, baseball-less months that lie ahead. Thanks to the Twins one last time for a season that was a lot of fun, even if it came up a bit short of where we fans hoped it would.

The Season Continues

2008-09-28T14:49:00.003-06:00

NOTE: Just like last week, I'll be appearing on Marty Andrade's podcast tonight at 8:00 Central. Check it out if you haven't taken care of your Twins fix yet for the day.

Before I get to today's notes, I just wanted to take a second to mention that this is post # 1000 for this blog. I started blogging on the Twins shortly after the start of the 2006 season, so it's been roughly two and a half years since I began. For those of you who check in from time to time, thanks for reading. I haven't always had a chance to blog as consistently as I would like to (life often gets in the way), but I still enjoy posting as much as I did when I started and hope to keep it up for a long time to come.

Now, onto the baseball. With today's dueling wins for the Twins and White Sox, the Twins have retained their half game lead in the division. That means that the White Sox face a must-win game tomorrow against the Tigers. While I would love to see the Twins celebrate a playoff berth on the field, I don't think I'd mind too much if the Tigers took care of business tomorrow and took away the need for Tuesday's tiebreaker. Here are some other notes:

1.) Scott Baker is a stud. It seems as if he's been more impressive in big game situations of late than Francisco Liriano has been -- so does that mean he's the ace? I still put the Franchise in that position because of his ability to be overpowering when he's on his game, but if Baker continues to be consistently good when the needs it, I might have to reconsider. A couple of years ago, shortly after I started blogging, Marty and I had a conversation on one of his old podcasts about whether Baker was a "AAAA" player -- a guy who had mastered the minor leagues, but would never develop into a Major League talent. I frankly don't remember what I said, but the fact that we were having that discussion shows how far Baker has come in just two years.

2.) Jose Mijares is clearly a lock for the post-season roster if the Twins need one, since he's turned into the club's setup man. If I had to guess, the Twins would carry a 12 man pitching staff into post-season play, with 4 starters and 8 relievers. Depending on how Kevin Slowey's wrist feels, he would be one candidate not to make the starting rotation. Arguments could be made for excluding either Nick Blackburn or Glen Perkins as well. As for the bullpen, some names are obvious: Nathan, Mijares, Reyes, Breslow, Guerrier, Crain, and Bonser have all probably done enough to make the squad. The last spot would then go to the excluded starter. The team could also carry a larger bench, going with just 11 pitchers -- but I like the matchup options the Twins would have with all those lefties. It will be interesting to see how Bill Smith and Ron Gardenhire approach the problem.

3.) If Justin Morneau doesn't win the MVP award, it could be because he was so very bad with the spotlight on the Twins over the last week. Since the start of the White Sox series, Morneau is 3-for-28 with a single RBI. I assume that Morneau flew under many media member's radar for most of the season, since the Twins weren't figured to be contenders. If they just started paying attention now, they didn't see much from Morneau. I haven't decided yet who I personally think the MVP should go to, but I'm going to predict that Morneau will not win it this year.

4.) Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers for finally making it back to the post-season. I said publicly that I was rooting against the Brewers because of the Ned Yost situation, and I meant it -- but I'm happy for the fans and for the players that the Brew Crew will be participating in post-season play. Also, I also wanted to root against the Mets, just to demonstrate that Johan Santana did not equal a guaranteed playoff spot, even for a team with significant financial resources.

5.) I'll be on campus tomorrow when the Tigers and Sox are going at it, and I won't have access to a computer for most of that time. Brutal.

6.) This was a great weekend for sports generally, and I hope you all got a chance to check out some of the fun. You undoubtedly are all already aware of the baseball and football news, but the fun didn't stop there. Formula 1 held the first night race in the history of the series in Singapore, and the victory went to two time champion Fernando Alonso, who hadn't won a race since joining Renault at the start of the year. He was the seventh winner of the season -- a far cry from last year, when I'm pretty sure the only drivers to win were the two McLaren Mercedes drivers and the two Ferrari drivers. Also, the English Premiere League delivered a major shocker this weekend when Hull (one of the two teams I follow) shocked Arsenal at Emirates Stadium (Arsenal's home) with a 2-1 win. Hull is a recent addition to the Premiere League, earning promotion for this season. This was sort of the equivalent of Appy State beating Michigan last year. All in all, a great weekend with a lot of fantastic story lines.

More of the Same?

2008-09-27T18:21:00.003-06:00

The Twins 4-2 loss today was tough to take, especially so since I didn't have a chance to actually watch it (thanks again to MLB's idiotic agreement with Fox allowing Fox to black out 4 games rather than just 1). Since I didn't get to see the game, I don't know how upset to be with Justin Morneau for the bases loaded groundout double play that ended the 7th inning, for instance (did he hit the ball hard, and just get unlucky? Or did he take a bad approach at the plate and essentially waste his at bat?).

The bottom line is that the Twins have now entered a place that they really don't want to be in -- they once again need to rely on the Indians to take care of the White Sox tonight (something which so far is happening). It's looking more and more likely that the Twins will be playing on Tuesday in Chicago for the division title -- and that will not be friendly territory, to say the least. On the plus side, with the Angels decision to start their series with Boston on Wednesday, the Twins wouldn't have to start the series with the Rays until Thursday so travel shouldn't be an issue.

I hope to get an actual, honest-to-goodness Nightly Notes post up after tomorrow's game. I'm even more hopeful that I'll be talking about the division-winning Twins -- but thanks to the Twins unfortunate inability to take care of business over the last two days, everything will have to go right in order for that to be the case. Enjoy your Saturday night (try not to think too much about the game!).

Dueling Blowouts

2008-09-26T21:00:00.002-06:00

One night after the most emotional victory of the year, the Twins laid a big fat egg tonight against the Royals. Francisco Liriano was bad, the offense was bad, and not unexpectedly in such circumstances, the result was bad. Thankfully, at least as I write this, the Indians are taking care of business by beating up on the White Sox (although I took some liberties by calling an 11-6 game a "blowout").

If the Indians can finish off the Sox, I'll be fine with tonight's result. The Twins aren't quite able to just run out the clock (since if Minnesota and Chicago finish with identical records over the next two days, the Sox will have a chance to force a tiebreaker by beating Detroit on Monday), but they're still in a better position than Chicago is, and identical finishes today won't hurt too much. I don't have much else to say tonight -- I admit that I was watching the Presidential Debate more closely than I was watching the runaway ballgame. Hopefully tomorrow gives us a better result from the Dome.

First Place!

2008-09-25T21:39:00.005-06:00

I am absolutely speechless right now. For the Twins to come back and win tonight after falling behind 6-1 to a White Sox team that obviously has some talent on it is unbelievably impressive. To need a sweep, and to deliver that sweep, is equally impressive. Here are a few notes:

1.) It's time to stop ragging on the bullpen. The Twins would not have won either of the last two games without the pen, and they were unbelievable both nights. Sure, there are still issues -- and maybe even some challenging decisions about who to put on the playoff roster -- but these guys have stepped up in a big way over the last two nights.

2.) Kevin Slowey looked great until he gave up the 4th inning homerun, and then everything sort of unraveled. Physically, he didn't look nervous -- but if I had to guess, he really was unnerved by giving up the dinger, and his concentration was probably affected. How remarkable, though, that the Sox weren't able to do anything offensively other than what they did against a presumably rattled Slowey? I heard Dick announce during the game that x-rays on Slowey's wrist were negative, so hopefully he'll be alright going forward (although of course his next start wouldn't be until, presumably, Game 3 of the ALDS, so he should have plenty of time).

3.) Nights like tonight show why the decision on who to play in the outfield will be awfully difficult next year if Cuddyer comes back fully healthy. The Twins essentially have 5 good choices for 4 positions (Young, Gomez, Span, Cuddyer, and Kubel). I'm pretty sure I'm not serious with this, but maybe the Twins should look at playing Cuddyer at third base again . . .

4.) How sweet is it to pin Bobby Jenks with his first loss of the season?

5.) The Twins caught another break when Nick Swisher was called out on strikes after clearly holding up in the 9th. Unlike last night when the Twins caught a break on the second base pickoff call that led to the winning run, I don't feel too bad for the White Sox tonight. They had a 6-1 lead and couldn't hold it. When that happens, you lose whatever right you otherwise had to gripe about the officiating.

6.) I'm staring at my television in disbelief right now, with Oregon State leading USC 21-14 with less than 10 minutes to go in this game. I still expect the Trojans to come back and win the game, but I'm rooting hard for the Beavers. My philosophy in college football is almost always to root for the underdog, and that's definitely in force here. I don't hate USC like I hate the Yankees or Manchester United, but I also don't really like them. I'd be pretty thrilled if Oregon State could take them out tonight and make the Trojans' trip to the national championship extremely difficult if not impossible.

Nightly Notes: Game #158

2008-09-24T20:32:00.004-06:00

Two down, one to go. Tonight, the Twins emerged victorious in the middle game of their most important series of the season -- by my reckoning, the toughest of the three for the Twins to win. Now, they sit just a half game back of the White Sox, with a chance to take the lead in the division tomorrow night. Either way, the Twins have now pretty much guaranteed that this weekend will be interesting! Here are some notes:

1.) Nick Blackburn's 5 inning, 2 run, 8 hit and 2 walk performance was hardly a thing of beauty -- but it also wasn't an unmitigated disaster like the Twins were getting from their starters last week. Over the past few years, this would have left me more than satisfied, because the bullpen was always one of the team's biggest strengths. Tonight, I have to admit that I was nervous turning the game over to the pen with just a one run lead. But . . .

2.) There's nothing I can say about the performance of Craig Breslow, Boof Bonser, Jose Mijares, and Joe Nathan that wouldn't just be a string of superlatives. Particular kudos go to Breslow, who hasn't allowed an earned run since August 28 (he did allow two unearned runs on September 19) and who now has an ERA of 1.97 on the season, and also to Jose Mijares, who I'd say just locked up a spot on the post-season roster (should the Twins be so lucky as to NEED a post-season roster) with his performance in the 8th inning.

3.) There were not as many offensive heroes tonight as there were last night, but Delmon Young deserves to be singled out even though he didn't account for any runs. Young went 3-for-4 tonight, and has been on a relative tear since his last hitless night (back on September 14). His batting average is now as high as it's been since July 22, and my conclusion that his season had to be viewed as a disappointment now looks rather premature. If he can hit .295 or so again next season while picking up his power numbers a bit (say 20 homers), I would be quite thrilled with him.

4.) My not-so-fearless prediction: if the Twins win tomorrow's game, they will win the division. If they lose, Chicago will win the division.

5.) I was hoping the Twins would get a few extra runs to take away the taint of what appeared to be a bad call in the second when the Twins caught a break on the pick-off at second. I didn't get a close look at the replay, but what I did see suggested that the Twins were the beneficiaries of a blown call. If I remember correctly, that runner went on to score what would be the winning run. I'm sure the White Sox have been on the plus side of a few calls over the course of the season as well, but of course everything comes into sharper focus at this time of year. Either way, a win is a win and I'll take it. I absolutely cannot wait until tomorrow night!

Nightly Notes: Game #157

2008-09-23T20:35:00.005-06:00

Wow! I can't speak highly enough about the all around performance we saw the Twins put out on the field tonight. This was a team that was fired up and ready to battle -- as opposed to the White Sox, whose players mostly seemed uninterested. Here are some notes following this very encouraging series opener:

1.) First and foremost, this win means that the Twins will still be alive at the end of this series no matter what else happens -- although if they lose the next two games, they'd be barely hanging on and would need to win all of the rest of their games with the White Sox losing all of theirs just to get a chance to play Chicago next Tuesday in the tiebreaker. While tonight was huge, then, there is still obviously a lot of work to be done.

2.) Francisco Liriano stepped up with a great start on Sunday against the Rays, and tonight Scott Baker did the same (even better!) against the Sox. Baker's 7 inning, 1 run performance showed remarkable poise, and demonstrated once again that, while he might not be as flashy as Liriano, he's still a big game pitcher. With those two at the top of the rotation in a short playoff series, the Twins would be able to compete against just about anybody.

3.) There was a lot of angst before the start of the game because Jason Kubel got the start over Michael Cuddyer as the DH. This was apparently based on some statistical evidence that Cuddyer was better than Kubel against Javier Vazquez (although I wasn't interested enough to bother looking at what the numbers were). It was with great amusement, then, that I watched Kubel go 3-for-4 with 2 homers and a triple. Now, I always prattle on about how you can't judge a decision based on the result -- but in this case, the result at least seems to confirm that going with Kubel over Cuddyer wasn't some insane oversight on Gardy's part. Frankly, I don't know how I would have felt about this before the game started if I had looked at the overall numbers (maybe there's some evidence supporting the Cuddyer supporters -- I don't know); however, intuitively I would have gone with Kubel. He's been a solid contributor all year, and he's a lefty facing the right-handed Vazquez. In other words, all the fuss before the game was silly, and I really was pleased to see how things worked out tonight.

4.) I am probably the last person to believe this, especially after tonight, but I still think that Matt Guerrier can be a valuable part of the Twins bullpen. If not this year, hopefully next. If not, the Twins will have lost an important piece.

5.) For the first time since 1995, all is right with the world as the Yankees have finally been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Alright, I'm using some hyperbole there -- I don't mind seeing the Yankees make the playoffs on occasion. I just got incredibly sick of watching playoff games in Yankee Stadium, with all of the pompous coverage that went with it. I can't argue with the Yankees historical success -- clearly, they're the most successful team in MLB history. I also have to admit that this success is probably largely responsible for my dislike of the team (in fact, I don't try to hide that fact at all). Whatever the reason, though, I'm giddy that the Yankees playoff streak is over. Maybe if it lasts a few more years, I won't even mind if they become good again. Another World Series, though? Nah -- let's spread those around some more. Maybe in 2050 the Yankees can pick up another ring.

6.) Time is running out for the Brewers, as they'll need a ninth inning comeback if they're going to beat the Pirates tonight. I've officially decided that I'm rooting against them 100% after the firing of Ned Yost -- I don't want other GM's to get the idea that it's somehow anything other than idiotic and wrong to fire your manager with 3 weeks left when that manager got you to a position to contend for a playoff spot. Go Mets and Phils!

7.) Does anyone else think that the new CBS series "The Mentalist" is just a not-funny version of USA's "Psych?" I watched the premiere tonight (I get the Twins on my computer, leaving the TV open for such things), and wasn't that impressed. It wasn't a BAD show, it just wasn't that exciting. Psych, on the other hand, is hilarious -- and if you've never had a chance to watch it you should make the effort when it comes back this winter.

The State of the Race

2008-09-21T14:36:00.003-06:00

NOTE: I'll be appearing on Marty's podcast tonight at 8:00 Central. The show will be live, and you can participate real time by using the chat feature or calling in. You can also check the show out after the fact, as it will be archived.

The Twins and White Sox head into the last off day of the season tomorrow before facing off in the biggest series of the year in the Metrodome from Tuesday to Thursday. The Sox will have a 2.5 game lead heading into that series, and for the Twins it really is something of a last stand -- after all, those three games will mark the last chance for the Twins to control their own destiny.

When the two teams finish up the series, the Twins will have three games to go at home against the Royals to finish off the season. The White Sox, meanwhile, will head home to play the Indians -- and if the AL Central race is within a half game either way after that series, they'll also host the Tigers in a makeup game on the Monday after the official regular season comes to an end.

There is no question that the Twins need to at the very least win the series with the White Sox. After all, if the Twins get swept the White Sox would clinch the AL Central race. If the Sox win the series 2-1, they'll have a 3.5 game lead when they leave Minnesota -- and for the Twins to get into the playoffs at that point, they'd need to sweep the Royals, the Indians would have to sweep Chicago, AND the Tigers would have to win the makeup game. In other words, the Twins would need 7 games to all come out the right way, which is unlikely.

If the Twins win the series 2-1, there will at least still be hope. They would trail Chicago by 1.5 games, and could at least force the game with the Tigers to take place if they did one game better than the White Sox in the last full series of the year. The Sox would still have a tremendous edge in this scenario, however -- so clearly it isn't optimal.

What if the Twins sweep? We'll, at that point they WOULD control their own destiny, at least to an extent. A Twins sweep would put them 1/2 game ahead of the White Sox going into the last series. If they then swept the Royals, they could at the very least force a playoff with Chicago -- and the Sox would have to win each of their last four games to force that tiebreaker. Of course, the odds of the Twins winning each of their last six ballgames to finish out of the season are not particularly high.

I remain hopeful that the Twins can put it together against the Sox and make things interesting heading into next weekend. If not, by this time next week it will be time to conduct a postmortem on the season. I'd much rather be talking about first round playoff matchups!

Where the Twins Need to Be on Sunday Night

2008-09-20T10:53:00.002-06:00

After last night's loss (and the White Sox victory) dropped the Twins to 2.5 games out of first, I got to thinking about where I feel the Twins need to be on Sunday night in order to have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs. Obviously, until the team is mathematically eliminated, all sorts of strange things could happen -- but I'm talking about a reasonable chance, not any chance.

My conclusion, essentially, is that the Twins need to be 1.5 back after tomorrow night's game. They will obviously need some luck for this to happen, as the Royals will need to cooperate (and the Rays will need to stop killing our starters). Why 1.5 back, you ask? Largely because I think a Twins sweep over the White Sox next week is unlikely, but that a 2-1 series win is very possible (and if the Twins can't at least win that series, they don't belong in the playoffs anyway). If they entered the series 1.5 back and then won the series 2-1, they'd be just a half game back going into the final series of the season.

That last series should favor the Twins. Minnesota plays the Royals at home, while the White Sox will be hosting Cleveland. Even though the Indians have had a down year, they still have far more firepower than the Royals have, and I think it's very possible for the Twins to either finish with the same record as the White Sox or win one more game in that last series. Either way, Chicago would then have to play Detroit the day after the season ended to determine whether a playoff was needed.

Again, many other paths to the playoffs are possible (I'd love it if the White Sox just layed down and lost every game they had left, for instance). This seems to me to be the most likely scenario for the Twins to get back to the post-season. Let's hope they at least make it exciting over the next 8 days.

Nightly Notes: Game #153

2008-09-18T19:40:00.002-06:00

Never have I been happier to have to rewrite my intro than I was tonight. Instead of talking about the White Sox running out the clock on what was becoming a race to the bottom for the AL Central, I can instead talk about how the Twins have renewed life after getting a big comeback win over the Rays tonight to get to 1.5 games back of the White Sox. Here are some notes:

1.) I have not laughed harder at something baseball related this season than I did when Adam Everett pulled back his bunt and drove Trevor Miller's pitch into the left field corner for an RBI double. My heart was in my throat when I saw him pull the bat back, but the end result can't be argued with! As for the decision to pinch hit Everett for Kubel, I was actually fine with it (under the assumption that he was going to sacrifice -- had I known he was going to actually swing away I would have had a very different reaction, but since it worked out fine I can't be too upset). While I normally don't like giving up outs to advance runners, in this situation it made sense -- the team could expect to advance two runners, putting both in scoring position, while also avoiding the most likely kinds of double plays.

2.) The starting pitching has been horrendous of late, and the inability to get outs has spread through virtually the entire rotation. Glen Perkins has been amongst the hardest hit. Tonight's 2/3 of an inning disaster was just the worst of what has been a relatively rough months for Perkins -- he went just 3 innings in his last start, and went just 5.2 and 5 innings in his other two September starts. This follows an August in which he was solid -- he gave up 4 runs a few times, but made it at least 6 innings in every start and went 4-0 on the month. I really do have faith in this group of starters (and I can't wait to see them in action next year), but something is obviously wrong. I'm inclined to think it's just a bunch of young guys getting a little tight in the middle of a pennant race. I'm also inclined not to blame Gardy or Rick Anderson. Good thing those two aren't coaching in Milwaukee -- they probably would have been fired by now.

3.) Some nights, you just can't win against a particular player. Evan Longoria obviously owned the Twins tonight. I didn't get a good look at most of the pitches that led to the Longoria homers, although the 1st inning shot off of Glen Perkins didn't look like a terrible pitch -- fastball in and low. It might have drifted a bit into his zone, but it wasn't as egregious as, say, the fastball that Eddie Guardado threw to Grady Sizemore a couple of nights ago. I'll say one thing, though -- if the Twins have been using a particular strategy for facing Longoria, it certainly seems like its time to change it!

4.) Great job by Philip Humber tonight to go 5.1 innings when the Twins really needed it. He gave up 2 runs in that span, but I'd take a 5+ inning, 2 run performance from a starter -- and it's even more welcome from a long reliever. Remember, Humber will be out of options next year, and the Twins will almost certainly want him to win a job in Spring Training to avoid losing him. Tonight's performance may go a long way to demonstrating his ability to nail down a long relief role next year, since you have to assume the rotation is closed to him (barring the kind of injury that doesn't bear thinking about). One of the interesting questions over the winter and into the spring will be whether Humber, Bonser, both or neither will end up in the long relief role next season. I'd say Humber officially launched his bid tonight.

5.) For that matter, the entire bullpen deserves kudos. For much of the season, the Twins have been either losing because of or winning in spite of the bullpen. Tonight, the bullpen was a vital contributor to the victory (even Eddie Guardado!). It was also nice to see Joe Nathan come in and get a very solid save, after some dubious performances of late.

6.) Is it just me, or do you also cringe every time you see Matt Tolbert field a ball at third just as he fires across the field? It certainly seems like he could use some work on the accuracy of his throws.

7.) Nightly Milwaukee watch -- the Brewers lost tonight, and the Mets and Phillies are both winning as I write this. Yep, Ned Yost sure was the problem with that ball club.

8.) I'm loving the way the CU Buffs are handling West Virginia tonight heading to the half. While WVU doesn't appear to be as good as a lot of people (including me) thought they would be coming into the season, this would still be a big win for CU. They aren't good enough to win the Big 12, but they could do some damage to the mid-level and below squads in the conference. With Minnesota at 3-0 and the Buffs trying to go 3-0, I feel a little bit like the college football universe is out of balance. Of course, as soon as conference play begins in earnest in a couple of weekends, that feeling will probably go away pretty quickly!

Podcast Appearance

2008-09-17T18:54:00.003-06:00

I somehow forgot to mention that I'll be on with Seth on his podcast from about 8:00-8:20 central time tonight. The podcast will be archived, so you can check it out after the fact if you don't get the chance to hear it live. I'm the opening act on a show that will also include Twins prospects Joe Benson and Steven Singleton, so check it out even if you decide to fast-forward through my opening!

Nightly Notes: Game #151

2008-09-16T21:10:00.003-06:00

Time's running out! The Twins have just 11 games left on the schedule, which comes out to three series and a game. Unbelievable how time flies, isn't it? With the White Sox winning tonight, this game was crucial for the Twins -- which makes it all the more frustrating that they came up short in the end. A 2.5 game deficit now faces the Twins heading into tomorrow's action. It's not looking good, but hope remains alive. Here are some notes:

1.) I'm not going to belabor the point -- Francisco Liriano was awful today. I was multitasking for the most of the evening, so I didn't get a chance to put together an armchair (and likely wrong!) diagnosis. The bottom line is that this was either a transient issue that Liriano will recover from for his last few starts, or the Twins are in pretty big trouble. As young as he is, he needs to be the dominant guy in this rotation, the one who the Twins can count on for a pick-me-up when things haven't been going well. Obviously, he failed at that tonight.

2.) I can't blame Gardy too much for how he used his bullpen tonight, especially with bringing in Bonser for 3.1 innings when Liriano failed to put it together. After all, Bonser pitched great (well, ok, 6 baserunners in 3.1 innings isn't great, but for Bonser any scoreless performances are close enough). The one big issue, though, was with bringing Eddie Guardado in to pitch the 8th inning. There are at least two superior options. First, Dennys Reyes has been far better than Eddie Guardado, and not just recently -- at this point in their respective careers, Reyes is a better bet. Granted, he doesn't often go a full inning -- but if you need to throw one of the two on the mound for an inning of work, Reyes is the guy who is most likely to be able to get through that inning without allowing a run. The second option would have been going directly to Joe Nathan (despite his recent struggles, including what happened tonight). I usually don't like using the closer for two innings, but he is by far the best option in the bullpen, and the Twins held a one run lead in a game that they had no right to be in, where a huge comeback had been key. Winning this game 9-8 would have been huge psychologically. I would not have complained if Nathan had been brought in to start the 8th tonight.

3.) It was strange not seeing Alexi Casilla in the lineup, but Matt Tolbert certainly played well. If there was a way to give Tolbert Punto's defensive skills, the hybrid would make a nifty little player, eh?

4.) Going back to Eddie Guardado for a second -- when you don't have a good fastball anymore, it's generally not a good idea to throw a high fastball. I bet Grady Sizemore was awfully excited to see that coming his way. Elevation is your enemy, Eddie. Unless you go over a guy's head, that is.

5.) That Brewers managerial change doesn't seem to have had much effect so far, as the Brew Crew lost 5-4 to the Cubs tonight. The good news for Milwaukee -- the Wild Card race looks to be a race to the bottom against the Mets. Who can lose the fewest! How exciting will that be!?! Oh yeah . . . not very. I'll be rooting for the Brewers, though. I think it would be just a little bit satisfying if the Mets and Johan didn't make the playoffs (especially if the Twins did!).

6.) I should at least mention that I'm proud of the Twins players for not quiting when they got down so far so early. Of course, they should keep digging -- they're professionals, after all. Still, it's a positive takeaway from a game that had a lot of negatives, regardless of the end result.

Saved by the Yankees

2008-09-15T21:38:00.004-06:00

As much as I hate the Yankees, I was awfully thrilled to see Mariano Rivera coming in with a 4-2 Yankee lead over the White Sox in the 9th. That's an awfully bizarre feeling, isn't it fellow haters? Such is the world of baseball, when in the last two weeks your enemy's enemies truly are your friends. On a night when the Twins offense was non-existent (two games in a row now), the Twins certainly needed the help.

For me, though, the big story of the day was not on the field, but instead centered around the firing of Ned Yost in Milwaukee. I admit that I don't follow the Brewers closely enough to know whether or not Yost's managing over the past few weeks was noticeably different than his early season managing (there are apparently some suggestions that he was managing "tight" of late). But this looks an awful lot like a move based completely on desperation. Certainly, the Brewers have been downright dreadful throughout September -- but firing a manager with 2 weeks to go in the middle of a playoff race is simply unprecedented.

There are several possibilities, of course. One, this move could have absolutely no effect on the clubhouse. The Brewers might continue playing just as they would have had Yost been left alone. There's no way to measure this, because we don't know what the future would have held with Yost left in charge. It seems somewhat incredible though, doesn't it? The players are fully human, and the reason the games are played on a field instead of on paper is because emotions and attitudes and thoughts all play into results. Ned Yost helped guide this team into a playoff chase with two weeks to go; you would have to think the players won't immediately forget that.

The question seems to be whether the players felt that Yost was responsible for the recent slump. If they don't (and perhaps even if they do), the players will undoubtedly resent Yost being fired so close to the end. They could see it as a dishonorable move by team management, and could resent being asked to move forward without the man who has led them through the vast majority of the season.

Alternatively, they could see this as a necessary move. I have no idea what was going on in the Brewer clubhouse. Perhaps Yost's attitude or behavior or managerial style did indeed change in September, and the players may have become unsettled or tight because of that. Or they may have "quit on" Yost for some undisclosed reason. Perhaps they might even welcome a move even if they supported Yost; it might even serve to center and focus the team. Consider it a shot of adrenaline straight into the bloodstream from the GM's office.

If I had to guess, though, this is not going to end well for the long-suffering fans of the Brewers. As I said earlier, I see this as a desperation move, a hail mary pass with time ticking off the clock. How often does such a move work? If anything, I think the move will probably backfire (although the Brewers can't possibly be as bad for the rest of September as they have been so far, you would think). To me, the Brewers season probably ended today. We'll see if they can surprise me.

Turnabout Is Fair Play

2008-09-14T13:50:00.003-06:00

Since we thumped the Orioles in both halves of yesterday's doubleheader, you had to figure that the baseball gods would try to even things out a bit today. The loss (well, presumed loss since I'm writing before the game is over) is disappointing, but not overly so -- I'll take 2 out of 3 on the road in any series, even against the Orioles. The Twins will now sit and wait to see what the White Sox do, assuming they even get on the field. The most likely scenario is probably a split, which would leave the Twins 1/2 game back heading into the final two weeks. Considering that a week ago the team was 2.5 back, I'll take it. Nice job by the bullpen, by the way, to keep the team in this thing. Unfortunately, the offense abandoned ship. Let's hope there's no rain in Cleveland!

Blog Update

2008-09-13T21:36:00.005-06:00

I decided against posting a second nightly notes column for the night, because it would have centered primarily on Glen Perkins and his recent uninspiring performances. Since the Twins got the win and are now tied for first in the AL Central, I'm just going to call it a night. I should be back tomorrow afternoon, after the Twins have hopefully grabbed sole possession of first!

Nightly Notes: Game #147

2008-09-13T18:00:00.002-06:00

Halfway to first place! With the White Sox double-rain out today, the Twins have a chance to move into a first place tie by winning both halves of the doubleheader today. Here are some notes on game #1:

1.) Didn't the end of this thing feel like a spring training game? When they scrolled around to show Pridie taking over in left, Tolbert at second, Jorgenson behind the plate, and (thankfully!) Mijares making his big league debut on the mound, I flashed back to March. When that happens in September, something has either gone very right or very wrong -- and obviously tonight it was the former.

2.) Speaking of Mijares, it was about time to get him in a game. There have been several opportunities, including at least one that was absolutely designed for a big league debut, but Gardy so far has avoided the move. Obviously, striking out Kevin Millar was a great start for Mijares, and I hope it's a sign of things to come -- but let's not get too worked up about it. The Orioles aren't that good, for one thing. Secondly, they probably have only very limited scouting available on Mijares, so the hitters Jose faced were pretty much out there guessing. I certainly liked what I saw, though, and am starting to get on the Mijares bandwagon.

3.) Great to see Michael Cuddyer come off the DL today, even if his return AB wasn't anything to write home about. Simply having him available as a bat off the bench could be huge for the next couple of weeks. I have no idea when his foot will be strong enough to let him play in the field, but Carlos Gomez will undoubtedly see less playing time if that happens. I think Denard Span has pretty definitively settled the argument about which of the two deserves to play every day.

4.) I can't state enough how much I like Gary Thorne, who was one of the Orioles two announcers tonight. Still, he was absolutely brutal tonight once the TV crew came on the air (the first part of the game was televised and I believe had the radio feed for audio -- I had the game muted while I was watching college football). First, he misprounced pretty much every name that could be mispronounced (Denard "Spawn", Jason "PRID-ee -- as opposed to "PRIDE-ee", the always popular Nick "PUN-toe" rather than "POON-toe"). He also was completely oblivious to Michael Cuddyer pinch hitting for Alexi Casilla, even referring to Casilla as having ground out while the camera was very clearly showing Cuddyer. There were a few more things that I've since forgotten, but trust me -- this was not a banner night for one of my favorite announcers.

5.) Justin Morneau for MVP? Yeah, I could see it . . .

I'll be back later with a few more notes on Game 2. Hopefully, we'll be talking about the first place Twins at that point!

Nightly Notes: Rainout Edition

2008-09-12T20:34:00.002-06:00

With a doubleheader now on deck for tomorrow (along with a White Sox doubleheader just to make things interesting), there should be plenty for me to talk about in a Nightly Notes column tomorrow. Since there were some other things I wanted to discuss, it seemed like a good time for a non-game related Nightly Notes column. Here goes:

1.) The weather could end up being the Twins best friend in the race against the White Sox. While the rain in Baltimore is supposed to clear up by the end of tomorrow morning, it's a completely different story in Chicago. The Windy City is facing extended periods of rain and thunderstorms for the rest of the weekend. If the White Sox and Tigers are unable to play any of the three games scheduled for the weekend, that would put Chi-Town in an incredibly awkward position. More than likely at least one game will be able to be played in Chicago tomorrow, but I'm not at all confident that they can play two (and the Chicago groundskeeper, speaking in an interview on Chicago TV tonight, was not at all confident about Sunday). Could be a very interesting thing to watch develop.

2.) You've probably read by now that the Twins lost the AL Central coin flip and the Wild Card coin flip. While it would certainly be easier to win either of those tiebreak games at home, I still say that if a team can't win one game on the road with a playoff berth on the line, they don't belong in the playoffs.

3.) ESPN has an article up talking about Brian Cashman possibly leaving the Yankees at the end of the year. Included in the article is a discussion about how Hank Steinbrenner wants to bring back a multi-headed "advisory group" similar to what the Yankees had in place prior to giving Cashman more control back in 2005. Depending on how the group was structured, that could be good or bad news for the Yankees -- but I'm guessing it would be bad. Too often in the early 2000's the Yankees were trying to go in about 3 directions at once -- which is obviously impossible. Times may be getting tough in the Bronx, but I think having one person largely in charge of personnel is the right model to use, rather than establishing some sort of baseball Politburo with all of the internal politics that can bring. Of course, if Hank Steinbrenner turns the Yankees into a joke or an afterthought (like they were in my formative years), I certainly won't complain.

4.) There's just no way to give anyone other than Cliff Lee the AL Cy Young, is there?

5.) I can't wait for tomorrow morning's battle between Manchester City and Chelsea. At the beginning of the Premier League season I revealed that I was a fan of Man City, and pointed out how such an affiliation inevitably led to disappointment. If you aren't a soccer fan, you've probably not heard about Man City's rollercoaster season -- suffice it to say that everything that could go wrong did go wrong for most of the summer off-season and into the early part of the season. Over the last few weeks, though, the team was sold to incredibly rich owners who love to spend money, has won a few matches, and signed a player that should have been out of their league. In other words, they're trying to become the next Evil Empire. I don't know whether to be incredibly excited or horrified -- but for now I'll stick with excitement.

6.) Think the Gophers can beat Montana State to get to 3-0 tomorrow? Does it really mean anything if they do?

7.) Good luck tonight and tomorrow to the folks in Texas bearing the brunt of Ike. This is just one reason why I never want to live anywhere along the Gulf Coast.

The Loss Was Bad, But . . .

2008-09-11T16:22:00.003-06:00

This story from ESPN is worse. Baseball's not American? Color me horrified.

If I get a chance this weekend, my plan is to post daily Nightly Notes columns (obviously not today, or I would be doing it now), and I also would like to give my thoughts on the rather fascinating MVP race in the National League. Colin Cowherd discussed whether "time" was a factor in the determination of an MVP, and it's a great topic that I'd like to address.

Nightly Notes: Game #144

2008-09-09T20:44:00.002-06:00

What a huge day for the Twins! After what seemed like weeks of running in place, and then the rather precipitous fall of late last week, the Twins got a whopping game and a half back in the standings today thanks to the suddenly tenacious Blue Jays. Here are some notes:

1.) The Royals can be pesky at times, but Brian Bannister hasn't had a particularly good year, with an ERA of 5.56 coming into the game. The Twins did exactly what they had to do against a pitcher with a line like that -- they clobbered him, scoring 7 runs off of 10 hits and a walk in the 3.2 innings that Bannister pitched. The fact that they couldn't get any offense going against a poor cast of relievers wasn't inspiring, but I'll take the solid 7 runs that started things off.

2.) This is the Nick Blackburn that I hope we see consistently next year. Looking at his game-by-game log on the season, there are too many sub-5.0 inning starts -- but when he's on, he pitches like he did tonight. Even with those occasional poor outings, you simply can't complain about what he's done this year. Just thinking about how good the Twins starting five could be in 2009 gets me incredibly excited. Maybe we can even get them a real bullpen to back things up!

3.) OK, that was admittedly a cheap shot on a night when the bullpen went 2 scoreless innings. However, they were facing the Royals, and they darned well better be able to take care of business against KC.

4.) Maybe Brian Buscher's 3-for-4 will ensure that he doesn't lose any playing time to Matt Tolbert. I like Tolbert, but he shouldn't be starting at all when there's a righty on the mound. Even though Buscher can sometimes be a butcher at 3B, I still much prefer having his offense in the game.

5.) A five run lead probably was a little close to do it, but I still can't wait to see Jose Mijares make his debut. The blowout the other night was the perfect chance, and I still don't know Gardy used Matt Guerrier instead in that situation. It appears that anyone who hoped Mijares would step in and be an instant contributor was misreading the Twins plans for him -- but to this point I can't for the life of me say what that role is. Maybe all will become clear in time!

6.) Gotta love the fact that the White Sox have to face Roy Halladay tomorrow night while the Twins face Kyle Davies. In a span of 48 hours the Twins could easily go from being 2.5 back to tied. Of course, I'm counting my chickens here before they hatch, but this seems entirely plausible. Amazing how much baseball can mess with your mind.

7.) I personally loved the Fringe premiere tonight, but J.J. Abrams is one of my favorite people in the world of entertainment so I was predisposed to like it. The critics were more evenly split on it, with many saying it was promising but that it didn't quite deliver. If you didn't see it, but you're a fan of shows like the X-Files or Alias that have some interesting mythology backing up the stories, I suggest you check it out when it repeats on Sunday night (or go to Fox.com and stream it).

8.) I realize that guys get hurt in the NFL every year, but doesn't it seem like there are a lot more high profile season-ending injuries occurring so far this year? Maybe it's just that Tom Brady's injury was so incredibly shocking that it feels like the impact from injuries has been more significant than normal. I guess in one sense this season has had a bigger impact from injuries, because Tom Brady's injury all by itself is more significant than the other injuries we've seen combined. All of a sudden, the Patriots don't look like a sure thing Super Bowl team -- and the entire AFC has been shaken up by it. My feelings on the injury are a bit complicated. I don't like the Patriots, but I also don't hate them like I hate the Yankees. I don't want to see the Patriots lose because Tom Brady is hurt, I just want to see people beat them! The one good thing about this is that it makes the NFL season even more interesting, and from the standpoint of someone who is interested in the stories that come from sports, that's a dream scenario.

Blog Update

2008-09-07T15:18:00.002-06:00

The Twins just lost -- again -- to remain 2.5 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central race. I intend to be back posting Nightly Notes columns when the team returns to the field on Tuesday against the Royals. There's a good chance I'll also post something tomorrow -- there are several possibilities, including a look ahead to the post-season and recaps of minor league season-that-was.
I hope you all had a chance to check out some of the many sporting events on the schedule today -- it's been great for me, from this morning's thrilling Formula 1 race to this afternoon's Sprint Cup and IRL races to, of course, the first full day of NFL action. This is an incredible time of year for sports, isn't it? Enjoy what remains of your weekend, and I'll be back tomorrow or Tuesday.

Nightly Notes: Game #141

2008-09-05T20:34:00.002-06:00

That's more like it. Thanks to a White Sox victory over the Angels tonight, the Twins aren't going to gain any ground -- but staying 1.5 games back is a lot better than falling to 2.5. Here are some notes:

1.) Like Ron Coomer said, Liriano is starting to look a lot more like The Franchise than he has for most of the season. Even with his struggles in the eighth inning, he still finished with a line of 7 innings and 2 runs allowed on just 5 hits and a walk with a whopping 9 K's. If he really is heating up, it's at a great time -- if the Twins make the playoffs, I'd love to see him leading off a series as a legitimately overwhelming ace.

2.) What I'm about to say has nothing to do with the fact that Liriano struggled in the eighth. I frankly have no idea why Gardy left Liriano out there. I understand the bullpen had just struggled the night before. I understand that Liriano had only thrown 86 pitches. Nonetheless, I would have turned the ball over to Jose Mijares. It seemed to be the perfect time for him to make his big league debut -- a 9 run lead (at the start of the inning, remember), little pressure, and an opportunity to go two innings if he succeeded. Now, I watched the game with the sound off, so perhaps Dick & Bert revealed that Mijares wasn't able to go tonight -- but I'm pretty sure I saw him warming up. I am just frankly baffled that Mijares didn't debut tonight unless there was something physically wrong.

3.) Why use Matt Guerrier in the eighth? If Bonser was going to pitch tonight (and of course he did in the 9th), why not bring him in right away? Guerrier made no sense in that spot -- he's not a garbage man. In fact, despite his August struggles, he's much too valuable to be used in that situation. I don't usually rag on Gardy too much (I disagree with some of his decisions, but not vehemently). Tonight, though, I was utterly baffled by what I see as some serious bullpen mismanagement. You have got to take advantage of games like this, because they don't come around all that much.

4.) I'm loving the college football season so far. I don't know if it was really an upset for Ball State to beat Navy tonight, especially since the game was in Muncie. However, it felt like an upset to me (maybe I just don't have faith in Ball State). Add that to last night's great win by Vandy over South Carolina and last weekends losses by Michigan, Virginia Tech, and especially Texas A&M, I'm thrilled to see that upsets are still the order of the day.

5.) Delmon looked great tonight at the plate. I would love to see that Delmon show up for a full season next year.

6.) Justin Morneau only picked up one hit tonight, but it was of course the Slam. It was nice to see him catch hold of one, because for awhile on the road trip he seemed to be pressing just a bit (understandable, since no one else seemed interested in contributing offense in key spots).

7.) I'm not ignoring Brian Bass, I just didn't feel he warranted his own post or an early note. Bass was going to be leaving the organization as a free agent at the end of the year, and was no longer on the 40-man roster. I'm glad the Twins will get something for him from the Orioles (although it's not likely to be much), but this really isn't a significant piece of news. I wish Bass luck in Baltimore, where it sounds like he might get a chance to earn a place in the rotation. Hopefully things work out for him.

Wow

2008-09-04T19:48:00.002-06:00

That's pretty much about all I have to say. Talk about mailing it in on the last day of the long road trip! There was no life in the bats, the pitching was largely dreadful (Slowey wasn't horrid, but man was the bullpen bad), and I'm just glad the road trip is over. Thankfully, the Twins find themselves just a game and a half back, and there's still plenty of time -- but the team I saw playing tonight was in no sense of the word a playoff team. This is not a nightly notes column (a game like this doesn't deserve one), but I do have a few thoughts:

1.) This is why I always question relying on minor league pitchers to come in and be saviors at the big league level. Korecky and Humber both pitched tonight, and really struggled. I'm not saying that's going to continue -- I'm rooting for these guys are hard as anyone -- but it would have been a mistake to call Korecky up in August and then insert him into close games.

2.) Apparently TV folks don't do much research. The Blue Jays announcers said several times that Humber was making his big league debut (they also called him Philip HUM-ber, and I think it's pronounced "UM-ber", but that's not my point). Of course, he wasn't -- a simple trip through any number of baseball reference sites will tell you that. What's interesting about this isn't that they got it wrong -- that happens to everybody. No, instead I was amused by the fact that they then blamed the Twins for the misinformation. Now, that's probably true -- the Twins undoubtedly provide an info sheet to the TV folks to make their lives easier. But was it really necessary to blame the Twins for a screwup? Just make the correction and move on -- I don't know, I thought it was sort of funny.

3.) I hope to have something positive to write about tomorrow -- lord knows there's really nothing tonight. Enjoy your weekend!

Nightly Notes: Game #139

2008-09-03T19:54:00.002-06:00

I'm frustrated again tonight, so I'm going to post anything too long. The Twins will have to do better than to continually blow saves and give up late runs. Now they're down a game on the White Sox -- and while I still have faith, even I am finding that faith harder to come by. Here are some notes:

1.) Nick Blackburn continued to demonstrate why the Twins are in good shape -- the young starters just keep delivering. A line of 6.2 innings, 3 runs (2 earned) on 6 hits and 6 K's will do it for me every time. I realize the Twins have five young guns -- but I'll take them over the White Sox starting five any day.

2.) Matt Guerrier got through 1.1 innings, including a bases loaded situation in the 7th that could have been disastrous. I've been saying it for weeks, but his re-emergence is essential if the Twins are going to stay in the race and win the AL Central. Look down at the rest of the bullpen -- who else should be pitching in that situation? Certainly not Eddie Guardado, the way he's pitched of late. Certainly not Bobby Korecky, who pitched well in his earlier call up but has done nothing to establish that he can hold down the 8th inning of a tight game. Guerrier has the big league experience and the past history to indicate that he can do the job -- and despite his August failings, I feel strongly that for the rest of the year he needs to be that guy for the Twins.

3.) Speaking of Guardado, what to do with him? I still think it was a good idea to pick him up, because he had pitched reasonably well this year. He certainly hasn't pitched well as a Twin, though, and what possible situations will he be used in now? Yeesh.

4.) I'm thrilled that Jason Pridie made his big league debut tonight (I love big league debuts). I'm not as thrilled that in his first game, he made a significant error that helped the Jays tie the game. We don't know what would have happened if Pridie had fielded that ball cleanly -- Nathan may very well have allowed the run to score anyway. Nonetheless, it was an ignominious debut for a player that a lot of us are hoping can be a solid contributor for the big league club at some point.

5.) Speaking of callups making errors, it's hard to ignore Matt Tolbert's rather horrid throw. I like Tolbert -- he went 2-for-4 today and looked pretty decent swinging the bat. Take your time and make a solid throw from third, though, my friend!

6.) I liked the lefty-filled lineup today. It's got to be a bit intimidating (even for a guy like A.J. Burnett) to see lefty after lefty heading to the plate. Obviously, he did pretty well with the Twins lineup -- but I like that we have the ability to toss 8 lefties in a row at the guy.

I'm certainly hoping for better tomorrow! Let's get this freakin' road trip done already!

No Notes Tonight

2008-09-02T20:03:00.003-06:00

I'm trying to catch up with a couple of classes that I jumped into a week late, so no notes tonight. I'll just say I'm glad that the White Sox are on their way to losing tonight, keeping the AL Central all tied up. Also, while the focus will once again probably be on the bullpen, since Glen Perkins left with the lead, Perkins obviously didn't pitch that well either. Hopefully tomorrow brings a better result.

September Callups Announced

2008-08-31T13:00:00.004-06:00

The Twins have announced the seven players who will be joining the team on Tuesday, and there were a few surprises. Just yesterday, I made my predictions on who I thought would be picked. I was right on with my "locks" and "close to locks" categories, and all but one of the players on the callup list was at least mentioned by me as a possibility (and I'll claim partial credit for the one I got wrong -- see below). Here are the names and some thoughts:

Matt Tolbert - IF
An obvious choice. Tolbert was playing well for the Twins before being injured in May, and he finished up the AAA season on a rehab assignment. He's not really a traditional September Callup, because he's just being activated from the DL. Still, the expanded rosters made his return possible without having to send someone else down. Tolbert should get some playing time, but not enough to take time away from the regular starters who have emerged.

Matt Macri - IF
Another virtual lock who played well with the Twins in May and June and should get some opportunities to play at 3B against lefties. Macri hadn't been playing well recently, but there was really no reason not to call him up and give the team some more matchup options.

Bobby Korecky - RHP
Korecky has been the focus of many fans hopes for the callups, because the Twins bullpen has been in need of another guy who could hold down an inning here and there. Like Tolbert and Macri, Korecky made his big league debut earlier this season and (stop me if you've heard this before) played well. Like Tolbert and Macri, I had him listed as a lock to be called up.

Philip Humber - RHP
Humber, who was acquired in the Johan Santana trade, struggled early in the AAA season. Since mid-July, however, he's been excellent. Since this was his last option year, and the Twins were unlikely to simply cut a key part of the Santana deal so quickly, he was virtually a shoe-in to be given a chance next spring to make the team. This September will be a chance for the Twins to start the evaluation process in earnest, and to transition him into a bullpen role. He was listed as "close to a lock" in yesterday's post.

Jason Pridie - OF
Pridie was the third player acquired from the Rays in the Matt Garza-Delmon Young trade this past off-season. He played reasonably well for AAA, but most importantly he's got some speed. He's unlikely to get a lot of playing time as a starter, but I would expect him to be used fairly regularly as a pinch runner. His callup gives the Twins another part to play around with, which is why I had him listed as "close to a lock" in yesterday's post.

Jose Mijares - LHP
Surprise number one was Jose Mijares, who at the beginning of the season looked like he'd miss the entire year after being involved in a car accident at home. Mijares instead made a comeback, and has pitched extremely well in the GCL, Ft. Myers, and New Britain once he came back. Like Humber, Mijares will be out of options going into next season, so this isn't as surprising as it might seem simply because, like Humber, the Twins will use September to start the evaluation process.

UPDATE: Actually, Mijares should have a fourth option year available for next year, much as Humber did this season. The rule is that a player gets a fourth option year if he does not have five full seasons of professional experience. A full season is defined as 90+ days on an active roster, so seasons spent in short season leagues (such as the GCL and Appalachian League) don't count unless the player also spent part of the season in another league and accumulated more than 90 days of play. Mijares had just 3 full seasons entering this year, so he should get the fourth option year. I used information available in the transactions glossary at Cot's to re-familiarize myself with the rule.

Ryan Jorgensen - C
Now, the most surprising pick. I expected the Twins to add a catcher to the roster, and since Jose Morales is injured the Twins were going to have to purchase the contract of a player to add them to the 40-man roster. I thought they would go with Drew Butera, who supposedly is a solid defensive catcher and who will be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this December. Instead, they went with Jorgensen -- a journeyman who didn't seem to be as valuable to the organization in the long term. Call it a half-surprise in my book.

Surprising Omissions
Brian Duensing and Brian Bass both seemed to be likely additions to the 40-man roster, for different reasons. Bass had some big league experience and I figured the Twins would add him to the 40-man roster for September and then part ways with him again. Duensing is eligible for the Rule 5 Draft in December and almost certainly will have to be added to the roster to prevent him from being taken. It seemed to make sense to add him now and get some big league use out of him in September -- but the Twins might just want to shut him down and rest his arm for awhile.

The same rationale may have gone into not adding Luke Hughes, another Rule 5 eligible player who will probably be added before the Rule 5 draft rolls around. Since he'll be playing winter ball, however, the Twins probably wanted to give him a little bit of time off. Rob Delaney and Alejandro Machado were also both much discussed, and while the addition of neither would have completely surprised me, there were a variety of reasons that I didn't think they'd be added (see the previous post linked above for the reasoning).

Overall, I'm pleased with the selections. I think the Twins added the five players that were obvious additions, and made two other interesting and fairly logical selections. I can't wait to see some of these guys play starting on Tuesday!

No Notes Tonight

2008-08-30T21:38:00.002-06:00

Frankly, I'm too annoyed to write something after that ending. The Twins remain just 1/2 game back thanks to the Red Sox victory over Chicago, but they need to nail games like this down. Joe Nathan has now blown a couple of saves in the last few days, and while he's entitled to be human once in awhile, I get a little nervous when it happens multiple times in a short span. Wins are precious -- the Twins need to seize them when they get the chance. Nice start from Liriano, though, and good bullpen work up to Nathan.

Incidentally, congrats to the Gophers for beating NIU (it's NIU, but still, a win is a win, especially for the Gophers). I'm also thrilled to see that the upset bug is still going strong in NCAA Football -- although I would have preferred it if Pitt (my alma mater) has not lost to Bowling Green (the Gophers next opponent, incidentally). The Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Texas A&M losses were fascinating, though. I can only hope this season is as exciting as the last.

My Choices for September Callups

2008-08-30T16:12:00.004-06:00

On Monday, the 25-man active roster limitation that Major League Baseball imposes on all teams from April to August disappears. That means that any player on the 40-man roster is eligible to be placed on the active roster. The Twins currently have 36 players on the 40-man roster (excluding Pat Neshek, who is on the 60-Day disabled list and so does not count against the roster limit), so they could purchase the contract of up to 4 minor leaguers in order to help out in September. In addition, there are 11 players who are already on the 40-man roster, but not on the active roster, who could be activated. Here are my thoughts on the potential additions:

Locks

It can be dangerous to say that anything is a lock, but the three players I'm placing in this category really are virtually guaranteed to join the team once rosters expand. First up is Matt Tolbert, who has been playing every day on a rehab assignment with Rochester and is ready to be activated from the disabled list (alright, so it's not your traditional September callup -- but it's made possible by the expanded roster). Whether he takes any time away from the other infielders in the current rotation is questionable, but he'll give the club another option, and depth is always nice.

Second, reliever Bobby Korecky made his big league debut earlier this year and pitched well in limited action (3.48 ERA in 10.1 innings). His excellent performance with the Red Wings (2.84 ERA in 73 innings, with 71 K's and just 21 BB's) coupled with the Twins need for some additional bullpen help makes this an easy call for the Twins, and Korecky should provide that.

Third, the Twins are likely to call Matt Macri back up to the bigs to provide even more infield depth. I've listed this in the "locks" category, but this is the least certain of the locks. Macri has not played well recently, and probably wouldn't get a lot of use. Still, with the minor league season finishing up on Monday, Macri might as well be kept on the bench as insurance and to get some seasoning.

Close to Locks

I'd be extremely surprised if the Twins didn't bring Philip Humber up to the big leagues, to be used as a reliever. Humber will be out of options next year, and the Twins undoubtedly would like to evaluate him at the big league level while they have a chance. Additionally, Humber has been excellent over his last 10 games, with a 2.62 ERA and 53-13 K-BB ratio in 58.1 innings.

The Twins are also quite likely to call up outfielder Jason Pridie, who has hit .270/737 with 12 homers and 25 steals in 548 AB's for the Red Wings this year. The steals suggest that Pridie could be particularly useful as a pinch runner, and September is all about utilizing the tools that are available to you. Pridie's been awful for the last half of August, but the Twins wouldn't be calling him up for his bat anyway, so this callup seems quite likely.

Good Possibilities

Olympian Brian Duensing is not on the 40-man roster, but he'll be eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter and the Twins are virtually certain to add him to the roster before then to protect him. If he's going to be added anyway, why not add him now and utilize him out of the bullpen? Duensing has not had a great year -- 4.25 ERA in 133.1 innings with Rochester before he left for the Olympics -- but he's a solid prospect. The only reason I could think of that Duensing wouldn't be added is if the Twins were concerned about how he was used in the Olympics -- but he pitched for the Red Wings yesterday, which would seem to suggest that the Twins haven't done anything drastic like shutting him down.

Also a good possibility is infielder Luke Hughes, who had a great first part of the season in New Britain and who has continued to play well since being promoted to Rochester. Like Duensing, Hughes is not yet on the 40-man roster, but he is Rule 5 eligible and is another player the Twins are likely to protect before the next Rule 5 draft. The Twins do intend on having Hughes play winter ball, so there may be some desire to give him September off. Also, he hasn't played for a couple of days and I'm not sure if that's routine or due to some sort of injury. I wouldn't be surprised if Hughes was left off, but I'm leaning towards his being added.

If he were healthy, catcher Jose Morales would be a virtual lock, as carrying a third catcher is a luxury that a team can afford with the roster limit out of the way. Morales has been out since June, however, so he won't be getting the call -- but I still think that there's a very good chance the Twins could add a catcher to the 40-man roster so that they have the protection throughout September. While he can't seem to hit a lick, my money is on New Britain catcher Drew Butera, who is Rule 5 eligible this winter. Butera was acquired as a defensive catcher, and if he's any good there's always a chance he could be claimed. With the Twins having few other viable options worthy of a callup to the big leagues (Red Wings catcher Ryan Jorgensen would surprise me), Butera seems like a distinct possibility.

Guys Who Wouldn't Shock Me

There are a number of names who could find themselves being called up. Relievers Mariano Gomez and Ricky Barrett have both pitched well this season for Rochester, and could be added to the 40-man roster to provide additional bullpen help. With several other pitchers already likely to be called up, though, will the Twins want to add these guys to the roster only to drop them again when the season is done (as would almost certainly happen)?

Infielder Alejandro Machado has been excellent for the Red Wings this year, hitting .352 in 182 AB's (and .390 in his last 41 AB's). However, from what I've heard his arm strength only allows him to play second when he's in the field right now. With guys like Tolbert and Macri already virtually certain to be added, will the Twins really bother to add Machado to the 40-man roster now? What role would he play with the team if he was to be called up? Some fans may be disappointed to see a guy who is playing so well left off the team, and I wouldn't be shocked if he was added to the roster (see the heading to this section), but I by no means think that his addition is a certainty.

Familiar face Garrett Jones is another name we could see returning. Jones doesn't excite me all that much, but he's hit 22 homeruns this year and his .274 average and 811 OPS are nothing to sneeze at, especially coming from the left side. The Twins could add him to the roster for use as a late inning pinch hitting power threat.

New Britain reliever Rob Delaney has been mentioned a lot recently, and he's had a brilliant season with Ft. Myers and New Britain (1.08 ERA and 38-5 K-BB ratio in 33.1 innings with the Rock Cats). However, I think it's unlikely that he'll get the call. For one thing, he'd be asked to jump from AA all the way to the big leagues, and that would make me a bit nervous if I were GM Bill Smith. Perhaps more importantly, though, Delaney is not Rule 5 Eligible until after the 2009 season. Is he really going to pitch enough in September to justify starting the clock on his big league career a full year early? If he's added now, the Twins will need to use an option on him in 2009 -- if they hold off, they get that year essentially for free. That could be important down the road. I would hold off on Delaney.

Finally, I also would not be shocked to see the Twins bring Brian Bass back to the big leagues. His 4.87 ERA for the Twins was nothing to write home about, but he at least has some big league experience, and I could see him getting some use. More than likely, this would be a one month callup, with Bass probably being let go when the season was done to reclaim the roster spot. I'm guessing that Bass accepted the assignment to Rochester after he was cut because his agent was hoping that just this scenario would play out, with the Twins adding him to the 40-man again once rosters expanded. I'd put the odds at less than 50%, but you never know.

Other Names

It's at least possible that we could see Julio DePaula, Jose Mijares (who has pitched well after recovering from his arm injury), Sergio Santos, Anthony Swarzak, or Kevin Mulvey. For a variety of reasons, however, I think these guys are unlikely to be called up in September. Dark horse candidates could also emerge -- although I would expect any callups to have been mentioned in this post somewhere.

My Picks

Finally, I'll give you the names I'd pick. From the list of guys already on the 40-man roster, I'd activate Humber, Korecky, Macri, Tolbert, and Pridie. I would also add Duensing, Jones, Butera, and probably Barrett to the 40-man roster. I think this is extremely unlikely to be what the Twins do -- but it's probably the direction I would go in. Duensing and Barrett would add additional left-handed bullpen support, Jones would add a power-hitting lefty, and Butera would give the team an insurance catcher. I also am of the mind that you might as well utilize the 40 spots you have on the roster, especially with guys like Jones and Barrett (who can be removed from the roster without really worrying about their being claimed -- both because a claim is unlikely, and because it wouldn't matter too much if they were actually claimed). I expect the Twins to be more conservative than this, and would be surprised to see more than 5 or 6 names total called up -- but you never know. We should find out soon.

Nightly Notes: Game #135

2008-08-29T22:56:00.003-06:00

As tough as the going has been at times on this monster road trip, the Twins find themselves tonight once again just a half game behind the White Sox in the battle for the AL Central. With just five games left on the trip, the Twins have to be pleased with how things have gone, even though there has been some heartbreak and some missed opportunities. Here are some notes from tonight's game:

1.) Kevin Slowey has been mostly fantastic for the month of August. He struggled a bit in his first outing of the month, going 6 innings and allowing 5 runs against the Indians on August 2. Since then, however, he's allowed just 1 or 2 earned runs in each of his five starts, and has gone at least 6 innings in all but one of those starts. He also has games in which he struck out 10 batters (tonight) and 12 batters (again against Oakland, on August 19). I would like to see him start to get through 7 innings more often, but I am more than pleased with his performance this year, and especially the recent strong run.

2.) It was huge for Craig Breslow to get through the final three innings of the night without giving up so much as a hit to the A's. The last thing the Twins needed in a game that they were in clear control of was to have a bullpen meltdown. Breslow now has a 2.37 ERA on the season, and I say again that I'm very glad the Twins picked him up to replace Juan Rincon.

3.) I don't know that offensive success on a night like tonight is all that notable -- it was pretty clear that the A's pitching was just horrid. Offensive failure, on the other hand, IS particularly notable -- and there's only one player who failed utterly at the plate tonight. Of course, it would have to be Nick Punto -- who was once again moved into the second spot in the lineup after some recent success. Punto proceeded to go 0-for-6, while Alexi Casilla went 3-for-5 in the 8 hole. Punto also left 6 men on base. The move didn't work out, but Gardy was on to something when he made the move -- Punto had been on something of a tear. On August 11, he was hitting .256 and the criticism of him playing virtually every day was at its height. After yesterday's game, Punto was hitting .293 -- nearly a 40 point increase in a span of a little over 2 weeks. I'm guessing, though, that an 0-for-6 on a night when the ball seemed to be on a tee will be enough to get Gardy to move him back to #8 tomorrow.

4.) I'm hoping for a brilliant big league debut from Michael Bowden for the Red Sox tomorrow night against the White Sox. Chi-town will be throwing Mark Buehrle at Boston, so the rookie will probably need an extremely solid start to beat the pale hose. On the plus side, Bowden has been great in the minors this year -- he posted a 2.33 ERA in 104 innings at AA before being promoted to AAA, where he also pitched will. I also think that guys who are debuting often have a fair amount of success because the opposition doesn't really know what to expect. If Bowden can deliver tomorrow, the Twins will have a chance to move into first behind The Franchise.

5.) I will be in college football heaven tomorrow despite the relative lack of big games. Hey, the opening weekend is opening weekend even if it features games like Oklahoma-Chattanooga and Villanova-West Virginia. I don't expect any of the top 25 to lose tomorrow (except, obviously, in the two cases where two top 25 teams square off), but I think #25 Pitt needs to be very careful against Bowling Green and #11 Texas should probably not look too far ahead Florida Atlantic. Basically, I'm betting the chalk tomorrow -- every top 25 favorite should win, including #6 Missouri over #20 Illinois and #9 Clemson over #24 Alabama.

6.) This is not a political blog, so I'm not going to express any political positions (you can see me do that on Marty's blog from time to time, but not here). I will say, however, that I was fascinated by John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate today. What I find particularly interesting is that both major candidates selected running mates who cut against a major theme -- Obama's selection of Joe Biden cuts against his argument for "Change," while McCain's selection of Palin cuts against his argument for "Experience" (which of course is usually framed against Obama's "lack of experience"). All I know is I can't wait for election day -- I follow it with at least as much enthusiasm as I follow sports, and election day in a presidential election year is probably more exciting to me than any given sporting event.

7.) I hope to post my thoughts on September callups tomorrow. If for some reason I don't get around to that, I'll do so on Sunday. I also intend to post a nightly notes column after tomorrow nights game, and after Sunday's game as well. Also, I intend to appear on Marty's radiocast/podcast on Sunday night at 8 PM Central, so I invite you all to listen live if you get a chance. Busy weekend!

Blog Update

2008-08-28T20:48:00.002-06:00

I know, I know, I haven't given you a REAL nightly notes post in several days. Sadly, I'm paid to do lawyerly stuff and to teach, not to blog. I'm still settling into my first week of the new semester, which has led to what is, I hope, an uncommonly large amount of evening work. I should have the opportunity to post a notes column tomorrow night, and I also plan on talking about who I would name as September callups if I were GM Bill Smith -- probably in a post on Saturday.

Oh yeah -- isn't it great that college football is back? I can't wait until Saturday!

No Notes Tonight

2008-08-27T17:24:00.002-06:00

I'm working on another project, and I'm not going to get a post up tonight. Still, I had to take a second to comment on tonight's win. The Twins absolutely could not afford to be swept by the Mariners. I'm sure the road trip is at the point where it's starting to drag on everybody a little bit, and the guys are tired and would love to be home. Still, you have to take advantage of games against bad teams like the Mariners, and unfortunately the Twins largely couldn't do that. Getting the win today, though, snaps the losing streak -- and because of the fact that the Twins needed to battle (and needed a great throw from Denard Span out in right field), maybe it will also serve to fire up the guys.

Let's hope the wins continue in the days ahead. Hopefully, I'll be back with a notes post tomorrow night. Until then . . .

Brief Notes

2008-08-25T23:33:00.003-06:00

It's too late for me to put together a full notes column, so here are a few brief, scattered thoughts:

1.) It won't be often that Joe Nathan is the guy who lets the bullpen down. Eddie Guardado did a great job in the 8th (and he just looked right in a Twins uniform again), and unfortunately Nathan gave up that leadoff double and didn't get any help from Punto with the error. It was just one of those nights.

2.) I was completely unaware until I looked at the scoreboard that the White Sox and Orioles had completed a game from four months ago before starting tonight's game -- nice to see that the Twins are only a game back, rather than 1.5.

3.) Liriano's ERA is down to 3.83 after yet another respectable start. This was, incidentally, the first game he's pitched the Twins have lost since he returned to the big leagues.

4.) I'm annoyed we were beat by R.A. Dickey. Nothing else to say about that one.

5.) I'm not sure why Ron Gardenhire decided to call out Mike Lamb by saying that he was more laid back than the Twins had hoped for, and that the team "play[s] at a different level." I guess if I were talking about a just-fired employee, I probably would have said something to effect of "unfortunately, it didn't work out -- we wish Mike the best of luck." I just found it a bit out of character, and I assume there's a back story there somewhere.

Welcome Back, Eddie! UPDATED

2008-08-25T14:43:00.005-06:00

Imagine my surprise when I returned home today and discovered that the Twins have reacquired Eddie Guardado! I know a lot of Twins fans were clamoring for a bullpen move, and this seems to have been about the best move available. Guardado was having a very solid season with the Rangers, posting a 3.65 ERA and 1.11 WHIP in 49.1 innings spread across 55 games.

Certainly, the Twins didn't give up anyone overly important to the team, as the Rangers picked up rookie league pitcher Mark Hamburger in the transaction. The write up on La Velle Neal's strib blog mentions that there are talent evaluators in the Twins organization who feel that Hamurger could make the big leagues some day -- but if that happens, it's going to be a long time from now. The Twins are trading a marginal prospect who has a shot at the big leagues for a proven (albeit old) lefty who can help in the 7th and 8th innings.

While I'm generally supportive of the trade, then, I wonder who is going to be sent out to make room for Guardado. None of the pitchers seem like obvious choices -- Guardado could replace Craig Breslow outright, but Breslow has a 2.36 ERA and 1.19 WHIP this year, so he's pitched better than Guardado and that wouldn't make much sense. He could also replace Boof Bonser, but they fill very different roles in the bullpen so that wouldn't make much sense either.

Instead, it seems likely that the Twins will expand back to 12 pitchers tonight. There seem to be three possibilities for who could get sent down: Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, and Randy Ruiz. With Alexi Casilla back in the fold, and with Nick Punto and Brendan Harris both capable of playing short or third as needed, the obvious answer seems to be Everett. Lamb and Ruiz fill niche roles that others in the organization don't necessarily fill adequately. Everett is a spare part, a player who is wholly redundant.

So long as the Twins don't make a puzzling move to make room for Guardado, then, I fully agree with this move. Guardado should bolster a bullpen that obviously has been struggling, and in a straight up exchange of Guardado for Everett on the roster, the Twins are better off with Guardado. I give this one my enthusiastic support, even if I don't expect Guardado to be brilliant. The bottom line is that he should help the team, and that's all that matters.

UPDATE: Now that was a bit unexpected. The Twins have designated Mike Lamb for assignment to make room for Guardado on the active roster. While I identified Lamb as a possible casualty in the original post, I thought it made more sense for the Twins to cut Adam Everett. I've rethought things a little bit -- I had identified Lamb as filling a niche role, for instance, but that "niche" was a left-handed corner infielder. Lamb, after all, occasionally played first base when Justin Morneau was the DH. On second thought, however, Brian Buscher can probably fill that role equally well.

The other possible argument against cutting Lamb is that the Twins are on the hook for nearly $4 million through next season. Obviously Bill Smith felt that there was no place for Lamb with the team in the future -- even though this season's poor performance is a bit of an aberration in Lamb's historical performance. It would have been easier to cut Adam Everett -- but Smith made a tougher decision. I only hope that Lamb doesn't catch on somewhere next year and hit .300 with 20 homers.

As for Everett, this was probably the final hurdle that he needed to jump to stick with the team for the rest of the year. From my standpoint, I don't really know what he brings to the team, and if I were the Twins GM I almost certainly would have cut him instead of Lamb. Still, I don't think Smith made the wrong move so much as I think he made a somewhat unusual and bold move.

Podcast Appearance

2008-08-24T20:41:00.002-06:00

I was once again a guest on Marty's livecast/podcast this week. The five of us on the show discussed a whole bunch of topics, from (of course) the bullpen to Nick Punto to the Olympics. I should have posted this before the show, since you could have listened live and even called in had you been so inclined. I'll try to remember next time! As it is, you can check it out and listen to the recording if you're interested. Thanks to Marty for hosting.

Hernandez Done in Colorado?

2008-08-23T09:26:00.002-06:00

Livan Hernandez has now made three starts for the Rockies since being rather unceremoniously dumped by the Twins at the end of July. Forget about the argument over whether he should or not have have been signed by the Twins at the beginning of the year -- we've had that argument already. Far more interesting to me is whether any team should have bothered to actually pick Hernandez up when the Twins cut him.

The easy answer is to look at what Hernandez has done since joining the Rockies. Simply put, he's been miserable -- he lasted just 2.2 innings while allowing 9 earned runs in his first start, went 6 innings and allowed 6 earned runs in his second start, and yesterday allowed 6 more earned runs in 3.2 innings. That's an ERA of 15.32 in three starts. Based on that alone, the answer is clearly no.

Of course, that's the kind of "analysis" that I despise -- looking solely at the results doesn't tell you anything about the process that went into making a decision. Good things can happen to teams that make bad decisions, and bad things can happen to teams that make good decisions. After all, if there's a 99% chance that something will happen, that still means that once out of every 100 times it doesn't happen, and vice versa. In purely economic terms, the person who buys a lottery ticket made a bad investment whether he wins or not. This kind of analysis frustrates some people who prefer to look only at results, but if you don't analyze the process behind the decision-making you don't know whether a team (or GM or Manager or whoever) is consistently making good decisions or is just getting lucky (or, alternatively, if your criteria for evaluating decision-making is flawed).

With that in mind, what do I think of the Rockies decision to get Hernandez? On the one hand, they had nothing to lose. Hernandez didn't cost them a player (a far cry from the year before, when the Rockies inexplicably gave up Matt Macri in exchange for the horrendous Ramon Ortiz), and the prorated portion of his salary (a little over $1.5 million) isn't going to break the bank for a team. The Rockies felt that they needed a pitcher who would give them innings to take some strain off the bullpen -- and following the same logic that caused the Twins to sign Hernandez in the first place, the Rockies pulled the trigger and acquired a player with a reputation for eating innings.

The problem is that the Rockies must have ignored Hernandez's performance in June and July, when he had an ERA well over 6.00. Giving credit where it's due, Hernandez did go 6 innings or more in 7 of his 11 starts during that span -- but if he's giving up 5 or 6 runs consistently in those starts, how valuable is that to a club? Remember, the Rockies started August just 8 games back in an NL West that at the time looked fairly weak. The Dodgers and D-Backs have been playing better of late, but the Rockies are still just 9 back.

Believe it or not, I'm forced to conclude that this wasn't a horrible decision by the Rockies. If you look at the 15.32 ERA, and if you remember how harsh I've been on Hernandez and how vociferously I argued that his performances for the Twins weren't worth a damn, you might wonder how I arrive at this conclusion. Really, though, it's all about expectations and needs.

The Rockies should have expected Hernandez to post a 6.00+ ERA -- he'd been doing it consistently for two months. They could NOT have expected that in three starts he'd be as dreadful as he has been. The Rockies did not have any other options that could have been expected to outperform Hernandez (a significant difference with what the Twins were doing), and since they were down by so many games they had to take a chance that Hernandez would be able to step in and give them a chance to win some games. In fact, they did win in Hernandez's second start, when he gave up 6 runs in 6 innings. If he had been able to regularly post 6 run starts while allowing 4 or 5 runs, the Rockies may have been able to win some ballgames with him starting.

Somewhat surprisingly, then, I find myself in the position of excusing the Rockies. Hernandez was never going to be a stud for them -- but that's not what they needed, and hopefully not what they expected (there was some breathless chatter from the local papers when he was picked up, but I attribute that to media hype and not to the guys who actually do this for a living). Unfortunately for the Rockies, they took a shot and lost.