Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Mid-Week Notes
Good Morning everyone! Regardless of my thoughts, I hope you had a spooktacular Halloween Evening!
Well, I'm really trying to stick to my one-hour-on-the-site weeknights, so I better get started!
There is a very interesting poll and discussion over at John Sickels' site. It does a comparison of Boof Bonser and Mets pitcher John Maine. There are a lot of similarities. There is a poll for you to vote which you think is better.
Another posting there lets you vote for which player under 25 you would pick to build a franchise around. Two Twins players show up on the list, and one gets a lot of votes!
The third part of the Star-Tribune's feature on Kirby Puckett's life after baseball talks about his new family, but also dives further into his lack of health.
Bob Barker is retiring after 50 years on TV. He's 81 years old! I remember watching him on The Price is Right when school was cancelled due to bad weather. The whole school thing, and college and having a job really has cut into my TV watching during the daytime hours!
Yesterday, I mentioned that the Twins had until Wednesday to decide whether to pick up Carlos Silva's $4.325 million option. Well, they made the decision on Tuesday to do so, rather than buy out the contract for $100,000. He would not have been a free agent as he would still be eligible for arbitration. So, if they didn't offer pick up his option, they would need to decide whether to offer him arbitration. And, likely, in an arbitration case, the Twins would have ended up paying him that amount or more. So, it does make some sense. The team is counting on Silva being able to induce ground balls to get out of trouble, like he did in 2005, rather than the fly balls and home runs that he gave up in 2006. If he can do that, he can keep his pitch count down and provide the Twins with a lot of innings. So, I don't know what I would have done, but I don't think it is the end of the world that they did pick up the option. I mean, how long did they stick with Kyle Lohse?
I want to point you in the direction of a posting I made in the forums over at TwinCities Dugout regarding another potential Twins DH option. It's about half-way down the page.
The annual Japan series, in which players from Major League Baseball play games against teams in Japan, is set to get underway. The Twins will be represented by catcher Joe Mauer and pitcher Joe Nathan. I have no problem with Nathan and Mauer playing. I think it's great. Johan Santana was scheduled to pitch for the team, but he pulled out, and based on how much he threw throughout the year, including in the WBC, I think it is the right decision. Former Twins OF Jacque Jones was the final man added to the roster.
Our good friend Roger posted his final Twins organizational position review. It was about the Right Fielders.
Last night in Arizona... Jay Sawatski took the loss as he gave up three hits, and all three runs scored, without getting an out. Kevin Cameron got the next five hitters out in a row. Matt Tolbert led off and went 0-4. Matt Moses DHd and went 0-4 while batting sixth. Doug Deeds played left field, batted eighth and went 0-4. (He had gone 2-4 in his first AFL game.) One positive was David Winfree who played 1B and batted third. He was 1-2 with two walks and a three run triple.
After a bit of time in between, Aaron Gleeman posted his #23 Twins player of all-time, and I think it is a great choice. I'm excited to see the list continue because if this player is #23, there are 22 pretty good players yet to see!
Congratulations to Will Young! I think!
On Monday, Nick N wrote a nice piece on the Twins trades of 2006, many of which were terrific for the Twins!
At Taylor's Twins Talk, he takes a look at the free agent outfielders and gives a few thoughts on each. When the free agent names all come out, I plan to do something like this, making some predictions for where each player will end up, and approximately how much money they could command.
Take a gander at Pat Neshek's collection of baseball autographs. It's really quite impressive!
ESPN's Baseball Tonight just got a little better yesterday!! Jeff Brantley left the show and will be a broadcaster for Cincinnati Reds games, splitting time between radio and TV. For Reds fans... my deepest sympathies!
Good luck to former Twins infielder Ron Washington. He has been the Oakland A's third base coach for several years. He has had interviews for the A's vacancy as well as the manager's job with the Texas Rangers. Many believe that he would be an excellent manager.
This is a great line, "Better to be thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt."
And finally, I wanted to quickly talk about some of the Twins minor leaguers who are playing for the Tigres de Aragua down in Venezuela this winter. (Stats through Monday)
In 52 at bats, Garrett Jones is hitting .269/339/.481. He has hit three home runs and driving in twelve. The big key for Jones is making contact. In 57 plate appearances, he has struck out 11 times, which is actually significantly better than he has been doing the last two years in Rochester.
Denard Span is hitting .293/.369/.310. The .310 doesn't matter much to me because I don't expect him to hit for power. The .369 on-base percentage is pretty good. Important also is that he has eight walks and eight strikeouts in 64 plate appearances.
Luis Maza had a rough year with Rochester this year, and we don't know if he will even be back with the organization next year. I have had a couple of people tell me that he is a big leaguer, with the glove. So far, in 62 plate appearances, he is hitting .286/.359/.357.
Alex Romero has started out his winter season as hot as can be. In 51 plate appearances, he is hitting .438/.462/.500 with three doubles. He has a lot of potential. I'm just not sure it will happen with the Twins, but I definitely think that it will happen somewhere!
Former Twins 2B prospect Ruben Salazar (who has now spent his past three or four summers with the Fargo/Moorhead Redhawks), who was held back by Luis Rivas of all people, is hitting .352/.446/.444 with three doubles, a triple and 16 RBI in 62 plate appearances.
Henry Bonilla is 0-0 with a 4.50 ERA in eight innings of work (3 games). He has walked three and struck out six.
Beau Kemp is already 3-0 in just six relief appearances. In 10.2 innings, he has and ERA of 0.84 and given up eight hits and three walks, and he has struck out seven. Is he this year's version of Willie Eyre?
Yohan Pino is 1-0 with a 1.35 ERA in four relief appearances. In 6.2 innings, he has walked one and struck out seven.
Oswaldo Sosa is also 1-0. His ERA is 2.45. In five relief efforts, he has thrown 11 innings. He has walked three and struck out just five
That's it for today. Hopefully you found something interesting again today! Please stop back tomorrow.