Monday December 8, 2003
 

MORNING UPDATE - Twins resign Shannon Stewart.  Just before the midnight deadline last night, the Minnesota Twins signed OF Shannon Stewart to a 3 year $18 million contract. He made just over $6 million last year. He will make $5.5 million in 2004, $6 million in 2005 and $6.5 million in 2006. I think those are pretty fair numbers considering the way he performed last year. I almost believe that resigning Stewart makes the Twins the winners in the Bobby Kielty/Shannon Stewart trade.  The Twins also chose to offer arbitration to closer Eddie Guardado, meaning they can continue to negotiate with him. It could mean that if he chooses to accept it, the Twins will have to pay more than market value for him, but that's ok.  It is still believed that Guardado is leaning toward accepting an offer from the Seattle Mariners.  With the Stewart signing, the assumption is that Jacque Jones will still be traded.

WEEKEND WRAP-UP

I have to apologize for being lazy again today. I’m actually not even in town again today. I don’t say this too often, but I’d probably rather be at work today. I’m having a crown put on a tooth. The drilling and the novocain and the pain… It’s not going to be a fun day at all. So please, wish me luck!!!

But I thought I should write something for the day. But then I realized that I don’t have a lot to say. Not as much “stuff” happened in major league baseball this weekend. I expected plenty of free agent signings and maybe a couple of trades. I really thought the A-Rod for Manny deal (with Nomar Garciaparra going elsewhere) was going to happen. It still could. The Rangers want a deal within a week, which is probably fair. As of when this was written, the Twins had not yet signed either Eddie Guardado or Shannon Stewart. I figured at least one of them would have signed by last night. It is looking more and more like Eddie Guardado will be heading out west, and I don’t know what will happen with Stewart. Maybe something will be resolved soon.

For those of you who are like me and are confused about last night’s deadline to offer a free agent arbitration, here is something I received from Lee Sinnis yesterday in his Around the Majors e-mail on the topic:

Midnight is the deadline for teams to offer their free agents salary arbitration.
If they offer it, the player has until December 19 to accept. If he accepts, it's the equivalent of a 1 year contract, with a salary determined either by an arbitrator or by the parties agreeing beforehand. If he declines, the parties have until January 8 to make a deal or the team loses the rights to negotiate with him until January 8. The team will also retain their rights to get draft compensation if the player goes elsewhere.
If they don't offer it, which will happen in the bulk of cases, the team  loses negotiating rights to him until May 1. They will also lose the right  to draft picks.

No other major signings occurred, unless you consider Mark Grudzielanek (Cubs), JT Snow (Giants), Robin Ventura (Dodgers), Dean Palmer (Tigers), or Todd Pratt (Phillies) signing with their previous teams as major. Luis Castillo finally officially resigned with the Marlins. Michael Tucker signed a 2 year deal with the Giants. Shigetoshi resigning with the Mariners may be the biggest deal of the weekend, and that certainly wasn’t unexpected. So, I’ll be back tomorrow with (hopefully) more baseball news.

This was a good weekend for the other major Minnesota sports franchises. The Vikings actually beat the Seahawks. I have to admit, I was shocked. The Vikings completely dominated the time of possession and the game. I think the key was simply getting ahead which allowed the defense to play aggressively. They were consistently able to get pressure on Matt Hasselbeck which took them out of their timing.  The offense remained strong. They were able to control the clock with some good running. Michael Bennett went over 100 yards (the key Viking question may be the extent of his ankle injury that kept him out toward the end of the game). Daunte Culpepper played another very smart game, hitting the right receivers at the right time. He set things up with good short passing and also was better on the timing of the long passes. Randy Moss was over 100 yards with 2 long touchdowns. Kelly Campbell also had a long TD reception.

The Vikings win kept them in sole possession of 1^st place in the NFC North, a game ahead of the Green Bay Packers. The Pack eliminated the oncoming Bears playoff chances by defeating them. The Bears jumped out to a 14-0 lead, but then the Packers scored 27 unanswered. Next week, the Vikings play those Bears. Hopefully the Bears will be so deflated with their loss that they’ll fall over for the Vikings!  We can hope, right?

The Timberwolves had a great weekend. Yesterday, Kevin Garnett hit a last second shot to give the Wolves a 96-94 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. Latrell Sprewell led the team with 27 points. Kevin Garnett and Sam Cassell added 24 points each. Garnett added 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks and 3 steals. Cassell added 10 assists, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

But the game of the weekend had to be the Wolves/Kings game Friday night. Those who stayed up to watch it will probably tell you how lucky they were! The Wolves somehow managed to eek out an overtime win. It was the fourth consecutive time the Wolves and Kings went to overtime. The Wolves grabbed a big third quarter lead, but we knew the Kings would make a comeback. The interesting thing is that said comeback came with Vlade Divac, Doug Christie and All-Star Peja Stojakovic on the bench. I won’t say the refs had a hand in the Kings comeback (even if I would love to!) However, the Kings took a six point lead with about 30 seconds to play. The Wolves ran an inbounds play to Kevin Garnett who lofted a 3-pointer that went in. The Kings threw the ball in to Brad Miller, an All-Star who led the Kings with 32 points, but somehow, he missed his 2 free throw attempts. The Wolves brought the ball down the court. It was in the hands of Sprewell, but he was guarded tightly, so he kicked it out to Garnett who, with Bobby Jackson right up on him, knocked down another three pointer, his third of the game, and the fourth of his season. So, the game went to overtime, where Garnett and Sprewell led the team to the 112-109 win.

Sprewell led the Wolves in scoring with 37 points and did a great job holding down Stojakovic. Kevin Garnett added 33 points, a career-high 25 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocked shots. Sam Cassell was overshadowed but added 26 points, including the game-clinching layup at the end of overtime. The wins move the Wolves to 11-8 and have to give them confidence heading into Tuesday’s game against Golden State.

But, just to show that not everything changes, the Minnesota Wild continued to struggle to score goals. Saturday night, they were fortunate to get a 1-1 tie in Vancouver. Friday night, they lost 2-1 in Calgary. They stand at 9-13-5.

The Minnesota Gophers men’s and women’s basketball teams both got easy wins.

The University of North Dakota’s football team lost in the Division II semi-finals to North Alabama.

St. John’s (MN) University defeated Linfield (OR) in a close game to move on to the Division III semi-finals.

Ah, the beauty of college tournament play. Makes you wish that Division I would just go to a tournament, doesn’t it? Or, did Kansas State’s demolishing of Oklahoma on Saturday night (35-7) in the Big 12 Championship game, yet Oklahoma still gets to play in the BCS championship game help too? The BCS is ridiculous in determining the national champion. I would like to see them use that ranking to determining the Top 12 teams. Those 12 teams would then make the tournament. Seeds 1-4 would then get a first round bye. 5 would play 12, 6 would play 11 and so on. The remaining teams would then be re-seeded after each round until a champion was determined… on the field!!

OK, Friday, I told you to check out Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat this weekend. He did a two-part interview with Mike from Mike’s Baseball Rants. Be sure to check out their links at the left of this screen, but here are the two parts to the interview. Part 1 covers a broad bunch of topics. Part 2 discusses the Hall of Fame and who should make it and why. Very interesting!

That reminds me, please be sure to check out my two part Hall of Fame discussion. Part 1  covered the players on the ballot for the first time. Part 2 covered those returning to the ballot. I have received some great e-mails on that topic. Tomorrow, I will post a mailbag with some of the messages I received. If you would like to participate and have your opinion heard (or read), send me an e-mail.

Well, that’s it for today. Quick, but we covered a lot! Tomorrow’s mailbag could also include other e-mails from readers. If you have any thoughts on the Twins or what they’ve done (the Milton trade), or what they should do, let me know. Like I said, just e-mail me and you will probably end up quoted on tomorrow’s website (if you want, be sure to let me know whether or not you would like to be named).

 

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And finally, HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

 

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