Wednesday December 31, 2003
 

FREE AGENT UPDATE

WOLVES THOUGHTS

THANK YOU’S

& Happy New Year

With the New Year upon us, 2003 will be out the door, and I will be writing the wrong year on my check blanks again for awhile! Every year. As I’ve stated plenty of times before, I don’t claim to be a smart man!

But this seems like as good a time as any to say a number of Thank You’s!

For quite some time, I have really enjoyed reading all of the great baseball blogs that are out there. For me, it all started by doing a Yahoo search for (Minnesota Twins Geek). Of course, I was just mocking myself online when I typed that in there, but lucky for me, it brought me to The Twins Geek, and baseball was taken to a whole new level in my mind. So, I need to thank John Bonnes, the Twins Geek for a great site.

From there, I was brought to the Dickie Thon Fan Forum, which is, in my mind, the best site for good, honest, indepth, hard-hitting discussion about our Twins team. I would definitely encourage everyone to bookmark that site and feel free to write in some entries. There are good people on there.

From the forum, I learned about Aaron’s Baseball Blog. Aaron Gleeman is a third year student at the University of Minnesota who uses many advanced baseball metrics to write up some incredible baseball entries five days a week.

After finding more and more baseball sites, I found that I was thinking of more and more things baseball. Finally, after much thought about it, I decided to go for it, to develop my very own web site. With the help of Missy Olson, we figured out how to make the site you have come to, SethSpeaks. She has been a great editor, publisher, webmaster and source of many ideas found on this web page. So, thanks Miss!

Once we got it going, I wanted to make sure that I could link to all of those wonderful web sites on the left side of this screen. As I said, there are a lot of incredible baseball writers who do an amazing job each and every day. I can’t thank each of them individually here because I know I would forget some and I don’t want to do that. But I do want to single out a few of the sites that I'd feel terrible if I ever missed! These people have also been great at answering questions for me via e-mail and including me in their groups.

First, many of you that have been reading this site throughout the football season have seen our great group of “experts” who pick games each week. I want to thank each of them again for taking a little time each week to participate. Here they are again:

Aaron Gleeman - Aaron’s Baseball Blog - mentioned above, he finished with the best record of our nine person group. Aaron has helped me a lot with questions I’ve had. I am also in a fantasy basketball league that he started.

Ben Jacobs - Universal Baseball Blog - Ben writes a great posting almost daily. He also is a writer for the Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle sports department, with his own weekly fantasy football article.

Anthony Fox - The Bad Twin - Anthony writes a very good baseball site during the season. He writes a lot about football, college in particular, in the off-season. He has been very helpful with e-mails to discussion questions and others that help me come up with topics to write on.

Mike Brasel - Mike made my Best I’ve Ever Played Ball With list early in my posting days. He has been a friend of mine for a LONG time and currently lives with his wife and son in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

Vic Quick - Vic is the sports director at KDUH-TV in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He was a college roommate of mine while we were attending Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. Originally from Dallas, the lifetime Cowboy fan covers the Denver Broncos now.

Michael Labuda - ChiSox Daily - Michael writes great postings at his website. It was fun going back and forth with him when the Twins and White Sox were battling for the division lead. I know he also took much joy from the Chicago Bears win against the Vikings, which helped keep the purple out of the playoffs.

Melissa Olson - SethSpeaks Webmaster - I wrote about Missy above and since she’ll read this before it gets posted, I don’t want her to get a big head, so I won’t brag her up any more at this time!

David Lee - Braves Buzz -  Now, David may have struggled in the football picks, but he does a good job of keeping us up on the goings on with the Braves. I have to admit, I am intrigued by his most recent posting which simply says, “Stay tuned, we have big news coming around New Years. I will announce it here the second it comes out.” So, be sure to check that out over the New Year’s weekend!

So again, thanks to all of these people for their participation in the football picks, but also just for all their help either with this site, or with their friendships.

In addition to the above sites, here are a few other sites that I can’t miss ever because they are so good and so interesting every day. Each of these people have been great to get to know over the last six months and I hope that the communication with these writers continues over the next year. Be sure to bookmark these sites for yourselves! Here is a Thank you to them:

Alex Belth- Bronx Banter - A Yankees site, but it is incredible. Be sure especially to check out some of his interviews with some great baseball minds. Not only is he a great writer, but he has been very nice and supportive, answering questions I’ve had of him and more.

David Pinto - Baseball Musings - David used to work for ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, so he has a great baseball mind, but also some great sources. He posts things throughout the day, as he learns of them. He too has been a good source for me.

Bryan Smith - Wait Til Next Year - I really only found out about this site a couple of months ago, but it quickly became one of my favorites. He spends a lot of time discussing how deals, signings or trades, affect the teams involved now, but also for the future, next year. I find that stuff very interesting. Projections are what we are really about. Who will be the next star?

David Bloom - YaGottaBelieve - David was one of the first bloggers that came to me asking me to exchange links, and I’m glad he did. This was formerly known as the D-Rays Blog. I am a fan of the Devil Rays youth movement, even if it seems to be almost in vain with the spending teams in their division. David does really a nice job every day and is one of the good guys in the blogging world.

Rich Lederer - Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat - I never thought that writing every day would be as difficult as it has been. Rich writes primarily just a weekend posting or two. But when he does write, his work is remarkable. Whether it is his recent Bert Blyleven Hall of Fame posting or his wonderful interviews this winter, Rich does a great job. And, like the rest of these names, he is very friendly and patient with me and my questions.

Now I would consider those I’ve mentioned above the cream of the crop of baseball bloggers. But again, not just because they do such a great job discussing baseball, but because they have shown to me that they are really good people. So again, thank you very much to these guys!

That said, I do frequently read all of the other websites linked to at the left of the screen, and they are all very good in their own right. Also, I would be remiss to not mention our Sponsors. Be sure to check out their links on the left side of the screen as well.

I need to thank a number of people who have written to me with “insider” information. Obviously, you all didn’t want me to mention your names then so I won’t now either. I do very much appreciate your input. So, you know who you are, and thank you!

But most importantly, I want to thank you, the readers. Those of you who read this site daily and write me give me enough motivation to try to write something every day. I appreciate the interaction with the readers. There are a number of you, and I won’t name names because I know I would forget some, who write me frequently with your opinions or thoughts, even if they aren’t the same as mine. I love the dialogue and hope you continue to read my site and e-mail me any time.
 

FREE AGENT UPDATE

The free agent group is getting smaller quickly, and the amount of real impact players available is pretty minimal. Actually, outside of right field, it is really weak! Pudge is still available at catcher, but I think that he’s finding out that the market for him is no where near what he thought! 1B is weak! 2B has three guys who aren’t as good as Luis Rivas! 3B is terrible. SS isn’t very good. LF and CF are a bunch of 4^th and 5^th outfielders. Vlad Guerrero still hasn’t signed with the Orioles, so maybe he’s just finalizing a deal with Twins GM Terry Ryan (I can still dream, right?)

From the pitching standpoint, there are still a few quality starters available (however, they are far above the Twins budget restraints). However, with Jason Johnson signing with the Tigers yesterday, there goes another quality arm in our potential price range. The bullpen options are certainly more plentiful, although there really isn’t a dominant pitcher in the bunch.

So, what’s next? Who should the Twins go after? Well, in my mind, the top 3 starters are the only ones worth paying more than $1 million to, so unless the others will sign for near the league minimum, I would stick with the Twins farm system and trust them. Also, Kenny Rogers can not even negotiate with the Twins until after May 1, so he’s good as gone.

I do like the LH Relievers though. Any of the four could be a big boost to the Twins. The RH Relievers are all veterans who have shown glimpses of being good, but there are huge question marks with all of them.  (Note – Armando Benitez has signed, so he can also be deleted from the list)

Any comments on this list? Any thoughts on if the Twins should make a play at any of them? E-mail me.
 

WOLVES THOUGHTS

This will be pretty quick. The Wolves got off to a big lead and put it into cruise control against the Chicago Bulls last night early. The Bulls fought back and cut the lead to just two. I mainly watched the second half of the game and maybe we found out just how good the Wolves are this year. They played absolutely horribly. They turned the ball over and were generally very sloppy with the ball. This is a game that in previous years, they would have found a way to lose. This year, they somehow managed to hold on for the win. The Wolves finished off their best December ever, with just two losses. Hopefully more players will gain some health and the team will continue to improve.

Kevin Garnett is the best player in the NBA. No doubt about that. Last night, he had 28 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists. However, his sole problem in my mind is that he is not a good free throw shooter, especially not at the end of games. Never has been. As a matter of fact, I would almost venture to say that in ‘clutch’, late game situations, I would guess that Shaquille O’Neal may shoot a better percentage from the free throw line. Does anyone know a good basketball site for statistics like that? If so, please let me know…

Well, that is it for today. I won’t be writing anything new tomorrow. However, I will have some thoughts on Friday. Remember my question/request to you yesterday was to send me an e-mail with a question or two for me on anything you can think of. I will probably answer some of those questions Friday, so be sure to ask away. Also, our football picking panel will be back with our first round of playoff picks as well as our Award Winners. If you have any questions, comments or thoughts for me, e-mail me and I’ll get back to you!

Have yourself a very Happy New Years tonight. Have fun, but be safe!

Back to Archives           Home