Voting is occurring now in the Minor League section.

Vote Toby!

Hello folks,
It’s that time of the year again where everyone starts making their wacky predictions on who the Twins will be getting.  I myself have been purusing through materials trying to figure out how to make the most competitive team without breaking the bank.  As has Bill Smith I’m sure.  This is what I’ve come up with.

[b]POSITION PLAYERS (13)[/b]
Catchers:
Joe Mauer (23 Million)
Drew Butera (400 K)

First Basemen:
Justin Morneau (14 Million)

Second Basemen:
Alexi Casilla (1 Million)

Third Basemen:
Danny Valencia (400 K)

Shortstop:
JJ Hardy (6.5 Million)

Utility Infielder:
Matt Tolbert (400 K)
Outfielders:
Denard Span (1 Million)
Michael Cuddyer (10.5 Million)
Colby Rasmus (400 K)
Ben Revere (400 K)
Delmon Young (5 Million)

Designated Hitter:
Jim Thome (3.5 Million)

- The way I see it, the Twins will have some expensive players, so they need to find ways to save money with talented but cheaper players at other positions.  I think the Twins offer Hardy his arbitration and resign Thome for an affordable rate.  They will let Hudson walk because it is finally time to see if Casilla can handle a job.  It’s finally a make or break season for Casilla.  The big deal surrounds a deal between Kubel for Rasmus.  The Twins will also send a couple promising mid-level prospects to get this deal done.  This would allow us to rotate Cuddyer at 1B, DH, RF. Thome to DH vs all RHP. Young to Rotate between LF,RF, DH. Span can once again play all three spots in the Outfield.  Gives Morneau ample amount of days off to get much needed rest during the long season.

[b]PITCHING STAFF (12)[/b]

Starting Rotation:
Zack Greinke (13 Million)
Fransisco Liriano (5 Million)
Kevin Slowey (1.5 Million
Brian Duensing (400 K)
Nick Blackburn (3 Million)

Bullpen:
Joe Nathan (11 million)
Matt Capps (6.5 Million)
Jesse Crain (4 Million)
Jose Mijares (400 K)
Jeff Manship (400 K)
Pat Neshek (400 K)
Matt Guerrier (5 Million)

-I’m sure there are a lot of doubters out there about the possibility of us trading for Greinke, but I am a true believer it could actually happen if the Twins are willing to give up the talent to get him.  The Twins package Scott Baker/Aaron Hicks/Billy Bullock and possibly some lesser prospects to get Greinke.  The bullpen will be expensive.  The Twins will offer both Fuentes and Pavano arbitration, with both declining.  Twins pick up a couple of high draft picks to start restocking the farm system.

Overall Salary: 116.5 Million Dollars

Would give us a solid everday lineup of:
LF Denard Span
C  Joe Mauer
1B Justin Morneau
RF Delmon Young
CF Colby Rasmus
DH Jim Thome/Michael Cuddyer
3B Danny Valencia
SS JJ Hardy
2B Alexi Casilla

The season is over.  It ended before most of us thought it would and it ended with no drama and much disappointmnet for Twins fans.  As soon as the last out was recorded and probably before, many are going to point fingers at what went wrong.  I didn’t see a play of the game, but I saw enough during the series to know that the Twins lost, they deserved to lose and it wasn’t that close.  So who is to blame?  Here is my opinion, not so much stat-based as what I saw and heard in the last two weeks.

1.  Gardy.  The manager is an obvious scapegoat when a team goes bad.  All BYTOers have seen him burn up a bullpen, continue to bat inferior players early in the order, and insert Nick Punto into every game when little Nicky is healthy.  Well, he really did none of those things during the short series.  In hindsight, he should have pulled his starters earlier in games 1 and 2.  The bigger question would be, did he do the right things to get his club ready for postseason?  That answer is a little murky.  The team didn’t play well in it’s last 10 games.  Gardy rested all of his regulars someand got the postseason rotation set up.  Tampa, Texas, and New York did the exact same thing, but only the Twins got swept in three.  I say Gardy gets 10% blame.  He had a deep bullpen and didn’t use it early enough when his top two starters struggled.  Whatever he did to set up the postseason fell flat.

2. The Front Office.  The Twins have won six Central Divisions in nine years, but only advanced through the ALDS once.  I think there is a bit of a design flaw here.  The team has long relied on pitching based on pitching to contact and command, with the notable exceptions being Liriano and Santana (perhaps Nathan).  This plan really seems to work against the bottom half of the league and against lineups filled with young freeswingers.  It doesn’t seem to work nearly as well in the playoffs.  The rotation had six 10-game winners, but rotation depth means almost nothing in the playoffs, unless a good arm can help in the bullpen.     The lineup, by and large, this year had decent hitters up and down the order.  It produced comparatively little home run power and was blessed with little speed.  In the playoffs, it is hard to string together hits to produce a big inning.  A bloop, a walk and a blast are much easier to put together than four or five liners that don’t find fielder’s gloves.  In short, this club is designed to win in the regular season and some of it’s strengths just are not important in postseason baseball.  Also, one more hitter would have helped this team.  Given the L-R splits for the LH hitters, having a good righthanded bat could have changed things.  The Front Office made no move to strengthen the bench with another hitter.  I give the Front Office and Bill Smith 39% of the blame.

3.  The Players.  Liriano couldn’t make it through six despite having his pitch count in good shape.  Pavano couldn’t get an out in the seventh.  We had a Crain wreck.  Duensing looked overmatched in Yankee stadium.  So, the pitching was flawed.  For whatever reason, none of the starters were on top of their games, although Franchise and Mustache were acceptable.  The lineup didn’t produce much.  Nobody was outstanding.  Hudson and Young did the best, but scoring seven runs in three games won’t cut it.  The bench had no hitters on it, and got no at-bats.  I assign 49% of the blame to the players who didn’t get the job done.

4.  Luck/Karma.  Well, they got the Yankees, maybe a better draw would have been the Rays.  The Yankees played outstanding baseball, pitching very well, scoring runs in bunches and playing near flawless defense.  Yes, a bad ball/strike call cost Pavano in his start, but in the end the team that played better won each game.  2% of the blame for the Twins demise falls on luck or karma.