Monday,
January 7, 2008
Monday Burnout
Gotta admit, I am struggling. I might be a little burnt out by the Johan Santana talk, and really, other than that, there isn't a lot to talk about with the Twins. With that said, there are things going on in baseball. I am still working on a few Q&As with Twins minor leaguers and more. So, please be patient with me. You never know when something worth reading will show up here. Until then, I will do my best and link toward some others who are writing things that you may have interest in...
Well, as you can see from our Football picks on Friday, my football IQ (or at least prognostication) skills that I showed off during the regular season, stayed the same with the first week of the football playoffs. I correctly predicted just one of the four games. And that was the game that all 23 of us picked the same, the Chargers. Our regular season champ (Josh Taylor) and our regular season cellar dweller (Josh Johnson) were two of four that correctly picked all four games. So did Tim Kolehmainen and Mike Brasel. We'll be back on Friday with the next round.
A new blog that I just learned of is the MLB on XM blog. It is a site where they post a couple of quotes from their show's guests. Paul Molitor made an appearance this morning and discussed Johan Santana trade rumors.
I was looking through some old pages here at Seth Speaks and found this visual look at a Twins/Royals game that I went to in September of 2004. I saw Jason Kubel's first hit and a great ending!
Aaron Gleeman discusses Hughes or Ellsbury, and the potential Yankees and Red Sox deals involving them. It is interesting and in the end, he gives his overall thought.
I am pretty close to having a complete list of MLB Opening Day rosters. OK, it is impossible for me to know who will comprise each team's Opening Day roster, but I want to feel like I have a good feel for what team's are trying to accomplish. I don't know if I'll have time to do fantasy projections again, but it is fun to think through. But, I have a couple of questions for the group:
Reds 1B - Scott Hatteberg, Joey Votto or Andy Phillips?
LF for Cleveland - David Dellucci, Ben Francisco, Jason Michaels, or Other?
CF for Marlins - Cameron Maybin, Alejandro de Aza or Alfredo Amazega?
What's the story on Mark Grudzielanek? Is he with the Royals still, or is he a free agent?
LF and RF for the A's? Travis Buck, Ryan Sweeney, Carlos Gonzalez?
Can Steve Pearce of the Pirates play somewhere other than 1B? Adam LaRoche is there, but can he play RF with Xavier Nady?
CF for the Pirates? Nyjer Morris, Chris Duffy, Nate McLouth and Andrew McCutcheon?
3B for the Giants?
After Matt Cain, Barry Zito, Tim Lincecum and Noah Lowry, who is the Giants 5th starter? (Russ Ortiz, Patrick Misch, Jonathan Sanchez?)
With Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder and Matt Clement around the Cardinals, who will be the team's five starters? (Adam Wainright, Braden Looper, Joel Pineiro and...???)
Rangers DH? Jason Botts (who is out of options), Nelson Cruz, Frank Catalanotto, Marlon Byrd or Travis Metcalf?
Blue Jays Catchers? Gregg Zaun, Curtis Thigpen and Sal Fasano?
Nationals 1B? Nick Johnson or Dmitri Young? Where does the other play?
Pat Neshek shares another Draft Q&A, this one from the Colorado Rockies in 2002.
I watched a few movies this weekend. First, I watched (And surprisingly thoroughly enjoyed) Hairspray... don't tell anyone! I also watched The Hills Have Eyes 2... and subsequently had nightmares each time I slept thereafter. Finally, I laughed through the parts of Wild Hogz that I didn't sleep through!
If you'd like, please feel free to comment on any of the Roger Clemens news. I did watch the 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, and it really didn't tell me anything. I didn't get a feel for what was truth. I enjoyed that he not only admitted to using lidocayne and B-12 and whatever else the Yankees would inject into him, but also that he fully acknowledged their purpose... to enhance is ability to perform. Interesting. Anyway, this morning, Clemens did sue Brian McNamee. He has a press conference this afternoon. That's all I'm going to write about that.
cmathewson disagreed with some of my rankings of the players rumored to be coming to the Twins in potential Johan Santana deals. He discussed his rankings over at Twinkie Town.
Josh Taylor discusses two Twins minor leagues signings that in reality do absolutely nothing for me. I looked at their numbers and can't understand why the Twins would sign them.
Over the Baggy takes a look at the players the Twins have drafted in the last couple of decades that have decided not to sign with the team.
Will Young reads a lot! He read 28 books in 2007 and reviewed them all at his site. There are several baseball books in there, but it's fun to see some of the other genres he was reading as well. 28 books is only about... well... 28 books more than I read in 2008. Well, unless you count books like Elmo Says Achoo or Pretty Little Piggy, each of which I have read no less than 28 times!!!
Baseball America today announces their choices for the Top 10 New York Yankees prospects. Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera have too much big league time to be included, but the Twins have been rumored to be interested in at least five of the top seven Yankees prospects. Six is more likely as I am sure they would be interested in Joba Chamberlain too, but we know he isn't available.
Last Friday, Baseball America posted its Top 10 Boston Red Sox prospects as well.
With that, I am going to call it a day! Hopefully I will have something for you later tonight or tomorrow! If there are other topics worthy of discussion, please feel free to e-mail me or leave Comments below.