Twins Notes

Good Morning everyone! Well, I am off to the Twin Cities for Twins Fest. Actually, I'm heading down there for work, but it works out well as I am able to stay down for Twins Fest. I am really excited to head back down there. Again, if you haven't read my comments from last year's Twins Fest, please do. 

I had really hoped to have a new Q&A with another Twins-related individual but it didn't quite happen. If I can pull it off, I will try to post it tomorrow. But we shall see. So, for today, I am going to present several Twins-related articles. Please feel free to comment below, or if there are other Twins-related articles, please link to them too.

• Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com wrote an article about how quickly the Twins will face serious fiscal challenges. I know, there is nothing really new in this article, but it always is fun to have a national writer talk about the hometown team!

• USA Today's Mel Antonen wrote a nice article on the Twins pitching situation, but it also highlights each of the starters by position and his thoughts on the team's Top 5 Prospects.

• Aaron Gleeman posted his #21-25 Twins Prospects which again accentuated just how much pitching depth the Twins have in their organization. Here are Prospects 16-20.

• Torii Hunter is mentioned in this San Jose Mercury News article on whether the "I'll tell my grandkids" quote ever comes true. Not really a sports-only article, but plenty of sports references.

• Kelly Thesier goes Around the Horn with the Twins Outfielders.

• Michael Cuddyer will be the featured presenter at the Portsmouth (VA) Sports Club Jamboree next Wednesday (1/31).

• One of Cuddyer's coaches growing up was Towny Townsend. He is battling cancer for the third time and was given six months to live. It is being blamed on 2nd-hand smoke as he never smoked. As has been mentioned before, he coached David Wright, the Upton Brothers and Cuddyer.

• Jon Laging of the Albert Lea Tribune made some serious and some fun predictions on the Twins and other things. My personal favorite, "Kevin Garnett and others buy the Minnesota Timberwolves and fire Kevin McHale." There are some for Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Tyner and Sidney Ponson too that just might make you laugh... or at least smile.

• Here is an article on Matthew Lecroy returning to the Twins organization from the Independent Mail, a paper in South Carolina.

• Did you know that Jeff Cirillo used to be scared of the ball!? That was taken care of by the time he got to Providence High School in Burbank where he led the team to the 1986 championship. Recently he had his high school number retired.

• Justin Morneau and Orioles lefty Adam Loewen went to Morneau's old elementary school, where his mom teaches. The two major leaguers introduced the students to Winterball, an indoor baseball game. It is a game that is backed financially by Major League Baseball and Sports Canada, and something I had never heard about. This is a great article with quotes from him and his mom.

• The Sporting News ranked Joe Mauer and Mike Redmond the top catching combo in the big leagues.

• This is just funny. Check out the #4 story.

• Keloland Sports had a nice sit-down chat with Matt Garza when he was with the Twins Caravan in Sioux Falls, SD. There is both a brief article and a longer video of the story!

• Paul Molitor will manage the Minnesota Gophers pro-alumni game on February 3rd at the Metrodome. Kerry Ligtenberg will be participating. He's cool, even if he did strike me out (looking at a pitch about a foot outside) in college. Glen Perkins and recent Twins signee Cole DeVries will also play.

• Here is Part 3 of 3 of the Pat Neshek Chat with CSTV (College Sports TV).

• According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire bought a baseball team. Well, not quite, he will be the team sponsor for the Capitola-Soquel Little League team that his young cousin plays for. The team will drop the "Yankees" name and become the Twins!

• Terry Ryan, Joe Vavra and Erik Lis will appear at the Beloit Snappers Hot Stove Banquet.

And with that, I am going to call it a day, and more than likely a week! Check back tomorrow to see if I am able to do a new posting. Have a wonderful day!

Wednesday Morning Update – Good morning ya’ll. I couldn’t stay awake last night, so no new posting today. That is probably for the best because if you go over to The Baseball Savant site today, he has a great article which he based on some conversations we had. I made a comment when I did my Twins projections that said that I think Matt Garza can perform at a better than average level in 2007 because in my eyes, he’s a little behind Justin Verlander, which is to say VERY GOOD. The Savant disagreed with me, but as you can read in this article, maybe I’ve got him convinced!! Of course, he’s much smarter than me, so he had to use numbers and charts and such to prove it. It’s worth reading, and then be sure to leave some Comments for him.