Sunday, April 1, 2007

One More Day

Quick note - I will be accepting Contest #2 entries until the first pitch of tonight's Cardinals/Mets game. (by the way, my choices are: Lance Berkman, Michael Cuddyer, Gerald Laird, Chase Utley and Nick Markakis. )

Special issue of SethSpeaks. I don't know if you're feeling like me, but I am more than a little excited for the beginning of the season. Tonight, the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals will be taking on the New York Mets in the 2007 Regular Season Opener! It is a rematch of last year's National League Championship Series. Tomorrow, however, is the big season opener. For the Twins and their fans, they will just have to wait until 6:00 on Monday night whereas many games will be played throughout the afternoon. Seriously, there is nothing better than Opening Day. The last seven or so years, I have taken time off from work the afternoon of Opening Day, set up my two TVs side by side and enjoy baseball all afternoon! Unfortunately, I don't believe that I will be doing that this year. But, maybe!

Anyway, as you see, this is a Sunday edition of Seth Speaks.net, and really the purpose of it is solely to get caught up. I have not posted anything since Wednesday, so I wanted to get people caught up on a lot of great articles written since that time. Tomorrow, I will be back with my official Twins season preview and projections and predictions. So again, for today, here are a bunch of articles for you to enjoy. And, if some of these are written by bloggers, be sure to bookmark them and check them out from time to time, and even feel free to e-mail them and say hi!

• First things first, our sympathies go out to the friends and family of Twins Hall of Fame voice Herb Carneal. Carneal passed away this morning due to congestive heart failure at the age of 83. He has been with the Twins since 1962. Two years ago, Twins HOFer Bob Casey passed away right before the season. Last year, it was HOFer Kirby Puckett.

• Stick and Ball Guy's favorite day of the year, right? Anyway, he has interesting articles on the Twins, the Timberwolves and the Vikings today!

• The Twin Cities Dugout is finishing up the prospect profiles of the Top 50 Twins prospects. Here are the prospect profiles for #7 Chris Parmalee and #6 Glen Perkins.

• Here is a Prospect Retro on Eric Milton, a former Twins pitcher, by John Sickels.

• There has been a lot of discussion since the Twins brass decided to send Matt  Garza to AAA and keep Carlos Silva in the starting rotation. I guess I am not quite as upset about this as some, although I do think that Garza is the better option. That said, we constantly talk about how spring training stats don't really matter to veterans, and that is true. (the counter-side of that is that with Silva, we are talking about spring and all of 2006!). However, I think that we would all be wrong in thinking that there would not be benefits to Matt Garza going to AAA. He can work on more pitches. He can work on things that he would not be able to (in game situations) with the Twins. In reality, I don't think that Garza will be held down for very long. In general, my thinking is that we need to just see how it goes with Silva, Ponson and Ortiz in the rotation. The key is making the necessary changes early, rather than late in 2007. It is a situation that will continue to be monitored here and likely plenty of other places. If you are interested in reading more about the topic, there is a diary over at John Sickels' site on the topic with a lot of comments. 

• When I ran my Top 10 Twins Pitchers of the 1960s, I chose Jack Kralick as my choice for #10. The lefty played with the Twins in 1961 and 1962. During that time, he pitched the Minnesota Twins first no-hitter. Will Young, one of the better, long-time Twins bloggers takes a deeper look at Kralick's no-hitter.

• I participated in my third (and final) fantasy baseball draft on Wednesday night. Again, I thought it went alright, but it was a 14 team league, a serpentine draft, and I drafted 6th. It can be incredibly frustrating watching player after player that you want be selected in between your picks. As the draft was going on, I had to comment at one point that it is pretty cool that Twins players can be selected without getting jeers of 'Homer Pick' anymore!! In this particular draft, Johan Santana went 2nd overall. Justin Morneau (31st overall), Joe Nathan (35th) and Joe Mauer (37th) each went in the 3rd round. Torii Hunter went in the 6th round (74). I took Michael Cuddyer in the 8th round (107th overall). Matt Garza went in the 13th round (177th overall). Boof Bonser went in the 17th round (231st overall). Jason Kubel went in the 20th round (267th overall) as did Jason Bartlett (272nd). Luis Castillo went in the 21st round (285th). Sidney Ponson went in the 24th round (327th overall), which was several picks ahead of $50 million man, Gil Meche.

• Patrick Reusse wrote a great article on former Twin Corey Koskie and his on-going issues with post-concussion syndrome. He is frustrated in his inability to return. But it also has to be frustrating because fans don't understand what is happening with him, and really, neither does he.

• Rule V pick Alejandro Machado recently had shoulder (labrum) surgery and will likely miss four to six months of the season. I have heard an assumption that since the Twins will have him on their Disabled List the whole year, that he will be able to be kept in the organization next year as well. However, even if he misses all of this season, he need to spend at least the first 90 days with the Twins next year to remain in the organization.

• Alright, it is Sunday before the Opener, so the local newspapers have several articles focused on the Twins, and that is a good thing. Here are some of those articles:

  • Clearly the focus of the Twins Opening Day articles in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is the international angle of the Twins and baseball as a whole.

  • LaVelle wrote an article on Holland native and friend of SethSpeaks, Alexander Smit.

  • Jim Souhan wrote a great articles on some of the stories of current Twins, of how they were discovered.

  • Here is an article on Johan Santana and how important he is in Venezuela. He would be the Face of Venezuela. Likewise, Justin Morneau is the Twins Face of Canada, and Joe Mauer is the Twins Face of the USA. 

  • Here are Five Prospects to Watch. Each ranks in my personal top 12 Twins prospects, and it includes the Top 3.

  • Joe Christensen wrote a great article on the globalization of baseball, and particularly how the Twins have done such a great job around the world.

  • Christensen then takes a look at the rest of the AL Central.

  • The Twins seem to be surprised that they are getting so little respect from the so-called experts this year. Some do have the Twins repeating as the AL Central champs, others are not as optimistic. (Maybe the question marks in 60-80% of the rotation may have something to do with that?)

  • LaVelle wrote an incredible article on the international scouting of the Twins. The Twins have their scouts going everywhere and looking 'under every rock.' They have an incredible group of scouts and really do their homework. I almost have to make the assumption that much of the Twins revenue sharing funds have gone toward this endeavor.

  •  Here are Five big concerns for the 2007 season.

  • Here is an article on Jason Kubel from Kelsie Smith of the Pioneer Press.

  • Here is an mlb.com Q&A with Ron Gardenhire.

  • Are there any comparisons between the 1987 Twins and the 2007 Twins?

Alright, that is enough for today. Like I said, I will be back tomorrow with my official predictions and projections for the season. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

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