For the first time in his tenure as manager, Ron Gardenhire will enter the 2013 season without a contract extension in place that carries him beyond the coming year. Lacking job security, Gardenhire spoke openly last week about the possibility of moving on. "If I don't make it through this year, I'll be OK," Gardenhire told reporters during the Winter Meetings. "I've had a great opportunity here, I love the Minnesota Twins, I love where I'm at and hopefully ...
After the Twins parted with franchise mainstay Torii Hunter back in 2007, they needed to make a decision about who would take his place in the middle of the outfield. Finding a veteran placeholder was an option, but instead they ultimately decided to go straight to Hunter's heir apparent: a raw but tremendously athletic kid acquired in the Johan Santana trade. Carlos Gomez was clearly rough around the edges when he assumed the important roles of center fielder ...
Trading established players for prospects is the sign of a rebuilding team, and that is certainly what we've seen from Terry Ryan with his first few major moves this offseason. Many casual fans have expressed outrage over trades that sent Denard Span and Ben Revere – cornerstones in the Minnesota outfield – to the NL East for young pitching geared more toward the big picture than immediate improvement. The two prizes acquired in these deals, Alex Meyer ...
Likely Starter: Ben Revere 2011 Stats: .267/.310/.309, 0 HR, 30 RBI, 56 R, 34/43 SB Potential Backups: Trevor Plouffe, Darin Mastroianni, Brian Dinkelman Last year the Twins were the least effective team in all of baseball at converting batted balls into outs. With a pitching staff that allows a ton of contact, that's an enormously troubling statistic. Lining up Ben Revere as the regular left fielder should certainly ...