The easy reaction to the news that the Twins and Kevin Correia have agreed to a 2-year/$10 million deal is to overreact. I still plan to. But before I go down that path, I want to remind myself about paradigms. A paradigm is the story around the story that impacts our perceptions. The classic example (I think from Stephen Covey) is that while riding the subway, he saw the father of several small children watching them passively as they misbehaved quite badly on the subway. People were ...
One of the more interesting times in every offseason is when the rhetoric goes away and the choices become, often painfully, clear. Rock, meet Hard Place. The Hard Place is where the Twins are: fronting a rotation with Scott Diamond next year. Diamond, by Twins general manager Terry Ryan’s own analysis, is a #3 starter. He’s clearly scouring the winter meetings for upgrades. But like Charlie Brown at Halloween, all he’s getting is a whole lot of Rock. Here are the available ...
Aaron and John record an emergency podcast to talk about the trade sending Denard Span to the Nationals for pitching prospect Alex Meyer, what it means for Chris Parmelee, how Span went from prospect bust to underrated big leaguer, why letter grades for prospects can lead to arguments, dropping Deolis Guerra from the 40-man roster, adding Jeff Clement for Triple-A depth, and why Hulkamania will never die. Here are: the podcaststhe rss feed if you want to subscribe ...
Minnesota Twins fans finally have a mildly good reason to push the panic button. It wasn’t that Scott Baker was leaving the team – without an option year, his value the year after Tommy John isn’t particularly meaningful. It certainly isn’t that (gasp) other free agents starting pitchers are signing elsewhere – especially when only a handful have changed teams and there are an inordinate number of good starting pitchers on the market. And MOST OF ALL it ...
1 Free agent starting pitchers from the TwinsCentric 2013 Offseason Handbook that have signed with a new team. It’s just Scott Baker so far. That’s it. I count five other are already off the market, but all of them re-signed with their old team (or had their option picked up and were traded): Jake Peavy, Hideki Kuroda, Hisahi Iwakuma, Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie. The bad news here is that a lot of those guys are the middle market - a level just below ...
Torii Hunter had 12 or 13 teams chasing after him?!? And signed for two years and $26M? Then how much must Josh Willingham, who hit twice as many home runs as Hunter last year and makes half as much, be worth? I thought of this question on Sunday as I was podcasting with Aaron Gleeman. A quick look at the top free agent outfielders made me even more interested. Below are the top five free agent outfielders. Let’s go through them as a general manager who is looking for right-handed ...
Aaron and John are at GleeManor being filmed for a documentary and talk about Scott Baker signing with the Cubs, Torii Hunter's post-Twins career and return to the AL Central, poor Mike Redmond, how the local media has and hasn't changed in their decade of blogging, why the Tigers and Blue Jays seem more willing to make big moves than the Twins, and their planned trip to see Hannibal Buress. Here are: the podcaststhe rss feed if you want to subscribe ...
In the latest Gleeman and the Geek podcast, Aaron Gleeman and I argued, as we are apt to do. Among the questions raised was one that stuck with me: what is the goal of baseball’s regular season? Certainly, it is to make the playoffs, but beyond that, is there an advantage to posting a high win total? The answer to that question influences the path one thinks the Twins should travel this offseason. The AL Central champion had only 88 wins last year, the lowest amount for any division. ...
Aaron and John talk about trade rumors, last week's aftermath and "the older gentleman" not paying his bar tab, terrible facial hair, local media moves, which starting pitchers Twins fans should dream about, having a Joe Maddon fetish, Claire Forlani and effective advertising, Denard Span versus James Shields, targeting Braves and Rays, and where to hide the dead prostitutes before next week's episode. Here are: the podcaststhe rss feed if you want to subscribe and ...
This weekend is the unofficial start of the Hot Stove Season, because this weekend the MLB General Managers are having their annual offseason meetings in Indian Wells, California. It's not the more hyped "Winter Meetings" that take place next month, but it's still 30 GMs and their assistants, all in the same place, and rumor-mongering galore. Irresponsible, glorious, rumor-mongering. Twins fans have more reason than most to pay attention. Terry Ryan indicated in his TwinsCentric interview ...
We're approaching the time when a long-time Twins player is going to be traded away. It will likely be Denard Span. In our interview for the 2013 Offseason Handbook, Terry Ryan was careful, but stated the obvious. When talking about Chris Parmelee being a regular, Ryan admitted "We're going to try and fit [Chris Parmelee] in there somewhere, without tipping my hand too far." Fitting Parmelee into the lineup as a regular means playing him at first base or in right field. ...
In the TwinsCentric interview with Terry Ryan last week, (the 9-page entirety of which you can find in the 2013 Offseason Handbook), we asked about his confidence in Trevor Plouffe. John Bonnes: Are you comfortable with [Trevor] Plouffe at third base? Terry Ryan: Well, he needs some work too. Defensively, he’s a work in progress. JB: He hasn’t played that much at third base in the minors, right? TR: No, he hasn’t, but he’s and ex-shortstop ...
The Minnesota Twins add some coaches and drop some players. From Surly Darkness Days, Aaron and John review their beers against thrash metal, break down the changes, wonder what the new coaches mean, debate the relative value of Ron Gardenhire, recap their motorcycle adventure, review the players who have been droppped, collect on old debts, speculate on might fill the 40-man roster spots, wonder if Scott Baker will re-sign and tease the next podcast including an interview with Terry Ryan. Here ...
In our TwinsCentric Offseason Handbook, we’re including a transcript from a 45-minute meeting "State of the Twins" interview with Terry Ryan. As you can imagine, an 8000-word interview covers a lot of topics, including: the strengths of the new coaching staff,Joe Mauer’s future at catcher,additional offseason priorities beyond starting pitching,how Twins approach waiver wire or minor league free agents,thoughts on the state of the Twins minor leagues,his evaluation ...
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