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Here are a bunch of players who could see a promotion in the second half. I certainly do not think all of them will and there are likely a few others who will be promoted, but it is my intention to point out some strong performances, even in limited time in some cases. A few of them are likely very soon (Rhodes, Roberts, Atherton, Bromberg) and many others are most likely early August moves if they happen at all.

DSL to GCL:

Adonis Pacheco, OF
Ernesto Ciprian, OF ...

Earlier in the week, I posted the June Twins minor league starting pitcher and relief pitcher of the month of June. The starters were not too terribly impressive, but there were a lot of tremendous bullpen performances in June. So today, let’s take a look at which Twins minor league hitters had the best June performances. I’ll let you be the judge of how impressive the performances were.

Here are my selections for the Top 5 Twins Minor League hitters in May:

Number 5 ...

Tags: daniel ortiz, evan bigley, kyle knudson, minnesota twins, nate roberts, oswaldo arcia

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Here's some mindless fun with stats.

The Twins are 29-29 since starting the season 6-16 and they are 19-12 in their last 31 games including tonights game against Detroit. (question here is can 1 or 2 more starting pitchers push us to the next level as our hitting, defense, and bullpen seem good enough to contend)

Gray has a 4.08 era and most bloggers can't wait to get rid of him, but take out his worst appearance and he has a 2.80 era and 5 vulture wins.

Waldrop ...

A rain delay in Detroit held up the start of the Twins game for an hour and a half. When the game got underway, it turned into a back and forth contest between the Tigers and the Twins. The Twins bash brothers of Josh Willingham and Trevor Plouffe each added another home run to their totals for the season as they continue to try and match each other for the team lead. Even Joe Mauer was able to hit his second home run in the past week with an opposite field home run in the later innings of the game. ...

Tags: adrian salcedo, clete thomas, estarlin de los santos, evan bigley, lance ray

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The Big Picture
The Bronx Bombers have made the playoffs in seven of the past eight years but have reached the World Series only once, when they beat the Phillies in 2009. For most teams, one championship in eight years would be perfectly adequate, but not for the Yankees. This is a franchise that appeared in the Fall Classic six times in nine years prior to their latest "drought."

Now, with a 48-32 record that qualifies as second-best in baseball (behind ...

Tags: trade rumors

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Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch
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This is the third version of the 'who is hot in the Twins' minors' series for 2012. The Rookie leagues are in full swing, promotions and cuts have happened and a lot of things have changed from the last "who is hot" list. Lots of new blood, and I have been intentionally delaying this to include the Rookie league players. I am using 25 PA and 9 IP as a cut-off. Again, this is not a particular "fragment in time", ...

Last night, I posted the Twins Minor League Starting Pitchers of June. It was clearly not a strong part of the organization during the month. One area where the Twins minor league system was very strong was in the bullpen. There were plenty of very strong candidates. It was difficult to rank the relievers because there are some very good relievers who have really pitched well into this middle part of the season.

However, here are my choices for the Top 5 Twins Minor League Relief ...

Tags: beloit snappers, bruce pugh, dakota watts, matt hauser, michael tonkin, minnesota twins, tim atherton

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Another week closer to the trade deadline, another week worth of rampant speculation and wild hopes for Twins fans; after several days of heated voting the fans chose to trade Matt Capps rather than keep him, stunning the blog-o-sphere...oh wait! Let's see what the fans picked and what they passed up.


Door #2 netted two votes and provides my personal favorite proof of idiotic trades made for "closers" Capps compares well with Ugueth [namesake of my first child boy OR

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Tags: justin morneau, let's make a deal, matt capps, terry ryan, trade scenarios

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Originally Published at The Tenth Inning Stretch
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Here is this week's installment:

• Here is an interesting article about the Twins getting stuck in the nineteenth century. This suggest to me that wholesale philosophy (and personnel) changes might be necessary to make them competitive in this century.
• The Twins have signed Ryan Doumit to a 2 year $7 million extension late last week. I think that it is a great deal esp. for that kind of money.
• Also, as

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Glen Perkins came into the ninth inning in Detroit with a two-run lead to work with and he sure made things interesting by allowing Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder to reach on singles. In the end, Perkins was able to get out of the jam and the Twins were victorious for the fourth straight game. It was interesting to see the Twins put together six runs without managing an extra-base hit. This was especially intriguing after a weekend where the team went homer happy against the Royals pitching staff.

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Tags: christian bethancourt, francisco liriano, miguel sano

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Liam Hendriks was again unable to pick up his first career win. Despite being given a five run lead going into the bottom of the 5^th against the Tigers, he was unable to get an out. However, the Twins bullpen did what they’ve done all year. Anthony Swarzak came in and maintained the lead. Alex Burnett was tremendous again. And Glen Perkins got the save. All the efforts gave manager Ron Gardenhire his 900^th career win. Quite an accomplishment! The Twins have now won four in a row and play the Tigers ...

Tags: adam walker, alex muren, brian dinkelman, casey fien, chris colabello, corey williams, david bromberg, david hurlbut, dj hicks, evan bigley, jhonathan goncalves, josh burris, josmil pinto, kaleb merck, kuo hua lo, levi michael, max kepler, melciades de la cruz, miguel sano, minnesota twins, oswaldo arcia, ray chang, romy jimenez, rory rhodes, ryan o'rourke, sam deduno, steve evans, steve liddle

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As the Fourth of July is approaching, I have found myself asking several people, “What happened to June? It just flew by. It seemed like just four or so weeks ago that I was posing my May Twins Minor League Hitter, Starting Pitcher and Reliever of the month. And here we are again. Over the next couple of days, I will post my June recipients.

I am going to start by the area that was far and away the weakest for the organization in June, starting pitching. BJ Hermsen won the award in ...

Tags: beloit snappers, david hurlbut, liam hendriks, matt summers, minnesota twins, sam deduno, tyler jones

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The Big Picture
In the hyper-competitive NL East, the Braves are 4.5 games back of the division leading Nationals. But they’re also just one game back of the second wild-card spot, which happens to be shared by division rival New York Mets. Atlanta is reportedly searching for a top starting pitcher. That’s unusual ground for them – just last year they ranked 4^th in MLB in ERA – but some injuries and regression by youngsters have them looking for rotation help.

Why They Will Trade ...

This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.

Apparently, when Twins catcher Joe Mauer’s name was announced as the team’s representative to the All Star game, the Twinsville Twitterverse lit up with tweets condemning his selection. I didn’t notice this so much, myself, which is perhaps a testament to the intelligence of both those who follow me on Twitter and those I personally follow.

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