It's the first Friday in August and that means the trade deadline came and passed in the last week. There was plenty of speculation that the Twins might be in the midst of a fire sale with the team on pace for their second straight 90-loss. Denard Span, Josh Willingham, and Justin Morneau were some of the players that other teams asked the Twins about but all of these players are still with the organization. Francisco Liriano was the only player to find himself wearing a different jersey over the ...
In early July Justin Morneau had been plodding through a season in which he was completely lost at the plate against left-handed pitching. Even though his performance against right-handed pitchers was classic Morneausie, against the sinister his swing was basically a clusterbleep. His front side leaking so far open, he was left with little choice but to pull the ball. Left-handed opponents attacked this weakness by throwing more sliders which would run away ...
Samuel Deduno and his effective wildness (101 pitches, 50 strikes) held the Red Sox scoreless over six innings. The bullpen finished it out and the Twins offense provided 5 runs to complete their first shutout of the Red Sox in Fenway in almost 16 years. In what had been speculated for months and basically confirmed by Terry Ryan on Sunday, 2010 1st round pick, Alex Wimmers, had surgery today to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow, better known as “Tommy John Surgery”. ...
When Target Field first opened in 2010, something unexpected quickly became evident. Although the park's dimensions were somewhat modeled after the Metrodome, and the intent of Target Field was to be a ballpark that evenly favored both hitter and pitcher, everyone noticed that Target Field had seemingly become Petco Park Midwest. You didn't need ESPN's Park Factors to know that it was extremely difficult to hit the ball over the fence at 1 Twins Way, though Park Factors did confirm what we could ...
An outcome that has long seemed inevitable became a reality today when it was announced that pitching prospect Alex Wimmers was slated to undergo Tommy John surgery. It's a major setback in a career that hasn't really been able to get off the starting block. The story leading up to this news is a familiar and frustrating one. Back in April, Wimmers landed on the disabled list after one start with what was thought to be a minor elbow strain. An MRI exam in ...
Thinking back on the trade in the context of the market, I do think the new CBA played a part in depressing this year's trade market. An additional wild card team should have led to more buyers. I am not so certain it did. At the time Liriano as traded, I was interested to see what kinds of deals were made for starting pitchers on deadline day. After the Liriano deal, two starting pitchers were traded. That surprised me. I expected more. It leads me to wonder how many teams were so ...
First and foremost, you may notice a dearth of postings in this area for the next week or so. We peanuts are on our way to Montana for a much needed vacation, and we'll try our best to be in the moment rather than on the computer, so the blogging slow down is inevitable. This will be the first time that I (the male member of our salty/roasted snack bag) have been back to Montana in 7 years. My wife makes semi-annual trips to see her grandmother, uncle and relatives in Billings, while ...
This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com I’m not one to usually say, “I told you so,” but… yeah… I did tell you so. I told you to prepare to be disappointed at the trade deadline so it comes as no surprise to me that most Twins fans seemed to come away from the July 31 non-waiver deadline disappointed in the lack of moves by the Twins. Many of us do understand why the roster remained intact, except for the trade of Francisco Liriano. The new ...
The trade deadline is a significant event in Twins Daily’s calendar and now that it’s over, I thought we might give an update on how the community is faring. We have 1923 registered users and 963 of them have contributed at least one post to the site.We have 2209 threads with 40,120 posts. Each month, the number of posts has been increasing by 24%.133 members have tried blogging and produced 1342 posts.Over 150,000 unique visitors have stopped by the site since we ...
I'll be honest -- I was a little disappointed with the trade deadline. Aside from dealing Liriano, no big moves, no small moves. But if the offers weren't there, then they weren't there. But this is certainly a tough time to be a Twins fan! If you're reading this, though, you realize that there are other things to focus on besides the action/inaction at Target Field. So let's take a look at how the #futuretwins did tonight. ROCHESTER (OFF) NEW BRITAIN 3, BOWIE 11 ...
I've been a Twins fan since the mid-70's and have appreciated the entirety of Twins history. I've spent most of my adult life, since the early 80's, living in Iowa and putting up with a mix of Cubs/Sox/Cards/Royals fans in that order. I would say the Twins are probably the number two followed team in Iowa behind the Cubs. The only radio station I'm aware of in Iowa that has consistently been a Twins affiliate is the AM station out of Mason City. Over the years I've listened to WCCO, Mason City ...
I got to the stadium around 6:30pm, waited in line to get my ticket (box seat - $9.00), and entered the gates. Almost immediately I had to adjust my stride as I almost walked into one of the Kane County players. The dressing rooms are away from the field, so the players have to walk through the main concourse to get to the dugouts. It immediately drove home to me just how different minor league baseball is at this level from the majors (imagine walking into Target Field on game day and bumping into ...
Updated 08-01-2012 at 04:33 PM by IdahoPilgrim
Not trying to be too snarky here. Just wondering who people think would be a good replacement for TR? I honestly have no idea on who would be better if anyone. I just read all the comments about how bad he is and thought that many people would have a plan around that. (The anyone would be better line is a lame retort. You could have used that for most of the Twins pitching staff, but someone has to take the ball and pitch. I can say Sam Denudo is awful, but who do I say takes his place. Clayton ...
Last night saw a near vintage Francisco Liriano carving up his now former team. In six innings of work, the lefty punched out eight Twins batters, showcasing a well-placed 94 mile per hour fastball and a devastating slide piece. It was this first weapon, the well-placed fastball, which would have been inconceivable in the season’s opening months. Liriano’s first half of the season was marred by lack of command of his fastball. Unable to get ahead of hitters properly, the ...