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This is going to be my first ever blog on this site and I want to continue blogging about the Twins this season, I will have to say I have had one other blog and it was really fun to do, I want this one to last and I am going to have fun with it. What really got me wanting to do this was a bet that I made with a friend, and I really started looking at baseball prospectus for about 3 hours and I could have gone on and on, as baseball prospectus is

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Likely Starter: Justin Morneau
2011 Stats: .227/.285/.333, 4 HR, 30 RBI, 19 R, 0/0 SB


Potential Backups: Joe Mauer, Luke Hughes, Ryan Doumit, Chris Parmelee, Sean Burroughs, Steve Pearce, Aaron Bates

Through a couple weeks of camp, this much can be said for Justin Morneau: he hasn't raised any warning flags yet. He's been able to get through all his workouts, he's participated in a few exhibition contests and he laced a hard double ...

The Twins announced this morning that left-handed relief pitcher Glen Perkins had agreed to and signed a three year contract extension worth $10.3 million. The contract includes an option for 2016.

In January, Perkins and the Twins avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $1.55 million contract for 2012. We do not yet have the breakdown for his annual salaries going forward, but an average annual salary of $3.43 million puts him in line with other top young bullpen arms.

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Updated 03-08-2012 at 09:10 AM by Seth Stohs

Tags: glen perkins, minnesota twins

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Here is the basic premise: The Twins have a whole bunch of relievers in their Spring Training Camp who are batting for 3 spots on the 25-man roster. I listed and analysed these players previously. Spring training is long and it is hard to track each appearance of each player, trying to have an objective view of how this battle might be ending (or at least trending,) especially, when the usual statistics fail with such a small sample size. Yesterday I created a dashboard to look at each pitcher's ...

Updated 03-08-2012 at 02:41 PM by thrylos98

Tags: 2012 spring training, bullpen

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[Originally published at Twins Fan From Afar]

All the reports have been great. He woke up early for the first day of training camp, lost a little weight, has participated in all drills, and stands ready, today, to play in back-to-back games. From the little that I have watched, he appears healthy (if a little thin) and alert, and his swing looks as good as it did at any point last year (maybe that's not saying a lot, but you have to take the positives where they come). In short, if ...

Updated 03-08-2012 at 08:34 AM by Twins Fan From Afar

Tags: justin morneau 2012, morneau health

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When every team reports to spring training in Florida or Arizona, there is hope surrounding the beginning of a new season. Each team has a clean slate and only one team can call themselves champions from the previous year. Besides the St. Louis Cardinals, every other team left the field last year with an unfulfilled feeling inside and a bad taste in their mouth. Some of that taste ...

Tags: francisco liriano, liam hendriks, nick blackburn, scott baker, trade deadline

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How many times this offseason have you heard the phrase, “The Twins have some really good prospects but they don’t have any in the upper levels of their farm system?” I hear it all the time, and frankly, it kind of hits a nerve with me.

In 2011, the Twins had a season in which pretty much everyone got hurt and missed significant time. That meant more playing time for Luke Hughes and Trevor Plouffe and Ben Revere which may prove valuable as early as 2012. Those guys were rushed. Ben ...

Updated 03-07-2012 at 11:46 PM by Seth Stohs

Tags: alex burnett, brian dozier, carlos gutierrez, chris herrmann, chris parmelee, deolis guerra, joe benson, kyle waldrop, lester oliveros, liam hendriks, minnesota twins, pedro florimon, rene tosoni, scott diamond, terry doyle, tyler robertson

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Original post from twinsrubes.blogspot.com.

The following is dedicated specifically to baakre's mother-in-law, a.k.a. Nick Punto's #1 Fan. Having taken the winter off from even thinking much about the Twins after last season's 99-loss performance; I am just now getting around to racking my brain to figure out what happened between 2010 and 2011. This morning, the solution came to me: the Twins lost Nick Punto! Could it be? Is Punto a "winner"? Was he a significant piece ...

Updated 03-08-2012 at 01:36 PM by TwinsRubes

Tags: alexi casilla, matt tolbert, nick punto, trevor plouffe, tsuyoshi nishioka

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The first full day of Spring Training was a whirlwind of activities. Being my first March in Fort Myers, I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. Here is how it went:

Leave home for the airport. Say goodbye to my fiancé. Check my bags, just under the weight limit. Take my shoes off, walk through a small door, put my shoes back on. Sit and read Hunger Games. Hope they make it out alive. Hangout with Nate Hanson. Board the plane. Watch Cole Nelson try to fit his long legs in a very small ...

Updated 03-07-2012 at 04:23 PM by Seth Stohs

Tags: baseball, minnesota, spring, training, twins

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Maybe one of the only good things about suffering through a 99-loss season with the Twins in 2011 was the fact that the organization would have a very good pick in the 2012 amateur draft. The Twins "earned" the number two selection for the draft this June and this means there should be some very good talent to select from with only the Astros picking before them.

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Tags: 2012 mlb draft, lucas giolito

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I have been smiling from ear to ear since the Twins announced Terry Ryan was coming back as the general manager to replace Bill Smith. I believe it will take Ryan four years to rebuild this organization into an A.L. Central powerhouse like he did a decade ago. Smith is an affable guy but clearly was in over his head as the GM of the Twins. He decimated the depth of the team with some very bad trades. I really like the additions of Carroll, Doumit, and Willingham to provide more offense to a club ...

When a team is successful, deciding on roster spots shouldn't be much of a chore. The stars have their spots guaranteed, the role players have already been identified, and there's maybe there's one player that has a chance at sneaking in.

Last season, the Twins were anything but successful as they lost 99 games. While the departures of Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Joe Nathan were eventually filled by the signings of Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit, and Joel Zumaya (who is now ...

Nick Blackburn’s greatest redeeming quality is his ability to consume innings. Unfortunately, for the past two consecutive seasons, he has not come close to proving his worth in this department.

When he was not sidelined by injuries, Blackburn pitched on either side of the spectrum for the Twins. One month - like May 2011 where he went 3-0 with a 2.53 ERA in 42 innings pitched - he would be dazzling, using his sinker effectively and keeping opponents off-balanced. The next month ...

Tags: nick blackburn

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This was originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch and is reposted here
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Previously, I listed all the players who are battling for one of the 3 bullpen spots this Spring Training. Because they are so many, I decided to create a spreadsheet and keep track of their performance this Spring day by day, using color coding and symbols to get a quick visual. In other words, creating a dashboard of their performance.

Green (+) is better than average appearance ...

Tags: 2012 spring training

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