It has been three seasons since Brandon Webb has thrown a pitch at the major league level but this isn't going to stop teams from being interested in the former Cy Young winner. Following the holidays, the 33-year old will get on the mound in front of a handful of teams to try and prove that he has something left in the tank. The Twins will be among those in attendance but there will be plenty for Webb to prove after multiple shoulder injuries. In ...
It's the day before Thanksgiving and the beginning of next baseball season still seems far away. The offseason hasn't really gotten off to a thrilling start for the Twins. This means that fans will continue to wait for the club to make some kind of move to improve this team. When families gather around their table tomorrow, some will spend time discussing the things they are thankful for in the past year. This could include being thankful for good health, a new baby, or a marriage ...
I’m having trouble getting into the second round of the playoffs. I don’t really want either the Yankees or the Tigers to make the World Series, which means I can’t even root for the American League. The official team of The Voice Of Reason™ - the Phillies – is also out for the first time in years. But part of it is because I’m ready for the next act. The offseason. Oddly, I don’t think I’ve looked forward to an offseason this much in years. For starters, it’ll be nice ...
The Twins took a chance when they signed Joel Zumaya to an incentive-laden contract. That high-risk deal could have come with some great rewards but Zumaya's time with the Twins was over before it even started. Only 13 pitches into his first workout with the Twins, he walked off the mound with soreness in his right elbow. Now the often-injured flamethrower will go under the knife ...
Originally posted at k-bro's baseball blog If I think of my brain as a bucket, I sometimes imagine that it begins to overflow and I have to intentionally get some of my thoughts out of there before they just spill over and are gone forever. Here are some baseball-related bucket thoughts: Denard Falls Down During Saturday's ...
Originally posted at my blog: On Saturday, new Twins relief pitcher Joel Zumaya tore his UCL after throwing just 13 pitches to live batters. A torn UCL requires Tommy John surgery. Given his injury history and the fact that he hasn't pitched in a major league game since 2010 has Zumaya thinking of retiring. Zumaya was a sensation as a rookie in 2006. He went 6-3 with a 1.94 ERA and struck out 97 in 83.1 innings for Detroit. He threw 103 miles an hour. He was going to be a star...... ...
In his efforts to augment a bullpen that last year ranked last in the league in ERA, FIP and WHIP, Terry Ryan's moves essentially amounted to re-signing Matt Capps and adding Joel Zumaya to replace the departed Joe Nathan. That was hardly a recipe for guaranteed substantial improvement, and now with Zumaya's unfortunate yet unsurprising injury news, Ryan's passive approach to addressing this unit in a buyer's market looks all the more irresponsible. With their sole bullpen ...
Terry Ryan tried to make a move that he thought could be one of the important additions to the Twins prior to the start of the 2012 season. Joel Zumaya had been often injured since his rookie year in 2006 but the thought of a hard throwing right-handed pitcher was too much for the Twins to pass up. The honeymoon phase did not last long for Zumaya and the Twins as bad news ...
Originally posted at k-bro's baseball blog. I didn't intend to start up the paper doll machine until the season started. After all, the point of it is to show who's been put on the Disabled List, and they don't really do that during Spring Training. But this one is a special case because ... well, I just feel so darned bad for him. Joel Zumaya ...
Updated 02-26-2012 at 09:54 PM by Kirsten Brown
On Saturday, Joel Zumaya, the Twins key bullpen addition of the offseason, prepared to throw live batting practice for the first time in the spring. After 13 pitches, he was headed off the mound and into an MRI machine. News broke on Sunday that the injury, a snapped UCL, would require Tommy John surgery and that it would end his 2012 Comeback Player of the Year campaign, his time with the Twins and, very likely, his career. Because of his extensive history with injuries, ...
Read the original post at http://twinsfocus.areavoices.com ************************************************** ************* Earlier today, newly acquired relieverJoel Zumaya was throwing batting practice to Twins hitters. Members of the media seemed to be impressed saying he was “throwing quite hard”. Not long after that a flood of tweets came in saying Zumaya cut the session short and walked off the field with Twins head trainer Rick McWane. Neither Zumaya or the ...
Within the last half-hour, Joel Zumaya impressed local media and then he abruptly ended his session, walking off the mound with trainer Rick McWane. Zumaya said he was OK but with his injury history, this does become a story. Star Tribune's Jim Souhan tweeted "Never draw conclusions from BP but Zumaya is throwing quite hard. It seems." Three minutes later, the scribe tweeted, "Zumaya ends session early. Walks off with trainer. Says he's ok but..." The Twins ...
The way it seems right now, even with the optimism that accompanies Spring Training, it's tough to imagine the Twins hoisting the 2012 World Series trophy. In fact, I can't reasonably imagine the Twins having the AL Cy Young award winner on their pitching staff, or the AL MVP in their batting order. But there is one award that this team was built for: The Comeback Player of the Year. According to the criteria, the award is given to a player judged to have "re-emerged on the baseball field during a given season." ...
One year ago the Twins were working with a relief pitcher who wanted to show he had fully recovered from an elbow injury. Joe Nathan had spent the last year trying to recover from Tommy John surgery. He hadn't been on a mound in a major league regular season game since the playoffs in 2009. When pitchers and catchers reported to spring training, he was ready to show the team everything he had and he told the team that he didn't "want to be babied if I don't need it." Fast-forward ...