Thursday, December 27, 2007

Back To Work

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I don't have much to write about today, because this is quite simply a quiet time for the baseball world, but I thought I'd at least write up a quick post to let you all know I didn't die of mistletoe poisoning.

The only real story that continues to get ink regarding the Twins is the Johan Santana saga. It doesn't seem like a deal is particularly near, but rumors continue to float around regularly. Murray Chass of the New York Times wrote yesterday about the implications of baseball's luxury tax, relating it to the prospect of the Yankees acquiring and signing Santana. Chass mentions this interesting tidbit:
At one point, the Twins were said to be holding out for Hughes and Ian Kennedy, another of the Yankees’ attractive triumvirate of major league-ready young pitchers (the untouchable Joba Chamberlain being the third), but the Yankees wouldn’t give up both, so the Twins asked instead for [Jeff] Marquez, a 23-year-old right-hander.
A 23-year-old who struck out just 5.45 batters per nine innings in Double-A last year, Marquez is far from a great prospect. Chass mentions later in his article that the Yankees' GM Brian Cashman "wants to hold on to the young pitchers." With that being the case, I don't see why the Twins are really pushing for arms. Getting Kennedy would be nice, but the Twins' organization is already stocked with marginal pitchers like Marquez -- they have very little use for him. I'd much rather see them acquire a hitter with some upside as the third piece behind Phil Hughes and Melky Cabrera in a deal with the Yankees.

On another note, I hunkered down during the long weekend and paged through a book I received several weeks ago to review. It's called "The Best Arguments in Minnesota Sports," and it is written by Pioneer Press scribe Bob Sansevere. Basically it is just a list of 100 different debatable topics with regards to each of Minnesota's sports teams -- from the Vikings to the Twins to the T-Wolves and so forth. I'm not the biggest Sansevere fan and I certainly found myself disagreeing with a few of the stances he takes in the book (Jack Morris is more deserving of a Hall of Fame spot than Bert Blyleven??), but it's an entertaining read. Check it out if you're cooped up in the house on a snowy day and bored.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am glad you didn't die of mistletoe poisoning. This is my first visit to your Blog. Good Work. Your old man mentioned you were writing about the Twins, So I googled your name and you came up 10th. Impressive. Happy Holidays.

Mike Kelly