Morneau and Progress

About a month from today, Jamey Carroll will turn 38 years old. That will make the veteran infielder, signed by the Twins earlier this offseason to man shortstop over the next couple seasons, the same age as former Minnesota third baseman Corey Koskie.

Of course, while Carroll is enjoying the best years of his pro baseball career, Koskie has been out of the game since 2006, when a concussion sustained in Milwaukee ended his days as a major-leaguer.

An athletic baseball player with a tremendous passion for the game, cut down in his prime by an injury that seemed totally harmless at the time, even to him. I brought up the unfortunate parallel between Koskie and Justin Morneau after the latter had been sidelined for a month by a concussion suffered in 2010, and unfortunately, little has happened since then to dispel such allusions.

In the weeks and months following Morneau's initial incident, Twins trainers repeatedly talked about the "progress" he was making toward getting back on the field. He never returned in 2010, but embarked on an offseason program designed to get him back into playing shape while protecting his head. Again, "progress" was the go-to buzzword in all Morneau updates.

The first baseman returned to the field for for 69 games last year, but was hardly the same player, and after re-triggering concussion symptoms on a fielding attempt in August, he was again shut down for the year. Now, Twins fans are left in the same state of limbo that they were a year ago, with the word "progress" once again being tossed around in the absence of any more substantive news.

At this point, the word has basically lost all meaning, but Twins officials can hardly be blamed for falling back on it. As was the case last winter, they don't know what Morneau's status truly is, or what to expect from him when he shows up in Ft. Myers next month.

That's very unfortunate. As Judd Zulgad wrote yesterday for ESPN 1500, the first baseman's situation is distinctly more worrisome than that of Joe Mauer, who by all accounts is feeling much stronger after a surgery-free offseason.

It seems likely that Mauer will be able to play at a high level this year, and even if his balky knee prevents him from catching full-time, the club has added a couple intriguing backup options at catcher in Ryan Doumit and J.R. Towles (a former outstanding prospect who's worth keeping an eye on).

But there's no one who can replace the value that a healthy Morneau provides, both on and off the field. Team insiders suggest that, with Michael Cuddyer gone, Morneau is the one player who can step in as a vocal clubhouse anchor, with the kind of fiery personality to rally the troops and avoid a catastrophe similar to last year.

If Morneau can't go, not only will the Twins lack a slugging first baseman capable of pounding 30 home runs with 100-plus RBI -- they'll also lack an obvious candidate to provide true leadership on this club, whatever you believe that's worth.

Certainly the league's award voters have recognized Morneau's value as stretching beyond his numbers. He won the AL MVP in 2006 with a questionable statistical case and placed second in 2008 with even lesser numbers, despite the Twins missing the playoffs.

Mauer might be the Twins' best player, but Morneau is a vital cog. His uncertain (at best) status going forward is probably the No. 1 overarching concern that surrounds this 2012 team.

For the sake of Twins fans – and him and his family more than anything – I hope his "progress" this offseason is a lot more meaningful than in past instances.

Mild Concussion Symptoms

Four hundred and twenty days after taking a blow to the head in Toronto, Justin Morneau finds himself sidelined with "mild concussion symptoms."

This technically marks the first time since the end of last year that Morneau has missed regular-season time as a result of the brain injury that cut short his 2010 campaign.

But, in light of these recurring symptoms, one does wonder how much the first baseman's dismal performance this year can be attributed to the concussion's after-effects. It's been nearly 14 months since Morneau suffered the injury, yet he still barely resembles his old self on the field and can't be in a good place if he's asking out of the lineup.

I suppose one could call Morneau "soft," since that seems to be the popular treatment for wounded baseball stars around these parts. I personally doubt that he's very much enjoying the afflictions that continue to torment him, regardless of how much money he's making.

Morneau once built a reputation as one of the game's sturdiest and most durable sluggers, yet this year he's missed starts on separate occasions due to a sore wrist, a sore foot, a sore shoulder, the flu, a neck injury and now symptoms relating to a concussion that he sustained well over a year ago.

The guy has been frustrated this year. But can anyone blame him?

Mystery Injuries

For the Twins, it's been a season of injuries that won't go away. And as much as we'd like to, we can't expect the offseason to serve as a cure-all.

Joe Mauer has been the most frustrating and perplexing example, even for medical professionals or students in online nursing programs and sports medicine classes. He underwent a knee operation that was considered minor last December, but hadn't recovered in time for spring training and -- after subsequently spending two months on the disabled list -- still hasn't shown that his legs are anywhere near full strength. He hit .356 in July but managed only four extra-base hits. In 18 August games he's hitting .268/.312/.352. This is just not the premier hitter we've come to know.

Scott Baker underwent elbow surgery during the offseason that, like Mauer's, was deemed minor. The right-hander reportedly dealt with "setbacks" in spring training, and now those issues have seemingly resurfaced, as he's on the disabled list for the second time since mid-July.

Then there are the brain injuries. Justin Morneau took a thump on the head last July and hasn't been the same since, while Denard Span suffered his own concussion 11 months later and has gone 2-for-35 between DL stints in the aftermath.

You can make a case that, when healthy, this foursome represents Minnesota's three best position players and their best pitcher. All face significant health uncertainty that could very well stretch beyond the 2011 season. And they're all under contract next year, for a combined $46.5 million.

The front office faces a lot of important decisions in the coming months as they try to get this derailed mess of a team back on track, but those decisions may not be particularly consequential unless these four players can return to satisfactory levels of health and production.

Everything the team does the rest of this season should be built around that focus. It seems likely that Baker and Span are already finished for the year, and one could certainly make the argument that Mauer ought to be shut down as well.

As for Morneau, there's not much to be done other than hoping things will start to click for him with continued reps. Right now, he's headed in the wrong direction, with a .121/.206/.226 hitting line since returning from his neck surgery.

Morneau: Down on His Luck

Midway through a feature I wrote on Justin Morneau for the Maple Street Press Twins Annual this spring, I made a rather bold proclamation: "It seems Justin might be the unluckiest man in baseball."

The suggestion stemmed from Morneau's back-to-back season-ending injuries in 2009 and 2010, injuries that would have to be described as -- at the very least -- unusual.

Two years ago, Morneau missed all of September, and the playoffs, due to a fractured vertebrae that had apparently been sustained gradually over time. The following season, he missed the final three months, and again the playoffs, after suffering a concussion on a seemingly innocuous play in Toronto.

I've had my quibbles with the ridiculously over prescribed "injury-prone" label in pro baseball, but if there was ever a Twins player who represented the antithesis of the term it would have been Morneau prior to September of 2009.

Between 2006 and 2007, the first baseman missed a total of only 10 games. In 2008, he started every single one of the Twins' 163 contests. And, through August 17th of '09, he'd started all but one game.

Then, the back issue popped up. That cleared, allowing him to go on an MVP-type tear through June of 2010 before the early-July concussion. This year, in trying to return from a brain injury, Morneau has been plagued by a nasty flu, a sore wrist (the only one of these ailments that, from what I've heard, might actually be his fault), and a pinched nerve in his neck that required surgery and has had him shelved since early June.

Last week, Morneau had to temporarily stall his rehab from this latest setback when migraine headaches -- supposedly not related to the concussion or neck problem -- began to bog him down. Of course.

He's probably the best young slugger to wear a Twins uniform since Kent Hrbek retired, so it's a real shame to see Morneau's prime years being absolutely ravaged by repeated unlucky injuries. The guy is more than due for a few good breaks.

Hopefully we see a reversal of fortunes get underway when he gets back on the field for the Twins, which should be within the next couple weeks. (Barring a bout with the bubonic plague.)

Here We Go Again...

When Michael Cuddyer whipped out his first baseman's mitt after Justin Morneau took a seemingly minor blow to the head last July, he hardly could have guessed he'd be wearing it every day for the rest of the season.

Will it be a similar story this year for Ben Revere?

The 23-year-old prospect, on the roster for a second stint this year due to a rash of injuries, took center field on June 7 with Span complaining of concussion symptoms stemming from an innocuous-looking collision at home plate a few days earlier.

With the exception of one game, in which he played left while Jason Repko manned center, Revere has been Minnesota's center fielder ever since.

In a brief radio interview with KFAN's Paul Allen yesterday, Span -- who had just finished a light workout at Target Field -- sounded despondent. Asked to guess when he might return to the lineup, he stumbled for words before settling on the All-Star break, an answer he sounded none too confident in.

The center fielder can hardly be blamed for his demeanor given the stark similarities between his predicament and the one that faced his teammate a year ago.

Much like Span, Morneau was amidst an outstanding campaign before taking a knock to the head while running the bases hard. Neither injury was initially deemed serious -- Span even played and batted third against the Indians three days after running into Royals catcher Brayan Pena -- but Morneau ended up missing the rest of his season and Span has missed two weeks with no return in sight.

To listen to Span describing his symptoms, you'd almost think he was reading Morneau quotes from last year's newspapers. In his downtime, he experiences no issues, but when he steps up his activity and tries to get on the field and work out, on come the headaches and dizziness.

Players like Cuddyer and Revere deserve a lot of credit for stepping up and helping the team win in spite of these significant losses, but Morneau and Span are both extremely likable players and key cogs in the lineup. It's hard -- for the team, for the fans, and especially for those two competitive spirits.

I'm very hopeful that Span can shake these issues and hit his targeted return date, because he's fun to watch and some advanced statistics had him pegged as one of the league's most valuable players over the first two months of the season.

However, as I assess his situation, I can't help but think of Morneau, who is approaching the one-year anniversary of his concussion and to this point still has not been able to bounce back.

Morneau's Early Struggles

With 52 games in the books, the Twins are approaching the one-third mark in their 162-game regular season schedule. It seems an appropriate time to check in on the player we expected to be the team's top individual storyline in the early part of the season: Justin Morneau.

The good news is that Morneau has been able to play. He's started all but seven of the Twins' games over the first two months, and is on pace to make over 600 plate appearances.

Sadly, the good news pretty much stops there. While Ron Gardenhire has continued to trot him out at the cleanup spot based on his past reputation as an elite power-hitting run producer, Morneau is hitting just .242 with a .626 OPS. He has managed two homers and 17 RBI while hitting .186 with runners on base. His performance thus far would put him in line for less than 10 home runs and 55 RBI in a full-season workload, which would obviously represent the worst production of his career by a pretty wide margin.

Obviously, something is wrong with the former MVP. The pertinent questions are what and why.

Studying him from afar this season, my observation is that his reactions seem to have dulled. Razor-sharp reflexes, forged in part through years of deflecting screaming pucks as a hockey goalie, were a principal strength for the slugger prior to last year's season-ending concussion. They've been conspicuously amiss this year.

It's shown in the field; while he's still competent out there he's not the defensive asset he once was. Hard grounders he used to snare routinely have escaped his reach, and we've seen him scoop far fewer low throws than in the past despite lousy infielders giving him ample opportunity.

It's also shown at the plate, and that's been more troubling. If the Twins are to return to contention next year they're going to need Morneau mashing and up to this point he's not shown that he has it in him.

It's not that Morneau looks completely overmatched at the plate. He's not striking out a ton, which is encouraging and indicates that his hand-eye coordination remains intact. The problem is his pitch selection. He's swinging at way too many balls outside of the zone -- a career-high 33.9 percent, according to FanGraphs.

Pitchers have adjusted and are offering fewer strikes -- 41.5 percent, lowest rate of his career -- but Morneau has been unable to adjust. He's walked in only 5.6 percent of his plate appearances this year, which is bordering on Delmon Young territory.

The first baseman is simply chasing too often, and while he's making contact at a solid rate, it just isn't the same kind of authoritative contact we've grown accustomed to seeing from him. He's trying to pull too many outside pitches, golfing for too many low breaking balls. Late on heaters, early on offspeed. He just isn't reading the ball well.

His natural talent has allowed him to stay afloat in spite of these issues (Morneau is  actually hitting .289 over his last 20 games) but until his pitch recognition improves he won't return to being the dominant force he was prior to injury.

I'll check in on Morneau again after another third of the season has gone by, and hopefully by then he'll have shown the kind of improvement that suggests his immense early struggles have merely been the result of rust from a prolonged layoff. I prefer not to think about the alternative.

It can hardly be understated overstated how important Morneau's ability to find his old form is to this team's future.

Three-Bagger: Morneau, Nathan, & Span

* The biggest star for the Twins in their abbreviated sweep over the Indians this past weekend was Justin Morneau, who returned from an extended battle with the flu and went 4-for-8 with four RBI. Though he seemed lost in his first couple weeks of action before falling ill (to be expected after an eight-month hiatus), Morneau looked more like his old self in the Cleveland series, coming through with big run-scoring hits in key situations and consistently hitting the ball with authority -- even on fouls and outs.

Jason Bay, another Canadian who had his 2010 season ended in July by a concussion, went deep for the Mets on Saturday, marking his first homer since suffering the brain injury. We're still waiting for Morneau to achieve that milestone, but it can't be far off with the way he was crushing the ball on Saturday and Sunday.

* After struggling in his first handful of appearances, Joe Nathan was relegated to to a low-leverage role in the bullpen. The ninth inning of Saturday's game, with the Twins leading by seven runs, fit the bill.

It wasn't exactly a save situation, but Nathan slammed the door on Cleveland with his most impressive outing this season. He retired the side in order while striking out two, including Orlando Cabrera on perhaps the best slider I've seen him throw all year.

This one outing hardly has me declaring Nathan fit to retake a late-inning role, but it's a step in the right direction. Building confidence with performances like this might be as important as anything to the right-hander's recovery.

* One of the most frustrating aspects of the Twins' slow offensive start has been their allergy to walks. After ranking fourth in the American League in free passes last year with largely the same group of hitters, they entered this past weekend ranked dead last.

Perhaps no one has been more emblematic of this lack of patience than Denard Span. The leadoff man is hitting the ball well, with a .318 average through 20 games, but he's drawn only five walks in his first 90 plate appearances – less than 6 percent.

Year	BB%
2008	12.1
2009	10.3
2010	8.5
2011	5.6

As you can see from the table above, Span's ability to take walks has steadily declined since he debuted in the majors four years ago.

As of today, his OBP sits at .356 thanks to a robust batting average. That’s an acceptable mark for a leadoff man, but it appears as though the days of Span getting on base at a .390 clip are over, and if he can’t keep sneaking grounders through the infield with regularity his OBP could dip to mediocre depths.

Return on Investment

After losing 11-0 last night to an Orioles team that had dropped eight straight, the Twins sit at 6-11 on the season. They have been outscored 83-50 in 17 games, averaging less than three runs per contest. They rank last in the major leagues in runs, walks, home runs and OPS.

Things are as grim as can be.

They will get better. Even with the injuries and the presence of offensive black holes like Alexi Casilla and Drew Butera, the Twins are not going to remain the worst-hitting team in baseball for long. They're too talented.

But the inevitability of improvement for their mind-numbingly bad offensive start does nothing to erase the more legitimate long-term concerns that have manifested in the early going.

In analyzing the 2011 squad as the season approached, the one thing that most deeply concerned me was the precariousness of the club's principal investments. Yes, the Twins pumped payroll up to an all-time high $112 million, but much of that money was tied up in significant question marks.

It wasn't the cheap role players like Casilla and Butera who would determine this team's fate. It was the hobbled veterans whose bulky salaries forced the team to part with quality players like Orlando Hudson and J.J. Hardy, not to mention the entire bullpen.

So far, those pricy question marks have not fared well.

Joe Mauer, earning $23 million, struggled to a .554 OPS with one-extra base hit in nine games before landing on the disabled list with a bizarre assortment of ailments. There's no firm timetable in place for his return.

Justin Morneau, earning $14 million, has admirably returned to the field after a long battle with post-concussion syndrome, but has not been at all effective. He managed 11 hits -- no homers -- and three walks in 56 plate appearances before missing the last three games with the flu.

Joe Nathan, earning $11.5 million, also earns respect points for his recovery from serious injury, but it is evident that he does not belong on the major-league roster at this point. He is only hurting the club by occupying a spot in a bullpen that is already lacking trustworthy options.

The underrated Michael Cuddyer, earning $10.5 million, owns a .608 OPS with no homers, and still hasn't driven in one run in 16 games.

Those four players account for nearly half the payroll, and none have yielded any meaningful production up to this point. Throw in the struggles of moderately expensive players like Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Delmon Young and Matt Capps, and it shouldn't be difficult to see why the team is struggling so mightily.

The front office invested a lot of money into this 2011 roster and so far they've been ripped off by the hideous product on the field. Hopefully these players can get over their illnesses, rust, slumps and mental blocks in a hurry, because these dismal performances are getting harder to watch for fans and harder to justify for a $112M team that should be amidst a window of contention.

Position Analysis: First Base

Likely Starter: Justin Morneau

Carlos Gonzalez, Star Tribune)

Potential Backups: Michael Cuddyer, Justin Huber, Jeff Bailey

When he's been in the lineup, production has never been an issue for Justin Morneau. Over the past five years, the Canadian first baseman has consistently been among the most productive in the league at his position, averaging a .900 OPS with 27 home runs and 105 RBI.

The issue for Morneau, recently, has been staying in the lineup. In both 2009 and 2010, he missed lengthy stretches of time due to freak injuries; first a fractured vertebrae, then a severe concussion.

To their credit, the Twins have made do without the former MVP in each of those two seasons, surging to postseason berths with Michael Cuddyer filling in at first base. Still, it's clearly a situation they'd like to avoid this year. There's no doubt that Morneau, with his uncommon ability to hit for both average and power with increasingly excellent plate discipline, can have a profound impact on the offense's fortunes when he's performing at peak level.

Morneau missed the final three months of the 2010 season due to concussion symptoms that persisted into the offseason and even into early spring. He overcame a huge hurdle last week by making his Grapefruit League debut on Friday, marking the first time in more than eight months he'd taken part in a live baseball game.

By his account, Morneau's symptoms are finally just now clearing up. That the afflictions which haunted him for eight months would suddenly disappear just weeks before the start of the baseball season seems awfully convenient, so it's entirely possible that they've grown more mild and he's simply decided to start pushing through them a little more than he's been willing to in the past. Either way, Morneau is now taking part in all baseball-related activities and, barring a setback, he's on pace to take the field on April 1st when the Twins return to Rogers Centre for the first time since he suffered his concussion there last July.

Projecting the slugger's performance for this year is exceedingly difficult. He's a tremendously talented hitter and last year, prior to the mishap in Toronto, he was putting together the most impressive offensive campaign of his career. If he can pick up where he left off it'd be a coup, but I'm hesitant to expect that for two reasons: residual injury effects and plain old rust.

Ideally, Morneau will be completely free of symptoms from the get-go this season, putting the traumatic brain injury behind him without issue. That's a best case scenario but probably not an entirely realistic one. Given the persistence of the concussion's lingering after-effects throughout the offseason it's hard to imagine he won't at least experience some minor symptoms as he attempts to return to everyday duty. Should he encounter some level of fogginess, nausea or sensitivity to light, one has to wonder how it will impact his performance as he attempts to read, register and swing at 95 mph fastballs and wicked breaking pitches.

Even if he does fully overcome concussion symptoms, we must acknowledge the fact that Morneau is returning from what is likely his longest hiatus from the sport since he began playing it. Not only has he been unable to participate in games for the past eight months, he has largely been unable to even take part in off-the-field activities designed to keep his skills sharp (such as batting practice and fielding drills). If he gets off to a bit of a slow start, it shouldn't come as a surprise.

It goes without saying that Morneau will now be extremely susceptible to any type of blow to the head. While every possible measure will be taken to protect his cranium, certain incidents are unavoidable. I suspect the Twins will show maximum caution with him this year, providing him with more frequent days off and holding him out of the lineup for weeks (or months) should symptoms reemerge.

With this being the case, it seemingly would have made sense for the front office to invest in some sort of legitimate backup who could keep Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Jim Thome in their natural (and most suitable) roles. Unfortunately, it looks like Cuddyer will be Morneau's sole legitimate backup; no other candidate to play the position can be found on the 40-man roster (save for Chris Parmelee, who is a far cry from big-league ready).

Much like with Joe Mauer, Morneau's health is a question mark and the depth behind him is less than stellar, so the Twins will have to cross their fingers and hope for the best. We have a lot more reason for optimism than we did just a couple weeks ago, but there's a distant chasm between appearing in a couple exhibition games and permanently conquering one of the most serious concussion cases in recent history. Morneau's challenge is just beginning.

Predicted 2011 Hitting Line for Morneau: .290/.360/.480, 25 HR, 100 RBI

On Location in Ft. Myers

I regret to report that I have in fact returned from my week-long getaway to sunny Southwest Florida. It was a great trip and I spent plenty of time down at the ballpark, so let's cut to the chase and go over a few observations, thoughts and pictures from spring training:

* The timing of my trip to Florida (and specifically my trips to Hammond Stadium) worked well in that I was able to witness a number of important firsts for the Twins this spring. As I mentioned last Wednesday, I made it down to the minor-league fields at Lee County Sports Complex on Tuesday just in time to catch a bit of Justin Morneau's first live game action since last July, as the first baseman participated in a B-game against the Pirates.

Three days later, I was in attendance for Morneau's Grapefruit League debut against the Red Sox. He went 0-for-2, going down on a called third strike in his first at-bat and then reaching on a Carl Crawford error in his second. Morneau also cleanly fielded a couple grounders. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his performance, but the fact that he was out there and generally looking like his old self is plenty encouraging, especially considering that a week ago it seemed his return was nowhere in sight.

 Morneau's first official AB since July 7th of last year.

* I missed a chance to witness another big first on Saturday, as I arrived at the complex just minutes after Joe Mauer wrapped up catching his first bullpen session of the spring. He caught another session on Sunday and while he continues to deal with some soreness in his knee it sounds like he'll start getting into games as DH this week. The situation remains uncertain, but the best thing I can say at this point is that Mauer still has almost three weeks to get himself ready for Opening Day.

* On a side note, I was struck by the fact that Ron Gardenhire gave no advance notice to the media that Morneau would be playing in Tuesday's game (as a reporter on hand told me, Morneau simply went on the field and started warming up, causing a lot of scurrying). Later in the week, when asked by reporters how close Mauer was to catching a bullpen session, Gardenhire indicated the timetable by spreading his arms open wide and saying "this much," before adding, "You can write that." The very morning this was reported, Mauer caught a bullpen session.

I have no way of knowing whether these were smokescreens intended to deceive or the innocent result of a manager being as blindsided as the rest of us by his star players' important spring milestones, but considering Gardenhire's recent vocal frustration with how quickly news reports are traveling through the media these days (most notably through Twitter), it seems rather conspicuous.

In the event that Gardy is actually starting to build barricades between himself and the media, it's going to be a long season for the reporters who cover the team, as well as the fans who rely on those reporters to get their fix.

* Much of the team traveled to Jupiter on Saturday for an exhibition match-up against the Cardinals, but there was still plenty to see around the Twins' spring training complex. When I arrived in the morning I happened upon Justin Morneau, Jim Thome, Jason Kubel and prospect Joe Benson taking batting practice. Interestingly, the guy from that group who hit the most balls over the fence while I was spectating was Benson (though it's worth noting that he was the only righty, and a left-hander was throwing the BP session). Think he felt like he had something to prove while being grouped with those guys?

Jim Thome gets his hacks in, while Joe Benson (No. 87) looks on.

* The next group to take batting practice included Michael Cuddyer, which is notable because it was his first BP session since undergoing surgery to remove a wart on his foot. Cuddyer put on quite a show, launching the majority of pitches over the left field fence. I don't often watch batting practice but I'm told this is routine for him; nevertheless, a good sign.

* One player I was interested in seeing was Pat Neshek, who's looking to take a step forward in his second season back from Tommy John surgery and could be key to the bullpen's success this season. Unfortunately, when I watched him pitch an inning against the Pirates on Tuesday, the side-winding righty did not look sharp. According to the stadium scoreboard, he only topped 84 mph once (though I can't vouch for the accuracy of the radar gun at Hammond) and he seemed to have a hard time hitting the catcher's mitt.

* Another player I was excited to check out was, of course, the Japanese import Tsuyoshi Nishioka. He started at second in both games I attended and I also had a chance to see him take some batting practice on Saturday.

Nishioka certainly presents an interesting dynamic. His interpreter is around at all times during practice, and when he chats with teammates there's a delay between statement and reaction on both sides. Given his skinny, athletic build and deliberate, methodical mannerisms it's not hard to see why folks would draw superficial comparisons to Ichiro.

I can't make any real judgments about his play based on the very limited sample I witnessed, but I will say that in the games I saw him in I don't think he hit a single ball hard (he did have a couple singles, a ground ball and a blooper). Even in batting practice, he seemed to hit a relatively high number of weak grounders and soft liners, but that could be part of his approach during practice. Defensively, he looked comfortable at second base and made a great diving play on a hard-hit hopper up the middle off the bat of Jacoby Ellsbury in Friday's game.

Alexi Casilla, Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Nishioka's translator during BP.

* Ben Revere is fun to watch. He wasn't on the field a ton during the games I attended, but in his limited time I saw him lay down a perfect bunt, steal third base and make a spectacular diving catch in the left-center gap. With his lefty swing, smallish stature and big smile, I think we'll see a lot of Twins fans compare Revere to Jacque Jones, especially now that he's switched his uniform number to 11.

* I spent some time hanging around the minor-league fields, watching some of the organization's prospects run, throw and take part in drills (the actual games for minor leaguers don't start until this week). It was cool to put faces to some of the names I've been following and haven't previously had a chance to see. Liam Hendriks is listed at 6'1", but compared to other top pitching prospects like Kyle Gibson (6'6"), David Bromberg (6'5") and Billy Bullock (6'6") he seemed downright diminutive. Conversely, Miguel Sano might (allegedly) only be 17, but he stood out physically like a man among boys with the other minor-leaguers he was doing drills with.

Mostly, the thing that struck me while hanging out at the minor league fields was how young these kids are. We get so caught up in the stat sheets and projections that we can forget many of these guys are fresh out of high school and extreme long-shots to ever see major-league action. Largely, the players working out in the minor-league area are friendly, outgoing, and-- for anyone who's played organized baseball and worked through the endless tedious drills -- relatable.

* On my last note, I'll veer away from baseball and toward -- what else? -- food. La Velle had the restaurant situation around Ft. Myers pretty well covered in his guide (I tried Michelbob's for BBQ and Iguana Mia for Mexican -- both thumbs-up) but the best food I had during my stay was at a Cuban restaurant called Fernandez the Bull. There are two locations, both in Naples (about 40 minutes from Ft. Myers) but if you're at all into Cuban food it's definitely worth the trip.

Pleasant Surprises

I arrived at the Lee County Sports Complex a couple hours early for Tuesday's game between the Twins and Pirates, so I wandered over to the minor-league field, where a relatively sizable crowd had assembled to take in the "B-game" between the two clubs.

Just as I walked up, Trevor Plouffe was at the plate, and on one of the first pitches I saw he drove a base hit to the outfield. The runner who'd been on second charged around third and slid across home plate to score on a close play. This wasn't particularly noteworthy until the runner popped up and I realized it was Justin Morneau.

I soon learned that Morneau, who had started without advance notice and was seeing his first live game action since last July, had put himself on second just moments earlier with a three-run double down the right field line. Music to my ears.

There was plenty to like in that B-game, played on a side field away from the eyes of most fans who were making their way out to Hammond Stadium for the day's main exhibition match-up. Delmon Young also made his spring debut in the game, though he was finished before I arrived. Kevin Slowey started and pitched well; I spied a few scouts in the stands who apparently were checking in on him on behalf of the Blue Jays. I got my first look at Kyle Gibson, who had hitters consistently beating the ball into the ground with a tailing fastball delivered from a 6'6" frame (though he did give up a well struck home run to Andy Marte).

The main feature didn't end up being quite so noteworthy, as the Twins delivered a rather punchless offensive performance (as one would expect in a game where Matt Tolbert was the team's first baseman and No. 5 hitter) on the way to a 5-2 loss. The contest was highlighted by four very sharp innings from Carl Pavano, and I had the privilege of spectating from some pretty amazing seats.

With Michael Cuddyer on track to return after having a nasty wart removed from his foot and Joe Mauer being cautiously eased back into duty, the Twins seem to be on their way to fielding all their star sluggers, which hopefully will prevent us from ever being subjected to Tolbert at first base again.

The Core Four

In 2009, the Twins scored 817 runs, ranking them fourth in the American League. They hit 172 home runs, which -- while below the league average -- marked their highest total in the past six years and an increase of 61 from the prior season.

They managed this relatively gaudy offensive production despite underwhelming performances from such regulars as Alexi Casilla, Nick Punto, Joe Crede, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez.

The lineup's overall success in '09 was keyed by four players that comprised the heart of the lineup: Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel. Each of the four posted an OPS of .862 or higher, went deep at least 28 times and drove in at least 94 runs, transforming an otherwise sub par offense into one of the best in the league.

Last year, the Twins' lineup featured greater balance, but scored 45 fewer runs and hit 30 fewer homers. To pinpoint this drop-off in production we need look no further than those four players.

Mauer struggled with injuries and adjustments to his new home park; his home run total dropped from 28 to nine and his OPS dropped by 160 points. Morneau was tremendous over the first half of the season but didn't play a game after July 7, finishing with career lows in home runs (18) and RBI (56). Cuddyer never seemed to get his power swing going, tallying less than half as many home runs as the previous year (from 32 to 14) and posting the lowest full-season slugging percentage of his career (.417). Kubel saw his OPS drop from .907 to .750.

In my opinion, the lineup has gotten worse around these four players since last year. I see Alexi Casilla and Tsuyoshi Nishioka as offensive downgrades from Orlando Hudson and J.J. Hardy, and I have a hard time expecting the same kind of production from the likes of Jim Thome and Danny Valencia.

Even if those auxiliary players don't pan out as the team hopes, though, it doesn't mean the offense can't be more productive overall. If the four players at the heart of the order can move closer to their 2009 levels of production, they can change the entire complexion of the lineup, especially with Delmon Young now adding another legitimate power bat to the mix.

Whether or not these hitters can rebound will be largely dependent on health. It seems fair to say none of the four were completely healthy last year, and unfortunately three of them are already dealing with injury issues this spring that have prevented them from being able to take the field for a game thus far.

If the "Core Four" can put these pesky problems behind them and remain relatively healthy throughout the summer, they could easily be the difference between a mediocre lineup and an upper-echelon one.

Three-Bagger: Hughes, Morneau & Weak Beer

* Earlier this week the Twins claimed left-hander Dusty Hughes off waivers from the Royals, designating Rob Delaney for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.

This qualifies as an extremely minor move that will probably end up not mattering, but I still find it a little puzzling. Hughes is a 28-year-old who stuck in the majors for the first time last year, putting up mediocre numbers in the Kansas City bullpen. He adds another upper-20s borderline AAA/MLB arm to a mix that already included Eric Hacker, Jeff Manship, Glen Perkins, Anthony Swarzak, Phil Dumatrait, Chuck James and Jim Hoey.

Ostensibly, the value of Hughes is that he gives the Twins another left-handed option for the bullpen. It stands to reason, though, that the team will carry only two left-handed relievers; one will surely be Jose Mijares and the other might be Brian Duensing. So Hughes has been signed and given a 40-man roster spot to compete with Scott Diamond, Perkins, James and Dumatrait for a role that may or may not even be available?

By bringing in Hughes, the Twins risk losing Delaney on waivers. A 26-year-old right-hander with middling stuff and velocity, Delaney isn't the prospect his 2.96 career ERA in the minors makes him out to be. Most likely, he doesn't have enough arm to succeed in the majors. But he's younger than a lot of these pitchers the Twins keep adding and he's posted a 130-to-38 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 1.27 WHIP over 127 innings in Triple-A over the past two years. If nothing else, he seemed like a candidate to come up and throw strikes in the big-league bullpen this year, as many of the other relief options have exhibited serious command issues. Delaney is nothing special, but he just doesn't seem like a guy you risk losing for the sake of bringing in an aging non-prospect who was cut by the Royals.

Like I said, not a big deal one way or the other. Delaney might not even get claimed. I'm just continually having a hard time understanding the front office's line of thinking this offseason -- with moves big and small.

[UPDATE: Delaney was claimed on waivers Friday by the Rays.]

* TwinsFest will get underway this weekend, transplanted from its usual location in the Metrodome to the National Sports Center in Blaine. One person who won't be in attendance is Justin Morneau, who the Twins have asked to remain in Arizona and concentrate on his recovery.

I wrote a lengthy story on the subject of Morneau and concussions for this year's Maple Street Press Twins Annual (which you can pre-order now, by the way), but I haven't touched on it directly too much here on the blog. There's a reason for that.

We can try and read between the lines on quotes from him and the team, we can look at past examples of serious concussion cases in sport, and we can conjecture a whole host of possibilities. Ultimately, we need to acknowledge that with Morneau, and with Joe Nathan, we're not going to have any idea what to truly expect this year until we see them on the field in spring training.

Fortunately, that's now only a month away, so we won't have to deal with this lingering uncertainty hovering over our heads for too much longer.

* Like Morneau, I won't be attending TwinsFest this weekend. I went once -- seven or eight years ago -- and while it was a fairly enjoyable time, I'm not a big collector so there's only so much value I can get out of the event.

This isn't the kind of news that's going to bring me back.

Three Bagger: Pavano, Thome & D-Lee

Apologies for the lack of updates here over the past two weeks. I decided to take a bit of a holiday respite, and fortunately the Twins made that easy by doing absolutely nothing. To get back into the groove, I'll touch on a few different subjects here in the first entry of 2011:

* Both Carl Pavano and the Twins are running out of options, so a return to Minnesota for the veteran right-hander is beginning to seem all but inevitable.

Since my last writing, Zack Greinke has been traded to the Brewers and Brandon Webb has signed with the Rangers. That's two potential destinations for Pavano effectively off the table, and also two potential rotation additions for the Twins erased. It's hard to believe that the team would enter the 2011 season with only five viable starting options -- none of them older than 29 -- so one would think a veteran acquisition has to be on the way. The Twins' patient approach has seen many potential options land elsewhere, so who else would they go with?

It's not hard to see why the front office would see fit to invest in Pavano. He was an ideal fit last year, personifying everything this organization loves in a veteran starter. He threw strikes, ate innings and greatly lessened the bullpen's burden.

But I'm wary of an expensive multi-year deal for Pavano. He turns 35 this week, and the fact that he's been healthy and durable over the past two seasons does not by any means ensure that he'll repeat it next year; especially not the year after. Let's not forget that two years ago Pavano was considered one of the most fragile pitchers in the league.

Even if he stays healthy Pavano could just as easily post the 5.10 ERA from 2009 as the 3.75 from 2010; the rest of his numbers weren't all that terribly different. I guess I just see a big contract for Pavano right now as buying high, especially when you consider that the Twins would be losing the high draft pick that would come to them should Pavano sign elsewhere.

A return to Minnesota for the mustachioed righty is starting to look highly probable, but I question the wisdom of investing so much in the hope that an aging player will be able to repeat a surprisingly excellent season. Which brings me to my next talking point...

* Jim Thome's name hasn't been bandied about much this offseason. After amazingly piecing together one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame carer at the age of 39, the slugger expressed interest at season's end in returning to the Twins. Given the uncertainty surrounding Justin Morneau and the tremendous popularity of Thome, the team would undoubtedly like to bring him back. It's just not clear how feasible that will be, as beat writer La Velle E. Neal III speculated this weekend that Thome's camp could be thinking "that it's time make up for what he didn't earn last season while he swats career homer No. 600 in a Twins uniform."

Thome is the definition of a luxury. He's a great hitter, even in the likely event that he regresses some from last season, and was perhaps the best value in baseball with his meager contract. Yet, a substantial pay raise (Neal noted in the aforementioned article that Thome's camp "raised its eyebrows" when Lance Berkman signed a one-year, $8 million deal with St. Louis) ups the ante. How much can Bill Smith really justify paying a 40-year-old part-time player who can't field a position and could succumb to his problematic back at any time?

* One intriguing alternative option for the Twins came off the table over the weekend, as Derrek Lee signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Orioles. While 2010 was a down season by the first baseman's standards, he still hit 19 home runs and posted a higher OPS than Michael Cuddyer. Over the ten years prior, Lee had posted an OPS of .820 or above in all of them and hit 20-plus homers in all but one. On top of all that, he is a right-handed hitter with great career numbers against lefties, and he's considered an outstanding fielder.

Seemingly, Lee would have been an ideal fit in Minnesota. As both an insurance policy at first base and a platoon partner for Jason Kubel at DH, you couldn't do much better. Now, Lee has signed with another team (the Orioles, no less, who seem intent on making my offseason as miserable as possible).

Perhaps he wasn't a feasible target. Maybe he refused to sign somewhere he wasn't guaranteed a starting job, and maybe the Twins don't have $8 million available in the budget. All I know is that operating under the assumption that Morneau is certain to return and play a full season would be foolhardy, and the Twins had better find a contingency plan that doesn't involve subjecting fans to a full year of Cuddyer as a regular starting first baseman and Kubel as a regular starting outfielder.

Thome doesn't do that.

The Flip Side of Morneau's Complaints

In an email exchange with Star Tribune reporters, Justin Morneau recently spoke out against the decision by the Twins organization not to move in the home run fences after the team's first season at Target Field.

Morneau complained that it is extremely difficult for both right-handed and left-handed hitters to homer to the opposite field and suggested that this fact can cause players to develop bad habits that manifest on the road.

Unfortunately, the facts don't seem to back up Morneau's complaints. Before a concussion knocked him out for the season in early July, the first baseman was slugging .618 and on pace for a career-high 35 home runs. Granted, only four of Morneau's 18 bombs at that point had come in Target Field, but the fact that he'd gone deep 14 times while amassing a ridiculous .757 slugging percentage in 38 road games hardly reinforces any notion that "bad habits" were inhibiting his offensive approach in opposing stadiums.

Morneau surely is frustrated after watching many of his (and his teammates') screaming line drives fall short of the wall in the power alleys this summer. Parker lays out the data on the TwinsCentric blog today, backing up Morneau's concerns over the difficulty of hitting the ball out of the park, especially to right-center.

But the key point that Morneau misses in his remarks is how much these deep fences have aided the Twins' pitching staff, which was elemental in the team's outstanding 53-28 home record this season.

A big reason the Twins performed so much better at home this season is because their pitching was markedly superior there than on the road. Twins hurlers posted a 3.53 ERA with 64 home runs allowed in 81 home games while registering a 4.39 ERA with 91 homers allowed in the same number of road contests.

Specific pitchers have benefited greatly from Target Field's expansive confines. Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey were both among the league's most fly ball heavy pitchers this year, so both rely on keeping those fly balls in the yard.

At home, Baker went 8-3 with a 3.86 ERA, thanks largely to his yielding only eight homers in 86 innings. On the road, he went 4-6 with a 5.14 ERA and allowed seven more home runs in two fewer innings.

You'll find similar splits for Kevin Slowey, whose ERA at home, where he allowed a .416 slugging percentage, was 3.63; on the road, where he allowed a .515 slugging percentage: 5.63.

Nick Blackburn doesn't let hitters put the ball in the air quite as much as Slowey or Baker, but he does allow an awful lot of contact and so he too sees major benefits from a pitcher-friendly home stadium. At Target Field, Blackburn's numbers were downright solid: 7-4 with a 3.71 ERA and 10 home runs allowed in 89 innings. On the road, his results were beyond dismal: 3-8 with a 7.57 ERA and 15 home runs allowed in 71 innings.

None of these three starters enjoyed particularly great seasons, but they all could have been disastrous if not for the luxury of pitching in a home park that severely limited the power output of opposing lineups. Baker, Slowey and Blackburn couldn't be blamed for grumbling upon hearing Morneau's comments.

Considering the Twins' outstanding home record, coupled with the fact that their lineup scored more runs at home than on the road in spite of the home run struggles, it's difficult to view the distant home run fences as playing to the Twins' disadvantage. Quite the contrary.

Morneau made clear that his comments were intended for the betterment of the team as a whole rather than his own personal statistics, but he's not seeing clearly on this one. The Twins are making the right choice.

Four Questions About the Playoff Roster

Yesterday's loss to the Athletics sealed the Twins' first series loss in nearly a month, and their first at Target Field since mid-July. They still made progress toward clinching a division title thanks to the plummeting White Sox dropping their sixth straight game, an ugly extra-innings loss against the Tigers. The Twins' Magic Number now sits at four, and they'll likely pop the champagne sometime this week.

With only 13 regular-season games remaining, it's fair to start casting our gaze toward the postseason. The Twins, just one game shy of the MLB-best Yankees in the win/loss column, continue to pursue the American League's No. 1 seed. For now, the Twins are at the very least virtually assured home field advantage in the first round, as their five-game edge over the Rangers has them lined up to host the AL wild card in the ALDS.

There are a few questions worth pondering as we consider how the Twins might arrange their their playoff roster, which must be whittled down considerably from its current expanded state. For today, I submit four such questions for discussion:

1) Who starts Game 1?

As the rotation currently projects, Francisco Liriano is in line to start Game 1. I'd certainly support that course of action, as I feel Liriano is one of the league's elite starting pitchers and would match up most evenly with David Price or CC Sabathia.

Carl Pavano hasn't been as good as Liriano this year and he treads a more dangerous slope with his tendency to allow contact, but he's the veteran with postseason experience and it wouldn't surprise me if he were Ron Gardenhire's preference.

2) Who starts Game 4?

We basically know that Liriano, Pavano and Brian Duensing will be Gardenhire's top three playoff starters, in whatever order. What's not nearly as clear is who might get the nod in a fourth game, if necessary. Scott Baker has fallen out of the picture due to his recent injury, so it comes down to Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn.

Slowey has significantly better numbers than Blackburn this season. He gets more strikeouts but is a lot more fly ball prone. Blackburn was arguably the league's worst pitcher over the first four months of the season, but he's gotten far better results since being recalled from a brief demotion to the minors and that improvement is supported by an uptick in ground balls. While I think the cliche oversimplifies matters, it does seem as though Blackburn has "found his sinker."

Ultimately, both Blackburn and Slowey give you reason to be nervous against a lineup like Tampa's or New York's, and it could be that the answer to this question will be dictated by who pitches better in their final turns.

At this time, though, I've got to believe Blackburn's experience pitching in big games (and pitching well) makes him the front-runner.

With all that being said, if the Twins face elimination in Game 4, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gardenhire go back to his Game 1 starter on short rest. Liriano's arm seems to need every extra day of rest it can get, which is another reason Gardy might favor Pavano as Game 1 starter.

3) What is Scott Baker's role?

He was the Twins' Opening Day starter this year, and now there's a possibility that he'll be a healthy scratch from the postseason roster. Poor kid.

Baker has been absent from the Twins' rotation over the past few weeks while battling a sore forearm, and now that he's ready to return there's no room for him. Gardenhire has indicated that Baker will work out of the bullpen and maybe make a spot start during as the season winds down, which means he's got almost no shot at starting a playoff game.

Then, Baker becomes part of a bit of a roster crunch. With the abbreviated rotation and extra days off during postseason play, there's little reason to carry more than 11 pitchers, and the Twins will already have one starter in the bullpen. There's no sense in carrying Baker as an extra mop-up guy, and it's anyone's guess whether Gardenhire would be willing to use him in tight late-inning situations.

I'll say this much: If Baker is left off the playoff roster at the expense of Matt Guerrier or Jon Rauch, I think it's a mistake. Baker has better stuff and would be a more effective weapon in middle relief.

4) Can Justin Morneau return?

It's the question that continues to resonate quietly through Twins Territory. Morneau was an MVP front-runner when he went down with a concussion in early July, and he hasn't played since. The Twins still haven't officially shut Morneau down for the season, and recent reports have the first baseman "feeling really good," so hope lingers on.

There are only 13 games left in the season and probably not enough time for Morneau to sharpen his skills with a stint down in Florida and jump back in right where he left off with the Twins. If we're being realistic, the chances of Morneau starting at first base and batting cleanup in Game 1 of the ALDS are close to nil.

But one thing that I've contemplated lately is the possibility that Morneau might return to the Twins strictly as a bench threat in October. Even accounting for his time away from the game, Morneau still figures to be a far better pinch-hitting threat than anything else the Twins can muster, especially with Jim Thome likely to be an every-game starter.

Using Morneau in this limited role would prevent him from having his rust exposed in the field and would set the stage for some unbelievable October dramatics. It might not be very likely, but right now I'd say it's the best shot we've got at seeing Morneau again this year.

Managing To Win

By throttling the Royals 10-3 at Target Field last night for their fifth straight victory, the Twins were able to expand their lead in the AL Central to 4 1/2 games, thanks to a White Sox loss in Detroit. Having built up a seven-game lead over the Rangers in the win/loss column, the Twins' latest hot streak has helped ensure that they'll get home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs should they get there. By quietly moving within 2 1/2 games of the Rays in the standings, the Twins have also positioned themselves for a possible wild card berth in the event that the Sox manage to overtake them in the AL Central.

That the Twins have gotten to this point is impressive. That they've done it without the services of Justin Morneau almost defies belief.

Consider this: When Kendry Morales seriously injured his knee while celebrating a walk-off home run back on May 29, the Angels were 3 1/2 games out in the AL West. He hasn't played since, and the Angels now find themselves 9 1/2 games out in September -- effectively eliminated from the postseason.

The Twins were 1 1/2 games out after Morneau suffered a concussion on July 7. But instead of folding faced with the loss of their best hitter, the Twins regrouped and made a second-half charge with help from a number of contributors who were able to step up. Now, they find themselves in the favorable situation I described above.

Morneau and Morales both served as key sluggers in the middle of their respective lineups. Both are widely viewed as elite players; Morales finished fifth in the AL MVP voting last year, while Morneau finished second the year before. Both injuries were flukes, but both were the type that could potentially ruin a season.

The Twins deserve a lot of credit for refusing to fall apart despite Morneau's lingering absence. He's been gone for so long now that it's hard to remember, but the Canadian slugger essentially carried the Twins offense through the first couple months of the season. When he went down, Morneau led the league in OPS and was looking more locked in at the plate than ever before in his career. He was an MVP front-runner, and yet somehow the Twins have managed to sustain his loss without flinching.

The Twins are on pace to win 96 games. They rank first in the American League in batting average. Third in OPS. Fourth in runs per game. They've done this without Morneau -- who was the league's best hitter -- for 40 percent of the season. That is some kind of amazing.

A multitude of factors have made it possible. Joe Mauer hit .400 in the weeks following the All-Star break, picking his game up when the team was in desperate need. The value of Michael Cuddyer, who has played a very decent first base while contributing with the bat, has been underrated. Jim Thome has somehow morphed back into one of the league's most feared hitters at the age of 40, while making $1.5 million (can someone get Bill Smith a trophy already?). The Twins are getting production from third base that they never expected.

And on top of it all, there's a captain who's been holding the leaking ship together, just like he did last year when the Twins lost their star slugger down the stretch. Managers get judged by fans based on a lot of trivial minutia, but ultimately it comes down to winning and Ron Gardenhire has overseen an awful lot of winning. This year, he's paced to lead a flawed and injury-riddled team to 96 wins and a sixth division title in nine years.

Bill Smith's trophy can wait. This year, I think Gardy deserves his.

Morneau's Head

The whole sports world has been a flutter today after reports arose that Brett Favre has been informing his teammates that he won't be returning for this season. It's yet another chapter in a seemingly endless drama, but I'm confident that when it's all said and done, Favre will be starting for the Vikings against the Saints in their season opener.

The matter that is weighing on my mind is a far more ominous and immediate concern, and that's the continued absence of Justin Morneau from the Twins' lineup. The slugging first baseman sustained a concussion in early July against the Blue Jays, and a month later his return to the lineup still is not in sight.

Morneau was a human wrecking ball over the first three months of the season, posting a stellar .345/.437/.618 hitting line to go along with 18 home runs and 56 RBI. While the Twins offense slumped at times early in the season, Morneau did not, as he kept on pounding the ball while looking more comfortable and disciplined at the plate than ever before. It seemed as though this might finally be the year that Morneau kept on hitting through the end of the campaign and clearly established himself as the American League's most dangerous offensive first baseman.

Then, on that July 7 game in Toronto, Morneau suffered a seemingly innocuous injury when he hit his head against the knee of Blue Jays shortstop Alex Gonzalez while trying to break up a double play. The woozy Morneau initially expected only to miss a couple games, but days have stretched to weeks and those weeks have now stretched to a month. How much longer will it be? No one seems to know, but one can't help but be alarmed at today's report via MLB.com that Morneau "was not feeling as good Monday as he did Sunday following a light workout back in Minneapolis."

This tells us that Morneau is not particularly close to returning, perhaps confirming a report by USA Today's Bob Nightengale from a couple days ago that the first baseman is "still likely weeks away from returning."

Concussions are the most tricky of injuries. They can confound even the most respected of physicians, and there is generally no treatment capable of curing the effects of the injury. Either Morneau's headaches will go away with rest or they won't, but either way it's something that will largely have to happen on its own.

In seeing Morneau's post-concussion effects continue to linger on, one can't help but be reminded of another former Canadian Twins slugger, Corey Koskie. After spending several outstanding (and, in my opinion, often underrated) seasons in a Twins' uniform, Koskie signed with the Blue Jays following the 2004 campaign. After the '05 season, the Jays traded Koskie to Milwaukee, where he sustained his fateful concussion in a July game against the Reds.

At first glance, Koskie's injury was as minor as Morneau's. Patrick Reusse recounted the situation in a 2007 Star Tribune column:

Koskie was chasing a looping fly ball that day in Miller Park. "My only chance to catch it was to put my head down and run to the spot," he said. "When I got there and looked, the ball was behind me. So, I bent back and reached, caught the ball, and hit the ground."

Koskie crashed onto his back. His head didn't clearly slam to the ground, but his neck whiplashed. The ball popped from his glove and Bill Hall caught it for the half-inning's final out.

"I thought I was OK, but when I went up to hit, the pitcher was out there somewhere ... like he was behind a TV screen," Koskie said. "I felt nauseous. I was woozy. I slapped at a couple of pitches and fouled them. I got to a 3-2 count and remember thinking, 'What happens if I draw a walk here and have to run the bases? I won't be able to do it.'

"As it turned out, I struck out. And when I got the dugout, I told the trainer, 'This isn't going to work,' and left the game. I assumed I would be back in the lineup the next day."

But he wasn't. In fact, that ended up being the last regular-season major-league game that Koskie would ever play in. At the age of 33, the third baseman's career as a baseball player was effectively done. But the effects of the injury stretched far beyond Koskie's career. For years after the concussion, he regularly dealt with headaches and nausea. I recall reading stories suggesting that at times Koskie couldn't even manage to play with his young children. The story was heartbreaking.

Now, plenty of other baseball players have experienced concussions and bounced back without issue. In fact, Morneau himself took a pretty nasty hit to the head early in the 2005 season, and it's now a distant and oft-forgotten memory. But post-concussion syndrome is very real and as Koskie's situation proved the effects can be long-lasting and extremely serious.

Baseball is a secondary concern for Morneau right now, but it's going to be a real shame if the Twins are forced to play through the final months of the season without him for a second straight year. When he was healthy, his bat was easily the best in the lineup, and his return is of particular importance now that Joe Mauer's ailments are forcing Drew Butera's terrible bat into the lineup on a more frequent basis. Being without Morneau's outstanding (and expensive) bat for the remainder of the season would be devastating. I don't even want to think about the complications that could arise if the issues stretch beyond September.

Hopefully, Morneau can eventually put this injury behind him return to the lineup at full strength down the stretch. The Twins will need him.

But, however long the recovery takes, please (PLEASE) don't accuse the Twins' first baseman of being "soft." Concussions are nasty business.

Justin Morneau: A Student of the Game

Has any player on the Twins shown as much ability to adjust and improve over the years as Justin Morneau?

Despite missing the final weeks of the 2009 season with a back injury and proceeding to struggle through spring training this year, Morneau is currently playing the best baseball of his career. He's been the American League's best hitter up to this point, with league-leading figures in the AVG, OBP and SLG columns to go along with 11 home runs and 34 RBI, which are also top-five figures.

The gargantuan offensive numbers have largely been buoyed by a dramatically increased walk rate. Morneau's 35 walks tie him with Kevin Youkilis for most in baseball. Morneau has never ranked among even the top ten in the American League in bases on balls before, so this qualifies as a monumental step forward. Still, the signs have been in place for some time. Check out his walk rates in each year since he debuted in the majors:

2003: 7.8%
2004: 9.0%
2005: 8.1%
2006: 8.0%
2007: 9.6%
2008: 10.7%
2009: 12.2%
2010: 18.5%

It helps that opposing pitchers have increasingly sought to pitch around him over the years as they've come to view him as more and more of an imposing threat, but Morneau has clearly made enormous strides with his pitch recognition. While it might not seem too extraordinary for a player to improve his walk rate as he grows more and more accustomed to playing in the majors, many sluggers never improve on their K/BB ratio -- look at Ryan Howard, for instance. For Morneau to go from a guy who was striking out more than twice as often he walked -- as he did in his first full season of 2005 -- to putting up an even ratio like he has now is very impressive and speaks well to his ability to make adjustments.

Along with his consistently improving plate discipline, Morneau has also continually taken steps forward on the defensive side. A natural catcher, Morneau often looked awkward in his early days at first base but he's turned into a legitimate asset at first base.

The numbers help bear that out, as Morneau leads all major-league first basemen by a wide margin with a 4.5 UZR (the next closest guy is Adam LaRoche, at 2.8) and is on pace for his best season ever in that category. But you can also see it just from watching Morneau. He's become an increasingly smart player, always throwing to get the lead runner rather than simply stepping on first when the ball is hit at him. His range on pop-ups in foul territory seems to have gotten better with each passing year. And one element of his game that has always been a strength continues to impress: his ability to reach for errant throws and stab short hops that bounce in front of him at first. I'm thinking that has something to do with his extensive experience as a hockey goalie.

That Morneau has been a great hitter and hugely valuable player thus far is nothing new, but the 29-year-old is taking his game to all-new levels this year and proving that he's been working hard to improve in areas that might have once been considered weaknesses.

Now, one historical hurdle remains. Morneau has to keep it up through the second half and especially during the final months of the season.

To Walk or Not to Walk?

Some looked at the big spike in Nick Punto's walks last year and saw a mirage. Why would pitchers not throw strikes to a hitter with a .284 slugging percentage? Surely, one would think, that Punto's heightened walk rate -- he was issued a free pass in 13.8 percent of his plate appearances after compiling a 9 percent rate over the first eight seasons of his big-league career -- must be a fluke.

Others figured that perhaps the versatile middle infielder had developed a repeatable skill, crouching in the batter's box to shrink his strike zone and laying off nearly every pitch that didn't come through that zone. Punto was flustering pitchers who were by no means afraid to throw him strikes.

So far in this young season, it appears that the first camp was correct. Punto has drawn only four walks in 66 plate appearances this year, translating to a 6 percent walk rate which is well below his career average. The drop-off hasn't been all bad though, as Punto has raised his batting average to .276 while accumulating a somewhat respectable .362 slugging percentage. If Punto could start drawing walks at a rate somewhere close to where he was last year, he'd actually be a pretty valuable contributor at the bottom of the lineup, but right now his .308 on-base percentage is suppressing his offensive value. We'll see if the walk rate rises at all in the coming months.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's Justin Morneau. After drawing his league-leading 29th walk yesterday, Morneau holds an otherworldly 20.1 percent walk rate. That easily crushes his 12.2 percent rate from a year ago, which had at that time established a career high. Unlike with Punto last year, the rationale behind walking Morneau is easy to understand: he's been a monster. He's batting .357 and his 1.138 OPS leads the American League.

By laying off more pitches (58.3 percent) than ever before in his career, Morneau is taking advantage of other teams' fear of throwing him strikes and putting himself on base at a higher rate than any other player in baseball. This development in his game has boasted his overall productivity and has him in line for an MVP-caliber season. We'll see if he can keep it up.

And if he does, let's hope it's contagious. Because that's something Punto could stand to catch.