Twins 2009: Year Long Thread

[Fandango]

Please post any thoughts, news stories, or rumours about the Twins 2009 season in this thread.


My first question is, how do you see the outfield/DH battle between Young, Span, Cuddyer, Gomez, and Kubel shaking out? What would you do if you were the manager in this situation?

[tommyboy]

Ideally, Cuddyer would be able to play 3b, so then we would have an outfield of Span, Gomez, and Young, and still be able to dh Kubel. Hopefully, Young plays really well this spring. He is way too young to give up on.

Anyone else going down to Ft Myers this year?? I will be going for my 3rd year in a row. It's a blast. Only going to one game this year, a Friday night game against the Reds.

[ducky]

Chances are that we will actually end up needing all those outfielders as the year goes on and everyone who stays healthy will get their AB's. So I really don't see that as a huge battle to start the season.

It really is a good situation all in all. Span hit lefties really well last year but that probably won't continue so he can get a break on occassion against lefties and so will Kubel. As we saw last year, Gomez is a streaky guy who can use a couple of days on the bench every now and then to collect himself and the same is true of Young. Cuddyer is an injury concern. And Kubel is as streaky as anyone. So there really isn't a guy out of this group where you look at them and think, this guys NEEDS to get 650+ plate appearances over the season.

If you divide the outfield and DH AB's equally between 5 people like this, each person comes up with about 525-550 plate appearances. That's plenty for all.

What I am looking at from spring training....how the Twins plan to construct the bullpen. I still can't believe that Smith hasn't figured it out yet (he sure has had his head up his ass). Been an absolute failure of an offseason so far considering we are about to head into spring training with Bonser and Humber (two guys who aren't natural relievers) taking up roster spots because of lack of options.

Right now our bullpen would be:
Nathan
Mijares
Crain
Guerrier
Breslow
Humber
Bonser
This isn't an awful group....but it sure as hell isn't good. The only saving grace is Nathan on the back end. The fact that Smith hasn't done something here is ridiculous.

The last thing I am looking at....Liriano's velocity. Hopefully his velocity is just a couple of ticks higher than it was last season.

[The Q]

I think Mijares is in for a big year.

But the Twins definately need one more late inning arm.

I think Bonser could provide the ammo to do that and let Humber be your longman.

[ducky]

I think Mijares is in for a big year.

He had a REALLY up and down offseason.

He pitched great down in winter ball evidently but got into a fight with the manager and left the team and then when he ended up coming back to the team, the manager wouldn't even play him.

Hopefully it is nothing but I think it was Smith who even came out and said that it was all basically Mijares fault and that he handled it poorly.

For our bullpen to perform like it is going to need to, he is going to HAVE to have a big year and Crain needs to finally live up to his potential. If those two things happen then we should be fine....but those are two big ifs.

[PsychoViking]

If the Twins don't make a move on Crede Smith should be fired. $5M for one year is not a real big risk. It would have been nice if they gave Wiggington a contract............he only wanted the same deal they gave Mike Lamb Its like they don't even care if they hit for the least HRs in MLB.