I have a friend that was a transplanted Pennsylvanian that briefly lived in Minnesota. As I follow him on Twitter, I sometimes hear about their sports news more than I care about. One of these things were all the well-wishes being said about Paterno after he died yesterday. With that, it shocked me. How could all these people be blind or ignorant to what he did, or perhaps more appropriately, did not do?

Then I had a thought, and another person popped into my consciousness – a man that was a hero to me when I was growing up. A man that himself had his public image do a 180 in some people’s eyes, right before his sudden death.

That man is Kirby Puckett.

Kirby, a man that helped bring home the only two World Series titles the Twins have ever seen. A man that I took a liking to immediately, simply because the Metrodome crowds always cheered the loudest for him and Bob Casey always said his name with the most flair. A man that was charged with sexual assault after his retirement.

To some, Puckett was a sex offender. But to many Twins fans, he will be remembered as the heart and soul of many Twins teams. After all, he has been honored with a Target Field gate named after him, and there is a statue of him on Target Plaza. Clearly most of us were willing to ignore what he did after he retired.

I’m still not going to pay my respects to Joe Paterno, and yet I’m okay with Kirby Puckett. It’s tough to change my mind when I had no emotional ties to one, and the other was my childhood hero, and well, that makes me a hypocrite.

After reading this, I bet some of you are hypocrites as well.

Note: After discussions with the Pennsylvania friend I mentioned above, I’d like to point out that the comments on Paterno’s involvement in the case are not entirely true, but are rather my interpretations of the incident. That’s what bias can do to you.

At first glance, Twins fans should be frustrated with this trade. After berating Slowey constantly, both publicly and likely privately as well, they shipped him off to Colorado for sidearming reliever Daniel Turpen. The reason I say fans should be frustrated is because the Rockies took a player with moderate value (Turpen) and eventually ended up with Putnam, a good relief prospect. Turpen repeated Double-A last year (though his first time at Double-A in the Rockies organization) and he put up a 4.98 ERA with more walks than strikeouts. Meanwhile, Putnam had a September call-up with the Indians last year, and although his 6.14 ERA wasn’t pretty, he didn’t walk a single batter in 7.1 innings while striking out nine. He did well in Triple-A, tallying a 3.65 ERA with 8.87 K/9 and 3.00 BB/9 in 69 innings.

If you remember from last week, I talked about how waiting in free agency could help drive a player’s price down. Well, I think the Rockies benefited from a similar phenomenon here. When they acquired Slowey, they didn’t necessarily need him. They had coveted him for a while, and they finally got him when they felt the asking price for him was low enough to swing a deal. Meanwhile, the Indians were more desperate. After learning that Fausto Carmona had lied about his identity, they needed a pitcher immediately. Since their demand was higher, the price for acquiring Slowey was higher as well. Hence, likely why the Twins were only able to get Daniel Turpen but the Rockies were able to get Zach Putnam.

Update: Apparently the Rockies are sending $1.25 million to the Indians, which means Cleveland only has to pay $1.5 million of Slowey’s 2012 salary. Yep, chipping in some cash will get you a better return as well.

While it’s probably frustrating for Slowey to be traded twice in one offseason, at least he’s moving on to a place that’s better suited for his style of pitching. Being an extreme flyball pitcher, getting traded to the Rockies had to feel like cruel and unusual punishment (we await to see if this becomes true with new Rockies pitcher Guillermo Moscoso). Going from Coors Field to Progressive Field means that Slowey will be in a more homer-neutral ballpark than before, although the Indians field did have a home run park factor that ranked in the top half of the major leagues last year. Plus, now he’ll be able to stick it to the man – er, the Twins – as he so pleases.

Unless Justin Morneau and Josh Willingham have anything to say about it, that is.

If you have been well-informed, you know of the Wikipedia blackout today (and if you have not been well-informed, your tweets are likely being retweeted by either of these two accounts). Not all major websites have taken part, but we can also include one of my favorites from my younger years (read: last year), and that is the comics website The Oatmeal. Since the owner of The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman, gave his blessing to “pirate the shit out of this animated GIF,” I have provided a picture from said GIF below, as I am not technically skilled enough to actually “pirate the shit out of this animated GIF.”

Would dressing Jesus and Oprah like pirates make this picture meta?

I, like many other people you may now, am opposed to SOPA. Yes, it’s designed to stop rogue websites from stealing content from companies. But it also has the potential to shut down innocent websites. For example, this one.

Yes, Off The Mark would be in violation of SOPA. Take a look at this post back in May 2011. In tackling a particular play in a game against the Detroit Tigers, I used screenshots from a video highlight to present my argument that the umpires made an incorrect ruling on this fan interference play. With what I understand from SOPA, if MLB were to find this post, they could have this site shut down, if WordPress didn’t get to me first. If the government had Off The Mark shut down, then WordPress could be shut down as well for failing to get to me first. Also, websites that have linked to Off The Mark could disappear as well. All because I wanted to explain why the Twins got screwed in a game from early last season.

Another post that could end Off The Mark is this one, where I used song lyrics from Rise Against’s “Help Is On The Way” to describe how the Twins’ bench and minor leaguers were not actually providing much help to the major league club. I’ve been discovering that record labels are having their bands’ lyrics copyrighted on lyrics websites (so you can no longer copy and paste lyrics from the website), which could very well mean that simply posting the lyrics to a song would be in violation of the copyright. Now, it’s possible that I’m fine because I did cite Rise Against and the song when posting it, but living in fear or having to even take down the post is not right.

I don’t draw in many readers with this blog, but that was never my intention when I started. I started this blog because it gave me a chance to do what I wanted (write about the Twins) while avoiding what I didn’t want (editors, deadlines, and majoring in English, communications, or journalism). If Off The Mark was to end because of SOPA, I certainly could just start up a new blog. But I don’t want to do that, nor do I feel that I should have to, just because I violated some copyrights in the name of enhancing my own creative content. I would appreciate it if you contact your state representative and/or senator and tell them that passing SOPA is not in the best interest of this nation. Thank you for your time.

*trips off soapbox*

The reason I bring this up is mainly because of the Phillies and Reds. The Phillies had just converted their stud reliever Ryan Madson into a closer, and they had a choice. Either they had to re-sign Madson, bring in a new pitcher, or “promote” a current reliever on the roster to closer. Well, the Phillies went the aggressive route and signed former Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon to a 4-year, $50 million contract on Nov. 14th. Sounds expensive, but remember that the Twins once threw 4 years and $47 million at Joe Nathan prior to the 2008 season.

This left Ryan Madson on the market, and as other teams started filling their own closer needs, it became clear that his viable options were disappearing. Eventually, he agreed to a contract with the Reds just a couple days ago. Comparable pitcher to Papelbon meant a comparable contract, right? Nope. By waiting two months, the Reds were still able to get one of the best relievers on the market for the more reasonable price of a single year and $8.5 million.

I promise this relates to the Twins as well. Waiting out the free agent market doesn’t have to literally mean wait until the new year to get your shopping needs done. The Twins played the waiting game with Michael Cuddyer earlier this month and it paid off for them. Cuddyer refused to drop his price below $10 million per year, despite the fact that the Twins had a comparable player in mind as well in Josh Willingham. Eventually, the Twins (and Willingham) were sick of waiting for the Cuddyer sweepstakes to play out, so they struck a deal together. Final damage? 3 years and $21 million for Willingham. Cuddyer went on to the Rockies for 3 years and $31.5 million. Well played, Terry Ryan.

However, while the Twins did well in getting Willingham, I feel that they could have exercised some more patience elsewhere during this offseason. I’m fine with the signings of Jamey Carroll and Ryan Doumit. Those are relatively cheap contracts, and actually Doumit is likely expected to be the replacement for Jason Kubel. Instead, I’m talking about Matt Capps. He didn’t have a great 2011 season, but it was revealed shortly after the end of the season that he had been battling a sore forearm all year. The Twins, trusting that last season did not show us the real Capps, ended up re-signing him in December for one year and $4.75 million.

Let’s go back to Ryan Madson. He got the same contract length as Capps, for only $3.75 million more. Well played, Cincinnati. It still is possible that Capps returns to his 2010 form, but right now, we’d have to say that the Reds did much better here. They exercised more patience and ended up getting the better pitcher for a reasonable contract. I’m not necessarily saying that the Twins could have waited and signed Madson themselves. For all we know, they may have never been in the running for him. Instead, I’m suggesting that the Twins probably could have waited out Capps a little longer. Perhaps waiting another month for him (provided no one else signed him first) could have dropped his price down to the $3.5 million range.

Finally, I’m going to turn to Roy Oswalt and Jason Marquis. Oswalt was part of the “Four Aces” rotation in Philadelphia, and was likely looking at a multi-year contract heading into this offseason. Well, the market didn’t shake out the way he was expecting, and now there are reports that he’s only asking for one year and $8 million. The Twins were looking for a starting pitcher themselves, and they settled on Jason Marquis for one year and $3 million.

Granted, Marquis is likely just a placeholder for Liam Hendriks sometime around midseason, but we’ve counted on another young pitcher before only to be disappointed. You may have several names bouncing around your head, but I’m thinking of Kyle Gibson. At the beginning of the 2011 season, many of us were expecting Gibson to be promoted to the big leagues at some point during the season, and he would likely be fighting for a rotation spot this season. Well, Gibson ended up struggling a bit in the minors before we learned that he had a torn ligament in his elbow and required Tommy John surgery. It’s possible the same could happen to Hendriks this season (maybe not to the extent of TJ surgery, but any injury or ineffectiveness). Plus, Marquis just doesn’t seem like he’s going to succeed in the American League, since he’s had a 4.55 ERA over his career, which has been spent entirely in the National League.

I would have preferred signing Oswalt for the couple million dollars more. This isn’t quite the same as Capps vs. Madson. Starting pitchers eat up more innings, and the difference between Oswalt and Marquis is much more significant than the difference between Capps and Madson. Over the past three years, Marquis has been worth 1.5 bWAR, while Oswalt has been 9.9 bWAR.* Each pitcher has had some issues with injuries last season, but Oswalt has been the better, healthier pitcher over the past couple years.

* I’ll add this disclaimer that Oswalt’s bWAR is significantly higher partially because he has 532 IP over the past 3 years compared to Marquis’ 406.2 IP, because I can almost guarantee someone will point this out in the comments. My counterargument is that while Oswalt has pitched more innings, his innings have also been of higher quality, and since I used Baseball Reference’s WAR, the discrepancy is also due to Oswalt’s ERA being much better than Marquis’, rather than his FIP.

Being patient isn’t always the correct approach, though. Sometimes, you just have to jump on the available players, like the Twins did with Carroll and Doumit. I don’t think many people are going to complain about the Angels netting Albert Pujols when they did, at least in the short term. Another team will come along and sign Pujols’ biggest competitor on the market in Prince Fielder, and they will probably feel like they won because they held out for the more team-friendly contract. But I bet the Angels feel like they won in getting Pujols.

Like I said at the beginning, there are pros and cons to each offseason strategy with free agents. It’s just a matter if your favorite team correctly navigates their way through each one with some good luck along the way.

The biggest test of this “I’m not a bandwagon fan” label has easily been with the Timberwolves. Disaster trades and picks rendered the team an absolute mess, ever since shipping Kevin Garnett to the East. The revolving door of players since then were more flawed than polished. Al Jefferson, the centerpiece of the Garnett trade, was a black hole for the basketball. Mike Miller, acquired to be a scorer, started deferring to teammates instead. Rashad McCants wasn’t that great himself.* Oh, and there’s been David Kahn’s hilarious obsession with point guards. All which made me start secretly joining other Minnesotans in dubbing this team the Timberpuppies.

* That sentence alone is proof of why this blog is not primarily a basketball blog, considering that was the best I could do.

While the Twins tried to avoid a 100-loss season, the Vikings looked even worse than when they were playing on Tuesday nights and having near-beer sold in their “new” novelty outdoor stadium, and the Wild sustaining an eye-covering collapse over the past month, it is the Timberwolves that are suddenly bringing in the viewers. (Apologies to the Lynx and Swarm.) The wheeling-and-dealing that David Kahn has done over the past couple years is finally starting to pay some dividends. Kevin Love has turned into one of the NBA’s best players, and Ricky Rubio has shown that he’s not just hype. Darko Milicic actually appears to care more often than not, and productivity is being milked out of Anthony Randolph.

Yes, the team is only 3-7, but there is hope, and not just because this t-shirt says so. Prior to their last two losses (as part of a back-to-back-to-back, mind you) the Wolves were ranked at fifteenth in ESPN’s Power Rankings. It’s not crazy if you think this team has the chance to be decent this year. Clearly there are people around the country that feel the same way. I’m also willing to say that this team is now one or two players away from becoming a playoff contender. Granted, it might only be as a ~.500 8-seed, but that’s still a playoff team.

Unless the Wild are able to right their Titanic, it will be the Wolves that represent the best chance of a competitive team in Minnesota right now. Four of their losses have been by four points or less. They nearly knocked off the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder. They came back from a 24-point deficit to tie the Bulls last night, although they did end up losing anyway. They’ve beaten Dallas and San Antonio, two of the better teams in the Western Conference.

These are not the same Timberwolves that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. Nope, this team is once again watchable.

Click to embiggen – er, see more clearly.

This consistency led the Twins and Blackburn to agree to a 4-year, $14 million contract just prior to the 2010 season. However, Blackburn has done little to reward the Twins for this commitment, as he posted a 5.42 ERA in 2010 and a 4.49 ERA in 2011. That 2011 ERA actually doesn’t look that bad, but the average ERA last season was 3.94, the lowest it’s been since 1992.

Blackburn, a pitcher that relies predominantly on a 2-seam fastball, has seen his groundball rate trend in the right direction since his first full season in 2008. It has risen every single season, from 44.9% in ’08 to 53.5% this past season. However, success has not followed this trend.

In 2010, the easy culprit would be Blackburn’s career-low strikeout rate of 3.80. Sinkerball pitchers already tend to strike out hitters at a below-average rate, but this level was just absurd. It led to more pitches being put into play, and despite having a roughly average BABIP, those extra pitches hit into play meant more hits. Yet perhaps a bigger issue for Blackburn was his issue with the long ball. In 2010, his HR/9 skyrocketed to 1.40, after it had been at 1.08 for the prior two seasons combined.

Last year, Blackburn actually had a career-best strikeout rate, and he got the home runs back under control. However, his new issue had to do with control. In 2008-2009, Blackburn was doing an excellent job with following the Twins philosophy of not allowing any walks, but that changed last season. He had a career-worst 3.28 BB/9, which was actually slightly below average last season. Throw in hitters getting to put the ball into play with regularity, and it’s not hard to see why he had a 1.60 WHIP. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched last year, Blackburn’s WHIP ranked fourth-worst, only ahead of Tyler Chatwood, John Lackey, and Danny Duffy. Throw in the fact that WHIP vs. ERA has a correlation of .8225 (read: strong correlation), and it’s easy to see that his WHIP contributed significantly to his below-average ERA.

In my eyes, it’s not rocket science with what Blackburn has to do to return to the pitcher we all saw in ’08 and ’09. It appears as though the home runs he allowed in 2010 were just a blip on the radar, so I’m not concerned about that. Missing more bats is an obvious choice, but unless Blackburn chooses to reinvent his pitching repertoire, I don’t see that improving much either. Instead, I think Blackburn just needs to cut down on his walks. I showed before how beneficial limiting walks are to a pitcher, and I feel that if he can get his walk rate down to Kevin Slowey-like levels, we will see more of the pitcher that convinced the Twins that he was worthy of a $14 million multi-year contract.

Last season, there was some controversy when the Twins expressed they wanted Francisco Liriano to “pitch to contact” more. Here we had a starter whose main weapon was getting hitters to swing-and-miss, and yet the Twins wanted him to stray from that strategy. It was a comment that most of us (including myself) didn’t take to very well. However, beneath the surface, the Twins were trying to say that they wanted Liriano to reduce his number of pitches in an outing by getting quicker outs. In fact, here’s a quote from Ron Gardenhire in a Phil Mackey column from last season:

“Use that two-seamer, and use that slider down and in every once in a while, and that changeup, but pitch to contact early,” Gardenhire said. “That’ll get him deep into games. Because his stuff is so good. There’s times when you need to go for the strikeout.

“That’s when you save your Mr. Nasty, as they say. You throw the nasty pitches then. But those other times you need to pitch to contact to get you deeper into games. When you want that big strikeout, maybe with a man on second, and you’ve got an open base, take your shot with your stuff.”

When I first started thinking about the Twins’ strategy when it comes to starting pitchers, I thought they believed that high-contact pitchers had better ERAs than the Lirianos of the world. Then I saw Gardy’s quote above and realized that they employ so many of these pitchers because they favor the quick outs. It appears as though the Twins have a philosophy that striking out hitters, as Liriano has done in the past, raises your pitch count in a hurry. Think about Scott Baker. He spends so much time trying to make the perfect pitch for a strikeout that a hitter ends up fouling off about 6 pitches in an at-bat, and next thing we know, he’s at 80 pitches through 4 innings. At least this is what it sounds like from Gardy and Bert Blyleven. Meanwhile, since Pavano, Blackburn, and Marquis don’t strike out many hitters, the Twins seem to believe that these guys do a better job of getting deeper into games.

This is what I’ve chosen to focus on. I’m going to be checking for correlations by pairing two statistics that seem to be at the root of pitching to contact – K/9 and BB/9 – with each of these following statistics that appear to be related with the benefits of pitching to contact: innings pitched, pitches per start, and innings per start. Just for fun, I also checked K/9 and BB/9 against ERA to see if this would yield any interesting results. Also, I limited my sample to all 2011 starting pitchers that pitched at least 150 innings last season.

Just as a refresher, correlations range from -1.0 to 1.0, where -1.0 implies a negative correlation (as one goes up, the other comes down), 1.0 is a positive correlation (one goes up or down, the other goes the same direction), and 0 is no correlation. A disclaimer I’ll make here is that I was only checking for linear correlations. It’s very possible that nonlinear correlations existed for each data set, but I chose not to look for them for simplicity’s sake.

First, the just-for-fun correlations, K/9 vs. ERA and BB/9 vs. ERA.

           ERA vs. K/9: -0.3644             ERA vs. BB/9: 0.3446

Click to embiggen (true for all graphs).

Well, I think most of us could have predicted that there would be some correlation between these two with ERA. More strikeouts means a smaller ERA, while more walks means a higher ERA. Now, I chose ERA over FIP for two reasons. First, because I feel the Twins look more at ERA than FIP, and second, because strikeouts and walks are part of FIP to begin with, and I didn’t feel the need to check the correlation of sugar and chocolate chips to chocolate chip cookies.

From these two correlations, we can see that the Twins are correct in wanting their pitchers to have low walk rates, but the low strikeout rates aren’t favorable in having a low ERA. It’s certainly not impossible (just look at Pavano’s 2010 season), but it’s more difficult.

            K/9 vs. IP: 0.3599                       BB/9 vs. IP: -0.2678

Well, it’s almost a repeat of the previous correlations. More strikeouts can mean more innings pitched, while fewer walks leads to more innings pitched. However, this doesn’t help pitching to contact much. Once again, limiting walks is beneficial, but there’s still no evidence that fewer strikeouts are helpful for a pitcher.

Pitches/Start vs. K/9: 0.5071   Pitches/Start vs. BB/9: -0.0545

Ah, here’s where pitching to contact starts to gain some traction. Having a higher strikeout rate can lead to more pitches in a start, which means more mileage on a pitcher’s arm. Meanwhile, there’s virtually no correlation between the number of batters a pitcher walks and his number of pitches per start.

Something I should note is rather obvious once I mention it. We all know how (most) pitchers have a 100 pitch limit in starts. The range for pitches/start is not very much, as it appears to be between 85 and just under 120, so even if there is a moderate positive correlation between pitches/start and strikeout rate, it’s not adding on many pitches on average. Also, these two pairings fail to take into account the pitchers that are legitimately going deep into their starts versus those that are getting to the 100 pitch limit in 5 innings.

  IP/Start vs. K/9: 0.2399             IP/Start vs. BB/9: -0.5321

To remedy the issue with the previous correlations, I then looked at innings pitched per start versus strikeout and walk rates. With strikeouts, there is a weak positive correlation. While this doesn’t help the case of pitching to contact, it certainly doesn’t disprove it, either. As for walks, there’s a moderate negative correlation between that and getting deep into a start. I think that this can be easily explained. By limiting walks, a pitcher is limiting his number of baserunners allowed, and that means facing fewer hitters in a start.

After all this research, I felt that something was still missing. I’ve covered everything I said I would at the beginning, but it seemed like I needed to check strikeout and walk rates against one more thing. Then I remembered Gardy’s quote. The Twins preach getting quick outs, and none of the stats I’ve looked at seem to focus on quick outs. That’s when I determined what my last statistic should be.

Pitches/IP vs. K/9: 0.2362            Pitches/IP vs. BB/9: 0.7154

If a pitcher is successful at getting quick outs, then he should be able to limit his number of pitches per inning. The Twins seem to believe that a pitcher that strikes out a lot of hitters ends up throwing too many pitches in an inning, but the data here doesn’t fully support that claim. Yes, there is a positive correlation, but it’s weak. But if we look on the walk side of it, there’s the strongest correlation we’ve seen out of any of these. At 0.7154, it’s a moderately strong positive correlation between a pitcher’s walk rate and the number of pitches he throws in an inning. (In case you’re wondering, that one dot that is apart from the rest of the group on the walk graph is J.A. Happ.)

From all these correlations, it appears as though targeting pitch-to-contact pitchers is only a good idea if you’re focusing on those that limit their number of walks. However, there just isn’t a lot of evidence that suggests that sacrificing strikeouts for quicker outs is a good idea. For example, there’s a pitcher’s batting average on balls in play. It’s likely going to be around .300, so allowing hitters more chances to actually put the ball in play is going to mean more baserunners. This is partially supported as the correlation between K/9 and WHIP is -0.3846, so there is a weak-to-moderate negative correlation. If we go further, more baserunners means more hitters to pitch to, which leads to more pitches per inning.

Pitching to contact isn’t necessarily the wrong strategy, it’s just that from this data, I feel that its benefits are being overstated. Like I said in the last paragraph, if a pitcher wants to go deeper into a start, fewer walks are more important than fewer strikeouts. The Twins have definitely had it correct in preaching their pitchers to avoid the walks, but I don’t feel that avoiding the strikeout is as beneficial as the coaching staff believes.

With the departure of Michael Cuddyer, our favorite Twins satire band, Cuddy and the Lawn Mauers, is no more.

What is a band without a frontman? Well, nothing. No one is going to want to watch or listen to just The Lawn Mauers. They have no leadership or excitement. All they do is shrug their shoulders and ground out to second base. Michael Cuddyer is what made such hits as “Bandbox Hero” and my personal favorite of any baseballing satire musical act, “Outdoor Subsidy,” as awesome as they were. Why? Because he had the “it” factor. Without Cuddy, “Outdoor Subsidy” becomes just a boring old “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the Lawn Mauers look at their drumsticks, their electric guitars, and think, “Maybe I should have just called in sick today.”

Who can take over? Who will lead the Lawn Mauers into the new year? There are some newcomers in Josh Willingham, Jamey Carroll, and Ryan Doumit. They could take the easy route and promote one of the Lawn Mauers, Justin Morneau, to lead singer. Hell, he’s even got a Cuddy-like nickname with “Morny.” Morny and the Lawn Mauers. It sort of works. But is there a name with a better ring to it? Perhaps the Lawn Mauers should be scrapped altogether? Yes, they could be scrapped. If there’s one thing the Lawn Mauers are, it’s scrappy.

Or maybe they should just move on without having a new member. After all, it has been over a year since they came out with “Bandbox Hero.” Maybe it’s just time to make a new song.

Yes, that sounds best. All of it. What’s that? You have no idea what’s going on?

That’s okay. This past season, no one knew what the hell was going on.

In doing so, the Twins ended up getting a comparable player to Cuddyer while saving roughly $10 million in the process, if Cuddyer’s 3 year, $31.5 million contract with the Colorado Rockies is true. Some people may argue that Cuddyer’s versatility is what makes him worth more, but honestly, he was a bad fielder no matter where he played. His “versatility” was just a byproduct of his unselfishness and Ron Gardenhire’s willingness to move him around the field. You want to call someone versatile? Nick Punto is versatile. Cuddyer is not. (On a related note, neither is Ryan Doumit, even though he can play catcher, 1st base, and right field).

I was going to point out how Willingham’s pull-happy approach might actually help him avoid the power woes that many hitters have seen at Target Field, but Parker Hageman beat me to the punch. However, it’s very possible that Michael Cuddyer could end the 2012 season with better numbers than Willingham. Well, present and future critics, think of each ballplayer’s new home field. Willingham will be playing in Target Field, which typically suppressed home runs (unless your name was Jim Thome). Cuddyer is calling Coors Field his new home, a launching pad of a ballpark. I could easily see Willingham hitting only 20 HR, Cuddyer getting 30+, and Twins fans complaining that signing Willingham was a terrible decision. If you foresee yourself being one of these people, please use your best judgment and think of context before you call out Terry Ryan at the end of the season. If Willingham actually hits better than Cuddyer, well then my whole argument is moot.

As of right now, it appears as though the Twins would have an outfield of Ben Revere in left field, Denard Span in center, and Willingham in right. Willingham isn’t exactly fleet-of-foot in the outfield, and it sounds like his arm is a little worse than Cuddyer’s, but he’s going to be in the lineup because of his bat, much like Ryan Doumit. For a team that was terrible in the defense and pitching departments last year, signing Willingham doesn’t help much, but it does help out the offense. Hey, when the Twins barely hit over 100 HR last year, I’m okay with improving the offense while sacrificing a little defense.

Now that I can cross off the top 2 names on my Twins wish list (Willingham and Doumit), it’s time to focus on the pitching staff. Edwin Jackson is a dream but I can see him commanding a deal similar to what Cuddyer got with the Rockies, i.e. too expensive for the Twins. I don’t know what Hisashi Iwakuma wants, but supposedly the Twins were interested in him last year and maybe he could be a good starter. There’s also guys like Jeff Francis and Paul Maholm. Basically, the Twins can make the rotation better for next season, but the names (short of Jackson, who is still a bit of a reach) aren’t going to be very noteworthy.

If the Twins still have some trouble with the rotation, then they could just move on to the bullpen. At the very least, they could start working on getting some arms with more promise than touching 95 MPH on the radar gun.

Maybe I should be more specific. Each team gets a single representative that is sent to the MLB Network studios to compete in this show. Being a Twins usher, yes, I was given a chance. There was a trivia test held over this past week, and I was one of the people in attendance. I didn’t think I had a serious chance of winning, but I don’t typically say no to a “What the hell, what’s the worst that could happen?” moment. Besides, it gave me another chance to hang out at Target Field, and now I can say that I’ve been in the press conference room.

No, I was not the victor. I was humbled by questions such as “Who scored the winning run when Mookie Wilson’s grounder went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the World Series?” and “Who was the only person to ever get three hits in an inning?” However, the winner was just announced, and I’m pleased to wish my best to a good friend of mine, a fellow Gustavus alum and the guy that helped me get this job in the first place. One of the few that was crazy enough to actually study for a test like this (Studying with Sporcle baseball quizzes was a genius idea). A former intern at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Congratulations, Craig Nordquist!

I have only one piece of advice for you. Just don’t forget that Brady Anderson hit 50 homers in a season again.