I went to a concert last night and am officially buying a house today--perhaps handing over a very large check and being handed the keys as you're reading this very sentence--so you'll have to forgive me if this week's Link-O-Rama isn't quite as plentiful as usual ...

If you liked Mike Redmond and his naked batting practice, you'll absolutely love Brian Giles and his naked comedy.

Despite the fact that he plays for one of the Twins' division rivals, Curtis Granderson has quickly become one of my favorite players (and one of my favorite bloggers).

As a Frank Thomas fan from way back, I enjoyed this note about Japanese pitcher Masumi Kuwata from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

Kuwata did a double-take when designated hitter Frank Thomas dug in at the plate. Kuwata is 5-foot-10. The "Big Hurt" stands 6-5, 275 pounds. "When I pitched to him, he was terrifying," Kuwata said. "He looked like an elephant."

It sort of ruins the story, but Kuwata "got Thomas on a weak grounder."

Soccer star Diego Maradona was hospitalized recently due to what is being called "excessive eating and drinking," which immediately takes over for "buy a house" as the No. 1 thing on my to-do list.

If you only see one movie this year, make it Adam Sandler and Kevin James starring in the sure-fire blockbuster Jessica Biel In Her Underwear.

I'll be posting my official season predictions here Monday, but if you can't wait that long or would rather get the predictions in video form, you can watch me on NBCSports.com's "Fantasy Fix" season preview show with Tiffany Simons and Gregg Rosenthal. I'm not sure if I'm just finally getting more comfortable with the whole call-in thing or the show's loose format worked well, but the final product turned out great this week and I got a lot of compliments from my bosses, so check it out.

Who knew that the state of Minnesota had so many nerds who like baseball? Incidentally, I'm 24 years old and dropped out of school, despite what the otherwise-solid article about Victor Wang and Gross Production Average would have you believe.

I'm confident that the man behind Twins Junkie, Trevor Born, will have a whole lot more success than I did with the "go to the University of Minnesota, get into the journalism school, and write for the Minnesota Daily" career path. As I wrote back in January, "At this point, my best chance for landing a newspaper gig might involve waiting a couple decades until Born is the editor-in-chief somewhere and hoping he remembers me." At his current rate, it'll be a couple years rather than a couple decades.

When it comes to Torii Hunter, Emil Brown apparently hasn't been reading this blog.

I'm probably a little too excited about this development, but the possibilities are pretty amazing. Plus, the bigger mixed martial arts gets as a sport and the more coverage NBCSports.com gives it, the better chance there is that I'll end up octagon-side at a fight one of these days.

In case anyone is curious, James Morrison's concert at the 400 Bar last night was excellent. He sounded every bit as good as his album and even tossed in a nice cover version of Van Morrison's "It Stoned Me." It was great to see him perform at such a small venue and, considering he's from England and not particularly well known in America, I was shocked by the number of people singing along and the number of girls screaming at seemingly random intervals.

My cousin Annie, who had never heard Morrison before last night, thought he was good, but suggested that he needs some work on between-song banter. I agree, because between mumbling into the mic and a heavy Warwickshire accent he sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher. Interestingly, one of the few words of banter that I heard clearly was this one. Oh, and much like Morrison's banter, Annie wants the world to know that the bartender she chatted with at the 400 Bar "lacks substance."

She doubted that I'd print that here, but she was wrong.

As expected, the Twins were forced to place J.D. Durbin on waivers yesterday because of his lack of minor-league options and the Diamondbacks claimed him. The likelihood of that taking place is why I ranked Durbin as the Twins' No. 37 prospect back in February, while Baseball America (somewhat inexplicably, in my opinion) ranked him No. 10. I'm not particularly upset about losing Durbin, but it's an interesting move given who the Twins decided to give the final roster spot to instead.

Remember the whole Corky Miller fiasco from a couple years ago? As with seemingly every other mistake they've ever made, the Twins have decided to ignore any lessons they may have learned from the experience, change the names involved, and let history repeat itself. Much like losing Durbin for nothing, carrying a third catcher isn't a huge mistake--especially considering Joe Mauer's recent injury scare--but it's another example of questionable decision-making when it comes to roster construction.

If you ever find yourself with about 10 hours to kill, I highly recommend watching the first 20 episodes of Arrested Development in a row.

They don't have a Twins version yet, but Maple Street Press has published a series of team-specific, high-end magazines previewing the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, and Detroit Tigers. Each version includes a ton of excellent content produced by some big-name writers and the presentation is second-to-none. (Full disclosure: Last year I contributed to MSP's annuals on the Red Sox and Notre Dame football, but my contract with NBCSports.com precludes me from doing so now.)

Howard Sinker of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has set up a blog-sponsored get-together for Twins fans on Saturday, April 7. I'll be there, as will Sinker, John Bonnes, Will Young, Trevor Born, Nick Nelson, and Nick Mosvick, and a couple other Twins bloggers may be in attendance too. It should be a fun time, whether you're interested in meeting some of us bloggers or simply want to watch the Twins play the White Sox with a bunch of other Twins fans. Here are the details:

Who: Sinker, Gleeman, Bonnes, Young, Born, Nelson, Mosvick, multiple Bloggers to be Named Later, and various other Twins fans and blog readers.

What: Eat, drink, be merry, watch Twins beat White Sox.

Where: Buffalo Wild Wings in Crystal (5590 West Broadway, to be exact).

When: Saturday, April 7, at 2:30 p.m.

Why: Because previous get-togethers have been a lot of fun and good attendance at this one means we can justify doing more of them in the future.

That's it from me for this week, but not only is Monday Opening Day--seriously, Monday is Opening Day--if things go according to plan I'll be blogging about Johan Santana shutting down the Orioles from The House That Blog Built.

As expected, the Twins sent Matt Garza to Triple-A yesterday and handed the final spot in the starting rotation to Carlos Silva. Silva pitched horribly last season and was even worse this spring, while Garza is one of the elite pitching prospects in all of baseball and was fantastic in Fort Myers this month. The Twins' decision had nothing to do with any of that, however. Instead, Silva received a spot in the rotation because the Twins decided back in November to guarantee him $4.35 million this season.

A mistake five months ago essentially locked them into a bad decision yesterday, and now three-fifths of the rotation consists of Silva, Ramon Ortiz, and Sidney Ponson, who combined to go 26-36 with a 5.84 ERA in 2006. After each of the many times I've written something similar over the past few months, I've gotten comments along the lines of: "What's the big deal? The Twins can always ditch them and bring up the prospects." While technically true, that line of thinking ignores several key points.

First, games played in April and May count as much as games played in August and September. The Twins dug themselves out of a deep hole last year, but planning to do the same every season is hardly a successful strategy. The AL Central may contain four of the 10 best teams in baseball this year, and the Twins will almost certainly need every win they can get. Under very few scenarios does going with the likes of Silva, Ortiz, and Ponson mean maximizing a team's chances of winning games.

Beyond that, ditching some combination of Silva, Ponson, and Ortiz won't be nearly as easy as ditching Juan Castro and Tony Batista was last year. Castro and Batista dragged the team down for one-third of the season, but ultimately cost the Twins about three percent of the payroll, which is an easy pill to swallow. The Twins can certainly choose to eat the salaries of Silva and Ortiz much the same way, but this time they'll be wasting over 10 percent of the payroll.

At this point you can throw a rock and hit a Twins fan who's upset about the decision to go with Silva over Garza, but that's not where the criticism should be aimed. Sure, if you look at it in a vacuum, choosing to hand a rotation spot to an inferior pitcher is a poor move. However, it's really just the predictable and seemingly inevitable end result of a poorly constructed plan that represents a much larger mistake. In fact, at the core it's part of an annual tradition of similarly misguided decisions.

Devoting a huge chunk of the payroll to mediocre veteran starters hurt the Twins' ability to build a strong team and handing 60 percent of the rotation over to those mediocre veteran starters will hurt the Twins' ability to win games with that team. It's debatable which is worse, but I tend to focus on the root instead of the tree. Would picking Garza over Silva have been wise? Perhaps, but regardless of that the decision to commit $4.35 million to Silva and $3.1 million to Ortiz wouldn't have become any better.

The Twins can ditch Silva, Ortiz, and Ponson if they pitch poorly to begin the year. The Twins can quickly call up Garza, Glen Perkins, Kevin Slowey, and Scott Baker if they impress at Triple-A. The Twins can bounce back from the slow start Silva, Ortiz, and Ponson may help cause. The Twins can succeed despite wasting a large percentage of their payroll on veteran mediocrity rather then spending it to improve other areas. The Twins can do all of those things, but that doesn't mean they should have to.

The decision to go with Silva over Garza to begin the season doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is everything that led up to that decision and everything that leads to similar decisions being made on a near-annual basis. The names change while the story remains the same, and I'm sick of this particular history repeating itself. Those four days between Johan Santana's starts are going to be long ones. And all for just $9 million.

As hinted at in this space Friday, Howard Sinker of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has set up a blog-sponsored get-together for Twins fans on Saturday, April 7. I'll be there, as will Sinker and Will Young, and I expect at least a couple other Twins bloggers to be in attendance too. It should be a fun time, whether you're interested in meeting some of us bloggers or simply want to watch the Twins play the White Sox with a bunch of other Twins fans. Here are the details:

Who: Howard Sinker, Aaron Gleeman, Will Young, multiple Bloggers to be Named Later, and various other Twins fans and blog readers.

What: Eat, drink, be merry, watch Twins beat White Sox.

Where: Buffalo Wild Wings in Crystal (5590 West Broadway, to be exact).

When: Saturday, April 7, at 2:45 p.m.

Why: Because previous get-togethers have been a lot of fun and good attendance at this one means we can justify doing more of them in the future.

If you're reading this right now and live within driving distance of the Twin Cities, I encourage you to show up, along with multiple car loads of friends and family. If you plan to be there, drop me a note via e-mail or the comments section, so we can get a general idea of what kind of turnout to expect and plan accordingly. For any bloggers out there planning to stop by, please let me know and I'll add your name (and link) to the list of scheduled attendees.

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A few Twins notes with Opening Day (and my closing!) now less than a week away ...

For one day at least, the "Face of the Franchise" was apparently a scowl.

Joe Nathan would like to sign a long-term deal before the end of spring training, but Kelsie Smith of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that it doesn't sound likely.

The Biz of Baseball's Jerry Differding recently interviewed Terry Ryan and, as usual when Ryan talks on the record with someone, it's worth reading. In particular, Ryan's lengthy response to a question about prospects who haven't developed as the team had hoped stuck out to me:

I am not too bent on looking at raw statistics to decide their fate, you go see them play, watch how they react, see how they compete, what kind of health history they have had, their age versus the league they play in, the ballpark they play at, all those things. If you go and watch them play and continue to see some sort of movement and some sort of mental and physical advancement you don’t give up on them, you just continue to move them along.

While I'm certainly a big believer in minor-league statistics being important in evaluating prospects, I'm in complete agreement with everything Ryan said above. In fact, I'm pleased to see him talking about placing "raw statistics" in the context of age, level of competition, and playing environment, all of which are things I focus on when putting together my own prospect rankings each year. With that said, the second half of his answer struck a nerve with me for whatever reason:

There is no better example than Cuddyer. He never had great statistics in the minor leagues. You just keep moving them along and if you have faith, and see that they are going to be a good teammate, work hard in pregame, work on situational hitting and on their base running you just keep them moving.

Again, I agree with Ryan's overall premise about how to treat prospects whose numbers don't match their potential, but the idea that "there is no better example" of that than Michael Cuddyer is untrue to the point of being the opposite of reality. Specifically, Ryan's statement that Cuddyer "never had great statistics in the minor leagues" is simply false. In reality, people like me touted Cuddyer as someone the Twins should give 500 at-bats to because of his consistently outstanding numbers in the minors.

Prior to Cuddyer finally being given a chance to work his way into an everyday role over the course of nearly the entire 2006 season, I spent countless words here and elsewhere describing what I felt was the Twins' misguided treatment of him. I didn't like the way they jerked him in and out of the lineup based on a couple weeks' worth of performance, and I didn't like the way they demoted him back to the minors after he clearly had nothing left to prove there.

There are several reasons for why I felt that way, but without question chief among them was the fact that Cuddyer's minor-league numbers were excellent and suggested that he would become a very good major-league player if given the opportunity to do so. And so you don't think this is merely after-the-fact rationalizing on my behalf, here's something I wrote about Cuddyer for The Hardball Times back in May of 2004:

Cuddyer has been an excellent hitter in the minor leagues, hitting .308/.380/.541 in 139 games at Triple-A and .301/.396/.560 in 141 Double-A games.

There's plenty more where that came from, but I'll limit the self-quoting to one more passage from that same article. Back then the Twins were into giving Cuddyer brief "chances" to establish himself both offensively and defensively at a new position, before pulling the plug and jerking him around again. On that particular date second base was the position and then-starter (and former AG.com whipping boy) Luis Rivas was his competition, so I compared the two players:

Rivas has played every day for years and Cuddyer has been given brief stints of a week or two at ever-changing positions, before getting sent back to Triple-A or the bench. ... Given a chance to establish himself at one position, to get his feet entrenched in the job like Rivas has, I have no doubt that Cuddyer would blow Rivas out of the water offensively.

"Blowing Rivas out of the water offensively" is obviously no great feat, but the larger point remains. Suggesting that "there is no better example" than Cuddyer of a prospect whose numbers didn't match his potential is like saying Johan Santana is a perfect example of someone who wasn't helped by developing a changeup at Triple-A or Joe Mauer is the best example of someone who turned into a great player despite not being highly touted coming out of high school.

From Cuddyer to Santana to Mauer, each of those three statements are clearly false. In Cuddyer's case, anyone who could look at his track record and conclude that "he never had great statistics in the minor leagues" while suggesting he's an example of a prospect who numbers underrated is either deliberately attempting to spin the issue in a different direction or simply doesn't know what he's talking about. For the record, I would never accuse Ryan of failing to know what he's talking about.

The Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune, reports that the Twins have more or less decided upon which 25 players they'll break camp with next week. As Ron Gardenhire put it yesterday, "We pretty much know what we are going to do. We aren't going to announce it right now, but pretty much know." It sounds like the Twins wanted to go with 11 pitchers and 14 position players, but are re-thinking that with Lew Ford and Alejandro Machado sidelined.

LEN3 makes it sounds like J.D. Durbin has little chance of making the team despite having no options left, which means the Twins will either trade him for whatever they can get or risk losing him on waivers. With Durbin apparently out of the picture, that leaves No. 1 prospect Matt Garza and 33-year-old situational left-hander Mike Venafro fighting for the 12th spot on the pitching staff, assuming Gardenhire and Ryan don't shake things up in a big way by demoting Carlos Silva to Triple-A.

Every indication is that the Twins are extremely disappointed with Silva's spring performance and very impressed with how well Garza has pitched, but Silva's $4.35 million contract clouds the issue. All of which is why I spent most of the winter discussing what a bad idea it is to give large amounts of guaranteed money to pitchers who had ERAs nearing 6.00 last year. There's no doubt that Garza is one of the team's five best starters, yet there's plenty of doubt about whether he'll have a rotation spot.

Even setting aside the fact that I expect the veteran trio of Silva, Ramon Ortiz, and Sidney Ponson to collectively pitch horribly for the $9 million the Twins will be paying them, breaking camp with a non-optimal team in place for reasons that go far beyond on-field factors is a shame. Of course, it's also par for the course with the Twins. As I've lamented before, between Garza, Glen Perkins, Kevin Slowey, and Scott Baker it's very possible that four of the Twins' six best starters will be in Rochester.

UPDATE: LEN3 reports that the Twins have cut Venafro (plus Matthew LeCroy and others) despite his 0.00 spring ERA and the stated preference for a second left-handed pitcher in the bullpen alongside Dennys Reyes. The Twins may be hoping that Venafro will accept the demotion to Triple-A and potentially join the team later, much like Reyes did. They now have 29 players left in camp, including Garza and Durbin.