Sorry for the lack of a Link-O-Rama entry Friday. My internet connection went down Thursday afternoon and wasn't fixed until Friday night, rendering me miserable and pretty much useless for about 30 hours while forcing me on the road to feed my online addiction. My sense has always been that most people come here for the Twins-related stuff and simply put up with having to read everything else, so it was enlightening to see the opposite reaction to a Friday without links to pictures of pretty girls.

On a different note, I'll be appearing on KFAN radio Sunday night at 6:30 to talk Twins for an hour with Doogie Wolfson and Phil Mackey leading into Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Also, my internet connection crashing kept me from giving it a proper plug this week, but joining KFAN's morning show with Mike Morris, Cory Cove, and Chris Hawkey is going to be a weekly thing each Friday at around 8:00 a.m. If you missed my Paul Pierce-inspired appearance this Friday, you can listen to it by clicking here.

Last week's quarterly call for reader-submitted questions led to over 150 being posed between e-mails and the comments section. Responding to all of them would be pretty tough, but I'll tackle as many as possible by breaking up the answers into a pair of entries. Below you'll find the first installment, which covers questions related specifically to the Twins. A second installment covering non-Twins questions that are thrown together in the "random" pile is coming soon.

With the AL Central suddenly so weak, do the Twins actually have a shot at winning the division?

Absolutely. My guess before the season was that the Twins would win 82-85 games. Right now they're on pace to go 85-77 and it looks like it won't take a whole lot more than that to claim the division title.

Setting aside Torii Hunter's contract, would you rather have him or Carlos Gomez this season?

Here's how they stack up so far:

             G      AVG      OBP      SLG     OPS+      WPA      RZR
Hunter      57     .278     .339     .463     117      0.60     .861
Gomez       53     .278     .309     .404      98     -0.63     .929

Torii Hunter has a 30-point edge in on-base percentage and a 61-point edge in slugging percentage while making a more positive impact according to Win Probability Added. Revised Zone Rating shows Carlos Gomez with more range in center field and he's been more valuable on the bases, but it's tough to make an argument for him being better than Hunter right now. Gomez has been better than expected offensively and very good defensively, but Hunter remains one of the elite center fielders in baseball.

What do you make of Alexi Casilla's hot start? Small sample size? Improved skills? Where do you see him long term?

Alexi Casilla has hit .293/.367/.366 in 1,700 plate appearances in the minors, including .257/.344/.316 in 129 games at Triple-A, so batting .328/.392/.484 with 15 RBIs in 19 games is a sample-size fluke. With that said, even ignoring the unsustainable results he's looked nothing like the jittery rookie who was a mess last year. He ranked No. 6 on my annual list of the Twins' top 40 prospects two years ago and still looks to me like a decent all-around second baseman (or perhaps shortstop) long term.

Have the Twins accidently stumbled upon a long-term solution to their middle-infield problems by moving Brendan Harris to shortstop and Alexi Casilla emerging at second base?

Casilla is almost surely atop the long-term depth chart at second base given the organization's lack of other appealing options, but counting on Brendan Harris as the long-term shortstop would be a huge mistake. He's overmatched there defensively and as a .267/.330/.398 career hitter doesn't look capable of making up for a sub par glove with his bat. He's a palatable short-term starter or long-term backup, but Harris is far from the answer at shortstop.

How come most of the Twins' second basemen are natural shortstops?

This is true throughout baseball. A large percentage of second basemen are former shortstops who switched positions because of problems with their range or arm. In the minor leagues teams will often keep a player at shortstop for as long as possible even if he's not likely to end up there in the majors, which is why there are always far more good prospects at shortstop than second base.

How often does Dennys Reyes throw more on-field warm-up tosses than in-game pitches?

Relievers are allowed up to eight warm-up throws prior to entering a game. Dennys Reyes has thrown eight or fewer pitches in 62 of his 145 appearances (42.8 percent) with the Twins. As a wise man once said, it's a great gig if you can get it.

Based on his performance one-third of the way through the season, where is Delmon Young in terms of his development and how has watching him every night changed your perception about his potential?

My perception of Delmon Young's potential hasn't really changed much because of 10 weeks worth of games. When the Twins acquired Young this winter my analysis was that his long-term ceiling was overstated by people who focused on old prospect rankings and optimistic quotes about his supposed power potential rather than his actual performance. That remains true and many of the flaws that he's shown with the Twins were perfectly visible previously. People just weren't as willing to see them.

Obviously Young hasn't looked great at the plate, but can we take his increased walk rate as a sign that something could turn around for him soon?

Young showed almost no plate discipline in 2006 or 2007, so the fact that he's drawing even a modest amount of walks so far this year is encouraging. With that said, part of his increased walk rate may be due to hitting seventh in the batting order, where teams are perhaps more willing to pitch around him with non-threats in the eighth and ninth spots. Young drew just three walks in 92 plate appearances as a No. 3 hitter, but has walked 13 times in 133 plate appearances batting seventh.

Breaking his plate discipline down beyond walk rate, last season Young led the league by swinging at 63.3 percent of the pitches he saw, including 41.3 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. This year he's swung at 56.1 percent overall and 37.1 percent outside the strike zone. On one hand he's cut both rates by a significant amount, which is certainly a good thing. On the other hand, he's still swinging at the second-most pitches overall and third-most pitches outside the strike zone.

Is it my imagination or does Delmon Young really look that bad playing in the field? Are there some advanced statistics that quantify his defense in left field, relative to other left fielders?

Young has good speed, but looks lost at times trying to track down fly balls in the gap and has already made a handful of brutal plays. If you ignore the huge difference in arm strength, Young looks an awful lot like Shannon Stewart in left field, canceling out his speed with poor routes and bad instincts. With that said, his overall defensive numbers have been fairly average. Among 17 left fielders who qualify for the batting title, Young ranks 10th in Revised Zone Rating and leads the position in assists.

If the Twins decide to trade Livan Hernandez, what can they hope to get in return?

There were about a dozen variations of this question submitted. If Ramon Ortiz can fetch a mid-level prospect like Matt Macri despite posting a 5.14 ERA for the Twins, then Livan Hernandez can probably fetch something similar. I'd be surprised if the Twins traded him.

If the Twins do trade Livan Hernandez, where would you like him to end up?

Pitching for the White Sox.

I've never heard Glen Perkins talked about in the same breath as Kevin Slowey or Matt Garza, so what's his upside at this point?

Over the years I've probably been a little higher on Glen Perkins and a little lower on Kevin Slowey than most people, but have always viewed their long-term potential as relatively interchangeable. Back in 2007, my ranking of the Twins' top 40 prospects had Matt Garza first, Perkins third, and Slowey fourth. Both then and now they've each looked to me like solid mid-rotation guys with the potential to possibly be No. 2 starters if everything breaks right. So far Perkins has a 3.69 ERA in 68.1 career innings.

How do you see Kevin Slowey projecting out as a major-league starter?

To continue the comparison from the previous answer, Slowey has amazing command and posted far more impressive minor-league numbers, but Perkins strikes me as having better secondary pitches and superior all-around stuff. They're both fly-ball pitchers without exceptional velocity, which as we've already seen makes them susceptible to serving up lots of homers and figures to keep them from approaching anything resembling ace status. So far Slowey has a 4.36 ERA in 107.1 career innings.

Do you know how to send Lew Ford fan mail in Japan?

Here's the address for his team, the Hanshin Tigers.

Are you surprised that Lew Ford still has a fan?

Very.

Is Johan Santana starting to drop off? I don't mean that he's going to become a bad pitcher, but is he starting to look like the 10th-best pitcher in baseball instead of the best?

He certainly hasn't been baseball's best pitcher thus far, but recent talk of Johan Santana declining seems overblown. People like Buster Olney of ESPN.com have focused on the fact that his numbers so far with the Mets aren't up to the standards he set while with the Twins, but that's misleading given that Santana typically got off to slow starts in Minnesota. He's made a dozen starts for the Mets and is 7-3 with a 3.20 ERA. On average from 2004-2007, he went 5-4 with a 3.93 ERA through a dozen starts.

In fact, seven wins and a 3.20 ERA are both the best marks Santana has ever had through 12 starts. Santana's velocity is down somewhat and perhaps because of that he hasn't racked up quite as many strikeouts, but the overall quality of his pitching hasn't changed. His Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) with the Mets is 3.46, which ranks sixth among MLB starters. While with the Twins from 2004-2007, his xFIPs were 3.28, 3.35, 3.42, and 3.55.

If you were the power-starved Twins, would it be time to maybe float an offer to Barry Bonds?

Aside from me being forced to choose between simultaneous marriage proposals from Marisa Miller, Elisha Cuthbert, Jenna Fischer, Keeley Hazell, and Mila Kunis, it's tough to think of something that has less chance of happening than the Twins signing Barry Bonds, although I'd be in favor of both things.

Can Nick Blackburn continue to have this type of success?

Nick Blackburn has exceeded my expectations enough to make me appear plenty silly for questioning Baseball America ranking him as the Twins' top prospect prior to the Santana trade, but he's due to come back down to earth. His xFIP is 4.16 while his actual ERA is 3.32, in part because 20 percent of his runs allowed have been unearned. Beyond that, opponents are hitting .303/.344/.423 against him, which doesn't jibe with a 3.32 ERA.

In ranking Blackburn as the team's No. 26 prospect back in February, my write-up suggested that he "is likely MLB-ready and should soon be able to carve out a niche as either a back-of-the-rotation starter or middle reliever." Only when compared to BA's surprising ranking does that seem like a bad thing. He throws strikes, induces ground balls, and keeps the ball in the ballpark, but at most my projection may have changed from "back-of-the-rotation starter" to "middle-of-the-rotation starter."

What do you think about Joe Posnanski saying Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball?

I think Joe Posnanski is an extraordinary writer and extremely smart person who is very wrong about at least one thing.

Did you really tell Joe Posnanski that he's bats*** insane?

Yes, but in a very nice way.

Where would you rank Ron Gardenhire on a list of the best managers in baseball?

This is tough to say without watching every other manager 100 times per season--which is no doubt partly why Posnanski thinks so highly of someone he watches a dozen times a year--but my guess is that even with some very large, incredibly frustrating faults Gardenhire is still slightly above average.

Any thoughts on the uproar in Rochester about the Twins not promoting prospects fast enough to Triple-A while the team suffers?

I'm sure fans in Rochester don't like watching a last-place team, but the primary purpose of the Twins' minor-league system is to develop players and help the big-league team. Actually putting a successful Triple-A team on the field is secondary, although it'd be beneficial for everyone involved if the Twins had better depth there. Rochester complaining about not having enough good prospects is a bit like Mike Tyson's sparring partner complaining that he's being hit too hard.

Is Luke Hughes for real?

That depends on your definition of "for real." Luke Hughes had a solid 2007 season at Double-A, but narrowly missed cracking my ranking of the Twins' top 40 prospects heading into this year because he previously hit just .238/.293/.339 in two seasons at Single-A and bounced around defensively. Sent back to New Britain for a second stint this season, Hughes has hit .335/.407/.618 with 13 homers, 25 total extra-base hits, and a 42-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 47 games.

Plenty of prospects fare better when allowed to repeat a level and even with this season's big numbers he's just a .272/.331/.411 career hitter. On the other hand, he's now hit .302/.375/.506 in 139 games at Double-A and at 23 years old is still among the youngest players on the New Britain roster. I'm not yet ready to declare him one of the Twins' elite prospects, but his stock has risen dramatically and Hughes is a very intriguing player if his glove proves good enough to avoid a full-time switch to the outfield.

Are you getting (or do you already have) seats in the new Twins ballpark?

I'll definitely be going to significantly more games once the new ballpark opens in 2010, but likely won't be buying full season tickets. Unless something changes between now and then, my job at Rotoworld makes it tough to spend too many weeknights away from the MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV.

Do you think the Twins will be a World Series contender in 2010, when they open the new ballpark?

I'm not sure exactly what the definition of "World Series contender" is at this point, but they'll certainly be a playoff contender and you never know what can happen in October.

Win Probability Added (WPA) measures how much impact specific plays had on the outcome of each game and assigns that value to the individual players responsible. For example, when evaluated by WPA within the context of each game hitting a grand slam in the fifth inning when the score is 10-2 has less value than drawing a walk in the eighth inning when the score is 5-5. Similarly, striking out to lead off a game is seen as less damaging than striking out down a run in the bottom of the ninth inning.

There are much better and longer explanations of WPA than that one, of course. If you're interested in learning more, Dave Studeman's WPA primer at The Hardball Times is a good place to start, and both Fan Graphs and Baseball-Reference.com offer tons of information on the subject. It's far from a perfect stat and isn't meant to predict how valuable a player will be or even definitely prove how valuable each player has been, but WPA is an interesting tool to use in looking back at what has already taken place.

It's important to note than WPA doesn't measure any defensive contributions, which means that strong defenders don't receive full credit for their value. Beyond that, WPA doesn't place offensive contributions in the context of position, so an .850 OPS from a catcher or shortstop is treated the same as an .850 OPS from a designated hitter or left fielder. There's nothing that can be done about measuring defense via WPA, but it's relatively easy to put the numbers in better context by using positional adjustments.

With the help of Fan Graphs creator David Appelman, I've taken the Twins' raw WPA totals through May and adjusted them based on the MLB average at each position. Most adjustments are minimal, but starters are given a boost relative to relievers and hitters who play up-the-middle positions are given a boost relative to hitters who man corner spots. The end result is a sort of adjusted WPA (adjWPA), but before getting to that let's first take a look at the raw season totals through May 31:

HITTERS                PA      AVG      OBP      SLG      WPA
Joe Mauer             212     .317     .405     .389     1.45
Justin Morneau        236     .305     .377     .495     1.25
Alexi Casilla          61     .340     .417     .520     0.52
Craig Monroe          106     .235     .292     .459     0.36
Howie Clark             8     .250     .250     .500     0.27
Matt Macri              4     .667     .750     .667     0.11
Brian Buscher           9     .250     .333     .375    -0.01
Pitchers                9     .375     .375     .375    -0.02
Denard Span            34     .258     .324     .258    -0.11
Mike Lamb             179     .255     .285     .345    -0.18
Jason Kubel           182     .241     .280     .388    -0.26
Nick Punto             59     .264     .322     .340    -0.29
Matt Tolbert           90     .265     .307     .337    -0.34
Carlos Gomez          219     .282     .315     .411    -0.37
Brendan Harris        198     .253     .328     .335    -0.60
Adam Everett           83     .189     .235     .324    -0.68
Mike Redmond           34     .226     .265     .290    -0.78
Michael Cuddyer       168     .232     .292     .323    -0.83
Delmon Young          226     .264     .323     .337    -1.11
 
TEAM TOTAL           2117     .267     .324     .381    -1.67

Joe Mauer's team-leading 1.45 WPA comes primarily from a huge May, as he hit .333/.442/.387 in 113 plate appearances to produce 1.33 WPA for the month. To put that in some context, consider that only four other AL hitters (Manny Ramirez, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Quentin, Hideki Matsui) have produced more than 1.33 WPA for the entire season. Justin Morneau's second-ranked 1.25 WPA is more evenly split, with 0.63 WPA in April and 0.62 WPA in May.

Mauer and Morneau have carried the offense to an extreme degree, producing 2.70 WPA through two months while the other hitters combined for -4.37 WPA. Along with Mauer and Morneau, Alexi Casilla and Craig Monroe are the only hitters on the team with double-digit plate appearances and positive WPA. Casilla hit .340/.417/.520 in May after spending all of April at Triple-A, while Monroe fares well in WPA despite a mediocre .235/.292/.459 overall line thanks to several key hits in both months.

Michael Cuddyer hit relatively well in April, but posted a team-worst -0.47 WPA by coming up empty in several crucial spots. Cuddyer had a similarly poor -0.36 WPA in May, but this time it simply came from hitting .212/.273/.297. Cuddyer's -0.83 WPA through two months ranked second-worst on the team, with Delmon Young bringing up the rear at -1.11 WPA. That total ranked eighth-worst among AL hitters and Young was at "only" -0.10 WPA through April, so he produced a ghastly -1.01 WPA in May alone.

Carlos Gomez's -0.34 WPA in April made sense given his .265/.279/.373 line, but his -0.03 WPA in May looks off after he hit .299/.348/.449. WPA is about how you perform, but also how you perform within the context of each game and how that impacts your team's chance of winning. Gomez was much better than an average hitter in May, but WPA shows that his hitting had an average impact on the Twins' wins and losses. There's no shame in that, because "average" in WPA is the equivalent to a .500 team.

PITCHERS               PA      AVG      OBP      SLG      WPA
Joe Nathan             89     .238     .281     .333     2.01
Nick Blackburn        302     .305     .341     .415     1.25
Matt Guerrier         137     .256     .338     .364     0.81
Dennys Reyes           71     .281     .343     .359     0.71
Bobby Korecky          40     .222     .300     .389     0.60
Scott Baker           132     .244     .273     .409     0.57
Craig Breslow           5     .000     .000     .000     0.15
Glen Perkins          131     .303     .341     .467     0.13
Kevin Slowey          136     .233     .272     .457     0.09
Pat Neshek             56     .240     .291     .460     0.03
Brian Bass            160     .308     .375     .545    -0.15
Juan Rincon           113     .245     .360     .340    -0.57
Livan Hernandez       335     .330     .353     .494    -0.65
Jesse Crain            91     .313     .385     .500    -0.67
Francisco Liriano      56     .366     .509     .415    -0.67
Boof Bonser           296     .267     .316     .418    -1.47
 
TEAM TOTAL           2150     .283     .335     .434     2.16

Similar to Mauer and Morneau offensively, Joe Nathan and Nick Blackburn have carried the pitching, producing 3.26 WPA together while the rest of the staff combined for -1.10 WPA. Nathan's team-leading 2.01 WPA actually understates how good he's been, because he gets tagged with the negative credit for the fly ball that Young played into a game-tying "inside-the-park homer" last week. Even with that, Nathan ranked third among AL relievers in WPA, behind only Mariano Rivera and B.J. Ryan.

Blackburn's 1.25 WPA ranked 11th among AL starters and he produced a negative WPA in just three of his 11 starts through two months. By comparison, Livan Hernandez's -0.65 WPA ranks fourth-worst among full-time AL starters and he had a negative WPA in six of his dozen starts. Unfortunately for the Twins, Boof Bonser was one of the three AL starters to qualify for the ERA title while posting a worse WPA than Hernandez through May, ranking dead last in the league at -1.47.

What's amazing about Bonser's league-worst WPA is that he actually contributed positively with 0.29 WPA in April. Bonser made six starts in May, posting an 8.60 ERA while accumulating a staggeringly awful -1.76 WPA. While Bonser and Hernandez were dragging the rotation down in May, Kevin Slowey and Glen Perkins combined for 0.38 WPA. With Pat Neshek out Matt Guerrier stepped up with 0.88 WPA out of the bullpen in May and Bobby Korecky had 0.60 WPA before a demotion back to Triple-A.

After looking at the Twins' raw WPA totals through the first two months of the season, let's switch to the adjusted numbers once each player is compared to the MLB average at their respective position. In other words, Morneau is compared to other first basemen, Gomez is compared to other center fielders, Mauer is compared to other catchers, Blackburn and Hernandez are compared to other starters, and Nathan and Guerrier are compared to other relievers:

                      adjWPA                              adjWPA
Joe Mauer             + 1.92        Denard Span           - 0.16
Joe Nathan            + 1.90        Nick Punto            - 0.26
Nick Blackburn        + 1.35        Carlos Gomez          - 0.30
Justin Morneau        + 0.86        Brian Bass            - 0.31
Matt Guerrier         + 0.68        Matt Tolbert          - 0.33
Dennys Reyes          + 0.64        Mike Lamb             - 0.34
Bobby Korecky         + 0.64        Jason Kubel           - 0.49
Scott Baker           + 0.61        Livan Hernandez       - 0.52
Alexi Casilla         + 0.53        Brendan Harris        - 0.56
Howie Clark           + 0.27        Adam Everett          - 0.64
Craig Monroe          + 0.23        Francisco Liriano     - 0.65
Glen Perkins          + 0.17        Juan Rincon           - 0.68
Kevin Slowey          + 0.15        Mike Redmond          - 0.71
Craig Breslow         + 0.15        Jesse Crain           - 0.76
Matt Macri            + 0.11        Michael Cuddyer       - 1.10
Pat Neshek              0.00        Delmon Young          - 1.35
Brian Buscher           0.00        Boof Bonser           - 1.37

Making sense of the above numbers is actually fairly simple. For instance, Mauer having +1.92 adjWPA means that he added 1.92 wins compared to the average catcher offensively, while Young being at -1.35 adjWPA means that he was 1.35 wins worse than the average left fielder. Similarly, compared to the average starting pitcher Blackburn added 1.35 wins while Bonser subtracted 1.37 wins. At first glance Gomez's -0.30 adjWPA looks bad, but that's actually far from the case.

He's one-third of a win from being an average center fielder offensively, which is good for a 22-year-old. Interestingly, in Gomez's case at least WPA agrees with "normal" stats. His .282/.315/.411 line through May 31 is slightly below the MLB average of .264/.333/.409 for center fielders. Gomez is hurt by WPA failing to account for defensive contributions, because that's where much of his value comes from. Toss in his glove and there's little doubt that he's been at worst an average all-around center fielder.

Not including defense also undervalues Mauer, whose already impressive adjWPA would be even better with his work behind the plate factored in. For guys like Cuddyer and Young the opposite is true. According to WPA, even without defense in the mix Mauer was the Twins' most valuable player through May 31, followed by Nathan, Blackburn, and Morneau. At the other end of the spectrum, Bonser, Young, and Cuddyer stand out as the team's least valuable players through May 31 according to WPA.