It took much longer than expected for him to sign, but Dennys Reyesagreed to a two-year, $3 million contract with the Cardinals yesterday and the Twins will receive a nice supplemental first-round draft pick as compensation for losing him as a free agent. The Twins signed Reyes to a minor-league deal in February of 2006 and ended up getting 126.1 innings of a 2.14 ERA and a supplemental first-round pick for around $2.5 million.
And it wasn't a bad gig for Reyes either. He threw an average of just 9.7 pitches per appearance during three years with the Twins, which would qualify as not breaking a sweat most of the time if not for the fact that his nickname is "Big Sweat." He earned a cool $1,300 per pitch while holding left-handers to a .202 batting average and his 0.89 ERA in 2006 is the best in Twins history among pitchers with 50-plus innings.
I've become fairly addicted to WhatIfSports.com's Hardball Dynasty game and with "Gleeman World" currently midway into Season 10--my beloved Minnesota Fatboys have averaged a world-leading 102 wins per season with two World Series championships--we've decided to start up "Gleeman World 2." We're looking primarily for owners who have previous experience playing Hardball Dynasty, so if you're interested drop me an e-mail.
Most of the bat fights that I've been in have more or less gone this way too:
"Totally even, anyone could win. Athletic prowess, let's begin."
Having been assigned quite a few Texans games as part of my Rotoworld football-watching duties, I'm confident that Sage Rosenfels is a definite upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson. His tendency to force throws leads to far too many turnovers, but Rosenfels also has the ability to make plays downfield that the Vikings severely lacked with Jackson at the helm. Rosenfels is sort like a rich man's Gus Frerotte, which isn't as bad as it probably sounds.
During the past three years Rosenfels completed 65.6 percent of his 453 passes for an average of 7.5 yards per throw, both of which would have ranked in the top 10 among NFL starters last season. Over that same time period Jackson completed 58.4 percent of his 524 passes for an average of 6.6 yards per throw, which would have ranked 27th and 23rd respectively among NFL starters last season. I'm not saying Rosenfels is great, but he should be a solid starter and that's an improvement.
Plus, the trade affords me the opportunity to make several thousand jokes about "The Sage Rosenfels Experience" over the next three seasons.
Several readers passed along the sad story of minor-league pitcher John Odom.
Joe Nathan pulled out of the World Baseball Classic last week because of shoulder soreness, but felt strong enough to throw batting practice yesterday and reported no problems afterward. He's slated to pitch Sunday against the Orioles, so hopefully the whole thing will turn out to be nothing more than a convenient excuse to skip the WBC.
Television's tendency to produce horrible, annoying shows about sports caused me to put off giving Eastbound & Down a try, but after finally watching the first three episodes back-to-back-to-back recently I'm cautiously optimistic that it'll be worth keeping on DVR. While the main character is a former pitcher, the show is no more about sports than, say, Seinfeld was about stand-up comedy. It also has a sort of Larry Sanders Show-like mix of sitcom and filth, which is always a good combination for HBO.
Plus, when a show creates a personal website for the fictional main character complete with his yearly pitching stats and includes strikeout-to-walk ratio ... well, it deserves a chance. Fan Graphs even broke down the numbers and calculated how many wins above replacement level Kenny Powers was during his career. Seriously. I'm skeptical about the show's ability to hold my interest long term, but so far it's been a pleasant surprise.
Earlier this week my MinnPost colleague David Brauerexamined whether the St. Paul Pioneer Press or Minneapolis Star Tribune is in worse shape, and basically concluded that the answer is "yes."
It looks like AG.com will eclipse five million visitors some time next week, but I've yet to come up with a good idea for how to celebrate. If you've got any suggestions (that don't involve me doing much work), let me know. I'm prepared to give away a free one-year AG.com subscription to the five millionth visitor.
Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is the Kings of Leon performing a live version of "Use Somebody":
Back before live chatting became a weekly feature here I used to open up the floor for reader-submitted questions every few months and then answer everything in a later entry. The whole process is basically a low-tech version of live chatting, but not everyone can show up to the actual live chats in the middle of a weekday and the low-tech version allows me to put a little more thought into each answer. If you have a question that you'd like me to answer, please post it in the comments section or e-mail it to me.
Pretty much any topic is fair game and non-baseball stuff is encouraged. In fact, in the past there has been enough variety to break the answers into "baseball questions" and "random questions." I'll collect all the questions, come up with some answers over the weekend, and post the whole thing next week. Please double-check spelling and grammar while keeping the questions as concise and readable as possible, because what you type may appear soon on other people's computer screens.
Joe Nathan has pulled out of the World Baseball Classic because of shoulder soreness, explaining yesterday that he experienced some discomfort during the offseason, but "didn't really think much of it" until the problem "flared up" once he arrived at spring training and began throwing. He's being held out of game action for a while after allowing one run in the Twins' spring training opener Wednesday, but has not been shut down completely and threw a bullpen session yesterday.
Arm problems can go from annoyance to surgery in a hurry, but so far at least there's no reason to think Nathan's shoulder injury is especially serious. "I'm not worried about it being a major concern," Nathan said. "I guess it's news because of the World Baseball Classic tournament going on and I'm not able to attend. Staying here allows me to kind of get this thing calmed down and strengthened back up kind of at our pace."
All the speculation and conflicting reports about the Twins' pursuit of Juan Cruz can be put to rest, as he signed with the Royals over the weekend. Landing him for $5.5 million over two years while also getting a reasonable $4 million team option or $500,000 buyout for 2011 is a great deal for the Royals, and their first-round pick is protected as No. 11. Had the Twins signed Cruz they'd have surrendered the No. 21 overall pick as compensation, but the Royals will instead give up a second rounder.
LaVelle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribunereports that the Twins "offered Cruz a one-year deal," but doesn't say whether they were willing to lose the first-round pick or only made the proposal as part of a potential sign-and-trade deal with the Diamondbacks. Either way, signing Cruz for just one season seems odd if you're giving up a draft pick or prospects to acquire him. Why give up that much for just one year of a player? And if you like Cruz that much, why would you only want him for one season?
Cruz would have been a huge upgrade for the Twins' bullpen and came at a bargain rate after posting a 2.95 ERA, 183-to-80 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and .192 opponent's batting average in 134.1 innings as a reliever over the past three seasons. However, refusing to lose a first-round pick to sign a 30-year-old reliever is a perfectly acceptable stance for the Twins to take. Unfortunately, the Twins had numerous chances to sign solid setup men without giving up draft picks and ended up with justLuis Ayala.
Corey Koskie had hoped to show that he was healthy while playing for Canada in the WBC and then latch on with a big-league team, but he didn't have to wait that long. Koskie signed a minor-league deal with the Cubs over the weekend and will join their camp as a non-roster invitee once the WBC is done. He'll compete for a spot on the Cubs' bench, backing up Aramis Ramirez at third base and Derrek Lee at first base, but may end up in Iowa proving himself again at Triple-A as a 35-year-old.
In the grand scheme of things rotation spots matter little because all full-time starters end up with 32 or 33 starts if they stay healthy for the entire season, but the Twins have already announced that Scott Baker will get the nod on Opening Day. It wasn't so long ago that the Twins demoted Baker to Triple-A while most fans were ready to give up on him, and even when he returned to the majors Bert Blylevenrepeated the company line about "not keeping the ball down" seemingly every time he allowed a hit.
Baker thankfully took his demotion in stride and pitched his way back to Minnesota, taking advantage of his second chance by going 20-13 with a 3.82 ERA and 243-to-71 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 316 innings since rejoining the rotation in mid-2007. Growing pains along the way had some people questioning Baker's ability to succeed as an extreme fly-ball pitcher who worked up in the strike zone, but in the end he's settled in as exactly the type of solid major-league starter that his minor-league resume predicted.
Twins prospects at Triple-A will get quite a bit more attention than usual this year, with PBS planning to shoot a 13-episode documentary about the season at Rochester. According to Jim Mandelaro of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
A behind-the-scenes look at the Wings, with unprecedented access. Three videographers will follow the team around Rochester and the 13 other cities in the International League. Cameras will roll as players are called into manager Stan Cliburn's office for promotions and demotions, as they spend countless hours walking malls and eating in food courts and as they sit around their apartments, waiting for that call to the major leagues that will change everything.
Last month Seth Stohstook a crack at what the Rochester roster will look like this season. I'm thinking Drew Butera's call-up would make for a Sopranos-like series finale.
Pat Neshek is about three months into a likely 12-month recovery from Tommy John elbow surgery, and recently posted a blog entry about his scars that included the following pictures:
Here's how Neshek described the surgery and the scarring:
In simple terms they take a tendon from either your wrist or leg, drill a couple holes in the elbow and tie the tendon through the holes. In a couple months the tendon turns into a ligament. Recovery time varies from about 9 months to 15 months. I had my tendon removed from my left wrist, notice the 3 notches ... one on my wrist, another one about 2.5 inches away and the final one 2.5 inches away from the last one.
Neshek going under the knife and being lost for the entire season is a shame on a number of different levels, but the one nice thing about the surgery is that it apparently leaves him lots of time for blogging. As a bad actor in a terrible sports movie once said: "Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever."
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