Livan Hernandez is a Twin

The Twins added some experience to their starting rotation today when Livan Hernandez signed a one-year deal worth about 5 million dollars. Whether or not this turns out to be another waste of money like Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson is yet to be determined. Hernandez went 11-11 with a 4.93 ERA with Arizona last year which is already a slight step up from Ortiz' 11-16 with a 5.57 ERA with Washington the year before signing with the Twins.

The opening day starter is still unclear, but if I had to guess I'd say that Hernandez would be given the job because of his veteran status. He's definitely not Santana and may only be on par with Carlos Silva, but the one thing he does that this team desperately needs is eat up innings. He has thrown at least 199 innings since 1998, hopefully that trend will continue and the bullpen will know that at the very least they'll have one day to rest during the rotation.

The pitchers set to start the year off looks to be Hernandez, Scott Baker, Boof Bonser, Kevin Slowey and a fight between a healing Fransisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn and the newly acquired Phil Humber. If this team has any hope of staying in the race for the central pennant we’re going to need Liriano to show up like he did in his rookie season, Hernandez to pitch more like he did in 2000 or 2003 and Delmon Young to do his best Frank Robinson impression.

God, I hope this pans out.