Something good finally happens to the Twins

Justin Morneau and Micheal Cuddayer have signed long term deals with the Twins ensuring that we will not have another Hunter/Santana debacle on our hands. Morneau's contract is said to be 6 years long and worth about $80 million while Cuddayer's is 3 years and about $23 million. I think I would have liked them to put another year on Cuddy's contract, but if they move him to center like Gardy (bat-shit crazily) said might happen three years would probably be a better deal for the team to have the 4th year option.

I am really starting to like Bill Smith as the general manager of this team. I don't know about his ability to get the prospects in trades that Terry Ryan always seemed to find but he was willing to trade pitching for batting and now he's signed two very good baseball players to contracts before they got a whiff of free agency. Terry Ryan would be sitting with his thumb up his ass going over the Johan trade offers with a fine toothed comb and too busy to ensure that two of the best players on the club stay here in Minnesota.

Now all Smith has to do to pull off the trifecta of GM brilliance is get the Mets, Red Sox and Yankees back into a bidding war. Get me Lester and Elsbury. Get me Hughs, Kennedy and Cabrerra. Get me a couple players from the Mets that Terry Ryan approves of. Honestly I have no clue about any of the players being offered by the Mets and that scares me, but I didn't know who Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Fransisco Liriano were when I was unsure about making Mauer the every day starter (still not sure about how that will play out).

The Star Tribune told me about the contracts.

Johan Santana Fans 17 Rangers

Viva El Presidente! 17 strikeouts? Like Dick said, Mr. Santana is now the proud owner of the most strikeouts in club history... and he's probably going to hold on to that for, oh I don't know... forever.

If it weren't for Cuddy's home run in the second this gem of a game could have gone down the crapper like so many good starts from this pitching staff. They may not all be as thrilling as Santana's win yesterday but Boof, Silva and especially Garza have all felt the wrath of Ryan's inability to open up his wallet.

Terry Ryan should have thrown a huge contract right in front of his locker after the game ended. Obviously he is the best pitcher in baseball and he will be for quite some time. They may be all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs this year but seeing Santana do this sort of thing still makes me smile.

All-Star Un-Weekend is Upon Us.

No matter what the sport there is always a stigma attached to All-star games. The Superstars never want to play, everybody thinks their guy deserved a spot and didn’t get it (*cough * Pat Neshek * cough*) and the games usually aren’t too defensive. Baseball has tried to remedy this problem after the debacle in 2002 at Bud’s own stadium, but all that has resulted from that mess was AL home field advantage in the world series for, oh… say the next quarter century. Of course, that doesn’t bother me with the Twins in the AL, all Pohlad has to do is spend some $ ching $ and keep Torii, Johan, Nathan, Cuddy and Morneau to long-term deals. I know he’ll never pay them all because owners are assholes but I can dream, dammit.

Anyway, tonight Dr. Morneau is gonna be crushing the long ball in the Home Run Derby. If I know my Morneau correctly he’ll be adding to his legend by becoming the first player ever to kill another when he accidentally knocks Eric Byrnes unconscious and he slips off his Kayak into McCovey Cove. I also wouldn't mind if he did the same to Kenny Mayne. The good doctor will have fellow Canuck and baseball smasher Larry Walker lobbing gopher balls in his general direction. Did he slight Scotty Ullger and Joe Vavra with his decision? Possibly, but putting two Canadians together in a lax environment and micing them can only lead to great sound bites. I’m probably going to petition to get a second Canadian into the NBA so we can listen to Nash say “Eh.”

Like I mentioned the other day Johan Santana, Torii Hunter and Justin Morneau will be playing in the big game, and like I didn’t mention Ron Gardenhire is one of the coaches on Jim Leyland’s squad. I hope Torii measured Barry Bonds’ head when the future home run king picked him up back in 2002 so that we can settle this steroid business. Oh yeah, and if you wanted to go the game but couldn’t scrape enough change together out of the ashtray some dentist managed to get permission from MLB to wear a silly-ass hat on his head with a camera so you can feel like you’re at the ball park. Drunken, obnoxious asshole blocking your view included!

Belated Baseball

Neubie, Bez, Bits and I went to the game on Friday and something should have been posted yesterday, but I’m guessing most of us spent the day hung over and/or asleep. The day started early because Bits wanted to buy a jersey at the mall, and he is my chauffeur when I need to get to the city. After about three hours and some crazy good Chinese food we left the mall with a belt, some shorts and a silly-ass hat. Bits’ ladyfriend talked him out of the jersey and argued that the money would be better spent on her. I tried to explain the importance of owning a jersey to her, but to no avail. In fact it was I who almost left the mall with a Twins jersey- I found a Shannon Stewart one for $20 and I’m the type of asshole who shows up to a game with the wrong player on my back.

We hit up a bar before going to the game only to discover that there was no happy hour, which made us a bit unhappy. Bits, another friend and I sat in decent seats out in center field. Bez has season tickets so he sat in a different section. Neubie was just getting off work when the game started, so he was forced to iron his shirt on the light rail. Before the game got underway Morneau received his MVP award and I found out that Killebrew is the only American to have won the MVP in a Twins uni. I also found out that chicks from nowhere, South Dakota wear about an inch of make-up to a baseball game, I bet that dude tried to gnaw his arm off when he woke up yesterday.

Johan looked great in the first inning when he threw all of 4 pitches, but after that he looked a little shaky. Everybody knows that April is usually his worst month, and he is the best pitcher in baseball so there is nothing to worry about. I’m beginning to think that Akinori Iwamora is a damn good baseball player. That 5^th inning sucked balls and Crawford’s 6^th inning in the park home run came about 10 minutes after Bez nominated Josh Rabe for player of the game because he hates Kubel.

Not having the old guys in the line-up and no batting from the piranhas has hurt the Twins so far this year… oh course Bartlet did manage to get a hit yesterday and one in the game that we went to. We also caught Anthony Lapanta roaming through the section next to ours and stealing people’s signs, probably for “Circle me Bert.” Morneau’s blast went for a mile but it was futile. It sucked to watch Johan’s home win streak end but like he said he’ll just start a new one.

After the game we went out to catch the rest of the Wild game. A good number of people who sit in Bez’ section came with us. Eventually we left and Bez’ shoe broke, I danced with a lady, and Bits couldn’t get “a goddamn ham sandwich with cheese and alfalfa sprouts!” – no matter how many Jimmy Johns I tried calling.

Alfalfa sprouts??

Twins Pitching Odds

The Twins have a killer starting rotation… unfortunately most of those pitchers will start the season in the minors. The Pioneer Press in reporting today that the Twins starting rotation will look like we thought it would at the beginning of spring training. “El Presidente” Santana will be at the helm of this starting rotation followed by Ramon Ortiz (whom I am gaining faith in), Boof!, Carlos Silva and Sidney Ponson. The Twins sent down baseball’s version of Agent Zero, Kevin Slowey, on Sunday and Matt Garza and Glen Perkins are sure to follow soon.

I put complete trust in Rick Anderson’s ability to get the best out of his pitchers, but I think that Silva and Ponson just don’t have it anymore. Last year the Twins made a run (and captured) the division after dumping a few geezers off the side of the boat and infusing their infield with some youth. This year I see that happening to the starting rotation… its only a matter of time before something bad happens. At the moment I’m channeling the future in order to bring you the odds on what leads this pitching staff in a younger directions. Here it is from least likely to most likely… enjoy.

50:1 – No change is made to the starting rotation

25:1 – Silva hits someone in the head with his sinker ball (if it’s A-Rod, he may be promoted and given an award for shutting the guy up)

15:1- Ponson’s visa expires before the season ends

12:1- Ponson falls off the wagon and punches a cop while joyriding with Koren Robinson and Eddie “Hardwood” Griffin

10:1- Ortiz and Silva go 1-2 in home runs given up in the AL

5:1- Kevin Slowey has an ERA lower than 1.50 when he gets called up to the majors

3:1- Santana repeats as Cy young winner (its got to be a fluke if he loses)

2:1- Silva and Ortiz are gone by the ALL-STAR break (hello backup shortstop)

1:1- Bonser, Silva and Ponson get into an all out brawl over the last doughnut in the clubhouse (Dennys Reyes sits back chomping on said doughnut and laughing his ass of while Bonser puts the old guys in a double headlock)