Minnesota Twins offseason almost over

Good Morning Readers, We got an ice storm in the middle of the night making Valentine's day 2006 a slippery one in the Twin Cities. Well with the Minnesota Wild and the NHL off for two weeks and the falling of the Minnesota Timberwolves lets look at the upcoming season of the Minnesota Twins.

The Minnesota Twins enter the season underdogs a position the Twins haven't been in for 3 years. The Twins have the weapons to be a deadly team in the 2006 season. The Twins return the number 2 pitching staff in MLB with the exception of Joe Mays who only won a few games and had stamina and control problems at the end of the 2005 season. With Joe Mays gone look for young Scott Baker to take his spot in the rotation. Scott Baker is a younger version of Brad Radke in my mind with soild control and a decent fastball. The other youngster that could make a play for the fifth position is Fransico Lirano who is a top 10 prospect with a 100 mph fastball and Johan Santana changeup. Look for both Baker and Lirano to fight for that last spot in the Twins mighty rotation.

The Twins batting order on the other hand was at the bottom of the MLB list in the 2006 season. Our infielder was awful with gaps at both second and third base. Terry Ryan Twins GM knew this team needed players to fill those holes. He picked up Luis Castillo a .300 hitter with one of MLB best on base percentage and he has a few gold gloves to go with that batting average. The Twins needed a leader on the field and in the club house and Luis Castillo can be that guy. At thirdbase Terry Ryan went to Japan to pickup Tony Batista a homerun power third baseman who can drive in runs. He doesn't have the batting average numbers or the gold gloves but has the power that can score runs for Twins pitchers to get wins. With Castillo and Batista in the infielder look for Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer have bigger years with experienced players helping them out. The only member of the infielder that is a question mark is Jason Barlett a high power hitter who had fielder problems last year and somehow got on Gardy's dark list. But he rebounded in Rochester and I think this is the year he rebounds.

In the Outfielder we lost free-swinger Jacque Jones to the Cubs. He has always been a favorite of mine and will be replaced with either Michael Cuddyer, Lew Ford, and Jason Kubel to mind right field. I think what is going to happen is Michael Cuddyer is going to get the position with Lew Ford taking a utilty oufielder role to spell Hunter, Stewart, and Cuddyer on off days. Jason Kubel needs a good showing in training camp to make this team and I think he is going to start off in Rochester. Another spot Terry Ryan needed to improve is the teams designated hitter and he picked up a power hitting right-handed Rondell White who has put up big numbers until he usually gets hurt. The logic behind this is White usually gets hurt in the outfielder and with White not needed in the outfield he will make a great DH in my mind.

On the Bench we will have the best bench player of the 2005 season Mike Redmond as backup catcher. Nick Punto and Juan Castro as infielder utility help, and my thinking is maybe only one is going to make the team. Lew Ford is going to be our utility outfielder option, with Ruben Sierra, Jason Pridle, Luis Rodriguez, or Glenn Williams in the last spot. The Bullpen is going to very interesting Joe Nathan is the closer, with Juan Rincon and Jesse Crain setup men. I can see Matt Guerrier as a long type of reliever and then J.D Durbin, Willie Erye, and Boof Bonser in the other long reliever role. The other spot is for a left handed reliever and it's going to be a fight between Dave Gassner, Darrell May, Gabe White, and Dennys Reyes.

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