Twins Update
January 9, 2009 • written by John Miller
Yawn…It has been a boring winter for Twins fans, with the team not making any moves that make a difference so far. The biggest move they have made is signing shortstop Nick Punto to a two year contract worth 8.5 million dollars. If you ask me they way over paid for a shortstop who has a career batting average of .252 with 11 Homeruns and 140 RBI’s is a total of 611 games. Sure, Punto is a great fielder, but it doesn’t outweigh how bad his hitting is.
It has been said that the Twins have been shopping Left Fielder Delmon Young for either a third baseman or a middle reliever. I have to ask why. Why on earth would the Twins trade a guy that had a .290 batting average with 10 Homeruns and 69 RBI’s, when he is only 23 years old? Especially when they gave up a young, promising pitcher, who pitched great in the World Series, named Matt Garza for him. Why give up on him now? Manager Ron Gardenhire has said he thinks the three outfield spots should go to Michael Cuddyer, Denard Span, and Carlos Gomez, leaving out Delmon Young.
I say, trade Cuddyer; he is making too much money, after signing a 3 year 24 million dollar contract last year, all he did was under perform. Spending most of last season on the DL, he only played 71 games. In those 71 games he played he had a batting average of .249, 3 Homeruns and 39 RBI’s. Tell me, with those stats who would you rather have? I think I would go with the young promising outfielder, who has yet to tap into his potential and has maybe, the best arm in the league, than a guy who has been injury prone his whole career, and was only good for that one year. Sure he has a great arm, but I would take Young any day. Maybe, you could move Cuddyer to third base? He has played it before. He has played all over the infield, especially when the Twins did not get very much production out of their third baseman last year.
Other than that, there is really no other news to report for the Twins. Their starting Pitching Rotation is set with Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, and Glen Perkins, who, may I say, all pitched very well last year. Also, not one of those pitchers is over the age of 27. The only pitching the Twins need is in their bullpen. They lost pitchers Eddie Guardado and Dennys Reyes to free agency. Even though they had a young man named Jose Mijares come in and help their bullpen in September last year, nobody knows yet if he is for real or not. Also, in other bullpen news, the Twins lost pitcher and Minnesotan Pat Neshek for another year after he had to undergo Tommy-John surgery.
The Twins payroll, if it stays the way it is right now, will be less than last year at 56 millions dollars. After giving The Twins a new stadium last year, the Twins said that they would spend more money, but we have yet to see anything. That is just how the Twins are, they are a cheap team, who we really don’t expect anything out of, but, when they do well, we love them, and we always will love them. There’s just something about them. Imagine if they spent a little bit more money…The things they could do…
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