Twins Notes

1 Dec

also available at www.SethSpeaks.net –

The Winter Meetings will be starting next week, but that doesn’t stop transactions from happening. Friend of SethSpeaks, Chris Coste has signed with the New York Mets. (Hat tip to Parker from Over The Baggy) Although it’s not a major league contract, he has been promised a spot on the 40 man roster.

  • Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote an article asking what could have been if Joe Mauer was a Cub. In other words, what would have happened if the Twins had drafted Mark Prior instead of Mauer in 2001. Well, great article in theory, but I believe that if the Twins had taken Prior, the Cubs would have taken Georgia Tech 3B Mark Teixeira. I do believe that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays would have taken Mauer with the #3 pick instead of RHP Dewon Brazelton. \
  • Andrew Kneeland is working on his Top 15 Twins prospects for The Bleacher Report. Here are his choices for #15, #14 and #13. And here is his choice for the Twins #12 Prospect. Hot off the presses, here is his choice for #11.
  • Twinkie Baseball just finished up its Top 50 Twins Prospects list by selecting Miguel Jean as the team’s #1 prospect.
  • Danny Valencia told me that he is heading to Puerto Rico on December 10th to play Winter Ball for almost a month. The team seems to feel it is necessary for him to go to winter ball to compete in the spring. I’m not certain that I agree, but it is extra at bats. In her mailbag posting yesterday, Kelly Thesier wrote, “The organization believes that Danny Valencia will be the team’s future third baseman, but, right now, the feeling is that he still needs a little more time to develop at Triple-A Rochester.” It is good to read that first sentence.
  • Lisa Winston of mlb.com always does a terrific job on minor league projects. Here is her update on the Twins minor league system.
  • Jesse Spector of the NY Daily News blogged yesterday about TBS firing Chip Carey, speaking of his horrible call on a Nick Punto line out to left field. He used the instance to show all of the players in the decade who have has sub-.300 slugging percentages with 400 or more plate appearances. Punto is one of three players to have done it twice. But he also says that Punto made up for it in another way. What was it? Check out the article here.
  • Is Minnesota going to be able to keep Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau? Unlikely – Peter Gammons.
  • Is Minnesota going to be able to keep Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau? Of course. Absolutely. No question. – Seth. Who are you going to believe?
  • Non-Story of the Day – Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports writes that Joe Mauer has set a deadline for signing an extension. Like every other free-agent-to-be, the deadline is Opening Day 2010. But that isn’t news. Everyone says that. It means nothing. Nobody wants to negotiate during the season. It will likely be done by late January, in my opinion. I may be weird, and I may be proven wrong, but I believe the odds of Joe Mauer being with the Twins on Opening Day 2011 are about 99.95%
  • OK, bigger non-story of the day – Joe Mauer signed on with IMG to represent him and “support his off-field business.”  That last phrase is the big thing. It’s just off-field stuff. He may be in some more commercials and other endorsements. Good for him. I think it’s great that he’ll likely get a lot more national exposure. Now, if he was switching representation for on-field business, meaning going away from Ron Shapiro as his agent, I would be much more concerned.

That’s it for today. The plan is to have a SethSpeaks.net Weekly Minnesota Twins podcast tonight at 9:00, so be sure to check back about that. Anything else going on with the Twins that you would like to discuss? If so, Send me an e-mail, or leave your Comments here.

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