....at home, let's discuss the Twins 40 man

The Twins are 5 1/2 games out with 19 games to go. While larger leads have been made up this late such as the Phillies making up 7 games with 17 to go in 2007, The Twins aren't going to the playoffs. The Twins have a big off season ahead. They have a mess waiting for them on the 40 man roster. Trading Pino and Mulvey has helped but there are a lot of decisions to make.


The locks:

Pitchers
Scott Baker
Brian Duensing
Nick Blackburn

Matt Guerrier

Francisco Liriano
Jeff Manship
Jose Mijares
Joe Nathan
Pat Neshek
Jon Rauch
Kevin Slowey
Anthony Swarzak
Alex Burnett
Deolis Guerra
Rob Delaney
Jesse Crain
Armando Gabino

Catchers:
Joe Mauer

Wilson Ramos

Jose Morales

Infielders:

Justin Morneau

Brendan Harris

Steven Tolleson

Trevor Plouffe

Danny Valencia

Alexi Casilla

Outfielders:
Michael Cuddyer

Carlos Gomez

Denard Span

Designated Hitters:

Jason Kubel

This leaves the team with 30 of 40 and a lot of decisions to make.

Moves I would make:

I'd re-sign Carl Pavano to a 1 or 2 year deal at decent money and some incentives, say 1 year 4 million plus incentives.(if he becomes a type 2 free agent I'd offer arbitration, he either takes that or the team gets a sandwich pick)
I'd dangle Boof Bonser if anyone would offer anything decent for him I'd pull the trigger, otherwise I'd keep him, at least through spring training.
I'd trade Glen Perkins.... the team has soured on him as he has with them. Might be looked better upon by other teams.
I'd trade Delmon Young and make Carlos Gomez the every day CF. If blown away by an offer for Micheal Cuddyer or Gomez and change the thoughts.

Assuming Pavano and Bonser stay makes 32.

Players to remove from the roster:

Drop Bobby Keppel.
Drop Drew Butera from 40 man, good Defense doesn't offset no bat.
Drop Brian Buscher from 40 man, no bat no defense.
Drop Matt Tolbert from 40 man.
Drop Jason Pridie from 40 man.
Drop Deibinson Romero from 40 man.
Let Orlando Cabrera go.
Offer Mike Redmond a job with the organization or shake his hand and let him go.
Cut or trade Nick Punto for whatever you can get, even eating salary.
I'd love to resign Joe Crede in case Valencia is not ready, but given injuries, Boras, and all the players the Twins need to try to get on the 40 man, he has to be let go.

Other Players to consider for 8 spots:
I'd add Rene Tosoni for outfield depth
I'd consider Ron Mahay for another year?
I'd Resign 1 of Justin Huber, Brock Peterson, and Eric Lis put on 40 man
Keep or Drop Luke Hughes from the 40 man?
Add Brian Dinkleman?
Add Loek Van Mil?
Add Juan Morillo or lose him?

Do the Twins need room for any other free agent signings?

There are many more that the Twins need to add or risk losing to Rule 5 or Rule 5 Minor League draft including the following:

Rene Leveret
Alexander Soto
Allan De San Miguel
Santos Arias
Ramon Acosta
Matt Fox
Kyle Waldrop
Whit Robbins
Ramon Santana
Steve Singleton
Juan Portes
Brandon Roberts

As you can see there is a mess waiting for the Twins. Do they not move their players through the system quick enough? Are many of these players average at best? Packaging some of these players in 2 for 1 trades would help as well.

Let me know what you think? Did I miss anyone? Did I miss something regarding the eligible players.

On the road...... OK, at home

Shawn

On the road with.... The Minnesota Gophers

Well, the Minnesota Gophers open their new outdoor stadium next Saturday..... so where did I see them? In a dome of course. Minnesota came to the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University Saturday to take on the Syracuse Orange. As with any opening game, there was a lot of excitement and uncertainty going into a new season. The Gophers are coming off a 7-6 season where they lost their last 6. A good start against an assumed inferior team would be just what the doctor ordered. Syracuse, 3-9 in the previous year, has a new coach as well as a new QB. Prodigal son Greg Paulus, fresh off a four year stint as a Duke point guard, returns to make his first start as a college QB.

There was a large push in the area to sell tickets, and it worked, selling 48,617 for this game. A very big crowd for Syracuse and a very Orange crowd. The Minnesota contingent was around 25 sprinkled throughout the stadium. A new on campus facility is much more of a draw than a road game in an un-air conditioned dome.

The Gophers started fast. Syracuse first snap sailed over Paulus's head. This led to a TD on a Duane Bennett 16 yard run. The Cuse kicked a field goal and then Minnesota scored again on a Troy Stoudermire 7 yard reception from Adam Weber.

....then the wheels fell off. Syracuse started running plays in the spread offense and the Gophers defense showed it was just as deficient against the spread as they were in 2008. Syracuse racked up 3 drives of 6, 8, and 8 plays for a TD, FG, and a TD and 164 yards. Minnesota's offense went quiet for the remainder of the first half. With 1:39 to go starting at their own 17 the offense ended in a thud when Tim Brewster essentially decided to run out the clock and go into the locker room down 20-14.

Whatever the defensive coaches said at the half must have worked as the D only gave up 38 yards the rest of the day. Unfortunetly, Adam Weber was still having problems throwing the ball. Weber, a 3 year starter at QB, should have come into the game with a lot of confidence. The offense returns almost every starter and he still had Eric Decker, an All American type wide receiver, to sling the ball to. I don't know if it was the crowd noise(It was quite loud at times causing some false starts) or rust but Weber was off most of the day. Through 3 quarters Weber was 9-24 1 TD and 1 INT.

Beginning the 4th quarter down 17-20 Weber started to come alive, hitting a long pass to Decker, before fumbling the ball away as the offense kept shooting itself in the foot. The feeling from a severly jaded Orange fanbase however,(who have had it much worse than the Gophers the last few years) was that it was only a matter of time before they'd blow it.

With 3:48 the Gophers got the ball on their own 12. Due or die time. The offense stepped up, marching the ball down the field. Weber looked great. He went 5-6 for 62 yards on the drive getting down to 3rd and 4 on the Syracuse 9 with just over a minute to go. At this point Tim Brewster calls a timeout. Brewster has shown that he is a decent recruiter and can he can talk a really good game but his timeout management needs some serious improvement. In the first half, he blew through 2 timeouts right away. Then he challanged a tough to call spot of the ball and lost his last timeout early in the second quarter. Now he is calls a timeout in field goal range. He saves Syracuse clock time score. Anyway, the 3rd and 4 pass was incomplete. Eric Ellested hits the 26 yard field goal and the game is tied 20-20. Fortunetly the Orange take a play out of Brewster's playbook and run out the clock.

Overtime came, MN won the toss and elected defense. The entire dome assumed the worst and Syracuse delivered. Paulus threw the ball right to Nathan Triplett in the end zone putting an unfortunate cap to a decent homecoming. He went 19-31 with 167 yards and a TD and that costly interception. He looked poised and polished most of the game and he has a chance to deliver Syracuse a good season on the gridiron, before he joins Jim Boeheim's bench as a grad assistant during basketball season. The Gophers, knowing they only needed a field goal to win on their position ran 3 times for 7 yards and sealed the comeback with an Ellested 35 yard FG.

It was enjoyable seeing the Gophers in action, albeit in a hot dome as opposed to a brand new outdoor stadium. The Syracuse fans were great to myself and my son. Eric Decker had a great game with 9 catches and 183 yards. He was rarely double covered and Weber should use him more if he is single covered in the future. Hopefully Weber can improve on his performance, the defense can carry this performance over against tougher opponents, and Brewster can improve his in-game management. These things happen and Minnesota could surprise some teams this year.

Shawn, On the road....in Syracuse

On the road with..... a first entry

I did it. I am blogging. This will be the first of i hope many entries. I will dispense with a few pleasantries. My name is Shawn Berg and I am a Minnesota native living in upstate New York. The purpose of this blog is to share mostly MN Twins content. I will however post about other Minnesota sports as well as sports in general, music, outdoors, wine and beer, and anything else that tickles my fancy. Hopefully, If you have led yourself here you will check back from time to time as I hope to have regular posts and regular readers. I will post my thoughts of attending University of Minnesota at Syracuse tomorrow. For now I leave you with a guest post I wrote on the tenth inning stretch @ http://tenthinningstretch.blogspot.com/2009/08/guest-post-new-britain-comes-to.html . I encourage you to check out the tenth inning stretch as well, it is filled with well researched Twins content(much more researched than you will find here :)). I look forward to writing, hopefully you look forward to reading.





Shawn