Long gone are the days of playoffs for the Minnesota Twins who fell victim to some bad pitching and bad luck. But after years of frustrating the fans the Twins were proactive in trades that appear to be an attempt to improve this team while it waits for the horde of prospects they acquired in the "hack and slash firesale of 2010". The Twins gm said his team is not done yet so expect this to change between now and Spring Training.
The lineup remains almost the same as it ended the season last year with the one exception being Piniella returns to man LF and Jose Morales takes over for the departed Michael Young.
Projected starting lineup
1) Josh Anderson CF 2.5 stars
2) Cristian Guzman SS 2.5 stars
3) Brian Hastings 3b 2.0 stars
4) Randall Simon 1b 2.0 stars
5) Michael Parker RF 2.0 stars
6) Casey Kotchman DH 1.5 stars
7) Juan Pineilla LF
8) Jose Morales 2b 1.5 stars
9) Rob Bowen C 2.5 stars
Projected Bench
Javier Hernandez C 2.0 stars
Angelo Fremin 2b/SS 1.0 stars
Matt Moses SS 2.5 spect probably the backup to start the year.
Matthew Rehkop OF 2.5 stars my #4 of.
Projected Staff
1) Kyle Snyder 3.0 stars 11-16 3.17 ERA (with Zona), if he repeats that his record should easily get better.
2) Joseph Akridge 4.0 spect 1-2 6.48 ERA, acquired in the Johnson deal should be much better.
3) Dewon Brazelton 2.0 star 12-11 4.61 ERA (with Boston)
4) Denny Stark 1.0 star 6-7 4.39 ERA will probably be the first sent to the pen but right now in the rotation because there is no one else.
5) Robert Hall 1.0 star Giving the aging vet a chance to see if he has one more good run in him.
Middle Relief
1 Byeong An 2.0 stars
2 John Harris 2.5 stars 1-0 1 sv in 13 appearances
3 Jae-Kuk Ryu 1.0 star
4 Jose Valdez 2.5 stars
Setup
1 By Commitee
2
Closing
Noah Lowry 4.0 stars
more wins than last year is the realistic goal for this team but it is still a couple years off from being serious contenders. Looking forward to everything.