A New Era

So, Brad Johnson seemingly has been taken out for good. It's too bad to see him go out like this, given that he rescued the team last year and I thought he would at least take the Vikings to the playoffs. But Tarvaris Jackson showed skills that Johnson doesn't have. In the 4th quarter, he was back to pass and got hit, yet he still got the pass off as he was being dragged down and Mwelde Moore got about a 20 yard reception out of it. And later on a 3rd and 10, the pocket opened up and Jackson was able to scramble for the first down, whereas Johnson would have had to check down or throw it away. I'm sure there will be some growing pains, but hopefully Tarvaris Jackson can be like Daunte Culpepper, only with a few more brain cells.

Rediculous

This is maybe the biggest mess in the history of the BCS, except for the year Nebraska made it into the title game. Just because Florida is 12-1 and won the SEC doesn't mean they're the second best team in the country. Sure Florida had to get through the SEC, but they struggled to some ugly wins. They only beat Tennessee 21-20, and beat Vanderbilt by 6 (Vanderbilt has reportedly called Michigan the better team-Vandy was their only common opponent), and South Carolina by 1. Not to mention, their loss, by 10 to Auburn, was much worse than Michigan's loss. Michigan lost only by three to the #1 team in the country. I wonder if Michigan had won would people give Ohio St. a shot at a rematch, or would they say that they "had already had their chance"? And this isn't a round robin tournament, the object of the BCS is to match the two best teams, which it clearly didn't do this year.

It must be because he's Canadian

Ok Ok, I know that Joe Mauer probably was more deserving of the MVP than Justin Morneau, his defense at a premium position blah blah blah, but from the uproar everywhere from bloggers to ESPN, you'd think that Jason Tyner got handed the MVP. Personally I'd give it to Santana, because he means more to his team than anybody in the entire world, but I'm fine with Morneau getting it. Kudos to you Justin, I hope you rub it in everybody's face.

I'm a Liar

Ok, I realize this is a baseball, and more specifically, a Twins blog, but I felt the need to comment on todays Ohio State 42-39 victory over Michigan. While this wasn't a classic as many people-including todays announcing trio of Brent Musberger, Kirk Herbstreit, and Bob Davie- said; there were too many dumb penalties, turnovers, and of course, zero defense. But there is no doubt that the two best teams in the nation played today. So in my mind if USC doesn't run the table, Michigan deserves a rematch.

Postseason Awards

This has been a very good awards season for the Twins, too bad the real season couldn't have ended with more. However, the future is looking very good for the Twins. With Mauer and Morneau winning Silver Sluggers, Hunter winning his Gold Glove (or Rawlings Gold Glove if your name is Bert Blyleven). Also Santana winning his second Cy Young. Also, the MVP should go to Morneau next week. Will it? Probably not, because the national media makes Derek Jeter out to be the Messiah. Granted, Jeter is a very good player and I would take him on my team in a split second. Justin Morneau was the guy who made this Twins team go. Notice in the first two months of the season, Morneau was batting about .065 with 1 HR and the Twins had 20 wins. Since June Morneau was amazing and so went the Twins season. Jeter however had five other all stars who could carry the load when he felt like going with 0-4. Who did Morneau have to help carry the load? Joe "GIDP" Mauer, Torii "Two Hopper" Hunter, and Michael Cuddyer who can't hit anything other than fastballs down the can. That all being said the future looks very bright for the Twins with Mauer and Morneau winning awards. Now if they can find another pitcher.

Cy-Tana

Yawn. Another year, another Cy Young for Johan Santana. This SHOULD be his third in a row, but somehow he got robbed last year by the writers. Fact is, whether talking about stats or just pure stuff, Santana is the best pitcher in baseball, although on The Hot List on ESPNEWS yesterday, Joe Mauer said that Liriano had better stuff. So, as will be a recurring theme on this blog, 2008 should be a fun year.

Hot Stove

Congrats to the St. Louis Cardinals on being the AAAA champs, um..what? they won the World Series? oh..my bad. Well in that case congrats to the Cardinals on being the worst World Series champion ever. Now that I have made fun of the National League, it's time to tie up some loose ends before the Hot Stove preview.
-Francisco Liriano. The second coming, as you all know by now, has had some disheartening news lately. Tommy John surgery it is. I don't think that this is necessarily the worst case scenario, nor is it that bad of an idea. A lot of pitchers have come back from TJ, and stronger. So hopefully Liriano will be the latest in this trend. A much worse idea would definitely be to keep rehabbing and throwing him and trying to get him to come back without surgery. Do the names Mark Prior and Kerry Wood ring a bell? In any event, I think the Twins motto for next year will go something like "Can't wait till '08."
-2006 Season Review. With the way the season ended, it's tough to write a sunny review for 2006. The Twins' sweep at the hands of the A's was probably the most unlikely way the season could have ended. It's too bad that they went from playing such great baseball, to playing about as badly as they had the whole season. That having been said, 2006 was one of the most memorable seasons in recent history. If in May you had told me that the Twins would make the playoffs, I would have called you crazy. However, the twins rattled off one of the most impressive stretches in baseball history, and became the first team ever to have their first division lead on the last day of the season. So while the end wasn't great, the ride sure was.
-Torii Hunter. The Twins picked up Hunter's option for $12 Million immediately after the season. This brings to mind two possible scenarios to me. Either the Twins want more time to negotiate a long term deal to keep Hunter for the opening of the new stadium (more likely). Or, they want more time to negotiate with teams for trades (more intelligent). Who knows, maybe the Giants are in the market for a Centerfielder and Terry Ryan figures he can fleece them again. If I were Ryan, I would be on the phone with Theo Epstein as much as possible. The Coco Crisp experiment didn't go as well as they'd hoped. The Sox have a promising AA centerfielder name Jacoby Ellsbury. He's probably too close to the majors for the Sox to part with, but when presented with Hunter, maybe they would. In any event, it will be interesting to see who all Ryan can get for Hunter.