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.