Archive for November, 2010

via Ken Rosenthal, Carl Pavano is turning down arbitration and will be a free agent. Probably a smart move for him considering that he is the second best free agent pitcher on the market, and is likely to get a pretty big deal. I’m horrible at predicting what kind of contracts players will get, especially pitchers, but it looks like Pavano is in like for around a 3 year, 30 million dollar deal. Some Twins fans/bloggers are expressing happiness that Pavano isn’t accepting arbitration, saying they don’t want to pay him 11 million next year. Is this correct? Let’s take [...]

The Twins have agreed to terms with Dominican shortstop Javier Pimentel, 17, for $575,000. MLBTR had Pimentel in the fringe of the Top 10 Dominicans available in this year’s July 2nd window, and Baseball America had him in the top 35 of Latin American prospects available overall, though they say that their rankings are not a straight ranking, but rather a gauge of the market. A semi-mock draft if you will. Pimentel is tall and wiry, and should fill out his frame. Whether he will stick at shortstop is anyone’s guess as of right now, but it sounds like he [...]

Brian Mohr of the Fort Myers Miracle Examiner has an interesting interview with relief pitcher and moustache aficionado Anthony Slama (part 1 here, part 2 here). Slama’s major league numbers weren’t terribly impressive: a 7.71 ERA, 6.94 FIP, and 1.00 K/BB in just 4.2 innings. He had a very good strikeout rate (9.64 K/9), but, unfortunately, a sky-high walk rate (9.64 BB/9, coincidence? probably) as well. I’m not sure what to think about Slama; he’s always had a very high strikeout rate, but his walk rate has ballooned at every level in the minor leagues. It’s one of the reasons [...]

Yep, there is a poll at the bottom of this post. I will leave it open for a week, then post the results. Please vote early and often once.

Just a reminder: you can participate in the Site5 and Fansided Holiday Season Charity Drive by clicking the link here. It’s for the Boys and Girls Club of America, so it’s not like your money is going to the Human Fund or something. I had so much fun doing research for the AL Cy Young post that I decided to do a similar post for the AL MVP. I’m not going to break down the 2010 ballot though because, for the most part, the voters actually got it right. I think Shin-Soo Choo (5.6 fWAR, 8th in the league) should [...]

Not to poop all over Erin’s excellent post below, but Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks after all, and as such FanSided has partnered with Site5 to donate to the Boys and Girls Club of America. Site5 has done a great job with our webhosting and now they are going one step further, helping FanSided with our goal of donating $5,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of America. We’re about 10% of the way now, and anything you can give will be more than appreciated. Here is the link if you would like to donate. Again big thanks [...]

As reported by Joe Christensen, the Twins won the rights to negotiate a contract with Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka. They now have a window of 30 days to strike a deal, but they can reclaim their posting fee (an estimated $5.3 million) if no agreement is reached. Nishioka is the current Japanese Pacific League batting champ, and is known mostly for his speed and ability to make contact. If they do sign the 26 year old, they will likely spend something in the neighborhood of $5 million per season over 3 or 4 years (or, even better, Fangraphs seems to [...]

Felix Hernandez won the AL Cy Young award despite winning only 13 games, and deservedly so. He lead the league in nearly every pitching stat, traditional and advanced, but thanks to a collection of arsonists in the bullpen and the Mariners’ historically bad offense, King Felix was stuck with 9 no decisions and 7 losses in starts where he allowed three runs or less. The Cy Young award voters should be commended for getting it right; it would have been much easier to simply give the award to the guy who won the most games. This year was particularly tough [...]

As reported by Joe Christensen yesterday, the Twins offered arbitration to three free agents and declined to offer arbitration to Matt Guerrier, Brian Fuentes, and Jon Rauch.  I’ve covered this subject in my post on the free agent class so I”m not going to go into much detail here, except to say that the Twins did the smart thing and offered arbitration to the players least likely to accept (and fetch draft picks in the process).  Probably the only real surprise is that they offered arbitration to Orlando Hudson.  Hudson had a clause in his contract that the could not [...]

The Atlanta Braves were the big winners of the Dan Uggla sweepstakes, snagging the All-Star second baseman for the low, low price of Omar Infante and Mike Dunn. It doesn’t sound like Uggla was ever on the Twins’ radar, which is a shame because, with a hole at second base and a need for right-handed power, Uggla would have been a perfect fit. And though Uggla is a liability in the field, having J.J. Hardy and Justin Morneau (hopefully) on either side of the infield would make up for some of his lack of range. It appears the front office [...]