As Twins fans we have a lot to be thankful for, like Terry Ryan, Target Field, and a $100 million dollar payroll.  Personally, I’m thankful that I am an actual Twin, even  if I never play for the Minnesota Twins I’ll always be connected to them because everyone knows all Twins have a special connection (and super secret Twin powers).

Before you chow down on turkey and position yourself on the couch for that tryptophan and football induced nap, take time to be thankful for another great week of Twins related links.

Bill over at The Platoon Advantage hates the new playoff format.  I tend to agree, I think that 162 games is more than enough to sort out the winners and the losers, throwing more teams into the post season just allows teams like the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals to steal a World Series from more deserving teams.

Do you like mustaches and eye brows?  I didn’t like them before reading Dustin Parkes’ Double Booked, but once I saw them together I had to change my mind.

The new Toronto Blue Jays logo that was leaked earlier this offseason is real.   This review, over at Flip Flop Fly Ballin’ acknowledges that even a great new logo has room for lots of improvement.

Matt Klaassen over at FanGraphs proposed a new rule regarding the number of pickoff attempts allowed during any particular at bat, a rule designed to help shorten MLB games.  I like this rule, not because it shortens games, but because I think it could lead to more excitement.  Who wants shorter games?  I want as much baseball as I can get!

DJ Skillz (who may or may not be a talented disc jockey) writes that the Twins already have a potential ace on their 25 man roster, they just forgot about him after a lackluster 2011 season.  (more…)

Tomorrow the Twins host the Kansas City Royals for a quick two game series and seeing how the Royals are my “other” favorite team, I have a rooting interest on both sides of the aisle. In most of these matchups I root with a little more energy and vigor for the Twins, since they are generally playing for more than the Royals are. Heading into the season I thought that would be the case, even for this early April series and yet it’s Minnesota that is sitting in the basement and not Kansas City. I don’t think either of those things will last but I’ve clearly been wrong many times before.

The Twins, of course, are also the team that I grew up with. You can take the boy out of the state of Minnesota, but you can never take the Minnesota state of mind out of the boy … or something like that.

Stepping up to help me out with the Royals side of this series is my good friend Michael Engel. If you are not aware, he is the Senior Editor of Kings of Kauffman and my hand-picked successor on that site over a year ago.

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