Drew Butera, on his knees, begging to be your Baseball Boyfriend. Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE

The most discouraging news this past week  was not even the Twins’ inability to sign a starting pitcher to replace Nick Blackburn.  It was the release of the Baseball Boyfriend app, a mini-fantasy baseball game designed partnered with CBSSports.com, and I’m completely guessing here, to create interest in fantasy baseball from women.  ”If he stays past noon,” BaseballBoyfriend.com says, “he’s your BBBF for the night.”  Unsurprisingly there has been a lot of backlash since the app was announced on Tuesday afternoon.  I cannot believe this game made it past the idea phase, and even more surprised that CBS Sports signed off on the partnership.  ”Bring your girlfriends and BFFs together for a fun baseball season this summer.”  No thanks.

On with the links, boyfriend or not:

If I had a baseball boyfriend I would want it to be Dustin Parkes.  Parkes neither plays baseball, nor is my boyfriend, unfortunately, but he did do an excellent job explaining some of the intricacies of BABIP, and how there is more than just dumb luck at play when BABIPs fluctuate up and down.

Beyond he Boxscore continues to take a visual look at the Window to Win for different Major League teams.  Last week they posted the Twins’ infographic, which detailed the contract lengths of the Twins’ 40 man roster members as well as some key prospects and minor leaguers.

As part of the 2012 Projections series here on Puckett’s Pond I’ve been evaluating the Twins’ 2012 projected starters using an increasingly common MLB stat, Wins Above Replacement, WAR.  The Platoon Advantage’s Mark Smith takes WAR to a whole new level, and finds a way to use WAR in Everyday Life.  Today, my sack lunch is worth about 1 WARL (WAR Lunch).  (more…)

We will start off with what might be the oddest link of the week.  Apparently not everyone is busy this offseason, especially not Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer, who built some excitement into the offseason by Live-Blogging ‘For Love of the Game”. This isn’t the weirdest thing on the internet, but it might make a top 10 list.

If you’re like me, you understand the idea behind many of baseball’s advanced statistics, but you just can’t wrap your head around exactly what they mean.  Especially when the stats involve SIERA, which is an acronym for Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average.  SIERA is similar to FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) but is slightly more accurate.  For all the details on SIERA, check out Alex Remington’s recent post on the Big League Stew.

There was a lot of chatter about the Jason Kubel signing not making a lot of sense for the Arizona Diamondbacks.  I have to be honest, I didn’t bother looking in to a lot of it because the Diamondbacks are in the National League and at the time I was a little disappointed the Twins didn’t pony up the cash to keep the talented left-handed right fielder/designated hitter.  But I digress, here is a Graphic Look at Why Kubel by David Fung.

When the Twins signed Jason Marquis to a one year, $3 million dollar contract I didn’t know a lot about him.  Sure, I referenced his baseball-reference page and looked him up on Fangraphs, but I really had no feeling for who the guy was.  Luckily, The Tenth Inning Stretch has Seven Little Known Facts on the newest Twin to bring me up to speed on Marquis. My favorite is number 2, Marquis owns a higher career batting average and OPS than Drew Butera.  Who says pitchers can’t hit?

Neck Nelson examines the Marquis signing as if it were a trade involving Kevin Slowey, and Nelson isn’t sure that moving Slowey was best for this ballclub.

Betsy Bissen, over at For the Love of the Game, is thrilled about the Marquis signing because it gives Mario (Carl Pavano) a Luigi (Marquis).

I have a new Blog-Crush on Twins Trivia.  John Swol does an excellent job tracking down interesting pieces of Twins history and bringing them back to the forefront.  This week he looks back at some old newspaper clips about the Twins dating back to the 1980′s.

A year ago Twins fans were buzzing with excitement as the signing of Tsuyoshi Nishioka was announced.  Could this Japanese Batting Champion bring his skills across the ocean and become the short stop the Twins organization has been lacking for the better part of the last decade?  Well, a year later, the answer to that question is a definitive NO.  Twins Fan From Afar, Andrew, is still feeling the pain.

In a recent blog post, Andrew Bryz-Gornia  attempts to understand the concept of Pitch to Contact.  I have no idea what to make of pitch charts and how they make sense to anyone, but Bryz-Gornia weaves them into an article that is both informative and while it doesn’t necessarily make pitching to contact any more palatable, it at least brings the idea into context.

Edward Thoma is still dissecting the Bill Smith era.  Thoma is leaving no rock unturned and this week looks into the J J Hardy- Carlos Gomez trade.  The trade hasn’t worked out great for either team, but Gomez is still prowling center field for the Brewers, while Hardy has taken his talents to Baltimore and resumed slugging the ball like he did early in his career.  (Thoma is a writing machine because he also wrote a solid piece on platooning Ben Revere and Trevor Plouffe in left field next season, a platoon I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing.)

Fanatic Jack has the inside scoop on Minnesota Twins number selections and changes for the 2012 season, including Jamey Carroll, Ryan Doumit, Josh Willingham, Jason Marquis and Danny Valencia‘s numbers for the upcoming season.

I have to admit it, I’ll link to just about any article about Kirby Puckett.  I mean really, the guy is easily my favorite Minnesota Twin of all time. Collin Kottke, a correspondent for Bleacher Report, lists the 15 Biggest Fan Favorites in Twins History, a list made for Kirby. Most surprising selection? Jack Morris.

With 2011 winding to a close, Seth Stohs looks back and lists his top Twins Moments of 2011.  Babels Love Baseball have a list of their own, the Most Memorable Stories in MLB from 2011.

Pitching, and pitching well seem to be two different things, but as Josh Weinstock reports at Fangraphs, the difference between the best in the league and everyone else isn’t as great as we’d all like to think, at least when it comes to command.

The North Dakota Twins Fan thinks that the Twins scheduled starting 9, and their lack of a true power hitter (unless Morneau returns to his pre-concussion form) could actually play pretty well at spacious Target Field.  After two full years playing in Target Field the Twins’ Front Office has a better idea of how the ballpark plays (albeit just a 162 game sample size) and the additions of Carroll, Willingham, and Doumit demonstrate their intent to fill the roster with players who will benefit from playing half of their games in Minneapolis.

Jeff Bagwell failed to make it into Cooperstown in his first opportunity.  A large number of voters voiced their reluctance to vote for Bagwell because of his suspected PED use.  Eric Augenbraun believes that not voting for Bagwell because of steroid use is “shameful because there are literally 16 better reasons not to vote Jeff Bagwell into the Hall of Fame.”  I couldn’t agree more, especially if Nicholas Cage IS his favorite actor.

Speaking of PEDs, here is The Common Man’s take on players who played with PED users, and their prevalence INSIDE the Hall of Fame.

Twinkie Town’s Brandon Warne had an opportunity to talk with Minnesota Twins’ hitting coach, Joe Vavra, at the end of the 2011 season.  Vavra is clearly an expert in breaking down Major League hitters and he has a way of explaining it so that even a little leaguer could pick up a few pointers.

Decreasing payroll by more than 10% and increasing gate receipts at Target Field?  That seems to be plan for 2012.

This one has nothing to do with baseball, but it is worth including because it showcases beards.  And not just any beards, but QUILTED beards.  Click through for the full glory of man-made beards.

With news that the Vikings stadium deal may be nearing completion, this week’s Video of the Week is the Vikings Stadium Shuffle, courtesy of the Official Birthday Boys.
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Previous articles in the series: 1965, 1969, 1970, 1987, 1991, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008

Fresh off a disappointing end to the 2008 campaign, the 2009 Twins had something to prove. The team that had dominated the AL Central for nearly an entire decade was in danger of missing the playoffs for a third straight season.

The world economy also slumped in 2009. In the United States, unemployment skyrocketed over 10%. The country got a bit of a morale boost, though, when Navy snipers rescued an American sea captain from Somali pirates in April. The Twins also did well against Pirates that year – they took two out of three from Pittsburgh in an interleague series. In 2009 the world tuned in as the first African American U.S. president was inaugurated, and the nation was briefly captivated by a boy in a runaway balloon. But pop star Michael Jackson arguably grabbed the most media attention of anyone. When the troubled singer died in June, a firestorm of non-stop coverage erupted in tabloids and on television.  

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