Thursday Links - Position Players Report Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Position players are reporting today, at least the last two that have not yet made an appearance, anyways.  Twins fans should get their first spring glimpse of Justin Morneau and Oswaldo Arcia.  When Morneau does arrive, he’ll have to deal with more than just his past concussions.  Other than those two, the other 64 invitees to big league camp have already shown their faces in Ft. Myers.  Additionally, many of the Twins’ Minor League players are in Ft. Myers getting some early work in before their camp begins next week.

The Twins are working hard, and so are Twins bloggers.  Here are the links that stood out from the past week:

One of the areas the Twins and hitting coach Joe Vavra will be working on this spring is helping players be more comfortable hitting at Target Field and understanding that hitters can do more than just pull the ball down the lines to hit home runs.  Parker Hageman has all the details at Over the Baggy.

Joe Posnanski has a couple of interesting stories this week over at SI.com.  The first, is about the magic of 3,000 hits and what it means about the hitters and the Hall of Fame voters.  It looks closely at Johnny Damon, who will need to find a home in 2012 and 2013 if he hopes to reach that milestone.  The second really speaks to the way that baseball drives conversations and friendly arguments between fans.

La Velle E Neal III has a list of seven players to keep an eye on during spring training.  Among the seven are Morneau and Francisco Liriano, both of whom need to bounce back from subpar 2011 seasons.  Having a successful spring will go along way towards dictating their success in the season ahead.

Yahoo’s Big League Stew is throwing out some lists of the 10 best things about being a fan of XYZ baseball team.  Minnesota’s own Lindsay Guentzel counts down the 10 best things about being a Twins fan.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  I like to think of this as Tsuyoshi Nishioka looking in on real Major League Baseball players, wondering why he cannot get in.

Terry Ryan projected a $100 million dollar payroll for the Twins this season, and it appears they’re right on the mark.

Twinkie Town has posted the transcript from a great interview with Twins Assistant GM Rob Anthony.  What a great way to gear up for Spring Training.

Andrew Walterthinks Jim Souhan is a hack.  They might both have a point.

The new MLB CBA seems like old news by this time, but in case you have not fully wrapped your head around all the details, Granny Baseball looks at what it means for the Twins in the 2012 draft.

Vegas thinks the Twins will win 74 games in 2012.  I think they will probably win more than that, but I am not sure they will win more than 80.

I have been planning to write a 2012 Projection for Nick Blackburn for about a week now.  The North Dakota Twins Fan beat me to it.

The Rockies have given Jim Tracy an indefinite contract?  Maybe.  But Rob Neyer thinks that a couple hundred losses could send Tracy packing.

The Twins do not have a shortstop.  They had one briefly in 2010 in J.J. Hardy, but he was not healthy enough to impress anyone in the Twins front offices and he was sent packing in a move that says more about the Twins than Hardy.

Intentions are funny things.  And you must never intend to let Sam Fuld pitch.  So shall it is written, so shall it be done.

It turns out that the MLB Network is not great, at least as far as networks go.  Not only is it the lowest rated sports network, it is the lowest rated network of any kind!

Video of the Week: La Velle E. Neal III talks with Terry Ryan about scheduling B games during Spring Training and finding spots for their 33 pitchers to work.

This is not baseball related, but it was too interesting not to include this week.  Behavioral Scientists have found a way to predict not only the likelihood of a particular shopper being pregnant, but also to predict her due date based upon the products she buys.   Maybe this is not cutting edge stuff, but it if researchers can track us this closely at the register, imagine what kind of stuff their digging up based on our online profiles.

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Nobody was really sure what to expect when the Twins inked Jim Thome to a one-year, $1.5 million deal in the offseason. He had a good 2009 for the White Sox, batting .249/.372/.493, but was awful after being dealt to the Dodgers at the trade deadline, batting .235/.235/.235 in 17 plate appearances as a pinch-hitter. Even though the price was certainly right, it didn’t really look like Thome would be a good fit for the Twins. He’s a left-handed bat in a lineup stocked with good left-handed hitters, and he can’t hit left-handed pitching at all anymore (he slugged just .421 against southpaws last year). He’s in his twilight years, he can’t play in the field, and his performance as a pinch-hitter (which was Bill Smith’s reasoning behind the signing) was disappointing. Between Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer, the Twins already had enough decent hitters who really shouldn’t play in the field. Far from being washed up, however, Jim Thome has actually been one of the best hitters on the team this season, and one of the best free agent bargains of the offseason. (more…)

Fangraphs

The Twins are now in first place by a game and a half after taking 2 of 3 from the Detroit squadron. And now that it’s July, hopefully the bandwagon Twins fans will turn their attention to football, and leave the rest of us to just enjoy our team and the rest of the season in peace. Seriously, people, baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. Even the very best team in the sport will lose at least 50 games. The Twins will probably lose 75 and still win the division.

Best hitter: Justin Morneau, .203 WPA. The Mountie hit the longest home run at Target Field thus far, a 441-ft moon shot off of Andy Oliver in the sixth.

Worst hitter: Jim Thome, -.118 WPA. I love Jimmers, but he probably shouldn’t start against left-handed pitching.

Best pitcher: Kevin Slowey, .241 WPA. Slowey surrendered just one run on four hits in six innings, while striking out four and walking just one. He was rolling along until the boss jinxed him*, now he’s day-to-day with an ankle contusion after being struck with a line-drive off the bat of Magglio Ordonez.

Worst pitcher: Matt Guerrier, .003 WPA. Mayor McCheese made things interesting in the eighth, giving up a double to Gerald Laird and a single to Ramon Santiago, but got Austin Jackson to strike out looking, and then Jose Mijares got Johnny Damon to foul out and end the inning.

Most important play of the game:

Morneau’s double off of Oliver in the fourth, which scored the tying run and got the Twins right back in the game (.142 WPA).

*Kidding!  Please don’t fire me.