In Episode 31, Paul, Eric, and Cody get together to discuss Twins news leading up to Opening Day, the Twins 25-man roster, and they make their MLB predictions for each division, for the World Series, and for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year.  Cody does a great job in his first full show on Talk to Contact, and while his segways are initially weak, he gets stronger as the episode goes along.  Along the way we’re joined by Bryan Craves, the Displaced Tigers Fan, to talk about Opening Day, Justin Verlander, and what might happen in the Twins’ first series of the year.  Brace yourself for more than 130 minutes of awesome.

If you enjoy our podcast, please take a couple extra minutes and rate and review us on iTunes (ratings and reviews have magical iTunes powers, which help Wilkin Ramirez get playing time).

You can follow Eric on Twitter (@ERolfPleiss) or read his writing at the  Knuckleballs Blog.
You can follow Cody on Twitter (@NoDakTwinsFan) or read his writing at NoDakTwinsFan.
Once again thank you to Egon’s Unicat for letting us use their music on the podcast.

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Check out the Talk to Contact Podcast (@TalkToContact) or email the show: talktocontact@gmail.com

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This man will decide the Opening Day lineup. Gary A. Vasquez-US PRESSWIRE

Even though Spring Training has not yet started, we can pretty much guess what the Twins’ Opening Day lineup will be. In fact, we do not even need to guess. As reported by the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand, Ron Gardenhire tentatively announced the lineup while in Iowa on Monday.

1. Denard Span, CF
2. Jamey Carroll, SS
3. Joe Mauer, C
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Josh Willingham, RF
6. Ryan Doumit, DH
7. Danny Valencia, 3B
8. Alexi Casilla, 2B
9. Ben Revere, LF

Looks reasonable to me. You can argue about how good this lineup is compared to the rest of the American League, but given the players on the Twins roster, it’s a pretty logical choice. Span and Carroll are good on-base guys at the top. Mauer, Morneau, and Willingham form a competent middle of the order. And Casilla and Revere can provide some bottom-of-the-order Piranha Power.

Furthermore, there don’t figure to be any hard-fought position battles. So we might as well not even bother with Spring Training, right?

Well, maybe not. Even though this lineup looks very likely to come true, there is a laundry list of possibilities that could change it. Some are major long-shots, while others are more plausible. Such as:

Morneau could be the DH. The man suffered a concussion by diving for a line drive last August. He goes into Spring Training as the starting first baseman, but the Twins are not stupid enough to stick him out on the diamond if they are not 100% convinced that he can handle the physical rigors of the job. If he can’t, look for Doumit or darkhorse Chris Parmelee to take over at first.

Willingham may play left field or DH. Left field has been Willingham’s primary position for years, but if you look at his defensive stats you might get the feeling that DH is his best position. Parmelee can play right field, and so can Joe Benson if Willingham doesn’t work out.

Sean Burroughs could unseat Valencia as the third baseman. I had to mention this even though there’s less than a 5% chance of it actually happening. Burroughs once had superstar potential, so it’s possible he’ll put on a hitting display in Florida. And he does know how to handle a glove. Also, as I noted last month, he was in the movie Terminator 2. That has very little to do with his baseball abilities, but he should get extra points for it anyway.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka could unseat Casilla as the second baseman. This sounds even less likely that the Burroughs situation, but hey, anything is possible. Casilla has never proven he deserves a starting job, despite having opportunities to do so every season since 2008. Nishioka is almost certainly better than the player we saw in 2011; whether he’s good enough to play in the Majors is still an open question.

Brian Dozier could unseat Casilla as the second baseman. If any infielder other than Morneau were to be replaced, this is the scenario I’d bet on. It’s still a long-shot, of course, because Dozier probably needs at least a few months at AAA to prove his hitting line last year wasn’t an aberration.

Trevor Plouffe could platoon with Revere in left. We explored this idea a couple months ago. There is absolutely no evidence that Ron Gardenhire is actually considering this approach, but it makes sense. If the Twins went this route and the Orioles trotted out a lefty on Opening Day, Plouffe would be the starter. The O’s rotation is about as ugly as the Twins were last year, so their Opening Day starter looks like a crapshoot to me. But Zach Britton pitched as well as any Bird hurler in 2011, and he’s a lefty.

Someone could get hurt. This is by far the most likely scenario. Injuries are a normal part of the game. At least five of the players in the lineup above can be considered injury-prone, so it’s well within the realm of possibility that an otherwise Rochester-bound player could earn an emergency promotion.

Last season the Twins broke camp without a single player on the Disabled List, but the season soon descended into a Purgatory of pain. If the Twins are superstitious at all (and baseball players are all superstitious – it’s a known fact), they should make sure to have at least one player on the Disabled List when they face the O’s on April 6^th – even if they have to Tonya Harding somebody.

(I hope I didn’t inadvertently give any ideas to the Twins’ bench players)

The Twins and their ace Carl Pavano got blown out in their Opening Day bout with the Blue Jays

TORONTO — Don’t hand the Twins the AL Central Title just yet, the kinks made themselves visible Friday on Opening Day for the Twins.

The Twins ace, the man who is supposed to be the rock in the Twins rotation, got mauled in the first inning for four runs. Carl Pavano only lasted 4 innings and ended up allowing 8 runs, 7 of which were earned. But the beatdown didn’t end there.

The Twins basically got out hit, out pitched out everythinged.

Minnesota batters mustered up just 8 hits and 3 runs to the Jays hitters who pounded the Twins meek pitching staff for 12 hits and 13 runs. Blue Jay’s pitcher Rickey Romano silenced Twins bats ending his first night of the year in impressive fashion boasting an ERA of just 1.42 and fanning 7 Twins batters.

Speaking of Twins batters, Justin Morneau made his return to the lineup and his performance was merely worthy of a footnote on the highlight reels. Morneau was silent in his first game back since sustaining a concussion in Toronto nearly 9 months ago going 0-4 on the night.

“Spring training was about how I felt. Hopefully we’re past that and now it just matters if we win or lose,” Morneau said.

But the bats weren’t the only thing to fault in the loss, the pitching of the Twins really let the club down. After Pavano went just 4 innings, the Twins cycled through a pitcher an inning with inning long appearances by Jeff Manship, Glenn Perkins, Kevin Slowey, and Dusty Hughes respectively.

The best nights of relief were had by Perkins and Slowey, two guys who have starting pitching potential. Both didn’t allow a run and allowed only one hit each. That about summed up the bright spots of the Twins Opening Day bout. The home runs were very present just on the wrong side of the ball for Twins fans. The Jays cranked 4 homers Friday. It was the J.P. Arencibia show with the Jays young budding superstar going 3-4 with 2 homers and 5 RBI.

Stats the Twins wish they could have come close to matching.

“We didn’t follow the plan very well pitching,” Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. “They swing the bats and if you keep throwing the ball out over the plate they’re going to kill you. We didn’t do a very good job of that tonight. We didn’t play good defense. (more…)