Early last week, before all the hubbub about the Winter Meetings, Terry Ryan sat down for a conference call with Twins Season Ticket Holders.  K-Bro has all the details.

And in a complete turnaround, Joe Mauer took some time out of his busy winter conditioning schedule to sit down with the media, discuss his injury plagued 2011 season and what lies ahead for him in the years ahead.  Knuckleballs’ Jim Crikket writes that it is a step in the right direction.

So who is Pedro Florimon Jr.?  The Tenth Inning Stretch has all the info you’ll need about the young Dominican.

The Rookie of the Year award receives all of the press and excitement associated with a trophy awarded by the Baseball Writers Association of America.  The Sophomore of the Year award, long defunct,  is relegated to The Platoon Advantage, for now.  The Common Man has done the research for you, including turning up a SOY award winner among Cooperstown’s newest inductees.

Earlier this week Tim McCarver was awarded the Ford C. Frick award for broadcasting excellence.  Luckily he’s been a pretty solid broadcaster throughout his career, because he certainly isn’t winning any awards for his counting.

Over at FanGraphs Josh Goldman examines the role of September Call-Ups and how they impact the end of the MLB season, including pennant races.  Not something that your normally think about, because if your team is out of it, you don’t mind seeing Minor Leaguers come up and get a shot, and if you’re competing against them to race into a playoff spot, you usually don’t mind seeing a few innings from a Minor League reliever.

It was announced earlier this morning that the New York Yankees had won the posting for Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima.  The only problem is that the Yankees don’t really have room for Nakajima.  If he turns out to be anything like Tsuyoshi Nishioka, that won’t be a problem.

This video of a baseball prank isn’t winning the Video of the Week award, but it almost did.  NotGraphs with more baseball prank video gold! (This video of astronaut baseball isn’t the video of the week either, but it’s still pretty neat.)  (more…)

Supposedly Manuel is worried about Hamels’s recent struggles in the playoffs, whereas Pedro pitched reasonably well. That analysis is foolish. Cole Hamels is basically the same pitcher he was last year when he was named World Series MVP. His 2009 and 2008 FIPs are equal, but his BABIP rose from (an admittedly lucky) .270 in 2008 to .325 in 2009. He is allowing roughly the same amount of homers, while striking out more per 9 and walking less per 9.

Martinez, on the other hand, just doesn’t have it anymore. According to Fangraphs, he had a meager 29.5 GB rate. In Yankee stadium facing the likes of Mark Teixeira, who can use that right field porch, and A-Rod, who can hit it out of anywhere, this is a recipe for disaster.

Hamels has been better than Pedro in every facet of the game this year. Sure, Pedro has turned in some historic performances against the Yankees and if this were 1999 instead of 2009 he’d be the slam dunk right choice. Hopefully for all baseball fans’ sake he still has one more night of magic in that right arm.