Sammy D straight cheesin’ the Puerto Ricans in WBC championship.

So Perk plus Sam and maybe a double secret probation pick equals a (small) list of arms you can entrust to round out that fantasy roster with local product. When you’re assembling that squad you know you want that Twin in there, so read on playa.

Glen Perkins (15th Round / $5)
Joe Nathan was funk nasty last season for the Rangers (64 IP, 2.80 ERA, 78 K, 37 saves). We have to get over it. It was especially hard for me to take considering we are boys and all (below right). Matt Capps did little to ease the pain, but much to my surprise, once he finally collapsed, Glen Perkins stepped-in to close and did a phenomenal job.

Joe and I kickin’ it in Bmore (we are not actually boys).

Perkins converted 16 of 20 save opportunities and finished with an ERA of 2.56 78 K in 70 innings. He showed great command in walking only 16 batters and his Post-All Star WHIP was 0.58. Fully entrenched as Gardy’s go-to in the 9th, there’s no reason to doubt Glen can save 30 games for an improving Twins team that will hopefully present more chances in 2013. He is a safe bet as a mid-tier closer and is a slam dunk value-add to your fantasy team.

Samuel Deduno (Last Round / $1)
In the República Dominicana, baseball is more than a game, it’s a way of life. Every day, children go to school for four hours in the morning and then it’s baseball for the rest of the day. In Puerto Rico, the sport is of equal importance, so for the players in that WBC championship, the only bigger stage is the World Series. For Deduno to perform like that and bring the title to the DR, making the Mama Juana flow like my wife and I were back for another honeymoon – well needless to say, I’m impressed.

Sam started 15 games for Minnesota last year, and like a Jim Morrison trip to the desert, there were highs and there were lows. For one three-game stretch in late summer he only surrendered four earned runs over 20 innings while nearly averaging a strikeout per frame. Yes, he had his blow-ups here and there, but I chalk that up to inexperience. Before 2012 he had only appeared in six games, so there’s lots of room for improvement. Although most of his work this spring has come in the WBC, Deduno’s curve and change-up have batters off-balance, and I’m ready to bet his effectiveness carries into this season.

Scott Diamond (Last Round / $1)

There was no cooling Diamond in the 1st half of 2012. Mandatory Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Things are looking up though for young Scott. He recently made his spring debut in a Class A game and said everything went smoothly. He’s slated to open the season on the 15-day DL but is on track to make his season debut April 12 versus the Mets at Target Field. He won’t factor much in strikeouts, but if Diamond doesn’t suffer any setbacks and can return to form, he could be a sneaky source of 13-15 wins.

Of course, you could let him hit the waiver wire and risk another owner snatching him up, but you are a real Twins fan, so you wouldn’t do that. Would you? Well I would, but I’m eagle-eying him in the early weeks like the sex offender down the street. Keep on keepin’ on, Scotty.

Scott Diamond keeps on making starts. That might not be such a good thing at this point. Photo by Kevin Jairaj-US PRESSWIRE

Scott Diamond started Tuesday night, and it was not pretty. He managed to escape six innings with only four runs allowed – thanks to the fact that he was pitching against the Royals – but he allowed 10 hits and a season-high three walks. Given that Diamond has now pitched 181 innings between AAA and the Twins, almost 20 more innings than his previous career high, one has to assume that he is tiring out as the season progresses. The Twins have obviously seen enough of Diamond this season to know that he is one of their rotation options next season, so they don’t have a whole lot to gain from giving him too many more starts. It might be time to shut him down for the season.

After watching Samuel Deduno silence the Indians for five plus innings on Monday night, I have come to the conclusion that he’s the most likely of all the current Twins pitchers to throw a no-hitter. Deduno has proven capable of long stretches where he is completely unhittable. Given his generosity with walks, he’ll never come close to a perfect game. But there’s a tiny chance he could string together 9 hitless innings at some point. Of course, there’s a flip side to this as well; when he’s not on, he can be awful. Deduno is probably also the Twins starter most likely to give up 10 runs in the first two innings, and on this pitching staff, that’s saying something!

The Twins ostensibly refused to call up Oswaldo Arcia for September because they feared he would take valuable at bats away from young players like Ben Revere and Chris Parmelee. I complained last week that it was not the strongest reasoning, because Arcia could still be useful as a DH or outfielder to give veterans like Joe Mauer or Josh Willingham a breather. This week I feel vindicated. Mauer was held out of the lineup with back spasms, setting off a chain reaction in the lineup that resulted in Trevor Plouffe occupying the DH slot. That would have been a great opportunity to let Arcia take a few at bats. Parmelee has also missed a couple games due to soreness, thus providing even more opportunity for Arcia. Not only that, but according to that Strib post, Parmelee is due to take some time off very soon to be with his wife, who is due to give birth any day. I’m not sure how much the Twins know about human biology, but if someone had bothered to tell them that women tend to go into labor after 9 months of pregnancy, they might have anticipated this absence and called Arcia up. He could have gotten into at least three or four games without taking away a single at bat from Parmelee.

I will probably be bitter about the Arcia situation all offseason, if you’re wondering.

Deduno dedevastated the Seattle lineup last night. Photo by Jesse Johnson-US PRESSWIRE

Samuel Deduno pitched incredibly well last night. He dealt seven spectacular innings against the Mariners en route to a 10-0 Twins victory. It was exactly the kind of starting pitching effort that the Twins have cried out for all year long. Unlike a typical Twins’ start, Deduno’s did not result in a large number of runs being scored or an even higher number of hits. In fact, Deduno allowed a grand total of zero runs, and only two Mariners recorded hits. He also struck out nine batters and, even more surprisingly, walked none. We’ve seen flashes of brilliant “stuff” from Deduno before, but this is the first time that his fluttery fastball and evil curveball have actually produced swings and misses on a regular basis.

With his sixth quality start out of 10, Deduno has officially proven that he deserves at least a shot to compete for a rotation spot next year. That said, we shouldn’t get too excited; he was, after all, facing the Mariners. Yes, the M’s have been playing well lately, but they are still a truly terrible hitting club. It’ll be interesting to see if Deduno can follow this start up with another good one.

In other news, Twins owner Jim Pohlad gave an interview to ESPN 1500 last week, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s worth doing so. Pohlad addressed quite a few big picture issues, including how he plans to keep the Twins out of a permanent spiral of losing and his desire to keep Terry Ryan around. But the most interesting tidbit as far as I’m concerned is his comment about manager Ron Gardenhire’s future. When asked if Gardenhire’s job is in jeopardy:

“Pohlad said he “can’t foresee” a managerial change at this particular moment, but he also acknowledged he couldn’t foresee Smith losing his job at this time last year.”

If you take him at his word, it sounds positive for Gardenhire, but I think it’s actually a pretty tepid defense of the Twins’ manager. For one thing, general managers and owners almost never say right out that they plan to fire their manager during the season (for good reason; it would create an awful distraction, and the manager would have very little incentive to want to manage the rest of the season). For another thing, his phrasing was quite vague, and comparing Gardenhire’s situation to Smith’s is ominous at best. As I noted last week, I think a managerial change would be good for this club. Replacing Gardenhire probably would not have the slightest effect on the team’s win-loss record, but it would signal a desire for change, and it could give fans a much needed incentive to buy tickets.

On the lighter side, I invite you to take a look at Nick Blackburn‘s Wikipedia page. Most of it is standard Wikipedia stuff, and pretty accurate. You get a quick description of his early life and college pitching, and a season-by-season summary of Blackburn’s career with the Twins. And then there’s the last section of the page, which talks about Blackburn’s pitching style. That’s where I found this gem that nearly made me spit out my coffee:

“When pitching at his best, he can locate all five of his pitches for strikes, which can make him nearly unhittable”

Nearly unhittable? You really have to wonder if the person who wrote that has ever seen Blackburn pitch. Either that, or none of us have seen Blackburn’s best before, which makes me a little sad. I’m sorry we missed out on the unhittable Blackburn all these years. As it is, Blackburn’s best year in MLB was 2009, when he posted a respectable 4.03 ERA and won 11 games. He was a perfectly serviceable starter, but still completely hittable, allowing an AL-high 240 hits. Blackburn at his best got a ton of groundball outs and a few timely double plays, but even then his style led to a fair number of hits.

If any of you reading this have some extra time on your hands, you should try to see what other completely made-up Twins-related information you can get past the Wikipedia folks. Perhaps someone can add a blurb about Drew Butera‘s quest for the AL Batting Title or former Twin Delmon Young‘s charity work to support religious tolerance.