Thursday Links

Thanks for tuning in to another edition of the Thursday Links.  Not a lot happened this week in terms of actual Twins news.   Most of the front office executives were surely sleeping off a Turkey hangover and prepping themselves for the upcoming Winter Meetings.  But they did manage to hire Gene Glynn to manage their Triple-A team. Twins bloggers, on the other hand, have been hard at week, cranking out some great content.  Let’s take some time to wind our way through some of the best articles of the past week.

Peanuts from Heaven had some fun last week and handed out their Most Valuable Peanut award to Michael Cuddyer.  To celebrate, they followed Michael Cuddyers’ baseball card around for a few days and photographed him in some pretty interesting places, like a bowl of green curry.

To much less fanfare than Patrick Reusse, Twins Trivia awarded their own Turkey of the Year award.  Their award winner was Joe Mauer, which seems like an obvious choice, but Twins Trivia looks past the surface and presents a pretty convincing case for Joe Mauer.

A week later there has been a more thorough analysis of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Association.  Drew Fairservice from Getting Blanked examines how the CBA affects Super 2 players going forward.  Twinkie Town’s Jon Marthaler tackles the CBA from a fictional perspective to find 15 Little-Known Provisions, including the Super 2 status, “All players who are eligible for “Super 2″ arbitration status will have the option of wearing a cape in the field.”  FanGraphs does a great job analyzing the impact that the new CBA will have on player salaries, and argues that increased playoff revenues will drive up player salaries.  Hard to argue with author Matt Swartz’s point of view, but just how big that impact will be is yet to be seen.  

Over at Knuckleballs, Jim Crikket thinks that the Minnesota Twins can learn from the Minnesota Golden Gophers’ challenges, and rely on more than just increased revenues from Target Field when planning their future.

Drinking wine often seems far removed from the Americana of baseball games, but Joe Posnanski connects the dots between the two and offers up some of baseballs best Vintages.

Ask my friends and they will tell you that I’m a sucker for a great pun.  Edward Thoma and Baseball Outsider are on my same wavelength as they examine “Salary Capps“.  Thoma also continues with his evaluation of the Bill Smith Era, this week he tackles the Young-Garza trade, and the trade involving Johan Santana.  Thoma was definitely killing it out there this week, his take on Brian Duensing‘s struggles in 2010 is also a must read.  What a great week for the Baseball Outsider!

Pete Rose bet on baseball.  That much we know.  What we don’t know is what Bud Selig could or should do with him, and whether or not he’ll ever get his spot in Cooperstown.  The great Rob Neyer has an idea for Mr. Commissioner, and I think it is definitely worth some additional thought.

How well do you know Major League Baseball players?  I always thought that I well pretty knowledgeable about these guys, especially the ones that play for the Minnesota Twins.  Turns out I was wrong.  Test your baseball player IQ over at Beyond the Boxscore with the Real MLB First Names Quiz.

The Bleacher Report thinks that Nick Punto should be one of the top 15 targets for the Minnesota Twins this offseason.  I think they’re crazy, but check out the rest of the list and make your own decisions.

David Schoenfield has a great pieces over at SweetSpot in which he projects the future for Los Angeles Angels’ first baseman Mark Trumbo.  I don’t know what Trumbo will do in the next several years, but if he stays healthy, I think he has an opportunity to be one of the top five first basement in the American League.

The Tenth Inning Stretch came up with some pretty neat lists this week, ranking the best Twins player to ever wear a particular number, and the best Twins player by letter.  As you might imagine, several players like Kirby Puckett and Rod Carew, make both lists.

Do you love mustaches and long hair?  Carson Cistulli does too, and NotGraph readers everywhere should thank him.

This past week Adam Krueger from The Bat Shatters came up with a list of things the Twins DO have, which is better than the list of things the Twins DO NOT have.  You have to love the optimisim over at The Bat Shatters!  Adam also took some time this week to remember Brad Radke as he enters his first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame, not that he’ll ever make it.

Over at The Platoon Advantage Bill and The Common Man are also spending the week being positive and writing about the things they love about baseball.  On Tuesday the Common Man wrote about why he loves Twitter, and how it makes baseball MORE awesome.  Great job, TCM, great job.

Seth Stohs is dissecting the Twins Hall of Fame Ballot that was released earlier this week.  Chuck Knoblauch is at the top of Stohs’ list for Twins that should be enshrined in 2012, and I’m inclined to agree.

FanGraphs picked up on some of the Twins’ Minor League free agent signings, including Wilkin Ramirez, Daryl Thompson, and Samuel Deduno.

Steve Adams at Twinkie Town wonders if the Twins should trade a starter.  The most likely scenario is that the Twins move Kevin Slowey rather than tender him a contract and take whatever they can get in return, but Adams wonders if they’ll still have enough pitching depth if that subtract a potential starting arm.

I love food.  I love baseball.  I love when the two are combined into a humorous bistro menu.

Some guys have amazing perspective, Jim Kaat is one of those guys.

Fanatic Jack is back on Blog Talk Radio and his guests last night were Jim Crikket and Andrew Bryz-Gornia.  Despite Jack’s reputation as a “jackanope” (Thanks Common Man), this podcast is worth a listen as they discuss team payroll, free agents, and the upcoming MLB Winter Meetings.

If you’re looking for more podcasts, check out Gleeman and the Geek’s latest podcast including discussion on Matt Capps, Gene Glynn and other listener questions.

Nick Nelson looks back at the 2004 MLB Amateur Player Draft and the last time the Twins had multiple first round draft selections and assess the results as the Twins look forward to 2012 and another potential haul of first round picks.

Which will happen first, Joe Mauer will return to All-Star Status, or hell will freeze over?  Bleacher Report thinks there are at least 10 reasons Joe Mauer will be back on top, but just in case hell freezes over first, here is a neat little article about choosing the perfect survival knife.

This week’s Video of the Week (a new feature I’m trying out) comes from NotGraphs and it is basically a tutorial on how to prank a baseball prankster.

That’s it for this week, thanks for joining us at Puckett’s Pond!

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