5 Reasons the Vikings Can Beat the Packers

As you may already know, there's a big game on Sunday.  The Vikings host the hated Packers with about as much on the line as possible.  A Vikings win (likely) means a return trip to Lambeau next week for the second playoff match up in this rivalry's history.  A Vikings loss (likely) means going home for the winter and hoping that this season wasn't a mirage that will end up setting the franchise back by creating a false sense of security.  For quarterback Christian Ponder, a strong performance could mark the beginning of something big, but another weak effort could mark the beginning of the end of his career as a Viking.  For head coach Leslie Frazier, a win gives him his first playoff appearance and vindicates his tenure to a certain extent.  A loss would make Frazier a coach headed into the final year of his contract without a playoff birth to indicate progress.  The stakes are high all around, making this one of the most anticipated regular season games in recent Vikings history.

Now, there are a lot of reasons to assume Green Bay will win this game.  They have won the last 5 meetings between these two teams, including a 23-14 come-from-behind victory at Lambeau earlier this season.  Aaron Rodgers is playing like an MVP candidate again, closing in on 4000 yards and already having 35 TD's through the air this season.  They are relatively healthy, as they expect to get Jordy Nelson and Alex Green back on offense this week.  Randall Cobb is unlikely to play, and Charles Woodson is still out, but overall, the health of this team is solid.  Rodgers has played consistently well at the Metrodome (and on turf, in general) and seems to enjoy the fast track.  What the Vikings do well defensively (13th in the league against the run), is the opposite of what Green Bay wants to do offensively, as Green Bay is unlikely to have a single rusher top 500 yards on the season.  What the Vikings do poorly defensively (20th against the pass) plays perfectly into what Green Bay does well.  For all these reasons, Green Bay is considered the odds on favorite in this game, despite the battle taking place in Minneapolis.

However, there are a number of things that play to the Vikings favor in this match up.  There are five BIG reasons why the Vikings could very easily come out of this game victoriously.

1.  Never Bet Against Adrian Peterson!

The 2012 NFL season has served to prove that Adrian Peterson is not of this world.  A little over a year ago, Vikings fans watched in horror as AD writhed in pain on the surface of FedEx Field with what was later diagnosed as a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee.  Now, we will be watching with baited breath on Sunday to see if Adrian can get to the 208 yards rushing needed to break Eric Dickerson's 28 year old single season record.  In the previous matchup between these two teams, Adrian used a number of long runs to post a 210 yard burst in a losing effort.  This time around, you can bet he would love to post similar numbers en route to a more successful team result.  Ultimately, you bet against Adrian Peterson at your own risk.  When he promised to be back for Week 1 last spring, people scoffed.  He did it.  When he promised to come back faster and stronger than ever, people said it wasn't possible.  He did it.  When he said that he would be proven innocent in that ugly incident with Houston police last summer, we laughed.  He was right.  The lesson here is that Adrian Peterson does whatever he wants to do.  If he sets his mind to running his club into the playoffs, you're not going to want to have money riding against him.

2.  The Vikings are Hot

Three straight wins against tough opponents is enough to make any coach smile late in the season, but Leslie Frazier has to feel especially good against his team's recent effort.  Back-to-back losses to Tampa Bay and Seattle seemed to doom the Vikings playoff chances, as many viewed their final six games as a gauntlet which would not be easily cleared.  The Vikings endured consecutive losses on the road to Chicago and Green Bay to start their home stretch, leaving them at 6-6 and on the outside of the playoff race looking in.  Christian Ponder was struggling to reach 100 yards passing week in and week out.  Adrian Peterson was seeing his otherworldly efforts wasted.  Even Blair Walsh's robot leg wasn't enough to keep the Vikings competitive against the tough competition they were facing.  Then, something changed.  The Vikes used another 150+ yard effort from Peterson in tandem with an opportunistic defensive to defeat the Bears in Week 14.  A week later, they jumped out to a big early lead against St. Louis and rode another devastatingly good performance by Peterson to a two-score victory over the Rams.  In what appeared to be the toughest game in this stretch, the Vikings went into Houston in Week 16 and rolled up a very good Texans team, even as Peterson struggled to just 86 yards and no TD's.  Ponder looked competent, the defense was stifling, and Blair Walsh set the NFL record for most made FG's over 50 yards in a single season.  An easy 17 point victory was the result, and in winning, the Vikings gave themselves a win-and-in opportunity for Week 17 that made obsolete all those playoff scenarios we'd been hearing about for the previous 3 weeks.  Ultimately, Leslie Frazier has this team playing its best ball of the season, and the timing couldn't be better.

3.  The Vikings Need it More

Talent levels in the NFL aren't very disparate.  With so much ability to go around, the difference between good teams and mediocre teams is often as random as lucky bounces and clock management.  Because of the parity that exists in the league, motivation is extremely important.  Week in and week out, we see the team who "needs it more" find ways to pull out wins.  The Vikings hope this week will be no different.  While Green Bay has to view this game as important, there's no replacing the urgency of a win-or-go-home situation.  It'll be up to Green Bay to match the intensity the Vikings are sure to bring if they plan to stay in the game.  Houston couldn't do it at home last week, so the possibility exists that the Vikings can ride their emotion and adrenaline to a similarly convincing victory.

4.  The Vikings Have Played VERY Well at Home

Minnesota sits at 6-1 at home, with their lone loss coming in a Thursday nighter against Tampa Bay that saw them run out of the building.  They have defeated quality teams like San Francisco and Chicago at the Dome already this year, setting a precedent for knocking off playoff-caliber opponents in their building.  The defense has been more opportunistic at home, forcing 12 turnovers and accumulating nearly 3 sacks per game in the friendly confines.  Christian Ponder has been markedly more efficient and explosive at home as opposed to on the road.  Opponents are averaging just 18.7 PPG in the Metrodome, while the Vikes have piled up an average of 24.7 at home.  All in all, this is a very different team when under the Teflon Sky of the Metrodome.  Despite winning their last two road games, I'm sure the Vikings are extremely glad to be playing this game on their field.

5.  Special Teams, Special Teams, and Special Teams

I know special teams aren't "sexy," but they seem to find a way to determine more games than you'd think.  Minnesota has had, by many accounts, on of the best special team units in the NFL this season.  Losing Percy Harvin to an ankle injury has hurt their kick return numbers, but with rookie kicker Blair Walsh connecting on more than 90% of his FG attempts, hitting 49 touchbacks on kickoffs, and Chris Klewe having a career season (39.8 net yards per kick, 7.7 yards per return, and only 2 touchbacks), the Vikings are very strong on special teams.  Green Bay, on the other hand, has struggled.  Mason Crosby would probably have been released by now if he wasn't in the second year of a 5 year, $14.75 million contract.  While the Packers' coverage units are OK, and Tim Masthay has done a nice job punting for them, the Crosby Situation looms large over any close game this team plays at this point of the season.  If this game comes down to a late FG attempt, which team do you think feels better sending their kicker out there right now?  Even Packer fans will admit that their biggest fear is their season coming down to a 48 yarder from the left hash by Crosby.  It's not a good situation, and it offers a clear advantage for the Vikings heading into this final game of the regular season.


There's no question that each team wants to win this one.  Green Bay doesn't want to back into the playoffs and be forced to play this same Vikings team two weeks in a row.  Minnesota doesn't want to be relegated to scoreboard watching in order to find out if they've made the playoffs, and with Chicago and New York playing at noon on Sunday, it's entirely possible the Vikings will know by kickoff that they will need a win in order to advance.  With so much on the line, this game will likely turn on whether Christian Ponder can take care of the ball and whether Minnesota can prevent Green Bay from collecting big plays like bubble gum cards.  With those keys clear, the Vikings have no excuse not to be ready for this game.  My gut says they will be.



Prediction:  Vikings 31, Packers 28

Skol.

The Curious Case of Trevor Mbakwe

Famous people get in trouble all the time.  Just like the general population of people, athletes, actors, and musicians make bad decisions that cause harm to others.  In the real world, people usually have to pay for those mistakes with jail time or probation or something along those lines.  It seems that all too often for American's new aristocracy that those repercussions go by the wayside when their celebrity and influence take control.  Guys like Kobe Bryant, Michael Irvin, and Ben Roethlisberger are good examples of athletes who have allegedly committed significant crimes but have faced little to no legal consequence.  This perceived preferential treatment of our sports stars by the criminal justice system is a source of much ire among fans and has sparked a lot of debate as to whether we have created a protected class through our worship of the athletically gifted among our society.

Recently, however, this venomous public sentiment towards trouble-making athletes has started to turn the tide on how the legal system treats our stars.  Athletes have been forced to be increasingly accountable for their off-the-field, in some cases, possibly to a fault.  Michael Vick recently served a 19-month sentence for an admittedly heinous crime, but was it really any worse than when Leonard Little killed a woman after plowing through a red light while drunk (0.19 BAC) in 1998?  Little served no jail time after being convicted of manslaughter, being tagged with just four years of probation and 1000 hours of community service. (Some people would say that Little placed the toughest punishment on himself, as this article discusses his attempted suicide attempt shortly after the accident.  However, Little didn't learn his lesson enough to not repeat his mistake, as he was cited for a DWI in 2004.  Little was, however, acquitted of the charges.)  Vick was a guy who no one felt sorry for, and the judge who laid down his sentence made an example of him.  No one was going to do what Michael Vick had done without knowing what the repercussions would be.  Some people said it wasn't enough of a punishment; some said it was too strong.  My opinion (as a legal mind) is that had the defendant not been a professional football player, the sentence would have been much more lenient.  I think the shock of someone who makes millions upon millions of dollars running some small-peanuts dog fighting ring made the atrocious acts Vick and his henchmen committed even more horrific.  Had Vick just been another guy from Newport News, I doubt there would have been any jail time assigned to him.  That's not to say that Vick didn't deserve any punishment he got, but the level of punishment did surprise me.

Vick's conviction and punishment doesn't sit as an outlier.  The Duke lacrosse team story is an example of a prosecutor seeing an opportunity to make a name for himself and creating a charge where there was no crime.  Ben Roethlisberger's latest run in with the law may not have ended in a charge, but while explaining how there simply wasn't enough evidence against Big Ben to press charges, the Georgia prosecutor in charge of the case made sure that his name, voice, and face were in the media as much as possible.  This type of thing has been happening a lot recently, including a case that is affecting the best basketball team in the state of Minnesota, which brings me to the point of this article.  (Longest article intro ever, right?  I know, but it's my story, damn it, and I'll tell it however I want!)

Trevor Mbakwe was part of the much heralded 2009 University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball team.  Mbakwe started his collegiate career at Marquette, but transferred after just one season for reasons that remain unclear.  After one season at Miami Dade Junior College, Trevor decided to head back to Division I basketball by joining his hometown Gophers for the 2009-2010 season.  Unfortunately, Mbakwe's season ended before it even started.  In April of 2009, a young woman was assaulted outside a party that was being held by the Miami Dade basketball team.  The victim of the assault said that her attacker was a very tall black person and that she assumed he was a member of the team, so she "Googled" the basketball team and "immediately" identified Mbakwe as the assailant.  The victim later described her attacker as being 6'6", 190 lbs (Mbakwe is listed at 6'8", 250 lbs).  A six person lineup was used to help identify the attacker, which included Mbakwe, and again the victim was able to identify Trevor as the attacker.  Mbakwe's side of the story is that he was at home during the attack and that he has witnesses to corroborate his story.  The only person who can place Mbakwe at the scene is the victim.  The attack took place just before 3 am, and it is unclear whether or not the victim had been drinking during the night.

Clearly, I was not there during the attack, but this whole thing seems a little thing to me (Pardon me while I get all legal on you for a couple of paragraphs.  I may not be a lawyer, but I did graduate law school, so that's close enough for me to opine on this).  The main (possibly the only) piece of evidence the prosecution has tying Mbakwe to the crime is the eyewitness testimony of the victim.  Eyewitness testimony is obviously admissible, but the US Supreme Court case of Manson v. Brathwaite states that the court can disallow such testimony if the procedure used to get the identification is overly suggestive.  Now, I'm not sure how many athletically built 6'6"-6'9" black men live in Miami, but the concept of narrowing down the list of suspects immediately to a group of 12 men on a basketball team seems somewhat prejudicial.  This is not the fault of the police, of course, as the victim looked up the players on her own accord, but regardless of this, she independently narrowed down the pool of potential suspects in what appears to me to be an unreasonable manner.  Aside from the method used to identify Mbakwe, eyewitness identifications are inherently unreliable.  Studies show that about 50% of eyewitness ID's are erroneous, and up to 75% of wrongful convictions are a direct result to incorrect identification by witnesses.  When you combine these factors together with the possibility that the victim was under the influence of alcohol, the fact that it was in the middle of the night and that the encounter was very brief, I find it hard to believe any prosecutor would feel comfortable basing an entire case off of the victim's word.

Mbakwe, for his part, has a number of witnesses who will state that he was indeed at home during the attack.  Mbakwe's mother stated that her son came home on April 3rd, the same day as the attack, because of threats he had been receiving.  There are some phone records, as well as Facebook records, which Mbakwe's attorney claims will further his client's claims of innocence.  Obviously, being that this is an ongoing criminal proceeding (proceeding being a bit of a misnomer, as nothing has happened for months), neither side is saying much to the media about what they know.  The facts I have laid out here are pretty much all the public has to go on, but it is pretty clear to me that the case against Mbakwe is pretty thin.  I understand that criminal investigations can take quite some time, but in a situation like this, with one witness (who doubles as the victim) and one suspect, 14 months seems a bit excessive.

Mbakwe was first scheduled to go to trial last December, but his attorneys were unable to clear the date with all of Mbakwe's witnesses, so a continuance was issued until January.  Another continuance followed the first one, and then another, and then another.  Rumor has it (I stress that this is a rumor, as my source is a source of Myron Metcalf of the Star Tribune) that one reason the prosecution continues to push the court date back is because they are having trouble convincing the victim to cooperate.  Mbakwe's attorney has, in the past, expressed difficulty in getting a statement from the victim.  So let me get this straight...The prosecutions entire case appears to rest on the testimony of a reluctant victim?  This just doesn't make any sense.  Having worked in the world of prosecutorial law, I understand the reluctance on the part of the District Attorney to simply throw away a case in which a seemingly innocent young woman was bludgeoned by a random passerby, but when no case exists against the defendant, there comes a time when the prosecution needs to let things go.

Under normal circumstances, the charges against Mbakwe would represent but a lasting nuisance for the average person.  For Trevor, these ongoing criminal charges have caused him to lose an entire season of basketball.  Mbakwe was and is a player some NBA personnel believe has a future in the league, but he has missed out on important developmental time while waiting for his case to be resolved.  I obviously don't know whether Mbakwe is innocent or guilty, or whether the prosecution has some evidence that they are holding onto until trial that will prove damning for Mbakwe, but what I do know is that a young man who may have done nothing wrong whatsoever has basically lost a year of his life to this process.  My gut tells me that this case will never go to trial; that prosecutors will drop the charges before the scheduled trial.  My fear is that this is a case of an ambitious prosecutor who sees an opportunity to make a name for himself by going after a high-profile defendant and is trying anything he can to prolong this trial.  My fears are somewhat tempered by the fact that, try as I might, I cannot find a single name of a prosecutor on the case.  Mbakwe's attorney, Gregory Samms, on the other hand, has had his name plastered all over the local newspapers for months.  Regardless of the reasons, the case against Mbakwe has seemingly turned into more of a witch hunt than a criminal case.

As a Gopher fan, I hope things work out in a manner that allows Trevor to suit up for the team next winter.  Rumors have started swirling that Mbakwe is considering a transfer, possibly to Memphis (a school that has never had a problem accepting athletes with character issues).  If Mbakwe does indeed transfer, that will mean that the entire 2009 recruiting class (Mbakwe, Justin Cobbs (transferred this week), and Royce White) will be gone with only one of them having played at all.  Right now, however, Mbakwe would do well to worry less about basketball and worry more about clearing his name.  If his case really does hinge on his buddies testifying that he was with them at the time of the incident, he would be well advised to give those guys a call and get them in Miami, ASAP.  The faster this situation is resolved, the better.

Hopefully, Trevor won't become just another victim of the system.

Where Do We Go From Here?

One of my lifelong dreams has been to become General Manager of a professional sports team; specifically one of which I am a fan.  So much of what makes sports great is the ability of the fans to second guess their favorite team's decisions and play the "If I were in charge..." game, but none of us will likely ever get that chance.  One of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons, started a somewhat tongue-in-cheek internet campaign to become the Timberwolves GM a year ago.  He asked his readers to send emails to the T'wolves' brass that expressed their frustration with the direction of the club and to consider Simmons as a way to bring the experience of NBA basketball in Minnesota closer to the fans.  I sent one of those emails.  The Timberwolves brought me a lot of enjoyment during the KG years, and it was frustrating to me to see things fall apart so quickly.  Needless to say, Simmons did not get the job.  Instead, the job was given to David Kahn, who did such a great job in his previous stint as an NBA front office man that after leaving the Indiana Pacers, Kahn had to purchase a number of NBDL (basically the minor leagues for the NBA) teams just to get his foot back in the basketball door.  Between working for the Pacers and buying the D-League teams, Kahn spearheaded an (unsuccessful) effort to bring the Montreal Expos to Portland and was involved in a number of real estate endeavors.  Great credentials.  Either way, I always wondered what it would have been like if someone like Simmons had been hired.  I believe that the perspective of a well-educated fan is superior to your average executive for the simple reason that they have the best interests of their team in mind as opposed to the best interests of their career.  A fan is more likely to take a chance on something in order to improve the team.  In the case of the Timberwolves, the team is going to suck if nothing is done, so a fan would see the value in taking the risk in order to potentially improve the team.  A GM would see the same risk as a potential way to improve the team, but also as a potential poor decision that will hurt future career prospects.  Front office jobs are few and far between, so once a guy is in, he wants to stay in.  Taking big risks is dangerous because it's a more visible way to fail than just adhering to the status quo.  A fan would care nothing about that. 

Believe it or not, I have some opinions about what the Timberwolves should do this offseason.  This summer is a big one for free agents in the NBA, but the Wolves aren't really going to be players for the big names who will be available.  No high end player wants to come to Minnesota and be forgotten about.  There are too many big market teams with space under the salary cap this year for a team like the Wolves to steal a team changing type of talent.  If the Wolves are going to improve their roster, it's going to take some a lot of work, including a few risky moves.  So, just in case Wolves owner Glen Taylor visits my site, here is what I would do if I took over as the T'wolves GM right now and was given final say on draft decisions and personnel decisions.

1.  Trade Al Jefferson

Don't get me wrong, I love Big Al.  I think when Jefferson is healthy he's one of the five best low-post scorers in the NBA (Don't agree with me?  Name five better post scorers right now.  Go ahead.  I'm waiting.  You've got nothing...).  The problem is that if I had to make a choice between Al and Kevin Love, I'm taking Love.  K-Love is the type of guy who could be great on a good team.  He's a superb passer from the post, he's got a good outside game and a developing low-post game, but most important to me is that he's a worker on the boards.  It's not often that a guy comes along who has his kind of instincts for rebounding.  Love has already established himself as a top flight rebounder in the NBA, and he's still only 21 years old.  Now, one may ask the question, "But why, Brodie, must we choose between Love and Jefferson?  Why can't we just keep the two of them together on the post and ride them to success?"  Clearly, the person asking this question has not seen Love and Jefferson try to control the paint defensively together.  It's atrocious.  Neither one of them is particularly gifted athletically, and neither one seems to have much of a shot blocking instinct.  Offensively, these two go together like peanut butter and jelly, with Love playing the high post and Jefferson playing down low.  It's a thing of beauty.  Defensively, it just doesn't work.  This past season, Wolves coach Kurt Rambis was resigned to playing the two of them interchangeably as opposed to together.  They tried to pair the two of them with a more defensive-minded center (usually either the extra-crappy Ryan Hollins or the sad puppy that is Darko Milicic) in order to hide their respective defensive deficiencies.  Ultimately, this is a flawed plan.  Love and Jefferson were clearly the two best players on the team, and they just happen to play the same position.  No big deal.  It happens.  But the way I see it, there's no reason to move forward trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole when you could just trade the square peg for a round one.

Now, I know it's easy for someone like me to write that I would trade Jefferson, and that the reality of the situation is that it's difficult to get big deals like that done, but fear not, my friends...I have a trade in place.  Bill Simmons refers to himself as the "Picasso of ESPN's NBA Trade Machine."  Well, if he's Picasso, then call me Andy Warhol.  I'm just as creative, but a slightly more contemporary and accessible to the masses.  Here's the link to the trade.  It's a three team deal that involves the Wolves, Chicago, and Charlotte.  Chicago would get Big Al and a secound rounder from Charlotte.  Charlotte would get Kirk Hinrich from Chicago and Ryan Hollins from the Wolves.  The Wolves would get Joakim Noah and Chicago's 2010 #1 pick, and Boris Diaw from Charlotte.

This trade gives the Bulls the low post scorer they need to help lure LeBron out of Cleveland, it gives Charlotte the veteran PG it needs to replace Raymond Felton (who's likely to leave through free agency), and it gives the Wolves the kind of defensive-minded center that would pair well with Kevin Love.  It also gives Minnesota a big man off the bench (Diaw) and another pick with which to wheel and deal.  This is a win-win deal for all teams involved, and it is the first move I would make this offseason.

2.  Make Some Hay in the Draft

So often, when teams are left with multiple first round picks in one year, they have a tenancy to trade some of them away for future picks in order to avoid having a large number of rookies on a team in any given year.  This is not a strategy I would adopt as GM of the Timberwolves.  This season, the Wolves gave significant minutes to crappy veterans like Sasha Pavlovic and Damien Wilkins.  For a rebuilding team with young players, it is inexcusable to waste minutes on players who have no chance of being part of the team's long term plans.  With my trade of Al Jefferson, the Wolves would have four first round picks:  #2 (based on the odds), #16, #17, and #23.  The first thing I would do with these picks is package #17 and #23 to either Utah or Indiana for the #9 or #10.  With the #2 pick, I would take Evan Turner to be the true shooting guard that this team lacks.  Knowing the history of the Wolves draft day luck, however, it seems likely that the Wolves will end up with #3 or #4 in what's shaping up to be a two-player draft, but for the purposes of this exercise, I'll leave them at #2 and take Turner.  With my new pick from Utah or Indiana, I'd look for an offensive swing man who could come off the bench and prove instant scoring.  I have three guys pegged here:  Xavier Henry, James Anderson, and Wesley Johnson.  Johnson will likely be gone by #9, so he's probably out, but that still leaves me with the choice of Anderson or Henry.  Given the choice between the two, I'll take Henry.  At #17, I'd look for a project-type big man who could get some experience while he grows into a role.  Just looking at who may be available around there, Larry Sanders from Virginia Commonwealth seems like a reasonable choice.  He's an athletic 6'10" guy who has some room to get stronger, but has the potential to become a big time defensive player.  This draft is short on players with real star quality, but it's deep on guys who can be effective NBA players.  When rebuilding a team, those type of players are what you have to stockpile.  Nothing can submarine a young, growing team faster than pairing those young guys with mediocre veterans who are just there to cash a paycheck.  My theory is to go young or go home in a situation like Minnesota is in, so taking three young guys with talent and potential is a good "big picture" move.  With my two second round picks, I'd take one guy I can keep and one guy I can stash overseas.  Dexter Pittman from Texas is a guy I always thought had some potential and he would intrigue me in the middle of the second round.  I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about these middling Euro guys to tell you which one I'd pick in the second round (that's why I'd hire good scouts), but I can guarantee you he'd be tall.

3.  Show an Interest in Ricky Rubio

I read an article this winter that said that a representative from the Wolves went to Spain to watch Rubio play exactly one time this year.  Rubio and David Kahn never spoke all season, according to this report.  This is pretty inexcusable from my point of view.  The Wolves went out on a pretty big limb in drafting Ricky, given his difficult contract situation in Europe and his extreme youth, but I believed at the time (and still do) that it was a risk worth taking.  All reports coming from Europe is that Rubio matured a lot as a point guard this year in leading his team to the Euroleague Championship.  The Wolves would do well to stay on Rubio's good side, because after the 2010-11 season, Rubio has a buyout option in his contract that would make it pretty easy for him to come over to the NBA.  I like Jonny Flynn, but I feel like Rubio is more of a pure point guard than Flynn is.  Jonny could have a nice career as a bigger version of Nate Robinson, whereas Rubio's ceiling could be more along the lines of a Deron Williams-type player.  A lot of people trashed Kahn for taking Rubio without first making sure he was ready to come over here, but in the long term, it may have been for the best for Rubio to stay over there.  As an 18 year old PG, there was certainly a lot to learn for Rubio before he could become a star in the NBA.  Spain may be a better setting for him to learn those things than the US.  In his home country of Spain, Rubio doesn't have to worry about fitting into a new culture or learning a new style of basketball.  All he has to do is play ball and work on getting better.  After next season, he'll be 20 years old and have two more years of pro ball under his belt.  The Wolves will be getting a better player than the one they would have gotten this year, and isn't that what it's all about?  I would "woo" the heck out of Ricky this year and make it known to him that he is wanted in Minnesota and that good things can happen for him here.

To fill out the roster, I'd resign guys like Nathan Jawai and Ollie Pecherov to keep some continuity.  If I didn't sign a single free agent, here's what the roster would look like:

Starters
PG    Jonny Flynn
SG    Evan Turner
SF    Corey Brewer
PF    Kevin Love
C      Joakim Noah

Bench
G     Ramon Sessions
G     Xavier Henry
G     Wayne Ellington
F      Ryan Gomes
F/C  Boris Diaw

F/C  Larry Sanders
C     Dexter Pittman

Inactives
F     Nathan Jawai
F     Oleksiy Pecherov

I could go to war with that roster.  It's probably not a playoff team, but it's certainly a team that is only going to get better.  It's talented, athletic, and filled with good character guys.  Most importantly, all I had to do was make one trade of a player and one trade involving a couple of draft picks in order to put it together.  I'm convinced that this is a reasonable incarnation of the 2010-2011 Minnesota Timberwolves.  All that's left is for someone in power to read this and sign me up. 

I'm available for hire immediately.

Is the Draft Ready for Prime Time?

I love the NFL Draft.  It has been one of my favorite pseudo-sporting events for quite some time (right up there with the NBA Draft, my league’s Fantasy Football Draft, and the NHL).  Up until recently, I really enjoyed all of the information the NFL Draft allowed me to drink in.  I loved that there were hundreds of names for me to learn before the draft began.  I took pride in being able to share my educated opinion on the majority of the guys who would be taken in the seven rounds of action.  I liked that there were easy to understand numbers that aided me in forming my opinions, like 40 yard dash times to illustrate pure speed, vertical jumps to display explosiveness, and shuttle run times to determine quickness.  I liked being able to pick out sleepers from small schools or with poor measurables who were going to go two rounds later than they should and surprise all the pundits.  The simplicity of it all was what made it great.  However, that simplicity has gone out the window in recent years.  The draft has gone from being something that was tailored to the diehard fans to being packaged for the masses.  The same way nationally broadcasted sporting events infuriate me with their unsophisticated coverage, ESPN’s (the King of the Draft) coverage of the draft now panders to the lowest common denominator among their viewers while beating us over the head with their voluminous coverage.

While there are many problems with the way the draft is currently covered by the major media outlets, I believe that each issue stems from the amount of cooks in the kitchen.  For the sake of clarity, I’ll focus mainly on the coverage provided by ESPN, as they are the ones who actually televise the event.  Back in the good old days, Mel Kiper, Jr. was the be-all, end-all of draft information.  He had great sources, great incite, and great hair.  He was the total package.  For about three weeks a year, he was on TV more than David Letterman as he gave his opinions on who would be good, who would be a bust, and what player was going to be taken where.  It was the perfect amount of information.  Having Kiper, Jr. as the main voice in my ear allowed me to either agree or disagree with what was essentially the consensus opinion.  Every once in a while, Chris Mortensen would chime in from some team’s headquarters, but nothing he said really meant anything.  I have a strong belief that NFL front office executives were put on this earth to lie to us and send us in the wrong direction, so any information they gave Mort was likely a ruse.  Come draft day, the only opinion that meant anything was Mel’s.  Today, ESPN has two full time draft analyzers that do their work year round (Kiper, Jr. and the enigmatic Todd McShay), a blogger for each division in the NFL who opines on all thing NFL draft during the period from the Super Bowl until Draft Day, and an entire website (Scouts INC.) that contributes mock drafts, player projections, and copious articles.  Add that to the contributions of other ESPN football staff (John Clayton, the afore-mentioned Mortensen, Adam Schefter, ect…), and the amount of information regarding the draft that is available is simply overwhelming.  In most cases, the more information there is available on a certain topic, the better.  But when something like the NFL Draft is concerned, this couldn’t be further from the case.  There no longer exists any consensus opinion on anything.  Is Tim Tebow going to be great or a bust?  It depends on who you ask.  Is Sam Bradford the franchise quarterback that he’ll have to be in order to justify going 1^st overall on Thursday?  Sure!  Well…maybe.  Ask again later.  This has become the problem.  With so many different opinions stemming from information gained from an uncountable number of sources, the opinion regarding an individual player can changes daily.  A player can go from being slotted 10^th overall to being a borderline first round pick based solely on what some guy heard from some other guy.  That player’s ability didn’t change over the course of a few hours.  He didn’t become a worse football player.  He didn’t lose any of his desire to play the game.  Someone simply decided that his value should change.  The rub of all this is that none of this conjecture has anything to do with how the teams view the draft.  Back in the day, teams used a scouting service to give them rundowns of the prospects, but in the modern age of competitive sports, such a system really isn’t palatable any longer.  Each team has their own system and their own scouting personnel that determines how they draft and who they draft.  All this information ESPN is produces simply for the use by the fans, which means that the more often things change, the more they can write about it, and the more page views ESPN.com gets.  Which brings me to my next point:  Money is the reason for everything crappy in sports, including changes to the draft.

Tonight (Thursday), the NFL Draft begins with the first round being aired in primetime on ESPN.  On Friday, the second and third rounds will begin at 5pm CDT.  Saturday, the draft concludes with rounds 4-7.  Three days?  Really?  Three f#%&ing days?  The MLB’s Rule 4 (Amateur) Draft only takes three days, and it has 50 rounds!  Why should the seven round NFL draft take just as long?  Money, my friends…Money.  The NFL is a cash cow for networks.  It is easily the biggest sport in North America, and nobody understands sports exploitation better than ESPN.  If there’s a dollar to be made, The Worldwide Leader will make it.  This is the same network that once tricked Baltimore Orioles’ third baseman Miguel Tejada into coming in for an interview to answer some “baseball questions,” only to throw a birth certificate in his face that suggested Miguel was a couple of years older than he was representing.  You stay classy, ESPN.  The draft moving to primetime is just another way to make a buck.  People will watch tonight.  Lots of people.  People will watch tomorrow night.  Lots of people.  Advertisers will pay big bucks for spots during the early picks.  Chris Berman will reference bands and actors from the 60’s that no one under the age of 35 has ever heard of (I’m not sure if those obscure references get any money for being mentioned…I’ll look into it).  The drama will be thick as Jimmy Clausen slips further and further into the first round (Clausen pulled a fast one on ESPN by deciding not to show up to the draft in order to spend the night with his grandfather.  ESPN will make sure this costs him).  Everything is in place to make ESPN a load of money on this thing, which means that we had better get used to the format.  Money makes the world go round, baby.

So what can the average “Draft Rube” do to come to terms with all these changes to this wonderful event that has made it more accessible?  I’m a big proponent of Mock Draft Leagues.  This is a great way to prove to yourself how smart you are!  (Never mind the fact that you’ll get about 10 of the 32 first round picks correct.  It’s not about the results, it’s about the process.  Now go get another beer and finish up that second round mock!)  Second, pick your favorite draft expert and focus mainly on his information.  For me, it’s always been Mel Kiper, Jr.  He knows the system.  He knows the front office guys.  He scouts college players very well.  He’s my guy.  Some people really like Todd McShay.  He’s a little young for my taste.  How could someone who looks like he’s fresh out of college have the grizzled nature it takes to do this work?  I’m not convinced.  Either way, focusing on one expert takes a lot of the riff-raff opinions out of the equation and makes it easier to understand what is going on.  Lastly, and this is what I struggle with the most, it’s important to simply enjoy the draft for what it is.  Your favorite team has the opportunity to pick up their next wave of franchise players.  As has been proven by guys like Tom Brady (6^th Round), Joe Montana (3^rd Round) and John Randle (Undrafted), you never know when that next great player is going to come along.  The NFL Draft is a wonderful, albeit flawed, event that football fans should enjoy, regardless of the packaging.  The bottom line is that when Roger Goodell walks up to that podium for the first time, all the problems will be washed away for me, and my love for the draft will be renewed…

Unless the Vikings screw this thing up.

Meet the NEW Minnesota Twins

During their recent run of success, the Minnesota Twins have maintained an image of being an undermanned, scrappy, “win at all costs” type of team.  Players like Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiewitz, and Lew Ford embodied this “battle-your-tail-off” style of baseball during the first half of the run, while guys like Nick Punto, Carlos Gomez, and Alexi Casilla have carried the torch more recently.  Maybe those players weren’t/aren’t the most gifted baseball players in the world, but they do the small things to help a team win games.  Offensively, the Twins were the anti-Yankees.  Their strategy revolved around fielding athletes at as many positions as possible that were going to put the ball in play, take the extra base, and force pitchers to field their position by threatening to bunt at any time.  This offensive game plan employed by Ron Gardenhire and Co. has flown directly in the face of the tactics being used by the American League’s most successful teams over the past decade.  Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Oakland A’s were among the most successful clubs of the 2000’s.  They scored runs by working pitch counts, taking walks, and hitting lots of home runs.  Strikeouts were of little concern, because “Moneyball” views an out as an out, regardless of how it’s recorded.  Billy Beane and his Moneyball system caused teams to rethink the importance of batting average while increasing the importance of players who reach base a lot and hit a lot of homeruns.  The Moneyball system was designed around the power surge that came about during the steroid age of baseball.  While that period seems to be more or less a thing of the past, the tenets of Moneyball remain in use because homeruns still win games.  Just as important to this movement as the changing skill set of the average MLB player was the statistical revolution initiated by baseball numbers guru Bill James and his disciples known as “sabremetrics.”  With the growing popularity of statistics such as OPS (which is simply a players on-base % added to his slugging %), BABIP (which measures a players batting average on balls put in play, eliminating strikeouts and homeruns from the at-bats equation), and ISO (stands for isolated power and is the percentage of extra base hits a player gets per at-bat), teams have been taking a more in depth look into what makes a player a good hitter.  In the past, good hitters would have a .275 batting average, great players would have a .300 average, and poor hitters would hit below .250.  Now, for most teams, it’s not that simple anymore. 

The Minnesota Twins were one team who seemed hell-bent on doing things the old-fashioned way.  Despite the Twins ignoring the new age of statistical analysis, success still found them.  They scouted well, developed their players from within their own organization, and made a few very shrewd trades of veteran players that helped stock the organization with young, affordable talent.  Before Twins fans knew it, success wasn’t a happy surprise anymore; it was expected.  Since 2002, the Twins have won 5 AL Central titles and lost a division tie-breaker.  During that time, Twins players have earned two Cy Young awards (both Johan Santana), two MVP’s (Morneau and Mauer), and three batting titles (all by Mauer).   No other team in baseball can claim as many major awards during that period.  The Twins’ technique for building a baseball team has been different than nearly every other successful team during this era, yet it has lead to these remarkable results.  Despite this, the team has started shift their focus away from their traditional game plan.  Over the past couple of seasons, the Twins have turned their attention towards building a more powerful lineup that can put up runs quickly. 

Joe Mauer became the ideal Moneyball player with his power surge last year.  Even before getting his power, he was a guy who reached base an obscene amount and worked the count consistently.  By adding power, he completed his resume for being a middle-of-the-order hitter for a contending team.  Justin Morneau has focused more and more on being a consistent hitter as opposed to just a power threat.  He had a career high in walks per at-bat in 2009, and as a result, his OBP increased relative to his average.  Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, and Joe Crede (for half the year, anyway) gave the Twins three other legitimate power threats in their lineup.  The result of this increase in power bats led the Twins to hit more homeruns in 2009 than in any season since 2004.  Last season was only the beginning, however.  In the 2009-2010 offseason, the Twins showed a willingness to go outside the organization in order to find the power it was looking for.

Carlos Gomez; a young, talented (albeit inconsistent), and promising player, was traded to Milwaukee for established power hitting shortstop J.J. Hardy.  Gomez is exactly the type of player the Twins have attempted to stockpile in the past, as was evidenced by them acquiring him in the Johan Santana trade before the 2008 season.  In this case, however, the Twins dealt from a strength (outfield depth) in order to fill a hole at a position of need.  Only time will tell how well this trade works out for the Twins, but it shows willingness on the part of the organization to part with pure athleticism in order to obtain a more powerful, polished player who has less upside.  This has never really been the case in the past.  The signing of Jim Thome to be a bat off the bench and backup DH to Jason Kubel followed this move.  This was another transaction that flew in the face of convention for the Twins, as they have typically preferred bench players who were versatile and athletic.  Thome is neither of those things.  Jim has not played so much as an inning at first base since 2007 and has stolen exactly one base in the past seven seasons.  Thome is the epitome of a one-trick-pony at this point in his career, but he provides the Twins with something they haven’t had since the days of Matthew LeCroy; a bat off the bench that can change the game with one swing.  This luxury may prove especially valuable in the playoffs, where the Twins would do well to avoid at bats by Nick Punto and Brendan Harris in tight spots late in games.  Thome may not have much left in the tank, but assuming the Twins can keep his at bats to a minimum and keep his aching back healthy for the entirety of the season, he will make up for his lack of versatility by providing run production off the bench.

As a result of all the moves that have been made and deals that have been handed out, the 2010 Twins look a lot more like a traditional Yankees or Red Sox lineup than the lineups Minnesotans got used to seeing at the dome each year.  The Twins’ current 3-8 hitters are all capable of going deep at any moment.  The question remains as to what the impetus for this transformation was.  One of the main reasons the Twins have favored speed and contact hitters in the past is because it gave them a big home-field advantage on the hard Astroturf that adorned the floor of the Metrodome for the past 28 years.  Ground balls that would be eaten up by the grass at an outdoor park skipped through the infield as though they were rolling on ice.  Balls hit to the gap rolled to the wall as if they had a rocket booster attached to them.  Having speed in the outfield was a necessity at the Dome, and the Twins usually employed as much as they could.  With the move to the new field, the game will slow down a bit, reducing the amount the Twins will have to rely on speed to be effective on their home field. 

The final piece of this transformation seems to have laid with the Twins signing Joe Mauer to an 8 year, $184 million contract at the end of Spring Training.  In the past, the knock on the Twins has been that while they’ve been adept at developing talent, they’ve been unable to lock most of their good players up through their prime seasons.  Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few examples of this principle.  In place of signing these transcendent talents, the Twins have given large deals to above average players and played it off as if they had locked up franchise players.  Contracts given to Brad Radke and Michael Cuddyer over the past decade are great examples of this.  While Radke and Cuddyer were/are good players and have been a big part of the Twins success, they are not top flight players.  However, that was the consolation Twins fans were left with when they were unable to keep their big name talents.  After the 2008 season, Twins brass was able to sign former MVP Justin Morneau to a long term deal that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2013 season.  This signing gave fans hope that a similar deal could be reached with Mauer in the near future.  Somewhat unfortunately for the Twins, Mauer went out in 2009 and had the finest seasons anyone will ever see out of a catcher.  Joe batted .365 last year, and despite missing all of April with a lower back injury, Mauer more than doubled his previous season-high in homeruns by bashing 28 dingers to go along with a career-high 96 RBI.  Mauer’s explosive performance, after being a player who had previously shown nothing more than occasional power, transformed him from being viewed as a Wade Boggs/Tony Gwynn type of hitter to being one of the top three offensive players in all of baseball.  After considering his unique defensive ability as a 6’5” catcher and his youth, it’s hard to say what a team like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, or Dodgers might have been willing to shell out if Mauer were to hit the open market as a free agent after this season.  The Twins had to have known that allowing Mauer to play out the season without a contract extension would have surely led to them being pushed aside by baseball’s big spenders in the “Mauer Sweepstakes.”  Signing him to a long-term deal prior to the start of the season was their only option that didn’t involve Joe playing somewhere else in 2011.  Had this negotiation dragged into the season, the likelihood that Mauer would have been traded would have risen significantly, as the Twins would have been facing the prospect of losing Joe while only getting a couple of draft picks in return.  All of that is moot now, as Joe will remain a Twin through the 2018 season as a result of his new deal.  Clearly, the Twins learned a lesson from their negotiations with Torii Hunter, and made sure that similar mistakes weren’t made this time around.  When Torii was lost to free agency, it was viewed by Twins fans as being an unfortunate, but not disastrous outcome.  If Mauer had left the same way Hunter did, the Twins might as well have packed up shop and called it a day.  Fortunately, a world without Mauer as a Twin is not something fans will have to worry about for quite a while…if ever.  The Twins new modus operandi allowed them to make a financial commitment that wouldn’t have been possible in the past.

While some fans may long for the years of “Piranha Ball” and “small-market club” excuses, those things appear to be in the past.  With a payroll closing in on $100 million this season and a brand new stadium to show off, the Twins are much more of a “have” than a “have-not.”  Teams like Kansas City, Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Oakland will now be able to add the Twins to the list of teams with which they cannot compete with financially.  The downside of this change in financial position for the Twins is that their built in excuse for failure in the post-season is gone.  Team personnel will now have to be held accountable if the post-season debacles of 2006 and 2009 repeat themselves in the future.  I’ve been as guilty as anyone of giving the Twins a “pass” in the playoffs, saying that it’s great just to watch them play in October.  With all the changes being made within the organization, I’m not sure I’ll be able to be so conciliatory come crunch time this season.  For teams like the Yanks and Red Sox, the rub of being expected to win championships year in and year out is that not winning a ring is viewed as an abject failure.  The Twins have never had to deal with such expectations from their fan base.  In 1987 and 1991, success by the Twins came as a surprise.  Even in recent years, when the team was expected to be successful, winning the division was often enough to placate the Twins’ faithful.  By getting the new ballpark they’ve been clamoring for, and by proving that they finally have the money to keep their top talent, the Twins have stepped out from behind their protective bunker and opened themselves to the same criticism the big market teams are susceptible to. 

This reality has certainly played a role in their change in baseball philosophy.  No longer will fielding a team that is good enough to compete but not really good enough to win be acceptable to the fans.  Hopefully, the end result of the Twins new way of doing business is that they become a perennial World Series contender.  That’s the best case scenario for this club.  The worst case scenario is they become the Cleveland Indians.  When Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) was built in the mid-90’s, the Indians went from being the doormat of the American League to an annual contender.  While Cleveland had an off-year here or there, they were as good a ballclub as the American League had for about ten years.  The downfall of the Indians came when the luster wore off of their new park and the money dried up.  Players like Manny Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, Carlos Baerga, and Roberto Alomar fled for more lucrative deals in the early 2000’s.  More recently, the Indians were forced to trade away much of the team that lead them to within one win of the World Series in 2007 due to their increasing salaries.  Victor Martinez, C.C. Sabathia, and Cliff Lee have all been sold off, and rumor has it that Grady Sizemore could be the next to go.  While Cleveland gave teams like the Twins a good blueprint as to how to build a winning club with fresh money, they are also a good example of how new stadium money doesn’t last forever.  Their run of success lasted over a decade, but ended without a championship.  After the buzz created by Target Field is gone, it’s important for the team to keep a good product on the field.  Ultimately, success is the only way to draw fans.  Save for the Chicago Cubs, whose fans seem more interested in the experience of being at Wrigley Field than winning or losing, the teams that consistently draw fans are the ones who win.  The Twins have taken a big step towards ensuring they will be competitive into the next decade by locking up their young star players. 

The next step is to not be content with what has been built.  Issues are going to arise over the next few years that will have to be dealt with.  What will the Twins do when Michael Cuddyer’s deal is up?  When Jason Kubel is free agent eligible?  How will they deal with the uncertain future of Joe Nathan and the impending hole in their closer role?  What are their long term solutions at the infield positions not currently being manned by Mauer and Morneau?  These are all questions that don’t necessarily need to be answered right now, but how they get answered will determine whether the Twins can sustain their success of the past ten years for another ten years.

Great Expectations

No longer must we all reside in the winter of our discontent.  After a baseball offseason that saw the Vikings pull us in, only to once again punch us in the face; saw the Timberwolves do nothing to inspire their fans outside of their two historical losing streaks; saw the Gopher men’s basketball team fight their way through their schedule en route to a disappointing tournament showing following a season filled with suspensions and lackluster effort; saw a Wild team that went into full-on rebuilding mode never really contend for a playoff spot, the return of baseball couldn’t have come at a better time.  With spring in full force here in the upper Midwest and a new open-air stadium for the fans to enjoy, Twins Fever appears to be whipping its way across the area.  A pair of sold-out exhibition games against St. Louis this weekend gave fans and players alike an opportunity to catch a glimpse of what baseball in Minnesota will look like for the foreseeable future, while at the same time whetting our collective appetites for actual, real-deal, now-it-counts baseball.  Well, wait no more, people.  Sunday night’s matchup between the defending champion Yankees and their hated rivals the Red Sox marks the first regular season game of the 2010 MLB Season.  While I will enjoy catching the sounds and sights of baseball for the first time in a while tonight, the real main event starts tomorrow, when the Twins head out to Anaheim.  Never before has a Twins season started with more expectations than this one.  Not only do the Twins have their entire core back from last year’s playoff team, but they’ve added a number of key components.  They have increased their payroll by about $30 million from where they started last year.  Jim Thome will now be hitting homeruns FOR the Twins as opposed to against them (Thome’s 57 HR’s against the Twins are the most against the team by any opposing hitter).  All these things add up to the Twins being better than they’ve been in a long time.  But how good are they, exactly?  Is this a team that could win a World Series right now?  Are they destined to be a one-and-done playoff team for the 5^th straight time?  Since a World Series ring would be the Twins’ third overall, we’ll answer this question by looking at three reasons why they will win the World Series, as well as three reasons why they might have trouble even getting back to the postseason.  So, without further ado, here we go!

Reason for Optimism #1 – The Twins have Joe Mauer.  No one else does.

Joe Mauer has become the clear choice as the best player in the American League.  Only Albert Pujols’ freakish level of productions keeps Mauer from being the best in all of baseball.  Mauer will turn 27 years old during the season’s first week and is coming off back-to-back AL Batting Championships.  He plays a premium position at a very high level (two straight AL Gold Gloves), and last season, he finally displayed the power that scouts have been waiting for since he was drafted out of high school.  In winning his first AL MVP Award last year, Mauer also won the “modern” Triple Crown by leading the AL in batting average, on-base %, and slugging %.  The bottom line is that Mauer is the type of talent that can swing games all on his own.  He can do it from behind the plate, from the batter’s box, and even from the base paths, where he is a deceptively good base runner.  Joe Mauer is the real deal, and maybe more importantly, he’s Minnesota’s real deal until at least 2018.  That’s reassuring.

Reason for Pessimism #1 – Joe Nathan is Dead to Us.

I love Joe Nathan.  I love that he comes into games while “Stand Up and Shout” blares in the background.  I love the way he flutters his lips during tense moments to relieve the pressure of the situation.  I love that the addition of him involved the subtraction of A.J. Pierzynski (the player I love to hate the most).  But mostly, I love how freaking good Nathan has been since he became a Twin in 2004.  He has lead Major Leagues closers in pretty much every relevant statistic over the past six seasons, and during that time, became one of the most respected pitchers in baseball.  Unfortunately, the Twins will not be benefiting from Nathan’s services this year.  A torn elbow ligament has him riding the pine all season, and has the Twins scrambling to find a replacement.  At the beginning of the year, at least, the job will be filled by Jon Rauch.  The Twins picked up Rauch last August in a trade with Arizona to help shore up the 8^th inning, but now Rauch will be asked to get outs a little later in the game.  Rauch has experience as a closer, finishing off 17 saves for the 2008 Washington Nationals before being traded to Arizona.  Rauch is not an overpowering pitcher, despite his 6’11” frame, but he does seem to have the gut needed to get the job done.  Regardless of how good Rauch is, it’s unlikely he will be able to reach the level of excellence we have grown to expect from Nathan.  How will the rest of the team react to a few shaky 9^th innings, or, God forbid, a few blown saves coming in succession?  It’s going to be up to the rest of the team to pick up some slack for the drop in production out of the closer position.  If the team can’t overcome Nathan’s absence, it becomes very possible that either the White Sox or Tigers could sneak up and snatch the Central Division.

Reason for Optimism #2 – The holes in the lineup are few and far between.

At the end of last year, the 6- 7-8-9 hitters for the Twins frequently consisted of Delmon Young, Carlos Gomez, Matt Tolbert, and Nick Punto.  Not exactly a murder’s row.  Delmon came up big in September of 2009, but the other three guys in that group were mediocre, at best.  This year, the 6-7-8-9 for the Twins, at least at the beginning of the season, could frequently be Jason Kubel, Jim Thome, J.J. Hardy, and Nick Punto.  If Delmon proves that his finish to last year was no fluke, then we can replace Thome with Young and keep the rest the same.  Adding that together with a 1-5 of Span, Hudson, Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer, and the Twins can field a lineup that can hit with any in the league.  With either Delmon or Thome available each game off the bench, as well as utility infielder Brendan Harris, the Twins bench appears to be as solid as it has been during the Gardenhire era.  Gone are the days of DH Jason Tyner batting leadoff for this team.  Gone are the days of Rondell White getting hundreds upon hundreds of middle of the order at-bats despite doing nothing to earn them.  The Twins batting order is stacked.  Enjoy the revolution.

Reason for Pessimism #2 – Nicky “Freaking” Punto.

Nick Punto is a lot of things.  He is a scrappy base runner who is always looking to take the extra base.  He is an above average fielder at 2B, 3B, and SS.  He typically takes a high number of walks regardless of how well he’s hitting.  All of these attributes make him a prototypical utility infielder.  What they do not make him is a ML-caliber starting third baseman.  That, however, is exactly how Punto will start the year.  Twins fans have seen the good and the bad from Punto over the years, but the bad has typically outweighed any benefit from the good.  In 2006, Punto took over for Tony Batista half way through the season at third base and finished the year hitting a career-high .290 with a career-high 17 stolen bases.  He was the spark plug that set the team on the run it needed to win the division.  Since then, Punto has finished the following three seasons with averages of .210, .284, and .228.  If Punto can find some middle ground and hit around .250 with 15-20 stolen bases, the Twins should have enough punch in the rest of the order to cover up his lack of offense.  With most of the other contenders employing offensively gifted third basemen (Brandon Inge, Adrian Beltre, Alex Rodriguez, Evan Longoria, and Michael Young), the Twins will be at a disadvantage with their Molotov Cocktail of 70% Punto and 30% Harris.  At the end of the day, the Twins likely have enough pop at shortstop and catcher to make up for a lack of it at third.  However, with the backend of the bullpen a big question mark, it would be great to have one more bat in the lineup to help take the importance out of the later innings.  Nick Punto is likely to be a big lightning rod this season for the Twins (unless Cuddyer or Delmon Young struggle…they seem to be favorite targets of the angry fanboys) because his numbers will stand out like a sore thumb in that lineup.  If he falters and hits like last year again, it could be enough to drag the Twins down in what should be a competitive AL Central.

Reason for Optimism #3 – The Starting Pitching is Deep.  Super Deep.

Last year, such pitchers as Anthony Swarzak, R.A. Dickey, Jeff Manship, and Armando Gabino combined to make 19 starts for the Twins.  Their combined major league ERA was 5.72.  Their ERA as starters was 6.37.  That is not good.  Fortunately, the Twins will likely not be forced to trot any of those guys out onto the mound as a starter at any point this year.  With a starting five of Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Carl Pavano, Kevin Slowey, and Francisco Liriano, the Twins have a lot to like about their rotation.  Baker showed that he might be ready to prove himself as a 15 wins a year guy.  After starting slowly in 2009, Baker finished the year on a 13-3 run.  Nick Blackburn was a workhorse, leading the team in innings pitched on his way to his second straight 11-11 season.  If Blackburn can limit the number of hits he allows this year a little, he could really take a big jump in the win/loss department.  Pavano is the grizzled veteran of the group, but is coming off his first full season since 2004.  His ERA in 12 starts with the Twins was more than a half run better than it was in 21 starts with Cleveland.  If Pavano can stay healthy, the Twins should expect him to win around 12-15 games with an ERA between 4.50 and 4.75.  I expect Pavano to be the least effective Twins starter this year, and if he can post numbers like that, the Twins will be in very good shape.  Slowey is coming off a season in which he was leading the league in wins at the beginning of June, but then saw his season cut short by a wrist injury.  During Spring Training, Slowey was the best of the Twins starters, posting a 1.95 ERA in 27 2/3 innings.  His early season performance shows that the injury issue has not been a problem so far, and that the Twins can expect him to be back to his normal self.  Liriano had a season to forget last year, going 5-13 with a 5.80 ERA in just over 135 innings.  Control of his fastball and a lack of confidence in his slider were the main causes of trouble for Frankie last year, but early this season, there appears to be reason for optimism.  During winter ball in the Dominican Republic, Liriano was lights out, lowering his walk rate and increasing his strikeouts.  This trend continued for Liriano in Spring Training, as he struck out 30 batters in 20 innings of work while only walking five.  His ERA was a very good 2.70 in Florida and he allowed just one homerun throughout spring.  Francisco is the most intriguing of the Twins starters as he has a history of excellence.  In 2006, he was absolutely lights out during his rookie campaign.  An elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery has slowed him the past three years, but it appears that Liriano has finally worked past the problems.  If he can regain his form of 2006, the Twins may be nearly impossible to deal with in the AL this season.  As important as any of this is the fact that the Twins have quality arms in reserve to take over should any of these guys falter or get injured.  Brian Duensing came on strong at the end of last year and showed that he has the potential to be a part of the future of the franchise.  Glen Perkins had a rough year last year and has been dealing with injuries so far this season, but when he’s healthy and has his head on right, he can be a very effective pitcher.  He started 2009 by throwing 8 innings in each of his first three starts.  This hot start represented the good for Perkins.  The bad was evidenced by having just four quality starts over his next (and last) 14 starts.  Duensing will start the year in the bullpen for the Twins and will be the next-in-line should the Twins need a starter at any point.  Perkins will begin 2010 in AAA Rochester, where he will have the ability to show the Twins that he can be a help to the Major League club.  Should the Twins need starters past those seven, they would still have former Detroit Tiger Mike Maroth available to them.  Should injury issues arise like they did a season ago, the Twins would appear to be very well equipped to deal with them.  I’m not sure there’s another starting rotation in the American League that is as deep as the one the Twins have.  Just as every other team is, the Twins will be at the mercy of the health of their pitchers to some extent, but to have the depth they have goes a long way towards protecting them from the bumps and bruises that can take their toll over the course of the season.

Reason for Pessimism #3 – The Outfield Defense Could Be Offensive.

For years, the Twins have put together great defensive outfields.  As recently as last year, the Twins frequently threw out an outfield of Span in left, Carlos Gomez in center, and Cuddyer in right.  Gomez and Span combined to cover about 80% of the outfield, leaving just a sliver of territory to the less fleet-footed Cuddyer.  Cuddyer brought an A+ arm to right field, and the combination worked well.  This year, however, Gomez is gone, which has forced Span back to his natural centerfield position.  Span is a fine centerfielder, but he’s probably only about 90% of what Gomez was.  The real issue is leftfield.  Denard Span’s move to center has forced the Twins to play either Delmon Young or Jason Kubel in left.  Neither Young nor Kubel are going to ‘wow’ anyone with their swiftness in the outfield.  Young’s problems stem mostly from his bad routes to balls and his difficulty with sharp line drives.  Kubel’s issues are more physical; he simply doesn’t have the speed after multiple knee injuries to run down balls in the gap or down the line that an ideal outfielder has.  Both Jason and Delmon can make up for some of their lack of range with strong throwing arms, but replacing Gomez with either  Kubel or Young represents a big downgrade in defense for a team that has traditionally built themselves around defense and pitching. 

So what’s the final score?  Do the negatives outweigh the positives?  Can the Twins win using a different gameplan than they are accustomed to?  Can Ron Gardenhire ignore his urges to play Nick Punto at third base enough to get some offensive production out of Brendan Harris?  These questions are what will determine the amount of success the Twins are capable of having in 2010.  If the first series of the season is any indication, Twins fans are in for an exciting and successful season.  The issues in the bullpen came up on Opening Day, but since then, the ‘pen has more than held its own by allowing just one run in the final three games.  The offense that everyone expected from this team showed up in the opening series by tallying homeruns in all four games (9 total).  The starting pitchers did their jobs (for the most part), and in the one game Brendan Harris got a start, he cracked a 2-run homer.  There’s a lot to like about this Twins team, and with lots of question marks surrounding the other AL Central teams, it seems like a division championship could be well within reach this season.  But, as I mentioned earlier, the Twins shouldn’t be held to such a low standard anymore.  Can they win a World Series?  I believe that they can.  This is a team build to do well in the playoffs.  They have lots of pop, solid starting pitching, and strong middle relief.  Ron Gardenhire has the trust of these players, and the front office has shown in the past that they’re willing to go get a player if a need arises (maybe a closer or a third baseman this season).  So, obviously, I believe the Twins will be good this year.  How good?  Here are my predictions for the 2010 MLB Season, including major award winners in each league.

AL East – Boston Red Sox

AL Central – Minnesota Twins

AL West – Texas Rangers

AL Wildcard – New York Yankees

AL  MVP – Joe Mauer

AL CY Young – Felix Hernandez

AL Rookie of the Year – Scott Sizemore

NL East – Philadelphia Phillies

NL Central – St. Louis Cardinals

NL West – Colorado Rockies

NL Wildcard – Los Angeles Dodgers

NL MVP – Troy Tulowitzki

NL Cy Young – Roy Halladay

NL Rookie of the Year – Jason Heyward

AL Playoffs:  Twins over Yankees (that’s right), Red Sox over Rangers, Twins over Red Sox

NL Playoffs:  Rockies over Cardinals, Phillies over Dodgers, Rockies over Phillies

World Series:  Twins over Rockies

The Lost Season

It's been almost a month since my last post, which I owe to the fact that I was studying for and subsequently taking the bar exam during that stretch of time. Now that the exam is behind me, I'll be bat at it on here two or three times a week. The 13 people who read this blog can thank me later. I know Tubby (pictured) looks happy.

Under Tubby Smith, the Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s basketball team has enjoyed quite a lot of success. In Tubby’s first season in Dinkytown, the Gophers won 20 games just one season removed from the schools most dismal season in recent memory. While the Gophers failed to make the NCAA Tournament, they certainly made big strides under Smith’s tutelage. Last year, Minnesota won 22 games en route to their first Tourney appearance since 2004-05, showing yet another sign of improving as a program. Understandably, coming into this year, there were a lot of expectations being placed on the team to continue this pattern of progress. Not only was the team returning every important player from last year’s Tournament squad (depending on how you feel about Jamal Abu-Shamala), but it was adding a highly-touted recruiting class that included California point guard Justin Cobbs, powerful junior college transfer Trevor Mbakwe, and one of the best recruits in the nation, Hopkins’ Royce White. White was considered by most pundits to be a top 5 recruit heading into the season, but more importantly, he was everything the Gophers lacked; someone who could create their own shot, someone who could turn a busted offensive possession into a basket, and someone that would have the Gophers leading SportsCenter with highlight reel plays on a regular basis. With the bulk and athleticism provided by Mbakwe and White and the backcourt depth added by Cobbs, the Gophers were sure to improve upon last year’s mark while hopefully challenging for a Big Ten Championship. Things were looking good for the Maroon and Gold, and the season had yet to even start. Unfortunately, things unraveled as quickly as they came together, causing the Gophers postseason candidacy to go from a sure thing to a long shot.

First, we learned that Trevor Mbakwe was going to be suspended for the foreseeable future in early November after being charged with assault in Dade County, Florida. What was expected to be a month-long suspension turned into a season-long ban, as Miami-Dade prosecutors bumble around with a dead-end case, perpetually pushing back court dates a case that seems to have little chance of being successful. Regardless of the potential fruitfulness of the county’s case against the Gopher forward, the arrest and subsequent investigation have stolen Mbakwe’s season, hurting Minnesota’s depth in the process. What makes Mbakwe’s suspension especially troublesome for the Gophers are reports out of Minnesota practices that Trevor has dominated both Colton Iverson and Ralph Sampson III during drills and scrimmages, leading Gopher Nation to believe that the inclusion of Mbakwe on this year’s squad could have lead to a few of the many close losses Minnesota has endured going the other way. Still, If the loss of Mbakwe was the Gopher’s only hurdle to clear this season, it’s possible they could have survived. Unfortunately, the loss of Mbakwe was only the beginning.

Just a couple of weeks after the Mbakwe suspension became official, we learned that not only was crown jewel recruit Royce White being charged with a number of offenses stemming from a shoplifting incident at a local store, but he was also a suspect in an on-campus laptop theft. White’s multiple alleged indiscretions led to a rollercoaster winter for the former Minnesota prep star. White eventually pled to a lesser charge in the shoplifting case while maintaining his innocence in the laptop caper. Rumors arose in early December that White would be leaving school despite his reportedly exemplary academic record. These rumors proved false for the time being, as not only did Royce remain in school, but rejoined the team for practices, as well. Things were going fine for White until it became clear that Minnesota Athletic Director Joel Maturi was not going to allow White to participate in any games until the issue regarding the laptop was completely resolved. White ultimately decided to leave to leave the University amid rumors that he may try his hand in Europe for the rest of the year before entering the NBA draft next summer. Even more rumors have his grandfather, Frank White, advising him and the University to get together to come to some arrangement that would allow Royce to rejoin the program for next season. One would hope that Royce would listen to Grandpa Frank, if this is indeed his advice, as going to the NBA now would, in my opinion, be a disastrous decision at this point in White’s career. Either way, Royce will not play one minute for the Gophers this year, meaning that the top two recruits of this nationally ranked class will not participate in any University of Minnesota games this season. That’s not exactly an ideal situation for a team hoping to take the next step towards becoming a national contender.

Even with White and Mbakwe being ineligible for the entire season, one recruit remained available to the Gophers. Point guard Justin Cobbs was highly regarded coming out of Torrence, California, and is projected to be a solid contributor for the Gophers down the road. The initial plan for Cobbs was to allow him to mature while backing up junior PG Al Nolen and keeping his minutes down. Unfortunately, that plan went by the wayside a few weeks ago when 18 games into the season Nolen was ruled academically ineligible for the rest of the season by the NCAA. Devoe Joseph has taken over the starting point guard duties in Nolan’s absence, but he’s not really a true PG. Cobbs is the only real PG on the roster, and as a result, his minutes have increased both in quantity and in importance. Against pressure defensive teams, Cobbs has been forced into duty in order to sure up the ball handling. Justin has played about as well as one could expect a freshman to play, but offensively, his ability to score the ball has yet to develop. The Gophers are a team without a real go-to scorer, and on such a team, the responsibility often falls on the PG to create some offense at the end of the shot clock. Cobbs has not proven to be capable of handling this task yet and as a result of this, the offense tends to get stagnant when he’s on the floor. Some of that offensive sluggishness may be a result of Cobbs getting most of his minutes with the less experienced second group, but none the less, there is a discernable difference between the team with Joseph or Nolan at the helm as opposed to when Cobbs has the reigns. Since Nolan was ruled in eligible, the Gophers are 5-6, with all eleven of the games being played within the conference. Prior to his departure, Minnesota appeared to be at least capable of making a run to the NCAA Tournament. But, now? Such a run seems more than a little unlikely as the Gophers, following an embarrassing loss to the hapless Michigan Wolverines, can only watch as their season spirals away from them.

Despite all of the personnel issues surrounding the squad, the story could have played out differently for the U of M. The Gophers have lost five of their twelve games this season by one point or in overtime. Two of those games have come against conference front-runners Michigan State and Purdue. A win against either of those squads would have represented a victory that could have propelled the Gophers into the postseason. With their only good wins comings against Ohio State early in the Big Ten season and Wisconsin late in the season, there are way too many fluff teams comprising the rest of the team’s wins. The Gophers are going to finish the season in Big Ten no-man’s-land. The top five teams in the conference have identified themselves as being Purdue, MSU, Wisconsin, OSU, and Illinois, in no specific order. The bottom five have equally identified themselves as being Penn State, Iowa, Indiana, Northwestern, and Michigan. Minnesota is currently smack dab in the middle of these two groups. Wins against top half teams Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Illinois (in Champaign), as well as close losses against Michigan State (both at home and on the road) and Purdue, have displayed the team’s ability to play with the upper-echelon teams in the conference. At the same time, losses to Indiana, Northwestern and Michigan (twice), along with uncomfortably close wins against Northwestern and Penn State have shown a propensity to play down to the level of inferior opponents. After everything is considered, it’s pretty clear that Minnesota belongs right where it is within the conference. Some years, being the sixth best team in the Big Ten has been enough to get a team into the tournament, but in this new era of college basketball, where mid-major programs get enough overflow talent from the big schools to compete on a national level, those days are quickly coming to a close.

(This theory of newfound parity, of course, excludes the Big East, which we are all lead to believe by the national media is the be-all, end-all of college basketball. The worst team in the Big East is better than the best team anywhere else. I’m sure this perception I’ve got from watching ESPN’s experts analyze the sport has nothing to do with the fact that ESPN’s main campus falls directly in the middle of Big East territory. Did I lay that on thick enough? OK, then…moving on.)

Short of a miraculous run in the Big Ten Tournament that gives the Gophers an automatic bid to the Big Dance, the Gophers’ season will end with an appearance in the NIT, which might as well be an acronym for “non-ideal turnout.” With 17 wins, Tubby’s streak of consecutive seasons with 20 victories is in serious jeopardy, with the team probably needing at least one win in the NIT to reach the mark. A win in the conference finale against Iowa would give Minnesota a .500 season in conference, which is always better than being sub-.500, but ultimately, it won’t be enough to get this team where it needs to go.

So what does all of this mean? Should Tubby be fired for his indescresions? Of course not. Tubby Smith has taken a floundering program and turned it into a competitive one, at the very least. If Royce White, Trevor Mbakwe, and Al Nolen can all return to the team next year, the losses of senior leaders Lawrence Westbrook and Damien Johnson won’t sting quite as much. With signed recruits Austin Hollins (son of former NBA player and current Memphis Grizzlies head coach Lionel Hollins) and Elliott Eliason, as well as the potential signing of Devoe Joseph’s brother, Corey, there is a lot to be optimistic about regarding the future of this program.

Minnesota sports fans are used to repeating the “maybe next year” mantra. Unless the Tubby Smith and the Gophers can perform a miracle in Indianapolis in two weeks, it appears as though we’ll all be repeating that familiar phrase one more time.