The Associated Press this week supplied us with mug shots of pretty much everybody in the Twins training camp — 40-man roster, manager, coaches, non-roster guys. I spent some time this morning downloading, re-sizing in a Web-friendly format and organizing them, on the basis that if the Twins call up Anthony Slama, it will be handy to have an image to post with an explanation of what the hay he's doing here.There are a lot of faces in that pile you haven't seen. There are faces in that pile you'll never see. Camp is loaded with extra catchers, because somebody's got to catch all those bullpen sessions, and the Twins aren't about to beat Joe Mauer's knees into submission in March.
So to get some use out of today's work, I herewith begin the "Name that Twin" contest. Each day I'll post the mug of an obscure player (or coach), and y'all can guess his identity in the comments. I'll name him the next day and post the next one. I'll do this until either (a) I get tired of doing it, (b) I run out of faces I don't recognize or (c) it becomes obvious that nobody else cares.
Winner gets free access to Baseball Outsider. Second place gets 50 percent off.
First photo is above.
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Before I head off for what figures to be a difficult work shift, a few quick comments:
* The Washington Nationals today released old fave Eddie Guardado. I have to admit, for just a moment the notion of Everyday Eddie succeeding his successor as Twins closer crossed my mind. But that train left the station long ago.
* Jim Souhan is rapidly approaching Sid Hartman status — as in, any time spent reading him is lost forever. I'm not going to link to Souhan's latest moronity, but I will say I wish he'd been in one of my fantasy leagues over the years. Trade Mauer for a relief pitcher!
* A commenter on the Jamie Hoffmann post below points out that the player in the photo throws with his left arm, and Hoffmann is right-handed. D-oh! I should have noticed that myself.
AP identified the player in the image as Hoffmann, and I went with it. I have no idea who is shown, and I have trashed the image from my library. My apologies.
