Pic of the Week

Johan Santana dons the Twins Hall of Fame blazer
with assistance from Rod Carew.

Johan Santana declared during his pregame speech that he is indeed retired as a pitcher now.

So he has accepted the reality. It's been six years since he last threw a competitive pitch. For a few years teams would extend minor league offers in hopes that he could find his way back, but those offers eventually dried up.

For a few years, he was as good as it gets. Santana nights at the Dome were magical, and I seldom passed up the opportunity to watch him work.

Pitching in the majors takes its toll. Santana' star burned brightly, and then it burned out.

But I will long remember his mastery of the changeup, the heat of his fastball, the sense that anything was possible when he took the mound.

Johan Santana and the Hall of Fame

Johan Santana was named Friday to the Twins Hall of Fame. He's also on the ballot for the "real" Hall of Fame. but has no realistic chance of election to Cooperstown and is likely "one-and-done."

Which, much as it pains me to say it, is the right decision. Santana spent four-and-a-half years in the Twins rotation; he was, in that span, the most dominant starting pitcher the franchise has had since Walter Johnson in the first quarter of the 20th century. He had one really good year with the Mets, two years in which you can see the durability diminishing, and then the injuries.

Santana hasn't abandoned his hopes of pitching again, but he's 38 and he hasn't pitched, majors or minors, since 2012, which is how he wound up on the ballot.

Let's do some comparisions to two guys often cited by Santana supporters as reasons to induct No. 57:

Pitcher A: 138-78 (.679). 2,025 innings, 136 ERA+, 51.4 bWAR, 1-3 3.97 in postseason.
Pitcher B: 150-83 (.644). 1,967 innings, 131 ERA+, 44/9 bWAR, 2-2, 2.88 in postseason
Pitcher C: 165-87 (.655). 2,324 innings, 131 ERA+, 49.0 bWAR, 4-3, 0.95 in postseason

Santana is Pitcher A, Dizzy Dean is B, Sandy Koufax is C. And yeah, Santana doesn't come off badly in that company. All three had dominant careers truncated by injury.

Where Santana's really at a disadvantage to the two Hall of Famers is the postseason. Dean and Koufax not only put up better numbers in October, they were the dominant figures on World Series winners. Santana never pitched in the Series.

Another, more subtle factor: Dean and Koufax pitched more in their peak years than Santana did, which means they did more to help their teams. Dean had five seasons in which he averaged more than 300 innings. Koufax had three 300-inning seasons; it's no coincidence that those were the three years the Dodgers reach the World Series during his prime. Santana's heaviest workload was 234.1.

And there's the "fame" aspect to it. I'll guarantee you, Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax were much bigger stars than Santana, with much more impact on the culture.

Which leads to this tweet from the great Bill James:

Regarding Koufax and Santana. . .you might measure a Yak and a Tiger and find that they are the same height, the same weight, and have the same life span. Nonetheless, a Yak is not a Tiger.

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) December 24, 2017

I loved going to the Dome to see Santana pitch, and I treasure those memories. He ain't Dean, and he ain't Koufax.

Thinking about Johan Santana

Even though spring training camps have been open a while and the exhibition season gets started this week -- the Twins' first game is Wednesday at the Red Sox facility in Fort Myers -- there are still players signing deals.

One free agent who is still out there: Johan Santana, winner of two Cy Young Awards during his brief but brilliant tenure with the Twins

Santana hasn't pitched in a competitive game on any level since 2012 other than two innings in a winter league game in 2015,, but he's always found somebody willing to take a flyer on him. His Mets contract expired after the 2013 season. He signed with the Orioles for 2014. He signed with the Blue Jays for 2015. His rehab programs never got to the point where he could take the hill for either organization,

When the Blue Jays released him last June after a foot infection halted his rehab, the word was that Santana intended to pitch winter ball. As far as I can tell, that didn't happen. He certainly hasn't found a team that thinks him worth the rehab investment this year. Considering the long layoff, considering that he turns 37 this month, that's hardly surprising.

So this may be it for Johan Santana. If so, he becomes just another player who baseball let go before he was ready to let go of baseball.

Another try for Johan Santana

The Minnesota Twins have two Santanas -- Danny and Ervin -- on their roster and in training camp. They won't have a third, despite some speculation about five weeks ago,

Johan Santana signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays this week. For the Jays, it's a lottery ticket; for Santana, it's yet another attempt to resurrect his once-brilliant career.

I will always want Santana to succeed. I don't think it's particularly likely, and as I said last month, Minnesota in 2015 doesn't seem like a good fit for him. No team is a good fit if he can't keep his shoulder attached, of course, but the Twins already have too many veteran starters clogging the way for the prospects.

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In another bit of ex-Twins news, Nick Punto decided last week he'll sit out the 2015 season. He had signed a minor league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but he opted against reporting to major league camp.

Supposedly Punto is leaving the door open to a return in 2016, but really: He's 37 now, and this was the first offseason since he left the Twins in which he wasn't getting offers from contenders. Taking a year off will neither make him younger nor sharpen his skill.

So I assume he's done. Which is a bit surprising. I always figured Punto would be one of those guys who would play until absolutely nobody wanted him. Instead, he pulled his plug before the D-backs could.

Notes, quotes and comment

I skipped the Twins Caravan visit to Mankato Tuesday evening. Usually I have an excuse -- I work most evenings -- but this year I was off, and I still didn't go. I've seen enough of them to last a good long while.

So I missed Terry Ryan, who came down here to talk about the need for immediate improvement. I'm sure he didn't notice my absence.

The Free Press skipped the caravan visit entirely -- Tuesday is a heavy high school sports night -- but Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com was there and filed this report.

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And often is heard a discouraging word department: Johan Santana has been ruled out of the winter league playoffs with "discomfort" in the front of his left shoulder. It gets increasingly difficult to imagine him ever returning to a major league mound.

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Here's something to make me suspect that MLB is serious about cutting the time of games; They intend to enforce the time gap between innings, which typically last longer than the rules allow.

This will disrupt TV producers more than the players. Which is fine by me. Baseball's attitude on TV should be: You're broadcasting the game, not controlling it. (Another one I'd like to see: If TV wants to show some between-innings thing, such as singing "God Bless America," fine -- but they don't get extra time to air their ads too.)

So pitchers have to be done with warm ups 30 seconds prior to the inning starts? What do we do for those last 30 seconds?
— David Price (@DAVIDprice14) January 21, 2015

Don't take Price's complaint seriously, He is one of the slowest working pitchers in baseball. What's he going to do with those final 30 seconds? The same thing he does before every pitch. Nothing.

Contemplating Johan Santana

Johan Santana threw two perfect innings Tuesday night in the Venezuelan winter league, his first "official" competition since 2012. He missed last season with a torn Achilles tendon and missed 2013 after a second surgery on his shoulder capsule.

The Daily News (New York) had reported that he was to throw three innings and up to 50 pitches. It wound up being two innings and 17 pitches.

Reportedly his velocity Tuesday was where it was last spring, when he was trying to launch a comeback with the Baltimore Orioles: upper 80s with the fastball, mid-to-upper 70s with the change. That's nowhere near the mid-90s velocity he displayed while winning two Cy Young Awards with the Twins a decade ago, but the separation between the fastball and the change-up is the key, and that separation is there if those velocity readings are correct.

I have a great deal of nostalgic fondness for Santana -- more than I do for Torii Hunter -- and I'll root him wherever he lands, but the reality is I don't think he and the Twins are a good fit. He's 35, 36 before the season begins, and far from a sure thing. He might make sense for a contender looking for rotation depth, but the Twins are not a contender and, in my opinion, have too many questionable veterans cluttering their rotation now.

If the Twins have a rotation spot available -- and I don't see it -- I would rather see it go to Alex Meyer or Trevor May. Invest it in the future, not in the past.

Contemplating Johan Santana

Johan Santana finishes his 2012 no-hitter for the Mets.
It remains the only no-hitter in franchise history.

The Twins have a Yohan (Pino). They have a Santana (Danny). But they don't have a Johan Santana.

Nobody does anymore.

This is a couple weeks old, but I hadn't gotten around to noting or commenting on it. Earlier this month, the former Twins ace and two-time Cy Young winner tore his Achilles tendon fielding a ball. The Baltimore Orioles general manager described the tendon as "severed."

So Santana's 2014 comeback is finished — and just before he was about to return to the show. A few days before the injury, he and the Orioles had agreed to push back his call-up deadline a bit, but he was close. By now, I believe, he would be getting a chance in the O's rotation.

Santana is 35, and since his first major shoulder surgery after the 2010 season he has just 21 starts and 117 innings, all in 2012. (And a no-hitter, and a second major shoulder surgery.)

 In his rehab outings this spring, he was short of even the velocity he had in 2012, and that was a good bit short of his velocity in his glory days with the Twins. But he was getting into the upper 80s — the territory of Yohan's fastball — and with the quality of his changeup, that would be usable.

It would be if his body would just let him use it. I believe Santana is one of those talented, intelligent pitchers whose "pitchability" exceeds his body's capacity. If he can take the mound, he can be effective, but how often can he take the mound?

Contemplating Johan Santana

Johan Santana: On the shelf since
August 2012.

The word Monday out of Sarasota, Fla. -- where, by coincidence, Minnesota Twins split squad was playing the Baltimore Orioles -- was that Johan Santana was about to sign a minor league deal with the O's.

And good luck to him. While emotionally I will probably always want Santana to return to the Twins, the news last week that he could barely break 80 mph during a bullpen session convinced me that he and the 2014 Twins are not a good fit.

The upside to Santana is the possibility that, with continued rehab on his post-surgical shoulder, he might be an effective pitcher in the second half of the season. (There is a greater likelihood that continued rehab on his post-surgical shoulder will still leave him without sufficient velocity, but a minor-league deal represents minimal risk for the team.)

If and when the Twins need to swap out a rotation piece in the second half, their preference should be to give one of the prospects a shot. Alex Meyer. Trevor May. Kyle Gibson. They represent the future, and Santana is a piece of the past. A beloved piece of the past, but still ...

Santana can't serve this year as a placeholder for the kids, and he's certainly not some to rely on for future seasons. He makes more sense for Baltimore, which holds ambitions of a playoff run this year.

Jack Morris and win points, part II

The real reason Jack Morris' Hall of Fame candidacy has persisted so long is this: At this point, NO starting pitchers whose careers began after 1970 (Bert Blyleven's rookie season) are in the Hall.

None.

Now, everybody expects Greg Maddux to be elected when the votes are announced later today, and possibly Tom Glavine as well, but they didn't gets started until the mid-80s. There's a giant gap, essentially a generation of pitchers, without Hall representation.

Morris was the biggest winner of the pitchers of that gap, which, not coincidentally, corresponds with the start of the DH era. So he winds up the standard bearer for the late Baby Boomers.

But should he be? In the post linked to above, I suggested that Ron Guidry or Rick Reuschel might be better choices. Let's apply the win points formula, explained in Tueday's post, to those two:

Reuschel: 214-191, .528 winning percentage, 23 games over .500: 136 win points.
Guidry: 170-91, .651, 79: 190

Yes, Morris (215) beats those two, Reuschel handily, Guidry by a smaller but still substantial margin. And Big Daddy and Louisiana Lightning beat Black Jack by a wide margin on ERA.

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This has nothing to do with Morris, but with fresh speculation this week about the possibility of Johan Santana signing with the Twins, I thought I'd run win points on Jo-Jo at this stage of his career.

Santana: 139-78, .641, 61: 150.

Despite a four-year run in which he was universally deemed the best pitcher in baseball, Santana's record doesn't match Guidry's (a rather comparable pitcher) and Guidry never cracked 10 percent on the writers ballot. I think Guidry was unjustly overlooked, but his precedent suggests that Santana will need a substantial comeback to be a serious Hall candidate.

Eye on 2014: Naming names

Johan Santana returned from a major shoulder surgery
to throw a no-hitter in 2012, but missed all of 2013
after a second try at repairing his shoulder.

On Friday I described a "rough draft" for a 2014 Twins starting rotation that featured two vacancies for pitchers to be acquired.

On Saturday I discussed the Twins' lack of pitchers strikeouts and explained the problems of relying on free agency to fix that.

Today I'm going to put forth my thoughts on which free agent starters the Twins should pursue.

I do so mindful that the three free agent starters I wanted the Twins to chase last year didn't fare well. I wanted Terry Ryan and Co. to go after Brandon McCarthy, John Lannan and Shaun Marcum. Those three combined to go 9-27, and through injury and ineffectiveness, none made it through the season in the rotation. So my track record is less than perfect.

I'm ruling out most of the best free agents because there's no good reason for them to come to Minnesota. Tim Hudson, for example; he's in his upper 30s and is going to look for a team ready to win NOW. Ditto A.J. Burnett, if he doesn't retire. Hideki Kuroda is either going to stick with the Yankees or return to his native Japan. Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana are notoriously inconsistent and would cost a draft pick. Matt Garza? He and the Twins have a history.

My 2014 wish list is divided into two parts:

High ceiling, high risk: Injury cases, by and large, who are not good bets to provide 30 starts and 200 innings but who, if they can take the mound, should be effective.

Inning eaters: They won't help the team's strikeout rate much, but they have better health records.

My idea is to target one from each group.

From the first group: Johan Santana, Josh Johnson, Colby Lewis, Scott Kazmir, Scott Baker

I''m actually at lot more interested in the first two than the second three.

Emotionally, I'd love to see Santana back; I don't know that he's sound enough to help.

(There were reports last week that the Twins had requested Santana's medicals, which would indicate an interest in bringing him back. If they do pursue their former ace, one thing they have in their favor is that Santana knows that Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson will protect him; there won't be any of the foolish public challenges that helped wreck his season with the Mets before it got started.)

Mike Pelfrey has
said he wants to
return to the Twins.

I have no illusions on Santana or Johnson. Even if they're ready to pitch Opening Day, they can't be expected to make it through the entire season. As with Mike Pelfrey last year, 150 innings would be an accomplishment. Sign either, and you're going to use one of your Plan B guys at some point, early or late or both.

From the second group: Scott Feldman, Phil Hughes, Pelfrey, Ricky Nolasco, Paul Maholm .

What I'd basically be looking for here is what Kevin Correia gave the Twins this year: Thirty or more starts, something approaching 200 innings. Pelfrey was short of that for the Twins, but 2014 will be another full year removed from his elbow reconstruction.

So my wish list: Maybe one of Santana and Johnson, one or two of Feldman, Hughes and Pelfrey.

Ex-Twins pitchers watch

According to USA Today,
Johan Santana has baseball's
third-highest salary this year,
behind only Alex Rodriguez
and Cliff Lee.

Johan Santana had surgery Tuesday to repair his retorn shoulder capsule. The operation was termed "successful," which is surgical speak for "the patient didn't die on the table and we cut on the correct shoulder."

Santana is said to be intent on pitching again. Realistically, he's got a difficult road ahead to achieve that; he's certainly not going to pitch this year and probably not in 2014 either.

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Matt Capps, who was signed to a minor league deal by Cleveland just before spring training, didn't make the major league roster. What's more, the erstwhile closer was actually released from his contract and re-signed by the Indians in a move that negated Capps' $100,000 roster bonus.

Cleveland is, apparently, watching its budget carefully after a poor year at the gate in 2012 and a bit of a free-agent spending spree this winter. They did a similar roster manoeuvre with Daisuke Matsuzaka, the former Red Sox pitcher who was also a non-roster invitee.

Capps took almost a week before agreeing to the second minor-league deal, which suggests that he couldn't find a better offer elsewhere. Which in turn suggests that the other teams were not impressed with what he showed during spring training.

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Kevin Slowey, last seen spending most of the 2012 season on a Indians minor-league disabled list, made the Miami Marlins rotation. He's to start today against Washington.

The Twins have a pair of two-game series with the Marlins -- two game later this month at Target Field, two games in June in Miami (that's a bone-headed bit of scheduling) -- and I'm rather hopeful that he'll get to pitch against the Twins at least once.

If nothing else, it'll be interesting to hear Ron Gardenhire try to tap-dance again around the subject of the pitcher's falling-out with the Minnesota organization. We can be sure that Bert Blyleven will spend a few innings ripping Slowey.

I think both sides -- Slowey and Twins management -- mishandled things in 2010. Slowey's career crashed at that point; so did the Twins starting rotation. I'd like to see both back on sound footing.

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Kyle Lohse, who signed with Milwaukee about a week before spring training ended, got in one Cactus League start and now will start for the Brewers on Friday. This avoids matching him up next week against his old team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not that he can dodge that matchup for the full three years of his contract.

Verlander and Posey: Two really big deals

Friday was a big day for Justin Verlander — he got a new
mega contract, and he got to play with a real tiger.

Opening Day serves as an unofficial deadline for contract negotiations, with players generally opining that once the season starts they don't want to be "distracted" by such issues. (My bosses are permitted to distract me all they want with multi-million dollar offers, but they apparently don't want to be distracted by such nonsense.)

Friday saw the completion of two significant contract extensions: Justin Verlander for five years, $180 million — a deal that, tacked onto his current contract, ties him to the Detroit Tigers through at least 2019 —and Buster Posey for eight years, $167 million, the second richest contract ever for a catcher (behind, of course, Joe Mauer's deal with the Twins).

The Verlander contract comes a day after the news about Johan Santana's possibly career-ending injury, and the parallels are fairly obvious. Santana signed his big contract with the Mets just before turning 29; it came after four seasons in which he never failed to pitch at least 219 innings, led the league three times in strikeouts and had staked a claim to the title of "best pitcher in baseball." Verlander is 30, and he is coming off four seasons of at least 224 innings with three strikeout crowns and his own claim to the title of "best pitcher in baseball."

Santana was only able to give the Mets one year near the level of productivity and durability he had displayed with the Twins before he started breaking down. That doesn't mean Verlander's about to decline in the same manner; Verlander is bigger than Santana, he's racked up many games with higher pitch counts than the Twins ever let Santana throw,  and he's already at the age at which Santana's stuff began to deteriorate.

Buster Posey has qualified
for a batting title just
once in his career.

The Mets probably wish they hadn't granted Santana his contract. It may be that the Tigers will eventually regret Verlander's contract. Or maybe he is truly the rare arm that can sustain that kind of workload over such a lengthy period.

Posey, like Mauer when he got his contract, is coming off an MVP season that included a batting title — a rare achievement for a catcher. Also like Mauer, there is chatter about the Giants shifting Posey to a less injury-prone position.  (As with Mauer, Posey has missed most of a season because of an injury sustained while catching.)

Posey's contract will tie him to the Giants through his age 35 season. That's an advanced age for a high-offense catcher — a danger that, of course, applies to the Mauer contract as well.

Part of what makes Posey and Mauer worthy of their pay is that they produce as well as they do while playing catcher. They wouldn't be as valuable if they were outfielders or first basemen. It's a dilemma, because heavy playing time at catcher generally shortens careers.

The Giants were willing — indeed, given that Posey was three years away from free agency, we could say the Giants were eager — to take that risk.

Contemplating Johan Santana

Johan Santana's season is over
before it started.

Practically from the day the Twins traded him away, I've quietly harbored the fantasy that Johan Santana had not thrown his last pitch in a Minnesota uniform — that, like Bert Blyleven before him, he might once again find his pitching home in the place his big league career started.

That notion was probably always fanciful. Today — with the news Thursday that Santana's surgically-repaired shoulder has given way again — the odds are far better that he'll never throw another pitch in the majors.

We Twins fans should treasure the memory of Santana's brilliance with the Twins. From the time he broke into the rotation in 2003 through his first season with the Mets after the ill-fated trade (2008), Santana finished seventh, first, third, first, fifth and third in the Cy Young voting — and I do believe that the voters soon regretted not giving him the honor in 2005, which would have made three in a row for him.

Three times he led his league in ERA, three times in strikeouts, twice in innings pitched, three times in strikeouts per nine innings. It was a truly impressive six-year run.

What comes next for the Venezuelan southpaw is uncertain.  He's 34. His return from his 2010 surgery to repair his capsule took 19 months, and no pitcher has had the surgery twice. The Mets owe him more than $25 million for 2013, and there is no chance that they will pick up his option for 2014.

Will Santana want to endure the grueling rehab when he can expect only a limited payoff at the end of it? Surely there won't be big-ticket offers waiting for him at age 36 after a second major shoulder operation.

Still, this is a proud pitcher — with a record to be proud of — with a competitive streak worthy of admiration. He might decide to try it just because he can try it.

Feeling the draft (and other topics)

D.J.Baxendale led Arkansas in wins, innings pitched and
strikeouts this year and started their first game in the
College World Series.

According to Baseball America's draft database, the Twins have signed nine of the 13 players they selected in the first 10 rounds.

One of the unsigned, RHP D.J. Baxendale (10th round), is pitching for Arkansas in the College World Series, so that he's unsigned is to be expected.

The most prominent of the unsigned players is RHP Luke Bard (supplemental pick). Bard is slotted for $1.227 million, and he may be angling for something more than that (the Twins are, according to Baseball America, more than $200,000 under their bonus cap so far). Bard's leverage is that as a college junior he could return to school and hope to be drafted higher next year. The Twins' leverage is that he doesn't sign,  this pick is "protected," meaning that the Twins would get the 43rd pick in next year's draft.

I expect Bard will sign.

The Twins have inked 19 of their 40 draftees.

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Byron Buxton, the Twins first-rounder (No. 2 overall) was Baseball America's high school player of the year. Their story on him is here.

David A. Dorsey of the Fort Myers News-Press profiles Buxton here.

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I took note the other day of Johan Santana's struggles in his first two starts after his no-hitter, so I should take note of his outing Tuesday against Baltimore: Six shutout innings, then an exit with 101 pitches. A good sign.

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Scott Diamond spluttered a bit again Tuesday against Pittsburgh -- 5.1 innings, four runs, eight hits, just one strikeout, and command issues. He had nine GB outs and six FB outs, which isn't as strong a groundball rate as he has usually had.

I don't think his magic is gone, but I have to say I expected better against the Pirates.

Contemplating Jim Thome and Johan Santana

Jim Thome has hit 24 home runs in Target Field.

Jim Thome DH'd against the Twins in all three games of the just-completed three game series twixt the Twins and Phillies. The Twins kept him in the yard in one of those games; it was also the game the Twins won.

After Thome's three-run shot Thursday off Scott Diamond, one of my co-workers asked why Thome was with the Phillies, who have limited use for a DH (and none after this month).

Answer: Because the Phillies offered him a contract early in the offseason, and Thome figured the offers would be few and far between; because he and Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager, go way back; because he figured Philadelphia gave him a good shot at the World Series title that still eludes him.

But realistically, he and the Phils aren't a real good fit. They tried to use him some early on at first base; he wound up spending almost two months on the disabled list. He came off the DL in time for the interleague road games, which gives Manuel the chance to get him in the lineup, but once that's over (next week), about all he can do is pinch-hit.

I don't know if there are any American League contenders who can carry a part-time designated hitter. Part-time because he's not David Ortiz; you can't just stick Thome in the lineup seven games a week. His history with the Twins suggests that his three-day run in the lineup in Minnesota this week is about as much as he can handle without a day or two on the bench.

When he can hit, he's a threat, still. It's the "when" part that's the issue.

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Johan Santana has made two starts since his no-hitter. He's pitched 10-plus innings and allowed 10 runs. It could have been worse' he left Thursday night's game having loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth. Another ex-Twins pitcher, Jon Rauch, bailed him out of that mess.

A definitive line of cause-and-effect cannot be drawn here, but ... 134 pitches for the no-hitter, followed by two bad starts, even with extra days off.

Pic of the Week

The Citi Field scoreboard pays homage to Johan Santana
after Friday night's masterpiece.

One more photo from Johan Santana's no-hitter; one more pun of the rhyme of the word "no" and the first syllable of his first name.

There have been three no-hitters so far in 2012. One (Jared Weaver) came against the Twins. The other two were thrown by former Twins who were traded for each other (Santana and Phillip Humber).

A Santana pitch

Free Press colleague Pat Christman and I were looking at photos from Johan Santana's no-hitter, and we came across this sequence of a Santana pitch. It's actually from a different game, but still ... it reminded us of the old flip book animation, and we decided to try it in Blogger.

Enjoy.

Santana's no-Jo

Johan Santana's no-hitter Friday was the first in Mets history,
this for a franchise that has had such dominant pitchers as
Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.

During Johan Santana's Twins years, I frequently pondered this question on my way to work on days he was to pitch: What am I going to do if he makes some history tonight?

On Friday night, Santana finally threw the no-hitter I anticipated on so many nights. He did it, of course, for the Mets, but for a lot of Twins fans in Minnesota, he'll always be one of our guys.

He is having a superb season. This is actually his second straight complete-game shutout. He's struck out 68 men in 68 innings — even with a diminished fastball, he still misses bats — and his ERA is 2.38.


Not bad for a guy whose very career appears in jeopardy a year ago.

I only hope that Friday's feat won't prove damaging. Santana threw 134 pitches (77 strikes) for his no-hitter. His career high had been 125. He missed all of 2011 with a complex shoulder surgery, and has had other significant surgeries. While he keeps himself in superb physical condition, he's not a workhorse.

Obviously it was a risk Santana was willing to take for a shot at history. Only time will tell if it was a wise risk to take.

Contemplating the 2002 Twins

Michael Cuddyer: Will the Rockies outfielder
be the last man standing from the 2002
Minnesota Twins?

A few members of the 2002 Twins gathered at Monday's home opener for the first-pitch ceremony and general accolades.

It wasn't close to a full turnout, of course; for one thing, there are at least nine players still active from that team, and that's not counting two guys (Cristian Guzman and Casey Blake) released during spring training.

Which raises the question, at least in my mind: Who will be the last of the 2002 Twins to play in the majors?

My guess, in reverse order:

9) Juan Rincon, pitching for the Angels Triple A team, hasn't actually been in the majors since 2010. He has a better chance at pitching in the majors than I do, but he's not likely to last long if he does.

8) LaTroy Hawkins, Anaheim. He's 39 and no longer a late-inning guy. There's still tread on the tires, and he could out last ...

7) J.C. Romero, St. Louis. Left-handed One-Out GuYs (LOOGYs) tend to last forever, and Romero is four years younger than the Hawk, but he's been limited to fractional innings for a couple years now.

6) David Ortiz, Boston. The final six are all lineup fixtures or rotation anchors, and they all could have years left. I put Ortiz here because (a) he's 36; (b) all of his value is in his bat; (c) he's been up-and-down in recent seasons and (d) his days of multi-year contracts are past.

5) Johan Santana, Mets. I put him here because he's recovering from a significant shoulder injury. While he fared well in the opener against the Braves, his velocity is down, and it's clear that he is being monitored closely. As he should; the Mets owe him $50 million over the next two years and would like something for the money. The question once past the current deal may be how difficult it is for him to continue to pitch. 

4) Torii Hunter, Anaheim. Last year of his contract. Last won a Gold Glove in 2009 and no longer a center fielder. Power numbers well down in recent years. Has a bigger reputation as a leader than I suspect he deserves. I wonder how much demand there'll be for his services this winter, and how willing he'll be to take a steep cut. Pride has ended some careers.

3) Kyle Lohse, St. Louis. Started (and well) on Opening Day for the defending champions. Led the Cards in wins and starter ERA last season. Not an ace, but a good mid-rotation guy.

2) A.J. Pierzynski, White Sox. A remarkably durable catcher. Now 35, he is essentially the same hitter he was a decade ago, which is almost unheard of in regular backstops. Doesn't throw well, but even after his bat declines he can still stick around a few years as a backup. If he wants to.

1) Michael Cuddyer, Colorado. A similar player now to Hunter – right-handed hitting right fielders with bigger contracts and reputations than their current production warrant — but younger and with two more years on his contract. 

Thoughts on opening weekend

The Twins saw far too much of this during their series
in Baltimore.

Item: Twins get swept in Baltimore.

I think: There wasn't much of a silver lining to this series at all.

There are three American League teams with 0-3 records, and the other two are the Yankees and Red Sox. If the Twins have the same record as those two teams all season, I think Twins fans will be pleased with the season. But the Yanks got swept by Tampa Bay and the Bosox by Detroit, and those figure to be significantly better than the O's.

And now the Twins face a really daunting stretch of opponents: Angels, Rangers, Yankees, Rays, Red Sox ... 16 games against five really primed rosters.

It's easy to imagine this season spiraling out of control in April. Again.

Item: Ozzie Guillen tells Time magazine he "loves" Fidel Castro.

I think: Given Guillen's outspoken disdain for Castro-wannabe Hugo Chavez in his native Venezuela, I'm inclined to chalk this up to Guillen's mouth running out of control again.

If he were still managing the White Sox, this would be an exceedingly minor blip on the radar. But he's managing in Miami, where Castro is a hot-botton topic. I'm not sure there are enough fire extinguishers to put out this blaze.

Item: Johan Santana throws five shutout innings against the Braves.

I think: I listened to some of it via my iPad, and Santana was pretty clearly out of gas at the end of his stint. He probably didn't top 90 mph with his best fastball.

But it's good to see him back, and effective. A different kind of effective, to be sure, but effective nonetheless.

Joe Girardi overthought things in
the first inning of the first game
of the Yankees season.

Item: Joe Girardi opens himself to serious second-guessing.

Opening day, CC Sabathia on the hill for the Yankees against the Rays. In the first inning, with two on and two out, Girardi orders Sabathia to walk Sean Rodriguez intentionally to bring up Carlos Pena.

The Rays radio announcers reportedly immediately start trying to decide if Girardi is the biggest over-manager in Yankees history. They're still trying to figure it out when Pena's fly ball clears the right field fence for a grand slam.

I think: The numbers give some justification for Girardi's move. Rodriguez hits lefties well; Pena does not. That's why Rodriguez was hitting in front of Pena.

But just because I might do this in a Strat-O-Matic game doesn't make it the thing to do in real life. Sean Rodriguez ain't Albert Pujols, and CC Sabathia ain't Scott Diamond.

If Girardi doesn't trust Sabathia to get the likes of Rodriguez out in the first inning of the first game of the season, what does that tell his pitcher? What does that tell his team?

Girardi has a squad sufficiently talented that he doesn't need to prove that he's the smartest man in the room. Doing as little as possible would be the wisest route.