Twins Fan from Afar's Friday Links

Terry Doyle, Rule 5 pick, sure had a tough outing yesterday, allowing 8 of 10 batters to reach and only making it 2 outs into the first inning (and one of those outs was Joe Mauer throwing out a would-be base stealer). His Grapefruit League ERA is now 16.88. There's that old saying that even the worst day at a ballpark (or on the golf course, or on the lake, or pick your place that you love to be) is better than the best day at the office, but I don't think I've ever had that kind of a meltdown at my job.

It's nice to see #33 hitting in batting practice, even if it
hasn't exactly translated to success in games yet.
Image courtesy of Chris Polydoroff, Pionner Press.

As Twins fans, the positives we can take away from these past few days of games is that Joe Mauer is back to looking pretty comfortable at the plate and his arm seems to be in good shape, Justin Morneau hasn't been held back from any games or activities (although he has not yet found his timing), and Denard Span looks like he hasn't missed a beat, playing well in center field and hitting a ton so far. Now, on with the links.

Jim Crikket at Knuckleballs is looking for a few Twins, such as Trevor Plouffe and Danny Valencia, to have breakout seasons.

Edward Thoma at Baseball Outsider opines on the 2013 Twins' starting rotation.

PK at Minnesota Twins Musings discusses the advantages for veteran pitchers in Spring Training, as opposed to young pitchers trying to make the team in the first place.

Thrylos98 at The Tenth Inning Stretch has been keeping us updated on the Twins' bullpen and bench battles. Good work, thrylos!

Finally, it's time for a little self-promotion. I started a new position this week at Through the Fence Baseball. I'll be writing there a couple times a week on Twins related stuff. I'm not sure exactly what my voice will be there; I think the pieces will be read by as many non-Twins fans as Twins fans, so it will be a little different in scope than this blog. But I'm excited to try something new. Anyway, here's the link for my work there.