1. Barring a mild case of ebola, Justin Morneau becomes the first Twin since 1987 to hit 30 homeruns in a season. Not much explanation needed here really.
2. Tony Batista doesn’t come anywhere near 30 homeruns. Because that’s pretty hard to do when you only get 200 plate appearances. You can already start hearing snickers in the press about Batista. This experiment probably lasts until mid-May. Maybe less if Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer both get off to fast starts.
3. Joe Mauer makes his first of many All-Star games.
4. For the first time in 5 years, the Twins bullpen is a weakness. Juan Rincon never gets going, and Jesse Crain regresses significantly in 2006.
5. By the end of the year, Shannon Stewart is nothing more than a fourth outfielder, with injuries robbing all his range in the field and significantly cutting down on the number of at-bats he gets.
6. Johan Santana breaks Walter Johnson’s franchise record of 313 strikeouts in a season.
7. Torii Hunter plays in over 100 games, but not over 110.
8. Matt Moses has a breakout year, hitting for power and average. On the pitching front, Anthony Swarzak works his way up to AAA and becomes the next great Twins’ starting pitcher in waiting.
9. The Twins finish in third place, 10 games behind the White Sox and 15 behind the Indians.
10. Ron Gardenhire is on the hot seat after that happens.
That said, Play ball.
3 comments:
Define "hot seat". Didn't Pohlad guarantee him the job? Would the milquetoast GM have the balls to do take out Gardy any way?
The rest look reasonable.
1. Agreed, but he'll still be a semi-disappointment.
2. I think there's a chance that Batista lasts the entire season, unfortunately. If not, Tiffee will take his place.
3. Disagree. He'll be more-than-deserving, however.
4. Agreed.
5. Agreed, despite today's performance.
6. How many innings do you forsee him throwing? If Santana finished the season with his 2004 K rate, he'll have had to throw about 270 innings to pass 313. If he throws the same amount of innings this year as he did in last year, he'll have to average more than 12 K/9 to surpass Johnson.
I suppose 260 IP, 10.8 K/9 is realistic, but I don't think he'll be allowed to throw the requisite number of innings.
7. I'll take the over on that.
8. Moses, no. Swarzak, yes. But he doesn't reach AAA.
9. Agreed, though I think it'll be slightly closer.
10. Ryan will remain Gardenhire's bitch.
Define "hot seat"
Hot seat=Instead of angry seamheads talking about Gardenhire's inadequacies, you'll start to see guys like Pat Reusse doing it.
Post a Comment