TheGoldSeat

Ok, with Denard Span being sent down to AAA and Joe Nathan being inked to a 4 year, $47 M payday, the Minnesota Twins opening day roster is rounding into shape.  Here are my predictions for the upcoming season.  The opening day lineup will look like this:

1. Carlos Gomez, CF
2. Joe Mauer, C
3. Michael Cuddyer, RF
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Delmon Young, LF
6. Craig Monroe/Jason Kubel, DH
7. Brendan Harris, 2B
8. Mike Lamb, 3B
9. Adam Everett, SS

The best case scenario is that Carlos Gomez becomes Jose Reyes, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau play like they did in 2006, Delmon Young plays like Torii Hunter did last year, and the 7,8,9 spots can get at least 3 combined hits a game.  Worst case scenario is that Carlos Gomez bats .232 like he last year with the Mets, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau play like they did in 2007, Delmon Young is still a couple years away from being a superstar, Craig Monroe remembers that he is old and Jason Kubel continues to deliver nothing on the hype that I have heard for the last 4 years, and our 7,8,9 batters consistently give the Twins only 18 outs to outscore our opponents who are getting 27 outs to play with. 

How about the pitchers.  It looks like the Franchise is going to start the year on a rehab assignment, and Baker will be given as much time to get up to speed as possible; so here is how I see the opening day rotation:

1. Livan Hernandez

2. Boof Bonser

3. Kevin Slowey

4. Nick Blackburn

5. Scott Baker

 Eventually, however, the rotation will look more like:

1. Francisco Liriano

2. Scott Baker

3. Livan Hernandez

4. Boof Bonser

5. Kevin Slowey

Either way, the prospects for keeping opponents under 5 runs a game don’t look good.  Blackburn and Slowey are essentially unknowns at this point.  They are both regarded by those outside of the Twins organization as decent pitching prospects.  To put it into perspective, the Rays didn’t want Slowey or Blackburn for Delmon Young, they wanted Matt Garza.  So expecting either of them to be better than Matt was would be irresponsible.  Boof and Baker both showed signs of dominant pitching last year, but those signs were all too often scattered in between 4 inning outings.  The same goes for Liriano.  He made the all-star game in 2006 after arriving on the baseball landscape like he was shot out of cannon.  Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to know how his elbow will respond to the Tommy John surgery, not to mention the complete transformation of his delivery mechanics.  To me, it looks like the smart bet would be that Liriano will get back to peak form by the end of spring training next year. 

As you can probably tell, I see the rotation as the biggest question mark.  One which could sway the Twins performance this year by 40 games or more from best-case scenario to worst-case scenaro.  If the starting rotation is a high yield junk bond, rife with risk, the bullpen is more like an index fund; solid performance with less risk exposure.  Joe Nathan is a top 5 closer in the league, Neshek was a top 5 set-up man before he had to take all of his innings and Jesse Crain’s innings the second half of the year.  Speaking of Crain, he is coming back healthy and will be able to spell Neshek and keep him fresh throughout the season.  Blackburn/Perkins/whoever else will be decent long-relievers for those times when the starters show their inevitable inconsistency. 

So, here comes a prediction.  The way I see it, we will be good enough to win 25% percent of our games against Detroit, Cleveland, New York Yankees and Boston.  So that gives us 10 wins in 38 tries against the Detroit/Cleveland and 3 wins in 12 tries against NY/Boston.  I think we are good enough to play .600 baseball the rest of the way in the 112 remaining games against the NL teams in interleague play and the non-elite AL teams.  So this would give us 67 more wins in 112 tries.  Therefore, my prediction for the overall season is 80 wins, 82 losses.  Unfortunately, 80 wins in the AL Central is probably only good for 3rd, depending on if the White Sox can come back to form and pass us.  This is by no means gospel, so if you have any thoughts/opinions/arguments/gripes we would love hear what you think!