Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits

Here is this week's installment:

• Tonight Fransisco Liriano will make his next start after he has been skipped in the rotation. I hope the gods of Fastball grand him command, control and deceitfulness
• Luke Hughes was designated for assignment by the Athletics yesterday to make room for Brandon Inge. The Twins have the opportunity to re-sign him and right a wrong
• Interesting to see Jason Marquis being the Twins' most reliable starter so far in this young season and that he only has walked 2 (and struck out 18) in 31.3 IP. If this continues, the Twins will be in for a pleasant surprise.
• One of the newest Twins because the newest daddy in the Twins six days ago.
• Today is the deadline for potential international free agents to declare with MLB their intention to potentially sign with a team, per the new collaborative agreement. These are players like Miguel Sano, who can sign anytime after July 2nd when they turn 16 years old. The declaration of intend with MLB is new, it creates a more even playing field and gets the "handlers" out of the equation. At some point there will be a list of players who declared, so there will be better profiles and presentations before July 2nd.
• Few interesting pieces of trivia about the current Twins' broadcaster (and former SS) Roy Smalley: a. he was drafted 4 times but did not singed until he was drafted first overall by the Texas Rangers. b. He was traded to the Twins from the Rangers for the man who he replaced on the booth (Bert Blyleven). c. he was traded from the Twins to the Yankees for Ron Davis and Greg Gagne.
• A great writeup about Danny Valencia in his home town paper
• Meanwhile, a Twins' player was engaged last Sunday, and Twins' prospect RHP Ryan O'Rourke writes about Minor Leaguers and housing.
• Wonder whether that stuffed animal in a particular Twins' player's locker has any significance.
• Add another misguided release of a minor leaguer to those of Danny Osterbrock and Pedro Guerra: The Twins released Tony Davis last Friday, while they keep signing up 30-something never had beens and assigning them to Rochester. In fact, the Twins' organization has been so class-less in the treatment of its minor leaguers that released Davis while having a broken thumb and stopped his medical insurance. I hope that they do the right thing, because I am not sure that I am liking the new Twins' way... And apparently he is not the only Twins' minor leaguer who was released while injured and the only unhappy one.
• Speaking of Minor League transactions, there were several promotions this week, the 2 most notable with Twins MLB implications: Deolis Guerra (of Johan Santana trade fame) was promoted from New Britain to Rochester and BJ Hermsen was promoted from Fort Myers to New Britain. Why would those promotions have MLB implications? Guerra and Hermsen have been the best relief and strating pitcher respectively in the organization so far in 2012. Guerra will be out of options in 2013, so he will have to be in the TWins' pen or gone in 2013. He is on the 40-man roster, so it is almost certain that sometime this season he will play in Minnesota. BJ Hermsen, 23, is a starter whose career development path resembles that of Liam Hendriks. If he continues well in New Britain this season he likely would be in the conversation for one of the many openings in the Twins' rotation in 2013.
• Speaking of Rochester, May has been proclaimed Baseball Month in Rochester. There are some cool things going on there and this involves the Red Wings and not the Empire State Yankees, so it should be fun if you are a local Twins' or Wings' fan.
• It is amazing that even some or the biggest Ron Gardenhire supporters and Minnesota Twins' traditionalists out there are started to look at the Manager situation similar to me. Sample number 1 and Sample number 2.
• Twins who had birthdays the last week: Adrian Salcedo (21st), Ryan O'Rourke (24th) and Luis Perdomo (28th)
• The Twins are ranked as the worse team in the majors by the big sports web site this week.
• The Twins' product of the week, is a really cool book. A bucket list: 100 Things Twins Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die

The parting shot today is of BJ Hermsen who was promoted to AA New Britain Rock Cats a couple days ago






As always you can find all the Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits Posts here, in reverse chronological order.