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Over the past week I have seen an inordinate amount of predictions regarding the 2009 baseball season and the Minnesota Twins. All of them are predicated on something, I just have no idea what.

Baseball Prospectus predicted that the Twins would once again finish neck-and-neck with the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central, with the Twins sneaking out a third-place finish with a record of 77-85. The formula used to figure that record is certainly a dense one - and I would never in a million years pretend that I have any right to call an esteemed publication like theirs bullshit, but lets be honest, it’s bullshit. But it isn’t just Baseball Prospectus, it’s every prediction-laden, plan-laying, crystal ball seeing, tarot card reading, sports website in America.

While they computed the 77-85 record the Prospectus wrote that the prospects for a successful 2009 Twins season boiled down to, “If the Twins can find a way to shore up one of the league’s weaker offenses, they’re also in the hunt.”

Now, what exactly is meant by “weaker” evades me. The Twins in 2008 hit the second fewest home runs in the American League, which is weak, but also managed to score the third most runs in the American League, which is not weak. They have retained most of that lineup and added a power-hitting third baseman, so what gives, what makes them a weak offensive team? Or what is it that Baseball Prospectus knows about the Twins lineup in 2009 that will make it less effective than 2008?

I’m not saying that they’re wrong, or that the opportunistic Twins offense - which thrived in 2008 by hitting an ungodly .305 with runners in scoring position (which led the league by nearly .20 points) - won’t fall back to earth. Still, while their offense may stumble in certain areas could they not just as easily thrive in others? Could Carlos Gomez hit 15 home runs? Could Delmon Young hit 15? Could Cuddyer drive in 90 runs? Will I die in a car crash?

See, for me the most shocking moment of the Twins 2008 season was when Adam Everett pulled a fake-bunt two RBI double against the Rays in mid-September. Now, for 99 percent of the season Adam Everett’s offense sat comfortably within its predicted range, but that doesn’t mean that Adam Everett or any person or player or animate object can’t at any given moment, do whatever in the hell he/she/it wants on this earth.

So, Baseball Prospectus has the Twins in third place, that’s their prediction. In 2008 they predicted a fourth place finish for the Twins and that the Mets and Yankees would both win their divisions. In fact they predicted only one division winner accurately, the Cubs, and no one cares. No one should.

It’s always important to remember that Nostradamus predicted damn near nothing right, and neither will Baseball Prospectus, and neither will I, and neither will you.

Predictions are entirely pointless. But the Internet was becoming more and more prediction and data analysis friendly long before the whole Nate Silver electoral college thing blew the shit out of the water, and now the statistical and data analysis revolution has seemingly left people numbers crazy.

Nowhere is this statistical revolution more belabored, more mind-numbing, than in baseball where analysts have basically taken a childish distraction and somewhat cerebral and athletic entertainment and turned it into methodically broken down zones of analysis.

And while the Jamesian school has grown with each passing year and his influence is without a doubt earned and respected it is important to remember that while his analysis can be viewed as predictive it is purely reflective. Now, a collection of data gathered over the course of years and years of studying a players tendency in the field, on the mound, or at the plate can be insanely effective in the course of a game and can hand an opposing team an advantage when it comes to defending or attacking that player - it is still anything but certain.

It’s funny to me that the more and more uncertain the world becomes, the harder it becomes to even understand the things that are happening in the world in real time, people tend to become more and more concerned with trying to see what will happen in the future. We can no longer be immersed in the event - be it a game, the stock market, the actions of a president, or a night out with friends - we have to first build up the anticipation, the pregame show, the predictions of the outcome, who will win? who will lose? what will it all be like, in the future, so soon from now?

“Well Jimmy, when the game is over in three hours what do you think the major storyline will be?”

“Oh, that’s easy Stu…”

“Sarah can you imagine how much fun we’re going to be having in a couple of hours? We are going to be soooo hammered and having soooo much fun…”

“I know, like, I can’t even imagine how much fun that will be!”

“Well what will the first 100 days in office hold for President Obama?”

“I can tell you that Glenn, in fact I have here a calendar with the exact details of what will most likely be happening minute to minute during the first 100 days President Obama is in office.”

And before you know it the event is over and briefly we can look back over it and consider what has happened, consider the “importance” and wonder what went wrong with our predictions? What went wrong with our plans? Were we right, were we wrong, does it matter, could it matter, will it matter? The event is over, the night is past, and we move on to something new, some new thing somewhere down the road in some distant space. We will always need that new thing out in our future to fill our curiosity of what it (meaning our life) will be like when that happens.

But all of this star-gazing remains pointless because there is no such thing as the perfect prediction. And even if Silver can accurately predict the outcome of 49 of 50 states in the 2008 general election and nail the popular vote down within something like 1.1 percentage points, there will always be that one state, that 1.1 percent, that Adam Everett fake-bunt game-winning double. There will always be life and it will always be a mystery.

With that in mind here are our:

2009 non-baseball related Minnesota Twins predictions!

Delmon Young will get a new car, with the wood-trim package and black leather.

Justin Morneau will announce the arrival of a new child to earth, it may or may not be his child.

Norm Coleman will quietly attend a Twins game, no one will know.

There will be pranks in the clubhouse.

Joe Mauer will stay single, but a new love interest will come into his life. It will be her radiant brown hair which draws in the batting champ.

There will be team slogans and cheers.

A few confused fans will go to Target Field thinking the new stadium is already open, will find construction.

Nick Punto will be married.

The economy will be talked about by Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven as it relates to Twins tickets sales, they will mess up either an essential figure or a rudimentary economic concept.

Bill Smith will hold a press conference.

Carlos Gomez will have a dream.

The lights in Minneapolis will flicker on near dusk.

America will prosper.

God will love.

You will be a success.

2009 prediction: 92-70 (First place)

According to La Velle E. Neal III the Joe Crede signing is a done deal. The Twins and Crede danced around one another for about two months and seemed to reach an impasse a week ago when the Twins were not willing to bring their offer up to Crede’s desired one-year $7 million contract. So, the news that Crede signed for one-year $2.5 million (with incentives ranging up to that desired $7 million price-tag based on plate appearances) was practically breathtaking (you know, if you care about baseball obsessively).

On the surface the signing speaks to two major points:

1. Bill Smith has made his first great move as general manager.

2. Joe Crede believes he can be the Joe Crede of 2003-2006 again.

First off, Bryant and I debated the merits of a Crede signing at length in the last podcast but the overall feel that I had was that signing Crede was essentially a pointless move because of the potential similar effectiveness of a Brian Buscher/Brendan Harris platoon. Bryant was on the other page, in Bryant’s opinion - and probably a right opinion - the power that Crede could potentially bring to the lineup was entirely necessary for the Twins to be an improved offensive team in 2009. For Bryant, and many Twins fans, it wasn’t a question of whether or not Crede could excessively outpace the combined Buscher/Harris platoon but simply that Crede brought the greater ceiling and the greater everyday consistency at third-base.

Still, whatever you felt about Crede one thing is certain, if you knew that the Twins could sign him for a base-salary of $2.5 million the debate would be over.  Of course there was no reason to believe that Bill Smith and the Twins could finagle a Scott Boras client into a low-risk contract like this - even as the days whittled away and spring training opened the only feeling I sensed was that the Twins were most likely going to go their own way and hope for improvement from their young players.

It seems that Smith was able to wait Boras and Crede out and find a deal that basically protected the Twins in every way possible. According to Neal the deal includes incentives based on first reaching 250 plate appearances and topping out at $7 million with his 525th plate appearance. Anyone can see that the Twins have essentially guaranteed themselves of not getting hurt in this deal.

What is perhaps more important for the Twins though is the second point, what Joe Crede is playing for this year is not simply next year but for the rest of his career. In last year’s contract-year with the White Sox Crede hit .248 with 17 home runs and 55 RBI and, despite being a south-side favorite, the White Sox didn’t even make him an offer, because of his age and injury-plagued back - and it took until Feb. 21 for him to sign with the Twins, and even then the contract clearly fit the Twins needs more than Crede’s.

So, from Crede and Boras there has to be a clear sense that this year is the year to get his form back, to produce for an entire season, and then hopefully get a long-term deal for the late years of Crede’s career.

But if you’re a Twins fan consider one thing quickly: from the start of the season until he was sent to the DL on July 21 Crede hit .253 with 17 home runs and 54 RBI while slugging .471 in 90 games.

For a Twins-friendly comparison, in his first 90 games of the 2008 season Justin Morneau hit .313 with 12 home runs and 65 RBI while slugging .487.

Crede would only play in seven more games in 2008 but still his home run totals would have been third for the Twins behind Morneau and Jason Kubel; his slugging percentage tied for second, with Kubel; his RBI total would have been good for sixth.

An injured Crede, a Crede who only gets 312 AB’s, is still an insanely necessary commodity for the power-starved Twins.

What Crede and Boras are obviously hoping for - and what Twins’ fans can view as the potential ceiling for 2009 - is that Crede can take those raw numbers from his first 90 games and extrapolate them over the course of a 162 game season and get back to his earlier ‘03-’06 form, during which Crede averaged 500.5 plate appearances, 27 doubles, 23 home runs, 75 RBI, with a .260 batting average and an average of a .453 slugging percentage.

This contract may not have been a best-case scenario for Crede but it certainly is for the Twins. It is possible to imagine a lineup of Span-Casilla-Mauer-Morneau-Crede-Kubel-Cuddyer/Young-Punto/Harris-Gomez and see some legitimate worry in opposing pitchers after the first four batters have reached the plate.

A great signing for Bill Smith and the Twins that, in it’s worst form, will be a lowly $2.5 million gamble, and in its best form could be a $7 million triumph.

Ed. Note: Twinscast.com has been experiencing technical difficulties when it comes to uploading episodes onto the website. Bryant Johnson, our technical director, has proven rather incompetent at fixing this problem but the recent episodes - for the eight people who listen - are currently available on iTunes, and we are working towards getting the problem fixed so they will also appear on the site.

Also, Twinscast.com has been experiencing difficulties when it comes to regular blog postings on the website. Jeff Day, our senior baseball writer, has proven rather incompetent at maintaining a regular posting schedule, but as pitchers and catchers report to Ft. Myers this week the blog posting schedule will become more regular for the three people who read the blog.

Well, hello Twinscast audience, we’ve missed you.

Bryant and I wanted to wish you all a happy kiss-off to the offseason this Valentine’s Day weekend as pitcher’s and catcher’s report to spring training on Friday. We have been terribly negligent in our off-season coverage of the Twins and have focused primarily on a Wal-Mart trampling whenever we fire up a podcast, not to mention that we can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with uploading the podcasts onto the website. In light of this here is a wrap-up of the off-season that will cover the major moves the Twins made and give you our distinct and in-depth analysis of what these moves mean.

Tuck your toes in, get those knickers off, and lets jam, this could take awhile.

The most interesting off-season happenings for the Twins in 2008-2009.

1. Dec. 11 - Nick Punto signs two-year $8.5 million contract with the Twins, including a club-option for $5 million in 2011.

2. Jan 20 - Reports come out that Joe Mauer’s recovery from kidney surgery is taking longer than expected.

3. Jan 7 - Carl Pohlad dies.

4. Feb 7 - Twins sign Luis Ayala to one-year $1.3 million contract.

5. Feb 13 - Twins sign Delmon Young to one-year $1.15 million contract after month’s of speculation regarding whether or not he would be in the Twins outfield in 2009.

6. Ummm, six, the number six, what was the Twins sixth major move this off-season?

Is this it? Is five it?

In looking over the copious notes I have been taking the past three months it seems that the rest of the Twin’s off-season seems to essentially be filled with questions unresolved: will they get Joe Crede? Eric Gagne? decent middle-relief? Ty Wiggington? a major steroid revelation? anything? anyone?

This is it.

The hiring of a groundskeeper for 2010 literally made the paper.

So, what do these five moves mean? Well, it means that we know who the Twins starting first-baseman, shortstop and head coach is going to be in 2009.

I will give the Twins credit for one thing: while the rest of the world is full of uncertainty and greed-mongering assholes they remain remarkably steady and unwavering in their mindset. They are a slow-plow of boring monotony in the middle of a high flying strew of shit and money.

This is probably a good thing, baseball has gone to hell this off-season - Jose Canseco is literally looking like a sage.

So, it seems like the Twins, in staying beneath the desk and waiting for the debris to settle, are comfortable moving forward with what they have and praying for slight improvement. And while a linear thought process could lead fans to expect that this tactic will produce results and that the team should be better than last year (ex. young players growing into more seasoned and concrete roles become better players) - it instead seems like expectations will drop again for the Twins in 2009.

No major moves. No big signings. No nothing. No risks. No rewards. What a pathetic and boring and utterly despondent off-season.

Bill Smith has learned his lesson.

So, that’s that, that should make our bosses shut up about lack of content. Baseball is coming, forget the economy and the fact that you lost your job, kiss your friends, hug your mothers, take some time, be patient and sleep with your lovers…here’s to spring.

Editors note: Today we are running a guest column from Joe Day long time Twinscast reader and brother of site co-operator Jeff Day.

Being Rickey:
That’s what I wanted to be when I was a kid. I would walk to the batters box in little league and cross myself like Rickey did prior to his at-bats. If I got on base you could bet that I would squat like Rickey did, only my foot was on the base instead of a large lead off. I would wiggle my fingers between my legs like Rickey did, even though no pitcher was looking my way. I had all of his cards. My favorite was when my Dad took me to get his rookie card. I had wanted it for what seemed like forever. I was sure that I was the biggest Rickey Henderson fan in America. I was also sure that he was the greatest player of all time: above Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds was not even in the discussion.

Then something funny happened, I grew up. Playing baseball, collecting cards and following Rickey Henderson became an after thought. I fell in love, graduated college and my first child will be born in the next few days.

Rickey however, did not grow up.

He continued to refer to himself in the third person, steal bases, wiggle his fingers, and play the game with more passion then any player I have ever watched. He loved the game so much he played in independent leagues in San Diego and Newark, riding the bus with the guys - just trying for that one more chance to make a big league roster and help a team win.

When I was younger the stories about Rickey were only about how he didn’t remember John Olerud and his batting helmet when they met up for the second time with the Mets. Or how Rickey used to practice his batting stance in the nude before games. Or even how he did not cash a $100,000 bonus check because he was waiting for interest rates to rise. These make for a great one liner but you don’t get the full understanding of what Rickey did as a player from these stories - or about what kind of teammate he was to the younger players.

I’ve yet to hear a former teammate say something bad about Rickey.

Maybe he forgot your name but he was the teammate people wanted to have on their side. Who would not want to follow Rickey in the batting order? He was on base more then anyone other then Ruth, Cobb, Rose, and Bonds. He was stealing second, everyone knew that, so there was an RBI waiting to happen.

Now that he has finally retired as a player he has shown that he can help players learn the art of base stealing. Look at how Jose Reyes improved when Rickey was a special instructor and first base coach for the Mets.

Rickey Henderson did not use steroids. In the “Juiced Era” of baseball on a team with Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco, Henderson did push ups and sit ups as his workout routine. Those push ups and sit ups led to him being the All-Time leader in stolen bases, runs, and lead off home runs. He also holds the record for most stolen bases in a single season with 130. The top two in that category in 2008 didn’t match that number (Willie Taveras with 68 and Jose Reyes with 56). His lead over Lou Brock in the all time stolen base record book is more then the active career leader: Henderson leads Brock by 468 stolen bases, Juan Pierre has a career total of 449.

So today, when it will become official that Rickey Henderson is going to the Hall of Fame, I want to use his words to sum it all up. “Today, I’m the greatest of all time.”

Brash, yes. Talent, undoubtedly. The greatest base stealer ever, yep. And today, a Hall of Famer.

If George Steinbrenner is viewed by the public as the only embodiment of the owner as simulacrum of his team that is because we in America love money, and we in America love New York.

Steinbrenner, with his loose temper, his loose money, his open-discourse regarding players, coaches, and the press has created a persistent and honest belief that he is the perfect New York Owner of the perfect New York Team. And as Steinbrenner has fallen ill it has driven up a fair amount of conversation regarding “what becomes of the Yankees” with Steinbrenner no longer steering?

This is a unique position for the owner of any major sports franchise. Owners are, ostensibly, supposed to remain in the background. They are the wheel, but we are only supposed to see the spinners - the G.M’s making the moves, the players on the field. The owner typically stays in the box suite occasionally being seen, occasionally being quoted, but mainly acting as the bank while the world watches what the spenders do with its money.

Steinbrenner is great for sports in that he is unique as a owner. He is splintering and aggravating for anyone who doesn’t believe in the Yankee idea. But, of course, Steinbrenner has believed so thoroughly in the Yankee idea that he has come in many ways to be it’s mirror reflection.

When Steinbrenner says that owning the Yankees is like “owning the Mona Lisa,” we know he means it, and we also may wonder if he could own the Mona Lisa.

There have been owners in other sports who have tried to re-create that over-bearing style of ownership that Steinbrenner pioneered, and they all come off looking foolish. Mark Cuban and Marge Schott have failed miserably. Al Davis can’t figure out when to get out of the spot light. Jerry Jones may be a contemporary but he has always struck me as the Donovan to Steinbrenner’s Dylan…a good carbon-copy, but put them in the same room and there really isn’t a comparison.

Steinbrenner is one-in-a-million, he was pure New York and pure Yankees and the most well known owner in all of sports. He fit his team perfectly.

And so did Carl Pohlad.

Pohlad, who died on Monday at the age of 93, was always vilified by Twins fans. They thought he was cheap. They thought he was greedy. They thought he didn’t care whether his team stayed in town or went to North Carolina.

Some of that is true, but what it underscores is simply that Twins fans wanted Pohlad to be Steinbrenner or at least Jerry Reinsdorf. But the Twins don’t play in New York and they don’t play in Chicago; they play in Minnesota, where Carl Pohlad lived and died. And his team, in my opinion, came to represent the idea of Carl Pohlad’s life as purely as any connection between New York and The Boss.

When Pohlad bought the team in 1984 the Twins hadn’t won a division championship in 13 years. In his seven years as owner the Twins would win two world championships in 1987 and 1991.

From 1992-2001 the Twins never won a world series; the Twins never reached the playoffs; the Twins lost 90 or more games five times in that stretch.

Recently the team has seen several successes, including four division championships in seven years on a hamstring budget.

What does this have to do with Carl Pohlad as an owner? Very little.

Some Twins fans would say that the losing seasons, the low-budget operations, the almost mind-numbing lack of major free agent signings have everything to do with Pohlad. He is viewed as the multi-billionaire who will not spare a cent. You can imagine a crotchety life-long Twins fan sitting at a diner in Minneapolis recounting a story of how a friend of his saw Pohlad spit in a homeless man’s change cup.

But it seems that if anything the Twins major philosophy of working from the bottom-up, of working through the draft and through the minors and through fundamentals fits right in-line with a billionaire who was born to a poor family, fought in WWII, received the Purple Heart, and created his own fortune.

Now, there is the view that because Pohlad made that fortune by foreclosing on farms in the Great Depression that he is actually a swindler. That he is Mr. Potter: a rich and opportunistic man who takes from the less fortunate and hordes for himself and that this business model translated to his ownership of the Twins (the idea being that Twins fans are somehow the “broke farmers of the Great Depression”).

Still, I would be hard-pressed to point a finger at a man for how he makes his money. I would also be hard-pressed to tell anyone how to spend their money.

Pohlad wasn’t just tight with his money when it came to the Twins, he was tight with it in all regards. His son Robert was quoted in the Star Tribune saying, “I think he truly believes that if he doesn’t work hard, he’s gonna be back on a food line or a bread line … looking for his next meal.”

That may aggravate people who see Pohlad’s billions and ignore that he is just a man with a family who has seen what the bottom-of-the-barrel looks like.

Sports fans are an interesting group in that we think that we are owed something by our team. That our owners should spend their money (of which they often have excesses) for our personal entertainment. But, what guarantee does that actually give?

If Pohlad had spent and spent and spent on this team. If he had foregone his basic business philosophy of smart money, tight-circles, and hard work would the Twins have won more? Would he be more beloved?

The Yankees spent over three times as much money as the Twins did last year, they won 89 games while the Twins won 88 - and both teams missed the playoffs. The Yankees went out and spent more money this off-season than any team in the history of sports, and they may be a better team for it.

The Twins spent next to nothing this off-season on free agents and as fans we wonder what kind of team they will field next season. What we do know though is that how good they are as a team will depend not on their money spent but on the development of a core-group of players that have been in the organization for years and have had to get better and better for the team to compete.

While it may be difficult for fans to accept, this operating style is perfectly reflective of Pohlad.

From all indications Pohlad never told the day-to-day baseball operations how to spend their money. Terry Ryan and Bill Smith have been quoted numerous times saying that finances never really came into question when they were looking at singing free agents. It was more of a question of value for cost.

It was always viewed as a decision based on common-sense and asset protection. You know, if you’re not careful you can end up in that bread line again.

Pohlad’s business model for the Twins didn’t fit in with a lot of the sports fans in Minnesota. Instead, it simply fit in with who Carl Pohlad was, and what he believed in - for better or worse.

Charley Walters is a columnist for the despondent St. Paul Pioneer Press. It is unclear what the label ‘columnist’ truly means for Walters because he rarely writes on ‘topics’ but rather muses on ‘possibilities’ that often have no source to draw on. Well, add Walters Dec. 22, 2008 column to a long list of shit that has spewed forth from his corner of the metro sports market in the previous year.

In the column Walters leads with a theory (using the thinnest definition of the word) that the Mark Teixeira free-agent sweepstakes (which culminated Tuesday with the Yankees literally saying ‘fuck you’ to all of Major League Baseball) will have future implications on Joe Mauer.

Let’s break this down paragraph by paragraph:

As the Mark Teixeira free-agent negotiations go, so might go the market for Joe Mauer, who can become a free agent after the 2010 season.

It is hard to tell what has drawn Walters to this conclusion outside of the basic premise that all free agent signings that are happening currently will obviously have an affect on free agent signings that will come in the future. This is a true premise. It is also so basic and simple-minded as to be completely unnecessary for erudition. It’s sort of like writing a business column and saying that, ‘Whatever decision the government makes in regards to the auto-industry bailout will eventually have an effect on the auto-industry.’ What is perhaps more complexing is the connection between Teixeira and Mauer on any real level.

I can see the connection between Barry Zito’s contract two years ago, Johan Santana’s contract last year, and C.C. Sabathia’s contract this year. There is a linear narrative there for top-pitcher’s contracts in the modern baseball market. Mark Teixeira (a 28-year-old, switch hitting, 30 home run, 100 RBI first baseman) signed for $180 million today - that’s one thing, but Joe Mauer (a left-handed, 25-year-old, hit for average, masterful defensive catcher) will be a free agent in two years, at the end of the 2010 season when he is 27-years-old - so while there is an ostensible connection - that being, what did the best offensive free agent in baseball sign for in 2008 ($180 million over eight years) and how will that potentially affect what could be the best free agent offensive player available in 2010 (Joe Mauer), there is still a vast number of variables that differentiate Mauer and Teixeira as players and as perspective players in the free agent market (position, age, statistics, loyalty to a team/city/state/family/friends/entire life history - seriously, if you don’t believe that Mauer will stay in Minnesota you are kidding yourself).

Paragraph two points out Mauer’s current salary structure and Teixeira’s desired contract. Paragraph three writes up the Twins highest paid players - how that connects to the story is beyond me.

Then comes paragraph four, where Walters is able to lay out his acumen for getting the “in-the-know” details of a story that completely evade other reporters in the Twin Cities.

People in the know say the Boston Red Sox already are salivating over Mauer, who would be only 27 as a free agent. There have been no talks this winter about extending the St. Paul native’s contract, in part because Mauer’s value after last season is at a premium, and it’s uncertain whether the seismic downturn in the nation’s economy will affect baseball salaries a year from now.

This sort of glib, ‘people in the know’ sourcing is one of the saddest aspects of modern sports journalism - this was brought to light extensively with the Ed Werder story on Tony Romo, Jason Witten and Terrell Owens last week. First off this is not some Seymour Hersh column where we are diving into controversies surrounding national or international security - we’re talking about an athlete playing a game for mass entertainment is this sort of side-stepping secrecy remotely necessary?

And really what need is there to protect this source? It isn’t like they are telling Charley anything new: in two years, if Joe Mauer is a free agent, the Boston Red Sox would be interested in signing a two-time batting champion who just so happens to play the most demanding position in baseball to a nice, big contract. What a dangerous game this source is playing, what a ledge he stands upon perched high above the comforts of normal and plaintive discourse.

Finally Walters brings up the economy and the fact that it may play a part in future contract negotiations with Mauer.

Thank you.

Final thoughts from Walters:

What is for sure is that the Mauer contract negotiations will be the biggest and most important in Twins history.

It is hard for me to really say anything about this. Walters clearly believes that the Twins need to resign Mauer and fast, and that this is of epic importance. There is an air of apocalyptic sentiment running throughout all of this, a feeling that if the Twins are not paying attention to Walters remarks they may miss out on the biggest moment in their history - which would make the column true, if Mauer was a free agent today, or if he had any connection to Mark Teixeira, or if there wasn’t two more years for the Twins to make a decision on Mauer’s future.

Now, I know that the easiest thing in life is to simply sit and be a critic of other’s work - it is a pathetic, infantile practice. None the less, there is something about Walters and this sort of journalism that leaves little option. It isn’t that I believe I could write a better column, it is that any marginally trained writer with access to the Minnesota Twins front-office and players (which Walters surely has) could write a better column.

When I think of Walters sitting down to type this there isn’t a moment where I think of a journalist reporting and crafting out an idea. What I see is Walters with his face to the ground, crawling around like an aardvark, his brown, wet snout burrowing for an ant that was never there.

In a drastic change of pace Minnesota Twins fans found out today that their team is willing to pay market value for free agents. Now, they still are not willing to pay up to market value for Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, Alfonso Soriano, Adrian Beltre, Casey Blake, etc., ad nausea, onwards into infinity, but the Twins are willing to pay market value (and then some!) for “utility infielders.”

Nick Punto, two years, $8.5 million.

Now, first things first, we here at Twinscast love and appreciate Nick Punto. If you go all the way back to the very first podcast that we ever recorded you will hear Bryant and I praise Nick Punto as one of the best players in baseball that does what he does. That may be confusing but we were simply saying that Nick Punto is a great utility player. If that is his role on your team then you’re team is on the right track. If Nick Punto is your starting shortstop your team may be coming up a little short.

Two years, $8.5 million, that’s a starting shortstop. Nick Punto will be your 2009 starting shortstop.

There is no real problem with giving Punto this money - look to the Jamey Carroll signing in Cleveland (two years, $4 million) to see that utility players are getting fairly lucrative deals throughout MLB - the problem is that Twins fans want more. We all want more. We have waited years, and years, and years for more. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but Bryant and I screamed about this on our most recent podcast: with the team so close to being a World Series contender, with the new stadium coming 2010, with a number of positive young stars coming into their own, Twins fans want that big, extra piece. We want a risk. We want to take a chance. We want the team to spend the money, to make the team better, to hold up their end of the bargain.

When the winter meetings roll around we expect a free agent signing, something to get us excited for spring training, for the start of the season.

So, while signing Punto may be a wise move for the team (and seriously, the man is a very good defensive infielder and had a great rebounding 2008 after a miserable 2007) it makes Twins fans feel a little, um, how should we say…underwhelmed…kind of like playing a big gig in Central Park, only, you know, not.