Baseball

Did the Twins just execute a "perfect" offseason? 

JJ Hardy. Carl Pavano. Clay Condrey. Jim Thome. Orlando Hudson. (Joe Mauer?) Talk about a study in a wise allocation of resources. 

After the 2009 regular season, the Twins had several clear and crucial needs, most notably their nearly empty infield. Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau were the only two guaranteed starters, while Nick Punto’s versatility would allow him to start at any one of the 2B/SS/3B holes in the Minnesota infield.

Bryan Kashmen thinks that the only reason the New York Yankees rehired manager Johnny Keane three weeks before the end of the 1965 season was to avoid embarrassment.

Yankees' management knew that that the team had deteriorated with time, and that firing Keane would result in too much bad publicity since he could hardly be blamed for what happened.

With his days as shortstop behind him, Miguel Tejada is set to begin this season as the Orioles primary third baseman:

As you can probably imagine, life around our house is anything but normal. Starting with the line of Arizona Diamondbacks bobble head dolls that greet visitors to “the shrine” as my wife calls it where I have two Chase Field seats, a piece of Bank One Ballpark adorning one wall, and of course second base .

Topps, the Exclusive trading card partner of Major League Baseball, is celebrating Mother's Day a little bit early this year.

Beginning yesterday, www.ToppsMillion.com opened up for collectors to "unlock" their redemption cards, which are randomly inserted (1:6 packs) in 2010 Topps baseball, for a chance at reclaiming one of 38,000 different cards their mother may have tossed in the trash.

Joe Girardi sat down for his first full blown press conference at the New York Yankee Spring Training facility in Tampa today, one day before all pitchers and catchers are to report for the start of the new season.

"First of all guys, let me just say, that because my time is limited to about 90 minutes for this press conference, I am only going to be taking questions on Brett Gardner and issues related to Gardy. So confine your questions to those areas, please."

I know I’m in the minority with my ranking of Robinson Cano (see my 2B rankings here ), but I believe he has the ability to challenge for the batting title. Not to mention he should be among the leaders at second base in runs, HRs, and RBIs.

Cano is a notoriously slow starter, hitting .271 in April and May and .322 the rest of the way. His OPS is also much lower in those two months:

Point: Yes, I hope the Tigers bring Johnny Damon in. It makes perfect sense.

Counterpoint: The Tigers might as well turn over left field to Ryan Raburn.

P: Raburn? I like Raburn as a fifth outfielder. He won't put up what Damon will.

CP: Signing Damon would make the Tigers awfully crowded with outfielders. They have Raburn, Clete Thomas, Austin Jackson, Wilkin Ramirez, Magglio Ordonez, and possibly Carlos Guillen.

CP: Forget Ramirez and Thomas. Now you are down to four guys. Guillen could play a lot at third base considering Brandon Inge's injuries.

Welcome to the ninth edition of "Daily Random Sports Thoughts!"

For those not familiar, I pick a team, player, or any other topic in sports that I have five random thoughts about.  If you like 'em, read 'em.  I'm trying to get 'em on here every day!

Today's lucky random sports topic is...Dustin Pedroia!

1) How tall are you? And please, give me the truth. I've heard people say that you're 5' 9'', others say 5' 5'', and some claim that you are three-and-a-half feet tall. What's the real thing?

Hal Steinbrenner received a telephone call from Nan Croft, an assistant comptroller in the Tampa office of the New York Yankees.

“Mr. Steinbrenner, I’ve been going over some of the invoices from the training facility and thought you needed to know there are some strange things going on over there.”