Just around the corner...

[Jarrod32]

Only 63 days until opening day of baseball season!

[Fishook]

And less than 3 weeks to spring training!

[knoppers]

looks like another good year up coming for the twins. I hope that moonshot morneau can blast at least 40 dingers this year.

when was the last twin to hit 40+ dingers in a season? I am thinking it was killabrew.

[bigbucks]

Killebrew did it several times, but as far as I know, which certainly could be wrong, he's the only Twin to do it. Maybe Oliva or Allison did, but I don't think so.

[bigbucks]

I looked it up on the Twins site, a guy named Roy Sievers, who I'd never heard of, hit 42 for the Senators in '57, otherwise nobody other than Harmon ever did it for the Twins organization. Harmon didn't once as a Senator & 7 more times as a Twin. Gee, I wonder why we all still talk about what a stud he was...

Another thing that blew me away is that Torii Hunter's 119 career homers is 12 in club history. We have not had many bombers to say the least.

[friendlyfisher]

40? Heck I will take thirty, I think it was last done in 1992 by pucket? not positive but I think its true. ff

[bigbucks]

I don't think anyone's hit 30 since we had three guys do it in '87. Puckett hit 31 once, I believe in 86. He had 28 in '87. If he'd have hit two more that year I think it would have been the only team to ever have 4 guys hit 30 or more in the same year. Either that or for a really long time.

Chili Davis hit 29 in '91 & Hunter hit 29 in '03 I think, maybe '02...

I didn't look any of this up, but I'm about 95+% sure I'm right. I love the Twins & keeping track of their stats.

[Stratosman]

You are right BB about those stats. It would be nice to have some guys with power, but that's not all that matters. I did a little research just for fun and because I'm bored. All based on home runs. The Twins have only had 22 players break the 20 homer mark since '87, compare to Boston with 43 players, NYY with 49 players, heck, even Montreal has 28 players to do it. But what has that gotten Montreal?

Total home runs from '87 to present:

Yankees: 3196

Rangers: 3271

Twins: 2415

We all know the what the Yankees have acheived in that time period, and we all know about the Twins history, but what about the Rangers, with some of the highest home runs per year average what have they accomplished? With averaging 50 home runs per year more than the Twins they have a measley 3 playoff appearances. So although power is nice, defense is better.

[bigbucks]

I agree, I like the long ball like anybody, but winning's a lot better...

[Jarrod32]

Down to 55 days...

[friendlyfisher]

Thanks for the corection BB. It was C. Davis I was thinking about in 91. And now that I think about it, it was only 29. Thirty should not be to much to ask for frm Moonshot. As long as he play at least 135+ games. ff

[Eric Wettschreck]

Sure I like to see em fly out of the park, and I agree that the Twins need a slugger.

Having said that I'll stick to my guns when I say good pitching and defense wins games. The long ball just sells tickets. Bert Blyleven himself says a couple solo shots a game won't hurt ya, a 2 or 3 run shot will.

[Guest]

To me, the jury is still out on JM. Lets see what he can do with a full season and after the pitchers figure out how to pitch to him.

In his first 46 games after being called up for good, he hit 15 dingers.

In his final 25 games (including the 4 in the playoffs) he hit a whopping 2 home runs.

We've just seen this happen too many times, where a young player comes up, tears up the ball and then fades away. It could be teams learning to pitch to them, the pressure of the bigs or whatever.

Hopefully I'm wrong, but lets wait till after the season to declare him the next big slugger.

[Willy]

Good pitching will beat good hitting every time.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Are all you Twinkie-Lovers crazy out there. My beloved pale hose have been launching rockets for years and still get beat by your punch and judy Twinkies. Glad the pale hose finally wised up and are going with the small ball theory this year. Pitching, defense and speed will beat the bombers most every time. YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOARD....YES!

[buzzsaw]

Windy..... remember these moments????????

[image]http://[/image]

[knoppers]

torii hunter puts out perdictions every year, two years ago he perdicted he would hit 30, well he came close, but not 30, then last year he perdicted 40, well we all know he was well short. they have potential, and if moonshot can produce, that puts the hitters around him, like hunter that much better.

I can't wait to get this going again. we signed silva, now we just need to get cy young to sign a long term contract.

[Jarrod32]

Down to 48 days...time to start thinking about the ol' fantasy team...