Been a while since I posted anything here, but yesterday's grand-slam has me out of hibernation.

With yesterday’s grand-slam vs the Yanks, Kubel has at least one granny every year since returning from his knee injury in 2006 (6 total). Other than two in the middle innings against the White Sox in blow-out wins, they’ve come in some very big spots in the late innings of games:

2006 vs Red Sox (12th Inn, 1-2 deficit, 1 out vs Tavarez)
Extra inning walk-off – WPA .462

2007 vs White Sox (4th Inn. 8-4 lead, 1 out vs Garland)
A TD & extra point (7RBI) for Kubel in the 20-14 win – WPA .072

2008 vs White Sox (6th Inn. 7-3 lead, 2 out vs Masset)
Another one that doubled a lead vs White Sox – WPA .073

2008 vs Tigers (8th Inn. 1-1 tie, 2 out vs Cruceta)
Broke 1-1 tie in the 8th – WPA .418

2009 vs Angels (8th Inn. 7-9 deficit, 2 out vs Bulger)
Cycle completer, turned 2R deficit into 2R lead – WPA .678

2010 vs Yankees - (8th Inn, 2-3 deficit, 2 out vs Rivera)
Streak-breaker vs Sandman – WPA .589

Though it’s only third in terms of WPA, my favorite is still the walk-off vs the Red Sox. Kubel could have just as easily ended the game with a double-play for a loss. (plus I was at the game) Even though it was again in a big spot, for some reason I have no recollection of the one versus the Tigers. The rest of them I remember pretty clearly.

What’s your favorite Kube-Slam™? How about your favorite Twins Grand-Slam?

… or quite possibly the greatest waste of time ever. With all the top Twins prospect lists out there from various bloggers and websites, I thought it would be interesting to use some of those to compile an average list. I used lists from Aaron Gleeman, Baseball Prospectus, John Sickels, Seth Stohs, Josh Johnson, Baseball America and the community list here at Twinkie Town. The rankings from each of those respective lists are listed in that same order below alongside each player. The average list is somewhat flawed because we don’t know where the prospects outside of the top 10 or 11 would have ranked on the BA and BP lists because they only go to 10 and 11. I gave guys who missed lists an NR for that list and threw that ranking out of their average, which clearly helped a few guys. Swarzak, who ended up at #7 for example, didn’t make the top 11 in BP’s list so I gave him an NR instead of what would have been a 12 or above had the BP list been longer, which would have dropped him down the average list. I stopped at 25 (27 w/ two ties), because the rankings really started to vary from list to list around that area… and because I felt I had wasted enough time at that point. I’d probably swap a few players around here and there, but a pretty solid list overall. Interesting to see the tiers formed by the avg ranking # for each prospect.

1. Hicks - 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3 – 1.57

2. Revere - 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2 – 1.71

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3. Valencia - 6, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 1 – 3.85

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4. Ramos - 3, 5, 3, 7, 4, 3, 5 – 4.28

5. Morales - 4, 4, 11, 3, 6, 10, 4 – 6.00

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6. Hunt - 5, 6, 4, 16, 8, 7, 11 – 8.14

7. Swarzak - 7, NR, 16, 5, 9, 6, 7 – 8.33
8. Mulvey - 12, 7, 7, 8, 7, 8, 12 – 8.71
9. Mijares - 10, NR, 6, 22, 5, 4, 6 – 8.83
10. Robertson - 8, NR, 13, 6, 10, NR, 8 – 9.00
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11. Guerra - 15, 10, NR , 12, 12, NR, 9 – 11.60
12. Gutierrez - 13, 9, 8, 10, 9, 18, 16 – 11.85
13. (tie) Parmelee - 11, NR, 10, 13, 13, NR, 15 – 12.40
13. (tie) Hughes - 17, NR, 15, 9, 11, NR, 10 – 12.40
14.  Manship - 9, 11, 18, 14, 14, NR, 14 – 13.33
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15. Plouffe - 23, NR, NR, 11, 15, NR, 13 – 15.50
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16. Bromberg - 14, 8, 12, 25, 26, NR, 24 – 18. 16
17. Delaney - 18, NR, 9, 24, 16, NR, 25 – 18.40
18. McCardell - 16, NR, NR, 18, 19, NR, 22 – 18.75
19. Slama - 19, NR, 14, 27, 17, NR, 17 – 18.8
20. Tolleson - 20, NR, 17, 19, 21, NR, 20 – 19.40
21. Tosoni - 26, NR, NR, 15, 20, NR, 21 – 20.50
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22. Duensing - 25, NR, NR, 20, 25, NR, 19 – 22.25
23. Benson - 21, NR, NR, 17, 27, NR, 26 – 22.75
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24. Pridie - 29, 19, NR, 31, 22, NR, 27 – 25.60
25. (tie) Burnett - 22, NR, NR, 30, 23, NR, 29 – 26.00
25. (tie) Martin - 27, NR, NR, 21, 28, NR, 28 – 26.00