Hello, Twinkie Town fans.  I'm sure most of you know of my site.  I'm a frequent reader here at TT and I enjoy the work a lot of you do.  I wanted to let you know about a special offer that I'm providing over at SBG.

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I wrote the following column after Wednesday's game.  I had the idea that this might be the best 20 game stretch in Twins history.  I jumped the gun by comparing the Twins 20 game stretch in 1991 to a 19 game stretch in 2006.  I've updated the column to a twenty game stretch through Friday night.  Of course, the Twins won on Saturday night, too, so the streak continues.  But I wanted to update the column and provide it for your consumption.

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Torii Hunter tells the Twins what it will take to keep him in a Twins uniform.

Says Torii: "I already don't like the Dome, so I'm not going to get used. It's got to be a long-term deal. For me to be here it's got to be five or six years."

Five or six years.  For Hunter.  Says Top Jimmy:

Hunter is making $10.75 million this year. The Twins have an option to keep him for 2007 at $12 million.

The Yankees signed center fielder Johnny Damon for five years at $55 million last offseason, and that might provide a benchmark for Hunter's expectations.

With Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Santana, Liriano and Nathan all expected to make big money over that time, I can't see any way the Twins could possibly agree to that kind of contract.

Hello, Twinkie Town.  I have been writing a regular feature this season that I call 360 degrees in which I analyze the Twins starting pitching after every trip in the rotation.  The Twins completed their seventh trip around the rotation on Friday night and below is my report.  Of course, this time the "trip" included two starts by the one and only Johan Santana.  Look for my feature every five games at SBG.  Below is my seventh edition of 360 degrees.

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This article first appeared at my site, SBG, concerning the Twins defense.

Before the season ended, I wrote that the Twins' defense, contrary to popular belief, was improved in 2005. I got virtually no reaction to this assertion, partially because I talked about Barry Bonds in the same post and Surprise! that is what people wanted to talk about. Over at The Bleacher Bums, a very nice joint blog from MPR, at least one of the authors was complaining about the dropoff in the Twins defense. Being the acerbic fella that I sometimes am, I openly challenged the author in his comments, which promptred the one of the authors to respond, "SBG, you are full of [fecal matter]." Well, he didn't actually say that. What he said was that was an example of statistics run amok.

Keep reading for more on the 2005 Twins Defense.

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