If you haven't checked out SBNation's group of baseball writers you should. They provide a lot of good, short articles which are often accompanied by a touch of appropriate humor. Jeff Sullivan who wrote this short list of the top ten least intimidating batters, is no exception - his articles are always good. But this one is just not funny!

Who the heck does he think he is lumping Denard Span in with the rest of the (unsuprisingly Twins associated) assbats. Seriously, take a look for yourself and you'll see 4 Twins/former Twins on that list of ten with at least another name who was rumored to be a potential Twin in a couple of the past off-seasons.

I'm not qualified, or capable, of critiquing the statistical methods he is using to create his list, but something seems intuitively wrong when Denard Span is considered the 7th (out of 310) least intimidating batters of the past 5 years.

Trade deadlines and the team's limbo status has seemingly brought out a lot of frustration amongst fans lately. Some people have gone so far out on a limb as to insinuate that Nick Blackburn just isn't one of the Twins' all time great pitchers (IKR?). Anyway, I thought a little lighthearted story about Minnesota's bedrock of confidence might be timely. Stolen from the interwebz, but humorous just the same.

MINNESOTA Declares War on the USA

President Barack Obama was in the Oval Office when his telephone rang.
"Hello, President Obama," a heavily accented Norwegian voice said. "'Dis
here is Sven, over here at da Muni Liquor Store in Menahga, Minnesota.

Ve don't like some a yer policies so I am callin' to tell ya dat ve are
officially declaring var on ya!"

"Well, Sven," Barack replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is
your army?"
"Right now," said Sven, after a moment's calculation, "dere is myself, my
cousin Knute, my next-door-neighbor Ole, and da whole pool team from da
Muni."
Barack paused, "I must tell you Sven that I have one million men in my army
waiting to move on my command."
"Wow," said Sven, "I'll haf ta call ya back!"
Sure enough, the next day, Sven called again. "Mr. Obama, da var is still
on! Ve haf managed to acquire some infantry equipment!"

"And what equipment would that be, Sven?" Barack asked.
"Vell sir, ve got two combines, a bulldozer, and Sigurd's farm tractor."
President Obama sighed. "I must tell you Sven, that I have 16,000 tanks and
14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also I've increased my army to one and a
half million since we last spoke."

"All right den,” said Sven. "I'll be getting back to ya."
Sure enough, Sven rang again the next day... "President Obama, da var is
still on! Ve haf managed to git ourselves airborne!

Ve up an' modified Ole's ultra-light vit a couple'a shotguns in da cockpit,
and four boys from da coffee shop haf joined us as vell!"
Barack was silent for a minute then cleared his throat.

"I must tell you, Sven, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter
planes.
My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile
sites.
And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!"
"Two million you say?," said Sven, "l'll haf to call you back."

Sure enough, Sven called again the next day. "President Obama! I am sorry to
haf to tell you that ve haf had to call off dis here var."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Barack.

"Why the sudden change of heart?"
"Vell, sir," said Sven, "ve've all sat ourselves down and had a long chat
over a few beers, and come to realize dat dere’s yust no vay ve can feed two
million prisoners."

MINNESOTA CONFIDENCE CANNOT BE SHAKEN

You love to hate em/im unless it/he is on your side. Your opinion on nuclear bombs, like your opinion on the usefulness of a tough dirty defensive defenseman says a lot about your personality. Are you more progressive or conservative; new school or old school; are you an ivory tower book reading intellectual elitist who understands math or an atavistic PBR drinker who would rather kick a soccer player in the nuts than listen to classical music?

Stats are just like that, especially the advanced statistics used in today’s baseball analysis. And this was revealed recently here at Twinkie Town in a number of posts where commenters ‘indulged’ themselves in a less than friendly discussion regarding the twins current front line pitcher.

Thus, I figured it might be time to throw out a few thoughts on the subject as a friendly reminder that there is room for both perspectives here at Twinkie Town. And while this post would probably be better suited for LukeinMN who actually is smart and generous and a good writer, I figured I would tackle this one because I can speak from experience. Please, take it from me, just like girlfriends and sheep, there is room for both statistical analysis and good old fashion experiential analysis here, so long as there is room in your hearts, house, barn … whatever.

There are some of us (me) who cannot add or subtract without cheating by looking at their kindergartners flash cards. There are others who can break down the physics behind the ‘sinking’ fastball but have never played the game (or any physical sport) and have difficulty appreciating the less tangible aspects of the sport.  Both sides have useful opinions that can help further the analysis of a particular player/issue.

As an example let’s take our lightning rod/favorite victim in LNP. Some people can look at his defensive metrics and formulate an opinion that he is a pretty good defender. Others can look at some of the more acrobatic plays he has made, think about how they did that when they were in college ball and yet couldn’t make the play LNP did and formulate an opinion that LNP is a pretty athletic defender. Both of them can come to a similar conclusion based on a separate set of experiences or facts. On the other hand, both parties could look at another set of facts and draw the opposite opinions; advanced metrics show that LNP isn’t that good of a defender except at third, while an experienced player would see LNP exaggerating a lot of plays in order to make it look harder than it really was.  

Both sets of experiences provide useful pieces of data that help formulate opinions. Opinions are what make this (any) blog tick. Without ‘em we’d all be sitting around discussing ‘facts’. And facts, without opinions are pretty damned boring.

In conclusion, if you don’t know the difference between a fact and an opinion, then please buy a dictionary, and shut the hell up.

Well, ok, that wasn't really my conclusion. In conclusion, please remember that there are a lot of different viewpoints out there and rarely if ever is an opinion objectively WRONG. The facts that we use to support our opinions can be wrong (Cuddyer either did bat .285, or he didn’t) but our opinions fall in a spectrum of good vs. bad, not right or wrong.  Let’s make sure we are treating each other’s opinions with that in mind. And, if you’re inclined to analyze from experience rather than exponents (I don’t even know what I just said) try to remember that statistics when handled with care can tell us an awful lot about a player’s value, and projected capabilities. If you are inclined to analyze from a spreadsheet rather than make sheet stains with your sheep/girlfriend and a bottle of Canadian whiskey (I don’t even know what the hell I even mean) please remember that there is a lot more to any professional sport than numbers can definitively tell us.  

And for the record, I’d love to have Chelios on my team, I’d hate to play against that dirty muthaf*cka.

MLB.com got gardenhire to open up about his biggest character flaw:

"My dad had this calmness about him, and I've always said I hope I can remain calm like he does in any situation," Gardenhire said. "If the house was burning down, my dad would have just been calm about it and said something like, 'You might want to get a hose going here.'

Gardenhire, obviously is coming clean on his biggest fault: a failure to break the shit out of all kinds of shit whenever the shit hits the fan.

Pussy.

Another telling comment here about failing to get angry enough to punch a wall and break his own hand when Nathan went down: Gardenhire said. "I can't get too up or too down. But when you look back at Spring Training, I was talking with the coaching staff and when Nathan went down, we were like, 'What are we going to do now?' 

See. Gardenhire admits that we would have gone 162-0 had he been emotionally labile enough to light a fire under his team by headbutting a wall, taking a bat to a watercooler, or punching Little Nicky Punto in the mouth.

C'mon gardenhire, couldn't you at least waterboard Scotty Ulger? Pretty please?

According to ESPN at 2:35 this AM, Justin Morneau could be out for playoffs

This fanpost is going to be extra lite on analysis (luckily for all of you) because there isn't much room for analysis other than :

Crap,

Double crap,

Super crap!

Then again Cuddyer has been the Twins' MVP at first base so maybe we will not only be ok, but maybe we could afford to deal the Canadian Headache for a second baseman in the offseason.

beavers and bunnies here we go:

Tolbert on base with the rally bunnies and the Twins in the 11th now. Where the hell are the arms from Rochester?

Oh, no now headed for the 13th inning tied at nine.

Man is it tough t come up with more than 75 words when you are as dumb as I am.

what the hell, I apparently cant count either. seventy five and one more for the win.