All is not quiet in Twins office

The Minnesota Twins office has been buzzing as visions of spring training are near and the annual Twins festival TwinsFest is even nearer. The Twins are still taking offers for Johan Santana with the hope that a deal can be done before they report to Fort Myers. The Twins are looking to get a superstar center fielder and top pitching prospect back in return for Santana. If Santana is indeed moved, then the focus of trade rumors likely will shift to Joe Nathan who is also in the final year of his contract. I hope the Twins don’t get too trade happy and leave the pitching staff with nothing.

Santana Still a Twin

The winter baseball meetings in Nashville are over and despite the million trade rumors and scenarios, Johan Santana is still a Minnesota Twin. I asked my magic eight ball the other day if Santana would be with the Twins in 2008 and the answer was “outlook not so good.” I figured the Magic Eight Ball was just as good at predicting where he would go as anyone else (no offense to all of the baseball aficionados that scour the stats and rumor mills to make “educated” predictions). I figure the Johan Santana drama will last at least until the middle of January.

Big Move by Twins

Twins general manager Bill Smith made his first big move (of many I am sure) on Wednesday. The Twins dealt the Tampa Bay Devil Rays right-handed pitcher Matt Garza, shortstop Jason Bartlett and minor league pitcher Eduardo Morlan in exchange for outfielder Delmon Young, shortstop Brendan Harris and minor league outfielder Jason Pridie.

"Coming into the offseason it was critical that we improve our offense. We certainly lost a piece last week with Torii (Hunter) going to Anaheim," Smith said. "For the last month we've been discussing this deal, and (Young) was the bat out there that we felt was the best for this club.

This Twins fan hopes Young turns out to better than Torii so all of the whining Twins fans that thought Torii hung the moon will shut up and move on. Young finished second in the American League rookie of the year voting after appearing in all 162 games. He batted .288 with 13 home runs, 38 doubles, 93 runs batted in, a .316 on-base percentage. Young will be under the Twins' contractual control through 2012.

Twins start Wacky Season

I have to admit I am a huge NASCAR fan – I should probably start a Nascar blog! Anyway in Nascar we have something called Wacky Season where drivers switch teams and owners and sponsors and you never know who is going where and after the dust settles even the sharpest of Nascar fans have to buy a press guide in order to figure who went where. I feel like MLB has entered their wacky season and the Twins are in the thick of it. Trading players, thinking about trading players, planning on trading players you name it, but mark my words Torii Hunter was just the beginning of the Twins Wacky Season. Stay tuned Twins fans!