Twins 2016: Running In Place

Gulf Coast League Twins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Minnesota Twins had their best season since 2010, finishing in second place in the American League Central Division behind eventual World Series champion Kansas City.  Which was quite a feat since the Twins were consistently lousy in the years in between.  In 2016, they hope to do a lot better.

How can you do that when you're in a division where every other team has improved, at least on paper?  Other than signing a slugger from South Korea named Byung Ho Park, trading with the New York Yankees for backup catcher John Ryan Murphy and the retirement of Torii Hunter, the Twins didn't do much during the off season.

So General Manager Terry Ryan, manager Paul Molitor and everyone else will have to make do with young players (Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano) who have promise to be promising, a highly-paid veteran (Joe Mauer) they still don't know what to do with, an infield with hitting chops and little else, and a hot-and-cold pitching staff not marred (they hope) by drug suspensions and slumps.

Ricky Nolasco has been named the starting pitcher when the Twins open their season at Baltimore against the Orioles April 4.  What happens after that depends on how competitive they are with what they've got.  It won't be enough to get beyond third place, but enough to see more signs of life on a franchise that hasn't seen enough of it lately.

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Our picks for who's going into the playoffs come October:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

EAST  Boston Red Sox
CENTRAL  Kansas City Royals
WEST  Houston Astros
WILD CARD  Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels

NATIONAL LEAGUE

EAST  New York Mets
CENTRAL  St. Louis Cardinals
WEST  San Francisco Giants
WILD CARD  Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers 

Pot Shots 2016

Maria Sharapove (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The NCAA men's basketball tournament is going on as we speak.  That means teams from Power Five conferences with championship aspirations are playing "Cinderellas" from small conferences, played at neutral sites on generic-looking courts that might as well be mistaken for TV studios, and televised on networks other than CBS that are not known for sports coverage (TBS, TNT, TruTV).   Wake us when it's the Final Four, which will be held at a football stadium in Houston.

Peyton Manning retires from playing football after winning one more Super Bowl.  Now if he were only as nimble in getting past allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, or what really happened with allegations of sexual assault when he was a student at the University of Tennessee two decades ago.

The Minnesota Vikings have big plans for the future, now that their new Glass Palace is almost ready.  They recently purchased the old Northwest/Delta Airlines headquarters in suburban Eagan, hoping to turn it into a state-of-the-art office and practice facility.  The Vikings also tried to get the city of Minneapolis to change the name of the street their stadium is on from Chicago Avenue to Vikings Way, which was rejected and the team ultimately dropped the idea.  Changing the name of Chicago Avenue for competitive reasons (the Bears are in the same division, duh) makes the Vikings look petty and mean, not to mention ignorance of local history.  They shouldn't be overplaying their hand in public relations.

The Chicago White Sox have decided they'd rather let first baseman Adam LaRoche retire rather than let him bring his son into the team clubhouse for every game.  Now, most of us agree that clubhouses should be considered work places for players and not day care. But what if LaRoche's son had a fatal illness or some other special need?  Then the White Sox would be in PR hell for this.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova has admitted to testing positive for meldonium at the recent Australian Open, a substance banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.  For Sharapova's honesty, a few of her sponsors have dropped her, and any suspension would mean the end of her career.  Which makes you wonder about Serena Williams . . .

President Barack Obama is going to Cuba soon, becoming the first U.S. leader to visit there since Calvin Coolidge nearly 90 years ago.  While there, the President will attend a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and a team of Cuban all-stars.  It's all part of Obama's mission to make Castro Land safe for Americans again, even if Fidel and Raoul aren't going anywhere anytime soon.