Corey - Kyle
Corey - Kyle
Corey - Kyle -

My quarter says go with Corey =)

Plus it would make my mom so very happy to have Corey back - she could once again sing his lumberjack song - ohhhh the memories!!
And we need more Canadians - we really do!!!

Much Love
Wonder Woman

The fragility issue has got to loom large. I'd like to see him back though, first class guy.

Some of the best run-on sentences I've ever read. Thank you, Bat Girl. Once again, you have succeeded in capturing the je ne cais quois Gestalt of a Twins fan in this moment, eh?

I have to ask, how does Jeb feel about this?

Corey's big injury last year was a fluke - and he did it at the Dome, of all places. Was his hand trying to tell him, "Corey, Corey, why did we ever leave this hallowed place? Why have we removed ourselves from the very fount of love and good cheer that mere mortals only dream about? If I reach out now...reach out and snag myself on this base...well, then, these silly Blue Jays with their silly, oversized chicken logos on their caps and their absurd uniform numbers, well, they might just think us unfit for duty and find another third baseman, one far less wondrous than you and not even a Canadian, and then we can return to this, our adopted home, and we can once again stir the hearts of the faithful with our diving stops in the field and our dashing, season-altering home runs. Yes, THAT is what I shall do for you, Corey!" And so it came to pass.

The Twins get Koskie at the salary we offered him last year for nothing but a minor minor league prospect (yeah, and the 2008 salary issue, I know), and the only down side is that we have to trade Mr. Pouty Face? This is a good move. This is what the team needs. This will make me and the missus happy, and that's the most important thing. Come on home, Cordel. The hot corner awaits.

Hah! That was all-Canadian fresh air lumberjack "pop in his bat," too, not Rafael Palmeiro pill-poppin' pop.

Best to have loved, lost, and loved again!!
Come home, Koskos, come home!

The more I think about this, the more I think TR is just playing coy with the Jays. An 'ethical' obligation to Batista? c'mon. Not sure there's money in the budget? Yeah right. 2008 option based on a games-played number that the guy hasn't met in years? who cares?

Batista deserves a chance to COMPETE for the third base job. If he wasn't going to have to compete for it, TR would have given him a guaranteed contract (which he didn't). As far as the budget issue is concerned, you deal with that during spring training when you see who's going to make the move north and who isn't. Likewise, you deal with the 2008 option in 2008... or at least not until 2007 when you have some clue as to whether it's even going to be an issue.

Toronto simply doesn't have room for all those third basemen and Ryan knows it. He's negotiating to get the Jays to suck up even more of the salary. Get the best deal you can, TR, and pull the trigger.

Come home Corey! I want to see those Anola fans back in the stands.

Get the best deal and then make it happen. We could lose a whiney, inconsistent pitcher (Lohsie) and in return get a clubhouse leader, prankster and all-around good guy who should hit at least 20 homers and produce nightly webgems.

Make it happen TR!

Canadians at the corners in 2006!

Dear Adidasman,

That injury was no fluke. Corey was challenging Hunter's arm by trying for second on a liner to the gap. He had no business throwing his body around on such a high-risk, low-reward play (he was leading off the inning). In fact, he was out by five feet. And this is the third time in my flawed memory that he has jammed his extremeities sliding head first. He also has chronic back and hammy problems. So his injury rsk is real. I compare him to a Canadian version of LNP: hustles everything out, dives for evertying, without regard to the situation.

But if we kept T-Bat as a back-up, Corey could really help us.

And JimCrikket, some of what you attribute to TR was actually denied by TR in the second, face-saving version of Christensen's Baseball Insider. TR said he has no moral obligation. You're right about one thing though, he is playing chicken with Toronto to get JP to take on as much of Koskie's salary as he can swallow. With Koskie's no-trade clause, JP might be forced to trade him back and hope for some salary relief and a prospect in return.

Mr./Ms. Mathewson:

The "fluke" thing was intended to be tongue-in-cheek; I am quite familiar with Mr. Koskie's propensity for endangering himself, oftentimes to his physical detriment.

Bring him back anyway.

I miss Koskos and I dearly hope he comes back to us.

If RD remembers correctly, Tony Batista has a nonguaranteed one-year-contract and the Twins can ship him out for $200,000 if they don't like what they see during spring training. In other words, it's the same kind of deal they extended to Eric (Remember Him?) Munson last spring, albeit a slightly richer one.

ED will argue that Cordel's "presence" and "leadership" offset his tendency toward fragility. RD will also argue the merits of competition between Cordel and Batista, and even the idea of a third-base platoon with a big bat-in-waitin on the bench.

Or, RD can see a situation in which both of the 3B candidates win spots in a batting order that looks like this:

Stewart, LF
Castillo, 2B
Mauer, C
White, RF
Koskie, 3B
Hunter, CF
Morneau, 1B
Batista, DH
Bartlett, SS

Bench: LNP, Lewwwwww, Cuddyer, Redmond, Castro.

Dang, it's good to be thinking about batting orders!

It IS refreshing to have a few names/options to plug in to a batting order, isn't it?

With the propensity for injury that Koskie and White have, I'm afraid that line-up may not survive April, but it certainly looks like an improvement over what Gardy had to work with the second half of 2005.

Koskie's effect on Morneau cannot be discounted. I don't think anyone on the current Twins staff speaks Canadian.

Plus, Cory can talk to the animals through ESP. He is bilingual. That is pretty cool.

Hmm, honestly I'd rather have Koskie back in some sort of administrative capacity than as a player.

I think this is mostly just rumor for rumor's sake than anything else.

I too would love to see Corey back where he belongs. I hope this isnt just a rumor--remember the Jays have about 4 3B now...

I like RDs lineup--make one change--put Cuddles at DH/RF (rotate positions with White) and put NBP in that batting slot 2 days a week with Mauer as DH. If we get Corey--cut TBat and save some bucks.

RD,

Looks good, except for a couple of tweaks. Here's my version:

Castillo 2B
Stewart LF
Mauer C
White DH
Koskie 3B
Hunter CF
Morneau 1B
Kubel RF
Bartlett SS

Bench: Naked, Cuddles, LSN, Fidel, T-Bone

I don't know - I love Koskie - love him. But I'd love to keep our pitching staff as intact as possible. Grrrrr. Lohshieman has so much potential. So much never-to-be-harnessed as a Twin potential. I'm torn.

There are few things in life I enjoy more than beautiful melancholy.

Not Lohse

The reason JP would do this deal would be to get a little salary relief. If he trades Koskie and salary for Lohse, he gets no salary relief. Rumor has it, the deal is for a midlevel pitching prospect, along the lines of Nick Blackburn. And I doubt the Twins would give up Lohse for Koskie anyway, considering with TR said in the Around the Horn column on the Twins site.Long and long, we can have both.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that a straight-up Koskie-for-Lohse trade was a possibility; the word in the Strib was that, if the Twins do get Koskie back, they'll need to cut salary - and Lohse would be an likely choice.

Totally off-subject (although it does pertain to another ex-Twin), does the following quote about Bret Boone sound familiar?

"Bret is a veteran guy who provides us infield depth. His accomplishments in the majors are well documented. He's an All-Star who has been to the post-season and knows how to win."

What's that you say? Terry Ryan last summer?

Nooooooooo that's Mets GM Omar Minaya. Yes, friends, Bret has been signed by the Mets to a minor league contract with a spring training invite.

Too bad it wasn't the BitchSox or Tribe.

Yes. Too bad indeed.

I LOVE COREY KOSKIE!! but the one problem is...my best friends "husband" is Kyle Lohse...lol. So if we get corey back, she could lose her husband to another team. I kno how that is..when we lost Dougie..i was sooo depressed! lol so I dont no if i would want her to go thru that too. rough times...It sure would be nice to see #47 back on the twins tho.

I LOVE COREY KOSKIE!! but the one problem is...my best friends "husband" is Kyle Lohse...lol. So if we get corey back, she could lose her husband to another team. I kno how that is..when we lost Dougie..i was sooo depressed! lol so I dont no if i would want her to go thru that too. rough times...It sure would be nice to see #47 back on the twins tho.

How did Lohse go from mere flotsam at the end of last season to a solid member of the rotation in early January? It must have been the impressive figures he put up in November and December when he issued nary a walk nor a hit.We would get something for him in a trade; we could also dump lnp, which would save us thousands; even tens of thousands, and affect the team not at all. The problem with Nicky is that, if he is there, Gardenhead might put him in a game, you know, to get picked off first or to make a key error. Koskie had a bad year last year, but would be among our top 5 offensive guys, and bring a solid glove all for very little $. Go for it T.R.

If the deal was for a mid-level pitching prospect T.R. would be a fool not to take this if for one simple reason - the season is long and Batista and White have had health problems in the past. I think rotating those three guys in and out of the DH spot would be a great idea.

In my view, Koskie would be marignally better at the plate than Toni, Tone, Tony, but only if he stays healthy. I think we would all agree Koskie is better with the glove.

I just don't think the Twins will want to pay Cordell. I kind of hope I'm wrong, but I won't be losing any sleep over this.

I still would rather have Piazza as the DH over RonDL White.

Twins just turned down trade offer on Koskie. Not enough cash. Lame.

http://www.startribune.com/509/story/163742.html

The Twins need a good third baseman but is Corey Koskie the answer?? With all of the injuries he has I just don't know if Koskie is the answer. If the Twins do on plan on trading for him they better evaluate his health before they think about trading for him. I am a Corey Koskie fan but I disagree with the Twins getting rid of him a couple of years ago and they want to bring him back which is beyond me. They should have never have gotten rid of him in the first place. I guess for him it was just a year away from the Twins organization!!!

Dear Mr/Ms J,

Lame, indeed.

Alas,
Batgirl

all i have to say about kyle Lose is that for a fourth starter he is ok and have anyone acully looked at loshe's stats 4.18 era. brad radke's era is 4.04 hmm not much difference. and radke's gave up 90 runs in 200.7 innings last year loshe gave up 83 in 178.7

Noe there's a fine example of how statistics can be used to make an argument that has little merit. Given the choice of having Brad Radke on the hill in a crucial game or Kyle Lohse, who are you going to choose? Who is ANYONE going to choose (other than possibly Kyle himself and his "wife" from Casey's note above)? Yup. Bradke gets that call every single time. Most of all, though, it's Lohse's sulking that drives me nuts; what is he so perturbed about? He has that Scott Erickson "everything on the face of the Earth is designed to work against poor, maligned little me" attitude that is beyond annoying. "The defense didn't do its job, I got no run support, the turf is too fast, the cleft in my chin makes it hard to get a close shave", blah blah blah. In the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka, "Lighten up, Francis".

Oh, and a great big "BOO!" to TR for passing on Cordel. And "Boo!" to me for being gullible enough to get my hopes up, just to have them dashed to the pavement.

*sob*

I'm certainly not "getting hopes up", but at the same time, I won't believe this is a totally dead issue until Koskie (or one of the other extra thirdbasemen Toronto has) ends up with another team. Just because someone tells a reporter that the deal is dead, doesn't mean it's dead. Sometimes, it just means the price has to come down. If Toronto gets desperate enough to clear a roster spot, you just never know.

"I don't see it happening" does not mean "it's dead". Once again, our local hack baseball insider is jumping to conclusions. Sunday he was sure that the Twins had a moral obligation to T-Bone,Tuesday he had to retract that after actually asking Terry Ryan about it. I'm with JimCrikket: I'll believe it when I see his picture on ESPN with a Brewers cap on.

I wonder if the Twins thought about what kind of attendence boost having Koskie back would have provide?

Going with the whole ex analogy that was running around, this was just like an ex calling when they had too much to drink and you were thinking they missed you.

The attendance boost comes with winning more. If Koskie helps with that, fine. But unless he has a REALLY big family locally (or more Batgirlfriends) than I realize, I don't think his presence would have any significant effect... certainly not enough to cover 3-4 million in pay.

my point wasn't that radke and loshe were the same pitcher it was that a lot of twins fans are remembering loshe's 2004 season and thinking he did just as bad this year. when the fact is that most teams would be ok with him as a 4 or 5 starter and if you think that baker or liarino can come in and put up his numbers you are porbally wrong they might be good in the furture but they could also be busts. the reality is that one of them is most likely a bust and we would be luckly to have that bust end up pitching like loshe. loshe has put up decent numbers last year and in 2003. starters don't grow on trees. No loshe isn't great and i cringe every time he pitches. plus i think we could get more for him at the deadline and Liriano coudl use a half season in AAA to get better at locating pitches.

Referring to the reporter providing the information on Cordel as "our local hack baseball insider" strikes me as lame, mean spirited and beneath the level of civility that makes this a cool place to chill.

If the deal isn't dead, both sides are "negotiating in the media." That's not such a bad thing because, after all, if they didn't float proposals on the sports pages, we wouldn't have as much to talk about.

So let's bag the name calling.

This from the Toronto Sun:

"I've talked to the Twins (about Koskie) a couple of times but there's not much going on right now," Ricciardi said yesterday. "I wouldn't say the talks are dead but they're going real slow."

That's twice he's jumped to conclusions in the headline in one week. Perhaps 'hack' is too strong of a word. But, as an editor, I would not tolerate my reporter making two such mistakes in one week.

Here's a link to the full story. In it, JP also confirms that he hasn't talked to any other team, and he doesn't plan to.

http://www.torontosun.com/Sports/Baseball/2006/01/05/1379785-sun.html

It's kind of amusing to watch two grown men playing "chicken", isn't it?

Funny thing...you posted this yesterday and later that night I ran into my 1st girlfriend at Super America. But believe me...i remember exactly why I left her...she's now engaged to the guy...lol.

Name calling isn't nice but the sports writer at the Trib doesn't seem to be doing a good job right now.

On the other hand, unless I've totally missed it (or it just hasn't made their online edition), I haven't seen a single word about it in the St Paul paper. I guess I'd rather have "bad" information than nothing at all. At least it gives us something to debate/comment/BS about.

But the PiPress has a design the Twins uniform contest going...

I'm guessing no one wants to still debate pixie vest on this site though.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/sports/13520541.htm

I guess I'd rather have nothing than incorrect information. There was plenty of speculation since the Glaus trade in all the blogs. We had plenty to talk about over at Twinkie Town long before Christensen tried to debunk our speculation.

We expect better than speculation in newspapers. We expect reporters to call sources and find out the truth before they print it. Because of this expectation, we trust what they say. When they turn out to be wrong, that trust is broken.

I can understand it if he was misled by his sources. But to not even bother to call Terry Ryan, J.P. Ricciardi, Corey Koskie, or his agent and to publish speculation as though it is fact. That is just lazy reporting.

I was in a forgiving mood when he did it the first time. But he's published three articles now on the same subject without getting all the information. Consequently, he's got the readers who trusted him all confused.

According to Seth, who talked with Christensen, the story is changing so fast he needed to publish all the updates. But that too is contrary to fact. The negotiations are going really slowly and nothing is happening. So take your time, call everyone relevant to the story, and publish one story that has all the facts straight. That's what we expect.

I know this is baseball, and not as important as, say, wondering whether your family members who are trapped in a mine are OK. Recent events in West Virginia underscore how disinformation can be more damaging than no information.

I do think that's a pretty important distinction to make... this is baseball and not life/death.

Not being a "local", I don't know the writers or their reputations (other than Sid who was writing when I was a kid growing up in Minnesota and I didn't like him then so my feelings have never changed). I'm sure that in an area with competing papers, there's a natural competition to get "something" out in print before the other guy so I don't fault the writer for trying to do that.

That said, unless he had a VERY reliable inside source, it seems like he could have written more the initial article with more of a speculative slant rather than trying to come off as someone "in the know" himself. That's reporting versus writing an opinion column.

I don't take any of it all that seriously, though. It's certainly not the first time a reporter has gotten his facts wrong or gotten stung by a source and ended up a bit embarassed. It's amusing (or even a bit irritating) when it happens to the other guy, but I've had similar things happen to me over the years so I don't get too critical, as a rule.