The only way the Twins win the division is if essentially all the following happen or they get historically lucky:

- They stay healthy. Almost perfectly healthy.
- Santana pitches in his 2004 form, Radke rebounds, Silva doesn't fall off the talent-cliff, and Baker keeps up with his projected ERA in the 4.00 range.
- Batista doesn't make it out of April.
- Mauer, Morneau, and Bartlett all improve their hitting- at least one of them signficantly (i.e. more than projections).
- Stewart plays less poorly or the team finds someone else who can get on base.
- The veteran players - Hunter and Castillo - don't regress.
- Someone emerges to play RF and Cuddyer goes back to third.
- Andy Marte plays poorly for the Indians or, for some other reason, they don't perform as well as they are capable of.

If those all happen, the team can win 90-95 games, and have a reasonable chance to win the division. If just "most" of them happen, they might have a shot at the Wild Card, but it's hard to be optimistic.

Dude, you're really messing with my New Year's resolution to eliminate "Dude" from my personal vernacular.

If Andy Marte PLAYS for the indians, I like our chances of beating them given that Boone is their starting 3B and Marte likely won't even be on their major league roster.

I think we'll be alright this year. I really do. Morneau can't play much worse, I'm a big Castillo fan, and I think we learned a lot from last year. Health is a big factor, though.

speaking of torii, there was some beat hug-age at twinsfest the other day. it was awesome!

that's BEAR hug-age, not TC.

Yeah, Andy Marte is going to be a problem for us in about a year or so when the Tribe is no longer contractually obliged to care about Aaron "The Other White" Boone.

Marte > Boone, even today. Boone is terrible. Marginally-better-than-Batista terrible.

Right now I'm worrying more about the effects the WBC might have on the Twins more than Cleveland or Chicago.

Last year the slide didn't start until late in the season. The Twins were in lead or close to it for the wild card for most of the year. I think Cuddyer or Kubel will be just as productive as JJ in RF. I think Castillo will be better than anyone the Twins put at 2B last year and if Batista just performs to his average numbers I think the Twins will be in a similar hunt for a wild card spot.

Add to that if Hunter stays healthy all year and let's remember that injuries and declines in performace can happen to Cleveland and Chicago as well. I see no reason to doom and gloom about 2006.

That is of course as long as all the Twins players come out of the WBC in one piece.

GO TWINS!

Most people agree that Marte needs another year at AAA because he strikeout too much but he will indeed likely be a problem in 2007 and beyound but lets cross that bridge when we come to it.

According to foxsports.com Chicago might still be tinkering with their team.

White Sox could trade a starting pitcher
Chicago Tribune (registration required)
If the White Sox trade one their starters, possibly to the Astros or Mets, then youngster Brandon McCarthy may make the move from the bullpen to the starting rotation, writes Tribune staffer Mark Gonzales.

Not to turn this whole comment section into a debate on Marte, but...

People who say Marte "strikes out too much" and "needs another year at AAA" are committing what I can the "Fallacy of Infinite (or Perfect) Options". Take a look at the Indians' options at 3B: it's Marte, Boone, and some no-names.

Boone had a terrible year last season, putting up numbers that would be poor for a 2B. He's over 30, and will probably get worse. Andy Marte did fine most of the year at AAA, and is at that age where players can improve rapidly. He's their best option.

I'm not going to try to predict the moves of the Indians' organization, but if they demote Marte to the minors, I'll be very happy as a fan of a division rival.

Interesting that most of the comments center (so far) on Cleveland, with little mention of the defending champion White Sox, a team that since winning the title has bolstered both their offense and pitching staff significantly relative to 2005.

The hope of the Twins is likely to be injury in Chicago or the wildcard. The Tribe is eminently beatable because they regressed in the most important area of the game by replacing Millwood/Elarton/Howry/Rhodes with Byrd/Johnson/Mota/Graves.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

No it doesn't.

It was cool to hear Torii on WCCO from TwinsFest saying that he thought it was a mistake to have a young guy like Morneau batting fourth as they did last year. Cool because he was really sounding sympathetic to Morneau and it sounded like he really thought that was too much pressure to put on a young kid like him. It sounded like fences were mended and/or like he'd given a lot of thought to the whole issue and his take on Morneau last year. At least that's how I interpreted it.

i know it sounds crazy, especially after the offseason the bitch sox had, but i really don't see them being the team to beat in the AL Central. that being said, im not crazy enough to say the twins are the team to beat either. cleveland has a lineup filled w/ young kids that are only gonna get better. now i might be overly optimistic... but i see the twins making a push to win the division. white and castillo are HUGE upgrades to a team that couldnt score runs, and one of the best pitching staffs in the league is still intact (even better w/ mays out, baker in). keep in mind that the twins hung w/ the indians for the majority of the season and just kinda snowballed towards the end, and to an extent, chicago got a little lucky. they seemed to catch breaks all year and virtually everyone on the team had a career year (especially the pitching staff). on top of that... they won something like 35 games by one run. a sub 2005 season from one or two players and than can quickly turn into losing 35 games by one run (just as ron gardenhire)

To echo the comments over batista earlier this winter, one hitter (i.e. marte), especially a guy with little major league experience, isn't going to push the indians over the top. In the short term, losing Millwood ought to hurt cleveland more than gaining marte. In my opinion, Cle called this winter and discarded an Ace. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. Of course, we are talking about young team that is getting better each year.

I can't remember a team that won a championship and then had as good of offseason as Chicago did. A team that improves on paper is certainly capable of what they did last year. So I'll say Chicago is the team to beat. And that's before remembering they went 13-1 to finish the season.

Detroit should improve, but it would be asking a lot for them to get above .500. Not impossible though. We need to make sure we beat them or I will be sad. I hope I get to Comerica to see Johan pitch this summer. K's for bat-kitties!

If we don't have the worst offense in the AL again, there's no reason we can't beat either cle or chi or both. That's all that matters to me. I also think venezuela winning the WBC would be good for this baseball team, but that's mainly because that can't do it with out significant and injury free contributions from Johan and the Jackal.

Yeah, that's not too far from my assessment of the Bitch Sox. It was the year things just clicked for them, and while I see them doing well again next year, I don't expect the kind of dominant performance they had in 05. Plus, I don't see the Rowand/Thome trade as the huge boon a lot of sportswriters seem to think it is. Basically, they lost the CF that was a huge piece of their defense and replaced the duo of Thomas and Everett with Thome, who's coming off an injury-ridden year himself.

Yes but pushing a young prospect too far too fast can lead to a downgrade in confidance that he might never recover form. Do i think marte could step in a do better than Boone yes I do but boone was recovering form a year off and he might do better and your stuck with him any way so let marte spend a half a year in triple A not everyone's a Mauer who can go form AA and right into the majors Mauer was one of the most mature 20 year olds there was I don't know about marte but he is only 21 years old,

The Doctor and Torii, in that article, BOTH sound like real and admirable people. How refreshing!

It is a little (well, a LOT) difficult to see the B-Sox 05 as a fluke - I mean, can we really compare Batista/White to Konerko/Thome? It is difficult to find a weakness in the Sox. HOWEVER, there is always the Chicago factor - the factor that almost sunk them near the end of the season, when they "almost" blew a 15 game division lead. Somehow, the Chicago media, after raising expectations, always is ready to worry about the worst even BEFORE the worst happens. While the B-Sox will not face the almost-insane pressure that was placed on the 04 Cubs, there will be plenty of folks in Chicago all ready to pounce and worry and fret if the team does not LEAP out of the box. They may actually be good enough to play up to the expectations - but if we put up a real fight from the beginning, the worrying by the Lake will start...

JFlub & SD: The only guys that "overachieved" for the Sox were Contreras & Garland, and both have indications that it's just development/adjustment. Regardless, there are also guys who underachieved offensively (Crede, Uribe, Podsednik in the 2d half). So it's highly likely that even if there's some regression from the pitching staff, there'll be improvement offensively even before factoring in that Thome only has to beat out Carl Everett's .745OPS to be a significant improvement at DH.

As for the Tribe, pitching will be their downfall. They do have a lot of young players, but it's not a given that they all improve, some will, some may regress or maintain. Regardless - it's generally tough to consistently outslug teams with superior pitching and halfway decent offenses.

"virtually everyone on the (White Sox) had a career year"

Who? No one on offense. Garland did, and so did Contreras, but Garland was 25 (entering his prime) and Contreras got his family back from Cuba. I can see Contreras sliding a bit with El Duque gone as an aide de camp, but virutally everyone on that team played to norm. In other words, they're good on paper and in the field.
I don't know how Tony Batista and Ruben Sierra will bridge the gap.

i agree with everything what Sanny said. To me, the Twins will win the division if Mauer and Moreneau can have big years. Do they have it in them especially Morneau, who I am already turned off.