Kuzul

Building a baseball team is a delicate process. If a team is too aggressive in its approach, it will have a one-  or two-year window to win a World Series. If a team isn’t aggressive enough, it will toil in mediocrity (or worse) and rarely give hope to its fanbase.

Fans of the Minnesota Twins want to see the aggressive approach at the moment, as they’ve been screaming for general manager Terry Ryan to do something this offseason to solve one of Major League Baseball’s worst pitching rotations.

So far, the Twins haven’t done much of anything on the free-agent market. Instead, they’ve opted to make trades to improve their farm system more than building something at the major league level.

The approach is the correct one to take with the current state of the Twins. Here’s why the Twins should stay away from the free-agent market.

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The New York Mets are close to dealing reigning National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey to the Toronto Blue Jays, according to CBS Sportsline’s Jon Heyman, who broke the news on Twitter early Saturday morning:

word is, there is agreement on players in dickey trade with #jays. @martinonydn suggests medicals being reviewed.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 15, 2012

reminder: a deal isnt a deal until it’s a deal. multiple deals have been derailed by medicals this winter alone.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 15, 2012

Per an ESPN New York report, the Mets would get catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud from the Blue Jays in return for Dickey.

There may be a sense of panic when it comes to dealing a pitcher coming off a career season, but Mets fans should not worry as general manager Sandy Alderson is making the right move.

Over the last three seasons with the Mets, Dickey has gone 39-28 with a 2.95 earned run average. During that span, Dickey has registered a WHIP of 1.15 and racked up 468 strikeouts with a league-leading 230 coming in 2012.

Those outstanding numbers are great for a knuckleballer like Dickey, but there are other numbers that the Mets should be concerned with.

First, there’s the matter of consistency. While Dickey has been great over the past three seasons for the Mets, his 2012 season could be a fluke.

Prior to signing in New York, Dickey went 22-28 with a 5.43 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP over seven seasons. The point is, how do we know that Dickey has mastered the most inconsistent pitch in the majors?

The biggest fear with paying Dickey a boatload of cash is that he’ll fall back into this stretch and the Mets would be on the hook for a highly-paid, underachieving player.

Dickey also turned 38 in October, which means that while the knuckleball has allowed pitchers to have incredibly long careers (see Tim Wakefield, Phil Niekro) the wheels could fall off at any moment.

Perhaps the demands for Dickey wouldn’t be so high if the price of starting pitching wasn’t rivaling gasoline.

With Anibal Sanchez (five years, $80 million), Dan Haren (one year, $13 million), and Joe Blanton (two years, $15 million) getting wildly overpaid, Dickey has demanded a two-year extension worth $26 to $28 million.

With the Mets following in the footsteps of the 2010 Los Angeles Dodgers, the team can’t afford to spend that kind of money on a high-risk player.

That’s why this trade makes sense. By acquiring d’Arnaud (who hit .333 with 16 home runs and 52 runs batted in for Triple-A Los Vegas in 2012), the Mets will have another bat they can use in their lineup at cavernous Citi Field as well as filling the catcher position for many years to come.

The effects of having a franchise catcher (although risky) are becoming apparent as players like Joe Mauer (three batting championships) and Buster Posey (2012 National League Most Valuable Player) are having major impacts on their teams.

With d’Arnaud only 23 years old, the Mets have a chance to get some pieces for the future while saving some money in the process.

This won’t be a popular move, but it’s the right move to make to achieve long-term success for the Mets.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

If you’ve been following the Minnesota Twins at all this past offseason, you probably know that they must fix their pitching rotation if they want to get back to relevance in the American League Central. For the Twins to do that, they must take a look at every possible avenue (as they’ve done recently according to ESPN 1500 AM’s Darren Wolfson) and decide which pitchers can help their team the most.

That process sounds like it’s a case of playing fantasy baseball, but the Twins have to go deeper than that to fix what is arguably the worst starting rotation in Major League Baseball.

If the Twins aren’t careful with who they select to fill their void of solid starting pitching, they could wind up signing another version of Jason Marquis or Ramon Ortiz. A failure like that could see the Twins rotation become even worse and subject their fans to more Brian Duensing or Nick Blackburn in the process.

With all the names being thrown around this offseason, here’s a look at who could once again turn the Twins rotation into a strength.

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The National League Divisional Series between the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals will turn one way or the other when the two teams meet for Game 3 Wednesday evening at Nationals Park.

The two games at Busch Stadium couldn’t have been more different. Game 1 produced a pitching duel that gave the Nationals the early advantage.

However, Game 2 was all Cardinals, as Carlos Beltran battered Nationals pitching en route to a 12-5 St. Louis victory.

Obviously, the team that can break the 1-1 tie will have a huge advantage and could close out the series in Game 4 Thursday night.

Here is a look at what matchups will decide Game 3 between the Cardinals and the Nationals.

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Mat Latos had one of the most clutch performances so far in the National League Divisional Series between the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants. If the Reds want to close out the Giants in Game 4, Latos will have to do it again.

The Reds’ pitcher was forced into emergency duty during Game 1 when Johnny Cueto left the game after facing just two batters with what was later diagnosed as an oblique strain.

Making his first relief appearance at the major-league level, Latos went four innings, allowing an earned run, four hits and a walk en route to the Reds’ 5-2 victory.

As we enter Thursday’s Game 4 at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, the question becomes whether Latos can duplicate that performance and advance the Reds to their first National League Championship Series since 1995.

Judging by the Giants’ performance the first three games, I would say that the odds are good.

In Games 2 and 3 of the series, the Giants were unable to string an offensive threat against anybody the Reds threw at them, as both Bronson Arroyo and Homer Bailey had no-hitter bids going into the middle part of the game.

Even when the Giants got something going offensively in the 10th inning of their 2-1 Game 3 victory, it was Scott Rolen who made the big play for the Giants when he misplayed a grounder to his left for his second error of the series.

Basically, Latos is facing a team that is in an incredible funk at the plate. If the Giants’ hitting woes continue, Latos should have no problem breezing through a lineup that has produced just five hits between Games 2 and 3.

The Reds paid a steep price to acquire Latos during the offseason, and if he can come up with one more clutch outing on Wednesday night, it will be worth every penny for a team that couldn’t seem to find any pitching one year ago.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Pat Neshek came into Saturday night’s American League Divisional Series game in the same tight situation that he’s seen many times before in his six-year career.

With men on first and second for the Detroit Tigers, the Oakland Athletics reliever’s main job was to escape the jam with a two-run deficit intact.

At first glance, it seemed like a regular appearance for Neshek. However, when you look at what Neshek has had to go through in the past week, it was so much more.

The reliever has had to go through a lot in his career. After beginning with his home town Minnesota Twins in 2006, Neshek soared off to an 11-4 start with a 2.68 earned run average in his first two seasons.

Armed with a quirky delivery, he had 10.6 strike outs per nine innings and looked to have a bright future with the Twins.

In 2008, Neshek felt something pop in his elbow and needed to undergo Tommy John surgery.

After missing the entire 2009 season, he returned in 2010, but didn’t have the same velocity that he had pre-surgery.

Since his return, Neshek has bounced back-and-forth between the minors and the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics organizations.

Although Neshek had been bruised, cut, and demoted, there was the joy of expecting his first child with his wife, Stephanee.

As the Athletics began their rise from the ashes late this year, the arrival of his son drew closer and closer. The day finally came on October 2nd, and Gehrig John Neshek was born.

The following day, after a 12-5 victory over the Texas Rangers, the Athletics became the third team in major league history to win a division after being in soul possession of first place for a single day.

With the playoffs on the horizon, this had to be one of the happiest moments of Neshek‘s career.

But things turned sour quickly and just 23 hours after Gehrig’s birth, Neshek‘s infant son died “with no explanation.”

The days following were excruciating as he continued to get congratulatory messages after Gehrig had stopped breathing. With that, Neshek announced the news on Twitter.

According to Susan Slusser’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Neshek said that the support after Gehrig’s death was “amazing” and that the one day with his son was “probably the best day I’ve ever had.”

It’s hard to imagine what was running through his mind as the Athletics manager, Bob Melvin, decided to make Neshek the first call out of the Oakland bullpen Saturday night.   But the 32-year-old righty was able to compose himself and get the Athletics out of a jam.

As he walked off the field, he smiled toward the sky and tapped the patch the Athletics had added to their uniform in Gehrig’s memory.

The pain was still there, but the healing process had started.

Many of us will never know what it’s like to lose a newborn child, and hopefully never will. To see Neshek on the field after all of that is amazing.

If he can lead the Athletics to complete their Cinderella story, it’s something that all of us could use as an inspiration outside of baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The past two seasons have not been kind to the Minnesota Twins medical staff.

After spending much of the 2011 season trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with Joe Mauer, the 2012 season has been filled with baffling stints on the disabled list and more misdiagnosis that have crippled all levels of the organization.

The latest chapter in a lack of medical vision that would make Mister Magoo proud is the case of Carl Pavano.

Pavano has been shut down since June 1 with what the Twins initially thought was a strain in his shoulder capsule, but after he was scratched from a rehab start he visited a shoulder specialist who revealed that the problem was a bruise on his humerus bone that requires rest.

According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Pavano found nothing funny about the sudden shutdown.

It’s too bad it took three months diagnose that, I could have been resting….I was pitching through pain and discomfort for so long, and it was driving me crazy, and this was all it took? It’s irritating. It’s no one’s fault. I’ll take the blame, but I don’t understand why.

Pavano is not the first Twin in the past couple of seasons to question the team’s medical staff.

At the major league level, the Twins have repeatedly given the dreaded “day-to-day” diagnosis only to see them land on the disabled list after clogging up a roster spot for a week.

Matt Capps, Trevor Plouffe and (most recently) Denard Span have all experienced this over the course of the season.

In fact, as this article is being written, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that Span is traveling back to the Twin Cities to get a MRI on his injured clavicle after an initial day-to-day diagnosis.

However, the scary part is the frequency that Twins doctors have misdiagnosed a player’s injury.

Just a year removed from Joe Mauer’s “bi-lateral leg weakness” diagnosis that sidelined him for a majority of the 2011 season, the Twins have screwed up on several players with Pavano being the latest victim.

After getting in a spitting contest with fellow pitcher Scott Baker over his tender elbow, the Twins finally relented in allowing him to have flexor tendon surgery in April that would cause him to miss the 2012 season, but supposedly have him ready for 2013 after a six-month recovery.

Instead, Baker woke up after surgery to find out that he actually needed Tommy John surgery. A year long (or more) recovery is needed for Tommy John, and for the Twins not to realize it after an entire offseason is a laughable matter.

Alarmingly, the problems haven’t just surfaced at the major league level. They’ve been creeping their way into the minors in the case of former Twins prospect Dan Osterbrock.

According to HardballTalk.com, Osterbrock had two shoulder surgeries after the Twins allegedly ignored a more serious matter when he struggled at Double-A New Britain in 2011. Osterbrock was released last spring, and took to Twitter to vent his frustration with the medical staff.

surgery went well. should be throwing soon. special thanks to the Twins for completely neglecting the obvious injury i had.

All of this needs to lead to a change in the medical staff of the Minnesota Twins. The Twins can no longer afford for the medical staff to hold the major league club back by misdiagnosing injuries and having players miss more time than they should.

Usually, complaining about the medical staff of any professional sports team is nit-picking. However, the Twins’ medical staff has had too many swings and misses to get another chance at the plate.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

As Minnesota Twins fans eagerly checked Twitter to see if general manager Terry Ryan would make a move at the Major League Baseball trade deadline, one had to wonder what would happen if this scene was set in the film Major League II.

In the film, the Cleveland Indians acquire a player from Japan by the name of Isuro “Kamakasi” Tanaka, who constantly questions Pedro Cerrano’s manhood by repeatedly screaming at him “You have no marbles!”

Mr. Tanaka may have a role waiting for him in the Twins’ organization after Tuesday, where Ryan failed to make a move to bolster his incredibly weak farm system.

In all honesty, nobody should be surprised by Ryan pumping the breaks. However, this trade deadline has a much different feel for the franchise because instead of adding a key piece (which Ryan had hesitated to do over his previous tenure as GM), the Twins almost needed to make a deal to make the future brighter.

It takes two to tango, but Ryan had to have a sense of urgency after seeing a team continuing a downward spiral since the Twins were swept by the New York Yankees in the 2010 American League Divisional Series.

The Twins probably wanted to hold onto Josh Willingham, who is in the first year of his three-year deal. They probably didn’t get a package good enough to ship Justin Morneau (who has one year left after 2012) either. Those scenarios are understandable.

However, with the Twins reluctant to deal Denard Span, the Twins continued a trend that was stated by Joe Christensen in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Tuesday morning: The Twins never sell high.

Span is having a great year for the Twins in the leadoff spot. He’s ranking toward the top of many categories among American League leadoff hitters (outside of power numbers), but he also had several years under the Twins’ control.

But with the emergence of Ben Revere and the opportunity for clearing a spot to give more major league at-bats to prospect Chris Parmelee, it might have been best to ship Span for some help in the Twins’ awful pitching rotation.

Pitching has been the one thing that has held this team back this season and instead of learning from the mistakes of former general manager Bill Smith, Ryan decided to hold back and hope for better value during the offseason (or worse, not at all).

It’s a mistake that has cost the Twins in previous years, and will continue to do so until Ryan can find some assets and turn them into players who can help the team in the future.

Meanwhile, Smith takes a lot of heat from Twins fans for running the team into the ground…but at least he took a risk. That’s what Ryan needed to do this year by following the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros lead by stripping down to the studs and building toward the future.

Perhaps Ryan didn’t see anything he liked, but he needed to do something. Of course, with Target Field continuing to rank 12th in attendance (at 88.7 percent capacity), maybe the Twins didn’t feel any pressure to make a move with their pocket books.

Either way, the Twins train to a quick turnaround has just left the station. Twins fans now need to hope that the conductor knows what he’s doing.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

If you watched the Home Run Derby last night, you might have sworn you were actually watching a Kansas City Chiefs game with the volume of loud boos directed at American League captain Robinson Cano when he took his turn in the once-prestigious event.

On the outside, there could have been a simple explanation of these boos. Cano, the defending Home Run Derby champion, plays for the New York Yankees. The Yankees just happen to be not only one of the most covered teams in baseball, but one of the most hated teams in baseball as well.

Of course, there was more than just the fact that Cano wears a NY on his cap.

For the second year, Major League Baseball selected two players (one from each league) to pick a team to compete in the Home Run Derby.

In the first year this was done, Prince Fielder (who was then with the Milwaukee Brewers) declined to pick Justin Upton of the Arizona Diamondbacks despite the fact that the game was being held in Phoenix.

Fielder responded by hitting the game-winning home run in the All-Star Game and winning Most Valuable Player honors. He laughed and we moved on.

Fast-forward to last night, and Cano gets booed for declining to select Billy Butler, of the hometown Kansas City Royals. As the fans cheered with every out, Cano looked more and more nervous. His father, who was throwing to his son for the second straight year, looked like he was going to cry.

After the smoke cleared, Robinson Cano was shutout in the 2012 Home Run Derby, and now baseball isn’t happy about it.

Treating one of the premier players in the “Royal Family of Baseball” (New York Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Phillies and anybody else ESPN gives way too much time to during Sportscenter) was too much for commissioner Bud Selig and executive vice president of baseball operations Joe Torre to bear.

Selig’s new idea to save the Home Run Derby (again) is to force one captain to pick a hometown slugger to be represented by each team.

Personally, I didn’t think Selig could top his home-field advantage idea in the All-Star Game. However, he’s really outdone himself here.

Why doesn’t baseball just select eight to 10 sluggers to bash home runs like they used to? Yes, hitters now fear the Home Run Derby like ESPN fears the Yankees and Red Sox at the bottom of the AL East standings, but come on.

The Home Run Derby is supposed to be fun. That’s why Royals fans booed Cano in the first place. They were having fun at Cano’s expense, and if he couldn’t handle some boos, why is he playing for the Yankees in the first place?

Adding a hometown slugger would add that awkward moment where somebody who really doesn’t belong there is added by force.

Could you imagine Joe Mauer in the Home Run Derby when the game is hosted by Target Field in 2014? (Yes, it happened during his bizarre 2009 campaign, but that doesn’t happen that often.) It just wouldn’t be fun to watch as he tries to drive the ball into the opposite gap for a double.

Also, the guy that Cano chose over Butler (Mark Trumbo) unleashed some “Trumbombs” that made even the biggest Royals fan scream in sheer amazement.

This potential move is an overreaction by Bud Selig and should not happen. One has to wonder why the same deal wasn’t made when Fielder (the 2012 Home Run Derby champion) was booed out of the building last year, but I guess the “Royal Family of Baseball” has that much pull over decisions.

If you’re going to let players pick the teams, let them pick the teams. Otherwise, MLB should just force guys to participate and add their own “Hometown Slugger.”

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The National League could be one of the most loaded All-Star teams in recent memory when it rolls into Kansas City for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 10.

Filling out my ballot for the senior circuit was a difficult task, as there are about 15 players who could potentially start for the All-Star team. Of course, that’s a good problem to have when only nine players play on the baseball field.

There are some quality players who will be snubbed in the NL, but here’s a look at the players who will take the field and start for the National League.

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