Short Notes - Mar. 11

Catching up on some of the Twins news from the last week. I know some of this is kind of late, and I was going to write about this sooner, but then Joe Nathan ... well, you know. Moving on ....

Blackie Locked Up For 4 Years
This not only made me happy, but it also kind of amused me. The contract extension that he signed on Sunday covers his arbitration years with an option for his first year of potential free agency. I like this deal because it ensures that a decent pitcher will be around for awhile; he's better than league average in ERA, strikeouts, WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), and wins. And with the inordinately large number of other guys in their arbitration years, it's a bit comforting that the Twins have one less of those processes to worry about.

The amusing part (yeah, I might be the only who thinks this is funny ... well not funny per se, but kind of humorous, but I digress) was that some radio personality announced with certainty that one hometown boy who's a pretty good catcher would be signing his contract on Sunday. And since Blackie and Joey kind of look alike, the joke with all my Twitter friends was that someone confused the two. Ok ... I guess you had to be there. Or not.

I Have To Catch Up on My Reading
I'm now in the middle of two great books.

I picked up my copy of Maple Street Press's Twin Annual from Cub a while ago, and I love it. It has a bunch of interesting articles by some familiar names: John Bonnes (TwinsGeek), Seth Stohs (SethSpeaks.net), Nick Nelson (Nick's Twins Blog), Parker Hageman (Over the Baggy), Andrew Kneeland (Twins Target), Howard Sinker (Star Tribune's A Fan's View), and a whole bunch of other great writers. Oh, and I love the player pages that have the stats all graphed out, in color and everything -- those are easy to understand for a person like me who has an aversion to stats.

And I received my copy of Seth Stohs' 2010 Prospect Handbook. I've glanced through some of it, but I really find it handy when listening to these Spring Training games. Thanks to it, I know who Juan Portes is. And if you get one, you will too.

And As If I Don't Already Have Enough To Read
This list of 63 Twins bloggers was published a few days ago. Wow. I had no idea there was that many. Way to represent Twins bloggers!

You'll see I'm rated #17. I think that's pretty high. I looked at their ranking system, and it seems that it's based solely on the number of visits the blogs get. My visit count is probably artificially high due to Nick Punto day. Clearly, it's not based on quality -- there are plenty of blogs better than this drivel and further down on the list. But it's great to have a comprehensive list. Be sure to check them all out ... you know, when you get time.