Quick Notes: Jan. 15

On a Sunday when settling in to watch an afternoon of NFL playoffs was on many Twins fans' minds, the Twins made a surprise signing: RHRP Joel Zumaya -- of course pending a physical.

At least I was surprised.

I'd seen some Twitter rumors hinting that the Twins were interested in LHRP Todd Coffey and RHSP Roy Oswalt, so I wasn't totally surprised that some kind of announcement came today. And I knew that the Twins were among the teams looking at Zumaya around Christmastime. But I just never put things together this way.

The nice thing about this signing is that, even though it is a major league deal, it's not guaranteed (according to to Strib's Joe C.) and it's for relatively little money. Plus, when healthy, he's pretty darned effective -- when he was with the Tigers, he could blow hitters away by reaching 100 mph on the radar gun. So his signing is pretty low risk.

However, that "when healthy" part might be problematic. Fans who don't believe that players can be "injury prone" may change their minds when looking at his history. TwinGeek summed it up nicely in his Twitter feed:

Twins fans may even remember that 2010 injury because it was particularly gross how his arm just snapped sideways after he delivered that pitch.

He'll probably never throw another 100 mph pitch again. Let's hope he can still be effective without it.

And I'll go ahead a prepare an injury paper doll just in case.