It's Officially Official...

Dave St. Peter sent me an e-mail today in regards to the Johan trade. No, not a personal e-mail, but how cool would that be? It was kind of like that letter of apology The Mets sent out at the end of last season to their fans. It's official now, everyone has passed their physicals (not like we didn't think Johan wouldn't pass).

It made me sad how the franchise felt the need to say that we reached out to Johan, but ultimately Johan and his agent said ‘no’:

“As the club has stated many times, our first choice was to sign Johan to a contract extension ensuring he remained in a Twins uniform for years to come. Despite the largest multi-year offer in Twins history - one which would have rewarded Johan with the highest annual salary among all pitchers in Baseball - the team and Johan's representatives respectfully were unable to reach agreement.”

It seemed a little underhanded, but that’s just me.

It was nice to see some more stats on our new acquisitions, though. I read a nice interview with Carlos Gomez, and he seems like a good kid. I'm willing to accept him into the Twins family.

"This is my opportunity to be a center fielder… I have to prepare for a new organization, but I'm ready. The only thing I want is to play baseball and play every day…I don't want to say I can play like Torii, that guy is unbelievable, I'm just going to be Carlos Gomez. But I think I can play center. I have speed, I like to hustle and I like to slide. I think I play a good center field and hopefully the fans will get to see that."

He seems pretty excited and determined, and has a generally optimistic attitude about his new team. Really, we couldn’t ask for anything more…unless he can throw a mean slider left-handed.

Torii was also quoted in this same interview, and I was pretty touched by what he had to say.

"I don't think they are rebuilding. I think they are trying to put pieces in place around Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer. I think the bullpen is still the same. The starters, they are going to be young, but they are talented. This team has many of the right pieces already in place."

I’m glad to know he still loves us, and I’d really like to believe him about the not-rebuilding thing.

We do still have a lot of our clutch players. Mike Redmond is nothing if not clutch. I’m sure if we asked him to, he’d go out and pitch a few innings, then go out to center and climb the baggie for balls. Cuddy is consistent, both at the plate and in the outfield. Canada is still MVP worthy. And despite Joe’s rather rocky season last year, I have hope he can rebound.

Our bullpen is still strong, but I won’t try and tell you I’m not nervous as hell about our starting rotation (aka... Scotty as our ace and Boof as a permanent fixture IN said rotation). I’m hoping to see some of it at Spring Training, and then after that offer my opinion. I'm hoping Frankie can come back this season and pitch, and I've got great hope for Kevin Slowey (who is my new boyfriend now that Matt's gone).

I’ve just noticed that on the official Twins site, the cartoons/pictures at the top of the web page have been replaced.

I especially like the Gardy.