December 1, 2010 Twins Lineup

Let's update as we go, but here's the Twins 25-man active roster as it appears it would be if season started next week:

Pitchers (11)
P Francisco Liriano (L)
P Scott Baker (R)
P Brian Duensing (L)
P Kevin Slowey (R)
P Nick Blackburn (R)
MR Jeff Manship (R)
MR Anthony Slama (R), Pat Neshek (R) or Alex Burnett (R)
MR Glen Perkins (L)
MR Jose Mijares (L)
SU Matt Capps (R)
CL Joe Nathan (R)

Position players (14)
C Joe Mauer (L)
C Drew Butera (R)
C/DH/1B Jose Morales (S)
1B Justin Morneau (L)
2B Alexi Casilla (S)
SS Tsuyoshi Nishioka (S)
3B Danny Valencia (R)
LF Delmon Young (R)
CF Denard Span (L)
RF Michael Cuddyer (R)
OF/DH Jason Kubel (L)
OF Jason Repko (R)
UT Trevor Plouffe (R)
UT Matt Tolbert (S)

As you can see, this means DH Jim Thome would be out of the picture. Ozzie Guillen was right when he let Thome go to the Dodgers in 2009--the big homerun hitter is just too one-dimensional to keep on a roster. I love the guy. He's a great hitter. He was great for the Twins, but they just can't afford to have him DH three out of every four games and have a personal pinch-running on the roster.

Thome in the lineup!

Adding Jim Thome to the lefty-dominated Twins lineup is a great move. For a baseball-paltry $1.5 million contract, Thome joins a team with powerful lefties Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Denard Span and Jason Kubel. There isn't a team in the league with enough lefties to roll out in late innings against this crew.

It's just too bad we couldn't have had Thome for the last 3-4 years. He would have 650 career homers if he had played in the Metrodome any more ...

I'm going to slap a few lineups together for fun. I'm also going to bank on Joe Crede signing on with the Twins for one more year of seeing if he can stop being hurt all the time. That said, here's the prediction:

1. Denard Span, CF (L)
2. J.J. Hardy, SS (R)
3. Joe Mauer, C (L)
4. Justin Morneau, 1B (L)
5. Michael Cuddyer, RF (R)
6. Jim Thome, DH (L)
7. Joe Crede, 3B (R)
8. Delmon Young, LF (R)
9. Punto/Harris/Tolbert/Plouffe, 2B (R)

or

1. Span (L)
2. Harris (R)
3. Mauer (L)
4. Cuddyer (R)
5. Morneau (L)
6. Kubel (L)
7. Thome (L)
8. Hardy (R)
9. Punto (R)

or

1. Span (L)
2. Mauer (L)
3. Cuddyer (R)
4. Morneau (L)
5. Thome (L)
6. Kubel (L)
7. Crede (R)
8. Hardy (R)
9. Casilla (L/R)

It's actually hard to create lineups with all that out there. It will be interesting to see what Gardenhire does with this team.

Here's my current predicted 25-man active roster for Opening SnowOut:
C--Mauer, Morales
1B -- Morneau, Thome
2B -- Tolbert, Casilla
3B -- Crede, Harris
SS -- Hardy, Punto
OF -- Span, Young, Cuddyer, Kubel
SP (in order) -- Pavano, Baker, Slowey, Blackburn, Perkins
RP -- Swarzak, Liriano, Mijares, Guerrier, Neshek
CL -- Nathan