Day-off Daydream: Trades I can make in my mind!

Sorry for sparsity of posts recently, unfortunately it will likely continue for the next few weeks as Stinky and I both work our fingers to the bone on final exams for grad school. GOOD NEWS THOUGH! Grad school's almost over for good, Stinky bought a TV that will get the Twins games, and I'll be coming back to Minnesota so we should be back on the blogging trolly before the Twins are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Of course, it sometimes feels like that day might come sooner rather than later. You know it's been bad, I know it's been bad. As my father (known on this site as Mr. No Ass--NA for short) said on Saturday: "They aren't fielding well, they aren't pitching well, they aren't running well, they aren't hitting well....pretty hard to win when you can't do those things". There have been many suggestions on how to fix this situation from throughout the Twins blogosphere (including a fine plan from Seth Stroh's who is known for his fine plans and love of children's movies).

We peanuts do not do fine plans. We do not do statistical analysis. But we do do imagination (heheh, "doodoo"). With that we present trades we think the Twins could make in our imaginary world of amusement!

1. Acquire SS Jose Reyes from the Mets as a portion of the Wilpon's payout to Minneapolis victims of Bernie Madoff.

Win-win here. We get a talented shortstop for the season, and the Mets owners get a slight relief from their impending legal troubles! With over 200 Madoff victims in the Twin Cities the $10 million Reyes makes this year seems like a start to compensating defrauded investors.

2. Send Dusty Hughes back to the farm, or ranch, or cattle drive and bring up Frank N. Stein to bolster the relief corps.

Fixing from within here...literally. We drop one of our more ineffective relievers, then take the best parts of all our old pitchers (Carlos Silva's sinker grip, Brad Radke's tendons, Bert Blyleven's brain...or wait...maybe not that) and put them into one super pitcher named Frank N. Stein! (Pictured at left: Farm System director Jim Rantz overseeing the creation of Frank N. Stein)

3. Sneak into Colorado in the middle of the night, and swap Steve Holm for Jose Morales then run away before anyone can tell it was us.

We may need a catcher who gets hits more consistently than our current catchers (non-Mauer division) and since we have long supported Jose "Aquapig" Morales we fully support pulling the bait and switch on the Rockies. Sure we made a legit trade with them this offseason, but they forgot to call "No Backsies" so, I'm sure this will be legit.

4. Trade the blue ox from the Jim Thome commercial for magic beans.

Great value to get here. We've already shot the commercial with the blue ox, so that's done as much good as it can do. And given the rate of 3 beans/Cow, we should easily pick up like 28 beans for a blue ox! Then we use said beans to heal our injured players, grow massive bean stalks to block home runs at Target Field (we're never going to hit any there anyway) and still have some left over for a rainy day!!

There's our plans folks, if anyone wants to pass this along to Messers Gardenhire, Smith or Pohlad, please remember our finders fee. (A couple Tony O Cuban sandwiches)

Canuck Heads v.s. Clutch Hair

Today's game was another battle between forces of good and evil. In the evil corner you have the Toronto Blue Jays, a team determined to reach new levels of foreign jerkitude. They have been eliminated from the playoffs for a month, but continue to insist on trying to win games (you don't see the Dodgers or Mariners doing that!). What's more, as the lone representatives of Canada in Major League Baseball, they do a great disservice to the noble people of the great white north by ignoring the Canadian value of fairness. By hitting a crapload* of home runs against a team that can't hit any in the cold Minnesota air this team has sullied the mighty maple leaf!

*Here's a helpful metric conversion for our readers in foreign lands: a crapload is equal to approximately 24 hogsheads.

In the corner of good was, as usual, the Minnesota Twins. And once again it would not be easy, what with many of our regular players nursing injuries and our pitchers battling stinkitude. Sure enough, held to one run through 4 innings, it wasn't promising. Having our starter waver, wasn't comforting and given the bullpen's experiments in stinkitude recently (all relievers wanna be like starters, ya know) good seemed to be doomed.

A Delmon double to start the 9th? Promising. Mauer and Valencia pop-flies to put us on the brink of disaster? Not so much. (Sidebar: Danny V. We like you, and the home runs you hit, but sometimes base hits are just as cool as homers, so, relax a little okay young fella?) Then Jason Kubel walked (because Running is Stupid), and our beloved Jose "Aquapig" Morales did the same leading to "Sexi" 'Lexi Casilla: who compensates for below-average hitting with above-average facial hair.

Why does that facial hair matter? Think about it man, at crucial moments in the history of our world, great hair has provided the critical boost to those who defend us all from encroaching evil. Samson, Ulysses S. Grant, and today: Alexi Casilla. Huzzah for the forces of good, and huzzah for the power of great hair*!

*Note: In case Alexi Casilla won the game due to his own athletic prowess, we reserve the right to call on the power of great hair again this postseason.

Meet the New Twins!

Sure we could gloat about last night's win over the Kansas City Royals...but Kansas Citizens are nice people and being rude to nice people would be as Un-Minnesotan as store bought hot dish.

So instead let's take a look at the team's September call-ups, the scruffy youngsters that we hope will step up their game just in time to boost us into the post season.

C: Jose Morales: Morales actually has some stretch-run experience having played with the Twins last year which should help despite being sidelined with various injuries this year. But his biggest asset is the fact that he, like the two writers of this blog were born as aquarians in the year of the boar...making us: AQUAPIGS!!! That kind of cosmic good fortune bodes well...even if it is the weirdest potential superhero ever.

P: Pat Neshek: When last we saw Sir Sideshow Pat, he had left the rest of the bullpen in oodles of trouble and gone off in quest of a healthy arm to pitch with. Now he has returned and while it's not clear if he'll ever be as dominant as he once was, he is still pretty darned entertaining, and is, therefore, one of our favoritests.

IF: Trevor Plouffe: Plouffe has been up and down a lot this season, offering relief for Nick Punto and JJ Hardy. He doesn't hit real well, but he fields like a pro and his last name sounds like a dripping faucet...which could drive the opposition insane, and that's always a plus.

P: Glen Perkins: You might remember Glen from such seasons as last one (when he started out great and then did not so great and then did down-right bad) and the off season (when he got all uppity about the whole "the-Twins-are-conspiring-to-stop-me-from-making-money" thing, so we tried to trade him but couldn't). So, basically Glen Perkins is a good left handed pitcher in a fairly awkward situation. It's sort of like in romantic comedies when two significant others are thinking of breaking up, but they go to a big party/wedding/cross-country road trip with a chimp together anyway hoping that they'll recapture the magic...hmm...I have an idea for screenplay...

OF: Ben Revere: Arguably the happiest guy on the planet right now, Revere got called up from Double A to provide much needed defensive relief for our outfield. He struck out in his only at bat last night, but that doesn't change the fact that now we get to make Revolutionary War jokes...for that alone Revere is awesome.

As of now these are our best hopes for a late season spark...but maybe, just maybe, if the concussion fairies smile on Mr. Morneau we'll have one more bit of magic left in our hats. God speed new guys, we believe in you!

Supraction's New Side Kick

We here at Peanuts from Heaven have a new best buddy in the Twins Clubhouse. He became our buddy during the July 4th game, but then vanished from view...until last night...

You all know the story--but here are the basics--we needed to win...we always need to win...not because it's a complex or anything, but just because the stinking Tigers don't ever seem to lose. We need to stay close and capitalize on their mistakes--which basically means never making mistakes our selves.

To this end we employ two men who manage to appear unthreatening at first, but then explode in furious blazes of bad-assitude when you least expect it--we call this art: Supraction. Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan--all-stars all, but they are not the aforementioned badasses. They've come to be respected, revered, feared. Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young on the other hand....nope...no fear.

Admittedly, Delmon is better at the non-threatening thing than the bad-assitude thing, but he can do it when he needs to, but Cuddy, ohhh Cuddy, with dimples that deep busting a cap in people's asses does not seem likely--and yet, he does it with the glove and he does it with the bat.

Last night he did it with both...twice. Then came our problem--the fine and subtle art of this thing we call Supraction is lost on our pitchers--they just can't manage to deal with it, and in that spirit Jose Mijares and Matt Guerrier lost our lead. But then, our favorite buddy was back.

Little Known Fact: Both Stinky and I are Aquarians born in 1983--with makes us not only Aquarians but Boars in the Chinese zodiac calendar. Even less known fact: Jose Morales was born a scant four days after stinky, making him another Aquarian Boar--or--as we prefer to be called: "AQUA PIGS!!!"

It's good to have our very own Aqua Pig back in the dugout--because nothings more suprising, or distracting as a amphibian swine. Especially when that amphibian swine is capable of late inning-pinch hit heroics.

Welcome home Jose Morales--we missed you.