Coupla Twins Notes

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Sorry for the short entry today, but I was at my fantasy football draft last night and didn't get to see much of the game. Just a couple of quick notes:

• The updates on Francisco “The F-bomb” Liriano are so frequent as to start blending together. (Is he throwing a simulated game without cleats today or is he playing catch at 120 feet in Rochester? I forget.) But while we know exactly how many pitches he’ll throw in his first start on Thursday the 14th, we don’t know who he’s replacing in the rotation.
  
  The answer isn’t obvious from the schedule. The 14th would have belonged to Boof Bonser, but I think it’s safe to say that he isn’t the odd man out. Carlos Silva and Scott Baker would seem to be the leading candidates, and between them they have three starts this homestand to show they deserve the last two starts. Also, reaplacing one of them would allow Matt Garza to be skipped on Monday the 18th, which will be the Twins last off day before playing 14 straight days to end the season.
  
  So watch those three starts. Silva and Baker aren’t just pitching for two more chances to pitch this year. Both of their future is up in the air for next year, and they’ll be trying to prove they belong in 2007, too.



• The PTBNL (that's player to be named later) for Phil Nevin was named and traded. It's Adam Harben. To be honest, I was a little dissappointed, though on further reflection, maybe I shouldn't have been:
  
  - Harben hasn't been a top 10 prospect for the Twins.
  - He took a step backwards this year.
  - Two years ago, the Twins traded Doug Mientkiewicz for minor league pitcher Justin Jones. Tis is probably comparable. I would rank Harben as higher than Jones, but Nevin was also better to to get than Mientkiewicz, because he doesn't have any salary guaranteed for next year.
  
  I'm just not sure the Twins really got anything they needed from the Nevin trade, since I (still) think Rondell White will outperform him. So I would have been more comfortable giving up a little less.
  
  But what it does demonstrate is that Terry Ryan seems to recognize that this organization has some pitching depth, and can probably afford to overpay a bit for some help in the current year. That's a good sign going forward.