Almost Here...

It's the most wonderful time of the year. A lot of teams begin spring workouts today for pitchers and catchers, although the Twins aren't one of them. We'll have to wait a few more days, but it's a great feeling knowing that baseball is once again just around the corner. There are certainly plenty of question marks for the Twins, and perhaps this spring doesn't quite carry the optimism that we had last February with a brand-new stadium set to open, an MVP catcher signed to a historic contract and a flurry of other personnel moves the likes of which we hadn't seen in quite a while. This year, the bullpen looks weaker, we're not quite sure about the returns of Joe Nathan and Justin Morneau, and we'll have to wait and see if Nishioka-Casilla can stack up against Hudson-Hardy, but all in all we've still got plenty to be excited about. It seems like we've often been worried in the past about the Tigers and White Sox making more or better offseason moves than the Twins, but we've also seen that those players still have to go out there and get it done over the course of a 162-game season, and more often than not over the past decade, the Twins have done it better. I've had February 18th (the first workout for Twins pitchers and catchers) marked on my calendar for a while, and I've got a copy of the perennially-excellent Twins Annual 2011 (put together by John Bonnes and the rest of the TwinsCentric guys, and certainly worth your money) on its way. So here's to optimism, the end of winter and another glorious season of baseball.