Links & A GIVEAWAY

Ugh. What a poor showing for the hometown club over the weekend. I think if you're an avid reader of Twins-related blogs, you already know the sentiment that has been flying around today...the Twins are done, stick a fork in 'em, DONE. I thought rather than rehashing some disappointing aspect of the team this year, I would shine the spotlight on some fellow bloggers who have done some outstanding work covering the Twins this year. Here are a few of the more insightful posts of the past week or so.

Seth Stohs is a titan amongst Twins bloggers and though I can't link directly to this post about Kyle Gibson and possible Tommy John Surgery, I can recommend that you check him out and make him a daily stop. When I have a question about the Twins' minor league system, I go to his blog to find answers.

This is a little self-serving since I'm a writer over there as well, but there some other good writers over there as well and I enjoy reading their stuff. Nate Gilmore had an interesting piece earlier last week about how the Twins seem to have better luck in even years. Even if it is coincidental, it does make you think...

Nick Nelson is one of my favorite Twins bloggers and I think that's because he and I seem to be similarly realistic about this team. Some blogs tend to be overly positive, which is fine, but sometimes things aren't positive and I appreciate people who can tell it like it is. Last Monday Nick wrote a good post about the value of Cuddyer and Kubel and what the Twins might try to do in the off-season and then today he wrote about Liriano's struggles this season and how they are linked to his inability to get the ball over the plate.

Parker Hageman is another blogger who I read regularly and one thing he does that few other bloggers do is provide illustrations to back up the point he is trying to make. He did that today in talking about Nishioka's poor defense. Great read, check it out.

Ben Collin is one of my favorite follows on Twitter (@bennyc50) and he has a blog as well. Just this year he's pretty much invented such things as "Target Field Trail" and "Return of the Swing". His blog is more comedy oriented, but definitely worth a read...especially when the Twins suck as hard as they have this year.

TCHuddle had a sobering piece about Minnesota sports mediocrity and how the Twins have simply added to the pile this year.

Aaron Gleeman published a solid summary of Twins news from the past week including an interesting tidbit about an out-of-shape Chuck Knoblauch...

Fanatic Jack provided a nice summary of Terry Ryan's trades compared to Bill Smith's trades. After reading through the two lists, I can't say I disagree with Jack's conclusion...Smith has got to go.

John Bonnes took a shot at estimating the Twins 2012 payroll. That couples nicely with my post over at Puckett's Pond from last week talking about who the Twins might target in free-agency this off-season.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS!!

We're going to be having a GIVEAWAY of sorts here at TBS. You may have seen this around a few of the other blogs but we're getting in on the action too. A&E Home Entertainment recently released a 1991 Minnesota Twins World Series Collector's Edition 7-DVD set featuring every game of the '91 series in it's entirety and we've been given a copy to give away to our readers. Here is some more information on the set itself, don't forget you can buy Twins tickets and merchandise at www.twinsbaseball.com - including fan apparel, Twins jerseys, memorabilia and more.


MINNESOTA TWINS 1991 WORLD SERIES COLLECTOR'S EDITION DVD SET: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=302520&v=aetv




MAGIC IN MINNESOTA: REMEMBERING THE 1991 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP DVD: http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=302519&v=aetv

TO ENTER THE CONTEST:
Here's how we're gonna do this....I don't think we have enough regular readers to make a contest all that interesting. I'm going to giveaway the 1991 World Series Collector's Set and the Magic in Minnesota DVD separately. To enter the contest, simply drop a comment on this post (no anonymous posts obvs), or email me at thebatshatters@gmail.com. The contest will run until Thursday at 12:00pm CDT, at that point I will put all entries received into a hat and draw two names (winners). If you have any questions, please email me at the gmail address above or send me a tweet @thebatshatters.