Valtrex.

“Ask Chuck Knoblauch and Marty Cordova if they made the right decision.” That’s laughable. I mean, c’mon man. Chuck Knoblauch was TRADED. Marty Cordova was RELEASED.

So, let’s say that I ask Chuck Knoblauch, “hey Chuck, do you ever wish that you could have stayed with the Twins and become a local hero?”

Chuck would probably say, “actually, i enjoyed winning championships and making money in New York. It was time for me to move on. Wait, what do you mean? I could have become a local legend in Minnesota? ohhh well, geez I should have stayed. Even though I was traded and had little control over it.”

And then you ask any Twins fan, “In retrospect, should the Twins have traded Chuck Knoblauch?”

And every single Twins fan would say, “yes for sure. We got Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton and Brian Buchanon.”

Which leads me to this: Given our payroll constraints, it was a smart long term move to not sign Torii Hunter. It hurts. But it’s a fact.

Personally, I try not to get all wrapped up in a person just because they can hit a baseball. We don’t know Torii Hunter. When he returns to the dome, I will cheer him because I appreciate what he did for us when he was here.

lighten up, Primus.

So we lose Garza and Bartlett. Bartlett’s a 28 year old, light-hitting shortstop who’s prone to errors. Yeah, he’ll make a Web Gem or two, but how many times has he not made the easy play? I think the Twins have been planning on moving Garza for some time now. Remember when he was sent down to the minors this summer to work specifically on using his off-speed pitches? He started getting hammered in Triple A and basically said, “screw it, I’m gonna keep throwing fastballs.” I think it might have bugged a lot of people in the organization that he didn’t heed their advice. They may have figured that Garza wasn’t going to be the future #1 starter that he was projected to be and decided to go after a great young hitter.

I really like this trade. When I initially emailed you about it on Monday I was kind of hesitant about losing both Johan and Garza in the same year. It’s too hard to project pitching talent. It’s easy to project hitting talent when you have a full year of play to evaluate a hitter. That’s why you make this trade, especially when the pitcher isn’t eager to learn and you have guys like Slowey, Perkins, Mr. Near no Hitter Scott Baker and some feller named Francisco something or other still on the team.

As a final note, if we have learned nothing else from the Minnesota Twins’ front office we have learned this: they are some of the best in the league when it comes to evaluating young pitching. I’m gonna trust them on Garza.

I think the time has also come for the Twins and Santana to part ways. The Indians proved that two aces aren’t enough to propel a team to the World Series in the American League. We need to find another bat or three that will allow us to produce enough runs to keep up with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world. Santana will never again have this high of a value on the market. If we wait until midseason, we will not get full value. Look at the mistake the T-Wolves made with Garnett. If they would have traded KG one year earlier, they would have gotten the core of the Bulls playoff team. They waited, and we got the core of the Celtics 25 win team. I don’t think Bill Smith will make the same mistake.

At the end of the day, the Twins probably only have 3-4 years left with the core they currently have. And unlike the last time they were in this situation, there aren’t guys like Mauer or Morneau or Cuddyer waiting in the minors. The Twins need to make moves and we probably won’t be able to make big ones via free agency. A big trade is the only way to bring a big bat to Minnesota.

I wouldn’t give up on Kubel too quickly there. I think he hit over .300 the second half. Now I know big second half doesn’t always translate into a big following year, (Oh, hi Rondell) but it could.