The workout day is completed after the rookie game and the camp suffers its first major injury - torn achilles -- the first fly ball and he planted his heel and there it went -- so his week will be on the bench rooting his team on -- the scenario you want to avoid -- sorry Brad. Not sure what his plan is but in the past a few of these injuries even takes them back home earlier. I took some fly balls, ground balls and hit some batting practice without any problems -- I even threw some BP as well - so a good simple day.
The evening banquet starts off with the announcement of the teams - in past years I have been "tipped" off by who drafted me, but this year I did not get any insider information......
This version of the 2020 Minnesota Twins Fantasy Camp will highlight 10 teams (yes, 2 more than usual) so here are the coaches and team names (as titled by each coaching tandem):
Team #1 - "Night Crawlers" - coached by Mark Salas & Gene Larkin
Team #2 - "Fantasize This" - coached by Mickey Hatcher, Juan Rincon, & Toby Gardenhire
Team #3 - "40-40 Club" - coached by Dick Stigman, Tommy Watkins, & Tony Oliva
Team #4 - "Game 7" - coached by Frank Viola & Jeff Reardon
Team #5 - "We are Family" - coached by Milt Cuyler & Glen Perkins
Team #6 - "Left Overs" - coached by Al Newman & JC Romero
Team #7 - "Repeaters" - coached by Phil Roof & Matthew LeCroy
Team #8 - "Dirty Dozen" - coached by Bill "Soup" Campbell & Steve Braun
Team #9 - "Coyote Ugly" - coached by Kent Hrbek & Tim Laudner
Team #10 - "Team Smoke" - coached by Juan Berenguer & Stu Cliburn
This year I am selected by Viola/Reardon -- I played for them two years ago and we had a very nice team on draft day and it turned into a championship team by Saturday -- so in looking at our roster I definitely feel good about it, the main reason is the fact we have six pitchers (not counting 2 others that I know have pitched) and we have up to 4 guys on the team who can catch -- so your premium positions are covered and we will not need to rely on a couple guys to carry the load of those two spots. We have a veteran team as well, which we know what we have, but this crop of rookies looks to be very solid, so hopefully we are not getting older and slower -- but wiser and crafty.
BOLD predictions -- not going to happen. A couple reasons:
#1 - I am terrible at it -- I generally predicted the teams at about 50% success (or failure) rate -- so basically a coin flip would have been better. So yes, I would get some right and some wrong, but missed out more than hit there.
#2 - the team announcements and rosters -- a blur.....it was easier with 8 teams so somewhat keep track of the roster. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's, uh lotta strands to keep in my head, man.
The one prediction I am going to adhere to is the fact I do think 1 or 2 teams will be very bad - with the 11/12 player rosters -- the injury bug is going to hit a team and make it really bad. This happened in 2014 the last time the camp had 10 teams -- one of them was really bad and the another was not good - so here is to hoping my prediction doesn't come true -- but I have eyed up 2 teams in which I think this is the case.....the good news is the #9 and #10 seed will be play a friendly in Hammond Stadium on Friday AM -- so guaranteed big stadium game, so something to look forward to there. I am not going to spill the beans on the teams that I think will be there -- those teams could stay healthy and win a few games. Also one other factor -- the schedule, our team will not play 2 teams - we could get lucky and not play the better 2 teams, or get "unlucky" and not play the not so better 2 teams (yep I know my grammar is not so good).
I know it will be a fun week - some new guys I have yet to be teammates with, add in plenty of pitching, paired with good defense and timely hitting......we should win a few games this week.
Also -- kudos to those who got my "Dude" reference while reading. Big Kudos to those who know who the "Dude" is. He abides.
Let's play 2 tomorrow -- 10am and 1pm at the lovely Twins Spring Training facility......
~~ "You can observe a lot just by watching." - Yogi Berra ~~
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