Friday Links-N-Thinks

Hello, baseball fans! And welcome to another stirring rendition of Friday Links-N-Thinks, here at North Dakota Twins Fan. The abnormally warm weather in the upper Midwest makes me feel like spring baseball should be right around the corner. Alas, this is not the case and there are still weeks until pitchers and catchers report to Hammond Stadium in Ft. Myers, Florida.

The Twins blogosphere and baseball blogosphere have been busy over the last week by dishing out some of the best stories possible for this slow news period of the year. Here are some of the best stories I perused over the last seven days. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.

• MLB has yet to announce where the 2013 All-Star Game will be played and this means the Twins could be waiting awhile to hear if they get the 2014 version of the All-Star Game. 
• The Yankees won the negotiating rights to a Japanese middle infielder and failed to sign him before the 30-day deadline. If only the Twins had been so lucky...
• Logan Morrison had a great tweet about Ozzie Guillen during the last week. 
• Seth Stohs looked at the infield situation for the Twins, the outfield situation, and the relief options in a series of posts this week. 
• Twins Fan From Afar wrote a piece looking at HOF members who had parts of their careers taken from them. 
• The Twins seemed to invite anyone with a pulse to the Major League portion of spring training but Edward Thoma thinks there are two players who are conspicuously absent. 
• Along the same lines, Knuckleballs wonders if the quantity of players in camp for the Twins will lead to quality on the field. 
• "Everyday Eddie" is going to be in spring training as a special instructor. Maybe he can teach Matt Capps how to get out of an inning after he lets a bunch of runners on base.  
• The Tenth Inning Stretch continued his Not a Garden Variety Top 10 List with part four: Twins Franchise OPS Leaders.
• Lots of Hall of Fame stories this week but here is one about the case for Jack Morris and the legend that surrounds Game 7. 

• Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times is usually spot on with his predictions for the Hall and he posted his 2012 results earlier this week. 
• Circle the Bases wrote a heartfelt piece about the Twins needing to spend more than $99 million for next season. 
• Carlos Silva is still getting paid to play baseball.
• Puckett's Pond continues their great coverage of the Twins with a post about trying to project 2012 for Justin Morneau. 
• New Twins Radio Announcer Cory Provus is now on Twitter. 
• ESPN announced their baseball performance of the year and it just so happened to come at Target Field.

My Weekly Rundown

• Monday: New Year's resolutions abound for Twins
• Tuesday: Wheeler dreams come crashing down
• BBA recommends Larkin, Bagwell for Hall of Fame
• Wednesday: Target Field pushing for other events
• Thursday: Liriano takes the mound in winter ball

Video of the Week: Ex-Twins Kevin Slowey and R.A. Dickey are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro but it is for a good cause. Here is a video of Dickey explaining the climb and his reasons for doing it.