Friday Links-N-Thinks

For the last week I have felt like I was in the midst of a let-down after the fun and excitement at TwinsFest last weekend. The Twins are pushed up to their self imposed $100 million payroll so there hasn't been much action in the free agent market for the club. It seems the team will head to spring training with their current roster of players and hope to get the most out of the pitchers and position players on the 40-man roster.

Fans of collecting baseball cards were excited by the release of Series 1 of 2012 Topps Baseball Cards in the middle of the week. There are rookie cards of Joe Benson, Liam Lendriks, and Chris Parmelee. Fans can also pull a Tsuyoshi Nishioka special variant card with him and Drew Butera messing around on the bench, an appropriate location for these two players.

Here are some of the stories I enjoyed from the last week from across the world of baseball.

• Seedlings to Stars put together a look at the prospects from the AL Central that made the Top-100 Prospect lists from various sites.
• Who is the all time Twins' most valuable player? The tenth inning stretch tries to answer the question with this post. 
• Topper from Curve For a Strike has resurfaced in the blogging world with this piece.
• Matthew Pouliot of NBC Hardball Talk ranked the rotations for the 2012 season. Spoiler Alert: The Twins rotation isn't ranked very high. 
• Baseball America released their early preview of the 2012 MLB Draft and they have the Twins taking Lucas Giolito. 
• The Platoon Advantage put together a list of ways to use WAR in everyday life. My favorite is WART so check it out.
• Joe Benson shared the scary tale of being robbed at gunpoint while playing winter ball in Venezuela. 
• Jim Crikket took a look at two players from Minnesota's major sports teams who are looking to change their jersey number.
• Hard to believe Paul Konerko is thinking about retirement with his recent play on the field. 
• Minnesota Twins Musings thinks they have solved the mystery of what the philosophical differences were between Bill Smith and the Twins.
• February is African American History Month and this post looks at how the integration barrier was broken in the Twins' franchise.
• Andrew over at Twins Fan From Afar takes the fan's prospective when looking at the 2012 season for Joe Mauer.
• Former Twins pitcher Matt Garza had his AL Championship ring stolen from when he made the World Series with the Rays. 
• Pat Neshek was let go by the Twins last spring and suffered through an up-and-down season in 2011 but he signed with the Orioles during the last week.
• Carl Pavano did his best to help a Vermont Little League field which was destroyed in Tropical Storm Irene.
• The worst game of 2011 was identified this week. The Twins weren't involved in the worst game but they had a couple games in the top 20. 
• Puckett's Pond wonders which non-roster invitees will help the Twins?
• The Twins are closing in on the 10,000 home run mark as a franchise.
• Seth Stohs continued his organizational depth chart for the Twins with the outfielders and the middle infielders.

My Weekly Rundown:

• Monday: A three day adventure at TwinsFest
• Tuesday: Can Liriano shine in a contract-year?
• Wednesday: Topps thinks Levi Michael is a Ranger
• Thursday: From Reardon to Guardado: Twins pitchers who clinched a postseason series

Video of the Week: In honor of Groundhogs Day and the infamous movie staring Bill Murray, the question was asked about what sporting event you would love to live over and over again. There are some great moments in Twins history from Game 163 in 2009 to their first World Series win in 1987. For me I would have loved to be present at Game 6 of the 1991 World Series for the heroics that took place by Kirby Puckett. It's a moment that Twins fans would love to live over and over again.