Say it ain't Sano

[JasonIsDaMan [enjin:7981157]]

Strange, I also enjoy your contributions to this board.

Here's the problem with the "light a fire" theory: Reusse writes for The Minneapolis, MN paper. They are in Fort Meyers, FL. Now maybe that works with Mauer or Perkins because their families will contact them and tell them what is said. Does Sano have family that lives in the Cities year-round? And if he does, are they big consumers of English-Language media? Also, I am going to word this as carefully as I can: This current iteration of the Twins does not strike me as the most voracious readers of The S/T or P/P. There's hispanic guys. There's Asian guys. And there's many, many high school grads. And one of the few guys who did attend four years of college (Dozier) can barely make it through a sentence without dropping an f bomb or has to restrain himself from doing it. If that was the plan by management (and by extension, Reusse) it is an absolute Hail Mary.

The Hrbek analogy was supposed to be horrible, even considering what a bad year Gary Ward had in 1983 (in '82, Ward, Herbie and Brunansky all had identical .855 OPS's). To me, discussing Sano in Right is as foreign as discussing Hrbek in Left. To go several steps further, discussing Sano in Right is as foreign to me as saying you are a fan of Bridgewater but are concerned that he'll never get double digit sacks until he improves his swim move. Or questioning Everson Griffin's throwing arm. Or Dubnyk's ability to win faceoffs. Or Parise's save percentage. Or Town's inability to play point guard (well, since he won the skills competition, maybe that is not the best example).

Sano is blessed with a near-perfect combination of Fast-Twitch muscles and Hand-Eye coordination. He was born in the D/R, so he plays baseball. If he was born in the Southern US, he may have gravitated to Golf instead. Then again, if he was from Chicago, Milwaukee or Minneapolis, maybe he gravitated to Hockey and weighs closer to 220 lbs. The butterfly effect is hard to quantify.

But I do know that I thank God every day I'm not from Wisconsin. Not just because of Scott Walker, but because if they had a guy like Sano, and couldn't hide his glove at DH, they would be pulling their hair out.

As far as Mauer goes, it's really hard to say what role he had in all this (if any) because Ryan really plays it close to the vest in situations like this, but to me the obvious move from the beginning was Mauer in Left and Rosario in Right.