Goodbye, Go-Go. *Sniff* This Blogger is Going to Miss You.

Well, our long search for a starting shortstop is over for the time being.  In a trade that came out of nowhere and shocked the estimated one hundred thousand people living in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Twins sent Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for J. J. Hardy.  I can't say I hate the move.  The Twins desperately needed a shortstop, and Hardy is a good one.  He had a poor 2009 season, but he's batted .262/.323/.482 in four major league seasons and is at least an average defender.  He's also relatively cheap and under team control for the next two years.  And Gomez, well, he had a ton of potential but had yet to fulfill any of it.  He had a lot of range and could track down almost anything hit to the outfield, but that boy could not hit, period.  He couldn't hit for average, he couldn't hit for power, though he could beat out infield hits and occasionally get on base that way.  The flyball pitchers on the staff, namely Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey, will almost certainly miss the little scamp.  The groundball pitchers, namely Nick Blackburn and everyone else (For some reason, I thought the Twins had more groundball pitchers than they really do. It pays to look these things up before posting them), not so much. 

This also means that the Twins won't be bringing Orlando Cabrera back.  Not gonna lie:  that makes me a little sad.  I liked O-Cab, even though he couldn't really field the position anymore, and he didn't get on base very much, either.  I would much rather have Hardy at short, since he's younger and cheaper and better in almost every way, but I feel a little bad that O-Cab (and his family!) will have to find his fifth new home in three seasons.  Gosh, what a sucky day for Alexi Casilla, too.  His best friend gets traded and now his mentor probably won't be back, either.


I suppose I have to change the name of my blog now.  Not looking forward to that, although it is my blog and I can call it whatever I want, so I suppose I don't really have to change the name if I don't want to.  I dunno, I'll think about it.  In the meantime, a photo retrospective of some of Go-Go's finest moments in a Twins uniform:

 

 

 

 

and of course,