Keefe To The City

Jun 4, 2014

Podcast: John Kreiser

John Kreiser of NHL.com joins me to talk about his book ‘The Wait Is Over: The New York Rangers and the 1994 Stanley Cup’ with the Rangers back in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.

It’s been 20 years since the Rangers last won the Stanley Cup, erasing what was a 54-year drought with a memorable postseason run, which ended with a Game 7 win over the Canucks.

The Rangers are back in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1994 and to celebrate being back in the Final, John Kreiser of NHL.com and author of The Wait Is Over: The New York Rangers and the 1994 Stanley Cup joined me to talk about his book.

The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 3, 2014

The A’s Have a Team Built for the Bronx

The A’s have been rolling along all season with the combination of starting pitching and power hitting the Yankees have always had and will need to contend this season.

After the Yankees finished their nine-game road trip with four wins in their final five games, it looked like they might finally be ready to go on a run as the calendar turned to June with a seven-game homestand. But after losing two of three to the Twins and then their makeup game against the Mariners, that run never happened. And things don’t get easier with the A’s, the best all-around team in the American League coming to the Bronx for three games.

With the Yankees and A’s meeting at the Stadium this week, Alex Hall of Athletics Nation joined me to talk about how the A’s keep producing front-end starting pitchers, if A’s fans are tired of just making the playoffs and what it’s been like over the years to see star players forced to leave due to finances.

Keefe: Right now the Yankees’ rotation is Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Vidal Nuno, David Phelps and Chase Whitley. That’s the New York Yankees. With Ivan Nova lost for the season, Michael Pineda suspended and then injured and CC Sabathia on the disabled list, the Yankees are trotting out a rotation that has me longing for the days of the 2008 when Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson were 40 percent of the rotation after Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were injured. Or the days of 2007 when Brian Cashman opened the season relying on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in the rotation. On the days that Tanaka doesn’t pitch, I have treated any Yankees win like a division-clinching win in September.

Why am I venting about my team’s rotation problems to you, an A’s fan, who is enjoying first place in the AL West? Because it seems like whenever the A’s have a pitching problem they just call up someone who suddenly becomes ace-worthy as if pitching injuries don’t even matter to the organization. What’s it like knowing that if someone in the rotation goes down, there is someone else ready to seamlessly fill in? Let me know so I can live vicariously through A’s fans.

Hall: It is a very liberating feeling, I must say! Billy Beane and his staff seem to press all the right buttons when it comes to pitching, both by turning unknown or undervalued players into stars and by knowing when to quickly pull the plug on experiments that aren’t working out. They also put themselves into a position to succeed by stocking extra depth — you never know when injuries will happen, but you can prepare yourself with a backup plan for when they do.

That depth came in handy this year when Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin both went down in spring training. The A’s had Tommy Milone waiting in reserve, and Jesse Chavez fighting for a spot, and the two of them have been fantastic. When Dan Straily faltered, Drew Pomeranz stepped in; while his low ERA is unsustainable, he at least looks like a league-average starter and he still has upside as he re-adjusts to starting once again. The only thing that worries me with this rotation is its durability — outside of Milone, no one is a good bet to throw 200 innings without wearing down.

Keefe: Because the A’s are the A’s and play in an odd stadium in an odd location and don’t have much money and can’t retain free agents, it’s astonishing to me when they have the type of success they are having now or had last year or the year before, the way it was at the beginning of the 2000s. But I’m guessing for A’s fan the success isn’t so surprising and would like to be met with postseason success.

Here in New York, I grew up in the 90s in the height of the Yankees’ dynasty and since I was nine years old all I have known is October baseball and winning. Yes, I have been spoiled and have seen enough success over the last 18 years to last a lifetime, but now it’s expected every year and when it doesn’t happen it’s disappointing.

When it comes to the A’s, what are the year-end expectations, especially after the team’s resurgence the last few years? Is just making the postseason enough for you, or are you tired of “just” making the postseason?

Hall: In 2012, it was cool just to make the playoffs. The team hadn’t been good for awhile and wasn’t supposed to compete entering the season, so it was exciting to be alive in October. In 2013, repeating the postseason berth and proving it wasn’t a fluke was still satisfying, but it stung a little more when the team was eliminated in uncannily similar fashion to the previous year. This time around, nothing short of a trip to the World Series will feel like a successful season to me, and I think a lot of A’s fans would echo that sentiment. This team is built to win right now and has actually mortgaged a little bit of its future to do so, and a failure to bring home a title, much less a league pennant, would be severely disappointing.

Keefe: I really have no idea how the A’s have been able to put together the run they have over the last few years even with great starting pitching. When I look at the roster and I see former Red Sox like Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and Jed Lowrie playing important roles for not only a first-place team, but maybe the best team in all of baseball, it hurts my head to think about. How do the A’s win with a questionable lineup on paper aside from really only Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Donaldson? And can you please forward your answer to Brian Cashman. One second and I will get you his email address.

Rather than sink too many resources into a couple of star players, the A’s prefer to find a good, solid player for every position so that there are no weaknesses in the lineup. In addition, manager Bob Melvin is a master at putting his players in the best possible positions to succeed, most notably with his aggressive use of platoons. In that way, the whole can come out greater than the sum of the parts — each player fits into the greater scheme of things and complements his teammates well.

Hall: Of course, it helps to have Josh Donaldson in your lineup. Donaldson has been the hands-down MVP of the American League so far — he leads the league in both versions of WAR, he’s a top-five hitter, and he might be the best defender in the AL at any position. The rest of the lineup has a ton of power, gets on base more than any team in baseball (read: makes outs at a lower rate), and gets into bullpens quickly by running up opponents’ pitch counts with patient at-bats. There aren’t a lot of big-name hitters, but the Big Green Machine leads MLB in scoring.

Keefe: This offseason when Robinson Cano left via free agency for Seattle and $240 million it was the first time I watched the Yankees get outbid by another team and lose a star player to the system they helped create and then dominate. I didn’t like the idea of lowballing Cano and then using the additional money he could have been offered on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran since the Yankees didn’t need Ellsbury and Beltran seemed like a luxury and throw-in by the front office to give the fans a “new toy” for the season before the Masahiro Tanaka signing happened.

You have had to deal with superstars on the A’s leaving through free agency for more money over the years and have had to watch impending free agents get traded off before they hit the market for prospects and lesser names to stay under budget. Has it been frustrating to watch the team continually build for the future and be forced to lose star players, or was it all worth it now that the A’s are back to competing for a championship each year?

Hall: On the contrary, it’s kind of exciting. Every year is different, and you never know what to expect other than the fact that Billy Beane will be trying his hardest to win. He never punts a season, evidenced by the fact that he’s never had a team lose 90 games, which means that any year could be the year that everything clicks and the club rises back to contention. In this case, that year was 2012, and we’re still riding the wave. Of course, the flip side of that is that everything can come crashing down in an instant. A couple of key injuries, a bit of regression, and suddenly the team is on the outside looking in. I do sometimes envy big-market teams who can afford to keep fan favorites around for 10 or 15 years and truly have them as their own, but being an A’s fan feels like being on the cutting edge of baseball history. Where Oakland goes, the sport tends to follow.

Keefe: Before the season, I’m sure you expected the A’s to compete for the West again and return to the postseason after the last two seasons, and why wouldn’t you? But what were your preseason expectations? And after watching the team now for two months, have your preseason expectations changed now that you have seen what the team is capable of?

Hall: Certainly, I expected the A’s to win the West again. However, I was expecting another tough battle with Texas and the Angels, and that expectation hasn’t changed. The A’s have gone nuts so far and built themselves a nice cushion, but fortunes can change quickly and you can never take anything for granted in this sport. The Rangers have watched half their team get injured, and the Angels have watched some key stars begin their declines earlier than expected. But Texas isn’t out of it and the Angels have fully bounced back from last year’s disaster. The A’s are the hot team right now, but this race isn’t over.

Blogs • Rangers • Rangers Playoffs

May 30, 2014

The Rangers’ Cup Run Doesn’t Feel Real

A year ago the Rangers were lost after an embarrassing postseason exit. Now they’re going to play for the Stanley Cup. What a difference a year makes.

When your team is facing finality and losing, the clock seems to tick away faster than normal as if the Hockey Gods set the periods to “5 minutes” EA Sports-style. And when your team has a chance at a fourth win in a series and a chance to advance, and in this case advance to the Stanley Cup Finals (I can’t say Final without hating myself) for the first time in 20 years, the clock seems to drag on as if time is standing still. On Thursday night, in the third period of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, time stood still.

Twenty-two days ago, the Rangers faced a 3-1 series deficit to the Metropolitan Division-winning Penguins after losing three consecutive games, including two at home and two by way of shutout. The 2013-14 Rangers’ season was on the brink of destruction, (The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell said it was actually over), and the Rangers were headed to Pittsburgh for Game 5 where everyone expected a postgame handshake to take place. But the handshake didn’t take place. Well, it did eventually, just not that night. It took place six nights later following Game 7 in Pittsburgh where the Rangers held on to a one-goal lead for 32 minutes and four seconds just like they did on Thursday night in Game 6 against the Canadiens for 21 minutes and 53 seconds.

After earning the 1-seed in the Eastern Conference in 2011-12, the Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 1996-97, but they did so with a Freddy Garcia-esque smoke-and-mirrors act. The Rangers only won the regular season because of Henrik Lundqvist’s historical Vezina year and because of their amazing ability to come back and win games in the final minutes or minute or even second as well as in overtime and shootouts. They needed Games 7s in the first and second rounds to get past the 8-seeded Senators and 7-seeded Capitals to make it to the conference finals and once the the bounces stopped going their way, the Devils ended their season. The 2011-12 Rangers were never as good as their record suggested and they were never as deep as they were trick people into believing. That Rangers team was missing one player to move them over the top and that player was Rick Nash.

At the 2011-12 trade deadline I was willing to give up anything and everything to pry Nash from the Blue Jackets and that included Chris Kreider. I told WFAN’s Steve Somers my feelings about Nash and he disagreed, thinking that keeping an NCAA standout was better than making a move in a special season for a proven elite scorer. I told WFAN’s Brian Monzo my feelings about Nash and he disagreed too, but eventually came around to see that seasons like the Rangers’ 2011-12 one don’t happen to often and when they do, you need to be prepared to go all in. The Rangers weren’t. They waited and eventually landed Nash five months later in July, long after the Devils had eliminated them because they didn’t have another elite scoring option to turn to with Marian Gaborik playing through the playoffs with a torn labrum.

The Rangers needed all but one game to clinch a playoff berth in 2013-14 and then when they did make it, they needed to overcome a 2-0 series deficit to the Capitals and win another Game 7 against them to advance. They entered their conference semis series with the Bruins as the favorites and five games later they left as embarrassed losers wondering where the direction of the franchise was headed and if they would ever be anything more than a first- or second-round playoff team with Glen Sather at the helm. But it took that five-game loss to the Bruins for Sather to make the first of his two most significant moves in his 14 years with the Rangers.

It was a year ago Thursday, the day of Game 6, that Sather fired John Tortorella after he lost the team and inexplicably benched his supposed “good friend” for the final two games of the season. (I still believe Lundqvist told Sather he wouldn’t sign an extension with the team if Tortorella stayed.) On Thursday night while the Rangers were holding off the Canadiens and winning the Prince of Wales Trophy, I like to think that John Tortorella spent his night watching Game 6 at an Applebee’s in Massachusetts, where he was of course given a shot of Wild Turkey on the house after Dominic Moore’s goal and then given a few more when time ran out on the Canadiens’ season. And I would also like to think that Tortorella stumbled out of that Applebee’s with a stain from a disgusting low-grade meat rack of ribs on his shirt and into some minor league level strip club where he drowned his sorrows using money from the five-year deal Mike Gillis gave him in Vancouver.

From Tortorella’s firing, Sather hired Alain Vigneault, who was given what seemed like all the tools to win with the Canucks, but couldn’t, blowing a 2-0 series lead in the only Cup he reached in Vancouver. I was skeptical of the Vigneault hiring, wondering why the Rangers would want to immediately give a chance, and a five-year deal chance, to someone with Vigneault’s lackluster resume. And when the Rangers started the season 3-7-0 and were 20-20-2 on Jan. 3, I began to envy Vigneault knowing he would eventually be collecting checks from the Rangers while fishing or playing golf every day, laughing that he could get a five-year deal so quickly following the failures with the Canucks. But Vigneault stayed the course and stuck with his system as the Rangers slowly but surely adapted it and understood it and eventually the wins started to come the way they did for him in Vancouver. However it wasn’t until the most significant decision of Sather’s tenure as Rangers general manager when the season completely changed and that’s because the Rangers completely changed.

Ryan Callahan was never the face of the Rangers. He was a fan favorite in the way that any blue-collar player on any NHL team is beloved (kind of like the way Brandon Prust was in New York), but he was never the face of the team or the organization despite having the “C” on his jersey. If anything, he was the heart of the team, while Number 30 in net was (and has been and still is) the brain of the team.

When Callahan opened his negotiations with the Rangers last offseason by starting at eight years, $60 million, he traded himself. The Rangers were never going to pay a third-liner, first-line star money, even if they could afford it, but with Nash and Richards’ contracts and Lundqvist’s extension they couldn’t. Callahan wouldn’t compromise even as Sather’s offer stupidly rose and he came dangerously close to destroying the Rangers’ cap for the rest of Lundqvist’s career, so Sather traded him for Martin St. Louis. And with that trade, Sather transformed a team with a strictly blue-collar image into a team that could play a finesse style as well as play the defense-first, shot-blocking style the Rangers played since the Jaromir Jagr era ended six years ago.

Since the end of that era, while the team changed, the roster turned over, the coaches changed and changed again and changed again and Sather continued to pour money into aging veterans who couldn’t score and kept trying to build a young defensive core that couldn’t defend, Henrik Lunqvist remained the same. He showed up every game and stood on his head for most, single-handedly carried the team to the playoffs and gave the Rangers hope and promise that maybe someday he would be given the right team around him to play for the Cup, so he wouldn’t have a career that reminiscent of Don Mattingly’s.

I always worried that the Rangers would waste Lundqvist’s prime by making the wrong personnel decisions and believed it would happen after they didn’t trade for Nash at the 2011-12 deadline and let that season and the conference finals get away from them. I thought Lundqvist would be an old man and a shell of himself by the time the Rangers had the depth and secondary scoring and legitimate defense to win games without needing him to give up one goal or less.

I thought this team could be the team that could accompany Lundqvist to the promised land, but I didn’t believe it. And 22 days ago I started to wonder what Lundqvist must think knowing that Marc-Andre Fleury has won the Cup and played for it twice or that Corey Crawford’s name is etched into it. I envisioned Lundqvist one day giving a speech on “Henrik Lundqvist Night” at the Garden and his achievements and accolades being announced by Sam Rosen with his Number 30 being raised and the rafters to sit alongside Mike Richter’s Number 35 forever without ever having had the chance to play for the Cup.

The way Game 6 ended felt right. The 1-0 win has become the textbook example of postseason success for the Rangers in the Henrik Lundqvist era where the team has asked him to stand on his head and protect one goal, so it was fitting that it was a 1-0 win that puts them in the Stanley Cup Finals. Lundqvist didn’t necessarily have to stand on his head the way he has in every other 1-0 win for this team, but he made the big save when he had to in the 18-shot shutout and he was given a lead entering the third period, asked to close it out and he did.

Over the last 22 days, Lundqvist has been himself. He’s been the same goalie he’s been his entire career even though people want to make this nine-game run out to be something more than it has been from the King. These are the same people who believe he has to win it all to prove himself in a sport with a 20-player roster in which he can’t provide offense or play defense as if he’s somehow playing golf or tennis. Now Lundqvist has a chance to end this ridiculous reasoning and end the unfair criticism forever. He has a chance to play for the Cup.

The Rangers are going to play for the Stanley Cup for the first time since I was in second grade. Right now it doesn’t feel real, but on Wednesday it will.

Podcasts • Rangers • Rangers Playoffs

May 30, 2014

Podcast: Brian Monzo

Brian Monzo of WFAN joins me to talk about the feel-good stories surrounding the Rangers’ Stanley Cup run and which Western Conference team Rangers fans should want to play.

Three weeks ago this didn’t seem possible. And even though it’s now possible, it doesn’t feel real. The Rangers will play for the Stanley Cup starting on Wednesday after beating the Canadiens in Game 6 and in six games.

After a long stressful night waiting for time to run out on the Canadiens after Dominic Moore’s goal, I called WFAN Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN producer Brian Monzo late on Thursday night into Friday morning to talk about the Rangers’ improbable three-week stretch. Monzo joined me to talk about the Rangers’ series win over the Canadiens, the feel-good stories surrounding the team’s Stanley Cup run and which team Rangers fans should want to play from the Western Conference.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 30, 2014

The Hostility for Phil Hughes

In his eighth season in the majors, Phil Hughes is finally realizing his potential as a starting pitcher. The problem is he is doing it with the Twins after failing to do so with the Yankees.

The Yankees are finally back home after what felt like a month-long road trip and the Twins are in the Bronx to begin what is a seven-game homestand. And even with Robinson Cano returning to the Bronx again on Monday and Felix Hernandez starting for the Mariners in that same game, the attention in the Bronx over the next week will be on Phil Hughes, who will start Sunday against the Yankees.

Since 60 percent of the Yankees’ Opening Day rotation is on the disabled list and the organization looking for starting pitching depth, a lot will be made about why they didn’t re-sign Hughes in the offseason. But two months of solid starts from Hughes doesn’t change the fact that he wouldn’t have had that same success in New York this season. He had seven seasons to show he could have that kind of success in New York.

With the Yankees and Twins meeting for the first time in 2014, Jesse Lund of Twinkie Town joined me to talk about the Twins’ postseason problems with the Yankees, how Phil Hughes has managed to realize his potential in Minnesota and what’s it like to watch Justin Morneau return to his former self for another team.

Keefe: From 2002 to 2010, the Twins made the playoffs in six of the nine seasons. In four of those years (2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010) they played the Yankees in the ALDS and lost all four series, going just 2-12.

From 2002 to 2011, the Yankees made the playoffs in nine of the 10 seasons. The only four times the Yankees made it out of the ALDS were the series against the Twins as they would lose to the Angels (2002 and 2005), Tigers (2006 and 2011) and Indians (2007). It wasn’t until the Yankees series win over the Orioles in the 2012 ALDS that they were able to advance to the ALCS having beaten a team other than the Twins. The Twins have been good to the Yankees.

The last time the teams met in the playoffs, the Twins had home-field advantage and a lead late in Game 1, but a Mark Teixeira home run carried the Yankees to a win and they didn’t look back from there, sweeping the Twins in three games.

Before that, the teams met in 2009 and the Twins took an early lead in Game 1 in that series before a Yankees’ comeback and rally and the Twins had a two-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 2 with Joe Nathan on the mound and he couldn’t close it out and then in extra innings the Twins couldn’t score with the bases loaded as the Yankees went on to win on a Teixeira walk-off home run. In Game 3, the Yankees hit back-to-back solo home runs off Carl Pavano and some bad baserunning did the Twins in in what was just a three-game series.

Going back to 2003 and 2004 when the Twins had Johan Santana and late leads against the Yankees, they weren’t able to hold those then either.

For as much as the Yankees made the Twins their whipping team from 2003-2010 in four postseason series, the Twins were a bounce or two or a Phil Cuzzi correct call or a Joe Nathan save away from changing those series and course of baseball history. After what has happened with the Twins over the last few years and recognizing how hard it is to sustain success in the majors and reach the postseason, do you ever think about what could have been if just a couple things had gone the other way in those series?

Lund: For me, it’s over. They’re painful times to relive, because as you said, a bounce here or there and things go in a different direction. But it’s happened and I try to move on. I can’t promise that the rest of Twins Territory feels the same way, because our own community has raged against the organization (and Ron Gardenhire in particular) every October, but it’s easier for those wounds to feel fresh when it’s the same opponent pressing their heel into your chest. And you know what? Being a good team and continuing to take those losses year in and year out, it gets old.

In the grand scheme of life you always look back, but the best you can do is get yourself ready for what’s coming next. The Twins are rebuilding, and in the next two or three years they’ll have chances at toppling someone else in the playoffs. But I can guarantee you one thing — when it’s the Yankees, it’ll be sweet as hell. A lot of Twins fans will be waiting for that day.

Keefe: I had a party the day after Phil Hughes’ final start with the Yankees last season because I knew it would be the last time he would pitch for the Yankees. After an up-and-down start to his rushed career in 2007, which saw him blow a hamstring during a no-hitter in his second career start, he saved the Yankees’ ALDS hopes out of the bullpen in Game 3 that October. Then in 2008, his season was destroyed by injuries and he started 2009 in Triple-A before being recalled and eventually moved to the bullpen where he became a dominant setup man for Mariano. In 2010, he won 18 games, but faded at the end of the season and after shutting out the Twins in Game 3 of the ALDS, he was embarrassed by the Rangers in two ALCS starts. In 2011, he suffered from a tired arm early on but rebounded to win 16 games. And then in 2013, he was the worst regular starting pitcher in the majors, pitching to a 5.19 ERA and losing 14 games for an 85-win team. The Yankees didn’t deserve to make the playoffs last year, but if anyone other than Hughes had been in the rotation for his starts, they likely would have.

I thought Hughes needed to go to the National League to achieve success as a starter in the majors and believed that eventually some team would put him in the bullpen where he was so good in 2009. But so far with the Twins through two months, Hughes has become the pitcher we saw glimpses of in New York and maybe he just needed to get out of the spotlight to realize his potential.

Lund: I always expected he’d be a target, and sure enough the front office admitted as much early in the off-season. The market rate was around $8 million per year, and as long as the Twins didn’t go over that I wouldn’t have had any issues with them signing Hughes. In the end they went for three years at $8 million per, which is a year longer than I’d have hoped for, but one of the things we talked about at Twinkie Town over the winter was that the club would need to overpay in free agency to get any of the free agent targets they really wanted. Whether that meant the Twins had to go three years to make it happen or not, that’s the way I was looking at it. It’s been a terrible three-year span for this organization. Who was going to voluntarily come to Minnesota unless they met a special asking price?

There were certain things that led me to believe that Hughes could be more successful in Minnesota. Target Field plays bigger than Yankee Stadium, which is always going to help a fly ball pitcher. The pressure on professional athletes isn’t the same, either, which can make it easier for a guy to play within himself. Everyone reacts differently to pressure, and having lived in Minneapolis and Boston and New York City it’s only reinforced the stereotype that the overzealous sports fans get more attention on the east coast than they do in the Midwest. I’m not sure that there are proportionally more crazy sports fans in one area compared to the other, but it’s safe to say that sports feel more important to more people in New York and Boston. And that carries over to radio and television and newspapers and fans on the street and certainly at the ballpark. Which is just a long way of saying that a change of scenery seemed like a good idea for Hughes.

Now, did anyone think he’d be as good as he’s been this year? Hell no.

Keefe: Joe Mauer has been one of the Top 5 hardest outs against the Yankees with Dustin Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera, Delmon Young and Evan Longoria being the other four. He has been to the Twins what Derke Jeter has been to Yankees fans for so long and I’m happy he didn’t leave through free agency or get traded instead of getting paid by the Twins.

Now on the other side of 30, Mauer is still an offensive threat and one of the better average hitters in the game, even if he hasn’t taken off yet this season. He might never replicate his 2009 MVP season, but he can still be the face of the franchise and a middle-of-the-order presence for seemingly as long as he’s healthy.

What’s it like to have Mauer now be the first baseman for the Twins after having been that familiar face behind the plate for so long?

Lund: I think we all knew that Mauer would need to change positions sooner or later. It would have been better to have had that change come under different circumstances, but mitigating risk of additional concussions was going to be on the front of everyone’s mind after the performance hiatus of Justin Morneau. At least Mauer told the Twins of his decision early in the off-season, so that the front office had plenty of time to build the team around him.

Not that they succeeded. But that’s a story we’ve banged on endless times in the last few months.

It’s worth wondering if there are some lingering post-concussion things with Mauer. He’s striking out more this season, and while teams are shifting him to left field and just daring him to pull the ball there’s more to it than that. At catcher he was one of the best hitters in the game, and at first base his career numbers would make him one of the eight or 10 best-hitting first basemen in baseball, but if we’re going to see that potential then he’s going to have to turn something around pretty soon. The sooner, the better, because this offense desperately needs him.

Keefe: It still feels weird to me to see Justin Morneau on a team other than Twins, even though he’s now with his second team since his days as a Twin ended. He was the face of the Twins, at least from an outsider’s perspective, along with Mauer, and if it hadn’t been for injuries in 2010 and 2011, maybe the Twins would have experienced a different fate.

What has it been like seeing one of the staples of the organization for so long play for another team and also succeed and return to form with another team? Do you think he will ever give Derek Jeter the 2006 MVP he stole from him?

Lund: First, you’re probably right that Morneau didn’t deserve the MVP in 2006. But Grady Sizemore, Joe Mauer and even Johan Santana deserved it before Jeter. Man, those debates were intense in 2006! Both before and after the awards were handed out. But the Twins had a young core that was the absolute balls.

And yeah, it feels bizarre to see Justin Morneau wearing another uniform. Honestly it was painful seeing him dealt away last August for essentially nothing. Alex Presley was our center fielder for the rest of the season before he was claimed off waivers by Houston this spring, and Duke Welker was swapped back to Pittsburgh for Kris Johnson, who is a lefty stuck in Triple-A who doesn’t have much of a future with the Major League club anyway. It wasn’t that the Twins were undersold, either – Morneau’s value had fallen that far.

A vocal minority at Twinkie Town, including myself, still wanted the Twins to bring him back, to see him split first base and designated hitter duties with Mauer. Of course, that didn’t happen. But I’m happy to see that he’s reviving his career, because he was a special hitter. By 2010 he had as many holes in his swing as Mauer — none — and it was so much fun watching the trajectories of both players continue to rise. Without the injuries, it’s safe to say that the Twins would have given Morneau another contract.

Four years later things have changed quite a bit, and I don’t think anyone could have predicted just much Justin would produce this year. And it’s not just playing at Coors Field, either — Morneau is hitting at home and on the road.

Keefe: The Twins won 66 games the last two years and 63 games in 2011. Before that, they had one season (2007) in which they finished under .500 since 2000. The Twins had a good run from 2001-10 before everything seemed to fall apart for them, mainly the starting pitching, and now while they aren’t having a great season so far, they seem to be back on track.

What were your expectations for the Twins coming into the season and have they changed for better or worse after watching them for two months? When will the Twins get back to where they were before 2011?

Lund: My expectations were that this team could win 70 games this season, and I don’t think that’s changed. The starting pitching needs to be better, starting with Ricky Nolasco, but calling up future ace Alex Meyer and fireballer Trevor May will help those of us looking towards the future – at least, once the Twins are bold enough to bring them both up. As for the offense, it’s good to have Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia – a potential middle-of-the-order hitter in the future – back in the lineup. But I’m not sure there’s a lot of help to be had for the lineup unless a number of guys start contributing as we know they’re capable of contributing. There’s no denying that 2014 will still be a rough season for Twins fans, but it should be better than the last three summers. Which is a plus.

This organization went into a tailspin not just because of poor decisions at the Major League level (free agents and trades were almost universally awful following Terry Ryan’s departure after the 2007 season), but also because the Twins whiffed on half a dozen drafts in a row in the early to late 2000s. They netted no good starting pitchers and no offensive contributors better than replacement level between 2003 and 2008. Except Matt Garza. Who they traded.

Luckily, the Twins have done exceptionally well with their international signings in recent years, and their drafts since 2009 have been yielding significantly better results. The front office still needs to make some good, shrewd, difficult decisions over the next off-season or two, but if they can consistently make better decisions then this team can partner legitimate Major League talent with a fantastic farm system that is going to start producing some real studs. The aforementioned Meyer and Arcia, Eddie Rosario, Jose Berrios, Kohl Stewart, Jorge Polanco, and of course Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano … the good days are coming.

But the front office needs to do their part to make sure there’s talent around those guys when they arrive.