Happy Presidents Day from Fort Myers, where the Twins are about to begin their second morning of full squad workouts.
Ryan Vogelsong, Ryan Pressly, J.T. Chargois, Ervin Santana, Adalberto Mejia, Randy Rosario and Fernando Romero are among the pitchers scheduled to throw live batting practice today. Pitching coach Neil Allen opened camp by issuing a strike-throwing challenge to his pitchers that he wants to see carried into batting practice sessions. In short, pitchers have to prove they can throw quality strikes with the fastball before they are allowed to work on their breaking stuff.
So this will be a good opportunity to see which pitchers are excelling in this early in camp.
As we have noted in the print edition, the Twins have added pitch framing drills for catchers. And coach Jeff Pickler has added different outfield drills to help with agility. If you ask me, the Twins should just let Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer handle outfield drills and have Pickler do something else. But I'm influenced by the 2000's.
As talented as Eddie Rosario, Byron Buxton and Max Kepler are, there are still some things each of them can work on to become even better outfielders. Hunter and Cuddyer are trying to get that out of them while they are special coaches in camp.
Here's a link to my story about the mood at camp on Sunday. Phil Miller provides some notes about Mauerness at camp.
