Gotta love Jim Caple – he’s the writer that Jim Souhan wishes to be. But ESPN must like the Twins overall as they have the preseason standings written like this:

TEAM W L GB RS RA
Minnesota 0 0 – 0 0
Chicago Sox 0 0 – 0 0
Detroit 0 0 – 0 0
Kansas City 0 0 – 0 0
Cleveland 0 0 – 0 0

Caple has the Twins as his “Dark Horse Team”, even though they are the most popular pick to win the Central (10, compared to 8 for the Indians) – that doesn’t sound like much of a dark horse. Amusingly, Brendan Roberts also picked the Twins as his dark horse team, but he picks the Tigers to win the Central.

Caple’s got some Minnesota connections, doesn’t he? He generally is high on the Twins, and he even spoke somewhat fondly of the Metrodome (well, on the order of “It’s not as bad as they say it is”) when ESPN.com did their ballpark reviews a few years back.

Three separate writers (Caple included) picked Liriano to win the Cy Young.