Spring training begins this week. The Seattle Mariners, incredibly, have already reported; they open the season in Japan this year and so they figured they'd better get a jump on things. For the rest of the league, the musical lyricality of the phrase "pitchers and catchers report" trips across the tongue this weekend. The Twins show up Saturday, the first workout for pitchers and catchers is Sunday, and the rest of the team gets in a few days later.

It's sunny where I am, as I write this. It's sunny and the snow has disappeared and it's getting light out when I wake up and the sun is still above the horizon when I leave work. It's kind of impossible for me not to sit down and make a list about baseball, about good baseball things. And as with so many things... it begins with the Cubs.

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I will use today's report to review this year's Top 50.

The Twinkie Town 2012 Top 50 included 22 position players and 28 pitchers, although only two pitchers made our top ten. Seven players who were in our 2011 Top 50 didn't make the cut this year, Kane Holbrooks (24), Bruce Pugh (34), Brett Jacobson (35), Danny Ortiz (36), Dan Osterbrock (38), Bobby Lanigan (41) and Anderson Hidalgo (48).

Chris Herrmann made the biggest move, moving up to our tenth spot after not being ranked last year. Other players making significant moves upward included Eddie Rosario who moved up sixteen spots to second, Brian Dozier, twenty spots to ninth, Tom Stuifbergen, fourteen spots to seventeenth, Niko Goodrum, eleven spots to nineteenth, Cole DeVries was thirty-fourth and Logan Darnell who was twenty-first after both not being ranked last year.

The players dropping the most included, Jorge Polanco, sixteen spots to forty-eighth, Dakota Watts, nineteen spots to forty-first, Deolis Guerra, twelve spots to twenty-eighth, Pat Dean, eleven spots to thirty-ninth, and David Bromberg, who dropped thirteen spots to twenty-fourth.

The most votes cast in any round were 525 in the eighth round when we selected Liam Hendriks. The player receiving the most votes was Miguel Sano who collected 286 votes in the first round. He also had the highest percentage, 58%. The fewest votes were 113 in the forty-eighth round when we selected Jorge Polanco. The closest round was the twenty-third round when Manuel Soliman beat David Bromberg by three votes. The biggest win was Sano, who won our top spot by 251 votes.

A complete review of this year's poll follows the jump, including last year's ranking in parenthesis.

There will not be a report next Saturday as I will still be traveling home.

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For those who are too afraid to watch the Twins this year, now you don't have to. Last year's Minnesota Twins team played its worst baseball in over a decade to the dismay of everyone who a piece of their heart attached to this organization. Some compared it to the wretched teams the Twins put on the field in the late '90s.

During the 1990's, the Twins came out of the gate roaring with 95 wins and a WS championship in '91 and probably an even better team in '92 that fell just short of the A's. Then '93 happened... but a bit of resurgence returned in 1994 before the league went on strike. When baseball returned in 1995 the fans of Minnesota did not, the payroll was slashed and the "Dark Ages" of this franchise was in full swing. In 2000 Bud Selig said "NO MAS!" and decided it was in the best interest of baseball if we just didn't have a team at all.

To compare what happened starting in 1995 and what is happening now is a bit premature. Last year was painful. I can understand the fear of putting yourself back out there and being positive about the 2012 season.

For those that just can't do it, have no fear; the future has already been written and I will share it with you. For those that don't want me to spoil your summer either look away now or pretend that I am just making this stuff up. The 2012 Minnesota Twins story is ahead after the jump.

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