Ben Revere has met and exceeded expectations at every level he's been at to this point. From being hailed as a 'signability' pick in the MLB draft to scouts suggesting he'd get the bat knocked out of his hands, it's been an uphill battle for a player who describes himself as a "goofy kid". Revere has endeared himself to fans with his diving catches, breathless attempts at inside-the-park home runs, and his infectious, omnipresent smile.

Brandon Warne chatted with Ben following a Twins victory over the Tampa Bay Rays and Cy Young candidate James Shields.

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Brandon Warne: How would you introduce yourself to Twins fans not really familiar with you coming up through the system?

Ben Revere: Just a goofy kid; a little short black dude who is really fast. *laughs* No, but I’m a great Christian person. I just want to treat everybody with respect always; I was born that way. I’m a southern boy from Georgia/Kentucky, so you know "southern hospitality" is always first, always saying "yes ma’am, no ma’am." But, as an athlete? I’m always just playing baseball as one of those quick guys that hits line drives and ground balls, steals bases, gets walks, and scores runs. I’ll let the big guys behind me hit me in. I’m just one of those types of guys at the top of the order just trying to get on base to score runs.

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Just like the Glen Perkins interview last week, today is another re-run of a previous interview I've done with a Twins hurler. This time, it was Aussie right-hander Liam Hendriks. Hendriks is a level-headed, home run-depressing, fastball-controlling, Luke Hughes-tripling son of a gun. (Woooo!)

All jokes aside, Hendriks was very thoughtful and accommodating for this interview, which took place during the last series at Target Field in the 2011 season. Sit back and enjoy! Next week I'll have an all-new interview for you all.

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It's not exactly a strong time of year for baseball column writing (maybe it's never really strong for me, but nonetheless). The club is currently attempting to decide which right-handed reliever to bring to prom this year, and at least in my view, will end up settling for the one with the most, ah, personality (read: Coffey, T.). Similarly, arbitration hearings are still about a month away.

Anyway, speaking of Coffey, or coffee as it were, sit back, or forward if your eyes require, and have a look at one of my favorite interviews from the 2011 season with starter-turned-stud reliever Glen Perkins.

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Joe Vavra has been the Twins hitting coach since the 2006 season. Prior to that, he was a minor league instructor with the Twins organization. In that time, Vavra has presided over three batting titles and two MVP awards. Late in the afternoon of the season finale, Vavra took time to chat with Twinkie Town's Brandon Warne just outside the clubhouse at the batting cages about hitting, young players, and the day-to-day operation of being a hitting coach.

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The most high-profile move the Minnesota Twins made this winter was bringing in Tsuyoshi Nishioka, star of the Japanese League and the Chiba Lotte Marines. After speaking at length with Rob Antony a couple of weeks ago about how the Twins went about finding, scouting and eventually winning the rights to Nishioka, the good PR folks at the Beverly Hills Sports Council were kind enough to offer us the unique opportunity to ask our new middle infielder a few questions. A great many thanks to Paul and BHSC, and of course to Nishioka and his translator Ryo as well.

To keep up with the latest news on and comments from "Nishi", you can catch up with him on Facebook here. You'll find a lot of links to different interviews and conversations about (and with) him, and you'll also find small quotes from him on baseball like this one from yesterday:

"Spring training games has started and I am enjoying playing in Major League Baseball games."

After the jump we'll get to our ten questions, and of course Nishioka's translated answers.

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As always, a huge thanks to Rob for taking time out of his day to chat. I always seem to run over my half hour by about ten minutes, and he's always been really good about it. Our chat this spring covers a lot of ground for Tsuyoshi Nishioka, but we also talk about the Francisco Liriano trade rumors, Justin Morneau's health, who the Twins will look to for depth in the minors, and there's some insight as to how the Twins approached their off-season including the J.J. Hardy trade. Enjoy!

Jesse:  One of the Twins' more high-profile moves this winter was bringing in Nishioka. At what point did he pop up on your radar?

Rob Antony:  We knew about him from our international scouts and I was talking with his agent, I don't even remember the exact timeframe, but he was asking what we were looking to do in the off-season. I told him we were trying to get a little more athletic and maybe add a little speed to the lineup, and I told him I really wasn't sure where we were going to be able to do that apart from maybe the middle infield, because Orlando Hudson was going to be a free agent and I wasn't sure what we were going to do with J.J. Hardy. We may bring him back, we may not, we may deal him, I wasn't sure what we were going to do at that point.

So we kicked around a lot of ideas and he [Nishioka's agent] said "Gee, I never thought of you guys, but I represent a guy who I believe is going to become available as a free agent from Japan." We started talking about it and we followed up with more information, more research, talking to people and whatnot, our scouts had conviction that he'd be a good middle infielder for us and fill the need we had for some speed and athletecism up the middle.

J:  Are there any expectations at this point for how you look for him to progress?

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On the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated will be the one and only Jim Thome (see right).  It's Thome's first cover.  Joe Posnanski, one of our favorite writers (we recently linked to his interview with Kenny Williams as well as his piece on Ron Gardenhire, for example), agreed to answer a few questions for us.  CMathewson was our reporter in the field, and asked the questions.  I'll drop a couple of quotes from Posnanski's piece on Thome in between sections of the interview.  (The Thome article is great, by the way.  Check it out, it comes with my highest recommendation.)

Thome told Posnanski that he’s accepted the feast or famine nature of his game even though he hasn’t embraced it: "I really do try hard to be a good teammate. I can’t run very fast, but I try to always run hard. I may strike out a lot, but I try to walk to set up the guys who are hitting after me. The other day I didn’t score from first on a double. I cost my guy an RBI. I felt terrible about that. I told him, ‘Look, I really tried, but I’m old and I’m slow. I hope I can make it up to you in another way.’ "

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Thanks to the incomparable Rev Halofan from Halos Heaven for the heads up and the info.  Jeff Biggs talks to Joe about his new contract, and there's lots of good stuff about the art of catching and how long he could do it for.  (That means catching, ladies.)  Thanks to AM 830 for allowing us to use their audio file.

Joe Mauer AM 830 Interview