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Are you following us on Twitter? You should be. We talk about baseball a lot. Right now the hot thing of the moment is that the Twins have picked up another strike-throwing pitcher with an upper-80s fastball and peripherals that won't impress.
Matt Maloney tweeted this earlier today.
Maloney is another southpaw, turns 28 in January and missed a portion of 2011 due to a cracked rib. His strikeout rates are mediocre (6.07 K/9 in his career), so of course he doesn't miss bats (7.7% swinging strikes, career), but he does seem to have impecible control (1.91 BB/9, career). So, he fits the mold.
Last winter the Twins brought in guys like Eric Hacker, Chuck James and Scott Diamond - guys who had varying degrees of success in the minor leagues but hadn't been able to translate that to the Majors. Maloney appears to be another pitcher of the same mold.
It's early in the off-season. In fact, it hasn't even really started. Se we can't really judge this trade in any meaningful way, because we don't know how it fits into the big picture...if it fits into the big picture at all. But you can certainly say this: the target isn't a surprise.
Welcome to Minnesota, Matt Maloney.