Tuesday Twins: People surprised, but still skeptical of Twins

Here be the links:

• Deadspin took some time out of their day to point out the Twins are somehow still in a playoff position despite not being a great team (and they think the Yankees are awesome, because of course).
• Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs was much kinder to the Twins, pointing out that they had performed even better in the second half of the season by finally not hitting like the Twins. (He doesn’t think it will last forever, though.)
• Eno Sarris also wrote a great piece for FanGraphs about how Jorge Polanco has turned around his offensive season.
• Since the Twins are in New York, the New York Post has an article comparing the Hall of Fame case for Joe Mauer to that of Don Mattingly (who is no in the HOF, btw).
• Unsurprisingly, some of the young players in the Twins clubhouse were dismayed over the firing of Doug Mientkiewicz, and were willing to talk about it. “He wasn’t just a coach to most players. He was more of a brother to us,” Byron Buxton told Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press. “Honestly, he was the guy that took me from an OK player to the next level,” Zack Granite said.
• Minor league prospect expert John Sickels has a huge crush on the Twins lately, with two recent pieces: one of the dominance of Gabriel Moya, and the other on what we may expect from John Curtiss.