Twinkie Town’s best of 2018

Happy New Year, Twinkie Towners! Though it wasn’t the best year for the Twins, we had a lot of fun here at Twinkie Town. Here’s some of the biggest news stories and so called “best” stuff we came up with this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• “Joe Mauer has earned every penny”
• “The obvious answer to the Twins’ shortstop problem: Manny Ramirez”
• “Joe Mauer enters Ed Sheeran phase”
• “Joe Mauer becomes third player in Twins history with 2000 hits”
• “Things to do between Lance Lynn pitches”
• “Lance Lynn signing way better than ‘The Shape of Water’”
• “The obvious answer to the Twins’ shortstop problem: Manny Ramirez”
• “Twenty-Five Eds”
• “Sources: Your dad will not pronounce ‘Schoop’ correctly until well into 2019”
• “Jim Thome, you are my hero”
• “Does MLB Hall of Famer Jack Morris cry?”
• “The obvious answer to the Twins’ shortstop problem: Manny Ramirez”
• “Joe Mauer officially retires after 15 seasons in MLB”
• “The ten dumbest things that happened to the Twins in 2018”
• “Twinkie Town’s Best of Joe Mauer”
• “The obvious answer to the Twins’ shortstop problem: Manny Ramirez”

Here are the top ten Twinkie Town posts of the year according to number of views (a very skewed metric, if you ask me).

Click on the headlines to view the actual posts! Or don’t, I guess. It’s your life.

10. “Twins trade rumors: Brian Dozier market heating up, Fernando Rodney, and more”

Heading into this list, just an FYI: People freaking love trade rumors, so those posts tend to do irrationally well. One of these days I almost want to just make wild trade rumors up, but considering that would hurt my non-existent journalistic credibility and I’m stepping down from running this site anyway I guess it’s just a pipe dream.

9. “Out-of-options shortstops the Twins could target”

Remember when Jorge Polanco was suspended for PEDs? Man, I’m so happy it’s not 2018 anymore.

8. “What do the recent Twins signings say about Miguel Sano?”

Here’s a post back from when we were young and dumb and thought the Twins and Miguel Sano would be good in 2018. Good times.

7. “Benches clear in Twins versus Rays game”

At least this was a fun one. Still don’t really know why the benches cleared here (this was a game in mid-July), but it had something to do with Eduardo Escobar and it was an exciting moment for us Twins fans (who had little else to be excited over).

6. “Twins acquire outfielder Jeremy Hazelbaker from the Rays”

Okay, this post is from about mid July and I have no idea why it got so many views? I still don’t even know who this person is, and I wrote this entire post about him. Does anyone know what ever happened to him? Is he still alive?

5. “Who could be managing the Twins in 2019?”

I actually am proud of this post and how well it did because I 100% completely pulled it out of my behind. I mean, just read it.

4. “Hensley Meulens, Joe Espada among top candidates in Twins managerial search”

The Twins didn’t hire either of these guys, but in our defense, this post DID list Rocco Baldelli, who was eventually hired as the Twins’ new manager!

3. “Who will the Twins trade next?”

The explanation here is, again, that people really love trade rumors, and trade rumors posts do well. This post was written after Eduardo Escobar and Ryan Pressly were traded off before the non-waiver trade deadline.

2. “Tuesday Twins: Byron Buxton might not be coming back”

Starting to think this year was sort of depressing for Twins fans, eh? I guess my headline was a little “click-bait-ey”, for which I apologize. However, I was correct — Byron Buxton never came back.

1. “Twins linked to Dodgers, Brewers, Red Sox in trade rumors”

I’m guessing this one was number one because... people love trade rumors? Plus, it might have gotten attention from people in LA, which seems to help.

Did you have a favorite Twinkie Town post from 2018? Mine was definitely actually Randball Stu’s (RIP), “Joe Mauer enters Ed Sheeran phase”.