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Welcome back to another of our weekly discussions! As the days have been getting shorter, the weeks have just been flying by, and it’s time for another Friday of asking the hard-hitting questions: Which current or former Twin who wasn’t actually a “good player” is your favorite?
The Twins have employed plenty of lovable losers in their time as a franchise, so there is no shortage of choices here. From the sorrowful 2010’s, to the scrappy 2000’s, and even further back, I expect choices to be dropped in the comments from every era of Twins baseball.
It’s really not a difficult choice for me, personally. Nick Punto and his head-first slides take the cake. The personification of a scrappy underdog, Punto tried as hard as he could and was able to work his way into the hearts of many Twins fans, although nobody loved him as much as his manager, Ron Gardenhire. (Here’s a sampling of Twinkie Town’s own Nick Punto literature, for this interested)
I’m also a big Mike Redmond fan, what with the naked batting practice and such. I think my mom still owns some Oswaldo Arcia stock, and I’m still convinced Addison Reed is going to be a shutdown closer for the Twins when he gets healthy (I don’t care that he’s not on the team anymore). I will always have a small place in my heart for Danny Valencia, who I was convinced was the next big thing after his great rookie year. I’m sure we’ll have some Carlos Gomez (who did turn out to be good, after the Twins) and Alexi Casilla fans reading this, and probably a whole legion of Willians Astudillo supporters (I’m sorry, but he isn’t good).
All that being said, who’s your favorite “bad” Twin? Any that I missed from recent years? Some deeper pulls from years past? Drop it in the comments!