Joe Christensen has an excellent post on his blog about whether Justin Morneau or Joe Mauer was the Twins’ MVP. Go read it.

Enjoy the weekend.

In a division that featured two dreadful underperformers (Cleveland/Detroit) and another that’s always threatening to get to a competitive level (Kansas City), the Twins simply can’t expect that a year of experience alone will put them among the favorites for the 2009 postseason.

Neither, as Detroit showed, will going on and bringing in a batch of new talent automatically makes things better.

What to do for next season?

Well, based on what I think they need and what I’m led to believe, the Opening Day 2009 Twins should have a new left side of the infield, a new outfielder, a right-handed bat and enhanced middle relief.

Let’s deal with the outfield first. If you had to rank us, I think the biggest fans of Delmon Young are: 1) Me. 2) The front office. 3) Gardy and his coaches. Because what I think doesn’t really matter, it’s going to be interesting to see if Gardy can convince Bill Smith to trade Delmon to meet another need, maybe at third base and/or the bullpen. My understanding is that the Twins were not enamored with Delmon’s approach to the game and it seemed like he slowed in other areas of the game at the same time that his offense picked up. (Did he look heavier to you too? Do you think it concerns the Twins that big, big brother Dmitri is listed at 300 pounds on the Washington Nationals’ web site? Do you think that his tendency to make ill-advised throws has something to do with it?)

In other words, I can understand if the Twins think they can get some value for a promising young outfielder (.290 career average in 2+ seasons and an above-average arm). Yes, it means acknowledging that the Garza/Bartlett trade was a failed move. But if Young can bring a need-filler, I can see them making the move. The fallout would be moving Denard Span from right field to left, which is a good idea in the Dome, and returning Michael Cuddyer to right with Jason Kubel as the fourth outfielder/DH.

Young is the most marketable of the players the Twins are willing to deal unless they’re willing to part with one of their young starting pitchers, which I doubt will happen (and I don’t think should happen).

The Punto thing. Strip away all the emotional attachments that some people have to Punto and he’s worth keeping around in the role he was envisioned for this season — a three-position infield reserve. And while Punto’s offensive numbers were about as high as they’ll ever be, he showed himself to be incredible inept at bringing runners home on a team where chances were abundant. He had 28 RBI in 338 at-bats. Here’s one way to look at it: Craig (.202) Monroe had 29 RBI during his half-season in Minnesota with fewer than half the number of ABs as Punto.

Here’s another: At the pace he set this season, Punto would have needed 1,558 at-bats to drive in the same number of runs as Justin Morneau (129). That he was the best available later-season option at shortstop should not color anybody into inflating his long-term value and place.

By the way, if Punto goes, I’d favor keeping Matt Tolbert around to fill that role. Please don’t bring me Juan Uribe, who has eight seasons in the majors and a career on-base percentage that looks a lot like a certain Twins center fielder.

So who plays shortstop? Orlando Cabrera of the White Sox seems to be the people’s choice. But he’s going to be 34 next season and will likely want a long-term deal. He didn’t get along with Ozzie Guillen but he was also been deemed expendable by the Red Sox and Angels, for whom he compiled good numbers. It does make you wonder about temperament, especially after the tantrums he threw when he called up to the press box to complain about error rulings and explained afterward: “If there was a major league player who tells me he’s not selfish, he’s lying. Everyone is selfish about numbers, because that’s the only thing people cannot lie about.” I’m kind of intrigued by Edgar Renteria, who had a subpar year with Detroit and should be available for a year or two at a more reasonable price.

(Cabrera update: This is from a weekend q-and-a column by the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan:

Dewey24: Looks like Orlando Cabrera is on the outs in Chicago. Should the Sox consider bringing him back here next year, even with Lowrie?

Bob Ryan: There’s a reason why he has bounced around that has nothing to do with what he does on the field, and we’ll leave it at that.)

Third base. Casey Blake is such a pro that I’d like to see the Twins make a run at him. I’m also in favor of pursuing the full range of options that could be available in trade — Adkins, Beltre, Mora, Kouzmanoff. The Twins set a pretty low baseline for defense at third base by being willing to platoon Buscher and Harris, so the argument of the suspect glove doesn’t really work. In fact, it makes the argument for trying Michael Cuddyer at third seem more reasonable, but I can’t see that happening - even though he’s now listed with the infielders on the Twins web site — unless the Twins can’t swing a deal of some sort. Joe Crede and his aching back is an interesting free-agent option, although I can understand if he’s artificial turf averse.

Set-up relief. Let’s be happy about getting Past Neshek back without getting carried away with our expectations. (See Crain, Jesse.)  Prepare to say goodbye to Dennya Reyes because someone will offer him good money and Matt Guerrier needs to be prepared to battle for a job. Right now, the only sure thing beyond Joe Nathan appears to be Jose Mijares, the young lefty. The order of everything else is up in the air. I’d love to see Crain show me something in his second year back from the elbow surgery and I like giving Boof a chance. But the Twins are going to have to sift through the swine to find the pearls. I don’t feel comfortable throwing out names because the numbers attached to them can be as deceptive as Reyes’, which masked his tendency to give up big hits in short stint.

But given their reputation for giving relievers work and the good reputation of pitching coach Rick Anderson, the Twins should be an attractive landing spot for guys like LaTroy Hawkins or Will Ohman or Luis Ayala, who are among the current batch of free agent relievers.

Last winter was dominated by the distraction of Santana and the front office’s need to nail down its in-house talent (Morneau/Cuddyer) for the years to come. This winter is a time to look outward and make the moves needed so the Twins can do what should be within reach — play October baseball in ‘09 and beyond.

It’s taken a few days to be able to watch more than a couple of innings at a time, but I think I’m back. The Cubs-Dodgers on Saturday and the Angels-Red Sox game last night/this morning kind of did the trick. I don’t know about you, but I’m not really rooting as much as I’m hoping to see good and interesting stuff. Good: The Dodgers totally shutting down the Cubs. Interesting: Torii dropping the fly ball in Game 2 and twisting his knee jumping at first base when he was called out.

Those of you who spent too much time here know that I grew up a Cubs fans, but I don’t feel too bad for the Cubs getting swept. As long as we don’t get swept away by it, we’re all allowed a few of those “the way things used to be” things, and Cubs baseball now isn’t the same as it once was. Of course it isn’t and I have no reason to expect it to be, but I simply don’t embrace the current group as much as the teams of years gone by. (I’m different about the Bears, for some reason. You can have Gus Frerotte, I’ll take Kyle Orton.) I think the 100 years of futility deal is kind of funny — especially when it’s continued under the tone-deaf managing of Lou Piniella — and I pretty much promised myself not to get invested in them unless they got to the World Series. No sense getting hurt by grown men more than once during a baseball season, right?

I am hoping the White Sox are done after today so we don’t have to read about the “black out” any more and we can be done with a fundementally flawed baseball team. The Rays are a nice story. I keep waiting for them to revert, but I think (even if they get eliminated) that it’s not going to be because they fall apart. Whatever happens, it will be nice to see credit directed to Joe Maddon, their manager, who has pulled together a team that believes in itself more than it would in other hands, I suspect. Many of the Rays were judged flawed with their previous teams and he’s brought along young players who have improved on the job. The Rays battled through injuries to top players and the Rays are a poster child for the argument against the value of a studly closer, although I’d still rather have Joe Nathan than rely on the Tampa Bay Relief Committee.

I’d kind of like to see a Dodgers-Red Sox series so that Manny has to play at Fenway. And my problem with Tampa Bay is the idea of a World Series that makes the Metrodome look like an architectural marvel. Watching the Phillies does make me realize that, without the Twins in the postseason, it would have fun to watch Johan in October — especially after another one of his incredible second halves of the season.

More than anything, though, I want the baseball to be good and interesting.

*I want 3-2 instead of 12-10 games.

*I want the weather not to be ridiculous.

*I will figure out a way to listen to Buck and McCarver as little as possible when FOX gets its mitts on the playoffs. I have really enjoyed watching TBS — even Harold Reynolds — and listening to ESPN on the radio (and Bob Uecker on the Milwaukee broadcasts). Buck Martinez should be required to work in the booth of every postseason game.

*I will root for any team playing an elimination game. Unless it’s the White Sox, of course.

But right now that doesn’t make the way the season ended any less painful.

Watching the Twins get shut down by a pitcher they’d dominated and watching Nick Blackburn pay so dearly for one mistake — one mistake — feels like the wrong way to end this 163-game joy (and pain) ride we’ve taken. Right now, the big picture hasn’t yet settled in, not compared to knowing that the Twins pretty much gave it away with those Friday and Saturday losses to Kansas City while the White Sox were losing to Cleveland. (Yes, there were giveaways scattered throughout the rest of the season, but the same holds true for the White Sox, and the Twins knew what needed to be done in those final games against a losing outfit.)

Really, it was a good year, and in time I’ll be appreciative of all the gifts that Twins baseball brought this season. But it’s hard to look all the way back from the last day of September to the last day of March, when we trudged through the snow to the Dome and told jokes about outdoor baseball as we celebrated that opening night victory against the Angels.

Some people are more resilient. The commenter DCTwinsFan offered this in response to the previous post: “It was a heck of game. It was a heck of a season. The Twins were not an amazing team, but they played some amazing baseball.”

And there’s Mike, who said: “This team gave us everything that they had. I remember sitting in the middle of a snowstorm waiting to get into the game on opening day…wondering what was in store. This team gave me one hell of a ride. No one gave Nick Blackburn a chance tonight, but he pitched his tail off. I love my Twins right now after the loss more than I would have loved them had they won.”

In these hours after, it’s still pretty painful.

It’s painful to know that Justin Morneau pretty much gave away the MVP award because his bat disappeared in the final weeks of the season. I have to take that position because, all along, I’ve said that the closeness of the division races meant that end-of-the-season performance was going to decide things.

And to know that he was one at-bat away; one lousy at-bat on Saturday. What if he had lined a double with the bases loaded and one out instead of grounding into a double play? That would have been another one of those game-changing hits that we bragged on (and properly so) about him for most of the season. That would have been game changing and season changing. It was clear that Morneau was worn down and hurting by September, which I hope serves as a lesson for those people who have been on Joe Mauer whenever he’s been taken out of the lineup.

Morneau had an excellent season. So did a bunch of other guys who aren’t the MVP, either.

The Twins were shut out eight times. Five of those were 1-0 games, including Blackburn’s first and last starts of the season. In that first one, against the Angels, his mistake was bouncing a breaking pitch off the plate for a wild pitch with a runner on third. (Scott Baker was the starter in the other three 1-0s — at Cleveland, Boston and Texas.) In the last one, it was the down-the-middle change-up to Jim Thome. I guess if you’re gonna beat, it’s a little easier to take when you get beat by a future Hall of Famer who treats the game the way you like to see it treated. I mean, if the peroxide brat Pierzynski had hit that home run …

John Danks pitched his a$$ off. He was Mark Buehrle with better stuff, and he may be the poster child for not being afraid to bring back a pitcher on three days rest, especially after a short outing. His stuff and whatever jumpiness the Twins brought to the park contributed to some helpless at-bats. It was especially sad to see Mauer reduced to bunting his final time up after striking out the first two times. If the batting champ feels that helpless, it doesn’t bode well for anyone else, right?

This wasn’t an easy team to manage, and I really think that Gardy did the third best job in the American League behind Joe Maddon of the Rays and Mike Scioscia of the Angels.  If the Rays are a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy and the Angels are heavy metal, then the Twins were a pick-up band: parts that were pieced together out of necessity and eventually worked together well enough to almost win the talent contest.

I remember thinking, “Oh, great,” when Denard Span misplayed one of the first balls hit to him after Cuddyer got hurt and wondering how desperate the the Twins were to call up Alexi Casilla, who was hitting .217 at Rochester when he got promoted. (And you were too, probably.) And it would have been the easy way out to argue for Carlos Gomez’ demotion, as many people did, instead of trying to harness and re-harness (and re-re-harness) his energy for the team’s good.

But Gardy combined the numbers from his laptop with the knowledge he had from working the clubhouse. There were setbacks and misfires along the way (relying on Guerrier for too long and not finding a way to get Morneau days off, are two examples), but I’ll argue with anyone that the good moves outweighed the bad with a team that could have been managed to a 78-win season. (I’d buy the coffee if Gardy would explain to me why he sent Guerrier back out to pitch the seventh against the Royals on Saturday.)

The challenge for the Twins right now is to know they have to get better. This was a fluky year for the two teams that were supposed to dominate the division (Detroit and Cleveland, remember?) and it would be folly to think that this season’s 8788 victories will automatically translate to 98 simply through experience and individual improvement. There are changes that need to be made.

But that discussion can wait a bit.

For now, it’s best to end with a text I received after the final out from the philosopher Young220: “Fun year!”

Yeah, it hurts. But the kid’s right.

I’m writing’ right now, but if you want to get a head start, go ahead and start talking to each about tonight, the season, 2009, whatever.