Twins Suffer Devastating Blow

So usually devastating injuries only happen during the season right? Not in the middle of November when teams are looking to fill holes, not create them. Unfortunately, Seth Stohs of Seth Speak's reports that Twins reliever, Pat Neshek who had an MRI today, learned that his elbow will require Tommy John surgery causing the St. Louis Park native to miss all of the 2009 season.

Now this announcement will come with much grief from Twins fans because when Neshek suffered his elbow injury this past May the Twins decided he should simply rest rather than have surgery. But as Seth reports the ligament that Neshek tore completely off of his bone this past week is on the other side of the ligament he tore in May.

Neshek is expected to recover fully for the 2010 season but the poor guy will have missed over a year and a half of his baseball career. This is a big hit to the Twins, who's biggest weakness in 2008 was the bullpen. Getting Neshek back was going to be like making a big trade, but now the Twins may in fact need to make a big trade or free agent acquisition. 

After the calm of the Matt Holliday to the A's storm yesterday I started thinking about the package that the Rockies obtained. Before I even heard the Neshek news I thought maybe the Rockies acquired reliever Huston Street to include in a package with Garret Atkins to send to Minnesota? There are many other teams interested in Street, but a package with Street and Atkins may mean the difference for the Rockies between getting just Michael Cuddyer in return to getting Cuddyer, Nick Blackurn or Glen Perkins, and another prospect.

All of this is just speculation of my ideas, but one thing is certain that GM Bill Smith's To-Do list just got a little bigger.