Thome Is Still Minnesota's Homey

Hopefully the Minnesota Twins purchase a little extra flagpole insurance for the 2011 season. Jim Thome, one of BLB's favorite tater-mashing veterans, has signed a one year, $3 million (plus incentives) deal with the Twins. That sound you just heard? A collective sigh of relief by Twins fans everywhere.

The Texas Rangers also had hopes of signing the veteran slugger, who is a measly eleven homeruns away from 600. Thome opted to stay in Minnesota, however, and had this to say about his decision go sign with the Twins rather than the Rangers:

Obviously they have a very good team as well. That kind of made this decision a difficult one, because both teams, in my mind, had an opportunity to win.

I think the main thing [in] coming back to Minnesota -- there were several reasons -- but the main thing [is] obviously my family was very comfortable here. Where I live in the wintertime is close to Minnesota. The rapport I had with my teammates, it was just a wonderful place to play and I tried to put that above anything else.

Ol' Jim Jam played in 108 games last season, and led the Twins with 25 home runs. He batted .283 with 59 RBIs, and also hit the first ever walk-off homerun at Target Field. He also climbed up to number eight on the list of all time homerun leaders, passing Rafael Palmeiro, Harmon Killebrew, Mark McGwire and Frank Robinson. Not bad for being 40.

Next up on the Twins' off season wish list: resigning their badass-free-agent-mustached-top-pitcher Carl Pavano. The right-hander had 17 wins last season, and Minnesota would love to have that arm back leading their rotation. And now that Thome has signed on, his first order of business back in a Twins uniform is to work on getting Pavano back, saying, "Trust me, when I get off the phone with you [reporters], I will definitely be recruiting him and be sending him some text messages." Hopefully there will be no pictures involved in said texts. Just sayin'.