Boy howdy, but are the Timberwolves up and down. They won four in a row, then lost to Orlando; they got slaughtered by the Heat, then beat the Thunder, in the span of three days. There are no sure things. Will Nik Pekovic make his layups? Will Kevin Love get his shots to fall? Will Good J.J. Barea show up, or will we see Bad J.J.? Will Andrei Kirilenko pull the team out of the fire yet again? Will Dante Cunningham  and Greg Stiemsma and Derrick Williams make a meaningful contribution, or will they show up and flounder and end up -18 for the night?

All of these things are up in the air on a nightly basis, which is why the team is so up and down – the subject of my week seven review at SB Nation Minnesota.

The Twins seem to be looking for something specific on the free-agent pitching market. So far, those qualities seem to be “kinda cheap” and “not that good at pitching.”

They could probably put together a job application that would make the whole process a little clearer – something like this, really.

NOTE: This also appeared at RandBall, as always.

The desperate thrashings of Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder have made this year’s edition of the Vikings one of the strangest I can recall. I’ve seen great Vikings teams and awful Vikings teams, the overachieving and the underachieving, the frustrating, and that one year with Jim McMahon that still confuses me to this day, but I’ve never had quite the same reaction as a fan as I’ve had to this year’s team. For the first time that I can recall, I don’t feel bad when the Vikings lose.

By all reckonings, this is an immensely frustrating season. Minnesota’s blessed with Adrian Peterson, one of the great rushers in NFL history, and has cobbled together an average-to-decent defense. Out of the ashes of an awful 2011 have come what is potentially a pretty good playoff team, except for the team’s pre-war-esque inability to use the forward pass. Even a mediocre passing offense might have the Vikings at 8-5 or 9-4, with a chance of winning the division, but Ponder’s sketchy quarterbacking has doomed the team to the outside fringes of the playoff picture.

This came to a head two weeks ago, in Green Bay, when Minnesota might well have won the game if only Ponder had spiked the ball into the ground every time he dropped back instead of attempting to throw the ball to a receiver. Like many of you, I’m cursed with a Packer fan in my office; in my case, it’s much worse, given that my office’s resident Packer fan is a Minnetonka native who gave up on the Vikings years ago. Normally, when the Vikings lose to the Packers, I dread going into the office. I dread having to talk about the game. I dread the horrible feelings of personal responsibility that I’ve never been able to avoid after a Purple loss.

This year, though, I had a reaction I’ve never had before. My overarching thought, as the Vikings went down, was simple: I am not going to feel bad just because Christian Ponder can’t throw the ball straight. I know he’s terrible. Everyone knows he’s terrible, except for apparently the Vikings staff and front office. And for the first time ever, I’m not going to feel responsible for that; I’m not going to feel bad just because nobody wants to tell the emperor that he has no clothes and that throwing off his back foot is a terrible idea.

I’m still desperate for the Vikings to win, of course. I’ll still be shouting at the television come noon tomorrow. But for once, no taunts can hurt me. I’m not responsible for this one. This one’s all them.

On with the links:

*Parker Hageman thinks that Justin Morneau could well be Texas-bound before this off-season is over.

*As the NHL lockout stretches into its 47th year (note: approximate), Charles Pierce reminds us that, despite what the NHL wants you to think, this is not Don Fehr’s fault.

*TVFury interviews Will Leitch, who’s one of my favorite writers, and still seems like a nice guy from the Midwest even though he’s been in New York for years.

*Only The Economist can use the phrase “the peculiar economic logic of top-tier American college football” in an article about the annual offseason college coaching carousel.

*And finally: Winona and Red Wing have decided to introduce a trophy to their high school hockey matchup (which they’re calling the River City Showdown), and after much thought, apparently the trophy is, um, a rope. It does double duty: it symbolizes barge ropes on the river, and the winning team gets to use it to pull each other out of the ditch all winter!

My weekly Timberwolves recap didn’t get too much love from anyone, which I thought was a shame, because I really liked it pretty well.  So if you want to read the definitive unliked column about Kevin Love, you can’t do better than this one.

The Twins had some money to spend this offseason, and apparently wanted to spend as much of it as they could, as quickly as possible, for the worst pitcher they could find.

Kevin Correia may be a very nice fellow, but he was the Pirates’ fifth starter for the past two years. He cannot strike out anyone, and he is not demonstrably better than the Twins’ gigantic pile of mediocre pitchers. Liam Hendriks, Cole De Vries, Samuel Deduno, P.J. Walters – all of these guys could give the Twins exactly what Correia gives them, and they can do it for the league minimum, instead of the two-year, $10 million contract the Twins gave Correia.

For more complaining in this same vein, head over to Twinkie Town, where I called Correia “the National League version of Nick Blackburn.”

The baseball winter meetings are over, and the Twins’ activity in Nashville was restricted mostly to trading Ben Revere to the Phillies for two young pitchers.

Really, Revere and Vance Worley were about the same level – both had been in the majors about the same amount of time, and both were middling at best. Worley is about a #3 or #4 starter, while Revere is a study in extremes – he might be the fastest guy in the majors, and he might have the best glove, but he also has the least power and the worst arm. Trading the two even-up might have been fair, but the Twins got Philadelphia to throw in Trevor May, who was one of baseball’s top 100 prospects last season.

That’s a pretty good trade for Minnesota, and through the magic of fake screenplays, I looked at both sides’ possible reaction to the deal.

As always, this appeared first at RandBall.

Denard Span has been traded, Ben Revere has been traded, and one assumes that Justin Morneau and Josh Willingham probably are not buying green bananas at the moment; yes, the Great Twins Rebuilding Project appears to be more or less in full swing. With that in mind, it’s probably important that we get on top of the argument that will likely dominate the airwaves come fall: should Ron Gardenhire be given a contract extension, or should he be allowed to begin his inevitable second career as a television analyst for professional bowling?

Barring a number of breakout seasons from young hitters, and possibly the free-agent signing of Sidd Finch to fix the rotation, the Twins are shaping up to play another year without a post-season run. There have been many fans who’ve wanted Gardenhire fired for years for various supposed crimes, but even the most ardent Gardy supporters cannot ignore a team that’s lost 195 games in two seasons. Moreover, it seems unlikely that Gardenhire is the man to oversee a youth movement. The manager is famously hard on young players; I seem to remember him blaming Jason Bartlett for, at various points, defensive mistakes, offensive ineptitude, lack of “fire in the belly,” and in one memorable rant, for construction delays at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

It’s tempting to remember Gardenhire’s first team, the 2002 AL Central winners, as a bunch of young pups that the manager molded into a fighting unit, but the 2002 team was basically the same as the 2001 team that Tom Kelly had nearly wrenched to a playoff berth. Though every starter on that team was under 30 years old, virtually every player was in his third or fourth professional season. That team was, in some ways, where the 2016 Twins are shaping up to be – still young, but with plenty of games under their belt.

My advice is to decide now which way you’re going to go. 85 wins would be a heck of an accomplishment for the Twins in 2013 – 85 being the number that Kelly’s 2001 team won in his final season as manager. If Gardenhire can clear that bar, then he should stay for certain, I’d say. And if not – why, let’s start that rumor mill. Let’s start throwing out names: Paul Molitor, maybe… Ozzie Guillen’s not doing anything… hey, maybe Jake Mauer!… What about if Mike Grant doesn’t get the St. John’s job – wait, I’m getting my rumor mills confused…

On with the links:

*Parker Hageman breaks down starter Vance Worley, who’ll be the only major-league manifestation this year of the Span and Revere trades.

*The Economist is not so quick to glowingly eulogize Marvin Miller, the former head of the MLB Players’ Association. While the players did end the odious reserve clause under Miller’s leadership, the magazine points out that these gains did nothing for either young players or – especially – minor-leaguers.

*I want nobody but Chuck Klosterman examining the larger implications of the Popovich/Spurs/rest day/NBA imbroglio.

*Katie Baker on the current state of the NHL lockout is a must-read. Key quote, and key thing to understand about the negotiations: “For all the sound and fury, it seems clear the question of who will come out ahead in this deal has been settled: Almost all of the meaningful movement to this point has come from the players’ side.”

*And finally: Here’s why the UFC is the only sport that’s actually being killed by its TV contract. (NOTE: language warning for that, only because UFC president Dana White’s quotes are printed verbatim.)

The Wolves won twice and lost once in the fifth week of their season, right in line with their current level of talent and level of play. It was a calm, normal, average week for the Wolves – but that sense of normality is about to get upended, thanks to Ricky Rubio’s impending return.

I did some writing at Twinkie Town for the Winter Meetings. As the week kicked off, I summed up what the Twins were after: pitching, pitching, and some more pitching. By Tuesday morning, the Twins had been linked with every pitcher in the world, but by Tuesday evening, it looked like Zack “Zach” Greinke was holding things up.

By today, though, not only had the Twins not bought out the market, they hadn’t bought much of anybody. Apparently, the team hoped that big names would sign early in the week, leading to lesser lights being available later, but now the team appears to be waiting to shop at the Jason Marquis Memorial Free Agent Pitching Clearance Sale.

UPDATE: You write in advance about nothing, and then the Twins trade Ben Revere for two pitchers.

Minnesota Stars captain Kyle Altman may well be the team’s most important free agent this off-season – but, as it turns out, the Stars not only have to compete with other soccer teams for his signature, but with the possibility he’ll go to medical school.

As an aside: Altman was an all-star last year, and probably should have been one in 2011. He was a two-time first-team D3 All-American in college. And he’s doing all of this while also being a genius and taking deferrals from medical school. In conclusion, we have to say that Kyle Altman is better than you at whatever it is you’re doing, and if he shows up to take your job, you should probably just let him instead of getting embarrassed.