New season, same result - 'meh' pitching, and 'too little, too late'  hitting.

I think Sean had it right last game log when he says that the front office knows what they've got, and they know that it's not happening this season. Fair enough, but I'm impatient - I want a World Series this year. Therefore, I've put together a little cheat sheet for how this team can be turned into a contender. If someone with connections could route this to the powers that be, I'd appreciate it.

Pitching

Obviously, the big problem is going to be pitching, so they must obviously trade for some strong starters, and some strong relievers. I've taken the liberty of drawing up some proposals.

• DFA Jeff Gray (He's letting opposing batters reach at a ridiculous .667 clip. Thanks, but no thanks, Jeff.)
• DFA Matt Capps (obviously)
• Trade Brian Duensing for Roy Halladay (He's got an unsustainable rate of 27.0 k/9 going, so trade him while he's hot)
• Arrange for Kyle Gibson to be fitted with a robotic arm (This whole recovery process is taking too long - time to speed things up a bit.)
• Have some crazy, back-alley doctor remove all of Scott Baker's arm tendons (He can't strain them if they're not there, can he. Ivan'll put some rubber bands in there, or something.)
• "Forget" Jason Marquis at the airport the next time he accompanies them on a road trip (This is a two part plan which may involve pretending that Target Field is closed for the season when he inevitably gets a taxi ride back.)
• Once it gets to the later months, forbid anyone from telling Nick Blackburn that it's not May anymore.

Batting

As we saw yesterday, hitting is going to be this team's biggest obstacle (except for pitching, because Lord, do those pitchers suck). Here's a few quick ways to change that.

• Trade Alexi Casilla for a large potted plant (the plant can trip runners as they round second, and will likely provide a bit more hitting power)
• Put Joe Mauer into a time machine, and tell him to retrieve 2009 Joe Mauer (It'll be sad to see 2011 Joe Mauer go, but we liked the other one better, anyway. Besides, this is the kind of sacrifice a leader has to make sometimes. Cuddy would go back in time to get 2009 Joe Mauer, and he'd probably bring back 2010 Justin Morneau while he was at it.)
• Create an unholy Frankenstein mishmash of Ben Revere's legs and Denard Span's arm. (Den Spavere will be the greatest outfielder ever, while Bard Revan can be safely DFA'd)
• Trade Chris Parmelee for Albert Pujols (The only worry here is that the Angels may not believe that Parmelee is as good as Dick Bremer says he is. In this case, we include Carl Pavano in the deal. Who says no?)

Until my brilliant ideas are brought to the front office, we're stuck with what we've got. What we've got today is..

F. Liriano (0-0, a disappointing 0 k/9, and a awe-inspiring, but probably unsustainable 0.00 ERA)
T. Hunter (0-0, 3.20 FIP, 0 ERA)

Normally, I'd say that the Twins are totally screwed, but come on... this is Tommy Hunter we're talking about.ZiPs has him projected for something like a 5.00 ERA. Even the Twins should be able to get some runs off this guy, right?