The Minnesota Twins traded the best pitcher in all of baseball this past offseason when they sent Johan Santana to the New York Mets. They also dealt one of their top pitching prospects as they sent Matt Garza to the Rays. They lost Carlos Silva to free agency. Yet there is hope in the Twins' rotation, and its name is Francisco Liriano.

The twenty-five year old left hander is coming off of Tommy John surgery and there is no doubt that his performance this spring will be one of the biggest thing on the mind of fantasy owners everywhere.  He's got off to a late start too, but not because of his arm rather a visa problem that got him to Florida nine days late. Still, many of the reports surrounding Liriano have been encouraging.

The Twins Insider reported on Monday that team officials clocked him at 97 MPH twice on the gun in a recent bullpen session and that he was consistently in the 92-95 MPH range. Liriano threw well during the offseason in his native Dominican Republic and appears set to start mowing down AL hitters again soon.

Rod Gardenhire and the Twins on banking on Liriano being ready, he's going to have to be if they are going to compete in the tough AL Central. The team added veteran Livan Hernandez earlier this month to add to the array of young arms - Kevin Slowley, Boof Bonser, Scott Baker. Liriano is going to carry some risk entering the '08 campaign, but it comes with the opportunity for very high rewards.

Liriano was impressive when we last saw him in '06 when he posted a 12-3 record while pitching 121 innings. He finished that year with a 2.16 ERA, 1.000 WHIP, and 144 strikeouts.  Still, he's never pitched more than that in this league and is coming off one of them most major injuries you can have to a pitcher's arm.

Where Liriano falls in this year's fantasy drafts is a huge question. In the GSI Mock Draft I was able to get him with the 121st pick and as my third starter (behind Erik Bedard and Matt Cain). That may be early for some to have three pitchers, but for the value I couldn't pass it up.  I am banking on Liriano being a solid #2 fantasy starter this season. Even with the injury he's a safe bet for 12-14 wins in about 160-170 innings and E.RA under 3.50 and a WHIP barely over 1.000, and those are the modest numbers. The later in Spring Training your draft is, the chances are the earlier in the draft Liriano will be selected.

Fantasy Baseball francisco liriano, livan hernandez, boof bonser, kevin slowley, scott baker