ESPN baseball columnist Rob Neyer recently unveiled his “Top 100 players of the decade”. Puljos, A-Rod, Bonds, Jeter and Ichiro rounded out a fairly predictably top 5. There were also several players on the list who spent time with the Twins over the past 10 years…

10. Johan Santana
40. Joe Mauer
53. David Ortiz
70. Torii Hunter
92. Corey Koskie
93. Brad Radke
99. Kenny Rogers

Very notably absent from the list is Justin Morneau. Although, he’s only been a regular since 2005, so has Mauer and having watched the Twins very closely during this era, I would have a hard time deciding who has been more valuable to the franchise over the past 5 years. Each has won a MVP – Morneau nearly won two – and other than his late season back injury this year, Morneau has been healthy the entire time.

Neyer – a devout Bill James disciple – is known for obsessively crunching numbers, but I just can’t imagine any formula that would determine Ray Durham (71), Carlos Guillen (72), Randy Winn (80), Jose Valentin (88) and Koskie, among others, have been better this decade than Morneau.