Baseball’s Winter Meetings get in to gear down at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville on Monday and that’s got me a bit nervous. The Twins, at least at the Major League level, are in a sorry state, having come off a 96-loss season which followed a 99-loss season. It just doesn’t get much worse than this, folks.
...

Aaron and John record an emergency podcast to talk about the trade sending Denard Span to the Nationals for pitching prospect Alex Meyer, what it means for Chris Parmelee, how Span went from prospect bust to underrated big leaguer, why letter grades for prospects can lead to arguments, dropping Deolis Guerra from the 40-man roster, adding Jeff Clement for Triple-A depth, and why Hulkamania will never die. Here are:

• the podcasts
• the rss feed if you want to subscribe and
• the podcast on iTunes.
  

...

Last week, the Twins announced that they had signed Jeff Clement, the team’s 12^th round pick in the 2002 draft. Clement chose not to sign with the Twins, instead going to USC and later signing with the Mariners as the #3 overall pick in 2005. Following the Twins Thursday trade of Denard Span to the Washington Nationals in exchange for RHP Alex Meyer, Clement is now the only player that the Twins drafted in 2002 that is with the organization.

The Twins drafted Span with the 20^th overall pick in the 2002 draft. The Colorado Rockies, who picked ninth that season, had offered him a pre-draft deal at $2 million, but Span declined it. He had a football scholarship to Clemson in his back pocket. However, at the end of the summer, just before the deadline, he signed with the Twins for about a $1.2 million bonus.

Below will be a look back at the Twins career of Denard Span. ...

The Twins announce that they have have traded Denard Span to the Washington Nationals for pitcher Alex Meyer, a 2011 first round draft pick (23rd overall).

The big-bodied Meyer, 6'9" and 220, spent last year split between A and High-A, striking out 26.6% of batters faced, walking just 8.6% and produced a 2.86 ERA which led to an invite to the Futures Game.
...

Minnesota Twins fans finally have a mildly good reason to push the panic button.

It wasn’t that Scott Baker was leaving the team – without an option year, his value the year after Tommy John isn’t particularly meaningful. It certainly isn’t that (gasp) other free agent starting pitchers are signing elsewhere – especially when only a handful have changed teams and there are an inordinate number of good starting pitchers on the market. And MOST OF ALL it isn’t that the Twins have dared to sign minor leaguers, which is business as usual for this time of year.

But if you want to push it, go ahead. Because yesterday, the Atlanta Braves agreed to terms for center fielder BJ Upton. ...

With as many as four spots needing to be filled in the rotation, it figured that Terry Ryan – with his traditionally risk-averse nature in free agency – would target low-cost pitchers with upside who could be acquired on one-year deals. This strategy makes sense for a couple reasons: it adds multiple options to the starting pitching mix without requiring huge commitments, and hurlers looking for the one-year make-good deal ought be more apt to sign with a club that offers such wide-open opportunity in the rotation.

If that was indeed Ryan's intended tack, he can't be pleased to see the Cubs aggressively following the same course. Already, Chicago has snatched up two of the most intriguing pitchers in this category.
...