2013 Twins with Salaries

I thought this would be a fun forum topic. I am projected the Twins roster as I see it right now. I am not adding free agents yet as I am kind of doing this on the fly. I will project their roster if they go inhouse and positions that I don't think they will go in house I will leave blank. With the players that i project I will list their 2013 salary to see how much money the Twins will have left to spend as I have a gut feeling that the Twins 2013 payroll will be less than the 97 million in 2012, but not significantely less. My projection is between 90-95 million in which my opinion is plenty. please post thoughts if you think I am way off. Oh and at the bottom I will list some free agents that are possibilities for the Twins so let me know what you think.

C- Joe Mauer 23.0

1b- Justin Morneau 14.0

2b- Brian Dozier 550,000

SS- Pedro Florimon 550,000

3b- Trevor Plouffe 700,000

LF- Josh Willingham 7.0

CF- Ben Revere 600,000

RF- Chris Parmelee 600,000

DH Ryan Doumit 3.5

Bench

Darin Mastroianni 800,000

Jamey Carroll 3.75

Eduardo Escobar 600,000

Chris Herrmann 500,000

Total Offense Payroll: 56.15

Pitching

1.

2.

3. Cole De Vries 600,000

4. Scott Diamond 600,000

5. Liam Hendriks 550,000

6. Nick Blackburn- Not a member of Twins but have to pay him 5.5

Total Rotation: 7.25

Bullpen

Closer- Glen Perkins 2.5 plus incentives

Jared Burton Arb 3 estimate 2.0

Alex Burnett 800,000

Brian Duensing Arb 1 estimate 3.0

Anthony Swarzak 700,000

Casey Fien 600,000

Deolis Guerra 500,000

Bullpen total 10.15

Total Payroll 73.05

I have the Twins non tendering Alexi Casilla and Drew Butera and letting Carl Pavano, Matt Capps go as free agents. Therefore There are are atleast 2 rotation spots to fill. If you notice Denard Span is not there I think Twins will move him for one of the 2-3 openings in rotation. Kyle Gibson will join the team later in season as I don't think he will start season with Twins. So there you go about 20 million to spend to try to fix team. You could go for a middle infielder, a 3rd baseman, a middle reliever, and atleast 2 starters so go at it.

Options
Brandon Inge
Scott Baker
Joe Blanton
Gavin Floyd
Roberto Hernandez
Edwin Jackson
Shawn Marcum
Anibal Sanchez
Ervin Santana
Carlos Villanueva

If it were up to me I would sign Edwin Jackson and Ervin Santana and possibly Scott Baker. The Santana contract would likely only be one year as he will want a make good contract. The Baker deal would be incentive laden. Let me know what you would do.

I like it, just go after 2 starters, and if they can get baker on top of that, it will make a difference. Then you can really ease Gibson into the mix...

As we approach the hot stove league season, this is a good read as we begin to guess at what Mr. Ryan is thinking.

If you look at what the Twins have paid young players in the past, you will see that your estimates for players such as Dozier, Florimon, Plouffe, Parmelee, Escobar, Mastroianni, DeVries, Hendriks, Burnett and Fien are probably high. Most will earn at or near the minimum of $490,000. With these ten players on your roster, that is a savings of a million plus. It is also unlikely that Burton and Duensing will each make $3.0mm.

Regarding Guerra, it is as likely he will be removed from the 40-man roster as it is that he will be with the Twins when they break spring training. I expect what to do with him will be an interesting discussion when the front office meets for their meetings in a few weeks.

I guess what I am trying to say is there is money to improve the team if they allocate it correctly.

Brandon Inge as an option? :)

I see you have Span traded. I suspect that they will get an SP for him. At this point, in order to compete, I think that they need 3 SPs better than Diamond, so they can place Diamond at the 4th spot and let the 5th go to one of the rest who started this season. Assuming that Span + something brings one of those SPs + something, they got to get 2 more. You have them at 73M with Duensing at 3, but he will be closer to 1.5 in his first arbitration.So they got about $20M to spend in a $90M budget. They got to be creative with that. I think that Baker's upside at #2 is too good not to offer a $3-4M plus incentives if he is progressing, so they got to look at one more. I'd have zero issue with getting the other one via trading Morneau because a. it will add $14M to the $15 or so leftover to make it a robust $29 and b. there are no Aces in the FA market and would have to get one via trade. Ryan (assuming he still is the GM) kinda did that with the Lawton-Reed trade back when. Someone like Lester who has pitched better than his W-L record and ERA indicate, might be an option (and the Red Sox need a first baseman) Or even Halladay from the Phillies (I would not touch Lee and that contract with a 50 mile pole) but they do not need a first baseman (but they need OFs).

The Twins GM has to be creative in fixing this thing.

First, they should have let the Dodgers have Morneau when they claimed him. I still don't understand keeping him. That $20 million we have to spend could be $33 million.

That said, I see if Toronto will do a Morneau for Rickey Romero swap. If done straight-up we would shed $6.5 million in salary, so even if we have to kick in a couple million I'd do it. Unless Romero is injured more than we know, he seems a good bounce-back candidate.

I'd pair Span with one of our pitchers (Deduno if we can dupe anyone into taking him) and try and get a young starter in return. If Washington is still interested in Span, I'd shoot for Zimmerman and settle for Detwiler for Span and Deduno (or one of our other AAAA pitchers). I think the Nats might be open to moving Zimmerman as he's arbitration eligible and they have to pay Strasburg and Gonzalez already.

After these trades, the payroll is about $65 million. As much as Ryan seems against it, there's no reason we can't go big and go after Grienke. I don't think he will get much more than $20/year and I doubt he's dying to go to the NY or Boston market. That would leave rotation of Greinke, Romero, Detwiler, Diamond and whoever wins the 5th spot.

The payroll would still only be ~$85 million, so we could upgrade 2B/3B or RF as well.

I just don't see them trading Morneau and if they did thy would not get Ricky Romero. A team is not going to eat 14 million and give a stud because when healthy Ricky Romero is a stud. If you want to get rid of morneau it would have to be a salary dump. My feeling is keep morneau becasue I am building for 2014 when Hicks and Arcia will be ready. I abslutely think you bring back baker. Try to get a young cotrollable pitcher for Span like Delgado from Braves or Detwiler from Nat's because they are not going to trade Zimmerman. Zimmerman will likely be the number 2 starter in playoffs for Nat's. Don't do big contracts this offseason because the plan is to be better in 2013, competetive in 2014 and good again in 2015 with the additions of Sano and Rosario. This is a process so everyone needs to be patient.