Will the Twins ever sign a top free agent or are we all just wasting our time?

[Danchat]

 

Berardino: "reportedly refusing to go beyond five years at around $20 million per season"

https://www.twincities.com/2018/02/13/starting-nine-answering-twins-biggest-questions-as-spring-training-begins/

Whoops, I hadn't seen that. I guess you can disregard what I said... though it's still shocking to see the small contracts teams were throwing Darvish's way.

[Rhino and Compass]

I think with all the talk of how close Thad was with Darvish, it's more likely that, from the outset Yu told them the Twins weren't viable contenders for his services. He wanted to go somewhere he was comfortable, like the Rangers or Dodgers, but they weren't interested, so failing that, he wanted to go to a big market. He's from Tokyo-Osaka, it's not unreasonable to believe that given the choice, he wouldn't want to spend his 30s in a sleepy midwestern town. 

When the Dodgers and Rangers were out, my impression is that the Cubs were the only viable alternative in his mind. Maybe the Twins offered 5/100, but perhaps thats only to say they did. I get the impression that they could have gone 6/150 and they still wouldn't have been in the neighborhood.

Anyways, I didn't think he would come here, and I am not a big fan of big free agent deals, esp. for pitchers, so I'll survive. The only problem is the hype the Twins built up for us this offseason. I think a trade is a better avenue for long term improvement.

If the twins were going to sign a FA, I wanted Chatwood, so I was already irritated with the Cubs before Darvish went there