Brock Beauchamp

There is no reason to hope Carroll's option vests. No matter what happens, the Twins can always fall back to the team option they have on him if he doesn't reach 401 PAs.

I don't blame you. It's not as easy to find a donkey to rent as it once was and investing that much money in ping pong balls raises eyebrows at the sporting goods store. And then you have to find the rohypnol to bring it all together, otherwise you're stuck with the "Solo Butera", which is completely unacceptable.

Also known in drinking circles as "The Golden Butera".

I couldn't see any grammatical errors because the reversed-out text on that site was causing blindness. Worst. Design. Decision. Ever. Fine for image-based sites and galleries. Absolutely awful for text-driven sites.

We still have an entire prep and college season to play before the draft. Worrying that the top three pitchers will be taken before the Twins draft at #4 is premature. A lot can and will change before June.

At this point, I'm not even asking for a significant upgrade. All I'm asking for is an upgrade, period. It's virtually zero risk, as it lets the Twins out of a $2m player option for Carroll in 2014 if he doesn't perform in 2013. In most cases, I'm against the "more bodies equal better team" argument but in this singular case, it makes a lot of sense because the risk is so low. All you have to do is watch Pedro Florimon for five minutes to see that he's never going to be an adequate Major League starter (there are "no hit middle infielders" and then there are the "Pedro Florimons"). Dozier is a huge question mark. After that, there's nobody worth mentioning (sorry Seth but nobody is going to snatch Escobar away from the Twins if they stash him in AAA). Adding another player allows you to shift Carroll to a reserve role and save yourself from what could be a bad player option in 2014. All it takes is one player, a player that can be had for less money than Carroll's 2014 option. At that point, you have to ask yourself "Why the hell shouldn't I do this?"

Let's say the Twins picked up Kelly Johnson for whatever the Rays are paying him (probably between $1.5-2m). That's Carroll's player/team option amount in 2014. Sure, it's not a lot of money but it's indicative of the problem with this offseason and that's inefficient use of the free agent market. What if Carroll tanks in 2013 but given the continued struggles of Florimon and Dozier, is still run out there for 450 PAs? That means the Twins have a wasted roster spot eating up $2m in 2014 that they could have easily avoided by picking up another player to complement their middle infield. If Carroll continues to play well, good for the Twins. Then they enact the 2014 team option and keep him around for another year. There is virtually no risk in picking up a $2m middle infielder for 2013 because they have the money and they have the need. But as it stands now, that money could easily become a sunk cost on an old player who is no longer worth the space on a Major League roster. And that's my real problem. The team seems entirely directionless regarding the free agent market. There is no real downside to picking up a guy because he gives you a little more flexibility going into 2014 and he probably improves the 2013 squad. At that point, why not take the small risk and try to field a better team in the short-term?

No matter what, I think Brian Dozier will get his reps. Picking up another FA wouldn't negatively impact him too much. Escobar may be a decent utility guy but let's be honest here... Those guys grow on trees. And what's the worst that could happen? You end up with a few too many bodies and dangle somebody at the deadline. On the other hand, the Twins could be looking at a terrible middle infield if Dozier continues to collapse and Florimon can't hit his way out of a paper bag. Which also enacts the player option for Carroll in 2014. Again, Carroll isn't a bad player but no matter how well he plays, that team option stays in place for 2014 but for a very small amount of money, you can prevent being on the hook for what could be a really bad player option.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1345-Inefficient-Managing-of-Dollars-and-Years

In Twinsland, this offseason has been marked by a couple of trades that have been embraced by the community and a couple of free agent acquisitions that have been viciously attacked by a large portion of the fan base. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3178[/ATTACH] Most of us love what Terry Ryan did with the Twins' only marketable surplus, center fielders. Moving Denard Span for Alex Meyer and then flipping Ben Revere for Vance Worley and Trevor May were classic Ryan moves, taking advantage of competitive teams' desire to win now in exchange for a youth movement. On the flip side of that coin, we've seen some questionable handling of the free agent market by the Twins front office. After losing out on the Baker sweepstakes early in the offseason, it appears that the front office reacted rashly and offered up two years to Kevin Correia, whose stat line last season is frighteningly close to that of a certain Jason Marquis in 2011 (88 ERA+ for Marquis for the Padres, 87 ERA+ for Correia for the Pirates). Before I flog that already bloodied horse for the thousandth time on this site, let's take a look at another part of the Twins roster that was completely ignored: The middle infield. Last season, Brian Dozier posted some rather abysmal numbers for the team (.234/.271/.332) before being sent back down to the minors to regain his stroke (and fielding, and patience, and probably a bit of his sanity). He was replaced by Pedro Florimon, who hasn't authoritatively hit a baseball since playing as a teenager in the Dominican Republic. They are coupled with Jamey Carroll, veteran steward of middle infields across MLB for the past decade. While I like Carroll as a player and think he brings a very steady hand to an organization that - dons Hat of Positivity - has scuffled with their middle infield options since the departure of JJ Hardy and Jason Bartlett, it cannot be ignored that Carroll is entering his age 39 season as a middle infielder, an area of baseball where very few players make it out of their mid 30s as productive players. All in all, Carroll would be a great player to have on a competitive team. He's steady, gets on base at a rather good clip, and is a nearly perfect player to come off the bench and spell the starters up the middle of the diamond. Which brings me to a few issues: 1. The Twins aren't competitive, particularly in the middle infield. That means Carroll, like Nick Punto before him, is not being used in his natural role as a bench player with versatility. 2. If Jamey Carroll receives 401 plate appearances in 2013, the Twins are on the hook for a $2 million player option in 2014. Given the Twins, uh, lack of expected production in the middle infield spots in 2013, those 401 plate appearances are nearly guaranteed, barring an injury to Jamey. 3. The Twins have payroll flexibility. A lot of flexibility, as their adjusted 2013 payroll is on par with their payroll in the final years of the Metrodome. Most everyone agrees that the free agent market for the middle infield was lacking in quality players but that doesn't mean the cupboard was entirely bare and the Twins need middle infield help nearly as much as they need starting pitching. Despite that fact, the Twins failed to pursue any of the free agents available to them. Which, in turn, means that the Twins are likely to be forced to pay a 40-year-old Jamey Carroll $2 million in 2014. Add in the second year of the Correia contract at $5.5 million and you're looking at $7.5 million committed to large question marks in 2014. That's nearly 10% of the 2013 payroll as it stands now. Add in the rather inexplicable contract to Drew Butera, a historically bad hitter, and that number jumps over 10% of payroll. Is this guaranteed to be a failure by the Twins? No, most certainly not. Carroll is a quality player (right now, anyway) and there's a chance Correia will earn his money. But that's not the point, is it? The point is that a mid-market team such as the Twins has to be using their resources as intelligently as possible to fill in the gaps left by their minor league system at an above-average rate. By nearly anyone's standard, using 10% of their payroll to field a below average National League pitcher and a 40-year-old middle infielder is not the smartest use of available resources. By doing nothing to shore up the middle infield, Ryan is essentially writing off $2 million in 2014 that could have gone to a younger player that could help the middle infield enormously and wouldn't be such a risk to decline overnight as they pass the start of their fourth decade on planet earth. A 29-year-old Ronny Cedeno just signed with the Cardinals for $1.15 million after posting a .259/.332/.410 shortened season with the Mets in 2012. Kelly Johnson, 31 years old, was just snapped up by the Rays after posting a .225/.313/.365 line for the Blue Jays and is just two years removed from a .284/.370/.496 line with the Diamondbacks. None of these options are great ones; far from it. But given the wide-open nature of the Twins middle infield going into 2013, their obvious ability to spend some of that money, and the looming player option for Carroll, wouldn't it have been prudent to add another player to the mix in hopes that another body gives you a better chance to field a competitive team while also relieving you of being forced into a player option for 2014 that you may want to avoid? It's only $2 million. I realize that, yes. On the other hand, it's $2 million that isn't being used in the best way possible by the front office. And, unfortunately for Twins fans, that seems to be a recurring theme through this offseason.

I agree that the Twins need to open up roster spots for many of the kids coming through the system. I don't agree that they needed to leave open quite that much room (and fill the spots they did with incredibly lackluster players). I'm actually tempted to write something about Ryan's refusal to address the middle infield situation and how it impacts the team in 2014.

Yeah, the minors will be more interesting than the team in Minnesota, in all likelihood. It's hard not to like what Smith and Ryan did with the minor leagues over the past 3-4 years, even if most of us spend a large portion of our time complaining about their handling of the Major League squad.

Yes, that is absolutely possible. But it's no different than expecting the 2012 rotation to post similar or better numbers going into last season. If you have a front and middle of the rotation with a bunch of question marks followed by a back of the rotation with even more question marks, you're probably not going to win a lot of baseball games over the course of a season unless you run into a healthy dose of dumb luck. In all likelihood, this is what will happen: Diamond: due for regression but still a league average pitcher. Maybe a 1.5 WAR pitcher. Worley: I actually think he'll be pretty good and will end up the best pitcher on the squad. Maybe a 2 WAR player. Correia: I expect him to post a 5 ERA and be a negative WAR player. There's just no reason to think that he'll gracefully make the transition to the AL. He's the most likely to be replaced by Gibson, IMO. Pelfrey: A complete wildcard. He could be good, he could be awful. I won't even make a prediction. He's too fresh off TJ surgery. Hendriks: I think he'll make some strides this season. He probably won't be any better than a league average #4 but hell, I'll take that. He showed some solid improvement late last season and I expect that to continue. In his last 8 starts, he gave up more than 4 ER once, a real clunker against the Yankees. He needs to go deeper into games but the guy is still only 24. Overall, that leaves the Twins with three decent #3-5 starters under team control for quite some time. And, again, that leaves the Twins with one absolutely awful free agent pick-up and another mediocre risk (a good risk, but still unspectacular). At the end of the season, I think Correia will be the weak link and the area where the Twins could have made the most improvement. Some people around here don't like to hear it but I don't really care. There's just no reason to think the guy will be good in the AL. He has everything working against him. He puts too many balls into play in front of a mediocre at best, probably bad, defense. He's transitioning to a much more difficult league and couldn't post decent numbers even in the NL. He's not even an innings-eater, having never reached 200 IP in his career. No matter how you look at him as a player, there's no reason to think he'll be a good pitcher for the Twins.

I disagree. They need pitching to step up to get into the top 3 (but it's still possible without Arcia and Hicks).

And witches.

Uhhhhhhh. Scott Baker. Also, Edwin Jackson's last four seasons according to FG WAR: 3.9, 3.9, 3.6, 2.7. All over the place. Utter anarchy. Cats and dogs, living together.

Just two years ago, Pohlad agreed to a $110m payroll. There were plenty of reasons to think the payroll would be higher than $80m going into this season. Yeah, I'm sure those other teams will regret signing decent pitchers instead of throwing $10m in the toilet. Just like the Twins were so excited about throwing $3m in the toilet last year with Jason Marquis. But hey, at least the Marquis deal wasn't multi-year, right?

You'll be hard pressed to find someone on the board complaining about the trades. The problem is that the Twins were a 95 loss team last season. One young pitcher who projects as a #3 at best, even if the trade was a very good one, is not going to take the sting away from the fact that the Twins will probably struggle to win 75 games this season. And when the payroll is sitting at $80m in year four of a new stadium, that's a bitter pill to swallow.

Now I want Burger King.

Someday, fans might talk about him more than as a pariah. Probably not, but it's possible. But whether you agree with it or not, Correia is the representation of an offseason where the Twins had $20m+ to spend, one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball, and came out of this offseason with more pitching question marks than they had 12 months ago when Baker, Pavano, and Liriano looked to anchor the rotation. Oh, and they're also going into the season with Pedro Florimon at short so it's not as if they sacrificed pitching money to shore up their joke of a middle infield. You may not like it but fans have a right to be angry about this offseason and Kevin Correia embodies that outrage.

This is a typical January for a Twins fan. Promises were made, they went unfulfilled, and people who put emotional stock in this franchise are pissed about it. Now we're heading into a new season without much in the way of hope and baseball hasn't actually started so nobody has anything to talk about other than how much they've hated this offseason (and free agent wise, who can blame anyone for being mad?). In about three weeks, the 250 post Correia threads will die down. People will have other things to talk about as on-field play starts and we can get excited about the Hicks and Arcias of the world instead of bemoaning the awful Correia signing (which wouldn't even draw much ire if Ryan had gone and also picked up someone who is legitimately good at the game of baseball).

You new to the Internet? Also, I fail to see the difference between the whiners and those who whine about them.

1. I'd like to see statistical evidence that he calls more fastballs away than other Twins catchers. 2. When the average Twins pitcher throws 86 MPH with little life on that fastball, your only option is to call that fastball low and away unless you want it parked in the outfield seats. It's not as if Scott Diamond is going to blow it by Prince Fielder by throwing it inside. Fielder will just turn on the pitch and leisurely plod around the bases.