Hollywood42

It's as easy as that, folks.

I am 100% with you except for the final paragraph. This is absolutely clickbait, even if the article does lay out the context more fully. Framing matters. When what the majority of people will see (because we know the majority of people on the internet only read headlines) is framed as "Oh boy..." - the reader fills in the rest as a signal to buckle up, prepare for Correa to be moved and all that follows. And this is also despite this type of news being an incredibly common occurrence every year - we should all know by now that the FO will move anybody if it makes sense to, but that doesn't mean they're actively looking to or want to But hey, I get it. This is how the internet works these days. It gets people's attention and gets you upset and churns out a comment section like we have here, which while not pointless and does have some good discussion, is ultimately going to be much ado about nothing. I just think it's a shame this is type of media is what the internet has decided to reward across all sorts of subject matters. TD is certainly not the only ones that have fallen victim to this

Ironically, articles like this are exactly why I am rarely ever on this site

Every year the Twins say "we're not really looking to move our best players, but we'll move anyone if the trade is good enough", and every year that gets turned into clickbait articles for people to lose their crap over

I mean that's pretty reasonable. Story is obviously the better player, but Polanco isn't too bad himself despite the trends of the offseason, and he's on a very team friendly contract for 5 more years whereas Story is a free agent next year. That makes a huge difference

Safely Cruz for me. Ozuna is a good hitter but very likely will never match his 2020 output. Moving forward I expect him to be a ~.280 hitter, ~.330 OBP with 30-35 HR a year. That's only a modest improvement over Eddie Rosario. Ozuna is very poor defensively as well, and it just doesn't make sense to me positionally to commit 4+ years to Ozuna. We'd have to juggle guys around basically each year to make space for Kirilloff/Rooker, enable a potential Sano switch to DH or Donaldson switch to 1B/DH, etc I wouldn't say no to Ozuna, but I don't think he's a very good fit here at all to be honest

The last thing this lineup needs is another high strikeout, low OBP bat that never walks. Defensively, sure he'd be nice to have, offensively absolutely not

Hard pass

Absolutely not

What do Royce or Kirilloff have to do with anything? And Mauer won't be expensive at all. If we don't sign Polanco, he won't be a reason why

I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but I go have to say, while technically true to say Buxton got MVP votes- Really???

I dunno, I really do think Mauer would take league minimum to stay if that's what it came down to. I certainly don't think that's what he'd end up getting, but I could definitely see $3ish million per year for 1 or 2 years

Where does this number come from?

The thing with Mauer is, who else do we currently have at 1B? Tyler Austin, sure, but without Mauer there's no backup and we still have a hole at 1B/DH. You could suggest that Sano moves to more of a 1B/DH role than 3B, but then there's a hole at 3B. Maybe we get Escobar back to fill that, but he'll probably be fairly sought after once Machado goes off the board. Rooker et all still need another year or two before they're ready to step in I certainly understand why we shouldn't be making it a top priority or anything to re-sign Mauer. I love the guy, but you can't argue against the fact that he doesn't give you the production you'd typically want from a 1B. With that said, as it currently stands there's clearly a place for him on the roster, and he isn't going to want to go anywhere else. Mauer won't be at all expensive either, and while he won't win a batting title anymore or hit 20 HR, he really won't hurt us at all either I'm personally in full support of bringing him back for a cheap 2-ish year deal. He wants to stay, he still has some production left in him, and it's not like we have significantly better options other than him. Plus the whole story aspect and letting him break a few more Twins records, maybe help his HOF case a bit. When Rooker is ready, reduce Mauer's role a bit. He'll be on board so long as he gets to stay and keep playing. I don't see any big reasons not to bring him back with how things currently sit

All depends on how many years. If we can get him to a 4 year deal, it's absolutely worth it, even if we have to pay $25ish million each year. If he's absolutely not willing to take less than 6 years, then it starts to become more of a question. You do have to consider that we'll need to be looking at extending Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Berrios, Kepler, and so on in the next few years. But the bottom line is that our team desperately needs a true #1 ace starter, and getting one would, I believe, set us up for a deep playoff run. Darvish is the best opportunity we've had in forever to get an ace through free agency, and it would be arrogant to not at least explore that option