DaveW

Per MLBTR: Ben, your comparisons to Wimmers are very disengenous, it says below that he still is #4 in a well respected list, and was still #10 for Baseball America. Also they say they think he can be a middle of rotation starter. Additionally the Braves are taking on the WHOLE contract.

Big difference. A major league team has 11-12 pitchers on a roster, while only 1-3 DH/Backup DH types at most. Pitching is always at a premium.

FWIW: Blackburn gave the Twins 5.4 WAR over two years, and Diamond gave them a 2.3 WAR a year ago. If he equals either one of those guys it would be a great thing frankly. One or two years as a CHEAP #5 has value. (It can allow you to not sign veterans for $5-$6 mil to fill those spots)

Looks like a good trade to me, everyone likes it except the Braves fan. I think the Wimmers crack is a little ridiculous personally. He is still only 23, his 2012 wasn't bad and he had a rough 2013. Perfect buy low move. You can never have enough pitching! At the very least he adds org depth, at best he becomes Scott Diamond lite if needed (or if Diamond hits arb)

Doumit already said he wouldn't catch this year regardless, right?

Young is a terrible defender at this point as well, and I think he is going to still demand a starting role no matter where he signs. The Twins can't provide that IMO unless you want to keep Sano down all year, or give him the DH spot. Again, Reynolds has plenty of warts, but will be a lot cheaper and a lot more willing to accept a part time role then a guy like Michael Young. Chavez frankly is intriguing, but wayyyyy to injury prone. I can't see an Ichiro trade happening, I don't think he would be willing to play in Minnesota.

Chavez can't stay healthy though.

At this point I think it only makes sense if they acqurie a guy like: Garza, Jimenez or Bailey via trade. Guys like Maholm and Arroyo are basically lateral moves at this point and would prob require more years/money than Correia. At this point I think the Twins should either acquire a #2 type like Bailey/Garza/Jimenez or just roll with what they have and offer Johan a minor league deal+ incentives. Part of me wishes they could somehow offer Johan a major league deal (1.5 mil base, 7-8 mil in incentives with IP) along with a team option for 2015 for 7-10 mil. Would this even be possible? This would at least give them the advantage of having him for another year if he makes a big recovery.

If that happened it would be the greatest draft by far in team history, and an argument could be made for one of the top 2 or 3 overall in the last 30 years. If you can get one star (#1) and one average player I would consider it an amazing draft.

Sign Stephen Drew. Trade Doumit for whatever. Sign Reynolds. Sign Suzuki. Position players: RF- Arica CF- Hicks or Pressley LF- Willingham 3B- Plouffe SS- Drew 2B- Dozier 1B- Mauer C- Pinto DH- Kubel (Can also provide depth at LF/RF if need be) Bench: 1.*Pressley or Mastroanni (If hicks wins CF job) either guy would be fine as a 4th OF 2. Florimon- Perfectly fine as the only MI utility guy, can handle 3rd if need be as well. 3. Suzuki/Back up C 4. Reynolds- DH Platoon/Bench Bat/Can give Mauer/Plouffe a day off at 3rd And you still have enough room for 12 pitchers at the beginning of the season (thus allowing you to stash one or two of Worley/Diamond/DeDuno without exposing to waivers.

I grabbed a ticket as I am going to try to book a "work" trip to Minnesota that week prior, however if plans change I would be more than happy to donate mine to another twinsdaily user. PM if interested, I should know by the first week of Jan what my travel plans are.

He hit 30 HR or more 3 times in his career. 25ish would only reach about 70-75% of his career high. I think its certainly possible in Coors Field. Heck even with a mediocre 2013 he was on pace to hit 20 HR playing half of his games in Minnesota.

140 games. 24 HR .270/.330/.456 I think he has a solid bounceback year, but the Twins won't hugely regret letting him walk.

Seems like an excersize in futility to be honest. Stewart is the only one that it makes sense to sort of talk about his future, and even he is ridiculously far away.

Couple issues I see, again I don't think Reynolds is some world beater, but he would come cheap, and if you needed him to play 10-15 games at 3B and another 5-10 at 1st base it wouldn't kill you that much IMO. -Betemit is terrible defensively, extremely likely even worse than Reynolds. Betemit also hits pretty poorly. I don't see the real reason to bring him in at all personally. -I like Chavez as a player, but he is 36 to enter next year, he is extremely injury prone and doesn't give you any real help against LHP. If Sano's timeline was 1 year out at this point, then I could see bringing him in, but I think he might cost to much to bring in for a couple months to potentially just be insurance for Plouffe (until Sano is up) Since he can't hit LHP he becomes a bit redudant at DH IMO. With that said, I wouldn't mind the Twins bringing him in, I just don't want to see them out bid the other 7 teams interested in him (per MLBTR) His defense has slipped as well. Frankly, I think Kubel has a much better chance to help out the team than him because of some of those reasons. -I don't understand with the appeal of Tracy at all, other than a fluke 2012, his 4 other prior seasons (and 2013) were very ugly offensively. Defensively he isn't bad, but really isn't anything special and it hardly makes up. The upside frankly is not there. In the last 4 years he only had one where he didn't have a negative WAR. Reynolds certainly has his warts, but he did have some solid somewhat recent success. I think he has significantly more potential upside then anyone else mentioned.

DH would likely be a platoon more or less one way or another this year. I get having the same 9 guys 8 guys behind the pitcher each day, but DH just seems like a no brainer for a platoon.

The Twins also didn't ever make a splash in free agency prior to this year as well...

I enjoy seeing the Vikes win. The crazy thing about this season is...its incredible how many close games they lost inside of 2 minutes. If they had any sort of legit QB play throughout this year they win the division easily (even with a poor defense, that has actually been looking better) Assuming they get a 8-10 draft slot, maybe the move is to trade down a few picks, grab Johnny Football and load up on defense the rest of the way. Keep Cassel around as a one year stop gap and let Manziel or whoever else they grab get some time to learn the league. The other thing they could do is the classic Vikings move and bring in a veteran to hold down fort for a year or two til the rookie is ready. Michael Vick, Cutler and possibly others could be available.

The walks bit is a little off the mark IMO, you are talking about over 33% more walks in a season. The whole "off the plate ball instead of X" works the other way. If he has 12 less hits or 12 less walks in the season it is near disastrous.

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes: Career numbers: Kubel vs RHP: .823 OPS Reynolds vs LHP: .834 OPS Not terrible for potentially 2-3 mil total spent combined.

The Twins need more hitters, period. The Twins weren't exactly full of power guys last year. Against LHP in his career Reynolds has a .359 OBP. He also is more durable then Doumit IMO.

Yeah, I think the bounceback potential is certainly there. Willingham went from a 3.6 WAR player to a 0.0 WAR guy in a year, if he can get back to the 2.5 or so WAR he was putting up prior to 2012 I think that actually goes along ways in getting the Twins back into "respectability" At this point, I don't expect really anything from Doumit. He needs to hit very well to be a worthwhile player at DH IMO

I really wanted them to sign Salty, now that he is off the table I think Drew is the next obvious target. Other than that, they frankly don't have a lot of options. 1st base and 3rd base are out of the question obviously. 2nd base is tough to fill and Dozier appears to be a decent stop gap at the very least for now. SS needs an upgrade IMO, Drew would be a very nice player to bring in. OF is interesting...I think its safe to assume both Arcia and Buxton stick moving forward. Willingham is prob your LF this year, and the Twins still have guys like Rosario, Hicks etc who could fit in sooner rather than later as well. I'm not sure I would be committing long contracts to corner OF's at this point. DH is....well DH at this point. Not sure what impact bat would make sense bringing in. Personally I think the Twins should do the following: 1. Sign Stephen Drew: The 2nd round pick should not prevent them from doing anything. He is an immediate upgrade and at least buys you 2-3 years of stability at the position. 2. Sign a back up catcher. Suzuki is fine at this point. 3. Call up the Mariners and try to buy low on Dustin Ackley. I think Ackley is a perfect candidate to add to the Twins. He obviously has potential, is still young enough to turn the bat around. He plays a solid defense at 2nd base as well, giving the Twins some additional depth there, and if he can figure it out at the dish, might even become an option for an OF spot down the road. 4. If they balk on Ackley, trade for Montero. Montero has struggled obviously, but is still very, very young. He isn't an every day catcher most likely, but he can at least fill in 30-40 games or so behind the dish. His bat has the potential to play at DH as well if it all "clicks" and the potential for 25-30 HR power more than exists. Additionally I think if used properly Kubel has the potential to be an impact bat this year for the club, Willingham could have a nice bounceback as well.

The problem with waiting for the next Dickey is you are literally waiting for lightning in a bottle. It would be the same thing as teams going after grocery baggers because Kurt Warner suddenly came out of no where. Dickey became an ACE because he mastered a pitch only a couple of players prior to him had, DeDuno, while I think can be successful will never have that upside. I just cant see anyway he ends up anything more than a #4/#5. Now, while I don't think the Twins need to cut him or anything anytime soon, he certainly shouldn't be penciled in for anything at this point, and should NOT be preventing them from bringing in other pitchers as well. Again, its a nice story, I like to watch him pitch a lot and I hope he succeeds, preferably as the Twins 5th starter for the next year or two. Fortunately for him, he will certainly get the chance to prove himself for the Twins in 2014 (provided he is healthY)

Couple things: Doumit is a very poor defensive catcher, he should note be playing behind the dish. And more importantly, he came out recently saying he doesn't want to/won't catch any more. Under no circumstance will he be a back up catcher, its questionable if he would even be the emergency catcher. For better or worse, Pinto is going to be the regular C this season, now the only question is if the Twins bring in a legit back up like Suzuki, or they decide to roll with Fryer/Hermann as the backups (not appealing)