jokin

So in your scenario, the Twins Catchers will be? Doumit and....? (I actually think this is how this is going to play out and long-term, that tandem might be the answer. I have 2 names in mind to become the regular C in the meantime, just wanted to hear your prediction).

Yup. As long as he has options left, stash Hermann in Roc. as your emergency call-up catcher. Time for Gardy to relinquish the multiple-catcher safety blanket once and for all.

Oh, Snap! Good catch, spy. Nice chess move by the M's. Pass.

Concur. Morales or Hart should be at the top of the hitting shopping list!

Continuation of the 3-catcher alignment (4 counting Mauer in a pinch) drives me to distraction- need more speed and positonal flexibility in the back-up roles, especially if they inevitably return to the 13 man pitching staff yet again. I concur that Pinto, Romero, Meyer, Mays and Hicks will all start in AAA, but barring a disastrous Spring Training, it's hard to imagine that Arcia will be held back (the one possible rationale for holding Arcia back in AAA would be the vacant roster spot needing filling created by Rosario's suspension). Similarly, I can see Eric Fryer on the 25-man to open the season, but I'm willing to wager that the Twins will pick up one of the low tier C FAs to be the opening day starter. (They should TRADE for Matt Wieters instead, motivated sellers in Baltimore). They do need to showcase Willingham and Doumit to maximize their value, so they will be given pretty large and regular roles at the season's outset (it's just how the Twins FO and Gardy roll). It's arguable under this scenario that besides adding a veteran catcher, another good veteran hitter be added on a short-term deal with the idea of promoting the new wave in June, July and August with the understanding that some or all of these vets are traded to facilitate the move. Unfortunately, TR has had little success at moving veterans in in-season trades for much value (Butera is the recent exception to that rule). This would clear the way for a second-half lineup featuring all the usual suspects/top prospects (which hopefully would also include Buxton, but probably not Rosario).

Yup. You and I have had a running conversation for 2 years now, Bird. This is all I've asked of TR since he came on board, and I'm similarly thrilled with the upgrades thus far......even if Ryan had to be dragged kicking and screaming to finally pull the trigger already.....makes me tend to think that all those "woe is me" crocodile tears and "Nobody wants to play in Minnesota" huffing was all just a maudlin facade..... And still, I'm more than willing to forgive and forget, especially f TR continues at the major league level in acquring steak and potatoes talent over the frivolous froufrou he perpetrated on us the previous 2 offseasons. It feels good to finally be on the same page with you, Bird.

If they're asking for anything other than B prospects and/or moderately above replacement level pieces for Hardy, they're putting on a very transparent bluff to see if there's a sucker in the room. The "Hardy problem", and what to do with him, has been omnipresent ever since the arrival of Machado. They aren't very likely to re-sign him and they want to put Hardy's dollars to good use to fill their other holes, now! There is no way anyone will be foolhardy enough to be held up for a King's Ransom like you describe for a one year rental of Hardy. Wieters is going to cost the O's in arbitration the next 3 years, he's available right now for a reasonable exchange and some salary relief/

TR is going to ride that Presley Pony until he proves once and for all his AAAA-ness, probably no later than the 1st of June. Hicks then gets the nod in CF. Arcia in LF/Willinham DH/Doumit & Parmelee in RF with Mastro and Hermann back-ups.... I agree.....it's patchwork ugly....but TR has himself in a corner with Doumit because of that ill-advised extension...probably untradeable at any price.

I haven't read the rest of the thread...but the Yankees clearly are playing mind games on the rest of the League about their supposed "desperate" attempts at getting the payroll under $189M and shedding the bad contracts once and for all. In fact, they're clearly going after the best FAs at every position of weakness and doing whatever it takes, Yankee-Insane $ & Ridiculous Out Year-Style.....heck, they'll get Tanaka too, if the MLB doesn't stop them from doing so by bending the posting rules. But don't you think the terms of the Ellsbury deal stands out particularly as a Bronx-Bomber shot across the Red Sox bow and really just rubbing it in their face?.

Trade for JJ Hardy and Matt Wieters, the Orioles are shopping them- and now they need a closer. They just gave away Jim Johnson for practically nothing. Sano moves into the starting lineup no later than June. Arcia OPS's at .800. Willingham has a bounceback year primarily DHing. Mauer stays healthy all year and OPS's .925 in 160 games at 1B. Hitting problems significantly rectified.

Seriously, as TR has intimated, the #5 spot is Deduno's to lose. Besides, Worley/Deduno both could be candidates for extended time on the DL. Diamond as a lefty would fit in nicely in the bullepen/6th starter role. And I don't think anyone will claim Hendriks if the Twins time it right. Problem solved....an embarrassment of riches indeed....

Methinks the concept of "addition by subtraction" comes into play here.....

Couldn't agree more and I've argued as such previously. I hope TR has truly turned the corner and learned his lesson from the last 2 years. Trade Perkins for a strong SP prospect like Hunter Harvey at Baltimore (continue building high-quality SP depth in the lower levels, heck, all these teenage phenoms-in-waiting can stagger their inevitable TJ surgeries and then start hitting the rotation in waves, starting in 2016). As far as "real 1/2s", unless they make a blockbuster deal for someone like Price, the only realistic option in FA is Tanaka- and his status as an Ace isn't certain (but I hope they pursue this with an all out effort- especially if the posting price ends up being capped).

Agreed, and have continually argued for such. Which is why his days with the Twins are sorely numbered. The logical trade is to the Orioles, they love them their ex-Twins and are in the process of lopping off salary, ie, as most recently in the form of their closer, Jim Johnson, to gain payroll room for FA SP acquisitions, in addition to their now-gaping hole for a cheaper closer, they are also looking for help at DH, LF and at 2B, and would like to move Hardy out of SS. Plouffe would be the perfect platoon partner with Davis at 1b. Plus 21 year old Jonathan Shoop appears ready to be their next Manny Machado, somewhere in the infield- 2B, perhaps 3rd. Plouffe could also partner with Ryan Flaherty at 2b or 3b, as well, to facilitate the Machado move. Assuming Machado is 100% healthy to open the season @ SS for the Orioles, how about Plouffe, Willingham, Worley AND Glen Perkins for JJ Hardy, Matt Weiters (O's are shopping him) and PTBNL (SP Hunter Harvey). [Though the O's would surely holdout for Rosario, I would hope the Twins would hold out for more as Hardy is only signed for 2014].

The complaints were predicated on Ryan's obvious failure to make good on his promise to focus and fix the Starting Rotation and Correia ending up the "prize" acquisition. Ryan went into complete hibernation after December 15....his face was on milk cartons as late-FA-signees like Lohse and Marcum went to other teams unopposed by Ryan (Ryan can't be called "brilliant" for somehow "knowing" that Marcum would sustain an injury unrelated to his previous one in 2012). In addition, Ryan had not one, but two shots at claiming Todd Redmond, FOR FREE. Further, he did nothing to acquire a major-league experienced Center Fielder, I'm sure the pitching staff appreciated that complete lack of effort or concern about the potential downside to that situation, as well. To sum up, even though KC happily outperformed the (low) expectations for him (as previously documented, Correia also had the good fortune of his starting schedule, cleaning up on many of the weaker teams which made up the majority of his starts).... this still represents a failure on the part of Terry Ryan in his inability and or pig-headed and obstinate State of Denial to properly assess how truly feeble and weak his various SP options were..... you need no further proof than last week's signings..... when Ryan finally bowed to the 21st Century realities of major league baseball. (Better late than never, TR, Bravo!)

As the club has finally acknowledged that what many of us have advocated for over the last 2 offseasons IS the proper direction to head towards in order to resurrect the franchise, I've moved up from my September prediction of 62 wins in 2014....if Ryan shuts down all club-improvement activities shortly after the Winter Meetings (with only cosmetic and perfunctory roster moves in the interim), as he has done the last 2 years, I expect only 70-74 wins. If he decides to make a continued commitment in aspiring to upgrade, fine tune and tinker with the product all the way up to the end of Spring Training (removing more dead weight and filling the remaining holes with legitimate MLB players at SP, C, SS, OF ), there's a fighting chance that 75 is the floor and 80 is the ceiling. As many have said previously, there're many miles to go before April 1. Other teams in the division, and elsewhere, continued to upgrade until that point- and can continue to present an impediment to the Twins getting out of their morass at the bottom of the AL. The White Sox, for example, are bound to be better than in 2013, and KC and Cleveland established something to build upon. Likewise, suddenly-fully-healthy arms from some combination of Deduno, Worley, Diamond and possibly Pelfrey, along with a sparkling debut from Meyer, say in May or June, can change the expectations and overall complexion of the Twins quite radically.

I think the Korean is still a possibility that intrigues them enough to still consider- hard to fathom that Garza would still be an option.

A veritable embarrasment of riches? It actually could become so should the Vanimal regain his lost form. My question. Can the Twins pull the same scheme as the Dodgers did (on a miniscule relative scale, of course) and stash their current and/or future collection of 7-8 (Pelfrey still an option?) potential starters in the: 1)collective rottion, 2) the bullpen, 3) the DL and/or 4) the minors? If not, what sort of trade is in the offing? I mean, they won't just entirely write off Diamond, Worley and/or Deduno, right?

I'm there. Diomer Navarro would fill the bill as the FA catcher quite nicely, and well within budget (without the long-term encumberance), while waiting to see how significantly and quickly that Pinto makes his own impact felt. I'm not on board with Half Measures, though. The poster you responded to re-stated the long-time fallacy that the Twins accumulate "rollover" money- while it's readily apparent that they do not do so-there's no such thing as saving up in 2013-14, for purposes of taking a shot at bigger names in 2015. The money is there, the commitment by Pohlad is there, this offseason, right now. Now that Nolasco is in the fold, why not double down....roll the dice.... doing whatever it takes in insuring the winning bid on Tanaka?.....makes a lot of sense compared to trying to compete for more known quantities, Kershaw, et al, one year later. At least 3/5ths of your rotation would be set up for the arrival of the next wave. If Meyer and Gibson come around and establish themselves in rounding out the rotation sometime during 2014, the Twins could actually be a fringe contender as early as this coming season and can realistically plan to hit the ground running as a full-blown contender in 2015.

We have the prologue for this deal already written. The Rays traded Shields basically for 3 young prospects, 5th round pick (IF Patrick Leonard 21), 1st round pick (SP Jake Odorizzi 23, prospect ranked # 45) and of course, the prime prize, 3rd round pick (Wil Myers 22, prospect ranked #4 overall). That would mean one of the top 2 Twins prospects AND Travis Harrison or Aaron Hicks, PLUS Alex Meyer.....while the Twins would get Price and a Wade Davis and Elliot Johnson set of equivalent steak knives. Yuck. The Rays are already way ahead of us in engineering this type of deal for maximum value, and have a history of fleecing the Twins- this just isn't going to happen.

I'm afraid of the consensus answer because of all the denial going on around here, but consider this: Vargas was placed on waivers, August 1, 2012, and was actively being shopped around by the M's, at least partially for salary relief in the midst of another miserable season for the Mariners. Trevor Plouffe had been on the DL for 10 days, after being the hottest power hitter in baseball in June and July. Vargas was making $4.85M in 2012 and due to make $8.5M in 2013 in the final year of his contract (So his "number" of dollars/year has actually dropped with his new contract!). Plouffe was playing for league minimum with first year Super2. Plouffe's career L/R split would have perfectly complimented Kyle Seager's reverse split at 3rd Base- and given the M's an opportunity to see if Plouffe could also be a Super-Util role guy. If dollars were less of a concern for Seattle- and moreso for the Twins- Josh Willingham was having a stellar year with still 2 years left on his contract @ $7M/yr (The M's ended up trading Vargas for DH Kendrys Morales in December 2012). What teams would have been standing in the way of either one of these potential deals? IIRC, none. The Twins could have offered an extension similar or in the neighborhood to the Royals offer, without competition, to Vargas anytime during 2013. Even with Vargas's injury and DL trip (9 starts lost), he still would have been the Twins best SP this season: Vargas 2013 WAR: 1.8 Correia 2013 WAR: 1.6 Deduno 2013 WAR: 1.5 Pelfrey 2013 WAR: -0.3 Diamond 2013 WAR: -1.0 The Twins have to face the fact that $8M/yr is the going rate for a guy with a career ERA just over 4.00, and a career ERA+ just under 100, who annually has a fighting chance to give you 200 innings. Nice 4/5 guy for the Royals, in the long run would have been very nice in the same role for the Twins.

Yup. Nice to have a veteran able to consistently go deep in games over the next 4 years to pick up for the rookies and their inconsistencies.

+1. Thanks for coming back! Excellent summation.

And people wonder why some of us get cynical about the recent state of affairs....

I guess I'm in that (not so) "tiny minority", as well. And we know how well the social contracts replete with "hypothetical assurances" about surplus payrolls have gone for Twins fans since the advent of Target Field. Still makes one wonder how much the Twins could have extracted from the Red Sox a year ago when Mauer was still a catcher. (Besides demanding and receiving a 1/2 starter in trade from the Red Sox, THEN, the accompanying payroll relief would have put them in position to be in the drivers seat for another one in the FA market, NOW).