First of all, I haven't seen anyone saying the Twins should "do anything" to get back to immediate contention next year. But I'd certainly argue that the team should look for young players that can help right away and put some of their freed up payroll into pitchers that can make an impact. The alternative is to have the Pohlads pocket the $20 million rather than spending it in free agency, and trading away all veteran assets for prospects. Maybe a nice theory until you look at the job this organization has done of evaluating young talent in recent years. The Twins aren't in a position like the Pirates and Royals because they have no tradable superstars. They have guys like Span, Willingham and Morneau that they can probably move for B-prospects. That's not a great recipe for rebuilding, especially when the kind of lesser prospects you tend to target are almost always some variation of Pedro Hernandez and Eduardo Escobar. I'm all for signing a FA pitcher until it becomes 5/80M deal for an early 30's average pitcher. That's the problem with FA. The EVIL Pohlads might pocket a little money in the short term but they retain payroll flexibility for future teams. Nobody has suggested trading Willingham or Span for some variation of Pedro Hernandez or Eduardo Escobar. There is no deadline to trade those 2 since they are signed for multiple seasons but it's time (was time) to make them available to pick up some legitimate MiLB talent.