Nick Nelson

If you were surprised in any way by return in the Denard Span trade, you shouldn't have been. Terry Ryan told us this was coming four months ago. Back in July, with the trade deadline approaching, Ryan spoke about his approach: The general manager's recent quotes after trading Span to the Nationals for Alex Meyer reflect the same mindset: This is what I love about Terry Ryan, particularly in contrast to his tight-lipped predecessor, whose initials were fittingly "B.S." With TR, you know what you're getting. While I don't necessarily always agree with his methods, I trust the man. That's why I feel good about this trade. Given that the Twins were known to be talking to the Nationals back in July, when Ryan was describing a "high-ceiling guy" who might be in A-ball, there's a good chance he was targeting Meyer who fits that bill exactly. (Worth noting that Meyer could not technically be traded then as he was less than a year removed from signing, but could have been shipped as a PTBNL.) [ATTACH=CONFIG]2788[/ATTACH] Back around the deadline, a source (from the Nats?) told Jon Heyman that the Twins were "asking a ton" for Span, who didn't end up getting moved. Many people seem disappointed – or at best unenthused – about the return for Span. But it seems clear that one side finally relinquished in this long-time haggling over the center fielder, and the timing would suggest it was Washington's Mike Rizzo. After all, just days earlier he'd watched division rival Atlanta sign center fielder B.J. Upton to a huge five-year deal. That's pressure. My take is that Ryan coveted Meyer highly and the Nationals were very reluctant to give him up, even in a one-for-one swap that brought back a very valuable established player. And why not? Meyer has a first-round pedigree, a fastball that registers in the high-90s and a physical build that could portend dominance. Legitimate top-of-the-rotation potential. No prospect is a sure thing, which is the scary part of all this, but if Meyer develops even into a quality No. 3, six cost-controlled seasons of his service at a time where the price of free agent pitching is escalating will make this a knockout victory. If he turns into a true front line guy, Ryan's trade will be a success of franchise-altering proportions. Span was a largely underrated player and the Twins will miss him, but their long-term outfield depth made him relatively expendable. Ryan could have probably flipped Span for multiple lesser prospects or an ordinary major-league talent, but instead turned in his chip for the high-upside play. Just as he's said he would all along.

Congratulations!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2774[/ATTACH]Last weekend, I traveled down to Nashville to see one of my best friends get married. The fantastic event took place at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, which coincidentally is where general managers and other key executives from around baseball will congregate next week for the annual Winter Meetings. Rather than flying, we elected to drive down to Tennessee for the wedding. It was a slow, dull, 14-hour road trip that involved staring into endless cornfields and finding ways to pass the time. Actually, it was somewhat remindful of the Twins' offseason up until yesterday, when the club finally broke the ice by trading Denard Span to the Nationals for pitching prospect Alex Meyer. While a good move, it's geared toward the long-term and does nothing to benefit the 2013 team. To that end, the Twins still haven't made any splashes in free agency, and even the faint rumors we've been privvy to – those involving names like Francisco Liriano, Carl Pavano and Brett Myers – have hardly provided jolts of excitement for the fan base. As a result, there's been consternation amongst fans anxious to see some motion from the front office, but the truth is that things have been quiet all around the league. Typically we see at least a couple of the major dominoes fall in November, but here on the final day of the month, top-tier names like Zack Greinke, Josh Hamilton and Anibal Sanchez are still out there, along with the vast majority of their free agent counterparts. B.J. Upton is basically the only player we've seen sign a major deal. My theory is that this slow-developing market relates to the upcoming TV revenue boosts that will affect all 30 major-league teams. Agents who are looking ahead to the financial windfall on deck for next year – and the league-wide spending increases that will surely come along with it – are reluctant to settle for long-term contracts that adhere to established baselines. Certainly, this would help explain the inflated deals we've seen early on. We're in a transitional period right now, perhaps the early stages of a market shift, and it seems everyone is still trying to work through that dynamic. At some point, however, the action will pick up. There's a good chance it will be next week. We encourage everyone to stay tuned to Twins Daily, where we'll have news, analysis and discussion of any breaking news as it relates to the local nine.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2746[/ATTACH]With as many as four spots needing to be filled in the rotation, it figured that Terry Ryan – with his traditionally risk-averse nature in free agency – would target low-cost pitchers with upside who could be acquired on one-year deals. This strategy makes sense for a couple reasons: it adds multiple options to the starting pitching mix without requiring huge commitments, and hurlers looking for the one-year make-good deal ought be more apt to sign with a club that offers such wide-open opportunity in the rotation. If that was indeed Ryan's intended tact, he can't be pleased to see the Cubs aggressively following the same course. Already, Chicago has snatched up two of the most intriguing pitchers in this category. A few weeks ago, it was Scott Baker. And yesterday, the Cubs announced that they had inked Scott Feldman to a one-year deal. Much like Baker, Feldman is a pitcher with stretches of past success who is coming off a down year and looking to recoup some value. And much like Baker, Feldman hauled in more guaranteed cash than expected at $6 million. Yes, six million bucks for a guy who posted a 5.09 ERA last year, owns a 4.81 career mark, and has only once thrown more than 151 innings in a major-league season. Feldman offers some appeal as a guy who can operate in a swingman role and generally posts pretty decent peripherals, but he's nothing close to a reliable bet. His ERA has been above five in four of the past six seasons. The total seems somewhat extreme, at least from the perspective of an organization with less money to throw around than the Cubs, but perhaps only by the preset standards we entered this offseason with. As early names have come off the board, the numbers have ranged from eyebrow-raising to jaw-dropping. Purported reclamation projects are commanding as much as established mid-tier guys have in the past. We're to the point where Feldman's deal is actually being lauded by some as a value signing. If the trend continues, the Twins' money isn't going to go very far in free agency even if they hold steady with their budget, which is hardly assured. The inflated prices on the open market will also surely have an auxiliary effect on the trade market, where clubs with cost-controlled pitching can now increase their demands. At one point I thought a player like James Shields might come at a relative discount given that he's owed $21 million over the next two years, but now his contract is starting to look like a real bargain that many general managers could be competing to acquire. This environment leaves a team with finite funds and few palatable internal pitching options in an extremely tough spot. Even if Ryan has the green-light to spend, it's not clear that he should be splurging on the kind of deals that may be required to lock up adequate starters unless ownership is willing to commit to long-term payroll increases that will enable him to continue to build around large contracts for aging players. Yet, if Ryan shies away from the market, he's most likely submitting to at least another year of lousy on-field performance and the inevitable revenue drains that will come along with it. Additionally, he'd be doubling down on the ability of his own personnel to identify and develop young pitching talent for a rebuild, something they simply haven't done in recent years. The Cubs' signings of Baker and Feldman are bad news for the Twins, and not necessarily because Minnesota should have signed those players. The financial terms are highly troubling and indicative that there's going to be no such thing as a low-risk signing on the pitching market this winter. That will leave Ryan and Co. with almost no room for error.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2723[/ATTACH]Ask Terry Ryan what his payroll limitation is for next year and he'll tell you that he doesn't view payroll as a limitation. It's his way of sidestepping an important question, possibly at the behest of an ownership that has notoriously shied away from big spending. Ryan can downplay the importance of allotted budget and the significance of $85 million versus $100 million all he wants, but there's no escaping the fact that his level of financial flexibility will be a key determinant in the extent to which he's able to address the roster's various deficiencies, particularly in the short term. Because when you have to scour external avenues for players as the Twins clearly must, money talks, and more money means better, more reliable players. That's especially true when you're trying to lure said players to a potentially undesirable destination, such as a flyover territory club with nearly 200 losses over the past two seasons. The above seems obvious, but Ryan would apparently have us believe that it's a minor factor in his offseason planning. He would point, I'm sure, to the numerous teams with sub-$90 million payrolls that have found their way into the playoffs. He would likely point to successful teams that he himself assembled for much less than that. But these are different times. Competitiveness in the AL Central is kicking up a notch with the Tigers throwing cash around and the Royals looking more serious about contending. Meanwhile, the struggling Twins don't have a wealth of MLB-ready minor leaguers to step in and help turn things around on the cheap. They're currently caught in a transitional period where quality contributors of the past -- guys like Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Carl Pavano and Nick Blackburn -- have either moved on or ceased to be effective, and there's no "next wave" internally poised to take over the reigns. Not next year, not the year after. This farm system is bereft of high-end arms, and even if you assume a best-case scenario with the likes of Kyle Gibson and Liam Hendriks, they're still a couple pieces short of respectability in the rotation. If the Twins want to improve their decimated pitching corps to the point where it has a chance to be even a mid-tier unit any time in the near future, they'll have to hit the open market with authority, and early indications suggest that it might take a sizable chunk of change to to do so. The old bargain bin route would be the essential equivalent to a white flag. Ryan talks often about exploring all avenues, but even with savvy scouting and great luck, you're not going to find more than a couple impact players through minor-league deals, waiver pickups and the Rule 5 draft. The front office needs to think bigger, and I'm sure they're aware of that, regardless of any posturing to the contrary. There's just no way around it: to upend this two-year stretch of misery, Ryan will need to spend. He'll need to spend wisely, of course, but he will absolutely need to spend. The freedom he's given to do so should serve as a simple, clear indicator of the ownership's desire to right the ship in short order.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2712[/ATTACH]The free agent market has been slow to develop early in the offseason, with very few high-profile signings in the books as Thanksgiving approaches. Things should start kicking into gear now that the Winter Meetings are just two weeks away, but it's worth wondering whether the first few contracts are indicators of how the offseason climate will shape up once the dominos really begin to fall. When the Cubs lured Scott Baker away from the Twins earlier in the month, many were surprised that it took $5.5 million in guaranteed money to do so. That's just more than you typically see going to a mostly unproven player coming off major surgery. The baseball world did another double-take last week when Melky Cabrera signed a two-year, $16 million deal with the Jays. The outfielder's performance over the past couple seasons has justified that type of payday and then some, but is tainted by a 50-game PED suspension. Two guys with sizable question marks getting big guaranteed money. At that rate, just imagine what will happen when the established, healthy and relatively spot-free free agents begin to sign. Now, by nature, contracts signed in November tend to come out higher than expected. The players who sign early are generally coveted by particular clubs that will put forth an "offer they can't refuse" to finish the deal. That might be what we're seeing here. Then again, this also might be a sign that money will be flowing freely this winter. Every MLB club is in line to receive a major revenue boost in a year when new TV deals with Fox and Turner Sports kick in. Factor in other streams and basic inflation, and we could be looking at an overall market shift toward higher spending. If that's the case, the $20 million that we expect the Twins to have in the coffers might not go as far as we'd hoped. But we won't be able to make that assumption until a few more contracts are inked and we have a more representative sample to consider. At the end of the day, it might just turn out that the Cubs and Jays were very eager to make a splash.

We didn't do anything to "protect" Thrylos that we wouldn't have done for any other member in the same position. Again, we don't want users insulting eachother, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Are you under the impression that this is the first time we've locked a thread because ad hominem attacks were going too far?

I don't really get what you were hoping for. The thread wasn't deleted. It's still there, for everyone to see just how completely wrong (and arrogant) Thrylos was. But there was no need to let people keep piling on, flinging insults and puffing their chest to say "I told you so." That's the kind of stuff that turns away new users. This is a place to discuss baseball. Those of us who've been familiar with Thrylos know this isn't the first time this has happened. He reports "exclusive news," it usually turns out to be wrong, then he disappears for a while. I'm sure we now won't see him pop up for some time, so you really don't have to worry about him. Maybe the lesson to be learned here is, don't believe everything you read on the forum, especially when it's unsourced and from people who haven't won your trust. If something comes up that we believe to be credible, we'll acknowledge it and probably move it to the front page of the site. We can't be held responsible for everything that people post on the message board, although I think in the future we'll probably handle a situation like this a little differently. Speculation needs to be presented as such or it will be removed.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2699[/ATTACH]In their blockbuster trade with the Blue Jays earlier this week, the Marlins acquired a player who has been discussed in some circles as a potential target for the Twins: Yunel Escobar. The 30-year-old shortstop is coming off a rather tumultuous year in Toronto, but there's no denying that he's got some legitimate talent, which has been in short supply at the shortstop position here in Minnesota. Interestingly, the Marlins won't be using Escobar at short; instead they'll plug in young Adeiny Hechavarria, also acquired in the deal. The plan for now is to shift Escobar over to third, but Miami is reportedly open to flipping him and his $5 million salary. If he's available at a reasonable price, the Twins would have to at least consider. With a .282/.353/.390 career hitting line and very solid defense, he would represent a clear upgrade at a very problematic position, and he's under team control at a reasonable price through 2015. However, acquiring him also might require the Twins to go against their long-standing philosophy of focusing on character and clubhouse chemistry. I haven't met Yunel Escobar personally so I can't say with certainty that he's a bad dude, but he has a reputation as a malcontent and it didn't help that this season he was suspended for having hateful, homophobic language painted on his face during a game. Perhaps the Twins should welcome an opportunity to shake up their standards. By all accounts, the teams of the last two seasons have been filled with nice guys, but nevertheless the results were lousy. Maybe it's time for this front office to start focusing solely on production and on-field value, while dealing with auxiliary issues as they come up. Does Escobar provide enough on-field value to make pursuing him worthwhile? That's a very fair question in light of his performance this year. But as Terry Ryan and Co. make their evaluations, I hope they won't rule him out simply because of attitude problems. It's time to start prioritizing the quality of the product on the field over the climate in the locker room.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2679[/ATTACH]It didn't come as a surprise that Scott Baker signed a contract just a couple weeks into this offseason. He's not the first recognizable pitcher to come off the board, as Bartolo Colon and Hisashi Iwakuma preceded him. Baker is, however, the first to land with a new team. And I think that does come as a surprise to a lot of people, given the Twins' well publicized efforts to bring him back. Baker didn't spend much time testing the open market, as his new one-year, $5.5 million contract with the Cubs was announced Tuesday. Including an additional $1.5 million in incentives, it's undeniably a great deal for the 31-year-old right-hander, and one that the Twins were wise not to try and match (assuming he gave them the chance). Baker is a very good pitcher when healthy, but he's eclipsed 175 innings only once in his career and guaranteeing him $5.5 million in his first season back from major elbow surgery – despite a saturated pitching market – seems crazy to me. The Cubs didn't even mitigate their risk by including a team option that might get them a bargain in 2014. Many pitchers don't return to full strength until their second year back from Tommy John. It's natural to wonder what led the hurler to sign elsewhere so quickly. People will inevitably think back to the weird exchanges that took place between Baker and Twins coaches when he was complaining of elbow soreness back in the spring. Was there friction there? He certainly didn't move on to the Cubs because winning was his highest priority, so there's a temptation to ascribe motives. Why would he ditch the organization that raised him, even if an extra million or two was being offered by another club? To me, this is a case where Baker just wanted to do what was best for him, and it's hard to argue with his decision. He's already 31 and won't have many more chances for a big payday. So, coming off surgery, he jumps on the chance to earn a nice guaranteed sum throwing in the more pitcher-friendly National League for a season. He's not tied down past next year so he'll have a chance to hit the market again after hopefully proving that his surgery was a success. Good for him. Meanwhile, the Twins quickly lose out on one of their most accessible options and have to readjust their plans after probably expecting they'd be able to bring Baker back. Your move, TR.