Nick Nelson

Last October in this space, I predicted five outcomes that would unfold for the Minnesota Twins in the ensuing offseason. As it turned out, three proved accurate and the other two proved laughably, laughably wrong. As we look ahead to another offseason, which some are painting as one of the most important in franchise history, here's another set of predictions -- some bold, some not -- for what I expect to see in the coming months: [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] 1) The Twins will make a bid for Masahiro Tanaka but will come up short of the winning post. As a 24-year-old with the ability to become a long-term asset at the top of a rotation, Tanaka seems like a logical fit for the Twins. Given their budget surplus, they are poised to place an aggressive bid on the Japanese star, who appears to be the best pitcher available on the open market this year. However, with new revenues flowing in for all 30 MLB teams, and with a number of large-market big spenders showing interest in Tanaka, I suspect that the posting fee may set a new record (beating Yu Darvish's $51 million) and there's no way I can see Terry Ryan wading into those waters. 2) A veteran catcher will be signed. Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit both suffered concussions during the 2013 season and were held away from catching duties in the final months. It's unclear how either of those two will be handled going forward, and Josmil Pinto looks like a nice young option to step in, but with all the uncertainty going on, the Twins may see a need to add a seasoned defensive specialist to the mix. A veteran with a reputation for working well with pitchers would make a great of sense. 3) Terry Ryan will hand out the largest free agent contract in franchise history. The bar isn't set very high. Josh Willingham's three-year, $21 million deal signed in 2011 currently holds the title, and with costs expected to rise (perhaps dramatically) across the league, that amount probably won't go very far this winter. I'm not saying they're going to be inking any nine-digit commitments, but if the Twins want to add any kind of impact talent they will need to spend at a level that is unprecedented by their own standards. They'll have more than enough money available to do so. 4) Miguel Sano will emerge as the favorite to start 2014 at third base. Presently Sano looks like a long shot to claim a spot on the MLB roster out of spring training next year. He has spent only half a season in Double-A, and the Twins are surely gun shy about aggressive promotions for top prospects after the Aaron Hicks experiment blew up in their faces. Of course, Sano is in another category of talent entirely. He slugged .610 with 35 homers between Single-A and Double-A this season, and people within the organization have raved about his defensive progression as he nearly cut his error total in half from the previous year (42 in 2012, 23 in 2013). Over the course of the offseason, I believe we'll hear more and more buzz surrounding Sano's potential to win a spot in March; at that point, it will be up to the 20-year-old to capitalize. 5) Brian Duensing will be non-tendered. This is a bit of a stretch because Duensing has been an effective pitcher and is well liked by the organization. But he's eligible to go to arbitration for a second time and his salary could rise above $2 million. That's a fair amount to spend on a lefty specialist out of the bullpen and, while the Twins are hardly hurting for cash, they might prefer to save a little by going with cheaper in-house options such as Caleb Thielbar and Pedro Hernandez.

If there's one area of the Twins roster that you can look at and feel completely comfortable, both now and going forward, it's the bullpen. On the left-handed side, their best arm is the closer, but they also have Brian Duensing and Caleb Thielbar, with Pedro Hernandez also offering some potential. In terms of right-handers, there's Jared Burton and Casey Fien topping the depth chart, with Anthony Swarzak anchoring the long role. That's six relief jobs that you can already consider claimed for next year, meaning that there will probably be only one opening available for the taking.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] With Josh Roenicke outrighted and likely out of the picture, many contenders stand in line to join the bullpen as useful right-handed relievers, both in the immediate future and down the line. Let's take a look at them. Michael Tonkin, 23 Tonkin's outstanding major-league debut this season flew under the radar, at least from my perspective. He came up for one appearance in July, then another in August, and got a more extended look in September at a time when many fans had stopped paying attention. I personally saw Tonkin pitch maybe twice in the final month, because I was watching fewer games at that point and, when I did watch, I often tuned out after the Twins fell into an early hole. (Interestingly, Tonkin made nine appearances this season and didn't pitch in a single winning effort.) Tonkin didn't pitch quite as well as his stellar 0.79 ERA suggests, because he also allowed five unearned runs, but his peripherals were solid (1.06 WHIP, 10/3 K/BB ratio in 11 1/3 innings) and he flashed a powerful fastball that averaged nearly 95 MPH. He has established himself over the past couple seasons as the organization's best relief prospect, with setup or even closer potential, and is easily the favorite to claim the open spot in next year's bullpen. Ryan Pressly, 24 That Pressly spent the entire 2013 season in the majors was more a function of necessity than his performance. The Twins needed to keep the Rule 5 draftee on the 25-man roster all year long in order to keep him in the organization and, to his credit, Pressly made it fairly easy to do so. Over 49 appearances he totaled 76 2/3 innings, operating as a hybrid middle/long reliever and achieving solid results with a 3.87 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. Based on his lack of strikeouts (5.8 K/9) and his mediocre control (3.2 BB/9) it's tough to see the right-hander maintaining that effectiveness long-term unless he makes noticeable improvements, but at least the organization will be able to keep him around and figure what they want to do with him. There's been some talk of moving Pressly back into a starting role, even though he struggled mightily as a starter in the minors before being transitioned to the bullpen. A.J. Achter, 25 It's unknown whether Achter will eventually make an impact in the majors, but he has already easily surpassed his draft status simply by emerging as a legitimate prospect. A 46th-round pick out of Michigan State University back in 2010, Achter has registered a 3.17 ERA in four minor-league seasons while averaging 9.6 K/9. This year, he pitched well enough in the first half at New Britain to earn a promotion to Rochester, where he finished with a 3.04 ERA in 16 appearances. Now, the 25-year-old is participating in the Arizona Fall League, where he has a chance to further establish himself as a contender to join next year's relief corps. His biggest obstacle at this point is command; in 60 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this year, he issued 33 walks. Zach Jones, 22 Joining Achter in the AFL is Jones, who is farther away from the majors but also possesses considerably more upside. Acquired in the fourth round of the 2012 draft, Jones has barely gotten his pro career started but has already demonstrated the ability to dominate, with 104 strikeouts and a 1.97 ERA in his first 68 2/3 innings in the Twins organization. Much like Achter, he needs to refine his control (5.1 BB/9 rate), but he has proven almost unhittable as opponents batted just .172 against him this year in Ft. Myers. Trevor May, 24 This name is a bit of a wild card in that May has worked as a starter for nearly his entire career, and the Twins are surely hoping he can continue to develop in that capacity, but many believe his long-term future is as a reliever. May certainly has MLB-caliber stuff but his command and stamina have been lacking and he didn't do enough this year in his second turn at Double-A to alleviate any such concerns. In 27 starts with New Britain, he averaged just 5 2/3 innings per start. From a 24-year-old repeating Double-A, you would certainly like to see more consistently deep outings. As a reliever, May could maximize his strengths while better hiding his weaknesses. But of course, with their dire shortage of starters in the high minors, the Twins will likely show patience with him in his current role for the time being.

Although he hasn't had a great series, Torii Hunter's Detroit Tigers are headed to a decisive Game 5 against the Oakland Athletics after a huge win on Tuesday night. This is Hunter's seventh trip to the postseason -- a pretty impressive accomplishment when you think about it. You don't see too many players reaching the playoffs seven times in their career, let alone as part of three different clubs. Part of it is that Hunter has been fortunate enough to play almost exclusively on good teams, but certainly another part of it is that he has legitimately helped those teams get it done. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Hunter has been a great player, one whose contributions in Minnesota I may have under-appreciated to some degree in retrospect. While I've always admired Hunter's game, I haven't always loved him. He's notoriously opinionated and occasionally has things to say that I just don't care for. Then again, you can't fault a guy for speaking his mind, and based on the way he's viewed by teammates and media, it seems safe to say that overall he's an amiable guy and a clubhouse asset. Fans are drawn to his effervescent nature on the field, not to mention his constantly high levels of energy and effort. Is he a Hall of Famer? I would say no. He has never truly been one of the greatest players in the league and to me that's a prerequisite. But Hunter has a better case than you might suspect. He has hit 314 home runs while spending most of his career as an elite defensive center fielder (nine Gold Gloves). And boy, has he been consistent. From 2001 through 2011, he hit 20-plus homers every year (with the exception of 2005, when he missed almost half the season due to a broken ankle), and while his power has waned somewhat in his late 30s, he has still posted an .800+ OPS in each of the past two campaigns. When you look back at those scrappy Twins teams that largely reigned over the AL Central from 2002 through his departure in 2007, it's difficult not to see Hunter as the steady beating heart. Other players came and went, had their ups and downs, but Hunter was good every year, providing middle-of-the-lineup offense along with legendary defense at a crucially important position. There's no question that, these days, the Twins are missing many of the things Hunter brought to the table. That leads to another thought: Could a return to Minnesota ever be in the cards for the veteran outfielder? Hunter has one more season remaining on his two-year, $26 million contract with the Tigers. He'll be a free agent again next year, at age 39, when the Twins may be looking to add some extra pieces to a roster that will (hopefully) be shaping up as a contender driven by young stars. Acquiring players who are verging on 40 can be dangerous, but the Twins had great success in a similar situation with Jim Thome and it appears that Hunter has taken phenomenal care of his body because he's showing few signs of age. Might the Twins consider bringing him back for one last go? Should they? It's a fun talking point as the Hunter gears up for one of the biggest games of his life.

I'll say this much for Masahiro Tanaka: his timing is good. The Japenese star just put together the best statistical season for a pitcher in NPB history, and will be coming to the States just as Major League Baseball is receiving a massive influx of revenue from new media deals. Tanaka has been on an incredible run. After starring for Japan in the World Baseball Classic in the spring, he went 22-0 with a 1.23 ERA for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. At season's end, he came on as closer to protect a one-run lead in his team's pennant-clinching victory. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] He's a star on the level of Yu Darvish, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideo Nomo. He's only 24 years old. He has filed for international free agency. And there are plenty of major-league teams ready to spend big on pitching. The Twins are one of them. There are several reasons to believe the Twins will be active players for Tanaka this winter. Jim Pohlad has repeatedly insisted that he is more than open to aggressive financial measures in order to improve the club, while Terry Ryan has been typically wary of the free agent route. Ryan's main concern -- one that has been echoed by Pohlad -- is that there's great peril in handing high-dollar multi-year contracts to aging pitchers, who are notoriously susceptible to injury and decline. But of course, Tanaka is just entering his physical prime. He is only 15 months older than Alex Meyer, the organization's top pitching prospect. And his success in the Nippon Pro Baseball league has been otherworldly. In seven seasons, he is 95-35 with a 2.32 ERA, 52 complete games and 18 shutouts. He is renowned for his outstanding command, and his featured split-finger fastball is considered by scouts to be a plus major-league pitch. Of course, dominant numbers in Japan don't always portend effectiveness in the majors. The Twins have seen that on some level with Tsuyoshi Nishioka, but the more relevant cases would be players like Matsuzaka, Hideki Irabu and Kei Igawa. There's plenty of risk involved, especially when you consider that Tanaka could well command an investment that rivals (or even exceeds) the $112 million shelled out by Texas for Darvish two years ago. The Rangers' contract with Darvish is for six years and $60 million -- hardly outrageous by MLB standards -- but Texas also needed to win bidding rights with a $52 million posting fee for the hurler's Japanese team, the Nippon Ham Fighters. Undoubtedly, the Golden Eagles are licking their chops anticipating the bids that might come in for Tanaka given his age and status. Several large-market major-league teams appear poised to spend heavily on starting pitching this offseason, most notably the New York Yankees. As the posting system for Japanese players involves blind bids, Ryan and the Twins would need to send out a very, very significant offer in order to have a legitimate chance of landing the pinnacle of the international market. Could they be gun-shy about playing this game? That would be understandable, since they were burned on the Nishioka deal. Then again, they must feel some sense of remorse for missing out on Hisashi Iwakuma, for whom they finished runner up in the post bidding back in 2010. The Twins clearly had interest in Iwakuma but didn't do what it took to bring him in, and they've since watched him go 23-11 with a 2.84 ERA in two seasons with Seattle. The cost to claim Tanaka will be in another realm entirely from Nishioka (winning bid: $5 million) or Iwakuma ($19 million). I suspect he may break the current record held by Darvish at $51.7 million. That's an awful lot of money to pay simply to negotiate with a player, at which point the Twins would have to make another massive financial commitment. Perhaps too spicy a pepper to swallow. There's not much in the history of the franchise or the commanding GM to suggest that such a splashy play would be on the table. But with the Twins admitting they have surplus money to spend, and with Tanaka fitting so well into their emerging timeline, I wouldn't be surprised if the club made a bid they feel is quite aggressive in order to take a shot at the intriguing righty. Whether or not that's aggressive enough isn't in their hands. It could very well turn out that the Twins' ability to gamble on Tanaka is dictated more by the level of interest from other (far richer) teams than their own.