Nick Nelson

Dear journal, It's been 63 days since darkness fell upon the world of baseball. We're now into February, and the end of this lockout really feels no closer than it did a week in. The league and MLBPA have begun to meet with greater frequency, which is good I guess, but there are no signs of tangible progress – at least not the kind we need to see with Opening Day supposedly less than two months away. We're nine weeks in, and still at the "baby steps" stage of the negotiations. Really great stuff. Normally around this time I'd be scouring sources like the Twins website for news and tidbits ahead of spring training. To visit that website now is a sad and strange thing. Top headlines there as I write this include: Lew Ford robbing a home run in 2004 David Ortiz reaching the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility (certainly not a sore subject for any Twins fan) A list of the best baseball movies for kids A story about Joe Nathan's 2004 season A list of the best baseball movies based on a true story Can you feel the preseason excitement coursing through your veins?! Seventeen-year-old Lew Ford highlights! Kids baseball movies! Whoo!! The roster page is a sea of faceless names. The Twins are drifting further and further from my mind at a time where anticipation for baseball usually consumes much of my attention. It pains me to think how much more this is affecting or alienating someone who isn't nearly as obsessed and invested in the sport as I am. It pains me to think about what this will mean for baseball's future if they don't rapidly pick up the pace on these negotiations. View full article

On February 19th, Twins Daily will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary. To honor this upcoming milestone, we're looking back at the most-read articles from each year since our site launched. Today, we dive into 2013, TD's second year and another non-competitive season for the Twins. In some ways, I feel like Twins Daily was built for times like 2013. The team was on its way to a third straight 95+ loss season. Casual fans tuned out, and so most major outlets understandably scaled back their coverage. It was tough to find much Twins content. We dug in our heels. And our top articles of the year illustrate that: profiles of lesser-known prospects, dreaming on future outcomes, and nitty-gritty payroll analysis. TD became a place to talk about the Twins without talking about the (waves hand in direction of awful 2013 team) Twins. That's not to say it's an ideal scenario. As we'd later learn, running this site is a lot more fun when the team is good (and our traffic certainly benefits). But in Twins Daily's second year, as the team continued to spin its wheels, we were finding our stride. 5. Minnesota Twins Top 50 Prospects: 21-25 By Seth Stohs Prior to partnering on Twins Daily, Seth had built up a sizable audience on his personal blog, Seth Speaks. One thing people loved about it was the extensive coverage of the minor leagues, going well beyond the ballyhooed top prospects. So many players grind away in relative anonymity to pursue their dreams, and Seth was one of the few to shine a light on them. This article, and its popularity, exemplify the resonance of this content, and why it's a crucial aspect of Twins Daily's identity. There were no amazing prospects in this lower-tier group, which included future major-leaguers Felix Jorge and Michael Tonkin. But I remember them all, because I followed Seth and TD. 4. Minnesota Twins Top 50 Prospects: 31-35 By Seth Stohs Here Seth dives deeper yet into prospect obscurity, with an article that performed even better than the last. This group also features two players who eventually reached the majors, including Luke Bard who is still hanging around with the Angels. (It might be his relation to Daniel Bard, a star reliever for the Red Sox around that time, that made this installment especially magnetic.) This is another reason hardcore fans have always enjoyed the more extensive prospect coverage: even in these deeper pockets of the system, you find guys who become contributors. And I like to think that Twins Daily readers feel they're equipped with special intel when such players arrive and have the casual crowd going, "Who?!" 3. Twins To Sign Phil Hughes By John Bonnes It was fairly obvious from almost the moment it happened that signing Phil Hughes would be one of the best free agent moves of Terry Ryan's tenure as GM. Even though Hughes was coming off a so-so final season in New York, it was fairly stunning to be able to lock up a 27-year-old pitcher with his pedigree for three years at just $24 million TOTAL. In his writeup on the move, John explained the upside of signing Hughes with a callback to recent history: "In 2008, the Yankees weren’t willing to trade Hughes for (Johan) Santana. Read that last sentence again. Actually, let me rewrite it, with the hidden words shown. In 2008 (eight years into their “drought” of not winning a championship), the Yankees (for whom dollars are nothing more than monopoly money) were not willing to trade (21-year-old pitching prospect) Hughes (with all of 72 innings of major league experience) for Santana (who had finished in the top five of Cy Young voting for four consecutive years)." Ironically, Hughes went on in 2014 to have the best season for any Twins starter since Santana left town. 2. Five Offseason Predictions By Nick Nelson Ahh, who doesn't love a predictions piece? Especially in the wake of a third straight last-place season that everyone wanted to forget. In this mid-October article, I laid out five prognostications for the upcoming offseason. Since we're bringing it up, we might as well look back and grade my work: The Twins will make a bid for Masahiro Tanaka but will come up short of the winning post: It's unknown whether Minnesota made any offer, but they weren't mentioned openly as bidders. The Yankees ended up posting $20 million and then signing him to a massive seven-year deal. A veteran catcher will be signed: One was indeed, with Kurt Suzuki inking a one-year, $3 million contract in January. (He shockingly became an All-Star the next year!) By then the need was obvious; about a month after this article was published, it was announced Joe Mauer would be moving to first base. Terry Ryan will hand out the largest free agent contract in franchise history: He sure did, signing Ricky Nolasco to a four-year, $49 million deal. Let's not talk about it. Miguel Sanó will emerge as the favorite to start 2014 at third base: Semi-plausible notion, as Sanó was one of the best prospects in baseball, coming off an explosive showing in Double-A. Trevor Plouffe hardly had an iron grip on the third base job. Unfortunately, Sanó never had a chance to mount his bid, tearing his UCL the next spring. Brian Duensing will be non-tendered: Nope. They paid $2 million and were happy enough to have him around in 2014, where he posted a 3.31 ERA as a lefty specialist in the bullpen. 1. Minnesota Twins Roster & Payroll 2013 By Jeremy Nygaard As a refuge for fellow hardcore fans and nerds, we at Twins Daily specialize in serving up numbers, data, and analysis. The Offseason Handbook project that basically sparked the site's inception (and ranked as the #1 article in our first year) was founded on this idea, providing roster and payroll details to inform your Hot Stove hypothesizing. This top-visited article from 2013 (which was actually posted by Jeremy on the final day of 2012) encompasses that specific type of appeal. I will say that if you click through and read the article now, it will look like a bit of a garbled mess. Twins Daily has evolved technologically over the years and sometimes that means old formatting and code get left behind. But you'll get the idea. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Order the Offseason Handbook — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

I remember thinking it looked great back then! Now in retrospect it looks like a Geocities page ?

On February 19th, Twins Daily will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary. To honor this upcoming milestone, we're looking back at the most-read articles from each year since our site launched. Today, we start with 2012, TD's first year and one that proved to portend a rebuild rather than a rebound for the Twins. Ahh, the 2012 season. Almost as ugly as our website looked back then. I mean look at it! You'd think we launched in the late '90s. Meanwhile, the Twins were taking it back to the late '90s with their play on the field, where a 96-loss disaster hammered home a cold reality: 2011's collapse was no blip on the radar. Nevertheless, this season gave us some memorable moments – both good and bad – and several were captured in the five most popular articles of Twins Daily's inaugural year. 5. Twins Trade Denard Span for Nationals' 2011 First Round Pick By Parker Hageman Ten years ago, Twins had an abundance of center fielders and a major need for pitching. (Sound familiar?) In an effort to rejuvenate the pitching pipeline, Terry Ryan traded Span for Alex Meyer, a big 6-foot-9 right-hander and highly regarded pitching prospect. It was a reasonable move at the time, and Parker noted as much in his writeup, but he also included this excerpt from Baseball America's Aaron Fitt, which proved to be sadly prescient: "There is risk with this guy. He is 6-foot-9 and like many tall pitchers there are a lot of moving parts. There is a lot going on in that delivery. It takes a lot for those guys to put it all together." So it does, and unfortunately, Meyer never did. All those moving parts led to constant control problems and injuries. He retired in 2019 with a 4.63 career ERA (including 14.21 with the Twins). 4. Correia Signing is a Sad Thing By Nick Nelson I remember this well. The signing. My reaction. Mashing out this rant on my keyboard. The decision to sign Kevin Correia to a two-year, $10 million contract epitomized my frustration with the Ryan regime. From the very start, it was a zero-upside move. Millions of dollars thrown at an "established innings eater" when they would've been better off giving those innings to young pitchers who couldn't have possibly been much worse. (On that note, the money line from this article: "It's not clear that he's a significantly better option than Liam Hendriks or Sam Deduno, particularly if you're building toward a future contender.") Say what you will about the current front office, but they don't make moves like this, and looking back at signings like Correia (along with Mike Pelfrey, signed the same offseason) reminds me how much I appreciate it. 3. Ben Revere Traded to Philly for RHP Vance Worley & Top Pitching Prospect By Seth Stohs The decision to trade Span wasn't all that surprising. Revere getting traded a week later came as a much bigger shock. Still, it made sense, given the impending arrival of Aaron Hicks and the prevailing need for arms. Here, Ryan did much better than in the Span deal. Vance Worley was a bust, but the additional "top pitching prospect" cited by Seth in the title was Trevor May, who had a nice career with the Twins and was a high-end reliever by the time he left. Revere had a few solid years in Philly, but was done as a big-leaguer by age 30. Turns out that's what happens when speed is basically your only standout skill. 2. 2012 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks By Seth Stohs Twins Daily was designed to cater to hardcore fans. We wanted to dive deeper into the areas less covered by mainstream media. So we knew things like prospect coverage and the draft were going to be some of our biggest draws. Thus it came as no surprise that our running list of selections in the June draft was among our most-viewed articles. In retrospect, the interest in this particular draft class makes even more sense, because it turned out to be one of the best in Twins history. Among the picks: Byron Buxton (2nd overall), José Berríos (32nd), Tyler Duffey (160th), and Taylor Rogers (340th). 1. Happy Offseason! 2013 TwinsCentric Offseason Handbook Is Released! By John Bonnes The Offseason Handbook is an idea that predates Twins Daily. In fact, it basically validated the concept of Twins Daily. Before we launched TD, I came together with John, Parker and Seth to talk about ways we could collaborate on content, and create something bigger than our disparate blogs. We collectively produced the first Offseason Handbook, under the "TwinsCentric" banner. The reception of that product helped convince us there was a community capable of propelling Twins Daily to success. So it feels fitting that the most popular article of the site's first year was the announcement of a new Handbook release. A decade later, both Twins Daily and the Offseason Handbook are still going strong. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Order the Offseason Handbook — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! To this point, I think the shorter-term commitments are a feature not a flaw. Arms break down. Expensive long-term contracts for aging pitchers just don't very often work out. Large-market teams can afford to live with the payroll bloat, small/mid-market teams not so much. (Which is why you almost always see large-market teams signing the big SP contracts.) When you look at the most impactful rotation acquisitions in the AL Central over the years, they're almost always trades. Lance Lynn, Kenta Maeda, Jake Odorizzi, Trevor Bauer, James Shields, Luc Giolito, Corey Kluber ... all acquired via trade. How many big-money free agent SPs have been big difference-makers?

You could just as easily say Polanco persistently playing baseball is responsible for his drop in production and ankle problems. Given that he never really played anywhere other than SS, I'm not sure you can clearly call it a positional correlation. To be clear, I'm not in favor of Polanco moving back to short with all other things being equal. I think switching him to 2B was the right move and I prefer him there. It's just that all other things are not equal.

What is the basis for this?? Polanco was a 4.1 WAR player and All-Star at shortstop for a 101-win team in 2019. In 2020, when he was injured and bad, he was still tracking to be worth 2.1 WAR in a full season, which is a very respectable regular. This notion that he is completely unusable at short seems based entirely on exaggerated recollections of his play there, and an irrational perception of the difference in physical rigors between playing 2B and SS. They're not THAT different. It's not like he moved to first base.

Trades have consistently proven to be a better and safer method of acquiring impact pitching than free agency over the years. Those reasons remain uncompelling to me. The idea that starting Niko Goodrum at shortstop (or some other marginal FA behind Simmons/Iglesias) in order to keep Polanco at 2B is absurd. People are REALLY buying that much into the Twins' stated logic about his injury risk and such? Again: the guy was a starting SS for back-to-back division winners before last year.

At some point, theoretically, the MLB lockout will conclude, and teams will make a mad dash to round out their rosters ahead of spring training and the regular season. Here's where the Twins will need to immediately take action once that happens. #1: Complete a Trade for a Starting Pitcher I've heard rumblings that the Twins were deep into trade talks on multiple fronts before the lockout commenced. If true, hopefully this generates momentum for a deal to materialize quickly once a new CBA agreement is reached. The upper tier of free agency is mostly picked over, leaving trades as really the only avenue for Minnesota to add the kind of difference-making rotation help it needs. Many possibilities exist. At The Athletic, Dan Hayes teamed up with writers from other beats to postulate Twins trade ideas, and they all seem appealing to me in their own ways. As I discussed recently when taking stock of the organization and its talent assets, the Twins have some clear areas of redundant value, giving them plenty of ammo to work with. I would say the likelihood of at least one trade for an established starting pitcher is extremely high, although their level of ambition with such a move is to be determined. #2: Sign Yusei Kikuchi, Zack Greinke, or Michael Pineda Their passive approach ahead of the shutdown means the Twins have basically missed out on their opportunity to target front-of-rotation upside in free agency. But they still have money to spend and minimal assurances. In my mind, signing one or more from the above trio is how you accomplish that. These are proven veteran commodities who can provide innings – potentially quality innings. Greinke is a horse, and basically hasn't missed a start in five years. He's topped 200 innings nine times in his career. His velocity and performance have tailed off in the past couple seasons, but the 38-year-old former Cy Young winner would bring tremendous experience and perspective to a young group. Kikuchi could hardly be described as an "innings eater" (he hasn't thrown more than 162 in a season), but like Greinke, he takes the ball every fifth day. Outside of a brief stint on the COVID list last July, Kikuchi never missed a start in Seattle, and while his overall results haven't been great (4.97 ERA, 4.93 FIP), there may be untapped potential in the former NPB star. Pineda's name is not associated with "reliability" given the time he missed in Minnesota due to suspensions and injuries, but he's a steady veteran performer whose presence would make a world of difference for a Twins staff that is lacking certified credibility at the moment. Dylan Bundy on his own is a very uninspiring pickup for the Twins rotation. Dylan Bundy in addition to one of the free agents above, plus a trade acquisition who's better than either of them? Now that's a solid offseason. #3: Figure Out the Plan at Shortstop Even though Minnesota's need at shortstop is glaring, I place it as a secondary priority behind pitching. Why? Two reasons. First, because I don't find it quite as essential to the team's success. The Twins have enough quality and balance throughout their lineup that I trust the overall position player group, even without a major addition at shortstop. I can't say the same about the rotation. There's no real base to work with. Secondly, the Twins have an in-house option available to solve the shortstop problem. While there's no player in the organization right now who you could look at and say, "Alright there's our #1 starting pitcher," they could turn back to Jorge Polanco at short and call it done. No one's saying that's an ideal course of action, but it's a reasonable one. I doubt it's the direction this front office will go. They seem firmly committed to Polanco as a second baseman. But that means they will need to address their complete void at the shortstop position, and quickly, because external options have already thinned out. Carlos Correa is seeking upwards of $350 million, and likely off the Twins' radar. Trevor Story is a possibility, but not a strong one. That leaves the best remaining free agent options as José Iglesias and Andrelton Simmons, followed by a bunch of backup-caliber options. Will they make a splash on Story? Will they go back to Andrelton? Maybe gamble on Iglesias' late-season breakout in Boston? Whatever their plan, they better act on it fast, because the Twins aren't the only team with a need at shortstop, and the musical chairs are running out. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Order the Offseason Handbook — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

I believe their stance is that it incentivizes smaller-market teams to not spend or try to compete. You look at teams like Tampa and Cleveland and they're making a farce of the system. If teams acted in good faith it'd be a fine rule (which is probably why players originally agreed to it). Yeah but it reflects onto MLB and the overall perception of it right now. That was more my point.

Dear journal, It's been 56 days since darkness fell upon the world of baseball. We're seeing "signs" of "movement" in negotiations between the league and players. I'm experiencing a compulsion to use air quotes in a very sarcastic manner. Reps from both sides met on Monday, and then again on Tuesday. This represents an exponential quickening of pace following a nearly two-month standstill. And yet, there's no real sense that palpable progress has been made. We only receive so much information publicly, but every leaked detail points to the same depressing reality: obstinate, greedy owners bargaining in bad faith against a players association that's trying to dig up toward an equitable situation. Stories of billionaires crying poor, in the wake of hardships that destroyed careers and lives, strike a very sour note with me and others. Last weekend I watched the greatest series of NFL playoff games in my lifetime. The Vikings weren't there, but are making waves with their front office and coaching shakeup. The Wild are a true powerhouse. The Timberwolves are an emerging force. Every other prominent sports league is putting forth an excellent product, in my market, while Major League Baseball fritters away every shred of good will. They're shutting out legends from their Hall of Fame over subjective, inconsistently-applied moral standards. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens? Out. David Ortiz, owner of a positive PED test? In. Why? Because he's nice? Don't get me wrong, I love Ortiz and am thrilled to see him recognized, despite the melancholy he evokes as a Twins fan. But the whole thing is so absurd at this point. Major League Baseball's commitment to disregarding an entire era of its history is like a slap in the face to fans like me, who came of age in the late '90s. I was captivated and enthralled by the McGwire/Sosa race. The name "Clemens" is synonymous to me with dominance on the mound. Barry Bonds is the greatest player I've ever witnessed in any sport. Baseball's position on the matter? "Forget about it. Didn't happen." Meanwhile, they can't get out of their own way and settle on a plan to move forward. The game's history is being erased alongside its future while sports fans turn their attention in other directions. Normally at this time of year, I'd be counting down the days until the arrival of those four magical words: pitchers and catchers report. Now I'm counting my grievances against a league that seems utterly intent on alienating its fans. View full article

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are... are you saying Luis Arraez should retire because Dee Gordon isn't in the majors anymore at age 33? The same Dee Gordon who was an All-Star at ages 26 & 27? Also, Gordon has a .319 career OBP compared to .374 for Arraez and his OPS is 100 points lower so I'm not sure grouping them together as "light hitting middle infielders" is quite fair. Arraez is an excellent hitter regardless of the lack of power. So you're telling me the Twins had a .675 winning percentage with Arraez at 2B in 2019 & 20. Doesn't sound "disastrous" to me.

The Twins literally won two straight division titles with those two up to the middle. We're just going to ignore that while pointing out a that bad team was slightly worse last year in a 26-game sample with Polanco starting at SS? Hm. Where do you want Arraez to play? I'm perplexed by the idea that getting one of their best hitters into the lineup everyday at his best defensive position is "not good."

Say what? Giving prospects playing time is exactly the argument in favor of moving Polanco back to SS. It creates much more playing time for the likes of Miranda, Gordon, and Martin. What prospects are not getting playing time as a result of Polanco moving back to short temporarily? More like, defense isn't everything. The last three years seem to bear that out? The Twins won two divisions and played .600 ball with Polanco at SS in 2019/20. They finished in last place in 2021 with Polanco at 2B, and an all-time great defensive SS signed to replace him. No one's saying these are cause-and-effect situations. But you can't make the argument that a good defensive SS is essential to winning. The contradictory evidence is right in front of you.

Notably, they also were among the best teams in the league at preventing runs in 2019 and 2020, and among the worst in 2021.

Yep. And now look: Galvis is off the table. You're left with Simmons (no thanks) and Iglesias, coming off a horrible season. What else? That plan was about sacrificing at SS to invest heavily in pitching (I had them signing Verlander and Gray). That's not happening. The big free agent SP splashes are gone. So now it's about sacrificing at SS to invest for pitching in trades, because that's really their only path to finding significant upgrades at either spot. If they go get Story, I'm fully on board and I drop this idea. I just don't see it happening. If this front office has shown anything, it's the ability to make a pivot when things don't go as hoped or planned.

I don't see the situations as very comparable. The Twins were forced to move Mauer off catcher. They really had no choice in light of his health and the extreme concussion risks behind the plate. If moving him back there were at all a feasible option it would've merited plenty of discussion. Moving Polanco off SS was much more optional and experimental. It was a shakeup move. I'm dubious of the relatively increased risk to his ankle from moving to another position 20 feet away. Again: he started more than 2 dozen games at SS last year! It's not like they are fiercely opposed to using him there at all.

The Twins won 103 games with Jorge Polanco as their starting shortstop. He was an All-Star and 4-WAR player there that year. How many games did Andrelton Simmons win with his historically great UZR last year? He was a sub-replacement level player. We all understand Polanco's defensive deficiencies at short. But they need to be weighed against the benefits of this arrangement. (BTW, Polanco's UZR/150 was really no better at 2B than at SS, if that's the gauge you're using. Bringing up Sano as an equivalent suggests you're not really making a serious argument here.)

But are the Twins willing to embrace it? When the offseason resumes, Minnesota's front office will be feeling pressure to address its extensive needs on the pitching staff. But as things stand, they won't be able to dedicate their full attention to this focus. Because as things stand, the Twins don't have a starting shortstop. Nothing even resembling a feasible option or fallback plan. That is, unless they're willing to change their position on Jorge Polanco's ... position. A ready-made starter at shortstop Polanco was the starting shortstop on the American League All-Star team in 2019. Of his 596 games started in the majors, 470 have come at short. He played the position almost exclusively until last year, when he shifted across the diamond to second base. No one would deny this was a successful pivot for Polanco and the Twins. He was never a defensive asset at short, but showed standout ability at second, where he looked increasingly comfortable and natural over time. Polanco was able to shake off his power-sapping ankle issues and recapture his excellent standard of offensive production. As a second baseman, Polanco got his career back on track and then some. He was the team's most valuable player. In light of this development, you can see why the Twins would be reluctant to turn around and reverse course. As Dan Hayes of The Athletic mentioned when I posed the idea on Twitter, "It was not lost on [the Twins] that Polanco’s health was not an issue after early May and that he responded well physically to second base." In Dan's well-informed estimation, moving Polanco back to shortstop is "somewhere around Plan M" for the Twins. And I believe it. But my question is ... should that be the case? Clearly the Twins are not diametrically opposed to playing Polanco at short. He was their primary backup last year and started there 26 times. It's a question of how willing they are to shift him back into regular duties, as a temporary solution to a pressing problem. Maybe the M in "Plan M" stands for... Making the best This Twins front office prides itself on being flexible, adaptable, and opportunistic. Through this lens, when you look at all circumstances, sliding Polanco back to shortstop makes a great deal of sense. Not only does his presence at second base leave a complete void on the shortstop depth chart – it also creates a logjam behind him at second. Luis Arraez is displaced to the point where he looks like a prime trade candidate. Behind him, young talents like Nick Gordon and Jose Miranda have nowhere to play regularly even if they're deserving. Top prospect Austin Martin also might be best suited at second. Moving Polanco back to short for the time being would free up second base for one or several of these players to step in and receive valuable playing time. Meanwhile, it would prevent the front office from having to make a desperation-fueled move to address the shortstop vacancy. What else is out there? The high end of free agency at shortstop has mostly been picked over. The Twins aren't going to sign Carlos Correa and they're probably not going to sign Trevor Story. There are a handful of starting-caliber options remaining, in the Jose Iglesias and Andrelton Simmons mold, but they are not very inspiring. If just a few more names come off the board quickly when free agency fires back up, you're exclusively in backup territory. Trades are an option, of course. But that means giving up assets that you could be using to acquire pitching. Finding a shortstop who's going to pair with Polanco, and give you a better keystone combo than Polanco and Arraez, will be very hard. I say that while being fully aware of the defensive shortcomings yielded by the latter arrangement. If nothing else, moving Polanco back to short would be a temporary fix designed to buy time. Until Royce Lewis demonstrates that he is (or isn't) the franchise's future at shortstop. Until they've had a chance to sort through second basemen like Arraez, Gordon, Miranda, and Martin. Once a better shortstop option comes along, the Twins can move Polanco back to his preferred position across the bag. Is this kind of back-and-forth player shuffling ideal or optimal? No, but "optimal" has sorta gone out the window at this point. Polanco's a veteran with plenty of experience at both middle infield positions. He's answered the call whenever needed. If anyone can handle the disruption it's him, and he'd be doing the team a hell of a solid. Sorting through solutions Even with the limited remaining options to address shortstop, I'm not saying this is the best one. If the Twins can find a viable taker for Josh Donaldson, or get a really good offer for Arraez, that changes the equation by alleviating the infield logjam. Similarly, if they can swing a no-brainer deal for a shortstop like Paul DeJong, I could get behind that. But if the "solution" to their problem is signing someone like Iglesias or Simmons as a stopgap, and then struggling to find at-bats for better players buried on the 2B depth chart behind Polanco ... is that really any better than pivoting back to the 2020 setup? The simplest solution to the front office's current problem at shortstop is right in front of their face. Are they willing to embrace Plan M? MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Order the Offseason Handbook — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article