nick5253

Agree - I was simply saying it could be Nick Blackburn like in that he's given an extension needlessly with no or very limited upside for the deal. The biggest take-away from the Blackburn deal was to not handcuff yourselves into a player without getting a heck of a lot more benefit than minimal cost certainty.

5 yr 40 mil seems insanely high. 2015 will still be pre-arb, so that's 600k or so. The first arb year will only be 2-3mil range? So then you're giving him what 8,12 & 15 mil those last 3 years? That makes no sense to me. Go ahead and play it year-to-year. There is a tiny risk he's going to out-play that first FA year of 15 mil at which point you give him a QO and take the pick if he declines. The Twins simply have cheaper replacements (hopefully) and given his limited success so far, it would be Nick Blackburn like to make this deal.

The risk is with Gardy. You give him the option of starting a veteran over a rookie or 2nd year guy (Arcia) and he's going to take the veteran nearly every time. Give him a veteran he's familiar with, and Arcia has no chance.

I think Samardzija will end up costing more in prospects than people realize right now. The Cubs have zero need to trade him as they still control him for 2 more years. He is their only high upside arm in or near the majors. That said, they would absolutely move him for a top 50 prospect. In a deal with the Twins I think it would have to start with Meyer and I just don't think that's a direction the Twins will go.

The Twins should have been following the Cubs 'shortcuts' the last 2 years. Both clubs started from nearly the same place - the Cubs brought in Epstein in Oct '11, the Twins brought back Ryan in Nov '11. Both farm systems were utterly devoid of top talent as well as terrible at the MLB level. The Cubs, however, have been aggressively building near MLB level talent through crafty FA signings that lead to trades. Paul Maholm, Scott Feldman among others were signed as cheap FAs and promptly flipped for impact minor leaguers in their 1st year. The Cubs have also been more aggressive selling off their own veterans: Soriano, DeJesus, Sean Marshall, Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza - the returns from these guys are now showing up in the top 10 prospect lists. The Twins on the other hand balked at trading Willingham at the height of his value and let Cuddyer & Kubel play out their contracts. And they waiting until Liriano & Morneau were near their lowest value before trading them. I fully agree with the path the Twins are on - doing a full rebuild - because the system was so terrible, it had to happen. BUT, if you go this route, own it, commit to it, and make some smarter moves. Leverage the 20mil you have left over in 2013 to sign 2-3 guys that might bounce back for a half season and then flip em. This is one 'shortcut' the Twins would be well served to take.

I highly disagree. I don't think voters ever consider the salary of a player when voting for HOF. And since salaries continue to rise, 5 years after Mauer has retired, 23 mil per year will seem like a small sum for a potential HOFer. I have never understood why fans care about salaries and whether or not the player is 'earning' the salary. If you look at WAR and a simplified 5 mil per win, Mauer has greatly exceeded his salary and 'earned' quite a bit of that contract: Career to Date Earnings: $85 Mil Career to Date WAR: 40.1 Career to Date Value: $200.5 Mil

I believe the Twins know they aren't close with their pitching rotation and lack of any pitching in the upper minors, so they are starting the re-build now, but they aren't telling anyone that and they will try to throw some band-aids out there in 2013 to say they are trying to 'compete'. In reality, the Twins couldn't get much further ahead if they went full on rebuild or the method they are taking. They have ZERO MLB players now available to trade to get top tier talent. Willingham would get a B prospect, Morneau a B or C. Perkins could get a B level guy most likely. But adding a handful of middle tier prospects is not going to help in the long run. The Twins have plenty of those guys in the system. So if they aren't getting value back from your current major leagers, why not try to throw some lower tier FA signings out there, try to compete for a few months and have some more trade pieces available by July 31. This is what the Cubs are doing to a more exaggerated level. Signing the big name free agents for long term contracts only handcuffs the club in 3 years with declining performances and a tied up budget. When the current crop of Twins 'talent' (Sano, Hicks, Rosario, Gibson, Meyer) is making their MLB debuts, then you can start to add the missing pieces via free agency. The sad truth is the Twins just don't have talent. They don't have talent to compete or talent to trade to get younger talent back. That is the rock and hard place they are stuck in. Do they trade away any value they have now for middling prospects and endure a 100 loss season or do they add some crap free agents and try to get to .500. The 'pay tons of money for top free agents' option is simply not an option, nor should it be.

Who are the first to go from this list? With the need for 3-4 rotation fillers, some will have to be cut from this list. Here are the 4 I would cut in order: Caleb Thielbar Josh Roenicke Tim Wood Cole De Vries Do players have to remain on the 40-man for any amount of time after they are added?

Then do something about it, Twins. Bin-diving and settling for the middle road will only keep them in the middle of the pack. Commit to winning. OR make it a youth movement. It's resulted in wasting the last couple years of some key players' careers. And it doesn't look like it's getting any better. All talk from this org the past couple of years. Want to win, embarrassed by losing, blah,blah,blah. You are absolutely right. I tend to agree with the Twins FO theory that they can't just buy a contender and that spending big on FA signings that handcuff you for 6 years is not a good way to build a consistent contender. But, given that strategy, they should have blown up this team in 2011. It was clear to anyone that this organization did not have anything close to impact talent in the upper minors, so it was going to take free agents filling those holes to be competitive. And if you're not spending to bring in big free agents, you're left with a crappy team. Given their recent track record in the draft (terrible), they should have been relying on veteran sell-off trades to stock the upper minors with talent. They have had valuable pieces the last couple of years but have let them leave for nothing. Now they're in a position where they need 4! starting pitchers to field a decent team and there is next to nothing still in the system.

I would like to see Bake back next year. He actually has some upside and would sign for a reasonable 1 year deal, perhaps with an option or two. Assuming they sign him, I'd like to see the Twins get creative in how they limit innings for him as well as Gibson. I would recommend going with a 6 man staff, but not a 6 guys taking each turn type of rotation. I would do: Normal 5 man rotation type workload: #1 FA Signing (Marcum, Sanchez, whomever they sign from that 2nd tier group) #2 Diamond Take 3 out of every 4 turns in a normal 5 man rotation: Baker Gibson Hendricks Deduno Basically keep 4 guys on your 25 roster to take up those 3-5 spots in the rotation. It would slightly limit your bullpen, but having a 12 man bullpen is over-kill anyway. This would result in the FA signing & Diamond getting 33 starts and the other 4 guys getting 24. Obviously injuries would play a part. but this plan would keep the young & recovering arms to around 160 innings instead of 200+.

I seem to be in the minority, but I am fine with Florimon at short. I think either Span or Revere is going to be moved this offseason, so that will open a spot for another power guy in RF so the Twins would really only have the 8/9 spots in the lineup as a weekness which could be reserved for the middle infielders. And given the pitching staff, I would trot out the best middle infielders possible and sacrifice offense. This would be my lineup (assuming a Span trade): Revere (CF), Mauer ©, Willingham (LF), Morneau (1B), Doumit (DH), Parmelee (RF), Plouffe (3B), Dozier (2B), Florimon (SS) Or if Carroll is your guy at 2nd base, he could hit 2nd or 8th.

Offseason Handbook? That sounds interesting. Where might I get one of those? I've heard nothing about it and I haven't seen any annoying banner ads all over Twins Daily.

I agree. The overall number doesn't really matter as much as fans like to think, it's what is done with the money. Going all out right now and adding an additional 50 mil to payroll would likely mean long term contracts that tie their own hands down the road. At best those deals are break-even and rarely, if ever, is there surpluss value. I would rather see the Twins do what they normally do - sign 2nd/3rd tier free agents to fill holes - but at a more exaggerated sense. IE if you think you need 2 free agent pitchers of that caliber, sign 3 or 4. Sign more depth across SP, bullpen & middle infielders. Contracts that are 1-2 years that don't hamstring you down the road and also give you guys you can 'flip' mid-season if things go terribly wrong again. The next wave of Twins talent is still 2-4 years away, so filling the gaps until then should be priority.

I assume you mean Mike Redmond, who is part of the Blue Jays organization. Yeah, he was highly regarded with the Twins, if I remember correctly. And now has a couple years of experience, would he be an option either on the big league club or back-filling any of the minor league openings, if the AAA guys get promoted?

Has anyone heard anything about Redman being an option for the Twins staff?