John Bonnes

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/The_Scoops_David_Kahn_talked_Brandon_Roy_out_of_retirement_for_now112812 I'm sure he is one of many starting pitchers that the Twins are talking to, but I would welcome him back with open arms. Don't talk to me about 2012 - he was hurt and the whole things was terribly mismanaged. To me, 220+ innings in 2010 & 2011 with a 4ish ERA speaks louder. Plus, he'll likely be cheap ($4m?) due to last year's cluster. (Tangent: Ironically, maybe the Twins medical staff will save the Twins some money this time. It could be a new strategy. Destroy a guy's value through mismanagement of his medical and then re-sign him at half the price. It could work for arbitration-eligible guys, too.)

They were repeatedly told it was not going to happen. Should it?

I laughed out loud. I did.

I'll add one thing to my post above.... At the beginning of this offseason, if I had to hope how Ryan would handle shopping for starting pitching, I would have said that I hoped he waited and let the market come to him. There was so much talent on the board and the class was so deep that he was going to have some decent guys fall into his lap if he could just be patient. When he said in our interview that he felt he needed to be aggressive, I cringed. The salaries are higher than I anticipated, but the class is still just as deep. Now, maybe a few teams like the Cubs/Royals/Blue Jays are going to drive up the demand a bit higher than I thought, but I'd still need to be be convinced this isn't the right strategy.

It's interesting to me that there are several middle-tier starting pitching free agents that are signing before the top guys do. There are usually a few, but I don't remember this many in the past. The Cubs and Royals are being aggressive and chasing these guys - Baker, Feldman, E Santana, Guthrie. Everybody else who has signed has just re-signed with their team. It's a little weird that two team (three if you count the Blue Jays) have driven so much spending so early. I wonder if Theo/Dayton are reading a nutso market or if they're just trying to take care of business early? All three GMs are kind of sabr darlings, too. It'll be interesting to see what we think of these signings at the end of the offseason, or at the end of the season.

Got this letter today in case some of you are interested.... Hey John, Wanted to bring something to your attention that might be of interest to your readers. We’re trying to spread the word that applications for the 2013 MLB Fan Cave are currently being accepted at MLBFanCave.com, and I’m wondering if you’d be able to post information about it. Fans would be entering for a chance to be a part of this year’s Fan Cave experience, which will give them the opportunity to watch every game and meet former and current players, like Joe Mauer who visited the Cave in 2012. Video of his appearance can be found here. Below is some general info on the Fan Cave. Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks, Steve ABOUT THE MLB FAN CAVE Located in Greenwich Village in New York City, the MLB Fan Cave is a unique event space mixing baseball with music, popular culture, media, technology and art. Supported by MLB Advanced Media, it also provides baseball fans with a constant flow of online video and conversation via social media. The MLB Fan Cave features products and services provided by nearly 50 companies, led by Pepsi, MLB Authentic Collection licensees New Era and Majestic, State Farm, Budweiser, Scotts and Sony, along with design partners Resource Furniture and Lillian August. Fans can begin applying at MLBFanCave.com to be a “Cave Dweller” and vie to watch all 2,430 games inside the MLB Fan Cave next year, while meeting current and retired baseball greats, popular recording artists and entertainers. With more than 1.2 million combined followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the MLB Fan Cave has built a large community of baseball fans that the Cave Dwellers will have a chance to interact with during the 2013 season. More than 22,000 fans applied to be a Cave Dweller for 2012, and the MLB Fan Cave began the season with a group of nine winners who each chronicled their experience through videos, blogs and social media. Along the way, six were eliminated based on a combination of a fan vote and a panel of MLB judges, with the three final Cave Dwellers – Ashley Chavez, Ricardo Marquez and Kyle Thompson – winning a trip to the 2012 World Series, where Chavez was crowned the ultimate winner for 2012. Our own Lindsay Guentzel participated last year and had a hell of a bunch of good stories.

He's not Drew Butera because Drew Butera never had the success Chone Figgins had. When Figgins signed that bid deal with the Mariners (which nobody thought was particularly crazy) his career OBP was .363. Even now, after two years of having an OPB of .241 and .272, his career OBP is still .349. Maybe he just got really old really fast. He is 34. But I'd be a lot more comfortable giving him a job at 2B and having Carroll play SS than I am choosing between Dozier and Florimon as a starter next year.

Darn. Feldman was a sleeper that I liked.

Seth, Any idea how much longer the Australian Baseball League plays? I'll be there at the end of December and would love to catch a game.

3 + ? The numbers of Mr. Smarty Pants we have at Twins Daily who are capable of continuing this bit. I'll be interested to see how high that number climbs.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1196-Twins-Offseason-By-The-Numbers

1 Free agent starting pitchers from the TwinsCentric 2013 Offseason Handbook that have signed with a new team. It’s just Scott Baker so far. That’s it. I count five other are already off the market, but all of them re-signed with their old team (or had their option picked up and were traded): Jake Peavy, Hideki Kuroda, Hisahi Iwakuma, Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie. The bad news here is that a lot of those guys are the middle market - a level just below the big names where bargains might have been found. But that might be why they were already targeted and re-signed. 24 Free agent starting pitchers from the TwinsCentric Offseason Handbook that are still available. That doesn’t mean there are 25 of them that are desirable, just available. But that doesn’t include those that we thought would retire or get minor league deals, and it doesn’t include guys who are available via trade, like several of the Rays or Braves arms. I can’t emphasize this enough – the free agent market hasn’t really started yet. It likely won’t for a few more weeks. According to ESPN’s free agent tracker, a total of 12 guys have signed major league deals so far. Last year 106 did. Cool it. 483 Twins minor league signing stories broken by MLB.com’s Twins beat reporter Rhett Bollinger in the past month. (Roughly) Is it possible that the greatest culprit for the Twins slow offseason is Bollinger? By continually reporting minor league signings – which were often overlooked in previous years – we are reminded that none of the big moves have been made yet. 29 The age of Jeff Clement, who the Twins signed to minor league deal yesterday. If that name sounds familiar, it is because he was a “B” catching prospect who ranked #33/#62/#42 on Baseball America’s top 100 list from 2006 through 2008. He had 20 home run power, hit left-handed and was “good enough” defensively. Turns out, he wasn’t, or if he was, recurring elbow and knee injuries drove him away from that spot. He’s now a first baseman and designated hitter and hasn’t upped the power (and oddly has struggled against right-handers). That makes a guy a 29-year-old minor leaguer instead of a possible All-Star. There is good news and bad news in this signing for Twins fans, and neither has anything to do with all the studly free agent starting pitchers they didn’t sign: Good news: the Twins are signing recognizable names with a little upside as minor league free agents. They should. A 60+ win team should mean lots of opportunities for minor league veterans to gain some service time and be in The Show. It should be a team that agents target. But it’s good that the Twins are taking advantage of that status. The Twins picked up a couple of useful players that way last year and will likely need to so again this year. Bad news: Clement’s status emphasizes, once again, just how big the difference in value is for a guy who can play catcher and a guy who can’t. Think about that the next time someone tries to convince you that the Twins would be better if Joe Mauer would get out from behind the plate.

1 Free agent starting pitchers from the TwinsCentric 2013 Offseason Handbook that have signed with a new team. It’s just Scott Baker so far. That’s it. I count five other are already off the market, but all of them re-signed with their old team (or had their option picked up and were traded): Jake Peavy, Hideki Kuroda, Hisahi Iwakuma, Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie. The bad news here is that a lot of those guys are the middle market - a level just below the big names where bargains might have been found. But that might be why they were already targeted and re-signed. 24 Free agent starting pitchers from the TwinsCentric Offseason Handbook that are still available. That doesn’t mean there are 25 of them that are desirable, just available. But that doesn’t include those that we thought would retire or get minor league deals, and it doesn’t include guys who are available via trade, like several of the Rays or Braves arms. I can’t emphasize this enough – the free agent market hasn’t really started yet. It likely won’t for a few more weeks. According to ESPN’s free agent tracker, a total of 12 guys have signed major league deals so far. Last year 106 did. Cool it. 483 Twins minor league signing stories broken by MLB.com’s Twins beat reporter Rhett Bollinger in the past month. (Roughly) Is it possible that the greatest culprit for the Twins slow offseason is Bollinger? By continually reporting minor league signings – which were often overlooked in previous years – we are reminded that none of the big moves have been made yet. 29 The age of Jeff Clement, who the Twins signed to minor league deal yesterday. If that name sounds familiar, it is because he was a “B” catching prospect who ranked #33/#62/#42 on Baseball America’s top 100 list from 2006 through 2008. He had 20 home run power, hit left-handed and was “good enough” defensively. Turns out, he wasn’t, or if he was, recurring elbow and knee injuries drove him away from that spot. He’s now a first baseman and designated hitter and hasn’t upped the power (and oddly has struggled against right-handers). That makes a guy a 29-year-old minor leaguer instead of a possible All-Star. There is good news and bad news in this signing for Twins fans, and neither has anything to do with all the studly free agent starting pitchers they didn’t sign: Good news: the Twins are signing recognizable names with a little upside as minor league free agents. They should. A 60+ win team should mean lots of opportunities for minor league veterans to gain some service time and be in The Show. It should be a team that agents target. But it’s good that the Twins are taking advantage of that status. The Twins picked up a couple of useful players that way last year and will likely need to so again this year. Bad news: Clement’s status emphasizes, once again, just how big the difference in value is for a guy who can play catcher and a guy who can’t. Think about that the next time someone tries to convince you that the Twins would be better if Joe Mauer would get out from behind the plate.

The good news here is that the Twins are a desirable location for minor league free agents with some upside. They should be (what with all their opportunities), but it's nice to see them leveraging that to bring in guys like Clements.

Between deals like ths & some of the new local TV deals, I wonder if the concern is that a huge revenue shift is coming & small markets know they won't be able to compete on the open market for these guys.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1195-Gleeman-and-the-Geek-Episode-69-Inactivity-Prospect-Lists-and-40-Man-Moves

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' lack of activity compared to last offseason, Denard Span and Josh Willingham trade scenarios, 40-man roster additions, prospect lists and the men who love them, Tsuyoshi Nishioka getting a raise back in Japan, Brett Myers rumors, avoiding Jeremy Guthrie, and the joys of Thanksgiving.

Aaron and John talk about the Twins' lack of activity compared to last offseason, Denard Span and Josh Willingham trade scenarios, 40-man roster additions, prospect lists and the men who love them, Tsuyoshi Nishioka getting a raise back in Japan, Brett Myers rumors, avoiding Jeremy Guthrie, and the joys of Thanksgiving.

I can't speak to all the names, but I could see a deal that looks like: Hamilton + minor league starting arms for Willingham, Span and pieces. The Reds would at least consider that. Willingham and Span give them the offensive list they need for the next two years without breaking the bank. In that ballpark, in that league, Willingham is a 40+ HR guy, provided he stays healthy. And Span, as we've talked about for months, is a great fit for that team. Can Hamilton stay in the infield? Why was he moved?

That's a much better idea.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?1194-GATG-Ep-68-Post-mortem-Gleemanor

[video=youtube;DD132ReLx9s] To hear the actual podcast, go to http://gleemanandthegeek.com/ After recording the 68th episode of their "Gleeman and The Geek" podcast Aaron Gleeman and John Bonnes are joined by documentary filmmaker Nathan Fisher for a "Cribs"-like tour of Gleemanor.

[video=youtube;DD132ReLx9s] To hear the actual podcast, go to http://gleemanandthegeek.com/ After recording the 68th episode of their "Gleeman and The Geek" podcast Aaron Gleeman and John Bonnes are joined by documentary filmmaker Nathan Fisher for a "Cribs"-like tour of Gleemanor.