nicksaviking

If those are the options, I'd go with the rookie. If Marwin is on the roster, Baldelli is going to feel compelled to find him regular playing time. I'll take Marwin on a MiLB deal, which I half suspect will be the best he's going to get anyway.

It's a one year deal so many seem to think it's a bridge to Lewis. But there is next to no chance Lewis just debuts on opening day of 2022. He's either playing this year, or getting called up later in 2022 after some seasoning. If it's this year, where does he play? If Simmons bat is terrible, which it might be, I could see Lewis bumping him to the bench late in the year. But if his bat is not terrible, are they really going to push their best defensive infielder out of his position to get the rookie reps? That goes over less well if the team is in the playoff hunt. It would be nice if Lewis had some versatility; particularly because I don't think Arraez has the versatility being suggested. I'd in fact be looking to trade Arraez for starting pitching ASAP before those defensive deficiencies get too over exposed during the season. There are still other utility infielders they could sign on the cheap until Lewis is ready.

I like the HOF, mostly for the history and the displays, the busts are cool, but I don't really care who has them. "Getting In" is kind of a silly phrase anyway as there are tons of non-HOFers with displays and artifacts that are in fact in the HOF. If there hasn't been already, someday there will surely be an exhibit about the steroid era; I remember one about the Black Sox scandal, and it's probably still there. Anyway, the thought of Bonds and Clemmons getting in used to bother me, it doesn't anymore. But I'll also say, I'm not going to feel sorry that some guys don't get busts when they knew getting caught meant they almost certainly weren't getting a bust. Seems kind of like catching your kid stealing a cookie, and then rewarding him with another cookie. But whatever, those guys are somebody else's kids, they can deal with them as they please.

Considering Semien for 18M I’d guess Simmons was actually the back up plan. I wanted offense, not defense, but this is still way better than no move. Polanco may be the 2B and Arraez the utility guy to start, but I can’t see that sticking. Polanco is a much better athlete; I struggle to see Arraez at 3B and no way is he playing SS.

I'd really like to find a way to get Baez, even if it's just for this next year. If taking Bryant and making room for him is required I'd be interested. Perhaps a third team could come on board, or the Twins could sit on Bryant a bit and flip him in spring training after another club finds themselves with an injury to a corner player, with the Twins eating some of the cash. Or perhaps if the Twins get Baez and take on Bryant, Sano could be the return for the Cubs. That would be 11M to offset the cost of the two Cubs players. With Bryant being a negative value and Baez only retained for one more year, the Cubs might need to toss in something else, as crazy as that sounds. Or eat some of the contract, which I suppose the Twins would probably prefer. The Cubs would probably have to trade Rizzo then too, but I'd guess by that time Cubs fans would have already burned down Wrigley so the front office would have nothing left to lose.

I wouldn't be opposed to Wong in a vacuum, but they'd still need to find a shortstop, even if Polanco does keep the starting job. Then if they happen to sign a starting SS, I'd still prefer Polanco's bat in the lineup over Wong. But if Wong is going to be the last guy on the bench AND they are comfortable that he can spell Donaldson at 3B, sure, then I'd take him. I really don't want Wong only to move Arreaz to DH though. Then we're basically just swapping Wong for Cruz, which is about a .300 point drop in OPS.

I was thinking about the 'in on Bauer', 'out on Bauer', situation and it is just so bizarre. Who was the party that got Rosenthal to retract his original statement? It would make no LOGICAL sense for Bauer's camp to clarify this as they should want the perception of more suitors. It would make no LOGICAL sense for the Twins to refute this as even if they didn't want him, they should want the price driven up, not to mention this doesn't in anyway make them look better with the fan base. I suppose it would make sense for one of the teams actually in on Bauer to to tell Rosenthal he's full of BS and everyone knows the the Twins aren't in it, so he needs to stop helping Bauer to inflate his price. But how would another team actually know if the Twins are in or out? And how could they convince Rosenthal with certainty? Perhaps, is the more likely option that one of the Twins beat reporters corrected Rosenthal? But typically instead of letting Rosenthal update his intel, it would be that reporter who would write up their own article or Tweet denying the Twins interest. Maybe that reporter didn't want to publicly cross the front office, but was frustrated enough the the slow offseason that they still felt compelled to set the record straight? Or maybe they were tight with Rosenthal so they were going to let him be the one to save face? Of course, we are dealing with human beings, so perhaps this wasn't done with LOGIC as a foundation, but with other intentions. Bauer is pretty opinionated and brash. Perhaps he really doesn't like the Twins and wanted to make it clear they weren't an option for him, leverage be damned? Or perhaps Derek Falvey really didn't like Bauer from their time together in Cleveland and had no intention of helping him gain more leverage? Anyway, not a big deal overall, but it was just such an odd occurrence where the means and motivation just don't seem to add up that I'm curious as to how this all went down.

The Twins may not be able to fix Castro, or anybody else for that matter. But considering how terrible Detroit and Toronto have been at developing their own pitchers the last decade, those seem like good places to look for guys who could click somewhere else. As for Bryant, doesn't going on Barstool Sports count as a medical diagnosis for being mentally damaged? I didn't realize that was still a thing.

Sounds like the Reds were asking the Yankees for Gleyber Torres as part of a deal for Castillo. I don't think the Twins have anybody even close to that level of upside, control, position and production, but if they did, they'd surely not want to give him up.

I have no clue if the Twins plan on another Meada caliber kind of move, but if the Twins DID want to improve their floor by signing a couple of vet arms, like they did last year with Hill, Bailey and Chacin, you kind of have to do that first. I don't know that those guys would have all been as excited to sign with the Twins if they knew the team was going to continue to add to the competition for rotation spots.

My cousin broke the news to me while we were all visiting my grandma. I ran into a bedroom and cried. I was devastated. Definitely not a trade that would have happened if anyone had know about any kind of modern statistics. Today, 2nd Basemen who struggle to muster an OPS of .700 are more likely to be DFA'd than to be traded.

He's been a top 40 pitcher over the past five years. He's been better than Odorizzi in four of those five years and most people seem to want him back. In fact Happ is #38 in fWAR since 2016, Berrios is #35. The Yankees had three starters hit free agency this year and I keep seeing people ask for the other two even though Happ was better than Paxton and virtually identical to Tanaka, so it's not like he's washed up. I mean, it's not exciting and the Twins have more work to do, but as far as non-needle-moving moves go, this one was pretty good.

I just don't trust Simmons to hit well enough. I heavily prioritize offense over defense, but even so, Simmons isn't the awesome glove he used to be, he's gone from All-Time-Elite to above average. And I wouldn't look for that to improve from a 31-year-old.

I don't want Ozuna for four years if he's already going to be penciled in as the full time DH; I don't think it's wise to commit to that position for so long, you need some year-to-year flexibility there. Besides, it's likely that Sano and/or Donaldson are going to need that spot shortly. Brantley is interesting because while people talk about him as a DH, he's still been primarily an outfielder and a capable one at that. It would be nice to be able to rotate some big bats through the DH spot regularly or as injury requires throughout the season. I'll take just about any lotto ticket pitcher on a 1-2 year deal. Anyone who wants three or more can take a hike. I'm looking at you Odorizzi. I don't see any pitchers outside of Bauer that don't fall into that lotto ticket category. I'm all for getting a utility infielder, or a full time SS to make Polanco a utility infielder. While conventional wisdom (well last century wisdom) says this spot is for a glove first player, I'm not interested in that. This team has shown it can put together some stout offenses, I'm not looking to take a step back by putting a weak bat into the lineup regularly. So Gregorius would probably be my first choice.

I actually think it's the opposite. I think the Cruz decision probably hinges on what they do with the middle infield help. If they make a move that allows Donaldson and/or Sano to DH regularly, then they may move on from Cruz.

As far as starting pitchers go, this year I'd go quantity of quality. Mostly because I don't see much in the way of quality.

Unless it's Bauer, I don't want to give any of these free agent pitchers more than a two year deal. I'd rather the Twins take the same approach to the starters as last year. Trade for someone who's a lock to be one of the top three rotation pieces if possible, then sign two or three of the bounce back/lotto ticket guys to fill out the last spot or two. Maybe try some of Paxton, Foltynewicz, Hamels, Godley, Lester, Hill, Samardzija or Leake. They're not exciting, but I don't know that if you tried out a few of them you'd find them to have dissimilar results to Odorizzi. We already know if Odorizzi is here, five innings is going to be the max for that spot in the rotation anyway. I'd rather have multiple options and roll with the hot hand than commit three years of starts to someone I'm not confident in. Also Carlos Rodon. I'd probably want to stick him in the bullpen, but I'd like him just to see if we can rub something in Chicago's face.

Cody's article says he's 6'. Even so, I'm not concerned about his height. Ripken was 6'4" and I don't think today's game pigeonholes players to a position due to their size as much as they used to. Plenty of tall guys are fast, quick and agile. I'd bet if they played baseball instead, all of those tall speedy receivers in the NFL would either be playing CF or SS.

I hope they're thinking trades because there's not much on the free agent front I'd be overly excited about. Not that they shouldn't get some of those unexciting guys, but Passan saying things like they're 'a team to watch' I don't see how this boring group of free agents could match the expectations generated by that kind of comment.

Yeah, it's still a crap shoot, but that same year Vlad Guerrerro Jr also signed for 3.9M. Vlad was MLB.com's #7 international prospect while Javier was #12. Interestingly Gilbert Celestino was the #11 prospect but he only got 2.5M. Also in the top 30 were Juan Soto at #25 who signed for 1.5m and Fernando Tatis Jr at #30 who signed for 700K. While 2015 was a banner year, and the rankings, money and evaluations are never going to be perfect, it's probably still in the Twins best interest to grab some of the top guys, even if they aren't THE top guys.

I think the Twins should start treating their older, and/or historically injured batters similar to the way they treat the rotation. Just keep on hand plenty of bats and give them regular rest. I'd say re-sign Cruz, but only plan on he, Sano, Buxton and Donaldson playing 100-120 games. Seems like a waste to pay those guys so much money to not play a full season, but I think the scheduled rest will do them good, plus it would open up plenty of opportunity for the young guys to play.

I said at the onset of the off season that this free agent class was so poor, that I really wasn't looking for much of a splash in this year's market. But now I am soooooooo bored. Just give me a Mike Foltynwicz or even a Jon Lester to tide me over for now. Something.

I don't know, the Twins farm is pretty good, but the Padres was a bonanza of top prospects when they started making moves. I don't think the Twins have enough top prospects to develop a young home-grown core AND make giant splashy trades. I think it has to be one or the other, or a just a little bit of both.

I'm all for trading Arraez for a big time player if his value is what people around here (and Ken Rosenthal?) appear to think. He's certainly a good MLB player, but the one dimensional hitters who don't do much in the way of extra base hits almost always end up wearing out their welcome sooner than expected.

Tony La Russa is still the manager of this White Sox team that is apparently "going for it" right? I still like their chances of being a complete if even unexpected train wreck. Interesting that Lance Lynn was a rookie in La Russa's final year in St. Louis. Personality-wise, they do seem to be birds of a feather.