More Offseason Musings
Lets take a look at the Twins free agents and who they should keep, and who they should let walk. I’m assumin the team will pick up the option on Mike Redmond, for a hair less than a million.
First up, Dennys Reyes. He made $1MM in 2008, and wasn’t very good. With the emergence of Craig Breslow and Jose Mijares there is no need for an overpriced lefty. Let him walk.
Nick Punto. Punto “earned” $2.4MM in 2008 and would probably require a small raise. Still under $3MM, maybe $2.6 or $2.7. That is too much for someone we can easily replace. Tolbert and Harris are both utility players, no need to have a utility man who makes more money than our third and fourth best hitters combined (Kubel and Young, I don’t know if that is actually true but its close, with Kubel making $1.3 and Young probably somewhere near league minimum, if you want to replace Young with Span go ahead, that numbers still work). I think the Twins will re-sign him for somewhere close to $3MM and it will be a waste of money when Tolbert is nearly identical and millions cheaper.
Adam Everett. This one is a no brainer. Goodbye.
Eddie Guardado. Again, I think this is a no brainer. I’ve already mentioned two lefties who are more effective, no need to carry three. Eddie G made $2MM in 2008, no reason to pay him that. Goodbye.
We are still on the hook for abour $2.6 of Mike Lamb’s remaining contract. and we will be paying about 7.65 million to our “under control” players. Guerrier and Kubel are due moderate raises through arbitration, and Crain (1.7MM), Cuddyer (7.667MM), Mauer (10.5MM), Morneau (11.6MM) and Nathan (11.25MM) are all under contract. This should be a much more low stress offseason. Lets hope Wild Bill makes the right moves.
UPDATE: Delmon Young.
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Reyes will get a pretty big raise this offseason … from someone else. To another team, he’s “worth” over $2M. To us, he’s not even worth the inordinate amount of space he takes up on the bench.
I think the Twins will re-sign Punto, probably for a salary in range with what you’re thinking. Hopefully it’s no more than a two year deal. But in reality, I think Punto is a valuable player — he’s proven his ability at three defensive positions and is almost adequate with the bat. Harris is nowhere close to as versatile AND is a disappointment as a hitter. Tolbert looks like he could be the next Punto, but I don’t see the Twins taking the risk on a new Punto who hasn’t proven anything and also hasn’t learned to avoid the idiotic “fake hustle injuries” that plagued Punto earlier in his career. (Remember when Punto broke his collarbone diving for a popup that was 20 feet past his reach? Ultimate fake hustle injury.)
Of the current players, I think the biggest question is whether they offer arbitration or a multi-year contract to Guerrier and Kubel. In Guerrier’s case, arbitration may be the right route, given that he showed that he may have lost it this season — on the other hand, given his performance this year the Twins could get a multi-year deal on the cheap if they believe it was a fluke. We’ll see, but I’m leaning towards arbitration.
Last season, Kubel was clamoring for a multi-year deal, saying that he wanted to be part of this team for years. The Twins were reluctant, probably because they hadn’t bought their t-shirts. Kubel is the team’s third best hitter, and is more valuable than Cuddyer — his numbers are actually remarkably similar to Cuddyer’s. He’s weaker in the field, but it looks like Cuddyer will be squeezed out of the outfield, making that difference unimportant. If I were the Twins, I’d lock Kubel up on a 3-4 year deal. But since I know the Twins hate Kubel, I’m guessing they’ll just go to arbitration. I think they’ll enjoy trying to convince the arbitrator that Kubel sucks.
Regarding the Delmon Young update: that’s interesting, and I was wondering if they’d do something like that. I ended up coming to the conclusion that if they were to trade an OF, Cuddyer would be the better option, and I don’t think the Twins want to see Cuddyer gone any more than I do.
But in all honesty, this is from Sid Hartman. And any time he says something that would be this huge, he prefaces it with “The Twins won’t talk about it, but it’s expected that…” Yeah. Expected by whom? Sid Hartman? He’s just making stuff up to get the hot stove season started.
I doubt the Twins will actually dangle either Delmon or Cuddyer, and if one of them ends up being traded it’ll have to be a killer offer.
I agree, Sid Hartman is about as credible as this site. Since this is the first time he has been used as a source, you might say we are MORE credible. Since I am able to stay awake for an entire Twins game.
If we can fill a need by trading young, I’m all for it. Maybe Garret Atkins or Ian Stewart. I’m wary of trading for Rockies, but they are both pretty good. I’m also not too sure if the Rockies would bite on that trade.
In Atkins’ career away from Coors Field, he’s hitting .260/.328/.424; those are not impressive numbers. And they’re going to want a whole lot in return, in addition to the fact that they don’t really need a corner outfielder this year, unless they deal Holliday.
Hey, in order to get the credibility of this site on par with Hartman’s, we’d have to start breaking rumors here, citing unnamed sources and/or little birdies.