Fire Gardy

In a post that’s sure to angry up the blood of many fans, JoeC points out the Twins’ plans for the rest of the offseason.

In speaking with Twins officials this week, they seem about 90 percent certain there won’t be any notable changes to the roster before spring training. Obviously, we’ll let you know if that changes.

No surprise there, nor is there anything wrong with that. As I’ve been saying all along.

The Twins are convinced it’s better to do nothing than to do something silly, just for the sake of making a move. They insist other teams have been asking for too much in trades.

It’s definitely better to do nothing than to do something still just for the sake of doing something. I often think fans just want the team to make a move so they can criticize its foolishness.

And I’ve also pointed out numerous times that teams think, for some reason, that they can get more out of the Twins than they can get out of any other team. And that if they’re going to make a trade and get a less-than-outstanding haul, that they’d rather do it with another team than with the Twins. I don’t know why this is, but it continues.

They’re convinced their internal bullpen options (Jesse Crain, Jose Mijares, Matt Guerrier, Boof Bonser, etc.) are just as likely to pan out as late-inning setup guys as the remaining free agents.

Due to the volatility of relievers, this could very well be true. Of course, by the same logic, Crain/Mijares/Guerrier/Bonser might all fail miserably this season. But so might anyone we pick up and pay big money for. I still fail to see any reason to pay significant dollars for relievers, despite how important a good bullpen is to a team’s success.

I’d say the best chance of a move would be a Joe Crede signing, but I keep hearing he’s at 75 percent, and the Twins don’t want to shell out $5 million in guaranteed money (plus incentives) unless they know he’s healthy.

If they can get the asking price down in guaranteed money, or if Crede would get closer to 90-95 percent, they might have a match. If not, they’ll move forward with their third base platoon of Brendan Harris and Brian Buscher.

I think that’s interesting; at least they’ve given a legitimate reason for not wanting to sign Crede, which is more than they did re: Wigginton. But I’m of the opinion that the team that decides to take a chance on Crede isn’t going to be disappointed. Hopefully when he gets up to 90% he’ll prefer coming to the Twins to stick it in the face of the hated White Sox. But I wouldn’t count on it.

Slow news day, but at least the Strib is spouting something that makes sense, rather than some inanity about groundskeepers or Jarrod Washburn.

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