I hope nobody minds if I just stop right now.

Let’s see … Harris is 0.4 runs WORSE than Punto at hitting, and is 14 runs WORSE in the field. He got 1.5 runs LESS of a positional adjustment because he spent much less time in the middle infield than Punto did. (IE, Harris is worse at 3B than Punto is at 3B or 2B or SS.)

Harris was worth -1.1 wins in 2009, against a REPLACEMENT level player. IE, every team should have access to guys in AA and AAA who are better baseball players than Brendan Harris. (At least in 2009. He’s not actually as bad as he played this year.)

The thing is, there should not be an argument about “whether Harris or Punto is a better player,” ever. If that’s what’s happening, the Twins have made a mistake. They need to get rid of Harris, who isn’t good enough to be a starter and isn’t versatile enough to be a utility guy. They need to sign at least one, preferably two infielders who are actually average-to-good baseball players. Then they need to put Punto on the bench and have him fill in 2-4 times a week to give the other guys a rest.

But IF you only have Punto and Harris and you have to pick one, you’d be well served to pick Punto. Did you know that since 2004 (Harris’ first year), Punto has been worth 9 wins, while Harris has been worth 2.5 wins? That’s a huge difference.

I don’t know how many players like that there are in the league, and how much they all make. But if they’re free agents, they probably make at least as much as Punto does.

You don’t get production for free. Punto’s a 1-3 win player getting paid like a 1 win player. Nothing about that says “awful contract.” It says “good job of talent evaluation and contract negotiation,” and maybe it says “you guys could probably use better players, but then you’d have to spend a lot more money and would have to sacrifice a lot of versatility.”

Cruddy, as they extend him for 3 years at roughly 9 mil a year

OC, if they sign him for 2 years, it’s a mistake.