Month: September 2011

In parts 1 through 4 of this series, we’ve taken a look at possible free agent targets for the Twins to consider this offseason.

Now it’s time to assemble a roster and see how much of the Twins money we’re going to have to spend to fix the damage done a year ago and return this team to some reasonable competitive level.

Catchers:

Joe Mauer ($23 million), Jose Molina ($2 million)

Infielders:

Justin Morneau ($15 million), Brandon Phillips/Jimmy Rollins/Kelly Johnson ($10 million, more or less), Alexi Casilla ($1.5 million), Danny Valencia ($500K), Luke Hughes ($500K), Trevor Plouffe ($500K)

Outfield/DH:

Michael Cuddyer/Lance Berkman ($10 million), Denard Span ($3 million), Ben Revere ($500K), Josh Willingham/Jason Kubel ($6 million), Jason Repko ($1 million)

Starting Pitchers:

Chris Carpenter/Ryan Dempster ($12 million), Scott Baker ($6.5 million), Carl Pavano ($8.5 million), Francisco Liriano ($7 million), Nick Blackburn ($4.75 million).

Bullpen:

Kerry Wood ($6 million), Frank Francisco ($3 million), Glen Perkins ($1.5 million), Brian Duensing ($500K), Anthony Swarzak ($500), Phil Dumatrait/Scott Diamond ($500K), Alex Burnett ($500K).

You’ll notice that Kevin Slowey is not on either list. The Twins paid $2.7 million this season for Slowey and while I suppose it’s possible that they’ll be willing to pay him a bit more for 2012, I have trouble envisioning that.

Could Swarzak take Blackburn’s starting role? Sure. Duensing may find a way to keep his rotation spot, as well. The roles may or may not play out as listed, but the point is that the Twins need someone new at the top of the rotation… from there you just fill in the blanks with whomever (a) has not been traded and (b) is pitching the best in Ft. Myers in March.

In addition, the Twins will have to pay for two players not contemplated above:

Tsuyoshi Nishioka ($3 million), Joe Nathan (buy out $2 million). Yes, I know Nishioka will, in all likelihood, be on the roster. If he magically plays better by April, fine… but if not, he simply needs to work on his game somewhere where he can’t do real damage.

That’s a total of $129.75 million or approximately $16 million more than the 2011 payroll (and comparable to the increase that the 2011 payroll was over and above 2010). Can the Twins afford it? Yes. Will they spend it? Probably not. It simply runs contrary to the Twins’ organizational DNA to go on major free agent shopping sprees.

But it was worth the exercise, anyway.

Not every hole has to be filled via free agency, of course. Trades can, if done well, accomplish the same thing. If the Twins can find someone interested in Liriano, there could be $7 million shaved off the payroll there. Bill Smith certainly seemed willing to part with Denard Span in July, so you’d have to assume he would similarly entertain offers for Span once the season ends, potentially freeing up another $4 million. I’m not saying I would support trading Span (I wouldn’t, unless that’s what it takes to get a top-of-the-rotation pitcher), but I’m almost expecting it, at this point.

If those two are traded and replaced internally, you’re starting to get back down to within shouting distance of the 2011 payroll.

We’re going to have plenty of time once the season ends to more seriously consider the moves that we all think the Twins should make. By the time the winter meetings are held in December, I’m likely to reconsider every option posed in this series.

Is it a waste of time to think about all this now? When you take in to account that nobody in the Twins organization gives a damn what any of us think, yes… it’s almost certainly a waste of time.

Then again, we just watched the Twins score a grand total of one run in two games on Monday against the White Sox… what could possibly be a bigger waste of time than that?

– JC

We’re working our way through the list of potential free agents, with an eye toward helping our friend and Twins GM Bill Smith fill out his shopping list for the upcoming offseason.

Since the Twins’ first round draft choice is protected, thanks to the lowly position they are all but assured to claim in the final standings. That, combined with the Target Field revenue stream and the not-insignificant amount of money scheduled to come off their payroll books after 2011, leave the organization with a lot of opportunities to improve the team on the field.

In Part 1, we discussed the catching position and in Part 2, we looked at 1B, OF and DH, in Part 3, we examined the rest of the infield. In Part 4, we’ll try to figure out what to do with the pitching staff.

First, the bullpen. Ugh.

Glen Perkins was a pleasant surprise this season and likely double his $700,000 salary via arbitration, but even he hasn’t looked as good lately as he did earlier in the year.

Joe Nathan’s $12 million option can be bought out by the Twins for $2 million, making him a free agent. That essentially makes the Twins’ cost of retaining Nathan just $10 million, since the other $2 mil is going out the door, either way. Still, I’m not convinced he’s worth that right now. I’d certainly see if he could be retained for something a bit less, but I would expect another team to be willing to overpay for his high career save numbers.

There are six relievers who will be getting screwed by their Type A status, assuming their teams offer them arbitration. One of them is the Twins’ own Matt Capps. Capps is probably the one member of this group least likely to be offered arbitration. Then again, we know the Twins front office have liked Capps more than the fans have, so maybe they will end up offering him a deal. If they offer arbitration, he’ll take it in about 2 heartbeats.

I suspect all of the other five will get arbitration offers from their current teams, with two possible exceptions. I’m not positive San Diego will risk offering arbitration to Heath Bell, given their financial restrictions and the Red Sox may think twice about offering arbitration to Jonathan Papelbon. He’s bounced back this season after a lousy 2010 (for him anyway) or there wouldn’t have been any doubt about them NOT risking an arbitration raise from his current $12 million salary. But now… I just don’t know. In any event, I don’t see the Twins bringing in either guy anyway. I’d rather spend the money to keep Nathan than spend it on either Bell or Papelbon.

The other three current Type A bullpen arms are Ryan Madson (Phillies), Takashi Saito (Brewers) and Darren Oliver (Rangers). Those guys need to just sign extensions with their current teams and be done with it because not many teams will give up a draft choice to sign them. On the other hand, if the Twins have already signed about three other Type A guys, why not give up their 5^th round draft pick for one more, right? I wouldn’t mind seeing Madson in my bullpen.

There are four Type B free agents. I see no value in the Tigers’ Joel Zumaya (the Twins don’t need another guy who lives on the DL) or Javier Lopez. But Frank Francisco (Blue Jays) and Kerry Wood (Cubs) have both had 3-4 pretty consistent seasons in a row out of the pen and miss bats better than pretty much anyone the Twins currently have. I’d place a call to their agents.

Most of the Twins’ bullpen next season is going to come from within or from the free agent bargain bin. Some will be guys who had relief roles this season and some may be guys who spent this year in the minor leagues, but there’s also a pretty good chance that one or two guys who spent most, if not all, of this season in the rotation will find themselves with relief roles in 2012.

Ah yes… the rotation.

A year ago, most of us wanted the Twins go add someone at the top of their rotation. This year, arguably, they need to add someone legitimate to the top TWO spots in their rotation (unless you’re one of the diehard “Liriano could still be an ace” folks… I’m not).

So dammit, why don’t the Twins just go out and spend money on an “ace” or two?

The answer is easy, really, there probably won’t be an ace or two on the market.

There are six Type A starting pitchers that could be free agents. Three of them have club options that could be exercised, one has a player option he may or may not exercise, and one of them, CC Sabathia, has a player option that would allow him to void the rest of his contract if he thinks he could command more than the $23 million/year he’s due from the Yankees over the next few years. I think we can assume Captain Cheeseburger won’t be wearing a Twins uniform.

The one guy who may actually hit the market is CJ Wilson of the Rangers. He’s going to get a nice raise from the $7 million he’s getting this season. You have to figure he’ll at least double that figure and get a long-term deal. I like Wilson, but I don’t believe in giving pitchers big contracts for 5+ years. I’d kick the tires on him, but I wouldn’t get in a bidding war… and there will be a bidding war.

That leaves…um… nobody? Just about, yeah.

Just for fun, let’s look at the guys with options to see what might be available.

There’s Roy Oswalt. The Phillies aren’t likely to pick up his $16 million option, but last we heard he was thinking his career may be over. Cross him off the list.

Then there’s the Cubs’ Ryan Dempster. His $14 million option is actually a PLAYER option, not a club option. That means it’s up to Dempster whether he returns to the Cubs for that figure. I doubt Dempster would get $14 from many teams for 2012, but I wonder if he’ll opt out and look for a 2-3 year deal for less money per year, but more money guaranteed over that period. He’s 34 years old and his numbers this season haven’t been what we’ve seen the past couple of years, but they aren’t far off from his career lines and he’s still striking guys out at about twice the rate of most of the Twins pitchers. If Wilson is the only other comparable pitcher on the market, someone might overpay for Dempster, but if not, I wouldn’t mind taking a chance on him for a couple of years.

The other two Type A possibilities are Cardinals and they present the Cards with some interesting challenges. While they ponder what to do about Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman, the Cardinals also have Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright to think about. They’ve got a $15 million option on the 36 year old Carpenter (with a $1 million buy out) and they have to decide whether to pick up Wainwright’s 2012 ($9 million) AND 2013 ($12 million) options. Wainwright had Tommy John surgery in February.

Media reports indicate the Cardinals will exercise Wainwright’s options, but the situation isn’t quite as certain with Carpenter. I don’t know where they’ll find the money to keep all these guys, but what would 1-2 seasons of Chris Carpenter be worth? He still has his velocity, strikes out over seven hitters per nine innings and will throw over 200 innings again this season. Again, if you can get him on a 1-2 year contract, would he be worth taking a shot?

The Type B free agent market starting pitchers are then and if you insist on an “ace”, you don’t find them on the Type B list. It looks to me like the best you could do on that list would be guys like Mark Buehrle and Edwin Jackson. They are not aces.

One way or another, the Twins need someone new to plug in to the top spot in their rotation. I’m not sure the minor league organization is deep enough to trade for someone better than Carpenter or Dempster. Let’s hope so.

Next, we’ll wrap up this little exercise by trying to actually assemble a 25 man roster for 2012 that might allow us to pretend 2011 never happened.

– JC

We’re working our way through the list of potential free agents, with an eye toward helping our friend and Twins GM Bill Smith fill out his shopping list for the upcoming offseason.

Since the Twins’ first round draft choice is protected, thanks to the lowly position they are all but assured to claim in the final standings. That, combined with the Target Field revenue stream and the not-insignificant amount of money scheduled to come off their payroll books after 2011, leave the organization with a lot of opportunities to improve the team on the field.

In Part 1, we discussed the catching position and in Part 2, we looked at 1B, OF and DH. In Part 3, we’ll try to figure out what to do about the mess that the front office created in the infield last offseason. Elias combines 2B, SS and 3B together in their rankings, so we’ll talk about those three positions together, too.

You’re going to spend $3 million on Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Those are probably sunk costs (though in my little fantasy world, I’ve been trying to fool myself in to thinking there might be some way to send Nishi back to Japan and get out from under the rest of his contract… I just have no idea how that might happen). But even if you’re paying him, that doesn’t mean he has to be on your roster. If we can find a replacement who is better at baseball (and that seems like it should be easy enough to do), you ship Nishioka to New Britain or Rochester.

We’re estimating Alexi Casilla would get about $1.5 million via arbitration, but since he’s been sitting out the last several weeks, that might be a bit high. Danny Valencia is going to be another minimum wage earner in 2012.

But if we’ve got the money, who’s out there to spend it on?

Of course, Jose Reyes is the guy getting all the ink and as a 28 year old with an OPS in the high .800s, he’s earned the attention. He’s going to find someone willing to give him a nice raise over his current $11 million salary. It won’t be the Twins.

I might check in to see what kind of offers the Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins is getting. He’s pulling down $8.5 million this season and he’s still not putting up the MVP numbers he was 4-5 years ago, but he’s certainly looking better this season than he has the past two… and a helluva lot better than what the Twins have put out there at SS. I might also keep track of whether the Reds pick up Brandon Phillips’ $12 million option. That’s a lot of money to pay a middle infielder, though he is a couple of years younger than Rollins. If I have room in my budget and can sign one of those guys, I’d do it.

The only other Type A 2B available is Kelly Johnson. Johnson picked a bad time to have a bad season (though he seems to be turning things around a bit since coming over to Toronto from the D’Backs). He put up numbers in Arizona well below his career line and even further below his 2010 offensive stats. He’s making less than $6 million this season, so he’ll likely be relatively affordable, especially saddled with that Type A collar around his neck. At age 29, I might be tempted to find out if he’ll bounce back to something close to his career averages, say .260/.350/.450 with 10 HR and 12 SB.

Johnson, Rollins and Phillips would all be capable of giving the Twins some of the speed that they claimed was important when they let JJ Hardy and Orlando Hudson go last offseason.

There are no Type A free agents currently at the 3B position but, despite being the target of a fair amount of criticism from his manager, it’s tough to imagine Danny Valencia not being the Twins’ 3B next season. Nevertheless, let’s glance at the Type B options.

The Cubs’ Aramis Ramirez and the Dodgers’ Casey Blake both have club options that their teams will have to decide about picking up. Ramirez will be pricey (the option is for $16 million) and Blake would have been a good option for the Twins three years ago, but I can’t see him being an upgrade over Valencia at this point in his career.

There is one 3B that might be worth at least taking a look at, particularly if the Twins decide to use Valencia as trade bait (perhaps to help upgrade their pitching staff?) and that’s Wilson Betemit of the Tigers. He’s only making $1 million this season, is just 29 years old and carried a .286/.345/.413 slash line in to the end of August. He can also play 1B and 2B. I’m not so sure he wouldn’t cause just as much anxiety for Gardy with his defense as Valencia does, however.

Next up, in Part 4, we talk pitching. I hope we still have some money left.

– JC