Comments on: WWTD? (What Will Terry Do?)

By: frightwig

frightwig — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:15:55 +0000

Note that Morneau, for all the progress he’s made, is still worth replacement-level WAR to this point on the season. And Parmelee was killing it at AAA. I feel like Parmelee could actually be an upgrade, and probably wouldn’t be worth less than Morneau. Meanwhile, it would be nice to have salary relief before shopping for pitching, too. Who knows, maybe dumping Morneau’ contract means the club could buy a high-end pitcher like Greinke this winter.

By: Jim Crikket

Jim Crikket — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:59:56 +0000

If the Twins had a legit 1B coming up that Morneau was blocking, I might agree with you. But he’s made a lot of progress over last year and I’d rather see if he gets even better next year. Frankly, he’ll be more valuable in a trade scenario NEXT summer, if you want to trade him, because he won’t have as much money owed to him by then.

I haven’t followed everyone on that list of potential free agents, but if those options are mostly picked up, the list gets a lot shorter. There should be one or two there that the Twins will be able to afford, I would think.

By: frightwig

frightwig — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Yeah, I think the offense has showed that it can be productive enough to support hopes for a contender in 2013, as long as Terry Ryan effectively restocks the pitching rotation in the meantime. But if I could find anyone willing to take Morneau, even if the deal were just a salary dump, I would probably do it.

Since that hot spell in the latter half of May, Morneau has hit just .211/.277/.303 in June; he’s been pretty good on the road this season (which could be a selling point), but lousy at home; and he almost literally cannot hit lefthanded pitching lately (.088/.125/.191 this year). Right now, I don’t feel like he’s really an essential part of a contending team next year, or that he’d be all that difficult to replace. It seems like the Morneau we used to know is mostly gone, now.

Anyway, let’s hope Liriano keeps pitching well enough to fetch a nice return in trade next month, and that Ryan can buy or trade for at least two good starting pitchers next winter.

Here’s the list of potential free agent SP’s (asterisk indicates a club option on current contract). See anybody you like?

Scott Baker *
Joe Blanton
Matt Cain
Fausto Carmona *
Kevin Correia
Jorge De La Rosa *
R.A. Dickey *
Scott Feldman *
Gavin Floyd *
Zack Greinke
Jeremy Guthrie
Cole Hamels
Dan Haren *
Tim Hudson *
Colby Lewis
Francisco Liriano
Kyle Lohse
Derek Lowe
Shaun Marcum
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Brandon McCarthy
Brett Myers *
Carl Pavano
Jake Peavy *
Anibal Sanchez
Jonathan Sanchez
Ervin Santana *
Joe Saunders
James Shields *
Jake Westbrook *
Randy Wolf *
Carlos Zambrano *