Twins Offseason Moves

• Losing Hunter to the Angels – the Angels overpaid in terms of years and dollars per year, so I can’t feel bad about this.  I would have been willing to go as high as 4 yrs/$64 mil, but that still wouldn’t have been enough.  He’s definitely a good player, but perhaps we can replace him with a higher on-base percentage guy
• Trading Garza for Delmon Young – when the original deal had us dumping Rincon instead of a prospect named Eduardo Morlan, I liked it better.  I’m on the fence on this deal – Young should be really good, but he didn’t take a walk last year, and he plays a non-premium defensive position.  I wasn’t the world’s biggest Garza fan, though I think he’ll be better than average.  Bartlett is a solid player, so I didn’t really want to see him go.  I don’t think we’ll use Harris for more than one year, so I don’t see him as much of a positive.
• Signing Craig Monroe – I’ve never liked this signing.  There are lots of other veteran mediocrities out there.  I’d have just as soon picked up Mike Sweeney to DH.
• Losing Silva to the Mariners – the Mariners definitely overpaid for mediocrity here.  It was a mistake to sign him for $48 mil.  If I ran the Twins I wouldn’t have even offered him a deal (since he was bad enough in 2006 not to provide a compensatory draft pick if we lost him).
• Signing Adam Everett to play shortstop – as a stopgap move, I kinda like it.  Everett is the best defensive shortstop in the major leagues, but also just about the worst hitter.  If we can hit him 9th and not have other holes in the lineup, we should be okay.  We can pinch-hit for him in the late innings, so hopefully he only gets 2-3 at bats per game.
• Signing Mike Lamb to play third base – Lamb can hit OK, but he’s never really been a full time player, so it’s tough to say what he’d do given a full year to start.  He’s a butcher at third base, so that’s not good.  Given the dearth of 3B out there, I can understand the signing, but I’m not high on it.
• Signing Cuddyer and Morneau to long-term contracts – I am split.  I’m against signing Cuddyer long-term.  He’s a good player, but only slightly above average.  I wouldn’t expect him to put up world-beater numbers and we controlled him for the next two years anyway.  I would’ve taken him year to year and probably let him go after 2 years unless he took a modest contract.  I don’t think our deal with him is too terrible in terms of money, but he’s just not that great and he plays a position that’s highly replacable (RF).  I like the Morneau signing – I think he’s one of the top first basemen in the league and we didn’t really overpay.  We essentially paid the market rate ($14 mil) per year for a 1B in his free agency years.  I expect Morneau to rebound from this year’s campaign and be good throughout the contract
• Santana trade – the Mets have now entered the fray, but they don’t want to part with both Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez.  Both have always been very young for their levels and have put up decent but not even good numbers at those stops.  As much as I would like to see Santana be traded to the National League, the only way I make this deal if I’m the Twins is if I get their top three prospects (including Guerra) plus 2-3 other guys who could be useful.  None of these guys could contribute right away, so we’d really have to cross our fingers on this deal.  Regarding the Red Sox deal, I’m pretty convinced Jed Lowrie will be an above average SS or 2B in the majors, so I would be interested in the deal that nets us Lowrie, Ellsbury and Masterson, although I’d hold out for another pitcher (Bowden) to be thrown in.  I’d first go to the Yankees and ask them to add Austin Jackson or Jose Tabata to the deal with Hughes and Cabrera, and tell them if they didn’t, we’d trade Santana to the Red Sox.  That would get them to throw one of them in, and then we’d have the best case scenario.  We’ll see how this plays out.
• Nathan – considering we are well under budget this year, I’d offer Nathan some kind of contract with a signing bonus that paid him $11-12 mil per year for 3 years.  If he doesn’t take it, then we have to move on.

It should be an interesting last month.  It sounds like the Twins are pretty serious about trading Santana before pitchers and catchers report in about 3 weeks, so there should be plenty of news.