The Twins do just enough to irritate the malcontents

If you ever want to ruin your day, go ahead and look at Facebook comments on any post from your favorite public entities. I think it is a society wide problem nowadays, but if it isn't then it is certainly a problem for the Twins on Facebook.

The Twins aren't the only team that has been quiet so far this offseason. The Cubs may have done even less than the Twins, but at least they haven't come out to say that they are cutting payroll immediately after their most successful postseason in nearly 20 years. This has led to a raw edge for long suffering and increasingly disaffected fans.

So the Twins have made three moves in the last few weeks. All of them are perfectly reasonable, but not splashy moves, and definitely not the defining moves of an offseason for any team. The limited movement means there is a spotlight shined on the individual moves that have been made, and some fans are giving them weight than they probably will in the long run.

The Twins signed old friend Niko Goodrum and pitcher AJ Alexey to minor league deals, which means the major league deal signed by Josh Staumont is the biggest move of the offseason. Compared to the players they have lost, Staumont obviously pales in comparison. Without the flurry of activity, these negative Nellies think signing Staumont is a bad signing, which it is not.

If the Twins don't do anything else, it is a bad offseason, as they won't have achieved any of the goals they set out to achieve, but a flier on Staumont, a hard throwing reliever who has always dominated the Twins and, if healthy would be a boost to the 'pen. Same with Alexey, who is cheaper, but doesn't have the track record. Goodrum will bring some competition to the middle infield, or depth in St. Paul if no roster moves come to fruition.

It's been a quiet offseason so far, which magnifies the moves that have been made. The chorus has exclaimed that the Twins haven't done enough, which is obviously true. We also need to remember that we are only at the halfway point of the offseason. Let's wait until spring, and maybe even until after a TV deal is in place, before we come to a verdict on the offseason, and let's not get too worked up over these minor moves.  

Like the olden days

My first foray into the Twins online community was from a link on ESPN's Page 2, which brought me to a post on the Bat-Girl blog. Bat-Girl was the pseudonym of Twin Cities author Anne Ursu, and it was brilliant. Not only did it introduce a vital bit of humor to my baseball consumption, it also introduced me to the growing space of independent writers, especially sports writers, who were just starting the nascent blogosphere.

I got to know more and more writers, and became familiar with a lot of national writers, and as many of them moved to Twitter, I followed them. As Google Reader disappeared, Twitter became my clearinghouse for news, updated in about as real time as possible. It was easy to stay updated on the headlines of the day, and see a quip about those headlines just as quickly. If you knew where to go, and you were on TweetDeck, Twitter was great.

And then it wasn't. Regardless of your opinion of the current owner of the platform and the controversies surrounding him, Twitter, or really any social media platform, are only as valuable as the user base on those sites, and when Elon Musk bought it, and after his subsequent changes, the number of users started to deteriorate, and the functionality for the price diminished. 

Given the staffing cuts, and the grandeur of the scandals surrounding Musk and Twitter, the site is never going to be the same. I still automatically post these posts, as well as those from my other two sites, but I'm not on there any more, just scouring for news or posting my own hot takes. I have dipped my toe literally everywhere else though. Post.news is great for news, but doesn't have a "sports" section yet, and the user base is small. Mastadon is probably my favorite right now because of the automatic refresh, but is difficult to get started, and the users I follow are essentially mirrored from Twitter, and I worry what happens when that goes away. Threads will likely be the choice of corporate feeds, while Blue Sky will be the choice for individuals. (I'm @rhinoandcompass on all 4).

The point, though, is that if I want news, or a specific kind of content, I have to start hunting for it again. I need to start going to my favorite Twins sites again for news and analysis, rather than waiting for it to scroll across my timeline. I need to refresh MLB Trade Rumors awaiting updates, or wait for an alert on my phone after everything is buttoned up 5 hours later. It's like it's 2004 all over again. 

Right down to the false hope that eventually, my refreshing would pay off, and I would find out the Twins actually DID something. 

Trade partners and trade targets aren't lining up

 Back in the days of my youth, before a wife, before kids, and frankly, before I was reasonable, I liked to put together offseason plans and suggest trades and basically pretend I was smarter than I am. Now, with less time and the realization that modern day GMs are invested in statistics and have the advantage of professional scouts, I don't really add much to the conversation, if I ever did. Still, it was fun, and I liked doing it. Since there is an utter lack of headlines out there, and I have a rare bit of time on my hands, I thought I would go for it.

There are two major themes to all of Minnesota's offseason goals. They need to manage their payroll in the wake of their absent TV deal, and they also would like to add an elite starting pitcher to replace the loss of Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda. The obvious means in which to whittle away at their payroll is to offload replaceable players that have larger salaries. The best way to get an inexpensive, controllable starting pitcher on the trade market is to trade prospects to teams whose window is no longer open.

Jorge Polanco is the clear choice to be included in a trade that reduces payroll. He's a good offensive player, particularly for a second baseman, who has tread left on his tires and a not outrageous contract on the verge of expiration. Edouard Julien has already usurped the role, and if he falls flat in year two, Nick Gordon, Austin Martin, Brooks Lee or even Royce Lewis are options to man the keystone. Teams are not often as blessed for depth as the Twins are in the middle infield, and Polanco has been in demand elsewhere.

Polanco, then, is eminently tradeable. He has value on the market, and the Twins would like to get his payroll off the book. Unfortunately, teams like the Mariners or Blue Jays who have reportedly been interested in his services, don't really need to feel compelled to trade away one of those controllable starting pitchers the Twins so clearly desire and need. 

What I am trying to say is, this sounds like a good time for a multi-team trade! The Blue Jays and Twins have matched up before in a major trade, so there is a line of dialogue there. In this scenario, they work together to bring Brewers ace Corbin Burnes to Minnesota for a year. It's a pretty easy deal when discussing the return for the Twins and Blue Jays. Twins get Burnes, Blue Jays get Polanco. The Brewers, in turn, get 5 players. 

The Blue Jays would deliver veteran middle infielder Cavan Biggio and pitching prospect Brandon Barriera (#4 in the Blue Jays organization) while the Twins would pass along minor league infielder Tanner Schobel and pitchers David Festa and Connor Prielipp (7, 9, 6, respectively) to soften the blow for Milwaukee. This would give the Brewers three pitching prospects to replace Burnes (and Brandon Woodruff, also likely not to pitch for the Brewers again. 

Additionally, Milwaukee will prepare for the possible departure of Willy Adames, their shortstop who is as likely as Burnes to be traded this offseason by adding Biggio for a couple of years of stability, and Schobel as an option to replace Adames somewhere down the road. 

As is my constant and universal disclaimer, I don't know anything, and I can't get inside organizations to fully understand their player valuations, but the takeaway is that to attain the goals the Twins are trying to achieve, it's going to be complicated. 

Water under the bridge

 The state of Minnesota is on the precipice of having a new flag, having just today narrowed their option to one, and now, they will make slight modifications and aesthetic choices before the new flag is placed into permanent use at the beginning of the year. Despite the fact that many people have some negative opinions about the flag, (I think some of the options look too much like Sierra Leone's flag, for example).

It reminds me that about this time last year, the Twins were getting ready to role out their new rebrand. When it came out there was a generally positive opinion of the new look, but the new M logo was derided because some people thought it looked too much like the Marlins' M. It's one letter, and there are only so many typography options, so I wasn't bothered by it and now, a year later, it's not really top of mind anymore. 

What strikes me about the jersey update reflects on a message I have been sending as often as I post. You see, at the reveal, Luis Arraez was a prominent feature of the launch, while there were headlines about the players remaining in communication with Carlos Correa, who hadn't yet made his decision yet. His first decision.

After the reveal, the Twins got busy, eventually signing Correa, making the Arraez-Pedro Lopez deal, trading for Michael A Taylor and signing Donovan Solano. There was a lot of work left to be done, and most of it came after the new year. In fact, the only early maneuvering the Twins did were the trade of Gio Urshela and the trade for Kyle Farmer.

The off season is moving at a snails pace in Minnesota, I agree. But there i still plenty of winter to go. The Twins haven't settled their TV arrangement and take their time to begin with. Come next year, we'll be used to the Twins uniforms, the state's new flag, and take the spring changes to the roster for granted. Maybe next offseason, we'll be reviewing the new flag patch on the Twins' 

The Twins aren't playing to their field.

 Something that has always bothered me about Target Field is that when it was built, there was a core middle to the lineup that happened to all be left handed. There was Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel, all ready to bash at the new park, and the stadium was designed with an extra tall limestone fence in right field. Sure, sure, make it a little bit harder for the core of your lineup to hit them out. 

You could logically retort that the Twins weren't building the stadium with those players in mind specifically, which of course is true, but they did likely expect to have those players around for a while (before they were all derailed by their own injuries) which could have accounted for the first, I don't know, 20% of the stadium's lifespan, perhaps. 

But then the Twins added Jim Thome, and developed Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario. Jorge Polanco is a switch hitter, and now they have a bumper crop of left handed players ready to take over; Alex Kirlloff, Matt Wallner and  Trevor Larnach. Even the top two outfield prospects, Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez, are left handed.

The list of right handed hitters that have sustained success with the Twins is shorter. Nelson Cruz was great. Brian Dozier burned bright for a few years, but otherwise, the right handed bats have been inconsistent or failed to achieve the success that many expected. The first righty the Twins added for their bat was Delmon Young, followed by Josh Willingham. They developed Miguel Sano who could also be very good, but more often was not. Josh Donaldson didn't last. Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa are the preeminent righties right now, and have battled injury and slow starts through their time here. There is a lot of pressure on Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee, I guess, to fill in the right handed hitter role.

The left field fence is 10 feet deeper than the right field fence, but it is less than half as tall. Especially when a fly ball carries in a hot summer day, each fence is likely as capable of giving up home runs as the other, but when it is cold, or when the the hitter is prone to line drives (like Mauer) a driven ball is more likely to leave the park in left. 

Given that Minnesota is usually pretty chilly early in the season and into the postseason, solid right handed hitting would take advantage of the dimensions of Target Field. through intent or misfortune, the team hasn't really made a point of getting consistent production from that side of the plate. 

The outfield is a place to stash your best bats, and the Twins haven't used it for a dominant right handed hitter, and don't seem like they are likely to do that for a while, given the prospect pool. They continue to try to work Buxton into the lineup, and had Michael A. Taylor in center last year, more for his glove, but attained unexpected pop at the plate. If Buxton is back, a decent right handed hitter can slot in as a designated hitter. For the past few years, that righty has been Kyle Garlick. There is room to grow.

The Twins have been pretty quiet this offseason, and have limited payroll opportunities, but adding just one right handed corner outfielder with some more ability than Garlick would be a lift for the lineup at a relatively low price, and would address something that has been a hole for what seems like more than a decade. 

The Twins at the Winter Meetings

via GIPHY

The Winter Meetings have been slow in getting started this year. In the last stanza of the meetings, things have started really moving, and with Juan Soto likely off the board, one has to speculate on whether the trade market is about to open up soon. Free agency, however, has one, big Shohei Ohtani shaped block before the market opens up.

As Dan Hayes from the Athletic noted earlier, and I anticipated, the Twins never really expected to be active during the meetings, because it suits their methodology. They prefer to wait out the market and then pounce. It seems like the current regime hasn't made a move before mid-January in any of their previous iterations. 

Still, the silence was stark. Nearly every team started making minor league deals for roster depth, or finding some bullpen options, even if those players weren't going to be primary options for the opening day roster. But the Twins didn't even do that, which is, as I said, stark. They even passed on the Rule 5 draft.

There is some relief in knowing that this was part of the plan all along, though. Before the winter meetings, Derek Falvey told us to expect quiet, but this was even quieter than I could have anticipated. This seems to suggest that they are going to hope to buy low through all phases of their roster, right down to those non roster invites.

Like I said, in the past, the Twins have been slow to get started in the offseason, but there is the added element of financial constraint. They may be waiting to know exactly how much money they have to spend until a TV contract is solidified. I think it's probably more of the former than the latter, since there was no activity, even with minor league contracts. 

Regardless of the reason,  the Twins will await a point in the offseason where they won't have to get into a bidding war with other organizations, and can try to get real major league talent to bolster their system depth, after that major league talent fails to get a contract earlier in the offseason.

Trades are inevitable, and the Twins are good at staying out of the rumor mill, so we probably won't see it coming. With the absolute silence at the Winter Meetings, we will have even less of an idea what a trade might look like, because we have even less insight into the plan than usual. I guess we can look forward to an even more wild January than we've even seen in the past.