Can someone please explain to me what Terry Ryan is thinking? For three years we've been rebuilding. Guys like Correia, Marquis and Pelfrey were brought in as payroll was slashed. And now, in the past 3 hours, two pieces of news have convinced me that they have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

First, we signed Torii Hunter to a 10.5 million dollar one year contract. No, I didn't meant to write 1.5 million, or 0.5 million. It is a 10.5 million dollar contract. To improve one of the worst defensive outfields in the league , they signed a 39 year old right fielder that was the worst qualified defensive right fielder in the league . Or maybe they did it because they wanted someone to be a mentor. Ignoring how poorly that worked with the Jasons Bartlett and Kubel, they are bringing in a player with a troubling past to say the least. I can find no same baseball reason to sign Hunter, let alone to make him the third highest paid player on your team. Let that sink into your mind. 39 year old Torii Hunter is receiving the third highest salary among current players.

The second decision, was to tender contacts to all 6 arbitration eligible players. Trevor Plouffe and Fien were no doubters in my mind, though Milone and Schafer seemed logical to be offered a contract given the lack of talent say their respective positions. But Nunez and Deunsing make no sense. What does Eduardo Nunez offer that Escobar doesn't as a utility guy (or Doug Bernier/James Beresford if they keep Santana in the outfield and Escobar at sorry)? Does it make any sense to pay a sub par lefty only reliever 2.5 million dollars while you leave players like Levi Michael, Adrian Salcedo, Jason Adam (a player you just traded for) unprotected? All he offers is innings pitched that could go to Caleb Thielbar, Aaron Thompson or Logan Darnell (or even Tommy Milone if he doesn't stick in the rotation) to see if they could provide at least the same mediocre results at 1/5th the cost.

Instead, when you add in the addition of Hunter, Twins payroll will likely be sitting around 92 million. I wanted to believe, for once, that with multiple top tier pitching free agents and several second tier guys, that Terry Ryan would actually go out and make an aggressive attempt in free agency to bring in a high end free agent. Instead, we get to continue the Reunion Parade with, probably add a pitcher on looking to bounce back from injury (Likely on a similar one year deal near 10 million) while we hope that our pitching staff ascends to mediocrity from the scrap heap it's been over the last four years while we hope that our offense, which has several regression candidates (Hunter's continued slide into retirement included), can maintain itself. Not exactly a winning plan in my estimation.

Can Terry Ryan's job security afford the hit of one more failing season? Because the path he seems to be leading us down may very well answer that question.