Let’s start over. Way over. If you were GM of the Twins and you could go back to last October 5th (the day after the final game of the season) what would you do differently know what you know now?

Here is a list of offseason moves the Twins made from October 5th to the beginning of the season:

1) Torii Hunter Retires

2) Signed Dan Runzler to Minor League Deal

3) Traded Aaron Hicks for John Ryan Murphy

4) Signed Joe Benson to Minor League Deal – Released in spring

5) Signed Aaron Thompson to Minor League Deal – Released in spring

6) Signed Juan Centeno to Minor League Deal

7) Signed Byung Ho Park

8) Acquired John Hicks (waivers)

9) Signed Buddy Boshers to Minor League Deal

10) Signed Darin Mastroianni to Minor League Deal

11) Signed Brandon Kintzler to Minor League Deal

12) Signed Fernando Abad to Minor League Deal

13) Signed Ryan Sweeney to Minor League Deal – Released in spring

14) Arbitration signing – Tommy Milone

15) Arbitration signing – Eduardo Escobar

16) Arbitration signing – Eduardo Nunez

17) Arbitration signing – Casey Fien

18) Signed – Kevin Jepson

19) Signed – Trevor Plouffe

20) Signed Carlos Quentin to Minor League Deal – Released in spring

Wow! When you look at the list of signings and re-signings done in the offseason as a whole, it is really pathetic. I mean what on that list would have made this team better? Byung Ho Park was an incremental gain and the Aaron Hicks trade was meant to be a lift to the Catcher position. Outside of that everything else was status quo and minor league signings. Not one major league free agent outside of Park. No real backup plans in case the youngsters didn’t work out.

Now what could have been done differently?

First of all the Joe Benson, Ryan Sweeney, Carlos Quentin signings were extremely worthless in my opinion. They had no shot of making the major league roster and took spring training at bats away from guys like Buxton and Kepler.

1) Trade Trevor Plouffe. I know the market was not great, and was actually pretty bad in terms of returns for 3rd basemen. But if the Twins could look at it as more than just trading Plouffe, instead getting incremental gains by being able to put players in correct positions as well as whatever the return for Plouffe would be. (Plouffe Skywalker day is over so they can trade him now)

2) Do not re-sign Jepsen and Fien let Milone walk. Opens up two other RP roles and a SP opening. There were lots of options out there and they didn’t appear interested in exploring any. I get they don’t want to block younger arms, but we have yet to see one of those arms up here. I like the Fernando Abad deal so far so that is a good one but then they should have added ML arms. Steve Cishek would have been nice for starters and maybe a 2nd veteran arm like Neftali Feliz. Both are shorter term deal (2 years and 1 year with current team) Also, its like the Twins forget they can trade players they recently signed if they build up value and have younger replacements ready to backfill. . .

3) Trevor May is now a starter.

4) Don’t trade Aaron Hicks. I get the thought here, but don’t do it. Having his defense in the outfield while Buxton is in AAA would be nice. Also, would have given the Twins flexibility to keep Buxton at AAA to start the season and not sign Benson, Sweeney, Quentin, and Mastro + Grossman later on.

5) Actually go out and sign a catcher. The White Sox signed 3 of them in the offseason. The guy I thought the Twins could have gone and got was Giovani Soto.

6) Sign Byung Ho Park. This has worked out so far. Compare him to the DH’s the Twins have had hitting the last few years.

7) Sign another Veteran Outfielder like Rajai Davis.

I know this is all hindsight. But many of these suggestions were mentioned on TD during the offseason. So it isn’t like I just cherry picking players who are performing well. Also, this would not change the team to playoff team, but would hopefully make them respectable.

The Opening Day Roster would have looked like this:

Outfield

Aaron Hicks

Rajai Davis

Oswaldo Arcia

Eddie Rosario

Infield

Joe Mauer

Brian Dozier

Miguel Sano

Eduardo Escobar

Eduardo Nunez

Super Utility

Danny Santana

DH

Byung Ho Park

Catcher

Kurt Suzuki

Giovani Soto

Starting Pitchers

Phil Hughes

Ervin Santana

Ricky Nolasco

Kyle Gibson

Trevor May

Relief Pitchers

Glen Perkins

Fernando Abad

Steve Cishek

Neftali Feliz

Ryan Pressly

Michael Tonkin

Tyler Duffey

In this scenario the Twins would have left most of the youngsters in AAA but there would be flexibility to promote or replace opening roster players who became injured.

This flies in the face of everything Terry Ryan and the Twins said their plan was during the offseason, but clearly the youth movement didn’t work in reality and giving them AAA time is probably what would have been best from the start of the season. They are all in AAA now in reality. So this roster construction would have been of great benefit for the Twins in my opinion. Hindsight is 20/20.

What would everyone else have done differently?