BREAKING: Nelson Cruz Agrees To Deal With Twins

And a one-year deal to boot! Nice.

I hope they find a way to keep Austin and Cron, in that order.

One year deal with an option. Ideal. 

Let Austin and Cron battle for the 1B spot in ST, and then cut bait with one. 

WOW!  

I have previously stated that I believe the decline we saw last year will continue, thus, we will see less home runs this year and another dip in average and OPS.  But the fact it is a one year contract WITH a Twins option alleviates much of my concern.  Good short-term risk to help this team in 2019.

Also read that he may be a good leader/role model for some of our young Latin players, thinking of you Mr. Sano.  Would be fantastic if Cruz did perform at a level close to last year and worked well with Sano, who I understand has been working hard on his conditioning this winter.

Big question is who will be gone from th4 40-man and how they will accomplish it.  I expect it will be one of the outfielders, Granite or Reed.  Expect they won't have room on the 25-man for Cron, Cruiz and Austin, although would like to see Austin stick until spring training. 

Now forward to the playoffs TWINS!

Love it, nicely done Falvine. 

Can't keep both, no way. Which is fine, I'm totally on board with it but let's get this out of the way now

Well, you can. It involves a 12-man pitching staff and a four-man bench (C, IF, OF, 1B). The problem is you then have three righties for 1B/DH.

Of course, if Austin can play some OF, he could certainly get starts against lefties in place of Kepler or Rosario.

Are you kidding me? This was a horrible signing. 14 million for a rental? Does anyone really think the Twins will compete now because we signed a declining 37 year old?

We needed pitching not some rental player. Unbelievable.

Nice signing, with a very nice contract. 1 with a cheap option is perfect.

And a cheap buy out too.  If he's terrible, it makes it real easy to cut ties too.  Not that the buyout should be something to be happy about, but it is very team friendly.

I'm a big fan of this signing.

I like this. He is older but still one of the better hitters in the league. Finally a guy you can slot in at #3 or 4 and know what you are gonna(should) get. 

The price to me anyway, sounds more than fair. There is nothing to not like about this deal. If he pushes out some younger guy, I'm not mad as I don't see any of those guys as long term keepers anyway. 

Are you kidding me? This was a horrible signing. 14 million for a rental? Does anyone really think the Twins will compete now because we signed a declining 37 year old?

We needed pitching not some rental player. Unbelievable.

Why not both? I still think the Twins will bring in a few relief options. They should anyway. Get out of the thinking that spending bare bones is the only way to ever work things here in Twinsland. 

Goodbye Tyler Austin. We hardly knew ye.

Are you kidding me? This was a horrible signing. 14 million for a rental? Does anyone really think the Twins will compete now because we signed a declining 37 year old?

 

We needed pitching not some rental player. Unbelievable.

*cannot tell if joking or not*

Great signing. Even if he is in a bit of a decline, he will still put up big numbers--huge numbers--compared to what our DHs have been giving us. Very team friendly contract from what I see. Plus, with him babysitting Sano and Baldelli babysitting Buxton, maybe we will have the output from them that we need. Twins needed a major signing(s) with all their money and this is a good start.

Satisfying. Go get some much needed pitching now.

One thing to note about Cruz’ down year last year: his batting average on balls in play was .264, which is 40 points below his career average on balls in play of .305. Correspondingly, his average (.256) was the lowest he hit in a decade. The three prior years he hit at least .287 each year. Even still, he OPSed .850. It’s possible he’s starting to decline...or it’s possible his numbers bounce back up a bit.

I still don’t see any guaranteed contracts for 2020.