Hollywood42

I mean that's pretty reasonable. Story is obviously the better player, but Polanco isn't too bad himself despite the trends of the offseason, and he's on a very team friendly contract for 5 more years whereas Story is a free agent next year. That makes a huge difference

Safely Cruz for me. Ozuna is a good hitter but very likely will never match his 2020 output. Moving forward I expect him to be a ~.280 hitter, ~.330 OBP with 30-35 HR a year. That's only a modest improvement over Eddie Rosario. Ozuna is very poor defensively as well, and it just doesn't make sense to me positionally to commit 4+ years to Ozuna. We'd have to juggle guys around basically each year to make space for Kirilloff/Rooker, enable a potential Sano switch to DH or Donaldson switch to 1B/DH, etc I wouldn't say no to Ozuna, but I don't think he's a very good fit here at all to be honest

The last thing this lineup needs is another high strikeout, low OBP bat that never walks. Defensively, sure he'd be nice to have, offensively absolutely not

Hard pass

Absolutely not

What do Royce or Kirilloff have to do with anything? And Mauer won't be expensive at all. If we don't sign Polanco, he won't be a reason why

I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but I go have to say, while technically true to say Buxton got MVP votes- Really???

I dunno, I really do think Mauer would take league minimum to stay if that's what it came down to. I certainly don't think that's what he'd end up getting, but I could definitely see $3ish million per year for 1 or 2 years

Where does this number come from?

The thing with Mauer is, who else do we currently have at 1B? Tyler Austin, sure, but without Mauer there's no backup and we still have a hole at 1B/DH. You could suggest that Sano moves to more of a 1B/DH role than 3B, but then there's a hole at 3B. Maybe we get Escobar back to fill that, but he'll probably be fairly sought after once Machado goes off the board. Rooker et all still need another year or two before they're ready to step in I certainly understand why we shouldn't be making it a top priority or anything to re-sign Mauer. I love the guy, but you can't argue against the fact that he doesn't give you the production you'd typically want from a 1B. With that said, as it currently stands there's clearly a place for him on the roster, and he isn't going to want to go anywhere else. Mauer won't be at all expensive either, and while he won't win a batting title anymore or hit 20 HR, he really won't hurt us at all either I'm personally in full support of bringing him back for a cheap 2-ish year deal. He wants to stay, he still has some production left in him, and it's not like we have significantly better options other than him. Plus the whole story aspect and letting him break a few more Twins records, maybe help his HOF case a bit. When Rooker is ready, reduce Mauer's role a bit. He'll be on board so long as he gets to stay and keep playing. I don't see any big reasons not to bring him back with how things currently sit

All depends on how many years. If we can get him to a 4 year deal, it's absolutely worth it, even if we have to pay $25ish million each year. If he's absolutely not willing to take less than 6 years, then it starts to become more of a question. You do have to consider that we'll need to be looking at extending Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Berrios, Kepler, and so on in the next few years. But the bottom line is that our team desperately needs a true #1 ace starter, and getting one would, I believe, set us up for a deep playoff run. Darvish is the best opportunity we've had in forever to get an ace through free agency, and it would be arrogant to not at least explore that option

Honestly, I don't think any of these are that big of issues or things that we weren't expecting to have to deal with- 1. If Sano is out for awhile, be it suspension or injury, Escobar gets the starts at 3rd. It's hard to replace Sano's power, but Esco has proven he deserves consistent playing time. While obviously I'd rather have Sano in the lineup, I'd feel comfortable with starting Esco at third in his absence 2. This seems pretty straightforward. It's Rodney's job until he loses it. After that, Reed is the logical next man up. But we also have a few others that we could choose to test out in the closing role if we want to keep Reed available for the highest leverage moments- Hildy, Curtiss, Chargois, Burdi, and a few of the other newer guys to the MLB. The team knows Rodney can be pretty good or pretty bad, I'm sure they already have their plan B in place 3. I'd argue that Grossman should be our main DH at this point (though in actuality it'll be a rotation of him, Sano, Escobar, plus Mauer on rest days). Vargas I don't really want to lose, but he hasn't really shown an incredible upside either, so we could absorb it fine, particularly if we sign a Napoli or someone else that can play 1B. Side note, really looking forward to watching Rooker progress through the system, it's super early, but he has a chance to be our next long term 1B, and it's really exciting 4. This one is fair, but I think they're pretty ready to test out Garver in the backup role. If he's way over his head and we're forced to try something new, I'm guessing we'd just call someone up from the minors. But I think Garver will be given plenty of time to stick 5. Everyone has to know that Ervin will regress. And we already know the rotation is our biggest weakness at this point. I'm 100% positive the FO is actively working on ways to improve the rotation (Darvish plz). The strength of the rotation is obviously a huge concern and something we need to address if we want to become a serious playoff team, but everyone in the league knows it, it's not like we'll all be surprised if Santana doesn't repeat his performance from last year. I'm sure the FO has been working on this from day 1

We're a playoff team again so you trade one of our best position players and top clubhouse leaders? No...

Have faith, Twins fans. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few bullpen signings before a potential bigger signing. Darvish is the guy we're all dreaming of, but a big signing will take some time, and we need bullpen help too. Front office has been great so far this offseason, looking forward to seeing what they can do

Where'd you read that? I've great that he's a great athlete, good power and speed, and that he could be a perennial 20-20 guy in the future. Only bad grade he has is his arm, which is understandable given an injury (with surgery, if I recall correctly), 1 or 2 years ago