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

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

Ehhh. I'm not sold. He'll have to earn his spot on the major league roster through spring training. Don't think starter is a good option, but bullpen could work. Agree with the poster above that the best we could hope for is Dillon Gee last year. Other than that, just waiting for his contract to be off the books

2020- Where is Rosario going? And Sano moving to 1B? You're also missing a starter at 3B

Darvish strikes a lot of people out

No... Just no.... Getting rid of Hughes and his money would be nice, but that's about it

Wha.... What? Now that we're finally a playoff team again, trade our arguably two best players? What?

I'm willing to give Fleck a few years and see what he can do. Yeah, the taglines and whatnot are cheesy, but listening to him in interviews, specifically postgame interviews, I like what he has to say. He hasn't had hardly any time to put his touch on the team yet (in terms of recruiting and getting the players he wants). So let's give him the benefit of the doubt and see what he can do The Gophers have never been a good football team in modern times. You could bit Bill Belichick or whoever you want as coach and it'll take them more than 2 years to turn this program around. Calling for this guy to be fired before he even gets a chance to do anything with the team is only going to perpetuate the cycle- New guy comes in, isn't given enough time to do his thing, doesn't get results, fired, and so on. Maybe Fleck won't be the guy that finally turns this team around, but you have to at least give him the chance to do it

Saw a comment somewhere else that I agree with. Pretty much said that Ervin is much more valuable to us than any other team. Doesn't make sense to trade him, IMO. A few issues I see- -Absolute best case scenario this offseason, we sign Darvish and Otani plus trade for Gerrit Cole. Ok, we can probably live without Santana. Good case- We get Otani and one of Darvish/Cole. Alright, we'll still have a solid rotation, but if Otani busts, it's looking pretty bad without Santana. Realistic case- We sign one of Lynn or Cobb. The rotation has now gotten worse from last year if we move Ervin. Worst case- We don't acquire any significant starters, our rotation is now in shambles without Ervin. I understand a trade of Ervin would probably be conditional on acquiring other rotation help, but I think it's a really risky move even if we are able to get a quality starter or two -Ervin just doesn't have that high of trade value. I don't think we would be able to get anyone that would benefit our team more than just keeping Ervin -What do we try to trade for? Our biggest two needs are starting pitching and bullpen help. Nobody is going to trade a better starter for Ervin, so we're looking at relievers. No thanks. You need someone to pitch 6-7 innings to give a winnable game to the bullpen in the first place. I don't think you can convince me than any reasonable bullpen trade target would be more beneficial than Ervin. You could argue we could use a solid DH bat, but we already have that filled with Sano or Escobar. So what are we trading for and how do we actually use what we trade for without benching someone that should be starting? All in all, the idea of getting Ervin's contract off the books is nice, but I think it's safer, more realistic, and more beneficial to keep Santana

Sigh. I understand being realistic and accepting we probably won't get Darvish or Arrieta. That's fine. But Trevor Cahill? Tyson Ross? Ubaldo freaking Jimenez? We should not even consider touching any of these guys with a 10 foot pole. Even if we could rely on any of them to be a decent #3-5 starter, which we can't, why in the world would we add another one of those to the mix? We already have Gibson, Mejia, Hughes, and May that will be competing for those slots. Plus Gonsalves, Romero, Jorge, and a few others in the minors that could slot in there. That's a minimum of 7 guys for 3 slots. Why in the world would we add another guy to that mix? None of the guys in this article are remotely good enough to consider adding to the team. We need front end rotation help. We all know it. We just have to actually go out and do it. None of these guys are remotely helpful in the slightest. I think I actually gagged when I saw Jimenez on this list. Again, we probably won't get Darvish or Arrieta. That's cool. But to jump all the way down to this tier of pitching? Disgusting. Two guys that could be good fits are Alex Cobb or Lance Lynn. They aren't #1 type pitchers, but they could work as #2-3 types. They'll both get decent contracts, but not big enough where the Twins are immediately out of contention for them. Plus, both of them would actually be helpful to us. Ideal situation, I think we should try to sign one of them. A rotation of Berrios, Santana, Cobb or Lynn, and then two of whoever's pitching best of the guys I listed about would be a competent rotation. Then in the ideal situation, we try to trade for a #1 at the deadline. We still have some assets in the minors that could get a deal done. For me, that's the ideal situation. Sign Cobb or Lynn now, and if we're looking like a contender at the deadline, go trade for an ace. I'm all for being realistic in our expectations, and I really have enjoyed reading articles on this site, but I hated everything about this article, and it made me create an account just so I could voice my displeasure. Twins, please do not sign one of these bad pitchers. Be smart, make some good news, and improve the club