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This article gives you an idea of Price's trade value. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/david-prices-trade-value/ Boston would have to include some significant talent or eat quite a bit of salary.

Here are more accurate projected arbitration salaries. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/projected-arbitration-salaries-for-2015.html No chance they non-tender Fien at $1.1M. Nunez I can see being non-tendered. I would non-tender him. I just don't know if the Twins will. But even if somehow they did non-tender both of them, you would still be over $100M as you would only save $1.3M. As for it not being long term, you would have almost $70M locked up in 5 players for the next three years. That doesn't leave much flexibility unless they plan to increase payroll significantly. You'd really have to hit on almost all of your league minimum players and hope that the 5 players taking up about 70% of your payroll produce.

Simple and reasonable, although I'm not a fan of either player. The payroll figure is off though. If they tender Plouffe, Milone, Schafer, Nunez and Fien and non-tender Swarzak and Duensing, payroll would be at about $70M before counting pre-arb players. These two signings would take them over $100M. It's something they can afford, but you did mention being realistic with payroll.

This off-season has been a crazy one. Many of the big name free agents are already off the board and we're not yet at the winter meetings. The number of significant trades has also been interesting. Download attachment: sudburymariners-582x436.jpg The Mariners just signed Robinson Cano to a 10 year, $240 million contract. This was a curious move because they are coming off a 71 win season. Pitchers Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, along with third baseman Kyle Seager, are the only impact players on their team. So what's their plan? Even with the Cano signing, the M's still have about $40-50 million dollars to spend. They also have plenty of young players with upside.... Unfortunately, with a narrow window, they can't afford to wait for those players to develop. The M's have been linked to David Price, to form a trio that would compete with any front three in baseball. Their other needs include a couple right handed power bats, a back of the rotation innings eater and a closer. That sounds like a pretty good trade partner. Let's start with something like this.... Trade Glen Perkins, Josh Willingham and Kevin Correia for SS Chris Taylor, RHP Brandon Maurer, UT Stefen Romero and RHP Tom Wilhelmsen. This proposed trade fills several needs for the Mariners, while only increasing their payroll by $16M. This leaves them with money to acquire Price and another bat like Kendrys Morales or Nelson Cruz. At the very least, it gives them another option and trading partner. From the Twins' perspective, Perkins is obviously the biggest piece in this trade. Glen is one of the ten best relievers in baseball, with or without the "closer" tag. Perkins would have much more value to the M's and the fact that he will make roughly $12M in the next three years, makes him one of the bigger bargains in baseball. Willingham and Correia are both players who have one year left on their contracts. With Cano and King Felix eating up $50M for years to come, the M's will look for as much financial flexibility as possible. Hammer is coming off a down, injury-riddled season. Although I hate the thought of selling low, I feel supply and demand will increase his value. Right-handed power is in short supply and Josh also fills their need for a corner OF. Correia would be a perfect fit as an innings eater in that ballpark. Now for what the Twins are getting. None of these proposed guys are can't miss players, but they all have upsides to be useful major league players. With the M's pitching depth and a crowded middle infield, they are all players they can afford to trade. Chris Taylor is the key piece for me in this trade. He is currently the M's minor league player of the year. Known for his glove, he has great hands and feet. He also has an average to above average arm. So far, his offense has kept up with his defense. At age 22, Chris spent 2013 at A+ and AA putting up a .314/.409/.455 slash line with 38 stolen bases. He has the potential to be an everyday shortstop who gets on base, provides good defense and steals 25+ bases. The other pieces are interchangeable. The M's have plenty of young talent. So instead of Maurer and Romero, it could be some other combination. Wilhelmsen is a deal sweetener; you can also replace him with another prospect. The Mariners have a limited budget to work with, they have needs to fill and they have the prospects to trade. Now is the time for the Twins to strike and maximize the value received on our players. Click here to view the article

It is now 2014 and Stephen Drew is still a free agent. There has been speculation regarding the Twins making a run at Drew. Some are in favor of a possible signing, while some are against it. This is a common theme when speculating on transactions. Everyone is going to have his opinion. Here is my case for signing Stephen Drew. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Download attachment: Drew.jpeg More information on the stats used below can be found in the Glossary section of Fangraphs.com. Offensive Upside Stephen Drew was a good offensive player in 2013, putting up a wRC+(weighted runs created, normalized for park and league effects) of 109. That's before considering that he is a shortstop. In 2013 the league average wRC+ for shortstops was 85. To put that into perspective, his offensive production was similar to Dustin Pedroia (115 wRC+) compared to the league average second baseman (91 wRC+) and Allen Craig (135 wRC+) compared to the league average first baseman (110 wRC+). While that gives you an idea of how good his offense was for a shortstop, it would be more helpful to compare him to the player he'd be replacing. Pedro Florimon had a 68 wRC+ in 2013. So Drew was essentially 41% better at creating runs than Florimon. To give you an idea of how much better 41% is, I used two other full time Twins players to help illustrate how big of an upgrade Drew would have been over Florimon. Florimon wRC+: 68 Drew wRC+: 109 Dozier wRC+: 101 Cano wRC+: 142 Plouffe wRC+: 93 Longoria wRC+: 133 If you are skeptical that this was a career year for Drew, and thus an outlier, this was the fourth season that Drew put up a 109 wRC+ or higher. Steady Defense While Florimon is one of the better defensive shortstops in the league, Drew is a good defensive shortstop in his own right. Here is how Drew's defense has rated over the last five years using UZR/150 (ultimate zone rating, over 150 games) and DRS (defensive runs saved). UZR/150: 4.0 DRS: 3 Using 4000 innings as the threshold, a total of only 10 shortstops rated above zero in both defensive metrics during that time frame. Overall Player Using the same five year time frame, here are Drew's overall numbers. wRC+: 98 UZR/150: 4.0 DRS: 3 During that span, only three other shortstops met or exceeded these standards: Tulowitzki, (Yunel) Escobar, and Peralta. In 2013, once again, only three shortstops met these standards. Tulowitzki, (Yunel) Escobar and Hardy. Health Concerns Health should be a concern with every player, but it seems to be overblown with Drew. He has been tagged with words like injury-prone and fragile, which doesn't seem to be fair. When you take out his flukey 2011 ankle injury (broken bone and torn ligaments from a slide in to home), Drew averaged 142 games played in his other five full seasons in the majors. In those five seasons he has been on the DL three times for a total of 54 days. Those three DL stints were caused by two hamstring strains and a concussion suffered from being hit in the head by a pitch. So other than a couple of freak injuries, he's been quite durable. 2015 Class There has been talk about shortstops who may be available through free agency next offseason. So I wanted to compare them to Drew noting their ages when hitting free agency, along with their offense and defense over the past five seasons. I didn't include Ramirez and Jeter because they aren't realistic options due to many factors. [TABLE=width: 500] [/TD][TD]Age wRC+ UZR/150 DRS Drew 31 98 4.0 3 Cabrera 29 107 -10.8 -19 Lowrie 31 108 -4.4 -28 Hardy 32/33 92 9.3 31 Rollins 36 92 4.6 -29 [/TABLE] All things considered, Drew looks to be the most attractive player. The Conclusion Other than giving up a second round draft pick, all things point to Drew being a great signing. He is a good player who would provide a significant upgrade at a position at which the Twins lack options. He would also provide balance to an infield (Dozier, Plouffe) that struggles against right-handed pitching. There seems to be a thin market for Drew with the Red Sox and Mets being the two teams most often mentioned. There have been reports that teams are not willing to go past two years, so this would be a good time for the Twins to jump in and offer Drew three years, $30-33 million. It would be nice to have another proven position player alongside Mauer to help with the infusion of youth coming up in the next couple years. Especially a shortstop. Click here to view the article

Lost in a miserable 96 loss season was the Minnesota Twins bullpen and how good they were. How good were they you ask? This is how they ranked in the AL in some major categories. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] IP 1st ERA 5th WHIP 3rd K/BB 5th Opponent OPS 5th [/TABLE] Despite being overused and leading the league in innings pitched by a significant margin, the Twins bullpen ranked in the top 5 in the AL in four major categories used in judging performance. That's the good news. Some even better news is how much better they can be if used more efficiently. The Closer: Glen Perkins We all know how good Perkins is. One of the top 10 relievers in the game, Perkins has been dominant since transitioning to the bullpen in 2011. Here are his numbers in the last three seasons. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD] K% BB% K/BB WHIP FIP ERA Overall 28.4% 6.7% 4.23 1.06 2.71 2.45 Vs. RHB 29.3% 6.9% 4.23 1.10 3.00 - Vs. LHB 26.9% 6.3% 4.24 0.99 2.18 - [/TABLE] Dominant against both right handed and left handed batters, Perkins is entrenched as the Twins' closer. And we all should be okay with that. The "RH Specialists" : Casey Fien, Jared Burton and Anthony Swarzak Okay, okay I couldn't think of anything better than "RH Specialists", but that's what these three should be. Burton and Fien have both spent time as set up guys for Perkins and Swarzak was used as a long man in 2013. Although they all did a fine job in their roles, they all really excel when facing right handed batters. Here are their numbers facing right handed batters. I used the last two seasons for Burton and Fien. I only used 2013 for Swarzak since that was his first full year of being in the bullpen. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] K% BB% K/BB WHIP FIP Burton 22.3% 5.1% 4.33 0.88 3.22 Fien 28.6% 4.4% 6.50 0.95 2.51 Swarzak 20.4% 4.5% 4.56 1.05 2.02 [/TABLE] The LOOGYs : Brian Duensing and Caleb Thielbar We all know about Duensing's troubles against right handed batters going back to his days as a starter. Last season he got to solely focus on coming out of the pen and although he ran into some bad luck (.400 BABIP), he continued to show that he can dominate left handed batters. Here were his 2013 numbers against them. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] K% BB% K/BB WHIP FIP Duensing 27.3% 5.3% 5.14 1.45 2.75 [/TABLE] Caleb Thielbar had an outstanding rookie season putting up a sparkling 1.76 ERA. Although he may have been a little lucky against right handed batters, he dominated left handed batters. Here were his 2013 numbers against them. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD]K% BB% K/BB WHIP FIP Thielbar 28.1% 4.9% 5.75 0.66 2.69 [/TABLE] Conclusion I would personally like to see the Twins eliminate the "set up man" and use these five non-Perkins relievers according to matchups. With an improved starting rotation, the Twins should be able to limit the bullpen's usage while maximizing each pitcher's strengths. As good as they were in 2013, the Twins bullpen could be even better in 2014 (if used properly).

This is just speculation. a. Signing Peralta did not require sacrificing a draft pick. b. Drew's agent is Scott Boras, who will generally wait it out for the best deal possible. Unless you overpay, of course. c. The Cardinals factored in point b, and didn't want to possibly miss out on both shortstops. So they just went out and snagged Peralta early.

Not quite. That would be a cool tool to have . wRC+ like OPS+ measures how a player compares to league average (100) using different metrics. wRC+ is based off wOBA. wRC+ is also park and league adjusted so it allows you to compare players using different years, parks and leagues. For example, run scoring environments change every year. Also, Coors Field is a better ball park to hit in than Target Field. American and National league also have different run scoring environments. So when you're looking at a player's wRC+, it's been adjusted by all these factors.

I agree. And Stephen Drew is a good defensive SS.

It's reasonable to think that about most free agents, as they are usually around 30 by the time they hit the market. It's his age 31-33 seasons, so slight regression is expected. But you can't assume he'll be a liability either.

That's why I used wRC+ as the offensive stat. It's park and league adjusted.

Of the three issues, timing may be the one that might concern me a bit. Even so, Drew would be a step closer in the right direction. As a fallback option, he should be an asset as an above average shortstop. Unless he completely falls apart, there should be opportunity to recoup value in a trade. I'm not sure about the clubhouse thing. Unfortunately I wasn't able to quantify it . FWIW, I've ran into several quotes mentioning that he was good in the Boston clubhouse.