I disagree that Hughes is one of the 12 best in the organization. He's been better out of the pen, but I could easily come up with list of bullpen arms from AA up that I'd rather be giving innings to (Curtiss, Busenitz, Reed, Bard, Melotakis, off the top of my head, have been pretty darn good). They didn't DFA him because of his albatross of a contract. Everyone complains about the Mauer contract. But they still owe Hughes 26 million through 2019.