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For much greater detail, listen to our podcast. You can listen directly here or download directly from iTunes here. As it stands currently (with the six free agents), the Twins have 37 players on their 40-man roster. Both Jeremy and John are going to pare down that number by outrighting Johnny Field, Zach Granite, Chase DeJong, Tyler Duffey, John Curtiss and Aaron Slegers. John will outright Alan Busenitz additionally. Neither are tendering a contract to Robbie Grossman (who could be brought back for less than $4 million). This puts Jeremy's roster at 30. John has 29. By November 20, teams must add Rule 5-eligible players to their 40-man. Both Jeremy and John will add Nick Gordon, LaMonte Wade and Luis Arraez. John will also add Jake Reed and Tyler Jay. Jeremy will add Johan Quezada. This puts both rosters at 34. Our intention was to leave an open spot to draft an Rule 5 players and keep our payroll under $125 million. If you've listened to the podcast before, you'll know that Jeremy has been a big fan of Nathan Eovaldi (even before his great playoff run). Both Jeremy and John would sign him to a 4 year, $58 million deal (contract projection from Twins Daily's offseason handbook). John will spend more handsomely on the bullpen adding both Andrew Miller (2 yr/$24m) and Joe Kelly (2 yr/$14.5m). Jeremy, never a believer is spending big on bullpen arms, is only adding Sergio Romo (1 yr/$3m). On the offensive side of things, it's Jeremy who is opening up the wallet. He's adding Jose Iglesias (2 yr/$18m) to play shortstop, allowing Jorge Polanco to slide over to second base and providing a bridge to Royce Lewis. He's also hoping for Josh Donaldson (1 yr/$15m) to regain health and dominate Target Field once again, limiting his time at third base (60 games) and letting him DH 50-70 times. His last add provides positional flexibility, adding Marwin Gonzalez (3 yr/$33m) who can play all around the infield and the outfield corners. John plugs D.J. LeMahieu (3 yr/$38 m) in at second base, electing to keep Polanco at shortstop and swings for the fences, adding Adrian Beltre (2 yr/$30m) to provide leadership and guidance to the young core, especially Miguel Sano. All told, Jeremy's projected payroll comes in right around $125m while John's is a little higher, around $130m. All of these signings may be unlikely, but during the podcast we talk about alternatives as the Plan A guys come off the board. Listen and let us know what you think.

This story helps set the stage for a truly pivotal offseason ahead. It's just a taste of what you'll find in the 2019 Offseason Handbook, which is currently available for preorder. If you wanna learn more about it, and the benefits of preordering, check out our FAQ. Polanco’s 80-game suspension derailed his 2018 season, but he provided a solid bat upon his arrival. From July 1, 2017 through the end of this season, a sample of 624 plate appearances, he hit .279/.340/.445 (.785), good enough for a 110 wRC+. To put that into perspective, shortstops combined to hit .255/.315/.409 (.724) with a 95 wRC+ in 2018, per FanGraphs. But Polanco’s defense has not been as good, to put it kindly. Despite missing half the season, Polanco committed 13 errors. Only nine other shortstops had more. Polanco had the third-worst fielding percentage of the 35 shortstops who logged at least 500 innings at the position this season and the second-worst UZR/150. But is the offensive production worth the drop in defensive ability? It’s no secret that strikeout rates have escalated the past few years. League average K% has gone up from 17.5 in 2008 to 22.3 in 2018. At the same time, walk rates have remained about the same and home run-to-fly ball ratio has increased from 10.1 percent to 12.7 percent. There are a lot of factors at play in why those numbers have changed, but the end result is fewer balls in play. Last season, the average team had 38 plate appearances per game and a ball was put into play about 66 percent of the time. That gives us a total number of 25 balls in play you can expect your defense to have to try and field in an average game, but of those how many are actually difficult plays? If we look at the Inside Edge fielding numbers for the Twins this season, which are available at FanGraphs, it would appear the vast majority of balls in play fall either into the routine play or impossible categories. 2018 Twins Fielding Data Per Inside Edge (3,714 plays tracked) 0% chance: 12.4% (459 total) 1-10% chance: 4.8% (179) 10-40% chance: 4.3% (160) 40-60% chance: 3.3% (125) 60-90% chance: 6.4% (237) 90-100% chance: 68.8% (2,554) So 81.2 percent of all balls in play were deemed as either routine or impossible and another 6.4 percent land in the 60-90 percentile, leaving only 12.4 percent of all balls in play having a likelihood between 1-60 percent chance of being made. Since there are 25 balls in play each game, that means your defense is only going to be asked to try to field about three of those type of plays in a game. And, of course, your shortstop isn’t even necessarily going to be one of those asked to make those plays. Taking a look ahead to the offseason, the Twins could make a defensive improvement and sign a shortstop like Jose Iglesias with the intention of shifting Polanco over to second base. On the other hand, Iglesias only hit .269/.310/.389 with a 90 wRC+, and even that was a very strong year for him at the plate. Keeping Polanco at shortstop and signing a stronger bat to plug in at second base would leave the Twins a little light in terms of infield defense, but it might be worth the extra firepower. For example, free agent second baseman Jed Lowrie hit .267/.353/.448 with a 122 wRC+ for Oakland. You can apply this same kind of thinking across the diamond. Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Jason Castro all bring plenty to the table defensively, but it's also pretty difficult to try to project any of them to be above league average at the plate. There still may be some growth left with Kepler and Buxton, and you wouldn’t want to go out and downgrade every spot on the diamond, but I still feel like the Twins are in a position to sacrifice defense in order to improve their offense. Circling back to Polanco, of course the Twins would prefer to have a better defensive shortstop, but there are so few two-way players at the position. Even Manny Machado, one of the big fish on this year’s free agent market, leaves a lot to be desired as a shortstop. Also, while Polanco will never be a plus defender at short, I’m hopeful he can avoid some of the mistakes he made in 2018. Often times he seemed rushed -- like the game was a little too fast for him -- on the blatant errors he committed on what should have been routine plays. We didn't see that as often in 2017, which makes me wonder if the suspension had anything to do with the backslide he made in the field. Polanco does not fit the ideal profile at the position, but from a big-picture perspective keeping him as the shortstop gives the Twins a better overall chance to be successful in 2019. For more on Manny Machado, Jose Iglesias, Jed Lowrie and all the other middle infield free agent options, make sure to preorder the Twins Daily Offseason Handbook.