Twins.. oh boy..

[Dan Wood]

I can see next year is going to be a tough one to stomach. Cuddyer, Kubel gone. Delmong Young and Thome late last year gone. Nathan gone.

Cuddyer got just over $30M for 3 yrs. Kubel got $15M for 2 yrs. In fairness to the Twins, I wouldn't pay either of them that much either.

And then we sign Capps to a $5M one yr. deal. wtf?? he hasn't looked that good to me.

Next year is going to be a long year I'm afraid. Not sure what the heck we are doing, 2 yrs. ago we had close to the same team but healthy and we won the division and should have beat the Yankess in the playoffs.. Last year we had way too many injuries. But now it seems we are totally starting over or playing Billy Bean economics ball. Getting more and more pissed everytime I hear Twins news.

[Lance Bainville]

Don't worry once they get that new ballpark they will compete......Oh wait they opened target field two seasons ago and now are back to saving money.

[Ranger55]

Around the net you read a lot about guys saying the Twins are going back to spending no money. I don't see that. They are spending just what they spent last year, near $100 million dollars. That's a bunch of money.

I think where people get miffed is Mauer and Morneau take up nearly $40 million of that. Those were good signings at the time. Both have been MVP in the past. What I see Ryan doing this year is seeing what happens with those 2 guys first. If they both come back healthy I think in July they will try and acquire what they need to chase down Detroit. However, if they can't play, then they might as well clean house and start rebuilding. Those 2 healthy bats in the line up would make a huge difference.

If they are out of contention in July then Pavano, Liriano, Carroll, Span, Marquis will all have some value to contenders. Heck, even if Morneau is healthy he would have value. Remember we can't get a thing for Morneau now because of the uncertainty of his health.

Twins fans need to keep the faith. We have seen no signs that the Pohlad kids will treat the fans the same way the old man did. They have the new stadium. They are allowed to make a profit. As long as they keep the payroll around $100 million I think they are doing what they said they would. Now, it's up to Ryan to get this mess from last year cleaned up.

[Dan Wood]

I haven't seen the salary numbers after all of this, but I do know that when we built the stadium we were committed as part of that in going from 65 to 95 million or something like that anyway. Interesting to hear we are still near that number after losing all of these guys. I realize the Mauer signing was a big portion or all of that increase in salary a couple years ago.

How many years does Morneau have left on his contract? I'd get rid of him as soon as somebody shows interest and can give us some future AAA guys. Some great prospects and not having his salary would be good for the club. If he can ever stay healthy he may be worth keeping, but I just don't ever see him making it a full year anymore. He just seems to always have something keeping him out. I understand signing Mauer, not much choice there since he is the hometown hero. He is a heck of a ball player, even though that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay a catcher. He is the best we have and somebody would of paid him that if we didn't. That is an insane amount of money, but I can see it based on what everyone else is getting. Cuddy ended up with over 10M a year and even Kubel got 7.5 a year. It seems the way salaries keep sky rocketing that you would need to continually increase payrolls just to keep up with other teams. It seems like every year it gets more ridiculous.

I guess we have to live with only a couple bigger name players at a time if we are still at the 100M mark after losing all of the bigger name guys. Cuddy got some recognition last year in the all star game and such, so that was pretty much a given we would lose him. At his age I'm not sure I would of paid him that either. I will try to remain optimistic but I have a tough time seeing how we are going to compete after losing all of the talent that wasn't enough last year.

[Ranger55]

If they dumped Mauer & Morneau and their $40 million in salary, the folks would bitch cuz payroll was only $60 million. lol
Without those 2, 4th place and annual losses of 90+ games is almost guaranteed.

Seems like a catch 22, I'll take M&M and take my chances for a few more years.

[Dan Wood]

I'll take the Mauer part of that M. Not saying to just dump Morneau and not replace him, they would still need to put it back into the payroll and grab a replacement (hopefully one that can stay healthy). $15M isn't too bad based on what these others are making if he wasn't injured all of the time. The Twins can't afford to have Morneau and a huge chunk of their payroll injured all of the time. He hasn't played much in the past 3 yrs. I have a feeling when they finally do part ways with Morneau that Mauer probably won't be happy. May need to make a decision at some point if we are re-building or not. If rebuilding then they may as well gut the team the rest of the way and get on with it.

Here are the 2011 salary figures, we had the 9th highest payroll . I heard we are at $95 for this year as of now.
PLAYER SALARY POSITION
Joe Mauer $ 23,000,000 Catcher
Justin Morneau $ 15,000,000 First Baseman
Joe Nathan $ 11,250,000 Pitcher
Michael Cuddyer $ 10,500,000 Outfielder
Carl Pavano $ 8,000,000 Pitcher
Matt Capps $ 7,150,000 Pitcher
Delmon Young $ 5,375,000 Outfielder
Jason Kubel $ 5,250,000 Pitcher
Scott Baker $ 5,000,000 Pitcher
Francisco Liriano $ 4,300,000 Pitcher
Nick Blackburn $ 3,000,000 Pitcher
Tsuyoshi Nishioka $ 3,000,000 Second Baseman
Jim Thome $ 3,000,000 Designated Hitter
Kevin Slowey $ 2,700,000 Pitcher
Denard Span $ 1,000,000 Outfielder
Alexi Casilla $ 865,000 Shortstop
Glen Perkins $ 700,000 Pitcher
Jason Repko $ 600,000 Outfielder
Brian Duensing $ 462,500 Pitcher
Jose Mijares $ 445,000 Pitcher
Danny Valencia $ 437,500 Third Baseman
Drew Butera $ 429,000 Catcher
Dusty Hughes $ 429,000 Pitcher
Matt Tolbert $ 425,000 Second Baseman
Jeff Manship $ 419,000 Pitcher

1 New York Yankees 196,854,630
2 Philadelphia Phillies 172,976,381
3 Boston Red Sox 160,257,476
4 Los Angeles Angels 138,999,024
5 Chicago White Sox 129,285,539
6 Chicago Cubs 126,380,663
7 New York Mets 120,147,311
8 San Francisco Giants 117,784,333
9 Minnesota Twins 112,737,000
10 Detroit Tigers 105,705,232
11 Los Angeles Dodgers 103,788,991
12 St. Louis Cardinals 98,746,072
13 Texas Rangers 91,885,265
14 Colorado Rockies 87,998,071
15 Atlanta Braves 87,003,192
16 Milwaukee Brewers 85,497,333
17 Baltimore Orioles 85,304,038
18 Seattle Mariners 84,865,600
19 Cincinnati Reds 76,181,366
20 Houston Astros 69,969,000
21 Oakland Athletics 65,275,500
22 Toronto Blue Jays 61,617,800
23 Washington Nationals 57,892,929
24 Miami Marlins 56,527,000
25 Arizona Diamondbacks 53,639,833
26 Cleveland Indians 48,339,167
27 Pittsburgh Pirates 45,630,000
28 San Diego Padres 45,455,040
29 Tampa Bay Rays 41,932,171
30 Kansas City Royals 35,712,400

[Ranger55]

Dan, I think this is the watershed year for the Twins. If Morneau can not play then it will be a full house cleaning and rebuilding will begin at once. Only problem is if he can't play then he has zero trade value. The Twins will have his contract 80% covered by insurance so this won't hinder them off the field.

If they go into full rebuild it will be another 3 years before we get anything close to a division title again.

[Dan Wood]

I have a feeling as Morneau starts to get closer to the end of his contract this coming year and next that he will be more motivated to play. That might not kick in until closer to the end of his 2014 end of contract though. It would be nice if he can step up and help the team out this year. I'm sure there are clubs keeping an eye on him, his potential must be of high interest to some teams. Is it possible to build a better team with some of these picked over FA's vs. what we had last year with Cuddy, Young, Thome, Kubel, etc.? 32 games back I think it was last year with these guys (granted we had a lot of injuries but still).. It isn't like we have to do the same next year with less talent or even a little better with less.. We have to turn around a horrible last place season with less... The odds are not good at all and I haven't liked much of anything I've seen this off-season. I do love the Twins and will still watch, just getting disappointed in some of these transactions. The Twins do have a way of surprising people and putting together something with nothing, so we'll see. On a positive note it will be nice to see some new faces and how some of the young guys do. Willingham could be a decent pick-up.

[Ranger55]

Pavano
Liriano
Baker
Blackburn
Marquis ?

Thats a 3rd place rotation with a average team behind them. It will take M&M both, along with Willingham having a good year to be in contention. They have played some pitifull defense also as of late. I hope they clean that up.

What is better then a hot steak, cold cocktail and listening to the Twins on a warm summers night?

[Hoyt4]

They need way too much to contend for the division this year.

3rd base, need even more improvement up the middle. Now 1st base will be in question till spring training. Power is gone now that Thome, Kubel and Cuddy are gone. Willingham will have some but we lost more then just one bat.

With M&M we only can ask for so much from the two. Middle infield will be a big issue again this year. You cannot be at the top in errors. Even with our bad pitching we could of won a lot of games with less errors and below average pitching staff.

It's going to be a long summer of Twins ball. Hope they go out and prove us all wrong and make a run. I would just be happy for us to battle for the division ,playoffs would be bonus.

[Terry Sjoberg]

I was very disapointed when they let both Cuddy and Kuble get away. There is way more to a player than just what he does on the field. Cuddy was the guy in the locker room that held them together. Look what happened to the infield defense after Punto was let go. We built them the stadium they wanted, they had two of the best players in baseball to build a team around and they wouldn't spend the money to get some decent pitching. Instead they paid 50 million for a player from Japan that really sucked and spent half the season on the DL. Delmond is gone, for a nobody minor league pitcher. Think about what they gave up to get him.

If there is going to be a rebuilding of the team, it should start upstairs with the people that gave us this team. We saw how little talent we have in the minors right now. Everybody they have had a chance at the big club last season and most of them will never be back in the bigs.
Lets face it, they need to spend some cash if they want to compete and they have all kinds of money to spend. Billionair owners that all take a paycheck from the Twins. COME ON MAN!!

"Ace"

[Ranger55]

I was very disapointed when they let both Cuddy and Kuble get away. There is way more to a player than just what he does on the field. Cuddy was the guy in the locker room that held them together. Look what happened to the infield defense after Punto was let go. We built them the stadium they wanted, they had two of the best players in baseball to build a team around and they wouldn't spend the money to get some decent pitching. Instead they paid 50 million for a player from Japan that really sucked and spent half the season on the DL. Delmond is gone, for a nobody minor league pitcher. Think about what they gave up to get him.

If there is going to be a rebuilding of the team, it should start upstairs with the people that gave us this team. We saw how little talent we have in the minors right now. Everybody they have had a chance at the big club last season and most of them will never be back in the bigs.
Lets face it, they need to spend some cash if they want to compete and they have all kinds of money to spend. Billionair owners that all take a paycheck from the Twins. COME ON MAN!!

"Ace"

I understand your concern Terry. They paid $5 million for the rights to Nishioka and another $15 million for 2 years I think. Right now their payroll is $99 million for 2012. Same as last year. I will join you in blasting ownership when the payroll goes below $80 million. But until then I think they are holding up their end of the stadium deal. Now could they do a better job selecting players.............yep, I think so to. As good as the Nathan trade was, the Bartlett trade is starting to look that bad. That deal sucked and it won't get better. Everybody knows this team looks much, much better with a healthy Morneau & Mauer. I really don't know how we can hold management to blame when a player gets hurt (Morneau) playing hard. Mauer.........they had no choice but to sign him. Hard to find fault with management there.

Right now it's the bad, bad trades that stick out in my mind.

[Hoyt4]

Trades and not re-signing players are killing us.

Not getting anything for Delmon in return. Did not get anything for Santana. Let Tori go without making a trade for a player worth something then. We could have done a lot better and this is all the upper management issues.