Know thy foes - the Twins

Last Season: 79-83, 3rd place

Short Term Outlook: Well down.

Long Term Outlook: The minor league cupboard is pretty bare, too.

Who is new? The gaping hole in the rotation. As far as new players go, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez will be 2/3 of the starting outfield, while Brendan Harris, Adam Everett, and Mike Lamb compose 3/4 of the starting infield. Livan Hernandez and Nick Blackburn are the new starters, while Francisco Liriano will return from missing 2007 with Tommy John before long.

Minor Leaguers to keep an eye on: The three players acquired in the Santana trade that will be starting in the minor leagues. Carlos Gomez will be starting in center for Minnesota, but Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey will all be in the minors to start the season. Guerra is a 19 year old hard throwing pitcher who will probably start in AA New Britain, while Humber and Mulvey are projected back-of-the-rotation starters who will begin the season at AAA Rochester.

My Take: New General Manager Bill Smith has had a terrible start in his new position. In an offseason where everybody knew he was going to trade his top asset, he somehow minimized the return. Early in December, names such as Clay Buchholz and Phil Hughes were mentioned in conjunction with Santana, but Smith delayed on pulling the trigger, holding out for more. Instead, both the Yankees and the Red Sox figured out that the other wasn’t going to make the move for Santana, and the market shriveled up, and Smith wound up trading Santana to the Mets for four prospects, not including their best prospect, Fernando Martinez.

Compounding this error, Smith has then followed up by spending a great deal of money on lesser players. Joe Nathan, the closer on what is shaping up to be a bad team, was signed to a 4 years, $47 million extension. Michael Cuddyer, a right fielder with one season with an OPS over .800, was extended for 3 years and $24 million. Livan Hernandez was signed for one season at $5M, while Craig Monroe was signed for one season at $3.8M in order to avoid arbitration. Mike Lamb, a 32 year old part time player, was signed for 2 years, $6.6M.

In the midst of this madness, Justin Morneau was reasonably signed to an extension as well, while Adam Everett was signed to play short. Everett cannot hit the ball, but is an excellent defensive player, the sort of player to bring in if you’re developing a young pitching staff.

The Twins are clearly rebuilding for at least this season, and probably the next couple. There’s no reason to bring in guys like Hernandez or Monroe (who won’t even start). Mike Lamb isn’t the worst idea in the world, since the Twins don’t have a ready player for third base, but he’s a part time player, which will just encourage Nick Punto to play more often. The signings of Nathan and Cuddyer are baffling. Cuddyer is the sort of player you try to move in the Twins current state of rebuild, not keep around. With a $24M albatross hanging over his head, he’ll be difficult to move during the season. The same goes for Nathan, who’ll be 36 at the end of his extension. An elite closer is a luxury a rebuilding team cannot afford. Nathan has been incredible, but he’ll be very difficult to move in the next two or three seasons, by which point his skills may have declined and his contract no longer reasonable.

Smith’s other big trade of the offseason is an interesting trade that boils down to a challenge: Matt Garza for Delmon Young. It’s a telling statement that a player who was considered a top 2 prospect for the last 2 seasons was willing to be traded, and not for a ready star, but for another young player. He’ll be in left field every day hoping to turn his tools into skills. One hindrance is that the Twins organization is not known for helping players working on plate discipline, which is Young’s greatest weakness – he walked 26 times in 681 plate appearances last year.

Key Player: Joe Mauer. The whispers that he won’t be able to stay at catcher are getting louder. Mauer is 6’5”, a height matched only by one regular catcher – Sandy Alomar Jr. Alomar had cranky knees throughout his career. Mauer missed a chunk of 2007 with leg issues extending into his quadriceps muscle. He also had a significant drop off from his incredible 2006 season. He was reportedly taking grounders at third base during spring training.

This season is key for him. Will he stay healthy enough to give the Twins faith that he’ll be able to remain a catcher? Will he hit enough to be a star at third, too? Or will neither of these come true, and Mauer continues as an injury prone catcher or becomes an unspectacular third baseman?

Prediction: There’s enough talent here that the Twins won’t be truly bad, but it’s misplaced talent. Not knowing what the public backlash would be, it’s easy to say from the outside that they’d have done better to blow the whole thing up, moving Nathan and Cuddyer along with Santana. They look like a 75 win team to me, which will probably be a 4th place finish in the AL Central.