Twins Off-Season Question #3: Who Gets Offered Arbitration?

We'll find out today.

What Do We Have?
How Much Money Do We Have to Spend?

It's assumed that Adam Everett and Eddie Guardado won't be offered arbitration.  Neither one would return a compensatory draft pick, and their retention would be doing the Twins no favors in terms of talent nor fiscal responsibility.

Which brings us to our final two free agents:  Dennys Reyes and Nick Punto.

I can see the Twins going either way, on both of these guys.  Both have roles they could play on next year's club, and both have been lucky enough to have the organization state that they'd like to retain them.  So today we'll see exactly how accurate those assertations were.  The primary, and really the only, difference between Reyes and Punto is that Eat at Dennys qualified as a Type-B free agent.  Since Punto hasn't qualified, there's really nothing to make the Twins feel like they need to get into the arbitration process with him.  Minnesota can bring Punto back quite easily without having to expresss interest by today.  Kelly Theiser agrees.

Today's excitement, then, will come from finding out by 11pm Central tonight whether the Twins have offered Dennys Reyes arbitration.  It's not exactly The Johan Sweepstakes, Part II.

Ultimately, whether any of these guys come back or not won't have a big impact on the team's successes (or lack thereof) in 2009.  Today is about roster spots, and the possibility of a sandwich pick next June.