Over the last 48 hours there's been no shortage of baseball news and rumors coming out of Minnesota. Let's get right to it.

• Joe Mauer spoke with a number of Twins Cities media sources yesterday, in regards to a number of topics: injuries, his perception to the public, and expectations for health going into spring training were the most popular subjects. Mauer said all the right things, but it was refreshing to hear him speak with a bit more clarity and confidence. He acknowledged that being cagey about what was wrong with his body wasn't the right way to go, and admitted that transparency in such issues should be more important going forward. He talked about his frustration with his public perception but understood it to a point. And he sounds confident about coming into spring training healthy and fully prepared for a summer long campaign. Let's hope so.
• Terry Ryan spoke with a select and lucky few yesterday as well, covering a number of topics in an interview moderated by Dick Bremer. Ryan expressed again the team's interest in Matt Capps, and of course outfielders Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel. Cuddyer seems to have the focus between those two, and in spite of what Ryan said it seems highly unlikely that both would return. Essentially it sounds like the Twins are waiting to hear what each player is expecting to get paid. The last most interesting topic was Francisco Liriano. Ryan agreed that a lot of his issues are mental as opposed to physical, and expressed that Liriano needs to be more consistent (along with the rest of the rotation, with the exception of Carl Pavano).
• Last night we heard about Minnesota's interest in Edwin Jackson and Jeff Francis. Jackson, who doesn't profile as a typical Twins free agent target, is a #2 or #3 starter who is likely to garner an eight digit yearly salary. That's a price tag that the Twins can't afford. It's an interesting idea though, because Jackson is enigmatic like Liriano; he throws hard, has electric stuff and at times shows flashes of ace-type stuff, but he can also lose command and become very hittable. If someone wants to shine Jackson, they'll be paying for his upside. His upside is worth that eight digit salary. With the exception of his ERA and innings pitched, he wasn't that guy last year.
• Francis, meanwhile, looked like he was going to be a star in the minor leagues. From 2002 to 2004 he was rocketing to the Majors with a bullet. In his minor league career he's tossed 375 innings of 2.57 ERA baseball, striking out 415 and allowing exactly one base runner per inning. Suffice it to say his MLB career hasn't been quite as stellar. He's now a soft-tossing lefty (fastball averaged less than 85mph in 2011) who can't strike anyone out (4.5 K/9), and who has averaged 108 innings per season since 2007. If you get what you pay for, paying for Francis means you're signing a pitcher just to sign a pitcher. Nothing more.
• On a final note, Mauer told MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger that he's willing to help recruit free agents to Minnesota. I think that's a good thing, and provided that Mauer doesn't bore them to death it would probably help a great deal. Visiting players like to know that a team's superstars like playing for that club, and having Mauer be that guy would be great.

Enjoy your Saturday, folks. I'm going to get a haircut.

Be sure to drop below this post to check out Roger's weekly Minor League Report. He recaps some of the shuffling that's went down throughout the Twins' farm system over the last seven days, and then gives you his review of the Beloit Snappers in 2011. And now for some late morning updates to go along with that confusion of exactly where you were and what you did last night.

• Suitors for Micheal Cuddyer, outside of the Twins, don't seem to be exploding like we thought they would at one point earlier in the fall. We know that the Red Sox, Phillies, and Rockies all have varying levels of interest, but seem to view Cuddyer either as a backup plan or as an option whose asking price is too high. He could be on the wish list for the Orioles, too, but we haven't heard anything from the Braves or Giants recently.
• Jason Kubel has has a few interested parties too, including the Phillies and Indians. Kubel was tied to the Phillies along with Grady Sizemore recently, and we posted about Cleveland's interest earlier this week (they've been interested in Kubel for a while). The Pirates were looking at Kubel last summer, as a "professional hitter", but they haven't come up in any rumors this off-season.
• Neither Denard Span nor Ben Revere will be traded this winter. That's direct from the horse's (see: General Manager's) mouth. This is good news on both fronts. With Cuddyer and Kubel seemingly more likely to depart than stay, trying to find one MLB starting outfielder will be easier than two. Revere's upside is still in question to about half of Twins Territory (the other half are faily optimistic even when taking into account Revere's drawbacks), but he's a known quantity: great range, a good base stealer, a good contact hitter. He's easy to pencil in as the number nine hitter while playing left field. Besides, the Twins have enough holes to fill this winter without spending the necessary dollars to bring in two quality corner outfield free agents.
• The Twins had a number of minor leaguers they needed to add to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from the Rule V draft next month, but in the end they only added three: outfielder Oswaldo Arcia (.291/.335/.531 in 2011), right hander Carlos Gutierrez (4.62 ERA, 43 G, 8.2 K/9, 4.5 BB/9), and lefty Tyler Robertson (3.61 ERA, 55 G, 8.8 K/9, 2.9 BB/9).
• Arica and Gutierrez aren't big surprises, but Robertson will shock a few. He's a southpaw, and hopefully the Twins test him at triple-A this season. This was his first year as a reliever, however, so it remains to be seen how the organization chooses to develop him.
• Righty David Bromberg was outrighted to triple-A. He broke his forearm this season, a total fluke, and I know this move surprised Seth. But the 40-man roster is just that: 40 men. There are a lot of players who are good enough to be on the list, but the question isn't: are you good enough? The question is: which players are most likely to be taken? Bromberg, who reached triple-A in 2010, didn't pitch there in 2011 and will be seen by many teams as a player coming off of an arm injury who took a step backwards in '11. And who is now 24. I believe that Bromberg can be a good relief pitcher for the Twins at some point, but when you're looking at players who are the least likely to be taken, Bromberg will be on that list. Think of it from another team's point of view: would Bromberg be a good bet to stick with your 25-man roster all season? Probably not. That's the reason why Angel Morales wasn't added to the 40-man: he'd be unlikely to hold down that roster spot.
  
• Finally, a big welcome to Ryan Doumit! A lot of people had Jamey Carroll and Ryan Doumit in their off-season blueprints this year, so I won't pretend like I was some kind of evil genius for endorsing them both. If we look at my blueprint, this means the Twins have now signed two of the nine targets I picked out for them. At what point do I receive a cash prize for accuracy?

That's all for now everybody. Now get outside before it gets dark.

This week, the Twins began the process of overhauling their roster for 2012 and beyond. Due to a number of injuries, players being dropped onto the 60-day disabled list, and a couple of trades, the Twins had a bit more roster fat than a number of other clubs. We now know they have 36 players on their 40-man roster, but this was after outrighting these players over the last eight days:

• Brian Dinkelman, OF,October 20
  
• Phil Dumatrait, RP, October 20
  
• Rene Rivera, C, October 14
• Matt Tolbert, IF, October 14
• Jason Repko, OF, October 14
• Anthony Slama, OF, October 14

For the uninitiated, to "outright" a player essentially means you're removing them from the 40-man roster without removing them from the organization. This usually happens to players who are out of options, although this wasn't the case for Dinkelman. But it does mean that these players all had to pass through waivers, which meant there was a chance the Twins could have lost them.

These were all relatively easy decisions to make. The 40-man now includes players like Kyle Waldrop and Esmerling Vasquez.

If the Twins front office wants to gamble a little bit and go for big changeover, there are a few more players they could target. Jim Hoey is the next most obvious choice for removal as far as I'm concerned, and players like Scott Diamond, Jeff Manship, Drew Butera, and one or two others wouldn't hurt the team by being outrighted either. But it's early yet, and there are a lot of decisions that need to be made not just in terms of free agents, trades, and their own five and six-year minor league free agents, but in terms of overall roster construction.

One step at a time. As much of a proponent of change as I'll be on this team over the winter, I have to keep reminding myself: it's not a video game. Roster changeover doesn't have to, and probably shouldn't, happen all at once.

But with the departure of Delmon Young, and the impending free agency of Michael Cuddyer, the Twins are once again looking for good right-handed hitting. On our current 36-man roster, your right-handed bats are:

• Drew Butera
• Luke Hughes
• Trevor Plouffe
• Danny Valencia
• Joe Benson
• Alexi Casilla (switch)
• Tsuyoshi Nishioka (switch)

Guess what part two of my off-season blueprint philosophy will be about.

So apparently I chose one of the most insanely active weeks to move continents. At this point in the season for a team like the Twins, I though I might miss a waiver trade or two, but the Delmon Young trade wasn't even on my radar. And of course I'd been waiting to see Jim Thome blast homer number 600 all season, so he naturally did it just hours before I was getting on a plane at Heathrow so I had no opportunity to see it.

It's good to be back in the States. I'm still getting settled but I just wanted to throw down a few notes that have been running through my head since I landed.

• I know Jim Thome hasn't been with the Twins long and that a vast percentage of his home runs were hit prior to his arrival in Minnesota, but it's hard to put into words how awesome it was seeing the replay of home run number 600. I've been spending a lot of time with The MLB Network, really just immersing myself in baseball in a way I haven't been able to to in years, and there was a short segment on Thome and his mammoth achievement. The swing on a pitch low and away, the sheer power and force of the swing, the name Thome draped across the shoulders above number 25, the hop step and the ball arcing through the night. Baseball has a long history, but he's still just the eighth player in the game, EVER, to reach 600 homers. To the best of our knowledge, he's the sixth man to do it cleanly. Congrats one more time to Jim, because when a great of a guy as Thome reaches such an historic milestone, that's the best.
• The Delmon Young trade is a move that's going to have fallout over the next few seasons, but especially this winter. You look at Cole Nelson, who isn't all that great, and you look at Lester Oliveros, who's actually the better player in this deal if you ask me, and you look at Delmon and his potential non-tender after the season, but the biggest factor in all of this as far as I'm concerned is what the Twins do with that money in the off-season. Ridding themselves of Delmon now allows them to play Denard Span and Ben Revere in the same outfield of course (if we could keep players healthy, which this season is impossible anyway), but the Twins were already in a position where they'd have a lot of money to play with this winter. Depending on payroll allowances, the Twins now have another $7 million that they can play with. Yes, they could have achieved that through a non-tender this winter, but now they got something in return.
• That "return" probably isn't what everyone was looking for. My dad wasn't too pleased with it, that's for sure. And if you look at Nelson on his own, it's a terrible return...even for a waiver trade in August. But Lester Oliveros is a very intriguing baseball player. In triple-A in his age-23 season, he's had a cup of coffee in the Majors already, and he's a strikeout machine. He still needs some seasoning, because he's only recorded 33 innings at triple-A in his minor league career, but he looks like he could be a very useful bullpen arm at some point next season if his secondary stuff translates to the Majors and he can work on his command a little bit. Stay tuned, but this one is interesting.
• Kevin Slowey didn't do too well in his return to the Twins, but he's not alone. Hopefully Gardy keeps him in the rotation through the end of the year so we can see how he comes along, because right now it looks like Minnesota will need starter options next spring.
• Speaking of Gardy, he's made a couple of interesting comments over the last week or so. He's brought up the idea of bringing in free agents on two occasions, and one time specifically mentioned starting pitchers. He went as far as saying that both Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing could be shunted to the 'pen if the Twins landed another starter or two. We've been waiting for something like that to happen now, although it hardly matters at this point. Right now my 2012 rotation for the Twins includes Liriano, Baker, Pavano and Slowey, but that will no doubt change drastically as we get out of the hell that's been the 2011 season. Going back to the first time that Gardy brought up free agents, the context led me to believe he was talking about position players although he didn't get into specifics. Hopefully this summer's campaign has taught the front office a hard lesson about depth, because even without all the injuries the Twins were sorely lacking in quality backup options.

That's all for now. Myah will be up soon with your game thread and recap for today, and mucho thanks to her for holding down the fort this week. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, and I should be back to regularly scheduled programming this week!

[Drew Butera holds up the box score from Friday's game, and drops it on the table in a greasy spoon diner in front of Carl Pavano.]

BUTERA: It's not your fault.

PAVANO: [Softly, still staring off] I know...

BUTERA: No you don't. It's not your fault.

PAVANO: [Serious] I know.

BUTERA: No. Listen to me son. That loss. It's not your fault.

PAVANO: I know that.

BUTERA: It's not your fault.

[Pavano is silent, eyes closed]

BUTERA: It's not your fault.

PAVANO: [Pavano's eyes open, misty already] Don't fuck with me Drew. Not you.

BUTERA: It's not your fault.

[Pavano shoves Butera back, and then, hands trembling, buries his face in his hands. Pavano begins sobbing. Butera puts his hands on Pavano's shoulders, and Pavano grabs him and holds him close, crying]

PAVANO: Oh my God! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry Drew!

[Pavano continues sobbing in Butera's arms]

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Let me tell you what I did today. I nursed a hangover that was partially Twins-based, put down some Chinese food, walked my dog and watched The Adjustment Bureau. And it was good. So there's that. Let's talk about some Twins-related stuff before the they attempt to take down the White Sox in a few hours.

• Last week I made a bid for Kevin Slowey getting another shot with the Twins. Nothing has changed on that front, after Kevin's five-inning, two-run performance on Friday. Over those five frames he allowed seven hits and a pair of walks while striking out six. If he turns in another good performance in a few days and the Twins don't call him up, it'll be time to start asking a few questions about the organization's intentions.
• It sounds like the Twins used not trading Michael Cuddyer as a gesture of good will in order to ask him to take a pay cut over the next two years. Joe Christensen has reported that the Twins tried to sign him to a two-year, $16 million extension. Now, as far as I'm concerned there's no doubt that Cuddyer will earn his $10.5 million salary in 2011, especially if you understand market value for how much every win above replacement costs, but is Cuddy worth $8 million over both his age-33 and age-34 season? He'd need to accumulate something like 6 wins above replacement over '12 and '13 to make that a good deal. Considering Cuddyer's best WAR seasons are two 3.0-win seasons (2011, 2006), 2.8 (2009) and 2.5 (2007), are six wins too much to expect over two years at those ages? Probably.
• Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the Twins were fielding offers on Francisco Liriano prior to last week's trade deadline. Oddly enough the Twins actually valued him quite highly, asking for a very high price in return for the enigmatic southpaw. After the rumors flying around about Denard Span and a relief pitcher, that's good to hear.
• After that disappointing loss to the South Siders last night, I just wanted to point out a few things that we can be happy about. First, Glen Perkins hasn't allowed an earned run since July 9. What an outstanding season he's had. Second, since Tampa plated three runs in an inning against Phil Dumatrait, Duma's made 11 appearances comprising 11.1 innings and just one earned run. His ERA has dropped from 6.06 to 3.90. Third, even Alex Burnett has gotten into the act, recording a 2.79 ERA in his last ten games, striking out 10 in 9.2 innings. Finally, after going 2-for-10 after returning from the disabled list, Jason Kubel has gone 13-for-40 (.325) in his last ten games, hitting two homers and driving in nine runs with a 7-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

That's all for now, folks. See you for the game!

This time of year there are so many rumors it's hard to keep track of what's what or who's telling the truth. One rumor crops up, someone else denies it or changes the details, names start to crop up and eventually it all becomes one muddled amalgamation of truthiness. Of course this all relates to our Twins in terms of the Denard Span trade talk, which has been driving all of us various degrees of bananas.

There's no doubt that my reactions started in a stage of denial. The Twins have no reason to trade Span, the Nationals aren't offering enough anyway, yada yada yada. Not much had changed for me by Tuesday. By Wednesday the rumor had changed its shape, and while I still believed the Nationals were dreaming at least things started to appear at least quasi-realistc. Yet I wasn't really into the idea, and so when LEN III noted that "the Twins are not shopping their leadoff hitter" and that Washington was also "evaluating Ben Revere and CFs in the Twins' farm system" I was momentarily put at ease.

But after continuing action over the last two days, albeit with minor shifts and re-shifts in details, it's clear that there has been dialogue between Minnesota and Washington. It also bears understanding that "not shopping Span" does not mean "not taking offers on Span". Because it's almost certain that the Twins are fielding offers.

As bbeck noted yesterday, Bowden was heavily involved in ESPN's live trade chat over the last few days. If you read bbeck's FanShot, you'll also see that Bowden said "there is truth to a Nats/Twins trade discussion that includes Storen, Bernadina, Span, Gibson and others."

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When the Twins brought back Matt Capps on a one-year deal back in January, I tried to wax philosophical about it and pointed out that while his salary was pretty high, there were also a number of advantages in going to a one-year deal with an in-house guy. Well, that's the problem with philosphy. Because going back and reading it, I still agree with everything I said. In theory.

In practice, well...it hasn't turned out quite so rosy. Capps has been, arguably, baseball's worst closer this season, and that gets tougher to stomach when you consider that Twins fans are used to having one of the best in the business locking things down. From 2004 - 2009, Mariano Rivera was the only closer in baseball who might have been better than Joe Nathan. And if he was better, it wasn't by much.

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