The Twins have now signed a middle infielder and a backup catcher, two of the first steps in everybody's plans for 2012. All that's left is to figure out who's going to play left field, right field, and second base, find one or two more starters, and find about six guys to pitch in the bullpen and you know what? I don't want to talk about this any more.
The news:
*Terry Ryan says he's not going to trade Denard Span or Ben Revere. All that's left to do is figure out where to put Revere, who has a laughably incompetent throwing arm and may be biologically incapable of hitting the ball more than 200 feet from the catcher. His speed seems kind of wasted in left, but his arm is so bad I'm not sure you can put him in center or right field.
*The Twins added three guys to the 40-man roster. The three are Tyler Robertson Carlos Gutierrez, and Oswaldo Arcia. To be honest, I only care because of the potential for future "Where's Oswaldo?"-style jokes. The Twins also outrighted David Bromberg off the 40-man, which is not a particularly big deal.
*The team not only re-signed Phil Dumatrait (albeit to a minor league deal), they've expressed interest in re-signing Matt Capps. Because when you have awful relievers, the first thing you want to do is make sure they don't go somewhere else.
*According to Joe Christensen, the Twins don't see Ryan Doumit as their full-time solution in right field. Instead, he'll be sort of like Joe Mauer - playing a little catcher, some first base, some right field - except that he's worse than Mauer at pretty much everything.
*Former Angels reliever Jason Bulger is on his way, on a minor-league deal. Bulger is the 43rd* pitcher the Twins have signed to a minor-league deal this offseason, on the theory that in quantity there is some amount of statistically inevitable quality. (*NOTE: Number may not be accurate.)
*The team's spending a bunch of money to "spruce up" Target Field. A curious choice of words there, for a ballpark that once had pine trees and then cut them down. The article also says that the park is getting structures to, quote, "stop unauthorized vehicles from ramming the ballpark." Presumably the structures will be built so that authorized vehicles will still be able to crash into the park at will.
Tracking This Week
- For awhile, it looked like Michael Cuddyer would be one of the first free agents off the market. At this point, he looks like maybe he's going to wait out the early-December winter meetings and see what kind of offer he can get there. And now that I write that, he'll probably sign later today.
- In the same vein, Wednesday is the last day for teams to offer arbitration, in order to be eligible for compensation. Again, the players this applies to are Cuddyer, Joe Nathan, Jason Kubel, and Matt Capps.
- The team may sign another dozen or so pitchers to minor-league contracts. We will have those names for you if we can figure out why you should care.