Twins Winter Meeting Notes: "Gauging Interest" on Morneau, Offers Out to Liriano, Saunders

Over at the Strib, LEN III has just posted a brief update stating that the Twins have offers out to several players. These players include Joe Saunders and Francisco Liriano. The whole article is four sentences long, but essentially Minnesota is now waiting to hear back from multiple players and agents.

The second piece of news is that the Twins are "gauging interest" in first baseman Justin Morneau:

#orioles are 1 of the teams that the Twins have contacted to gauge interest in 1B Justin Morneau. Want young pitching in return (of course)

— Roch Kubatko (@masnRoch) December 5, 2012

Morneau is under contract through this season and will become a free agent going into 2014.

While the Twins are "gauging interest" and not "shopping" Morneau, it's an intriguing prospect to see what the baseball market views as his value. Minnesota is not in a position where they need to dump salaray, since they have plenty of room to maneuver this season and Morneau's financial commitment ends this year.