Twins Notes: Pelfrey, Morneau, Buxton, Meyer

Happy Friday, people. If you haven't read Stu's feature this morning, you really should. Go ahead, we'll wait here while you finish that up.

All set? Okay. Here's something to talk about while you count down to your weekend.

• At 150 innings pitched this season, Mike Pelfrey will be due a $100,000 bonus based on innings pitched. It's a fair incentive for a guy fresh off of Tommy John surgery, and right now he's at 142.1 innings pitched. Phil Miller's tweet below was before Pelfrey's three-inning start on Wednesday.

According to @baseballpro, Mike Pelfrey needs 10.2 innings to reach a $100K bonus. Gardy said he never lets bonuses affect his decisions.

— Phil Miller (@MillerStrib) September 11, 2013

• It's good that Gardy won't let that influence his decision making. It's also worth pointing out that Pelfrey would garner another $150,000 bonus for reaching 160 innings pitched. With 17 games left to play this season, if he pitches decently that's a plateau he'll reach as well.
• Darren Wolfson also chimed in on Pelfrey recently, believing that as a Scott Boras client he'll be able to cash in on a multi-year offer this winter. Wolfson also thinks the Twins should take a pass. It's hard to argue, knowing that Boras would make the Twins overpay to keep Pelfrey in the fold, but as recently as three weeks ago we were discussing how it would be good to keep him on board for next season considering his more recent performances have been (generally) better than they were at the beginning of the season.

A likable guy, Pelfrey wants back w/ the #MNTwins next year. Boras will ask for over 4.5M/year. I say time to move on. Find other FAs.

— Darren Wolfson (@DarrenWolfson) September 7, 2013

• Whether the Twins agree with Wolfson or not will be interesting to see, but while he posted a 4.30 ERA from May through August, he's been roughed up again his last two times out. It's hard to underestimate the power of "what have you done for me lately" with public opinion polls and free agents.
• Justin Morneau has been with the Pirates for almost two weeks, and in 11 games has hit .286/.405/.343. He's mostly been hitting cleanup, but has yet to drive in a run.
• Charlie Walters still thinks there's a chance that the Twins can re-sign Morneau after the season.
• Byron Buxton has been named Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year. I wrote about it yesterday and included a number of fun videos that are worth your time.
• Alex Meyer missed a chunk of this summer, but still pitched 78.1 innings over 16 starts, striking out 100 batters, walking 32, and giving up just 67 hits (three homers) en route to a 2.99 ERA.
• The shortened season still saw Meyer post some promising numbers as a 23-year old at Double-A, but Terry Ryan understandably doesn't think it was an ideal campaign.

Terry Ryan said tonight that he wouldn't classify this season as a step forward for Alex Meyer. "Not enough innings," TR, summarized.

— Brandon Warne (@Brandon_Warne) September 12, 2013

• Ryan's view is fair, although it's been a while since the Twins have had a starting pitcher prospect with peripherals like those. Meyer will participate in the Arizona Fall League, however, so Ryan and the rest of the front office will have ample opportunity to evaluate their prized pitching prospect before spring training.