Twins outright Swarzak: waiting for the other shoe to drop

When we spoke about the Twins' seven arbitration-eligible players, there were three who seemed to be potential non-tender candidates: Brian Duensing, Eduardo Nunez, and Anthony Swarzak. Yesterday, the Twins made their call on Swarzak and outrighted him, essentially removing him from the 40-man roster en route to being a free agent. So why am I "waiting for the other shoe to drop?" Because the non-tender deadline is December 2.

By 11:00pm on Tuesday night, the Twins will need to have made a decision on all of their arbitration-eligible players. They can do nothing, and eventually offer those players arbitration, or they can non-tender those players and make them free agents.

If the Twins plan on tendering the remaining six players (Tommy Milone, Trevor Plouffe, Casey Fien, Jordan Schafer, and the aforementioned Duensing and Nunez), then there's nothing odd about the club choosing to get Swarzak off of the 40-man roster now. But if they do plan on non-tendering one or two additional guys, then the only reason to jettison Swarzak a week early is to clear a roster spot for...something else.

What else? The Rule 5 draft is one reason, but that wont take place until nine days after the non-tender deadline anyway. It's possible I'm just creating smoke where there is no fire, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the Twins complete a trade or free agent signing in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Maybe the Twins just decided to give Swarzak an extra week on the market. Maybe Paul Molitor just doesn't like talking about Sasquatches as much as Gardy did. So really, it could be nothing. I just like reading between the lines.