Breakfast & Baseball: Trevor Plouffe, Oswaldo Arcia, Jim Pohlad, Max Scherzer

Monday mornings back in the real world are the worst. Unless you're in one of those jobs where you're off on a Monday, like a librarian or something, then you're probably still in bed. Libraries are usually closed on Mondays, right?

• Trevor Plouffe made Anthony Castrovince's All-Underrated Team for 2015. It's an honor that Plouffe deserves. Watching him play third base this year was actually a pleasure, and FanGraphs agrees by ranking him as the fourth-best defender at the position in 2014. He accumulated 3.5 fWAR on the season, making him the ninth-best third baseman in all of baseball. It's good to see Trevor get some props for the season he had.
• Remember when we had a little fun by looking at the longest Twins home runs of 2014? Oswaldo Arcia notched the longest, blasting a 468-foot monster into the right-field concourse off of Chicago's Andre Rienzo. Well, that shot was actually the tenth-longest homer in all of baseball last year.

Oswaldo arcia

— Oswaldo Arcia (@arciaoswaldo) December 13, 2014

• This coming Sunday will mark the official end of Bud Selig's tenure as baseball's commissioner. He'll be followed by Rob Manfred, who has been going through the grooming process since his selection as Selig's successor last summer. Twins owner Jim Pohlad is one of the new members of the eight-member executive committee, which will carry forward just one owner from its current incarnation (Bill DeWitt of the Cardinals). Here's more:

Prominently displaced are last summer's three most vocal advocates of somebody other than Manfred for commissioner: Jerry Reinsdorf (White Sox), John Henry (Red Sox) and Bob Castellini (Reds).

And, bizarrely, Fred Wilpon of the Mets was made the head of the finance committee.

Putting a pal-victim of Bernie Madoff in charge of the money is just deliciously stupid.

• Finally, unless you're a baseball fan under a rock you've heard that the Nationals are signing Max Scherzer to a seven-year, $180 million contract. That's something the Twins should be happy to have had no part of, but it's worth putting into perspective by asking: doesn't Cole Hamels, who is due $90 million over the next four years, look like a relative bargain? Hamels will be in his age-31 season in 2015, and $22.5 million through his age-34 season looks a lot better than nearly $26 million for Scherzer through his age-36 season.
• The Rangers have been tied to both Hamels and Yovani Gallardo in trade rumors. Another rumor is that the Nationals could consider trading Jordan Zimmermann in order to clear a bit of payroll space. Zimmermann is a free agent following 2015, so a one-year pickup doesn't make much sense for the Twins...but what if the team was convinced they could trade for him, and then sign him to an extension?