Gotta Be Patient

We've reached a bit of a lull here in the offseason. After making a big splash by winning the bid and subsequently signing Byung Ho Park, along with the trade of Aaron Hicks for Serial Killer John Ryan Murphy, the Twins have been pretty quiet lately. The Winter Meetings came and went without Terry Ryan making any moves of significant impact. Signing the older brother of Zach Britton to a minor league contract doesn't get you going? Well, too bad.

As Jason Heyward and Zack Greinke were signing crazy contracts elsewhere, Twins fans feel like something must be done. They said they needed a reliever! Why aren't they getting one? Craig Kimbrel and Ken Giles have been moved in huge trades, so clearly the Twins should be able to swing a smaller trade or something to get one of those coveted bullpen arms.

There goes Tony Sipp. Same with Oliver Perez. You could rewrite "The Night Before Christmas" if you really wanted to, it seems. The dead silence has become so painful that yesterday, after announcing the minor league signing of Buddy Boshers - who has over 20 games of major league experience, mind you - some fans were mad on Twitter. Now, I'd like to pretend that most of these comments were out of frustration that the signature move of the offseason hasn't occurred yet. At least, I'd hope even casual fans are smart enough to know that Boshers is not expected to be the savior of the bullpen this year. Plenty of low-risk relievers get picked up on minor league contracts every year. Few make it to the majors, and even fewer have any sort of significant impact. The Twins lucked out with Blaine Boyer and Aaron Thompson last year, so who knows, maybe Boshers can do the same this year.

Remember, we're now getting into the part of the offseason where Terry Ryan excels: bargain shopping. His failures in free agency typically were with the impact players. He's usually done fair to well with the small pickups. Tony Sipp would have been nice but he ultimately proved to be too expensive. Yes, it would be nice to have a shutdown bullpen like the Royals, but it took a long time for Kansas City to build that relief corp. They developed Kelvin Herrera and Greg Holland, they traded for Wade Davis and suffered through a bad year of starting pitching, and they signed Ryan Madson. We can't expect the Twins to all of a sudden make a back end of the bullpen that is anywhere near as dominant.

Finally, there's still over a month and a half before spring training starts. That's plenty of time to make a few more acquisitions, and prices are going to go down as we progress into the new season. Some fans may not like to hear that, but I think one of the worst moves a team can make is to spend money just for the sake of spending money. Neal Cotts isn't a sexy pickup, but hey, bringing him back would still be more worthwhile than handing the keys to Aaron Thompson for a second consecutive year.

The offseason isn't over yet. Release your grip on your armrests, take some deep breaths, and maybe consider going outside. I hear the weather is warm for Minnesota this time of year. Everything's going to be okay, I promise, even if Yoenis Cespedes isn't wearing a Twins uniform come April.