Out of all the NRI candidates that are out there I think Chacin will make the cut. Out of all of them he by far has the most experience. Although he has been struggling for awhile now if he can get back to his solid form he could be a lock for the #5 spot. I do not expect him to hold this for the entire season but until we get Pineda or Hill back he would be a solid option. With a rotation of Berrios, Odorizzi, Maeda, Bailey, and Chacin for the first chunk of the season makes me a lot happier than putting in newer players. Not that they would be bad, I just like knowing what the rotation is going to give us before we send them out there. WIth Chacin the Twins have gotten a low risk guy who could shore up the back end of the rotation until we get better guys in there. Who knows maybe he''ll be better than average!

There are a lot of options now and I like all the pitchers we have. As much as I like our younger guys I really like having a decent amount of veteran rotation guys to pick from. Though none of them are true aces or even #2 guys, it is a nice problem to have. I like any combination of HIll, Bailey, Chacin, Pineda, Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, any combination seems solid. Maybe we put in 4 veterans and then rotate the younger guys in the #5 spot. There are so many different ways the Twins could play this out.

No matter how the rotation ends up, I am excited for Spring Training to start and to see how the pieces fall into place!

-turtlesrcooler