Kuzul

The Minnesota Twins have been busy bees in the last week, trading Denard Span to the Washington Nationals and Ben Revere to the Philadelphia Phillies for much-needed young pitching.

Even with Span and Revere gone, the Twins still have pieces they can trade to aide their rebuild, including a couple guys named Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer. Trading either or both of them wouldn’t be easy, but dealing them would help a rebuilding process that is already on the right track.

And these trades could very well happen. The Twins are still short on young arms and GM Terry Ryan refused to rule out the possibility of dealing more bats for more arms when he spoke on MLB Network Radio on Thursday.

“I think we’d have to,” said Ryan when he was asked if he’s willing to listen on more position players. “We’ve lost over 90 games the last two years. For me to sit here and tell you that we shouldn’t listen would be a bad thing for an organization. We have to listen.”

He added: “I think it’s safe to say if you don’t pitch, you don’t play.”

After watching his starting pitchers combine to post an AL-worst 5.40 ERA in 2012, he would know.

The two names brought up specifically during the interview belonged to Morneau and left fielder Josh Willingham. But since Ryan indicated that he’s willing to listen to offers for any position players so long as pitching would be in play, he presumably won’t turn away callers interested in Mauer.

The Twins could definitely get a nice arm or a nice package of arms for Willingham. His value is higher than ever after posting an .890 OPS and hitting a career-high 35 home runs, and he has a very team-friendly deal. He’s locked up through 2014 at a grand total of $14 million.

As for Morneau and Mauer, well, they’re a little different.

Ryan may not be able to get what he seeks in a Morneau trade because his value is low and his salary is high, as he’s owed $15 million in 2013. He still has power and he’s coming off a halfway decent season at the plate, but his hitting has greatly diminished and his health is a red flag.

Any team that trades for Morneau runs the risk of only getting him for fewer than 100 games and then waving goodbye to him at the end of 2013 without making him a qualifying offer, and that would mean no compensatory draft pick.

Mauer, on the other hand, proved in 2012 that he can still hit, as he finished with a .319 batting average and an AL-best .416 on-base percentage. He also played in a career-high 147 games. 

But Mauer was able to play that many games only because he was behind the plate only about half the time. He caught 74 games and played first base or DH’d in 72 games. The Twins would no doubt try to sell him as an elite hitting catcher in trade talks, but likely to no avail. 

Then there’s the matter of Mauer’s contract, which has a no-trade clause in it that he would have to waive in order for the Twins to move him. Beyond that, it’s a contract that only a handful of teams in baseball can afford to take on. In order to expand their list of suitors, the Twins would likely have to broadcast a willingness to eat some of the money Mauer is owed. 

If they do that, they’ll be able to ask for better players in return. If not, they’ll have to accept a lesser package and just be content to have a ton of extra breathing room on their payroll. Given the market they play in, Door No. 2 is the more likely outcome.

So as far as trade chips go, neither Morneau nor Mauer is perfect. They have neither youth nor cheapness working for them, and the Twins can only sell high on Mauer. And even if they find a buyer for him, there’s a limit to how much they can ask for.

The Denard Span and Ben Revere deals aren’t much help here in terms of guidelines for potential trades. Ryan did well to land Alex Meyer, one of Washington’s top prospects, for Span, but that was because he was dealing a solid hitter, fielder and baserunner who also happens to have a team-friendly contract that runs through 2014 with an option for 2015. 

Revere fetched a major league-ready starter in Vance Worley and a top prospect in Trevor May because his glove and legs are both excellent sources of value, and he’s not even eligible for arbitration until 2014.

Morneau wouldn’t fetch as much as either player in a trade. If the Twins deal him now, they may be forced to make a trade like the one the Texas Rangers are mulling with Michael Young. Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News reported that they’re on the verge of trading Young to the Phillies for a reliever and a low-level prospect, and that they’re also going to eat some of Young’s salary.

If the Twins were to do a deal like that, Ryan would probably have to choose a high-floor pitching prospect with a low ceiling, or a talented pitching prospect in need of a lot of work (a la Trevor May). Such a trade wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be a deal worth doing since Ryan has no guarantees that Morneau’s trade value isn’t going to get any higher throughout the course of the 2013 season.

A potential Mauer trade is a lot harder to figure, as it’s not every day that a team trades away a player with six years and $138 million left on his contract. The only trade that rings a bell as being even remotely similar was the trade that sent Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers to the New York Yankees back in 2004. At that point, A-Rod had seven years and $179 million left on his contract.

Going to Texas in that deal was Alfonso Soriano, who was no insignificant trade chip. The Twins would no doubt be very pleased if they were to get an All-Star player in a trade for Mauer, but they wouldn’t exactly be trading the best player on the planet, which A-Rod still was at the time he was traded.

Still, the idea would be the same. If the Twins were to trade Mauer, it would likely be for a young, established pitcher with controllability and a bright future. There aren’t many of those around, and there are even fewer around if the focus is restricted to teams that can actually afford to pay Mauer.

If the Twins can find a deal like that for Mauer, though, they should do it. They’d be adding a top young arm to a rotation that already features a couple quality pitchers in Vance Worley and Scott Diamond, with Alex Meyer and Trevor May due to make an impact in a couple of years. Their rebuild would look a lot better than it does right now.

If the best the Twins can do for Mauer is more along the lines of several top prospects and a massive amount of payroll relief, they’d still have to seriously consider letting him go. They’re not going anywhere with Mauer in the next couple of years, so they may as well go nowhere without him if it means having money to spend and a strong farm system to work with.

Between the three top trade chips the Twins still have at their disposal, Willingham and Morneau are a lot more likely to be traded than Mauer, if for no other reason than the likelihood that there are a lot more fits for the two of them out there than there are for Mauer. 

None of the three, however, should be totally untouchable. Given where they’ve been the last two years and what they have to work with, the Twins are in a position where they legitimately have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being totally open for business.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. Salary information courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts. 

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

As Opening Day for Major League Baseball approaches (not counting the two-game series in Japan), every team, no matter how they look on paper, has a shot to win it all.

Getting off on the right foot and winning on Opening Day, while not crucial to a team’s success, can go a long way towards building momentum, especially for clubs whose expectations for the 2012 season may be on the lower side.

As with any team, there is always an “X-factor” or wild card that can change the outcome of anything from one game to an entire season. These players can be anyone from a superstar returning from injury or an “off” season, to a young player trying to make a name for himself, yet somehow can find that his performance, or lack there of, will be directly related to his team’s performance.

Who will be the biggest X-factors this Opening Day? Who will surprise, disappoint, help or hurt their teams as the 2012 season begins?

Begin Slideshow

Justin Morneau is the Minnesota Twins‘ first baseman. The problem is over the past two seasons he only played 133 games at first—that’s only 10 more games than he played at the position in all of 2009.

Between 2006 and 2008, Morneau was an iron man for the Twins. Over those three seasons he averaged 149.7 games at first, and in 2008 he appeared in all 163 games the team played.

Then came that fateful day in Toronto—July 7th, 2010.

The play was a routine slide into second base to break up a double play when Morneau took a knee to the head. He came out of the game and Michael Cuddyer would replace him at first base. He did not play again that season and has been struggling since to return to the form that had his name in consideration for a second American League MVP. 

At the time he was leading the Twins with a .345 average, 18 home runs and 56 RBIs. 

In a report from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Morneau is feeling better than he has in quite some time. The problem is the results are not yet showing up in the box score.  This spring he has the second most at-bats for the Twins with 37 through Friday, March 23rd. The problem is he is only hitting .108 with four hits in 12 games.

Manager Ron Gardenhire is not planning on playing Morneau at first over the remaining Grapefruit League schedule, opting to use the opportunity to assess what other options he has in case Morneau is unable to go come opening day.

Gardenhire’s main option over the last two seasons to replace Morneau has been Cuddyer, who is now with the Colorado Rockies.

All is not lost. The Twins have plenty of options if needed, some that could even provide a boost to their lineup. 

Here are the top five options.

Begin Slideshow

A quick look at the Twins‘ projected starting lineup for 2012 poses one serious question: where will the runs come from?

So far this spring that question remains unanswered.

With only eight spring games played so far, there is plenty of time for things to fall into place. However, the results so far are not creating a lot of excitement for the upcoming season at Target Field, and it looks like the three-year-old ballpark will once again be the biggest draw for Minnesotans this season.

In their eight games the Twins have only scored 22 runs. At a time when supposedly the hitters are  ahead of the pitchers, Minnesota is averaging less than three runs a game. At the same time they have been yielding 4.5 runs per game. 

So far the 34 players the Twins have used this spring have a total of  only 19 RBI. The projected starting lineup, with Ryan Doumit as the designated hitter, has only seven of them. Compare that to former Twins Michael Cuddyer with the Rockies and Delmon Young with the Tigers, who have combined for nine.

The long ball has consistently been a problem with Minnesota, and so far the team has hit only two spring training home runs—neither by any projected starter in the lineup. Young by himself has already hit two for the Tigers.

An argument can be made that spring training doesn’t mean a whole lot, and that the results can be thrown out once the regular season opens.

However, a quick scan of the records for the American League Central teams so far aligns pretty close to how I expect the division to finish in 2012.

The Tigers have the best record this spring at 6-1, followed by Kansas City at 4-3, the Twins at 3-5, Cleveland at 2-4 and the White Sox bringing up the rear at 1-4. 

There are some bright spots, however.

Second baseman Alexi Casilla is hitting .455 this spring, after struggling last year in Grapefruit League play, batting only .200. That struggle carried over into the season and he only hit .260 in 97 games.

With Casilla’s strong spring, it means Tsuyoshi Nishioka is left battling for the Twins’ utility infielder role. Nishioka, who leads the team with 18 at-bats this spring, is hitting .278.

Center fielder Denard Span looks to be fully recovered from concussion symptoms that kept him out of the lineup for a good portion for the season in 2011. So far in four games he’s batting .500. 

And while Justin Morneau is struggling with only one hit in eight at-bats, his likely successor at first base, Chris Parmelee, is batting .300 in four games, with one of the two home runs the Twins have hit.

Perhaps the brightest spot so far this spring is the fact that catcher Joe Mauer has played in four games and appears fully recovered from bilateral leg weakness that limited  him to only eight games in all of spring training last season. 

While the Twins will be improved over their 99-loss season from 2011, they still have a long way to go to get back to the 94-win season of 2010.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

2011 was a season which the Twins and their fans would like to forget sooner rather than later. The team is approaching the start of spring training with a lot of question marks throughout their 25-man roster. Most notably, will the bullpen be better? can Mauer and Morneau regain their MVP form? And most importantly, what are the playoff chances looking like?

The following are six bold predictions I have for the Twins in 2012 which will help to answer those questions and more.

Begin Slideshow

It’s obvious after the Minnesota Twins finished the 2011 season with the second-worst record since the franchise moved to the Twin Cities, the team has plenty of needs.

The team needs a couple of solid starting pitchers, an effective reliever, a power-hitting corner outfielder and an effective middle infield combination.

For general manager Terry Ryan, it appears that the wheeling and dealing is done, and from the looks of things, with no blockbuster deals, the team will be taking a long, slow ride to respectability.

Ryan, taking no big swings to improve the Twins, is relying for the most part, on the current roster of players to improve over last season. The hopes on the 2012 season is that many of these players will return to form that had the Twins winning six division titles over nine seasons.

The only changes to the lineup appear to be Ben Revere taking over one of the corner outfield positions, Josh Willingham the other, and Jamey Carroll manning one of the middle infield positions.

Here are 12 things the Twins need for a successful 2012 season.

Begin Slideshow

There have been many words used to describe the Minnesota Twins‘ 2011 campaign—frustrating, humiliating, injury-ridden, disappointing, lost.

However, one word that has come into view following their assent from the American League Central’s cellar: historic?

That’s right. The Twins have a chance to erase the largest deficit in Major League Baseball history, should they come all the way back to win the division.

As of June 2, the Twins sat 16 1/2 games behind the division-leading Cleveland Indians. By June 25, following a three-game losing streak, the Twins have closed that gap to eight games behind Cleveland and seven games behind the Detroit Tigers (who I identify as the real team to beat in this division).

Should the Twins erase the deficit it would be the largest comeback in MLB history.

The current record is held by the 1914 Boston Braves, who sat at 26-40 in early July that season, 15 games back in the standings.

The “Miracle Braves,” as they became known, finished the season by going 70-19, eventually winning the pennant by 10 1/2 games over the New York Giants. The Braves would go on to sweep the favored the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series that season.

The Twins are facing an uphill battle, but have shown great resolve in recent seasons. In 2009, the Twins erased a seven-game lead of the Tigers in the final weeks, eventually securing the division title in one of the most memorable games in Twins history—Game 163.

The Twins will now turn to Fransisco Liriano to get the comeback back on track in the second game of a three-game set in Milwaukee.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Over the past nine years, the Minnesota Twins have dominated the American League Central. They have won six division titles in that span (seven if you count their tie for first in 2008), since Ron Gardenhire was named manager. Although they have not necessarily had the most talent, they play hard—and they scrap for every win possible.

Unfortunately, in that span, they have only six playoff victories. Four of them were in 2002 and their last playoff victory was in 2004. Regardless of their disappointments, the Twins have been resilient. They keep coming back for more. Their desperation for playoff victories is reminiscent of a child actor not named Neil Patrick Harris trying to hold on to Hollywood. No matter how hard they work, the big bad industry continues to shut them down.

Last year, however, they moved outside. With Target Field came a new swagger. They won 94 games and they looked poised to take down the Yankees. They had this new, beautiful stadium and they had home-field advantage over the Bronx Bombers. Unfortunately, the Yankees embarrassed the Twins, coming from behind twice at Target Field, then dismantling them at Yankee Stadium.

This year, though, was going to be the Twins year. Still, they are off to terrible start. They have lost each of their first three series—and they are sitting in last place in a division they have won six times. So, there are two main questions the Twins must answer. What is the cause for their poor start? Also, is there a legitimate cause for concern in the Twin Cities?

The Twins take pride in doing the little things right. Clutch hitting, good pitching and solid fielding will win you baseball games. Nevertheless, the Twins have been completely unable to do two of those things.

The hitting has been terrible.

Slumps happen. To have a collective batting average of .214, however, is an embarrassment to the game of baseball.

In hitter’s counts (3-1, 2-0), the team is a combined 2-19. Tsuyoshi Nishiokia and Delmon Young singles shouldn’t be all hitter’s counts accumulate to. The team is relatively patient, but when they do get ahead, they need to capitalize on it. Until they start getting hits when they are ahead in counts, the hitting woes will continue.

When teams struggle, they need their veterans to carry them through. Michael Cuddyer, Justin Morneau and Young have a combined four extra base hits. Four. Not each. Four total. That can’t happen for guys that are staples in the middle of the order. Jason Kubel and Jim Thome have played relatively well, but without the other three producing, the Twins will be in for a long, unsuccessful summer.

Sometimes, slumps can be overcome. Doesn’t good pitching out-do good hitting anyway? Well, the Twins have been unable to pitch well either.

Outside of Nick Blackburn, who has been lights out, the Twins pitching staff is in shambles. Every other starter’s ERA is over five. Francisco Liriano can’t throw a strike (eight walks in 9.1 innings)), Carl Pavano can barely keep the ball in the park (three home runs in 12 innings) and Scott Baker has been pretty brutal on both accounts (six walks and four home runs in 11 innings). When three of your starters consistently give up runs, it doesn’t matter how the team is hitting.

The bullpen has been a little brighter, but it hasn’t been that much better.

Although Jose Mijares and Joe Nathan have pitched well—and the rest of the crew has been slightly promising. Even though Jeff Manship and Dusty Hughes have been shelled, Kevin Slowey and Matt Capps have been decent.

If the pitching, especially the starters, doesn’t improve, it won’t matter how well the Twins hit; they will continue to lose games.

Another problem for the Twins is their inability to win on the road (and against certain opponents). They have a 114-130 record away from home in the last three seasons (including the playoff against the White Sox). Even though they’ve been tremendous at the Metrodome and Target Field, they need to start winning on the road to be considered a legitimate contender. Last year, they took a step in the right direction and finished above .500 (41-40), but they have returned to their losing ways on the road (2-4).

Regardless of winning or losing on the road, the Twins can’t beat the Yankees. They have only won six games in their last 26 chances and the Yankees seem bored with defeating them. The Twins had an impressive comeback win over the Bombers last Tuesday, but they followed that up by blowing an early lead on Thursday. Every time they take a step forward, they seem to take two steps back. Until they beat the Yankees, the Twins will struggle making it to the World Series.

So, is there reason to panic? No, not yet. While the early-season struggles could turn into problems, right now, the Twins have nothing to seriously worry about. They are a veteran squad that knows how to win. Gardenhire is a proven winner (in the regular season, at least) and he will right this ship by the end of the month (especially with the easy schedule they have upcoming).

Obviously, no panic should be pressed in April, but the Twins need to be aware of their issues, and they need to take the appropriate steps to correct it.

Cuddyer, Morneau and Young need to get their swing back and the offense will start working again.

Liriano and Pavano need to start throwing strikes and the pitching will start to look better.

If they figure these things out, then maybe (just maybe!), the Twins will put themselves in position to face the Yankees in the playoffs. And maybe, after all these tribulations, they will conquer the Evil Empire once and for all.

Then again, we probably shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Minnesota Twins are doing a poor job of protecting the investment they made in catcher Joe Mauer. 

The eight-year, $184 million extension Mauer signed with the Twins last season places him fourth among the highest-paid position players in Major League Baseball.  

Mauer, who will turn 28 on April 19th, has a trophy case full of accolades that positions him on the precipice as one of the all-time great catchers when accounting for both his offensive and defensive abilities: three batting titles, three Gold Gloves, four Silver Slugger awards and an American League MVP leave no doubt that Mauer is not only one of baseball’s best catchers, but one of its best players.

The problem is the toll the catching position takes on the body, and the effect it has on the longevity of a player’s career.

Having already missed one of the team’s first seven games puts Mauer on pace to play only about 138 games—missing 15 percent of the schedule.

Here are five reasons the Twins need to find another position for Joe Mauer.

Begin Slideshow

Opening Day for the Minnesota Twins is only a week away.

On Wednesday Twins skipper Ron Gardenhire had the first glimpse of what his Opening Day lineup would look like as right fielder Michael Cuddyer finally made his spring debut with the major league club after three minor league games. 

Two of the up-and-coming stars for the Twins from 2010 have picked up right where they left off—third baseman Danny Valencia is hitting .340 and right fielder Delmon Young is hitting .424 this spring—and Minnesota’s biggest acquisition, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, has a .357 batting average and appears ready to face major league pitching.

All’s well in Twins’ Territory—right?

Maybe not. Here are the biggest questions facing the Minnesota Twins as they look to win their third consecutive AL Central Division title.

Begin Slideshow