Let it be known, I've never been in the belief that Gardenhire is a top tier manager. That said, I think if the Twins fail to make the playoffs this year, he should be replaced. This is amongst the most talented teams ever put in a Twins uniform and the last 6 weeks have been absolute torture.

This was spurred by tonight's lineup featuring both Kubel and Thome in the lineup with Valencia sitting. Added benefit of replacing Gardy? Probably means Ullger is no longer the 3B coach.

/rant

All of this talk about Cliff Lee got me thinking. If the Twins were to trade for him, they would have 3-4 Type A free agents that would likely bring back draft pick compensation in what is considered a very deep draft.

Cliff Lee would certainly decline arbitration and wouldn't be much risk of not bringing in a teams top pick. In otherwords, I don't see him signing for a bottom half team or being the second best Type A signed by another team (the Yankees).

Carl Pavano: I don't know if the Twins will consider bringing him back, but I doubt Carl will miss his chance at a more lucrative FA contract over arbitration. With his success this year, he has probably pitched his way out of Minnesota and given them a pair of picks. He could certainly bottom out the second half and drop to a Type B.

Matt Guerrier: Believe it or not, Guerrier is a Type A and isn't in real danger of falling to a B. Because of this, I believe it would be foolish to bring him back next season for what he would demand. He may very well get a 3 year $15 Million contract from some pitching hungry team. Look at Brandon Lyon as a comparison.

Jon Rauch: Currently a Type B, if he finishes the year healthy, he stands a very good chance of attaining Type A status. Because he's now an 'established closer', he'll likely get a very significant raise from some other team. 

It's quite possible that all four are Type A's and all four decline arbitration, netting the Twins 8 compensation picks. This would mean the Twins would have 10 of the first, say, 80 picks. Again, this is in what many consider a very deep draft so there would be good value through those picks. Needless to say, our farm system would greatly benefit. Of course, we haven't traded for Lee....yet, so we're still only talking 3 players right now.

So, rosterbaters, would you offer these guys arbitration, and possibly let them go, if Type A status is cemented?

The Twins have very, very few holes. This team is the best team we've maybe seen since...well, I didn't see the WS teams.  But there is one place that the Twins can instantly upgrade. Besides adding Cliff Lee that is.

Third base is the bane of the Twins existence. But there are options. Some of them realistic. Many not. But that doesn't stop a baseball fan from considering them. That's what makes the game great after all.

I'm going to list a bunch of candidates, and give a reasonable WAR value for a half season.  These calculations are rough, but take into account both offense and defensive abilities.

Internal:

Nick Punto - Noted glove man. He may well be the best defensive 3rd baseman in baseball. But No-Stick-Nick can't hit worth a lick. (patent pending)

wOBA: .301 and 8 DRAR for a nice

1.14 WAR

Brendan Harris

wOBA: .308 and -6 DRAR for a not nice

-0.07 WAR

Danny Valencia

wOBA: .300 and 2 DRAR for

0.52 WAR

External:

Joe Crede - He's still a FA. And looking....probably, I don't know.

What I do know is he could reasonably be projected for a wOBA of .315, +4 DRAR, and 20 Games missed. Possible..

0.94 WAR (which works out to half of last years. go figure)

Ty Wigginton - The best hitting option, if that's what get's you going.

wOBA: .357 and -9 DRAR coming out to a

0.90 WAR

Mike Lowell - I'm not even sure what kind of defender he would be at this point.

wOBA: .344 and, say -4 DRAR for a

1.06 WAR

Miguel Tejada

wOBA: .332 with a 0 DRAR.

1.15 WAR

Thoughts on the projections? Thoughts on other possibilities? Thoughts on the NBA playoffs?

I, like everyone else, am intrigued by Wilson Ramos' future. So I wanted to see what previously touted catching prospects have done in their career. So I went to the BA Top 100 lists, and found all the catching prospects that have listed.  There were 31 names, 2 of which I threw out since they were highly touted since before they were drafted.  Those two are of course Joesph Patrick Mauer and Matthew Wieters.  That left 29 names.  Here is what they have done.

Victor Martinez - He made two appearances on the BA100, in the 90's and then jumping into the top 20 in '03. He has obviously been a very good player.

Brian McCann - Didn't walk a whole lot before he made the majors, which means he was never ranked as an elite prospect. He topped out at #44 in '05.

Jayson Werth - Changed positions and became an all-star. Was ranked as the 48th best prospect in 2000.

Brandon Inge - Another that changed position. Ranked 67 in 2001.

Russell Martin - Had three very good years. Since has slowed down and looks more like a solid everyday player.

Kenji Johjima - An underrated player when he was stateside, he accumulated 8 Wins Above Replacement before he went back to Japan.

Soto - After turning a corner, he was ranked 47 in 2008 and became the Rookie of the Year in 2009.

Kurt Suzuki - Solid solid player. Fringe all-star caliber.

Kelly Shoppach - Full of power. Not really given a huge chance, but regardless, not a great catcher.

Chris Ianetta - One of two players in this grouping that could become an all-star yet. Hasn't been given a starting position which he would be an adequate everyday player.

John Buck - I don't think he's made an all-star team. At least he shouldn't have. He has less than 5 WAR and his career is winding down.

Dioner Navaro - Actually was an all-star, but it seems like it was a fluke. The man has a 76 OPS+ and 4.3 WAR in his career. Is in a platoon with Kelly Shoppach.

Josh Phelps - 4 WAR career. Done. Let's move on.

Miguel Montero - The second player in this grouping that I actually like. Like Ianetta he hasn't been given an everyday position, but he was on the verge of one before he got injured this season. He could accumulate a lot of value the next four years.

That is 14 players out of 29.  Each have had different levels of success. Now onto the less than successful players.

Matthew Lecroy - A Twin! I attended a game he hit 2 HRs. His bat was actually pretty decent, but he couldn't handle the defense. He was a platoon player, pinch hitter at his best.

Jarod Saltalamachia - I don't know if I spelled it right, but who cares. He was highly touted in '06 as the 19 best prospect in the land. He was the centerpiece in the Mark Teixeira deal. Now he looks like a nobody.

Taylor Teagarden - How fitting that he should be mentioned with his teammate. The poster children for catching prospect busts. Of course, they are both young and one of them might have a late career surge, but who's counting on it?

Jeff Mathis - Defensive specialist, trouble with the bat. Nothing special

4 more.  Three of which are able to add to their legacy but look to be fringe major leaguers. That leaves 11 more players; Quiroz, Patrick, Walker, Lamasney, Towles, Huber, Sardinha, Christianson, Lawrence, House, Clement.

Breaking this down by cost controlled year, the average WAR per year of control was 0.5/1.3/0.9/1.1/1.3/1.0. So we can project Wilson Ramos to be worth about 6 Wins Above Replacement under team control.  But what will we have to pay him? Not knowing how the market is going to be 6 years from now, lets just say he would be paid, 0.5/0.5/0.5/2.0/4.0/6.0 and each win is $4M in cost. That would mean we'd be paying for 3 Wins.

In conclusion:

A) Wilson Ramos right now, can be valued as a 3 WAR excess commodity.

B) BA has been listing more and more catchers in their 100.  From 2000-2007, they averaged 5 catchers.  In '08 they listed 7, '09 they had 12, and '10 they had '11.  Just something interesting.

Because I love Joe Mauer.  And I love to see the tangible difference he has had on this club in the 2009 season.

W% w/Joe: .519 (54-50)
Without: .448 (13-16)

R/G w/Joe: 5.07
R/G w/o: 4.76

RA/G w/Joe as C: 4.57
RA/G w/o as C: 5.36

Expected W%:

w/Joe @ C: .551

w/ Joe @DH: .472

w/o Joe: .441

With a reasonable breakdown of 140 games at catcher, 18 at DH, and 4 games of rest a team would be expected to win 87-88 games with Joe Mauer over the course of a full season.  Without Joe Mauer, the team would be expected to win about 71 games. 

Of course this is overstated since the biggest difference in RA/G with and without Joe has been the terrible start of Scott Baker.  So unless you buy that Joe Mauer fixed Scott you can't buy into these numbers as is. 

Personally, I was hoping for a more profound difference in R/G, but it's not insignificant.

I've been convinced that the Front Office is positioning themselves to be able to trade Joe Nathan during the offseason.  He is owed $35 Million over the next three years and is a terrible allocation of resources.  I was shocked when the Twins signed him to the extension to begin with, but I really do believe the may be thinking of trading him. 

They acquired two arms in the last week, one of which is signed through next year.  I do believe that they are going to work to bring back as many bullpen arms as they can, sign a big name free agent, get Mauer signed to his extension, and then trade Nathan.  And more importantly I think this is the sound business decision.  Closers are terribly overrated, and terribly overpaid. 

I for one have given up all hope on the 2009 campaign.  It was a waste of perhaps the greatest season by a catcher, ever (until Joe's 2010 season).  What can, and should, be done to this team in the coming offseason?

I went through a list of upcoming Free Agents this offseason that I could potentially see moving teams to see just where the Twins could improve if the Pohlads pumped some money into the payroll.  I'll put them into three groups, IF, SP, and RP.

IF:

Orlando Hudson (A), Felipe Lopez, Placido Polanco, Marco Scutaro(A), Miguel Tejada(A), Orlando Cabrera, Adrian Beltre, Chone Figgins(A)

Some intriguing names for sure.  I think the Twins are content at 3B thinking Valencia will be ready which I have no problems with.  But what about upgrades at SS and 2B? 

SP:

John Lackey(A), Rich Harden(A), Erik Bedard, Ben Sheets, Randy Wolf, Joel Pineiro, Justin Duchscherer, Doug Davis, Jarrod Washburn, Brett Myers, Jason Marquis

I think Lackey is out of the Twin's price range as he'll receive a Burnett type deal, probably even with the Angels.  But what about the next three, Harden-Bedard-Sheets, all injury risk high reward pitchers.  A fair base salary heavy on incentives would be very beneficial to both parties. 

RP:

Mike Gonzalez, Kevin Gregg, Fernando Rodney, Rafael Soriano, Jose Valverde, many many others

Valverde will probably go to a team that he can close, but are there any relievers that you would like to see added to the squad for 2010? 

What about aside from Free Agents?  Do you trade Delmon or Cuddyer for a reliever or middle infielder?  Do you try to trade for J.J. Hardy?  Is it even possible to trade for Hardy knowing that the Twins farm system is incredibly weak?

Wins and Losses are obviously what matter. Twins without Joe Mauer=1 win above .500. Twins with Joe Mauer=.500

But I just glanced at the numbers.

Twins Run Differentials:
Without Joe=-21
With Joe=+50

Runs/Runs Allowed per game
Without Joe=4.08/4.92
With Joe=5.16/4.38

Plus of course there has been three games that Joe hasn't started but appeared late as a pinch hitter. The Twins lost all three of those games. Joe was 2/3 with 3 RBI in those at-bats.

I just found this interesting since the run differentials obviously don't line up to the win/losses.  I thought it would be closer.

Recently the Washington Nationals traded Jon Rauch to the Arizona Diamondbacks receiving mediocre prospect Emilio Bonifacio in exchange.  Emilio was give a C+ rating heading into the season by John Sickles and has had a good year at the age of 23, but this being in the PCL.  Meanwhile Jon Rauch over the last two seasons has been outstanding striking out 117 in 136 2/3 innings while only walking 28 posting WHIPs under 1.1.  

My question to you is, did the Twins miss the Rauch-train?  Do you think the Twins should have tried to acquire him if we would to have given up say Valencia, Hughes, or Plouffe?

I personally believe this was a great trade for Arizona giving up a future utility infielder for a very dependable arm in the bullpen.