I've seen the idea of the Twins trading for an ace one too many times already, and the offseason hasn't even started yet.  So I thought I'd look at who the aces out there are, and whether any of them might be available, and what the cost would be.  I used 7 fWAR over 2010-11 as my borderline because that gets guys like Chris Carpenter and John Danks onto the list, who I'd be quite happy to have.  I may add a couple of other guys at my whim, feel free to suggest more in the comments too.

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Twelve games.  Manny Ramirez has been with the White Sox for all of two weeks, and already they're historic.  When Dick and Bert announced last night that Manny had gone eleven games for the White Sox without an RBI, I was intrigued.  When Manny left seven men on base last night, that furthered the interest: when was the last time Manny had gone twelve games without an RBI?  We're talking about the current active leader in that category, with 1828 in his career.  He's seventeenth all time, and if he plays another year or two he'll almost certainly crack the top ten.  So it was a bit of a search, and I was unconvinced I would find any time that it had happened before.  But I did:

The last time Manny Ramirez went twelve games without an RBI: June 3-15, 1997, just after his 25th birthday.  It also happened from May 30-July 10, 1995.  Maybe he pushed his celebrations a bit too far in those days.

Before this week, those were the longest streaks of his career.  But counting his last two games with the Dodgers, Manny now has gone RBI-less for fourteen consecutive games, and that has never happened before.

First and foremost, good news for Matthew Dicus Capps.  He doesn't have to pitch in Washington D.C. for at least another fourteen months!  Also, I have a gweat fweind in Wome named... oh, nevermind.

Good news for Wilson Ramos.  He gets a virtually guaranteed big league job, and he gets to catch Steven Strasburg, which I imagine will make his postgame interviews predictable and easy.

Bad news for Jesse Crain and Jon Rauch, who almost certainly will be pitching for other teams next year.  Actually, given how skilled Gardy is at putting them into good situations, maybe this is good news.

Good news for people who hate big noses.  One of these times that Alexi Casilla pinch-runs for Thome will likely be his last appearance in a Twins uniform, maybe any major-league uniform.  He might make $800k in arbitration, and we just can't risk that anymore.

Bad news for Ron Gardenhire, who looks to be substantially grit-deprived in 2011, as the Twins look headed for declining both Nick Punto's option and Matt Tolbert's arbitration.  Gardy will undoubtedly throw a fit to get Toby on the team.

Great news for Luke Hughes, Trevor Plouffe, and Brian Dinkelman.  One of these guys will likely be your starting second baseman in 2011.  Another will be your utility infielder.  Unless Gardy's fit actually works.

Good news for Matt Guerrier and Carl Pavano, who look headed for Type-A free agency and probably won't have to decline arbitration to get there, since the Twins can't risk them accepting.  So long, draft picks.

Great news for Francisco Liriano and Delmon Young.  Bill Smith has bought himself into a corner and is more or less forced to sign those two to backloaded extensions if he wants to put together a 2011 team.  And I'm pretty sure their agents know that.

Bad news for anybody who ever wanted to see Pat Neshek pitch again, or Kyle Waldrop pitch at all.

Good news for Joe Nathan, who has some backup if being dragged by a parachute is not as effective as anticipated.

Lots of talk about the Span extension around.  Jesse compared the contract to estimated values of WAR and came to the conclusion that it's a good deal.  John Bonnes compared the contract to other centerfielders' and came to the opposite conclusion.  I want to do something different: compare it to the arbitration floor as represented by some of the Twins' least valuable players.  I suppose this might apply to the Blackburn contract as well.

Span's contract will pay him a little extra the next couple years, then, barring something weird with service time, $3M in his Arb 1 year, $4.75M in his Arb 2 year, and $6.5M in his Arb 3 year.  What are other guys getting?

Delmon Young, everybody's favorite whipping boy, the sixth-worst hitter in baseball by WAR at -1.3, hit 284/308/425 while playing atrocious defense, and the Twins bought out his Arb 1 year for $2.6M.

JJ Hardy was surprisingly useful last year at 1.4 WAR due to good fielding at shortstop, but hit just 229/302/357 in the National League and managed to get himself dumped back to AAA, had the eighth-worst OPS of anyone with 450+ PAs, and the Twins bought out what's essentially Arb 2b for $5.1M.

Heck, go back to Luis Rivas, whose first arbitration year was way back in 2004.  He was never even as good as Young, and that was six years ago, and he still made $1.5M.

What this adds up to is the not-so-startling revelation that arbitration is really expensive, even for players who aren't very good.  So ideas of saving a bunch of money on Span by going year-to-year are overblown at best.  It might make sense to do that if the Twins would be willing to non-tender him if he turned into a pumpkin, but I think we've learned by now that they wouldn't.  Meanwhile there's a fair amount of upside to the deal if he does improve.

So Star Tribune fifth columnist Jim Souhan thinks it's time to think about trading the MVP.

But a combination of modern baseball logic and Twins history suggests that if the Twins' decision-makers can't sign Mauer, they will be obligated to trade him.

The Twins and Shapiro have kept the details of their negotiations remarkably quiet, but my sense, after talking with a variety of people, is that the team has offered more than $20 million a year. If Shapiro is intent on pushing Mauer to $25 million or more a year, Mauer might find himself on the Johan Santana Shuttle out of town.

Twins history ought to teach us well on this one; after all, we had this come up just a couple years ago, during the winter of 2007-8.  Our two-time Cy Young ace was on his way out of town one way or another, and everyone quickly became convinced that the Twins were obligated to trade him to get some value rather than just letting him walk as a free agent.

So what happened?  Fledgling general manager Bill Smith dealt Santana to the Mets for a weak package of prospects, and he promptly led the National League in ERA and batters faced.  Without him the Twins played their way to a tie in the division and a heartbreaking loss in Game 163, version 1.0.  It's pretty clear that that trade cost the Twins a playoff appearance, and a reasonable shot at a World Series with one of the best pitchers in the game at the top of the rotation.  It also cost two picks in the 2009 draft, one of which would certainly have been #31.  If the Mets had signed Johan as a free agent the other would have been #24.

Given the chance, would you have traded a playoff appearance and #24 and #31 draft picks for Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra?  Unless you're Doug Risebrough, probably not.

And that's the situation we're in again with the latest superstar, Joe Mauer.  The 2010 Twins look destined for the playoffs again, but it's hard to see them making it without #7.  Mauer's value is probably higher than Santana's was, but teams would still be purchasing only one year of play and the right to pay him incredible amounts of money.  Plus teams are valuing prospects higher than ever.  Dreams of a huge load of future superstars exist only in Souhan's head.  The Twins might get a better package than the Santana deal, but they're not going to get a future Mauer, or anything close.

Hopefully if this issue ever really comes up, Smith will learn from his mistake, take the probable playoff year and the picks, and not let the idea of being "obligated" to trade Mauer go any farther than Souhan's ratty Selectric.