Five Things The Minnesota Twins Need to do This Off Season

This is an open ended question, because you are probably thinking, what position? Shortstop or second base? The Answer is both. Alexi Casilla showed promise this past season playing second base, until he got hurt. Maybe give him one more shot at playing second base (I am okay with that), but on the other side of second base is the shortstop. Tsuyoshi Nishioka started the 2011 season as the everyday second basemen, but then got moved to shortstop, and now looks like he might not even play everyday for the Twins in 2012. Maybe Nishioka was nervous, couldn't handle the MLB atmosphere, if so let him go back to Japan. The Twins need to go out and get a veteran shortstop. Jimmy Rollins, and Jose Reyes are probably out of the Twins price range, but I wouldn't be totally against bringing back Nick Punto. Yet it depends if you want a better fielder or hitter, better fielder then go get Punto, better hitter I would look else where. If it was up to me get Punto, because hes cheap and a very great teammate, and plays unselfish baseball, and would save the Twins a bunch of runs by not always committing errors.

We all saw what a bullpen filled with inexperienced players, and past-their-prime veterans do for a ball club. They help your team lose 99 games. 2010 The Twins bullpen was the cream of the crop in MLB. We had Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Jon Rauch, Brian Fuentes, and Matt Capps, we also did not have Joe Nathan due to injury. Now those players are either leaving this winter or have already left. Take a look at Texas Rangers, and St Louis Cardinals, both of whom had amazing bullpens, and were one of the reasons both teams made it to the World series. from 2002-2010 the Twins had one of the best bullpens in all of the majors, but now it looks embarrassing. Twins should resign Nathan to a cheap deal, that would secure the back end of the bullpen, but if Nathan signs with another team there is still a bunch of closers out there like Heath Bell, and Jonathan Papelbon. The Twins could look at some in house fixes here, but I would prefer a veteran pitcher like a Mike Adams for the setup man.

Joe Mauer will be seeing more, and more time away from catcher as the years move on. The Twins will have to start finding a replacement, a guy who can hit somewhere around .280, play decent behind the dish, and be able to handle young pitchers. Drew Butera is nice guy, but is not right for the job. You hate to see him go, but the Twins need a catcher like Ramon Hernandez or Ryan Doumit. Either one of these guys would improve our bench, and our depth behind the plate. Who knows if either one of them are within the Twins price range, but if the Twins look at adding a backup catcher I hope they would at least look into either Hernandez or Doumit.

Take a look at the past 10 World Series champions. Notice anything? Every team who has won the World Series has had an "ace", a pitcher that can not only go out their and dominate, but can do that for over 200-innings a year, a pitcher who's name is up their in the CY Young talk, a guy like Mark Buehrle, yeah I said it Mark Buehrle, the pitcher who has embarrassed the Twins more in the last 10 years then anyone else besides the Yankees. Buehrle has won the World Series(2005), has pitched over 200-inning 10 straight years. Buehrle is the type of guy that can go out and shut down any lineup, anytime, anywhere. If the Twins really want to turn heads this winter, they should sign Buehrle. This most likely wont happen, but we can all dream cant we?

YEP! You heard me correctly. Okay maybe I am putting way to much into this past season, but the Twins give 25% of their payroll to one guy. The guy who only hits .300, drives in 50 RBIS, and hits maybe 10 home runs a year. This guy should be getting eight million instead of 23 million. If the Twins got rid of Mauer, they could afford to upgrade two positions at once, and if they threw in Justin Morneau then heck we could completely upgrade our whole team. Morneau makes roughly 15 million a year and Mauer 23, you put 38 million dollars back into the Twins. That means the Twins could go out and sign Jose Reyes for 8 million, Michael Cuddyer for 8 million, and sign Prince Fielder for 20 Million a year, and we still would have two million left from getting rid of Mauer, and Morneau, and not to mention roughly 25 million from the other free agents we lost. We could easily afford Mark Buehrle, and resign Nathan, and sign Mike Adams. Now our lineup would look like this 1-(CF)Denard Span 2-(2B)Alexi Casilla 3-(SS)Jose Reyes 4-(1B)Prince Fielder 5-(RF)Micheal Cuddyer 6-(3B)Danny Valencia 7-(DH) Trevor Plouffe 8-(C)Ramon Hernandez 9-(LF)Ben Revere. This lineup would be fast, explosive, and young. Not to mention our rotation would be a lot better, and out bullpen much more experienced.