Thursday, November 03, 2011

So, free agency

The thing with having an array of bad teams to follow (the Twins, the Colts, the Purdue football team, Blackburn Rovers, the Gophers everything teams et al) is that one can always look to the future and hope. This winter, having no teams (besides Purdue basketball! Go Boilers! And the Wild, who might barely make the playoffs!) to really be enthusiastic about, I can spend the baseball offseason in eager anticipation. What might happen? What might not? Anything that happens is all opinion, rather that wins or losses or other things that can be taken as fact. Even if the Twins make signings or trades I'm not a fan of, they might still work out! It's all about optimism!
Now, I linked to a post from MLBTR earlier that had a look at the potential free agent signings, so I thought I would comment specifically on the players that Tim Dierkes thought would sign with the Twins and what, specifically, I thought of those individual players and their fits with the Twins. And the best part? If I don't like them, I could be WRONG!
Michael Cuddyer - With two right fielders on their way to free agency, obviously the better choice is to keep the righty when the team is chalk full of lefties. THAT SAID, I think the Twins are missing an opportunity if they simply offered Cuddy arbitration and signed Josh Willingham, who is a similar player, but without the disadvantage of being put in situations where he won't be any good, like playing 2b or something. If this trade off is made, there is a slight dip in batting average (unless Willingham reverts to offensive form, which means a closer to comparable average with Cuddy), but two draft picks come to the team as well. Still and all, I guess I wouldn't really feel anything if Cuddyer re-signed.
Hisashi Iwakuma - I know nothing about Iwakuma, except that he is a reliever, which isn't so bad. I found this video of Iwakuma in action, and I learned a few things. He can through 145km/h, which is pretty good, I think. He throws red pitches 50% of the time, and grey only 3%. Also, according to the description, he gets a lot of ground ball outs, which sounds good until you look at the Twins infield.
Clint Barmes - Look at him! He just looks afraid at the plate! And this is BP!
Yes, he will do nicely in Minnesota.
Joe Nathan - Eh. He's popular, I suppose, and the Twins need to fill out the bullpen. I'm not really confident that he will ever be the same again. If he is though, watch out! The games the bullpen doesn't blow before the 9th inning, he will shut. Them. Down.

But hey, four of the top 50 free agents! I suspect that this will be, if nothing else, a fun offseason.

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