It was a good run

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I know it would take a large commitment from the ownership group but, what if the team moves Mauer to catcher (spilt with Suzuki), sign $$$$ Chris Davis from Baltimore. Idk 4 years $72M?

Mauer will never catch again. I wish he would for the sake of his production being meaningful again, and because he's one of my favorite players ever, but it's not going to happen.

Also, Chris Davis will get $150M+ easy.

[Jester1534]

Anybody see Matt Weiters as a possibility at catcher?

I think you go young with starting pitching and sign veteran arms for the bull pen.

Gibson, Duffey, Berrios, Santana, Hughes or Milone but I believe tommy will be too much money. I want Gonsalves in the rotation really badly though.

Buxton CF
Hicks RF
Weiters C
Sano 1B
Rosario LF
Plouffe 3B
Tori/Kepler DH
Dozier 2B
Escobar SS

Have to buy out Mauer or tell him his role has reduced and come to renegotiation.

They way I look at it is we have a trade chip in Arcia and Kepler. I just don't know what two do with these two guys. I want to play Sano at third I just don't think he can play everyday at 3rd.

[Monster]

To clarify my statement there may be catchers better than Kurt but there will be other teams looking too. Do we really want to sign writers to a bigtime deal?

On Herrmann he is sort of my worst case scenario as the backup. If the Twins can't find some other option throw him in there from the start and see if he can do something. There is only one way for him to go with his bat and that is up. I am NOT holding a roster spot for him though.

Trading Plouffe should bring you something really damn good in return. Before this year he was an above average hitting 3B and then he went ahead and became a very good defensive player at that spot. He is a vet and I think it's a bit hard to think of dealing him right now. What do you want in return? Catching obviously. lol he would be someone that wouldake sense to move if you found a good return.

TR has a tough offseason to figure out what to do. He has a bunch of guys at few positions and not enough room for all of them including SP although as we have found out year after year on this team you can never have enough of that.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Move Plouffe for bullpen help? Oh, khans... No. That'd be a terrible mistake. You don't trade your best run producer for a relief pitcher. Plouffe led this team with 86 RBI. I expect him to be second next year in that category to Sano only. There's also the likelihood of Hunter (2nd-most RBI with 80) retiring this off-season. We went through some very rough scoring droughts this season. Getting rid of Plouffe does not help that whatsoever.

The fact is this: a 1B/3B/DH combo of Mauer/Plouffe/Sano (in whatever mix you want) is MUCH better than a 1B/3B/DH combo of Mauer/Sano/Vargas. It's just not even close. The drop-off would be too significant.

Also, I 100% disagree with the notion that there aren't better catching options available than ole Kurt "Easy Out" Suzuki. For starters, A.J. Pierzynski is a free agent again and just had a season where he posted a .300/.339/.430 line in 113 games. Let's compare that to Suzuki's .240/.296/.314 line. That's night and day, and it's not like A.J. is going to be expensive either.

Should the Pohlads and Terry Ryan find a way to dump Nolasco, they could be big spenders for Matt Wieters this off-season. You have to admit, the fit would be great. Switch-hitting catcher with solid slashes and pretty good pop. He'd fit in nicely behind Sano in this lineup. His agent is Boras, which could be an issue, and he's had injury issues the last couple of seasons, but I don't think he'll be overly expensive. I could see him getting something similar to Russell Martin's five-year, $82M deal. If Wieters is healthy, and he should be (finally), I think he's worth it.

There's also the option of trade. Jonathan Lucroy is signed through 2016 and has a team option for 2017. The Brewers are in full-blown rebuild mode. When healthy, I can make an argument that Lucroy's the best overall catcher in baseball, though it'd be an argument and not a definitive statement. Regardless, he's an All-Star player just entering his prime and is above average with the bat and behind the plate. We have the farm depth to make a deal happen, especially if we center the deal around Kepler and Meyer.

By the way, Chris Herrmann is not an MLB-worthy baseball player. No team needs to waste a roster spot on that guy.

Plouffe had the 3rd most AB's on the team (50+ more than Hunter and over 100+ more than guys like Sano and Rosario). There is literally nothing special about Plouffe that he needs to stay. His stats were opportunity based this year. He played the most he's ever played by a decent chunk, got 50 more AB's than he's ever had and turned that into 6 more RBI's this year than last. His OBP dropped back to his normal .3-.31 range and he doesn't scare any pitchers because he's not a 30 HR guy. Keeping wildy average players like Plouffe is what keeps us from moving up in the ranks. Sano, Escobar, Dozier and Rosario all put up higher OPS numbers so put any of them in Plouffe's spot this year and they're likely to produce the same if not more runs. Arcia and Vargas are both still improving as well and could take over Sano's DH role if Sano was allowed to play 3rd. Plouffe may have produced the most, but he got a lot more AB's than guys who could have produced just as much if given the same opportunity. I think his offensive production is entirely replaceable so why not get help elsewhere on the team?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Okay, sure... Even if I bought that argument, you'd have to tell me why you believe Arcia and Vargas can replicate Plouffe's "opportunity" numbers when they've shown already that they've had trouble at the MLB level.

[bleedspeed]

This is such a tough position and hopefully it gets worse with Max Kepler being productive next year. He will need to have a resurgence at the plate to be anything more then a part time player moving forward. Playing 1ST, DH, and RF. Batting 6th or 2nd.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Okay, sure... Even if I bought that argument, you'd have to tell me why you believe Arcia and Vargas can replicate Plouffe's "opportunity" numbers when they've shown already that they've had trouble at the MLB level.

If you pro-rate Arcia's RBI's from his AB's last year based on Plouffe's AB's this year, he would be at 77. Vargas would be at 72. Add in that they are 24 and 25 years old I would venture to guess they still have room to improve. They aren't that far behind him. Vargas is a bit of a reach, but Arcia is an improvement over Plouffe with his career .748 OPS to Plouffe's .728 (all of that difference coming from Slugging) which stands to reason if given the same opportunity he could produce just as much. Basically, it's reasonable that he could do it and he has the potential to do it better than Plouffe. Plouffe will never see this level of AB's again with Sano on the squad full-time combined with the outfield and 1B being full and needing to release some pressure into the DH role. Any game Mauer or someone else needs to DH, Sano becomes the 3B because his bat is significantly better than Plouffe's so I'd rather trade what's going to become a part time player for a piece that can contribute more and maybe find out one of our part-time pieces is ready to become a full-time piece.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Mauer isn't moving back to catcher guys No use wasting time arguing about it.

And it was the concussion issues that forced him out of catching, not so much the other stuff

Exactly...if it were the other issues, the Twins would make him catch. But Mauer's doctors at Mayo told him that one more concussion would have dire consequences, so he told the Twins he's done catching. Too bad, because he was at least average defensively as a catcher and well above average as a hitter. But he ranks in the bottom 10% of first basemen offensively. And his contract is about 25 % of the total payroll.

The only good news about Mauer is we can finally at least see the end of his contract...only 3 more years. Overpay him for 3 years, bat him second and benefit from his solid OBP and defense, and then show him the door. That $23 million coming off the books is going to really help as they look at signing guys like Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Rosario and Kepler to long-term deals.

By the way, nice to have some real baseball participation here...let's keep it up next year!