Tis the season to rebuild

[love_that_reefer]

To put it politely, the Twins are done! They sit 15.5 games out of first and sit dead last. Their best player's return is still up in the air and former MVP Justin Morneau is a shell of his former self. The Twins have made the playoffs the past two years but now its time to focus towards the future. The Twins have a lot of intriguing pieces they can move in order to start the rebuild and by rebuild, I don't mean completely start from scratch. They will still have pieces like Mauer, Morneau, Pavano, Blackburn, Span and Baker to build around and money to spend in the offseason.

The Twins have five guys who will be free agents after the year in Capps, Kubel, Cuddyer, Nathan and Thome. Now the Twins will probably hang on to Thome so he can hit #600 in a Twins uniform but the rest should be on the trading block. Liriano and Slowey are also on that list. Kubel will probably be the one who brings in the most talent followed by Cuddyer and Capps. The Twins can save a few million by trading these guys adding to their offseason spending. I think Kubel can bring a nice package because he is a good, lefthanded RFer with some power and is cheap. Cuddyer is versatile which adds to his value and a lot of teams could use that. Capps could help any bullpen even if he's having difficulties this season. Liriano and Nathan are hurt so their stock is down but if they can come back and shows sign of life, they could be moved for a piece or two. The Twins could totally rebuild their bullpen and get some position players by making trades and the earlier, the more they could get back. Of course you can't go early with the hurt players but, Kubel and Cuddyer, the earlier the better.

[catman]

I'm not really sure how much the team needs to rebuild this season. They have a lot of talent on the DL (Morneau would have been DL'd last homestand if there would have been some able bodies to take his place). His 2 homers last night make it look like he's going to be back to his normal.
As to the bullpen, I think Slama and James will help. Mijares is back and when Nathan comes back from the DL, he should be OK. Hoey and Burnett will do OK, IMO. Dusty Hughes is likely to be the guy that is DFA'd when Nishioka is ready to come back. Possibly, Gibson or even Kevin Slowey can come up and start, moving Duensing to the pen. Dumatrait has looked OK in his outings, although a poor decision he made last night might have cost the Twins the game.
I'm not ready to give up on the team yet. They haven't given up on themselves and Gardy hasn't given up on them, either.

[love_that_reefer]

You might not be ready to give up on them but the Twins front office should be and be looking forward to 2012 and beyond.

[mntwinsfan]

I agree as well. This team is done. When Mauer is in NO HURRY to return and Gardy can't coach his way out of a paper bag, this team is finished. I would love to be Mauer, collecting the big contract and doing NOTHING to earn it. Twins fans should stop showing up at the home games. Maybe the players would finally figure things out. Yes we are scoring runs finally but how many one run losses will we have.

[catman]

I do agree that the team needs to look to the future, and I like the way it looks. Most of the Twins best prospects are pitchers (2-4 in the rotation, not necessarily top of the rotation guys) and athletic outfielders. Revere is ready to step in and play at the major league level if the team decides to move one of the outfielders (probably Kubel), moving Young to right and Revere to left.