Twins Do Something

It’s been a very quiet off-season for the Twins so far.  We all had expectations that they were going  to work hard to get Joe Mauer signed to a long-term contract at a home town discount (Joe is originally from St. Paul), but in the last month the silence about where those talks are going has been deafening.

The Twins apparently made an offer to Jarrod Washburn.  It’s not clear whether Washburn rejected it or is still considering it.  Hard to get excited about Washburn who will be an old 35 in 2010 and hasn’t had a truly great season in some time.

Today the Twins reached agreement with former Phillies reliever Clay Condrey.  Condrey will be 34 next year, but he’s coming off two strong seasons for the Phillies.  He is an extreme groundball pitcher, which is probably a good thing for the Twins to acquire, since their starters tend to put a lot of runners on base.  Twins pitchers don’t allow a lot of walks, but they sure give up a lot base hits.

To make room for Condrey, the Twins released Bobby Keppel, who has apparently already reached an agreement with the Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan’s Pacific League.  Japanese teams love American players with MLB experience, but I don’t think Keppel is any guarantee to be a success in Japan.

Aside from the fact that it’s just plain hard to predict which American players will adjust to the Japanese games and which ones won’t (for example, former major leaguer Dan Johnson looked like an excellent bet to be a star in Japan, but his 2009 season left a lot to be desired, and while he played well enough to deserve another chance in 2010, he’ll have to take a massive pay cut for any Japanese team to give him that opportunity), Keppel’s American career just isn’t that great.

In his favor, Keppel’s only 28 next season, and he had a generally strong 2009 campaign split between AAA Rochester and the Twins.  Against him, he has a career 4.55 minor league ERA and his 2009 campaign was his only strong season since hurting his arm pitching for the Mets AAA team in 2005.  I’ll be rooting for Keppel’s success in Japan, but I definitely think his chances are hit or miss.

I’m surprised the Twins haven’t been more active this off-season, since they made the play-offs in 2009 (just barely) and they’re moving into their new stadium in 2010.  I expected at least one big move by this point, particularly since bargains are to be had this off-season.  (Just look at the Nationals’ signings of Jason Marquis and Matt Capps.)

The Twins are usually a team that looks for bargains late in the off-season, and I suspect they will find some of those bargains between now and the start of Spring Training.  However, I thought they’d make a play for at least one high quality free agent by now.  And no, signing hot shot Dominican prospect Miguel Sano doesn’t count.