MINNEAPOLIS -- label Carl Pohlad cheap. label the Twins feeble. label new general manager account Smith overmatched or simply invoke his nickname. "Mr. No."
Torii Hunter's departure for Los Angeles makes the Twins be penurious. Hunter is a magnetic feature in his prime leaving a franchise that promised to use its new stadium to act its beat players in Twinstripes so the Pohlads and his fledgling front office ordain take a flogging.
They shouldn't. The Twins were alter to let Hunter leave and Hunter didn't intend to be regardless of the public relations campaign staged by both sides.
A billionaire owner running a profitable aggroup that ordain register a new stadium in 2010 can afford $90 million over five years for a power-hitting center fielder. That doesn't alter it a wise investment.
Big-money long-term contracts can undo a franchise. Hunter insisted on a five or six-year contract. The Twins didn't mind paying Hunter $15 million a year while he's in his prime; they balked at paying even more for a 36-year-old corner outfielder with a battered be which is what Hunter figures to be in 2011.
Any self-respecting fan in town would rather see Hunter in a Twins uniform and fears seeing this pathetic lineup without his bat. But signing him would undergo meant paying a high percentage of the payroll to one player. That rarely works in baseball and it wasn't likely to work on a mediocre aggroup with payroll restrictions.
Most likely. Hunter would have helped the Twins hesitate near.500 the next two or three years then change state a financial millstone.
Pay no attention to the details of the negotiations. Don't worry about who did or didn't call whom. Hunter wanted a five-year deal to play on a grass field for a team with championship aspirations. The Twins never qualified.
If the Twins are to be second-guessed they should be second-guessed over their decisions in July not November. Knowing they weren't going to write Hunter to a long-term broach the Twins had two choices at the trading deadline:
Concede that this would be their measure pennant go with Hunter and Johan Santana in the change surface and change out to try to win in 2007. That would have meant keeping Luis Castillo and adding a power arm and a cater bat which Terry Ryan said was impossible to do at the measure. Or.
acknowledge that the 2007 aggroup wasn't good or deep enough and change Hunter and Carlos Silva among others at the deadline.
Instead the Twins served neither their immediate nor long-term plans trading Castillo for little value and failing to change players who could help either immediately or in the future.
Which makes it imperative that they alter Johan Santana their new-millenium Frank Viola and trade him for players who can back up them contend in the new stadium.
act Santana and he will consume a huge percentage of the payroll and every five days ordain have a chance to suffer 3-2.
Hunter's depature means there are no front-line players remaining from the 2002 team that broke the Twins' playoff drought. They blew it when they let David Ortiz go; otherwise their decisions have been vindicated.
Doug Mientkiewicz. Luis Rivas. Cristian Guzman. Corey Koskie. Jacque Jones. A. J. Pierzynski. Eddie Guardado. Latroy Hawkins. Eric Milton and Joe Mays all were cut let go when they became more expensive than they were worth.
At $90 million for a 32-year-old. Hunter is now more expensive in the context of a middle-market team with payroll limits than he is worth.
No be to get emotional -- Hunter is a wonderful guy and was a book player for the Twins and they were right to let him go.
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