Byung-ho Park

Summary: 29 years old, 105 home runs over the last two seasons, the league is somewhere between Double A and Triple A farm club level. They only have to pay the Korean team $13 million IF he signs with the Twins in the next 30 days.

The Twins tried this with "Ishy" Nishioka from Japan a few seasons back and the results were not pretty.

If the Twins can't trade Mauer, and I don't think they are even thinking about that (we can't and nobody else wants THAT contract), it puts the Twins in a weird bind. There's talk of putting Sano in the outfield even though he's never played there, which we all know would be a HUGE mistake. If I thought Hunter playing there last year was a bad idea, I can't imagine how bad putting Sano out there this season would be. One of things that was great about last season is that we finally had a great defensive outfield at the end.

I don't want to see Plouffe traded to make room for Sano at third. Consistently, offensively and defensively, he was probably our second best player last year behind Dozier. He belongs in the lineup.


BUT so does Sano. Using him at DH and first last year, splitting playing time with Mauer was pretty much perfect.

Park MIGHT be great, but because of Mauer's contract, which runs three more years, we simply don't have room for him. That Mauer deal continues to be an anchor around the neck of our franchise.

In the end, I see Plouffe going elsewhere, and the talk of Sano in the outfield is just a smoke screen to increase Plouffe's trade value.

I'd take Plouffe over Mauer in a heart beat IF we had a choice. But we don't.

Only in Twinsland is the potential of getting someone with Park's potential a problem. But it is. As long as we have Mauer, it will always be that way.

At least Torii Hunter had the decency to retire.