Orioles Interested in Morneau

The Twins KNOW they aren't going to get anyone of short-term value for Morneau, but they also want to dump his $14 million contract. The Orioles see a recovered Morneau giving them a chance to make the playoffs again this coming year and are willing to pay that salary.

As much as I rag on Morneau, the last half of last season he looked like his old self. I fully expect him to hit .300 and have 30 homers and 100 RBI again this year. The problem is, with those kind of numbers the Twins will lose him to free-agency anyway. They also don't WANT him at first base any more.

The Twins are betting he's not going to be that good and they also know that Joe Mauer (unless he is traded) is slotted be our first baseman for the next 10 years after this season.

I'm starting to wonder if the Twins strategy is to deliberately be a losing team again this year so that we can get Joe Mauer to agree to a trade to a contending team?

If that's the case and we dump both salaries, the Twins will jump back in the game by giving their best pitchers THIS season long-term deals for the future. The more pitchers we sign, the better our chances that at least TWO of them will be our aces in the future.

The Twins are now such a mess that it's hard to predict their next moves. I still think they want to dump all their high salary players and start over. The only problem with that guess is that we are also getting rid of our good young players at the same time.

Either way, what the Twins put on the field the last TWO seasons was not pretty. Even with all of the distasteful moves they've made this off-season, I don't see them being worse this coming season, especially if Hicks has a good year.

So much depends on starting pitching and I don't think anyone is good enough to predict good or bad seasons for the starters we just got. And I'm still not giving up hope on starters like De Vries, Deduno, and Hendriks. Those guys have some real potential. Deduno may be wild, but he can throw. Hendriks has a ton of losses but when you WATCH him pitch you see long stretches of potential greatness. De Vries was fantastic until he took a batted ball to the ribs to end his season last year.

And I still think Pavano will be one of the great free-gent bargains this year. He should be healthy and he should be cheap. He'd be a great re-acquisition for the Twins.

That's a lot of starters. I'll give them the benefit of a doubt that the Twins will be able to use two or three of them successfully this year.

I still can't believe how quickly we trade for mediocre talent though. Worley could be a Cy Young award winner in the near future, but more than likely, he'll just be another guy in our rotation, inter-changable with another half dozen guys in our rotation.

Worley was UNBELIEVABLE his rookie year. I really hope that's the pitcher we got.