Everybody Gets Tendered A Contract (Even You, J.J.)

Via Joe C.:

"The Twins had no non-tenders. All nine of their arbitration players were tendered contracts. Clay Condrey was outrighted a month ago and elected free agency."

That means Joe Benson, David Bromberg, Alex Burnett, Drew Butera, Matt Capps, Alexi Casilla, Rob Delaney, Brian Duensing, Deolis Guerra, J.J. Hardy, Luke Hughes, Francisco Liriano, Jeff Manship, Jose Mijares, Jose Morales, Chris Parmelee, Glen Perkins, Trevor Plouffe, Ben Revere, Anthony Slama, Kevin Slowey, Anthony Swarzak, Matt Tolbert, Rene Tosoni, Danny Valencia and Delmon Young will still be Twins next year. Unless they get traded, of course. Let the rampant Hardy-for-Greinke rumor-mongering begin!

The Twins avoided arbitration with Pat Neshek and Jason Repko, inking each one to respective one year, $600,000 and $625,000 deals. Neshek struggled mightily in his return from Tommy John surgery. He never threw particularly hard, but the velocity on his fastball has dropped from 89-91 mph to just 85.6 mph. Worse yet, he’s struggled with his control, posting an 8.00 BB/9 rate and 1.13 K/BB ratio. Still, it’s easy to forget just how good Neshek was before Tommy John, with a 2.57 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 11.18 K/9 and 5.79 K/BB between 2006 and 2007, and there is at least some hope he can return to form. His 9.00 K/9 rate is still above average, and since control is often the last thing to return from Tommy John (just ask Francisco Liriano), his walk rate should improve to something much closer to his career 3.12 next year. And for a mere $625,000, that is certainly a risk worth taking.

There isn’t much to say about Repko. He’s a career .227/.304/.365/.669 hitter, but he has great range and makes a good fourth outfielder. His UZR was a sparkling 12.5, and he made a grand total of 24 out of zone plays last year, so I bet Kevin Slowey and Scott Baker like him a lot

Erin is a contributing writer for Twinkie Talk. You can email her at erinm25 [at] gmail [dot] com.