As we start looking to the Minnesota Twins offseason plans, attention turns to the 2018 roster and the makeup of the team.
The Minnesota Twins are about to enter the offseason as a playoff team. For fans that’s a very fun thing to consider – how can the team make itself better going into 2018 to be an even bigger threat once they get to the playoffs?!
Now that we’ve looked at the 2017 season in review, it’s time to look ahead to the Twins 2018 season and what they could do to make the team better!
Roster Considerations
The current Minnesota Twins 40-man roster contains 45 players, due to the 60-day disabled list. The Twins have 4 major league free agents, meaning they’re going to have to either non-tender one of their 8 arbitration-eligible players or designate a player for assignment just to get to the base 40.
That means for every signing or trade, at least one 40-man player will need to be figured in to be lost along the way. There certainly are some guys that could be designated for assignment. The names in question were mentioned on the second page of the recent discussion of Rule 5 eligible players. There are a host of players that would qualify as guys that could be put into DFA limbo and likely wouldn’t be lost.
The other end of things is that if the Twins would make the acquisition a trade, they could use one of their current 40-man players within the trade to help clear the roster spot right in the deal.
Let’s start looking at the offseason with those “pie in the sky” moves that the Twins could make, specifically, seeking out a “big arm” to anchor the rotation this offseason. We’ll start with a guy who is often on the block, it seems…