Minnesota Twins GM Simulation: Free agents to fill out the roster
By Nate Palmer
The Minnesota Twins have lots of moves they can make this offseason, here are the results of the moves I made in an offseason simulation.
As the Minnesota Twins filled out their coaching staff Friday, we here at FanSided wrapped up our offseason GM simulation. As you may have already read, as the acting Twins GM in the simulation I kicked the simulation off with a trade that sent OF Eddie Rosario and RHP Andrew Cabezas to Atlanta for RHP Julio Teheran, LHP Kolby Allard, and RP Shane Carle. Wednesday through Friday of this past week was spent trying to round out the roster with free agent additions.
The process had to obviously be altered since we don’t have access to each player and their agents or enough people to act as those players and agents. That means that each free agent contract was decided through an auction process. After a first bid was made, everyone had 24 hours to make their own bids before the auction closed and the free agent was awarded to or “signed” with a team.
This obviously creates an imperfect situation in deciding who a free agent signs with since in the real world there would be a little different negotiating and even leveraging that happens. Considering our overall manpower and time frame for the simulation it works out pretty well. Even though as you will see as I unfold what happened in the simulation there still are frustrations in the process.
Goals for Simulation and Free Agency
Since I was already able to help upgrade the starting rotation through the trade that brought Teheran to the Twins, the next two areas that I wanted to address were the bullpen and the infield. My goal was to walk away with two free agents in both areas.
With the bullpen, I wanted two strong back end of the bullpen arms who could even be considered closer material if needed. Thankfully this year’s free agent class boasts quite a few arms that meet that qualification so I had options.
With the infield, I wanted to be able to improve the defense and find an impact bat. Again, there are plenty of options to help accomplish both of those things in the infield. As I found out I wasn’t alone in upgrading the infield when it came to those thoughts and goals for the free agency portion of the simulation.