Twins non-tendering Alex Kirilloff might be the easiest decision of the offseason

It's going to be another offseason of massively important decisions doe the Minnesota Twins, but some will be easier than others.

Already the Twins have let go of four coaches and replaced hitting coach David Popkins with Matt Borgschulte. The Pohlads deciding to put the team up for sale was by far the most stunning decision made, and all of this has happened less than half a month after the season ended.

We haven't even gotten to the part of the offseason where roster decisions need to be made, but that time of the year is quickly approaching. When it does, the Twins will be juggling ways to fit the roster into a payroll that will likely not grow by much which means some familiar faces are going to be jettisoned.

Alex Kirilloff is among those players, but it shouldn't be that hard of a decision to let him walk.

Letting Alex Kirilloff go might be the easiest decision the Twins have

We're now entering a third consecutive offseason where there's some massive question about Kirilloff that impacts the roster's construction. Coming into the 2023 season there were questions about whether he'd be ready for Opening Day and healthy enough to help make up for the loss of Luis Arraez. Last year he was coming off surgery that again forced the Twins to come up with contigency plans at first if he wasn't ready to go.

Another wrinkle entered the equation in the form of poor performance. Kirilloff got off to a hot start but he quickly fell off -- and then out of favor. Not only did he slump offensively but he didn't communicate a back injury that supposedly contributed to it.

The Twins found out about his injury after they had decided to option him to Triple-A, which then required a move to the IL instead. Needless to say, nobody in the clubhouse was happy about it and it served as further writing on the wall.

Aside from that off-field issue, Kirilloff has been a below-average hitter over the last few seasons. He's a career .248/.309/.412 hitter and has become a liability on defense, which is why he's been edged out out of two different platoons. Minnesota signed Donovan Solano and Carlos Santana in consecutive offseasons to proptect against Kirllloff either missing time or struggling, which really says it all right there.

He's due around $1.8 million in arbitration this winter, which should be the easiest non-tender the Twins have. It's not a terribly expensive price, but for a frugal franchise looking to pinch ans many pennies as possible, squeezing Kirilloff out of the picture seems like a no-brainer.

It's unfortunate since he's showed flashes of promise, but there's too many reasons he makes a better cost-saving move which might be how this all ends for him.

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