Over at the Strib, LEN III believes the Twins could level an official offer this week.  Meanwhile, Kelly Theiser at MLB.com reports the organization is already in discussions with Blake's agent Jim McDowell.

This has to be just a little bit of poetic justice, right?  Although the Twins didn't actually draft Casey Blake.  And even though they already had a third baseman in place who was only one year older.  And they took a chance on Blake, twice.  Hmm...this isn't quite the "full circle" I expected.

I know that Blake spent less than three years in the Minnesota farm system, which could be construed as "we let one go" when we see how he performed for triple-A clubs Salt Lake and Edmonton:  1150 at-bats, .311/.389/.499, 41 homers, 71 doubles, 127 walks, 203 strikeouts.  But the Twins still didn't keep him around, and he landed with the Indians as a free agent at age 29.  In 2004 he had his first truly good offensive season, which happened to coincide with the last good (see:  full) offensive season for one Cordel Leonard Koskie.

Now there's a very real chance that Blake, at age 35, could return to Minnesota and, quite likey, close out his career with the team that will be charged as the one that let him get away.  In 2008, Pecota projected Blake to perform as a typical 34-year old third baseman in decline, with a .264/.333/.432 median line; instead he nearly hit their 75th percentile...or essentially, over his head.  Pecota hasn't yet released forecasts for 2009, but suffice it to say it's likely they'll still be expecting a significant drop in performance.  Bill James, who included Casey Blake in his '09 projections for the Dodgers, looked into his crystal ball and saw .259/.336/.432, with 12 homers in 336 at-bats.

Should the Twins move forward with Blake, and right now it certainly seems that they are, they're doing so with the idea that he'll be able to fill a hole at third base for at least a year or two...until someone named either Luke Hughes or Danny Valencia is ready to step in.  Hopefully.

Looking back over the last five years, Blake's played significant time at the hot corner in three of them, and while he's never been a true defensive whiz by any stretch of the imagination he's certainly reliable.  Every year he'll make a handful of great plays, make a few outs by getting to balls outside of his zone, but getting to his age as a third baseman when does mediocre start to take a turn for the worse?  I understand that it's not necessarily the glove or the arm that the Twins are looking at here, but rather the idea of an everyday third baseman who can provide decent offense from the right side of the plate.  Otherwise, the team would just be platooning Brian Buscher and Brendan Harris.

So it's not the possible dropoff in the field that cautions me against Casey Blake.  It's the offense.  Although other than being a bit more aggressive around the plate (check his percentages for swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone here), taking a glance through the numbers there's nothing that stands out too much from his recent history.

The biggest factor here for me isn't even the money, because I know the Twins aren't going to break the bank.  The biggest factor is simply age.  If we were discussing the Twins signing this exact player at age 30 or 31, it'd be a no-brainer.  But we're playing the odds on a 35-year old.

In some ways it's a perfect situation.  With the Twins in the unique position of actually having prospects in the system who could potentially take over third base in the next 12 to 24-months, they're able to look at a player that doesn't constitute a long-term committment.  They're able to look at a player who can bridge a gap to the future.  And while Casey Blake is that player, I'm still wondering if that's the best direction for the Twins to take.  It's not the player that concerns me, it's the direction.

Ultimately this direction will come down to two things:  money and performance.  Before Blake even steps up to the plate in a Minnesota jersey, his tenure with the team will be judged on his contract.  Then he'll be judged on how he actually plays.  Bizarre, but true.

Now we just have to wait and see what happens before we start complaining.  Or applauding, depending how optimistic you are.

In case you missed it:

#1:  What Do We Have?

I think the easy answer to this question is:  it depends.  We definitely know there's a little bit of money available, but it's always just a little bit more complicated than that, isn't it?  There've already been a number of estimates made, and the good news is that all of them have the Twins coming in somewhere between $52 and $61 million, with only a couple of spots to fill:

Star Tribune:  26 players, $61 million
MLB Trade Rumors:  24 players, $57 million
Twinkie Town:  20 players, $56.7 million
Twins Geek:  22 players, $52.35 million

Over the last ten years as the Twins have pumped more money into their players on the field, they've still managed to remain one of baseball's most efficient clubs in terms of dollars per win.  From 1999 through 2008, opening day payroll has never been higher than 18th in the league, and it sat between 18th and 20th from 2003 through 2007.  In 2008, when the organization basically decided to pick a direction and run with it right or wrong, payroll fell back to just over $62 million on opening day.

Minnesota, and indeed--any team in baseball, will never go into the off-season with a public hard line on how much money they'll spend.  For obvious reasons, it's just not a good idea.  So we extrapolate; from recent history, from the market, from looking what what we did a couple of weeks ago and understanding what the team already has, and from what the expectations are for the near future.

Recent History:  Over the last six seasons the Twins have an average opening day salary of approximately $62 million, but that's not exactly the best way of looking at it.  From '99 through '03 the Twins more than tripled their payroll, maxing out at about $63.5 million in 2003 (the last year guys like Rick Reed, Joe Mays, Eric Milton, LaTroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado were with the team and pulling down significant dollars) before dropping $12 million off the top for '04.  But after shedding some weight, from '04 through '07 Minnesota raised payroll 5%, 13% and 13% again...before, again, shedding some weight.  It's a cycle a team like Minnesota is bound to go through every three to five years.

Market:  Teams like Boston and New York (both of them) have, on the record, stated that they want to be a bit more frugal when it comes to dishing out dollars on free agents, but it's all relative.  This year's free agent market, just like all the others, will be dictated by what the wealthier teams do with the best...but the Twins never play into this market too much.  They know what they're looking for, know what they're willing to pay, and while they can be lured into a few poor decisions with bargain-bin veterans, they aren't committing themselves to devastating multi-year contracts.  So the good news is that the market won't kill this team, not in the present or in the future; the bad news, if you see it that way, is that this isn't a team that will make a big splash in free agency.

What We Already Have:  Good and young starters, some good cornerstones for an offense, and a great closer.  There's depth in pitching and the outfield, in the majors and the minors.  This means money could/should be focused on the left side of the infield, the bullpen (even more important with the loss of Pat Neshek for 2009), as well as players currently under team control (this doesn't mean under contract).

The Future:  This team won 88 games, and was good enough that 162 contests wasn't sufficient to decide the regular season.  With the new stadium opening in 2010, next is all that stands between then and now...and because the organization will want a very competetive squad on the field in '10, you know they'll want to be ramping things up in '09.  (Where prudent, of course.)

While the only thing that's guaranteed is that the Twins won't spend less money on their opening day payroll than they did last season, there is no guarantee that that number will grow for opening day 2009.  But making an educated guess, I have to believe the Twins can add another ten to fifteen million to what they're already committed to, bringing team salary into the lower $70's.  In fact, if we're being bold, we could go so far as to think Minnesota could open the year with an $80 million dollar payroll.  But that's if we're bold, and it's a long shot.

Reality is that, if the organization feels like it's money well spent, opening day payroll could be around $70 million.  It's realistic and doesn't expect too much, even if the biggest bumps come from money on fresh contracts to players under team control.  That would mean the team could add somewhere between $9 and $15 million, depending on which figures are most accurate.

Now that we have a fairly realistic picture of how much money the Twins could spend, here's my question for you:  will they?

Courtesy of Joe C. at the Strib online:

Joe Mauer won his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award today, becoming the first Twins catcher to win the award since Earl Battey in 1962.

That's a long time coming, but it's hard to find a reason why Joe Mauer doesn't deserve this award.  There have been some complaints about the number of passed balls he allows, but there's no doubt he's a talented force behind the plate as well as standing next to it.

I think it's getting easier to look at modern defensive metrics to get a better-than-superficial look at an individual's abilities in the field, but for catchers it's still a little more difficult.  While I really don't like using ERA as a stat for catchers, because it's a worse judge of their talents than it is for a pitcher, there are a few useful metrics available.  There will never be a substitute for watching how a catcher deals with his pitchers, the relationship they have and the game he calls, but we can measure his tools to see how effective he is against base runners, how confident teams are in running on him and how he comes out against the average catcher.

I've compiled a list of 14 American League catchers, using an arbitrary cutoff of 700 innings logged behind the plate.  This means no Miguel Olivo, no Mike Napoli and, sadly, no Mike Redmond.  But it should give us a comprehensive look at the league's primary catchers and how Joe Mauer and his first Gold Glove measure up.

The categories I've chosen are:  Innings, for durability at a position whose stresses put a larger toll on the body than any other except pitchers and their arms; Stolen Bases Attempted per Game, to give us an idea of how daring teams are on the basepaths when these 14 men are behind the plate; Caught Stealing Percentage, to see exactly how often runners are gunned down; Wild Pitches and Passed Balls per (nine inning) Game, which is sort of like WHIP; Win Shares (as a catcher only, no offense) to see contributions to the team in terms of victories; and Rate, which is like OPS+ except that it measures worth in terms of runs against average (for example, Joe's 104 rating means he's four runs better than an "average" catcher per 100 games).

Across the board, Joe comes in looking pretty good.

*  He was the second most dependable in terms of time spent behind the plate, which is great to see after all the concern over his knees and legs.  I'm not sure the questions about playing time, fatigue and changing positions will every go away, but years like this should put a few qualms to rest.

*  Mauer had fewer attempts on his arm than all but Kelly Shoppach, with roughly just one stolen bases attempted every other game.  Let me just check my good meter here and....yes, that's good.

*  This year he caught just 26.1% of runners, which is far lower than the 47.5% mark he posted last season, but is also lower than the third he cut down from '04 - '06.  Caught Stealing percentages can vary pretty widely from year-to-year, but it's still worth mentioning that his sixth-best performance in the American League is also his career worst mark to date.  It should be noted that a number of things go into a catcher's success rate:  defensive ability of shortstops and second basemen and how they apply their tags or get into position, velocity of pitchers, how closly and when a first baseman holds his runners and, finally, how quick or slow a pitcher is to the plate and how closely they track their base runners.  Something positive I take out of this is the fact that, while his mark in this category is the lowest of his five-year career, there weren't significantly more attempts made to steal bases on his watch.

*  Joe also comes in sixth in the American League in the catcher's WHIP:  wild pitches plus passed balls per (nine inning) game.  At one stretch this year it seemed like every other game a ball was getting by Joe, and as a community that doesn't let much slip by them there were a number of comments on the dubious streak.  Indeed, on more than one occasion he tried to back hand a ball when he should have simply gotten in front of it, but the easy answer for me is that these things just happen, particularly over the course of a six month season where you're playing six days a week.  Good and bad streaks come and go, and knowing Mauer's apparent dedication to mental and physical discipline I have to believe that these sort of lapses won't continue.

*  Joe Mauer clearly kicks ass as a hitter, and most of his value will always come from the offensive facets of his game, but he clearly is a credit to his team behind the plate as well.  His 9.2 win shares are good for third in the American League.

*  Finally, his 104 Rate isn't the best of his career, but he still comes in safely above average.

After researching catcher's defensive metrics for the better part of my evening, and after looking at Mauer's history specifically, it's clear this wasn't his best season defensively.  Whether this was due to his playing time, was a by-product of a younger and more inexperienced pitching staff or whether it was just one of those years, there's only one thing that's clear to me:  if Joe Mauer was good enough to win the Gold Glove this season, then he was good enough to win it in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Dioner Navarro could have been a candidate for this award, but isn't as fundamentally sound or consistent as Mauer.  Kurt Suzuki is fundamentally sound, and is a pretty good catcher period, but he doesn't have much of a reputation after finishing his second season with major league playing time at the age of 24.  He also isn't half the offensive unity, which shouldn't make a difference to who wins a Gold Glove but, strangely enough, does.  Finally, Jose Molina is a fantastic catcher in terms of tools, but a lot of balls got away from him this year and, more importantly, he only played 100 games this season.  It wouldn't matter if he threw out every batter (and really, for catchers, 43.2% is almost as good), that's just not enough playing time to win this award.

Congratulations to you, Joe Mauer!  You make Minnesota proud, and somewhere Earl Battey has a smile on his face.  Just 26 with two batting titles under his belt, he now has to make room for a Gold Glove.  That's just awesome.

Manager of the Year (11/3)
Rookie of the Year (11/4)
Cy Young (11/5)

All of the top three vote getters in the American League are young, none of which were older than 25 in their '08 campaign.  Personally I'm a little surprised that no Ray made an appearance before Carlos Pena at number nine, but that may just speak more volumes about the nature of Tampa Bay and how they succeeded this year.  Just as surprising to me is exactly how high Joe Mauer finished on this list; you don't hear much about him finishing higher in MVP voting than Justin Morneau in traditional media.

Who's your 2008 AL MVP?

In case you missed it, check out the results for Manager of the Year and Rookie of the Year.

A lot of guys had great seasons and were worthy of consideration this year, but in my mind Cliff Lee was the only true choice for a winner.  He had a great year, period.  Halladay, Rodriguez, even Nathan had seasons that are worth remembering, but Lee was not only great but pivotal in Cleveland's great run in the last portions of the season.  When you can make your fans forget that they just lost their actual ace, you're doing pretty good.

Up tomorrow:  MVP

In case you missed it, here are yesterday's results for Manager of the Year.

I'm surprised by a few names on this list, particularly David Murphy and Jacoby Ellsbury, but in the grand scheme of things the guys who deserved it made their way to the top.  My votes went Longoria-Aviles-Span, and while I'm sure my Span vote will mystify people just as much as the Murphy/Ellsbury votes, I think that good defense, a .387 OBP and a 125 OPS+ more than justifies my ballot.

Speaking of ballots, I encourage all of you who are old enough to get out and vote today.  Exercize your right as an American citizen and make a choice.

Up tomorrow:  Cy Young

With the GM Meetings kicking off yesterday and running through Thursday, there hasn't been much news.  Having said that we'll run occasional updates anyway.  Nothing can come out of these meetings this week, but foundations may be laid for later in the year.

*  Twins still interested in Garrett Atkins?

We've heard this a number of times over the last couple of years, and thanks to the scouts at MLB Trade Rumors it looks like nothing has changed.  Neither Renck nor Ringolsby define when the Twins expressed their interest in Atkins, only pointing out that Minnesota is one of the best partners due to pitching depth.  At any rate I have to believe that specific discussions for a player at this point would be tampering, meaning that this information has just been recycled for the millionth time.  Unless I misunderstand the rules of the General Manager's meetings, which is entirely possible since I don't really know the rules.

*  Silence from local press

Joe Christensen of the Star Tribune is covering the GM Meetings.  Watch his space for insights and grumblings, but there's nothing from yesterday as of this writing.

*  Free agents

With all four free agents to be having filed (Everett, Guardado, Punto, Reyes), we may have a little time to wait before hearing if the frnot office will offer arbitration to any of them.  The further away from the season we get, the less I believe any of them will be back (even Punto).  When the free agency filing period ends on Monday, we'll start hearing a few more rumors.