While writing Valencia off based on a half season at AAA would be foolish, so would making any decisions around him on who to acquire for the major league roster. He’s not kicking down the door now and it is very unlikely he ever will. The Twins are far more likely to have to find room for Trevor Plouffe

I’m hoping to take a more in-depth look at Cabrera soon, when I look at short stop and second base. In short, I don’t like him at short. His value plummeted this year due almost entirely to his defense. That said, we all saw him make some pretty impressive-looking plays down the stretch, and defensive analysis (particularly metrics) can be quite fickle, so maybe his decline isn’t as bad as last years numbers show. Moving him to second, where range wouldn’t be as critical, is an intriguing idea. I’ll kick it around for a bit and probably post on it in the next week.

I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing or the Smith interview yet. Didn’t one of the beat writers for the Strib (maybe it was Souhan or Reusse) say a while back that Valencia is a bit of a hot head, or has a bit of a big head, or something? If so, maybe you’re right and they are trying to send that message?

Seems to me, though, that this is just Bill Smith trying to level the playing field like he always does to avoid tipping his hand on anything. Saying Valencia is “the guy” naturally would depress Hughes’ trade value (theoretically, anyway, and only a little bit). I guess I just have a hard time buying it. Just looking at RF, Hughes does seem to have a slight edge on defense, but offensively Valencia seems to me to be much more front-line. Who knows though – it’s hard to tell what Smith is thinking.

I’m not real high on Cabrera – the bad OBP, the plummeting defensive skills, etc. I’d be ok with him were they to improve the other two infield spots. Punto wouldn’t be bad if they improved at short and second. Second seems to be the easiest to improve via free agency, short seems just about impossible to improve via free agency (unless you want to pay for Marco Scutaro’s career year), and third seems like the Twins could patch it together. With that in mind, I’d be much happier with Punto at short – good enough D, decent OBP, good fit for short. Patch third, sign quality FA for second.

I think one of the interesting things about that Smith interview was how he went to great lengths to say that Valencia was not ahead of Hughes. I wonder if they’re trying to send a message to Valencia for some reason.

I’ll throw out one other option – Nick Punto. Don’t cringe too much. What if they re-sign Cabrera, can’t bring back Crede, and then they look at all those available great second basemen and jump in on one of them?

Just some more stuff to think about….