Twins reliever Matt Capps is entering his final year of arbitration, meaning that the Twins have a choice this offseason: tender him a contract, or let him walk. The righthander pitched pretty well as the Twins' closer down the stretch, but with Joe Nathan coming back into the fold for 2011, Capps would likely be set to be a setup guy (and insurance in case Nathan's not ready to go.)
↵The problem, from a payroll standpoint, is that Capps will likely not come cheap. The great TwinsCentric crew (buy their book) projected that Capps could make as much as $7.5 million in arbitration, given that he had 42 saves and a 2.47 ERA last year.
↵I - and a lot of others - thought that this was a pretty steep price to pay for another bullpen arm. Twins general manager Bill Smith doesn't seem to think so, though, as reported by the Washington Post's Adam Kilgore on Twitter:
↵↵↵↵Twins GM Bill Smith said it's "not at all" a question if they'll tender Matt Capps a contract and bring him back, meaning they will.
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Armchair GMs can cross a few more million dollars off of the payroll for next year. It's looking increasingly likely that the Twins, rather than make a splash of any kind in the free agent market, are instead just trying to keep 2010's team together for 2011.
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