On 11-Oct,Seth asked: “When can the Twins compete again?” How you answer that question affects the answer to the question: What to do with Justin Morneau? [Not tomention Josh Willingham.] Or is it the other way around?

So let’sdiscuss Justin Morneau – again.

1. Did you support trading Justin Morneau before last season’s trade deadline?
2. What do you think Morneau’s slash stats will be in 2013 if he plays half ofhis games at Target Field?
3. What do you think Chris Parmelee’s slash stats will be in 2013 if he playshalf of his games at Target Field as a regular?
4. What do you do with Parmelee if Morneau is still a Twin?
5. Do you support trading Morneau this off-season? What would you expect to get in exchange?
6. Do you support trading Morneau later – before the next trade deadline?

JustinMorneau is what he is – past his prime, injury-prone, relatively expensive at$14M per year in a contract that expires after 2013. At the same time, he is better than any 1Bavailable in the free agent or trade market.

And thereare at least 6 teams in the market for a 1B: Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle,Tampa Bay, and Texas. Of course some ofthose matches work only if the Twins are willing to eat some of that $14Mcontract. And that could be the Twins’secret weapon. After all, one year’ssavings is likely to go to the Pohlads.

On 25-Aug,shortly before the waiver trade deadline the Dodgers traded with the BoSox for1B Adrian Gonzalez when their stated preference was Justin Morneau. In order to get Gonzalez, they had to eat alot of bad contracts and give up Allen Webster and Rubby de la Rosa. Is that a fair trade or an example ofdeadline frenzy?
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2012/2613953.html

We don’tknow what the Dodgers were offering for Morneau. Given the bad BoSox contracts eaten, I thinkthe Twins could have turned Justin Morneau + Jamey Carroll + 2 month’s salaryinto Webster and de la Rosa and 1 year’s salary savings. Does that seem reasonable? Would you have done that?
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In 2012,in his second year coming back from concussion and other injuries, JustinMorneau appeared to be regaining some semblance of his All-Star form in Julyand August – at the trade deadlines. And then September happened. No one seems todiscuss Justin’s September.
Morneau put up the following monthly splits:

Month	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Apr	74	0.23	0.313	0.459	0.772
May	53	0.264	0.317	0.642	0.959
June	95	0.232	0.298	0.316	0.614
July	89	0.315	0.365	0.483	0.848
Aug	105	0.314	0.345	0.505	0.850
Sept	89	0.236	0.351	0.315	0.666
Total	505	0.267	0.333	0.440	0.773
wo June	410	0.276	0.349	0.468	0.817

I calculated it without June because I thought there might be a special cause -- his wrist injury, IIRC.

These are Morneau’s splits vs RHP/LHP for 2006-2012.

YEAR	vs RHP	vs LHP	Overall
2012	0.902	0.569	0.773
2011	0.729	0.400	0.618
2010	1.113	0.966	1.055
2009	0.905	0.836	0.879
2008	0.928	0.777	0.873
2007	0.907	0.694	0.835
2006	0.950	0.904	0.934

These are Morneau’s September splits since 2006.

Year	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2006	115	0.348	0.402	0.487	0.889
2007	93	0.215	0.324	0.333	0.657
2008	103	0.243	0.298	0.398	0.696
2009	39	0.077	0.178	0.179	0.357
2012	89	0.236	0.351	0.315	0.666