What happens in Vegas...

...will probably have no effect on the the Twins.

It's time for the annual General Manager meetings, a time for big time baseball business men to get together and talk about the simple joys of spending their lives working in a children's game.

Twins General Manager Bill Smith will be on his way to Vegas today so that he can participate in the meetings, and, according to most sources he has a rather extensive shopping list to keep the Twins in contention. All he really needs to do is get a right-handed power-hitting third basemen, two or three middle relievers, a non-craptastic first base substitute and a cure for cancer and come in under the Twins budget of 38 cents. So, 

you know, no sweat.

We here at Peanuts from Heaven are happy to

 know that Mr. Smith will be doing his best, but we're even happier to give him some suggestions to help him do his best. Bear in mind, of course, that we are fans, and not as smart as he is, so rather than suggesting any particular individuals we'll be giving general advice.

1. Learn from the past: The past two years we have signed such unstoppable forces as Ramon Ortiz, Jeff Cirillo, and Mike "Grizzled ol' Prospector" Lamb. These men have several things in common. They are old and have a proven track record for consistently average performance. Unfortunately, when you combine consistently mediocre with old, you usually end up with: Not Very Good. Eventually, you have to drop them off in a farm upstate where there's room to run and play with the other veterans, and a whiskey spring to bathe in.
2. Focus on the present: Shhh...I'm about to say a dirty word...recession. [Pause] The distant scream you hear is super agent Scott Boras screaming in agony at his lost millions in commissions. Nobody has money to spend nowadays, so with everybody cutting back, what we usually spend should seem like a king's ransom. We need to focus on the present, and rather than acting like wallflowers, we need to be confident, smooth, totally badass. We are good, we are offering what most teams can offer, all you players would be lucky to get with us. C'mon Bill Smith, be the Pick-Up Artist.
3. Don't destroy the future: Few things are worse than ransoming the future to survive the present. So let's not get hasty in our trades. There are demands I've seen that getting any solid third baseman will require giving up one starting pitcher and one of our outfielders. Give up Denard and Slowey for Colorado's Garret Atkins? FAIL. Give up Gogo and Perkins for Atlanta's Yunel Escobar? Give up Delmon and Cakeburn for strikeout machine Adrian Beltre? Why would we give up our greatest resource for comedy for a Scott Boras client who will grumble through a year before begging for umpteenbillion dollars? Why on earth should we make this man, this happy?

Hopefully that's a simpler shopping list Mr. Smith. Do those three things and we're happy. We'd be happy with some sort of deal that leads to us getting Alex Rodriguez for a pile of magic beans...but we'll make do with what we have (we always do).