Bill Smith might know what he is doing...

Well...maybe...

Signing Adam Everett makes a lot of sense for the Twins as he can provide some incredible defense at shortstop and allows the Twins to move Brenden Harris to second base.

Signing Mike Lamb makes a lot of sense because he provides a slightly (and I do mean slightly) above average offensive option at 3B who should provide some decent defense. He actually reminds me of a poor man's Corey Koskie...well, maybe a middle class version assuming Koskie is slighly upper class but not quite near enough to financial independence to take anything for granted...plus, Lamb gets hurt about as much as Koskie too.

But then Smith goes and does something stupid like signing Craig Monroe to a one year, almost $4M deal. This...makes little sense...there have got to be better DH options out there, assuming Delmon Young moves to CF...especially at $4M...you need to get on base at least 30% of the time, don't you?

Anyway, my personal projected 2008 Twins lineup at this point (what I would like to see, not expect to see)...

2B Brenden Harris
C Joe Mauer
RF Michael Cuddyer
1B Justin Morneau
CF Delmon Young
LF Jason Kubel
3B Mike Lamb
DH Craig Monroe (or a munchkin, it doesn't really matter that much)
SS Adam Everett (I would rather have Monroe's BAT over Everett's, sadly)

This isn't the ideal lineup in the world, but it lets you split up righties and lefties...ideally I'd like Young to take over the three spot and move Cuddy between Kubel and Lamb, but I'm not sure Young is ready for that role on a team pretending to challenge for the AL Central.

By the way, in case anyone hasn't noticed, but this pitching staff is bad even with Johan...

Projected rotation WITH Johan:

1 - Johan Santana
2 - Francisco Liriano
3 - Boof Bonser
4 - Scott Baker
5 - Kevin Slowey

Relief (with Nathan):
MR - Dennys Reyes
MR - Glen Perkins
MR - Juan Rincon
MR - Jesse Crain
SU - Pat Neshak
SU - Matt Guerrier
CL - Joe Nathan

The Twins have a 3% shot of winning the Central with this team and about a 5% shot of making the playoffs with this team. They have the relief depth to trade Nathan in addition to trading Santana, and in fact it might be argued it makes more sense to trade Nathan than Santana. Of course, if Phil Hughes or Clay Bucholz comes back, then that may not be true.