Thank you for saving me the embarrassment.

Kouzmanoff is about a league average hitter, but appears stretched defensively at third base. I might not go so far as to consider him a first baseman (like I said with Atkins), but he certainly gives away some of his value on defense. In fact, with an 11 VORP last year, he may well have overall been a replacement level player. It seems unlikely that he's a significant upgrade over Brendan Harris, if he's even better in the first place.

PMR really liked Hardy this last year, though he had a weird RZR/OOZ split this year--a below average rating on plays within his zone, but a ton of out-of-zone plays. He's probably an average fielding shortstop, but he had a 113 OPS+ last year and seems to be improving year-by-year at the plate. He could well be the best player in this entire discussion, but I'm not totally convinced about his defense. My vague recollections of watching him play made him seem like he had a strong arm and maybe not good hands (though that could just be me trying to justify his weird RZR/OOZ splits) and I haven't been impressed with his range, but I'm not sure. I have to imagine he would cost us a lot of talent...

In 230 games as a 23-24-year-old, Escobar has been an above-average hitter and what seems like a league average or slightly above league average fielder. That's a quality player. He was only at about 25 VORP last year, but 25 VORP would have made him our 3rd-best everyday player. Well, Span probably passes him in overall value since he's probably a better fielder relative to his position than Escobar, but still, you're looking at someone about that good. Not a superstar, but probably a fringe All-Star many years and an All-Star in a career year.

Generally speaking I would stay far, far away from Atkins. He has a career 108 OPS+, which is definitely solid as far as hitting skills go, but PMR rates him as a very poor (worst in the majors in 2007) fielder at third base, so I would say that it's more appropriate to think of him as a first baseman playing out of position, much the same way that Harris was a third baseman playing out of position in Tampa. Atkins has stayed healthy, but at 29, he's starting to get old and the poor fielding probably means he's not all that athletic, so I would be scared about his aging curve. If you park adjust his raw numbers the last three years, he had 26, 23, and 19 HR, and got a boatload of at-bats. I'm not impressed.

As far as third basemen we could get in a trade, Adrian Beltre has a career OPS+ of 107, and would be in a contract year next year. He's also probably 30-35 runs better than Atkins on defense (though I think age and minor injuries throughout his career may be beginning to hinder his defensive abilities somewhat), which makes a huge, huge difference. If the Twins aren't contending at the deadline, he could be flipped, or they could let him walk for draft picks at the end of the season. I don't know what it would take to get him, but there was a dialog with the previous GM, who knows what the new GM would be looking for. Word is that they don't expect they can re-sign him, so he'll certainly be on the block.

I'm with you on this one Ubes; a 3-year contract to a mediocre 35-year old 3B is just a bad idea for a team with the Twins' limited resources.

What are your thoughts on Rockie's 3B Atkins or Atlanta SS Escobar--two other players Joe C said the club was interested in? Neither are free agents, so talent would need to be surrendered to acquire them. Are they worth giving up one of our starters? Methinks Perkins couldn't pry them away from their respective clubs unless incriminating photos of club officials were involved.