The Minnesota Twins can’t spend another dime. Really. Not even a cent. If Terry Ryan gets thirsty walking down the hall you can bet that vending machine Coke isn’t getting expensed. Because this team can’t afford it.

How else do you explain the Tony Batista signing? Of course this issue just has to be re-hashed since Corey Koskie got shipped from the Jays to the Brewers. Koskie, who’s owed $11 million over the next few years, had a substantial portion of his contract eaten by the Jays. The Brewers only have to pay him about $3 million/season, while the Twins handed out a $1.25 million 1-year contract to T-Bat.

If you’ve kinda lost track of Tony in the past couple years it’s only because you weren’t looking at the right end of the stat sheet. He played in Japan last year, hitting .263 with 27 HR and 90 RBI for the SoftBank Hawks. A year before that he went .241/.272/.455 for the Expos, and 2003 saw him hit .235/.270/.393 for the Os.

I’m not sure why the Twins think Batista can be their starting 3B, but a Cuddyer/Batista platoon is surely on the horizon. That’s assuming Batista doesn’t get released outright. Of course the Twins gave him a guaranteed contract. So instead of paying Koskie the extra $1.5 million, they’ll go with burning it on Batista. And that’s basically what this move is: burning money.

Koskie can’t seem to stay healthy, and his bat was incredibly slow at the start of the ‘05 campaign. But at least he’s a great defender. That’s worth the small pittance (in MLB terms) that he’s scheduled to earn. In fact it’s worth an extra $1.5 to not have to watch a 32 year old Batista K 175 times.