The Colorado Rockies signed outfielder Charlie Blackmon to an extension that could keep him in Denver for the better part of a half-decade on Wednesday, but a footnote from this story filed by Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports indicates that the Twins were working on some deals of their own over the winter.
Passan is one of, if not the finest national reporters in the game today, and is well connected to the point where this can’t remotely be disputed.
One thing this does is shows which young players the Derek Falvey/Thad Levine brain trust have honed in on among those they inherited from the Terry Ryan regime. It’s worth wondering which two players no listed were offered extensions, as well. Perhaps Jorge Polanco and Eddie Rosario? It seems unlikely that Miguel Sano would be included, though it’s possible since his legal issues didn’t crop up until right around the holidays.
Then again, he was recovering from his leg injury all offseason, so it’s hard to know for sure if that would have played any part in a possible extension.
Nevertheless, this seems to signal that the current front office isn’t afraid to aggressively pursue locking up key parts of their future early.
It does, however, leave one question: Will any of the players bite if the talks are revisited?
Update
Passan added this in a later tweet:
Update II
Rosario was indeed one of those players, reports Darren Wolfson of KSTP: