Jerry Crasnick reports this afternoon that Ryan Doumit has signed a one-year/$3 million deal with the Twins. I guess Doumit makes sense as a competent back-up for the oft-injured Joe Mauer, plus a DH or a guy that can spell the oft-inured Justin Morneau from time to time, but it seems to me that this indicates that the market for Doumit wasn’t nearly as hot as we were lead to believe last week. Doumit’s likely looking for playing time to parlay into a bigger deal if he can stay healthy, which is obviously far from a sure thing with him.
If you want to be skeptical, you can view this as evidence of a Pirate Tax, since Doumit’s now making less than the Pirates are paying Rod Barajas. I don’t think Doumit would’ve come back to Pittsburgh for $3 million (or $4 million, for that matter) and so the Pirates had to do something. In any case it’s clear that the Pirates weren’t the only ones with reservations about Doumit’s health and poor defense behind the plate and that picking up his option would’ve been overpaying him at this point in his career.
The best news to come out of this is that since Doumit has signed before the non-tender deadline, the Pirates will get a sandwich-round compensation pick without having to worry about offering him arbitration and having him accept. If Type B free agents still net comp picks when the new CBA is unveiled next Monday. Currently the best indication is that the 2012 draft compensation will happen under the old rules and any changes will go into effect in 2013, but we really won’t know for sure for a couple of days.
