The first (player) move of the offseason

With or without Derek Falvey on board, with or without an announcement, the Twins made some moves:

It appears #MNTwins have outrighted Milone, Beresford, Albers, Dean and Schafer off 40-man roster. No longer listed on team web site.

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) October 17, 2016

No surprises there, really, not even Tommy Milone, who Berardino later tweeted will declare himself a free agent rather than accept the assignment to Triple A Rochester. The veteran cleared waivers during the season, which suggests that trade interest in him was nil; he spent September in the Twins bullpen; and he's arbitration eligible.

So the Twins officially now have 35 players on their 40-man roster, but there are three players who have to be brought off the 60-day disabled list and restored to the 40 -- Phil Hughes, Glen Perkins and Danny Santana. And Kurt Suzuki, free-agent to be, technically remains on the roster until after the World Series. So realistically, the Twins now have three open roster slots.

It's a good bet there are more minor leaguers they want to protect than that, so there will be more deletions to come. These were the most obvious ones.

Notes, quotes and comment

Catching up on a few items I ignored while writing about the Cedar Rapids Kernels this week:

* The pitcher to be determined from the Twins for the Arizona Fall League turned out to be Stephen Gonsalves, a left-handed pitcher who has been burning up the system.

I'm a little surprised he's getting the nod, as he's already racked up 140 innings on the season.

Gonsalves turned 22 in July and was the Twins fourth round pick in the 2013 draft. They handled him rather gingerly the first two years in the system, possibly because he didn't pitch his senior year in high school because of a suspension for not reporting a teammate's drug use. He didn't pitch 100 innings in 2013-14 combined.

He also hasn't spent a full season at any level; he's been too good for that. He finished 2016 at Double A Chattanooga, going 8-1, 1.81 and striking out more than one per inning. He walked a few guys too (4.5 per nine), and there's a good case to be made for giving him at least a half season at Triple A next year.

* With Rochester's season over, the Twins recalled Kennys Vargas and Tyler Duffey. They also moved Danny Santana to the 60-day disabled list, which takes him off the 40-man roster, and added infielder James Beresford.

This was a popular move among followers of the minor league system. Beresford is an Australian who has spent a decade toiling in the farm system. Once seen as a skinny shortstop prospect, he's gotten stronger and moved off short. 2016 was actually the worst of his four full seasons at Rochester.

He's never had a slugging percentage that even approaches .400 in the States, and he's no basestealer. He is what is known as an "org guy" -- org for organizational, a reliable piece to fill out the roster of a minor league club making it possible to develop the real prospects. The Twins in recent years kept calling up Doug Bernier; Beresford is basically a younger version of Bernier.

* I mentioned in Thursday's post the brief Sunday start of Cedar Rapids pitcher Eduardo Del Rosario. The reason he was pulled after two innings became clear later that day when he started, and won, the second playoff game for the Kernels.  The Kernels swept the best-of-three series.