The arbitration guys

Friday was the deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to exchange numbers, and as usual it resulted in a downpour of agreements.

The Twins had four arbitration-eligible players -- starting pitchers Kyle Gibson and Hector Santiago and relievers Brandon Kintzler and Ryan Pressly -- and reached agreement with all four.

These deals matter to the players and the front offices. For we fans on the outside, Ryan Pressly's salary is (or should be) a minor detail. Barring trade or injury, he's going to be in the Minnesota bullpen on Opening Day, and whether he gets paid $1.1 million (projected salary) or $1.175 million (reported agreement) won't change that. (An extra $75,000 sounds nice to me, but it's a rounding error in terms of the Twins payroll.)

The arbitration process has been around for decades. I'm old, and I can barely remember the era of the spring training holdout. For a good part of that time, front-office types regularly complained that arbitration unreasonably boosts player pay. Today, I think, it is widely recognized that players in the arbitration process are having their salaries depressed, at least compared to what they would be paid as free agents.

If that weren't the case, teams would be letting more of them go to free agency. But if the Twins nontendered Gibson, somebody would certainly offer him more than the $2.9 million he got in Friday's agreement. Santiago's $8 million is more debatable.

And then there's Trevor Plouffe, nontendered by the Twins early this offseason and recently signed by Oakland. Had he gone through the arbitration process, he probably would have gotten something in the vicinity of $9 million in 2017. Instead, he's apparently to get about 60 percent of that -- which would be very good coin for me, to be sure. That's what his services are deemed worth by a true open market.

But few arbitration-eligibles are turned loose, which tells us that they are still being underpaid.

Notes, quotes and comment

Workers removed seats from the Metrodome last week.
Power to the building is to be cut off today, which
will deflate the Teflon-and-canvas roof.

Today the Metrodome is to be deflated, I believe for the first time intentionally. I had a bird's eye view as a college student living in a high-rise apartment to the east of the Dome as it was being built. I attended, I dare say, hundreds of games there. I was witness to some of the best moments there, and some of the worst. Some of them, to be honest, are kind of the same. I'm thinking of the Dave Kingman popup that never came down; I was there, wondering if the law of gravity had been repealed. It was both a travesty and impressive.

There's a piece of me that will miss the dump. Target Field is a better place to watch baseball, to be sure. But I spent too much time in the Dome not to feel some fondness for it.

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Friday was the deadline for exchanging arbitration figures, and hence a day when the posturing between the two parties ends.

The Twins had three arbitration-eligible players -- Trevor Plouffe, Brian Duensing and Anthony Swarzak -- and signed all three Friday. The projected payroll is roughly $85 million, slightly more than in 2013. (It's projected because there are only 12 players officially signed; most of the 40-man roster has too little experience to have the leverage of arbitration or free agency.

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The approval of instant replay was announced earlier in the week. I was wary when Bud Selig announced that expanded replay was coming; I remain wary today.

A couple of pluses: The system put forth last summer has been refined; and its clear that management and players union alike expect further revision after it's been seen in action.

It's worth noting, as well, that the "neighborhood play" on double plays is exempt from review. Nobody wants to force middle infielders to linger around second base to get clobbered.

So that's one significant change down, one to go. Exactly how baseball is going to legislate the home plate collision out of the game remains to be seen.

The infield market

As anticipated, the Twins did offer arbitration to pitcher Carl Pavano, which means the Twins will either retain the veteran right-hander or pick up a compensatory draft pick next summer. Pavano's agent has been diligently seeking offers elsewhere, and if the price for Pavano is a multi-year contract, the Twins should be willing to walk away and take the draft pick.

But that's only part of the Twins-relevant news out of Tuesday's arbitration deadline. Two Type A second basemen — Placido Polanco and Orlando Hudson — were not offered arbitration, which means a team signing either will not forfeit its first-round pick next summer. This makes them much more attractive to Minnesota.

And to plenty of others as well. The Twins are, by my rough estimation, one of 10 teams with a middle-infield hole to plug. And I see eight middle-infield Type A or B free agents, with the second basemen better value than the shortstops (Miguel Tejada, Orlando Cabrera and Marco Scutaro). The Twins generally aren't players in bidding wars, and if Boston is serious about the notion of moving Dustin Pedroia to short, they would be the biggest gorilla in the second-base jungle.

On the other hand, a number of the teams with a middle infield opening are thinking young and/or real cheap. It's difficult to imagine the Padres throwing millions at a 30-something keystoner.

Then too, the Twins have made it pretty clear that they have one infield opening — either second or third base. J.J. Hardy's the shortstop, and Nick Punto (above) is going to have one of the other jobs.

I can imagine the Twins setting up a Dutch auction of sorts for that infield job. Make offers to eight free agents — say, Polanco, Hudson, Tejada, Cabrera, Adrian Beltre, Felipe Lopez, Mark DeRosa and Pedro Feliz — and tell them all: First to accept this offer gets the job, no haggling.

Arbitration deadline day and other notes

Today is the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to free agents, which in turn ties into draft pick compensation for Type A and Type B free agents.

The Twins have a decision to announce — I'm sure they've made it already — on Carl Pavano (left), who is a Type B. (Orlando Cabrera is a Type A, but his contract specifically forbids his team from offering arbitration if he's a Type A, so there's no decision to make there.)

A list of Type A and Type B free agents can be seen here.

If the Twins offer Pavano arbitration, they'll get a draft pick if he signs elsewhere. If he accepts, the Twins are committed to re-signing him; the ballpark estimate is that it would be a $7 million deal, and the Twins might well be willing to go that route.

The other aspect of today's deadline is that the free agent market is essentially frozen until suitors know if someone like Placido Polanco will cost them a draft pick. (The conventional wisdom is that the Tigers will not offer Polanco arbitration for fear that he'll accept; they have a prospect they think is ready to slide in at second base.)

This deadline, plus the winter meetings next week, should start things moving again in the player market.

* Joe Mauer and the Great American Marketing Machine are preparing to embrace. Mauer is now a client of IMG for sponsorships and endorsements. Ron Shapiro will continue to handle Mauer's playing contract.

This is the most tangible sign to date of something that's been in the air — the notion that Mauer intends to make a push in the commercial field.

Charley Walters (Pioneer Press) suggested several days ago that Mauer would be more attractive to corporate America if he played in a bigger market. Aaron Gleeman (Circling the Bases) suggests that more endorsement dollars would make it easier for Mauer to decide to stay. Take yer pick.

I figure that if Payton Manning can become an advertising icon out of Indianapolis, Mauer can be one out of the Twin Cities.

* I've always enjoyed Patrick Reusse's work, but I'm beginning to re-think that. First came his unwarranted slam of Joe Nathan after the playoffs, now this Thanksgiving Day putdown of ST colleague Joe Christensen:

Gentleman Joe is a Star Tribune baseball writer and also the Twin Cities' leading advocate for OPS, a make-believe number that Bill James acolytes have embraced. How often must we say this, Joe? Runs scored and RBI mean something; OPS doesn't.

Reusse is becoming the press box equivalent of those medieval popes who tried to quash the heretical notion that the earth orbits the sun. Ignorance is one thing, sir; willful ignorance is another.