Craig Monroe signed a one-year, $3.82 million contract with the Twins today and can make up to $155,000 in incentives if he reaches 450 plate appearances. He would also receive $25,000 if he is named comeback player of the year.

This is a non-guaranteed contract, however. That means, the Twins could technically release Monroe during spring training, without having to pay the bulk of that salary. Everyone is hoping it doesn’t come to this, but if the Twins were to release Monroe up until 16 days before the start of the season, they would only pay him one-sixth of his salary, or $636,667.

Once he makes the Opening Day roster, the full contract becomes guaranteed. If they were to cut him after the 16-day mark but before Opening Day, Monroe would get one-fourth of his salary, or $955,000.

Monroe made $4.775 million last season, and his new contract represents a 20 percent pay cut, which is the most a team can cut a player with his level of service time under the terms of the basic agreement.

Those are technical details, but Twins GM Bill Smith sounded genuinely excited to have Monroe in the fold, even after trading for Delmon Young.

“We wouldn’t have signed Craig Monroe if we didn’t think he would get enough at-bats,” Smith said. “We think there will be enough at-bats for Monroe, Young, [Jason] Kubel and [Michael] Cuddyer. They are all going to be critical parts of our offense in 2008.”

Note: As I wrote in my previous post, the player to be named in the Monroe trade with the Cubs won’t be a notable prospect. The teams have until May 1 to finalize the deal, and it’s not expected to be a significant transaction when it happens. We’ll keep you posted, but several of you have asked, and I wouldn’t expect it to be anything more than a warm body from the minor leagues.

The Twins agreed to a one-year contract with Craig Monroe, Twins General Manager Bill Smith confirmed Tuesday.

“I have a confirmed agreement now,” Smith said, after saying earlier Tuesday that he wouldn’t comment until he was sure.

The team faced a Wednesday deadline to tender Monroe a contract, and there was some thought they might non-tender him, cutting him loose as a free agent.

Monroe made $4.8 million last season. The new deal is worth $3.82 million, a 20 percent paycut. Had they not reached a deal, they would not have had to send the Cubs a prospect to complete their November trade.

Update: The Cubs won’t immediately receive the player to be named in the Monroe deal. The deadline is May 1, but it is expected to a be a low-level minor-league player.

Most of us have given the Twins credit for not trading Johan Santana in a panic at the winter meetings. To date, they have not found an offer to their liking. But I’ve had two major league officials tell me in recent days that the Twins shouldn’t assume they’ll get more by waiting.

I still think the Twins will trade Santana rather than lose him to free agency. The question is when, and there are basically three options:

1) Soon, which I’ll define as sometime within the next two weeks.

2) During spring training. Those trades are more rare, but let’s say another team loses a top pitcher to an arm injury in February or March. In that scenario, the Twins would have renewed leverage.

3) In June or July. In other words, during the season and sometime before the July 31 trade deadline.

Before trading Santana, the Twins need to decide three things:

1) Can they afford to sign him past 2008? Obviously, billionaire owner Carl Pohlad can afford it, but can the Twins afford to commit more than $20 million to Santana every year between 2009 and 2014 under their current business model? No chance. Not even with the new stadium.

2) By keeping him, do they have a chance to reach the playoffs in 2008? Yes, but as currently constructed, they would be heavy underdogs to get there behind these AL teams: the Tigers, Indians, Red Sox, Yankees and Angels. They would need everything to go right from Francisco Liriano regaining his 2006 form to major bounce-back seasons from Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Even then, it’s hard to see how they would overcome their other gaping holes.

3) By trading him, would they get more than they would by getting two compensation draft picks when losing him to free agency? Yes. They already have several offers better than this, I’ve been told. I wrote for today’s editions about how in their talks with Boston they are focused on a package with Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson, with the teams haggling over a fourth player.

(Some have expressed surprise that the Twins would make a move without getting a top-flight pitching prospect such as Phil Hughes or Jon Lester. I agree, but after moving Santana, the Twins could proceed to move Joe Nathan for a young ace.)

As La Velle pointed out in his Sunday column, the A’s traded Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson shortly after the winter meetings in 2004. The Twins also waited to trade Chuck Knoblauch until February 1998. In the Knoblauch trade and in the Randy Johnson trade with the Diamondbacks in January 2005, the Yankees were basically the only team bidding, so it took a while for the sides to compromise.

As we’ve written for weeks, the reason the Twins are in a tough spot is because it’s hard to get equal value for Santana when his no-trade clause will practically force the team that gets him to sign him to a six-year contract extension worth at least $20 million per year. As another major league official put it yesterday, “I don’t think there’s any scenario where people will look at this and say, ‘Man, the Twins really fleeced that team.’ ”

I think teams have been regrouping a bit since the winter meetings. Some are kicking the tires on Oakland’s Dan Haren and Baltimore’s Erik Bedard. Others are waiting to see where Japanese pitcher Hiroki Kuroda lands, with the Seattle Post Intelligencer reporting this morning that the Mariners and Dodgers are the two leading candidates.

But if I had to bet, I’d say the Twins make this move in the next two weeks. The negotiations already seem to be dragging since the Yankees announced they were pulling out of the running. If the Red Sox do the same thing, this could really grind to a halt. The Twins were right not to make this move in a panic. But now they’ve had sufficient time to determine Santana’s value on the trade market, and waiting too long could also prove costly.

If I wanted to start a feeding frenzy on this blog, I could open another discussion about the Johan Santana trade talks. We could continue breaking down every team’s best potential 3-for-1 or 4-for-1 offers, even though the real talks seemed pretty quiet this weekend.

Baseball’s tender date is Wednesday, so we’ll be tracking the Twins’ decisions with Craig Monroe and six other arbitration eligible players. Again, that’s a fun baseball discussion: Should the Twins keep Monroe or not?

But today, let’s focus on the bigger picture. The Mitchell Report — baseball’s 20-month old investigation into performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) headed by former Senator George Mitchell — is due Thursday, and I want to get a better read on public sentiment.

1) Are you curious what conclusions will be drawn and where blame will be placed?
2) Are you eager to see more names revealed?
3) Are you glad Commissioner Bud Selig commissioned this report in the first place?
4) Did you just ask yourself, ‘What Mitchell report?’

From Buster Olney’s blog:

It’s a given that the Mitchell investigators got nowhere close to a complete accounting of steroid use in baseball — they could investigate for 20 more years without coming close. So we might as well dismiss the notion that every player will either be vindicated or vilified. Other than in a handful of cases, we really won’t be much closer to a broad understanding of who was clean and who was not than we were when this started.

Here’s a New York Daily News story that might stir your feelings on PEDs again. Jack Armstrong, the former Reds pitcher who started the 1990 All-Star Game, spoke to the Mitchell investigators and apparently was very candid.

Armstrong says that 20%-30% of the players in his era - 1988 through 1994 - were juicing in a big way. He believes that 60%-80% of players - many of them average or even borderline big-leaguers - were doing it in a subtler, maintenance kind of way, getting enough of an edge to keep the oversized paychecks coming.

“It’s time to call the rats out,” Armstrong says. “The guys who did this are cheaters - and that’s the bottom line. They are people who made tens of millions of dollars doing something they weren’t supposed to do, at the expense of guys who were doing things the right way.

Even with Barry Bonds facing perjury charges, even with the mysteries of the Mitchell report about to be revealed, I sense people have mostly tuned out on this topic. I think we’ve all become a little numb to the details, but I think this subject is too important to be ignored.

Judging from your comments and e-mails, I think Twins GM Bill Smith’s approval rating remains high after the winter meetings. Most seem happy he didn’t bend and take an unsatisfactory package for Johan Santana.

I know there was plenty of dialogue, and some reports have indicated the Red Sox and perhaps even the Mets are optimistic they could strike a deal with just a few tweaks to their offers.

Obviously, a Santana trade could happen at any time. But let’s say it doesn’t. Let’s say the Twins decide to go for it with Santana and Joe Nathan, at least until the trade deadline.

I hadn’t scratched out potential lineups since the Delmon Young trade, but here’s a best-case scenario going forward, in my humble opinion:

Starting rotation
1. Johan Santana — Embraces one last chance to carry this underdog team.
2. Francisco Liriano — Starts at Rochester, regains his stride by late May.
3. Scott Baker — Becomes a steady and reliable innings eater.
4. Boof Bonser — After trimming weight, he regains his late 2006 form.
5. Kevin Slowey — Continues the growing process with regular starts.

Bullpen
Closer: Joe Nathan — His presence at the back end is huge.
Setup: Pat Neshek — Returns strong after tiring late in 2007.
Setup: Matt Guerrier — Remains a reliable compliment to Neshek.
LH: Dennys Reyes — Regains old form, allowing Glen Perkins to move into a valuable starter/reliever swing role.
Middle: Juan Rincon — Unless he’s traded to provide help elsewhere.
Middle: Jesse Crain — Might need a few months to regain his velocity.
Depth: There’s plenty with Nick Blackburn, Julio DePaula and rising prospects Jose Mijares and LHP Brian Duensing coming in the next wave.

Lineup (Just spit-balling here)

1. Coco Crisp, CF
After all this talk with Boston, the Twins should at least be able to swing a reasonable deal for Coco.

2. Brendan Harris, SS
What he lacks in the field, he’ll make up for with his bat. He had a .777 OPS last season, compared to .700 for Jason Bartlett.

3. Joe Mauer, C
Imagine what a difference a healthy Mauer could make.

4. Michael Cuddyer, 3B
The field staff is dead-set against moving Cuddyer back to 3B, and Cuddyer might be even harder to convince, but barring another 3B acquisition, this might give the team the best chance, moving forward.

Note: I can tell this is a hot-button topic in the comments section. Just a reminder that the Angels and Dodgers are among the teams trying to find a third baseman, with everyone agreeing they are almost impossible to find.

5. Justin Morneau, 1B
His OPS in 2007 was .835, compared to .934 in MVP season of 2006.

6. Delmon Young, RF
If he blossoms as many project, he moves right between Mauer and Morneau.

7. Jason Kubel, LF
He batted .303 with an .890 OPS over the season’s second half.

8. Craig Monroe, DH
The Cuddyer move allows Monroe to become an everyday factor and while he’s a strikeout machine, he’s always a home run threat.

9. Nick Punto, 2B
Alexi Casilla won’t be handed anything, but if he gains some polish, this job could be his. Harris, Punto and Casilla can split up the two middle-infield spots in any number of ways.

Again, those are just some quick ideas. There are other best-case scenarios, of course. Maybe Denard Span is the surprise of spring training and assumes the CF job. Maybe Brian Buscher shows significant improvement on defense and proves the skeptics wrong about his ability to handle third base.

Obviously, the entire equation changes with a Santana trade. Stay tuned.