FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — One day after signing Scott Baker to his four-year, $15.25 million contract, the Twins have announced that they’ve signed the remaining 27 players on their 40-man roster to one-year deals.

The newly signed players, including Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn and Kevin Slowey, have between zero and three years of major league experience, so their salaries are likely less than $500,000.

Note: The Twins included Delmon Young on this list of newly signed players, but as has been reported, his salary this season will be $1.152 million.

Joe Nathan has made a rare spring training road trip, and will test his right shoulder in a game for the first time since the Feb. 25 spring opener.

Update (11:55 a.m.): Manager Ron Gardenhire is getting more anxious by the day about catcher Joe Mauer, whose recovery from kidney surgery has kept him from baseball-related exercises.

“He’s been here every day,” Gardenhire said before today’s game against Baltimore. “He gets going, he does his lifting and bike-riding and all that stuff, and it just doesn’t feel good enough to go out and run and all those things right now. And you know, in baseball, you’ve kind of gotta be able to do that.”

“It’s just been a slow process, probably slower than anybody expected, but you can’t do anything about it,” Gardenhire said. “If you can’t run, you can’t run. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. He comes in and does all his work. There’s nobody probably more frustrated than him.”

It’s not to the point where the Twins are bracing for not having Mauer on Opening Day (April 6), Gardenhire said.

“No, I’m still holding my ground here, waiting,” Gardenhire said. “Have I got secondary plans that I’m working on? I’m playing a lot of catchers. If it were to get to a point where he’s not going to be able to start with us, then we’ll start really locking down on things, but right now, I’m just kind of rolling with it.”

TWINS

1. Denard Span, LF
2. Matt Tolbert, 2B
3. Carlos Gomez, CF
4. Jason Kubel, DH
5. Michael Cuddyer, RF
6. Danny Valencia, 3B
7. Matt Macri, 1B
8. Wilson Ramos, C
9. Trevor Plouffe, SS

Starting pitcher: LH Francisco Liriano

ORIOLES

1. Brian Roberts, 2B
2. Ryan Freel, SS
3. Nick Markakis, RF
4. Aubrey Huff, 1B
5. Ty Wigginton, 3B
6. Luke Scott, LF
7. Gregg Zaun, DH
8. Chad Moeller, C
9. Justin Christian, CF

Starting pitcher: RH Danys Baez

Fort Lauderdale Stadium. First pitch: 12:05 (Central).

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 8:46 am and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.