On Trade Speculation, Dozier Says He Hopes To Remain A Twin

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Twins second baseman Brian Dozier can't avoid the off-season speculation about possibly getting traded.

"I'd be lying to you if I said I did not check the updates," he told WCCO's Sid and Dave on The Sports Huddle. "You'd be stupid not to. It's your career, and you try to figure out what the Twins' front-office is thinking, as well as other teams."

What Dozier would like more than hot-stove rumors and analyzing signals from team executives is a real, face-to-face conversation with the people who would make a personnel decision.

"I've watched their interviews, I've watched their press conferences," said Dozier about new Twins baseball operations chief Derek Falvey and the man he hired as general manager, Thad Levine. "They seem to be ready to hit the ground running and get back to winning ways around Minnesota. That's exciting."

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But it isn't reassuring that the new executives want Dozier to be part of their solution to reversing the franchise's downward trend of the 2010s.

"No, I have not talked to them yet," he said.

Dozier is signed for two more seasons and is coming off a career year where he hit 42 home runs and drove in 99 runs, while receiving a handful of votes in the American League MVP balloting. Those impressive figures were barely a footnote in another lost Twins season that saw the team slump to a major-league worst 59-103 record. Much of the blame for last season's failures falls on a pitching staff that had no one win more than nine games with a combined earned run average of 5.08 that was 15th out of 15 AL clubs.

A quick fix would be obtaining a front-line pitcher in a trade, which is sure to come up during the winter baseball meetings that start next week in National Harbor, Md. To get quality help, the Twins would need to give up a quality player in return. Dozier is one of the few Twins veterans that fall under the "q" word.

"It's pretty cool to have your name involved (in online trade speculation). That means some other teams value you pretty high, and want you. I understand the business part of it, but at the same time, I'm a Twin," said Dozier. "I believe the front office and everybody involved know I want to stay here for a long time, even past the next two years."

If only someone up there would tell him so.