Every offseason, Twins fans, and Twins bloggers, and bloggers who are Twins fans, make their little wish lists. We don't ask for too much; there's really no point in pretending the Twins are going to go out and sign Matt Holliday, you know. Just little things: a shrewd trade here, a below-market free agent signing there.

It never happens, though. Want Frank Thomas? You get Rondell White. Want a decent third baseman? You get Tony Batista. Want nothing? You get Livan Hernandez. And so on.

So...this is different.

We wanted a shortstop like J.J. Hardy, and the Twins went out and got J.J. Hardy. We wanted one more middle-of-the-rotation starter, and they brought Carl Pavano back. We wanted to see at least a little bit less of Delmon Young, and they went out and got Jim Thome. We wanted a second baseman, and they got (according to reports as of Thursday night) 2009 All-Star and Gold Glove winner Orlando Hudson, on a one-year, $5 million deal.

I gotta be honest: I'm just not sure how to deal with it. Sure, I might do some things differently here and there, but they're doing something, and it makes sense! How can you complain about that, after all the Whites and Batistas and Ponsons and Livans?

Well, I'm not complaining. But let's look at Hudson anyway.

Last year, Twins second basemen hit .209/.309/.267. Hudson hit .283/.357/.417, right about where he's been for the last three years. So that's good. Given that Gardenhire was never going to do the sensible thing and bat Joe Mauer second, it's nice to have a hitter he will bat second whose production actually comes close to justifying that many plate appearances.

On the other hand, about a third of the Twins' execrable second base corps last year was Nick Punto...who now becomes your de facto third baseman, possibly platooning with Brendan Harris. I've said before that I want Punto to start (and more on this a week from today, on Nick Punto Day), and actually I'd rather see Punto (a switch hitter with no discernible splits and great defense at third) play full time and have Harris (a righty who hits lefties pretty hard but can't play defense anywhere) serve as a pinch hitter, occasional DH against lefties, and an emergency backup at basically every position. The main benefit to Hudson is that, barring injury, he takes .202-hitting, rangeless 2B Alexi Casilla out of the Twins' plans for the year.

Defensively, Hudson is kind of a question mark. It's clear that he didn't actually deserve his Gold Glove this year -- Chase Utley's the man -- but it's not clear to me whether Hudson is a bit below average, average, or above average. UZR says below (but really, it's close enough that he could just be average); plus/minus says he's still comfortably above average. He got very solid ratings in last year's Fan's Scouting Report. By Total Zone, he's a little bit above average.

As much as I tend to rely on UZR, given all that, I'd say the odds are he's still a little bit better than average on defense. Again, though, the most important thing is that he's much, much better than Alexi Casilla (and for that matter, Hudson + Punto is better than Punto + Harris).

Per FanGraphs, Hudson has been worth more than $5 million in every year since 2004...and you can't treat those numbers as a measure of what they should get on the open market, but still, $5 million is pretty clearly a good deal.

So if the story is true, then for $5 million -- the same amount they were reportedly willing to spend in order to permit Jarrod Washburn (now evidently on the verge of retirement, or so his agent would have teams believe) to do absolutely nothing for them -- the Twins improved both offensively and defensively at what had been their weakest position on the diamond. Yeah, I'll take it.

I've been one of Bill Smiths' biggest critics since he took over the GM job in the winter of 2007, but I have to admit, so far this offseason, he gets an A, the offer to Washburn notwithstanding. Unfortunately for him, the final in this class is about 95% of the grade. Whatever happens, though, this is shaping up to be a fun team to watch in 2010.