Bill Smith Unplugged: Thoughts on Parmelee, Nishioka, Valencia, the Twins' medical staff, etc.

If I had a nickel for every time Twins GM Bill Smith has given his standard response, "We'll let you know," to one of our questions, I'd be rich. It wouldn't be Joe Mauer money, but I'd be rolling in coins.

The point is, Smith usually plays things close to the vest. He measures his words about the team's offseason plans because he doesn't want to compromise the organization's leverage, or he doesn't want players to read something about their job security that they wouldn't hear first from the team, etc.

But Smith also knows his audience. On Tuesday night, he and team president Dave St. Peter held a conference call with the team's season ticket holders. Coming off a 63-99 season, this group didn't want to hear a bunch of excuses and generalities about the offseason plans. The fourth-year GM was refreshingly candid.

On a tight deadline, I tried giving readers the highlights with this story last night. I'll be hosting a live chat today at noon, so stop by with your comments and questions about the Twins offseason. But first, here are some important leftovers from a rare version of Bill Smith Unplugged:

From his introduction:

"We turned the page the day after the season. We've started looking ahead. We've got big meetings going on in Fort Myers next week. We're going through our organization player-by-player. We'll start to look at free agents, we'll start to look at trade possibilities, we'll start to look at who is going to be healthy, and try to get this ship righted."

Regarding Danny Valencia:

Regarding the team's health. (The Twins used the DL 27 times.) Smith again said that most of the injuries were collision injuries, but added:

"We are working with that. I had about a three-hour meeting with our trainers last Friday. I've got another meeting scheduled with our internal medicine doctors [today]. We're going to meet with our orthopedic doctors after our organizational meetings in about two weeks. We'll be talking to our minor-league trainers. We are reviewing and going through all of our medical practices to see if there is something we can do better, and we are committed to that.

"We've got a lot of good programs in place, and we've got a lot of good people in place. This year was kind of the perfect storm of injuries, and we need to make sure that we don't have this happen again."

Regarding Tsuyoshi Nishioka:

"We need to give him a mulligan on this year. The injury in the first week of the season was devastating to him with all the changes and adjustments he had to go through in his first season over here."

"I appreciate your comments on Nishioka," Smith said. "It was certainly a disappointing year, and we expect better things from him next year. We expect him to come back in 100 percent condition. And hopefully we can avoid something like that broken leg in the first week and give this guy a chance. He's not going to be given anything, but he's going to have the opportunity to compete for all the at-bats and innings he can get."

A caller talked about Joe Mauer's potential as a first baseman.

"That's kind of a Plan B," Smith said. "We have to have a Plan B, but Morneau has turned himself into a very, very good first baseman. It doesn't do us any good if he can't play, and you're right, he's missed a lot of time the last two years because of concussions, and he had a back injury the year before, so it's something we're trying to evaluate, if he would be better off in a DH spot. And if that's the case, Mauer could go play first base.

"We've gotta find ways to keep their bats in our lineup more often. And ideally, Joe's a catcher, and Justin's at first base -- that's perfect. But if it doesn't work, then we've gotta have that Plan B that keeps them in the lineup."

Regarding Chris Parmelee:

Regarding Joe Nathan:

"We have a club option, that we're going to have to make a decision on by end of the World Series. If we pick it up, then Joe is here for 2012, if we don't pick it up, then Joe will be free agent. And even if we don't pick up the option, we have interest in keeping Joe. He's been a tremendous get for us when we got him from the Giants in that trade."

On potentially re-signing Jim Thome:

"Jim was a great contributor here for two years, and we were lucky to see him get that 600th home run. I would never say never, but I think at this point, we need some players that are a little more versatile. Jim's 41 years old now. If he wants to play, he'll have a job somewhere because he's still a threat and he's a great leader, but when you only have four guys on the bench, it ties up that manager tremendously. Jim's either the DH or just a pinch-hitter; you're going to have to pinch run for him if he gets a hit."

Last but not least, here are Smith's thoughts on correcting the fundamental lapses:

Update: By popular demand from today's live chat, here's what Smith had to say about improving Ben Revere's arm:

"We've been working on that for years. He does a lot of the pitcher's long-toss drills. ... I believe he had a football injury, a shoulder injury back in high school, and he just doesn't throw well. And no matter what we do, I don't believe we have any hope that he's going to be an average thrower.