Rand: Many ways to improve a roster

There has been a significant uptick in home-brewing beer in recent years, with craft beer enthusiasts angling for those perfect small batches.

The long hours spent in that pursuit can be satisfying, particularly when the beer is finally ready to drink and it tastes just as good as you imagined. But not every concoction turns out as planned. And sometimes you just have to take the shortcut to satisfaction — going to the store, getting out the wallet and instantly enjoying.

This long prelude was not intended to make you thirsty. Rather, it is an analogy for different ways to build a roster in major pro sports. Drafting and developing talent might be the preferred method, but sometimes an organization has to write a big check to make up for shortcomings.

We have seen it in the recent past with the Vikings, when they bought an aging Brett Favre for a hefty price because they lacked a standout quarterback to complement their other pieces. We have seen it with the Wild, who have spent big to acquire Zach Parise and Ryan Suter (and to retain the traded-for Jason Pominville) in hopes of reaching contending status.

We saw it with the Timberwolves this offseason. They haven't had a top-notch shooting guard for years, so they bought Kevin Martin. They lacked depth at small forward, so they bought Corey Brewer. In a perfect world, Wes Johnson and Derrick Williams, high draft picks in 2010 and 2011, might have filled those roles.

And now we are finally — finally! — seeing it with the Twins. Their run of excellent regular-season play in the 2000s was largely fueled by drafted and developed talent: Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, etc. Even those who weren't original Twins like Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano arrived here as raw prospects and developed.

What we have seen in the past few years, however, is a well that ran dry — particularly when it comes to immediate starting pitching help. Even as recently as a few years ago, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey and Scott Baker looked to be an adequate rotation nucleus for a winning team. But that didn't work, and their replacements — too-raw prospects, journeymen or low-cost free agent Band-Aids — have combined for starters ERAs that have ranked 26th, 29th and 30th in MLB the past three years.

By and large, the Twins will need to be home-brewers to have success. But they finally realized that going to the store once in a while can be an attempted solution, too.