When the baseball season ended, the best guess was that it was the New York Yankees who would have the most significant changes in the offseason.

Well, with the Winter Meetings in Nashville looming next week, it's the Minnesota Twins who have had their fortunes most rearranged with defections,  trades or trades-yet-to-be.

As baseball fans may know, the Twins have been dangling Johan Santana, with a career 93-44 record and a 3.22 ERA. Last season was a diappointment by Santana standards as his ERA moved above 3-point-oh for the first time in four years.

But while the Sanatana thing is playing out, the Twins lost centerfield Torii Hunter as a free agent to the Los Angeles Angels (another team that's been dealing) and now they've traded for Tampa Bay's occasionally fiery-tempered OF Delmon Young.  In Young (left), the Twins get the bat, speed and some of the defense they'll miss with Hunter (and Young is, in fact, 10 years younger).  However, to get Young in what was a six-player trade, Minnesota had to give up starting shortstop Jason Barrett but more importantly, a good young arm in Matt Garza.  Garza, who came up to the Twins about midway through the season, had the second-lowest ERA among Minnesota starters.  Also in the deal is Brendan Harris, a decent hitting IF for Tampa Bay who went to Minnesota. 

It would seem with Garza out the door, if the Twins do trade Santana, a  two-time Cy Young winner, they're going to need to get some pitching in return.  The Santana deal is, in part, driven by the fact that Santana can become a free agent after next season and will be arriving at negotiations with an armored truck.

Photo credit: Al Behrman/AP