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The Twins continued to tweak their roster today, tying up some loose ends and generally getting things into the shape you'd expect heading into the pre-free agency period.

First off, Lew Ford and Josh Rabe both elected free agency after being removed from the roster last week. While I'm a little disappointed to see Rabe go, I'm pleased the Ford is moving on. As I've said many times before, he's a very nice guy, but his baseball skills don't seem to be moving in the right direction. Hopefully he hooks on with a team that could use a part-time outfielder/nice guy.

Next up, the Twins outrighted Matt LeCroy from the roster, and LeCroy also elected to become a free agent. This was a move that obviously was coming -- the Twins simply have no place for LeCroy, and only a fluke caused him to be added to the roster at all. Unfortunately, LeCroy seems to want to give it a go for one more year -- I say unfortunately because this year made it very obvious that he's no longer a Major League caliber ballplayer. I hope for his sake that he retires and takes up coaching -- something I think he'd be suited for, based on personality. Outrighting LeCroy dropped the Twins 40-man roster to 36 players -- briefly.

The Twins also chose to activate all injured players from the 60-day DL today, reinstating Jesse Crain, Francisco Liriano, and Jose Morales to the roster. As a result, the roster was pushed back up to 39 players.

Finally, there's the curious case of Infielder Alejandro Machado. Machado was a Rule 5 pick last December out of Washington, but spent the entire season on the Disabled List. In order for a Rule 5 pick to stay with the team that drafted him, my understanding is that he has to spend the equivalent of a full year on the active roster, so Machado would have to spend all of 2008 on the roster to avoid being returned to Washington (unless they decided they didn't want him). Here's where things get tricky -- Machado was assigned to AAA today (ESPN uses the term "assigned," while the Twins website says "outrighted"). More than likely Machado was actually outrighted, removing him from the 40-man roster entirely. This presumably will give Washington the option of reclaiming him from the Twins, working out a trade for him, or just letting him stay with Minnesota. I don't know of any other way that this transaction could have worked, but the lack of clear information on Machado does make me wonder if there's a wrinkle here that I'm not seeing. Either way, for now we'll say that he's been removed from the roster entirely, leaving things at 39 players.

The Twins roster is now much cleaner than it was a few days ago, but I suspect that Bill Smith is still evaluating the roster to decide whether he wants to trim some fat before free agency clears Rondell White, Carlos Silva, and possibly Torii Hunter from the roster as well. Then, prior to November 20, Smith will have to decide which Rule 5 eligible players he wants to protect from the draft by adding them to the roster. I will of course have thoughts on that as the time draws nearer.