Charley Walters: Vikings’ options depend on Danielle Hunter’s holdout plans

Whether the Minnesota Vikings trade Danielle Hunter could depend on how much of the season the pass rusher might decide to hold out if he doesn’t receive a satisfactory new contract.

Even the Vikings realize his current $5 million contract for 2023 is undervalued, and it appears the team is willing to give him a new deal, but for just one year rather than two or three years.

Hunter, who turns 29 in October, is worth at least $15 million on a one-year deal. But it’s a good bet he’s looking for a three-year contract in the $65 million range. The problem for the Vikings, who don’t want to trade Hunter, is that if they do trade him, they would lose their best pass rusher.

Because of the injuries (neck, torn chest pectoral) Hunter has had, the Vikings probably could get just a second-round draft pick in a trade.

— Last season, the Vikings’ two best pass rushers were Hunter and Za’Darius Smith, and Smith is gone to Cleveland.

— How much Hunter might be willing to push a trade is unknown. If he were to hold out until October, for instance, he would get $3 million for the whole season.

— It’s a good guess that free agent Dalvin Cook, 27, who was to make $11 million had the Vikings retained him this season, will end up with a contract in the $5 million range despite reportedly seeking $10 million elsewhere.

— Major league baseball has been well into analytics the past few years, but now there’s another scientific movement emerging rapidly that could affect the way teams are constructed and even managed on the field: It’s artificial intelligence (AI).

The Minnesota Twins are keenly aware how important AI applications could become and are preparing for it.

“It’s coming, and it’s coming in one way or another to all of us in many parts of our lives,” said the Twins’ Rocco Baldelli, who four years ago at age 38 became the youngest manager in history to win the American League’s manager of the year award.

But, Baldelli cautioned, “I don’t think it’s directly going to get involved in what we do on the baseball field. That’s because we’re still dealing with people out there, human beings. We’re not dealing with robots out on the field.”

— It’s media, not coaches, whose votes determine the NBA regular season Most Valuable Player award that this season went to Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid. Regardless, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said last week of Denver’s 6-foot-11 Nikola Jokic, “I think he’s the best player on the planet right now.”

— It was last heard that ex-Twin Miguel Sano, 30, was working out in the Dominican Republic and Florida, still trying to return to baseball after a leg injury.

— Twins hall of fame pitcher Jim Kaat was magnificent as speaker at a sold-out Dunkers breakfast audience on Friday at Interlachen Country Club.

It was mentioned that Kaat, 83, who should also be in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a broadcaster, loves golf and at age 75 shot rounds of 75 right-handed and left-handed.

— Best bet for a Minnesota high school player to be picked in next month’s 20-round amateur baseball draft remains Benilde-St. Margaret’s outfielder Easton Brayvogel. Hamstring injuries, though, have kept scouts from seeing as much of him as they would like.

Beyond Brayvogel, scouts figure this year there are more suspects than prospects.

As for college players, Gophers right-handed pitcher George Klassen will be drafted. In what round will depend on whether he can find home plate this summer with a fastball that reaches 100 mph. Gophers outfielder Brett Bateman is getting some interest from scouts, as are lefty pitcher Nathan Culley from Minnesota State Mankato and outfielder Jake Hjelle from Minnesota-Crookston.

— The Super Bowl rings created by Bloomington-based Jostens and presented to the Kansas City Chiefs players on Thursday include 625 diamonds and 35 custom-cut rubies set in yellow gold.

— Ex-Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders will be getting a nice ring as an assistant for NBA champion Denver. And ex-Gopher Phil Kessel a nice ring for being with Stanley Cup champion Vegas.

Kessel was among 26 former Gophers to play in the NHL during the 2022-23 season, the most of any NCAA hockey program.

— One of Stanley Cup champion Vegas’ top amateur scouts is Keith Hendrickson from Virginia, Minn. That was Hendrickson hoisting the storied Cup on the ice after the Golden Knights’ Tuesday night victory over the Florida Panthers.

— Twins outfielder Matt Wallner is a new member of the Forest Lake High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

— Ex-Twin Corey Koskie will be grand marshall of the Delano Fourth of July parade.

— It was a first hole-in-one for retired WCCO-AM icon Dave Lee, a seven-handicapper, at Brackett’s Crossing’s 132-yard No. 12 hole with a 9-iron the other day, then barely missing another ace on the ensuing par-3.

— Attorney Teri McCloughan, mother of four Cretin-Derham Hall grads, will be interim president of the St. Paul school.

— Among Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame first-year eligibles for voting in December: Joe Mauer, Adrian Beltre, Chase Utley, David Wright, Matt Holliday, Victor Martinez and Jose Bautista. Induction will be July 21, 2024.

— Only two catchers — Johnny Bench and Ivan Rodriguez — have been elected in their first year of eligibility.

— The Twins have three starters — Joe Ryan, Sonny Gray and Pablo Lopez — with chances to receive Cy Young Award votes.

— Ex-Twin Luis Arraez, who began Saturday hitting .390 for the Miami Marlins, is projected to end up batting .349 this year, which would be 30 points higher than his winning American League championship last year, per SportsBetting.ag.

— Vivid Seats had tickets available for Sunday afternoon’s Twins-Tigers game at Target Field for $13 and $15, cheaper than adjacent ramp parking, which is $16.

— Condolences to the family of Bruce Anderson, a longtime good guy University of Minnesota professor who also was a Gophers football and basketball games official timer. He passed away the other day at 91 in Oakdale.

And to the family of Jerry Zellner, a Murray High grad who pitched in the Dodgers organization and died at age 85 the other day.

— Andrew Zimmer, a nephew of former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, is a graduate assistant for first-year Colorado coach Deion Sanders, who also has a “character coach” among his 49-member staff.

By the way, Mike Zimmer is out of football and remains retired at his Walton, Ky., ranch.

— Ex-Viking Autry Beamon is doing fine after recent brain surgery.

— New St. Thomas Academy Hall of Fame electees, with induction on Sept. 29 at the Mendota Heights school: Fr. Phillip Gordon, John Christopherson, John Fitzgerald, William Coleman, Zach Schroeder, Andrew Commers and Luke Johns.

— Schroeder, who played hockey at RPI, is a commercial banker at Citizens Bank and lives in St. Louis Park.

Schroeder’s older brother, Jordan, 32, the former Gopher and Wild center who spent six seasons in the NHL, is playing in Switzerland, where he has signed for two more years. He was to visit family last week in Prior Lake.

— That was Minnesota golf icon Tom Lehman in Alexandria following brother Jim in the MGA Senior Players Championship last week.

— Matthew Hurt, the 6-9 former Minnesota Mr. Basketball and Duke star from Rochester Marshall, had three 30-point games while averaging 15.3 points for the G League Memphis Hustle this season with hopes of playing for a NBA summer league team.

— Gophers public men’s basketball season tickets range from $340 to $1,040 each. Women’s public basketball season tickets range from $150 to $1,000.

— Colin Hagstrom, who scored the winning overtime goal for Mahtomedi over Hermantown in the 2020 state hockey tournament title game, played for Notre Dame in its recent NCAA Division I lacrosse championship.

— More than 8,100 competitors from 333 teams are participating in the Minnesota State High School clay target championships through Tuesday in Alexandria, and more than 320 preps from 42 schools will compete in the state skeet shooting championships this week in Prior Lake.

— Among new Gophers women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit’s building blocks for her players: “Be thankful, be hungry, be humble.”

— The Vikings are beefing up their scouting staff, with Steve Sabo, who had roles as director of pro personnel as well as head of college scouting for the Atlanta Falcons, as a scout for the Minnesota area.

Don’t print that

— Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, asked last week by the Pioneer Press the chances that Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert will be with the team next season: “I think the chances are super high.”

How high?

“I would say 99.99999,” he said.

Regardless, sportsbetting.ag has the New York Knicks, who own 10 first-round draft picks through 2029, as 3-1 odds to trade for Towns this summer. A year ago, the Timberwolves traded four first-round draft picks for Gobert, and the Wolves have just one pick — No. 53 overall — in Thursday’s NBA draft.

— Viking Justin Jefferson’s primary competition to become the first wide receiver in the NFL to achieve 2,000 yards in a season, Miami’s Tyreek Hill, who makes $30 million a year, figures he could do it. Among his reasons, “I got the most accurate QB in the NFL,” Tua Tagovailoa, he told MySportsUpdate.

Jefferson, who had 1,809 yards last year and is also headed for a $30 million-plus per season deal, has Kirk Cousins as his QB.

Hill is 29, Jefferson 23.

— The Vikings’ Danielle Hunter-for-the-49ers-Trey Lance rumor seems overrated at this point. That’s because Lance played only one game in his senior year of college due to COVID, then was on the bench his rookie year with San Francisco behind Jimmy Garoppolo, then in the second game last season fractured his ankle.

So the Marshall (Minn.) grad hasn’t played in three years, and if the Vikings were to trade for him this year, he wouldn’t play much, either, behind Cousins.

— The way it looks now, the Vikings are a 9-8 team. That would result in a first-round draft pick in the No. 18 range.

— Pssst: Two months ago, the Gophers men’s basketball team lost a star player to Ohio State, which, legally, is providing a $150,000 name, image and likeness (NIL) deal to the player. Insiders say he would have remained with Minnesota, but for a much richer NIL arrangement.

— Frannie Hottinger, the Cretin-Derham Hall grad who is the Raiders’ career girls basketball scorer and recent graduate of Lehigh, where she was the university’s academic athlete of the year, will get $26,000 in a NIL deal to play a fifth season at Marquette.

— The Twins, who began Saturday leading the American League Central by 2½ games, would have been in last place in the AL East, 14½ games out of first.

— Tickets for the Vikings’ Dec. 10 game against the Raiders in Las Vegas range from $205 on Ticketmaster to $2,495.

— Four-session tickets for the USA Olympic gymnastics trials at Target Center a year from now range from $175 to $1,500 apiece on AXS.

— With the hiring of Rick Pitino (Richard’s father), St. John’s went from 66-1 odds to 25-1 to win next season’s NCAA men’s basketball championship, per sportsbetting.ag. The Gophers remain 1,000-1.

— It looks like the LPGA Legends Classic that has been held in August at Mystic Lake in Prior Lake will lose a major sponsor.

— On Friday, Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was suspended for 25 games without pay for what the NBA called conduct detrimental to the league. Last January 27, when the Grizzlies were in town to play the Timberwolves, Morant was observed at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Minneapolis ranting to his agent on speaker phone about management wanting to suspend him for showing up late for practices, hanging out at clubs and other conduct deemed detrimental to the team. That night, Morant scored 27 points and was a minus-2 on the floor, and the Wolves won 111-100.

— Payback: Three years ago, when Minikahda Country Club closed for a year to regrass the Minneapolis course, Edina’s Interlachen Country Club declined to provide Minikahda members tee times. Now that Interlachen is closed as part of a $33 million rebuilding project that includes regrassing (member assessment $22,500 apiece), Minikahda is responding in kind.

— Los Angeles Country Club, host of this weekend’s U.S. Open, has a $250,000 initiation fee and another $25,000 in annual dues, Huddle Up points out.

— CBS golf analyst Jim Nance is among members at the upstart ($100,000 initiation fee, $25,000 per year dues) Tepetonka course in New London-Spicer, Minn.

Overheard

— Al McGuire, the late Marquette men’s basketball coaching legend, on his recruitment of former Mounds View star Mark Landsberger, who ended up with the Gophers before transferring to Arizona State: ‘I call up the father and ask if the kid can come down to visit the next weekend. ‘Fine,’ the father said, ‘I’ll come down, too.’ And so I told him, ‘Well, you’ll have to drive then. We’ll pay for the gas. We can’t pay for the flight because the NCAA won’t allow that.’ And then he tells me, ‘But everyone else flies us in.’ So I said, ‘Hey, you got this all screwed up — we’re not recruiting you, we’re recruiting your son.’ That was the last I heard from him.”