With baseball's winter meetings still a few weeks away, the Twins continue to have pitching first on their priority list.

The Twins watched Scott Baker, a member of the organization since 2003, sign with the Cubs this month.

"Anybody who is a starting pitcher that we've identified as having some ability, you can assume we've touched base with them," Terry Ryan said of the team's free agent interests.

The Twins have roughly $74 million committed for next season, meaning that if the team stays in the $100 million payroll range of 2012, Ryan has about $25 million to fix the starting rotation.