SAN DIEGO -- Twins general manager Thad Levine was quick to answer when asked how he felt about the club's progress in adding to the roster this offseason.

"B-plus," he said.

Solid, but still room for improvement.

Even before the start of this week's Winter Meetings in San Diego, the Twins filled two needed rotation spots when Jake Odorizzi accepted the qualifying offer to return on a one-year deal and Michael Pineda reportedly agreed to a two-year, $20 million contract. They also reportedly added Alex Avila as their backup catcher, though only Odorizzi's deal is official.

It's early, but the Twins have been unable to cap off that action with a move for one of the upper-tier starters on the market. They were reportedly in but lost the bidding war for Zack Wheeler, who will pitch for the Phillies, and like the rest of the baseball world, they were rocked by Monday's blockbuster announcement of Stephen Strasburg's return to Washington with a record-breaking, seven-year, $245 million contract in hand.

But the top of the market is moving. Quickly. Among those top starters, Gerrit Cole, Madison Bumgarner and Hyun-Jin Ryu remain, and MLB Network insider Jon Heyman reported Sunday night that the Twins have interest in Ryu, while MLB Network insider Joel Sherman has reported Minnesota's interest in Bumgarner.

"We've obviously been active in some of that space and had some conversations with some players that have since signed," Levine said. "I think we're going to act responsibly, but also try and find ways where we can add. We've done some of that already, but there's still a lot. We still have a lot more time."

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Strasburg's deal certainly opened eyes and should set a floor in the negotiations for Cole, but the market for the tier more relevant to the Twins -- Bumgarner and Ryu -- could still be more significantly benchmarked by Wheeler's five-year, $118 million agreement with the Phillies. Indeed, Sherman reported Monday that Bumgarner's representatives are asking for a five-year deal that is expected to fall short of Wheeler's total.

"I don't know if I have a sense for how the recent deals that were reported have impacted us," Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. "It's been business as usual for the most part."

Levine did say that the pace of the market has hastened the productive dialogue with some agents leading into the Winter Meetings and on Monday, and the Twins feel they're still in a good position to attack the market for their needs, both in the coming days and later in the offseason.

"What we've seen the last couple of years is that this process has skewed later and later each year," Levine said. "Maybe we're seeing it rebound a little bit this offseason, and we're going to be attentive to that. But we're having a lot of meetings now to put ourselves in the best position to proceed."

"I feel like we've made real progress toward finishing off a few of those spots here," Falvey said. "But I think there's a lot of offseason left. The Winter Meetings are that penultimate time where you just focus on the roster, but we feel like we've made some progress not just on players that might be joining us soon, but also some potential fits down the line. I feel good about it."

One thing that does appear clear is that the Twins likely aren't done adding, if they can help it. Falvey said the Twins expect to use one of Devin Smeltzer, Lewis Thorpe or Randy Dobnak in the 2020 starting rotation, but cautioned that they didn't want to put "too much strain" on that group and hoped to see one of them compete his way into the role.

With José Berríos, Odorizzi and -- soon -- Pineda in tow alongside their internal options, that leaves one more spot to fill. The market is moving quickly, but it's far from closed.

"I do think we've stabilized the team, and that was essential," Levine said. "Now, we still have the ability to impact it significantly. But the first step was to stabilize."