Connor Gould

A reliable but unspectacular veteran for a middle/end of the bullpen role, checks out, decent move.

I'm dreaming of Martin slashing .300/.400/.450 and being an elite leadoff or #2 guy and either playing average defense at a hard spot or plus defense at a bat first spot. Meanwhile Lewis I dream of a .260/.330/.515 guy sticking at SS. I'm excited for these dudes, obviously I threw out high end numbers that aren't likely, but it's fun to hope for it.

We've always been able to get a good number of at bats to 11 or 12 different guys a year, so I'm never worried about a dude being blocked as long as they're versatile, and it sounds like he can survive 1B, 2B, and 3B even if he's not a plus defensively. Also, it's nice that he's a righty since it feels like he could be a regular guy vs lefties being in a rotation vs righties. So yeah, I'm not concerned about playing time, for me it's just about if his bat plays and hopefully we see pretty soon. He should be the first call up after an IF injury and none of our IFs are all that clean health wise so I hope to see him by May.

This is like when Brady Aikan went #1 overall out of high school and had an agreed amount with Houston before they didn't like an arm MRI so they dropped the offer to the minimum they had to offer in order to still get the #2 overall pick the next year as compensation. He turns it down, goes to community college, tears his UCL in his first start, goes in the teens of the 1st to Cleveland, and busts. However, Rocker seems further along in development so it wouldn't be as catastrophic if he needed Tommy John, like how Giolito got Tommy John and still went 1st round and worked out.

I just love how clean of a profile he seems to have. No major injuries, good stuff, steadily building innings, consistently good numbers and peripherals, and consistently young for the level. Obviously developing pitchers is hard and plenty of unforeseen things can go wrong, but he checks a crapload of boxes and I'm hyped for when he gets called up next year.

I googled top Twins prospects to find the MLB.com list and a Twins Daily list had just dropped and was the top result and I was excited to find new prospect lists. Then I read some other articles and liked it, so I lurked for awhile before making an account that I rarely actually use.

He's one of the guys I'm the most hyped about pitching wise. Balazovic is at the top of that list since everything seems clean and Joe Ryan made his 5 September starts games I had to watch, but Canterino is number 3 in terms of guys I'm hyped for. Elite stuff, elite numbers, old enough to fast track, only question is injuries but Bailey Ober last year showed me that 100 innings is more than it looks like. He feels like about a year away from being where Winder is now in terms of timeline. 2023 rotation of Maeda, Ryan, Winder, Balazovic, Canterino, SWR, Duran will be fun, just gotta develop at least half the young dudes.

SWR being in the Stroman and Berrios trades is kind of funny. As a young dude in AA, I'm just glad the Ks are there. The walk rate isn't good but the fact that he got something right as a young AA guy is nice. I'm hyped for him.

The Twins pitching prospects are really weird to me since it feels like there are so many high ceilings but each with a glaring red flag. For Duran, Canterino, and Sands it's the health, for SWR and Strotman it's control, for Ryan and Winder it's the late breakout age, but Balazovic seems pretty clean although there could still be issues since prospects are tough. I'm hopeful since statistically we should get an ace and a couple #3s from a big group like that but we could come out empty and it's a little scary.

Josmil Pinto had me hyped so much after a good September, was electric. I was also all in on RPs Nick Burdi, Alan Busenitz, and Pat Light.

Based on his baseball reference page he looks like a competent control guy with low homers but no Ks. Maybe he can learn an out pitch and become MLB caliber.

As the rotation currently stands, there's only Bundy, Ryan, and Ober as surefire MLB players. While we'll be signing more guys, he's got a shot to be the first callup to the rotation if we get injuries before the prospects are ready to step in. He's got an opportunity, it's all right in front of him, and I'm hyped to see him try to take it.

Pretty much all arguments for trading Martin are based on the premise that all our guys will pan out and our current MLB guys will stay good. Planning around everything working out is asking for trouble. Also, let’s say we have 11 starting caliber non-catcher bats, that’s not an issue since it’s rare to have all of the guys healthy and we’ve shown an ability to get ample at bats for a lot of guys. So I don’t buy the redundancy argument. So it comes down to do we want to trade a bat for an arm, and in that case, we could just as easily talk about Arraez or Miranda this way. But I wouldn’t do that. I say stick with all our young bats.

I see some people mentioning that they'd rather see the prospects than veteran mediocre dudes, but I don't really see any of the guys as ready yet. Duran had basically a lost year, SWR is young and went cold to finish, Canterino was injured a bunch and hasn't been to AA yet, Sands and Winder are both probably close but are also coming off injury and should get some time in AAA to get going, so it's pretty much just Balazovic ready to go from the jump. Stopgaps are needed.

Twins looking inspired by the 2021 Giants blueprint. Gausman and DeScalfani being middle aged guys with long track records of #5 starters after being top prospects so long ago that no one cares, and the Giants unlock both of them for cheap in a jackpot offseason. Bundy fits that profile of former top prospect who is now a journeyman #4/5, small chance he becomes more but maybe we’re lucky. Either way, we need bodies in the rotation.