ThejacKmp

To be fair, most of those guys below AA I indicated as mid-season call-ups or late season guys (Badoo etc.). The ones who aren't are guys who should hit AA this year. For guys at AA, I don't think it's crazy to think that they can master AAA in a year. That's a pretty typical pace for a solid prospect.

I don’t get ragging on the FO. The moves they made this offseason were acceptable and I don’t see how they can be blamed for player regression. At the end of the day, the player needs to play. Lynn, Morrison, Reed, Rodney, and Duke were all smart signings. Only the back three have worked at all but that’s baseball. Sometimes the process is smart but the results aren’t. The Twins have no long-term commitment to Lynn or Morrison – they’ve struggled but neither blocked someone who demanded PT (Vargas for Morrison and Gonsalves for Lynn) and were good low-risk gambles. The big issues were Sano and Buxton. I haven’t seen anything that suggests the Twins screwed those guys up. They stuck with them for a reasonable amount of time and then sent them to the minors when the situation warranted it. They’re not rushing them back up and seem to be trying to correct some of the mistakes in development from the TR era. Just because something turned out poorly doesn’t mean that the people in charge are to blame. A good baseball team is a delicate organism – all a FO can do is put together reasonable pieces and hope. This team should be better next year and in 2020 and that’s good enough for me.

Not worried about position player talent in 2020. The Twins will likely need a few free agent additions but with a young rotation that should be doable. Consider: C: Garver, Rortvedt, Grzelakowski, Jeffers, Astudillo, veteran free agent Garver looks like at least a part-time catcher and Rortvedt is one of the best developing stories this year and may be ready to be a light-hitting defensive back-up in 2020. Jeffers would likely not be ready until the end of 2020 at the earliest but is in the pipeline. Taylor Grzelakowski and Asrudillo may be pushed off catcher but are other internal options for a backup/3rd catcher role. The Twins may need to augment the position with a veteran backstop but that should be doable and not prohibitively expensive. OF: Kiriloff, Rooker, Garver, Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Wade, Cave, Baddoo, Whitefield, Larnach Outfield is in flux as no one but Rosario seems a given. That said, Buxton and Kepler are young and Kiriloff and Rooker have starting corner outfielder bats. Wade and Cave profile as more 4th OF but that’s a lot of options for the Twins. Larnach, Whitefield, or Baddoo might be a nice mid-season call-up if one or two of them can move up the ladder quickly. I’m not sure who will be out there in 2020 but I feel good about the OF depth. Especially if some of the middle infield depth (Lewis, Arraez) is an option as well. DH/Corner IF: Mauer (last year?), Sano, Diaz, Blanekenhorn This feels like the spot the Twins are weakest at. Blankenhorn is in A ball but isn’t dominating. Mauer may retired but I think he has two more years in an increasingly platooned role. Some of the OF depth can move to 1B/DH (Garver, Rooker, Kiriloff, even Kepler) but 3B could be an issue. Even if Sano re-learns how to hit, the Twins may be getting ready to move him off of 3B. This feels like a good place for the Twins to invest some free agent money. Middle IF: Polanco, Javier, Gordon, Lewis, Arraez Middle infield is a bit shallower than OF but still looking solid. Lewis should be pushing the majors spring training 2020 and with Javier, Gordon, Arraez and Polanco, the Twins should be able to find a 2B (or SS if Lewis needs to move). Definitely could use more depth but this feels fine. If three of these guys are demanding playing time, this may solve some of the Twins depth issues at 3B. The Twins may need some free agent additions but they seem more cosmetic than systematic. 3B and, to a lesser extent, C, seem like places that the Twins could be looking to target. Eduardo Escobar becomes a pretty good option for a 3-4 year deal this offseason. He may be more of a 105-110 OPS+ than the 130 he’s put up this year but he’s a team leader and provides depth at 2B/3B. Plus, stranger things have happened than him continuing to be a 125 OPS+ guy. From there, the Twins will likely be shopping the bargain bin at 1B/DH like they did with Morrison this year. That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement but the Rays have spent years showing that you can get a lot of value in that arena. Overall, I feel good about the 2020 Twins position players. The team won’t look much like the 2018 version but there’s so much talent moving up that they should be okay. I worry more about pitching. The Twins have a good rotation core on paper (Berrios, Romero, Graterol, Gonsalves, Thorpe) but pitching is hard to project.

Chris Sale has a career 4.12 ERA against the Twins. I like our chances.

TheThe Twins should wait til the end of this Boston series to sell. Boston’s rotation and pen are all out of whack because of the many insane rain delays this week in Baltimore. They win 3 of 4 and the Indians win 1 of 2 and I think you can’t sell unless you get a Godfather offer. The nice thing is that the Twins don’t have to buy, they just stand pat. There aren’t any obvious holes besides backup catcher and with Sano and Buxton potentially coming back, some reinforcements ready in the wings. You lose some prospects but the Twins weren’t going to get that much anyway – Escobar is their best expiring guy and he’s more of a bargain buy. With Gordon looking less likely to be an opening day starter, I have no issues offering QOs to Dozier and Escobar and daring them to take it (Escobar won’t because this is his first big contract and I doubt Dozier will because of pride).

What makes you think Brian Harper was deficient on defense? I remember him as a pretty good catcher – not amazing but proficient. I can’t find Gleeman’s writeup of him in his never-to-be-finished Top 50 Twins but I remember him calling Harper underrated defensively. I think what happens is every time a catcher can’t hit (see Butera, Drew) he gets a reputation as a defensive stalwart. Must be, otherwise how would he make the pros? And outside of your Mauers and Poseys (Posies?), offensive catchers get an automatic downgrade (because defensive catchers are supposed to not hit). It’s confirmation bias at its worst.

Gotta see where you are in ten days first. The limited market means that you should be able to wait that long - teams aren't going to deal for second rate options when they have a strong chance of having Eduardo available.

Gotta go 7-3 on this road trip and then take at least one from Cleveland to not sell?

Oh I'm sure the umps have it right, it just seems incredibly complicated. If the goal is to not have injuries, it seems like the easiest thing is to say that (a.) until the catcher has the ball he can't be in the base path and (b.) the runner has to slide and can't barrel over a catcher. But maybe there's some good reason that isn't it. It does seem like it would stop injury - Sucre's knee must've taken a beating with Grossman sliding through his foot and bending it back.

1.) The Twins don't play the Rays again this year which is probably good but also too bad because it would be interesting to see if the bad blood carried over. 2.) I really don't get the catcher blocking the plate thing. I thought Cave was safe for two reasons. He didn't have the all and his foot was blocking access to the plate. What are they trying to stop if not that kind of a collision that can leave a catcher hurt (and looked like it did?) I'm not a traditionalist, as much as I liked Brian Harper vs. Lonnie Smith in 1991, I thought the rule change was a great idea. But now it makes no sense. There should be no being in the base path until you have the ball. Just make it easy.

Ha ha correct. Yeah, he grew until he was after-college age. That would be more accurate.

To be fair, we don't know he's still growing. A kid I knew was done growing in 8th grade. I grew until I was out of college (as did Joe Mauer). Graterol is 6-1 and 180 at age 19 and might just be done growing. I also have a hard time with the hyperbole. Many young flamethrowers never need Tommy John.

So I could just talk about Verlander as a #2 starter (after all, I judge pitchers on a Hall of Fame standard and he’s no Walter Johnson or Greg Maddux) and that would be valid? Also, what’s a championship team? The Yankees might win a Championship this year with a pretty ragged starting rotation because their lineup is so good. The Twins won championships with Scott Erickson and Les Straker as their #3s. Your system is bogus because it adds another variable in Championship that applies to teams, not starting rotations. For better or for worse, there’s a generally understood concept when we talk about a #1 vs a #2 vs. a #4. You can argue within that context but if you’re going to use a totally separate system, perhaps it’d be good to translate it to the accepted one? I don’t write our ERAs in Base 8 because “That’s the way I see numbers” because that would be confusing. I go with the common definition. I also have a hard time granting credence to your judgements of pitchers place in a Championship Rotation because you compared Gonsalves to Tyler Duffey. Those two are not at all alike.

Yeah, they're prospects. They might not turn out. But they haven't done anything to dissuade us yet. Kiriloff seems likely to stick in the OF for at least the first part of his career. That may be LF over RF if his arm doesn't come back. Your spring training story is nice but he was just back from Tommy John, I don't give it much credence. Kyle Schwarber figured out a way to play OF and Kiriloff is a much better athlete. He’s also hitting like crazy every step of the way and bounced back from a major injury like nothing. And he’s 20. After missing a year. Don’t rain on this parade just to be negative. Gordon is only 22 in AAA. He will get stronger and more used to the demands of professional ball. The calls to bring him to MLB were premature (I said it at the time, not backtracking here) but he's got plenty of time. I've never heard anything to question his work ethic so I'm confident it won't be lack of strength that gets him. His struggles this year may just be the jump to AAA. Gonsalves is not Duffey, that’s your weird contention. He has much higher K rates and a better ERA every step of the way up the ladder. He also isn’t a two pitch pitcher like Duffey. No one is trying to teach him a third pitch . . . because he has four (fastball, changeup, slider, curve). Not sure why you think that a curve is his best pitch. Everything I read said his change is his best pitch, followed by his fastball and an “improving curve”. Finally, the prospect rankers agree. Tyler Duffey never sniffed top 100 lists (or was close) during his minor league career and Gonslaves has been on the back end of that list for the past two years. You can’t just make comparisons willy-nilly, they need to make sense. Again, like with Gordon, Gonsalves is 23 in AAA after dominating all of the lower minors. He’s had some adjustments this year to AAA and likely will when he makes the majors. But that K rate has remained strong in AAA and the walk rate is something that is abnormal. I don’t think he’s lost his command. Is he an ace? No. But his ceiling is not 5th starter, that makes me think you don’t understand what a ceiling is. His ceiling is likely a good #3. That’s not bad for a top 5 prospect in AAA.

Oh clearly way too early to really make that call. But with the underslot, it seems like Lewis has had the fastest start out of all of them (obviously it's how you finish, see Buxton, Byron).

You think that's a preference for pitching over hitting? Or perhaps the potential for Lewis to end up in the OF?

Very early but the Twins have thus far made the best pick of that draft. Hunter Greene has struggled so far, Gore/Wright/McKay have had mixed success on the mound as all are sitting with ERAs in the 4.00s this year (that's not so big for Gore/Greene as high school pitchers and Wright is in AA but you'd still like to see more dominance). McKay and Greene have both been unspectacular at the plate as well. It's obviously hard to hit and pitch but McKay should have been tearing up A ball but has been strikeout prone. Blayne Enlow has been holding his own - if he develops that Lewis pick under slot could be pretty ridiculous.

I'm with Seth on Brusdar over AK. Love AK but an ace-potential pitcher with that heat is the most valuable asset in the minors. If he continues to pitch well, Brusdar might be #1 by season's end.

A quibble. Royce Lewis hasn't been "given" and talent and personality. He's worked hard and earned everything. There's some genetic lottery thing but no one is born a baseball player, they work hard and earn it. This isn't being born 7 feet tall.

They certainly shouldn't be trading for another two weeks unless they get a godfather offer for one of the relievers. The truth is the pieces they have to sell aren't that good so if they're close, I don't think you have to trade. Two weeks will tell.

7.5 back, Let's wait two weeks before we trade him.

I dunno. It's a pretty individual sport. 90% of it is a one-on-one matchup between a pitcher and a hitter. Once it's in play the other guys get involved (and they do influence the pitcher-hitter battle by shifting or stealing or pitching out) but the main draw is that one-on-one aspect. That's the action that drives the rest.

I dunno, Polanco should've turned two on that ball. It wasn't a gimme but it was there. Yeah, Lynn's gotta buckle down and get out of it but I thought he pitched relatively well and kept the Twins in it after some bad first inning luck.

Kepler and LoMo have better underlying numbers that indicate their results are lower than expected and could be due for a bounce back. Buxton will likely be back at some point after the break. Grossman and Cave will not be playing every day at that point, more filling in at DH, OF a few days a week. The pen has been relatively solid and Pressley and Hildy look to be rounding back into form. Taylor Rogers had a nice outing too and they used Buesnitz in a relatively important situation. It's time to hold pat until right at the deadline. If they can get within four or five, you buy a backup catcher, sell a bullpen arm and see what happens. P.S. If the Indians lose 3/4 vs. Yankees and the Twins win 3/4 vs the Rays we'll be 6.5 out at the break. That doesn't seem totally unreasonable.

The twins are 8.5 back and have ten to play against the Clevelanders. They are certainly not out of it, especially since they're a team that looks better on paper than they do in real life. They could be due for some regression to the mean in the nicest of ways. Check out the minor league report each day. Top section is moves.