ericchri

Somebody already mentioned it, but now is when the Sano injury really bites. There's not much to see in AAA to come up and help our hitting lineup (Deibinson Romero for Kubel?). If Sano was there you could see how we might get a charge by bringing him up, but as it is there's just not much there. The pitching situation looks much more promising, but we might not really need the help as much. There are guys who look like they might be better than Correia, but when you throw the major league adjustment onto their performance it's hardly a given.

The only real fix to this problem is just accepting that two of our five best hitters right now are catchers and playing them both anyway. If you drop Kubel off the roster to put Herrmann on it, I guess I can live with that since Kubel isn't contributing anything anyway, but I'd prefer a solution that just puts the players on the field that should be on the field and stop worrying about once every 5 years catastrophes that last for one game (fractions of a game, really).

How could you not want somebody named Touki Touissant on your team? I haven't looked through the whole list but I'd wager on him having the "most-fun-to-say" name in the draft. Reading this thread has been interesting. I can honestly say that everybody who's been linked to the Twins as a pick sounds fine to me. Gordon, Kolek, Nola, Jackson, Freeland, etc..., all have points in their favor, and while I can understand how everyone will have a favorite, I don't think I'll be disappointed regardless of who they take.

And yet they've been doing it regularly this year, enough for a sub .200 BA to have a near league average OBP. Apparently Major League pitchers don't subscribe to your philosophy. Why are they more likely to pitch meatballs to him now that he's only swinging right-handed? And for the record I agree, I don't understand why you take chances on walking guys who are unlikely to hurt you otherwise (Nick Punto fell heavily into that category for me for years, he was lucky to hit one homerun every 2-3 years), but it continues to happen.

You left Casey Fien off your list of candidates. Non-closer relief pitchers are never what people think of for All-Star games, but there's almost always one there.

I'd love to know what kind of reputation he has with other teams at this point. Do they groan when they see him getting ready to pitch or is he still just some semi-random guy in the Twins' pen? I also I wonder if he has any chance of being the one random non-closer reliever who makes it to the All-Star game each year. Honestly, outside of strikeouts he's been a better pitcher than Perkins this year, I'm curious if that can hold up. Regardless, I'm a fan of his performance and his obvious passion for the game. I'll take a couple more like him, gladly.

Next year could also see Hughes, Meyer, and May in the rotation, meaning the low-strikeout days are hopefully a problem for this year only. Nolasco and Gibson should both be capable of league-average'ish strikeouts, though it's not showing right now for whatever reason. The Twins didn't build this team with it being intended to be the final blueprint version, this was revision D of the old version on the way to opening the brand new shiny version in the near future.

Give Escobar a shot at leading off, leave Mauer at 2, and move Dozier to 3?

Parms batting cleanup? Doesn't take long to become one of this team's top hitters. Pinto DH'ing with no 3rd catcher on the roster? Dugout shots of Gardy tonight show him with a bottle of Pepto constantly at hand?

Hoping this is the start of good mojo for Hicks!

He just got called up by Texas after pitching for the AAA team this season.

I'm a Minnesota sports fan first and foremost having grown up in Minnesota. I actually haven't lived in Minnesota for almost 20 years now, but being on the Eastern edge of North and South Dakota and my parents still being in Minnesota, my ties haven't changed. If the Twins left, I'm not sure if I'd manage to be much of a baseball fan anymore. It would depend on which team got shoehorned into being the "local" team, I guess. The Rockies I could go for, the Royals too. I don't think I could stand either Chicago team, and the Brewers just don't do anything for me. Minneapolis is in reasonable driving distance. Nobody else is. I don't even make it to games often, once or twice a year at best, but not being able to at all would just suck. But I do know that I'd be only vaguely interested in a few of the players on the team, but would pretty much actively root against the Twins once they were gone. I can't imagine I would lose my Minnesota fandom regardless of where I lived, but once a team wasn't from Minnesota it wouldn't be my team anymore.

He obviously doesn't look good as a switch-hitter, but honestly I think Hicks could be just fine if he would just SWING THE BAT. Somebody pointed it out a few weeks ago with actual numbers, but he seems to literally go up there with a plan of watching pitches until he gets two strikes, no matter what. I don't get it. Mauer staring at first pitch cookies is irritating, but he at least can back it up. Hicks can't afford to not swing at good pitches. He may end up taking a few more walks than average, but it doesn't make up for the fact he can barely hit as a result. Until he breaks that habit, I can't see much success for him. I don't know that the guys at AAA are any more likely to pound that through his skull, unfortunately, even though that's where he probably needs to go at this point.

At the moment playing Santana at SS, Escobar at 3B, and Plouffe in a corner OF doesn't seem all that unreasonable. That's not intended to be permanent, eventually the roster gets shaken up by Arcia/Willingham coming back and one/both of Escoabar and Santana cooling off to a more realistic level. Until then, might as well get your hottest hitters (not sure Plouffe right now qualifies, but the competition is Kubel and Colabello) on the field in the most optimal arrangement possible.

I couldn't even begin to guess why he's been this terrible, but he needs to be out of the rotation. Now. We don't have PJ Walters and Pedro Hernandez waiting in line to take his spot, we have one potential all-star along with 2-3 others which look like they could be serviceable or better. They can fall flat on their face in the majors and still match his output.

I realize he's not tearing the league up, but I actually find Santana's results so far relatively encouraging. His first taste of AAA and after a couple weeks he's holding his own with the bat to a .268/.311/.381/.692 line as a SS. That's not stellar, but he's also not failing, and I find that to be a good sign. He's not ready yet, perhaps, but let's see what things look like in a couple months, I haven't given up on seeing Santana at SS by the AS break.

Starting Buxton in Ft. Myers so he's close to the best training facilities? I thought I'd seen a statement from Rob Antony that he'd be heading to New Britain, though I could be mistaken.

I'm struggling with this, too. Pinto's arguably been our best hitter this year, bringing a little more power than Plouffe. He needs to be in the lineup as often as possible until something happens to show he needs a break. I'm wondering if Suzuki isn't playing himself into getting traded, contingent on how close we stay to contention anyway. Assuming we want to keep Arcia and Pinto because of their age, he's got the most value between: Willingham Kubel Colabello Suzuki

Interestingly, I think that's probably where we might be getting with this debate. Is it incredibly far-fetched to think Meyer or Deduno might pitch enough better than Pelfrey or Correia the rest of the way to allow us to win 2 games we would have otherwise lost? Okay, make those two switches and take that 81-81 team we're currently heading for and turn it into a 85-77 team. How close is that to the playoffs? Obviously I can't say that would happen, but the longer this team hovers around .500, the more impetus there should be to get your best players on the field. You just don't know what will happen. Meyer could be the difference. Is it likely? Baseball's a strange game, I'd say it's at least possible.

The Twins are currently tops in the AL in OBP at .348, and yet (assuming the announcing last night was correct) 13 of their 16 homeruns have been solo shots.

He's got to OPS in the vicinity of .600 to be a realistic major league starter. Right now that seems unlikely. His numbers won't stay this putrid forever, but I'm not optimistic they'll even approach that .600 mark. Last year he had some pretty good success (by his standards) early in the year, but in the second half of last year he was pretty much the hitter we've been watching so far this year. He managed to steal a base every other week and hit a homerun once every three weeks, but other than that he was quite terrible. Normally I'd say a player's got until June when there's nobody really knocking down the door to take his job, but I think he's got maybe a couple more weeks before they send him down and give Escobar or Nunez a shot as the starter. He's been that bad so far. How is Beresford's defense? The 40-man roster spot would seem to be his biggest hindrance at this point.

I've always found the notion that Kubel plays poor defense strange. I certainly don't watch every game and I'm no scout, but the difference between he and a Josh Willingham (stiff, slow) or a Delmon Young (sloppy) was always drastic to me. He looks like an outfielder. He might not be particularly fast, but otherwise he looks the part to me. The Joe Mauer strikeout thing is definitely troubling. He seems to have rough stretches every year where he goes a couple weeks of really poor hitting before finding himself again, so hopefully he's working his way towards one of his hotter streaks.

I think this is what I was thinking of, probably. I was certain I'd seen something to indicate he had a good slider. John Manuel listed Gibson as having the best slider in their system for his 2013 list. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2013-minnesota-twins-top-10-prospects-14343/

I could have sworn before his TJ we were hearing he had a great slider. Am I misremembering that? Or does he just not throw it much?

I was going to post some of this in the Dozier/Pedroia thread, but figured it made more sense for its own. How far behind Rosario on the 2B depth chart is Polanco at this point? Technically he's only one level behind, as Rosario hasn't gotten out of AA yet. Polanco's playing good baseball right now (albeit as a SS) compared to Rosario... not playing baseball. Rosario had a good chance to make it to AAA this year (with an outside shot at the majors) if not for the suspension, but it also didn't seem to be guaranteed. Polanco seems like a pretty good candidate to make AA this year if he keeps hitting and his defense isn't atrocious. I'm really not privy to any knowledge that doesn't get reported here, but it seems like both tend to the good-hitter/adequate fielder mold of the position. Polanco seems to be better regarded defensively for the position, not surprisingly as someone who has an outside shot at playing SS as opposed to an OF being converted to the position. Their minor league hitting numbers aren't drastically different to this point, although Rosario would appear to have more power. I generally don't pay attention to anything before Elizabethton as very indicative, but neither was a standout in the GCL with Rosario only taking one year to Polanco's two and posting better numbers. Elizabethton: Rosario: .337/.397/.670/1.068 Polanco: .318/.388/.514/.903 A: Rosario: .296/.345/.490/.835 Polanco: .308/.362/.452/.813 A+: Rosario: .329/.377/.527/.903 Polanco (SSS): .400/.512/.543/1.054 AA: Rosario: .284/.330/.412/.742 Really, as I started considering the possibility of Dozier being traded, I was curious what they might do with the position, and I realized I wasn't really sure if Rosario was the obvious "next guy up" prospect-wise in this scenario anymore. Until the suspension there was pretty much a two level separation between the two, but at this point it's probably more like one, and it'll be interesting to see what they do with Eddie when he gets back, as by then it would seem there'd be a small chance that they're starting to gauge Polanco's readiness for AA where it would seem likely for Rosario to head initially as well.