mlhouse

Here is a point I have made for years. You can't do it half way and that is what the Twins ownership have done for decades. I criticized them for years because instead of committing to rebuilding, they played it half way and filled their lineups with mediocrities over developing their prospects. Now, when they have taken a step forward if they don't come out and sign a couple of bigger free agents to fill the glaring holes in their lineup and staff, they are just playing it half way again. With Pineda signed (but suspended) the Twins have a full cost salary base of about $95 million. While the league average is $140 million, that is just the average with teams that are in the rebuilding/tanking phases Miami, Baltimore, and Tampa. If they don't make at least two big free agents splashes to take the next step, they are just playing it half way again.

I think the biggest decision that needs to be made is by the Twins ownership. Do we a) commit to building on a 101 win season and the financial resources needed for that commitment or go back to playing it half way. I think the Twins kept their fans in continuous purgatory for almost a decade because insted of committing to a full rebuild mode they always played it half way. While I did not see the 2019 101 wins (nor did anyone really otherwise why did the Twins trade Ryan Pressley and others at the 2018 deadline), playing it half way could just send us back to reality when we don't have a season were every hitter has a career year. While I don't see the Cole/Strasboug signings, I think they need to make another $15-20 million commitment on a starting pitcher and another for a position player, preferably a 3B. Then they can make some more middle of the road moves by trading some 2nd element prospects/Rosario to get a closer. Make a commitment to Graterol as a part of the rotation. I think that would be a very good team.

JOrdan is the best pitcher I have seen pitch in Ft Myers.

1. I think Twins fans overvalue Rosario's trade value, although this article seemed realistic. 2. I also think that ALL Twins hitters are being overvalued by Twins fans than by MLB GMs because I think they are going to discount some of those power numbers as an one year aberration. 3. I still think a teams would want to make a deal for Rosario but it will be somewhat minor type of deal.

The way it works out, we need Graterol to come through. The farm system needs to produce and if a guy like Graterol can't be the 3rd/4th starter then that is a major issue with our system. Resign Odorizzi. The other way that your farm system has to produce is turning some of the prospects into starters. Find a trade, for one of these guys or others, were we traded a package of lets say, Enlow, Rooker, and Gordon, for a guy who is a 3/4 starter. I think that gives us a rotation that could be competitive. In baseball, you either do it one way or the other. If you believe you will be competitive, and coming off a remarkable 101 win season we should believe this, then act like it. That means you trade prospects to fill holes in your roster and rotation. That means you spend some money. The Twins have always played both sides of the fence.

I can see approaching a team for a trade for Archer or Gray, but I am certainly not going to pay a premium price for either of them. I would offer them a package of 2nd tier prospects were the best player would be Blake Enlow. Maybe Enlow, Brent Rooker, and Ryan Jeffers. If they acquire Gray, then the rotation should be Berrios, Gray, a resigned Odorizzi, hand the 4th starter to Graterol no matter what, and a 5th starter salad bar of Smeltzer, Dobnak, or Thorpe with the one who has worked the hardest going north the winner. If they don't acqire a similar pitcher, then Berrios, Odorizzi, Graterol, a veteran FA signing similar to Pineda, and the 5th starter selection.

Gordon should commit himself to earning a utility infielder role with the Twins. That means he needs to get more experience playing 3B, improve his defense at both middle infielder positions, and like Arreaz he should look at being at least a primitive LF. This defensive flexibility would create value for him even if his bat disappoints a bit. The Twins should also look at putting him in a trade package. I doubt his trade value alone is worth much at this time, but as a piece of a package he could bring the Twins in a quality bullpen arm.

MItch Garver has long been a favorite prospect of mine and he has done nothing but hit in his professional baseball career. I think the Twins dwaddled too much in moving him along through the minors and have been too reluctant to use him at the major league level.

Rosario's trade value is very limited.

I think the Twins should make a move to retain Odorizzi by making a QO and should look at making an offer for Pineda after they evaluate all of his suspension related issues. That gives them 3 starters in the rotation. The Twins should pencil in Graterol as the 3/4 starter and do everything in their power to get him ready for the 2020 season as a starter. The 5th starter is a competition amongst Dobnak, Smeltzer, Thorpe, even Zack Littell, or some combination of those guys.

Sure, but I think there was some malfeasance on the Giants part. And the Giants might think they will be found to have committed some malfeasance. So, the Twins should negotiate a settlement and ask for Teng to be returned to our system.

The Twins should ask for Kai-Wei Teng back.

When you have a player with a .410 OBP, the leadoff hitter is obvious. NOt only that, Arraez lefty-righty OBP split consistent. He is obviously a natural left handed hitter and has a .918 OPS vs. right handers vs. a .707 OPS vs. left handers. BUT, his OBP is .418 vs. righties and .407 vs. LHP. HE SHOULD LEAD OFF EVERY GAME. The key to getting runs is to get your lead off hitter on base every inning. Polanco should be the #2 hitter. Good power, decent OBP. Cruz should hit cleanup, not 3rd. Your slugger with the best OBP should be the cleanup hitter. The 4th spot in the lineup has one of the highest percentages of leading off an inning than any other spot (1-2-3 first innings), and if they are NOT leading off, there are runners on base. The 3rd spot should be a slugger with high strikeouts and lower OBP. That should be Sano. Kepler should hit 5th. Garver 6th. Rosario 7th. Cron 8th. And Schoop/Gonzales 9th.

Just my opinion but Jaylin Davis should not have even been eligible for the voting as he did not finish the year as a Twins prospect. I think it was great for him though as he got his call up to the show. Jumping to 35 minor league home runs and a AAA OPS > 1.000 was a great year. Also, Luis Arraez should be the minor league hitter of the year. All of those minor league statistics are great, but he has a .412 OBP with the Twins in over 300 PA.

I live in Ft Myers and Balzovic was the best pitcher I have seen pitch for the Miracle. I also have to say Chris Vallimont was not that far behind in the outing I say him in (no hitter through 7). I wish I could make it to more games. The weather and timing sometimes is not always the most agreeable. I really wanted to see Enlow pitch this year but missed him. MIssed a few pitchers down the road. But I have seen Stewart and Thorpe, and many others.

Well. that is sort of the thought of the short season A. You put your drafted college players and perhaps some other players in your system at a higher level of minor leagues to start. Maybe you move some of the players to your A and even A+ teams during the season. Starting the drafted college player at short season A ball makes a lot of developemntal sense. The highest level players move to A+ from there. The ones that need more seasoning go to A the next season. The Twins seem to add at least a minor league step year to all of their players. I think they have been more aggressive this season in minor league promotions than in past, and have worked a lot of the AAA level pitchers into some spots with the MLB club. Which, to me is really interesting because you would think that they would be more aggressive when they are non-competitive and rebuilding. They baffle me with their logic sometimes.

With respect to Lawyerson, why did the Twins "demote" him from CR? He is a college draft choice who had a 2.05 ERA in Rookie ball with ELizabethton, moves up to A ball Cedar Rapids and throws 5.0 innings of shutout ball with a WHIP of 0.60. But then he is sent back a level? I get this game was impressive, striking out 15/21 batters faced, but it is clear that the guy is too advanced for Rookie ball and should at least be at Cedar Rapids (if not Ft Myers). I think players like this demonstrate the need for a short season A level minor league affiliate.

What a difference a new coaching staff dedicated to developing young players is. For all the respect I have for Paul Molitor, his staff did little to work with the young players mechanics like this. I get it, Molitor was a natural and spend two decades in the majors. But not everyone is a natural and a veteran who can make their own adjustments that young players need. And, the fact is, Gardenhire was even worse. So, for 8 years this team has been in rebuilding mode they had a manager that really could not develop these young players. We finally get one in Baldelli and players like Sano that looked like they were heading for the dustbin suddenly turn around. Add Garver, Polonco, Kepler, and Buxton to that list of former high level prospects that were sputtering and now have turned it around, it is one amazing job.

Was at the game tonight and had a very solid 7 inning treat. (My son wanted to go, so when the lead off batter in the 8th broke the no-hitter we left). Vallimont was very solid. He has a very nervous mound presence. Has an above average number of ticks and takes all of these tiny baby step movements before he gets into his wind up. He throws from a half stretch- half wind up type of movement but he seems to get enough hip turn to be solid and has a good compact throwing motion that is mostly repeatable and smooth. His command is not as solid as Jordan Balazovic and he does not have the same velocity. In the start I watched Balazovic he was literally unhittable. Vallimont was not quite in that category as there were a few hard hit fly balls to the outfield with Jacob Pearson making a nice running catch in left and there were a few hard hit liners to Aaron Whitfield in center that basiclaly were hit right to him. Vallimont started the game strong, striking out the side in the first inning. I use a little measure to demonstrate his pitch speeds and he started the game at 93-93-94 on his fastball meaning the vast majority were 93 mph on the gun, touching 94. But his most effective pitch is his slider which to start the game he threw 87-88 with real late movement and solid arm action. It baffled the A+ hitters tonight and he got a lot of swings and misses on the slider. Vallimont was solid through innings 2-3-4 with a very consistent fastball that literally clocked at 93mph on every pitch. His slider was consistent and then he brought in a very nice curveball at 79-80 mph that had good late break and he threw it consistently for strikes. I do not record the pitches, but I would guess in the first 6 innings that his curve ball was a called strike 75% of the times he threw it. It really kept the A+ hitters off balance. His arm action on the curve isn't as solid as it is on his slider-fastball so maybe higher level hitters will be able to pick that up but no one tonight had a chance. The 12-6 action and high spin rate befuddled the hitters. He tired a bit in the 5th and still got out of the inning. He was more in the 92-92-93 and his slider velocity dropped to the 86-85 range along with some misses. I think the 5th inning was the first 3 ball counts he ran into the entire game. He rallied in the 6th but you could tell he was tiring. He pumped his fastball back up to 93 for the whole inning but he was pushing his off speed pitched more. I I can't remember if it was the 6th or 7th inning when he walked his first base runner, but the fact is the umpire squeeeeeeeezed him on a 3-2 93 mph fastball that in my view from behind the plate was a clear strike. Vallimont and Chris WIlliams were both walking to the dugout when the umpire called it a ball. He still managed to get out of the 7th wiht the no-hitter intact but he was clearly reaching the end of the tank. IF this would not have been a no-hitter there was no way he comes out for the 8th inning. I think Toby left him in to pursue the no-hitter. There is no pitch count tracker at Hammond but looking at the box score he was having a very efficient pitch count night (it was 81 total including the 8th inning). There is a lot to work with in Chris Vallimont and I can see why the front office wanted him included in the latest trade. Again, he isn't a top level prospect yet. I think he needs to work at getting the ball down a bit more with his fastball but if he stays ahead in the counts like he did tonight, his slider and curve can really come into play and he can be an effective pitcher. He also needs to keep his slider velocity consistent at the 87-88 mph level. Again, he carried a no-hitter into the 8th inning (and like I said it should have been a perfect game) but the Hammerhead hitters were able to catch up to the slider when it lost a bit of velocity. But, if he makes some improvements to his curve ball I think he has the chance to be a major league pitcher some day.

The real problem with these types of measures is that their measurement variances are huge. Did Rosario go from being a decent outfielder to a bad defender in the course of a season? Or are such measures going to swing back and forth for many players?

This is true, but the problem with the cards commodity as demonstrated by the Jack of All Trades movie is that the value of the asset is going to be difficult to create when it can be printed at will. A Picasso is worth a lot of money because there is one original. Signed lithographs a small quantity. A print of a Picasso painting, virtually worthless. The older cards were valuable because they were collected individually. All of the thousands of cards I collected as a kid were bought a few packs at a time. But, when cards became available in sets, people could buy sets to "hold onto because htey would be valuable one day" and the card makers oversaturated the market. I personally think kids should be taught the card collecting hobby ignoring the value. Cards are fun and a way to learn sports. It should be kept that way.

One point: the trade for Dyson was not mutually exclusive to adding additional pitching talent. The prospects we gave up were middle level prospects. We still had Lewis, Kirilloff, Rooker, Gordon, Larnach, all of our pitching prospects, and many others that could have been used to obtain a starting pitcher. ALthough I have been hard on our front office and ownership, in this case my guess is that all of the demands for these players was at a level we all would have turned down. For example, I would give up one of Lewis and Kirilloff, but not both and for sure not both AND Buxton.

Good deal for the Giants. They acquired Dyson in 2017 for Hunter Cole who is a 26 year old OF in AAA. THey got some solid bullpen play from Dyson then converted him into Davis, Teng, and Berroa, whom I would guess are all 3 better prospects than Cole. Short relievers are such wild cards you can never tell what you are going to get, but if he statistically continues his performance it should help down the stretch. AS others have put it, better than nothing.

Yeah, I get what you are saying except they are completely different sides of the field. In the end, Minnesota sports owners just will never go full bore to field a team. Minneapolis/St Paul is not a "small" market but the area is not very sports conducsive. Local revenues just cannot compete against other areas. So, that is why we have the owners we have, it isn't just a coincidence.

One of the problems with the Twins organization is they have zero consistency in their approach. When they were bad, instead of getting young players up quickly to evaluate and develop, they were very conservative in their approach and instead plugged in mediocre veteran after mediocre veteran. You can argue all you want, but the Twins brought their prospects up 1-2 years later than most other teams when they should have been advancing them 1-2 years quicker for their internal rebuild. Now, by some sort of miracle, the Twins 2019 squad jumps out into the universe with what are already career years for many of their players. If they add a couple of key players they could be truly competitive, and by that I mean not just win the weakest division in baseball but have a real chance of winning it all. So, for me if they sit pat that will be par for the course for this organization. My approach: go after MInor or Snydergaard and pay the market rate. Give up one of Lewis or Kiriloff, any pitcher in the organization the other team wants, and a 3rd player plus any player in the organization that is essentially blocked like Nick GOrdon if that is what it takes to make the deal.