kab21

Favorite players that weren't stars although some have been good. Laudner, Shane Mack, Chad Allen, Nick Punto, Michael Cuddyer, Lew Ford.

Rosario added a pair of 2B's to Sano's blast. So far the Twins big 4 hitting prospects are raking in the minors.

I'm not sure Denney is really comparable to a majority of HS catchers that have been drafted in the last decade though. There have been very few picked in the top 15 and I'm guessing very few had a bat that was considered to among the best in the draft class. All of the top 15 HS catching picks since 2001 2008 - Skipworth - #6 - really good bat that didn't develop 2008 - Mesoraco - #15 - not a premier talent but has developed into a solid catcher soon to be in a starting job 2005 - Snyder - #13 - made the majors briefly as a 1Bman 2004 - Walker - #11 - solid starter at 2B 2001 - Mauer - sort of good

Except he went to college... edit - D'Arnaud and Mesoraco were HS catchers though.

I don't get it. People are now complaining about trading Revere but aren't interested in a player similar to Revere for almost nothing?

Keeping him at 3B this season doesn't really slow him down imo. The big decision comes after this season.

The problem is that Manaea has done nothing to address the big knocks against him going into the college season. He has two inconsistent secondary pitches that could make him a RP'er. He remains in the discussion at #4 but I don't think he's the BPA or 2nd or 3rd. I would have to review all of the catching busts but my recent recollection is that none of them were close to being considered the best prep bat in the draft. If that were true then he's definitely in the discussion at #4 but I'm very scared of picking a HS catcher. I will give the FO the benefit of the doubt though.

NB with an offensive outburst and frankly I barely care about any of their hitters. Santana, Pinto and Ortiz are at least on my radar but they are pretty low. Pinto hit 2 HR's and Ortiz added another while raising his BA to .440. Trevor May with a poor outing if you look at the numbers. 4IP, 7 K's, 3 BB's , 2ER, 82 pitches and 45 strikes. Sano just keeps hitting. 2/4 2B Salcedo appeared in relief. 1IP, 2K's and 1W - perhaps this will be the next move to stay healthy and become relevant again

The encouraging thing is that there are a few that think Denney's bat is on par or better than Meadows/Frazier. There was even some discussion of Wil Myers at one point. If this is true then I could support the pick.

I didn't expect much this year honestly and I wouldn't be surprised if he rebounded later in the season but batting leadoff at the MLB level isn't working right now.

I'm not one to overreact and I have had no problem giving Parmelee time to work through his supposed problems (over .800 OPS now) and running Dozier out there for awhile. Hicks however has been dreadfully awful. He's now 2 for 34 with 15 K's. He can have a couple more weeks but I will lose patience before the end of April. Long term this is just a blip and he should still be a very good player but he's been pretty bad so far.

how exactly does someone play at a level when they are getting spot starts once or twice a week? FWIW - fangraphs had Carroll at 2 WAR last year. A 3.5 WAR (baseball-reference) would make him a borderline all star. that just doesn't pass the sniff test. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Carroll went from a 2 WAR player to a 1 WAR player in a year.

I did a quick scan of young pitchers and came up with these guys as potential #1/2's with a full season of experience. I left out guys like Miley, Parker, Samardzija, Hudson and Kennedy since I need a little more convincing about their upside. I also left off guys like Harvey, Bundy and Fernandez (all 1st rd'ers) since they have barely pitched in the majors yet. late rd picks Gio - 1st supplemental - HS - '04 Zimmerman - rd 2 - Uni - '07 Latos - rd 11 - HS - '06 Moore - rd8 - HS - '07 Gallardo - rd2 - HS - '04 1st rd picks Bumgarner #10 - HS - '07 Sale - #13 - Uni - '10 Scherzer - #11 - Uni - '06 Strasburg - #1 - Uni - '09 int'l but different than the previous int'l FA's Darvish - megabucks Japan

The problem with taking a HS catcher at the top of the first rd is that you better be absolutely sure that they are for real. Draft picks bust all the time but HS catchers have an awful success rate.

I'm not sure how much weight they put into 'fits into your system' when they didn't pick a pitcher for both the Rockies and Twins. I almost didn't include these picks because it seemed like they were trying to hard too be different. Yet I don't understand omitting Shipley unless they have an opinion on him that is significantly different. If anyone wants to read anything into this then Sickels did not go with a pitcher when he picked for the Twins. Sickels claims the Twins as one of his favorites and he does a shadow draft every year for the Twins.

Bring back Butera!

Is there any reason to start new threads for each player? The OP's are out of date but there is a lot of good discussion in the threads.

I don't think that changed in two 5-6 yr periods.

Unless a prospect is Harper or Strasburg they possess question marks, risk and holes in their game. It's not that we are holding pitchers to a higher we are targeting the best player and Manaea is the only pitcher that's in discussion as comparable talent at #4. And most of the mock drafts agree. rankings from Sickels mock, MLBdraftinsider, bigleaguefutures and throughthefence (in that order below). I wish I could find recent mocks/rankings places like BA, Perfect game and other similar sites but this is what I can find. Perhaps in a month there will be more mock drafts out there to look at. Appel - 2,1,1,2 Gray - 6,2,2,3 Meadows - 5,3,4,1 Bryant - 3,4,3,4 Frazier - 1,7,6,5 Manaea - 12,5,5,6 Shipley - ?,8,8,9 - I have found sickels mock draft (1st ranking) with Garrioch to have a lot of question marks. I don't know if it was sloppily done or if they are seeing something that others aren't (Shipley not drafted, Gray at #6, etc...) Stanek - 11,6,9,10 - and he will probably drop farther Anderson - 18,9,15,14 - Perhaps he is a riser that hasn't risen in other rankings yet but these are mid 1st rd rankings currently.

There have been several claims that the Twins went over the 2.9M bonus pool last year. I think that is correct and technically incorrect. I think the Twins probably spent >2.9M internationally but five 50K signings do not count towards that pool and all <10K signings also do not count.

This was linked at the above link. Penalties for next year assuming that they can't pursue an international draft.

The larger sample doesn't show the same trends as Oxtung's imo. Oxtung's group of 8 shows zero players drafted after the 1st rd while my group has 10/25 drafted after the 1st rd. I'm also not sure that the 2001 split is anything more than a sample size issue. Are you suggesting that things were significantly different during the 5 years before 2001 and the 5 years after? I don't think things change this quickly. One other issue is that there are several aces (Lincecum, Price and Kershaw) that were drafted in 2006 or 2007. they flew through the minors as 1st rd picks and because they were very good. Guys that are later rd picks usually take longer to develop because they didn't start as highly ranked.

25 is a significantly larger sample than 8. I'm not sure how that is debatable. I understand your quest for greatness but it's disturbing how easy you dismiss pitchers as #2's when they have put up top 25 numbers for a long period of time. these guys are really, really good pitchers and I would be thrilled to get a guy that I thought would be a top 25 pitcher for a long time. Imo Weaver profiles closer to the #2's that you dismiss. out of your sample this gives you Verlander, Price and Lincecum as college aces. The first two (along with another ace that hasn't made the discussion yet - Strasburg) were no doubt BPA's in the draft. Those guys aren't available at #4 this year. Lincecum dropped a few spots because he's short. The other 3 were HS'ers. If you want to pursue greatness then your argument is that the Twins should go with a HS pitcher that profiles more like Bundy or last year's Max Fried but the risk of getting nothing is significantly higher. Perhaps you go for a go like Kohl Stewart instead of Chris Anderson or Ryan Stanek if your main goal is getting a true ace.

It was 1 of John's 2 discussion questions in the opening post.

Again the problem is that I'm not sure Manaea, Anderson, Stanek or any of the other pitchers are #2's. Manaea is the one I'm highest on and he has a good ceiling but two inconsistent secondary pitches bring a lot of downside to the pick. Contrary to your opinion I really, really want the BPA to be a pitcher but as far as I can tell there is a contingent that thinks the only correct choice to pick a pitcher and has felt this way since well before last year's draft.