kab21

Trading Morneau even at the deadline still only makes sense if there is actually something decent coming back. The Twins have enough PR problems with fans (losing and cutting payroll) to just dump him. And I think the return would be underwhelming for Morneau. I'm not really against offering Morneau a tender at about 14M. There's payroll room and he's a fan favorite. At that point Morneau would be trapped since it's very unlikely that a team would give up a 1st rd pick and sign him to a multiyear deal. Parmelee has nearly zero trade value after his long and mediocre MiLB career. Doumit doesn't have much trade value but that could change. If there's a good offer out there then it makes sense to trade him. Willingham currently has fairly good trade value and he would be my top priority to trade this summer.

I would consider expanding the list further because a sample size of 8 is too small to draw any conclusions. Here is a list of the top 25 ranked(smoltz and Pettitte excluded) by ERA- (fangraphs). 600 inning min (2005-2012). Summary - No big surprises here. if you want a potential ace then either you have the #1 (maybe #2) pick and get an elite college arm (not available this year) or you take your chances with a HS 1st rd'er. Big bonus int'l FA's are poor investments (as starters, RPers are different story). It is interesting how many aces were late rd picks from 1999-2002. One additional conclusion is that it's unlikely that the college arms after Appel and Manaea can be considered potential 1-2 starters. Most likely #3's. Even Appel and Manaea are unlikely to be #1 and probably not #2's. The same is true of Zimmer and Gausman last year. 1st 2 rds and HS - 7 - notice how most of these are late 1st rd'ers Kershaw 1-7 (2006) - HS Carpenter 1-15 (1993) - HS Halladay 1-17 (1995) - HS Hamels 1-17 (2002) - HS CC 1-20 (98) - HS Cain 1-25 (2002) - HS Wainwright 1-29 (2002) - HS 1st rd college players - 5 - Price and Verlander (and Strasburg) were considered BPA in their drafts and there isn't a comparable college arm out there this year. Price 1-1(2007) - UNI Verlander 1-2 (2004) - UNI Lincecum 1-10 (2006) - UNI Sheets 1-10 (1999) - uni Weaver 1-12 (2004) - UNI late rd college players - 7 Haren rd2 (2001) - uni Hudson rd6 (1997) - UNI Harden rd 17 (2000) - uni Wilson rd5 (2001) - uni Webb rd 8 (2000) - UNI Lee rd4 (2000) - UNI Oswalt rd 23 (1996) - (CC) late rd HS'ers - 3 - I'm not sure if any of these were overslot big bonus picks though Lester rd2 (2002) - HS JJohnson rd4 (2002) - HS Peavy rd 15 (1999) - HS International arms - 3 Felix - int'l FA (big bonus) - ('02) Santana int'l FA (low bonus) (95) Cueto int'l FA (2005) - small bonus I think

tonkin was an overslot pick.

Ruesse is a loyal (to the FO) reporter that will put out an article that makes it sound like a bunch of prospects are near the big leagues to give people some hope.

I'm just as sick of the Deduno/Devries is just as good as him. These guys shouldn't be considered plan A or plan B in an MLB rotation. Plan C for a few starts is about all that I'm okay with.

So we are looking at the possibility that both Mauer and Doumit are going to get injured in the same game? And this is why legitimate prospects (making an MLB roster) should divert time away from improving their core skills?

I agree with Appel and Manaea pretty much being locks to be BPA's if they fall to the Twins at 4. I think many are overplaying exactly how safe these top college starters are though. Similar guys bust all the time. toolsy HS hitters bust more often but I don't think we can neglect how often 'safe' prospects bust. I disagree with this draft a pitcher because the Twins need one. If you do that you aren't drafting a potential top of the rotation arm. You are reaching and this is one of the things that Royals and Pirates did wrong for so many years. remember that this is a considered a weak draft and the Twins are picking 4 instead of #1 or #2. So far i'm hoping that Gray (hoping for him currently) and/or Stanek can deservedly move into 3rd/4th BPA. Unlike others I won't have a problem if Meadows, Frazier, Smith or Humpries are picked. They are making a pretty good argument to be the BPA to the Twins especially if the top 2 pitchers go early. Picking in the top ten is about adding above average players (or near elite) and I'm not sure if I could support targeting a starter that might be average because he might be up in a year or two. It will be very interesting to watch the Astros and Cubs strategies this year. Will the Astros repeat last year and bank money to use later? Will the Cubs pass on Appel if he's considered the no doubt BPA? Is there a Max Fried out there this year? He was a late riser and I really like him overall. Maybe Trey Ball? More risk but that might be what you need to do if you want to find a potential #1/2 and Appel/Manaea are gone.

The problem wasn't that they spent 10M on Correia (although that's not good either). The problem isn't that Deduno and Devries make 500K. The problem is that they could have doubled Corriea's contract and entered a tier of pitchers that are actually halfway decent. I'm not a big fan of the McCarthy's, Saunders' or Blanton's but I am more confident that they won't be another version of Marquis/Pitcherpottamus/Ortiz/Livan.

We're not talking about Gardy's reason for carrying a 3rd catcher. I am certain that Gardy has publicly said that he needed a 3rd catcher because of the DH/C thing. We're talking about actual baseball reasons. Imo it makes no sense to work Escobar back there. Regardless of how many times he catches bullpen sessions he will be completely awful at the basics of catching. it would be 1000x better to lose the DH and use a PH'er or two if the starting catcher got injured. Actually I guess it makes sense. It can ease Gardy's mind enough that he won't be as likely to carry a 3rd catcher on the roster even he never uses him behind the plate. The downside of course is that it further strengthens the two futility IF portion of the bench. Escobar hits better than butera but there are halfway competent backup options usually available. For example I'm not sure Escobar (or Florimon) will hit much better than Olivo and he was signed as a MiLB FA.

Way too optimistic. Sano could be Wily Mo Pena. Buxton and Kepler haven't even played full season ball yet. If Rosario doesn't stick at 2B he needs to be in CF because he probably doesn't have the bat to play in the corners. Arcia has a high floor although he could end up as a platoon player since one knock before 2012 was that he could struggle against lefties. Hicks could hit .230 with a .300 OBP. He'll be a MLB'er almost for sure but not even one of these prospects have the floor of an above average regular. You might think I'm a pessimist but I'm more of a realist. I'm actually very excited about this group of hitting prospects and I think this group will produce enough to provide the Twins with an extremely good offensive core that will only need a few trade/FA additions to complete but there is absolutely no way that none of them will struggle or falter. If half of them end up as average ballplayers then the Twins are on their way to being set for the future.

That's only true if he repeats last year. he's only hit >.700 OPS once. If he's closer to .240/.290/.420/.710 then he should stay in the 7 spot.

The reason to carry a 3rd catcher should have nothing to do with a potential injury occurring during a game. The reason to carry a catcher is if he is going to be included in the regular catching rotation. Mauer shouldn't catch >100 games this year. 72 last year. Do you want Doumit behind the plate for 60-100 games? He's awful at catching and butera is awful at hitting. Pick your poison. I think the board would unanimously pick Doumit and so would I but it really comes down to how many games Mauer catches.

A few facts about Mo and the Twins courtesy of Mariano Rivera Career Batting Splits - Baseball-Reference.com The Twins own the 2nd lowest OPS (AL teams) vs Mo at .449. The Tigers are by far the worst at .364. That's dreadfully awful. The Twins have the 3rd lowest ERA (AL teams) vs Mo at 1.30. The Tigers were lowest with 0.78 ERA and a grand total of 5ER's in his career. The White Sox barely edged out the Twins for 2nd. He went 4-3 with 33 saves against the Twins. In 69.1 innings he gave up 10ER's and only 2 HR's. He started once against the Twins as a rookie in 1995 going 6 innings allowing 1ER. He only made 10 game starts that year putting up a 5.94 ERA. He also appeared in 9 games as a reliever and the following year he became a dominant RP'er. I might hate the Yankees but I can't hate Mo.

Parmelee is awful in the OF but my understanding is that he has always been pretty good (at least average) at 1B. Like I said earlier Parmelee is just a place holder like Dougie Glove until a better player comes along. If that better player doesn't show up the Twins won't be hurt by Parmelee if he becomes that .750-.775 hitter I think he will.

Imo Parmelee is just a placeholder but he will be needed for several seasons. Talk of Sano, Vargas, Kepler and also Harrison being the future at 1B is nice but it will take years for that to happen. In a way he's like a completely different version of Dougie Alphabet. he looks solid but not great. FWIW - Kepler's future is in the OF until he gets close to the majors and the Twins have a stacked OF already. Currently that's an 'if' situation. It could happen but that's counting on a lot of prospects to become good MLB'ers. Chances are that 1 or more massively disappoint.

It should be worth noting that GB's have a higher BAPIP than FB's. They are of course way better than FB's since they only go for singles. it's the line drives that kill pitchers and neither Deduno nor hendriks did well there. Bottom line though is that Deduno needs to approach a 2:1 k:bb ratio to be halfway successful imo. I don't care how he does it (more K's or less BB's) but a 1:1 k:BB ratio belongs in AAA.

One part that Teflon missed in his analysis was that Deduno's low hit rate was due to a low BAPIP (.266). Hendriks OTOH posted a .313 BAPIP. If Deduno's BAPIP is normal for pitchers then his hit rate will be a lot higher (WHIP also) and those walks are going to hurt even more than they did last year. If he's going to walk a lot of batters then he's going to need to K a lot to be successful.

I doubt this is anything more than a puff piece trying to maintain excitement. You can't very well sell fans on the idea that it's going to take 3-4 yrs to see some of the top prospects because that starts to approach the 90's debacle in the minds of fans.

Rosario, goodrum, Dozier, Polanco is not a crowded MI situation. It's a situation where you hope that 2 of them become avg players. That might be a little optimistic. As of right now I'm only high enough on 6 of them that I think they could be average or better players. Most of the bottom of the list will be very successful to have 4th OF'er or UT IF'er MLB roles. The important thing that I see is that the Twins will potentially have more than 50% of their offensive starters making the MLB min and that should enable the team to put together a pretty solid run. You left off Plouffe and Parmelee. both of these guys can be average MLB starters.

Yeah, there is no way that I'm concerned about having too many starters. Worst case - the team actually has depth at the position.

At some point I will probably need to ditch my team but it's a moneymaker. It will just be too difficult to manage while I'm living on a bicycle for months at a time.

MiLB starters become relievers but MiLB relievers rarely become starters. That experiment ended 2 yrs ago for Tonkin and I'm okay with him being a late inning reliever.

I'm not fine with it but it's what the Twins are going to have because they didn't seem to make an attempt to improve either MI spot this offseason. Yes, we're looking at 2 low .600 OPS's in the lineup. I don't think Hicks or Mastro will do much better than .650 and we'll also have a regular dose of butera.

Tim's problem is that he's running and playing in like 20 leagues (an exaggeration). I have no problem with him although he doesn't really take charge of situations. The rest of league leaves a lot to be desired. Steve is a schmuck that enjoyed all of this controversy and didn't even try to explain it until the end. I will continue to deal prospects heavily because this league seems to have a blowup like this often.

So what's the over/under on Florimon's OPS? .625?