kab21

Whatever. It makes me glad that I've traded most of my prospects to go for it.

Berrios showed a nice live arm taking right to some elite MLB'ers. He gave up a few hits and runs but overall he looked good. It was tough to tell if he was moving up and down in the zone on purpose or if he was effectively wild.

Stuifbergen lit up for a 2nd time. The two Dutch pitchers (including Cordemans) have given up a combined 5HR's and 10 R's and it's only the top of the 4th. I've looked at the video and it looked like Morneau was literally the last person in Canada's pack. I later saw him holding back a Canadian player away from the brawl.

And that sums up my complaint with the Hunter comparison.

Only Rochester will have any complaints with the talent distributed to their team. CR, Ft Myers and New Britain are going to be splitting the talent from one of the best farm systems in the league. btw - I initially typed Beloit. That's going to take some getting used to.

If you base it on spring training then that's true but I actually think the opposite is true. I wouldn't be surprised if Mastro outperforms Hicks this year.

I find it a little silly at how loose the rules for the WBC are regarding country eligibility but I don't have a problem with AGon playing for Mexico. His parents were born in Mexico and he grew up on the border and is still very connected to his Mexican heritage. He has also played on the previous 2 Mexican WBC teams with his brother and his father was on the Mexican national team once. As long as he's not switching sides every WBC then it's okay. The Asian WBC games have been outstanding this year. Some upsets and some close games.

I was a pretty good athlete but I don't remember having the strength to shoot a basketball 80+ feet.

I just read something the other day that compared Buxton to Hunter. Is it safe to say that every toolsy CF'er will be comped to Hunter?

Everyone is forgetting that Trout was called up in 2011 and was awful. The fact that he was awful doesn't matter but that PT in 2011 gave him enough service time that keeping him in AAA didn't matter. Hicks is a different case. He wasn't called up in 2012 so waiting a month does actually delay FA a year.

I thought there was a chance that Arcia could struggle with over aggressiveness in his first go around in the majors. These comments aren't necessarily the same but similar. On the other hand I have a feeling that Hicks will struggle with under aggressiveness and frustrate Twins fans. both should be good players eventually though.

I think it would suck to have so many runners on base that we are concerned about Mauer's GIDP's.

Personally I think Hicks will struggle this season with the Twins. He has always taken a year to adjust and the MLB is a huge jump. calling him up in May/June is not a huge issue. I also have no idea how B.J. Upton entered the discussion. He was twice a late season callup for the Rays before he was finally called up full time. Gibson I'm still more on the fence on. I would prefer that he starts in AAA because an age 31 season could be pretty valuable if he becomes the pitcher that people think he will. The only problem is that the Twins don't have a lot of depth at SP'er. The only pitcher that hasn't earned a spot is Hendriks imo but nearly all of the pitchers could have an injury setback. It might be difficult to go with 1 or 2 of Devries, deduno, random guy when the staff already has Hendriks (struggled so far in the MLB) and Correia (not very good) and there is a more talented guy in the minors. I'm hoping that the Twins have 5 healthy pitchers and gibson is an easy start in the minors.

I expect Hicks to struggle this year. He has some flaws and he's always taken a year to adjust when he was simply moving up a level in the minors. Moving up to the majors is a huge jump. I also like the idea of parmelee 2nd but realistically there is almost no chance it happens.

One thing that you will consistently find is that the fresh batch of draftees are usually overranked in their first prospect list. I think the entire board (with a few exceptions) consider Buxton to be a top 25 MLB prospect. That is really high imo for someone with very limited pro experience.

My comp for Benson is Drew Stubbs (high k's and BB's, late blooming power and decent CF defense). Baker has batted Stubbs 1st or 2nd 75% of his career so far and I would not be shocked if Gardy did the same with Benson. In addition to a world where CF = leadoff hitter and 2nd base = #2 hitter the Twins really don't have a lot of options for leadoff and the #2 hitter. Assuming that Mauer, Morneau and Willingham are 3/4/5. There is no conceivable way that Gardy won't have Mauer #3.

In 2007 they went nuts in int'l FA for basically the first time ever. Many contended at the time that the draft/int'l and MLB budgets were completely independent of each other but it's always been my opinion that they used that extra money to not only pay the Cuddyer/Morneau bonuses but to make a splash internationally. The Twins might not have maxed this out every season since but they have been much more active internationally than before 2007. John is mostly right with his explanation except that international budgets are also higher for losing teams so I think the Twins will have closer to 4M to spend internationally this year. but overall John's argument is correct teams can't spend extra money in the draft like they could before. they are given a certain budget to sign their picks and there are severe penalties for going over that amount. The same is true internationally. Teams can also trade a portion of this cap room which is an interesting twist. One reason that the OP's numbers don't match up is that he didn't include the dozens of int'l players that signed for small amounts. Most of these guys never get reported.

I certainly don't want steroids in baseball but I'm past the point where I'm going to get bent out of shape about it. 10 years when baseball had zero testing and pretty much anything went I was upset. 5 or so years ago when MLB had a weak drug policy I wasn't happy about. Now baseball has a pretty solid drug policy. It could be better but they are cleaning up the game. One person guessed that these names are showing up because the MLB has started testing blood instead of only urine and it takes significantly longer for your blood to be steroid free. I have heard that you can get a clean urine sample 24 hours after using which makes a urine only test kind of weak.

It will be interesting to see if this a prediction or if there is some substance to this. I really don't care about steroids in baseball at this point but there could be some pretty big effects this season if these guys are out. Source: Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Curtis Granderson To Be Suspended - Dog and Pony Show

Stuifbergen did not look impressive in his start against Taiwan. His fastball was barely hitting the high 80's and he just kept getting hit. Seemed like a nice guy when I chatted with him for a minute the previous weekend but he did not look like an MLB pitcher.

that would be nuts. That is also a long way to chuck a basketball. Most people need to throw a ball like a baseball from there.

I'm as high on Polanco as almost anyone and fairly down on May but not even I would rank Polanco above May. One thing about Polanco is that Mike Newman (from fangraphs) actually saw him in person. Some have made comments about Polanco not hitting much as he moves up but I've wondered how many of those people have actually seen him hit.

Gardy might have said that he wants some pop off the bench but I expect that there will be 4 futility IF'ers (2 starting) and 3 catchers (2 starting) on the roster. Combine that with 12 pitchers and the only other hitter is the backup OF'er. BOOK IT!

It won't take until 2015 to see him if he has a good season this year. I'm guessing the Twins will play the super 2 game with him next summer.

I don't think that he (punto) actually drove statheads nuts. He drove most fans nuts because he was put into a role (starting) that he shouldn't have been in.