halfchest

I think it was described perfectly as it's not a bad contract necessarily, but it's not one teams are likely to go after either. Santana is the kinda guy a team might pursue if he had say 1 1/2 years left on his contract rather than 3 1/2 due in part to the commitment and his age being to a point where a decline is likely for the second half of the contract. That's what really makes his suspension a bummer. To me when the Twins signed him I liked it and thought the first 2-3 years should be valuable with the last 1-2 maybe being suspect or overpaying him. To lose out on half of the first year as well as him not being available for the playoffs this year really hurts.

As good as Tulowitzki is I would rather have the Twins hold off for another year before making a big splash deal. Also, if we were to make a move to acquire a superstar I'd much rather go after an Ace pitcher. I'd much rather the Twins put their eggs in the Cole Hamels basket and try to make part of the deal offloading Nolasco's deal to open up both a rotation spot and save a few bucks. I think the Twins have a better chance of finding a solid SS between Polanco/Escobar/Gordon/Santana than they do of getting a legitimate Ace pitcher like Hamels. I guess with some nice organizational depth SS isn't as big of an issue to me and I see a better chance at them filling that void internally. Now Ace Pitcher and/or C are the spots I could understand making a splash. To me, Lucroy or Hamels should be the targets if the Twins are ready to make a splash. I think they are a year away from making any moves of the sort though.

I felt Gibson needed a seperate post. I've been a big fan for a long time, viewing him as a Scott Baker + groundball ability type player prior to his TJ surgery. I've been really hoping he would find a way to start missing more bats to make him into that player and the last two months he has shown that ability and am truly starting to buy into him as a #2 starter. There is likely to be some regression by some of these guys but more than enough guys that should improve to even this out. SS (Santana/Escobar/Polanco), C(Suzuki/Fryer/acquisition), and DH (Sano/Varga/Arcia) and 1B (Mauer/Vargas/Kepler) all have a very good chance of improving offensively. This should all help to counteract any regression from other areas and overall improve the team.

The other unmentioned factor in the teams improvement comes from the prospect wave we have all been clamoring for. We saw some last year in Santana and Vargas and most thought they were unlikely to repeat last years numbers but they are likely better than what we've seen from them last year. However, we've gotten to see Rosario come up and provide offense along with short stints from Buxton and Sano. This is not to mention guys still in the minors like Polanco, Kepler, and Berrios who are on the horizon. Not to mention some underperformers likely to contribute at some point like Meyer, Burdi, and Arcia that have had some struggles. It's exciting to see this team progressing and still having a number of strong future contributors sitting in the high minors waiting for their shots. The future seems very bright.

Yah, his homerun rate is fine. another positive is his K/9 is back up over 9 during his second year in AA. Hoping he gains enough velocity and/or better offspeed stuff to keep that up once he hits the majors. I'd be interested to know what his groundball rates are too. If he can be a 7-8 k/9 and a groundball guy that would greatly increase his outlook.

At this time, I'm gonna doubt we see him up for the Twins this year. I have to think we can get similar use out of some of our AA/AAA guys if we need them. Hoping the Twins give Oliveros a shot and consider bringing up Meyer for the pen. Give him a taste and if he succeeds let him stay in the pen this year. Consider moving him back to the rotation next year.

Any word on the Saturday starter yet?

I say until at least the end of the year. His performance this year has been awful but changing long term plans on a guy following a 6 weeks worth of games is not the way to handle a prospect. I guess if he can't get out of this funk by the end of the season then the Twins have to start seriously re-evaluating long term plans for the guy.

Like how he looks in a very small sample. Just appears more confident at the plate and in the field. Really hoping he has turned a corner and can become a quality contributor for this team. Would love to see both him and Buxton in the outfield by the end of the year.

Nice update, like Seth pointed out, can't move someone too much based on 5 weeks of baseball.

Let's not completely write off Meyer yet either when talking about replacements. Can't write him off after a rough first month.

Before we start talking trades and returns lets give the guys a chance to sort things out first. If all four young outfielders turn out to be above average players then we can start discussing trade scenarios. I'm a big fan of Hicks and hope he finally sticks. I feel like his defense combined with patience is what can make him a valuable guy. He doesn't have to tear the cover off the ball to have a high OBP, get steals, and play good defense. Will he be an all star? not likely but could he be a valuable corner guy that can be your backup CF? yes. He also brings value in a corner position in that he can be your backup CF allowing you to have more of an all bat/no defense 4th outfielder rather than a Jordan Schafer, mastroianni, etc. type. Wouldn't take a lot for him to be a valuable guy, worst case he ends up as a better option for our 4th outfielder than picking up random AAAA players on waivers.

I understand making him wait a little bit. I can't say the Twins have wronged him in any way after the last two seasons handing him a starting job. That said, yah I'd like to see him up fairly soon now with how he's hitting and given the alternatives. If he could hit well enough to lock down a corner position long term that would add some great value. I'm hopeful he's matured and can deliver in the big leagues.

I think my biggest disappointment was not bringing up Meyer or May when the suspension news came. In small part because I was interested to see if Pelfrey could reinvent himself in the pen like Perkins did. I'm expecting some pretty big changes to this roster within the first 6-8 weeks. Only time will tell.

It would be nice to add the Twins players 2014 statistics to compare to the other guys in the league on these articles. Just a suggestion as I find myself going to baseball-reference to double check what their line was from last year while reading these articles. #firstworldproblems

.250/.350/.420 18 HR, 38 2B with good defense and he'll be the best 2B in the division. Betting Kinsler continues to drop off a bit at age 33. Kipnis and Dozier will be one and two if I had to bet on anything. I don't really expect him to increase his BA or anything really but to hold steady overall with his 2014 numbers.

To be clear, despite my reply above stating I think the staff should be much improved I figure best case scenario we're about a .500 team and settle in around 3rd or 4th in the division. I guess true best case scenario is 90% of the scenarios we talk about break positive for the Twins and then yah we're sniffing the playoffs, but I' not holding my breath. Still looking forward to a much more entertaining team this year.

He may have had the names wrong but the point was still spot on. 2013 we had guys like liam hendriks, scott diamond, vance worley, pj walters, pedro hernandez, rookie kyle gibson who was awful combining for 48 starts that combined for over a 6.0 ERA that's not including pelfrey with 29 starts at a 5.19 ERA. In 2014 Pino had 11 starts at a 5.07 ERA so I wouldn't call that decent. In addition to that milone, may, darnell, and pelfrey combined for 28 starts all pitching over 7 ERA. The point being it seems like we have better options this year for our spot starts and just our opening rotation has much better options. Now anything can happen but you have to figure with regression to the mean(Nolasco, Milone, Hughes) and improvement from younger pitchers (May, Meyer, Gibson) we have much better options than the past two years. You also add in Santana as a planned starter rather than Correia or Pelfrey and it would almost take some horrible luck to not be a much improved pitching staff.

It's pretty much impossible to judge an extension without seeing the dollars and years. I think the best deal would be a reasonable purchase of his arbitration years to give Dozier some guaranteed money in case of injury or decline and the Twins some cost certainty. In addition having a couple of higher price option years that are representative of how he should get paid if he continues to hit 20 homers and play top notch defense. That way the Twins aren't stuck with him long term if he declines rapidly but he also gets a couple nice paydays if they do keep him. I'm all for taking a chance on an extension, if he puts up another year like 2014 his price is going to increase rapidly next offseason.

Now this may be thread jacking, not intended to be as it is towards the thought of "making a statement". Should the Twins go after Cole Hamels? and if so, at what cost? I think a starting point is likely either Berrios or Meyer and then add in a good MI and maybe 1-2 other lower ranked prospects? just as a starting point Meyer, Polanco, plus a C level prospect or two? Not going to focus too much on cost but think of what the team would look like with Hamels as our #1. Hamels, Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Gibson is a damn fine rotation to go along with a budding offense. Hamels wouldn't come cheap at all. Maybe we can ship out say Pelfrey to save a few bucks in the deal as well. Now that would be a statement I could get behind. If people want to discuss this further I can put it in a different thread too.

I thin at this point you bring him up and let him get his last 40 innings in at the major league level. I think the experience could be valuable for him going into the off season. That taste of a higher level can let a person know what they need to work on to succeed at that level. The flipside is this, the Twins are getting close to the end of the year and with other teams putting players on waivers, the Twins may want to make some claims and pick up some overpaid but useful pieces so adding another player to the 40 man makes this harder. Also, at this point they could leave Meyer down have him start at Rochester for a month next year and gain an additional year of control. I would have liked to see Meyer up a month or two ago but at this point there is some logic to keeping him down until the beginning of 2015.

Gotta remember Willingham ad KC could definitely move in August

So what are the chances of these catchers staying at catcher? Swim, Turner, and Garver all potentially have an above average bat for a catcher but do they have the defensive chops or the potential at least? Just curious if anyone has some better insight on this.

I'd love to hear thoughts on Travis Harrison. I glanced at a box score a couple weeks ago and noticed he was hitting around .290 which excited me since I thought last year, man if that guy could get his average up a bit his numbers would look really nice. Well he's done that but he's also reduced his walk rate and hit only 2 homeruns this year leading to an overall decrease in OPS. I just looked at him again and a couple things stuck out to me. He has hit only the 2 homers but already has 26 doubles after hitting only 28 total last year. I wonder if some of those doubles would be homeruns in other parks as I hear consistently the FSL is pretty pitcher friendly. The other thing that stuck out is how much his K rate and BB rate have dropped. Last yer he was striking out almost 28% of at bats and walking just over 15%. This year he is striking out 18.7 % and walking 10.5 %. So, is this a good thing for development? or a bad thing? I like the drop in K's but the loss of homers and BB's is negative. Just something I noticed and was curious about as he's been this kind of fringy top 10 prospect since he came onto the team.

I haven't gotten to watch him enough but given his minor league track record I still have faith that he can continue to improve. The comparison to Span and Revere is great as well. I remember running numbers last year and post his awful start where he went like 1 for 40 or something awful like that he actually put up better OPS or right in line with those two for the rest of the year. Again, not that he was good but offensively those two wouldn't have added much more than him. The defense is troubling, in no way am I a scout and I honestly don't watch games as often as I did a few years ago prior to having children. The reports from reputable sources had him pegged as a plus defender though during his minor league career. My understanding of advanced metrics is that you really don't know much until a player has at least 2-3 years of numbers to look at right? He definitely flashes the leather from time to time with stealing home runs last year. Again, the guy is still young so I'm holding out hope he'll start putting up better numbers. Maybe he becomes a nice 4th outfielder once Buxton gets up here if his bat doesn't play in the corners. I'm hoping he can get up to a .750-.800 OPS and add in plus defense in a corner spot. I love the idea of having Buxton and Hicks out there together to cover 3/4s of the field and allow for a guy like Parmelee or Arcia to be playing the other corner.