Lazarus

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Hicks has finally figured it out - his history is that he has struggled with each promotion and needed extra time at each stop. With MLB being a significant step up from AA and AAA, hopefully only three times is needed. As additional prospects start to get here, we will probably see many of them bounce back and forth a little bit. I'm hoping that Hicks represents a full one standard deviation from what the normal time for adjustment will be. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Vargas to make the necessary adjustments to get back up. It seems that they have a longer leash on Santana to adjust while remaining in Minneapolis. I don't think that sending Arcia back down would serve any purpose (other than as a wake-up call to rein in his cockiness). Molitor seems to like Rosario a lot so I think he has a slim chance stick, but I would expect a return to Rochester will happen at some point to fine-tune some things before he's up for good. Finally, I think the Twins will wait a little longer with both Buxton and Sano because I believe that they want to promote them once and make sure they stick the first time (minus one standard deviation).

Now if you can get Parker added onto Jake's staff to help the hitter's with their stride and pitcher's with their release points by using the video...any maybe help them with analyzing the spray charts. Knowledge you don't get in college...

He pitched for the Kernels. Misidentified in the awards section at Lookouts...

History suggests that Ryan usually holds steady for the first 30 games before beginning to release the laggards and promoting prospects - sometimes it goes a little longer than that. The best hope is that our prospects in AAA and AA show consistent strong performance so they can be considered ready for a promotion. The AAAA club is currently unwatchable. Is it too early to be projecting who will go first overall in the June 2016 draft?

Reading this, Granite reminds me of Lenny Dykstra when he played for the Phillies. Takes good at-bats, hustles to pressure the other team, versatile defensively (although the comment that he profiles best in left leads me to believe he has Revere's arm). I see the Ben Revere profile here but I always struggled to like Revere mainly because I considered him a wasted first-round draft pick. Not his fault, I know - but it was just a mental block for me. Granite doesn't have that noose so he comes off as a scrappy underdog, a guy people can root for.

Lookouts Outlook was going to be my suggestion but I'm a little bit like the Twins today - just showing up now for the opening series... Hopefully some of the performances can be chalked up to opening night jitters. I will be very interested in seeing who gets off to a good start as I expect a lot of player movements this year.

This team is going to go through a LOT of starters and relievers this year. There will be sufficient opportunity for Milone, Pelfry, Nolasco, and the entire bullpen to save their careers or torch them. At least one of the above three starters (and maybe two) will pitch their way out of town in a couple of months. And probably two or three relievers as well. And this prediction doesn't even take into account the inevitable injuries we'll see. At least AAA and AA has more interesting prospects to draw from then we've seen in past years.

It looks to me that the Twins will be a reprisal of the 1970's Minnesota Lumber Company - trying to out-hit/score the damage done by their pitching staff. If this team doesn't come out of the gates hitting a ton, they will be close to 100 losses this season.

First bomb dropped - a lot of pressure on Nolasco now as the #3 starter. No doubt that we will see May and Meyer before mid-season if they do anything in Rochester.

I want to see both Burdi and Reed in AA - if they succeed, I think they'll find space on a Delta flight to MSP. Probably have to connect through Atlanta though...so they'd be up the next day after.

Starting pitching should be better which should take some stress off of the suspect bullpen, but the bullpen feels like it will be worse (at least initially). Runs scored should be in the top half of the AL, but defensively the outfield could be a real mess. Different in-game approaches by the new management team should be helpful this year. I don't see 85 wins this year but could see 78-80...with a LOT of prospects making their Target Field debuts during the last three months of the season.

Let May get stretched out in Rochester - don't need to see the bullpen guys in the 3rd inning in April because he's not ready. Once he's stretched out and gets on a roll, then you can make a decision on Milone/Pelfrey/anyone else on the major league staff. He certainly didn't overwhelm anyone in his last start against some real major league hitters - if he had been lights out against the Bucs, I'd feel a little differently. He also didn't overwhelm us in September - good K's but really wasn't that good otherwise against a mix of major leaguers and some September call-up's (slightly better than competition in early Spring Training). I sense that the leashes on the fringe guys on the major league roster will be very short this year and the prospects will be coming up as they show they're ready to come up and be assets to the Twins on an everyday basis. I'm tired of the promotions just being the next warm body but not major league caliber - I'd rather have a roster of major league-ready players in AAA and a couple in AA rather than the lousy situation we've seen the last four seasons. The MLB roster is likely to be very fluid this year.

I like these low-downside, high-upside international signings. His progress will be interesting to follow over the next couple of years as he develops.

Much of this offense has been generated against AA and AAA pitching. Beginning about a week from now, they will be in the spring training home stretch and getting more serious - let's see how the offense rounds into shape then. Same opinion about our pitching. However the roster is constructed on Opening Day, I'll be pretty disappointed if The Prospects don't force their way onto the roster during the year. The not-so-subtle hints from TR and PM suggest that they feel the same way. No excuses about buying the extra cheap year either - that's a non-issue before the end of April this year (if I have to listen any more to Cubs fans whine about Bryant spending the first two weeks of the season in the minors before coming up I think my head's going to explode).

It feels like this has been going on for months already, but it's still way too early to be making roster decisions or reading too much into performances - especially for veterans. The Hughes comments are a great example - just decided to work on his cutter when he got dissatisfied rather than go to another pitch. Once the minor leaguers are sent to the other side of camp and we get to the last 10 days of camp, then we'll see who will emerge. Not ready to get excited yet about either Milone or Pelfrey - but I admit it feels better than waiting for them to straighten out a lousy start of camp too.