Doomtints

Which would make the problem worse.

Grant Jones wrote that. He scouted Alvarez twice last year. Jones is a younger scout but has already held jobs with the Mets and Brewers along with working with college and minor league teams.

Yep. There is a reason the Dodgers have so much talent in the minors. They paid for enough talent in the majors to allow the minor league players to develop. You have to replenish the system at both ends.

There is no way any team ever trades off a guy like Bellinger. There is no scenario where that would ever happen regardless of what is offered. Heyman even mentioning Bellinger makes it sound like he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Alvarez looks to me like a Tommy John in the making. With his 100 MPH fastball and second-pitch being a slider, not to mention his delivery that has been described as "mildly violent" -- I would either pass or groom him to be a closer and start limiting his innings immediately. Plus, he is 3 years out at a minimum. If the Twins are balking at anything regarding Alvarez, they're simply being silly. If he's off the table, move on. If he's on the table, grab him and change his path to the majors before his arm falls off. He has still yet to play A+ and has yet to have a big workload. He could be the best closer in the league by the time he debuts or his arm could shred after a very short career as a starter.

De Leon is a future top half of the rotation starter who is stuck on a team with 7-10 starting pitching options. He is a player who can fill an immediate and desperate need for a team that currently has just 1 top half of the rotation starter. For any other team in baseball, someone like De Leon is off the table as a trade asset. Opportunities like this don't come around very often. It may take a year for De Leon to work out the kinks, but so what? Putting up with De Leon struggling for a year is better than putting up with Milone (or someone like him) struggling for a year.

Nick - Kepler is not the one with the reputation of being good for a few weeks and then hitting .150 for a month and a half. True, Buxton is combating some extremely high expectations which is a demon most of us won't have to suffer through as we n00b our way through a new job. Kepler does not have this pressure. I'm not arguing that Kepler deserved a higher mark at all. I compared Buxton to Rosario, not Kepler. The gist of my post was that all of these guys need to get better. Rosario is further along so his leash will be shorter (though ultimately he goes to the bench if he stumbles, no doubt). He needs to improve quickly. Buxton is still in danger of being bounced to the minors because his very low floor seems to match the very high expectations. Kepler is the newest of the bunch and at this point he has proven himself adequately. Of the three, he deserves the most slack. As for defense -- we all know that Buxton plays marvelous defense. But you have to hit the ball if you want to play in the major leagues. Did we forget about Aaron Hicks and Pedro Florimon already? Buxton has shown flashes but he still needs to show consistency. No one is saying the consistency won't come, but it may not be there until the end of next year. Does Buxton get another B- if he sucks until September in 2017?

Rosario's swing rate dropped marginally last year, but his contact rate dropped along with it. His WAR also dropped but that was mostly due to his defense also taking a step back. I'm not sure what to think of Rosario at this point, but one thing is for certain: He needs to perform in 2017 unless he wants to be a bench player for the rest of his career. Buxton still needs to prove himself. Many times us fans have felt that Buxton turned the corner after performing well for a short period of time. After his strong finish to 2016 we are doing that again. His OPS+ is right there with Rosario, who was given a C grade. Buxton needs to put together 2-3 consecutive good months for me to be convinced that he has turned the corner. Kepler's production fell over a cliff down the stretch. But we should not be worried about that -- he outperformed expectations as a rookie and had a great July. There are no signs that he will regress in 2017. Grossman, Santana: Who cares. Neither of them are the future of the team. Grossman hit very well in 2016 (and, in spite of what people say, his production did NOT get worse as the year went on), but it's difficult to believe he won't regress. His defense is terrible and a liability so he should not be the 4th outfielder, and the Twins have better options as bench bats. Grossman profiles as the typical White Sox player. As for Santana, I'm not convinced that his injuries have not been the source of his problems. The drop off he has experienced from 2014 is steep. Be that as it may, unless he pulls a Nunez this year he won't last long with the team ... and Nunez's turnaround was somewhat predictable. Santana doesn't look like he has such a turnaround in him.

That's right. But the Twins have a much bigger hole at SP than they do at 2B. After Dozier goes, Polanco slides into his spot. Dozier is the only person the team has that can help fix their pitching problem.

Your premise here is way off. When did anyone say that Dozier is not the best 2nd baseman *on the market*? Of course the Dodgers would want him. What we are talking about is what the Dodgers should get in return for him. No one said Dozier is worthless. Being a B rated player is pretty damn good.

Yeah. From what I understood the extra year was awarded due to his suspension. This is a good sign, really, for both of them. The Twins want to keep him, at least for now.

Sano's grade is high but I think the rest of the grades are very close to what I would assign. Sano was not terrible but let's face it, we expect a lot more from him.

He is only a top 20 hitter if you only look at one year. Heck, 1/2 to 3/4 of one year. No team in the MLB is going to look at him this way. Even the Twins don't look at him this way.

Since we are writing about good players signed after their primes who predictably weren't very good, when are we getting the 'Worst Twin: Jason Bartlett' article?

That's right. Some scouts have been writing funny things along these lines lately. There are no longer just prospects projected to be "#4 starters" in the league, but there are players projected to be "#4 starters for the Twins" which are of course not nearly as good as the typical #4 starter. The Twins pitching has been so bad, they inspired their own category. (To add some clarity, most starter prospects are pegged as #4 starters. This is the baseline until they start separating themselves from the pack).

Pitchf/x is available for some of the Arizona Fall League games. In spite of Longenhagen stating that Gonsalves's fastball was in the 86-89 range, Pitchf/x shows his average fastball in the AFL at 90. Unfortunately the data available does not show the range, just the average. However, unless he tossed a 105 MPH heater, we can be reasonably certain over half of the pitches thrown were above the range Longenhagen cited. If this isn't a shining example of why you should look up the data yourself instead of reading analysts, I don't know what is.

Well, you're not the one arguing that his fastball is at 88 and Milone's is at 92.

Where else can you get pitchf/x data for minor league players?

I prefer to read reports from scouts directly on Baseball Prospectus. They show you the day the player was scouted, by whom, and sometimes have video to go along with it. Skip the analysts altogether -- all they are doing is reading this same material and writing about it, but they often don't go by the latest scouting reports. Many of them never played baseball and never scouted players. They are writers/journalists/bloggers. Givarz -- a well respected scout -- watched Gonsalves on 6/17/16. He saw a fastball in the 90-92 range. The only bad thing he had to say about his fastball is that he needs better control. He said his curve and slider need work. His likes his changeup.

Nevermind, I found the articles. They are written by Longenhagen, who I trust more than Law. Regardless of what he wrote about Gonsalves's velocity (which I am skeptical of, I would like to see the data he saw), he still has Gonsalves as the #3 Twins prospect and projects him to be a #4 starter. He also ranks him higher than both Jay, Stewart, and Thorpe....... I think some people (such as Law) are going by old information when it comes to Gonsalves. He came into the minors with a slow fastball, but recent reports say he is tossing in the 91-92 range now.

I know enough to read source material directly (scouting reports) than analysts. You do too, I believe.

Ah, say no more. When people get goofy opinions about prospects I've found it's nearly always because Law wrote about it. Law is not a primary source. Give me the link to that fangraphs article and let's see if that's a primary source too.

I'm sorry but it's impossible to trust your opinion when what you said about Milone is so far from reality. I will believe the scouting reports I have read.

All sources reporting this news have made it clear that Reyes is off the table. So, no, the Cardinals can't match what the Dodgers are reportedly willing to trade.

I looked at the scouting reports at Gonsalves before I responded to you because I wanted to be sure what I read before is correct. His fastball is at 92-93. I also looked at Milone's pitchf/x just to make sure his fastball really sits at 87-88 like I recall. And it does. Maybe you have Gonsalves confused with someone else? I'm not sure who you would have Milone confused with, however. What's equally perplexing is the comparison to Milone at all, when you cite Milone as having better stuff. Did you just pick a crappy pitcher's name out of a hat to try to disparage Gonsalves, one of the top rated Twins prospects? Why would you do that?