gunnarthor

Our former draft director thought that college fireballers were a good bet for two reasons, keeping in mind the high failure rate of guys taken in those rounds - 1) less mileage on their arm and 2) if they can't be converted to starters, they can still be used in the bullpen. The Twins went hard on that philosophy in 2014 although Burdi was a legit pick for a second rounder. Most mocks had him going in the first round.

I wouldn't say it's a weak system, I'd say it's a really young system. Right now, we have maybe 5 guys in AA/AAA that are semi-exciting or better (Gordon's a stud, Romero, Gonsalves ... Granite? Wade?). The bullpen group - Jay, Burdi, Reed, Chargois, Melotakis has been, for the most part, disappointing beyond my worst fears. I suppose we should note that Curtiss has been good. But in the low minors, wow. Lewis is the proverbial toolshed. Kiriloff, Blankenhorn, Diaz, Rooker, Javier are pretty exciting and potentially really big bats. I like Miranda and Baddoo a ton and am really looking forward to how they play now that they've gained a bunch of muscle. Enlow, Leach, Balozovic and Benninghoff are all really young high upside arms that fans have been clamoring for for years. I think this will be the first time since Sano and Rosario were destroying low A pitching and fighting for the HR title that we'll be focusing on the low minors.

Sure but that's probably not the right way to look at trades. I'm ok with trading Santana but the return you suggested looks bad to me. Webb is a career minor leaguer so far. If our scouts think Montgomery's legit, that's one thing. But a handful of starts in the majors probably isn't enough to throw out the scouting reports in the offseason.

Oh yeah, you're right. I mis-read that. So add in his age 31 and 32 years so, maybe 800-900 innings and 10 WAR?

Sure, but other teams would probably put his value at 4th OF and maybe give a slight bonus for youth and years of control. Better than Sam Fuld which got us Tommy Milone, for example. Maybe you could find another Hector Santiago type pitcher with 1 year of control?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins were kicking around the idea of trading Gordon (or Polanco or Dozier or Lewis). Not sure what the level or interest would be. Rays, assuming they put Archer on the market, would want a strong return. He's signed for 2018-2019 as well so a team gets 2.5 years out of the trade. He's only had one big WAR year - 2015. He was a 1.8 WAR guy last year despite 200+ innings and 10 k/9. I guess his home park is pretty good for pitchers. So a trading team could expect roughly 500 innings and, what, 7 WAR? So that's probably not the Sale return but more than just Gordon.

I have no idea. The Rays let him start 3 games in AAA this year and then he made 8 relief appearances in AAA before coming up to the Rays. When he was traded by us, the most common scouting reports on him had him as a useful future bullpen piece even though he was starting at the time. Same song and dance we heard on Berrios - short RHP but he didn't have Berrios' stuff.

Hu is a bullpen arm. Basically, the Twins traded future Jepsen for 2015 Jepsen. If they aren't allowed to make that trade, they basically can't trade prospects.

I think those types of trades might be pretty dangerous. Maybe Montgomery is more than he seems but he also might be another Tyler Duffey. He wasn't a highly regarded pitcher and most scouting reports had him as a backend guy or long relief. Tyler Webb is a 26 year old relief pitcher who has never reached the majors but putting good numbers in AAA. That kind of trade has pretty big risk.

I'm ok with the offense for the most part. Agreed that we need more out of first base but for our park and our youth, we're ok. I like Polanco and Kepler a lot, I think both will be major assets in the long run but it's ok if they are struggling a bit right now.

I talk to my banking guy but I also read a lot of articles off of yahoo finance and barrons (you can subscribe pretty cheaply to that). I agree with Mike that you should understand the idea of your stock, for the most part. I obviously don't have the ability to fully understand how Wells Fargo actually works of course but I can say "big bank" and understand a big part of it. You can find articles on motley fool, morningstar etc but you have to be careful to understand any built in bias - does motley fool want you to buy this stock? Compare it with how others are covering the stock. I prefer high dividend stocks with a long history of providing it. You can look at ratios like P/E or PEG and compare them to others in the same industry. I like doing that. And I think it makes sense to follow the news to see how things outside of the business will affect your stock - for example, China's economy tanked and that brought down Indian stocks as opposed to your company's CEO stole millions and set up a ponzi scheme. One scenario is far worse than the other. But at the end of the day, I'm not that smart so 'big dividend' is a good reducer of risk for me.

Yeah, I think Birdwatcher has it more or less right.

I would imagine we'll see a lot promotions in the next two weeks.

Actually, Barnes made the fangraphs guys list at #96. http://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx

I don't think there's a "wrong" answer. Years ago, we got crushed by the housing bubble and it was really, really bad. We nearly lost everything and we're pretty well to do. So I do think there's a lot to say about not having to make mortgage payments. We own our house outright and it's great. Not having debt is a real weight off your shoulders, esp if you're worried about your income streams. There is some positives in low interest debt, of course, as others have mentioned but your money doesn't grow uniformly. Just because the stock market will probably give you a better return than the interest rate over the next 30 years doesn't mean it will over the next four years. And if you can kill debt in what you think will be a down period where your money wouldn't have grown anyway, do it.

Twins take Derek Molina, another JUCO guy. Not on any lists. -shrug-

Article on Bailey Ober. Basically, he's very tall. Had a great freshman season but followed up with TJ and uneven seasons since. Mechanics and durability are issues. Probably a bullpen guy if he ever makes the majors. http://www.postandcourier.com/sports/college-of-charleston-s-bailey-ober-prepared-for-whatever-happens/article_5bb3a3c2-4bdd-11e7-bee1-3f56ce66635c.html

It's finally working.

Nope, neither is BA's draft tracker.

Rodriguez was #400 or so on BA's list so he's probably not taking much more than 100k. But he is another Puerto Rican bat. The Twins certainly have been covering that island lately.

I suspect he and his adviser floated that amount to all the teams drafting at the top and hoped one would accept it. Rays did so they told Twins, Padres and Reds that McKay won't sign for less and those teams let him slide.

Also, yes, I'd take Schwarz if my area scouts believed in his bat. I don't think he's a catcher so he has to hit. But if he can, nab him.

I figured the Twins had about 2m saved after day 1 and they used about a million of that on Enlow. And that doesn't count the 5% they can go over. The rest of day 2 was fairly even with some senior signings at 8-10 that could be used on de la Torres, if needed. So, I *think* we should be able to make one more fairly big grab today. maybe a guy like Kyle Hurt. I guess we'll see who we take in round 11. Looking at mlb.com's list of best left, there are a lot of HS arms that were ranked 100-150. Pool for pick 100 was 500k. There have to be a handful of guys who the Twins scouts know will sign for that amount or even less - good athletes who sucked at school and don't want to go to college or might even be academically prohibited because of low ACT scores or something. In any event, I'm hoping for a few HS guys with upside today. We'll see.

I almost bailed on Shop at 86 but decided I'd hang onto it. Not sure that was the right thing but ...