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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    We're picking up more Disney stock. Nothing overly sexy about that but we like it and low 90s is a decent area to grab more at.
  2. gunnarthor
    I'm not sure how much his secondary stuff can improve against HS competition - if those kids can't hit his 98 mph fastball, there's not a lot of incentive to not throw it.
  3. gunnarthor
    Do you know who the Twins pitching development people are? Do you know how long they've doing those jobs?
  4. gunnarthor
    Well, barring injury of course. That said, he sounds to me a bit more like (a better) Kolak than Bundy. Bundy was nearly a finished product when he was drafted in 2011. Greene might need more work but his arm is amazing.
  5. gunnarthor
    I think it suggests that the industry weighs the risk of the HS arm a bit more than we fans do. A few LH starters have gone 1-1 (including Brady Aiken) but LH starters are rarer.
  6. gunnarthor
    I certainly won't complain if the Twins take that risk but we have a while before we have to really narrow it down. He has season to pitch yet and some of the college arms could break out as well. I hope they go BPA and I'm hoping that BPA is a college arm.
  7. gunnarthor
    In the first round of that 06 draft, 8 HS pitchers were taken. Two have amassed more than 1 WAR in the majors. Nine of the 16 college arms taken in the first round have amassed more than 1 WAR in the majors. Drafting HS pitchers is risky. I'm good with drafting HS arms but it's important to remember that they don't always work out and it's not necessarily because the team can't develop pitchers. There's a lot that can go wrong and a lot worse possibilities than what Kohl Stewart has shown so far. (And Strasburg was considered a nearly perfect college pitcher who could step into a ML rotation from day one. Not really fair to compare him to a HS pitcher who was working mostly on his football game).
  8. gunnarthor
    Well, what were Smith's big signings in 2010? The rules changed on international signings and the Twins have done pretty well so I'm not sure it's fair to say they haven't spent after Smith. They haven't nabbed a guy as universally acclaimed as Sano but they have spent a lot on guys (Javier) and they've spent their pool. Some years, they've gone quality and some years they've gone quantity. It's a bit too early to say how they've done - Lewin Diaz, for example, signed in 2013, just reached rookie ball. But after 09, they've signed guys like Romero, Jorge, Thorpe, Ynoa, Vielma etc
  9. gunnarthor
    Yeah, but we knew he wouldn't. IIRC, the consensus was the Twins would nab the pitcher that was left - Appel, Gray or Stewart. There was some discussion of the two Georgia OFers but they were secondary to pitching.
  10. gunnarthor
    I don't think anyone doubts that but most of us can see that there are pretty good reasons to hope that those core guys (Vargas is not a core guy) will be pretty good. Kepler had a 2.5 WAR season, Buxton's WAR was 1.9 and that shows his offensive floor is pretty low to be a strong player in the league. Sano's defense was horrible - esp in the OF - but he still hit 25hr and put up a 110 OPS+ in what we all think is a bad year. Mauer hasn't topped 110 since 2013. Berrios did have a disaster season. I also think it's worth remembering - since this is a prospects thread - what the expectations were of these guys. Sano and Buxton were always elite guys and cream of the crop. But Berrios was an undersized supplemental first round pick that developed into a top 15 prospect. Kepler (and Polanco) were big signings for us as Twins fans because it was an exciting year and there was something unique about Kepler but neither were big international signings that year. Both were in the 15-20 range in bonuses. Both developed into pretty darn good prospects. No team will ever draft perfectly - look at how few drafted players are part of the Cubs or Cleveland or even the Nats, for instance. But I do think that Steil and company have done a really nice job of developing players since he took over in 2012. If you get two players out of a draft, it's a good draft and I think most of those drafts we can get at least that.
  11. gunnarthor
    Well good luck to all of them
  12. gunnarthor
    Another degree? You know the Librarian isn't a real job, right?
  13. gunnarthor
    Nice write up. I think we might need to pump the breaks a bit on Gonsalves. He's nice but he still probably profiles as a #3 type. I like him a lot but we might be over ranking him a bit. That said, with him, Romero and Jay in the top five, we have some impressive arms. It's unlikely that they all reach their ceiling of course but those are nice chips to have. Let's see where Jay is a year from now before we worry too much about his future role. Romero's break-out has been fun to watch. I really hope he can stay healthy. I'd probably have him #2 in front of Gonsalves. I think Gordon is clearly our #1 prospect right now but I'd like to see him draw a few more walks. Kiriloff is a fun pick but far away. But his bat really could be special. He'll be fun to watch. I think he's probably our best true hitter prospect we've had since Sano.
  14. gunnarthor
    Maddux was also in AAA at 20 ....
  15. gunnarthor
    On Stewart, I wonder if a workable comp for him becomes Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey could hit 94-95 and got a lot of ground balls - although Stewart seems to be better at that. Pelfrey was never a big strike out guy but did turn in a nice enough 10+ year ML career. They can't all turn into all-stars but if Stewart can be a slightly healthier, slightly better Pelfrey, that's not that bad. He's been pretty durable so far. I've said it a lot but I really liked the Blankenhorn/Cabbage picks and while Cabbage is lagging, Blankenhorn is doing very well. I think, for all the griping we do about our scouts, they've found some nice young players these last few years and/or Steil's changes in the farm have really helped. Javier is probably a bit too high but I like him. He's just too raw to be a top 10 guy right now. I'm probably a bit more conservative on Diaz, too. Maybe should be in the 10-15 range for now. To make it to the bigs, he's going to have to be an elite bat and he needs to work on plate discipline a bit. But the Twins do have some power in the minors. That's always fun. Why wasn't Mejia brought up in Sept? Was he hurt? Seems like a good place in the rankings for him and it was a solid trade. Hopefully he can provide us with some stability in the rotation next year.
  16. gunnarthor
    I liked the Burdi pick but until he can remain healthy, he's really nothing. I don't like that he missed the entire season and didn't need surgery. That seems like maybe we missed something and next year he will need surgery. Hope that doesn't happen. I like Wade. He gets on base a lot. That's a good thing. Ynoa is exciting and should be fun to watch develop. He's far away but could be a real stud. I'm far less enthusiastic about Jorge. I think you have him ranked too high. And Palka's a nice lottery ticket. Like Walker, he probably can't get the strike outs under control but if he does... wow.
  17. gunnarthor
    We're a bit on the conservative side with our investments - as I've mentioned frequently, I love big dividend stocks. We have a lot in index funds that track the S&P, which grow at about 7-8% but also reinvests in itself. I think on average over the last 10+ years, we've probably done slightly better than the market (maybe in the 10+% range) but certainly not near 20% a year but over a two or three year period, we probably have. Frankly, from 06-08 I'm sure we were well over 20% and then the banking crisis happened. Over the last three years, I think we're probably in the 15% range because of a few specific stocks. I would say that as we've gotten older, our investing strategy has shifted. When we were young and dumb we bought a lot of stocks and carried a lot of debt - student loans, mortgages, car payments, etc. Even though they were all low interest (we never carried much CC debt which will kill you) we still had real debt. As we've gotten older, we've done a better job of mixing long term investing and paying off debt. So even though today our investment portfolio has less $ in it than it had before the banking crisis (we lost a **** load, **** you Wachovia), we are wealthier b/c we don't have the debt anymore. edit - I know you didn't ask about the second paragraph but I wrote it anyway.
  18. gunnarthor
    Thorpe's the obvious big name on here - baseball prospectus ranked him in their top 101 before his injury. Rortvedt seems low here and I'm not excited about the other three but hopefully I'm wrong.
  19. gunnarthor
    I'm not really sure that's true. They signed Lester coming off a 73 win season. I think it's fair to say that Lester helped them go from a losing team to a winning team. At a certain point, we're probably talking past ourselves. I think we both agree that the Cubs have created a great core through great trades and some solid draft picks - something that the Twins could also do to some extent. We probably disagree to the degree the FA signings have helped the Cubs but we both can agree that the Twins can do better at FA signings than they have while recognizing they have less room for error than the Cubs.
  20. gunnarthor
    While I don't doubt Gleeman's pessimism, he's not really a scout. BP wrote just a few months ago: "And a regular he shall likely be, as Gordon can really pick it at shortstop. He makes the plays in front of him, and he also has well above-average range. Add in a strong, accurate throwing arm, and you get a guy who turns hits into outs on a routine basis." At the end of June, Quinn Berry wrote for minor league ball: "Nick's defense at shortstop is where he really solidifies his status as a top prospect. He's not Andrelton Simmons, but he will stick at shortstop in the big leagues, a huge plus for any young player. Gordon, a former pitcher, can throw up to 94 miles per hour across the diamond and couples that arm strength with soft hands, good instincts, and quick feet. Further, while Gordon does not have elite speed, he stays low and athletic when fielding and gets tremendous reads on the ball. Overall, he is a very smooth fielder, which shows through the numbers. Gordon's .960 fielding percentage is tops in the Midwest League among players with at least 35 games at short. FV Field Grade: 55/60 FV Arm Grade: 70" And Sickels just reexamined his top 100 and moved Gordon up to 40. It'll be interesting to hear what the evaluations of Gordon say the next few months but I suspect they still see him sticking at short.
  21. gunnarthor
    Now we've gone from comparing their payroll to the Twins to the average team and you're asking us to ignore signing their ace and Heyward. That's like saying, "except for Mauer, the Twins can't develop catchers." I don't think it's controversial to say that the Cubs wouldn't have made it to 90 wins if they didn't sign 3/5 of their rotation, their entire OF and all-star second baseman. They still had a great core but those FA were a huge, huge addition. It wasn't window dressing or add-ons.
  22. gunnarthor
    I have not seen a single report that says that.
  23. gunnarthor
    Well, that's demonstrably not true. WAR is certainly not a great end-all but those 8 FA amassed 21.5 WAR so far and that ignores the impact of some large salaries the Cubs were able to add in-season (over 15m). While Rizzo, Russell, Baez and Bryant are a great core, that wasn't a 90 win team without those FA.
  24. gunnarthor
    I think the concern with Vielma is that his bat won't play at the ML level and he'd be another Pedro Florimon. And while he gets rave reviews around here for his defense, national scouting reports don't have him ranked as highly. So if he's just an above average defender (instead of elite) with no bat ...
  25. gunnarthor
    It's always nice to hear from the cheap seats.
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