TRex

I was there the day Kirby Puckett woke up blind in one eye. Coor's Field has never been the same in my eye (I am also blind in one eye, but this doesn't hamper my avocation)!

I think Graterol's career has been so unique that you would have a hard time finding a congruent one to help define incongruity ! My opinion is that anyone who maintains upper 90's heat into the seventh inning has to be included in 'top of the rotation potential' discussions. While the odds of him reaching that potential are not great, 99.5% of pitchers can't even be included in the discussion.

Just so that we are comparing apples to apples... Gore and Lewis signed for near-identical bonuses ($6.7 million). However, while Lewis was $1 million under slot, Gore was slightly above slot. Being able to go over-slot and match the highest signing bonus to date (Green, McKay and Wright signed later), indicates to me that it would have taken slot-money to sign Gore. With the extra money the Twins were also able to overpay for Blayne Enlow (slot $775k; signed for $2 million). So, for me, the draft comparison is Gore vs. Lewis AND Enlow (or 80% of Enlow). While there is no way to dislike the Gore signing, I am still happy with the progress of Lewis and Enlow.

...the 4-time gold glove winner who had 155 stolen bases through age 27, or the other one? Sorry, you may have been talking about batted ball statistics and not the 'one tool' discussion.

I wonder if they incorporate OF position into their fielding metric. Rosario and Kepler came up playing mostly CF (on non-byron buxton teams), while Raley has played <5% of his innings in CF.

Royce Lewis' most telling stat to me is the OPS split between facing LHP and RHP (.839 vs .541). Reminds me of Torii Hunter's 'what is that pitch with the dot' days.

... I think you should choose another player from the long list of examples. Yes, Polanco OPS'd .592 there... but he was 16 years old and moved up to the GCL the day after he turned 17! I have been a big Polanco fan for a long time !

...especially combined with a WHIP of 9.00!

Ben slugged .286 in FM and .556 on the road! Here's to hoping the move boosts his overall power numbers !

You can try him out in the bullpen, but it would be an absolute waste if he doesn't have the physical ability to pitch on back to back days (not everyone does).

I am high on Miranda as well. Not mentioned in the blurb (perhaps blessedly!) is the horrible start he got off to in low-A. Through May 12th (in 103 AB), his line was: Avg: .165 OBP: .232 Slg: .232 That gave him an OPS of .455! He got a few days off, and whatever he did worked, as he came back on May 15th and proceeded to hit .315/364/.507 over the next ~300AB.

While I would agree with your statement, remember that Wells would need to be added to the 40-man roster following the season anyway. If he has a good season, they may want to see if his stuff plays in the majors prior to protecting him.

I guess you are right in that 'the plan' was to have the starter come in (when appropriate) during the middle of an inning! I am not sure I like this idea (i.e. designated starting reliever), but can you imagine some of the pairings that you could generate by having a scheduled day to use a reliever? For instance could you imagine pairing Brusdar Graterol with Jamie Moyer (vice-versa, actually)? I bet Moyer could handle that role even now!

...this may also be a bit of a quibble, but I don't think it went quite the way they planned, as he left the bases loaded! However, double bonus for us in that we got to see Romero in both a high-leverage situation AND get in an additional 5 innings!

He did make the last put-out on a fly ball in the bottom of the second and didn't bat in the top of the third, which suggests he hurt himself on the catch... or he had to catch a plane!