Mr. Patient

High school pitchers flame out very often. I'm on board with this move.

I hope they can sign Julien. I watched him a bit this spring and he looked impressive.

John, Aaron, if you're listening: you guys are great, and 612 Brew is a very good brewery, and I understand that you guys need to have good relationships with the hosts where you record, and it's great to support local businesses. But Robert Kasak's little quizzes/games add nothing but running time to a show that already runs pretty long. They're not funny, and not interesting. Please stop, or edit them out. Thanks.

Ah, but look -- he's not proud to be a part of the Twins organization, he's proud to be 'apart' from it. It was all a ruse. Falvine fails us again!

The argument that we have too many shortstops in the system strikes me as inherently pretty silly. At this level, they're *all* shortstops. Miguel Sano was a shortstop. Jim Thome was a shortstop. The best player on every high school team in the world is a shortstop, unless he throws left-handed. You don't draft second basemen or first basemen (which is why I had no interest in McKay as a hitter). They're the guys who are not athletic enough to play the premium positions. If Lewis sticks at short, fabulous. Who knows where Gordon or Polanco will be in five years? If not, well, there's plenty of room left on the defensive spectrum for a guy who can run and hit.

1. He threw 28 innings this year because it was obvious he was a top 3 pick at worst. Why is he throwing more than that? The argument is not that he needed to throw more, but that in his entire HS career, he threw 121 innings. We have no idea at all what he would do under even a moderate minor league workload. The risk for a prep pitcher is absolutely enormous. I don't fault them in the slightest for taking a pass.

Trout was from a cold-weather state, which made him difficult to scout. And it's not like he fell to the 11th round or anything. He was still a 1st round pick. I am bit confused, though, that on the one hand we seem to be saying, Eh, scouts don't know everything (agreed!), and on the other we're getting upset because the Twins didn't take the guys that many scouts thought was #1.

I'm surprised at how many people who have seen maybe one Youtube clip of a high school righthander who threw 28 innings this year are ready to pronounce themselves experts and excoriate a new front office with many years of scouting and development experience and who saw the high schooler in person multiple times this year. Is Greene a better pick than Lewis? Maybe! But you sure as heck have no idea, and neither do I. I suspect that Falvey & Levine have a somewhat better idea.

On the podcast, John and Aaron often talk about how Terry Ryan will never be fired, that he'll have to leave of his own accord. I wonder if a 100-loss season will be enough to accomplish that. And then I wonder if he'll just be replaced by Rob Antony, and we'll lose another 6-7 years while the rest of the league passes us by in terms of modern team management. I'd like to be able to root for a normal team. Is that so much to ask?