nicksaviking

It won't matter how he hits with men on base, he's never going to get called up if he doesn't start taking walks. A lot more walks. He'll never get a chance to prove critics like myself wrong except perhaps for some token September call up when he's 26 when fans look at his minor league HR numbers and call to see him just for the hell of it. Bernardo Brito part II.

I wasn't comparing which arms they threw with, just comparing what appeared to be their lack of upside and ability to pitch well in the minors even when all evidence points to them not having the stuff to be effective at the MLB level. If his velocity is really as you say and he can start missing a good deal of bats, I'd be thrilled to change my opinion on him.

Hardly any HS arms make it out of the Midwest League for the Twins without putting in a full year. Things have changed though, let's hope Gonsalves gives the decision makers a lot to think about. I really do hope Gonsalves velocity is "developing." The numbers look great, but I thought he was throwing harder in HS. If anyone has info on the history of his velocity I'd love to hear it. I guess otherwise we'll have to assume it was a case of pitcher friendly radar guns. Speaking of...I'm going to have a hard time considering Rogers an actual prospect. I guess any player that can make it to the majors should be considered for these lists, but I don't recall Cole DeVries or Matt Fox ever making these things. I guess he's got the whole "crafty lefty" bit going for him, I just don't buy into that like I used to a decade ago. Lots of people probably will argue with the Walker ranking. Not me, it looks about right to me. I have hopes he can figure out how to take a walk, but at this time, his odds of making the MLB seem to be much less than the three pitchers on this list and due to his inability to get on base, I'd give the German the edge too.

If he put up those numbers, I'm not sure Suzuki would even need to get hurt for him to get a call up seeing as how much the team loves his defense. I don't assume he would hit anything near that though, he has never profiled to be much of a hitter. I'm not a big Duffey believer either, he looks an awful lot like the other high-contact AAAA arms that have come through the system in the last half decade. Hopefully there becomes a big enough log jam of talent for the rotation that he can go back to the pen where he can put more juice on his fastball.

I want to play too! I see it as so: Det 85 - 78 Chi 84 - 79 Twins 79 - 85 KC 79 - 85 Cle 72 - 90 The math on Chicago and Detroit is not typo, the AL Central gets another game 163. Twins finish ahead of KC due to head-to-head matchup. Cleveland is going to stink. Well the whole division is going to stink, just Cleveland stinks more than most.

Wait until the All-Star break at the earliest. There's no rush and we need a larger sample. I'm not big on players much older than their early 30's anyway. Additionally, what if the team gets lucky and some combinaiton Santana/Escobar/Polanco/Rosario end up showing they are good if not better options? Dozier and his 4 years of arbitration will be a lot more enticing for other teams than Dozier and a 6 year firm contract no matter how he performs.

I agree with the fast start, this team needs confidence. I don't think the Twins will contend, but I also think the AL Central is going to stink this year. KC played over their head last year, I don't think they play at that same level if they continue to have a below average offense. Detriot's bubble is ready to burst any minute, though if their vets hang on they could stretch it out another couple years. Chicago really improved this year and if all their free agent parts play around their expectations, they could be good, but that doesn't usually happen. In other words, I think a 78 win team may be able to contend for much of the year and I don't think 78 wins is that overly optimistic for the Twins.

No, Plouffe was yo-yoed around too. He got three games here, sat for a week, would get demoted, then called up for an injury replacement, play every other day, then start for a month when he got hot and benched again as soon as he got cold. He was used very similarly to Parmelee. This team, or perhaps more so Gardenhire, was not patient enough to develop young guys. I don't want May and Meyer up and down all year. I don't care if they struggle, they're wet behind the ears so the odds are they will. When they finally get their shot, let them ride out their problems at the majors all season long.

Agreed. The bottom line is we need to find out about the guys with a higher ceiling and the sooner we find out, the sooner the path to winning will become more clear. Maybe they aren't the answer and free agency is the best route. We just have to know. Let's see if we can get a usable assesment on them in 1.5 - 2 years as opposed to the four years we saw with Parmelee or even the three years we are about to see with Hicks and Pinto.

This is surely what the Twins will say, regardless of what actually transpires. To play devil's advocate though, what if the options are "take the 12 best guys" in an effort to get to 80 wins or so, or "take the ten best guys plus the two guys who have higher potential" because their development plan now requires them to be challenged at the MLB level?

Clearly the Twins love his ability to minimize BB, and his dedication to the game. Should Meyer struggle early or get digned up, I wouldn't be surprised if Berrios gets a call up before our giant fireballer.

May, not even close. Pelfrey can go to the pen, Milone can sit in Rochester until he's needed for a spot start. I still like Meyer better, and like the highest upside guys infinately more than high floor guys, but May isn't without upside even if it's not quite as high as Meyer.

That would be great and I'd love to go but alas my wife has me schedulded for some pretty substantial renovation work for her photo studio. Tell him I said hi, I'm sure he remembers me

Lauder was one of my favorites as a kid. We went to Rod Carew Day at the Dome in 1987, they drove him around the field in a convertible and then retired his number. Pretty cool stuff to a kid. We were sitting behind the Twins bullpen but all game long I couldn't work up the nerve to ask for any autographs which was probably good since Mike Smithson was pitching which meant the guys in the pen needed to be alert and ready for action. However Sal Butera was starting that day and when multiple bp arms were warming up (again, Smithson was pitching, so basically all game long), Laudner would trot out to the pen to help out. I already thought highly of Laudner because the back of his baseball card said that we shared a birthday, and to an eight-year-old, that's a pretty big deal. He was warming up Jeff Reardon for the 9th and I finally got the nerve to ask for his autograph but he turned to me and said, "Not right now kid, I got to go catch" and he trotted to the field with Reardon to close out the Blue Jays (but not before giving up a bomb to Cecil Fielder). In the top of the 8th Buetera had been pinch hit for by Roy Smalley, and my undevloped baseball mind hadn't yet pieced together what the logical outcome would be for Laudner heading into the bottom of the 9th. I should have found my nerve earlier. The funny thing is that I've gotten many autographs since then, and have largely forgotten the circumstances in which I got them. The fact that Tim Laudner gave me the time of day during the middle of a game probably meant more to me than an autograph I probably would have lost by now.

I'm not sure which awards show that is taken from. Are you suggesting the Twins hire Paul DePodesta who Jonah Hill portrayed in Moneyball, or the guy he portrayed in The Wolf of Wall Street?

Honorable, but paying players for what they did yesterday instead of paying players for what you think they will do tomorrow is how teams start giving out $100 million deals to 35-year-old pitchers. It's bad business sense.

And that Michael Cuddyer was a super utility player.

Good stuff Parker. One other thing that sticks out to me in the videos: He looks thinner in the later. Perhaps white is just more slimming than grey, (I know jack about fashion but I thought black was the "thinning" color) but he looks like he's in better shape in 2014. Not only is it logical to think that improved conditioning could help his game, but a concerted effort to get in shape usually indicates a concerted effort to better oneself in all stations of life, possibly including a more intense focus on his occupation.

I prefer a "baseball guy" to run the organization too, but even if we use MacPhail as the template, there might be issues in what we consider a "baseball guy." As far as I can tell, the MacPhail clan's only on-field experience is Andy's stint playing DIII ball. He got started in the business because of his dad, who got into the business because of his dad. Patriarch, Larry, was a lawyer who bought a minor league team for what seems like just a hobby. If we're being critical (and I'm really just playing devil's advocate) the only reason anyone would think of the MacPhail's as baseball people is because of generations of nepotism started by a rich lawyer who went to law school with Branch Rickey (who would also then not be a "baseball guy"?) So along those lines, would Bill Smith's kids automatically be considered "baseball guys?"

That's funny, because if one only watched him when he pitched against the Twins, it would be the other way around.

I have to say, no matter how one feels about the job St. Peter does and the oft ill-timed comments, he certainly is a friend of TD. It's great he's granted more face time.

Everyone should notice that Seth listed the 99.999% for Meyer for 2014. It might have been an oversight, but that number sounded pretty close to accurate this time last year too.

Yup, that could very well be. He could be a hero in this market. In a larger market at best he's key supporting figure and at worst he's the goat that gets 100 media members at his locker after every start asking him 100 different ways why he sucks so bad.

Right, or roughly the same age Alex Meyer will be when he finally becomes a free agent.

Yeah, demotion is probably not an apt term.