gunnarthor

I think this is the right thing for everyone. He can sign for something somewhere since it's a pretty bad WR free agency crop, maybe for more than what the Vikes were willing to do. And the Vikings can clear his salary and be ready to reload in a year. It also, if nothing big happens, lets Osborn slide into the #2 receiver position and, ideally, take another step up. He certainly had a few games where he looked like a legit #2.

Honestly, I don't think it's realistic for the QB of the future to drop into our laps in this draft and Cousins isn't going anywhere so it's likely that the Vikings try to reload instead of a rebuild next year. The offense should still be pretty good. Draft defense, see what a new scheme and good coaching can fix, hope to catch fire at the right times again. Depending on how Detroit is, the North should be winnable. But I don't see any realistic scenario for a new QB right now. The Vikings aren't going to tank the season.

Fun article.

I think you're right that if Correa gets hurt, we're in trouble. But that's pretty true for most players of his caliber. You don't lose a 5 WAR player and just shrug it off. I also agree with you on catcher, although fangraphs projections are a lot more bullish than I would have guessed. Hopefully they are right. But I think this article was, more or less, looking at projections and the projections have some health built into it.

? I think one of us is simply talking past the other.

Player, not position. Fangraphs have the Twins tied with Cleveland in total projected WAR 11th overall at about 44 WAR. (It's essentially a 7 or 8 way tie, really). And the article actually had DH as a 2,0 WAR overall position.

Have you not heard of Green Bay?

I think this article is about right. Kiriloff is the obvious difference maker but the wrist is a huge problem. If he could be healthy, I'd swear he'd be a consistent middle of the order bat. But the injuries have really messed it up. It's depressing. I think Rocco's quote is accurate, the Twins will use DH and 1B as a "mix-and-match" position. I'm not sure that's ideal but it's what they are going to do. They have enough bats to find some decent production out of first base but they won't be top 10 there.

I don't mind the concept of "win-now" trades and I was in favor of both the Gray trade and the Mahle trade. But we gave up Steer, CES, and an arm in Hajjar for 1.5 seasons of Mahle with the expectation that we'd be a playoff team. Instead, so far, the result has been bad. We finished below .500 and Mahle had shoulder problems. That's not good. Even if trades make sense, they need to start paying off.

Fine. They still get graded on it. They made a move that didn't work. Again.

No one said that. But the Twins gave up a lot and only got 16 crappy innings (so far). A lot of moves are defensible but this FO has constantly made moves that didn't work. And some point, results should matter.

I think the lineup is going to be good, we have solid depth and some intriguing young players. But a best case scenario, for me, would be: C - Vazquez (I don't like him but we paid for him) 1B - Healthy Kiriloff. He's had a few runs where his wrist was fine and showed he could be a capable middle of the order bat. 2B - Julien. They trade Polanco for pitching because Julien is ready to step up and isn't a disaster. SS - Correa. 3B - Lee. Forces the issue with a great ST and sits there for 15 years. LF - Larnich. He's 26. He was drafted to be a starting, middle of the order bat. Best case is he turns into that. CF - Buxton RF - Wallner. Trade Kepler for pitching because Waller is 25 and was drafted to be a staring, middle of the order bat. DH - Gallo. Best case is he hits 40+ HR and a 120 OPS+. You'd have a pretty nice bench of Jeffers, Gordon, Miranda, Farmer, Taylor all capable of starting multiple positions. Buxton (and Taylor) will have to cover a LOT of ground in the OF and even then, it may not be enough. And Julien might make us pine for the days of Todd Walker but, if "best-case" means everything breaks right, ...

No surprise but I hope he does well where ever he lands. Fun player to root for.

That's a nice optimistic take on the rotation, which is nice to see. I disagree but hope I'm wrong.

I saw a recent mock that had Richardson going first overall. So that pipe dream of him falling to the Vikings seems impossible. I agree on DL but I'm not sure this is the draft for that. From what I've read, this is a good draft for corners so we might get a solid one in the third. But it also might be the type of draft where you just grab a bunch of CB/S/tweener types and let Flores figure out how to use them.