Brock Beauchamp

Interestingly enough, Kaat and Radke has really similar numbers in Twins uniforms. Kaat: ~2800 IP, 114 ERA+ Radke: ~2500 IP, 113 ERA+ Kaat had about 25 more wins but I don't really care much about that.

It's an assumption to say those are the five best starters. Nolasco has a long track record of middling success while Meyer and May are big question marks.

My vote goes to Mauer and Radke.

My point is that homers are not the only way to generate power. During his second half "power slump", Dozier's LD% remained solid as those homers turned into doubles. He was still hitting the ball hard, he was simply hitting that ball a slightly shorter distance. Dozier slugged .387 while hitting only five home runs in the second half. That's not the slugging percentage of a weak hitting second baseman.

His control and velocity aren't a problem. I'm more down on Stewart than most because of the strikeouts but scouts are almost universally positive about him so I hold cautious optimism for the kid. The guy has only dedicated himself to baseball for what, less than two years? It takes time to move through a system and flourish when he's starting behind most other draft picks from a development standpoint.

Excellent point. I often find myself forgetting the enormous age gap between them.

With prospects, it's often not a guy did wrong that bumps him down the standings, it's what the other guys did right. And it's really hard to deny that Berrios earned a significant bump in the rankings this season. Is he better than Meyer? Eh... I don't know about that but I can't take anything away from what the kid did in 2014. I'm not nearly as sold on Stewart but that's my personal opinion.

Some people are smart enough to build up "goodwill equity" with the public. Pettitte is one of those people. If you're nice to the media and fans for a decade before you do something wrong, you're going to be treated differently than a guy who was a dick to the media for a decade. And I'm okay with that.

Saturday the 28th is the first full squad workout.

It's not that far off what I'd give the ALC. I think the Royals are too low but on paper, most of the ALC looks like 80-85 win teams. Obviously, 1-2 teams will break out and be slightly better and 1-2 will falter and be slightly worse but there are four decent teams in this division, all of them with question marks on the roster. Unless one of the four teams jumps out with some breakthrough performances and/or stays abnormally healthy, it wouldn't surprise me if 88-89 games takes this division. The only team incapable of reaching that mark is the Twins, provided no mystical creatures sprinkle pixie dust on the team in early April.

I have vague memories of the pitch limit not being imposed until later in the season, maybe some time in May. He threw 75-90 pitches a game until maybe August or so, when I seem to recall them removing the pitch limit. And then Meyer went down with shoulder issues again.

I'd still take the over but it's a much more difficult decision at that point. I expect 74-75 wins this season if some things go right and some things go wrong. 70.5 isn't far off that mark, especially with the parity in the ALC this season.

Uh. Um. HOLY. OUCH.

To my knowledge, the play-in counts as the postseason. Anyone out there who cares to Google it, please correct me if I'm wrong.

The Royals farm system was (and still is) good. Sure, it hasn't exploded as quickly as we expected but they won more than they lost the past two years and will almost surely do the same this year. When teams like the Royals of three years ago and the Twins today have farm systems of that kind, they'll be respectable at some point. They have too many good prospects to fail completely. Sure, Aaron Hicks might fail... That's why it's important to have five Aaron Hicks when you're rebuilding. Not all of them will fail. The only question I have is whether the future Twins will be an 85 win team or a 95 win team and what year it will happen (2015-2018).

I'm not even a little bit concerned about that because the Pirates and Royals ran incompetent franchises for two decades. 1. They were bad drafters. The Twins have had some stellar drafts in recent years. 2. They let good players in their prime seasons walk away. The Twins haven't done that since the Metrodome days and didn't hesitate to give Phil Hughes money this offseason. 3. They inexplicably traded prospects when they were still bad. Ryan is loathe to trade prospects and might be the most tight-fisted GM in baseball when it comes to his prospects. This almost ensures a good run of baseball, though as we saw in the 2000s, it sometimes doesn't lead to "great" baseball because Ryan seems unwilling to pursue that final piece. 4. They were terrible traders. They traded good players and got so little in return that it was laughable. The Twins aren't bad traders. While the Span and Revere trades haven't paid off as quickly as we'd like, they're still good trades on paper and should return positive dividends to the Twins, who didn't need Span/Revere anyway because they were terrible. By the time the Twins are legitimate contenders again, Span/Revere would be gone anyway so the actual impact of not having a legitimate CF for two seasons has been higher draft picks. Sure, the Twins could fall on their faces for the next half decade but that would be luck-based more than strategy based because it would require 10+ top 100 prospects to fail miserably (which would require a extra helping of terrible luck). When you get right down to it, the Nolascos and Santanas of the world aren't going to cripple this franchise because they gave up nothing but money to get those players (well, and a second round pick for Santana but that's a problem to worry about in 2020, not 2015). I'm worried that the Twins aren't rebuilding as quickly as they could but the most important aspects of the franchise - drafting and prospect development - appear to be rock solid. You couldn't say that about the Pirates and Royals of the 1990s and 2000s.

Yep, but I'd often take the over on the worst lines and the under on the best lines no matter what. The odds are in your favor that way, as it's really hard to win 90+ games multiple years in a row and it's really hard to lose 90+ games multiple years in a row.

Hah. I don't bet on sports so I know the basics but little more than that. I only bet on the stock market where - provided you're not a moron - it's not about whether you win but rather how much you win.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make much sense to me. Because Gibson struggled when he came to Minnesota in July doesn't mean he would have struggled the same amount had he been called up in May. It's very likely that he would have been worse because isn't that the point of the minor leagues in the first place, teaching kids and preparing him for MLB? You're taking the assumption that Gibson didn't learn anything during those last MiLB months after Ryan said specifically that Kyle needs to go after hitters to be a successful pitcher in the MLB. The Twins obviously saw a flaw in Kyle and attempted to fix it before giving him the call-up. It's not about being ready - because May and Gibson obviously weren't "ready" to be MLB pitchers - it's about doing all that you can to make sure the player isn't so completely demoralized by early performances that you ruin the kid for the rest of the season or, god forbid, permanently. In a roundabout way, you're suggesting that if a student struggles in their freshman year of college because college is hard and it takes time to acclimate, the solution is to start putting high school students in college a year earlier. That... isn't logical.

Vegas lines are somwhat accurate but they're not uncannily so. Here are the results from 2014: Team : Bovada : Actual Wins : Diff ATL : 87.5 : 79 : +7.5 AZ : 80.5 : 64: -15.5 BAL : 80.5 : 86 : -5.5 BOS : 87.5 : 74 : +13.5 CHC : 69.5 : 73 : -3.5 CWS : 75.5 : 73 : +2.5 CIN : 84.5 : 76 : -8.5 CLE : 80.5 : 85 : -4.5 Okay, I'm bored but everybody gets the point. Frankly, I could pick a line with that kind of accuracy and John/Aaron do just that in the podcast every year. I'm pretty sure if they were making actual bets, they'd walk away with money every season because Vegas isn't necessarily trying to be right, they're trying to make money. It's not hard to be smarter than the Vegas line because it's not trying to be as accurate as possible, it's trying to split the difference. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not a gambler but don't the lines change on a weekly basis leading up to the season? If that's the case - as it is with betting on individual games - then accuracy is nearly irrelevant. If a bunch of people bet on one side because the line is inaccurate, move the line the next week and bring the bets back to an equilibrium. The betters will keep the line somewhat in check but the line is based more on perception than reality at that point.

That's fair. I'm nervous about 75 wins. But as others have mentioned, Vegas lines have less to do with prediction than they do making money. Vegas doesn't put the line where they think a team will finish, they put the line so 50% of betters take the over and 50% take the under. I put virtually zero stock in Vegas lines for this reason. Though wow at the Cubs line. Definitely take the under there. Holy moly.

The statement was not hyperbolic. I exaggerated nothing.

Everything didn't go horribly wrong last year. The Twins ended up with a pythag a few games higher than I expected and a real record a few games under what i expected. I don't know what meme you're talking about. By "horribly wrong", I mean Dozier, Hughes, and Mauer all go down for half the season or more. Disaster territory, like what happened in 2011. Basically, the kind of situation where everything goes so horribly askew that preseason projection models become useless because no projection model can predict that the team bus will suddenly explode and kill everyone inside. But hey, way to assume my intent and call it hyperbole.

I believe that it's not so much things are changing as it is "SSS Applies". Most Twins' pitching prospects have been pretty terrible since 2008. We can all agree on that. They promoted slowly because the prospects weren't any good. This was compounded by their "get it over the plate" drafting ethos, which had them drafting higher floor prospects over higher ceiling guys. Well, unfortunately for the Twins, that "higher floor" was well below an MLB acceptable performance level. Then we get to Gibson. The Twins were maddeningly slow with him and when he reached the majors, he was bloody terrible. Pretty hard to argue whether they made the right call there. The Twins knew and saw something we didn't. We move on to May. This one baffles me but I have a sneaking suspicion the Twins wanted him up earlier but he got injured. We'll chalk this up in the "slow promotion and I don't get it" category. Meyer. I wanted to see him last year as much as anybody but the Twins had him on limited innings and lo and behold, it was for good reason. He shut down at the end of last year as well. In retrospect, they have been rightfully cautious with him because he seems incapable of staying on the mound. It's hard to rationalize the promotion of a pitcher you don't trust to throw 80 pitches in AAA every fifth day. Berrios. Dude is flying through the system and has poise we haven't seen in a Twins prospect since, what, Santana? The Twins are a bit on the slow side with promotions but I think it's overblown. The biggest problem is that the Twins have either had flawed or pretty bad prospects that didn't deserve promotions or were held back for various injury/development concerns. They've moved Berrios through the system quickly, Stewart has moved through the system at the same pace, and Thorpe has flown through the low minors at a pace I haven't seen in a long time.

I heard the same things last year. There really isn't a rational reason to think this team gets worse in 2015 unless you think the competition is so much better that it will take a more talented 2015 Twins team and force them into a worse record. The 2015 Twins team is a more talented roster than its 2014 counterpart. Is that possible? Theoretically, sure... but I'm doubtful. Short of injury disaster, I don't see how this team is worse in 2015. It doesn't make sense. Even if Ervin Santana lights himself on fire on April 4th, the Twins will be relying on May, Meyer, and possibly Berrios in 2015. That's a massive ceiling upgrade over De Vries, Pino, and the rest of the clown car they've rolled out in previous years. I think an argument can be made that the Twins will remain essentially neutral in 2015 - posting 70-71 wins - but I don't see how regression is possible unless everything goes horribly wrong.