NewClearHarley

that is the main reason they are unsigned - teams like Yankees and seattle and dodgers and whatnot would be in at expansive prices for these guys if they weren't fiscally tanking for next year's FA crop and a reboot of luxury tax penalties

not to mention that other teams have promoted their young stud pitchers early on in their 21-23 yr old age range. I understand "control" of prospects is important from a fiscal standpoint, but why do the Twins consistently have to wait till a player is 25 or older (and their prospect shimmer has waned) when other teams take shots (at least in the bullpen) with their best talent in their early twenties - and sometimes even earlier. I'd give him a couple months in AAA to start the year, but if he looks solid there, lets get our best pitchers up here in the bigs throwing IP for the MLB team before they turn 30.

He looks pretty good so far. Does he have any chance of breaking camp?

assuming 4-man bench leaves 12 pitchers: Santana Berrios Odorizzi Gibson 5th Starter du jour Rodney Reed Duke Rogers Pressly Hildenberger Duffey

In addition now 3/4 current bench bats are switch hitters giving us even more flexibility. Escobar backs up Sano, Polanco, Dozier. Grossman backs up the DH/Corner OF slots. Adrianza gives us another MI backup - although either he (or Grossman) could be sent packing. and Garver is obviously the understudy at catcher

So this makes our lineup more dangerous - I'm all for it. 2B - Dozier RHB 1B/DH - Mauer LHB CF - Buxton RHB DH/1B - Morrison LHB 3B/DH - Sano RHB LF - Rosario LHB RF - Kepler LHB SS - Polanco SHB C- Castro LHB Seven of those nine could approach or top 20 HRs. The other two certainly can reach double digits. Nice alternating Leftie/Rightie through top of order will make it a head ache for opposing managers trying to matchup

I love this acquisition because it means Grossman is not starting regularly. He is a very good OBP guy and he will make a decent bat off the bench. Most days Mauer and Morrison will both be in the lineup between 1B/DH. If Sano plays at DH or 1B some game days, then Escobar plays third, Mauer or Morrison takes the other slot, and LoMo could also potentially spell Rosario or Kepler.

so i was slightly off - the Twins were 30/104 on quality starts by pitchers not named Santana and Berrios. So our 3-5 starters only had 71% failure at achieving Quality start status. Over the last four years Odorizzi has 59 QS in 120 Starts. That works out to basically 50% quality starts.

non-quality starts (as you define above) describes roughly 80% of Minnesota's starts last year by pitchers not named Berrios and Santana. So on this team last season (arguably his worst ever), Odorizzi would have been our third best starting pitcher. If he is out there every fifth day as our #3, I will feel more confident in our chances than watching Bartolo Colon or Implosion Gibson or Adalberto 4-2/3 IP Mejia. Now I'm not saying I wouldn't love to acquire a true #1 or ace, but Santana was pretty close to that over the last couple years pitching multiple shutouts and complete games (he led the entire AL last year in both categories). In addition, over the last five years pretty much everyone has been saying that Berrios is projected to be our next superstar starter. He was pretty darn good last year and if he improves on that he very well might be our ace that we are looking for. The fact of the matter is that MLB teams don't trade young cost-controlled #1 starters frequently and when they do they want a Kings' Ransom. Even high-end young cost-controlled non-aces (Jose Quintana) cost ridiculous amounts via trade. If we do not acquire another starter, I feel fine expecting our rotation to be Santana, Berrios, Odorizzi, Gibson, ?. With a dramatically improved bullpen, this team should compete with CLE for the division all season. Whether or not we can get past NY or HOU in the post season remains to be seen, but nothing is ever guaranteed. Maybe we get lucky and a team goes into sell mode at the trade deadline and the Twins do a Royals-like move and acquire a Cueto-level starter to carry us through the playoffs.

Palacios was on track to never be anything more than a utility infielder (at best) with the Twins if all of their prospects pan out as projected. Jorge Polanco is young and entrenched at SS and there are three other SS/MI prospects in our system who project higher than him. Tampa sees something in him that most of the baseball prospect media world fail to see. I hope he succeeds there but it is no loss to the Twins

I like Dickerson but he is much better hitter against RHP than lefties. I feel for his price tag we would be better served to acquire a right handed power bat for DH/bench duties

after excoriating them over the Sanchez debacle I must give proper credit to Falvine for the hornswoggling of TB on this deal

Id rather we had gotten dysentary

seriously any of the other three end of the rotation guys who have signed in the last two days would have been a better investment - if #Failvine wanted to burn 2.5M I could use some cash - Its been 20 years since my last competitive pitching performance but I am sure I could put up an ERA at least on par with this horses' ass

This is the epitome of an awful signing - they even have to burn a 40man spot for him #Failvine

I'm going to guess that they still will nab a cheap right-handed OF bat - but Heisey makes sense as MiLB depth signing who could be a bench bat for the big club if needed - plus he has played all three OF positions which could help with our habit of watching Buxton getting hurt - especially if Granite gets dealt in one of these proposed trades.

I'm in favor of signing Cobb too - not really a fan of Lynn. Cobb and Straily coming here would give us some proven depth and I like both better than the Jaime Garcia/Jason Vargas types. No harm in finding what the AAA Marlins are asking.

If we are considering out of the box options to look at acquiring I'd suggest inquiring with Miami as to what it would take to lure Dan Straily and Adam Conley here.

actually that is just about right - even if we don't sign Go-Go, we should be ok with a lesser RF with Buxton able to cover 70% of the OF by himself.

Apparently people didn't read my post from yesterday stating that the Archer trade should involve us taking on Span's bloated contract (to save on the number of prospects we have to dole out) - he isn't the Span of five years ago, but he (along with Grossman and Granite) should be satisfactory for the RF slot.

the reason that TB is willing to deal Archer and/or Odorizzi is that they believe that Honeywell and Faria are ready to step in - they wouldn't be inclined to deal either of them - nor would I part with Sano for either of them. I agree with the idea of getting Span back but considering the salary relief involved that plus Kepler should fetch us Odorizzi or that plus Kepler plus one additional piece should come close to netting Archer. I doubt Twins would deal both Kepler & Romero to TB and take Span's contract - unless TB was paying almost all of it.

the tough part on dealing with Houston is that they don't have any real needs - unless they are concerned about Keuchel walking next offseason. Their offense is young and controllable and very good and they still have some young superstar prospects (half a decade of tanking pays off when you know how to draft). Nevertheless they are so strong at SP right now that McCullers will be their #4 - and I believe he would be our #1. We're not going to get them to deal us him, but McHugh has 8K/9 stuff but he throws a lot of pitches (sounds a lot like Darvish actually when you consider that), his contract is reasonable and he may want a chance to start rather than be forced to be a long-man.

I mentioned earlier that either McHugh or Peacock would be a nice get from Houston, not sure they want to risk their depth with both Keuchel & McCullers having injury problems in their recent history but either would be a solid addition to our rotation at a much cheaper price than Archer would command.

Here is a list of potential FA outfielders we could sign if we trade Kepler++ in a deal for Archer: First off I expect we could reduce the prospect load necessary to land Archer if we would eat Denard Span's contract - not to mention bringing him back would create good will with the fan base. other names to consider: Melky Cabrera - I don't like him but he could replace some of the lost offense Either CarGo - Go-Go particularly could also provide some reunion positivity JD-Mart - not sure we could afford him on long deal but if he'd settle for 1-25 on market-reset deal? Maybin - I love this signing because it'd give us another speed/OBP option who could hit on either end of the lineup card Seth Smith - cheap platoonable power bat, see also: Rasmus, Colby

Consider it from a replacement level argument - Would you rather have Odorizzi/Archer as our #1 or #2 option along with Span (or other replacement level individual - Maybin/CarGo in RF) or Kepler at RF most of the time (not likely full-time) and Gibson as our #2 option.