twinsarmchairgm

A-Rod was drafted in 93' and made his debut in'94

I dont know if we have to take an arm, I agree we have a desperate need for high end pitching prospects, but I think we have to take the best player available at #2 and whether that is is Giolito, Buxton, or Appel will be determined this spring. In my opinion, I would rank those three Giolito, Buxton, Appel and would be thrilled if the Twins land any of them.

The more I read on Giolito and Appel the more I lean towards Giolito, even if takes longer to be ready. I think 1 to 2 years would be extremely quick even for a guy like Giolito. I think realistically if he is up in 3-4 and that would be tremendous and a testament to what type of player he is

Keith Law of ESPN Scouts Inc. came out with the first edition of his Top 50 (Insider required) draft prospects, and had an interesting take that differed from just about every other site I have seen. The top player on his board was Georgia High School OF Byron Buxton, who I reviewed here, saying he has the “potential for five above-average or plus tools” and also echoing the comparisons to the Upton brothers I have heard elsewhere. Buxton does defiantly fit the Twins preferred draft mold as an athletic, toolsy high school OF and I think he is very in the mix for them when they draft #2 if he were available. More after the jump Another surprise was Law ranking High School RHP Lucas Giolito at #2 above Stanford righty Mark Appel saying Giolito has, “size, velocity, an out-pitch breaking ball, and a repeatable delivery”. Earlier this week, Law posted he thought Giolito could potentially be the first high school RHP ever taken 1st in the MLB draft, and was obviously impressed with him after watching him make his first start of 2012. He noted that, in that start, Giolito showed better fastball control and more aggressiveness attacking hitters than Law had seen from him previously. He also praised Giolito’s mechanics and compared him to Jameson Taillon, another big high school RHP who was drafted by the Pirates in 2010. He thinks Taillon has the edge on pure stuff with Giolito showing more polish with better mechanics, and think they would be a “toss-up” as to who the better prospect is (Taillon was #16 on Law’s Top 100 prospects). Appel, who made his first start last weekend as well, showed big velocity early on (up to 97) but tired in the later innings. He thought Appel’s slider was “inconsistent, but when he threw it in the 82-84 range it had some tilt and could project as an above-average pitch”. Appel also showed a solid change up, but Law thought he fell in love with it for a part of the game writing Appel was to the point where he was pitching backwards (throwing off-speed stuff first to set up the fastball) something strange for a power pitcher to do. Law’s biggest concerns with Appel are the continuing lack of K’s his major stuff produces (only 5 in 7 inn. against a young Vanderbilt lineup) and the ability of college hitters to consistently square up his fastball. If the slider doesn’t become more consistent and really turn into a plus bat missing pitch, Appel could struggle in the pros despite his big fastball. This was the first week for all these guys so there is a lot of time for players to raise or lower their stock in the coming months and I look forward to tracking each. A couple of other interesting notes from Law: *Missing from his top 50, and who was rated fairly highly everywhere else, is lefty Andrew Heaney from Oklahoma State and who I wrote about here. *Law was also a lot higher on Zach Eflin, who I pegged as a solid option for the Twins at #63, ranking him #23 overall so it will be interesting to follow his progress this spring as well. I plan to try to have regular updates of the prospective draft pick’s I’ve covered on this blog, and others that appear to be on the Twins radar, as we go through the spring and up to draft day. This was orginally posted at http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/

Keith Law of ESPN Scouts Inc. came out with the first edition of his Top 50 (Insider required) draft prospects, and had an interesting take that differed from just about every other site I have seen. The top player on his board was Georgia High School OF Byron Buxton, who I reviewed here, saying he has the “potential for five above-average or plus tools” and also echoing the comparisons to the Upton brothers I have heard elsewhere. Buxton does defiantly fit the Twins preferred draft mold as an athletic, toolsy high school OF and I think he is very in the mix for them when they draft #2 if he were available. More after the jump Another surprise was Law ranking High School RHP Lucas Giolito at #2 above Stanford righty Mark Appel saying Giolito has, “size, velocity, an out-pitch breaking ball, and a repeatable delivery”. Earlier this week, Law posted he thought Giolito could potentially be the first high school RHP ever taken 1st in the MLB draft, and was obviously impressed with him after watching him make his first start of 2012. He noted that, in that start, Giolito showed better fastball control and more aggressiveness attacking hitters than Law had seen from him previously. He also praised Giolito’s mechanics and compared him to Jameson Taillon, another big high school RHP who was drafted by the Pirates in 2010. He thinks Taillon has the edge on pure stuff with Giolito showing more polish with better mechanics, and think they would be a “toss-up” as to who the better prospect is (Taillon was #16 on Law’s Top 100 prospects). Appel, who made his first start last weekend as well, showed big velocity early on (up to 97) but tired in the later innings. He thought Appel’s slider was “inconsistent, but when he threw it in the 82-84 range it had some tilt and could project as an above-average pitch”. Appel also showed a solid change up, but Law thought he fell in love with it for a part of the game writing Appel was to the point where he was pitching backwards (throwing off-speed stuff first to set up the fastball) something strange for a power pitcher to do. Law’s biggest concerns with Appel are the continuing lack of K’s his major stuff produces (only 5 in 7 inn. against a young Vanderbilt lineup) and the ability of college hitters to consistently square up his fastball. If the slider doesn’t become more consistent and really turn into a plus bat missing pitch, Appel could struggle in the pros despite his big fastball. This was the first week for all these guys so there is a lot of time for players to raise or lower their stock in the coming months and I look forward to tracking each. A couple of other interesting notes from Law: *Missing from his top 50, and who was rated fairly highly everywhere else, is lefty Andrew Heaney from Oklahoma State and who I wrote about here. *Law was also a lot higher on Zach Eflin, who I pegged as a solid option for the Twins at #63, ranking him #23 overall so it will be interesting to follow his progress this spring as well. I plan to try to have regular updates of the prospective draft pick’s I’ve covered on this blog, and others that appear to be on the Twins radar, as we go through the spring and up to draft day. This was orginally posted at http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/

I tried changing jersey's, hat's, t-shirts, shorts, jeans, even broke out the old college lucky t shirt, and nothing worked.

So what’s a surefire way to make sure no one ever reads your new blog again? Well, why not call out some of the fan base for what I feel has been questionable, if not irrational behavior. I was just as frustrated as every other fan with this past Twins season, but I still do not think it justifies the amount of vitriol I have read in various comment sections, newspapers, discussed with friends, and listened to on the radio. The two biggest issues everyone seems to have are the misconceptions that the Twins are cheap and that Joe Mauer is nothing more than a bad contract and a lazy, characterless disappointment. First, I'll tackle the claim that the Twins are cheap. It is a fact the Twins have "slashed" payroll all the way down to a mere pedestrian 100 million dollars. It seems like just a few years ago everyone was begging for the Twins to stretch the payroll too the 100 million plateau and now that they are doing that it’s not good enough. How much would they have to spend for the Twins to no longer be considered cheap? 115m? 130m? Do they have to outspend the Yankees? or the Red Sox? I'll admit when I first heard they may be cutting back payroll, I didn’t agree with it. Then I started doing my research, trying to look at the big picture for the upcoming season, and the next season or two down the road. After that, I came to the conclusion that it did not make any sense for the Twins to spend another 15m right now for a few reasons. First off, as Seth Stohs pointed out here, the Twins just have way too many "if's" to justify extending themselves further at this time. If Mauer, Morneau, Span, Valencia, Revere, Casilla, Baker, Liriano, Capps and the rest of the Bullpen, and Blackburn (who No Dak Twins Fan covered here) don't all rebound, improve, and/or stay healthy the Twins have zero chance of competing no matter how much more payroll the team adds. I think Seth nailed it, if the Twins have a first solid couple of months and some of those "ifs" fall the right way the Twins have the payroll flexibility to make a move or two at the deadline. If those "ifs" don’t fall their way then they have not compromised their flexibility for next year when they are possibly replacing 4/5th of their starting rotation. Secondly, in the first two + seasons at Target Field the Twins have given out a $184 million dollar contract which at the time was the 4th largest in MLB history. They gave out the largest free agent contract in team history to Josh Willingham this offseason, which I think has been under praised as they got the best hitter between Kubel, Cuddyer, and Willingham for the lowest average annual salary. That's not cheap, that's a savvy baseball move and a move they should be praised for. They addressed the SS position in a bad market for the position with a solid, unspectacular move, but also didn’t turn it over to an unproven AAA player. These are the type of moves the team never would have made in the Metrodome and a sign they are becoming more of a player in free agency. Finally, I think the Twins realized that the free agent market this offseason and their needs did not match up all that strongly. Only one impact middle infielder was on the market and I am glad the Twins stayed away from Jose Reyes. I didn’t consider any of the SP's available this year to be tremendous upgrades, and with money already committed to 4 starters this year it didn't make sense in the long run to overpay number #3 types to be our ace. I do believe the Twins should have added another right handed reliever and in that regards, maybe they were being cheap. Though it’s not like any of those cheap veteran relievers available for 1 million or so are lock down set up men, and are guaranteed to be better than what is already in camp. It’s because of these reasons that I think calling the Twins cheap just sounds like a lazy excuse to be bitter about the disaster of a year the team had 2011. As far as the Joe Mauer bashing, I am starting to be embarrassed to associate my fandom with some fans and "experts" with the amount of bizarre hatred Mauer has received. Mauer has had his injury problems, but since his first full season in the league Mauer has caught the 6th most innings of any catcher in the majors. He has been arguable the best offensive catcher over that time period and has won 3 batting titles, 2 Silver Sluggers, and a MVP award. Last year, he had an off season surgery, rushed himself to be ready for opening day, obviously wasn't ready, made it worse, and the injury communication was poorly handled by the team and Mauer. He is not without blame and has made strides to be accountable this offseason, but does any of that really deserve him the treatment he has been receiving? I hardly think so and have yet to receive a solid explanation from anyone other than general hearsay and gossip which apparently is reliable enough material to publish these days. (I'm looking at you Souhan.) So I am calling out Twins fans to forget 2011, it happened there is nothing we can do about it now. Let's move on to 2012, where hopefully the Twins make a return to respectability and Mauer shuts up all of his critics with his sweet left handed swing. I'm selling hope, now whose buying? The Twins Armchair GM This was origanally posted at http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/

So what’s a surefire way to make sure no one ever reads your new blog again? Well, why not call out some of the fan base for what I feel has been questionable, if not irrational behavior. I was just as frustrated as every other fan with this past Twins season, but I still do not think it justifies the amount of vitriol I have read in various comment sections, newspapers, discussed with friends, and listened to on the radio. The two biggest issues everyone seems to have are the misconceptions that the Twins are cheap and that Joe Mauer is nothing more than a bad contract and a lazy, characterless disappointment. First, I'll tackle the claim that the Twins are cheap. It is a fact the Twins have "slashed" payroll all the way down to a mere pedestrian 100 million dollars. It seems like just a few years ago everyone was begging for the Twins to stretch the payroll too the 100 million plateau and now that they are doing that it’s not good enough. How much would they have to spend for the Twins to no longer be considered cheap? 115m? 130m? Do they have to outspend the Yankees? or the Red Sox? I'll admit when I first heard they may be cutting back payroll, I didn’t agree with it. Then I started doing my research, trying to look at the big picture for the upcoming season, and the next season or two down the road. After that, I came to the conclusion that it did not make any sense for the Twins to spend another 15m right now for a few reasons. First off, as Seth Stohs pointed out here, the Twins just have way too many "if's" to justify extending themselves further at this time. If Mauer, Morneau, Span, Valencia, Revere, Casilla, Baker, Liriano, Capps and the rest of the Bullpen, and Blackburn (who No Dak Twins Fan covered here) don't all rebound, improve, and/or stay healthy the Twins have zero chance of competing no matter how much more payroll the team adds. I think Seth nailed it, if the Twins have a first solid couple of months and some of those "ifs" fall the right way the Twins have the payroll flexibility to make a move or two at the deadline. If those "ifs" don’t fall their way then they have not compromised their flexibility for next year when they are possibly replacing 4/5th of their starting rotation. Secondly, in the first two + seasons at Target Field the Twins have given out a $184 million dollar contract which at the time was the 4th largest in MLB history. They gave out the largest free agent contract in team history to Josh Willingham this offseason, which I think has been under praised as they got the best hitter between Kubel, Cuddyer, and Willingham for the lowest average annual salary. That's not cheap, that's a savvy baseball move and a move they should be praised for. They addressed the SS position in a bad market for the position with a solid, unspectacular move, but also didn’t turn it over to an unproven AAA player. These are the type of moves the team never would have made in the Metrodome and a sign they are becoming more of a player in free agency. Finally, I think the Twins realized that the free agent market this offseason and their needs did not match up all that strongly. Only one impact middle infielder was on the market and I am glad the Twins stayed away from Jose Reyes. I didn’t consider any of the SP's available this year to be tremendous upgrades, and with money already committed to 4 starters this year it didn't make sense in the long run to overpay number #3 types to be our ace. I do believe the Twins should have added another right handed reliever and in that regards, maybe they were being cheap. Though it’s not like any of those cheap veteran relievers available for 1 million or so are lock down set up men, and are guaranteed to be better than what is already in camp. It’s because of these reasons that I think calling the Twins cheap just sounds like a lazy excuse to be bitter about the disaster of a year the team had 2011. As far as the Joe Mauer bashing, I am starting to be embarrassed to associate my fandom with some fans and "experts" with the amount of bizarre hatred Mauer has received. Mauer has had his injury problems, but since his first full season in the league Mauer has caught the 6th most innings of any catcher in the majors. He has been arguable the best offensive catcher over that time period and has won 3 batting titles, 2 Silver Sluggers, and a MVP award. Last year, he had an off season surgery, rushed himself to be ready for opening day, obviously wasn't ready, made it worse, and the injury communication was poorly handled by the team and Mauer. He is not without blame and has made strides to be accountable this offseason, but does any of that really deserve him the treatment he has been receiving? I hardly think so and have yet to receive a solid explanation from anyone other than general hearsay and gossip which apparently is reliable enough material to publish these days. (I'm looking at you Souhan.) So I am calling out Twins fans to forget 2011, it happened there is nothing we can do about it now. Let's move on to 2012, where hopefully the Twins make a return to respectability and Mauer shuts up all of his critics with his sweet left handed swing. I'm selling hope, now whose buying? The Twins Armchair GM This was origanally posted at http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/

I believe the point Seth is getting at is the Twins have so many question marks and holes to fill that it doesnt make any sense to throw another 20 million at it without first seeing how the list of "if's" falls in the first half. Even if the Twins had signed Edwin Jackson, Dan Wheeler, etc., etc., if Mauer, Morneau, Span, Baker, Lirano, Capps, Valencia, and Casilla dont all rebound to at least some level of acceptable performance and health the Twins have no hope of competeing and that is what tied the Twins hands this off season. Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt, while nice pitchers, can not carry a rotation if the the rest of our rotation continues to flounder. Any of the cheap veteren bullpen guys who signed that I wish the Twins had signed where not sure fire lock down relievers, otherwise they would not have been available for 1m or a minor league deal. I agree with Seth's thoughts that the right move, no matter how frustering to the fan base, is to wait and see how all these if's play out the first couple of months and then adjust accordingly. That is the reality facing the Twins and us as fans this offseason.

Thanks for helping put together this community I really like the site so far!

My brother who will be a contributor to my blog made his debut post today all the way from Alaska. Check it out here. http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/

My brother who will be a contributor to my blog made his debut post today all the way from Alaska. Check it out here. http://thetwinsarmchairgm.blogspot.com/