Dantes929

I agree the outfield mess is only temporary. I believe Arcia will have a monster year at the plate to make up for his defensive deficiencies if he just continues to go with the pitch and stop swinging for the fences. His swing is just too sweet not to hit for power and average as long as he doesn't try to pull it all the time. Hunter is only here for a year at most. There are only three spots so when Buxton arrives it immediately makes them at least average.

Twins went from 3rd to tied for 1st when Hunter and Santana left the team. Twins went from first to worst when LNP left. Just sayin.

See that's the part I don't get. Milone had a decent career going and after a slow start with the A's he won 6 games in a row and brought his ERA from 5.86 all the way down to 3.55 at which time he was demoted. What happened? On the face of it he should be in the top 2 for Minnesota and yet is viewed as rotation fodder. It does look like he is damaged goods but no one has said in what way he was damaged.

We used to have a platoon of Leius and Pags at 3rd. Platoon of an outfield position actually makes a lot more sense since the being able to do more part includes late inning defensive or baserunning replacement which considering out outfield defense otherwise has a fair amount of value. I am one of the few that would be fine if they just put him out there every day all season but being realistic and logical about it. Its hard enough to hit major league pitching without it being from your non dominant side. I never liked that he even started out being a switch hitter but with Buxton coming and possibly Rosario, if he goes down to work on his skills his callup will only be as 4th outfielder anyway. I would think platoon is greater than 4th outfielder in terms of value and every team needs a 4th outfielder. I get what you are saying though. If the solution were clean cut we wouldn't be on here talking about it. I have always like the idea of platooning one or two positions where it makes sense based on splits and this seems to be one of those cases.

I might be able to make the case that very few players in the history of baseball benefited by being switch hitters. If 6 percent are capable of doing it then I will guess that only 2% of those capable of it should actually do it. Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray were fantastic switch hitters but their splits against righty and lefty were probably very similar to what they would have been if they only hit from their dominant side. Of course we can never be sure but it just stands to reason. Maybe only hitting from one side would have raised their averages against righties and lefties. There is just no way of knowiing. I never liked the idea of Hicks switch hitting. It always seemed like the BEST possible outcome would be for him to hit 20-40 points less from the left side which is about what you would expect him to do against righties batting as a right hander so where is the advantage? I have never been a huge fan of his but have defended him any way for his OBP and I liked the idea of him going only right handed but maybe it is just too late. If that is the case then maybe platooning is the best path for his career.

Ok, but why is that? Actually seems like a pretty good solution. Schaefer bats over 120 points better against righties and Hicks hit .279 against lefties with a .410 OBP and a .792 OPS against lefties. Having both for late inning defensive replacements would have a lot of value as well when considering that they would either replace Hunter or Arcia.

I think the article about age in the minors says differently. I thought they were a little slow to promote May last year and should have promoted Meyer. Other than that I can't think of any promotions of pitchers that should have been made that were not, especially in the last 4 years. Meyer is the outflier but the pitch counts and innings limits imposed on him is my main beef rather than promotions.. In fact, without those restrictions they most likely would have promoted him. If he was healthy then he should have been stretched out. If it forced surgery then so be it.. Better sooner than later.

I think Span and Revere were concurrent but otherwise not really. Gomez and Span were unproven when they let go of Hunter. I don't think having a .267 minor league centrefielder backing up the .232 centerfielder fits anyone's definiition of plan B. I think either Chad Allen or 40 year old Otis Nixon were plan B for Hunter and Bobby Mitchel or Mickey Hatcher were plan B for Puckett. I know I counted on Worley to be better but was completely fine with the trades that brought Meyer and May to MN. If Hicks had been Hunter 2.0 no one would be even talking about it or criticizing the Twins for having no backup plan so in my mind it is all hindsight.

I don't like Hicks being the poster child for giving positions to young prospects. It was extremely reasonable that he be given the spot at the time. Strong AA season with a fantastic Spring Training. The fact that he didn't thrive (yet) was on him, not the Twins for going that way. Hicks not performing should not be a reason to be tentative with other prospects. Look at Danny Santana as proof that prospects can succeed rather than going the pessimistic route. Heck, did we have a backup plan for Puckett, Hunter, Gomez, Span, Revere? Even as bad as he was hitting Hicks still got on base more than Revere. If they earn it in the minors then promote them. Depth is always nice but having strong major league ready or proven candidates as a backup for every position just isn't that realistic. Think I am wrong? Butera and Punto have both been backups for WS contenders.

I think the regression list is reasonable. If we got .280 out of Santana but got a few more walks out of him I would take it. That is a 70 point regression. Suzuki drops 30 points to his norm. I don't think Vargas really did so much more than we expect him to and it was just for a third of the year.. I have no idea what Escobar is really capable of but lets say a drop of 20 points off set by the number of bats he gets vs Florimon and we can call it a wash. That is only a 100 point drop from those guys. Assume Hunter can add 40 points over Willinigham. and I would be really disappointed if Mauer and Arcia don't add 70 points between them. Of course this is all about average and not OBP or power. I think we tend to overrate how good other team's offenses are. Middle of the pack seems reasonable much like the rotation and the relief corp. Middle of the pack on everything makes .500 reasonable. .500 isn't really that far away from contending, though of course its not that far away from bottom half of the division either. I am optimistic but I always am. What is the fun in thinking Twins will only perform to their career averages or worse and that no one will ever have a good or even a career year. I don't know why anyone would pigeonhole Mauer as a .270 singles hitter and Arcia a wild .230 batter. Some of these guys are going to have good years and someone of our prospects is going to have a break out year either pitching or batting. If not, there is always next year. With this group that is not an epitaph.

Why is everyone saying the Central is so improved? White Sox should be a lot better, Twins should be better, Indians should be slightly better. Royals lost Butler and Shields. Tigers lost their best pitcher. Sounds like the Central is about the same but with more parity. I never thought the Central was bad to start with but am questioning whether they have really gotten much better..

There were 8 starters on playoff teams that had ERA's north of 4 with several being over 4.5. This is actually fewer than I thought there would be. Look at all the Twins playoff seasons and there were a couple rookies we relied very heavily on such as Garza or Liriano or Bonxer. I am sure the 87 Twins would have loved to have May and Meyer challenging for the 3 and 4 spot much less the #5. Having highly regarded prospects that had good minor league seasons hold down rotation spots is something EVERYONE does contending or not. Do you think the internally developed rotation of the Cards and the Giants became seasoned vets after their first starts or that these teams were wary about relying on them. Twins have not transitioned as well recently but that doesn't mean anything. No one on here thought Hicks would fail after a strong minor league season and a great ST. No one on here thought Santana would thrive like he did. Everyone is different but you have to rely on your prospects at some point. Of course not all prospects pan out but most major leaguers were high prospects at some point.

I look at Meyer and May a bit differently than the posts I have read. May had a really terrific minor league season and his debut in the majors may have been a bit different if he had been promoted while pitching great instead of after a month off due to injury with just a couple starts after the injury before being promoted. I am excited about how good he can be. Meyer had a good season as well limited not by his own performance but by the organization. He had lots of 80 pitch 5 inning shutouts. Again, as far as I know he was limited by the Twin. I would like to have seen him promoted but don't know why anyone would think he would be eaten alive anymore than any other rookie since all reports say he has fantastic stuff and he led the league in strikeouts.

Molitor was a great acquisition. If Hunter produces like Molitor in his first year this is a great signing One would think from the article that signing old players is all that Ryan did and that the Twins were really bad during his reign. As far as I am concerned the worst move was Bartlett and that is less for the signing and more for the including him on the 25 man.

I see this all the time but never see the answer to my question. Milone has the best career ERA of anyone on the staff including Santana, Hughes and Nolasco and it has all been done in the AL. Who cares what his stuff is. His ERA is under 4.00 in 83 starts. It astounds me that so many on here appear to prefer guys that strike out more but give up more runs.

I get the sentiment but it just doesn't make sense to me. Contact keeps the fielders on their toes, should lessen the likelihood of walks and wild pitches and gives you the more likelihood of double plays. Of course we all want Verlander or Clemens at his best to be our normal 1-5 starters but just look at Liriano. In some of his worst ERA years his strikeout rates were his best. Again, KC and San Fran were in the bottom third in strikeouts/9 while being in the top third for ERA. Would you really prefer the reverse? I want starters with control and stuff. Stuff includes velocity, and bat misability but could also include getting batters to hit weak pop ups and ground balls. At the end of the day it is about runs scored rather than strikeouts.

". He's a strikeout machine, something that this absurdly contact-heavy rotation could sorely use." Kind of depends doesn't it? Nolasco, Hughes, Gibson, May and Meyer would probably average near 8 SO/9 which is better than the top 6 from Detroit. Also consider that KC and San Fran both were in the lower third for strikeouts. Again, contact heavy not always such a bad thing depending on how well you do it but also replacing Correia with Meyer and Pino with May immediately puts us at least average in strikeouts.

Again, Milone has the best major league resume on the entire staff and I don't think 83 starts should be looked at too small a sample size to consider. Was he hurt? What am I missing? His career numbers in the AL look way better than Nolasco or Pelfrey and they pitched in the NL.

Fair analogy if the staff were full of Correia and Pelfrey. With Meyer, May, Gibson and Milone you have some folded up bearer bonds that could be worth anywhere from $5 to $50.

But I would contend they kind of did. May had a fantastic minor league year and got his feet wet in 2014 where admittedly he did poorly but to me he has earned his shot in 2015. I also believe Meyer has earned his shot. Not his fault he was on innings and pitch limits. He had a few duds but I will happily accept a guy that I think can throw shutouts when he is on even if it means a bad start every 4 or 5 outings. Quality start average for a major leaguer is about 50%. Meyer had 10 quality starts out of 27 but would have likely had 7 more but for the pitch limits. Another thing is that most of those starts were really high quality with only 0 or 1 run given up. I agree the Twins should take off the kid gloves with regards to these guys. I do believe they have earned their shot though.

Meyer and May would appear to be more likely to give top end pitching than Milone or Pelfrey so I guess I would want Hughes, Gibson, Noalsco, Meyer and May with Milone and Pelfrey in long relief ready to replace whoever falters with hopefully Berrios forcing the issue by late summer. What I have brought up before but never been explained to me is why, money aside, Nolasco has a spot sewn up and Milone does not. Milone actually has the best career resume on the entire staff. Sub 4 ERA in the American League while Nolasco has a career 4.48 ERA in the NL. Nolasco has better strikeout rate but isn't that trumped by Milone's better WHIP? Milone even had a better 2014 when all was said and done. .

I agree with Dman. Whenever I read reports on Hu both for his stats and his arsenal and control I think why is this guy not in the top 10 prospects. What have Thorpe and Gonsalves got that Hu does not?

Sorry LJhes, it does matter. Your stats may all be correct but baseball is all about the difference in percentage. A guy that gets on base 40% of the time vs one that gets on base 32% of the time means only 1 extra base runner every 3 games and that extra runner doesn't score all the time and even when he does it might no affect the outcome of the game which is why WAR always seems to be such a small number but it all makes a difference in the long haul. Next time you watch a series just picture Delmon Young in all 3 outfield spots for just one of the teams. Odds are pretty good at least one of the games would have been turned on outfield defense. I am only on board with this move because I think Tori is an upgrade over Willngam in both O and D Now maybe it only means 5 more runs created and 5 more prevented but it is still improvement.

I agree with everything in your post but how bad is still relevant. I don't see why the assumption is that Hunter will go to right and Arcia to left makes any sense. I see Hunter going to left. Hunter might be bad there but Willingham and Nunez were monumentally bad. Being 5th worst is still going to save some runs over worst. Plus Hunter's last two years offensively were way better than Willingham's. We will not escape the bottom 5 until Buxton makes the scene. Only three outfielders so the replacement of one slow guy with one of plus, plus speed will make a world of difference. This is just a stop gap and while I wasn't in favor of the deal it represents improvement offensively and defensively when simply comparing Hunter to Willingham.

Why are we assuming Hunter will go to right and Arcia to left? If Hunter goes to left it is an immediate improvement defensively over Willingham so we just went from really really bad OF defense to just really bad. Later Buxton for Hicks and Hicks for Hunter and we probably go to at least average which should be huge especially since we are probably going to be more of a strikeout staff shortly with Hughes, Meyer, May and Berrios.