Sielk

The video certainly looks nice. Thanks for sharing. We will see how he develops. Hopefully he will be a big league star in 2028 or so.

Yes, that's what I meant. Badly phrased on my part, sorry.

Which is weird, because you can see pitch counts and the current at bat and so on in mlb.tv. No idea why that isn't showing up on gameday.

Brent Rooker just hit the first Twins bomba of the year!

Man, I really wish there would be an opportunity to watch the game. After the encouraging reports on Thorpe I wanted to see him. But the Rays' radio broadcast will have to do, I guess.

Yeah, you might have a point there. But at least it would ensure that six years actually means six years at most and not almost seven. In Bryant's case, he would have gotten to free agency a year earlier. So, maybe it would be a good start? Anyway, that's why I brought up the topic of reducing option years and making the time before Rule 5 eligibility more individual (so much that prospects cannot be stashed in the minors forever). But as I consider that the end result would probably be something very similar to just basing it on the number of years since signing. The latter with the added bonus of incentivizing teams to call up prospects as soon as possible. Would be interesting to see how such a proposal would affect player development. It's worth a try, I guess. I just hope the upcoming CBA negotiations won't be too much of a nightmare. Not that the involved parties have given us much reason to hope... Forget about that. It was just referring to a proposal by someone else here. I was not suggesting restricted free agency or advocating for it.

Not my post, but I would start with eliminating the concept of "days of service time" a player has to accumulate to get a year of service time. Instead, if you are on the 26-man roster in a given season, it counts as a year, even if it was just one day. As a result players become free agents after they have played in six major league seasons (and not seven years minus three weeks). This would also prevent teams from keeping players in the minors at the beginning of their rookie season to gain an extra year. If you wanted to soften this up a bit you could also allow for a larger threshold than one day, for example allowing a September callup that doesn't count as a year. If six years is too much that could also be reduced further. But in my opinion one of the biggest flaws of the current system is the possibility of teams gaining almost an entire seventh year on top when six should really be the maximum. I don't know if free agency at a set age would be really viable because the timelines of prospects are so different. Take Brent Rooker for example. If there would really be (restricted) free agency at age 25 he would have been a free agent before even debuting. Not directly related to that, but I would also change the rules for eligibility for the Rule 5 draft / the time when a player has to be added to the 40-man roster. It's just ridiculous that 16-year-old international prospects have only one year more than 21-year-old college players. Reduce the time for college players and give international players a bit more time, so they don't have to use up all their option years while still developing. And after you have done that, maybe the number of option years could be reduced to prevent teams from keeping a player in the minors forever (and also delaying his eventual free agency). Just a few ideas to make the system a bit fairer to players without weakening small- and mid-market teams too much...

Yeah, and then we can all have fun watching the Yankees and Dodgers win every year. It is difficult enough as it is for small and midmarket teams to build a contender. If they can't even rely on good and comparatively cheap players from their own system you won't be seeing teams like the Twins or the Rays competing anymore. I grew up watching German soccer and every time a talented young player emerges somewhere he gets snatched away by Bayern München (basically the leagues equivalent to the Yankees) almost immediately. They have now won the championship for eight years in a row and ongoing. Sounds entertaining, right?

Maybe people just have to learn the correct spelling... It never ceases to amaze me how many different and often rather creative misspellings of Kirilloff's name can be found around the internet. I wonder how many home runs he has to hit before people get his name right. If ever.

I don't think that he actually does that pirouette in a game. At least he didn't do it in any highlight video I've ever seen of him, including Tom's above. And as pointed out, he didn't do it in the 97 mph video either. So I think the video of 99 mph was more of a "Let's disregard proper pitching motions for once and see how fast I can go" instead of a serious pitch. But really, that's one prospect I am really excited about. I liked the picked even when he was drafted. Back then he seemed more of a solid high floor guy with his four solid pitches and good command but it sure seems like everything has gone right for him in the time since then. The higher velo, the apparently vastly improved changeup... It's easy to dream on what he can one day become for the Twins. In fact, the only knock on him you ever read is his delivery. Remains to be seen how big of a problem that actually is. But it's certainly encouraging that he himself feels comfortable with it and the Twins seem to be okay with it too since they apparently never tried to change it. So maybe it actually works for him? Then again, I never played baseball myself, so I am really not an expert on things like pitching mechanics. But it will for sure be interesting to follow his season. I hope he gets some televised action in spring training.

And now I am rooting for J.A. Happ to throw a shutout against the hapless Cleveland lineup (pun entirely unintended) just to prove this guy wrong. And for Alex Kirilloff to hit the game-winning home run.

Surprisingly not, though you wouldn't know it just by looking at the number of Yankees caps worn around here. I feel like I see at least one whenever I turn around in public. I always wonder if it's a lack of taste or simply a lack of baseball knowledge. Probably the latter.

There are not many advantages to being a baseball fan in Europe but this is one. I can just subscribe to mlb.tv without having to worry about blackouts. But I feel for you. (The disadvantage is that I have to worry about sleeping hours. No night games for me during the week... )

Cutting cost might have played a role in the Snell trade but I wouldn't call that the only reason the Rays did it. Trading star players long before their contracts end to stock up their system is just what the Rays do. And they've been pretty successful at winning with this strategy. It's hardly a fire sale and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if some prospect the Rays got in one of their trades steps up and takes Snell's place. That said, I agree that it would be better for baseball if revenue was distributed equally. But to say that teams like the Rays are automatically bad for baseball? I'd prefer watching the Rays over the Angels or the Phillies anytime. The Snell trade fits with the Rays long term strategy and that strategy still makes the Rays look a lot better than certain teams (see again Angels, Phillies etc.) who squander a ton of money and still don't get anything done.

Baddoo just got taken by the Tigers.

Looks like he is staying. https://mobile.twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1335071756470669313

It was actually Jim Bowden who wrote the article, not Rosenthal and it wasn't the first time he wrote something that made me shake my head. As for keeping Rosario, it isn't like he is a bad player but he also isn't that much above average for a left fielder. And if you consider that he comes at a pretty high price compared to his production (be it via arbitration or extension) you might not want to pay that. Would be hard to find a willing trade partner for the same reason. And that's not even considering all the cheap corner outfield prospects the Twins have. Would keeping Rosario make sense if you had plenty of payroll space? Sure, why not, but the Twins don't exactly have that, especially with Covid further restricting the budget. The money might be better spent elsewhere where the Twins have fewer other options.

These interviews are so great. Thank you for doing them, Seth. Maybe a bit off topic, but when Brent talked about facing Matt Wallner in college I wondered if the Twins ever thought of developing Wallner as a two-way player. A fastball of that velocity doesn't seem like the worst starting point to become at least a decent reliever. Do you know anything about that, Seth?

I think Rortvedt should be a given too if you don't want to lose him. Given his strong defense it's very easy to imagine some rebuilding team taking him and keeping him on the roster as a backup catcher for the entire season.

I am a bit surprised that they didn't add Littell back to the 40-man-roster. After all, this basically means that they have more faith in these two relievers they picked up from waivers than in Littell who is only one season removed from a pretty impressive rookie year.

I cheered for the Rays but I am not unhappy with the Dodgers winning it. In this series you could really see how complete they're as a team. Pitching, hitting, fielding, they have it all. Kinda scary but definitely a deserving WS winner. I am also happy for Clayton Kershaw. A pitcher of his caliber deserves a ring.

Well, pulling Snell that early was probably the wrong decision but on the other hand you can say the same thing about this game as you can say about the two Twins postseason games: You will hardly ever win if you can't manage to score more than one run. Especially not against a lineup as good as the Dodgers' one.

What. The. Hell. !!!

In case you haven't seen it, mlb.com has published an article on the prospects at instructional league camp and their progress. https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/twins-instructional-league-report All in all, it sounds pretty encouraging considering none of those guys really played this year. Canterino's apparently much improved changeup seems promising combined with his three other pitches that are (as far as I know) all at least decent and good control on top of it. Also, Josh Winder's fastball reaching 97 mph together with three other pitches in his mix? Wow. I have to admit that I don't know much about him beyond his name but what was described in the article certainly sounds cool.

No, he already got it two times back when when a player could still receive the QO twice. Can't offer it to him a third time.