ericchri

Try again. My position is that if we're hoping Texas panics and makes a stupid trade, we should be hoping they give us something we need more than a 3B prospect, because we do have two of our own 3B prospects at the moment, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

Remember that one guy who looked like a really good prospect in that one organization who ended up being good? Why can't we just assume everyone else will? Because clearly panicking now and trading for another 3B PROSPECT is the right thing for this organization to do. Cause you know, since he's a PROSPECT in another organization, he's guaranteed to work out better as a 3B. And panic-trading two of our best hitters right now for said PROSPECT because we don't know what kind of 3B defense our own top prospect may be playing 3 years from now is clearly the best use of available resources. This has nothing to do with whether I think Sano will be a good defensive 3B. If he turns into the hitter he looks like he could, he can play below average defense and still be a huge positive for the team. And it means we don't have to trade away good players to try and fill imagined future holes and can instead try and use those players to fill holes we know we have. We KNOW our pitching is terrible. You're guessing our 3B defense may not be good (and may be heavily offset by the bat he brings) in a few years. And all of this ignores that we already have a relatively young 3B who hit 24 homeruns last year in less than a full season of at-bats. Yes, Plouffe is unlikely to win gold gloves at 3B. But he somehow stuck as a SS for his entire minor league career. Yes, we don't have a big enough sample to be certain he'll be a consistent above-average hitter. But he certainly has the potential. So essentially we have 2 guys in our organization, one already at the majors, one who will be in a few years, who both have the potential to be standout hitters at 3B. But because their defense looks iffy in the small sample sizes we have available so far, we should completely write off both of our own players and trade our 2nd and 3rd best hitters to go find someone else's prospect who MIGHT be a better defensive player. And who also might not be as good a hitter. Of course there's no chance he could end up being anything less than a star, right? Look, I understand Mike Olt looks like a great prospect, and someday he may end up having been worth trading Morneau and Willingham for him. But since we're essentially looking at a bunch of guys who haven't yet proven they're a long-term 3B, why trade 2 of our best players for an unproven when we have 2 of our own unproven who might be just as good? So we can say we traded our players when they still had value and got something back in return is the answer, I would imagine. I think that's a little misguided, and if that's the reason, target something that's clearly a bigger need, a SS or SP, not 3B. If Plouffe faceplants and the Twins move Sano to 1B this year, feel free to come throw this back in my face. But it isn't a move that makes sense to me right now.

The Sano can't stick at 3B talk seems a wee bit overdone. I don't know any more than anybody else does, obviously, but I don't care that someone (KLaw?) labeled him as iffy to stick there. Until the Twins do something else with him, he's a 3B, and why on earth would you be looking to move him to another position before he has to. You should be encouraging the Twins to stick with him at 3B. Geez, Corey Koskie was bad at 3B when he first got up, and he turned into a really good defensive player. And he was 6'3", 220 lbs, meaning around the same size as Sano (who supposedly has a fantastic throwing arm). Would Miguel Cabrera be better at 1B than 3B? Sure. But you can't tell me playing him at 3B is a mistake right now, not with the roster composition they have. The absolute best thing for this team long-term is Sano sticking at 3B and Rosario sticking at 2B, and writing them off at those positions for a somewhat sketchy trade now seems kind of silly. Everyone should be rooting for Swisher to sign with Cleveland, though. Anything to make Texas more desperate.

If it really adds any info to the situation, I only see a limited amount of comments from the main articles, whereas the links from the sidebar or directly from the forum show all of them. I also notice the few comments seen from the main articles don't have some of the extra info about the user who posted (like rank, number of posts, etc...) Windows 8 using Opera 12, at least most of the time.

I'll preface this by saying I don't think there's any trade in the works with Boston for Mauer. That being said, if I was trading Mauer to Boston, Dustin Pedroia would absolutely be a part of what I was asking for (and it would require more than Pedroia, but he's the starting point). Without him, forget it. Lester and prospects, not good enough. That's of course only my opinion, but Mauer is that good. You want the best player on our team, the face of the franchise, the marketing machine, everything that Mauer is for the Twins, you're giving us your best player back in return who happens to fill a position of desperate need for us, and you're adding a whole bunch more, too. I think I'd be tempted to ask for Lester to go with Pedroia.

No moves are allowed unless they improve the team by at least 5 wins over last year...

Like most, I think the second year is what I don't get. I think Correia can be a perfectly adequate pitcher for the Twins next year. And therein lies the problem. Adequate is the best you're going to get from Correia. There's nothing to look at to say, "he can be really good for us." Nothing. Why give two years to that? That being said, if he can be adequate without having drastic swings game-to-game, I can live with this. More than anything else about our pitching lately was the unknown quality of pitching you were going to get in any given game. I can understand completely the notion that Deduno or DeVries or Walters or Hendricks can give you everything Correia could. They "could." They could also give you what the Twins got to start last year from Hendricks and Marquis and Blackburn. Even people who thought Marquis and Blackburn last season wouldn't be good weren't predicting that level of awful. We badly need to avoid that pathetic show of pitching that we started the season with last year. That was the most unbelievably putrid display of pitching for most of April that you could possibly have, and relying on Deduno, DeVries, Hendricks, Walters to avoid that is... I'm not even sure what to call it. Risky, but that's not exactly it. With Correia at least you can see that he's been a marginally successful Major League pitcher for 5 years or so. Those other guys? Less than half a season, with massive warning signs flashing over all of them. I still hate this move, though.

Something that's been running through my head a bunch lately (and was sparked by the Adam Walker interview). I know we all love to read Top 10/20/50/100 lists and see Twins names on them. But I always wish I had a little more information about players and the organization in general as well. It's nice to see Sano ranked as #15 (or whatever) in baseball, but what is it that puts him at that spot? One scouting report listed Levi Michael as the best defensive infielder in the Twins organization, where did that grade come from? In thinking about that, I always wish I had the "scouting reports" that ranked players on the various aspects (like the 20-80 scale, for instance) to give me an idea what the player profiled as overall, not just that he runs fast or hits the ball hard (though those might be the most fun to compare). That's way too much to ask for for an entire organization, obviously, but I think it'd be pretty cool to see who are considered the best at certain tools. For instance, who are the 3-5 tops in raw power? Sano would presumably be in there. Who else? Kennys Vargas, Adam Walker, Travis Harrison? Other categories that would be fun to know: Raw speed, strongest throwing arm for position players, best fastball (highest speed) for pitchers, best pickoff move, best defensive infielder/outfielder/catcher, etc... I'm just tossing out things I think would be fun to know, but there's tons of others. I don't know how possible it is to answer any of that without access to scouting services' information, but anyone with thoughts, I'd love to read it.

Heh, I saw that, too. Good for a chuckle. I actually have hopes Benson turns into a really good player again, but that comparison is just a wee bit over the top. My personal preference with no other factors to consider would be Hicks as the starter. I think Seth has the right idea, though. Hope that Benson has regained his form in order to man the position until Hicks' service clock is in order, and then call him up. Why would anyone not want Benson to be good enough to start? More trade pieces for the Twins, especially since he's apparently the next Mike Trout.

(Not sure if this is behind a paywall or not) http://espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove12/story/_/id/8719272/josh-hamilton-zack-greinke-causing-major-logjam I thought this article was interesting, noting how intertwined Greinke and Hamilton are with most of the other FA (and even trade) possibilities. The whole market is totally bogged down by them and whatever the Texas Rangers end up doing, and until one of them signs, nothing else much is happening (except for centerfielders, anyway). Essentially if you want to sign someone right now, your offer is probably going to have to be ridiculous. Once those guys sign, everything else will probably fall into place fairly quickly, and then we find out if TR can get anyone signed. But panicking before the entire market actually starts taking shape probably isn't really warranted.

In a sense, I think the Revere trade makes trading Morneau now less likely. I'm still a little shocked we got both a Major League starter and a prospect for him. But we have one of our starting pitchers now, and money to get a couple more, meaning if everything (EVERYTHING) breaks right they can contend next year, and part of that is a quality season by Morneau. My perspective here is that they still want to try and compete next year. If we trade Morneau, we now need to move Parmelee to first and then we probably need a FA OF or we're turning over RF to Arcia or Hicks (who may be great someday, but most reports say they're probably not ready yet). Who do you think is most likely to have an above average hitting season next year, Justin Morneau, a Rick Ankiel type, or Oswaldo Arcia? Cause we need one of those to happen to realistically be competitive next season.

Arcia is closer than Hicks? Man I want more information on these guys. While Arcia looks like a better overall hitter, I thought he still had a loop in his swing or something like that? Or am I misremembering that? Most of what I've read is that both probably aren't quite ready yet, but I thought Hicks was supposedly the best defensive OF (including best arm) in the Twins system, and I can live with struggles at the plate if he plays stellar defense. I just don't know anything about Arcia as a defensive player.

I'm thrilled at the notion of Hicks playing CF for the Twins. And I'm actually hoping that it is Benson to start the season. Mainly because if Benson looks good enough to get the job it hopefully means he has the potential to still be a good player, and we can safely trade away both Willingham and Morneau at the deadline and roll with an outfield of a then-decent Benson, along with Hicks and Arcia. I love Mastroianni as the 4th outfielder, and I have doubts he's a full-time player. Is Arcia a LF or RF? I don't honestly know. And how good is his defense?

Make Dustin Pedroia part of the package coming back, and I'm on board...

Here at Ben Revere Daily... I'm really excited, we got a guy who looks to be a solid major leaguer and a prospect with upside. And it means we'll definitely see Hicks at some point next year, barring injury (knock on wood). If both pitchers pan out, this move is fantastic. There some pretty big question marks for both of them, though. My chronic page refreshing today is finally rewarded, however. I've been looking forward to Aaron Hicks for a couple years now, he's almost the perfect example of what I want in a CF if he makes the transition successfully. It'll be interesting to see how they try and fill the position. Live with Mastro until Hicks is ready? Play Benson regardless of last year since he's already had service time in the majors? Throw Hicks in the deep end and see if he swims? Pick up a half-year rental from the scrap heap?

Care to reevaluate that statement? He should be in the Hall of Fame with that skillset, but as of right now...

He seem like the high end of what the Twins will realistically get. I'm not sure if that qualifies as a 'best hope' or not, though.

My first thought was, "doesn't A-rod have a ton of incentives in his contract?" But I think they're mostly milestone based incentives (600 HR, 700 HR, all time HR leader, etc...), not seasonal achievement incentives. So it's not unheard of to have incentives in the contract, just not the norm, and determining those incentives would be the tricky part, to make them appealing to the player over guaranteed money. It's not a bad idea in a sense, but I think people have already pointed out most any flaw I would be able to think of.

I kind of view it this way... If you're trying to compete this year you're not trading away both of your proven center fielders. The minute you trade away the second one, you're turning your eye to the future. If they trade Revere I assume other pieces are getting traded as well. That's what makes this interesting. I think part of this story is perhaps which side caused Revere's name to come up as a trade candidate. Are the Twins shopping him actively, or are other teams inquiring if he's available? It's a subtle difference that doesn't ultimately matter much, but knowing that would give a clue towards their plans for next year.

If the return is good, do it. We can piece together a CF from Benson, Mastroianni, and Hicks. Trading Revere away would basically be admission that they're starting the transition to the young guys in the minors anyway, so at that point you want to find out what you have in Benson and Hicks, and we've seen Mastro do a decent job in part time duty already.

My curiosity over something else caused me to look up the Elizabethton roster, and when doing so I noticed that Rory Rhodes is listed as a 6'7" outfielder. Which immediately made me go, "Outfielder? Really?" Now I have no idea if he will ever play at the Major League level, but I started wondering who the tallest outfielders ever might have been. I really don't have a great feel for all the players from all different teams over the years. My first thought was Shawn Green, but he was 6'4". Barry Bonds popped to mind, but his steroids physique obviously tricked my brain into thinking he was taller than his 6'2". I finally remembered Dave Winfield, who was 6'6". Anybody know of someone who was taller than that as an outfielder? I have a hard time imagining someone that tall being an outfielder, most of the freaky good athletes that size are likely basketball players (which Winfield also was, if I recall correctly).

This is probably where I'm at, too. I'd like to have somebody for at least 4 years honestly, but I'm not sure who I'd want to give that to. I'd love Greinke or Sanchez, but I can't imagine the Twins outbidding the rest of the league for either. After those two I'm not sure what to think. You've got older guys (Marcum, Dempster) or inconsistent guys (Jackson) or hurt guys (Haren). That's perfectly normal options for free agency, but it's hard to fall in love with any of them.

Anyone know if there's an official place to look this up? I recall (thus completely untrustworthy) an interview with Dave St. Peter from around April that indicated the revenue sharing situation for the Twins was changing due to Target Field. To my (untrustworthy) recollection, I believe St. Peter indicated the Twins received a large amount from revenue sharing in 2010, since it was determined by the previous financials from the Metrodome. Then the revenue sharing in 2011 was relatively neutral, and in 2012 the Twins started paying in fairly significantly. So out of all of that payroll cut from 2011 to 2012, a good bit of it actually went to revenue sharing, not the owners' pockets. Granted I suspect they probably could afford to pay much more in payroll, I'm not really arguing that at all. I don't have access to financials, though. But I get a little crosseyed every time year-to-year payrolls are compared to each other in exclusion of everything else. Edit: Doing some of my own checking, I came across the quote I was thinking of, and I wasn't remembering it quite correctly. From this article, http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/blogs/Around_the_majors.html?cs=3051&c=340212, he's quoted as saying:

Is it just me, or is anyone else amused at how much consternation there is over the Twins so far doing nothing to address next year's pitching staff, and yet there's constant derision over almost every potential contract being thrown out as a possibility. Just to lump myself amongst the people I'm chiding, 3 years for a 35 year old pitcher seems like a bad idea to me, as well.

Twins OBP from last year (people I assume will be in the lineup): Mauer - .416 Willingham - .366 Carroll - .343 Morneau and Revere - .333 Doumit - .320 Plouffe - .301 Parmelee - .290 Florimon or Dozier - blech I'm betting on Carroll. Not because I think it's the right move, but it's how the Twins do it. MI with a decent OBP means #2 hitter. But if he can keep his OBP above .330, I don't think it'll be horrible using Carroll there. He got off to a terrible start last year (as did almost everyone else), but was actually a pretty good hitter by the end. Using Carroll there also leads to: Revere - L Carroll - R Mauer - L Willingham - R Morneau - L Doumit - S Plouffe - R Parmelee - L Dozier/Florimon - R