Kirby_waved_at_me

Maybe not a bad idea once Milone comes back to switch the whole staff to a six man rotation for the rest of the year. They aren't competing for a playoff spot, the only guy on the staff that would even be pitching for accumulating statistical goals would be Hughes. Not enough games left for him to reach 20 wins or 200 Ks, so no need to make these guys grind it out. Give Darnell some starts to finish the month/season, see how he fares. He's probably going to be the first guy up from AAA next year, too.

I feel at this moment that Pelfrey will be the #5 Starter next season for the first month or so, assuming he's medically cleared to play. The Twins should be shopping him aggressively early on. It's one thing to have Correia in the rotation to keep the Logan Darnells of the world from getting major league starts - it's another for Pelfrey to be taking starts that could instead go to Alex Meyer. I think the biggest deciding factor for the 2015 rotation will be health. Pelfrey will likely be retained by the Twins as long as he's healthy and as long as there are questions about the depth of the rotation. Milone in 2015 pretty much equals Pino this year, and I'm ok with that. My guess for what we'll see for most of 2015: Hughes Gibson Nolasco May Pelfrey/Milone/Meyer What I'd like to see (but won't happen): James Shields or Ervin Santana Hughes Gibson May Nolasco Meyer/Pelfrey/Milone/Justin Masterson for depth.

Are you suggesting that not all Twins' prospects will hit like Danny Santana and Kennys Vargas as soon as they hit the majors?

Cool - thanks for the info!

I thought he pitched pretty well for most of his start last night - he definitely is streaky. When he strikes a guy out, he seems to have more swagger and pitches well to the next batter. If he happens to give up a hit (doesn't matter if it is an infield single or a screaming line drive), he is visibly agitated. I even saw him get irritated when a foul pop fell between Pinto and Mauer near the Twins' dugout. He rides the emotional highs and lows of seemingly each pitch he throws. That can be exciting to watch, but I am hopeful that he can cut down on that a bit and just pitch.

I'm not familiar with how the instructional league works - do they play scrimmages against other teams, or is it more like team practices? Since Gordon just broke a finger, would that mean that he'd be extremely limited in what he can do in the instructional league, or do they do a lot more than play simulated or scrimmage games?

Pretty fun last night, just one rain delay and a couple spotty downpours. 5th inning felt like it was dragging forever (especially the top of the 5th - wasn't sure if May was going to make it out alive). The Vargas homer was worth the price of admission alone.

It sure is fun to watch the Twins win! I could get used to it.

hey - J.B. Shuck was DFA'd . . . http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/09/angels-designate-michael-kohn-j-b-shuck.html Twins could use a cost controlled outfielder like him...

Called it!

Hopefully May has just been getting his feet wet and taking some lumps in the same way that Gibson did last year. HItting two guys in his last start was no good, but other than that blip he has seemed to be a little bit better each time he's gone out there control-wise. I think the numbers for Milone and May are too small to get reliable data just yet. Nolasco has just been awful no matter how you slice it. I do expect that he'll be better next season, it would be hard to be worse!

Well, I think the Twins used Pino's option very efficiently this season - maybe they learned the value of having a couple guys like that on the pitching staff that can shuttle back and forth as needed...

how about the FIP and xFIP for these same pitchers? Can we blame the poor defense for some of the ugliness? last number is the FIP, in italics: 2014 Phil Hughes (27), 3.70 , 2.62 Kyle Gibson (26), 4.23, 3.70 Ricky Nolasco (21), 5.62, 4.55 Tommy Milone (4), 7.94, 5.77 Trevor May (4), 10.42, 5.44

I've got tickets for Wednesday night - hoping the rain stays away.

I'm very skeptical about Plouffe being labeled by fans and media as a possible utility IF/OF, or even a regular LF. Wouldn't he have seen some time there already this year if anyone in the Twins management team felt he could play there? They had Eduardo Escobar and JASON BARTLETT playing left field this season . . . I feel like Plouffe would have already been out there this year (or last year? even once?) if the coaches felt he was a viable option out there. He hasn't been in the outfield since 2012, I don't think moving him back there is something the team has considered.

listened to Gardy this a.m. Mauer is DH'ing again, Vargas at 1B

I assume at least one of Vargas, Arcia, Plouffe, or Dozier will get a homer in the Orioles' series - it would be hard for them not to hit at least one.... Right?

Santana is probably a more realistic target, especially considering there were rumors swirling that the Twins already tried signing him last offseason. I wonder how close they were. Santana made $14.1MM this year - I wonder if exactly $15MM / year would be enough to sign him for multiple years.

Yeah, You're probably right about that - his 2014 salary is $13.5MM, for some reason I thought it was lower than that. I think Shields is probably as expensive as the Twins will be willing to go - maybe they would offer more than $15MM to Shields, but with Nolasco's $12MM/year fresh in the front office's memory, maybe they won't be willing to bid higher. I don't think it's the right move, it's just what I have come to expect from the Twins, they are not likely to spend more this offseason than they did last offseason.

I think the Maximum Annual $$ the Twins will offer to any free agent will be somewhere between $10-$15MM. It seems to take Lester and Scherzer (and Hanley Ramirez and Victor Martinez, oh well) out of the running right away. But I think there are some realistic targets for the Twins - Shields, Masterson, Bonifacio, Melky, Rasmus, Nori Aoki, Torii, Gavin Floyd, etc. And of course I would like them to try to sign Yasmani Tomas - but he might be "too expensive" for the Twins' taste.

I think it would be interesting to look at the ROY ballots from the last 20 years or so... Sure, there are players like Mike Trout that are awesome from day one and Superstars forever, but then there are guys like Bobby Crosby, Dontrelle Willis, Bob Hamelin, etc etc etc that are flashes in the pan... I think there are lots of examples of players that have just one good year, and lots of examples of players that are slower to develop but become great players over time... Being a prospect doesn't really come with any promises of future success, hopefully the longer a player is in a team's system, the better that team is at predicting which guy that player will turn out to be. From there you can make a call regarding trading or retaining a guy....

If the Twins sign Yasmani Tomas and one Lester/Scherzer/Shields, I'll buy season tickets.

Great! 6 months is plenty of time for Puig and Grienke to find an affordable Twin Cities apartment before they get here. In all seriousness, though, I hope the Twins do get a player instead of just cash, even if it's just a Sulbaran or lesser prospect.

By "we" I'm talking about Twins Daily commenters ... There were a few mentions of "I feel like I read this same thing last year" on some of the early off-season threads that are active today, it got me wondering... What did we read last year? One post entitled "A Year From Now" was made on 8/26/2013 - it had a very interesting projected lineup, including Mauer as the catcher and Justin Morneau batting 3rd, along with both Buxton and Sano in the starting 9.. Another post from 9/2/2013 asks if the Twins are realistic contenders for 2015 or 2016 - suggests signing Phil Hughes! (and Tanaka, trading Deduno for a SS, and signing a 3rd pitcher via FA or Trade) Here's one with a lot of discussion on adding a FA outfielder - Ellsbury and David Murphy get mentions, but no Kubel? The big theme was the starting rotation, and with good reason. There was some talk about trying to sign Jose Abreu, and Tanaka, but it was still in that tone of "TR won't do it, but it would be nice if he tried!" No one mentioned Kurt Suzuki, though a few threads talked about Mauer moving away from catching and some reservations about giving the job to Pinto. Even with the reservations, it was almost unanimous that Doumit should be traded. No one mentioned Nolasco in the threads I read, lots of talk about Josh Johnson though... and people were shaking their heads about the prospect of Pelfrey's last contract... So, what do I take away? It seems like there were a few surprises this past offseason from Terry Ryan, though the exact names were a bit off from the Twins Daily wishlist. Does it give me hope that any combo of Yasmani Tomas, Melky Cabrera, Jon Lester, James Shields, or Max Scherzer will be wearing a TC on their hat next spring? Not really, but hey, we've been surprised before...

So... is there a deadline for announcing what the official return was for Correia? Did we get Joc Peterson and Kershaw or not?