ashbury

I guess that's one way of defining the risk the Twins were willing to take on. Maybe they were uniquely positioned to do so.

I agree it's a reasonable risk on an 11th-rounder. But it's still a risk, in the sense of "there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." This guy has a known known, the injury, and a known unknown, namely whether he will bounce back from his surgery. Not all pitchers do. Even the attitude that "well, every pitcher gets surgery eventually, so get it out of the way" is to me questionable. A second TJ surgery has less to work with than the first, as I understand it. (I'd better go and re-read Jeff Passan's The Arm now. ) That makes for a bigger risk later on in his career. Again, our consensus seems to be it's completely acceptable in the 11th round. But, by definition, it means that no other team saw it as the right decision in the 10th round. That makes it a debatable topic.

Interesting gamble by the team. Joc Pederson was an 11th rounder for the Dodgers a few years ago - maybe we'll have the same kind of return. In any case, good luck to Tyler and his rehab.

Moderator's note: All right. That's enough* of the personal sniping, on all sides. Not to mention, the sub-thread about draft strategies has gone pretty far afield from the question of ranking our prospects. Stick to the topic, please; start another thread if you want to revisit the past. * Too much, actually. But you know what I mean.

http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/D9hvmI-kk08/mqdefault.jpg

An ignorant answer from another non-athlete: arm strength has been the knock on Polanco for as long as I remember, including comments from Twins personnel, so I would presume he's worked with whatever experts there are, already. The lack of zip on his throws when he guides it to first, or the scattershot results if he really tries to bring it, is not a sudden revelation.

Having both Dozier and Polanco on the same team is a sub-optimal use of their talents, as they belong both at 2B and putting one at SS or 3B diminishes his contribution. The question for me is whether trading either one brings back enough to exceed the suboptimal combination. (SydneyTwinsFan among others also expressed this point of view.) Therefore, before making any other decisions, I would shop both Dozier and Polanco hard. I want to know concretely the return either player would bring. Tactically, I think letting it be known both are being shopped will slightly increase the offers for the one who other GMs want more, probably Dozier - "I don't especially want Polanco, but if I lowball on Dozier, the Twins might accept an offer on Polanco from someone else, and then Dozier won't be traded". Dozier is at an age that he'd be the natural one to trade, if your business model is to exploit your minor league talent pipeline. We may look back and realize 2016 was his career year. On the other hand, if he's achieved a new level of performance, it's enough above average that he's the kind of player you want to retain. There is also the public relations problem with trading your best player, something that can not be ignored. So I want a lot in return for him, if I trade him - high upside starting pitching, to start with. The point of putting together a contending team is to fill all your positions with above MLB-average players. Those don't grow on trees. We finally have one. Polanco, as has been stated by others already, is less likely to bring back much in trade right now. If that assumption proves wrong, he's the one I probably deal. He projects as an above average 2B eventually, so I don't let him go for scraps in return. If neither trade option works out, I would roll with Polanco at SS for 2017.* I have been a harsh critic of Polanco's arm for a couple of years now, and I remain very skeptical he can ever become even an average shortstop overall. But his bat looks like it's good enough to make up for it, during a transition season; and unlike some players, being in over his head on defense didn't seem to harm his offensive production. Keep the channels open for a trade during 2017, and re-evaluate a year from now if I still have both players. * An option I haven't seen discussed: move Dozier to SS instead of Polanco. Both players are about average at 2B; if Dozier might provide marginally better defense at SS then that change has to be considered. The old regime seemed to give undue preference to veterans in their choice of positions; maybe under Falvey that changes. I think Dozier sees himself as enough of a team player to accept the challenge of being a mediocre SS for the good of the team. It's something Molitor wouldn't have asked of Dozier mid-season, but perhaps now he would.

I'm hoping the new front office does a bit of culling among the glut of corner/DH types we have, preferably via trade rather than simply non-tender them. Minus a couple of those players, Vargas's role will become clear. He's either with some other team, or is part of the Twins lineup as a platoon bat at minimum. Plouffe gone, Vargas for a prospect in single-A, or Park for a prospect in single-A - I'm not sure I care which two of these happens.

This football star has a movie now? http://67.media.tumblr.com/f4ccd60df683d68c1657ac1f52fc8839/tumblr_n6ab8yu0Sx1td5zevo1_1280.png

Terrible. Terrific. What's a few letters, among friends?

He was a 20 year old, at high-A. To me, those numbers project just fine. If he can stick at SS, even more so.

Going only by the web page for the show, it looks like they have a regular white guy with them, to make sure they don't try to marry each other or nothin'.

I'm sticking with the reality shows that MSNBC runs in prime-time. Scary and hilarious at the same time!

A little poetic license.

Satire just doesn't play well on this site. Had I just straightforwardly said his pedigree compares interestingly and favorably with Jed Hoyer's, that pedigree would all of a sudden seem like a small plus, no?

The Twins just hired an ex-jock, a pitcher, from a liberal arts college in Hartford, who eked out an economics degree. The Pohlad organization will be comfortable with this kindred spirit from the east coast variety of the country club. No threatening Ivy League MBAs or law degrees to shake things up or anything. Or maybe I just described Jed Hoyer. No, Hoyer's degree was in History. Never mind.

I used to be hip like that too. That got old after a few months and I moved on.

I choose to believe this one gets walked back, as needed. Mollie gets promoted to VP of Strategic Acumen and Advanced Baseball Thinkology, and the GM's choice is thereupon ushered into the dugout.

Old Air Force sergeants never die, they just go to a higher plane.

Click on image for solution to puzzle.

ISWYDT http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/obama_iswydt.gif

It's the manager's job to pick a role each pitcher can succeed in. It's the pitching coach's job to help the pitcher succeed in the role he's been assigned. Even if the role isn't quite ideal, adjustments might be possible. It's the pitcher's job to succeed, obviously. I'm wondering if a different coach could have helped Tonkin adjust better, though. I'm willing to roll the dice with a different coach next season, as I've said probably too frequently by now.

He's not a number. He is a free man. "Who is number 1?"

Came here to do that, discovered it to be unnecessary.

We're currently sitting at 55 wins, not 70. I don't think it's smart business for a PBO/GM to flirt with consecutive 100 loss seasons, with a downside risk of 110. There seems to be an unstated assumption that once in the neighborhood of 100, it's all the same, or that it's impossible for a team ERA to get worse than the 5.11 we currently have; run enough Pat Deans out there for lack of anything better to try, and you can have ERA 6.00. Being the go-to laugh-getter for Jimmy Kimmel every night is not where you want to be. It takes a long time to re-fill the ballpark even after the team starts winning, once you let that happen. Houston, now an attractive team in a large enough market, still is drawing just above 2M attendance. It may already be too late for the Twins to avoid long term damage like that, but waving the white flag even before Opening Day would be a compounding mistake. I can envision offers where trading ESan makes sense, but it's far less likely we receive one than for Dozier because of the ready replacement at 2B.