Jim H

A salary floor is likely to help the players more than no salary cap. Currently there are only a handful of teams that really spend big. If you force all teams up to a 170 mil minimum for example, it will a lot more total money than what is being spent by the owners now. Of course this will likely force the salaries up for ordinary players rather than the already well paid top earners. I expect the owners will want a salary cap as well. At least some of them will. That could cause a divide among the owners. There is no real benefit for either the players or the owners to allow this to go to a lockout or holdout. If there is no baseball there is a very real chance that too many fans won't come back for a long time. Which would hurt both the sides.

Good topic. Right now, I like Lee the best of these 3. His skill set seems to fit 3b well. I think by next year his defense at 3rd will be a bit smoother and he will have picked up some more of the nuances of the position. His glove is good, his arm and range are good enough for 3rd. He has enough power for a 3rd baseman if his on base skills tick up a bit. His major weakness is hitting left-handed pitching but that could improve with time. It is too bad Keashall seems to have washed out at 2nd base. His speed, aggressive play, and general hustle are a team need. If there is a clear strength in the Twins organization, it is likely corner outfield. I don't think his offensive profile is high enough to be more than a placeholder for higher ceiling prospects in the system. Lewis looks like he could be an excellent 1st baseman. Which is disappointing from a guy with the tools to be excellent anywhere else in the infield or even centerfield but somehow he isn't. The question is the bat, especially as a 1st baseman. The way he produces at times makes you think the bat shouldn't be a question but it is. I am starting to think he is a place holder as well, until someone better shows up.

The problem against left-handed pitching comes from Buxton and Jeffers being out so much in June and July plus the 3 switch hitters being bad against left handers. Adding a lefty masher doesn't really fix anything if you are going to continue to play Bell and Caratini against lefthanders and bat them in the middle of the lineup. Martin and Keashall are actually pretty good against lefthanders, so adding another right handed hitter makes little sense to me, when the only place he can play is corner outfield. If you are batting Buxton and Jeffers at the top of the order, a large problem for the Twins all year has been the mushy middle of the lineup. It was masked in June when Clemens, Caratini and Bell all got hot together. But really the only hitter who has resembled a middle of the order hitter this year is Clemens and he has been pretty streaky. I really agree with many, in that I would like to see at one of supposed premium prospects promoted and installed in the middle of the lineup. I want to see whoever is promoted playing pretty much everyday against both lefthanders and right handers. Unless Buxton gets healthy and Jeffers is still here, most of what the Twins, might do, and have already done at the deadline won't matter much. The defense is still shaky, the bullpen will not become dominant, all the injured starters won't be coming back this year to save the Twins. The best thing about the Twins this year is they play hard and are generally fun to watch. I hope they make the playoffs but the front office should be most concerned about building a better team without so many holes and limitations.

Baby steps. Sunday against a left handed starter neither Bell or Caratini started, or actually played at all. Lee played but was in the bottom third of the order. The Twins scored 11 runs. Baseball is completely unpredictable from game to game. It is unlikely that not playing Bell and Caratini really was the reason they scored 11 runs. Especially since the left handed starter wasn't in the game long. But, maybe Shelton won't feel so obligated to start them against every single left handed starter.

The gap in production against left handed starters and right handed starters has gotten much larger than it was earlier in the season. I also see that there is article on TD that advocates for trading for another right handed hitter. Does nobody pay attention. The biggest problem against left handed pitchers is the switch hitters. None of the 3 do well against left handers, plus they are generally somewhere in the middle of the lineup. They tend to kill rallys on a consistent basis. I really dislike this consistent effort to turn every left handed hitter into a platoon partner. They seem to be doing it to Roden now. I have no idea if he can hit left handed hitting at an acceptable level at the major league level. I rather doubt we will ever find out.

Comparing Winokur to Kepler is something of a stretch. Kepler was a 16 year old international free agent from Germany. Nobody thought there was any chance Kepler could move normally thru the farm system. Even compared to 16 year olds from Latin America, he had certainly played less competitive baseball growing up. Still you are basically right in that even if his development isn't linear, his athleticism will give him chances to figure it out. You don't want to give up on talented athletes too soon. Cuddyer is an example of a talented athlete drafted as a shortstop who repeated a level, moved positions and basically took awhile to develop. Still, he needs to make more contact then he does now to have much chance of being a major league regular.

No, top prospects aren't treated that way and prospects who have a good chance to carve out a regular role aren't treated that way either. It is hard for anyone to go from playing everyday to playing very sporadically. That is what happened to Clemens for example. When he got regular playing time he went from being considered a AAAA player to a middle of the order bat. Now I agree, Fedco may be lucky to get any major league run whatsoever. Nevertheless you really can't tell much about whether he has a major league bat when a player is used that way. Especially on his very 1st major league call up.

In your 4th year as a professional, age to level is no longer much of a consideration. His numbers don't suggest he was dominating High A. Moving him to double A was probably necessary but I agree with several posters, playing him at SS 1/3 of the time makes little sense. That suggests he isn't good enough to be a full time shortstop. Take advantage of his athleticism and put him in centerfield. Hitting is what he needs to work on. Power isn't very useful if he can't get to it very often in games. One of the problems with drafting project high school kids is that they are still kinda young when you need to put them on the 40 man roster to protect them from rule 5. He needs to show before then that he is more than a utility player.

The Twins have indeed done similar things to young players before. Fedko was playing basically everyday at AAA, batting in the middle of the order. I expect that has been true his whole minor league career. He comes to the park, is in the lineup almost everyday, it makes no difference which hand the pitcher throws with. When he gets to the majors he sits on the bench till a lefthander starts, probably comes out the game if a right handed enters the game. He gets no ab's for 12 days. Wonder why he struggled? Now the problem is, that this is probably his role if he manages to carve out a major league career. He is not a top prospect, his skill set is a bit limited and there seems to be a lot of other higher rated prospects in the upper levels of the Twins system. Nevertheless this a tough way to treat a guy on his first look in the majors.

I hope the Twins keep Ryan mostly because he is fun to watch pitch. Also he he has stayed healthy which may be luck but could an efficient throwing motion and the fact he doesn't have to throw 100 % on every pitch to be effective. I expect he could be one of those pitchers who can continue to effective into his mid thirties. The Twins can certainly sign him either now or when he becomes a free agent if they are willing to pay him market rates. Since a salary floor seems pretty likely, I would like to see the money spent on a real star like Ryan. Because the money will be be spent somewhere, probably for aging non stars like they have been doing the last few years. Only at inflated rates because everybody will have to meet the salary floor. I don't know how close to truly competitive the Twins really are. I expect that depends on how good the near ready prospects turn out to be. Having an ace, maybe two if Lopez can come back to his former effectiveness, would go a long way to anchoring a competitive team.

I turned it over to the Cleveland broadcast. I like to know what is going on in the game I am watching, not what happened in the clubhouse 15 years ago.

I believe Bradley needs to continue to throw his fastball over 50% of the time. He needs to continue to work on his command. A well located upper 90's fastball is not easy to hit even for very good hitters. Also, as previously mentioned, breaking pitches work better when set up by fastballs. You can often get away with a poorly located breaking pitch or even one that doesn't break very well, if the batter has to look for the fastball.

I have wondered what the Twins were trying to accomplish with their deadline deals trading expiring contracts and their entire effective bullpen. They clearly added a couple lottery ticket low level catchers. That made some sense. Catching was/is an organizational weakness. They also acquired a whole pile of currently starting pitcher prospects. Mostly upper minors or limited majors exposure. This makes some sense. No organization has enough quality major league starters and dominate relievers are almost always former starters who fail to stick as major league starters. The biggest question was why did they prioritize adding 3 left-handed hitting corner outfielders Outman, Roden, and Mendez. This only makes sense if you think they can be better than what you already have in the majors or upper minors. If you never make room for these guys to play at the major league level, why did you make the trades? Even though Larnarch is playing well right now as platoon leftfielder and Wallner has a track record of some major league success, neither figures to have a real place in the future of the Twins. A rational observer has to wonder why they are still here. Is keeping them around worth some limited current value or some theoretical better future return?

I am rooting for Raya. I would rather see the young guys with live arms pitch than the rotating vets who don't have the stuff to succeed or have struggled with control for years. At least there is hope the young guys might improve. I also wish TD would drop the young for level excuse for poor performance. Mostly high school draftees were drafted because they exhibited superior talent and maturity at young age. They have also, along with young international talent, been held in the complex league until they dominate that level, where they are age appropriate. Injuries can be more of an excuse, but Raya has been a pro long enough that he had to be added to the 40 man. Age really shouldn't be a factor in whether he can succeed at higher minor league levels. Talent and the ability to adjust to better competition are bigger factors.

Its kind of hard to draw a lot of hard and fast conclusions from this. Since the best hitters on the team thru about the first 50 games were Buxton, Jeffers, and Martin, logic might suggest they should of been doing better against left handed pitching. Still the switch hitters, especially Lee, have been better against rh pitchers. Basically the offense has been so inconsistent from week to week and even game to game that I am not sure that the handness of the starting pitcher or which side of the plate the hitters are standing should be what the Twins should be concerned about. Contorting the lineup to gain a platoon advantage always seems counterproductive to me. Defense matters. If you are going to play Lewis at first, maybe you give him more than 1 game in the minors to learn the position. Maybe you just leave him at first for awhile instead of shifting him around to 2nd or 3rd to gain a marginal platoon advantage. Like you, I don't like deciding left handed hitters will always struggle against left handed pitchers, so you have to protect them from hitting against left handed pitching from the day they appear in the majors. I hope that when the well hyped young left handed hitting prospects finally appear in the majors, they get a real runway to show what the might do against all pitching.