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Jim H

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Everything posted by Jim H

  1. Jim H
    I have been trying to understand what the FO has been working toward since they did the sell down at the trade deadline. Clearly, one goal was to upgrade the catching at all levels in the system. Half a dozen new catchers from low levels in the system to the majors seems to indicate they considered catching an area needing massive improvement. Adding 3 left handed hitting corner outfielders at the deadline would seem to indicate dissatisfaction with the status quo. Either they were unhappy with the current corner outfielders or they don't believe much in the near ready outfielders in the system. In any case, 9 outfielders on 40 man roster plus Jenkins plus a couple of other guys on the 40 man who can play outfield is something you would think gets addressed at some point. After trading away their best bullpen arms they must have a plan to address that. Taking what seems to be a lot of potential starters and turning them into relievers has to be part of the plan. You would think that which guys being converted should have been pretty well figured by now. Whether we should know is one thing. Hopefully, the players have an idea by now. Fixing the bullpen by free agents won't happen. Trades might help. The additions of guys who should be primarily dh's confuses me. Clearly trades of the guys that were already on the roster and best suited for dh have to be under consideration. Finally they must be happy with their projected infield.
  2. Jim H
    Rogers value will come from whether or not he can still get batters out. Serving as a role model or being able to give advice or answer questions is great but he needs to get batters out. The Twins have 3 major league pitching coaches. There is a video coach or two available. Probably a system pitching coordinator available if you need some more advice. If you go back to AAA, there are couple of pitching coaches there. I don't really believe support for young pitchers should be a problem. It is possible conflicting advice could be or maybe not.
  3. Jim H
    I don't believe that the title question is the right question. Matthews, Abel, Bradley, possibly Festa all have better raw stuff. So the real question should be, how many of these guys,if any, can achieve enough consistency and command to push those two guys out of the rotation? At their best neither Woods Richardson or Ober are bad. Its just that any of the other 4 could likely be better.
  4. Jim H
    I think the problem is in part, what is appropriate expectations for particular prospects. When an International free agent can be signed as young as 16, a high school kid is usually 18, and a college player is likely 21 or even older when drafted, fan expectations don't always match the realities surrounding each player. True superior athletes often are expected to dominate a level before being advanced to the next !evel. A player signed at 16 will be 21 with 5 years as a pro. On the other hand, Culpeper is 23 with one full year as a pro. What is appropriate expectations for a 1st round draft choice like Culpepper? I think Bean is likely right. He may need to dominate more before given a chance to play in the majors. That could give him a better chance to succeed immediately.
  5. Jim H
    While I agree with this statement, it doesn't line up very well with their stated goal of being competitive in 2026. Most relievers are failed starters. Occasionally you see a Jesse Crain or Michael Tonkin who were basically relievers all or most of their minor league careers. Generally, though pitchers with major league promise are kept as starters until they fail as starters or they are forced into reliever roles through injury or it becomes apparent that relief is the only real path to a major league career. While pitching is pitching, starting and relieving put different strains on an arm and often require different approaches for most pitchers to be successful. I expect that it will be very difficult to successfully transition every relief candidate immediately to his new role. Or even to figure out what his role in the bullpen should be or even if he should be in a major league bullpen at all. It took about 5 years for last year's bullpen to come together. To hope they can build a good bullpen in a single seems kind of optimistic.
  6. Jim H
    The Twins traded 40% of their roster at the deadline for mostly prospects and now they are considered to have an underrated farm system? What kind of farm system did they have before the trades, then? I understand trying to have positive take on things and there are certainly some good prospects in the system and a lot of interesting ones. But if adding around a dozen prospects at the deadline only makes your farm system underrated, I think at best that is pretty disappointing.
  7. Jim H
    Here's the thing about versatility, virtually any player who makes the majors can likely play any position on the field, except maybe catcher, at least for a few innings. If you are good enough offensively a team will a find way to get you in the lineup, somewhere. Killebrew played 3b, 1b and lf almost equally over about a 5 year period. They thought it made the team better to get the best bats in the lineup and maybe give up something defensively at 1 or more or positions. The Twins did this with Polanco when they played him at short and left Dozier at 2nd. Teams do this all the time. The problem with this strategy is that you have to get enough offense out a particular player to make moving him to other positions worth it. Particularly if he is subpar defensively. A lot of bad defense doesn't really show up statistically, throwing to the wrong base, turning a double play into a single out, etc. It is not really clear to me at this time whether any of these guys are good enough offensively to be forced into the lineup at multiple positions. If they aren't good enough offensively to hold down one position full time, forcing them into multiple position roles seems counter productive. The goal here should be finding as many full time starters as possible. You should have a couple of utility guys, maybe a couple of platoon type guys,if can't find enough full time starters. You shouldn't really have more than 1 guy whose best position is dh unless the offense is suberb.
  8. Jim H
    The two important words in the headline were key, young. You don't do major extensions for any body who is isn't young. You also don't do extensions for anybody who isn't already key or shows unmistakable signs of becoming key. None of the people mentioned in the article seem all that close to fulfilling those two conditions.
  9. Jim H
    I would think the only way minority owners would buy into the Twins is that there is a path forward to becoming majority owner. Buying in but not having any say in how things are run, doesn't seem like something anybody would do. Especially if the people running things have run up big debts. I have to believe that there are going to be undisclosed agreements in this deal.
  10. Jim H
    When I look at the Twins right now, and squint a little bit, I sort of see the path the possibility the FO sees to being a contender this coming season. The trade deadline sell off created more questions. Clearly, the Twins were trying to add mostly near ready talent that would lengthen the talent pool but while this plan might give them more options, it isn't very clear how this talent is supposed to fit together and fill all the existing problems and the problems created by the selloff. The short-term solutions being discussed and perhaps being considered by the FO, seem to be more the wash, rinse, repeat solutions of the last few years. I am hoping for more creative solutions. There are only few guys on the current roster that are currently impact players. Maybe a couple more who are working their way to that point. Otherwise, you are looking at just a guy, or maybe a good player, sometime. So, pick a direction and work toward it. If, you believe in the young talent that has been acquired, then everything you do should be working toward maximizing it. Make sure they are getting the best minor league instruction possible. Make sure fundamentals are emphasized everywhere, even at the major league level. It looks they are trying to shore up the organizational weakness at catcher. Lets see more of that in other areas. I am a Twins fan since 1961. I don't expect the The Twins organization to get everything right all the time. The best periods of Twins baseball came when strong core talent was in place and a good job was done building around it. Maybe they are closer to that than it appears. If they are, try to take advantage of it.
  11. Jim H
    I don't agree with the premise Of this article. The Twins traded half their roster at the trade deadline to acquire a bunch of live realatively young arms and 3 outfielders. Added to the youngish live arms they already had, means they will be spending spring training and probably a good part of the upcoming season figuring out who stays a starter and who becomes a reliever. Trading any of them doesn't really make much sense until they figure some of that out. If they are trading anybody this offseason, it will likely be from the pool of outfielders. If you believe in their near ready outfield talent, you don't need a bunch of guys blocking them.
  12. Jim H
    The most interesting acquisitions at the trade deadline were the two catchers. Unfortunately, it will likely be 3-5 years before either of them get to the majors and we can see whether they were worth trading for. The Twins paid $33 million to make Coffee go away. There isn't much to discuss there. Outman and Roden fit near the bottom of the current major league outfielders on the 40 man roster. Not much to discuss there either. Abel and Bradley fit right into the group of age 22-26 pitchers who have been minor league starters and are on the 40 man roster but haven't really established themselves as starters. Most of them will end up in the bullpen,. They are probably behind Woods Richardson, Matthews, and Festa. But nobody really knows. The 2 of them will likely get chances to be starters, but like most of the guys in this bucket, the likely outcome is the bullpen. Mendez falls into the same bucket with the near ready outfielders in the upper minors , that the Twins are hoping will be the outfield of the future. He is likely behind the other 3. Finally the other pitchers from the deadline deals are wild cards that the Twins hope they might get lucky with. What the Twins accomplished with their deadline deals was lengthen slightly, their depth in areas they seemingly already had quite a bit of depth. Whether this will make them better in the future, I can't even guess.
  13. Jim H
    I can't get very worked up about this trade. Jackson isn't going to make the Twins much better or much worst than any other backup or platoon catcher readily available. I do believe Falvey is trying to be competitive in 2026. It also seems pretty clear that he doesn't believe that all the young guys from the system and acquired recently are really ready to contribute yet. So, the "core" he had assembled is getting one more chance. It explains why most of the older not quite elite not quite prospect any more, were acquired. He wanted to add to his core and compete in 2026. I don't have much confidence this strategy will work. But giving the next wave of prospects a little more time to marinate in the minors is not necessarily a bad idea. Maybe the Twins will find some keepers from this group that can contribute to the next wave when they have developed enough to be a real core. Maybe they will find some tradeable players that could bring in some more potential core guys. The problem for me, is this not a rebuild, seems so disjointed. It is hard to see the path from this group to a real contending team that could compete for a world series.
  14. Jim H
    Larnach's salary really shouldn't really be a factor in whether you keep him or not. I can see maybe clearing out either Larnach or Wallner before the 2026 season starts, if your goal is to get a good read on whether any of Roden, Outman, or Martin are worth keeping around. At some point your supposed future; Jenkins, Rodriguez, etc, need to start showing up in the majors. I would think there should be room to keep one of Larnach or Wallner until the potential impact youth shows up. I would probably keep Larnach. I am not too fond of 3 true outcome players guys like Wallner. The point is you probably don't need both, unless you somehow believe keeping both gives the Twins a better chance to compete for a playoff berth in 2026.
  15. Jim H
    The Twins have 11 coaches on their major league staff for 2026. 3 pitching coaches and 3 hitting coaches. For 26 players. I believe they have had pretty much the same number, maybe 1 less, the last few years. I don't know the exact number of coaches for each team in the system, but I think there has been at least 2 hitting coaches and 2 pitching coaches at every level. That doesn't count coordinators and analytic staff for the entire system. It is hard to pinpoint where the problems are in developing talent. They have not done a particularly impressive job with international kids, high school kids, or really college kids either. I would guess it is a combination of identifying talent and not developing the talent very well. Since they seem to change out a whole raft of coaches each year, maybe they are trying to fix the problems. Or maybe they just don't really stay with anything or anybody long enough to make any plan work.
  16. Jim H
    The problem with adding 6 players to the 40 man roster is that it is not clear that any are ready to play in the majors. When you add in Rodriguez and Raya, now you have 8 players who are possibly not really ready to play in the majors. You have effectively turned the 40 man roster into a 32 man roster. In addition you are trying to figure out which of the starters should become relievers and which should continue to be starters. You have to figure out what to do with all the outfielders and find a competent 1st baseman and a catcher. I think we are going to see a lot of 4A players bouncing back in forth from St Paul and Minneapolis again this year.
  17. Jim H
    Keep going. If you cut 6 players and promote 6 to Rochester, you have to promote 6 to New Britain, 6 to Fort Myers, 6 to Cedar Rapids, 6 to Elizabethan, and 6 to the GCL team. And probably hope nobody gets hurt at any level because you could run out of bodies, at least at some positions, plus having people playing at levels they may not be ready for.
  18. Jim H
    You do realize the Twins won? If anything the Cleveland pitching was worse than the Twins, they couldn't throw any strikes. It is probably a little early to write "sky is falling" articles. Especially since the Twins are 3 and 3. Let's wait a couple of weeks, maybe after the weather settles a bit, then you can write about how the sky is falling.
  19. Jim H
    I like your takes on the 10 players. I have some slight optimism for the offense. I believe that if the Twins can find 2 players to bat in front of Mauer(I like him 3rd) the Twins offense could be pretty good. I hope it doesn't take all year. Maybe Hicks and Dozier can do all right eventually in the first 2 spots, there really isn't anybody else on the roster or all that close to the majors. Unless you believe that Santana and Buxton will be up soon.
  20. Jim H
    There are have been plenty of suggestions that the Twins lack those things. I don't know how accurate those thoughts are. Since many of them come from feature writers who aren't with the Twins everyday or "visitors" like our Twins Daily guys, they may or may not be seeing things they expect to see or want to see, they may be missing the reality of the situation. Mostly, I think the Twins lack talent. If/when more minor league talent graduate to the big leagues and prove to be premium talent, I expect people will quit talking about leadership, cohesion and enthusiasm.
  21. Jim H
    I don't think Santana is ready for the majors and I really think Escobar is more utility man than starting big league shortstop. I expect you will have to put up with Florimon getting most of the starts at shortstop this year. Maybe Santana will make enough progress to change that next year.
  22. Jim H
    I am interested in the group of pitching prospects who are relatively close to the majors but kind of flying under the radar. Like Melotakis on your list, maybe Darnell, and some of the other recent college pitchers who could move pretty quickly if they figure things out. Also guys like Wimmers and Salcedo who have been around awhile, who injuries have set back, but who were highly considered at one point. I would like to see a guy or two out of this group really challenge for a starting major league job within the next year. Combined with the higher profile guys like Meyer, Gibson and May, this could have the Twins looking pretty good over the next few years.
  23. Jim H
    The Twins bought, potentially, about 270 or 9 seasons worth of starts this off season. They have spread them out over 4 seasons with 3 pitchers, Nolasco, Hughes and Pelfrey. I don't expect the Twins to get anywhere near 270 starts out of these 3 guys and ideally at least 2 of them will be replaced by better young emerging talent before they make all their starts. Assuming they all stay healthy, which they likely won't. I think I expect that if the Twins get 150 to 180 starts out of these guys, that would be pretty good. Especially if the reason they are replaced is that the Twins have better options rather than total ineffectiveness. This year I would just like the 3 of them to be healthy and for all 3 to pitch in the range of a mid-rotation starter, which is pretty much their upside anyway. If that happens, well the sky isn't the limit, but the Twins could have a pretty good year. There will still be room for young guys like Meyer and May, if they show they are ready. Decent pitching might allow some of the young hitters to develop without the need to try to hit 5 run home runs. It is really hard to guess what the offense will do this year. There are so many youngish guys who haven't quite shown themselves to be big regulars yet, but still might. There is the very young talent that might start arriving this year, but may or may not be ready to really help yet. I am fairly optomistic about this team, but what I want to really see is some progress.
  24. Jim H
    I think the idea of Terry Ryan changing his stripes is silly. He has gotten to where he is by being what he is and that isn't going to change. Signing Drew isn't out of the realm of possibility but it would have to be on Ryan's terms. Which would likely be a short term contract. Drew isn't enough better than Florimon to justify the likely cost coupled with the loss of a draft pick plus the resulting lack of flexibility that might result. Morales is interesting but I don't see it happening. It looks to me that Ryan is trying to manuever his roster so that Willingham becomes the full time DH and that there will be a couple of real defenders in the outfield everyday. Morales doesn't help that plan.(If that is the plan) The difficultity of course is that nobody knows if Hicks can hit enough to be a full time outfielder or when Buxton will actually arrive. Or for that matter whether Arcia can be acceptable in RF, whether Plouffe could hold down LF when Sano arrives, or Rosario could. Most everybody else on the roster look like backups, bit players or perhaps some sort of situational/platoon guys.
  25. Jim H
    Albers won't be moved, but his best chance to make the Twins roster is as a long reliever. Which makes some sense. There might not be any left handed starters, Swarzak might get more meaningful innings, Pressey could start the year in AAA, so there might be an opening for a left handed long reliever who could swing to starter in an emergency. A lot depends on how many relievers the Twins decide to carry in 2014, and whether any get traded this winter.
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