mlhouse

LOL...I have been saying this all season long. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the early record was a mirage built upon some unsustainable performances (Sano > 1.000 OPS and Santan < 1.00 ERA). I think that believing this has caused the FO to make a lot of errors. At the same time, I will also state taht the errors are not big ones and nor do I believe that the team should be in "Sell, Sell, Sell" mode just to sell. I think that we are getting close to putting together a team that can compete, we just need to figure out a handful of holes. So, if the offer is not good enough, dont move Dozier or Santana who can help you next season compete for a true division crown. At the same time, some of the dead wood needs to be discarded and prospects need to be brought up immediately (they should have been brought up 95 games ago) to demonstrate their fitness to play at this level. Garver needs to remplace Giminez. The older relief pitchers need to be DFAd and younger guys brought up and given the opportunities: DJ Baxendale from AAA and Luke Bard from AA for sure. Two AAA starters, David Hurlbut and Aaron Siegers need to be given the chance to see if they can be 4th/5th starters for the Twins. By doing these initial steps we can see if any of those guys can help this team going forward. Otherwise, we can address the needs in the offseason. Either way, it needs to happen now.

You post one statistic and claim Thorpe is "vastly superior". Having actually watched the two pitch, Stewart at the A+ minor league level Stewart was by far the better pitcher. More velocity, better command, much more advanced secondary pitches. If you go back you can see my report on Stewart and why his strike out rate is lower than what it should be.

I think that they pitch defined roles and that was his turn. Like I said, Alex Robinson has absolutely nasty stuff if, if is a big word, he can get control. His FB was 96/97 and his slider was really big. He just can't throw strikes when he needs to, and sadly, I think that will be the story of his career.

WHile that may be true, at the A+ level Thorpe was not as good of a pitcher at Kohl Stewart, did not have as good of velocity or control of the fastball, and his secondary pitches were not as developed, particularly compared to Stewart's changeup. He also did not have Stewart's athleticism and Thorpe was a terrible pitcher. Maybe it was just a bad outing. To me he looked uncomfortable (it was really hot and humid) and he just seemed to labor at everything he did. He also struggled to pitch through errors (two of them committed by himself, even though one was ruled a hit he missed the bag at first), a bad call on the HBP were the batter check swung. The umpire also disallowed a run when a Miracle runner was thrown out at 2nd, even though the runner had already crossed the plate. I think the Miracle guys had to keep their mouths shut after all of the ejections the previous game.

WHile I agree we gave up very little in this rental, the real point of the remainder of the season should be to find out if we need a Jaime Garcia signing next offseason. I get the "playoff" contention, but we are a barely .500 team with a runs differential that suggests we should be closer to the bottom of the league than a playoff contender, and the true fact of the matter is that the only reason we even look like a "contender" is that we are in the weakest division in baseball. Instead, we should determine if we have a 4th/5th starter from within the organization by giving Hurlbut and Siegers an opportunity to pitch during the 2nd half of the season, and the time might be right to bring up Gonsalves to see if he is a 3rd/4th starter guy in the league. If one or more of those guys work out, then you don't need a Jaime Garcia. But, if you give them 10 starts each and they cannot do the job, this offseason go out an sign a guy like Garcia to be that 4th starter type a decent roster needs.

Lewis Thorpe Scouting Report Was at the Miracle game tonight to watch Thorpe pitch. It was a very rough outing. For innings 1-3, Thorpe threw 92 fastball, 86 slider, 80 curveball. He tired in inning 4 and his FB was predominately at 91. He had limited control over his fastball although he threw it for strikes. His FB has limited movement so A+ hitters could get contact with a lot of foul balls which really seemed to force his pitch count up. He had almost no control over his offspeed pitches. His slider was erratic except for the 3rd inning when he finally seemed to have the release point, only to lose it in the 4th. He just is not around the plate enough with the breaking pitches so he could not miss bats tonight and at times he missed really badly. I think the heat and humidity had an impact on him as he seemed to be really laboring. He looked very uncomfortable and his mechanics are not polished at all. He is not a very good athlete on the mound and was an exceptionally poor fielder, the unearned runs were caused by his own throwing error fielding a bunt and did not get to first in time on a grounder to first. Michael Theofanopoulos is a little pitcher that probably doesnt have much upside, but he came in and threw strikes, 92 mph of FB with a reasonable slider. The 3rd Leftie up Alex Robinson popped the most impressive radar gun numbers of the game, 97/96 with a nice slider movement but has such limited control it is as if he is randomly throwing up there. He could be a good pitcher if he just trusted his stuff. He walked the bases loaded and escaped. Last of the 4 consecutive lefties, Andrew Vasquez had a bad game. The guy has only given up 14 runs in his entire professional baseball career that started in 2015, and I got to see 2 of them. He is 6-6, but his fastball only tops out at 90 but he has reasonable control. Throws a slider at 82 and curve at 72 with really good spin. His career numbers (ERA 1.34 overall) suggest good control over those pitches but he was just a smidgen off tonight, getting hurt on some bad 2 strike pitches. At 6-6 he has good downward plane but he could really stand to move his are slot up a bit to get even better downward plane on his limited fastball. Brent Rooker had a reasonable game, just missing his first A+ home run off the wall in left center field and he had two walks. He also had a very bad AB when he struck out. Jermaine Palacios had a mixed game. He hit the ball hard twice, foul. He had a bad throwing error on the first hitter of the game displaying very poor fundamentals but he turned a couple of double plays. The rest of the Miracle in the game outside of Kranson and Wiel (neither of which has a position in the field), are slap hitters that have very limited power: Tanner English, Sean Miller, Nelson Miranda, Brandon Lopez. Millers double tonight was a spinner that went down the left field line and his other hit was a blooper. Not a good night for the Miracle.

Garver should have been called up a long time ago. The idea of "ready" is really immaterial. The move from minors, at any level, to MLB is a big step that few rookies are "ready". On the other hand, Garver is already 26 years old, will turn 27 before the start of next season, and has a .905 OPS in AAA over the past two seasons. IF he is not ready now, when will he be??? WHen he is a 34 year old, marginal catcher like Gimenez? Then will he look interesting to this Front Office. And, to address a point you and others made in a previous thread: OF COURSE, you treat Garver, a college draft pick, DIFFERENTLY than you treat a high school draft pick in their minor league development. You missed the contrast. While the Yankees drafted JOhn Ryan Murphy as an 18 year old high school catcher, they moved him up aggressively enough so that he made the Yankees roster as a 22 year old. When you draft a COLLEGE player, they should be much more advanced so that you can move them up the minor leagues faster, more aggressively. Murphy's first attempt at the majors was a call up from AA as a 22 year old who was not even close to the minor league hitter/catcher that Garver is. The second point that is ignored is that Garver has been in the Twins organization that is in extreme rebuild mode: they have lost 96, 92, 79, 103 games in the seasons Garver has been part of the organization. Thirdly, the catchers for this team through Garver's time with the organization have been Kurt Suzuki/Eric Fryer/Juan Ceneno. Claiming Garver isn't ready and then putting Eric Fryer in the game is ridiculous. TO try to compete is one thing. I get the "playoff run", but this team isn't good enough for a playoff run. The fluke 2015 season should have taught us this lesson already. Lets position this team to compete when it is actually ready to compete. Lets find out who in the organization that can play, starting with Mitch Garver and others, and then fill in the spots we cannot fill from the organization with mediocre players like Jaime Garcia where needed.

Glad the trade did not happen. IF we had brought up some of our other pitching prospects and given them opportunities, and htey failed, then we could move on a guy like Garcia to fill the obvious hole in the rotation. So, lets follow this plan. Bring up David Hurlbut and maybe even Gonsleves. Then next offseason if we liek Garcia, lets sign him.

As far as the generalization of how the Twins handle their minor league players, I stand by my assertion. Here are several points: 1. A real study of minor league movements would require way more work than what I am interested in doing (you would have to factor in performance, draft positions, injuries, starting age, etc), I would estimate that the Twins bring up their prospects 12-18 months later than most other organizations. To compare, look at two catchers in AAA: Mitch Garver and John Ryan Murphy (there are probably better comps but this one was the most direct). Yet, despite Garver being statistically better player, Murphy reached the major leagues as a 22 year old. Garver, despite being 26, still has not played at the MLB level. 2. What makes this approach even more amazing is that the team is losing 95+ games a year. Somehow, the Yankees while winning 85+ games per year and really competing for the playoffs managed to bring up a 22 year old catching prospect, while we still have a BETTER 26 year old prospect whiling in the minor leagues. 3. Even with this very conservative approach, Twins prospects struggle making the jump from the minors to the majors, often showing a lack of understanding of baseball fundamentals. 4. And to top it all off, instead of moving their prospects to the majors for development and evaluation, we see a steady stream of Matt Belisle, Craig Breslow, Adam WIlk, Nick Turley, Drew Rucinski, Nick Tepesch, Chris Heston, and the ancient wonder Bartolo Colon just in 2017. We have found innings for just about every single designated for assignment waiver wire pitcher in the league. And the end result, a not surprising cumulaitve ERA that is higher than Chris Gimenez's. 5. Some of these guys are on top of the steady stream of non-entities that have played for this losing franchise over the past 7 years. A stream of Clete Thomases and Shane Robinsons.

You realize you are wrong. Elizabethton IS NOT SHORT SEASON A. It is rookie league, advanced Rookie, but still considered rookie league. For the Twins, it is above their Gulf Coast League team that playes in Ft Myers. But, Short Season A ball is above the rookie league and teams that have affiliations at this level usually send their college draft picks to this level. The Twins, without a short season A team almost exclusively send their college draft picks to Elizabethton and a few advanced high school players (Alex Kiriloff started there). They usually send their high school draft picks and some junior college players, as well as the occasional late signign college player to GCL. I believe the Twins should consider affiliating with a short season A team because for college draft picks, Rooker as a good example, the Pioneer League simply isn't competitive enough. It is a waste of time and because of the lack of competition the Twins lose a critical period in evaluating the players.

WHile this was an aggressive move by the Twins organization standard, it was not an aggressive move. A player like Rooker should start in the short-season A league, but the Twins don't even have an affiliation. If you look at past history the Twins have routinely put their college draft picks in Rk+ Elizabethton and then promoted a few to A- Cedar Rapids. I am sure they think that is aggressive enough, and as far as that goes it is fine. THe problem is that they hold almost everyone of those prospects to Cedar Rapids the following year and then move them up stepwise. I get it with young high school players, but college players are 3-4 years older. Look at Mitch Garver and a lot of the collge pitching draft choices. They aren't reaching the majors until they are 25-26 years of age. That is too slow.

So why not give him the opportunity to play now, rather than having to work out the MLB transition next season?

Why should anyone be surprised? The point is what is the end game even if Colon pitches really well? I guess if you believe we are "in the hunt" it might make sense, but in reality what we are in the hunt for is a "division" title in an extremely weak division and being swept in the playoffs by teams that are much better. So, apparently our front end office thinks it is worth putting off developing a REAL team down the road to pitch 44 year old pitchers and every waiver wire player that has been made in the major leagues this season. But the reality is this team isn't that good. The record overstates this team. While run differential isn't the end all statistic, a team that is -65 in runs isn't that good. That is 6th worse in the majors. I am not going to attribute everything to luck, but some of it is. We are not good. And pretending we are makes it possible to make long term mistakes (like trading away a prospect like Gordon for immediate help today) and pushes off some of the development and evaluation that needs to be done.

I have been saying this from day one. A team taht is -44 in run differential has no right to even think they are contenders. The -44 is 6th worse in major league baseball. We have holes everywhere on the rosters and we need to continue with rebuilding and get that plan complete before we think about contention and actually making roster moves with this mirage in mind. So, lets get rid of the 30+ year old marginal at best players and get our prospects up to evaluate and develop them. I get with all of the losing that it was something everyone wants to believe in, but a fantasy is a poor basis to make your long term franchise building decisions on.

On the Blankenhorn steal of home, the pitcher balked anyways. He set his leg. Lifted it. Then set it down again.

I really wanted to go to the Miracle game yesterday that Thorpe pitched. The problem here is that the weather has just been nasty so it is almost impossible to make outdoor afternoon plans.

I think $2 million was a good bargain for Enlow. I thought he was going to be in the $3 million range. My guess is that the savings that people thought Lewis, Rooker, and Leach were getting arent as big as we first thought and the JUCO guys selected in the 5th and 7th might get a bit above slot.

We were drafting at the top of each round and had a compensatory A pick. That sort of helps. If you are drafting first overall, your 5th round pick is going to be pick 136 in this draft so getting 6 top 100 ranked players isn't that astounding.

I agree that you will have boycotts, but you will be able to bring in a lot of players to participate. Think of it as a Cape Cod League on steriods. You control injuries with significant pitch limits and load the pitching staffs up with a lot of pitchers to keep these overall pitch limits, but still play a substantial amount of innings and the hitters substantial levels of PA's. Think about my example of BJ Garbe in 1999. He was the 5th player picked and got a $2.75 million bonus. Our 3rd round pick was Justin Mourneau. If a guy like Mourneau goes to the short season draft league and smashes the ball against draft level competition, he shoots up the draft board past guys who held out, The same money is paid out to the draft picks, but Mourneau gets the money and Garbe does not.

Some more draft analysis. The 2017 draft marks probably (at least for the past 5 drafts anyways) were there was a 10 pick stretch of the draft that the Twins did not select a high school player. In 2017 for picks 21-30, we did not select a HS prospect. The last several drafts the Twins had selected at least 2 HS players with those picks. The rise of the college senior in the baseball draft I think is a remarkable thing. THis year the Twins drafted 4 college seniors in the first 10 rounds, 13 overall. While they drafted more in 2016, 7 of those players were drafted in the last 10 rounds to find cheaper organizational filler. My analysis is that teams are starting to outsmart themselves. THey are playing too many "draft under slot" games and then drafting lower value players in rounds 6-10 to save money. While I don't think it is a bad strategy to draft a guy at the top of the draft that will sign for less money, and I think the Rooker selection at #35 was both a good draft value and as a college senior without real future options he can be some savings, you use taht to add to a high 2nd or comp level pick draft slot to sign a guy who slips to that level, then draft to the slot values of the rest of the draft. While all the other teams are selecting lower valued, but cheaper, 6th-10th round picks your team can get higher value in these very valuable rounds by drafting to slot.

http://www.ncsasports.org/baseball-recruiting/british-columbia/abbotsford/mennonite-educational-institute/cade-smith2

I get it........ still is interesting to go back and see late round bonuses. It is also interesting that they were pretty much money spent for nothing.

Shane Drohan drafted in 23rd round by the Phillies.

Another thing I was curious about, what type of exceptional bonuses have the Twins given out to picks outside the top 10. SO, I looked at the last 10 years and noted some of these bonuses, as well as total spending outside of top 10 rounds. 2016 11th Tyler Benninghoff $600,000 Total: 895,000 2015 Total $340,000 2014 Total $105,000 2013 Total $250,000 2012 30th Zach Larson $190,000 Total: $490,000 2011 26th Trent Higgenbuthom $195,000 Total: $610,000 2010 23rd Dallas Gallant $122,500 26th Kelly Cross $100,000 Total: $222,500 2009 15th Steve Liddle $200,000 Total: $200,000 (Brian Dozier was the 8th round selection and only signed for $30,000) 2008 30th Michael Tonkin $230,000 Total: $330,000 2007 Total: $100,000 Of these late round bonus players, only Tonkin reached the majors.

I looked at the 2012 draft. The Twins signed 27 players from that draft. Of those 27, 9 are still left in the Twins organization. 1 Byron Buxton MLB 1.5 JJ Berrios MLB 1.5 Luke Bard AA 2 Mason Melotokis AA 2 JT Chargois AAA 5 Tyler Duffey MLB 10 DJ Baxendale AAA 11 Taylor Rogers MLB 12 Alex Muren AA