mlhouse

Dude, I'm not the one talking in circles. You are. I have said the same thing and just trying to dumb it down so you can understand. Here is another way of looking at it: You draft Enlow at #37. It takes $3 million to sign him. THe slot is $1.8 so he requires $1.2 million from slot savings elsewhere. You draft him at #76. The slot is $755,000. If it takes $3 million to sign him you now need to ahve $2,245,000 in slot savings in other draft positions. Plus, you took the risk of losing Enlow between picks #38 and #76. I then just hope Leach falls to #76 and now I am more hopeful of signing him around that number, and even if it take a bit more I still have some savings. If Leach is picked between #38 and 76, oh well there are still a lot of good prospects available.

Then when Enlow wants $3 million to sign, the Twins would say BS, right? If I am playing the scenario to maximize my draft pool, I think it was a mistake to pick Leach at #37, take the risk I can draft Enlow at #76, and then put then really be forced to stretch the slot savings to get them to sign. The only way your scenario works is if you can sign Leach for so much under his assigned slot at #37 but that means that the Twins probably reached for Leach to begin with. Again, you can't have it both ways and if Leach signs for closer to $1.8 million than $1 million there is a problem with making all the numbers add up.

Because you can't have it both ways. In other words, you can't argue that it was a good pick to reach, at least based on draft analyst rankings on Leach, and then argue that he will take a way below slot value for being picked #37. I will put it this way. Lets say Enlow is the guy you really want to spend $3 million on and you have lets say $1.3 million slot savings from your pick at 1.1. Why pass on him at #37? If you wait until pick #76 there is a chance that he would be picked in the interim 40 selections. Then you can take the $1.8 million draft slot for pick #37, add $1.2 million of the slot savings for picking Lewis, and sign him. There, you manuevered you draft picks and slot values to get Lewis and a HS pitcher that should be a first rounder except for signing issues. Then, you take the risk on Leach who you can sign for $1 million, using the slot value of #76, $100,000 left over from the Lewis signing, and a little bit of money picking a guy likeCharlie Barnes in the 4th. By picking Enlow at #37 you remove the risk you don't get to pick him and create a draft were you do not have to cut into your lower level signing bonuses by much. Now, lets look at teh problems with your idea. I addressed the first big issue and someone picks Enlow between #38 and #76. That was a huge risk. I would rather risk Leach than Enlow. Next, now that you have Leach drafted at the top of the 2nd round, #37 overall, you have inflated what his demands are going to be. Maybe he takes a discount, but it aint gonna be an $800,000 discount. If you sign him for $1.5 million instead of $1.8 million you are ahead of the game. But now, you are short signing Enlow by $700,000 and that is going to have to come out of picks in rounds 4-10. My approach risks losing Leach but GUARNTEES picking Enlow. WHile the Twins pulled it off draft wise they now need to sign him.

I would have bet money we would select De La Torre.

I don't think he projects as utility guy. He is a 3B with a 3B bat.

Seriously. Of course it matters who gets what because if you cannot offer some guys enough money they will not sign. Enlow has a pretty solid commit to LSU and that is one reason he was available at 3.1. This means you need at least $2 million to sign him away from that commitment. While I am sure the Twins had Leach higher on their draft list, I think the better strategy would have been to draft Enlow at #37, use the higher slot value there to get more money to sign him and then risk that Leach is available at 3.1 were you can sign him for closer to slot.

Well, we will put that to the test. Since Blayne Enlow is our 3rd round pick. I get your point, I even alluded to it in my own post. But, now the issue is we have underslotted 1.1 and now will probably have to under-slot the rest of the rounds risking not signing players in rounds 4-10. I think the better strategy would have been to take Enlow at #37 instead of Leach for two reasons. First, you get to start with a $1.8 million draft slot instead of $755,000 and adding the savings you got by under-slotting Lewis you can get the $3 million to buy him out of his LSU committment. Second, I would rather risk losing Leach than Enlow at #37. I think there is a good chance that Leach, a guy rated between 85-100 in most analyst draft lists, is available at 3.1 and then you can sign him for that draft slot and maybe commit some extra money from rounds 4-10 to make sure that gets done. I think that logic is pretty solid, right?

If you offered a kid $3 million to sign, and they want to have a baseball career, that is impossible money to turn down. If you go to LSU and have a standout career maybe you move up to the top part of the first. But that is 3 years and only $3-4 million. But it isn't guaranteed, not one dollar. Injuries, bad season, just one bad game and you could slip to a lower draft slot. It also pushes your career back a bit. By the time a kid would be drafted as a junior they could take teh $3 million and have 3.5 years of minor league experience. Even in the methodical Twins system they would be looking at AA, whcih can be a spring board to the majors. The problem is that the Twins have moved into draft slot territory were they cannot offer a $3 million bonus anymore without killing the rest of their draft.

Analyzing. From all reports, #1 seems to not be correct. The Twins and Lewis had an agreement to sign for underslot before he was selected. #2 could be correct. However, as someone else noted above the draft seemed to play out mostly what was predicted. #3 I think is doubtful. My guess is that Carlson was just overrated. #4 While the Twins are cheap, cheap, cheap, the possible savings from squeezing your draft allocation isn't very significant. #5 The problem with #5 is that as you go lower in the draft pool, adding your savings to their draft slots isn't enough. Someone mentioned Blayne Enlow and him being a doubtful sign. But, if you draft him at #35 and add the Lewis savings to that draft slot, $1,9 million, you can create a total bonus of $2.8-3.2 million based upon the reports of the slot savings from 1.1. But, if we draft Enlow, or a similar player, at 3.1 that draft slot is only $755,000 meaning that the max bonus you can offer is $1.6-2,0 million. I get that going underslot can be seen as trading down from 1.1 to 1.5 to trade up from 1.35 to 1.15, but when you blow by #35 and #37 without looking at a top 15-20 player you are then making up the difference in the much later rounds with a much less impressive package to offer. And that assumes that you a player drops that you want and that you can actually sign the player. For example, what if the player the want is Enlow and they make the $2 million bonus offer and he refuses and heads to LSU. Then you lose the slot at 3.1 and the whatever you saved underslot at 1.1 In the end, although at first I thought the Twins management was just being too cute, I think they preferred McKay and Lewis to Greene and Wright, and Lewis was willing ot take what the Twins wanted to offer. The money saving may or may not be used, and they will draft to their draft board.

I get the baseball draft is wayyyyyyyyyy more difficult to rank and "mock" than the NFL draft, particularly since some of the aspects of the draft are not that public such as "signability", and this is demonstrated in the range of the ranks of players selected even in the top 2 rounds: In round 1, MLB.com #49 went 16, #98 went Comp A pick 31, #187 went 2nd round pick 67. I get all that. But, it seemed to me that the Twins picks some guys that had a consensus ranking way lower than when we selected. The guy we selected 1.1 was ranked 5th by Baseball America, MLB, and Keith Law. Everyone rushed to the conclusion that the Twins were trying to save draft slot money and we would be "wowed" with the remaining 2 picks in Day 1. Then at #35, their Comp A selection, the Twins selected Brent Rooker who looks like a nice prospect, but a) he is a college senior with limited negotiating power to go over slot and was ranked #45 by BA, #50 by MLB, and #91 by Keith Law. Again, I think he is actually a better prospect than those rankings because I value the "wood bat" data, but again the consensus is we reached. Then at #37 we picks Landon Leach. Again, were is the "BOOM". Leach has is committed to a solid baseball school, Texas, but I don't think he was the type of prospect that anyone thinks we need to go over slot. He was ranked #85 by BA, #101 by MLB, and wan't in Law's top 100. Again, I get it. Most of these rankings are based on composite views they get from sources, and Keith Law has almost certainly never seen Landon Leach pitch. WIth his 3 pitch arsenal he could one day be the best starter from this draft. We really don't know. But if Lewis isn't signing for under slot I just dont see the selection. He is a solid draft pick but he probably isn't going to be a MLB SS and he might not have enough power to be a corner outfielder. He is a lot of projection and a lot of development, and his ETA is many years off. But, neither of the two other Day 1 picks look like overslot guys, were ranked way lower than we took them, and I just don't see the logic in what the Twins are doing.

We DOMINATE the waiver wire market for 27+ year old wash out pitchers. D.O.M.I.N.A.T.E.

While that may be true, it is also making assumptions that players THE TWINS WANT will slide because of signing issues AND simultaneously that the Twins can sign them even with the extra salary pool.

Need to congratulate the guy who predicted this earlier. I thought he was crazy. I can see passing on Hunter Greene if you want to take a more advanced college arm, start him in AA at the lowest and move him rapidly to the MLB level, even by the end of this season. I can even see passing on Greene and taking McKay and rushing him as a positon player to the major leagues. But a HS SS/OF? A guy that will start in Rookie + ball at the highest and is at least 4 years out?

Sure, I guess. But lets let these young guys get those games out of their system sooner, rather than later. I get that we want to pretend we are a contending team this year and making the playoffs might seem to be something special after all of that futility. But to postpone the proper development of this rebuild will just keep the system going, like it has for all fo these years.

They are not good enough to win it this year unless you think winning a "division" crown were the 2nd place finisher is a 500 team. Squeaking out a division crown with a totally mediocre record is not much to shoot for and we have seen what that meant in the past. We are on a streak of 9 consecutive playoff losses, and three consecutive playoff sweeps. In our previous Central Division glory, our playoff record is 3-19, with six consecutive playoff series losses and we have won 1,1,1,0,0,0 in those series. What our ownership demonstrated in that run is that when spending another $10-20 million would have made them real competitors they were not going to do it. Next, on attendance, right now the Twins attendance is worse than last year at 22,414 per game. This is what years of mismanagement will deliver for you. So, using attendance as a reason to make or not make baseball moves is a poor argument. While I advocate trading Santana, and Dozier, if the deal is right that isn't the biggest issue right now. Those are just baseball moves that could be seen as Selling HIgh, rather than waiting for the team to be out of contention and then Selling Low. What is more important is clearlng out the deadwood and having the courage to bring up the younger prospects in the system. Hughes and Santiago need to be put out to pasture, traded if they can be moved. I think the same for Kyle GIbson too. I would trade Craig Breslow to a team looking for a left hander out of the bullpen. I bring up Stephen Gonsalves to take the 4th rotation spot. If I draft Kyle Wright, he is on the major league roster from the day he signs otherwise draft Hunter Greene. I get Trevor Hilderberger up to replace Matt Belisle and David Hurlbut to replace Breslow. What will probably happen is just what happened when we finally recalled J.J. Berrios. They will be better performers than the crap we had.

I only trade Santana if the deal is right, and the same for Dozier. And the same for the other veterans. At teh same time, I don't care about record or postseason. If the deal is available, we should do it and we need to continue to get our prospects up into the rotation/bullpen. The timing of this is now. Waiting only pushes the major league intiation of the critical pitchers for this staff down the road when our positional players will finally, finally, finally be fully ready to play.

Smoke and mirrors.... when you have a run differential of -24 you are playing with luck. So why pretend? Our veteran starting rotation sucks outside of Santana. Our veteran relief corp sucks outside on perhaps Kintzler and Breslow, both into their 30's. Duffy and Rogers have been reasonable but we all know their inconsistencies. The time to move on from Hector Santiago, Phil Hughes, and Kyle Gibson is now even though you are selling low, and an argument can be made to sell high on Ervin Santana, Craig Breslow, and Brandon KIntzler. Perhaps even Brian Dozier.

The only way I select Kyle Wright is if I am going to fast track the fast track to the MLB. If I am running the Twins he is literally on the major league roster the day after he signs. But, if Wright is going to be developed the Twins way: Elizabethton with maybe a Cedar Rapids late season call up. Cedar Rapids. Ft Myers with maybe a Chattanooga call up. Chattanooga. Then have every 28-29 year old waiver wire pitcher in the league be signed, bounce a couple of years between Rochester and Minnesota...... Then I go with Hunter Greene.

This team should be focused on the out years, not trying to contend for a worthless division title just because the division is so weak. While that comment might suggest I favor trading a 34 year old pitcher, I think any trade of Santana is deal specific, and any trade needs to bring back a solid prospect that is relatively major league ready. One reason I say this is that I think Ervin is the type of pitcher that even at 34 years of age probably has two solid years left, which he is under contract for. So, if the team puts it together 2 years from now and becomes a true contender he could potentially be a part of that. Regardless, I think the Twins need to get Gonsalves up as soon as possible and run with a rotation of Berrios, Meija, Gonsalves, Santana if not traded, and whatever waiver wire pickup they insist upon signing. I also think the time has come to bring up Hildenberger, Busenitz, and John Curtiss for the bullpen. Throw them into the fire. The time has come.

Garver really isn't anything you define. You put him in the lineup and let him get ABs, positional flexibility, and experience.

The team has 26 wins. The only division in the AL that they can win is the Central. They would not be the wild card. But even within the Central, the White Sox and Indians have both scored more runs than the Twins and allowed fewer. So, like most of our division crowns they were a matter of geography rather than being amongst the best teams, and our subsequent playoff debacles demonstrated that emphatically. If you look at any team with a winning record in major league baseball, only the Orioles have a worse run differential than the Twins and they are just a couple of games above 500. If you look at all of the other teams with winning records their RDiff is +58, +26, +24 (500 team), +16, +62, +59, +21, +41, +55, +73. Being 7 games above 500 with a +3 run differential is not sustainable.

Because two years from now, no one will remember Giminez. He isn't a forward looking piece. He is just a temporary hold the position guy who cannot and never will hit. Holding back your top catching prospect to sit behind such a player is ridiculous even if it means losing games today. The Twins simply do not have the lineup to really compete (winning the Central Division is not competing in reality). Pretending they are hurts the development of the team.

Doesnt matter. You play players in a rotation and evaluating and developing Garver is more important going forward than playing Mauer.

A smart GM brings Garver up to play catcher, DH, and even first base.

A team like the Twins using a 34 year old player while their 26 year old prospect sits in the minors is idiotic. The other aspect of this is that I believe pitch framing is a very overrated measure because the statistical measure is not completely specified and there are just too many variables to control. Look at the Twins catchers. Castro was considered one of the better pitch framers in the league. But, just as I predicted, he went from having a positive impact to a negative one. Last season he saved 12.8 runs by creating a net 0.92 strikes per game. In 2016 Giminez, likewise, was a positive contributor by saving 1.2 runs overall in his limited innings. Both catchers had positive runs created in 2014 and 2015. Now, move them to the Twins staff. Now suddenly their pitch framing is costing more than 1 strike a game for BOTH catchers and they have COST the Twins 2.4 and 4.4 runs already because of pitch framing. In fact, even though they had positive impacts elsewhere, teh Twins have not had a catcher with positive runs created by pitch framing Joe Mauer/Rene Rivera in 2011. Do you think both of the catchers have suddenly become worse? I don't. But then I think pitch framing is very overrated. http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php