mlhouse

I don't think your package is good enough for MIke Minor for sure. If this was his last year of his contract and he would become a free agent in the offseason, the 2nd one might be (Larnach and Griffin). But, he still has a very manageable contract for 2020 ($9.833 million) so his trade value is much higher for the Rangers. Snydergaard is much younger has two aribitration years left before he becomes a FA so his value is even more costly. I don't think MInor will be traded, at least not to the Twins because it would take at least one of Lewis or Kiriloff to make the deal. But who knows.

Stroman is a Met now.

One thing I am happy about this season with minor league development is that the team seems to be much more aggressive with promotion within the system. That is a good thing.

WHile some that know me may think this is contrary to my position, I believe the Twins should trade whatever minor league prospects it takes to get Mike Minor. I would trade one of Lewis/Kiriloff, one of Trevor Larnach/Brent Rooker and their choice of minor league pitcher. Nick Gordon, Stephen Gonsalves, and a few other players might be available to add if that is what it takes to make the deal. A pitcher still under team control for 2020 is worth it and the Twins should jump at the chance.

To date, the only HS draftee the Twins have signed is their first round pick. Of course, the next HS pick was the 17th round and they only drafted 8 overall. IT still is an interesting phenomena. I guess when on a typical given night 30-40% of the lineup is players from latin America the sourcing of young prospects has changed.

I have been trying to figure out what was going on with Ryley Widell for a while.

Hand would be my first target. Sometimes you have to surrender prospects. Most prospects are very overvalued because their true upside is unknown. That is something the Twins have missed out on for the past 15 years, packaging a group of minor league players and getting a known and valuable player.

Its your organization's job to have the inside understanding of the relative value.

Another aspect of the way the Twins have managed their minor league prospects is that they have never maximized their trade value. That is one consequence of having cheap, cheap, cheap ownership. They will rarely, if ever, trade prospects. Other organizations advance their prospects rapidly because that enhances their trade value. One example is the Santana trade were one of the selling points of guys like Carlos Gomez is that they were just 21 and in AAA. If you do not trade your prospects, as mentioned, they logjam up and lose almost all of their trade value. What do you think we could have got in return for a trade package of Francisco Romero and Nick Gordon two year ago? What do you think we could get in return for trading them today?

I have watched Thorpe and Jordan Balazovic at Ft Myers and Balazovic was the much more impressive pitcher. Higher velocity. More control. Better movement.

The kid has been in the organization for almost 6 years now and has over 1,500 plate appearances. You would think they would have adjusted that bit by bit. He is a big kid, but he looks very athletic.

He is thin. But throws hard and he is just 20 years old.

Was at the Miracle game and Jordan Balzovic pitched the best game I have seen for the Miracle. He was simply outstanding for the first 5 innings plus. While he gave up 5 hits, two were infield squibs that barely made it past the pitchers mound and one was a dying duck flare hit the opposite way by a hitter who was just blindly swinging. He only walked one batter and struck out 7. Up until the 6th inning, if they did not strike out, it was one collection of weak hit balls after another. His fastball was very, very impressive. I try to describe a pitchers fastball with a little system I develped that gives the range of speeds. In the first two innings he was 94-94-94-95-96 (meaning the bulk of his fastballs were 94, some 95, touch 96). Note: I think the Hammonds Field radar gun is a bit fast. Third and 4th inning 93-94-94-94-95. Fifth you could tell he was tiring a bit: 93-93-94-94-94 He literally had his first 3 ball at bat in this inning. And in the 6th he was 92-93-93-93-94 He pitched in all of the speed ranges with the mid-90 fastball. With his fastball at 93-96, he also throws a slider in the 87-90 mph range. Then a curve in 82-84 and looks like a change upat 78-80. He threw all of these pitches for strikes and hit almost all of his marks. What was really impressive to me was at least 3 of the 7 strikeouts were looking and almost all of the looking strikeouts were 94-96 mph fastballs he just burned by the batter who looked on helplessly. I was also impressed with how he won every battle. There were a couple of batters that fouled off 2-strike pitch after pitch. The batters were just hanging on as Jordan powered fastball after fastball into the zone and they could not handle it. Finally, he threw a curve and struck them out. While I would like to see his 6 inning endurance hold better, he is 20 years old and at 6-4, only 175 lbs. As he matures he should be able to maintain his fastball velocity later into the game. A couple of more outings like this and I think they need to move him up to AA. I am telling you, this guy is a top 10 prospect and probably the #2 pitching prospect in our system behind Graterol. I have seen Thorpe, Stewart, and several others at Ft Myers, and Balazovic was much more impressive than any of them. Other notes: Lewin Diaz absolutely crushed a home run over the Truly Nolen 2018 FSL Championship banner in center field. The guy is really flashy (he has huge earings in both ears and lots of chain) and holds his hands really low. If he had a more conventional hitting approach he might be a much more solid prospect. Im just not certain you can hold your hands just above your waist and hit higher level pitching. Ryan Jeffers is a good hitter that has some potential to move up the ranks, but he is never going to be a major league catcher. The team should use him there in the minors so he can serve as a backup catcher, but he doesn't have the movement skills. Royce Lewis might be slumping a bit, but he is going to be a solid player. The ball jumps off his bat and he is a really solid leader. He keeps his teammates loose.

Maybe for the Twins.

Welcome to the modern MLB draft.

Exactly. The guy has a OPS over 1.000 in his comeback start and he is fading?

Like this pick, but my god, does that guy have some weird delivery.

Philly didn't waste much time getting Bryson Stott's name up there.

I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. We have so many players playing above any realistic expectations that once these players come back to normal who knows what will happen. Many of our hitters have already at homre run levels that if you would have said they would hit that many for the entire season you would have thought, "Great season Jorge Polanco with your 9 home runs". Hopefully it will continue.

I have to admit that this team is far exceding expectations but there is a real question of how long it can last. They have 3 players with OPS above 1.0. Mitch Garver and Jorge Polanco are on 30+ home run pace. I would have taken 9 and 8 home runs on the entire season from them. What is great is that most of this production is from players that have been with us and developed in our system. Plus, I think it mattered that they finally brought in a manager that can relate to young playes.

Again, to demonstrate the Twins vs. other organization lets compare Michael Reed, a guy we picked up but traded away and LaMonte Wade's career. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=reed--002mic https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wade--000lam Reed was a high school draft choice in 2011 while Wade was a college draft pick in 2015. In 2011 Reed played in ROK league and had an OPS of .670. In 2012, as a 19 year old, Reed played in ROK+ league and had an OPS of .638 but taste of A+ and AA. In 2013 A ball, improved walk totals and had OPS of .785. In 2014 A+ OPS of .774 In 2015 he started in AA played well with .801 OPS, moved to AAA .732 OPS in 148 pa, then got late season debut with the Brewers as a 22 year old (6 plate appearances in 7 games). I get that Wade was an olderplayer but lets compare his journey. 2015 ROK/A .904 OPS 2016 A/A+ .841 OPS 2017 AA .805 OPS (this is a big leap for a Twins prospect) 2018 AA/AAA .739 OPS While he was an older player than Reed, in his first four seasons in professional ball Wade completely outplayed Reed. Yet, the Brewers advanced a much younger player as quick or even quicker as the Twins advanced Wade, a college player. In the end, Michael Reed's minor league movement compares to Max Kepler's but Kepler performance was much superior.

I have literally given dozens at various times throughout this forum. I just included Stephen GOnsalves.

1. I think he would have been AS WELL prepared at 21 vs. 24. On a 103 loss team he should have been handed the ball every 5th start for at least half a season. What he learns there is worth 3 seasons of minor leagues. I would not have cared if he had a 6.50 ERA. Give him the ball. Let him develop his stuff against major leaguers rather than blowing away A and AA hitters. 2. 24 is ancient in a profession with such limited time frames and injury risk. Get your first taste of MLB at 21, maybe bounce a year or so, and then have Tommy John surgery, you still have a chance at a major league career. Wait until you are 23-24 years old to bounce up and down, then get injured you might not ever get back. 3. I am pretty happy with the Twins start, but I think that they finally figured out that they needed a younger manager to work with the younger players. I am not sure if Ron Gardenhire is a good manager or not, but what I did know was that he was an absolutely terrible manager for 95+ loss teams trying to rebuild. I think that Paul Molitor is actually a good manager, but not a very good manager on a rebuilding team requiring patience and development. I have argued that the Twins hire a manager like Rocco Baldelli and that they needed to adjust how they move young players in the rebuild process since 2012. The truth in my positions are proven by the results.

The problem is if you look at the two prospects statistically, Stashak was just as good, if not better. And, where they start the season does matter. The Twins are constantly making our prospects repeat levels even when they have completely dominated at the level. Look at a prospect like Stephen Gonsalves. His career started in 2013. This is how he was promoted: 2013 GCL(Rok) ELZ (Rok) 2014 ELZ(Rok) CR (A) 2015 CR(A) FTM (A+) 2016 FTM(A+) CHA (AA) 2017 CHA (AA) ROC (AAA) 2018 CHA (AA) ROC(AAA) TWINS They made him repeat his level at the start of every fn season of his minor league career even though the only time he stumbled in his career was his initial late season promotion to AAA in 2017. When he was promoted to Elizabethton in 2013 from GCL TWins he completely dominated with a 1.29 ERA, 21 strikeouts in 14 innings (he had a 0.63 ERA at the lower rookie level). Yet, the TWins made him start 2014 season at short season Elizabethton again. WHY? Then they promoted him to Cedar Rapids where he pitched well in 8 starts. 44 Ks in 36 innings, 3.79 ERA (his highest ERA stop of his career outside that 2017 promotion to AAA). But, he starts the 2015 season in Cedar Rapids, dominates with a 1.15 ERA and then the move him late in the season to Fort Myers were he pitches very well with a 2.61 ERA over 15 starts. But he starts the 2016 season back in Fort Myers, where he dominates with a 2.33 ERA over 11 starts before being promoted to Chatanooga AA team, where he dominates with a 1.82 ERA over 13 starts. But he starts the 2017 season back n Chattanooga and again dominates with a 2.68 ERA in 15 starts before getting his first bad stop in AAA with a 5.68 ERA in 5 late season starts. But, he then again starts the 2018 season in Chattanooga. Even the Twins can't pretend this is a smart move for long and he dominates for 3 starts before going back up to AAA and pitching well over 100 innings with a 2.96 ERA. This is the pattern the Twins use with the vast bulk of their prospects. Claiming otherwise is not supported by the evidence. Despite all of his minor league success, the Twins moved Gonsalves along like a struggling prospect, making him repeat levels that most organization would have moved him on from. And what is absurd is that after all of this slow, conservative movement he arrives at the major league level basically unprepared and over-matched. After his first pro season in Rookie ball with a sub-1.00 ERA, he should have started the 2014 season in A and been promoted to A+ midway through. Then in 2015 he should have started in AA and spent the whole season at that critical developmental step. Then in 2016 at some time during the season he should have been in AAA and even got a late season promotion to the big league team that lost 103 games on the year. With that promotion schedule Gonsalves would have reached the critical evaluation steps much sooner. His major league debut would have been at 21 years of age and he would still have time to put the development he needed to become a solid MLB pitcher. Not everyone makes it, but the fact is by 2019 we would already know the answer with Gonsalves. Right now, he is a 24 year old pitcher that probably doesn't have much of a chance because he reached the majors so much later than he should have.

Cherry picking? I can give you example after example of how the Twins system is absolutely glacial compared to other systems.