beckmt

A lot of pitchers carry the cavet 'when healthy'. You could add Strasburg and Thor to that category. If you add 10 or more years, you find very few pitchers who qualify now, because most of them don't reach the majors until about 25, and 10 years is a long time. That may be the push for the Twins, when not good, get the youngsters up here, don't waste there bullets in the minor leagues. But service time issues play into this a lot, which is too bad. If you only go by world series, remember you need pitchers to get you there. Big Don Newcome was an example of this, won 20 games almost every year, never won a world series game. Right now there is a very small number of aces. Someone earlier counting, 10 was about right.

Jeffers is my chief bounce back player. He still can greatly improve. Kepler as noted above is an issue here, don't have a solution at this time, but cannot make one until Buxton is extended (hopefully not traded).

I agree with most of the above. Issue is what will it cost, we may have better options here. I also don't think Kepler will bring much. Garver might, but will it be worth it. We shall see.

I would rather see if Martin is ready and role multiple players thru SS. That will get us another year to Lewis or Palacous, We need to spend money on pitching. To me we have to extend Buxton or we might as well go to a 3 year plan. I am more in a trade mode to identify a pitcher (Marlins, Cleveland, TB) and send Kepler and others for a decent starting pitcher. Most players on the Twins are decent moneywise, so it could work. For the SS if you are going to buy one, I would look higher up the list, Baez might just get a QO and accept it.

This is all based on whether or not the Twins are able to extend Buxton. I believe they will, because of the PR hit if they cannot. So C - Jeffers, Rortvedt 1B Kirloff, Sano 2nd - Polonco ss - Martin 3B - Arraez LF - Miranda/Laurach CF - Buxton RF - Kepler DH - Sano/ host of others Garver is traded if we can get value, Donaldson is traded to get money for pitching down the road Martin may not be the answer at SS, but I like the idea of pest hitters. Players that make you throw strikes and a host of pitches. This club would seem to do that and become a problem with the bulk of players creating high pitch counts, which will ruin pitching staffs for days after a series with the Twins. This club will not require a huge payroll for the position players. I would funnel that money into really upgrading the pitching staff and running a host of near ready pitchers through to see what we have. Kepler will be here because he has little value at this time. Cleveland, which fits well as a trade partner, is not going to give up a good starter for a package headlined by Kepler.

That would be hard to do, but they are supposed to be the pitching gurus . And some of that was Gardy's one size fits all hitting approach for the Twins. Not playing to the hitter's strengths

The question is not the strike zone, but many of the calls were inconsistent in one direction.

Do the names, Gil, Nick Anderson, Badaoo, john Curtiss, and another reliever or two ring bells. Under TR, Twins almost never lost players like this. This is a much higher rate than almost any in the major leagues. That is my issue, they were unable to identify talent from the prior regime. Most of those pitchers would have made a quality bullpen this year. I am concerned this offseaon, they will be unable to tell the good from the bad, and we will have more cases of this.

Was surprised by Arraez. Twins will need a shortstop, and maybe depending on how they feel, move on from Donaldson and move Sano to DH. Buxton is the other factor to extend or trade. A lot to be determined here, but the Twins if Buxton stays and they have an average SS, rate to have at least an average defense next year.

Or Ryan to start tomorrow.

Is there any reason Jax should be on this club next year? We need to find many pitchers , so almost all should get a look.

Law, Coulombe and Farrell probably do not have a future here. Jury is out on Minaya and Thielbar. They will have some holes to fill, but a lot of relievers are lighting it up in St. Paul and Wichita. Still you will need to look at a lot of them next year.

Does Minaya have a future here. Some pitchers just develop later than others and he seem to be doing quite well. Or is it just SSS?

pitching seems to be hit and miss these days. Coming off a year with no games at this time probably to be expected.

Not quite, if there is a floor (possible, not certain), the injury would reduce Maeda's number to $3 million. Twins would need to extend Buxton and sign a couple of more players to get anywhere near $100 payroll. Donaldson would be the only player over $10 million and most of the rest are on long term (Sano, Kepler, Polonco) or not even to arbitration yet.