beckmt

If you want to sign either of those guys to a minor league contract, may have to wait until just before spring training or during spring training. Those guys will probably wait until close to spring training to take a minor league deal. You still have about 5 starters that have pitched in the major leagues last year, most are ticketed for Rochester. Would hate to wait until next year to see what we have, because next year you will almost certainly need 2 - 3 of them.

I think Vasquez is a wild card piece and will be with the Twins. Magill I do not trust and Twins will need more than one multiple inning reliver. Twins may need two more multiple inning guys.(or maybe an opener). Can see where the Twins roll with current staff, think tactically this would be an error. White Sox could decide to try and fill the vacuum with some high level additions and we could be looking at the Yankees problem, needing to win over 100 games to win the division.

You can pencil in Mejia or any of the other twins extra starters last year for that last spot. We just need to see what we have before we do any signings that will block spots, Perez and Buch are the only two who will interest me at all, and that only if you feel the Pineda is too much of a risk to not have a backup plan.

I am in favor of using our depth this year to sort out 2020. Twins have about 5 to 7 starters for one spot. Let's find out what we have, still have faith that maybe Stewart will figure it out.

Biggest thing about this is the more and better minor league talent you have the more chance some of it will succeed.

This looks fairly realistic. Assumes the Twins keep a couple of players and some move on by their choice. This is only of the home grown products and my expectation is that one or more will burn out before reaching here. Biggest bust factors would to me be Jeffers and Rooker. Many of the others are not far enough along in their careers to be anything more than a guess. but that is the fun of this.

This could be good or bad, bad for the Twins if Buxton only hits the minimum end of his talent . I am much more concerned about the upper end and if Buxton comes close to his upper end he will give the best of his career with another team.

Kirloff will most likely become a first baseman if Rooker does not make it and Sano can stay at third. Worst case is he becomes a corner outfielder with Kepler in center and Buxton as the 4th outfielder. Not this year, but can see the Twins move an outfielder for relief pitching (or starting if the price is right).

I feel we should be locking up (if we can) both Berrios and Rosario, with the next name up Kepler if he breaks out a bit. Longer term Buxton and maybe Sano, but will have to see how 2018 goes as right now I'm sure both their agents feel like this would be selling low.

You make a great point. Did not realize there were other ways to cheat going to way back when. I guess when you consider it, the lessor quality in the earlier era and lack of relief pitching like now makes all this a moving standard. (or a double standard depending how you want to phrase it). Perry was a case I would have had issues with, since he would not have been nearly as good with doctoring the baseball(and that was against the rules). Maybe I am a purist, but am coming to realize that in this era stats will never be as good and if anyone is to get in standards will have to change.

The biggest value of Max is that he is a viable CF option if Buxton flames out. Twins have a number of 1B/OF coming and Buxton needs to put it together before Twins have to make a decision on whether Bryon's ceiling is that of a 4th outfielder. Think Max will beat the 2.6 WAR only because if Buxton gets off to another very slow start, Twins FO will have some difficult decisions to make. I agree with the poster above who feels long term Max will be better than Eddie, but the next two years should tell.

PED's are a difficult subject as noone knows he good the player would have been without them. This is just my take(and in no way a justification for what they did). I feel Clemens may well have had an HOF career (albet shorter) without the PED's, but I saw his stuff early on and it had that potention. Bonds and Arod both transformed themselves into manmountians from their early career to what we saw later. That was hard to ignore(and also hard to tell how much this affected their numbers). So it is much more difficult to let those players in as they may have been very good instead of great.

Lewis would have to be #1, with Berrios my #2 and Kirloff #3, Buxton #4 and Graterol #5. Interesting finish. Only other thing I could see is if Cruz is on the list and in the top 5 does that mean Buxton did not make the list. My guess is that Cruz is not official when this list was made.

There are signings that can be done at this time. Would like to see them sign Herrera, think more like 1 year for 7 - 8 million and an option. Or a lower base with more incentitives and a option. Worse case a couple of Twins farmhands make it at the highest level and Twins not making the playoffs, you flip him for a good haul. Best case is he solves the closer role and becomes part of solution, and you may have to QO him for the third year. He is still young enough. Allen has a little too much mileage on his arm for me. Too high a risk unless he can get down to the 5 - 6 million range.

Expect Javier to be the big mover this year. Also expect this list to look much different next year. Do not know if Cron was the correct pickup, but going into 2019 with Austin as the main option would have been difficult. I hope Austin turns out, but his swing may have enough holes to be difficult to fix. Gordon is a difficult call. He still ranks as a prospect to be a major league player. It is starting to look more like a moderate floor with the ceiling being a slightly above average major league player. This is not bad, since he will have a career, but he is not the player to be a leader on a good team.

As has been stated before there was a long thread on how the Bryon Buxton September callup was handled. This is to be a different look with regards to damage to the long term franchise. 1. Case 1 Texas and Profar. Texas did a service time saving manipulation of Profar's time. This worked out very badly for Texas. (Side note Profar's agent is Boras so not all of this may be relevant). The long term result was that went after 2017 or 2018 when Texas tried to get an extension with Profar, the Texas front office was told not to bother without paying market rate or above market rate (my guess based on what happened here). This led to the trade of Profar to the A's for not what I would consider a market rate deal for Texas. Profar is in the same category as Buxton as he was rated in the top 5 prospect list for 2 years running at one time. Without the extension given Texas's time line they were forced to take what they could get (given Profar would be a free agent before Texas became relevant again). How does this affect Buxton? The Twins do not look as if they are actively planning to compete without a bit of the luck factor in 2019. There are two possible outcomes here: Buxton plays OK this year breaks out next year and hits his maximum trade value about the time the Twins expect to become relevant (2020 - 2024). Twins are then faced with the issue of (do you trade a potential superstar when you are ready to compete or do you hold on to compete and lose Buxton in 2 years for a compensation draft pick). Then there is the issue of the FO talking about sustainability. That would mean looking at trading Buxton at this time when the best Twins talent is years is arriving and creating issues in the clubhouse and ongoing for the Twins keeping players who could be the face of the franchise. Kyle Gibson (the union rep), has already weighed in by commenting he thought Buxton should have been brought up. This leads to 2 more issues: 1. Having problems with keeping players who are getting good or watching them walk after 6 years. Or being forced to trade them (issue with this is you are dealing with other GM's who on the free spending teams will give you a number of their lessor 4 - 15 type prospects, but put there top prospects off limits in deals like this). This rational being that in 1 - 2 years they could sign them without giving up prospects. 2. Team reputation: Unless you pay more money than anyone else will offer, you will not get good FA's to come here. This leaves you with taking chances or having to sign players with warts (bad clubhouse personalites, lack of hustle, and me first types). You will never win big with these types. Option 2: If you want to play hardball and Buxton plays into your hands by having a bad spring you could send him to Rochester and leave him for the year. If you as the FO are convinced he is not going to stay here, this might be the winning option. It will now align Buxton with the new upcoming core and you could get 2 - 3 years from Buxton when the Twins might be really good. Downside: There is this pesky thing called the CBA, this would certainly be noted by the union (especially if Buxton did well in Rochester and was not called up). It would certainly complicate things and might lead to the union holding out for shortened club control be free agency as small and mid market clubs would take note and try to group talent into possible windows. Extreme case is that it might be litigated based on deliberate manipulations with the goal of bringing all sports into a much changed employee - employer relationship (this might be done by dissolving the sports unions). 2. The Kris Bryant - Chicago Cubs case. This is more of the common case where the Cubs sent Bryant down at the start of the season to gain an extra year of control over him (even though Kris Bryant was clearly major league ready). What this has done to the Cubs is that there is almost no chance he will resign with the Cubs unless they offer more than any other club. Cubs might, but are not guaranteed to do that. Or the relationship may be so far south Cubs would have to do a big overpay to keep him. Where does thing affect Buxton? 1. It means that the union will almost certainly want changes to the CBA in this area. This could be a big sticking point (if the union decides to exist). This could lead to a nasty strike(which might last for a long time into the season before being settled), or major changes to the length of team control (most of which I have seen is about 4 years). This would in the long run kill the small market teams from being competitive for any length or period of time). 2. Buxton could develop a bad or me first attitude (this would be very bad for clubhouse chemistry) and could try and force his way out early than the Twins would want.

I think the infield will be closer to average defensivly than you think. Schoop is a quality defender and Polanco at SS and Cron a 1b are around average. Sano is a little below, but not enough to say it is a black hole, like the Yankees with Adjuhar and a few others. I do feel like you this club is closer to feast or famine, that is not good, since most times with this lineup a quality starter will be able to shut them down. We are all waiting for money to be spent, but do not think it will be this year.

The problem is here that Gibson will be for 4 years, do you want his age 34 - 35 year contracts. I do not. Oderizzi is 28 and 3 years will get him to 31. That for me is doable. We shall see.

This is out of the box, but a good thought. Depends on price, but I can see being onboard with this and the idea if Gibson has a good year, you can QO him.

Your total of 16+ War is based on Sano and Buxton having the worst year anyone could have thought of. Improvement from those 2, plus improvement from the rest of the team could easily bring us to at least 24 and quite possibly much higher. This is the SSS that everyone talks about. Last year was the perfect storm, if you assume this number is the skill level, then your base point should be a total cleanout of the Twins office and a start over from scratch. This would be almost unheard of in baseball. (I mean firing the FO, most of the analytical department, about 1/2 the scouts and almost all of the minor league managers and coaches for not knowing their jobs).

If you are of the mindset that seeing what you have is a good policy, I get that. I also get the division is possible to take with bold moves. However, you have been giving the Sox the feeling that you are not going to make the moves, so they have started to. They have the better ranked farm system, so multiple bold moves to jump ahead of you this year, may make it almost impossible to catch up later without catching lightning in a bottle, and all but guaranteeing that your young core moves on in a couple of years without overpays to keep them. Baseball has changed, the names have changed for the Twins, but still see the same mindset in the FO, which is quickly becoming the past.

I am not only looking at last year, but the entire body of work. Do not want to pay for one good year (read Phil Hughes), and have him decline after last year. If he has another good year, maybe we pay him (I would just issue a QO). Twins do not seem to be in the position of paying for bad production.

Doubt he should cost as much as Reed. Maybe a 1/$7 million to rebuild value.

There are some of us on this board who do not want him after 2019. If you want him give him a QO, less of a risk and he might take the money. He has 2 bad years for every good.

I would have had Javier at #5 or #6. He is the key as if he makes it at SS, Lewis probably is moved to center field. This seems to be plan B. Rest of top 15 is mix, match and flavor, with edge to prospects closer to the majors.