jokin

I wasn't complaining, LH hit-for-average and power bats at 3rd, and the MI, is a rare and good thing.

I like the video of Blankenhorn at the plate, definitely looks buffed and athletic. I saw the Gordon comp, also in the same review, the writer still slates Blankenhornto project at 2nd or 3rd, not OF. And he liked Cabbage even more than Blankenhorn. Cabbage is definitely a certified athlete, a couple inches taller. Looking forward to seeing some baseball video, the b-ball video isn't bad. Also, he only just turned 18 a month ago, perhaps a little more upside than Blankenhorn (who turns 19 on 8/3)?

Two LH hitting 3rd baseman drafted back-to-back?

Haven't seen the rest of his hoops game, but he's definitely a rim-destroying, D-I level dunker: http://knoxblogs.com/xtracredit/2015/02/09/ut-baseball-commit-trey-cabbage-breaks-rim-two-handed-dunk/

OK Professor Wahl, I can get fully on board with your prognosticating here. But here's a brainteaser or two, for you... 1) If those 5 indeed arrive on August 1, who are the 5 who depart? 2) Of those that depart, where do they go, to the minors, DFA limbo, or to what other club(s), and for whom?

1) So.. are you acknowledging that he appears to be blocked by lesser talent? 2) Did anyone say anything about a "guarantee" for 20 HRs? (I'm going off of ZiPS projections that both suggest and forecast the possibility of 20 HR in 400 PAs, with ~.730 OPS and 100 OPS+, which seem both reasonable, and an upgrade). http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2015-zips-projections-minnesota-twins/

DJ Baxendale? and not Max Kepler? Two years young for the league, plus a late start. And still- 14th in OPS (.827), 10th in XBH (21), 8th in SLG (.483) 2nd in doubles (16). Seems like a miss.

That strong difference in opinion is why it's probably worth exploring and finding out. ZiPS has a strong predictive track record and projected that in 400 PAs, Sano would hit 20 HR, OPS @ .730, with an OPS+ of 100. I think it's worth finding out which opinion is correct.

I would posit that you are in the extreme minority here. While it would indeed be foolish to mortgage the future in some blockbuster trade for an ace or a superstar on an expiring contract, a typical team has so few chances at making a decent run deep into post-season- why throw that chance away without attempting moves with your best available talent? Defensively, Buxton is more than ready, offensively, Sano appears to be very close. The Twins have successfully shored up their OF defense, at least for the time being- which gives the Twins the luxury of holding off on Buxton to keep honing his craft at the plate; offensively, they have first been lucky, and lately been slumping, badly. This is a team with an OPS+ of 90- only the White Sox are worse. Pitching has largely carried them to this point, and the bullpen is a loaded minefield. Couldn't an uptick in offensive production, in the guise of possibly a couple dozen Sano bombs, continue to propel the Twins forward, to counteract when some of those mines eventually explode on the pitching mound?

For the time being, Nunez is the utility infielder, and by far, the position he's played the most is SS (172 games in his career, 20 games last year for the Twins). While far from ideal, he can play SS once a week for the time being, and he's already filled in ably 4 times at 3rd this year, and he could cover for Dozier (in the unlikelihood that Dozier would ever come out of a game). Bringing up Sano makes the most sense... if... the Twins become ever more desperate for offense and a power bat... and that they finally conclude that his bat is ready enough to possibly make a difference.

Except you've entirely missed the point that even with his current 1-29 slump, he's still in the Top Ten in WAR for third basemen. As he was in 2014. Comparing a multi-year vet to Santana is apples and oranges. The "Big Decision" on Plouffe vs. Sano is one day coming, but you can't just cast aside a key component (with an established track record of incremental year-over-year improvement) on a team with the best record in baseball on the basis of an 8 day slump at the beginning of June.

Dave Cameron weighs in on the Super Two aspect in promoting top prospects for contending teams. Insert the "MN Twins" and "Miguel Sano" (and/or Buxton?) in place of the "NY Mets" and "Steven Matz", and you have a similar situation, vis a vis the Astros move in calling up Correia yesterday. Super Two considerations for first-time call-ups are fast fading away. Cameron begins his argument by quoting Joel Sherman: " '... But their bigger short-term issue is assuring Matz does not become Super Two eligible. The top 22 percent of service time between two and three years do not have to wait until three completed seasons to become arbitration eligible. Thus, clubs keep down some of their better players to prevent them from qualifying in a few years. The Astros brought up their best prospect, shortstop Carlos Correa, on Monday, though the belief is the cutoff line is probably a week away, perhaps two just to be safe. The first-place Astros are willing to gamble in a way the first-place Mets are not. They appear to be willing to wait until about July 1 to make sure...' " He then refutes the notion of whether or not this is much of a gamble: "Because the Super Two timeline is a moving target, there’s no clear line of demarcation that can be pointed to in real-time; the amount of days needed to qualify as a Super Two are only known in retrospect. But we can get a pretty decent sense of the range from past history, and helpfully, MLB Trade Rumors has been tracking the Super Two line for each of the last six years. From their records: 2014: 2.133 2013: 2.122 2012: 2.140 2011: 2.146 2010: 2.122 2009: 2.139 The numbers after the decimal reflect the number of days of service needed beyond two full years, so last year’s Super Two group had two full years and between 133 and 171 days of service, since 172 days of service counts as a full year. The number has dipped as low as 122 days a couple of times, but has generally been on the higher side, up near 140 days, which is what it is currently projected to be for this year’s class as well. But it’s fair to say that anything in that 120-140 range makes a player a potential Super Two, and you probably need to come in under 120 days of service if you want to feel fairly safe about avoiding that tag with your top prospects. So, did the Astros really risk Super Two status with Correa, as Sherman asserted, rather than holding him down another “week or two” in order to ensure that he would miss the cut? Let’s simply count the days. In every Major League regular season, there are 183 days of service, starting at Opening Day and finishing with the last day of the season. This year, Opening Day was April 5th and the season ends October 4th, so there were 26 available service days in April, 31 in May, 30 in June, 31 in July, 31 in August, 30 in September, and 4 in October. The 57 service days available in April and May are gone, as are eight of the days from June’s total, so players who have been up since Opening Day have accrued 65 days of service this year, leaving 118 remaining on the year. Correa, who debuted yesterday, will end the year with 119 days of service; that’s three fewer than the lowest total of any Super Two cutoff line over the last six years. That was not a coincidence. The Astros held Correa down just long enough to make it very likely that he’ll miss Super Two eligibility, and called him right in the sweet spot of when they can get the most value from him in 2015 at the lowest long-term cost possible. The Mets could call Matz up today, and likewise, he’d almost certainly be free and clear of Super Two status. If they wait another week or two, as Sherman suggests they will, it won’t even be in question; the probability of Matz obtaining Super Two status will have moved from something like 0.1% down to 0.0%..." http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/steven-matz-the-mets-and-the-super-two-rule/ It appears that the circumstances in moving Sano up from this point forward will now be coming down to a pure positive readiness assessment coupled with "gambling" with the supplanting of an underperforming veteran (or more experienced prospect) by a brand new top prospect possibly playing out of position.

I've looked up and down the thread, and I don't see one use of the word "transformational", not even in conjunction with Kennys Vargas.

Given the Twins current choice of veteran options, they are much more likely to continue the recent June mini-swoon, W-L 3-5/.324 team SLG .594 team OPS, without Sano, than with him. Yes, prospects are known to struggle when they first come up, and yet, we have recent examples of Santana, Vargas, and now Rosario, who hit the ground running as key lineup components, who all are evidence that it is worth a shot to see if a premier prospect, Miguel Sano, can duplicate the feat. More evidence.... Houston has also slumped since May 31, going 3-6, and they've pulled the trigger on Corriea to help kick-start the Stros...

Because he's one of the Twins' premier talents who could be a difference maker for a pennant-contending team which is woefully short of power bats. The Twins DH's batted around .400 OPS after Vargas was sent down. Trevor Plouffe is currently in a massive June slump, 1 for 29, and hitting clean-up. It would be nice to have an active contingency plan that represents a potential upgrade at both spots when the first choices are either slumping, need time off, or represent a clear situational disadvantage.

That's right, I think it's another one of those "unwritten rules" I've heard whispered about periodically on TD...

I like Jay, too. But I fully expect him to be a key man, about 6 years from now, after years of struggle trying to convert to an SP, and then pitching late innings for the Twins.

Not the first time, and you're not the only one...

Gonsalves has his Ft Myers debut this evening and comes away the winner. Not the most impressive line, 5.1 IP 5 H 3 ER 3 BB 2 K. But this is a good step in challenging a prospect who dominated the previous level. I'm expecting that his numbers will improve significantly no later than his first start in July.

I saw the quotes, it certainly appeared that he was using Twins insiders as his source. He's not exactly my go-to guy for his Twins baseball expertise, his sources usually appear to be player agents, or "gift quotes" from Rob Antony, and perhaps on occasion, from Terry Ryan. Doesn't seem like a bad guy, but it does seem like he likes to hear the sound of his own voice.

Sano is way better athletically than Vargas, it's not even close. Sano might end up eventually ballooning to a Prince Fielder XXXX jersey, but right now, the still XX, but increasingly growing to 2-ton gorilla, is at 1st base through 2018.

Yep. I would make your prediction for Sano's promotion schedule the odds-on favorite. (Again, not what I would want to see, of all of the in-house bat option additions going into July, he is #1 with no close second, in my order of preference).

1) But this is true, only if it's a strict Plouffe vs. Sano comparison, and/or if they somehow think they can get fair value in a trade for Plouffe before the deadline (As proposed above, given the Twins track record, it seems more likely that they'll end up offering him an extension). 2) What does "cooler heads" have to do with bringing up your best players in a pennant race if there's a chance that they can help remedy a glaring deficiency? 3) Are you suggesting that Dougie has had Sano slip on that firstbaseman's mitt a few times for some special sessions?

Yup, in actuality, Dougie clearly stated the corporate line for public consumption for the time being, I just hope that when "push-comes-to-shove" MLB readiness and MLB need are both extremely obvious, that they still won't refuse to pull the trigger

Well it seems pretty clear, that's most certainly not the plan, at least yet, anyway. But the plan for this year, assuming the Twins remain serious about winning, and with the offense seemingly at least one bat short, seems destined to be derailed if the "much more important player in the future" has summarily been dismissed as being able to somehow fit into a difference-making role in the present. This shouldn't be "willy nilly", I'm kind-of disappointed, but not surprised, that a back-up plan for a full shift to "win-now" mode isn't already operative. It's not like the public, and I'm sure, the Twins, haven't been engaged in the Plouffe/Sano, "What are the contingency options?" debate for the last 4 seasons.