jokin

When making these rankings... what is the right balance?, and who/how many of the TD staff determine?... upside ceiling versus floor as the final criterion for prospect ranking/placement. Is Meyer still the best combination of stuff and talent, plus with the closest acceding proximity to the majors, of all the arms in the Twins system for an Ace-level career, or not? If he is (and I think a strong case can be made that that is in fact, the case), then shouldn't he still be in his #3 spot? Quite frankly, a permanent future role for Meyer in the pen makes the original trade for Span largely an overall failure. OTOH, I concur with both of you, following the Cardinals model, Meyer needs to be up with the big club in a relief role, much sooner rather than later, assuming he doesn't win the #5 spot in ST.

Yup, all of this was encapsulated in this epic TD thread: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/11117-according-to-len3-it-appears-the-twins-are-near-the-end-of-their-patience-w-hicks/ Besides the dowright strange on-again, off-again switch-hitting saga, and the elements you stated above... there were many other reports over the last couple of years questioning his work ethic and commitment to the game- most recently, the strange, sudden dismissal from his winter league team last November, following the Twins displeasure with his refusal to play winter ball the previous winter- when it was obvious how much he needed to work on if he was ever going to reach his potential, Hicks has even stated his preference to shooting a round of golf over baseball... there's plenty of fodder to invite questions, and is automatically going to be accentuated, when a top draft pick and a guy with this much natural talent has failed to meet expectations so dramatically.

The difference is Schoenfeld is getting paid to write this stuff, and as a professional writer, succintly disseminate. He failed to persuade, and in some instances his analysis and conclusions are either superficially lazy, poorly fleshed out, just plain wrongly concluded... or some combination of all of the above. (Just look at his 2014 predictions as an example).

Just not having Antony and Gardy running the team and making the roster decisions this spring will mean there will be a better team come opening day. In addition, the team finally reversed course on the payroll, contract issues and scholarships might be less of an impediment vs. recent years, which presumably implies there will be less reticence in making bold and decisive moves (both in cutting dead weight and bringing up the prospects sooner), intended to impact the team THIS year. The one thing I fear in which Vegas may prove to end up being correct in their projection- is in the notion that the Twins' 2015 AL Central opponents have won the offseason battle- and just plain improved more than the Twins= plus a tougher NL schedule than 2014.

Great post, no doubt it will be another long year, expecting to see a win total in the low to mid 70s is pretty reasonably on the optimistic, but realistic, side... but the money coming in has apparently encouraged Vegas not only to not see any improvements, but to see a falloff in production, dropping the O/U number by 2 whole games (70.5 in 2014- 68.5 in 2015). With that said, Vegas and the majority of the public evidently- ...has little faith in the potential culture-changing, breath-of-fresh-air event in a former HOFer as the new manager and a new pitching coach, ...is completely unimpressed by potentially adding 2-3 WAR in the form of Ervin Santana (based on the previous 2 seasons- AL&NL, using both bWAR and fWAR), ...that the Twins might gain a very valuable, 4-5 day a week, true utility man in Escobar. ...the chances are reasonably good that Pinto can be a nice upgrade over Fryer at catcher (ZiPS projects Pinto at 2.1 WAR w/ 495 PAs- he won't get that many- but still, better than Fryer). ...are seemingly unaware that the Twins got 6+ WAR in 2014 from very unexpected sources-> ie, 3 relatively unheralded prospects and a utility man (Santana, Polanco, Vargas, Escobar).... meanwhile... there's a good chance that 4 of the top 6 prospects, plus a May, Burdi and perhaps another pitcher out of the top ten, could make significant contributions to the 2015 Twins. Regarding your question about NO open spots on the roster... the Twins roster glass IS more than half full when your 3 top position players are knocking on the door, + #4 position player Polanco is close behind, and 3 of your top pitchers (M & M boys and Burdi) are close enough at this point, that the club is now pretty much past the obligatory DeVries/Kris Johnson/Pino-type callups when replacements are inevitably needed..

Tempted, huh? Don't fly too close to the Sun, my friend...

I'm not overanxious to give them too much credit on Santana. They were actually as wrong on him as on Hicks, just in the opposite way. Santana did have a terrific ST, it was obvious that Florimon could not play and that Santana should be brought north on a trial basis, if/until Florimon regained his health and/or semblance of playing ability. But then, only when circumstances were forced on them by continuously disastrous moves concerning Bartlett and a parade of claimed/lost CFers, did Santana rather accidentally/inadvertently become the answer at that position. (Admittedly, his MiLB track record wasn't much help in predicting outcomes, but Santana's sparkling rookie results should have been less of a surprise, and an "easy call" to the braintrust as compared to the average informed fan). In this case, I hope their high opinion on Rosario is correct... the situation in the OF for 2015- is still pretty thin and shaky, at best. Sconnie said it correctly in the post above, the high opinion on Rosario could just as easily be due to the lack of solid readily available alternatives in CF. I have a feeling the MLB opportunity will inevitably be his for the taking with even just a decent start in AA or AAA, but for him to come in and solidly steal the spotlight like Santana did in 2014, is much more of a wish than a forecast. Down the road, presumably, LF opens up in either late 2015 or the start of 2016, with Hunter gone, and Rosario getting the first crack at the spot, with Buxton taking over in CF.

We don't need Heyman's word to establish Buxton's potential, it's pretty universally accepted that the kid has the requisite tools to be the game's best CF at some point in his career, it's now up to Buck to prove that 2014 was just a bump in the road and he quickly gets back on track from his (justified) lofty expectations. Trout will eventually pass the torch to someone... And while he may be the game's best hitter for quite a while longer, it might come sooner rather than later that he's no longer the best all-around pure CFer: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/has-mike-trout-gotten-slower/

I think his methodology has been pretty well demonstrated in this thread to be some pretty thin gruel, and without demonstrating a whole lot of previous predictive acumen in 2014. You made a better case, and a more cogently written case, for the lowball number than Schoenfeld did himself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, while a lot of guys stepped up to do "their patriotic duty" and make a statement about their Vegas "over' bet (I think the Vegas number at the time was actually 71 or 70.5? PECOTA was 71, Business Insider also reported that the Vegas # was @ 70.5 http://www.businessinsider.com/mlb-power-rankings-spring-training-2014-2#27-minnesota-twins-66-wins-last-year-27 ), but I seem to remember a decent consensus forming on TD in the low 70s. (eg, I was 70-74 and it just seemed to me a lot of guys were also in that ballpark).

- 75 seems about right for this team.... I'm @ 73-77 pending the final opening day roster. - Good bets can be made on the "over" for projections of all three of the players you mentioned, plus Pinto. - The bullpen has a new pitching coach with a slew of potential options that any one of whom could step up big, from multiple rabbit hole sources- solid veterans, reclamations and bounce-backs, unsung rookies, top prospects. Ryan has a solid history of putting a solid pen together with chicken wire, no reason that can't continue in his quantity over quality theory. - The sophomore jinx applies to whom? Two guys? Santana and Vargas- and the positions they might fill have some pretty decent potential alternatives, especially if one or more of the top prospects break out of the gate in a big way.

PECOTA has the Twins repeating their 70 win total in 2015 from last season, and they project no "bad" teams, so the Twins are tied with Philly for 29th place in the BP system. There are always a small handful of teams who finish in the 60s or even the 50s, so the value of a 29th place prediction seems pretty diluted. Schoenfeld's predictions/projections for last season weren't exactly stellar, either. Of the 30 MLB teams, Schoenfeld only had 14 who he predicted "correctly", within a 5-win margin. That's only a 46.7% "accuracy" rate. And he was completely off the mark on close to the same number of teams- 12 of 30 teams- to be exact- by a 9 win or better discrepancy. This is near dartboard territory. (He low-balled the Twins in 2014 similarly to this year- 67 wins, in the end, so, off by 3, he has a pretty good feel for the general vicinity of where the Twins should reside, just a little too negative, and certainly well below the Pythag- which was 75 [& coincidentally, that's right at the midpoint of my current prediction range and likely near this year's Pythag #]). http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/44158/ranking-the-teams-6-through-1

Just "seems allergic to"? Isn't it more like showing Count Dracula a crucifix? I agree with all of your points, but how often do the Twins promote (short of emergency) without a prize prospect "mastering" the previous level. Clearly, Rosario hasn't done so yet. I can easily envision an opening day Rochester OF roster replete with AAAAs plus Ortiz.

Really good point taken. But we might need to add Torii to the defensive suspect list, as well. If the OF defense proves disastrous early-on, I can easily see Rosario getting the first call, and even possibly to CF. Hunter or Arcia to DH, and eventually, some combination in the OF of Rosario LF-CF/Buxton CF/Santana/Plouffe/Mauer and either Hunter or Arcia- but not both at the same time, Hunter getting shipped out in July really opens the door for both Rosario and Buxton to move into two of those spots. I hope Rosario rises to the challenge and seizes the opportunity just right there in front of him.

As I stated previously, there is a strong case to made that, top-to-bottom, the NL Central is arguably the best division in baseball. Perhaps the Twins won't have as many opportunities to steal some wins like they had in 2014 with 3 clearly inferior teams from the NL West- Col/SD/AZ.

No doubt, decisive action was taken on the South Side- who knew they would likely be on a faster return to relevancy than the Twins (in 2012 the Sox finished 3 games behind Detroit at 85-77, blew up the team, and now here they are, seemingly lapping the Twins?). Throw out the exception of 2012, the Twins have actually dominated the Whities since 2008-> 65-47, even done well against them in the other three 90-plus loss seasons. If the Twins go 4-14 against the Sox in 2015 as they did in 2012, it's going to be awful hard to make up all of those 5-6 extra losses elsewhere.

That's my main point, the "schedule" means playing all of these teams 19 times within the division, all or most of whom have improved more, on paper anyway, and are starting from a much higher base than the Twins have/will. I can get on board an argument that breaks the projected value of each roster down mathematically and sabremetrically, not just- "the Twins OF is going to suck." We've all been there and done that.

Sounds like you're interpreting some originally pretty faulty, and poorly disseminated logic, as well as lazy and incomplete conclusions, from Mr. Schoenfeld. Your defense of him was much better than Schoenfeld's defense of himself- no "hopefullys" in Schoenfeld's analysis. You end up in your defense of him with the same circular logic, concluding that 2014 was, in fact, their "peak" and quite possibly an outlier- a lot of us don't see it that way. Again, somebody check Schoenfeld's track record for his predictive abilities.

You made many good points in your post, that most can agree with. And I think of the neutral experts, there quite rightly won't be many/any that project the Twins that highly. Quite frankly, a 20th projection in the W-L record sounds too optimistic for me! According to Schoenfeld, that would mean 79-83.... barring tons of things going right, I don't see the Twins getting there this year. He has the Whities at #23, with a 77-85 record. This feels like the extreme upper end range for the Twins to aspire to. http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/54986/ranking-the-teams-24-through-19-2 As was previously stated, the Twins were 4 games under their Pythag-level in 2014. Unless Schoenfeld can make a solid case that a tougher 2015 schedule is the reason for the Twins to go backwards, and not primarily because of the same bad OF as 2014, I'm thinking we'll more likely see a small incremental improvement towards the expected W-L- in the 73-77 range.

My interpretation of that statement from Schoenfeld was that, yes, he said they likely peaked, as "in the past", as in- they had their career year in 2014. Projecting a "Peak" in the recent past suggests that Schoenfeld has dared to announce that that type of production is unlikely to occur again. If we envision the caret symbol- ^ -as representing a career as a journey relative to the image of a mountain- there's only one direction to go after reaching the top- downward collapse/regression. If Schoenfeld had meant to say something different, he should have said that Dozier and Plouffe have plateaued. And most importantly, as both "twinsajsf" and I stated in our previous posts, Schoenfeld hugely discounts potential improvements in production from multiple potential sources- Arcia, Hunter, Mauer, Pinto, Sano, Rosario, Buxton, and quite possibly no regression from one or more of the obvious regression candidates. It sure seems that there will likely be more plate protection and baserunners year over year, which could serve to enhance the production numbers for Dozier and Plouffe, who are due to bat high up in the batting order. Going back, the OF situation was his main argument for their last-place projected finish. I think we all agree that this obvious area of deficiency in 2014 has not been properly addressed. But I think Molly is his own man, thus, substandard OF defense will not be acceptable.... I expect decisive in-season adjustments in the OF, if needed.

And he expects Dozier and Plouffe's numbers to collapse, as well. Sure, some guys are bound to do worse- Santana, Suzuki, Vargas, Shafer and maybe Escobar, are prime candidates in that category- but many others are just as likely to either stay the same, continue to improve or positively regress- Mauer, obviously for the latter reason, Dozier and Plouffe could easily produce similar numbers to 2014, and Pinto, Arcia, and even Hicks, might go gangbusters.... plus who knows which rookies make an immediate impact?

If they end up with a 5 year streak with losses in the 90s- and getting around the 4th pick- and having the worst team in the AL- as Schoenfeld suggests here, heads will have to roll. I'm not as optimistic as some are here, but this seems unrealistically negative. His Rangers prediction seems too negative, as well. It makes me wonder how his predictions worked out last year???

Yup, I think most of us, closer and more familiar with the Twins' situation, will be genuinely stunned if they go backwards to this extent. For instance, Schoenfeld justifiably criticizes the current projected OF defense as one of his key reasons for such a bad forecast- I highly doubt that Molitor and Ryan will refrain from making necessary personnel and positional adjustments if it becomes obvious that Arcia/Hunter/TBD CF are at Klown Kar performance levels.

Sorry, distracted posting. I like the NL West too (and when I'm not paying close enough attention, the Astros are still in the NL. ) But the Rangers (picked 25th by Schoenfeld w/ 71 wins?) and A's look to be destined for down years, and as I said, before, Houston is improved, but still is possibly a year away. I do like the NL Central a lot, particularly on a top to bottom basis- another dogfight seems likely, especially if Cincy gets their act back together.. With the Cubs now showing a lot more than a faint pulse, none of those games against that division will be gimmes.

Top to bottom? Arizona is a mess, and Houston might still be a year away. I agree, though.... Both the Stros and Cubs are on my list of series to attend this year.