jokin

Yeah, but the "Ace" spot has been kept open for quite a few years now since Santana left,.. and you may be right that the GM might not see his way to spending, but there's plenty of money now to finally fill that spot, plus an OF or corner Inf.

And how about Burdi picking up right where he left off in Cedar Rapids? (The Mets A+ team is #1 in hitting in the FSL, good first test for him, hopefully he's not in Ft Myers for too long). Does Tyler Duffey need a prospect upgrade? Is he Brad Radke-lite? This one has the chance to change my mind on the college-relievers-to-starters strategy.

I was commenting about that the other night..."look at all of the Fortune 500 names placing advertising plaques and billboards on the MinuteMaid outfield walls...the only one slightly embarrassing is Citgo," Meanwhile the Twins prominently feature in their commmercials the ambulance chasers, Meshbesher & Spence. What next? Bankruptcy lawyers, Jack Prescott and Sons?

The list omits Tomas. Yeah, I know, not a "major league" option, but based on that OF list, he looks to be a better option than any of them. Good chance that getting him, plus a top-end SP would make next year's season relevant.

Praising him effusively on one hand, while simultaneously hinting that he hasn't exactly been an iron man in rhetoric, and the coup de grace, laying the aggressive "hammock-hammer" down via image....?.

I think the Twins should go all out on convincing Shields to sign. I also have proposed that they go after Tomas or Sandoval. If they could convince Sandoval to join the budding Latin Connection in Minnesota, he can start out at 3rd and move to 1st when Sano arrives. Mauer can then play a corner OF spot. As you correctly pointed out, after trading more of the chaff, the Twins will have plenty of money for both of these acquisitons.

James Shields should be seriously pursued in the offseason if they can get a 4-5 year deal. Jon Niese is still only 27 and is available right now, is theoretically cheaply under control through as late as 2018, and he has cleared waivers with the Mets, projects as a decent #3-type starter. The Mets have a passel of young, high-upside arms ready to possibly supplant him next year anyway, he might be available for a reasonable price in trade. Quote

Vargas turned 24 last week. /minor nitpick But you point is well-taken. Monday was a watershed moment for the franchise, a few more of the over-30s will hopefully be gone by September 1. And with it, decision-making is no doubt underway to decide who needs to be added to the roster. At this moment, there isn't any currently rostered player I would want to call up as a position player (except Polanco, should there be an injury).

Arms are getting blown out all the time, at all ages, not just "what happens when young players are in the majors instead of at AAA"...you mentioned Cy Young, Verlander seems on the verge of a shutdown, Bronson Arroyo's indestructible robo-arm got shut down in Arizona.... it's become an inevitable part of the process, seemingly without definitive prentatives or solutions..... and the Marlins aggregate numbers still stand, with Fernandez this year, or not...the point Mike is making makes it more valid, maximize the bullets fired while the arms are still fresh, locked and loaded.

Comparing Meyer to a career minor league relief pitcher is not getting Meyer's situation perfectly. And to answer you, yes, I would feel a lot better about Meyer taking his lumps this year in anticipation of a much better season next year.

Sorry Doc, but Mike is absolutely spot on. The much-maligned Miami Marlins get it. They had FIVE starting pitchers last year, age 23 or younger. In 500 innings pitched, they attained a combined ERA of 3.51. This year, the Marlins have 11 rostered pitchers, age 24 or younger, 9 of whom have started games for Miami, plus they traded for relief pitcher Carter Capps. And of course, they didn't stop accumulating more young arms, with all of their great young staff, they still traded for 24-year old power pitcher Jarred Cosart from the Astros in a deadline deal. On the flipside, 23-year old Jacob Turner was having a down year, did they panic and shut him down with a mysterious injury... or send him down to minor league obscurity for a couple years to find himself?, or worse, release him for non-performance issues...? No, they flipped him to the Cubs for two younger pitching prospects. Want to know a part of the secret to the Marlins' pitching success with the seeming ever-abundancy of young arms?.... just scanning the Miami transaction wire in July and August, the Marlins habit of signing 24-and-under pitchers continued.... counting the Cosart and Turner trades, in just a month and a half the Marlins acquired 6 power arms age 24 or younger.

Can that basic point be said just as eloquently sans hammock and golf shirt?

Solarte is a sore spot, I wish we hadn't revisited that one. Twins failed to put him on the 40-man roster after 2011 season, even after hitting .329 BA .834 OPS 130 OPS+ in New Britain and shortly thereafter claimed career minor leaguer, Pedro Florimon, to take what could/should have been Solarte's roster spot- and plus, Alexi Casilla "blocking" him for a utility role. Can't win 'em all, at least the Twins brass publicly acknowledged their mistake on him.

Close, Pino started out as the swingman with Rochester. How could you forget Scott Diamond? (now a starter for the Reds AAA team and doing much better than with the Wings in 5 starts).

Brad Steil, via Mike Berardino late this afternoon:

Rand's claims of total objectivity for this article began and ended when he led his objective analysis with a photo of Mauer in a hammock, hard to see that cheap shot as anything but Mauer-bashing.

No question that May has better stuff, but as we saw on Saturday, control is always going to be a major issue for him. I merely demonstrated very similar results for the two pitchers to this point in time. My point was that Adam is likely not simply to be dismissed as merely the "#16 Twins pitching prospect" in the system. K rates are an important indicator of success, but shouldn't be considered strictly in a vacuum. Unlike May and Swarzak who have seen progressive declines in K rates in their minor league careers, to the contrary, Adam, as a starter, has increased his K/9 rate for 5 straight years, even as he has continued to climb the minor league levels. To this point, Adam has both superior K/9 and BB/9 rates to Swarzak's AA total. Swarzak took a noticeable dropoff in AAA- his K/9 was 5.5 and BB/9 was 2.7. May was 8.6-K/9 and 3.6-BB/9 in AAA this year. Based on his history of year over year improvements at sucessive levels, Adam has a decent shot to beat or match both the K/BB numbers of May and Swarzak when he gets his shot at Rochester in 2015. With the results that Adam has gotten to this point in time, with his control already firmly established, it suggests that he has a decent shot to get to the similar ceiling to May with proper development from the Twins staff. He is going to have to get that third pitch going to keep hitters from sitting on his flattish fastball, missing bats, not lack of control, looks like it's going to be Adam's main focus for improvement. After checking this a little further, this is what most analysts suggest, ie, that of mid-rotation starter ceiling. This was a good trade, certainly not like Revere for Worley/May, but not Liriano for Hernandez/Escobar. This guy has a legitimate shot at a career well above Swarzak mop-up level.

Adam just turned 23 a week ago. Though he's perceived to have taken a step back in 2014, look at what the Royals did for him. They moved him to AAA as a reliever, and he's had some very good success in the hit-happy PCL. I think the comp here is not that far off from Trevor May. Let's compare Adam's age-22 year in AA this season with May's 22-year old season with the Phillies AA club: Trevor May ERA/FIP/SIERA 4.87/4.88/4.00 Jason Adam ERA/FIP/SIERA 5.03/3.65/3.74 Trevor May WHIP 1.45 K/9 9.1 BB/9 4.7 Jason Adam WHIP 1.39 K/9 8.1 BB/9 2.7 Trevor May BABIP .300 Slash line: .219/.350/.410/.760 Jason Adam BABIP ..338 Slash line: .281/.336/.419/.755 Trevor May repeated three times, at the A level, A+ level and the AA level. Jason Adams has only repeated AA, and even that involved a promotion to AAA, although in a relief role. I think if the Twins can continue the process of teaching Adams how to "pitch" to avoid more bats, the guy has demonstrated that he has projectabiliy- solid control, a decent FB between 91 and 95, touching 97 and a good slider. For Adams to reach his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter like May also projects, the Twins also have to help him develop a more effective third pitch. As you can tell, I am high on Adam's potential.

As I've posted elsewhere to you, Seth, in the minor league summary thread..... according to the AFL website, August 1 is the deadline for rostering players to AA or above to have players count towards the normal selection process. (Admittedly, the AFL is probably loose with their rules, I'm hoping that the Twins have other motives for the promotion besides Fall ball maneuvering). And what about Kepler? And maybe Burdi? If what Manuel says is true though, it does exemplify the point that the focal point of the best prospective talent in the Twins' system is in Ft Myers.

I stated the reason clearly...because, assuming he's fully healthy, he desperately needs to make up for the lost reps, and he's good enough to make the adjustments without losing confidence along the way. In addition to the 90-100 PAs in the AFL, why not get the ~100 or so, mostly AAA-ish type PAs with the Twins in September, as well? If he's going to have a chance to meaningfully contribute to the Twins at some point in 2015, why not give him every opportunity to prepare for that possible outcome now?

Paul Weller made great music, as he said laconically and ironically in this tune, we do what we do because, "That's Entertainment". (Featured in the great Will Farrell movie, "Stranger Than Fiction"). http://images.junostatic.com/full/CS2023574-02A-BIG.jpg

Hey, 2014 happened, there's no question that it was a disaster health-wise and timeline-wise for Buxton. But he is a special talent, and likely failure in hitting at the major league level in September is unlikely to negatively affect a very special talent and extremely hard-working Buxton, as it appears to have done to Hicks. Again... with the big qualifier in assuming that he's truly 100% healthy, right at this moment the biggest thing Buxton needs is to get as many high level reps at the plate and in the field as possible.

Yes, fair points, of which I'm largely in agreement. But a lot of the fruit has been bitter, and besides their share of bad luck, Pohlad pulled the rug out from undeneath Smith's philosophical concept of the team as a "spend your way to current success" MO. After his dismissal, there was a lack of vigor and a clearly defined, either "All-In" or All-Out" strategy in the initial and ongoing response to the 2011 trainwreck (much better in that regard when TR was at the helm over the last year after Pohlad went public with the need for a change at 2013 season's end). Quite simply, many of the moves leading up to this point have been misguided at the best, and horribly wrong at the worst- a product of trying to be half-in and half-rebuild. On a positive note, I still stand by my terming yesterday as a watershed moment, it now looks like this plan is largely in the rear-view mirror. I too would like to see more strategic moves this offseason, something along the lines of say.... signing Shields and either Tomas or Sandoval, which would immediately put the Twins right in the conversation in the 2015 AL pennant race, and the Twins- with the catcher spot solidified, a bevy of SP arms, among whom many could have solid, to break-out, to career-year seasons, plus the two uber-talented position prospects (Buxton and Sano) on the verge of big contributions in the second half of 2015- now have the funds available to finally get premier FAs, not retreads or bounce-back types.

According to the AFL website, players under consideration are supposed to be AA or above, and rostered on at least a AA team by no later than August 1, meaning technically, that both Buxton and Michael would only qualify for the two special exemption spots for players below Class AA. (But the AFL rules seem so loosely adhered to, it makes me think that Buxton's promotion to New Britain is primarily based on other reasons besides the AFL considerations). Just out of curiosity, Seth, who do you see as the other two who might get the nod from Ft Myers? There's a case to be made for Kepler, Walker, Goodrum, Burdi, Tomshaw...maybe others? And which other two players under the normal rules besides Buxton and Michael should get the nod? Vargas, Rosario, Gilmartin, Achter...?

I hope you're wrong, but fear you're right. I really don't want to see "The Hicks Horror" play itself out for the third straight year. And right now, unless Santana plays another entire year out of position, Logan Shafer represents the latest incarnation of a Mastroianni/Thomas amalgam as the CF alternative to Hicks in 2015. I'd like to think of a more optimistic scenario.... that Buxton quickly rights himself by the end of this fall, plays great in ST, and forces the issue by no later than than the All Star break.... with the Twins calling him up, along with Meyer, to support the vastly improved, sub-4.00 ERA, SP corps for the AL Central-leading Twins as they embark on the 2015 second-half AL pennant run.