jokin

Not when he opens for the World Series!

I wasn't there, but I know excuses well enough to say that this was a pathetic cry for help.

There's a fighting chance that Parmelee is a better RF than he is at 1B. He has acquitted himself pretty well in the OF. The DeAza move is of the type they should have done last year as insurance for Hicks. Maybe they've learned a hard lesson from that.

Florimon does have options left, but Gardy has already designated him the opening day SS.

Let's be fair, you forgot that "young" player they added most recently to the 40-man, Mike, 25 year old Brooks Raley- he's only a phone call away. The Twins Way has apparently become using up all of your AAAA players and value-less veterans until you can't squeeze one more dime out of their salaries, they even turned one of them into a $500, 000 dividend check in Albers and got a down-on-his-luck, end-of-the-line former 1st round SP by trade, and outrighted some of the dead weight- and they still didn't make room for one of the youngsters. Mind-boggling. It looks like there's one more year of pretender-"squeezing" over prospect-developing.

John, do you have any impressions or feelings that the 2 "losers" in the SP battle take the RP spots from T-Bar and Pressly, get traded or DFA'd, or go on the DL?

Do you mean he's replaced the now-cliched "fire" adjective with something more colorful? New attitude, indeed!

The Santana option was my very first thought when Florimon's appendectomy was made public- it's a potential nice opportunity for both Danny and the Twins. And it doesn't have to be for the full 15 days. Have your heard anything Seth, about the possbility that the Twins might place Florimon on the DL sooner than March 31, to enable an earilier regular season debut?

Tremendous article. John is likely to get this one picked up, republished and broadly requoted. He gets to the basic tug of war between the "fantasy" and "reality" sides of baseball analysis, development and predictability. The fairly cold and sterile world of Peter Brand versus the day to day, year to year mental and physical grind, seat-of-the-pants, trial-by-error world of Art Howe. The search for the "Truth" will always remain elusive and never approach "Absolute", given the human dimension.

Holy being taken out of context! What in the world are you talking about? I merely stated 2 guys who turned out to be great players chosen at the back end of the first round- precisely chosen by me, to illustrate a place where the Twins found themselves for most of the last decade, and has been the oft-stated reason (excuse?) given for why the Twins and their fans are forced to endure their current on-field failures at remaining even remotely competitive. Of course you're not going to get a winner drafting in the Teens and 20s every year, but since Mauer in 2001 the Twins have very, very little to show for their first round picks in the following 10 years- Perkins and Span are the only "winners" (they thought so little of Garza- speaking of "talent evaluating" abilities- they had to throw Jason Barlett into a trade with the Rays for Delmon- that's why I will always give the edge to the Rays in that category until the Twins prove different). I'll have less and less doubts about their abilities when players they have drafted below the Top Five picks become players with abilities that are remotely impactful compared to a Wacha or Trout. And given their relative positions with their current personnel situations, the Cards are sitting pretty both in the near and intermediate future, and unlike the Twins, when they are forced to lose their top players, they seem to never miss a beat in replacing the losses and staying competitive. And the Rays? They are running circles around the Twins, personnel-wise and especially developmentally (they get their top prospects to the major leagues before their physical peak), and effectively with one armed tied behind their back, financially. No question that the Twins have gotten better prospects of late, but the lofty ranking of their farm system is artificially inflated by 2 of the prospects who were top draft picks, and one was via a trade of their only coveted asset (that method is now closed off- is there any coveted asset left on the major league roster short of Mauer?). The talent evaluation will have to get better, as they soon will pick lower at the Wacha/Trout level of the draft and they can't trade for a top prospect without tradeable assets in the first place. And just once, can they draft a college pitcher who either doesn't flame out or is forced to take the 6 year route to the majors?

The only way they should ever consider Antony as the successor at GM is if they get a real baseball guy (or guys) to oversee player personnel. If Antony has had any accomplishments in the trade area, wouldn't that have come out in one of these profile articles? It's scary to think of Antony going it alone in player decision-making versus the likes of the Rays and Cards- who are up to their armpits in proven talent evaluators and light years ahead philosophically and in evaluative tools. Haven't we already been there- and done that- with Bill Smith? Antony's portfolio seems similarly threadbare- and I am not convinced that Deron Johnson has proven to be capable enough to be the #2 guy, let alone the #1 guy. Krivsky is turning 60- probably time to turn the page on that notion. Hiring 40-year old Keith Law for the Assistant GM job would be a good start (he was recently looking for just such a gig with the Astros). And then plucking a few smart guys from the budget-ball teams (A's, Cards, Rays) who have the proven penchant for finding hidden and undervalued talent at the major league, international and prospect levels. Once this team starts winning again, acquiring talent is going to become much more problematic. As all of the new prospects begin to flourish at the MLB level, we don't want to repeat the trades of a Hardy or Garza for nothing, Intl. FA signings like Nishioka, or in the draft, passing on a Trout or a Wacha who somehow fell down from the top ten picks in the draft, because we supposedly have the position filled with a "Twins Way" guy already.

Probably nothing, but Hicks was scratched from today's lineup due to "elbow soreness"- isn't that how those things start? I do think back to that amazing throw on the fly to Third Base last year, and hope his UCL is holding up well- one TJ a year on position players is more than enough. http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/blogs/248754221.html

Agreed, some of Souhan's best work. I was more referring to the everyday beat guys, not the guy looking for his next column. I disagree there, too many times, it feels like the daily reports are phoned in from the golf course or the bar stool. Agreed on Berardino, too.

How would I know what they aspire to? Well, I'm sure they all dream about putting up career years, but given what they accomplished most recently as members of the worst pitching staff in baseball, plus Hughes' nightmare season in NY that fits perfectly into the Twins numbers, hitting #5-level numbers in 2014 will be a major improvement for this group. "Scouting" of Pelfrey? Make-up maybe. But his career stats and the fact that the Twins apparently competed against themselves don't portend much more from the Pelf than his career 4.50 ERA. Plus, Correia came in as a #6 SP, as he was booted from the rotation in Pittsburgh (in favor of a guy we dumped), and is due for some regression in 2014- Steamer says 4.94 ERA, ZIPS projects 5.07 ERA, let's be positive and say he returns to his own 4.50 career ERA- which puts him with Pelf, solidly in #5 SP territory. Re- the Cubs, you do acknowledge that the Twins are in their own worst, back-to-back and 3-year stretches in their history, right? But unlike the Twins, the Cubs have fully acknowledged full-rebuild mode and base all of their acquisitions on what that acquisition does in making the team better at some point in the future, not splitting the baby, trying to have it both ways, like the Twins have done.

It's early, and so little stock is put into ST stats, but at least one or two of the bubble guys are going to find a way onto the 25 man, imo.

Parmelee is lots of things meh, but he isn't just another poor fielder, he proved actually quite competent in RF last year. And how can they start Parmelee and leave Arcia on the bench? Whenever Arcia is here, it will be to start.

Look at the current roster. Other than Nolasco, based on 2013 stats, the entire staff ASPIRES to #5 SP-level numbers. The Cubs are in a rebuild and have admitted as such to everyone. The talent they acquire they look to flip at their peak value for prospects- that approach has been working out just fine- their farm is ranked near or just a shade under the Twins farm system.

Good get. Phil Miller was as productive as Berardino a year ago- now the Strib's best coverage this year is coming from whatever they pilfer from Twins Daily!.

The first steps were made ("fortunately", indeed!) to begin moving out the "pile" in the offseason, but there is much work to be done in that area- hopefully there is a change in philosophy in this regard. Nothing wrong with going "younger" by trading for Gilmartin and acquiring Raley to replace some of the "dreck", who both offer some speculative upside and left-handedness. But- Gibson was blocked last year from a May promotion. Logan Darnell and Trevor May probably should have had more innings at Rochester. Todd Redmond was available, for free, twice, on the waiver wire, the Twins somehow thought they had better options? Paul Maholm and Scott Feldman were available in the FA market, both proved that they were eminently flippable, for only slightly more $$$ than Correia or Pelfrey. Meanwhile, soon-to-be 30-year old Kris Johnson is now being thought of as an important part of the SP depth chart- though Chris Capuano could have been brought in cheaply and had nice potential as a flipping chip.

Actually, I don't think anyone would presume that Darnell is being blocked at this point, can we just dismiss that strawman? But there are definitely more worthy prospects that are/have been blocked now and in the recent past. And it isn't just the "$7M guys" being so "destructive", it's also the recent huge excess of guys at the level of the likes of DeVries, Vasquez and Walters occupying roster spots on the Twins and at Rochester over guys with more potential that is what's so problematic. By contrast, the Cubs have used the ML-level SP short-term Bandaid approach with some arms with upside and better resale appeal, that they then successfully flipped for more prospects and players- no mediocrity logjam in Wrigley. And I think I can sum up the criticism as more along these lines (and it really hasn't been that inconsistent): "...Why won't the Twins only acquire SPs who can make the team better now and into the near future, and not acquire any guys on a rebuilding team who are older, speculative reclamation projects or who project at a #5 ceiling....so that we can make a full determination which of our young guys are keepers and which are pretenders in anticipation of the next run?"

If you were referring to me, please note that I labeled my list "pun intended" by including Watts and Turpen. My point was to the fact that the Twins have a huge glut of pitchers, a "pile" if you will of much older pitchers, who are supposed to be in their peak performance years, but who are still trying to prove that they belong at this level. The question on the table is: should the Twins, as a rebuilding team trying to figure out who the keepers are, be getting older on the pitching staff or younger? It's very debatable that a team in their position, pitching-wise, should be wasting any more time with even more guys that have proven mediocre at best, thus far in their careers; it's somewhat absurd that any more PJ Walters-types be given more opportunities over younger guys that might actually become relevant during the next competitive phase for this team.

Let me posit that both of those piles don't take up a lot of room down in the Twins and Red Wings bullpens.

Yep. Which is why I was hopeful that the Twins might have been/might still be able to work out a deal to unlock an infielder or pitching prospect from the O's. Notwithstanding the signing of Cruz, the O's still desperately need a RH DH bat.

See post #20 immediately above, just for Starters (pun intended).

The main problem in how the Twins are handling all of this is that many of their "possible future players at AAA and the MLB level" are now also getting old (with their birthday age in 2014), to wit: Deduno 31 Vasquez 32 Johnson 30 Pino 30 Diamond 28 Turpen 28 Watts 27 Thompson 27 Worley 27 The "Youngish" Kyle Gibson 27 And yet, there is still fretting about the burning of service time. It's as if they're afraid of being stuck with multiple Nick Blackburns.