jokin

Can we hope for a deadline-run-and-trade-Correia-miracle as well? I've been rubbing my wishing fingers raw on this scenario from the day he was signed.

If that's actually what they thought, than THEY are blind. They are "the ones that count", the money that is...

Competition is a very "healthy" thing!

Can I offer a suggestion? Try harder.

This is not correct. Gibson's FIP in the International League is 2.94, which ranks him #2 overall in qualified pitchers. His excellent 3.16 ERA ranks 10th. He's 3rd in innings pitched, 6th in WHIP and 11th in K/9 at nearly 8 strikeouts per 9 innings. He has pitched a near-no-hitter and several shutout/no earned runs, "lights out" performances, to go along with his less-than-stellar wild performances, well-expected in a former TJ patient in his first full year after surgery. There's no doubt that talent-wise he would rank at the top of the current Twins rotation. Performance-wise, he was near-ready 3 years ago for a call-up before the injury. He's learned his craft in the past already, now he's re-learned his craft after the TJ. It's past time to let Gibson use the precious few remainder of his remaining available innings with the big club.

I was going to write this very topic up myself. Without a doubt the best trading chip. Besides his multitude of career-best numbers in 2013, he's a real value for contending teams on a budget, potentially signed though 2016. Teams on a budget like the Orioles, Rays, Braves, Reds and Cardinals all are contenders with relief pitching numbers in the bottom half of MLB stats. A couple of the teams have shaky closing situations (Os and Rays). All of the teams have some tempting prospects. And there's the rub.....it would have to be a very solid get.... can they get another A+ minor league up-and-coming Starting Pitcher prospect like Meyer? Or a relatively sure thing prospect or veteran in the middle infield or a catcher? This also assumes that a couple of the hard-throwing guys like Tonkin and Jones move quickly up to the big club and settle in as potential replacements for Perk.

Tremendous write-ups. Lots of meaty extra info to your reporting. Do you have season tickets? Just wait 'til these guys get acclimated. What are your impressions on Pinto? If he is able to tear up this league, I'm confident that Sano and Rosario will do just as well and likely better, in time. Morales has a good chance to be solid, too. You might want to correct this opening line in paragraphs 5: "Control issues came back in 3rd inning for Meyer..." Do you have a feel for May and his mechanics? Does it look like he has it in him to "flip the switch" eventually. A guy with his K ability, physical size and stuff should be given every possible chance to hit the bigs as the #3 starter.

We don't need no thought control, either.

Yes, indeed. The "What is he doing here...Waive him NOW!" crew is in hiding for this night at least.

Are the Twins themselves overlooking Pinto? The guy is an Eastern League top player, hitting for both average and power. And....There's not exactly a lot of blockage at AAA. Over the last few years the FO has never been real comfortable with long-term relationships with Latin catchers. Are their language and cultural barriers that give the Twins pause on Pinto?

Thanks OG, for a challenging and thought-provoking post in response. OK here goes. I stand by all four players as unnecessary high dollar assets (but understand why they can't move Mauer). Here's why: For the Twins in a year they are throwing away, Perk and Willingham are high dollar most certainly. Especially Willingham, why is he here at 3yr/$7M/yr when he most certainly isn't part of future plans when the Twins FO finally decides to be competitive again? He is 34 coming off of likely his career-best year. Again, since the Twins had no intention of competing, why is he still here when he should have been offered at his potentially highest value during his 3 year contract with the Twins this last offseason? That $14M over this year and next and is better spent dedicated to locking up high-quality starting pitching for the next run- or in kick-starting that next run a year or two sooner. Perkins is a cheaper than average closer to be sure, but the Twins committed up to 5 years to Perkins- up to the 2016 option year of his contract. They did this with evidently little intention of being legitimately competitive again until 2016. We all know this is a team that promised the fans to totally focus on upgrading the starting pitching and then went all out and paid their 2 new FA "aces" annual salaries of $4.5M and $4.0 million- these are dumpster dive rates in this era for decent SP, compared to Perkins $2.5M- when these are your alleged aces, the chances on cashing in with save opportunities for a closer above minimum wage makes each save that much more expensive. The logical thing for a truly rebuilding team is to employ a free-for-all minimum wage closer by committee and let the cream rise to the top. The final potential year of Perkins contract will be when Perkins is 33 years old- so it is a little bit of a crapshoot that he will still be as effective as he is now. Since the Twins have decided to not be "all in" until then, they really have no need for a closer making any kind of decent money before then, so that's essentially a waste of the $11.85M portion of Perk's contract in the interim- and then finally with Perkins scheduled to make $4.5M in the 2016 team option year- when he may, or may not, still be effective. The best argument to be made is the one I have intended on writing up soon, signing Perkins to a relatively cheap long-term deal to make him available as an inexpensive closing option for a good team in strong need, or a marginally competing team, that wants to make a 2-3 month run to October without breaking the budget. Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Atlanta and St Louis come to mind- they all have overall relief pitcher numbers in the bottom half of baseball, and they all 4 have mostly sub-par to ordinary lefty bullpen options and/or faltering closers (Tampa Bay and Baltimore). Those 4 teams have enticing prospects for the Twins to try to acquire, but all four clubs are probably too shrewd to make a deal favorable enough to the Twins for Perkins. And it's not clear if the Twins have any intentions to look in this direction- but pitching is always the hottest commodity at the deadline and Perk's value will likely never be higher- he is sitting at or well-above career highs in virtually every statistical category.

***One year of JC ball at age 18. Hopefully Buxton is on pace to duplicate this. I have used nothing but facts thus far, the Twins have notorioiusly moved players very slowly, Buxton, as well as Sano, deserve to be fast-tracked to hit the big leagues at age 20. Let's see if that actually happens, or not.... and BTW, I am a big stickler on facts about where and how appropriate body functions are used appropriately.

That's not what I said. Please try again and re-read what I actually stated.

There are baseball professionals, both inside and outside of the Twins organization that are on record as saying Miguel Sano can hit at the major league level now. Others within, and outside the organization say Buxton is the best they've ever seen, in some capacity anyway. Skipping potential minor-league playoff ball for Harper, Trout and Machado- and not being the top player statisically in the given level they played with at the time- has hardly retarded their rapid progression to the major leagues.

If Mastro and Ramirez were the insurance policies, they should sue their insurance agents. I was hoping for a competent 4th OF with previous major league starting experience. That was really too much to ask on an active-player payroll of ~$75M? "Feeling your way back to contention" after 2 disastrous years, and still carrying high dollar players on the payroll like Mauer, Morneau, Willingham and Perkins makes utterly no sense whatsoever. And yes, I think they should have tried to pass "bad players" through waivers to keep Borbon on the roster this spring. "Really". (Oh, wait, that's right..... It turns out they have already cut some of the detritus off the 40 man, and ironically, there's still a lot of gristle to hack away at until they actually reach the "good players" on the 40-man).

JC, it was you yourself that expressed your own doubts just a few weeks ago in April, that Buxton would ever have lasted at Cedar Rapids this long into the month of June. (BTW---At this point, I have no problem with Buxton playing out the week in CR. It's the overall philosophy that I question, there's strong evidence that Buxton is beginning to resemble other recent phenoms who didn't require babying along- by having to somehow cross over artificial hurdles like "mastering" each successive level, or showing more 'consistency", before "earning" a promotion.)

A lot less filler, more real meat, with a dash of Parraz!

And it oh-so-hurts-them, all the way down to their sphincter muscles, to do so. Never has managment and coaching staff gushed over a prospect in almost perplexed anguish, awe and trepidation. I don't think they have a proper handle on what they have here.

See: Harper, Bryce. Machoado, Manny. Trout, Mike,,,, This isn't hard, folks, The above did not need to demonstrate their mastery of a level, they just got promoted. These clubs saw better uses for their investments than laboring away longer than necessary at levels they are making mockeries of...

Mastro has never been a major league starting outfielder. Not a viable every-day alternative. Ramirez has never been a major league anything. Not a viable alternative for anything, except translating. Having a legitimate back-up that no one will shed a tear over if he gets cut, hurt or doesn't play is not "roster clutter", it's called insurance.

People who insist that there are other ways to measure success besides actually achieving, you know, "success", frustrates me.

I continually joked early in the season about Parmelee passing the Delmon-threshold and then the Kubel-esque stigmatization, and finally, the Cuddy-quandry. Parm has clearly transcended recent Twins corner OF defensive lore. Anyone who says something different hasn't been watching or probably needs to make a public mea culpa if they were actually paid to make that original "20 range" rating.

In this case, and the Sano case, the situation demands that you do things differently. They aren't kicking the door in to be promoted, yesterday, rather, they are both employing the nuclear option to door removal. Other organizations get this, why not here?

See my post above, re: Bryce Harper. Also see my thread about Buxton and the Trout Timeline. I am convinced that Buck is the real deal, by the stat test, in-person eyewitness test and by the scout/pundit evaluation test. To continue with the Twins traditional conservative approach and constant excuse-making on the slow-play gambit, is, in this case, and also with Sano, patently absurd.

My point involved nothing about over time- of course Borbon is ideally a 4th OF, and a .5 WAR player backing up a struggling negative WAR player is more than a slight difference-especially if Hicks could make a couple 30 day trips to AAA to correct his deficiencies in a lower-stress environment. The point being, it was incumbent upon the Twins FO to just have properly anticipated legitimate options in worst-case scenarios.