jokin

Good moves, but miles to go before they sleep. You're right that this process should have started sooner, but I really like that the Twins acquired and flipped Morales and Fuld, well-played TR!. Pryor seems to be shaping up in Rochester ("currently topping out at 95 MPH"), and Milone is a young and solid back-rotation guy that should project well at TF. Still some more, older deadwood that needs thnning. Let's see if TR has some more magic up his sleeve.

Nope. The Twins are sending him right to New Britain and back into the starting rotation. The kid is still very young, still a good chance to resume an SP career path. Good trade for TR.

Sam Fuld Center Field RF/G 3.19 (ranks #1 in CF who have played over 50 games) Aaron Hicks Center Field RF/G 2.84 Danny Santana Center Field RF/G 2.51 Chris Parmelee Center Field RF/G 2.00 Max Kepler Center Field RF/G 2.07 in 56 games. put into FSL/Buxton-esque perspective: Byron Buxton Center Field RF/G 2.96

Actually, he's more significantly accelerated his performance recently, Max has performed extremely well at the plate over the last month. There's an 8 day DL stint mixed in here... but since July 13, Kepler's slash line is .370/.443/.500/.943, while cutting way back on the K% to only 9.7% (his BB% is up marginally from 9.1% to 9.7% during this stretch)... he has no homers during this streak, apparently, looking for contact and line drives over the long ball. He's teased us before, but perhaps this current streak bears watching to see if it's something more sustainable to build on going into 2015.

More discouragingly, on the broadcast Dick was convinced that Shaeffer was "exactly the type of guy" that the Twins were looking for to "upgrade" the Twins 25-man roster going to into next season...

Gardy said Arcia was unavailable to pinch hit today, a decision will be made on him tomorrow. (Also, Plouffe's X-ray was negative, but he's also day-to-day).

In postgame, Gardy said Arcia was unavailable to pinch hit today, and no decisions on the roster moves until tomorrow (but Mauer appears to be one of them, along with Milone).

I'd qualify that "it", a bit, Halsey. He had "it" figured out a year ago, he was already on his way in AA. And for all intents and purposes, he had "it" figured out again before the most recent HBP to his good wrist...from his return after two months off from the first wrist injury he slashed... .367/.472/.633/1.106...and then, really cranking it up from 7-13 to 7-18 (that was the night he was hit in the right wrist, when he went 4-6 with a HR and reached base 7 times)- Buxton was fully back to "it", his true old self, slashing .500/.593/.864/1.456. It's just a shame what a lost season this has been for Buck, had he been fully healthy all season, there seems little doubt that he would already be ensconced in CF with the Twins, with Santana starting at SS. Hopefully he can make up for it in fall and winter league play, setting himself up for an early call-up in 2015.

Given how Liriano and Worley have done with Pittsburgh, Correia is likely to do well with a fresh start and a better team....plus, back in his home state, and with his former boss, Ned Colletti.

Thanks for clarifying Nick

"OK...Yeah"..... but how many were 100 MPH?

Not just you, Jeremy. (Actually, I cringe on any ball hit to Arcia).

If ZJ can come back at 100%, watch out...what a potential pen just a year from now. I am thinking Hicks is traded once the Twins are certain Buxton is settled in. Will the Twins keep Ortiz around taking a 40-man spot until this occurs?

Ouch! Apparently getting scooped smarts a little bit, jovial jocularity maybe, but Seth did strike a Minnesota-type passive-aggressive nerve::

Take that issue up with Dave, not me. And since you asked about the BB% from each of the M & M boys in their last start, here you go: May BB% 14.3% BB/9 6.00 Meyer BB% 13.6% BB/9 4.76 Tobi's stats over the last 15 starts answer a broader, more definitive question, but reach the same conclusion. Most importantly, when it comes to BB%-BB/9, the ratio of strikeouts, ground balls and weakly hit balls must be properly taken into account.

Nope. I'm metaphysically certain that Meyer has outpitched May since the deadline, which was Dave's qualifier, that Meyer had failed to grab the opportunity to get this start. Meyer: ERA/FIP 3.18/2.13 IP 5.2 H 2 ER 2 K 8 BB 3 K/9 12.71 K% 36.4% WHIP 0.88 AVG .105 May: ERA/FIP 6.00/4.70 IP 6 ER 4 K 2 BB 4 K/9 6.00 K% 7.1 % WHIP 2.00 AVG .333

His for the taking? Meyer has clearly outpitched May since the deadline.

Nearly 2.5 hours later, the (excellent) Twins beat guy confirms: Well done, Seth.

Excellent analysis about the war of attrition behind the plate. It might be important to point out, Pinto's professional career is now in its 9th year, will he use up all of his 9 lives behind the plate before the Twins deem him "ready" to be the full-time guy? For every guy like AJ, Suzuki or McCann, who appear to be indestructible out there, how many guys wash out during their minor league years or are eventually forced from the position like Mauer, V-Mart, Donaldson, Napoli? It seems like Pinto is right about 50-50 odds to be in the latter groups. Now I have a couple of "What If?" questions for you and Tobi.... 1a and 1b) One year...and also again for the sake of argument, two years from now,,,to the day, who will be the Twins #1 and #2 catchers? 2a and 2b) Let's say that one year from now....and also again for the sake of argument, two years from now...to the day, let's say that Kurt Suzuki breaks a hamate bone and is out for the season, just after, and on the same day that Eric Fryer is traded to the Dodgers for Miguel Sulbaran's younger brother. Let's also assume that the Twins are 3.5 games out, behind the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers. Who would/should be the Twins #1 and #2 catchers from among this group......Pinto, Hermann, Rohlfing, Koch, Knudson, Turner, Garver?

I'd much rather watch a struggling May or Gibson than an Andrew Albers/Yohan Pino tease debut (which tends to make certain Twins fans go back into just-as-unfounded, "manic mode").

Yep. All the suits were there on Monday in Lousiville, and somehow despite the bad results, May finally passed the test. Nothing like throwing the kid right into the fire. Congrats to someone who put in a lot of hard work to get to this point. Now hopefully the suits can get back to work on finding a way to get Correia off the roster before the end of the month.

Great list, Shane. Do your students do their homework as well as you do yours? 1a) What? Where's the love for Stephen Pryor? /jk 1b) What? How is Brandon Paulson not in your Top 20? /smh, but while also- /jk 2) On Danny Ortiz, he really stood out at the plate on my visit to Louisville, so much so that I looked up his numbers and discovered after a slow start upon promotion, he's really coming on in AAA.....310 BA/.879 OPS over the last month or so. He looks fine in LF, do you have a feel enough for his defense to hazard a guess if he can make it to the Twins as a 4th OF? It looks like they have to make a decision on keeping him or not by November, what's your verdict? 3) Some are writing off Zach Jones after his aneurysm (based on their drafting of a boatload of RPs of late, maybe even the Twins management, as well?), anything you've seen or heard tell you different? The prospects of a healthy Jones and Burdi together in a Twins pen in a year or so is mouth-watering. 4) Any Dominican/International under the radar types that are poised to jump onto your list? (ie,19 year old SS, Manuel Guzman, takes more BBs than Ks, glove?...is in the Aderlin Mejia- or Engelb Vielma- type player-mode or something else?.....And what about Diaz and Tapia in DSL?- I fear that the Twins kept missing the boat on all of the Cubans, and now the money is really coming in to outbid the Twins on the best young Caribbeans)

Kind of curious why Hicks didn't play tonight vs. Indianapolis.

Garver finished second to the Johnny Bench winner two years in a row at New Mexico, once behind Turner. Our on-site correspondent SD Buhr gives Garver's plate-work a thumbs-up at the Low-A level. It looks like it's going to take a Turner injury for Garver to catch up to him for the time being.

You nailed it Tobi, at least from what I observed in his latest start- that largely accounted for the 3 walks from Sunday. I should have kept better record on the B/S for each of his 3 pitches, but I would estimate that slightly less than half of his change-ups were in the strike zone, and at least for Sunday night, about 85% of his FB were in the zone (I can't emphasize enough that he looks to have strong command at getting the FB where he wants it to be in the zone). Meyer only reached 3 ball counts in 4 out of 22 batters faced. And in all 4 cases, the lack of control of the change led to the 3 ball count- one called ball change on one PA and 2 called ball changes on 2 other PAs, also including a called ball four on a change on one of his 3 walks, plus he threw the change a couple of times on 3-ball counts that led to foul balls. (As I said, the game looked like more of a training exercise for Meyer than a competitive game- he's clearly trying to add the pitch into the mix for all situations- perhaps throwing that ball confidently on a 3-2 count is one of the criteria TR has established for Meyer to have the chance to punch his ticket?).