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USA baseball finished the sweep of Cuba yesterday at the hands of potential 2014 #1 pick Carlos Rodon. The left hander started the game in the 90-93 range but by the 3rd inning was consistently sitting in the 93-95 range. The stadium gun had him hitting 96 a few time. His slider was, well, here is a quote from Keith Law about it: "That was merely the appetizer to Rodon's main course, one of the best sliders I've ever seen from an amateur, 84-88 with power and bite, at both sides of the plate, to right- and left-handed hitters. It's so obscene the FCC might not allow basic cable channels to show it before 11 p.m. With that pitch, and the fastball to set it up, he could have gone once through a major league lineup on Tuesday night and wouldn't have looked the least bit out of place." His change up was noted as an average pitch at best that flashed above average a few times. Team USA's coach compared Rodon to another lefty he couched that went #1 in the draft a few years ago: “I had David Price in 2006 (with Team USA), and David and Carlos have some similarities,” Schlossnagle said. “The bodies are different, but both guys were really fastball-slider guys. David had maybe a little bit better fastball command at a similar stage (of development), but he didn’t have that overhand power breaking ball like Carlos has. And tonight Carlos’ changeup was better than what David threw at that time. (Mississippi coach) Mike Bianco and Carlos have worked on that this summer and you saw tonight, Carlos really threw some nice changeups.” While Rodon has stolen the show Keith Law notes former first round pick Tyler Beede has shown god stuff but isn't in the same class as Rodon. "On the mound, Vanderbilt righty Tyler Beede showed good stuff, working at 91-95 and throwing five different pitches, including a few above-average changeups. However, his delivery was all over the place, especially his timing. It would be generous to give him grade-40 command off his outing Monday night. Beede was a first-round pick out of high school by the Blue Jays but did not sign and will probably be a first-rounder again, but he's not in the top tier with Rodon or Cape Cod League sensation Jeff Hoffman from East Carolina." Keith also notes that Rodon's N.C. State team mate Trea Turner has been dealing with an ankle injury this summer. Law doesn't feel he is a first round pick unless he can get healthy and prove to teams he has an 80 grade speed tool. http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/carlos-rodon-caps-usa-baseball-sweep-of-cuba/ http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/mlb-draft/post?id=1083

Great article. Very informative. Anytime we get an inside glimpse of an area of baseball we normally don't get to see is always interesting. Going definitely puts a lot of things into perspective. That being said, being a Twins fan at the trade deadline has never been very rewarding. I don't remember the last trade deadline trade that got me excited. I understand it takes two to tango but it seems every year we can't find the right partner.

White Sox reject an offer from the Cardinals built around long time top prospect Carlos Martinez for Alexei Ramirez. ChiSox Reject Cardinals' Offer For Alexei Ramirez: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com

BaseballAmerica on Kohl's start yesterday: Kohl Stewart, rhp, Twins: The fourth overall pick in this year’s draft made his fourth pro appearance Monday in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. As always, we should never get too high or too low based off Rookie-ball stats, but Stewart does boast a 9-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his first 10 pro innings, having allowed just two earned runs. He fanned two in two innings of work yesterday, though he did give up three runs (one earned) on two hits.

Why would Hughes sign a deal right before he hits FA? How is trading Morny for Hughes productive?

We had this conversation on a different forum, while I have no problem trading prospects for players, it has to be at the right time. Also, just how fans don't want to trade Morny or Perkins I'm sure some of the front office people over value the players they drafted too.

Null and void? While the draft has been changed by the slotting system we are talking about 20+ years of data. It is far from null and void. Even if you feel later rounds are skewed the first round has proven for the most part still to be BPA.

First round picks: 2006-Parmelee 20th pick- 1.6 War 2007- Revere 28th pick- 4 WAR 2008- Hicks 14th pick- 1.1 WAR, Gutierrez 27th pick- 0 WAR 2009- Gibson 22nd pick- -.4 WAR 2010- Wimmers 21st pick- 0 WAR This list IMO is the major reason we are as bad as we are. 6 players who all have had enough time to make the bigs have put up a combined 6.3 WAR. Hicks and Gibson are finally getting a shot this year while we still don't know what we have in Parmelee. Our "safe" quick to the bigs arm Wimmers won't be up for at least another year. If you aren't going to sign big time free agents or retain your own your 1st rounders, other early round picks, better amount to something. Lucky for us having a top 5 pick the last two years, 88% chance to make it to the bigs, and possibly one next year should help. I knew the higher pick you had the better chance to make it to the bigs/be an impact player but I was surprised by the overall difference in value.

Everyone but Buxton seems to be having a good day.

No thanks

***WARNING! There will be statistics in this post! I am not and do not claim to be an expert with statistics! My math skills are usually correct 100% of the time....75% of the time! You have been warned!*** Yesterday BaseballAmerica released an article that states 1 in 6 players , precisely 17.2%, that are drafted make it to the bigs for at least one game. They got this number by studying the 22 drafts from 1987-2008 to see who has made it for at least one cup of coffee. Why stop at 2008? Stopping at 2008 gives the high school players at least 5 years to get to the bigs. Our own 2008 first round draft pick Aaron Hicks is getting his first chance this year. Their results were very interesting. Especially when you combined them with draft statistics they released before this years draft(which we will explore later). Out of the 900+ players drafted last year 17.2% will make it to the bigs but as you can figure the chance of making it to the bigs is different depending on where you were drafted. A 11-20th rounder has only a 6.8% chance to make it to the show while a 1st rounder has a 73% chance. Out of the 6.8% of 11-20th rounders that make it to the show only 1.6 of those make an impact (impact as defined by BA for this study is 450 games for position players and for pitchers either 75 decisions (starters) or 150 games (relievers)). Compare that to the 39.1% chance that the first rounders have to being an impact player and value difference becomes apparent. Even in the first round the chance of making it to the show varies. Players drafted in the first 5 picks have an 88% chance to make the majors while the rest of the first round has about a 70% chance. Instead of focusing on all 900+ players drafted let's focus on the top 100. Specifically our players drafted by Ryan the pass two drafts by experience (college vs HS) and position. Let's focus on the 1st round supplemental picks (make Bigs%:52.3 impact%:15.8), 2nd rounders (make bigs%:49.4 impact%:16.1), and 3-5 (make bigs%:34.6 impact%:10.1). Using drafted round success/impact success and position success/impact success I will try to show the statistical chance our prospects will make it to the bigs and make an impact. RHP College- 37% chance to play 50 games but only a 15% chance to contribute 5 WAR+. Eades: 2nd round -Bigs% 43.2% Impact% 15.7% Bard: 1st supplemental- Bigs% 44.7% Impact 15.4% Chargois: 2nd round- Bigs% 43.2% Impact% 15.7 LHP College- 48% chance to play 50 games but only a 14% chance to contribute 5 WAR+. Melotakis: 2nd Round- Bigs% 48.7% Impact% 15% RHP Highschool- 33% chance to play 50 games but only 11% chance to contribute 5 WAR+. Stewart: 1st round- Bigs% 60.5% Impact% 39% Berrios: 1st supplemental- Bigs% 42.7% Impact% 13.4% Catcher College- 52% chance to play 100 games but only 12% chance to contribute 10 WAR+. Turner: 3rd rounder- Bigs% 43.3% Impact% 11% RF college- 28% chance to play 100 games and 12% chance to contribute 10 WAR+. Walker II- 3rd rounder- Bigs% 31.3 Impact: 11% CF Highschool- 33% chance to play 100 games and 11% chance to contribute 10 WAR+. Buxton- 1st rounder- Bigs% 60.5% Impact: 39% Let's compare success and impact rate of our two top 5 picks, Buxton (2nd) and Stewart (4th), versus our 2011 1st round pick Michaels (30th). Buxton and Stewart both have a 60.5% chance to spend significant time in the bigs compared to Michael's 52% chance. That's an 8% difference because of a ~25 pick difference. The difference would be significantly larger if we weren't comparing a college player vs high school. When looking at impact% we see the importance of a high first round pick vs a low first round pick. Buxton/Stewart chance for 10 WAR+-39%, 20 WAR+- 15.5%, 30 WAR+ 12% Michael's chance for 10 WAR+-17%, 20 WAR+-7%, 30 WAR+ 6% Rebuilding is hard but losing brings future value. While it is commonsense that the higher you pick, be it 1st round vs 3rd round or top 5 pick vs 30th pick, the more value it brings. Here are the stats that prove it. Sort of... Quoting Ron DeLegge, "99 percent of statistics only tell 49 percent of the story." Sources: http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/one-in-six-draft-picks-will-click/ http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/top-100-draft-flashback/ Top 100 Draft Flashback: Impact Players, Notable Flops - BaseballAmerica.com http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/which-positions-part-ii/

Looking back through old mlbtraderumor.com articles it showed that multiple experts pegged us as favorites for Lee because we had Wilson Ramos. Later, once bidding started to build up Hicks becomes the main target. After Lee was traded to the Rangers for a package built around Justin Smoak we trade Ramos for Capps..... We get swept in the first round and the Rangers make it to game 7 in the WS before coming up one game short. Once the team becomes competitive I have no problem trading prospects to fill needs but currently it needs to be the other way around. Perkins could be the best trade chip on the market so hopefully Ryan can get a bidding war started.

Sano HR.

From Jesse Sanchez: Agent says Eloy Jimenez will sign for $2.8M on 8/1 or 8/2 at a press conference in DR. Turned down $5M from another team to stay with #cubs. Jimenez was considered by most to be the #1 international prospect this year. I wonder who tried to steal him from the cubs. I would like to think it was the Twins for stealing Tseng from us but I doubt it.

Meyers, Stewart, J.O., Gibson (graduated), and to a lesser extent May, Eades, and Gonsalves is a pretty solid group of arms.

I'm pretty sure if you are asking me if the lesson is to never bid against the Dodgers you obviously misread my post. I even said that it shouldn't stop us. All I was saying was that simply saying offer him a little more money doesn't guarantee we will get him. This isn't a Japanese player where you bid and the highest bid wins. He is a FA so teams can counter your offer.

John Sickels over at minorleagueball.com did a review of his preseason Twins top 20. He said this about the system: "The Twins farm system continues to thrive, with Buxton emerging as the best prospect in the game, Sano continuing to mash, Arcia holding is own, and strong performances from several others. The need for high-ceiling arms remains, but the addition of 2013 first-round pick Kohl Stewart adds a potential ace starter to the mix, granted he's a high school kid who is some distance away." To read his individual breakdowns of each player follow the link below. It is worth your time! http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/7/21/4541328/minnesota-twins-2013-top-20-pre-season-prospects-in-review

While there has been a great deal of speculation about Justin Morneau and other Twins, rival executives haven’t sensed a big push from Minnesota to make deals, according to Buster Olney of ESPN.com (via Twitter). Bah.

If we offered him $60 million what would stop the dodgers from turning around and upping their offer? I'm not saying this should stop us from doing it but as the dodgers proved with grienke, if they want someone they are going to get them.

I can't figure out for the life of me why they haven't promoted Walker. The story on him when he was drafted was he had huge raw power, which he has made it obvious the last 2 weeks, but might strike out too much. His strike outs look fine to me.

People are so sentimental around here. Make the team better.

Boston has this big lefty in A+ ball killing it named Henry Owens that made Law's top 50 list. He would be a great player to build a package around.

I didn't say McDaniels compares him to Tulo. I just said some experts do. Just like the last two drafts the Twins should take the best player available when they draft. It has worked out well for us so far with Buxton. SS is just as big of a need as pitching. I would be happy with an elite prospect at either.

Boston is not trading Bogarets no matter how bad you want him.

Scout.com's Kiley McDaniels scouting report for Jacob Gatewood (some have compared him to Tulo): "Gatewood announced himself on the national prospect scene at last August's Area Code Games, the premier west coast showcase. He put on a show in BP and in one of the games he hit a tape measure homer to center field that traveled an estimated 430 feet. This spring he reportedly hit 95 mph on the mound and had appeared to have added another dimension to his game, but Gatewood has said he has no interest in pitching beyond high school. He has plenty of tools as a position player though, as his overall package is reminiscent of two premium 2012 draft picks, high school shortstops Carlos Correa (#1 overall, Astros) and Addison Russell (#11 overall, Athletics). Gatewood has bloodlines, too, as his father Henry was a catcher that went 11th overall to the Dodgers in the 1982 MLB Draft" For anyone interested in the upcoming draft the full article is a must read. Link below: Scout.com: Scouting Report: Jacob Gatewood