old nurse

If you want to start a pitcher based on best pitching prospect, the best pitching prospect in the organization would not be May. If you wanted to base it on who was pitching best in AAA, that would be debatable as to who was better. May did not stand out above all others. St Louis has 4 starters on the dl. Lucky for them it wasn't their top 4. It fills a need to call up Gonzales, but with no quality in AAA or AA for the season thus far. They had to try Gonzales. About the closest thing I could compare the situation in St Louis to Minnesota is in 2011 if they would have promoted Hendriks because he was pitching well in AA that year. They are similar in that they are soft tossing control pitchers. I don't think it was a good idea to call up Gonzales. His call up was based on a desperate need in an organization that found their depth in major league starting pitchers was only 9 deep.

Comparing Betts to Trevor May is like what?????????????????? Betts has a top 100 prospect ranking, May no longer does. Betts was among the better hitters, May is only elite in strikeouts, otherwise comes off as work in progress. Gonzales, the next few starts need to have a lot better outcome or the Twin Gonzales should be compared to is Hicks, not May. I can understand why St Louis promoted Gonzales. Their next best option to fill the hole in their rotation was to trade for Correia. An A for originality on this take. Sort of like comparing watermelons and apples.

Light swings for Sano is different than full swings. I thought it was 7 months post procedure before they let Crawford go to full activities. Sano might see live games in winter ball at that pace. Would light swings be like a whiffle bat?

The grief on these pages has been about Gardenhire wanting three catchers, not the quality of players that happened to play catcher. Sorry you missed the posts complaining about that. There is a little bit of a difference there. Voight has been used 17 of 72 games so far this season.55 PA This far into the season credit goes to the manager for putting him in situations where he can play well and not expose what he doesn't do well and thus have people think he is really good. Also have people think he plays alot. On the other hand there were complaints that with Gardenhire having a couple players not in games that he was playing with a short bench. Getting into 1 in 5 games is not extensive use.

Many posys out there about the genius of Billy Beane. He employs 3 catchers. Gardy has 3 and he is an idiot. Ryan will trafe anyone on this team if the return is good. He traded Aggie then resigned him.

Did Bruno and/or Gardenhire ask him to use all the fields?

I hope it does not end up in the clearance section any time soon.

3-4 good starts and maybe they can trade him at the deadline for a prospect

Turkenkopf who did the some of the first writing on pitch framing found a .30 correlation between pitch framing and runs scored. That would be why some teams don't make it as big of deal. Turkenkopf also wrote one time that there was variability between what inning and score of the game had an effect on if pitch framing was effective or not. That data that is certain is how many pitches were miss called. The actual effect on the outcome of the game was not. Even at .30 correlation pitch framing has some effect. How much over the course of a season has not been shown.

A near .500 team at the deadline could have a lot of ground to make up. Ryan probably would not make a short term trade at around 10 games out. On the other hand, in that situation I don't think he would ship out the players that help the team win now for what is called a C prospect. He has enough of those. Any of the 4-5 pitching starters he has or role players would be gone for a prospect. Any player brought in I think would be brought in for their long term potential. A pending free agent would be rented with the try them out before you buy them to see how they fit.

The Twins warm body approach to fill the pitching rotation (Correia, Pelfrey coming off surgery, Worley and the cast of AAA pitchers from the year before) was not a very good idea. Whatever order they were in the rotation was inconsequential, somebody had to pitch the game. The whole approach was the wrong idea. Why they had that idea was hashed ad nauseum last year. Worley was but a small part of the problem. You could insert Cole DeVries or Liam Hendricks, who were counted on to be on the opening day roster, or Diamond, Hernandez, Walters, or even Deduno in your rant in place of Worley. Was it a misguess of talent or lack of other options? The lack of quality starting pitching that off season (again more than well covered), the signability issues (argued last year), the steep price that would be asked for starting pitching all could have led to what I called the warm body approach. To count on 3 pitchers coming of surgery, 4 AAA pitchers and a prospect that had not had success at the big league level was a recipe for disaster. It does not warrant the tone you set forth to blame it all on the Worley decision. More than 8 pitchers could have stepped forward last year to show they were going to be big league pitchers for the Twins last year. Only Deduno and Diamond remain. Worley was but a small part of the problem. The seed for such a disaster were set years ago with bad trades and bad drafts. It was not going to be corrected overnight. To get higher upside pitching prospects Ryan made the trades he did. They did nothing for 2013. If they don't pan out, that would be the bad mis guess of talent.

On June 16 that means very little.

You are correct on Worley's time. A throw in on a trade. He did not throw the ball low in the zone like the Twins wanted him to do and got the kind of results you would expect. He is not the first pitcher to come over from the NL and not succeed. Bought low as you said. It is not a egregious error as you make it out to be. They brought him in and thought they could improve him. The player did not improve. Little cost, no big deal.

Tongue in cheek, did you watch his last game? Starting pitching in MLB is thin, but not that thin so as to assume someone would take Deduno as a starter or a reliever because many of his numbers are below average. ERA, K rate, K/BB rate among the more glaring numbers

Not to be mean or anything, but in the hindsight is 20-20 department http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3138088 In the Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda department. Had they kept Santana and had the Mets signed him, they could have taken a toolsy HS outfielder with 24 pick of the Mets that was available and been way ahead

Whatever scout guessed wrong on Rainville, Fox, Johnson, Waldrop, Hunt, Gutteriz, Bayshore, and others. The scouting director who hired them, as well as the GM who hired the scouting director The coaches in the minors who obviously are inferior coaches since the coach is responsible for failures. The GM for hiring such lousy coaches. The team president for hiring the GM Trainers must be at fault for the injuries. The pro scouts have not done a great job at raiding other teams talent. Not every pitcher signed from outside the organization has done well. A scout watched an independent league team pitch. 2 starters from that team were signed. The Twins picked the wrong one.There are any of 100's of people to blame, why must it be fixated on one person as a fault? Is the talent evaluation and development system so simple that one person could do it?

But it if it is publicly stated, it is a bad thing to do to the player. The exceptions are if you want the Twins to be transparent for their fans or it is a player you really dislike.

Hmmm 15 day dl, rehab assignment, management saves face for not having to really demote him.

Being able to recognize pitches for where they are going is not the problem for Hicks given his ability to take walks. It would appear he can tell where a pitch is going. The issue comes when the bat leaves the shoulder. That is what makes his case different from the other players you mentioned.

To say that a derivation from the norm on HR/FB and BABIP is all luck is not always true . A certain Twins pitcher in 2012 had 19 starts with career highs in BABIP and HR/FB ratio. Nobody said he was being unlucky. Nolasco's velocity hasn't changed. The mix of pitches does not appear to be unchanged. Results are different. To blame it on a poor defense could be valid. Look at many people's favorite starter to hate, Correia. Stable K/9, BB/9, and a drop in HR/FB. Results have not been good. Career high in BABIP.

I should have expanded. There comes a point that going back to the minors does not help. Coming up through the system as a Morneua and Hunter is one thing. Going down for injury rehab is another. Yoyoing back and forth starts to signify borderline mlb talent. Maybe the reality is that Hicks is just that, a borderline talent. He wouldn't be the first Twins player to have talent without the ability to use it. It is that pressure to perform that Hicks has to manage. If the pressure is off in the minors, Hicks will not learn. If his mechanics are sound, then the problem comes with what he swings at. If he can't hit mlb pitching, he is not going to see much of it in the minors. He can hit the lower level of pitching, but if he has to learn what pitches to go after and what not to, then he needs the AB at the major league level to learn and prove it.

Did going to AAA improve Collabello or Parmelee's game?

They love a toolsy outfielders. Carbonell is said to be that.

Maybe they are hoping to sign Carbonell as the solution to the problem.

Ichero plays for 6.5 million a year. The Yankees would give him up for an autographed Aaron Hicks bat with the Twins having more than enough money to pay for the remainder of his contract