SwainZag

That was exactly my point, especially on the premise that 9/10 of those possible opening day differences are players that are over the age of 30. Out with the old and in with the new! WIth many of those roster spots already turned over to younger players: Santana, Vargas, Nunez, etc.

Bailed out by his offense in the Oakland and Baltimore starts. Postseason line: 4 starts, 19 IP, 28 H, 15 ER, 4 HR, 6 BB, 16 K, 1.79 WHIP, 7.11 ERA. Say what you want about about going 5 innings but he hasn't been close to good in start except against Anaheim. Giving up 4 runs in the 1st inning is killing your team's chances a bit isn't it? If he was a Twin he would be getting roasted right now.

Like it or not, barring injury I think you can conclude Gibson and Nolasco will both be in the rotation next year. One is 26 and coming off a much improved sophomore season and the other is owed big money the next 3 years. Both of them were hampered by bad defense and showed better than their ERA+ can show.

Don't give up prospects for a guy who will be a one year rental. The Twins will be in no position to offer a corner OF with a .750 OPS, turning 30, a multi-year deal after 2015.

Please name all the HOF members who developed power in their 30's. Mauer is what he is, a guy who stands 6'5" with a great eye and a pure swing. Mauer's greatest strength will always be his biggest weakness with his critics. People will always look to 2009 when he had his best season. He is 31. Why are people still wating for a power hitter out of him? If he could get back to his career line of 320/400/460 and eventually finding the 2 hole in the lineup that would fit him oh so well, I'd be a very happy camper.

Haha I'm glad that's what you got out of that. Nothing like using some small sample sizes.

It's a vicious cycle if you don't have the young players in the ranks come join the big league club. You then fill the holes with waiver claims, minor league FA's and guys who really have no business being anything more than a backup player in the Major Leagues. You promote guys too early and hope they stick and bring in guys on the cheap hoping they can turn it around. With a 25 man roster slated to be stocked with players under the age of 28 and a lot more players moving their way up the ranks....the middle of 2014 was the beginning. 2015 should be fun to watch, even if there are some bumps in the road.

Is there any chance that the TD forum could fill out an application as a whole subsidiary and become the Twins President? Is that rude to ask the sitting President?

How many teams have players making decent money on their bench who aren't in a R/L platoon? If you carry 12 pitchers, you will carry a 4 man bench. You will have a backup C, which is taken care of with Suzuki/Pinto. A utility infielder, which for all intents and purposes Nunez is. A 4th OF, whom should have range, right now Schaefer is that guy. At this point I wouldn't mind these 3 as bench players with a 4th spot open. I don't see how a team that has players like Mauer/Vargas/Arcia all in the lineup can hang on a guy like Parmelee. He is fairly 1 dimensional.

I agree with this for the most part. I would like to a SP and and OF brought in and of course the bullpen revamped through some young internal arms, but really don't think the team needs to go throw big money around this winter. Before you say no improvement, same team, blah, blah, blah......here is the Opening Day Roster from last year, the guys in bold will not or will not likely be on the team. Big difference.....no? Kurt Suzuki Joe Mauer Brian Dozier Trevor Plouffe Pedro Florimon Josh Willingham Aaron Hicks Oswaldo Arcia Jason Kubel Josmil Pinto Chris Colabello Eduardo Escobar Jason Bartlett Phil Hughes Ricky Nolasco Kevin Correia Kyle Gibson Mike Pelfrey ?? Glen Perkins Jared Burton Casey Fien Brian Duensing ?? Sanuel Deduno Caleb Theilbar Anthony Swarzak That's 7 players on the wrong side of 30 all gone and 1 Florimon....and could include Pelfrey and Duensing. 10 of 25! 40% of the roster! A possibility of replacing 9 guys 30+ is pretty amazing. Certainly a gigantic shift in the make up of the team, especially because of the influx we are already seeing with the younger players.

I agree with this. I love having the option of speed and + defense off the bench, especially if this team rolls with a lineup that includes both Vargas and Arcia. I absolutely love how the Royals use Gore and Dyson so much late in the game, it brings an extra weapon to keep in your back pocket if needed.

One thing I want to mention about the Royals season besides from the obvious...........look how healthy they have been. All 9 of their regular starting lineup played in 130 or more games, their 4 regular starting pitchers all started 30+ times (The 5th spot was Chen to start the season, 7 starts, and replaced by Duffy, 25 starts) and their core 5 guys in the pen all appeared in 60+ games. It's a huge advantage to have basically your entire roster healthy all season and not have any lingering injury to any core part of your team.

Yes, his power/slugging is obviously the strong part of this game. He also struck out 23% of the time in 2012, 32% of the time in 2013 and 35.8% last year. He also hasn't played a single inning in a corner OF spot since 2009. I am just not sold on the guy being a 8M a year player. Even with his .735 OPS last year be was a 0.9 WAR player.

Before they are just overpaying for Rasmus, which one are we going to be getting? The one who hit around .225 with an OBP under .300 in 2011, 2012 and 2014 or the outlier in 2013 of .276/.328/.501? While he does have good pop, outside of 2012, 3 of his last 4 offensive years have been pretty meh. He did only play CF last season, but he was pretty terrible at that as well having a negative value. For a team on a limited spending budget, if overpaying for him is say....8-10-12M a year, isn't there better way they could spend the money? My 2 cents on Mr. Rasmus.

Ugh 13 man staff should happen in emergency situations only. There is no reason to only have 3 bench options during a game.

I was much in the camp that they should trade Suzuki instead of giving him the extension, but the silver lining on him reverting back to his career norms is that it would give Pinto every chance to show he could be the starter. As for Arcia, I could totally see that. That run he had in September was just a glimpse of what he can do!

Man do I hate the way Bleacher Report does their lists.

I don't think we will know what comes of this trade for a few years. It could go in so many directions. Meyer could continue to improve and become a legitimate #2 starter. He could continue with the control issues and hover around a 3-4 starter for years. They could move him to the pen and he could be anything from a dominant relief pitcher for years to come to moving between AAA and MLB for the next 4 years before being released. They knew what they had in Span. A 3.5-4 WAR CF, who was coming off his best overall season as a pro, about to be 29 years old with 2 more years of relative cheap control before a $9M option and ultimately free agency. A solid starter who isn't All-Star material. They traded him for a former 1st round pick with high upside, who coincidentally enough just had his best season in the minors. They knew they needed pitching in the minor leagues, a place they had been very weak in. I believe it was you in the other thread who was bashing the front office for not trading guys at their peak value and letting them leave for nothing. The time they traded Span was arguably his peak value. You really think it's a fireable offense when it turns out a prospect you traded for doesn't pan out to what you think he might be 4-5 seasons later?

Sano has more potential than Plouffe, but he IS a better player? Based on what grounds? That's a pure speculative assumption. That's how you go into a season with Hicks as your starting CF. You trade away both players that play the position and pencil in your AA player into the opening day lineup.

Well when I said that it was implying that Mauer is still on the roster. At this point with this Twins team, I still see there's no way they take on that contract. A pipedream? Sure. I'd love to see Kemp on the Twins, he fills a need for sure. I just can't fathom this organization ever making that kind of move.

A role player that just put up 4 WAR as a starter. Moustakas had an OPS of .652 Manny Machado had an OPS of 755 and Flaherty had an OPS of .644 Matt Carpenter had an OPS of 750 Pablo Sandoval had an OPS of 739 Trevor Plouffe had an OPS of 751 Weird how two of those teams will make the World Series, but none of them have a starting 3B for a World Series team.

What more is there to say about Willingham? The Twins signed him to a contract, he had a great year, he had an injury plagued year and then they trade him in 2014. His value was the highest in 2012, but how do you or anyone else even know what was offered? You can't automatically call him a failed signing because they didn't trade him at his peak. The same goes for Suzuki. For all we know they could have been heavily shopping him at the deadline but found no offers they found worth it. With a lack of catchers on the market and Pinto being a big question mark when it comes to defense, a 2 year deal isn't a big deal AND he still has trade value. How in the world could signing Suzuki be considered a failure? You want the team to sign free agents and when one doesn't work out you just yell fail. Who could point to Nolasco coming and having the year he did with the Twins? 6 straight seasons of a FIP below. I believe a lot of people were more on board with the Nolasco signing than the Hughes signing. It looked much more than just signing "just a name." Hindsight sure is 20/20 isn't it? When you have a lot of holes, the last thing you want to do is go throw free agent money to veteran players. That's how you run up a high payroll and not have wins to show for it. Whimmers has been riddled with injuries since being drafted and has never made it out of AA ball. Hendricks obviously didn't pan out, but he was never a big prospect to begin with. For a guy who can't throw strikes, striking out 153 batters in 130 innings in AAA last season sure was something then. Berrios is undersized, no hiding that but that doesn't mean he can't become a successful player. It didn't stop Pedro. Just throwing out Kohl because he is young? He pitched very well in his first full season. If you look for faults you can find them in any player, prospect or not.

True, though it was in AA and not AA. 19 HR in 233 AB is showing elite power. He also struck out 81 times, or nearly 35% of the time. I don't want to down play his power, but with low batting average and the high K rate....and being that it happened a full year ago, I still don't come to the conclusion "he is ready."

I really don't see in any universe the Twins taking on that contract. $105M over 5 years is still just insane.

I don't have an issue with legitimately good pitchers to be brought in. I just think in this reality, they aren't going to be brought in. The odds of Sheilds, Lester, Scherzer being brought in probably are pretty slim. The odds are if they bring in any pitchers they will bring in guys off down years who they got for cheap. Guys that could turn it around, or guys who will chew up 20-25 medicore starts who could be given to a younger player. That's how I see it.