markos

I can see a lot of different situations that could play out. Overall, I think there are three factors in this: 1) any innings limit the Twins place on Meyer, 2) how the major league rotation is doing, and 3) Meyer's remaining development. 1) Meyer only pitched 104 inning this past season, and the Twins have traditionally been fairly conservative about bumping up workloads between seasons. I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins capped Meyer at 150 innings for 2014, which basically means he will be shut down at the end of August. (Gibson's last start was August 30th, and he ended up with 154 innings.) If they decide they want Meyer in the Twins rotation for a significant part of 2014 and he's on a innings limit, then he needs to be called up earlier in the year - probably June. 2) Assuming the Twins sign one more free agent starter, there is a possibility that Meyer won't have a spot in the rotation. I know that sounds crazy; however, Nolasco, Correia and Free Agent X are basically guaranteed spots, and it isn't completely inconceivable that two out of Deduno, Gibson, Diamond, Worley or Albers could have decent-to-good seasons. Now I don't think any of those 5 should be blocking Meyer, I just know that the Twins have hesitated when promoting prospects to take the place of veterans, even mediocre ones. It isn't too hard to imagine a scenario where, say, Deduno and Gibson have both pitched okay through April and May, and there is no obvious place in the rotation for Meyer come June 1st. Now injuries and performance will most likely open a spot in the rotation at some point during the season, but I have a hard time seeing the Twins working hard to force an opening for Meyer. 3) I don't have a good sense of how ready the Twins think Meyer currently is. If they feel he needs to work on his consistency, improve a specific pitch or build up arm strength, then I could see them keeping him in the minors longer than his performance may dictate. Without knowing what those milestones are, it is hard to guess when they will think he is ready. From reports and articles I've read from scouts, there are two things Meyer needs to work on yet: his change-up and better consistency from the stretch. My personal plan for Meyer would be for him to over-emphasis on those two areas in spring training and then in Rochester to start the season. Assuming good progress, in May I would open up his full arsenal. Provided he dominates AAA in May, then I would look to call him up around June 1st and then pitch through August at the majors, hopefully getting about 150 total innings for the season before being shut down.

Any Rule 5 draft targets that you would like the Twins to pick? I think they should draft a reliever or middle-infielder. Pressly worked out pretty well last year.

A recent article about Alex Meyer from MLB.com writer (and former scout) Bernie Pleskoff: http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20131122&content_id=64101764&vkey=news_min&c_id=min&tcid=tw_article_64101764 Here are a few snippets from the article:

Unfortunately, I really like this trade for Detroit. A lot will depend on what they do with the contract savings, but it seems very likely to me that they will be basically the same offensively when it is all said and done, but much much better defensively.

I wish the 'Like' button still existed for this comment. Great stuff. This discussion is missing the total number of minor league prospects who match the various comps. Yes, it is interesting that 50 successful major leaguers matched Walker's power and K-rate profile at a similar age/level, but it is more interesting to know what percentage of all players who match Walker become successful major leaguers. To figure that out, we need to know the total number. If there are only 100 who match, and 50 become successful, then Walker has pretty good odds. But if there are 1,000 who match, then Walker's odds become much less likely. Expanding on Gunnarthor's example, it would be interesting to know just how many minor league players in the past 20 years fall into Walker's criteria: Played at Low-A at 20, 21, or 22. K-Rate greater than 20% BB-Rate less than 7.5% IOS greater than .200 Then from that group, how many became success major league hitters? My comp for Walker is Mark Trumbo: big power, low OBP, high strikeouts, not much defensive value. Trumbo is definitely a useful player (and very valuable pre-arbitration), but not a superstar. I think this is Walker's ceiling unless he learns to get on-base better.

I don't have any research to back this up, but I think your logic is pretty sound for a number of reasons: 1) A smart platoon will allow a team to get above-average production from a position using flawed players. Teams cannot platoon a starting pitcher. 2) Sacrificing offensive production at one position can be made up by the 8 other spots in the lineup. Sacrificing starting pitching can be made up by only 4 other starters. On a per game basis it is even worse, as there is only one starting pitcher. The worst offensive player can be hidden in a lineup by batting ninth, while the worst starter still gets the ball every 5 days. Since almost every single team could use an average starter to upgrade at the 4th or 5th spots in the rotation, there is increased demand for free agent starting pitching. 3) From a team building perspective, a position prospect is going to replace your current starter at that same position. There is some flexibility with this, but in general a prospect at position X is going to replace the current player at position X. If the current player is good, then there isn't as much value gained in the upgrade. For pitchers, starting pitching prospect Y is going to replace the worst of the 5 starters, and it is much more likely that the 5th starter on a team is near replacement level.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that very soon the major strength of the farm system is going to be pitching. Assuming Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Pinto, May and Meyer all graduate sometime in 2014, the remaining talent will almost certainly lean toward pitching, especially if they pick a pitcher with the #5 pick in June. Stewart, Berrios, Thorpe, Gonsalves, Felix and #5 pick should all be in the top-10 next year. Hopefully a few of them pan out as expected.

Morneau had over 1300 plate appearances in AA and AAA before becoming an everyday player at the majors, and Cuddyer had over 1600 PAs in the upper minors. Now part of this was due to being sent back and forth early in their careers, but I would still consider this a lot of time. By comparison, Arcia (454 PAs), Rosario (313 PAs) and Sano (276 PAs) would each need roughly two more full seasons at AA and AAA to match Morneau's time spent in the upper minors. I expect Rosario and Sano to be up much sooner than that, but I think it is reasonable to expect them to struggle at the majors for a couple of seasons as they get their bearings.

Regarding Stewart, one of the things that scouts really liked prior to the draft was his polish. Like Seth said, the combination of his athleticism and a workable 4-pitch arsenal lends itself to moving up quickly, particularly now that he will be focusing on baseball full time. It may make sense to promote Stewart aggressively early on, as he probably can get away with dominating lower levels of the minors with just his fastball and slider, but the higher level of competition will force him to work on and improve his other off-speed offerings. I've read a few scouts who say they currently like Stewart over any high school pitcher in the 2014 class because of the total package. Some players have better individual tools, but no one (yet) has Stewart's combination of two plus pitches (fastball & slider), a 4-pitch arsenal, good control and elite athleticism. Baseball America did an update to their Best Tools report for the 2013 draft picks a few weeks ago, and Stewart's name was prominent: http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/2013-draft-report-cards-first-impressions-of-the-draft-classes/ Most important to this conversation, they picked Stewart as the high school player who is "Closest to the Majors". He is also the top-ranked athlete from the draft, has the #2 fastball (after Gray), and his slider is the #5 Secondary pitch. Has anyone projected Cedar Rapid's starting rotation for next season? There seem to be more names than spots right now. I wonder if they might try tandem starters.

Good list. I'm lower than you on Haren and Kazmir, but other than that I think it is a good list. And I agree with the everyone else that I hope the Twins sign two from this list. That would be a successful offseason.

I think that Kazmir would be a poor fit for a lot of reasons, but my primary reason is that I don't think he will be able to match last year's performance next season. When considering Kazmir, keep in mind that he faced one of the easiest schedules in all of baseball last season, with 19 of his 29 starts against teams with below-average offenses: Twins (5), Royals (5), Astros (2), Mariners (2), Phillies, Mets, White Sox, Marlins, and Yankees. Almost all of these teams had below-average home run rates as well, yet Kazmir still gave up an above-average rate of homers. And if you take out the 5 starts against the Twins from last year, Kazmir's HR/9 rate increases by 11% to 1.20, which would make his HR/9 worse than Kevin Correia's. Another reason is that Kazmir has a fairly substantial platoon split, with RH batters' OPS of .794 last year. This is not a great fit for Target Field, which is much better at suppressing LH batters.

Arizona Fall League update for Alex Meyer. Short story: He's doing very well. Longer story: He has made 6 starts in the AFL (not counting the AFL All-Star game), in which he has the following line. 2.74 ERA, 23.0 Innings, 25 Ks, 6 BBs In particular, his last start Friday night was a gem. He pitched 5.2 innings, giving up 0 runs and only 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 7 batters. He had a no-hitter through 5 innings. Finally, he did a nice interview after his start with the MLB Network announcers. http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=31211775&topic_id=26271672 Sounds like everything is going well for Meyer down in Arizona. Hopefully he keeps it up.

I definitely think that the Cards will slot into the top-10. However, you methodology got me wondering if there will be any surprise teams highly ranked due to depth. A couple years ago I think the Padres were pretty highly ranked not because they had any elite prospects (no one in the top 20), but because they had something like two dozen B prospects. I don't have near enough knowledge of other teams' farm system to make any guesses, but I'm genuinely curious. I guess I'll have to wait until after the experts weigh in to find out.

Seth, who are your 1-6 teams? You don't need to rank them, I'm just curious who you have in the conversation. I think the top-5 are pretty set (alphabetically: Astros, Cubs, Pirates, Red Sox, Twins), but then I see some separation to the next tier (Cardinals, Dodgers, Royals). I'm probably forgetting some team or teams...

2. Flyball pitcher + Target Field + Josh Willingham + Alex Presley + Oswaldo Arcia = Cover your eyes! Hide the children!!! 3. Due to scheduling quirks, Hughes only had 1 starts against Boston, the best offensive team in the AL East. In contrast, he had 7 starts against Toronto (8th) and Tampa Bay (9th), both who were around league average offenses. Further, 3 of his worst starts came against San Diego (12th), Seattle (12th) and Kansas City (11th) - not exactly offensive powerhouses. Overall, his average opponent Runs per game was 4.40, which is only slightly more than the league average of 4.33.

I don't like the idea of signing Lincecum. His numbers the past two years make me really nervous. Yes, he has a nice FIP and xFIP, but I don't trust them in this case. In general, I'm skeptical of a pitcher who has significantly under-performed his FIP (and xFIP) while pitching in one of the best pitcher's-parks in all of baseball and pitching in front of a top-10 defense. xFIP normalizes home run rate, but Lincecum's HR% has been much worse than average the last two seasons in one of the best pitching ballparks in baseball. How much hope is there that his HR rate drops significantly when leaving SF and the NL West? Additionally, he has had a large spike in LD% the past two seasons, which again was much worse than average for 2 straight seasons. Baseball-reference has him with -0.6 WAR this past year because he pitched very poorly against below-average competition in front of a good defense in pitcher-friendly parks. In this case, I think their representation is more accurate than FIP or xFIP in determining his ability.

FWIW, Baseball America and Keith Law both had Michael ranked #22 in the class. The only player available that was ranked higher by both was Josh Bell, and he was drafted in the 2nd round for $5 million. Of all the players available for the Twins #30 pick, there is a good argument that Michael was the best available that would sign around slot value. Now, that doesn't change the fact that he is officially a bust (which I agree) and a big miss. But I don't think it was a blatant "draft for need" mistake like you suggested.

Arizona Fall League update for Alex Meyer. He pitched on Tuesday for the Glendale Desert Dogs, throwing 3 innings. His final line was 5 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts. Not his best outing, but he did impress some of the scouts in the stands with his stuff. Here are some scouts' takes on his outing that I found: Tweets from Bernie Pleskoff (scout/writer for mlb.com): And then from Keith Law's AFL update posted this afternoon:

I was referring to teams not wanting Plouffe even as a throw in. I agree that he isn't going headline any trade for Bailey, but I feel like he would be much more attractive than a Pedro Hernandez or a Eduardo Escobar as the 3rd or 4th piece in a trade.

Some smart team is going to do with Plouffe exactly what Baltimore did with Danny Valencia. They will snatch him up someday for next to nothing, give him 200 at bats a season against lefties, watch him hit .275/.350/.500 for a couple years, and look like geniuses.

I wasn't trying to say they are mutually exclusive. I'm sorry I gave that impression. I understand there are definitely situations where the best pitcher is the best player.

I misunderstood the "He's a free agent in 2015." to mean after the 2015 season, so I thought there were two years left. My bad.

Well that changes things a bit. The Reds are probably looking for something similar to the Shields/Myers trade. This could get expensive...

I think that the recent Garza trade is probably a good framework for the type of deal that Jocketty would expect. That leads me to think that the Twins could start with Berrios or Rosario to get the conversation started, but would probably require 3 or 4 players total. Maybe something like Berrios, Hicks and Plouffe, and maybe a pitcher like Baxendale. That is probably too rich for me, but it is a package that would get a return call from Jocketty. It will obviously depend on the specifics, but in principal I would support this. It would amazing to have someone in the starting rotation that is above average once every five days. Long term, I see 4 outcomes in this offseason acquisition, and most of them are good for the Twins. 1) He signs a long-term deal to stay here. Yay! Their is finally an ace in the starting rotation. 2) The Twins flip him at the trade-deadline, and hopefully recoup most if not all of the prospect value sent to the Reds in the off-season. 3) The Twins keep him all year, offer him a qualifying offer, he don't resign, and get an extra first round pick. Hopefully he had a good year and they recoup some value. 4) He blows out his arm/shoulder, and has no value. The Twins end up with crap.

It is exciting to hear that the 2014 draft is suppose to be deep. It will be fun to follow the elite talents during the next 8 months. Quick question for everyone: should the Twins pick the best player available, or best pitcher available? I'm torn. On one hand, today's need (starting pitching) will not necessarily be the case in 2+ years, so it makes sense to just take the best player. On the other hand, good young starting pitching is the most valuable currency in baseball, so it makes sense to hoard as much of that as possible. If two players grade out equivalently or the position player is only slightly better than the pitcher, I can see the argument for going with the pitcher. Anyway, I'm curious how others feel about this. On a side note, it is interesting to project ahead with the Twins farm system. If they promote aggressively to the majors this year (graduate Buxton, Sano, E. Rosario and Pinto), the teenage cohort does well (Stewart, Berrios, Gosalves, Thorpe, Jorge, R. Rosario, Sulbaran), and they draft another pitcher with the #5 pick, there is a very real possibility that the top of the Twins farm system will be dominated by pitching at this time next year (10 of the top 15 prospects are pitchers).