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Thrylos, I don't always agree with your prospect opinions, but I always come back to your posts. You always bring a ton of knowledge, and I appreciate how you push relatively unknown names within the Twins system to the forefront of your lists. This year it is Rainis Silva. I frankly had no idea who he was, but he certainly sounds interesting and worth being on my radar.

I think the response to your question is that the pros don't point to anything Gordon has done on the baseball diamond as the evidence for his relatively high rankings. Instead, they frequently project physical tools that don't actually exist yet. Almost every prospect write-up about Gordon involves saying something along the lines of "Gordon should fill out and gain strength, which will provide more pop at the plate and allow him to make it through a full season without wearing down." While I don't doubt their expertise about the physiological development of players, it certainly is an inexact science at best to guess exactly how a 21-year-old will put on weight and strength, and how that will impact their overall athleticism and quickness. You can make some educated guesses based on their frame and maybe looking at their parents/siblings. But a big part of mental makeup, which is hard for scouts to really figure out. And another big part is his biological makeup, which is basically unknowable. I think everyone would agree that in his current physical form, Nick Gordon will not be even an average major leaguer. He needs to add strength. He needs to add endurance. And he needs to add both without loosing the athleticism that allows him to play shortstop effectively. That is an added risk that I think frequently gets down played by the professional analysts.

A few stats to think about with Odorizzi and his nice ERA: - Odorizzi had good fortune with bullpen help. League average ~30% of bequeathed runners on base end up scoring. Odorizzi had only 15% last year. - Odorizzi was 7th in baseball in total unearned runs. - Baseball Reference calculated that he had the easiest pitching environment in the AL in 2017. This attempts to combine the quality of opponents, team defense and stadium effects.

I'm guessing that the Twins have PitchFX/Statcast capabilities in their Ft Myers facilities to determine if his stuff has improved independent of his results. To that end, maybe they think he is a tweak or two away from being effective again. From what I've read recently, Detroit is pretty far behind in their data and player development abilities. If I recall correctly, Houston was able to almost immediately fix a flaw in Verlander's delivery that make his slider more effective based on their data and high-speed camera analysis.

I don't think he was even on the Twins radar until Santana had surgery. Given the nature of his contract, I'm guessing this is the thought process: - if he is bad in spring training, he is cut - if he is decent, he takes Santana's spot in the starting rotation - once Santana comes back, he gets cut unless he is performing I would probably put the over/under on regular seasons games started for the Twins at 1.

Fangraphs actually had Kiriloff in their top-100 (at #99).

I'm cautiously optimistic about Javier. The Ks (27.7%!) and the BABIP (.410!) scare me a little bit. I think he is slightly overrated at #6 - I'd rather have Baddoo right now.

Sorry for the delayed response on this, but it has occupied my thoughts for a while now. I certainly share the intuition that you articulated - namely, the player development process and prospect evaluation has revolutionized over the past decade-plus. But at the moment I just haven't seen data to back it up that these prospect rankings are significantly better than they were before. Even a chart compiled this offseason doesn't show any major improvement in the overall performance of, at least, BA's prospect lists over the past twenty years: It certainly feels like the rankings should be better in this day and age, with so much more information and more people/organizations taking prospect ranking seriously. But at the same time, a lot of the public prospect analysts (and presumably the best) have been hired away by specific clubs. So maybe while teams are getting better and better, there are countervailing forces that are keeping the public content more or less the same. Also, the game itself is changing extremely quickly - the flyball revolution, juiced balls, increased velocity, different balls between majors and minors. It's possible that at some level, the skills (or lack there of) that mattered even five years ago just don't matter in the same way right now. Finally, maybe is just a lag in the data - HS players from the draft class of 2013 are just starting to reach the majors, so we won't really "know" how good the 2014 ranking will be until 2023(?) or so. Maybe part of our disagreement is that we are just talking about different things. When I'm talking about a "contributor", I'm talking about a player that is at least a consistent 4th-outfielder, backup catcher, utility infielder, platoon bat, 4th starter or middle reliever. Someone who can provide consistent above-replacement-level performance over a decent time frame. Ben Revere was a contributor. Joe Benson was not. You get the idea. If you are talking about the odds that they will at least get a cup of coffee, then obviously our odds are going to be very different. Anyway, thanks for your comment. It has certainly given me a lot to ponder about over the last couple days.

Yep. I completely agree. Additionally, my own pet theory is that they had hoped that at least one other top player would have dropped to their 4th round pick at #106. They had enough money to offer another $2M bonus if someone was available. I think that partially explains the needlessly complicated maneuver to take Leach way underslot at #37 (unless, of course, they just really, really liked Leach!). I have yet to read a good explanation on what benefit they would have lost by taking Enlow (or whomever else they liked) at #37, especially a benefit greater than the risk that none of the high-end prospects would be available at #76.

Yeah, I like Rooker, but I'm really trying to temper my expectations. He is still striking out a lot. And even the most polished college hitters struggle adjusting to the majors. The list of hitters that have made to the majors during their first full season after being drafted is extremely small. And by comparison, Rooker's A+ performance isn't that great compared to other hitters that actually made the leap, especially when it comes to bat control: Kyle Schwarber hit every bit as good as Rooker at A+, and he managed a 20% K% instead of Rooker's 30%. Schwarber's career MLB K% 30%. Alex Bregman had a sub-10% K% in his first taste of A+ after being drafted, and he made it up to the MLB the next season... and he had a 24% K%. Michael Conforto had a sub-20% K% in the minors before being called up. Andrew Benintendi crushed the minors, finishing with more walks than strikeouts when getting called up. I'm sure there are others, but I just don't see enough bat control with Rooker to have any confidence that he will be a fast mover. I think the Twins can afford to be aggressive with Rooker - I'd like to see him start in AA. But I have zero expectations that he will be an impact hitter in the big-league lineup by the end of 2018 - as a bat-only player he will need to be very good (think 120 wRC+) right off the bat to merit a spot at DH/1B on a competitive team.

Five players (including 3 other high school pitchers) received as large or larger bonuses than Enlow's $2 million despite being drafted between the Twins pick of Leach at #37 and the Enlow pick at #76. It is certainly possible that Enlow really was dead-set on the Twins and scared away other teams with outrageous fake bonus demands, but I think he would have taken their $2.5 million at the #54 pick had the Yankees picked him there (and offered 25% more than what he signed for with the Twins). Instead, I think the Yankees just liked Matt Sauer better. The Rays probably just like Michael Mercado at #40 better, and the Mariners liked Sam Carlson at #55 better.

I think you are greatly overstating the odds of those three producing in the big leagues. There have been numerous studies (example: http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/mlb-prospect-surplus-values-2016-updated-edition/) that have shown that even prospects ranked as high as 25-50 nationally have only slightly better than 50-50 odds of above replacement level careers. I like Badoo a ton, but I still think he probably only has a 25% chance at being a big league contributor. Graterol and Enlow are both intriguing, but as super young pitchers their odds are still extremely daunting.

And Butera is still providing value for this team, in a way: Butera -> Sulbaran -> Nunez -> Mejia

I would be interested to see what the inning estimates were used for these WAR projections. That can be tricky to guess, especially the Depth Chart estimates which explicitly attempt to balance playing time for each roster.

Thanks for continuing to compile this post each Friday. I always amazed with all the good content I've missed during the week.

Thanks for sharing the post. It is nice to have someone compile all the data. Personally, I agree with your statement that Lynn and Cobb probably slot better behind Santana/Berrios rather than in front of them. Also, I'm pretty bullish on Mejia, so it is nice to see number that back that belief up.

I don't think it is crazy to think that Kepler is young enough that with more development he could become competent against lefties over the next 4+ seasons. But yes, if the Twins want to give up on that possibility ever happening and completely focus on this season, Kepler is definitely a guy to platoon. But that doesn't mean the Mauer isn't also a good platoon candidate. Focusing on just his 2017 is a fairly misleading. He just had his 5th best season against lefties for his entire career, partially on the back of his second-highest BABIP against lefties (.367). If you look at his last 4 seasons combined (almost 700 PAs), he has a sub-.700 OPS against lefties, including at .610 OPS in 2016. Going into his age-35 season, I will definitely take the under on him repeating or exceeding a .754 OPS against lefties in 2018.

Also, while I can understand not wanted to turn Kepler into a platoon guy yet, one of the biggest candidates for a platoon is Mauer. If this team is serious about squeezing every last win this coming season, they should seriously consider finding someone to take 100-150 of Mauer's PAs against lefties. For example, Holliday's worst season against lefties in the past 4 seasons is better than Mauer's best season. Last year, the Twins were 8th highest in total L-on-L PAs (590 total PAs), but were only 18th in wRC+ in that situation. It shouldn't be hard to switch ~200 PAs to better right-handed hitters next season.

Law had Gonsalves in his top-100 last year at 91: http://www.espn.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=6172

I think the most difficult challenge for 2018 will be threading the needle between development and contending. As some examples: - Kepler can't hit lefties right now. At some point (let's say June) he still has a sub-.600 OPS against lefties, do the Twins start platooning him? - Polanco spent a good chunk of the season as one of the worst hitters in baseball. If he starts off like that again, how much leash does he get? - Mejia was a serviceable back-of-the-rotation arm, and I'm reasonably optimistic that he could potentially be more. But if he struggles in April, how many starts does he get before getting demoted to the bullpen or AAA? If the Twins were not contenders, the easy answer is to give each of them as many PAs or starts as possible. But this team is a contender (and a weak one who will need every win possible), which makes the decision more difficult. Similarly, the second most difficult challenge will be how long to stick with older players who struggle to start the season: - Mauer just has his best season since 2013. How much should he play if he reverts to his 2015 form and has a .720 OPS in June? - How long is Gibson's leash this season? Last year he was given a second chance after a disastrous start, and for the most part he made that decision look good. With a (potentially) deeper rotation this year, does he get another chance like that? - Castro just has his best hitting season since 2013 at age 30. When do they switch it from Castro-Garver to Garver-Castro if he isn't hitting. Obviously not all of these situations will occur. But the several of them might, and every day the coaching staff and front office will need to make decisions regarding who gives the team the best chance to win.

There have been similar situations where MLB has still suspended players: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-bans-derek-norris-from-playing-for-rest-of-2017-under-domestic-violence-policy/ https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-suspends-mets-jeurys-familia-15-games-under-domestic-violence-policy/ It will be telling if Addison Russell gets any suspension for his incident: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2017/06/21/addison-russell-wife-mlb-domestic-violence-investigation/416595001/

This is a good twist on the usual prospect list. Interesting to think through the prospects from this angle. Mostly agree with your list. It is hard to know where to put Gordon. He could easily put pushed into a starters role depending on injuries, but otherwise I think he is kind of a long shot to spend any meaningful time in the majors this year. If I was to make one change, I would probably move Littell up a few spots.

For me, the only actionable info from this kind of analysis is in determining whether or not Rosario is a viable option to be a back-up CF in case Buxton is out of the lineup for a few days (a DL stint probably means Granite is brought up). When he initially came up, I thought that Rosario could easily cover that roll. While no one is going to match Buxton's defensive ability, I think the gap between Buxton and Rosario is now much larger than I initially thought. So I'm now leaning toward having the 4th OF position go to someone who is a legitimate CF option rather than purely a corner guy.

At what cost? That has to be factored in here. Buxton has already made multi-millions via his signing bonus plus his league-minimum salaries the past few seasons. If you are going to buy out free agent seasons, you'll have to make it worth his while. $150M over those 7 years? Lindor has reportedly turned down a $100M+ offer already. I think the current crop of young stars (Correa, Lindor, Bryant, Seager, et al) are going to push the envelope when it comes to extensions (and at least wait until after Harper/Machado reset the market next year). Also, if Fangraphs has figured out that long-term deals are overwhelmingly good deals for the teams, agents and the players union have probably figured out that out as well. I think the era of extremely team-friendly extensions (like Longoria's first deal or McCutchen's) for superstar players is probably over.

I think this avenue should be explored. Don't sell for Sano for peanuts, but if a team is willing to trade a legitimate top-of-the-rotation arm, then they should consider pulling the trigger. Unfortunately, I just don't see a lot of obvious options. Most of the top pitchers are already on contending teams. I can see arguments for the Rays to move Chris Archer or the Mets to move Jacob deGrom in exchange for Sano.