biggentleben
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MLB's Press Release about Minor League Player Wages
biggentleben replied to Vanimal46's topic in Twins Minor League Talk
BA's Ben Badler basically put Rob Manfred to shame. Beautiful piece. -
It was McDowell. He was fired today, so he's been taken care of as well. Muahaha.
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Exactly. His scouting has always been that he may have to move to first due to growing out of the outfield, but that he's a high-end corner outfield defender until that possibly happens (if it ever does) due to solid range and a very good arm.
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Um, the Braves played at a 90-win pace for the last two months of the season. Cost themselves the #1 pick in the process when they had something like a 9-game lead when the Braves came to Minnesota. By the time the Twins came to Atlanta just a week later, it was a 4- or 5- game lead, and within a week or so, the Twins were the #1 pick team. Braves ended up with the #5 overall pick, but they're in position for a legit .500 team next year.
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Yet Rosario, Buxton, and Kepler were three of the highest-rated individual players for the Twins, which tells you just how bad the play from guys like Sano, Santana, Escobar, Arcia, etc. was in the outfield.
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Kepler has solid range and a very good arm. He rated above average defensively.
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Why do you think all Braves fans/employees/players wore black on Tuesday? Mourning the loss of the best trading partner a rebuild could have. Stewart still owns his player representation agency. I'd wager he's an agent by winter meetings.
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My bad. I was going by the initial report in-game and have been writing, so I've not been on Twitter tonight. That's even more sad.
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Buck has the possible Cy Young award winner throw 0 pitches in an extra inning game win-or-go-home game. Their fate can really be put in that thought right there.
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Beer would have been better...it was a water bottle! C'mon guys!
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Silly Jays fans....don't they know that you don't throw concessions onto the field in the wild card game until they blow an infield fly rule call?!
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I think you'll be surprised what teams are willing to give for Erv. I know Braves fans have talked about bringing him in as an inning-eater in the Braves rotation, and most are willing to give up a pretty decent prospect grouping for him.
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You can look on CTTP this afternoon for my Top 5 priorities for them that will be up, but really, theirs is more a "let young pitchers pitch" and "tell Bryan Price to stop making batting orders". They have a guy waiting in the wings that could be an excellent leadoff hitter in Winker to set the table for Peraza/Hamilton at 2 (the other being at 8), Votto, Mesoraco - if healthy, Duvall, Suarez, Cozart/Phillips (with Peraza playing 2B/SS each day, and one of the two getting the day off), Peraza/Hamilton, pitcher. That's a lineup that could score quite a few runs. They also have pretty solid outfield defense with Duvall and Hamilton to start both being very good defenders.
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They are, but they also have a load of starters who are ready and not able to eat innings. They could use a guy to eat innings because, frankly, their bullpen is brutal. Their starting staff had three guys eclipse 100 innings last year. Their GM has also mentioned pursuing a veteran starter to eat up some innings alongside their young starters in his piece on MLBTR. They're probably not going to go after a Greinke as they don't want someone who will clog a rotation spot for 5 years, but a guy who's there for 2 years as these guys gain their footing would be ideal, and Santana fits. It also gives the Twins MLB ready starting arms, not something abundant in the system. I also mentioned how they could use a better utility bench help, and that's not there on the free agent market, so perhaps expanding the deal to add Danny Santana or Eduardo Escobar could be advantageous. Seriously, the Reds are one team that could jump quite a bit if you look at their roster. Injuries cut out a ton for them and their pitching staff was historically bad, mostly due to their bullpen.
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So, I'm also putting up the Reds series for today. One of the major things that pitching staff needs is a guy who can simply eat some innings. Would an Ervin Santana for one of John Lamb/Cody Reed/Robert Stephenson plus a guy like Amir Garrett who is near-ready at AAA be enough if Cincy ate all the salary?
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Oh, I agree, but much like my Braves fan brethren, there are many who want to see an immediate return and how to get big moves. I really think the strong relief arms in the upper minors will impact the effectiveness of the rotation as much as getting new arms in that rotation. Right now you're seeing a lot of "meh" arms in the bullpen, some of whom have had good results, but not many with overpowering stuff. The crop in AA/AAA has that kind of dominating stuff that can take over a game at the end.
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Yes, but then you're hoping like heck on guys like Gibson and Berrios pitching better next season to have a chance of being better in 2017. Of course, the starting rotation was league average with all the crud they went through. The bullpen was tremendously bad, as I put in the post.
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Then again, Ervin Santana would be highly desired by many teams in the league, so some of the ammunition that you need to make a trade for the starter you want could be acquired by taking advantage of that pitching market. Some of that pitching frenzy will be out of the Twins reach with Sale and Quintana getting a lot of attention and likely not going to traded in division. The Twins could zig while others zag by approaching guys like Archer, Arrieta, Shelby Miller, Greinke, Tyson Ross, and others that we aren't even thinking about that could end up hitting the market.
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Those aces that you want to pick up in trade have significant salaries as well. The free agent market is crud this year, but the trade market should be fairly solid.
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Defense was one of my 5, but I think Buxton producing offensively and taking over center has given the Twins an excellent defensive outfield. It's really the left side of the infield that needs work as Dozier and Mauer are both above average defenders. I had catching #2 behind the GM search due to Suzuki being a free agent and really not being adequate offensively or defensively to bring back. The in house options are solid backups, perhaps, but not starting caliber guys.
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That last paragraph you stated is why I had the financial bit as my #5. In order to do anything to upgrade the rotation, first the team needs to move some of the current members of the rotation and clear their salary, but to truly pursue a big time arm, they need more money than just that, and that may take moving their two hometown boys.
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There are two tremendously good managerial candidates that are Latin, but they take non-team jobs because of pay or stick with guys who are loyal to them. Those two are Alex Cora, who works with ESPN, and Dave Martinez, who is bench coach with the Chicago Cubs after staying with Maddon in the move from the Tampa Bay Rays. Both will someday be tremendous managers when a team is smart enough to hire them. The Braves have Eddie Perez on their coachin gstaff, and he's been a "future manager" since the days he was Greg Maddux's personal catcher. So far, however, he's turned down every interview request outside the Braves organization. Whether he ends up the Braves manager this offseason is anyone's guess, but Perez will likely be another one down the line.
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More fitting would be that he comes in as a defensive replacement and ends up getting an at-bat in extra innings with a guy on second and slaps a single to win the game, his first RBI of the season.
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Here's the offseason priority piece. Enjoy!
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I posted a Twins season in review this morning on Call To The Pen, and this afternoon my piece on the top 5 things the Twins need to focus on for the offseason will come out. Check if out, if you're interested!
