Thrylos

Nice catch, but if a hitter with even average speed was involved, he would have been safe. Beresford's issue at SS has been his arm, and if you notice the ball kinda sailed in there... BTW, the hitter was Twins' own Rowan Ebersohn who would loose a foot race to CC Sabathia

This implies that Buxton can hit MLB pitching. If Buxton is ready, this is a good problem to have, which means that Rosario instead of Santana will be the 4th outfielder. This is a contending team and better start behaving like one. MLB is not the proving ground for Rookies in contenders...

You should read on a guy by the name of Mike Hessman. He had a killer wOBA in the minors as well, matter of fact higher than Walker's. He is a pretty good comparable.

AAA and AA DLs work wonders for those matters. And every season after Spring Training teams clear a good 5-10 players...

This assumes that Rosario will not be the centerfielder over Buxton or might even lose his job and get optioned to the minors and/or Plouffe will not be traded. Good stuff! Thanks for the updates.

I kind of agree with the above, if it were 2012, 2013 or 2014. Now the Twins are contenders and should be acting like it. Contender mentality teams will not start the season like the Twins will in the bullpen, hoping and praying. They would get 2-3 end of the bullpen arms, and if the kids developed, that's a great problem to have because they can use them to instead of the Fiens and Tonkins and O'Rourke's. That's how contenders think. But I seriously question Ryan's ability to build one or to go the extra step that needs to be taken. He has never done it. Smith has. If you compare what the Twins did during the deadline last season vs to what the Mets did, you'd know what I am talking about...

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- While the Twins blogosphere, fan sites, and sportswriters are being focusing on the fact that Joe Mauer, has been having issues with his vision, which is totally expected after a concussion and should not be news, there are 61 major league free agents who are unsigned. This does not include the unsigned minor league free agents. Here is a like of those sixty one free agents as of today, broken down alphabetically and loosely be position: 31 position players: Pedro Alvarez 1B Jeff Baker 1B Corey Hart 1B Casey McGehee 1B/3B Justin Morneau 1B Chris Parmelee 1B Clint Barmes 2B/SS/3B Willie Bloomquist SS Alberto Callaspo 2B/3B Luis Yander La O Camacho 2B Ian Desmond SS (Declined Qualified Offer) David Freese 3B Jonathan Herrera 2B Juan Uribe 3B Rickie Weeks 2B/OF Marlon Byrd LF/RF David DeJesus LF Chris Denorfia LF/RF Dexter Fowler CF (Declined Qualified Offer) Jeff Francoeur RF Guillermo Heredia CF Austin Jackson CF Matt Joyce LF David Murphy LF/RF Ryan Raburn LF/RF Alex Rios RF Grady Sizemore LF/RF Drew Stubbs CF Will Venable LF/CF Shane Victorino RF/LF Delmon Young RF 30 pitchers: Chad Billingsley RHSP Yovani Gallardo RHSP (Declined Qualified Offer) Jeremy Guthrie RHSP Aaron Harang RHSP Josh Johnson RHSP Tim Lincecum RHSP Kyle Lohse RHSP Alfredo Simon RHSP Randy Wolf RHSP Mark Buehrle LHSP Cliff Lee LHSP Mike Minor LHSP Burke Badenhop RHRP Matt Belisle RHRP Rafael Betancourt RHRP Jason Frasor RHRP Greg Holland RHRP Casey Janssen RHRP Justin Masterson RHRP Joe Nathan RHRP Bobby Parnell RHRP Ryan Webb RHRP Joe Beimel LHRP Neal Cotts LHRP Brian Duensing LHRP Sean Marshall LHRP Franklin Morales LHRP Manny Parra LHRP Eric Stults LHRP Matt Thornton LHRP There are several issues remaining with the Twins, primarily regarding their bullpen and outfield. The outfield is a catch-22 issue, with the primary issue being that there are not enough good hitting players who can play Centerfield with an average plus defense (Byron Buxton, Ryan Sweeney and Joe Benson have all potential hitting issues, which they need to overcome), while the corners are overflown with out of options Oswaldo Arcia and recently converted Miguel Sano, who are not all stars with the glove, and Eddie Rosario, who can in a pitch play centerfield but is suited to a corner position better. Add Danny Santana, the out of options almost ordained fourth outfielder and you have a problem, better solved by some subtraction and not only an addition. Austin Jackson, a 29 year old first time free agent with a career 11.8 UZR, 556 out of zone plays made, and 49 defensive runs saved in 7115 innings at CF. His .267/.311/.385 slash line between the Mariners and the Cubs in 2015 is not impressive by any means. For his career he has been the epitome of an average hitter hitting .273/.333/.399 (101 OPS plus). This is the exact player who could keep Centerfield warm for Byron Buxton for a season, and push Eddie Rosario to the corner where he belongs. This would require a. the Twins dealing Santana or Arcia (and since lack of LH power has been a problem against RHPs, Arcia should be a lock, unless they find an alternative) and b. Jackson accepting a single year contract much below the $7.7 million he made in 2015, filled with incentives, to get himself back in the market for 2017. Bullpen is probably the biggest eyesore out there, with Terry Ryan pretty much keeping the pen intact and hoping that: a. declining 33 year old closer Gren Perkins, will start pitching like it is 2012 again or like the beginning of the last 3 seasons, b. 31 year old Kevin Jepsen will sustain his outlier 2 months with the Twins instead of turning into an average reliever who was who he was before coming to the Twins and c. Casey Fien might get it together and prove reliable beyond the mop-up duties he is suited to. Also, Trevor May, who might be the best pitcher mentioned, is a wild card along with several young promising pitchers invited to Spring Training as well as the potential rotation rejects. So the 2016 Twins' bullpen is build on a prayer, hope and luck, so far and that is not how the bullpens of contenders should be build. Fortunately there are a couple of player who can help the Twins' pen in 2016 and beyond: Most of the free agent field, and especially at LHRP, which is a position that the Twins need the most help, is filled by players who have many things to prove in 2016 and for the most part is getting older or overcoming injuries. I would love it if the Twins bring back Brian Duensing, at least to see whether he can beat two of Ryan O'Rourke, Taylor Rogers, Fernando Abad or Mason Melotakis for a spot on the pen this spring. He has the skills, is a great member of the community and that decision will be a no-brainer to me. If the Twins can sign Aaron Thompson who has half the talent, no ties to the organization and the community and was suspended for drug use, they can sign Brian Duensing. Period. Justin Masterson, a 30 year old former top prospect who had a few good years in the Indians rotation, is very intriguing. Signing an one year $9.5M contract with the Red Sox in 2015, he fell flat. He started 9 games with 44 innings pitched, 21 walks and 32 strikeouts for a 6.14 ERA and 1.682 WHIP, pushing himself to the bullpen. His once 93 mph fastball, averaged 87.5 and his once 83 mph slider, averaged 82.3. And he is the poster-boy of the two pitch starter who cannot stay a starter when those pitches decline, because hitters will avoid the slider and seat on the non-so fast fastball. There is a gamble here but there are encouraging signs: After the move to the bullpen, his fastball that bottomed out to a 87 mph average in June, reached a 90.7 mph average in September. The slider that was at 78.6 in June, rebounded to 80.6 in September. Still about 2 mph slower than his career peak when he was missing bats and inducing soft grounders, as a reliever in 15.3 innings in 2015 he walked 6 and struck out 17 (10 K/9 , 25.4 K%), with a 4.11 ERA (5.42 FIP, 4.22 xFIP) and 1.37 WHIP (.324 BABIP), inducing 1.5 GB/FB. His FIP is inflated by a ridiculous 21.4% HR/FB. Given that and the BABIP-driven WHIP, in contrast to his strikeouts and groundball, and with the increased speed it is a good bet that Masterson can be a reliable reliever in 2016; at least a lot more reliable that, let's say Casey Fien, and potentially Kevin Jepsen from the right side. Masterson, like Jackson, would have all the incentives in the world to sign a make good one year contract with potential mutual options. Which brings us to the last player, who will likely not help the Twins in 2016, but this should be a longer term singing, at the 3-year mark with lots of incentives and back loaded: Greg Holland. The 30 year old Holland was the closer in the best bullpen in the majors in 2014 and until his injury in 2015; underwent UCL replacement (Tommy John) surgery on October 2, 2015. There is a slight chance that he could pitch in September and October in 2016, helping a team in the postseason, but this signing is for 2017 and 2018. Why sign now? Because you have to take the risk and jump ahead in the line, which will be long once he recovers and starts pitching. A 3 year contract loaded with incentives is a better deal that the one the Twins gave Nick Blackburn not to pitch. So there are still opportunities out there to close some of the Twins' holes this season, and they better start getting advantage of them, since there are a couple of handful of dates before pitchers and catchers report.

"Pretty Damn Good" is a bid different than "Dominant". The Dominant is what I am arguing. He is good. Pretty darn good. But dominant, he is not...

I suspect that this is not the first time that Twins' people heard about this issue... This is the first time that came out in the public. Vision issues is such a common concussion result, that makes them almost expected, so the surprise should have been if they were not there... I just don't understand all the big deal that is happening around this.(Slow off-season does not help, I guess...)

Career numbers do not matter for players past their prime. My point is that Perkins is in his declining years and the last 2 seasons he could not get lefties out, likely because his lost a couple ticks in velocity and his slider flattened and his fastball is not as good as before. Data from the last 2 seasons supports this. What he did in 2011 (at his peak) is irrelevant to what he will do in 2016, compared to what he did in 2015 and 2014.

.246/.307/.436 Slash Line in Fort Myers. I don't see much domination there. But let's take all his seasons: 2012 Elizabethton: .805 OPS, 8th in the team 2013 Cedar Rapids: .844 OPS, 4th in the team 2014 Fort Myers: .743 OPS, 8th in the team 2015 Chattanooga: .807 OPS, 5th in the team So he was not even the best hitter in his team by far. Even that .844 in the midwest league is not dominance. Vargas had 1.030 OPS in that league. Look at Sano's numbers. THAT is dominance. Walker has been an average player in his teams. Ability to hit HRs aside.

Perkins cannot get lefties out. Last season lefties hit .379/.419/.431 off him. He made every lefty hit like Ted Williams pretty much. Even in 2014 they hit .284/.324/.448 off him. Lately his splits are much better against RHBs (likely because of the slider not being sharp against LHBs and the FB losing a couple ticks)

Cannot help it: http://gapingvoid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/excuses-are-a-disease.jpg

you do realize that after his first suspension, Mejia did not play a single game for the Mets, correct? So the Mets were hurt by his last 2 suspensions according to the same logic...

See Halsey's sig? That "he" is Plouffe

Re: vision issues and concussions. Nothing new. Has always been on the CDC checklist.

Sub "Perkins" for "Mauer" as far as the second half of last season goes, and give yourself an answer. Similar situation. The thing is that there are a lot of people who are casual Twins fans and do not know Escobar from Santana and they go to the ball games for "the experience" and to see Joe Mauer. (Because everyone knows Joe.) I bet that a whole bunch of those partial season ticket holders falls into that category. So Joe being out, hurts the Twins at the gate, so they need Joe in, until they find another Joe. It is not for baseball reasons, it is for business reasons. The same reasons that they had to sign him ot that contract....

Totally agree about the disparity of salary between the majors and the minors, but chew on this for a second: Average stipend (aka salary) for PhD level graduate students (teaching assistants or research assistants) in Cornell University in 2015-2016: $2096/mo (and not $25 x 30 = $750 meal money) There are more than one perspectives really. But they should take care of the kids better, esp since $25 a day might not even pay for one meal for them...

So, should the Twins get punished for Santana? How about for the guy who is their AA hitting coach now? Where do you draw the line? They did not have mandatory steroid distribution. The players have a choice and it is up to them. The teams are not their legal guardians or whatever....

I think that saying the Twins' lack of quality starters taxed the Twins' pen in 2015 and thus they were bad, is one of those false excuses. Fact: Other than May (who logged in 83.3 IP as a starter and 31.3 as a reliever) no Twins RP pitched more than 65 innings last season. That's not much of a work load. They just were not good enough...

Different kinds of pitchers with different kind of pitches.

Todd Van Poppel, Brien Taylor, and Delmon Young were all ranked as baseball's best prospects by BA at some point or another. These lists are like the draft pretty much. Different people value different attributes, thus rank people differently. I think that it is interesting, since it allows people to see diverse points of view for players in a particular system, which can be missed by someone with a slightly different point of view.

Some of their ETAs are out of whack: Jay: 2017 as a starter? Nuts. Polanco: 2016. Last time I checked it was 2014, so there is data for this one.

Sure, I'd love it if the Twins trade Dozier for something good. They got to sell high

Of course I think that Stewart is a prospect. Here he is in my Twins' prospect list, along with the reasons he was ranked where he was ranked. I just think that Law has him way too high. He should not be higher than Jay and Gonsalves, IMO. That's what I am arguing. Of course he is a prospect.