Thrylos

Link here, if you are interested: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-talk-about-a-bunch-of-proposed-changes-to-baseball/

I know that the players would like to impose penalties to teams with a bad record, but I suspect that the league would counter with hard salary caps and floors, and they will not like it a bit. Those things have to go together.

John Danks

I am certain that the Twins will add another player, maybe 2, before opening day. That said, if opening day was tomorrow, and everyone was healthy, I agree with the starters as far as the lineup goes. I'd put Astrudillo over Cave (one option) on the bench. The Twins need a good contact hitter for late inning situations off the bench, and Astrudillo can at least provide that. If Pineda is healthy he is on the rotation; if he is not, Mejia, Romero and Steward (and maybe Littell) are ahead of Gonsalves who has flaws to iron out in the minors. Mejia has to make the team; he is out of options; so Vasquez no more. The weakest cog in that pen in Hildenberger, and I hope that the new management staff realize that and use his option. Was one of the 5 worse relievers in the majors last season. Even Magill would be an improvement and he is barely replacement level...

Not sure what to think of Enlow at this point. His fastball did hike a couple of ticks, his curve was fine, but his changeup did not move. Still young, it is more than perfectly fine to work at one thing at a time, and it seems that he worked on velocity, but he really needs a third pitch badly, if he wants to be a starter. This might be compounded in 2019 by the fact that the FSL is such a pitcher's league, making any improvement in the numbers maybe not as meaningful as noted. I'd really look at two things for Enlow in 2019: Improvement in command and game planning (using K% as an indicator - no reason that it has to be so low.) And the development of an above average third pitch. Still he has plenty of time ahead of him to be successful; that said, there is talk about Romero being a reliever because he "just has 2 pitches" and "suspect endurance"; well, Enlow's stuff is behind Romero's, including endurance...

Sure. Give me a name of a free agent (because "sign" is the operational word) better than Perez that would have agreed to an one year deal with an option. Should they have traded for a better pitcher? For sure. But that's a different ask

Rhymes with voodoo

With both Kepler and Rosario being able to play CF if necessary, I think that Austin will be it.

Agree with the top 3. I'd rank number 7 right after that. I like number 8. I'd rank it fourth. Then 11 So 1 2 3 7 8 11 10 12 14 13 9 5 6 4 16 15 17 Looks like there are a handful more.

"Likely" is miles apart from "maybe", which what seems to be the Twins' front office position and invested $4M to find out. If not, he will "likely" be better than Gonsalves or Duke/Belisle who will be the 2018 players he will be replacing, if he does not "become Arrieta". And he has a higher probability of "becoming Arrieta" than Gonsalves does.

Rortvedt had a breakthrough season. I think that his overall numbers in Fort Myers do not indicate how good he was: Eventhough he hit lefties and righties equally well at Cedar Rapids (.708 OPS against LHP and .711 OPS against RHP) at Fort Myers he hit .269/.349/.425 vs RHP (pretty exceptional at that league for a catcher) and .184/.295/.184 against LHP. Better league, tougher lefties. He will adjust he is just 21 years old. Will probably need another part season at Fort Myers at least to get better against lefties before he moves up.

True. However one needs to get a bit more granular with that. He has struck out 20.7% with his changeup and 21.8% with his slider (career numbers). His sinker induces 60.4% ground ball rate. Those are not bad numbers, esp. for a back of the rotation guy. His problem is his four seamer and curve that are pretty awful. Last season opponents hit .422 off his four seamer (vs. 286 off his sinker) and 37.5% of the flyballs off his curve were home runs (that moved his overall to 18.2%). Getting rid of those pitches that he threw 25% of the time will go a long way towards improvement. If one can see that opportunity by simply looking at publicly available numbers, I am sure that the Twins saw even more, because they have more data.

To put things into perspective: a. Perez is 27 years old. Here are Jake Arrieta's numbers up to his age 27 season in Baltimore: 5.46 ERA, 4.72 FIP, 1.472 WHIP, 7.0 K/9, and 4.0 BB/9; so far Perez's numbers are: 4.63 ERA, 4.44 FIP, 1.479 WHIP, 5.5 K/9, 3.2 BB/9. In the ballpark, if not better. It is not the first time that a 27 year old moved to another team and blossomed. b. Texas (like Baltimore for Arrieta) are not known to develop pitchers though their systems. c. Some pitchers are late bloomers. Cleveland's Klubel and Carasco and Houston's Keuchel are in the category of pitchers who really did not do much until their age 26 or 27 season. The list includes more, and a certain 5 time Cy Young award winner and HOF lefty. d. Perez at some point was baseball's #17 prospect according to BA and #15 prospect according to BP, so there is some talent there. e. We are talking about the Twins fifth starter. Not their opening day starter. I would argue that Perez will be better than Gonsalves based of what we have seen so far by both. Perez's 2018 in the majors was better than Gonsalves's, so the risk is minimal for the Twins. On the other hand, if Perez pulls an Arrieta, the Twins have a bargain. If the Twins get something close to what the Cubs got from Arrieta in 2014 and 2015 for $11.5 million for both seasons, I suspect that there won't be many detractors... f. If he does not work out, he can pitch in the pen/get cut while the younger pitchers had some time to develop further in AAA and replace him for a cost of $4 million of the Twins (which is less than 1/3 of what Phil Hughes will receive in 2019...) I also suspect that he will be better than Matty Belisle was in the pen...

For two reasons: 1. He has to develop his secondary pitches (SL, CH; maybe drop the curve as well) which are at best average right now 2. He has to improve his command that is spotty. He can throw 98 mph fastball past minor league pitchers, but that does not cut in the majors (ask Mr. Hoey, James)

I think that Alcala is seriously underrated. Lots of similarities to his stuff with Graterol and similar command issues and similar bullpen concerns. Was the Astros' number 5 prospect according to fangraphs last July. I think that in raw stuff and ceiling he is likely the second best Twins' pitcher. Somewhat high risk though...

Please name one

Jermaine Curtis and Taylor Featherstone replacement Not.A.Big.Deal...

Bit concerned about how that will affect his speed and range. When Carlos Gomez, for example, added muscle, his speed and range decreased (but power increased.) Buxton was listed last season at 6'2, 190. Exactly the same height and weight of Carl Lewis in his prime. Plus 21 is 6'2", 211, closer to Carlos Gomez these days (6'3", 220) I just hope that it does not affect him negatively. Good to see him training and focusing on next season. Feels like he thinks that he has something to prove and he wants to talk with this bat, which is great!

To quote Yogi Berra, it ain't over till it's over. There is a lot of time left even before Pitchers and Catchers reports. I would not believe in everything the FO tells reporters to write. Many times these messages are not set directly to fans but to agents and players they have been negotiating with, trying to create a negotiating advantage... Give it month or so.

I don't follow the logic above. Common sense says that: If you give them a B for the new player acquisitions, an A- for the new field management, and you believe that they achieved that by spending fewer resources than expected, then resource management should be given at least a B, not a D-, since those resources were efficiently spent. Just a logic exercise. Unless the goal is to spend the most money, instead of building the best team (and those things are not always related...)

What this means is that Graterol's stuff is currently better but Pearson's has higher potential; however he needs to develop further.

Take away the first 14 games of the season, and Polanco had a slash line of .293/.344/.438 with.339 wOBA and 112 wRC+ That's higher wRC+ than Trea Turner and Jurickson Profar and higher wOBA than Chris Taylor and Turner. Plus/minus and DRS are friendlier to Polanco than UZR, and even from the 3 UZR components, the only below average and the one that drives the whole thing down is errors. Polanco is a streaky player and needs to play every day to get going. There are some issues with the errors, but most of those I believe are from pressing (and he does that) and will go away as he matures as a veteran. Sleeper? Not as far as I am concerned. He has star potential. At some point as a prospect I had him higher ranked than Buxton I think that there will be a place for Polanco, Lewis, and Javier in the same team. From the 3 Javier is the best shortstop with the glove, and shortstop is a glove first position. Let's not forget that the guy who most consider the best shortstop to play the game, ended up with a .666 OPS, 87 OPS+, and a 90 wRC+.

My biggest surprise is that there are no Twins players in the second half of the list...

Speaking of hurting, do you think that having their highest paid player not give 100% every time and publicly admitting it and justifying it will help or hurt the attitude and development of the Twins' young core? Is that who you want to be their role model?

I agree with the opinion that the Twins are looking to see how their young players, mainly Sano and Buxton, and to a lesser degree Berrios, Kepler, May and Romero and the pen, perform and then decide what they are going to do come June and July. If these guys play at their potential (and they have done it before in varying degrees and for a varying length of time) the Twins could be close to or even ahead of a weakened Cleveland team by mid-season. And this is not a bad strategy by any means, because no matter what (even if they signed Machado and Harper and Kimbrel and Keuchel), if the young core is not playing up to its potential, the Twins would not be a competitive team in the postseason, and might not even make it to there. On the other hand, if they "treading water" by that point, they will start selling at the mid-point and the situation will not improve and would have to make some big decisions come the next offseason (and they have the budget flexibility to do so...)