Thrylos

I would add Yohan Pino's name to the list. He was very impressive Saturday night.

This sounds like hockey or basketball or school bowl ball or something

Last winter I felt that I was the only person around who still thought of Polanco as a Shortstop. I feel validated because it looks like the Twins are still thinking of him as a shortstop too... Polanco is on top of my Twins' SS prospect chart while Rosario on top of my Twins' 2B prospect chart. I had Rosario as the Twins' fourth best prospect and Polanco as the sixth best prospect last November. And unless he is start playing second base exclusively, I will still consider Polanco a shortstop.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- As I indicated earlier, in addition to seeing Alex Meyer, one of my goals last weekend when I attended the Red Wings' last 3 games at the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, was to have a good look at the newest Twins' player Eduardo Nunez. Nunez, once the heir apparent to Derek Jeter and a Yankees top prospect, was traded by those Yankees to the Twins for Miguel Sulbaran (quick scouting report from this Spring Training here.) Even though I am deeply enshrined as an Eduardo Escobar supporter for the Twins' starting Shortstop job, any improvement over Pedro Florimon, is more than welcome, so I was extremely intrigued at seeing Nunez on the field and at the plate. In the three games I saw, Nunez played Shortstop, DH, and Right Field. There has been a reputation built around Nunez indicating that his defense is poor. Looking at the various measurements, which are all affected by the smallish sample size, UZR, fangraphs "Defense" and RZR does not like him much, but it also looks like he made 50 plays out of the zone at shortstop in 152 games, so color me intrigued. Here is what I saw: In his game as a shortstop he handled several balls and made good accurate throws to first base. Adjusts well on different batters and is pretty aware. On a particular grounder he juggled the ball, but still initiated a double play, so that did not hurt. As a right fielder he took good routes to the ball, had to dig a ball from the corner and did it exceptionally well and made strong throws to the correct cut off man. On one occasion he tried to barehand a ground ball and he overran it by a foot, but recovered. All in all he looks like an average fielder to me out there, if a bit eager to make a play. I am not sure about where the reputation of a bad fielder comes from (maybe from WFAN 660 callers?) but for someone like me who have seen the Twins play Buscher, Nishioka, Harris, Delmon Young, and still play Plouffe and Willingham on the field, I think that Nunez will be an improvement over all of them. As far as his bat goes, I was really impressed by the quality of his plate appearances. You can see a video of a plate appearance here. He is tied for the lead in Home Runs for the Red Wings with 3 and he has not played that much. His ability to adjust and put the ball in play is excellent. Something that the Twins can really use in the bottom of their lineup. In addition to the video example mentioned above, here is a sequence of photos that shows what I described: Pitch 1: Slider low and outside, swing and miss: Pitch 2: Same pitch. Moves inside a more, times it better and fouls it: Pitch 3: Same pitch. He gets the fat piece of the bat and turns it in for a double: I cannot remember how many times I have seen Twins' hitters in the majors failing to do this. All in all, I think that Eduardo Nunez will be an asset for the Twins and part of the solution in the future.

Escobar is not that bad defensively at SS. His metrics are close to Florimon's and he just got the SS gold glove in VWL this past winter. He should be starting at SS.

Gotta love what Wimmers is doing but he is pitching 2 levels lower than where he should be age and pick round wise.

This is one that numbers cannot tell offensively. Florimon is a rally killer. If he made outs while making some contact and moved up (or scored) runners, a low slash line would be acceptable. But he is truly horrible. Below the Butera line and that says a ton.

I think that it depends on preferences: Who would you rather have? Derek Jeter or Ray Ordonez? (both came up about the same time give or take in the 2 different NY teams.)

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php/2849-Red-Wings-at-IronPigs-3-game-Redux-Part-I-Alex-Meyer

Indeed, but so do Canadians. And thus that line of reasoning gets hairy

He'd still be the top OF in the system after Buxton, but, unlike the others save JD Williams, he is mostly a centerfielder

Walker actually is a pretty decent OF with the glove. Better than most of the corner OFs the Twins have had for a while. He has transitioned to the OF from 1B in the pros and this Spring was pretty good. Arm might be an issue, but we are not talking Revere, we are talking Willingham. He is better than Colabello out there. More speed helps. Harrison was caught in the numbers between Sano and Goodrum and Minier. Better chances to make it as an OF anyways...

I think that you can add Liriano and Garza and Lohse and Hardy and Dickie to that list.

This is not true. And with Hicks, Arcia and Buxton around, how many more OF's do you need? I count the following 5 OFs on my top 40 off-season Twins' prospects: Travis Harrison (13) Yes he is an OF now Max Kepler (16) Adam Walker (17) JD Williams (25) Zach Larson (36) The last 2 can play all OF positions and the top 3 are corner OFs. Also players like Amaurys Minier and Niko Goodrum might end up at the OF some time (because 3B will be taken for a while...)

Those things in bold contradict each other... Mainly because there is likely better 2B talent coming up the system than Dozier. As far as SS goes, I dare to venture that there is better talent there (in high A and below) than Dozier. Someone like Polanco (A+, whom I have on top of the SS prospect chart) might not pan out at SS (the jury is still out) but if he does not, he will probably top the 2B depth chart in the organization right now as well (with Rosario pretty close). Vielma (A) and Minier ® are following. Goodrum (A+) is still a question mark and playing 3B exclusively now. And to qualify this, the more and more I look at Dozier, the more and more he looks like another former Twins' SS prospect who ended up in a different position: Scott Leius.

The problem is that those PR decisions at some point add to bad business decisions. I think that the majority of the fans would prefer winning vs familiar faces (esp. familiar faces from the dark times.) New guys who play well can become the new fan favorites. A year ago 90% of the Twin Cities (at least the ones who are old enough to remember) thought that Pinto was only a car. Now they know that he is a catcher. And nobody is complaining about Butera being gone (not that Dozier is Butera-like by any means.)

I think that it will be smart to trade Dozier (or anyone) for the right return. Look at the Rays' model. That said, this particular one is not happening, because Pedroia's injury is actually less serious than Willingham's (not even DL)

They are not even close. Other maybe than their SSS MLB numbers last season. Before last season Gyoko was MLB.com's 50th best prospect in baseball and his career MiLB line is .321/.386/.530. Chase Utley has been mentioned in Gyoko comparisons, not much in Dozier's. Too early to even think whether Dozier will be part of the future or would be a good trade bait, much more than extending him.

Santana needs work with the stick. He has hard time with junk pitches. Was ok in AA that is a prospect league but in AAA he is struggling. Swinging at everything. At least a year or so away at this point. I guess I have ranked him lower as a prospect than most (20s) but he is a work in progress. Somewhat erratic as well on the field

Beresford's ceiling is Jamey Carroll. And he is not a shortstop. Utility guy at best.

I saw him play SS and RF this weekend. As a SS he is better than Nishioka, Plouffe, Harris, Dozier. Not as good as Casilla or Escobar or Florimon from recent memory. As a RF he is better than all of the starting corner OFs the Twins had this season. No gag reflex here.

That is not happening. Because Danny Santana needs time at SS to improve as well. At this point, other than my belief that Escobar should be the starter at SS, Nunez belongs to the majors more than Florimon.

re: Florimon and hitting below .200. Today he increased his OPS to .249. Oh Pee Es. This guy does not belong in the majors any way you cut it. He has options, and New Britain sounds pretty good about now, because you really want Santana at AAA. Escobar should have been the starter already. I think that Nunez will likely take over soon for Florimon.

By far not his best, but the only one I taped this weekend. It still shows his ability to make contact and adjust on the plate, which are 2 things much in need for the Twins. Video here.