Thrylos

this is pretty close to what I think too... Fastest move up scenario: When the Rookie leagues start and bodies from EST and the Draft are floating to Beloit he moves to Fort Myers. Starts next season in AA (won't be New Britain) and maybe moves to AAA (won't be Rochester) mid season 2013 again. Unlikely that he gets called up in September of 2013, he does not need to be added to the 40 man roster until 2015. Gets invited to ST in 2014 and maybe he makes the team as a 1B taking Morneau's place. Earliest possible scenario. More likely he will be in AAA in 2014 (starting 2013 at Fort Myers and moving to AA mid-season, starting 2014 in AA and moving to AAA mid-season) One needs to think something else about Sano: He is a kid who grew up in a total different world. He came to the US a couple years ago and has been living with host families. He never lived alone in the US. That is something that he probably needs to learn too before he is ready for the bigs... Not only the on the field stuff...

He has a "right elbow strain"; they perscribe "rest and rehab"; he is done; he pitches a couple of innings in high A and has to be shut down again (more rest and rehab). In this organization with this medical staff just does not sound too good. We have seen this story way too many times... From Neshek to Baker to Wimmers...

+1 on that

DeVries' fastball (like PJ Walters' btw) tops at 89 and usually sits at mid 80s. His curveball (like PJ Walters' btw) is pretty wicked. Nothing like Guerrier who was sitting in low 90s and dialing mid-90s occasionally. Lots like Walters with a bit more of a deceptive delivery. Let's see how he will do.

Does not look good... Here is the Transactions listing: RHP Kyle Waldrop (right elbow strain) went on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to March 26. He began pitching in extended spring training games April 30. He began a rehab assignment with Class A Fort Myers on May 12. He should return by early June

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- This is way overdue. My goal was to get it a. within the few days of theseason (that passed) and then b. before the amateur MLB draft that will bring in a new influx of talent to the Twins. So I am sticking with it. And Seth Stohs already starting his mid-season rankings, really made me want to get this up before it is too obsolete. And before I post my post-draft rankings for 2012 I have not done prospect rankings for a couple of years now, mainly because I did not see the players play. Now that I have spent a good 15 hours or so watching Twins' prospects of all levels live in Spring Training, I feel confident to create a post-draft top prospects list (or 2 really; I like to separate pitchers from position players in these lists; ) this had to come up first as a housekeeping item. Thus, I decided to do a consensus list. What is a consensus list? A consensus (or aggregate or composite) ranking is a ranking based on other rankings calculating averages. This is what this list is. A bit about methodology: I combined 25 rankings of Twins top prospects. Some of them were top 10, some of them top 50. So I ended up with 71 names. The players were scored from 1 until the last position in the ranking (lets say 10 in a ten prospect list) and the ones who appeared in the master list but did not appear in the individual list were scored as one over the lowest ranking (i.e. prospects in the master list, but not in a top 10 list were scored as 11). The reason that this is required, is to not have artificially highrankings when results were averaged from players omitted in most lists but ranked high in one or 2. After all players in the master list were scored this way, their average scores were calculated and a new consensus ranking was created. This is the consensus list I am presenting here. What are the 25 sources? They are both national and local to the Twins'area, both professional and bloggers. And they are were weighted the same. My rationale in this is a. several Twins bloggers (Seth Stohs, for one) have a much more intimate view of the Twins' system than Baseball America. and b. Twins' bloggers care more and pay more attention to the Twins' system and get to watch more Twins' MiLB games than Keith Law, Johnathan Mayo or Kevin Goldstein. But the other guys have "professional" opinions. So here every opinion weighs the same. Here is a list of the 25 sources (alphabetically) : Baseball America Baseball Intellect Jim Crikket (Knuckleballs) Aaron Gleeman Keith Law Kevin Goldstein (Baseball Prospectus) Fanatic Jack Steal Fangraphs Field of Twins Gear up for Twins baseball Jonathan Mayo MLBDirt.com MLB Prospect Portal LaVelle Neal Nick's Twins Blog North Dakota Twins Fan Jeff Reese- Bullpen Banter John Seikels On the road with Shawn Puckett's Pond Al Scorupa -Bullpen Banter Seth Stohs Travis Talks Twins Top prospect alert Twinkie Town - community ranking This is what the master list looks in Excel: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7096/7252079620_7c270a07f7_z.jpg And if you want to have a close look, original size is here (and I did copy and paste a row -Lance Ray- twice; this would not fit in one screen) There are 71 names in the list, but six of the players listed are no longer with the Twins for various reasons (alphabetically) : Matt Bashore, Philip Chapman, Tony Davis, Terry Doyle and Kane Holbrooks Without further ado, here is the consensus rankings list of the top Twins' prospects this off-season (one can call it "post 2011 season" ) list : 1 Miguel Sano 3B 2 Eddie Rosario 2B/OF 3 Oswaldo Arcia OF 4 Aaron Hicks OF 5 Joe Benson OF 6 Liam Hendriks P 7 Kyle Gibson P 8 Levi Michael IF 9 Adrian Salcedo P 10 Brian Dozier IF 11 Chris Parmelee 1B/OF 12 Alex Wimmers P 13 Travis Harrison IF 14 Hudson Boyd P 15 Max Kepler OF 16 Madison Boer P 17 Angel Morales OF 18 Chris Herrmann C 19 Manuel Soliman P 20 Niko Goodrum IF 21 Tom Stuifbergen P 22 David Bromberg P 23 Garlos Gutierrez P 24 Nate Roberts IF/OF 25 BJ Hermsen P 26 Matt Hauser P 27 Matt Summers P 28 Pat Dean P 29 JaDamion Williams OF 30 Jairo Perez IF 31 Deolis Guerra P 32 Tyler Robertson P 33 Corey Williams P 34 Logan Darnell P 35 Scott Diamond P 36 Danny Rams C/OF 37 Jorge Polanco IF 38 Lance Ray OF 39 Danny Santana IF 40 Lester Oliveros P 41 Tyler Grimes IF 42 Jose Gonzales P 43 Danny Ortiz IF 44 Angel Mata P 45 Tim Shibuya P 46 James Beresford IF 47 Michael Gonzales 1B 48 Bruce Pugh P 49 Cole DeVries P 50 Michael Tonkin P 51 Dakota Watts P 52 Nelvin Fuentes P 53 Bobby Lanigan P 54 Rory Rhodes 1B/OF 55 Evan Bigley OF 56 Kennys Vargas 1B/OF 57 Andrew Albers P 58 Anthony Slama P 59 Anderson Hidalgo IF/OF 60 Ryan O' Rourke P 61 Hung-yi Chen P 62 Danny Lehmann C 63 Darin Mastroianni OF 64 Derek Rodriguez OF 65 Luis Nunez P 66 Kyle Waldrop P Just thinking about the 2012 Twins' draft and how they might want to supplement the system, there are way too many OFs and not enough Ps in the top spots (and this is not about to change in the mid-season rankings) and there are not enough infielders in the whole system (other than the top 2 spots).

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- This is way overdue. My goal was to get it a. within the few days of theseason (that passed) and then b. before the amateur MLB draft that will bring in a new influx of talent to the Twins. So I am sticking with it. And Seth Stohs already starting his mid-season rankings, really made me want to get this up before it is too obsolete. And before I post my post-draft rankings for 2012 I have not done prospect rankings for a couple of years now, mainly because I did not see the players play. Now that I have spent a good 15 hours or so watching Twins' prospects of all levels live in Spring Training, I feel confident to create a post-draft top prospects list (or 2 really; I like to separate pitchers from position players in these lists; ) this had to come up first as a housekeeping item. Thus, I decided to do a consensus list. What is a consensus list? A consensus (or aggregate or composite) ranking is a ranking based on other rankings calculating averages. This is what this list is. A bit about methodology: I combined 25 rankings of Twins top prospects. Some of them were top 10, some of them top 50. So I ended up with 71 names. The players were scored from 1 until the last position in the ranking (lets say 10 in a ten prospect list) and the ones who appeared in the master list but did not appear in the individual list were scored as one over the lowest ranking (i.e. prospects in the master list, but not in a top 10 list were scored as 11). The reason that this is required, is to not have artificially highrankings when results were averaged from players omitted in most lists but ranked high in one or 2. After all players in the master list were scored this way, their average scores were calculated and a new consensus ranking was created. This is the consensus list I am presenting here. What are the 25 sources? They are both national and local to the Twins'area, both professional and bloggers. And they are were weighted the same. My rationale in this is a. several Twins bloggers (Seth Stohs, for one) have a much more intimate view of the Twins' system than Baseball America. and b. Twins' bloggers care more and pay more attention to the Twins' system and get to watch more Twins' MiLB games than Keith Law, Johnathan Mayo or Kevin Goldstein. But the other guys have "professional" opinions. So here every opinion weighs the same. Here is a list of the 25 sources (alphabetically) : Baseball America Baseball Intellect Jim Crikket (Knuckleballs) Aaron Gleeman Keith Law Kevin Goldstein (Baseball Prospectus) Fanatic Jack Steal Fangraphs Field of Twins Gear up for Twins baseball Jonathan Mayo MLBDirt.com MLB Prospect Portal LaVelle Neal Nick's Twins Blog North Dakota Twins Fan Jeff Reese- Bullpen Banter John Seikels On the road with Shawn Puckett's Pond Al Scorupa -Bullpen Banter Seth Stohs Travis Talks Twins Top prospect alert Twinkie Town - community ranking This is what the master list looks in Excel: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7096/7252079620_7c270a07f7_z.jpg And if you want to have a close look, original size is here (and I did copy and paste a row -Lance Ray- twice; this would not fit in one screen) There are 71 names in the list, but six of the players listed are no longer with the Twins for various reasons (alphabetically) : Matt Bashore, Philip Chapman, Tony Davis, Terry Doyle and Kane Holbrooks Without further ado, here is the consensus rankings list of the top Twins' prospects this off-season (one can call it "post 2011 season" ) list : 1 Miguel Sano 3B 2 Eddie Rosario 2B/OF 3 Oswaldo Arcia OF 4 Aaron Hicks OF 5 Joe Benson OF 6 Liam Hendriks P 7 Kyle Gibson P 8 Levi Michael IF 9 Adrian Salcedo P 10 Brian Dozier IF 11 Chris Parmelee 1B/OF 12 Alex Wimmers P 13 Travis Harrison IF 14 Hudson Boyd P 15 Max Kepler OF 16 Madison Boer P 17 Angel Morales OF 18 Chris Herrmann C 19 Manuel Soliman P 20 Niko Goodrum IF 21 Tom Stuifbergen P 22 David Bromberg P 23 Garlos Gutierrez P 24 Nate Roberts IF/OF 25 BJ Hermsen P 26 Matt Hauser P 27 Matt Summers P 28 Pat Dean P 29 JaDamion Williams OF 30 Jairo Perez IF 31 Deolis Guerra P 32 Tyler Robertson P 33 Corey Williams P 34 Logan Darnell P 35 Scott Diamond P 36 Danny Rams C/OF 37 Jorge Polanco IF 38 Lance Ray OF 39 Danny Santana IF 40 Lester Oliveros P 41 Tyler Grimes IF 42 Jose Gonzales P 43 Danny Ortiz IF 44 Angel Mata P 45 Tim Shibuya P 46 James Beresford IF 47 Michael Gonzales 1B 48 Bruce Pugh P 49 Cole DeVries P 50 Michael Tonkin P 51 Dakota Watts P 52 Nelvin Fuentes P 53 Bobby Lanigan P 54 Rory Rhodes 1B/OF 55 Evan Bigley OF 56 Kennys Vargas 1B/OF 57 Andrew Albers P 58 Anthony Slama P 59 Anderson Hidalgo IF/OF 60 Ryan O' Rourke P 61 Hung-yi Chen P 62 Danny Lehmann C 63 Darin Mastroianni OF 64 Derek Rodriguez OF 65 Luis Nunez P 66 Kyle Waldrop P Just thinking about the 2012 Twins' draft and how they might want to supplement the system, there are way too many OFs and not enough Ps in the top spots (and this is not about to change in the mid-season rankings) and there are not enough infielders in the whole system (other than the top 2 spots).

Clete Thomas is hitting .267/.313/.467 and Rene Tosoni .177/.282/.210 after his 5 for 5 day Thomas is 28. The following in Rochester are 28 and older, in addition to Thomas (and the first 2 over 30) : Sean Burroughs, Matt Carson, Ray Chang, Sam Deduno, Brian Dinkelman, Casey Fien, Mike Hollimon, Matt Maloney, Rene Rivera, Anthony Slama, J.R. Towles and Esmerling Vasquez. If you think that Thomas is too old for AAA, then all of these are too. And Thomas is not Toby. He has a .780 OPS at this point, which Tosoni has yet to approach in AAA. Last season Tosoni's AAA OPS was .626 . He should have not been in the majors but unfortunately he was. That visit in the majors does not make him (or Benson) MLB-ready or even close to being ready. He is 25. That would make him younger that 8-10 of his new teammates in New Britain. It is where he belongs.

Wilken Ramirez, Matt Carson and Clete Thomas are ahead of him right now (not to mention Dinkelman who is still in the DL and Mastroianni.) So AA is about right for Tosoni to be fair to all... The Twins acquired 3 new OFs the last 3 months (Mastroianni, Thomas and Komatsu) so (add Ramirez and Carson as FA earlier) it was obvious that some of the existing ones would drop in the depth chart. At least Tosoni did not drop as far as Dustin Martin did... This is an organization in flux and we will see a lot of interesting things happening this summer I suspect.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- With the Twins having a severe need for pitching in the organization as well as six picks among the top 100, it is certain that more than one ofthose picks (and probably the second overall pick) will be used to draft a pitcher. To this respect, I am presenting profiles of the top 22 pitching prospects for the 2012 MLB draft. I will be presenting these alphabetically, and at the end I will rank them. I will be doing about one a day and I will finish before the June4th draft day. You can find all the profiles (in reverse alphabetical order) as they are presented here. I will start with RJ Alvarez and end with Kyle Zimmer. Each profile with contain a bit of background information and statistics, a mini scouting report and videos and photos. Profile 13: Lance McCullers Profile/Stats: Lance McCullers Jr. is a senior at Jesuit High School in Tampla, FL. Hethrows right handed and is listed at 6'3" and 200. He is the son of former MLB relief pitcher Lance McCullers who has a 28-31 record with 3.25 ERA, 252 bases on balls and 442 strike outs in 526.1 innings pitched in seven MLB seasons with the Padres, Yankees, Tigers and Rangers from 1985 to 1992. Lance McCullers Jr is also a shortstop but will be drafted as a pitcher. This season he pitched 77.1 innings, allowed 30 bases on balls and had 140 strikeouts. His ERA is 0.18 and his opponents hit .106 off him. Here is an interview of McCullers with Scout.com, and here is an older article from his hometown newspaper. He is committed to attend the University of Florida. Mini Scouting Report: McCullers is throwing a four seam and a two seam fastball, a slow and hard breaking ball and is working on a changeup. His Fastball is a plus pitch. It averages 94-95 and sporadically hits up to 97-98 mph and has decent movement. It projects as a plus plus pitch. His slow curve is a weak pitch and will probably be scrapped for his slider that can be a plus pitch. It sits at 85-86 mph and has a hard sharp two-plane break. His changeup is a work in progress. His delivery is inconsistent with varying arm slot and needs work. Because of that, his command and control are lacking. It will be corrected in professional baseball with a pro coach. Videos/Photos: Due to the difficulties in embedding videos here, please go to the original post to see 4 videos of Lance McCullers pitching http://www.perfectgame.org/images/profilepics/11NATR27.jpg

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- With the Twins having a severe need for pitching in the organization as well as six picks among the top 100, it is certain that more than one ofthose picks (and probably the second overall pick) will be used to draft a pitcher. To this respect, I am presenting profiles of the top 22 pitching prospects for the 2012 MLB draft. I will be presenting these alphabetically, and at the end I will rank them. I will be doing about one a day and I will finish before the June4th draft day. You can find all the profiles (in reverse alphabetical order) as they are presented here. I will start with RJ Alvarez and end with Kyle Zimmer. Each profile with contain a bit of background information and statistics, a mini scouting report and videos and photos. Profile 13: Lance McCullers Profile/Stats: Lance McCullers Jr. is a senior at Jesuit High School in Tampla, FL. Hethrows right handed and is listed at 6'3" and 200. He is the son of former MLB relief pitcher Lance McCullers who has a 28-31 record with 3.25 ERA, 252 bases on balls and 442 strike outs in 526.1 innings pitched in seven MLB seasons with the Padres, Yankees, Tigers and Rangers from 1985 to 1992. Lance McCullers Jr is also a shortstop but will be drafted as a pitcher. This season he pitched 77.1 innings, allowed 30 bases on balls and had 140 strikeouts. His ERA is 0.18 and his opponents hit .106 off him. Here is an interview of McCullers with Scout.com, and here is an older article from his hometown newspaper. He is committed to attend the University of Florida. Mini Scouting Report: McCullers is throwing a four seam and a two seam fastball, a slow and hard breaking ball and is working on a changeup. His Fastball is a plus pitch. It averages 94-95 and sporadically hits up to 97-98 mph and has decent movement. It projects as a plus plus pitch. His slow curve is a weak pitch and will probably be scrapped for his slider that can be a plus pitch. It sits at 85-86 mph and has a hard sharp two-plane break. His changeup is a work in progress. His delivery is inconsistent with varying arm slot and needs work. Because of that, his command and control are lacking. It will be corrected in professional baseball with a pro coach. Videos/Photos: Due to the difficulties in embedding videos here, please go to the original post to see 4 videos of Lance McCullers pitching http://www.perfectgame.org/images/profilepics/11NATR27.jpg

Finally... An article out there that ranks Giolito higher than Appel

Well.. From the qualified, Deibi Romero is leading the squad with .744 OPS (and Hicks, who is slumping, is pretty close.) Risotto and W. Ramirez have higher but they do not qualify. New Britain is one of the teams that I would not complain about. They are leading their division

Cole's numbers are (and were when they got promoted) better than both Diamond's and Walter's. He deserved to be up there before any of them: DeVries: 1.157 WHIP, 7.1 K/9 and 5.29 K/BB Diamond: 1.212 WHIP, 6.8 K/9 and 3.71 K/BB Walters: 1.170 WHIP, 6.8 K/9 and 4.17 K/BB

Always good to see someone make it to the bigs. He deserved it. And, heck, if Jamie Moyer can have sucess, Cole DeVries can (and he is tossing 10mph faster than Moyer)

Hard to arque with these lists, esp. at this point and not knowing who was left out . Hope that a certain catcher playing for Beloit and a certain P from Baton Rouge made it before Hung-Yi Chen. Not that I can argue about their placement, but it is sad to see Gutty and Watts drop so low...

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- Here is this week's installment: Still continuing the presentation of the top 22 arms for the 2012 MLB draft. You can find them all here. For a couple years (2009 and 2010) I live-blogged the Twins' draft, providing profiles and information for each pick, and it looks like I might resume doing it this season again. More information on the MLB draft coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch next week, as it is getting closer to the draft. No matter what, one has to find humor (and maybe hope, if one is sarcastic enough) in Drew Butera's pitching appearance last Sunday at Milwaukee. He was not half way bad, either. As a matter of fact, his fastball was the fastest of any other Twins' pitcher that day not named Brian. Looks like the Twins want to give Carl Pavano an extra day of rest so they are looking for a spot starter this coming Thursday versus the White Sox at Chicago. I suspect that Anthony Swarzak will be it. Still the Twins need to figure out who Marquis' replacement might be (if you did not hear, he was Designated For Assignment) so this might muddy the waters Congratulations to Tsuyoki Nishioka for hitting his first Professional Home Run in the US last Saturday with the Rochester Red Wings. Here is a first year Twins' player (ok, second, if you count 12 games with Elizabethton after he signed last season) who is not a household name, but has the potential to break the top ten Twins' prospect lists one of these years: 23 year old C Matthew Koch who is hitting .265/.412/.471 in Beloit. This is higher OPS than Eddie Rosario and second only to Miguel Sano (who, btw, leads the Twins' organization with 11 home runs) in that team Speaking of HRs, Justin Morneau is 10 away from career 200 and Josh Willingham 10 away from career 150 HRs Alexi Casilla led the Twins in pretty much any defensive metric, but the manager of the millennium benched him in favor of a 38 year old and a bad fielding, cold hitting Plouffe. Hopefully, this latest accident does not sideline a well-performing Twins' pitcher A couple of Rochester Red Wings players (Anthony Slama and Mike Hollimon) and a whole bunch of Rochester executives (including a woman - don't ask) are growing mustaches for charity. Former Twins' First Baseman Aaron Bates has signed a contract with the Cardinals' organization If you are wondering why the Twins want out of Beloit, these disgraceful numbers might help you understand. The Red Wings are towards the bottom of the International League(but thankfully better than the venue-sharing Yankees) as far as attendance goes, and both the the Rock Cats and Miracle are middle high in their leagues. The aluminum bat "boink" sound will not escape Target Field. It will host the 2013 Big Ten Baseball Tournament Allegedly, a former Twins' player is cruising the NYC subway in his pajamas and harrasing young women. Not sure that I am buying the story (he lives in TX.) but who knows? The Twins' product of the week is perfect for the warm and humid nights at the ballpark:Nike Minnesota Twins Perfect Game Dri-FIT T Shirthttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B004VRR3E4 The parting shot today is in honor of Brian Dozier and all the buzz he generated in his rookie season as a Twin. He is not the only Dozier in the organization. Buzz Dozier pitched for 2 games for the Washington Senators in 1947 and for 2 more in 1949. He was born in Waco, TX on August 31, 1928, played in the Senators' organization (from Charlotte Hornets to Chattanooga Lookouts to Augusta Tigers) until 1950 and had a year with 3 Independent League Teams in 1951 (Port Arthur Seahaws, Sherman-Denison Twins and Texarcana Bears.) Afterwards he went to school at Baylor University in Waco TX, lived all his life in Waco, TX and died in Waco, TX on November 24, 2005 at age 77. Here is Buzz Dozier as an 18 year old rookie RHP for the Washington Senators: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7222304528_6187211d97.jpg And here is a bonus video of Ben Revere singing a popular song: [please go to the original post for the video, due to the difficulties in embedding videos here] As always you can find all the Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits Posts here, in reverse chronological order.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- Here is this week's installment: Still continuing the presentation of the top 22 arms for the 2012 MLB draft. You can find them all here. For a couple years (2009 and 2010) I live-blogged the Twins' draft, providing profiles and information for each pick, and it looks like I might resume doing it this season again. More information on the MLB draft coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch next week, as it is getting closer to the draft. No matter what, one has to find humor (and maybe hope, if one is sarcastic enough) in Drew Butera's pitching appearance last Sunday at Milwaukee. He was not half way bad, either. As a matter of fact, his fastball was the fastest of any other Twins' pitcher that day not named Brian. Looks like the Twins want to give Carl Pavano an extra day of rest so they are looking for a spot starter this coming Thursday versus the White Sox at Chicago. I suspect that Anthony Swarzak will be it. Still the Twins need to figure out who Marquis' replacement might be (if you did not hear, he was Designated For Assignment) so this might muddy the waters Congratulations to Tsuyoki Nishioka for hitting his first Professional Home Run in the US last Saturday with the Rochester Red Wings. Here is a first year Twins' player (ok, second, if you count 12 games with Elizabethton after he signed last season) who is not a household name, but has the potential to break the top ten Twins' prospect lists one of these years: 23 year old C Matthew Koch who is hitting .265/.412/.471 in Beloit. This is higher OPS than Eddie Rosario and second only to Miguel Sano (who, btw, leads the Twins' organization with 11 home runs) in that team Speaking of HRs, Justin Morneau is 10 away from career 200 and Josh Willingham 10 away from career 150 HRs Alexi Casilla led the Twins in pretty much any defensive metric, but the manager of the millennium benched him in favor of a 38 year old and a bad fielding, cold hitting Plouffe. Hopefully, this latest accident does not sideline a well-performing Twins' pitcher A couple of Rochester Red Wings players (Anthony Slama and Mike Hollimon) and a whole bunch of Rochester executives (including a woman - don't ask) are growing mustaches for charity. Former Twins' First Baseman Aaron Bates has signed a contract with the Cardinals' organization If you are wondering why the Twins want out of Beloit, these disgraceful numbers might help you understand. The Red Wings are towards the bottom of the International League(but thankfully better than the venue-sharing Yankees) as far as attendance goes, and both the the Rock Cats and Miracle are middle high in their leagues. The aluminum bat "boink" sound will not escape Target Field. It will host the 2013 Big Ten Baseball Tournament Allegedly, a former Twins' player is cruising the NYC subway in his pajamas and harrasing young women. Not sure that I am buying the story (he lives in TX.) but who knows? The Twins' product of the week is perfect for the warm and humid nights at the ballpark:Nike Minnesota Twins Perfect Game Dri-FIT T Shirthttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B004VRR3E4 The parting shot today is in honor of Brian Dozier and all the buzz he generated in his rookie season as a Twin. He is not the only Dozier in the organization. Buzz Dozier pitched for 2 games for the Washington Senators in 1947 and for 2 more in 1949. He was born in Waco, TX on August 31, 1928, played in the Senators' organization (from Charlotte Hornets to Chattanooga Lookouts to Augusta Tigers) until 1950 and had a year with 3 Independent League Teams in 1951 (Port Arthur Seahaws, Sherman-Denison Twins and Texarcana Bears.) Afterwards he went to school at Baylor University in Waco TX, lived all his life in Waco, TX and died in Waco, TX on November 24, 2005 at age 77. Here is Buzz Dozier as an 18 year old rookie RHP for the Washington Senators: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7100/7222304528_6187211d97.jpg And here is a bonus video of Ben Revere singing a popular song: [please go to the original post for the video, due to the difficulties in embedding videos here] As always you can find all the Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits Posts here, in reverse chronological order.

I think that the Twins right now are in a position that they should be trying to get rid of (trade) veterans, rather than adding them... Let's see what they got in their system before they make some big decisions for rebuilding next off-season

They got 12 Ps now. When Blackburn was DL'd Revere came up

This from LaVelle's just published blog: So looks like they are bringing a starter up (unless that is LaVelle's opinion) and if that is the case, I hope it is DeVries. Hendriks needs some time in AAA to build his confidence up.

Rochester is fine At this point they got: Hendriks, French, DeVries, Manship, D. Thompson starting and are stretching Malloney to start. If anything that's too much

Funny thing is that he was drafted by the Twins in 2003 out of High School and did not sign and then signed with the Indians 3 years ago out of the U of M and not much higher (21st vs 25th rounds) Who knows? Ryan drafted him... But the Twins have better LHRs in the organization right now... Bet some locals would have a good scouting report from his U of M years

I think that for the short and long term this makes the most sense: - They need to get Liriano going so they can get some value for him - Would be great for Hendriks and Guerra to get some success in AAA before they join the team in September and in 2013 - Slama is way overdue to be in the bigs Cole DeVries is a good story and he will probably be up soon also replacing the next SP who needs replacing (Blackburn? Walters?)

Not sure that the fans can stomach Mauer learning a position in the Majors. That is something they should do over the winter and during Spring Training. There are enough boos already and the expectations for Mauer are different that for others. Not the same as having someone else learn another position in the majors. About Revere: SSS or not, a. Revere's numbers are better than Span's at this point, and b. Span's numbers are dead in the middle as far as AL leadoff hitters go, plus his defense the last couple of weeks has been spotty. So the Twins will benefit from trading Span sooner than later (before the perception that he is such a great leadoff hitter and great with the glove wears off) and give Revere at least the rest of the season out there to show what he can do. And before that, if Revere and Span are both on the field, Revere should be at CF and Span at RF. He just can get to more balls than Span.