Thrylos

Originally Published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- Here is this week's installment: While Brian Duensing is stretched out to be a starter, I think that the Twins should fill at least one or maybe two rotation spots on an "internship"-like way: Promote a new pitcher from the minors every week to make a start. That might work pretty well, based on the recent first starts by Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters. One of the things I am doing these days and will finish before the draft, is to publish profiles of the top 22 pitchers available in the draft (given that the Twins will likely select pitching early and often.) I am doing this is alphabetical order, and you can find them all here in reverse alphabetical order, so check often. I am planning on doing those daily for the rest of May. On a sad note, Aaron Bates was released from Rochester (along with Joe Thurston) to make room for Lester Oliveros and Wilken Ramirez who were promoted to Rochester from New Britain. Aaron was one of the last Twins' cuts this Spring Training and I always thought that he could be up with the Twins this season some time. Apparently the Twins cannot spell their own player's names even in the official lineup cards... It sounds like Ben Revere is growing. Kyle Gibson's rehab is going according the schedule On the other hand, here is another first hand testimony on the Twins' medical staff. Here is a great article about Miguel Sano by Jesse Temple of FSNorth. A Really interesting article about Twins' prospect AJ Pettersen is here. (Also form FSNorth) And here is a really great article about Brian Dozier and his early years in baseball. (From the St. Paul Newspaper) Alex Wimmers got a second opinion on his elbow and rest and rehab is the prescription. 23 year old Gopher Senior RP Dustin Klabunde has been opening some eyes and might be drafted in the later rounds next month. Apparently, the Rochester Yankees Red Wings are toopoor to add nameplates on Pedro Florimon's, Clete Thomas' and Danny Valencia's jerseys as witnessed in the MLB Network nationally televised game of the Red Wings in Syracuse. Very embarrassing. Little League. Speaking of Rochester, the local Democrat & Chronicle Red Wings' Yankees' beat writer, decided to take a break from covering the Yankees on his blog and wrote this inflammatory nonsense, practically threatening the Twins, if they take the best players from Rochester to help their club. Alright... Memo to Rochester: Affiliated minor league clubs exist to serve the major league club they are affiliated with. If you do not like it, the independent leagues are just around the block. See if that fits you all better. The Twins' product of the week is the Minnesota Twins Blade Sunglasseshttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B005HOJY2E The parting shot today is of Ryan Doumit, who has turned it up big time the last week or so: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8144/7197842978_525374dce5_z.jpg 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: While Brian Duensing is stretched out to be a starter, I think that the Twins should fill at least one or maybe two rotation spots on an "internship"-like way: Promote a new pitcher from the minors every week to make a start. That might work pretty well, based on the recent first starts by Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters. One of the things I am doing these days and will finish before the draft, is to publish profiles of the top 22 pitchers available in the draft (given that the Twins will likely select pitching early and often.) I am doing this is alphabetical order, and you can find them all here in reverse alphabetical order, so check often. I am planning on doing those daily for the rest of May. On a sad note, Aaron Bates was released from Rochester (along with Joe Thurston) to make room for Lester Oliveros and Wilken Ramirez who were promoted to Rochester from New Britain. Aaron was one of the last Twins' cuts this Spring Training and I always thought that he could be up with the Twins this season some time. Apparently the Twins cannot spell their own player's names even in the official lineup cards... It sounds like Ben Revere is growing. Kyle Gibson's rehab is going according the schedule On the other hand, here is another first hand testimony on the Twins' medical staff. Here is a great article about Miguel Sano by Jesse Temple of FSNorth. A Really interesting article about Twins' prospect AJ Pettersen is here. (Also form FSNorth) And here is a really great article about Brian Dozier and his early years in baseball. (From the St. Paul Newspaper) Alex Wimmers got a second opinion on his elbow and rest and rehab is the prescription. 23 year old Gopher Senior RP Dustin Klabunde has been opening some eyes and might be drafted in the later rounds next month. Apparently, the Rochester Yankees Red Wings are toopoor to add nameplates on Pedro Florimon's, Clete Thomas' and Danny Valencia's jerseys as witnessed in the MLB Network nationally televised game of the Red Wings in Syracuse. Very embarrassing. Little League. Speaking of Rochester, the local Democrat & Chronicle Red Wings' Yankees' beat writer, decided to take a break from covering the Yankees on his blog and wrote this inflammatory nonsense, practically threatening the Twins, if they take the best players from Rochester to help their club. Alright... Memo to Rochester: Affiliated minor league clubs exist to serve the major league club they are affiliated with. If you do not like it, the independent leagues are just around the block. See if that fits you all better. The Twins' product of the week is the Minnesota Twins Blade Sunglasseshttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=biowriters&l=as2&o=1&a=B005HOJY2E The parting shot today is of Ryan Doumit, who has turned it up big time the last week or so: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8144/7197842978_525374dce5_z.jpg As always you can find all the Random Tuesday Twins Thoughts and Tidbits Posts here, in reverse chronological order.

I think that Ricky Bowen or Matt Hauser are way overdue (and old enough) to be in AA right now...

Not at #2, but I am sure that since the Twins have 6 of the top 100 picks, they might draft him... He is probably a supplemental round/second round pick

Mauer leads all MLB catchers in OBP and is pretty close in OPS. Give him some time and he could be there. Yes. Willingham is the Twins' best player and the AL's second best OF as far as OPS goes (behind Hamilton) he belongs there. As far as pitching goes, it is way too early, and the sample is way too small, but Scott Diamond leads the AL in FIP. Give him 3-4 more games like those and there is no way they do not bring him there.

That Sean Burroughs' picture is almost as bad as the Prince Fielder McDonalds commercial with the daddy. Thing is Sean does not look like that any more, whereas Prince looks worse that he did.

Florimon is not on the 40 man roster, but DFAing Gray (or even taking Nishioka off for that matter - it will be a blessing if someone claims him) will open a spot

Since when a 17-year old is an adult?

Burroughs has been playing 1B since Valencia was demoted. We'll see. There are a lot of things in flux right now

Yeah that was a huge dissapointment. Ultimately, the Twins' choice was 31 year old Burroughs over 28 year old Bates. Since Valencia went down Burroughs has been a first baseman exclusively.

A: Small Sample Size: The Mauer Contract compares favorable to The Fielder Contract and The Pujols Contract at this point. B: Big Picture: The Twins were between a rock and a hard place with this one and they had to do it. They ones who are screaming about Mauer's contract now would be the ones who would be screaming for the Pohlad's head if they did not sign him. And if they did not sign him, the backlash would be so bad that there would be no Target Field. Big picture is sometimes more interesting than small sample size. For one, I am sick and tired about all that whinning about Mauer's contract, something that was done years ago. Can't change it, move on, and try to discuss things that the Twins can change to improve the team

That is sad news and if the kid is guilty he should pay his dues, but has to be noted that Hunter's son is also a minor and his name should have not been released.

I know. I really liked Bates and he has been pretty popular in Rochester as well. He has not hit with much power this season but OBP was like .380 The only thing I can think is that Parmalee will go down soon and they needed space. On the other hand they still got Rissotti on the team who is an immovable object and has no bussiness in AAA.

Ramirez just got promoted to AAA

...tomorrow for Rochester Interesting moves. I did not expect Bates' release, I suspect next will be Parmelee in AAA.

re: Sano. He does not project as a third baseman. More like a first baseman or an OF. I can see the Twins getting him in the MLB as a first baseman around 2014 (when Morneau's contract expires) depending on how he progresses in AA/AAA in 2013. Hopefully he will be promoted to Fort Myers soon and will start 2013 in AA.

I suspect that Brian Butcher would be elated to be mentioned in the same breath as Johan Santana as far as contribution to the Twins goes. The Rule 4 draft is the amateur draft that is happening next month.

He should be hitting well in AA. I really do not understand why he was there to begin with. He has a career .270/.349/.459 line in the majors in 43 PA. He is much readier than Thomas/Komatsu/Revere/Tosoni and company... so AA made no sense at all, other than the bottleneck in AAA.

Telly Hughes is in Milwaukee. On the other hand, I'd rather see Marney Gellner than Robbie I. any day of the week.

That's an interesting spreadsheet. I am not going to talk about Ramos, but if you look at it both Jose Morales and Rene Rivera are rated higher than Butera. And Morales could hit.

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 of those picks (and probably the second overall pick) will be used to draft a pitcher. To this respect, I am presenting profiles of the top 22pitching 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 June 4th 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 5: Ryan Burr Profile/Stats: Ryan Burr is a senior at Highlands Ranch High School in Highlands Ranch, CO. He is listed at 6'4" and 190 lbs. He was born on May 28th 1994. He throws right handed. He is a Perfect Game All-American. This season he started in 6 games, pitched 32 innings, had a 3.29 ERA, struck out 55 and walked 17 while holding opponents to a .195 average. He also hit5 batters and threw 2 wild pitches. He committed to play for Arizona State University. Mini Scouting Report: He has a plus fastball that sits at 92-93 with good movement. He had good control and command of it and occasionally jumps at 94-95. He has a sharp curveball, which is average and a change up which is a developing pitch. His velocity is projected to increase as he fills up. His delivery mechanics are excellent and his delivery is effortless. Videos/Photos: Because of the difficulty in embedding videos here, please go to the original post to see 3 videos of Ryan Burr http://www.perfectgame.org/images/profilepics/11NATCB13.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 of those picks (and probably the second overall pick) will be used to draft a pitcher. To this respect, I am presenting profiles of the top 22pitching 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 June 4th 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 5: Ryan Burr Profile/Stats: Ryan Burr is a senior at Highlands Ranch High School in Highlands Ranch, CO. He is listed at 6'4" and 190 lbs. He was born on May 28th 1994. He throws right handed. He is a Perfect Game All-American. This season he started in 6 games, pitched 32 innings, had a 3.29 ERA, struck out 55 and walked 17 while holding opponents to a .195 average. He also hit5 batters and threw 2 wild pitches. He committed to play for Arizona State University. Mini Scouting Report: He has a plus fastball that sits at 92-93 with good movement. He had good control and command of it and occasionally jumps at 94-95. He has a sharp curveball, which is average and a change up which is a developing pitch. His velocity is projected to increase as he fills up. His delivery mechanics are excellent and his delivery is effortless. Videos/Photos: Because of the difficulty in embedding videos here, please go to the original post to see 3 videos of Ryan Burr http://www.perfectgame.org/images/profilepics/11NATCB13.jpg

As far as Butera's hitting "improvement" it is all related to the Sample Size (12 PAs). And speaking of, he still has a .558 OPS; not ground shaking. On the other hand, I just hope some team is interested enough in him to be a thrown-in in an upcoming trade.

The problem with this hypothetical situation is that when a kid goes to college he has other things (like study) instead of focusing on baseball as a professional 24x7. So the kids who were drafted as high schoolers better be more advanced at the same age than kids who were just drafted from college, because they had much more practice playing plus 2-3 ST camps... Cannot compare

They will either option one of the 2 pitchers with options (Burnett, Diamond) - if Diamond, the 5th starter spot goes to Duensing who is being stretched as a starter - or they will cut someone like Gray