Thrylos

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- Tonight will be the premiere in the big leagues of Twins' infielder Brian Dozier. Dozier was the Twins' 8th round draft pick in 2009 out of the University of Southern Mississippi. He signed right away so he had time to play pro ball in 2009. He quickly moved through the Twins' system, playing for both rookie level teams in 2009, both A-level teams in 2010, starting in Fort Myers in 2011 and ending up in New Britain and then in the Arizona Fall league. He was invited in the Spring Training as a non-roster invitee this year (where he was one of the last Twins' cuts) and started the season in Rochester. He was added to the 40-man roster today. Even though he has not hit well in Rochester so far (.276/.339/.371, 199 PA) the Twins are encouraged by his 2011 New Britain (.318/.384/.502 7 HR, 22 2B, 7 3B, 351 PA) and Arizona Fall League (.296/.358/.454. 3 HR, 8 2B, 120 PA) numbers to call him up early this season. It is worth mentioning that with the Fall League, Brian Dozier has a full season in 2011, playing in 153 games and having 689 plate appearances. He will likely replace Jamey Carroll (who will assume a utility role filling in at all infield positions but at 1B) as the starting shortstop. He was batting at the number 2 spot in Rochester most of this season, so he might replace Carroll there also. However it is more likely that Joe Mauer will be at the number 2 spot and Dozier will slide lower in the line up. The 25 year old Brian Dozier will team up with the 27 year old Alexi Casilla as the Twins' double play combination. Hopefully Twins' fans will look at scenes like this often this season and for many seasons to come: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7274/7004048816_51608032b4_z.jpg

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- Tonight will be the premiere in the big leagues of Twins' infielder Brian Dozier. Dozier was the Twins' 8th round draft pick in 2009 out of the University of Southern Mississippi. He signed right away so he had time to play pro ball in 2009. He quickly moved through the Twins' system, playing for both rookie level teams in 2009, both A-level teams in 2010, starting in Fort Myers in 2011 and ending up in New Britain and then in the Arizona Fall league. He was invited in the Spring Training as a non-roster invitee this year (where he was one of the last Twins' cuts) and started the season in Rochester. He was added to the 40-man roster today. Even though he has not hit well in Rochester so far (.276/.339/.371, 199 PA) the Twins are encouraged by his 2011 New Britain (.318/.384/.502 7 HR, 22 2B, 7 3B, 351 PA) and Arizona Fall League (.296/.358/.454. 3 HR, 8 2B, 120 PA) numbers to call him up early this season. It is worth mentioning that with the Fall League, Brian Dozier has a full season in 2011, playing in 153 games and having 689 plate appearances. He will likely replace Jamey Carroll (who will assume a utility role filling in at all infield positions but at 1B) as the starting shortstop. He was batting at the number 2 spot in Rochester most of this season, so he might replace Carroll there also. However it is more likely that Joe Mauer will be at the number 2 spot and Dozier will slide lower in the line up. The 25 year old Brian Dozier will team up with the 27 year old Alexi Casilla as the Twins' double play combination. Hopefully Twins' fans will look at scenes like this often this season and for many seasons to come: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7274/7004048816_51608032b4_z.jpg

Could be nothing, because Beloit has a full roster, but could be something: Josh Burris tweeted late last night that he is on his way to Beloit for Baseball. We shall see. Could be where he is heading after the draft when the rookie leagues start.

Dirty little secret: Any MLB team could have picked Slama in the rule 5 draft the last 2 years for nothing. It did not happen. (this does not mean that I do not think that he is better than a few pen people in the Twins right now)

Ok. Here are my expectations for this season in one line: - he will put at least the same numbers that Jamey Carroll would have put both on offense and defense. Also I think that he will better the career slash line of the single short stop in the Twins Hall of Fame (.254/.302/.382 - yes Gagne was THAT bad). And I think that Gagne is about the floor as far as I see it for Dozier.

Anthony is up to 15 point something K/9. He does not pitch to contact. The Twins' brain trust does not like that. Methinks (also) that they are ignorant and child like. And they need to go because the hurt the team. So, to see Slama up in the majors (with the Twins) again, Gardy, Andy, Terry and Rantzy probably need to go...

Both the Rays and the Rangers have something very similar: It is called a SP pipeline in the minors. The Twins should try to mimic this and the way to do it, is grab people in assistant roles from those front offices and promote them to Farm Director, GM and assistant GM positions for the Twins...

How about Hicks or Morales or Arcia? I suspect that the will too And it does not have to be one for one. Could be Span + Pavano + Hicks (lets say) for 2 top level SP prospects. Add something else to balance it if you have to.

The Twins cannot win with a rotation like this. And they cannot have a decent rotation, unless they start trading. So Span, Pavano, Marquis, Carroll, Doumit, etc etc should be traded for pitchers with upside. As should be some of the MiLB OF prospect depth. If they get a couple good young pitchers in trades and sign one in free agency, then they will be competitive in 2013.

I'd probably say that this organization had that problem since Andy McPhail left, excluding Minnesota-born stars who wanted to finish their careers at home. Arguably they brought 4-5 decent players from the outside of the organization since 1994, among the 40-50 failures...

0.75 K/BB, 1.412 WHIP associated with .176 BABIP and under 5 K/9, a 33.3% HR/FB is asking for trouble... ERA is fairly worthless esp. for relief pitchers. Gray inherited 11 runners 4 of them scored and those runs are not reflected in his ERA. His FIP is 6.58 btw, leading the Twins releivers. Not "hate", he is just the worse reliever in the team right now...[TABLE=class: sortable stats_table] [TD=align: right][/TD] [TD=align: right][/TD] [/TABLE]

Maybe... Other than the fact that Lexi has been the best Twins' IF based on a couple different measures and his bat has been better than Carroll's. I can see a rotation of sorts, but I'd rather see Dozier at SS, Lexi at 2B 2/3 days with Carroll filling in on one or the other spot, or at third the third day. He is 38. No future with the Twins, let's play the ones who do have a future.

Yeah that's what I hear too. Still 13 Ps

Details to follow

There was an article some place earlier this season saying that about 50% of SPs at some point will have UCL tears and will have to have TJ surgery. So it is not the Twins' plague only This amazes me on 2 counts: a. Back in the "old days" (and I am thinking 80s and 90s) not too many people had TJ surgeries (even though starters threw more Ps per year) b. Back in the old days people used to get cortizone injections left and right and were able to perform after a day or too. I haven't heard of any Twins having a Cortizone injection lately... I think the last one was either Crede or Hardy

Willingham is better than Cudduyer. Big time. Might not be the equal of him with the mouth and the quotes but I bet that he would not mind sliding into the catcher hard and score in game 163, unlike magic man, when that made the difference. Good riddance.

Mike Who? He is a Rockie. Who cares? Johan has some pretty great games with the Mets and Garrett Jones has at least one GS with the Pirates. Turn the page

Second first round pick pitcher with it. They call it "partial" (last time they used that term was with Neshek) No news about surgery or not

Batting averages mean nothing by themselves. Parmelee should probably be in Rochester and replaced by Bates. Other than that, the team has nobody who can play third base and hit better than Valencia in the majors right now. Carroll and Doumit will turn it around. Morneau is going on the DL.

Regardless who gets called up, there is something to be said for this team, for yet another time, waiting to put a player in the DL and just end up playing short handed, esp. during a time in which they are short handed because they have 13 pitchers. Last season when that stuff was happening, it was attributed to Bill Smith. Ryan needs to get some heat for it this season... Chang does make sense and it would be good to see him up. My vote was for Aaron Bates because he deserves it and he will be replacing a 1B/DH.

Toronto claimed him this off-season when the Twins tried to pass him throw waivers

I think that Hendriks will eventually be in AAA where he needs to be, but I think that Swarzak has pitched better than Diamond (and Cole DeVries too) this season. And (hate to say this and I hope he proves me wrong) Diamond will not do much better in the bigs this season than he did last season.

So basically the question that Gardy/Stevie had was Plouffe vs. Butera. Plouffe has .857 OPS vs Vargas and Buterror .283 (OPS not OBP or SLG). Both with 7 PAs. Well done! Someone should just DFA the guy, otherwise there is no way he does not play. Also thought that Morney was available... Why not C Mauer and DH Morney. Tomorrow Komatchu will be around...

Hitless with one HBP in 12 PAs

Not many relievers he can send down. Just one. Alex Burnett and he has been pretty productive. The other ones are out of options