Thrylos

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- Because a lot of write-ups and reports from the beat writers about the Twins' Spring Training performance are mentioning how someone is "hitting", using only their batting averages (70s anyone?), I felt that it might be a good idea to rank all the Twins' hitters based on Spring Training OPS (which is a tad more meaningful.) Players denoted with "MILB" have been assigned to the Twins Minor League Camp. Clearly some players are having great performances, while other are struggling. We all know who there are. Also, in this ranking, a couple of cuts seem very curiously premature. Here is the list: Hollimon 1.246 Parmelee 1.011 Valencia .923 Benson .884 Chang .883 (MILB) Bates .879 (MILB) Rivera .871 Hughes .867 Casilla .816 Span .783 Revere .778 Dozier .761 Mauer .746 Doumit .733 Dinkelman .714 Burroughs .713 Willingham .710 Towles .705 Plouffe .654 Butera .636 Nishioka .589 (MILB) Florimon .508 Ramirez .481 (MILB) Carroll .477 Carson .448 (MILB) Mastroianni .445 (MILB) Rohlfing .400 (MILB) Herrman .333 (MILB) Pierce .310 (MILB) Tosoni .289 (MILB) Lehmann .286 (MILB) Morneau .258 Arcia .222 (MILB) Rams .000 (MILB)

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- Because a lot of write-ups and reports from the beat writers about the Twins' Spring Training performance are mentioning how someone is "hitting", using only their batting averages (70s anyone?), I felt that it might be a good idea to rank all the Twins' hitters based on Spring Training OPS (which is a tad more meaningful.) Players denoted with "MILB" have been assigned to the Twins Minor League Camp. Clearly some players are having great performances, while other are struggling. We all know who there are. Also, in this ranking, a couple of cuts seem very curiously premature. Here is the list: Hollimon 1.246 Parmelee 1.011 Valencia .923 Benson .884 Chang .883 (MILB) Bates .879 (MILB) Rivera .871 Hughes .867 Casilla .816 Span .783 Revere .778 Dozier .761 Mauer .746 Doumit .733 Dinkelman .714 Burroughs .713 Willingham .710 Towles .705 Plouffe .654 Butera .636 Nishioka .589 (MILB) Florimon .508 Ramirez .481 (MILB) Carroll .477 Carson .448 (MILB) Mastroianni .445 (MILB) Rohlfing .400 (MILB) Herrman .333 (MILB) Pierce .310 (MILB) Tosoni .289 (MILB) Lehmann .286 (MILB) Morneau .258 Arcia .222 (MILB) Rams .000 (MILB)

Maloney lost about 25 lbs last off-season and is in the best shape of his life. Hollimon (who at some point put crazy good numbers in the minors for a middle infielder) is finally healthy after 2-3 years of nagging injuries.

I think that Mauer can DH when he is not catching and Morneau will be sitting that day. About that DL vs DH equation: I do get it, you want your best hitters up and if he is not 100% he should be in DL working out in FL. Here is the curveball though: If Morneau goes to the DL, almost certainly Butera gets called up as a 3rd Catcher (Parmalee 1B and Doumit DH.) Who would you rather have (or who would be more effective?) Morneau at 75% or Butera at 100%? For me the choice is pretty clear...

Congrats! Enjoy The City!

Originally posted at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- This is the latest update of the Twins' Bench Battle and the Bullpen Battle Dashboards, to track player performance to date this spring. Performances include those in the last game vs the Orioles earlier this afternoon. You can read the basic premise behind the Bench Battle Dashboard here and behind the Bullpen Battle Dashboard here. At this point, there are 11 position players fighting for 3 bench sports and 9 pitchers fighting for 3 bullpen spots. I will be updating them daily and post daily updates. Players who were assigned to the minor league camp today are indicated with "MILB" and are italized in the dashboards. Players cut earlier, were removed from the dashboards but kept in the rankings, denoted by "(MILB)". One thing I am doing differently from now on (Because if I kept the old way these would be very hard to read and very small) is to not denote performance on a particular day (and use DNP if someone did not play) but list them sequentially. An advantage of this way of listing is to see which players played more, which means that the Twins are interested enough to have many looks. As a bonus, because it is getting close to the season and the pitching staff has been somewhat of a concern, I am listing the performances of the pitchers who are "locks" to make the team, but do not include them in the rankings. Here is what the Bench Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7092/7006709419_f20aa2f645_c.jpg Here is what the Bullpen Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/6860595000_314d833d1a_o.jpg Here is the ranking of the position player combatants today (based on position) : Catchers: ----- Rene Rivera 2.0 J.R. Towles 0.76 Drew Butera 0.73 Daniel Rohlfing 0.67 (MILB) Danny Lehmann 0.28 (MILB) Chris Herrmann 0.1 (MILB) ---- Danny Rams -0.98 (MILB) Infielders: Chris Parmelee 3.4 Mike Hollimon 2.3 Luke Hughes 2.1 ---- Aaron Bates 1.3 (MILB) Ray Chang 1.1 (MILB) Brian Dozier 1.0 Sean Burroughs 0.85 Brian Dinkelman 0.76 Tsuyoshi Nishioka 0.84 (MILB) Pedro Florimon 0.46 ---- Steve Pearce -0.31 (MILB) Outfielders: Joe Benson 2.5 ---- Wilkin Ramirez 0.43 (MILB) Matt Carson 0.29 (MILB) ---- Darin Mastroianni -0.01 (MILB) Rene Tosoni -0.07 (MILB) Oswaldo Arcia -0.33 (MILB) Here is the ranking of pitcher combatants today: Matt Maloney 54.8 P.J. Walters 54.3 (MILB) Casey Fien 53.2 Liam Hendriks 53.2 Jeff Manship 52.5 Jared Burton 51.7 Carlos Gutierrez 51.3 (MILB) Luis Perdomo 51.3 (MILB) --- Esmerling Vasquez 51 (MILB) Daryl Thompson 50.8 (MILB) Kyle Waldrop 50.8 Lester Oliveros 50.3 (MILB) Samuel Deduno 50.2 (MILB) Aaron Thompson 50 (MILB) Tyler Robertson 49.7 (MILB) Jeff Gray 49.5 Scott Diamond 49 (MILB) --- Brendan Wise 47.6 Phil Dumatrait 46.2 (MILB) Alex Burnett 45.8 Deolis Guerra 42 (MILB) Jason Bulger 38.3 (MILB) Terry Doyle 31.3 (MiLB - returned to White Sox) As always you can find all Spring Training coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch here.

Originally posted at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- This is the latest update of the Twins' Bench Battle and the Bullpen Battle Dashboards, to track player performance to date this spring. Performances include those in the last game vs the Orioles earlier this afternoon. You can read the basic premise behind the Bench Battle Dashboard here and behind the Bullpen Battle Dashboard here. At this point, there are 11 position players fighting for 3 bench sports and 9 pitchers fighting for 3 bullpen spots. I will be updating them daily and post daily updates. Players who were assigned to the minor league camp today are indicated with "MILB" and are italized in the dashboards. Players cut earlier, were removed from the dashboards but kept in the rankings, denoted by "(MILB)". One thing I am doing differently from now on (Because if I kept the old way these would be very hard to read and very small) is to not denote performance on a particular day (and use DNP if someone did not play) but list them sequentially. An advantage of this way of listing is to see which players played more, which means that the Twins are interested enough to have many looks. As a bonus, because it is getting close to the season and the pitching staff has been somewhat of a concern, I am listing the performances of the pitchers who are "locks" to make the team, but do not include them in the rankings. Here is what the Bench Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7092/7006709419_f20aa2f645_c.jpg Here is what the Bullpen Battle Dashboard looks like today: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/6860595000_314d833d1a_o.jpg Here is the ranking of the position player combatants today (based on position) : Catchers: ----- Rene Rivera 2.0 J.R. Towles 0.76 Drew Butera 0.73 Daniel Rohlfing 0.67 (MILB) Danny Lehmann 0.28 (MILB) Chris Herrmann 0.1 (MILB) ---- Danny Rams -0.98 (MILB) Infielders: Chris Parmelee 3.4 Mike Hollimon 2.3 Luke Hughes 2.1 ---- Aaron Bates 1.3 (MILB) Ray Chang 1.1 (MILB) Brian Dozier 1.0 Sean Burroughs 0.85 Brian Dinkelman 0.76 Tsuyoshi Nishioka 0.84 (MILB) Pedro Florimon 0.46 ---- Steve Pearce -0.31 (MILB) Outfielders: Joe Benson 2.5 ---- Wilkin Ramirez 0.43 (MILB) Matt Carson 0.29 (MILB) ---- Darin Mastroianni -0.01 (MILB) Rene Tosoni -0.07 (MILB) Oswaldo Arcia -0.33 (MILB) Here is the ranking of pitcher combatants today: Matt Maloney 54.8 P.J. Walters 54.3 (MILB) Casey Fien 53.2 Liam Hendriks 53.2 Jeff Manship 52.5 Jared Burton 51.7 Carlos Gutierrez 51.3 (MILB) Luis Perdomo 51.3 (MILB) --- Esmerling Vasquez 51 (MILB) Daryl Thompson 50.8 (MILB) Kyle Waldrop 50.8 Lester Oliveros 50.3 (MILB) Samuel Deduno 50.2 (MILB) Aaron Thompson 50 (MILB) Tyler Robertson 49.7 (MILB) Jeff Gray 49.5 Scott Diamond 49 (MILB) --- Brendan Wise 47.6 Phil Dumatrait 46.2 (MILB) Alex Burnett 45.8 Deolis Guerra 42 (MILB) Jason Bulger 38.3 (MILB) Terry Doyle 31.3 (MiLB - returned to White Sox) As always you can find all Spring Training coverage at The Tenth Inning Stretch here.

Interesting piece. You can find it here. Also within this piece (towards the end) looks like Hollimon is getting a good look. The one think the will fallout from Mornaeu being a DH is that Doumit will be the backup C instead of the everyday DH and Parmelee will make the team instead of Butera. I can live with that last one.

So does Neshek to close it out for the Orioles.

Wise continues the performance of Twins' pitchers today with an one out HBP and a HR

The one who surprised me the most was Dan Osterbrock. He fit the mold of the Twins pitching. Throw strikes and keep the ball moving. I just don't get that; but I also did not get the Pedro Guerra release either. I guess the Aaron Thompson signing has directly affected Osterbrock... Good luck to all of them

It seems to me that it was a tad too late for that and sounds like the University knew his creepiness against his students and did not act upon first report. Methinks that if there is a lawsuit out there the University would also be liable....

The other thing that will be in play for next seasons' rankings (other the aforementioned) are potential trades that can bring back high rated prospects... Too early to look at the 2013 system before like February of 2013.

Chang actually appeared in one more official game that Burroughs and he was out a bit when he hit his head earlier in the camp.

If Benson is having a great season in Rochester and Span is healthy and having a good season with the Twins, the Twins need to sell high on Span.

"young" is relative. Here are the ages of the players you mentioned this season: Slama 28 Dinkelman 28 Hughes 27 ---- Dozier 25 Benson 24 Parmelee 24 Hendriks 23 Only 4 of them are younger than (Delmon) Young... Just to put things in perspective...

No. He has another option year remaining

I think that the pitching situation looks a bit clearer. The following are fighiting for 3 pen sports (and Hendriks might replace Baker). Asterisk denotes players on the 40-man roster. # denotes players out of options. Alex Burnett * Jared Burton Casey Fien Jeff Gray *# Liam Hendriks * Matt Maloney *# Jeff Manship * Kyle Waldrop * Brendan Wise With the 2 open spots already on the roster (and Nishoka's and Gray's also potentially open) I think that the team is in good shape at this point. I think Maloney will make the team, the rest being a toss-up with Burnett and Gray probably the least likely at this point

"Players like Luke Hughes, Alex Burnett, Drew Butera, and Jeff Manship have been in the league long enough to evaluate" Other than Butera, I beg to disagree. Hughes and Manship only spent parts of 2 seasons and been plagued with injuries and Burnett is 24 and really needs to develop yet. If a player is in his prime, then you can evaluate.

Indeed. And we are not going to know who of the alleged "half dozen" will be injured before the draft or who not in the alleged half dozen will have a killer performance (we are talking about kids who grew a year) and be on the radar. I just think that it is silly to project picks before they play their seasons this Spring. This question is about as silly as trying to project the 2013 NFL draft...

exactly what Parker said: Add up the salaries of those 2 squads

Agreed. On the other hand, this farm has several (duplicate and blocked) tradable commodities, if the Twins are competing in July. Frankly, I will not write them off yet, like the doomsayers are saying, especially with 3/4 of the competition losing their closers and the remaining competition losing Cabrera for at least some time.

Louis Perdomo maybe (the guy who looks like Span?) I saw Deduno on TV pitch against the Tigers in Lakeland this afternoon I swear

2 PAs and 2-3 IP. Extremely small sample sizes to make conclusions.

Interesting stuff... I'd probably put Harrison in the 1B/DH mix as well (maybe 3B also). Really hard to tell about the rotation though... Salcedo should probably be included as well and who knows who will come out of nowhere in 3 years...