Thrylos

Got to add: Andrew Albers, Scott Baker, Grant Balfour, Joe Beimel, Kevin Correia, Deolis Guerra, LaTroy Hawkins, Edgar Ibarra, Garrett Jones, Kyle Lohse, Jason Marquis, Peter Moylan, Steve Pearce, Yohan Pino, Alex Presley, Jason Pridie, Sergio Santos, Jordan Schafer, Tim Stauffer, Anthony Swarzak, Steve Tolleson to the list of former Twins who signed with another team after they left the Twins and are currently free agents... More (as MiLB FAs will be coming this week...)

Agreed. Speaking of old school, here are the K% leaders of the 1987 Twins: Billy Beane 40.0 % Tim Laudner 25.2 % Don Baylor 20.7 % Tom Nieto 19.8 % Greg Gagne 17.5 % Tom Brunansky 16.9 % Mark Davidson 15.4 % Roy Smalley 14.9 % Dan Gladden 14.9 % Not sure what Mark Davidson has been doing (Gags was coaching High School for a while), but looks like high K% back then would get you at least a coaching or a manager position these days, potentially a GM (if you suck enough) but certainly a broadcaster job (*from the department or irrelevant statistics)

Gardy would look really good being the head coach in a semi-competitive college, where he can bring his buddies, Andy and Scotty as pitching and hitting coaches and having a couple cold ones during the game. That's the kind of country club environment the Twins provided for him. He'd enjoy it and the college would enjoy having him and his buddies. Retirement stuff in other words. For the last 10 years plus, I have been scrutinizing his skill set as a manager. What does he bring to the table? I cannot find anything. Competitiveness? Please. Communication with players? Please (Lohse, Garza, Gomez etc.) Building a climate of merit where the best play? Please. I just cannot find anything that he brings to the table. What is his skillset that differentiates him? All I can see all those years was one thing: Entitlement. Not many places are going to hire you, if that's the only thing he brings in the organization (and "experience".)

Interesting. I just finished analyzing all 20 free agent catchers to see who is the best fit for the Twins, and Wieters was a finalist. For one I think that it will take less $ to sign (esp. since there is a pick to go.) I think that a 4/48 is probably the baseline here. In a kind of ironic way, if the Twins were not competing next season, and were looking to build for the next 4 seasons, Wieters might be the guy, even though it definitely is a higher risk/high reward situation and someone might be getting a bargain here. The Twins do need the $ to address the biggest issue in 2015 and that was the bullpen. Catcher, yes, is an issues, but they can do ok without Wieters. So Wieters was not my choice either, but for different reasons...

Cage match with Berrios. Should be fun...

There is a root cause for that: mechanics. Stewart had horrible mechanics even before he was drafted. That was not news. The problem is that after 3 seasons as a pro, he has not been able to fix his mechanics. His FB velo was up to 97 allegedly at HS.

You do realize that Benoit will be 39 next July and very likely will be a free agent (Padres will not pick his $8M option,) I hope Norris is an interesting situation, because he is blocking Padres' uber-prospect Austin Hedges, but the Padres have Jedd Gyorko & Cory Spangenberg in middle infield in the majors (both young former top 100 prospects), have Benji Gonzalez as a young MIF/UT bat at AAA, former Twin Yangervis Solarte at third, but better as a super-utility, and 26 year old Alexi Amarista as a super-utility player in the majors right now. So middle infield is not something that the need and Santana would be like 6th in their depth chart...

LeCroy. Not Lucroy. Much more appropriate for the reunion.

I don't know whether OPS+ adjusts well enough for Morneau in this case. Outside of Coors 2015: .242/.308/.358 (yes that's a .666 OPS) And if that's not good enough to say NO, "not good enough" Oswaldo Arcia hit .276 /.338/ .379 in the majors in 2015. Would be inane to sign Morneau (but the same GM signed Guerrier, Kubel, Bartlett and Hunter, so I am not holding my breath...)

This is one of the things that drives me crazy regarding Ryan as a General Manager: He knows and admits that Santana's 2014 was an aberration. He also admits that it is not sustainable. So: put 1+1 together: Santana was at the peak of this value and that peak was not sustainable. And trade him. Sell High. Re: Santana's BABIP. This season in AAA (.365) , 2014 in AAA (.377) and 2013 in AA (.353) has been in the ballpark. It is not like a jump for .300 to .400. You look at his 2015 AAA season and .322/.348/.500 is a nice slash. As you say (same with Buxton btw) making contact for hits is the culprit here. He needs to get the singles. That's the only difference between 2014 and 2015 for him in the majors...

I really would not use the aforementioned company as an argument of ranking Jay in the top 5 of the Twins' prospects list; it detracts from the argument, because it exposes Big Ten as not quite the baseball powerhouse That said, I agree, he is the second best Twins' pitching prospect other than Berrios, if you count players with no major league experience (that's where I draw the line.) If you do, Meyer is still better than both of them. Hard time seeing Buxton in this list with 92 days of MLB service... More than half on the DL and riding pine, but that is more than half of an MLB-season...

That's an urban legend. Here are a couple of quotes on his defense (from here. this season) Molitor: "I think a lot of people have bought into the fact that what he's done in terms of improving both footwork and arm strength, and believe he has a chance to stick at that spot. I don't think that's unanimous, but I think it's a greater percentage than it used to be. Mientkiewitz: "This is just his second full season at shortstop and we've had some speed bumps," "He's made a lot of careless mental errors, but they don't really have anything to do with him not being able to play the position. He's making the more athletic plays and starting to get a feel for what it means to be a shortstop." Bit different than "struggling". If someone, like Blyleven, is looking at Errors and FP, sure he has several of those... but he is not struggling according to people who have seen him play every day. Not long ago, BA rated his as the best defensive infielder in the organization FWIW...

To me the most interesting name in that list is Pineda. His ERA and W-L was mediocre, and really did not produce in NY. Wonder if someone like Dozier might be interesting to them as a bait enough to center a trade around those 2...

Top 10% SP is a very tall order. Here is the math: 30 teams, lets say 7 SP each = 210 SP in the majors. Top 10% means up to number 21. Here are the SPs ranked by xFIP in the majors in 2015 (100 IP + so you take care of the 6th and 7th pitchers of each team. And need a rate measurement like xFIP and not a cumulative one like WAR.) Greinke, Price and Harvey are ranked 19th-21st, so they round up that 10%. (Highest ranked Twins' pitcher was Gibson at 66 FWIW.) SIERA is probably a bit better measurement and the results you get are pretty similar. Where it gets interesting is that even with the 100 IP, the total list is 133 pitchers, which is much less that 6 or 7 by each team. (so the cuttoff for top 10% is 13... Tough list.) To get a bit more realistic sample size, you have to drop all the way to 50 IP where you get 186 SP and the top 10% is 19. Still very tough list that top 10% (but the Mets have 3, which tells you a lot for the reasons they are there.) (highest Twins in that latest exercise are Tyler Duffey at 53 and Trevor May at 57. More like top 30% Gibson Drops at 93 (50th percentile) and Hughes and Santana are in the 65th-75th percentile.

I am not talking about your lists Seth I get your point and the restrictions you are working with (like GCL only and if they qualify for Rookie status in 2016, they qualify for your list.) I am talking about the "pros". BA and MLB.com (even ESPN) do have people who have seen players from Latin America play and I am sure that they would have a better way of creating lists vs. what they are doing now, which is outsourcing to local writers (who have not seen people who have not made it to the US play.) Would it hurt to spend some time and have a round table of those folks in making those lists?

That's what I don't get: Why would a top international signee will not be in some top 10 lists, while an equally unproven 1st round pick almost always breaks the top-10 in the same lists? Bias? Must be. I'd love an alternative explanation, if we are talking about tools and potential... Javier has a much higher potential than Gordon (and actually might even be a better player than him now,) for example...

Pretty sure that Mike Berardino had not seen Rainis Silva play before he wrote this Wonder whether he will change that this off-season.

Arias will make my top 40 list, and so will Wander Javier, but they are not Catchers The one Catcher who compares to Navaretto is another high Latin American pick a couple years ago, Rainis Silva. Not sure whether he made Seth's list, but he is probably the best game caller and fielding C in the Twins' system (including the majors) with his bat trailing, but he is 19 and hitting better than Navaretto and just looks like a catcher... Had him at 24 last year (and 10 of my list graduated this year,) interesting to see whether he will make Seth's list

Navaretto is bigger than Perez. Plus he is 20 and has yet to hit at any level. Perez made the majors at age 21 and never looked back.

Navaretto is a cut candidate. .537 OPS after 3 years in the pros and a. regressing every year with the bat while b. getting biggest every year, does not bode well. He is around 6'5" 250 these days. The only way he could remotely be a prospect is if they pulled a Derek Rodriguez on him and turned him into a reliever. That big arm could surely play more than his stick. Turner has the career path of Drew Butera in the minors. Only Butera hit better than Turner. Prospect? Sure. But not number 19 in this system...

I'd like to see Hughes as the closer next season (was lights out in relief with the Yankees) with Perkins, Jepsen, and May as the core. That would give the Twins a chance to get after Zimmerman (the only worthwhile price/value arm out there) I'd also love it if they can move Santana to give the kids a chance. Sorry cannot trust the guy. Who can tells us that the good start and finish was due to steroids? Sell high and good riddance. Re: Berrios Not the only one. Alex Meyer actually has better stuff and higher ceiling. One bad season. I'd love to see Berrios and Meyer make the Twins out of Spring Training. Add Zimmerman, Gibson and Nolasco/Milone/Duffey, and this rotation can be something. But the pen is the biggest problem here...

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- postmortem noun medical : an examination of a dead body to find out the cause of death : a discussion or analysis of something (such as an event) after it has ended (Thanks to Merriam-Webster) The Twins' season ended a full two weeks ago, in arguably their only meaningless game this season, and enough time has past to be able to look at what happened in 2015, without the disappointment of not making it to the post-season, even though they were so close, being front and center. As far as expectations go, most fans and the press did not expect the Twins to have a winning season in 2015, much less a season competing for a post-season spot. My point of view was a bit different: I suggested that the Twins needed to do only 3 things after 2014, to be able to compete in 2015. It was a pretty bold suggestion by any means, so I did have to qualify it as follows: At first read, the title of this series sounds very much like A Midsummer Night's Dream: Do I dare suggest that the team that went from 99 to 96 to 96 to 92 losses the past five seasons needs to do only three things to compete? The next number to that Arithmetic Progression up there is between 88 and 92 and that is not competing by any means. Let me explain my train of thought here before the nice kind people in white come and get me to warmer climates: [..] In order to make significant, measurable and effective change, you cannot focus on changing 20 things. Too many balls in the air, some will drop. Focusing of few things that you can change and make an effort to do so, is much more effective. Let's see what were those three things, in reverse order of suggesting, and how the Twins did: 1. Fixing the Attitude: The clubhouse was different in 2015 that in was in 2016, and that was partially because the attitude was different. Part of it was dismissing Ron Gardenhire and Company. Back then I suggested that breaking ties with Gardernhire, Anderson, Ulger and Steinbach (even though they did not go far enough in my opinion, but this is all another matter,) is the equivalent of starting the seasons with (at least) plus five wins. I think that the results show that this was pretty much correct, if anything, the five wins number might have been on the conservative side. One cannot help to think what would had happened, had Terry Ryan chosen Paul Molitor instead of Ron Gardenhire to lead the Twins back at the first time in 2002, but that is a whole different story... Another thing that the Twins did in 2015 to change the attitude was to sign Torii Hunter. It made no sense from baseball reasons to bring in a 40-year old player with diminished skill to play every day, and potentially block several top prospects. And that he did. Trying to justify Hunter's signing, I wrote: Torii Hunter [..] has had the reputation of playing hard and giving it all. And keep working. And then work some more. Hopefully, he will bring the right attitude to the team of so many young players with so much potential. Hopefully he will be an example for hard work and never giving up. And never stop working. It looks like it happened and the Twins are looking to bring him back in 2016 for that reason. I will not comment on events that have not happened, and this piece is not for 2016, so I refrain judgement. As far as accomplishing this, the 2015 Twins, hit a bull's eye akin to the one that is outside their ballpark 2. Fixing the Outfield. The 2015 Twins Outfield defense was very bad. It was bad enough for me to title the piece that was describing the defensive metrics of the 2014 Twins' outfield, Catchers in the Outfield. My premise back then was that with small changes and improvement of the young players like Aaron Hicks, even though Hunter is a below average outfielder, the Twins could have an average outfield. My conclusion was this: So, the total differential is about 36 runs, or 6 wins better than 2014, using this calculation. This still projects a below average outfield (basically because of Hunter at RF,) just not an outfield as horrible as 2014. Thus the 36 run differential vs the 57 for an average with that calculation. Can the outfield get even closer to average? Actually, the 2015 Twins, exceeded this expectation. Their outfield was 8 runs above average. How did that happen? Practically replacing Oswaldo Arcia with Eddie Rosario (+10 runs in 2015) more that half of the season, the improvement of Aaron Hicks (-3 in 2014,+2 in 2015) the sporadic play of Byron Buxton (+4), Shane Robinson (+3) was enought to balance Hunter's glove (-8). Even when the two utility players (Nunez (+1) and Escobar (0)) played the outfield, they did not hurt the Twins, like Gardernhire's catchers. A second bull's eye for the Twins. 3. Fixing the bullpen. might not be bad in Meatloaf's world, but it was in the Twins', since the state of their bullpen, was the major reason they did not make the post-season in 2015. Looking at several pitching metrics, I concluded that the Twins had only 2 pitchers who were above the proverbial average pitcher in 2014: Glen Perkins and Tim Stauffer. The problem was that Stauffer forgot how to pitch starting at Opening Day, and Perkins' effectiveness nose dove after the All-Star break. Two of my suggestions on how to fix the pen by adding above average relievers was to turn Mike Pelfrey to a reliever (which would had happen, if Ervin Santana was not suspended before he threw a pitch in a Twins' official game, and would had been intriguing to see) and see what Trevor May can do in the pen. I wrote on May: Similar discussion with Pelfrey, his 91.9 mph FB average will get to the mid 90s as a reliever, plus he had the second best K% of the group in the majors and a respectable SwStr% (mostly as a starter, and will get better as a reliever.) And the cherry on top is that we led the 2014 Twins' pen with 2 Ground Balls per Fly Ball and a 57.1% GB%. May projects as an above average reliever. Spot on, but still was not enough for the Twins. And here is where the frustration with the Twins' front office comes in 2015. They know that they are competing, they know that their bullpen is leaking. At the All Star Break the Twins was 2 games ahead in the second wild card spot, half a game before the Angels for the first wild card spot. At the trading deadline the fell 2 games behind the Angels and were holding to their lead for the second spot by just a game above Baltimore and Toronto. Getting Kevin Jepsen, albeit effective was the only positive move that Ryan made in the deadline. At that point, the Twins had only Jepsen and May as above average pitchers. Thirty five year old Neal Cotts and his 5.99 FIP were just dumpster diving as usual. To quote Meatloaf again, there ain't no Coup de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, and the Twins' general manager should know that by now... And the came so close. Hopefully for 2016, close will not be enough, but that is a story to be told later. So Two out of Three were bad... My overall expectation for the 2015 season after I saw the 2015 Twins play in Spring Training was positive. I wrote: I did get some 1987-like excitement there, like this might be a magic year (like that one.) But I think that they are one year away. So my prediction for 2015 is that the Twins will have the same record as their Pythagorean in 1987: 79-83. But, yes, this year feels a lot like 1987, and you never know what is going to happen... So the story of the 2015 Minnesota Twins goes: it came so close to happen. Maybe they are indeed just one year away...

Goodrum might be that (because he still cannot hit his way out of a paper bag ) Punto had.690 OPS in AA and .670 in AAA. 2 back to back .800+ OPS seasons from Michael in AA, is not Punto-like.

I think that Michael is too low in this list. Will easily crack my top 20 list. Middle infielders with 800 OPS in AA two seasons in a row do not grow on trees. Really encouraged with his progress with the bat and on the bases the past 2 season. He is on the same trajectory with Dozier (if not a bit ahead; both 24 at AA.) I think that he will be with the Twins in September and he is a potential Dozier replacement (less power, better speed and much better hit tool) long term. So I guess we differ on Michael. Just hope the Twins protect him from the Rule 5 draft. Yeah, he does a hard time staying healthy, but so does the guy that will likely lead your list (with that rookie eligibility criterion )

In how many of those post-season rotations would Milone be?