Thrylos

WAR is a pretty good measurement for this kind of thing and would agree with you all...

Would you give 2500 ABs to Butera year after year? Why give them to Buxton if he is hitting like Butera? Buxton has had a career 1227 ABs. And still cannot hit the curveball. Nobody said that he will never do, but he should try to learn to do so in AAA and AA and not in the majors. He is not ready. Might be one day or might not. But not ready now, so he should be in the minors until ready.

Hard to argue batting average and RBI, but Harmon KIllebrew was a career .256 hitter and Ozzie Smith averaged 42 RBI a season This team is really really really hurting against RHPs. To the tune of .242/.301/.393. And most of the pitchers out there are righties. Heyward has a career .285/.372/.467 slash line against righties. Add a gold glove or too... Re: Rosario: Check his OBP. Not sure if he is a starter yet. But he would make a heck of a fourth outfielder Re: Buxton: Check his approach towards breaking stuff. Will not be surprised if he starts at AAA Re: Kepler: He should start at AAA and he is not a Centerfielder by any means. No matter that he played that position in the minors. Gardenhire even started Parmelee at Center Getting a true Ace (I like Zimmerman from that bunch, plus he is a cheesehead so MN might not be horror-inducing as a location) and moving Hughes to closer (check his career - 2009 really - numbers as a reliever when setting up Rivera here - 2.11 ERA, 0.995 WHIP, 10.7 K/9, 3.94 K/BB; better than Perkins ever did and that's before Hughes' prime) would do wonders to this team, esp. if Alex Meyer shows up at 2016 Spring Training with a chip his size on his shoulder They do need a catcher, but unless they go for a young catcher, getting someone like Brayan Pena (FA) to start against RHPs (.295/.347/.353 in 2015) and have Suzuki (because nobody will take him off your hands) or Pinto starting against LHPs might do the trick.

I guess Perkins' fans would care about what is better for Perkins rather than what is better for the Twins, which, of course, is to make the post-season To hey about what is better for Perkins at this point....

Famous. Last. Words.

Harsh THAT

In their respective roles, of course...

I trust him less than I trust Brian Duensing, Neil Cotts and Ryan O'Rourke at this point. In other words, no.

Too premature to speculate that Ryan will still be with the Twins when the off-season comes... Not winning since 1994 and many more wrong decisions than right, including hiring Gardenhire over Molitor in 2002, make his position fairly rocky... 20+ years of a Ryan-inspired and 15+ years of a Ryan-led front office are just enough...

Duffey really was not a strikeout pitcher until he went to Rochester the second half of last season. Maybe Mason should be getting some credit here... Not sure what happened but his FB increased by a couple mph when that jump happened. Another detail that should not be lost, is that he has pitched 185 innings this season (second to Gibson's 186 in the organization.) We shall see how he continues. I do like the fact that he is throwing his FB less than 60% of the time and his curveball more than 35% of the time. As long as hitters do not adjust to the CB, he might be alright. The issue with him was that he had been (as still is, as he has been throwing a change about 3% this season) a two pitch pony, and not sure whether that is sustainable for a starter. Pitch f/x does not like his curve for some reason. Good to see him succeed. Will be interesting to see what the future will hold. Still, I think that there are 3-4 better options under 28 years old for the Twins rotation in 2016 than Duffey (Gibson, May, Berrios, Meyer) plus there are Nolasco, Santana and Hughes (and I am not mentioning the single lefty in the SP equation) Hard to see him break the Twins' rotation next season. Definitely a trade high probability...

22 days too late...

I'd give up Perkins straight up. Win win for both teams.

I see no reason that Kepler and Polanco are in the minors for 2 weeks, while they can help the Twins in a post-season run. Minor leagues are developmental leagues and the Twins should care more about what their team does in the bigs than what Chatanooga does in AA. Pretty outrageous.

few comments on this: a. Early in the season TR Sold Dan Rohlfing for cash to the Mets to further deplete C depth at the high levels of the organization b. To the ones who are talking about Turner and his potential as a catcher for the Twins: Son of Sal is Johnny Bench with the bat compared to him, and Chris Herrmann is Babe Ruth. Turner has been digressing every single year with the stick. Currently .628 OPS at AA. Please. Herrmann is a career .752 OPS AA hitter and you see how he is in the majors (but he needs to play more than he does.) c. I'd rather see them bring Pinto up and see what he can do. He had 5 hits in his last 3 games with Rochester. It is inane that he is not with the Twins right now. d. I had enough of Suzuki this season. Hope the Twins move on before next season.

I read this as replacing Pelfrey during the off-season vs. extending him phew

I don't see Santana getting called up if Polanco and Arcia are not and I cannot see Tonkin getting called up if Meyer is not. Same with Fryer and Pinto....

Hopefully Rob Antony is not around to be part of that decision come the off-season...

Before I accept that, I'd love to see the juice/no-juice splits. For 2015 the no-juice splits suck... (*and the next CLA should allow teams to get out of multi-year contracts of players who get suspended...)

I said this on March 2nd: As far as righties go, the Twins will likely take Casey Fien up north (and hopefully not use him in high leverage situations, because he is below average in all of the above categories, and he is one of the major drivers of the low GB%, since his is only 32.1.) Fien would not be my choice. I would rather see what Trevor May can do as a reliever. 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 he led the 2014 Twins' pen with 2 Ground Balls per Fly Ball and a 57.1% GB%. May projects as an above average reliever. So May being successful in the pen, is like preaching to a choir here And I don't think I am psychic... The writing was on the wall about what May can accomplish as a reliever. Now as far as the future goes: a couple notes here: a. I do not see Perkins as having a scholarship for the closer position in 2016. As we witnessed, he is not "lights out" and he might actually serve the Twins better in a LH setup role. b. Some numbers: Perkins 2015: 2.61 ERA, 3.41 FIP, 1.117 WHIP, 22.2% K%, 33.8% GB% May as a RP 2015: 2.00 ERA, 3.37 FIP. 1.200 WHIP, 23.4 K%, 37.8% GB% (as SP & RP) High Leverage 2015: Perkins: opponents: .250/.299/.403, 27.3 K%, 6.5% BB%, 1/28 WHIP, 3.79 FIP May: opponents: .167/.186/.268, 32.6% K%, 2.3% BB%, 0.65 WHIP, 2.15 FIP Plus Perkins will be 33 and on the decline, while May has not reached his prime yet. However, there is another guy: Career as RP: 2.06 ERA, 2.03 FIP. 0.97 WHIP, 31.8 K%, 34.3% GB% (2015) (opponents: .183/.250/.243 career as RP) And he is in his prime with 3 more years to go under contract. He might whine, but I'd love to see Phil Hughes as the Twins' closer in 2016, with Perkins as the LH set up guy, and May as the RH set up guy. This is a great Free Agent SP class, with real talent and the Twins should go after one (let's say Zimmerman) leaving the 5th spot as a competition between Berrios and Meyer in ST (assuming that Pelfrey is not re-signed - 'tis Ryan after all - and Santana and Nolasco and Gibson stay put.) Add Jepsen (under contract) Pressly and another lefty, and you really got a bullpen for 2016...

I so desire for a lot of Twins (esp the FO) to resign...

Interestingly enough, the Twins have games with each of those teams. The Rays are tied with the Twins and the other 3 are tied for the second WC sport with 2 games (in the L column) ahead of the Twins. Toronto is 6 and the Yankees 7 games ahead of the Twins (one in the lead of the East and the other leading the WC race; those opportunities were swept away.)

I hope that TR is not with the Twins come the next off-season. The Twins can and should be creative with their bullpen. I would argue that they can sign one free agent starter (Zimmerman) and one free agent reliever (Soria) and have the best bullpen in the majors, and a pretty darn good rotation. How? They need to realize that they have a guy with 2.06 ERA, 0.971, and 70K in 56.7 IP as a reliever starting for them. They should make Phil Hughes their closer, have Soria and Perkins as the set up men and Jepsen and Pressly and O'Rourke (as their lefty specialist) and that makes for a darn nice pen. Zimmerman, May, Gibson, Nolasco, Santana (if they cannot trade those 2, and if they can, insert Berrios and Meyer.) Heck, you might not want to go after Zimmerman and replace him with Berrios or Meyer, and still be alright. And Duffey at the wings... 2 players or even a single player, and a bit thinking outside the box, all it will take. And keep the likes of Milone and the rest away. But this front office and thinking outside the box, do not belong in the same sentence...

He missed from half of 2009 to half of 2012 not only because of Tommy John surgery (that healed pretty well actually and signed with the Pirates in 2010,) but 4 (FOUR!) leg and hip surgeries, including some nasty staph infections. And he became a different pitcher when he pitched with the Rangers, than previously. I took a look at the teams the Twins play and their record against Cotts. (That and a lot of additional analysis, including his health issues is here.) My bottom line rating of this trade, from there, taking into consideration a lot of factors is: Not sure what this trade was about, other maybe for Terry Ryan to be able to say that he did something. The Twins clearly have better internal options, including the departed AJ Achter who has held opposing RHBs to a .176/.176/.353 line. Depending on who the player to be named later is, this trade can be rated from "Blah" to a "Disaster", and really does nothing for the Twins in their pursuit of a wild card spot.

Here is a funny thing: If you check the pitch values from pitchF/X, his curveball has a negative value, which means that is worse than average. Bet that has to do with the amount of pitches he is throwing into the dirt (and hitters chase...) Anyways. Good to see him throwing non-strikes, good to see him throwing his curve and change > 40% of the time, and good to see him not throwing a two-seamer. Major departure from the previous regime, which puts a smile on my face So far so good, and I hope that he keeps his spot when Milone returns, but...

How do you count average? I don't disagree about the rest, but Mauer has an OPS+ of 95, which is "average" within the error margin (albeit his contract is much above average), and Nolasco got hurt and pitched only 7 games, while having a (much) above average 2.80 FIP. The rest, yeah, but we knew it when those signings and extensions happened. I'd add Perkins to the fire too. The Twins are tied to him for another 2-3 seasons, he is the wrong size of 30, and reached his peak 2 seasons ago...