kab21

Here's a comment from Hughes that illustrates what I said earlier about this being the time to do an extension. It's easy to say that they should do something at X time but it's very likely that wouldn't have been an option. The concern is that the team would enter next offseason w/o an extension which essentially puts Hughes on the trade block instead of being a long term piece.

If you are going to do an extension you have to do it two years before they hit FA. You still have a chance to do it one year before FA but by that point there is very little discount. If it didn't happen by let's say this year's trade deadline then the baseball world would have put Hughes on the trade block instead of expecting him to stay with the team longer term.

There are no ifs, ans or buts about how ecstatic I am. If he repeats last season then the extension price would have been twice this (possibly 100M) and he would have been in his mid 30's at the end. This is perfect.

I'm not a fan of starting someone with shoulder issues in the bullpen early in the season and then moving him to the rotation later in the season. Yes, it keeps his innings down but it also could potentially mess up his shoulder when he needs to be stretched out midseason. Start him a week or two late in AAA, limit his starts to 80 pitches early in the season and call him up in May/June when the inevitable injury happens.

I will be shocked if it is June and no starters are injured or Blackburn-esque (or Pelfrey-esque) ineffective. It's a good thing to have depth and guys will get their chance.

Yes, for example Ryan Pressly (Rule 5) was up for one year with the Twins and didn't do half bad (ERA wise) but he spent the next year in the minors. Graham will be given every chance to make the Twins bullpen (assuming the Twins project him there) and even if he does prospects won't be blocked for long. The Twins bullpen is WEAK after Perkins.

Graham isn't really a RP'er but it's his only chance of sticking with the Twins for a year. And gilmartin is so far down the pecking order that he was unlikely to ever wear a Twins uniform. Graham imo has the profile to move into a power reliever role (or be a complete bust). gilmartin looks like AAA fodder. Even when he was a good prospect he didn't strike out many guys.

McCarthy has shoulder problems and has been injured nearly every MLB season. He was an interesting target on a 2 yr contract but not at all on the contract that he got.

How many more FA's are the Twins signing for this to hinder the Twin's payroll in 2017 or 2018? Mauer, Nolasco and Santana are the only big contracts those years (and expiring by 2018). Dozier and Plouffe are the only 2nd/3rd yr arb guys of significance.

Throw him in the pen for the year and see if that heat plays up.

You have greatly oversimplified the business. Yearly revenue and payroll is a small part of the Twins baseball business equation. The Pohlad's are making out huge simply by owning the Twins. Baseball franchises are skyrocketing in value. Off the field revenue is skyrocketing. Payrolls all over the MLB are skyrocketing. I completely understand why payroll dropped the last couple of seasons but there is a lot of money that could be spent on payroll and not damage the bottom line of the business.

One thread complains about not spending enough and the other complains about who they spent on. Confusing. There's no reason that the Twins shouldn't be operating in the 125+M range. In the short term it's hard to spend that much money w/o overloading the roster with aging vets but the Twins have a massive amount of room to work with when it comes time to giving out big extensions to the arb eligible players in a few years. It shouldn't be a surprise that payroll is down so much since the Twins have not needed to give out any big extensions to these types in the last few years (Perkins is the exception).

No K's and mediocre stuff are a bad combination. No K's, great stuff that needs work and was 19 in full season ball. Basically he's nothing like those guys. Lewin Diaz is a guy that hasn't been mentioned. He will be in rookie ball and a year behind Minier but he has upside. I really like thorpe if he can come back healthy.

Alex Rios is no different than Torii Hunter. He's younger but he's still very old for a baseball player. He had a worse offensive season in a much better offensive park. He also plays bad defense according to the same stats that people are grading Hunter by. In addition to that the Twins are likely trying to convince him to come to MN for a year to rebuild value and he looks elsewhere. That leaves the Twins with nothing.

I'm fairly certain that there is no OF acquisition could make this board happy. Yes, it would be great if the Twins could go out find a good defensive OF'er that wasn't inept with the bat. And additionally not give up any good prospects or commit to more than 1 year to block any prospects. Unfortunately that player doesn't exist and the alternative is just hoping that Jordan Schafer doesn't make us cry until Rosario comes up.

You seem to forget just how horrible (at offense and defense) the Twins OF'ers have been the last few years. I also understand how much fun it is to rag on Hunter's terrible defensive season (stat based) but I think he's probably middle of the road as far as recent Twins OF'ers. Kubel? Colabello? Nunez? Herrmann? Parmelee? Willy? Arcia? that is just guys from last season. At least Hunter could hit last season which is more than almost all of those guys can say.

Rosario was always going to be in the minors after last years disaster. If he plays well I wouldn't be shocked if he spends some time in CF before Buxton comes. Or he gets promoted if Arcia or Vargas struggles. Signing one OF'er doesn't block him.

Here's the problem. Somebody needs to play OF next year for the Twins. Rosario and Buxton need half a season in the minors. Arcia will start on opening day but has question marks himself. If the Twins don't bring in a veteran then they will likely have somebody starting that is terrible offensively or start utility IF'ers (Nunez) that aren't good at anything. Why is Hunter perfect? 1 yr contract. Most decent veterans would be able to get 2-3 (or even 4 years) at which point they are actually blocking a prospect and likely declining. Hunter is here for a season. the casual fan should enjoy this. It's nice to have a couple of veterans in the lineup especially since the Twins are likely starting 6 young players with Sano, Buxton and Rosario on the way. And back to the first point. Somebody has to play in the OF. If not Hunter then who?

I really hope the Twins aren't in a position where Rosario is competing for the CF or LF job in spring training. I think his best value next season is as plan B in case any of the 3 OF'ers need a replacement. I'm bullish on Rosario still though.

Regardless of his nice AFL it would be a mistake for the Twins to enter the season with Rosario as plan A anywhere. There are basically no good stopgap CF options (Rasmus is going to get paid) and I hope the Twins find a solid LF'er. That leaves CF (stop gap), Arcia struggling or injuries as paths to Rosario being a starter if he deserves it. He won't be blocked for long and if he is blocked by good players then things are looking up for the Twins. But they better not enter the season with no plan B in LF, a shaky CF'er and a boom or bust Arcia in RF. Things can get really ugly quickly with this plan.

At least a few people like having depth on the team. If Santana is the starter then Escobar will still play since he backs up 3 positions. Players don't stay healthy and they all need a day here and there. It's a good problem to have. Escobar still carries very little trade value additionally. I would be shocked if other teams viewed him as anything but a good utility player despite his nice season. This isn't a case of trading to fix a problem elsewhere. It would be a case of trading for depth elsewhere. I think people are prematurely penciling Sano in a 3B. My odds are well below 50% that he plays >150 games at 3B in the majors. Because of that I wouldn't consider trading Plouffe until Sano actually is ready (if ever) to take over at 3B. My guess is that Sano ends up in the OF for a few seasons before heading to 1B.

I think one important thing to understand is that most like him a lot as a prospect. He ranks in the 10-15 range on everyone's list and in another system (or the Twins system 5+ years ago) he would be a top 5ish prospect. His biggest problem is that .290 MiLB hitters usually become .260-.270 hitters in the majors. A .250-.260 hitter (like Walker) becomes a .220-.230 hitter. Considering that he doesn't like to walk then his OBP is in the .270's. He has excellent tools and has produced (reasons why he is ranked) but he needs to significantly improve his plate discipline as he moves towards the majors.

We aren't trying to produce the best AA players. You might be willing to ignore red flags because someone can hit HR's but that doesn't mean that those red flags aren't still there. He has a 3.5K to 1BB ratio. Somebody mentioned Vargas improving his plate discipline this year in Walker's favor. Vargas went from 2:1 to 1.6:1 this year (with poor rookie ball ratios). Not surprisingly his plate discipline got worse in the majors (5:1) and is a concern for next season. Arcia's best plate discipline in the minors was 2:1 with some worse struggles in short stints. His plate discipline has not been good at all in the majors at 4:1 and 5:1 and it is the one MAJOR thing that is holding him back from being a good MLB'er. Walker's plate discipline has been much worse than either of these and it's a MAJOR RED FLAG if he ever wants to be a good MLB'er instead of a great MiLB run producer. MiLB K:BB ratios of the 3 players Vargas 2:1 Arcia 2.5:1 Walker 3.5:1 some others that had solid power and some MLB K problems (numbers are just ballpark head calculations) Kubel 1.1:1 Cuddyer 1.6:1 Hunter 2.5:1 Koskie 1.7:1 Young 3:1 Gomez 3:1 Willy 1.3:1 There are examples of good players with 3:1 except that each of these were much younger at similar levels. Walker is still an interesting prospect but let's not act like red flags don't exist.

Myers is simultaneously underrated and overrated by the opposing sides. He had a rough season but he should still be a good player. The one thing about this trade is that there were warning signs that Myers was more of a Cuddyer level MLB'er than an elite one. It's not impossible to find a good (but not great) bat to play corner OF. Regardless if Shields leaves they got exactly what they needed to return to relevancy and contrary to the popular opinion they didn't mortgage their future.

If it were me I would consider trading almost any prospect not named Buxton or Sano to pick up legit above average MLB talent (esp SP'ing). Berrios or Meyer would require quite a haul though. I don't force a trade but trades like Latos or Gio (or even Fister) are good examples of trades to look for. Bud Norris is another. Some of these guys are borderline aces while others are good #3's that pitched better. Of course the better course is to spend the available money if there are starters out there. And there are starters out there this year. 2 years ago it wasn't the right time since the Twins didn't have much of a young core or players in the upper minors. Now they have several young players establishing themselves and a lot of talent in the upper minors. I could see the Twins adding 10 wins of internal improvement during the next two seasons as young players (Meyer, May, Berrios, Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Polanco, etc...) come up and others (Arcia, Vargas, Gibson, etc...) perform better. Add a top pitcher (+5 wins) and it's a good team. Imo this is what the Royals realized 2 years ago. They had a young core that was establishing themselves and felt that these young players and other prospects would be worth 10+ wins over the next couple of seasons taking them from the low 70's to the low to mid 80's. So they added a starter and 5 wins to make them playoff competitive. The Twins don't need to replicate the exact formula but they should recognize that they are close to the same point in the rebuild cycle (a young core) but without the same financial restrictions. SPEND IT!