jmlease1

Latest rumor is that Trevor Story might sign a 1 year deal to prove his shoulder is healthy. If true, we should jump on that so freakin' hard. I mean, I'd sign him to a long-term deal, but if the team is convinced that Royce will be ready in 2023 and they just need another bridge guy... Be interesting to see what they do on pitching. I'd bet money on Pineda coming back, but we need someone with a bit higher upside. Rodon or a trade?

Biggest miss has to be Tyler Jay, I think. As soon as he got to AA hitters, he just couldn't compete any longer and was far too hittable (even when he got moved back to the 'pen). The great experiment totally flopped. I had in my head that he'd been injured a lot, but looking at his stats, that's not really true. he just wasn't very good. major bust. Stewart was a miss to be sure, but at least made it to the majors with 2 clubs and had some minor league success. but he never consistently got enough Ks, struggled with control, and didn't become the big flamethrower that we all initially thought he would be. I think he's the worst-case scenario people see when looking at Chase Petty, but Petty was drafted so much lower that the risk on a high school pitcher is significantly mitigated. the Levi michael pick looks a little rough too, but again: 30th pick, not 6th. didn't hit well enough to make up for not being elite defensively, probably got close to getting a cup of coffee in 2018-2019, but in the end just wasn't an MLB player. he's a miss, but not really a bust.

It will be really interesting to see what the development staff does with his swing this season to try and put him back on a power production path. (that was some unfortunate alliteration) I'm still very high on Martin. His eye at the plate is excellent, his ability to make contact in the zone is elite and he basically lives on base. Even as a singles/doubles guy he's got a lot of value, but i think he can develop into someone who can still hit for a high average, draw plenty of walks (and get tagged by pitches) while rolling up plenty of extra-base hits. I think they're right to focus him on the infield right now to see where he might fit best. he's already in a position where he can probably be a plus defender in the OF corners and at minimum be a solid CF, so no reason to spend time there for now. (while he'll have more value if he can stick in the INF...part of me would love to see what would happen with him in LF, Buxton in CF, and Kepler in RF. Good lord, those three would chase down a TON of balls!) Wouldn't be surprised to see him get some time with the big club this season, and I think he's a full-time player (whether at some position or as something of a super-utility guy) in 2023.

The first part of this list did have that disclaimer. This is "best twins prospects since 1990", which is interesting in and of itself. It's interesting to see where the boom & bust is with lists like this. Royce is the one where it's particularly interesting to see where he lands: he was super-hyped early and fallen off as injuries (and the pandemic and now the lockout) have limited his time on the field, so it'll be interesting to see where he "lands" compared to the others in this top 5. Liriano was a comet who lost his top end ability due to injury, but still had a long career in the majors. Sano is still playing and and has had some good years (and when he's hot he looks as good as any slugger in baseball. and when he's off, he looks like a poor man's rob deer). Buxton has shown all the ability in the world when healthy, but can't stay healthy, and Mauer had a HoF career. I think the prospect lists have gotten better at being able to project future MLB success, but aren't any kind of guarantee of stardom. If you reach the top 5 on the BA prospect list, the odds of you having a long MLB career are increasingly good. But they can't predict injury.

It's not really a comparable situation, though. It's really hard to compare the labor-management conflict between the owners and the players to a regular corporate setting: these things don't just scale evenly, the financial model for the teams isn't about profit/loss the same way it is for most companies, etc. Corporations will have what they call "key employees" that need to stay as part of a sale, get non-compete clauses, etc. In this case, we'd be talking about hundreds of "key employees" not a handful, you know? You bring up why only fans in a big market would support a significant increase in the CBT; in reality, why should they care about it there either? There's nothing that stops teams from breaking the thresholds, so why shouldn't the fans there just be demanding that ownership pay it to increase payroll and keep signing the best players? From a player perspective, there's not a lot of concern that the best free agents aren't being properly compensated; they are actually paying attention to the fact that the "middle class" of players is shrinking, and getting less and less job security, because front offices are smarter now about assessing the markets and the perceived value of players. Why pay a guy $8M in arbitration if you can sign functionally the same player to a 1 year deal in FA for $5M? They're depressing salaries in that group. teams that are on a 3-year rebuild don't even sign those guys any longer in their mind, dropping salaries further.

Same. It's tough for that last spot. Mauer's a HoFer who played his whole career for the hometown team, so I think he gets the vote, but I really want to find a way to chisel Johan in there. it feels a little strange to only have 1 guy from the 87 & 91 title winners, but the next best choice is really Hrbek, who while a bit underrated nationally and lovable as he is, just isn't really in the same class as the others. I think Mauer is the 4th, but Johan is dang close for me because he was so amazing as a Twin.

Sure, but owners are equally culpable in ignoring issues of competitive balance and trying to manipulate revenue sharing. They're only more "in line" with fans by the basic fact that most fans don't care how much players get paid or what their working conditions are and neither do the owners. The owner's goals with the increased penalties was less about improving parity than it was in trying to retard salaries. Anything that it did for parity was secondary. Collectively, ownership cares nothing for fan experience if it costs them any money, but they're very good at pointing the finger at other people to be responsible for paying for it, from the players ("we have to raise ticket and concession prices because of payroll") or taxpayers ("we simply can't compete without a new stadium and if the community doesn't support it, then we'll go somewhere they will"). And they consistently hide their greed and ambition behind the team logo, because it's a shield for them with the fans. We still mostly root for the logo, and the owners control that.

here's the thing, though: you can't use that frame for this because this is not a traditional labor-management situation. You're presuming that because the players can easily become millionaires and have free agency at some point that they shouldn't ever really object to the terms of employment. (Ownership would love you) We're talking about what is the way to divide up billions of dollars in revenue, and presuming that the billionaire owners who don't actually create the on-field product should be able to dictate terms because the players get to be rich (but not as rich) isn't ok either. This is also why there are no heroes in this fight: it's millionaires vs billionaires. You have millionaire players who say and do stupid things in public that get paid massive amounts of money for what is at heart, a game. But you also have billionaire owners who have gone from being spectacularly wealthy to unfathomably wealthy by having a name & being part of an exclusive club, and act like they deserve all of it. It may be hard to side with the players at times because of how wealthy they get to be doing something we think is awesome, but it's almost impossible to side with the owners who would use you as a carpet to wipe your feet with if they could get away with it, and don't really give a crap about the game we love unless it makes them insanely rich.

There are no heroes in this negotiation from a fan standpoint; neither side gives a crap about us. Should they? Yes, of course, because fan support is critical to the long-term health and wealth of the game, but the reality is they're much more interested in their personal financial situations and any reference to the fans from either side is nothing more than a PR ploy. The players have a the fundamental problem of having been crushed in the last negotiation, starting them off in a weaker position. (which they may or may not realize) Most of what they're asking for isn't all that unreasonable in the context of the financials of the game, which has huge amounts of revenue to play with. But the mlbpa has never truly wrestled with the financial imbalances between the biggest markets and the smallest, and prefers a financial structure that favors those largest teams. Big teams in big markets handing out massive deals to stars does drag the salary structure upwards overall...but it also puts things in position of haves and have nots...and the mlbpa doesn't care about that until more than 3-4 teams in a year appear to be tanking/rebuilding and not spending on them. (They've also shamefully ignored minor league players for their entire history, really, and foolishly haven't sought to fold them into the union in an effort to increase their own membership and power) The owners, on the other hand, always manage to suck even more. They're a bunch of contemptible greedheads who care nothing for the game they're supposed to be stewards of, and have a ginormous split between the largest teams and smallest. There's not nearly enough revenue sharing to have true competitive balance and the owners seem completely uninterested in addressing it. They had to have a lawsuit come at them and the threat of congressional hearings to have any movement on the disgusting treatment of minor league players. They locked the players out because they don't care all that much about the regular season and simply wanted to pressure the players into accepting another bad deal, to keep them from a) massing additional warchests for a strike, and b) to keep the players from having the power to spike the postseason 4-5 months from now and give them leverage for a better deal. They locked the players out, they're cancelling games, they refuse to do anything for real competitive and financial balance, and they want to be guaranteed to make money no matter what happens, on top of having their franchises increasing in value by massive amounts. (even the worst franchise in baseball is worth over $1 Billion.) They want to have all the power to whatever they want, whenever they want. They suck. They get away with a lot of this because a) people root for laundry more than they root for players, even now, and b) they tend to stay out of sight, no one knows who they are, and there's far fewer of them so outside of markets where fans are perpetually mad at ownership...people don't personalize this against them. The hide behind the team logo to make people think it's only "greedy" players screwing this all up, when the truth is no one can possibly match the greed and arrogance of the owners. In terms of the actual negotiations, I feel like the players are going to end up settling because the owners have more power, especially after the mlbpa got totally housed in the last CBA, and it's harder to swim against that tide especially with a larger membership, many of whom "need" those salaries. Ownership is fabulously wealthy with or without ticket sales and concessions and they damn well know it. They'll give us all a middle finger, cancelling games for months to keep what they have and get what they want. Yuck.

I think a player that can hit around .300 with a good on-base % has value to a lot of teams; Arraez is passable at 2B & 3B and while he doesn't have the power to traditionally DH...that OBP with a high BA makes him attractive. I'd say the biggest concern about him playing LF is more about his knees than his actual defense out there. He can pass a physical, but he looks like he's 30 years older walking to the plate some times. He's a reasonable trade option for several reasons: as a proven MLB player who is still under team control, he's got immediate value to a wide variety of teams, not just tankers looking for prospects, but contenders as well. He'd be a great fit as a utility INF who makes a lot of starts because of his stick. From a Twins perspective, they have MLB players at 2B & 3B (his best positions), along with prospects whose best positions look like they might be 2B, 3B, or LF. Dealing Arraez is dealing from a position of strength, so you have to consider it. I think he's the guy on the MLB roster most likely to get dealt, but there's still room for him to stick on the roster. Between DH, 3B (with Donaldson needing regular rest and being a high injury risk), backing up Polanco, and even slipping out of LF gives him enough ABs. I'd listen to offers on him, and I'd consider proposing him in trade packages for pitching, but I'm not giving him away. I like Arraez a great deal, but I'm not starting him ahead of Polanco or Donaldson, and Miranda and Martin are on their way to surpass him.

I'll be perfectly fine if Petty spends the year in Ft. Myers, and it'll be really interesting to see how the development of his off-speed stuff goes and what his velocity looks like on that fastball as he gets deeper into the season. If he's healthy and still throwing 95-97 late in the year with real confidence in his slider or something...it's probably a successful season. He's got a thunderbolt for an arm. High school pitchers are always a risk, but he's got the upside that makes him worth taking a shot on. Good luck to him in his first full pro season.

PECOTA is an interesting exercise. You have to keep in mind that it's difficult for any projection system to spot a breakout season or that tipping point one where a player gets old and the skills have the big decline all at once. They're not going to be able to control for injuries very well. They're going to tend towards regression to the mean. They're also not really trying to tell you what will happen with a player, but what they think will be the most likely outcome, which is not really the same thing. When you keep that in mind there's value in looking at what they're forecasting. as a twins fan, I love this projection for Ryan. If I had to guess, I'd say he's likely to pitch more innings, get less Ks, and have a higher ERA. But this isn't an unreasonable projection, and it's why the Twins traded for him. It's why someone like Gleeman ranks him so high on the prospect lists. I'm really looking forward to seeing him pitch the full year; he's fun to watch and it'll be interesting to see where his HR/9 ends up because how many HRs he surrenders and in what situations those balls fly out of the park. If it's a bunch of solo shots and he keeps the rate at 1.5 HR/9 or less...then he's going to have a ton of success.

How they do in realigning his swing to ensure that he does damage on balls in the zone will determine how quickly we see him at Target Field. (yet another player that this damnable lockout screws over) He's got an excellent eye at the plate and the bat skills to cover the zone well, but the changes he made (and as KLaw noted were almost certainly in part because of an injury) definitely sapped his power. But he's shown that he can drive the ball, so this shouldn't be that hard of an adjustment to make, getting him back to where he was. Is he going to be a 30 HR guy? probably not, but we've got plenty of those guys. Martin profiles as a terrific leadoff hitter who can play multiple defensive positions, who will basically live on base. He makes Arraez look more and more tradeable (for pitching or a full-time SS) because he's a guy who would be a plus defender at 2B instead of just average, and his CF skills will play just fine in any of the corners too (I don't worry about whether he's played LF with a player who can play CF). Also, why is it that when the Twins are considering prospects for trade we're told that we have to give our best in order to get a mid-pack starter but when receiving a prospect we're told that guy isn't viewed as a future star? Blue Jays traded Martin (and Woods-Richardson) because they were going all-in on the season because they had a couple of young players who had stepped up as stars, a veteran bargain on an MVP run, and a veteran pitcher on a Cy Young season and tried to take advantage. And they came up a little short (tough beat to miss the playoffs on 91 wins) but if they'd gotten in they might have been my pick to win the whole damn thing. So I don't buy the whole "Toronto traded Martin because they were convinced he wouldn't be a star" bit; they traded him because they saw an opportunity to win and had to trade talent to get an excellent pitcher. I love Martin. I think he's going to be an excellent player for the Twins. We will see him in MLB in 2022 and starting in 2023 at the latest he will be leading off for the Twins.

It's going to be really interesting how Lewis does this year. How will the knee hold up in field? (I'm not worried about his straight-line speed, but an injury like that can do more to his lateral movement) How well can he really hit? I also don't think that you reserve SS for Royce Lewis for 2023; if he's ready and shows it this year, great, but...Trevor Story is already an excellent defender at SS and has proven he can hit MLB pitching. A player being "blocked' is a problem worth having and can get resolved quite easily; injury often sorts it out and if not then trades are easy to make when you have clear excess at a position. I love Lewis' attitude and tools. I think his work ethic and make-up will help him translate those to results on the field, but he needs games. more than anyone he needs games. not surprised to see him drop to #2; he hasn't played and is coming off a significant injury. There's a case to drop him lower, and I say that as someone who truly believes in his ability.

Lawton had some nice years for the Twins (except for '99 when all the pop in his bat took a vacation) but I always thought he would be a better defender than he was. Better hitter than Jacque Jones, but I'm not sure if people remember him that way? Jacque should have been a great platoon player, dominating righties and taking the day off against lefties, but for reasons passing understanding he got over 1000 ABs against LHP. oof. Not one of the better decisions from Gardy? Torii was unquestionably the best of the bunch. But the Soul Patrol was a fun OF for a few years on some teams that were just starting to figure it out.

There's a ton to like about Miranda to be sure. That bat will play regardless of position, but he looks like he could fit in very nicely at 3B if/when the team moves on from Donaldson. personally, I would have him on the roster from opening day (hopefully they get rid of the service time manipulation nonsense that made it wise for teams to leave a top prospect in the minors for a month) backing up 3B to get his feet wet, while filling in the OF and getting some reps at DH. (I expect Donaldson to get a fair amount of time at DH) I don't think he'll hit .300+, but to me he looks like a player who's going to be in the .280/.330/.475 slash range, which plays nicely almost anywhere in the field. We've also seen players who struggled defensively improve their work at the MLB level (Trevor Plouffe went from being the Butcher of Cairo at 3B to being a quality defender there and Koskie went from being a guy who looked like he had a frying pan instead of a glove out there at time to deserving a gold glove. even if he didn't get one). So it wouldn't surprise me if Miranda is able to improve his skills on the defensive end, especially if he's getting some tutoring from Donaldson

There's really only two questions Balazovic has left to answer to put himself in the rotation for ten years, IMHO: 1) can he stay healthy? (common refrain on our prospects after last season), and 2) can he master that split he's been developing to replace his changeup, because he's going to need it to handle lefties in MLB. The fastball is quality, the slider is quality, and if he can control that split as his primary off-speed offering for lefties, then he's going to be in great shape. I expect him to start in AAA and be up with the big club before the all-star break.

Ryan is a really interesting player. Yes, he's a bit homer-happy and that's clearly depressing some scouts valuation of him, but I think the HR/9 rate is survivable if he brings it down even just a little. (Brad Radke? career HR/9 of 1.2) If he can refine his off-speed pitches a little more, it should let him finish off hitters faster (which will let him get deeper in games) but will also keep his fastball harder to square up on. He's certainly fun to watch. It's going to be really interesting to see if getting more tape on him is enough to help hitters adjust to the funky arm slot and different delivery or whether it's one of those things that has to be experienced to wrap your brain around. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does in a full season, how his stamina looks after throwing 90 pitches and whether the team lets him go another inning. How does he do on 4-5 days rest instead of 6-7. How does he look after making 15+ starts and the season starts to really grind? I like a lot of things about Ryan, and I think he's got a bright future as a rotation fixture.

I wouldn't call the extension a mistake: while it hasn't worked out as well as the Twins would have liked, it wasn't a disaster, and the thought process behind it was absolutely sound. There was some calculated risk involved, but it wasn't a big botch or the result of flawed thinking. I don't expect every move to work out (it's simply unrealistic). I'm generally happy when the Twins are able to sign their own players to extensions, in part because it's more fun to root for players that you've known for a while rather than have a team of mercenaries. It's also usually good business. Mistake? eh. And if Sano has a big year this season...

It's not the number of starts or the innings pitched that's the issue with Rice, it's the number of pitches they'll allow a kid to throw in those starts. 120 pitches? sure, no problem. 140? well, we need you to win today, so go right on out there. 150? You're graduating this spring, so why do we care? They are notorious for letting guys rack up huge pitch counts.

This. He might have been ok starting in AA, but having that get interrupted by the Olympics and then not actually pitching in Japan on top of not having a season of games in 2020 really screwed him. He needed last year as a development year and it got completely borked up with the Olympics. Considering he only had 6 starts in A+ at age 18, I don't think there was any need to rush him to AA, especially with the skip year in 2020. His time with the Twins so far was pretty meaningless: it's only 8 innings coming off a essentially a 6 week layoff. I'm guessing they were just trying to see what he looked like and try to figure out what he needed to work on. Hopefully, he's back in AA and gets to be on a real program this year and show what he can do. the talent is there. I really don't want him factoring in to any trade right now; pretty sure we'd be selling low on a guy with a lot of talent.

I wish only great things for Royce Lewis, who seems like an awesome dude. Hopefully he gets a year of great health so he can show what he's capable of. Have to say, if his speed is in Byron Buxton's class, even after the knee injury? WOW. (speed guys are so much fun to watch)

Which has a worse track record for bust/injuries: first round draft pick high school pitchers or Rice alumni?

Comments like "high-effort delivery" and "head violence" remind me of when scouting reports described a player as "having a good face". It's as if they've decided there can be only one way to pitch and a young player must have a certain kind of pitching motion or it must be changed. I think there's as much risk in that kind of decision as there is in letting the pitcher continue on with what has been working for them. Petty apparently already has a good slider as a high school pitcher who threw 100mph. If you're throwing 100mph in high school, you don't really need anything else, so the fact that he might already have a plus off-speed pitch is remarkable and worth spending a high draft pick on. I'd like to see him in rookie ball, working on his secondary offerings and integrating them with the magical fastball. I kinda don't want to see them try and mess with his delivery at this point, not unless he's showing real problems with control against professional competition. Pitchers are not robots. Unless his delivery is showing signs of actually causing him damage to his body that will lead to injury and an adjustment will actually prevent it (as opposed to "well, we like this one better") then leave him alone. Let's see what he can do.

Everything about Winder looks good except his health. If he has a full season, that probably goes away. He's got a full package and he's close to being ready to pitch in MLB. I might go higher than #10, but I don't know that I care that much about the distinction between #6 and #10? He probably starts in AAA since he finished last season on the injured list...but it's going to be really interesting to see who the first guy up from AAA is this season. Could be Canterino. Could be Duran. Could be Balazovic. Could even be Strotman. But I wouldn't bet against Winder. At this point I'm not really interested in having a veteran retread starting the season with the Twins in AAA, because you can fill out the whole rotation in Saint Paul with legitimate prospects. Can't wait to see which one is the first to bust out. Winder might be the one most ready to pitch in MLB, even if someone else might have better stuff.