jmlease1

This is a pretty weird Twins team. They're definitely under performing overall, they've had some bad luck, and they just haven't had a lot go right. Coming off a nice run into the all-star break, they fall flat on their face against an awful KC team. Then they come back and sweep Toronto? Glad to see Garver hitting. He's actually been pretty good this season, taken a solid step forward from his cup of coffee last year. He's still got work to do on his catching to stick back there as a starter, but he's already a nice asset with his hitting and positional flexibility. Oh, another "fun" Twins stat: Record in One Run Games: 5-17 .227 Yuck. There's your margin with Cleveland right there.

I'd keep Reed, injured or no. Motter might be a throw-in, I guess? No one wants Grossman, he's a marginal player. Cave is no more than a throw-in at this point. Bobby Wilson would only be attractive to a team that had a sudden injury and nothing in the minors. We're not really going to change anything by flipping any of those guys. Dozier, Escobar, Lynn, Mauer (if we're willing to eat contract), Gibson, maybe Santana, Pressly (who i would probably keep), Rodney, Duke...these are the assets that will get consideration and conversation. How many get moved? I'm betting Duke, either Dozier or Escobar (just have a hunch both don't get moved), and Lynn (with the Twins eating a little salary).

Rooker's K rate is something to watch and you'd like to see him bring it down in AA, a level where he's raking it. Because it could easily shoot up even higher when he gets promoted. but he's having a very nice season. (note: Corey Ray is similarly strikeout prone) If he can cut down the Ks a bit and up the walks he's going to have a very bright future. Kirilloff just amazes. We always talk about how the Florida State league is a pitcher's league, what a tough environment it is for hitters...and he just keeps on rolling. I know it's only 29 games, but dude is hitting .370! Part of me wants to push him up to AA, but that might be crazy talk. He's only 20, he's significantly younger than his level, and he's rolling. Whatever whisky he's drinking, buy a case for our other hitters...

not worried about walks from a guy who is crushing the ball this well right now. If he goes into a bit of a slump and starts expanding the strike zone, then you might worry a little, but clearly he's seeing the ball well and attacking it. I expect his walks to start going up as guys stop giving him pitches to hit. Great news to see Lewis and Kirilloff responding so well to their promotion. Rooker seems to be in a groove right now. It would be great for him to finish out the season strong; it's important to realize this is his first year playing this kind of schedule. he's already played 50% more games than last year, so if he finishes the year strong and stays healthy he's going to be in a good position for next season. (spring training invite, likely assignment to AAA unless he just hits his way into a job?)

what an awful series. better not hear any complaints from twins players about the selling guys off; if you didn't want that to happen, maybe you shouldn't have put a stamp on it and mailed in the series. Time to sell it off. I'd be willing to entertain offers on Dozier, escobar, Lynn, Morrison, Odorizzi, and even Gibson. Heck, if Mauer is ok with going out to a contender and someone want to bringing him on board to draw walks and play late-inning defense...I'd be ok with that too.

This makes sense to me. a week or two won't make much difference and know what all the pieces you have on the board before you make your moves is reasonable.

He's got an OPS+ of 97 and his positive fWAR is based almost entirely on his defensive contributions. He's got a BA under .230, had long stretches where he's looked lost at the plate, and his power production has slipped a little this year. He's not a bad player, but he sure is a disappointment this season.

Kepler should be looking over his shoulder right now. Wade is coming for him, Rooker is coming for him and Kirilloff is coming for him. and kepler has hit like a 4th OF this year. Kirilloff looks great, no problems adjusting to High A so far, which is great to see. lewis seems to be managing the adjustment fine too.

I'm a little surprised my candidate didn't get discussed: Max Kepler. Kepler doesn't have the excuse of injury to explain his struggles, and simply has not taken that step forward we were looking for. he had a hot start in Mar/April, struggled in May, was a disaster in June and has had a good start to July. But right now he's nowhere near the hitter we were hoping for and his abysmal BA and lack of power so far is making him look much more like a 4th OF than a guy who can be a staple in the OF for the next 5 years. Morrison has been unlucky and bad, but I didn't expect as much out of him: his signing always felt like a "well, this guy is out there for cheap, why not add the bat?" rather than a "we're counting on Logan Morrison". Buxton and sano have had injuries which is a shame, but...it happens. yes, neither has hit like we need when in the lineup, but I might actually be more concerned about the guy who is healthy and isn't hitting than the guys who haven't had that same health. I'm not giving up on Kepler, but he faded badly last season and has had a poor first half. He needs to start mashing RHP or instead of holding down RF as a mainstay he's going to be fighting with Lamonte Wade for the 4th OF job, and that's a waste of talent.

I assume Romero is being treated as if he's on the current MLB roster, and Nick intentionally left all of them out. but I'm still not seeing Felix Jorge as the 5th starter even on this squad over someone like Thorpe or even Kohl Stewart. Catcher and 3B are the thinnest spots in the minor league development pipeline, but there's been some effort to start working on that area. But it's definitely an area of weakness unless Sano can get it figured out or Escobar lands there permanently for a few years at 3B and catcher doesn't have guys that are likely close. I like Rortvedt, but he's still not there yet. But that does happen in every system, and I'd rather be flush with guys that can play up the middle.

Really interesting group of prospects here, and a good sign for the Twins system that these are all guys that are projectable as MLB players yet sit outside the top 10. Wade is a really fascinating case. BA is actually becoming an underrated tool in MLB these days, so if Wade can continue to get on base and slap singles all over the park he could be a real asset for the team. Hitting for power is an extremely valuable thing for a hitter, but when your lineup is filled with guys who are clocking in a BA under .250 and there are Ks everywhere, there's increased value in finding guys who can score hits and make contact consistent. It will be interesting to see if Wade can be one of those guys. Rortvedt is progressing pretty nicely, only wish it could be faster. Good catchers who can add offensive value are few and far between. you could argue he deserves a bit higher ranking than this based on his lack of drop in hitting upon moving up a level. He's a young guy doing well in a tough environment. At a certain point, Thorpe is going to have to have the results back up the peripherals, but he had a big injury and tougher recovery, so I think it's ok to be a little more patient on him and rank off potential still. If he finishes the year healthy, no scholarship next year. right? Kind of a fun group of prospects here, breakout potential balanced with decent odds most of them never accomplish much in MLB. Will be fun to see if they can keep progressing and put it all together

1. ok, if moving out Doug Mientkiewitz is a significant factor in the collapse of some of the younger players on this squad, those guys are in deep trouble. If guys like kepler, buxton, and sano are so disturbed by their former minor league manager is no longer with the franchise (even though he hadn't been their coach in multiple seasons), you have to wonder about their mental toughness. Or, maybe this is a complete non-factor that doesn't even get brought up unless someone is looking to manufacture evidence against the FO. 2. You're really dropping a lot on the intangibles side of things here. Dozier wasn't looking for a team-friendly extension after last season. Dude wanted to get paid (and looked like he might be worth it). He's followed it up with a pretty miserable season in which he's cost himself somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-50M. If his attitude after seeing his hopes of a 5 year $100M contract go up in smoke has infected the team and dragged them down...that's on him, and on Molitor for not dealing with it. This has been a frustrating season because so many things looked like they were lining up. The signings looked like they had shored up some weaknesses, we had some young guys who looked ready to take the next step...and then things started going haywire. Polanco was supposed to be a key member of this team, and got suspended. hard to blame the FO for that. Santana was supposed to be the veteran leader of the staff and still hasn't pitched. hard to blame the FO for that either. castro was supposed to guide the younger pitchers and got wiped out by the knee injury. Buxton has been hurt and bad. sano has been hurt and bad. kepler had a hot start and then fell off the face of the earth. Dozier has been way, way down. That's a lot of guys who were supposed to get a lot of run for this team in key roles that have either gotten hurt, sucked, or both. The Logan Morrison signing hasn't worked out, but it was a cheap 1 year deal. I blame them FO a bit for not moving on from Robbie Grossman, a marginal player who adds zero defensively and isn't much of an offensive player either; this year he's unsurprisingly been bad and there were other options. but your 4th OF/occasional DH shouldn't make or break you. Hughes I think everybody knew wasn't likely to go, but when Ervin went down it was hard to blame the FO for at least trying to recoup some of the sunk costs on that guy. It didn't work and they moved on. Again, though: hughes was looked at as a 5th starter, if he could get it together. Lance Lynn and Odorizzi have been respectable; imagine what happens if we don't go get them and Ervin goes down? It's been a mixed bag for the FO so far. The biggest questions are in player development because we need young players to develop to their potential and right now we're seeing some big failures. How much of that is on the current FO is a little hard to say just yet. Their free agent moves haven't all worked out, but they've made sense and haven't hamstrung the team's future.

Granite is having a bit of a lost season; with Cave on the roster and Buxton coming back it's hard to see him getting anything more than september callup this year. I was hoping he could be that high-average, high OBP plus defender guy that could make it easy for the Twins to move on from Grossman and slot him in as a 4th OF. Right now, hitting for average is an increasingly absent skill, and I suspect it's an undervalued one as well. Hopefully, the injury has only delayed Granite's evolution. Curtiss looks like another one of those fungible relievers that's good to have in your system but you shouldn't ever spend real money on. I suspect he'll eventually stick on the MLB roster and then have a really nice season that will sucker someone into giving him a multi-year deal. but maybe not. The walks might limit his effectiveness as a fireman, but it's always good to have relievers of his capacity waiting in AAA.

Kirilloff seems to be adapting to high-A just fine...would like to see Royce Lewis get the same kind of opportunity this year, but maybe the minor knee trouble has the Twins thinking they don't want him to try to press with a new level while he works through it?

He's been better than I had expected. I was always sort of "whatever" on the acquisition in the offseason, because I think the role of "closer" is super overrated and vastly overpaid. If it meant that better relievers got to pitch more in higher leverage situations rather than be held out to come in to finish the 9th inning, good. I figured if rodney was cooked, he'd be easy to walk away from. Turns out, he seems to have plenty in the tank! Good for him. Looks like a very good signing. It'll be even better if he can teach his changeup to Romero...

Berrios is looking like the ace we've all been hoping for. He's having a great run right now and it's not based on smoke & mirrors. He's 5th in WHIP, 8th in pitching bWAR, 10th in FIP in the AL. The innings are good, great to see him get at least 6 innings in the last 8 starts. In those starts he's only given up more than runs once. He's had at least 10 Ks three times. Game score over 70 4 times. That's a guy that can lead your staff. Plus, he's FUN to watch. when that curve is bending and he's hitting his spots...watching guys flail away at it is just a blast.

It depends on what he does when he goes back to AAA. One of the reasons he's scrabbling right now is MLB hitters are figuring him out a little now that there's enough innings to have a book on him, and he needs to understand that he can't just gas it out and expect to overwhelm guys. He's got to refine his command and control, and dropping back to AAA is a perfectly reasonable place to do it. Meija deserves a shot again as well and has been excellent in AAA. Remember they did this with Berrios and things seem to have worked out just fine there. Just because a guy doesn't have anything more to prove against AAA competition doesn't mean they can't use the opportunity to figure out things they need to do to have success in MLB. More good news on Kirilloff, hope he continues to rake in high A. I don't understand the thought that the Twins are somehow the wrong team to develop him; his development looks to be right on track and going very well. The only hiccup he's had so far is a significant injury that had really nothing to do with the Twins, and he's rebounded about as well as any human could ask for. Just because Buxton has struggled to hit consistently in MLB doesn't mean they're somehow incapable of handling Kirilloff, who has an advanced approach at the plate and an excellent hit tool.

congrats to Kirilloff on the promotion, it's well deserved. Should be fun to see how he does hitting in high A for the rest of the year; if he keeps on rolling that's a really good sign. He's still really young, so it's nice to see him bump up a level. I wonder if the tender knee is a reason they're not moving Royce Lewis up right now? Maybe they just want to him play through it and have concerns that he'll overstress things pushing too hard at a new level? On performance, he's earned it. Really pleased with Rortvedt's development this year. He's taken a nice step forward, showing a much improved hit tool. He's a guy I'm really curious to see if he can develop into a guy that could be a quality starting MLB catcher. still a lot of work to be done, but I'm rooting for the guy.

Agreed. For the first time in a long time the twins have guys from 1-5 that give them a chance every night, and there's depth in the high minors (and with pending rehabs) that aren't low-impact flyers you hope can survive through anonymity for a few weeks. Having that level of depth gives you a lot of flexibility. Odorizzi has stumbled a bit lately, but he's been a solid veteran. When Ervin gets back they'll have some decisions to make, but they'll also have options.

Your scenario works when you're only talking about one game and assuming no other impacts from other players. Over the course of a season, avoiding making outs is a more important individual skill for scoring runs than hitting for power. The same thinking applies to the cliche of "a walk is as good as a hit". In isolation, that's true: both have avoided spending an out. But a hit, even a single, is more valuable than a walk because of all the other things that can happen because of it (driving in a run, creating the possibility of a fielding error, creating the possibility of a throwing error, advancing a runner an extra base, etc).

You are correct, sir! I think what we're seeing is why we not only signed him this season but tried to get him to commit to a multi-year deal (2, as I recall). If you've got a guy like Lance Lynn as your 3rd or 4th starter, your rotation is probably in pretty decent shape. It's going to be an interesting call on whether to move him at the deadline (there's no question he'll have value, but how much?) or whether you try to re-sign him in the offseason (not mutually exclusive, of course but I suspect it'd be much easier to get him to come back if we don't rent him out to someone else for most of the second half). Bad start, but he's still a solid pitcher. He's going better than Romero or Odorizzi over the last month. It's nice to see him start getting consistently into the 6th inning

A little crow, but still not quite ready to declare him finally the pitcher we'd hoped. He's had nice runs before. The walks are still an issue; he dodged out of trouble last night, but walks nearly ended his night early. I get nervous that the wheels are going to fall off the wagon when he's walking 3.9 per 9. But his approach is overall much better, he's keeping the ball in the park, and trusting his stuff to get more Ks. It's finally a workable formula and he pitched well last night. Offense still needs serious work, but it's good to see Dozier rip a dinger last night. Maybe that will help him kickoff a second half run a little earlier this year?

I think it's reasonable to consider a limit, based on innings, pitches, etc. And I think the Twins management will be thoughtful about it. I wonder if it would be better to space things out so that he's pitching late in the year, though, to get him used to the length of the MLB season, even while he's building up to the innings? Is there value in giving him a little extra rest in July/August (skipping his turn in the rotation while still having him do his regular work) and having him actually pitching later in the year just to try and acclimate him to the length of the season while trying to not overstress the arm. I doubt there's any good data on this yet, and you know what they say: it's better to read the case study than be the case study...

In favor of whom, Chris Carter? Vargas? Morrison started out in a horrific slump, seemed to have pulled out of it, and is struggling again. But you don't dump a vet with a good track record coming off a terrific season after just 200 ABs, especially when there's not exactly a young prospect pushing for his job. Part of the problem the Twins have with their bench is...they don't have enough spots. With a gazillion pitchers, there's not much room for position players.

I'm fine with Rooker spending the full year in AA. Let's let him get a full season of ABs, see how he does getting through a full year season with 450+ plate appearances and a long season. Remember, he's already played almost as many games this season as he did all of last year in the system, so let's see how he goes in a full year at AA. He's on schedule and doing fine, but there's nothing going on that says "you must push him to AAA" in my mind. Kirilloff continues to keep raking. It's great. His promotion to Fort Myers is coming, just a matter of when they announce it. Good for him. And good for Rortvedt! He's one of the guys I was most interested in going into this year and so far he seems to be on track.