ALessKosherScott

I think among viable options for the season, these two strike me as the most likely. 1. The Twins stand pat, take advantage of the unbalanced schedule with more games against dreck-like teams than the rest of the AL, win a Wild Card birth and either lose there or in a series against KC. 2. The Twins make a move, fill a hole or two, win the Wild Card and lose either there or in a series against KC. It's hard to come up with a trade scenario that gives them enough offense or pitching to win it all this year.

To throw out a young shortstop name, I guess maybe I'd ask Boston about Deven Marrero. He's blocked by a younger shortstop and at the very least could be a Jack Wilson/Adam Everett type of asset,

1. Look to fix the catching problem for 2016 and 2017. You don't want to punt 2015. But odds are, you're not going to get 2014 Suzuki back next year. And there's no fix that gives you any more hope than the "Anything can happen in the playoffs" line that probably won't be true. Susac is my catcher on my Shadow Draft Twins, so I'd be happy to bring him in. I'd take a shot on Mike Zunino if the Mariners would give him up cheaper than the Giants Susac. LuCroy is a great player, but what will he be as a 31-year-old in 2017? 2. Trade Pelfrey or Millone. My asking price isn't excessive, because I want to put May back into the rotation. 3. Whether or not I make a trade for a reliever, it seems like the upside of this team is winning the wild card game. I'd rather wait and fix the bullpen in the offseason when it will be more cost effective. 4. With that said, this is the more interesting bullpen question to me. Burdi, Cederoth, Clay, Reed, Curtiss, Bard, Chargois, Melotakis, Jones. Boer. Summers. So we've invested how much in resources in college relievers over the past four drafts and what exactly do we have to show for it? Whose head needs to roll for that? 5. I wouldn't mind playing the same game as #1, sub in an upside shortstop for catcher. I'm just less certain of names I'd target who would be reasonably priced.

1987 is a great option for this team. Provided Berrios can come up and immediately be Cy Young-worthy Frank Viola.

Wake me up when we get to an ESPN bored reunion. 27-4=22!

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/07/genius-turns-rap-legends-into-hall-of-famers-in-these-incredible-baseball-cards

Trick question. ABW is the reincarnated Babe Ruth.

ABW, Meyer and Duensing for the reanimated Babe Ruth. Who says no?

Pretty good read on Towns' summer league performance on Grantland.

Three A's (Foxx, SImmons, Mack). Two Braves (Aaron and Spahn). No Orioles. One Brooklyn Dodger (Snider). One Giant (Willie Mays). Granted, in Baltimore's case there was only one or two Browns worth even nominating, Albeit, the Giants did vote Posey on over Christy Mathewson.

My vote was Johnson, Puckett, Killebrew and Johan Santana, whom I thought they did a bigger disservice to than Johnson by leaving him off the ballot completely.

Budinger for Rudez is an interesting flip. At the very least, it sheds some salary and brings in a nice shooter to replace one of our better shooters.

I think it's less how you split the minutes and more what you see in them: Garnett: For all the mentoring talk, he's the still the best post defender on the team. You want 15 to 20 high-leverage minutes per game. Works well with Towns (defense), Bjelica (ball movement), Dieng (rebounding), Pekovic (post scoring). Dieng: It's year three. You're hoping he doesn't get pushed around in the paint and doesn't bite on as many pump fakes. If he can do that, he's going to push Towns to power forward long term. If he can't, he can still be a playoff-quality role player. Works well with Towns (rebounding), Garnett (rebounding), Bjelica (pick and roll). Doesn't work with Pekovic (no range). Bjelica: The piece the team missed most last year was a stretch four who could space the floor-- Dieng, in particular. Your hope is by the end of the year that's what Bjelica gives the team. Works well with Garnett (ball movement), Dieng (pick and roll), Towns (spreading the floor). Doesn't work with Pekovic (questionable defense). Towns: He's not going to be a star right off the bat. But you're hoping people talk about him the same way they do Wiggins right now in about a year. Works well with Dieng (rebounding), Bjelica (floor spacing), Garnett (defense), Pekovic (inside-outside game). Pekovic: He may not start the season healthy. And even if he does, he presents a lot of the problems that drafting Okafor would have. He's a great post scorer who gets to the line and converts, but unless he's on the floor with Garnett or Towns it presents a problem defensively and you really need to surround him with shooters. Bennett: It's going to a bear to trade his cap number. In a perfect world, you'd rather have Justin Hamilton back as your sixth big. But Bennett shot decently last year and did okay rebounding, so there's hope. He was a nightmare everywhere else. The fear is "new Derrick Williams." Payne: Take Bennett. Add two years in age. He's cheaper than Bennett, and maybe a little better defender. But he also has less range on his shot. At this point, who really knows?

They pulled the qualifying offer to Hummel, too. Which in theory opens a roster spot back up.

Stauskas is a good example of the type of shooter I'd have liked to see the Timberwolves add. Low cost with upside. Most of the 3 and D guys who made bank this year--Carroll, Green, Matthews-- were guys who flopped in their first stop in their early twenties and improved as they physically matured. It would be nice to find a guy who could really be something in two years. Tony Snell maybe? Alternatively, it would also be nice to find a 30-something point guard to take some of the pressure off Jones so he doesn't have to immediately step into the backup point role.

Long drive champ would seem to me as a guy with 80 power during batting practice who can't put it to use in a game. Walker has usable game power, and it's something pitchers are always going to have to game plan around. If we really want a major league comp of what he could be if every thing went right, that's pretty easy. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kingmda01.shtml The question is can he learn enough to get himself into the 2-0 counts where he will get cookies to hit, as opposed to working himself into 0-2 counts where we'll be waiting for the invevitable strikeout.

In theory, guy who struck out at a 37 percent clip in AA, in a time when a 37% clip would be comparable to a 50% clip today. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=deer--001rob Albeit, Deer was two years younger and had a much better walk rate, and kept taking more walks as he stepped up levels. Both probably had true 80 power though. And I wouldn't mind if ABW kept striking out at the same pace if he'd be willing to mix in a few more walks.

Assuming the MLE for Bjelica and no one messes with Hummel after the qualifying offer, your 2015-16 Wolves roster by position is: 1. Rubio Jones 1/2 Lavine 2 Martin 2/3 Wiggins Budinger Muhammed 3/4 Hummel Bjelica 4 Bennett Payne 4/5 Towns Garnett 5 Dieng Pekovic I like the flexibility, but can that roster get you 30 wins? Call me crazy, but I wish there was another point guard and another shooter in the 2/3 mix in there, and one or two fewer guys who can play four.

I think more to the point, the team had two glaring weaknesses-- post defense and a back up point guard who could step in and actually run the offense when Rubio is on the bench. The fact they actually addressed them instead of just drafting 15 point guards again kind of scares me. I'm just not used to the Wolves being on point.

It feels weird not being down about the Wolves on draft night.

Hoiberg would've been the right choice to coach. He's enough in the Flip/Taylor world where they respect his opinions, and showed he understands the way the game is headed during his time at Iowa State by running a pick-and-roll/3-point heavy offense. With that said, they're probably going to have to pay a team a usable asset to take AB off their hands given his cap number, and if the payroll were equal AB is more deserving of another chance than Payne from a statistical sense. Plus, Justin Hamilton and Robbie Hummel probably deserve the roster spot over both of them, and odds are they will be trying to catch on with another team. The real problem is Flip the part-owner/team president hamstrung himself by trying to give Flip the coach the pieces he needed.

Between the rumors that the Wolves have committed to drafting Towns and they want to move AB to bring over Bjelica, this might be the best day in the team's history for fans in some time. It's sad we spent May wondering how they'd screw this up.

Anyone who can tell you how long is too long for a player to struggle though must really have a good Magic 8 Ball. Player development isn't a science. And a player who hasn't figured everything out at 25 isn't really a rarity.

My two cents is I don't really care about an apples to apples comparison here. Because there's no at-bat threshhold for where a player suddenly gets it. Mike Moustakas had had way more than 650 Hicks-like at-bats before the light went off for him. Alex Gordon took fewer. Every player has a different time line, and there's no way to predict improvement. With Hicks, there's at least enough of a minor league track record in 2014 and 2015 to keep some glimmer of hope alive. You send him down and tell him what he needs to work on so he's ready when his next chance comes around. Because more than likely, he will get another chance with the Twins.

Morneau definitely looked back after his 106 at-bat cup of coffee. He had a decent 2004, but slumped in 2005 and had a sub .700 OPS to start 2006 when the BYTO crowd started to call to trade him. Then he took off in May of 2006 and won an MVP award. Cuddyer spent three years shuttling between Edmonton, Minnesota and Rochester before finally really starting to hit at 27. Dozier was older than Hicks when he posted a 67 OPS+ in 340 plate appearances. Plouffe didn't really learn to hit until he was sent down in July of 2011. Then he went on a homerun streak in Rochester. If Hicks learns to hit, it won't exactly be the weirdest thing to happen ever.