Seth Stohs

I would suspect that Burdi, Reed and Chargois will all start in AA this year. But I thought that before these signings. I mean, Burdi and Reed didn't get back to AA until the final week or two of the regular season. Chargois only spent about 6 weeks there.

If you ask some, a guy who spent three years in college is "too young for the Appy League." Olson went to school for four years. So yes, he's a year or so over the average age of the player. But, I always think spending your first pro season (after being drafted) in the rookie leagues is important. They're learning a lot more than baseball during those two months.

Those are some pretty solid players... now with the economics at the time, they weren't able to stay together in Minnesota. Doc, with your years of following this organizations, I'd love to see you write some historical blogs for Twins Daily. For me, it might be interesting to read about some of the prospects of those '60s and '70s teams, some that made it, some that didn't. Or just your memories or stories from those eras. I'm guessing that a lot of people here would be interested in that. For me, my earliest memories were starting in '81 getting some pbaseball cards and starting to put names and faces and reading stats and stuff, but for Twins-related memories, it starts mostly in 1984. I remember being all excited about Mark Funderburk and Bernardo Brito and Freddie Toliver.. For most of our readers, I bet their formative baseball years were either '87/'91 or now this group of guys that came up from 1998-2002. Eight year olds then are now 25ish and those are the memories they have.

a.) Sure, but if anything related to the draft is close to 50%, I'd be pretty shocked. b.) Fair enough, but I guess I think setting the bar of success at Clayton Kershaw isn't going to look good on pretty much everyone. c.) With this one, again, you'd have to go through each and every team and find out how they did. Two mid-rotation starters is nothing to scoff at, and four relievers... and frankly, 5 more years before you can really grade most of the drafts since 2008.

When the Twins sign minor league free agents, we can usually tell which ones will open the season, which ones have kind of the hint-hint, we'll sign you to a minor league deal for roster purposes but you're going to make the roster as long as you're healthy. That was the case with Kubel and Burton and Robinson from the group above. Boyer and Ramirez went out and won their jobs in spring training. Bartlett, well, we'll never really understand that one. The Twins are believed to be announcing their Non-Roster invites tomorrow (Friday), and my assumption is all four of these guys will be on that list. I would think Aaron Thompson, Joe Benson, Juan Centero will also be non-roster invites. That's part of why these guys sign minor league deals with a particular team, knowing they'll be seen by the big league staff. I don't see any of these guys being in that Burton/Kubel category of hint-hint you're on the big league roster. Kintzler might be the closest since he had two full seasons and a lot of work in 2013-2014 and is only available because of the injury. If he's healthy, he likely competes with Fien and Tonkin for the final two RH RP spots. The others are just depth who would need something to happen to make the big league roster, at least out of spring training. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Boshers is let go before the end of spring training.

Winner:

I should have had Melotakis to that list... 17% And yes, I thought about adding others... but i had to cut it off somewhere. Also, Rogers was a starter all three years in college, so he wouldn't have qualified under the College Reliever plan. You make a great point. Look at high school pitchers drafted. It's really hard to get all the way up to the big leagues.

Because they work 60-70 innings instead of 160-200 innings.

And I think it is good to have a bit of a mix, but upper-90s is more fun.

It's hard to predict injuries. One of the reasons Mark Prior was so highly thought of was because he was said to have flawless mechanics.

It was definitely part of it. He needed a second pitch and he was never able to get a consistent one. But there are other benefits to having relievers learn to start. First, most relievers aren't 8th or 9th inning guys and may need to work two innings, maybe even three innings from time to time. Second, the situations that a one-inning guy faces once in awhile, a starter will likely face that once or twice a game and have to learn how he can get out of it. Maybe in the second inning of a game, there are runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out. That guy has to figure out how to get out of that situations. So, they're actually able to work through more situations as a starter.

In June, the Twins used the sixth overall pick on a hard-throwing, left-handed, college relief pitcher. Tyler Jay made two starts in his three season at the University of Illinois. Out of the bullpen, he was throwing a fastball as high as 97. He has three other pitches scouts believe can be at least average ,if not better than average, along with strong makeup. Has the strategy of drafting hard-throwing college relievers paid out at all for the Twins to this point? We haven’t seen a lot of success with it at the big league level, but that doesn’t mean it was or is a bad strategy.Let’s take a look at the college relievers that the Twins have taken in the first ten rounds of the last eight drafts. 2008 DRAFT Carlos Gutierrez was the 27th overall pick of the 2008 draft by the Twins. He had been the closer for the University of Miami in their run in the College World Series. He had been pitching in relief because he had Tommy John surgery the year earlier. He started for two seasons before moving to the bullpen in the second half of 2010. He wanted to pitch out of the bullpen. In 2011 and 2012 in Rochester, he posted ERAs over 5.00 out of the bullpen. He spent a year in the Cubs system before calling it career in 2014. 2009 DRAFT After taking Kyle Gibson and Matt Bashore with their first two picks (first-rounders), the Twins took Billy Bullock in the second round and Ben Tootle in the third round. Billy Bullock was the closer at the University of Florida. He was known for working in the upper-90s. He did well in the low levels of the minor leagues, but he really struggled with his control. Before the 2011 season, he was traded to the Braves so that the Twins could keep Rule 5 pick Scott Diamond. He split time between AA and AAA in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, he served a 50-game PED suspension before being released. He’s played in several independent leagues since then, last year in Sioux City. Ben Tootle was actually a starter at Jacksonville State University. He frequently hit 100 mph on the radar gun despite a slight frame. He fought shoulder problems, had surgery and continued to fight control problems. He was let go following the 2011 season and spent one year in independent ball. 2010 DRAFT The Twins didn’t draft a college relief pitcher until they took Matt Hauser in the eighth round. 2011 DRAFT With their second round pick, the Twins selected Eden Prairie native Madison Boer from the University of Oregon. There he had split time between starting and the bullpen. The Twins wanted to give him an opportunity to start. He made 19 starts for Ft. Myers in 2012 but then just three more before he was released in July. In the third round, they took hard-throwing left-hander Corey Williams out of Vanderbilt. There was never any thought to making him a starter. Unfortunately, he missed the entire 2014 season after having Tommy John surgery. He returned in June of 2015 and got through the season. Fully healthy, he will likely start the season in Chattanooga but could realistically debut with the Twins by the end of the season. 2012 DRAFT After taking Byron Buxton with the second overall pick and JO Berrios with the 32nd overall pick the Twins selected Georgia Tech reliever Luke Bard With the 42nd overall pick. There was a plan to give him an opportunity to start. Unfortunately, coming into the 2015 season, Bard had accumulated a total of only 19.1 innings. He had several surgeries and missed the entire 2014 season. He returned in mid-2015 with the Kernels and got through the season healthy. If healthy, he can move up quickly because he throws hard and gets great movement. In the second round, the Twins selected left-hander Mason Melotakis out of Northwestern State University in Louisiana. Out of the bullpen, he was hitting 97. In 2013, he made 18 starts before ending the season in the bullpen for Cedar Rapids. In 2014, he made two starts in Ft. Myers before being moved permanently to the bullpen. His 2014 ended prematurely and had Tommy John surgery in October which cost him the 2015 season. He was just added to the Twins 40-man roster because of his potential to be a dominant lefty reliever in the not-too-distant future. In the third round, the Twins took Rice University’s first baseman and co-closer JT Chargois. He hit over .300 in this time at Rice, but it was on the mound that he got noticed. Sporting an upper-90s fastball, he began his career in Elizabethton and made 12 appearances in 2012. He didn’t pitch again in a game until the 2015 season because of injury leading to Tommy John surgery. He came back and sat in the upper-90s, frequently hitting 100. He also has a good slider. Following the season, he was an easy choice to add to the 40-man roster. He could surface quickly in 2015. In the fifth round, the Twins took Rice’s other co-closer, Tyler Duffey. He had been a reliever his entire life, but the Twins felt that he could transition to being a starter. In 2013, he worked 121 innings between Cedar Rapids and Ft. Myers. In 2014, he pitched 149.1 innings between Ft. Myers, New Britain and Rochester. And in 2015, he threw 138.1 innings between Chattanooga and Rochester before finishing the season with 58 innings with the Twins. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say he was their best pitcher the final six weeks of the season. Sure, he’s made just nine starts, but he certainly looks like he can be a solid mid-rotation guy, maybe more with that curve ball. 2013 DRAFT The Twins didn’t take a college reliever until the seventh round when they took Brian Gilbert out of Seton Hall. 2014 DRAFT After taking Nick Gordon with their first pick, the Twins went on a long run of college relievers again. Nick Burdi was their second round pick out of Louisville. He was a bullpen guy all along and obviously will remain so. 2015 was a learning experience for him. He came one strong after his return to AA late in the season. He had a great showing in the Arizona Fall League. His fastball touches triple-digits, and his slider was much improved. With those two pitches, he has the potential to be a great reliever. And soon! In the third round, they went with a righty Michael Cederoth. He had started some at San Diego State, but was a reliever his junior season. He was also hitting 100 at times. The Twins had him start at E-Town, and he began the 2015 season in the Cedar Rapids rotation. He made six starts and five bullpen appearances before being shut down for the rest of the season with “illness.” He will likely move to the bullpen where he again has a chance to dominate with the big fastball. In the fourth round, they selected Georgia Tech lefty Sam Clay. The lefty began the season with Cedar Rapids in the bullpen, but he struggled with his control and went back to Elizabethton to start. He returned late in the season and made a few starts for the Kernels. He will likely continue to get an opportunity to start, but as a reliever, he can reach 97. At some point, it’s most likely that he will wind up in the bullpen. Jake Reed was the team’s fifth round pick. He was a starter the first two seasons at Oregon before becoming the team’s closer his junior year. There may have been thought of having him start, but after seeing the way he dominated in Cedar Rapids and then in the AFL in 2014, as well as seeing his pitch mix, the decision to leave him in the bullpen easy. He skipped Ft. Myers and jumped right to AA. He really struggled and midway through the second half was sent down to the Miracle where he figured some things out. He came back to the Lookouts and pitched great in the AFL. Like Burdi and Chargois, Reed could debut with the Twins in 2016. That wasn’t it. In the sixth round they took University of Texas closer John Curtiss and gave him a chance to start. SUMMARY While a big deal is made of the Twins taking a bunch of college relievers and making them starters, it’s not as common as we want to think. In these eight years, they did it with Carlos Gutierrez, Madison Boer, Tyler Duffey, Michael Cederoth and Sam Clay. A 20% success rate would be pretty good. The rest of the power arms were and will continue to work out of the bullpen. As we have seen the trend in baseball the last few years, power bullpen arms are hugely valuable. Injury has taken its toll on this group, to be sure. Five of the 15 pitchers have had major surgery that has cost them a year of development or more. When college pitchers, drafted at 21, miss a year of time due to injury, they aren’t going to debut at 22 or 23 the way many like to see. Taking care of them in their recovery, and bringing them back smartly, can mean they won’t debut until they’re 25, maybe even 26. And that’s OK. Tyler Jay will get an opportunity to start beginning in 2016. We’ll see how that goes. When you take a guy with the sixth overall pick in the draft, you need to be very sure that he can start. In the fifth round in 2015, the Twins took hard-throwing lefty Alex Robinson from Maryland. He’s had bad control, but he can hit 96 and shows a devastating slider that needs to be controlled and developed. There’s no question that teams like the Royals have shown how valuable a bullpen can be. If starters can complete six innings, the team has a good chance to win. With guys like Williams, Chargois, Bard, Melotakis, Burdi and Reed getting close, the Twins will hopefully have that kind of dominant bullpen in the not-too-distant future. There is no perfect way to grade a draft. The strategy of drafting hard-throwing college relievers hasn’t provided any success to the big league club with the exception of nine starts from Tyler Duffey. Injury has delayed the timeline for several others. However, there is a lot of potential that is getting very close to contributing to the big league club soon. Maybe we can judge it again in five years or so. Click here to view the article

I think if Buxton doesn't win the starting CF job in spring that Danny Santana will be the starting CF with Rosario in one of the corners and Sano in the other. Arcia to the bench. As has been mentioned previously and in Nick's article, there's a lot of time left to work some of this out too. I think the starting 5 pitchers will be Hughes, Santana, Gibson, Milone and Duffey. I definitely think Duffey and Milone showed enough. So, with Nolasco it's long relief or let go (ideally traded). The bullpen looks fine, especially with all that depth. I would consider McGee and Storen, but I wouldn't overpay for anyone else.

I hope the Twins go with the strategy that they have used many times in the last 10-15 eyars. Long-term contracts to keep guys a year or two past free agency. They did that with Radke, Hunter, Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Nathan, Span, Santana, The difference is that instead of 4 year, $32-40 million deals, they will likely have to do something like 5 years, $85-100 million deals.

So you saw the team come to Met Stadium... saw a group of 60s core players come up like Oliva, Hall, Carew and Blyleven. I don't know if there were any great young cores in the '70s, but Bostock probably wasn't the only one... then the 82 team through Puckett and Gagne in 1984.

Drafted as a shortstop. Came up as an outfielder. Move to 3B for a bit, played OK at 2B for awhile, went back to 3B, and then finally took off when they just put him in right. Remember when Morneau's season ended in 2008 and Cuddyer went to 1B, and then he and Mauer put up amazing numbers the final 2-3 weeks of the season and got the Twins to the playoff?

Great points... I guess I lumped Kubel in with Morneau, Liriano and Mauer in a group that came up after that 1998-2002 group... though the next group was probably 2003-2006. The nice thing is that from 1998 through about 2010, the Twins had one, maybe two, rookie contributors coming up almost every year. Nice because you're not going to win when you are counting on 10-15 rookies, but able to replace guys that leave with competence.

On Friday night, news leaked the outfielder Michael Cuddyer had informed the Mets of his intention to retire. A clear leader on some very good Minnesota Twins teams in the second half of last decade, Cuddyer has spent the last four years with the Rockies and the Mets. He is the most recent member of those Twins teams who brought baseball enthusiasm back to Minnesota to speak of retirement. Shortly after the end of the 2015 season, outfielder Torii Hunter announced his retirement. Hunter returned to the Twins for the season. He had some ups and downs, but certainly performed as well, or better, than anyone could have hoped for. He turned 40 in July. He may have been able to get through another season, but he left on his own accord. Likewise, Cuddyer had a tough 2015 season with the Mets, certainly not up to the caliber he displayed when healthy in Colorado. However, he was able to participate in the World Series and goes out at the age of 36. In fact, he left his 2016 salary of $12.5 million on the table. Sure, he's probably doing just fine financially, but it does speak volumes to the class act that Cuddyer is.LaTroy Hawkins announced during the season that 2015 would his last. He certainly had his ups and (a lot of) downs in his time with the Twins. He had just figured things out in 2002 and 2003, becoming one of the top set-up men in baseball. Who would have known that he would play for another dozen seasons? Even in 2015, he was still throwing a good fastball in the mid-90s. He probably could have played again in 2016, but as he is turning 43 in less than two weeks, he's ready to move on to the next stage of his life. Another from that group of players is David Ortiz. We all know the back story, and what he has become, but he was an important piece on the field and in the clubhouse in the early part of last decade. When the Twins non-tendered him, no team wanted him. In fact, it wasn't for about two months after being non-tendered that the Red Sox signed him to a $1.5 million deal and they said he might compete for platoon at-bats. Five hundred career home runs later, he announced that 2016 will be his final season. Ortiz turned 40 following the 2015 season. Two other players remain active in baseball from the 2002 roster that won an ALDS series before losing to the eventual World Champions, the Angels. Kyle Lohse is 36 and is currently an unsigned free agent. The other is AJ Pierzynski, who is still catching, re-signed with Atlanta for 2016, his age 39 season. He hit .300 last year. Well, I guess Johan Santana is going to give a comeback one more try, but we'll see. That's it! If you are old enough to remember being a Twins fan through the highs of 1987 and 1991, you can also appreciate just how bad the baseball was in Minnesota from about 1996 through 2000. And then this group started coming up in 1998. Rookies were surrounded by veterans and over time, they started figuring it out. They started being competitive in 2001. Tom Kelly retired and Ron Gardenhire took over a team that everyone knew should compete. And they did. You likely remember Dusty Kielmohr, the nickname of the Twins right field players through most of the season. Dusty Mohr and Bobby Kielty both contributed. In fact Kielty posted a bWAR of 2.7 while Mohr's was at 2.3. Everyone will remember the Keystone Combo of Luis Rivas and Cristian Guzman. Na Na Na Na Na.. Jacque Jones was recently named an assistant hitting coach for Dusty Baker and the Nationals. Matthew Lecroy was the Nationals bullpen coach for a few years. Eddie Guardado became the Twins bullpen coach last year. Doug Mientkiewicz has won two championships in two seasons as a manager in the Twins minor leagues. This was the group that brought me back to baseball. When I was in college, we didn't have cable in our dorm rooms the first couple of years, so I couldn't watch. But this group of players got me back into it. I've always been a fan of rookies and prospects, so watching that group come together and build to something special was a lot of fun. Seeing another one of them retire kind of makes me sad. It also makes me feel really old. As I'm sitting here thinking about the group of prospects that came up between 1998 and 2002, it makes me smile. It makes me think of being six years old, just getting into baseball cards, and just learning the names Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunanski, Gary Gaetti Frank VIola and eventually Kirby Puckett. And it makes me wonder which players from the Twins prospect promotions from 2014 to 2016 (like Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Tyler Duffey and JO Berrios) will be playing still in 2030. You don't play in the big leagues for more than a dozen years without being really good. So, congratulations to Torii Hunter, LaTroy Hawkins and now Michael Cuddyer on their fantastic careers. They have all represented themselves and their organizations very well on and off the field. Click here to view the article

I really like Aaron Hicks. Spent at least 20 minutes chatting with him in the locker room on the final weekend. Great kid. But, I still like the trade. Hicks had 6 great weeks in 3 seasons in the big leagues. I hope he does take off in New York. But I still like the trade. Sure, the Twins could have gone out and spent on good backup catchers where you know what you're going to get. But instead, he went aggressive and got a 24-year-old who is a backup because Brian McCann is their catcher. He was available because Gary Sanchez is also about ready. If Murphy can be an average major league catcher, and I think that's very reasonable, he can start and the team can have him for 5 years before free agency. Worst case, he's a solid major league backup. Best case, he's a slightly better than average starting catcher, which has a ton of value. There are several good backup catchers on that list above, but none are terrific by any means.

Now, whether a person agrees with the decision to protect Dean or Jones is one thing, but I don't think it's at all fair to say that they don't have a plan. That makes it sound like they just picked names out of a hate to decide who to protect. From my understanding of the organizational meetings following the season, there is often heated debate on every player from the big leagues to the GCL (maybe even the DSL). They didn't take adding Dean or leaving Jones off lightly. Maybe there are factors that we haven't considered. Let's also remember that with his control issues (and other things), it's very possible that either Jones comes back to the organization in spring, or they acquire some other prospect to let the Brewers keep him.

With all due respect, I think this is 100% inaccurate... if anything, TR may move too quickly most offseasons. The year he came back, he signed Josh Willingham and Jamey Carroll before the Winter Meetings (I think there was a third guy too). Three years ago, he traded Denard Span before the Winter Meetings and Ben Revere in the Winter Meetings. Two years ago, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes were both signed before the winter meetings. Last year, he signed Ervin Santana at the Winter Meetings. Of course, in recent years, the Twins have had more needs. This year, they've been pretty vocal. They want one thing, LH RP. They don't have it yet. We'll see if he gets it or if not, if he'll go after a Storen or someone really good like that.

I agree... and if he can get down to 250-255 by spring training, that might be good. I saw a picture of Sano from yesterday... He looks like he's got about 10% body fat. So, even if he's at about 265 still, oh well.

Yes. NOT trading him. Proofreading is important!