Seth Stohs

Mark is such an interesting guy. This reads like a story, but it is as legit as it gets. This is Mark. He is very thoughtful and in tune with all of this.

That was awesome!!

Short answer... Suzuki has a ton of job security. Of course, that could change by about June, though not likely.

I was at that exhibition game against the Cardinals, first game at Target Field... I remember the ovation he got and his response to it... Was incredible!! I recall it getting rather dusty in there.

Yeah, I guess I'll concur with most of the above. I'd take my chances with Hicks/Schafer/Robinson rather than give up someone.

Brace is as good as it gets, and he really, really enjoys it. Good guy, too... The only negative, in my opinion, is that he went to St. John's, but...

Yeah, I think Ownership is smart enough to see this trend... they're certainly smart enough to see the increasing TV revenues generated and how it works. Also, look at this list and see which teams were in the playoffs and which weren't: The Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies weren't in the playoffs. Increased payroll allows for more mistakes, but it always comes down to business decisions. I'm fully comfortable with where the Twins payroll for 2015 is relative to 1.) Their TV revenue compared to others, and 2.) the fact they are mixing higher-paid veterans with their young, talented guys who are making league minimum.

With Kohl Stewart added, my top 9 and 10 of my top 11 Twins prospects will be there. Pretty exciting. And again, if you haven't already, be sure to get your tickets to the Twins Daily Winter Meltdown from 5-8 on Saturday night. It'll be fun to get up close with Dave St. Peter, Tim Laudner and Jacque Jones. All five Twins Daily guys will be there. Jeremy Nygaard and Cody Christie will be there. AJ Pettersen will be there. We're hoping several of the Vikings Journal and Wild Xtra writers will be there as well. Should be a really fun night!

Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan tweeted estimated team salaries recently (based on current rosters. It was before arbitration numbers came out, but used MLB TR's estimates which proved to be "close enough" for this analysis. Here are how the teams rank (with several free agents still out there and available (Note - I just took this from his tweets. There are just 29 teams listed... don't want to take the time to figure out which team is missing): Dodgers ($262.6M), Yankees ($210.9M), Red Sox ($180.5M), Tigers ($168.8M) Giants ($160.7M). Washington $140,600,000 Philadelphia $136,400,000 Texas $128,900,000 Toronto $122,500,000 Seattle $122,500,000 St. Louis $118,100,000 Baltimore $116,100,000 Chicago White Sox $114,600,000 Kansas City $112,100,000 Cincinnati $111,000,000 Chicago Cubs $108,500,000 Milwaukee $106,400,000 Minnesota $104,900,000 Colorado $99,500,000 NY Mets $96,700,000 Pittsburgh $93,500,000 Atlanta $93,000,000 SD $87,700,000 Arizona $85,400,000 Cleveland $83,000,000 Oakland $80,600,000 TB $73,500,000 Miami $66,900,000 Houston $64,700,000 He notes: "Worth remembering: There's still about $125M worth of 2015 salaries left on the free agent market, among Scherzer, Shields and lesser guys." For instance, Nori Aoki signed with the Giants for $4 million after these numbers came out. A couple of observations: The Twins are at 18th or 19th (depending on missing team)Some will say that the average team salary will be somewhere around $140-$145 million. Fair to say that the Dodgers and Yankees throw off those numbers.The median salary is (depending on one missing team) between $108 and $111 million. That means that the Twins, at about $104M are about $7 million below that number... Considering how many young players should be on the roster (pre arbitration), that seems like a pretty reasonable place to be, especially considering where their team revenues likely rank relative to the rest of the league (particularly local TV revenues, which are the biggest chunk).

Yes, Sano probably has a little more power potential, but Arcia still has elite power. He just needs to put the ball in play a little more and he'll certainly add more homers.

That is kind of the big piece of arbitration, years of service.

But again, the guys have been hurt. Can't promote players that are injured. And Burdi and Reed were in their first pro seasons after pitching since January. They were on a tight leash, pitching about every third or fourth day. No reason to promote them to the big leagues yet. Tonkin's had a few opportunities. Others were hurt. It's not that they didn't draft well. There's no way to know that yet. Getting hurt isn't a drafting problem, it's a thing that happens to pitchers. And, the success rate of college relievers rushed to the big leagues in their pro debut season or even early in their first full season is not great at all. Ryan Wagner comes to mind. The Royals called up their top pick in this year's draft and put him in their bullpen for the playoffs... but it was for the playoffs, not for a September call up. Huge difference. The thought is too that the Royals want him to start so he'll likely head down to the minors at least for a couple of months to start 2015.

I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss the Twins six arbitration eligible players after they sign (or exchange terms if necessary): Tommy Milone, per Mike Berardino, agreed to a $2.775 million deal. (I predicted $2.4M) Also per Mike Berardino, Trevor Plouffe agreed to a $4.8 million, one year deal. (I predicted $4.85M) Berardino tweets that Eduardo Nunez agreed at $1.025M (I predicted "just shy of $1M). Darren Wolfson tweeted that Casey Fien has agreed to a 1-year deal... terms to come. Wolfson says $1.375M (Ignore my $2M prediction... Oops!). The Twins were not able to reach agreements with Brian Duensing or Jordan Schafer, so numbers were exchanged. We'll post them here when we learn them. Here were my predictions from earlier this week. Here is Mike's blog on the arbitration numbers.

FanGraphs posted their 2015 Zips Projections for the Twins today. Like when I post my player projections, it's all a guess. They use numbers. I typically use numbers and gut feel, adn generally, I'm guessing, we'll both be right and wrong on around the same number of players. I like reading projections to see what they say, but they have to completely be taken with a grain of salt. This one is always funny to me because it has Byron Buxton getting nearly 400 plate appearances, Aaron Hicks getting 500+, Shane Robinson getting over 400, and Jordan Schafer too. They have guys like Jason Kubel and Jason Bartlett and Virgil Vasquez and Kris Johnson listed. It's purely mathematical... I do enjoy seeing the player comps... Twins fans should really enjoy seeing the player comp for JO Berrios is JD Durbin!! Enjoy and comment...

The deadline for agreeing to terms before exchanging numbers is noon today. Check back here to find out what players agreed to. Any last minute predictions?

Yeah, way too many factors come into play when a team wins a World Series title.... the biggest might involve luck, health, guys getting hot at the right team, having a pitcher who pitches great for a 2-3 week period, getting "clutch" hitting from unlikely sources... A GM can try to put the best roster he can together and then the players kind of have as much control as anyone... I would never judge a player, GM, manager, Quarterback, basketball player by the number of titles his teams have won. Even though that, of course, is the ultimate goal for all organizations, GMs, managers and players.

I would tend to think Ft. Myers as well... more likely, he won't get to the regular season, but guys like this get to go to camp a lot. The TWins signed a guy last year out of an indy league for spring training ,but he was released very late in camp. They also signed DJ Johnson from an indy league in June or so last year and he was a big part of the Ft. Myers bullpen after that. He throws 95. It's defintely worth looking at the indy leagues. Some guys do fall through the cracks.

A couple of years ago they added 8 players after the season, but I'd have to check who was added in September. Maybe a couple that were added for September came off. Not sure. Buxton and Berrios, if they're deemed ready and needed before August will come up. They won't hesitate at that point. However, there's no reason (other than stuff like PR) to call them up in September. Those 10-14 games they may play (2-4 games for a pitcher) aren't worth it in the long run over potentially protecting someone else in the offseason. (In my opinion)

I would say it would be rare for a team to have more than 1-2 players from their 2012 draft that will help them in 2015. This article isn't so much about 2015, but for years beyond. The college guys from the 2012 draft don't have to be added to the 40 man roster until after this year and can't become minor league free agents for like 4 more years. The high school guys drafted in 2012 don't have to be added until after next year.

I think I wrote that somewhere in the article. I would say anyone at this stage of their career, just 2 1/2 years in, should get an Incomplete grade... That said, I like the potential of this group. I've done LOOK BACK articles at the drafts. It's fun to do.

I dont know why I typed "outfielder" for Fernandez. I recall telling myself as I was typing NOT to type outfielder, but I still did. Each year at Instructs, he plays in the OF and there is talk about him playing out there, but he really hasn't yet. I think when Jeremy and I talked about ranking the catching prospects in the organization, I had Fernandez fourth (behind Turner, Garver and Navarreto, but I like Fernandez a lot. He may have been in the mid-30s for me.).

In 2012, the Minnesota Twins had an important draft. They had the #2 overall pick and six picks in the first 100 selections. At the time, they were coming off of their second straight 90-loss season and the farm system was not considered strong. They needed to add talent. There were certainly some dual strategies at work. Today we’ll look back at the Twins 2012 draft.After losing Michael Cuddyer to Colorado via free agency, the Twins acquired two additional draft picks, the Rockies' second round pick and a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds. Jason Kubel also left as a free agent to the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Twins also got a supplemental pick for him. The MLB draft is incredibly difficult to judge or even analyze for more than a decade for various reasons. Top prospects don’t always make it big and there are hidden gems found in late rounds. However, when you have the opportunity to draft second overall in the draft, it is important to get it right. As Aaron Gleeman pointed out on this past week’s Gleeman and the Geek podcast, it’s important to get the early picks right, but even mid-to-late first round picks, much less picks in rounds two through forty, are mostly a crapshoot. HIGH-UPSIDE PREPSTERS The Twins have had a lot of success with athletic, toolsy high school hitters in the past. Torii Hunter (1993), Michael Cuddyer (1998), Joe Mauer (2001), Denard Span (2002) and Ben Revere (2007) are some examples of this. Byron Buxton certainly fits that model. His tools and athleticism are truly elite. When healthy (2013), he was the best player in minor league baseball and put himself on track to be in the big leagues as a 19-year-old. Unfortunately a smorgasbord of injuries cost him a lot of development time and delayed his big league debut. The Twins have had less success with drafting and developing high school pitchers. The most recent pitcher that the Twins drafted out of high school who made starts was Anthony Swarzak. Aside from Twins Hall of Famer Brad Radke, who the Twins took with their 8th round pick in 1991, others are few and far between. However, JO Berrios certainly displayed the potential and the work ethic to break that mold. He has a chance to be in the big leagues before he turns 22. DRAFTING COLLEGE RELIEVERS After that, however, we saw the Twins make another interesting shift in thinking. Five of their next six picks were college relievers. The Twins clearly focused on obtaining velocity through the draft. Although those five pitchers were relievers in college, the Twins made it clear that several of them would be given an opportunity to start. That makes sense. Starters have the opportunity to work 170 to 200 innings in a season whereas even the top relievers will likely top out at 70 innings in a season. Even if the pitcher does go back to the bullpen, the opportunity to start has other benefits. He can work on secondary pitches. However, as a starter, he will have to work out of many situations that he will see coming out of the bullpen. It’s just that he is able to go through those experiences in the 3rd or 4th inning rather than late in the game. That theory is sound, but there were certainly concerns with that strategy. One of them was an increased injury risk, whether real or perceived. Of course, that is going to be a concern with any pitcher. The thought was that a couple of these guys would get up to the big leagues and pitch out of the bullpen. The thinking was also be that if even one of them reached the big leagues as a starter, the strategy would be a success. So, two-and-a-half seasons into their professional career, how has this strategy worked out for the Twins? Here is a quick look at those five college pitchers: LUKE BARD – RHP – Georgia Tech With the 42nd overall pick (supplemental pick for losing Kubel), the Twins took the right-hander. The thought was that he would be given the opportunity to start. However, in 2012 and 2013, he worked a combined 19.1 innings in the minors and then missed the entire 2014 season. At the end of the 2013 season in Ft. Myers, observers pointed out that he stuff was absolutely filthy. However, while rehabbing from offseason surgery last spring, doctors found that he had a muscle completely detached in his shoulder area and there was debris in his shoulder joint. He had surgery in mid-May and will likely be out for 12 months. Bard is as classy as it gets and when healthy, has really good stuff. MASON MELOTAKIS – LHP – Northwestern State – Louisiana With the 63rd overall pick, the Twins took a hard-throwing left-hander. Mason Melotakis had been clocked in the upper-90s out of the bullpen in college. In 2012 and 2013, he spent most of his time as a starter. Very early in the 2014 season, he moved to the bullpen and it wasn’t long before he was promoted to AA. As a starter, he worked in the low-90s and worked on two additional pitches. Out of the bullpen, he was again throwing in the upper-90s and getting significantly more strikeouts. Unfortunately late in the season, he developed elbow pain and in August he had Tommy John surgery. He will likely miss most of the 2015 season. JT CHARGOIS – RHP – Rice University JT Chargois was a two-way player for Rice who was one of two closers on their roster. He was the pick the Twins acquired from the Rockies for Cuddyer. After signing with the Twins, he pitched 16 innings in 12 games at Elizabethton. He tried to rehab some elbow discomfort through much of the 2013 season before having late-season Tommy John surgery. He missed the entire 2014 season. However, he returned to the mound in the Instructional League and impressed everyone with a fastball that hit 99 mph. ZACK JONES – RHP – San Jose State The Twins used their third round pick on a hitter, but returned to the collegiate bullpen arms in the fourth round when they picked San Jose State reliever Zack Jones. His upper 90s fastball has been impressive. His first full season in the pros was spent in Ft. Myers in 2013. He pitched well while trying to work on his control and his slider. He pitched in the Arizona Fall League, but while there was shut down with a strange, cold sensation in his right hand fingers. A couple of months later, it was found that he had an aneurysm in his right shoulder. He required surgery and rest. While recovering, they found blood clots in his leg. He returned to Ft. Myers in May and started a rehab program. He returned to the mound and ended the regular season as the Miracle closer, leading a dominant bullpen that helped the team to their first Florida State League title. He returned to the Arizona Fall League where he struggled with control but didn’t allow a run. He is back at 100 percent and was throwing between 95 and 98 mph. TYLER DUFFEY – RHP – Rice University With their fifth round pick, the Twins took the other half of Rice’s closer share. Tyler Duffey was a hard-throwing reliever who, after signing, dominated at Elizabethton, walking two and striking out 27 in 19 innings. His first full season was split between Cedar Rapids (where he pitched the first seven innings of a no-hitter early in the season) and Ft. Myers. He made 18 starts before finishing the season in the bullpen. In 2014, he began with four starts in Ft. Myers before spending the majority of his season at New Britain. He finished the season with three starts in Rochester. He worked 149.2 innings. Recently, he was named as a non-roster Invitee to Twins big league spring training. A mid-90s fastball and two additional pitches and he is now considered a legit future big league starting pitcher. These five will have to be added to the Twins 40-man roster following the 2015 season or be made available in the Rule 5 draft in December. Duffey has been very good as a starter and has a chance to be a big league starter (or a successful reliever). The four other arms have all missed significant time due to injury and surgeries. These guys are all 24 years old and still have a good chance to get to the big leagues as relievers. They have big velocity and if things go well, they could still be late-inning, impact arms in the bullpen. Has the strategy proven wise? That’s to be determined. Time will tell. OTHER 2012 DRAFT PICKS Adam Brett Walker is a year younger than the above college arms. He’ll still be just 23 years old during the 2015 season. He has played at one level each year and been one of the most prolific power and production hitters in minor league baseball. He has led his league in home runs and RBI the last two years and has a total of 66 homers in his two-and-a-half seasons. Anyone who can hit 25 homers in the Florida State League is worth paying strong attention to. As has been discussed here a lot, he will need to make more contact, but he could have a big league future. He was the team’s third round pick, 97th overall. In the 17th round, the Twins drafted Dalton Hicks, a first baseman from Central Florida. The hulking left-handed hitter provides a lot of power and production. He spent all of 2014 in Ft. Myers. He led minor league baseball in RBI in 2013, barely topping Walker. MORE COLLEGE ARMS In the 10th round, they drafted DJ Baxendale out of Arkansas. He moved quickly up to Double-A after two months of his first full season as a pro, but he has struggled at Double-A, primarily just staying healthy. In the 11th round, the Twins took lefty Taylor Rogers from the University of Kentucky. He was my choice for Twins starting pitcher of the year in 2013 when he spent most of his season with the Miracle. Last year in New Britain, he started slowly but came on and pitched very well. He pitched a little bit--unfortunately he missed about a month after being hit in the arm by a line drive in his first start-- in the Arizona Fall League. Like Duffey, he received an invite to big league spring training. Alex Muren was the Twins 12th round pick out of Cal State-Northridge. He has quietly pitched really well and reached Ft. Myers in 2014. The right-hander is a groundball machine out of the bullpen. In the 35th round, the Twins drafted Jared Wilson, but he returned to UC-Santa Barbara for his senior year, but the Twins took him in the 19th round in 2013. He pitched in Cedar Rapids in 2014. HIGH SCHOOL BATS Byron Buxton signed for about $200,000 dollars below slot, so the Twins had a bit of money to spend on other picks. In the 20th round, the Twins selected Florida high school outfielder Zack Larson. They gave him about $200,000 to sign. He has hit well wherever he has been. Unfortunately, he missed three months of this past season because of a hamstring injury. In the seventh round, the Twins drafted Jorge Fernandez, an athletic outfielder out of Puerto Rico. He spent two years in the GCL and then posted an .802 OPS in Elizabethton last year. The Twins were able to sign 16th round pick Will Hurt away from a scholarship at Coastal Carolina. He went to the same high school as Ben Revere. His game is speed and defense. He hasn’t hit much in his three years in the rookie leagues but plays very good defense in the middle infield. There’s a quick look at the Twins 2012 draft. Incomplete would be the draft grade for each of the above players since they all remain in the organization. It’s very possible that anywhere from one to four of these guys will debut with the Twins in 2015. More likely, at least five of them will be added to the 40-man roster after the season if they aren’t already on it. Click here to view the article

I really enjoyed hearing the conversation with Marney... and her kids were great! But I think she did a great job of explaining her job and what isn't her job... It was fun, but I think people should listen to it because I don't think everyone knows what he job is and, more important, isn't.

I mean, I think the Twins could be a little further to the right, though I don't see them contending for a division title in 2015, so I guess it doesn't matter whether they're at the midpoint of the vertical line or where they are left of it. But, if the pitching comes around, and there should be reasons for optimism on that front, they should be much improved.