whosafraidofluigirussolo

I could see Lincecum going to Pittsburgh for some reason. Up and coming contender, ownership looking to build on a good core, and I think their pitching coach is well regarded around the league, which might appeal to a smart pitcher looking to regain some of his past success. It's interesting to see some breakdown of his peripheral stats, since I hadn't looked that close and assumed he fell off across the board more than he really did. He's going to be an interesting case anyway. I think teams will hesitate to pay him like a top-of-rotation guy, but if he and his agent can sell one GM on his past success, then who knows. Even if he turns down the QO from the Giants, I imagine him getting more years but kind of don't see him getting $14M per year on the market.

I think you're over-simplifying the factors that can go into a player's decision where to sign. You can't completely discount that an appeal to being the pioneer Asian star to play in a city like Minneapolis might draw some player. Or that the Twins might simply offer the nicest contract after winning one of the top three posting bids. I'm sure there'll be cases where your reasons are right.

This is picking nits, but the numbers you cite show that Sano's K rate got worse this season, not better.

(unless Arcia improves significantly). Is there some hope for him to improve on defense, though? I don't get to watch many games living where I live, so I'm not sure how his arm is, but I'd think his speed and mobility in the field would be an OK base to build from, considering his age and that he was playing CF a few years ago.

In fact, there is less evidence that Hicks belongs in the majors on Opening Day than there was at this time last year. I don't know. Were people seriously talking about Hicks' performance last year as a justification for skipping him to the majors? I think that thinking revealed itself only when the two incumbent CFs were traded. To a lot of us, promoting Hicks straight to MLB looked like rushing him in March, just as it does now.

I've been wondering whether Rosario, who moved from the OF to 2B, might break into the majors as an outfielder after all. The assumption is that he'll be in the majors in mid-to-late 2014. Dozier is nothing great, but he seems to be improving. The Twins have 2 outfielders to build around for next season, Hicks and Arcia, but no one making a hugely compelling case as the third starting OF. This all changes when Buxton is ready, of course, but even at a torrid pace he's at least a year behind his fellow top prospects Sano and Rosario. So if Rosario's ready when expected next year it may be a matter of displacing Dozier versus displacing, for example, Parmelee. Who knows where they'll be next year but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Dozier as the more valuable piece to keep in the lineup at that point. Addendum: In this scenario I'd hope that they'd still find a way to get Rosario some reps at 2B, maybe sitting Dozier once or twice a week, to keep him prepared for a longer-term future at second. Who knows if the Twins can think that creatively, though.

Well written, a good take on the situation. Couple things: - The identity of who actually talked to Sano after the game is significant. If it was in fact a translator, I think that's the best case. For all the help that I think MLB organizations provide in not just coaching their Latin-American players to play but helping them live in the U.S. (and from what I understand, the help that orgs. give players with lodging, language, etc. has improved significantly over maybe 10-20 years ago), there are still plenty of situations where a player is on his own to deal with communicating with media, management or other players. This is not to say that Sano should get away with attitude issues that are clearly detrimental to his team or his future; it's just that a confrontation with a "hard-nosed" manager or a questioning from the GM (the boss's boss's boss, basically) is not a situation where anyone should split hairs about exactly how "satisfactorily" the player, probably facing some degree of communication barrier, answered. This gets to a larger issue, related to the suggestion that the Twins should have a higher-ranking Latin-American coach or front-office employee. That's a good idea, but the Sano, Arcia and Rosario incidents cited above are not the reason why. I think that there's some danger of drawing an implicit or assumed connection between players' Latin-American nationalities and "fiery" personalities on the field. Not that anyone here has done that (Nick or the commenters above), but I've seen that pattern in sports-fan chatter before - the narratives that go around about "enigmatic" or "emotional" personalities in baseball usually aren't connected to white guys. Point is that hiring a high-ranking Latino coach (or assistant GM, etc) is a good idea to help players communicate with coaches and management better, in general, not because of some specific set of "attitude" concerns. - You described Sano's history with Lanigan, who gave up the home run, as a mitigating factor in the dust-up, but it sounds like the team didn't feel that way, and rightly not - a player letting previous bad blood influence him to show up an opposing player or team makes the transgression worse, not better, IMO.

I think this "debate" has played out more than once on these forums already. No professional sports team tries to lose except in the very few cases like the Black Sox that are taken as beyond the pale and fundamentally unsportsmanlike. There is room for a team to compete and try to win while still doing things like: knowing that it isn't as good as other teams; giving playing time to unproven players as an investment in the future; making trades that weaken the current team to the potential benefit of the future team. A higher draft pick can and, I think, should be part of the calculation - in that it's one more incentive for a team's management to be realistic about not contending in the present and thinking toward the future. I think a lot of the supposed debate over rooting for the Twins to lose has mistaken an enthusiastic attitude about these kinds of sacrificing-present-for-future moves for an enthusiasm for a strategy of losing. I personally am all about the former; I don't think there's anything wrong with fans cheering losses in the middle of an already-lost season, either, if the losses go along with that future focus and rebuilding process. Anyone who does certainly has to know that the people actually playing and managing the games will never actually punt a season as a strategy ever.

On the "Ryan Braun = Lance Armstrong" meme: "ESPN’s Buster Olney —and legions of others online—are comparing the Brewers slugger with the disgraced cyclist since, like Armstrong, Ryan Braun preceded his admittance of guilt with profoundly passionate statements of innocence. But Ryan Braun never tried to financially ruin any of the people who accused him. Ryan Braun never brought frivolous lawsuits or bullied fellow teammates into using in order to make them complicit." Dave Zirin, The Nation

Maybe it's simply that most of the professional or semi-professional outlets have writers with scouting experience who will incorporate the tools they can ostensibly see into player rankings, while most fans have to form their opinions based on what information is available to them, so they focus more on track record.

Last year, if I remember right, he was coming off an injury and hadn't pitched in months. This year, it's more of a puzzle. Maybe teams think he's too old now...?

Is Eddie Ro in camp as a non-roster invite or are they just playing him as an "extra player" before the minor-league games start?

I respect the reasons for the paywall system and don't want to circumvent it completely, but since Law seems so high on Gibson, I'd be curious to read any blurbs from his write-up...any choice excerpts?

Heartening, especially the fact that 4 of those 6 are in the top 50.

This will be such an interesting year to watch the minors. I suppose that could be said every year, but we have so many intriguing prospects right now. Agreed. To the things you cited I'd also add that, despite the general sense that the organization is weak on pitching, there's so much uncertainty with a lot of their arms like the recent draft of college relievers, and if even a couple of those guys are pleasant surprises as starters, the outlook for the org.'s pitching really starts to change. Seth, a couple quick questions (and thanks for your work and the interesting read): Do you put Benson's upside ahead of Hicks'? And any reason why you doubt Polanco's bat for the future?

Buehrle's still owed a bunch of money after this year if I'm not mistaken. And he's on the down slope of his career. I wouldn't want that. The Jays have also been bitten by injuries to their pitching recently so I imagine they want to keep most of that depth, esp. since they're pretty seriously loading up for a playoff run. But maybe one of the lower-end arms becomes expendable?

Either that Ryan actually believes a player with these attributes is worth jumping on when there are plenty of other names on the board, or that he is having so little luck attracting free agents of any caliber that he felt the need to lock up the first offer that someone – anyone – finally accepted. The GM may have feared that if he didn't act on an opportunity, he might be left with nothing. This is where I feel like a GM has to be willing to take risk, in the form of being patient and waiting on the market. There will be pitchers of this ability level on the market in January and February and some of them will take one-year contracts.

They could still go outside the organization for someone. That's what I expect they'll do, at least as insurance against the young guys struggling and against Mastroianni being overmatched as a starter. I don't see them paying big for a high-end player but maybe taking someone from the shallow end of the free agent pool. Would Andres Torres make sense? He was a decent starting CF (and leadoff hitter) a couple years ago, and he's kind of old but he could be in competition for the starting CF gig and at least fall into a 4th OF role if he didn't win the job. With poor defenders in the corners, I think they're going to want a reliable backup OF; he'll be playing a lot.

For all of the struggles, that hot stretch in June and July is encouraging and exciting. Still just 26 years old, Plouffe still has a chance to improve. This is the key. There's no reason for a team that's going to lose a lot of games anyway to not give a player like Plouffe a chance - keep coaching him on his defense and give him a chance to build on those flashes of hot hitting when he's healthy and rested. Having a backup is fine, but the backup shouldn't be taking development time away from Plouffe.

Definitely would be interested in Jurrjens as a risk/reward flyer at the right price, Karstens as rotation filler and Torres as a veteran backup.

Maybe a contract like what they did with Zumaya would work - major-league deal, but they can cut him and pay only a small guaranteed portion of the salary if they see him in spring training and he's not healthy?