bird

You're kidding, right? I think you've kicked this dead horse enough for all of us. This thread is about what many are thinking will be a monster draft class, for which Deron Johnson deserves a modicum of credit, as do five dozen other important staffers that "nobody ever mentions". But if you were going to be at all fair in bringing up the names you brought up to disparage the man, you'd bring up the success stories too, But you never do... Any player selected after about pick #25 has what, a 25% chance at the very best of seeing the show? So if you look at the record in that light and with that context, and delve past the inevitable stinkers, you get to more of the truth than we do in just prattling off a handful of names. This list shows the order in which each player was selected. Note that most of the numbers are three digits: 2007 Ben Revere (28) 2008 Aaron Hicks (14) 2009 Kyle Gibson (22) Brian Dozier (252) 2010 Eddie Rosario (135) Niko Goodrum (71) 2011 Dereck Rodrigez (208) 2012 Jose Berrios (32) Byron Buxton (1) *bad pick by Deron Johnson? JT Chargois (72) Taylor Rogers (340) Tyler Duffey (160) 2013 Kohl Stewart (4) Stephen Gonsalves (110) Mitch Garver (260) Aaron Slegers (140) Zach Granite (410) Stewart Turner (78) 2014 Nick Gordon (5) Trevor Hildenberger (650) John Curtiss (170) Jake Reed (140) 2015 Tyler Jay (6) Travis Blankenhorn (80) Jovani Moran (200) LaMont Wade (260) Andrew Vasquez (950)* Hildenberger/ Taylor Rogers-type long shot? Jaylin Davis (710) I learn two lessons from this list. One, when we look at the entire body of work under Deron Johnson and crew, the stinkers like Tyler Jay, while glaring and disappointing, do not allow one to be credible in their disparagement, but instead, they are allowed to either be unfair in their criticism or ignorant of the facts. Second, we don't even know that much by looking at such a list without COMPARING results against peers, and no, citing the MLB won-loss record isn't evidence of anything, really. Dereck Rodriguez and Aaron Hicks were still solid selections. Over time, I've done some of my own comparing, just to see if I'm missing something by holding onto a view that the Twins have had other problems that far outstrip any systemic issues with scouting and talent evaluation. I have yet to be dissuaded. But i"m still open to it.

And how awesome would THAT be?!?

You're right that the organization and the fans aren't entitled to a debt of gratitude from Ervin. Although I'd have a higher opinion of him if he was extremely careful with his words in light of his own damaging past actions.

This is kind of how I see it. I'm critical of the FO, but it's a mild sentiment to begin with, and it's tied to NOT giving up on underperforming players. With NOT making adjustments like bringing in a catcher from outside the organization. With NOT taking corrective action sooner, such as shipping Sano off to the Ft. Myers complex. Some actions are perplexing (Belisle, etc.) But I think a focus on the FO's behavior needs to be on the fact that all kinds of disappointing player performances caused them to see that the season was shot. Should they have given up on some players early on instead of giving up on the season later on? Who "gave up", really? Lynn? Sano? Dozier? LoMo? I brush Ervin the Cheater's comments aside as understandable and basically superfluous. But when the door smacks him in the behind as he exits, I wonder if it will ever dawn on him how forgiving and supportive this organization was when he disappointed all of us with such devastating effect by cheating with PEDs.

I've been saying this for two years. Very incompetently.

Yeah, it seems like we're haunted by a "too little too late" thing at One Target Way. I miss Andy MacPhail.

If someone offered up modest odds, I'd place a bet that the Twins have a higher winning percentage over the remainder of the year than they have posted do-date. I'll throw in the subtraction of Morrison and Rodney too. Something tells me that Sano is going to come around and make Escobar's absence a little less painful, and that the alternatives to Dozier are pretty much a wash. Mejia over Lynn works for me too. I can imagine Mejia kind of coming in to his own here. And if Molitor doesn't mismanage things too badly, the loss of Pressly and Duke may not be that big of a deal either.

I submit the trade they should not have made is Escobar. He would have likely improved the production at 2B, with Sano/Adrianza at 3B not a terrible fall-off perhaps. Escobar is uniquely valuable to a team. The others are not, and they all had a short shelf life too.

All this talk about Rooker as a can't miss guy is unsettling...

Anybody? Anybody?

If I'm planning as a GM, I'm going to ratchet down my expectation (probability) that I get #2 performance out of Gibby in 2019, even if I believe he found the secret sauce. I want to plug guys in and hope for a pleasant surprise. As all this relates to the trade deadline, all I can worry about in the next week or so is exrracting future value from whatever surplus exists. I have a two-starter shortage, in my GM mind, at the front of the rotation, with Berrios my only viable piece. I have to hope that I get a surprise out of Romero, Pineda, Santana, or even someone like May. And I have to hope (but not expect) Gibby's a #2 performer. Then, I want to expect that I can fill the #4 slot with one of them, and have a surplus of candidates to round things out: Mejia, Gonsalves, Littel, etc. Odor Easy and Lynn are not part of the plan. I'm hunting for lottery ticket returns for them, and for 2-3 of the relievers. Then I get a reasonable return for Dozier and sit back, knowing it's just a matter of time before Buxton and Sano bust out and end my nightmare. Sigh.

Yeah, you don't trade away a guy giving you fairly consistent #3 starter performance when you lack a surplus of those guys. Aside from Berrios, who else can you reasonably count on to give you better than back-half performance? Trade from THAT surplus, especially the ones who have almost zero chance of improvement. Which means you look to move Lynn and Odor Easy and plug in the MLB ready prospects. And then hope a couple among Romero, Pineda, May, and Mejia et al give you better than #4 starter performance. With Littel, Slegers, Gonsalves et al we have plenty of guys ready to give us back-end performance in line with what we're getting now from Lynn and Odor Easy.

I very much agree with this, but for me, the much more important point is that Dozier is the more "replaceable" player using existing assets. Escobar can play 2B for the remainder of 2018 without a horrific fall-off (IMO), whereas, without Escobar, if a need arises at any of the infield positions, the fall-off is fairly precipitous from Escobar to Adrianza, Gordon, Petit, et al. I'm hoping for a nice overpay for Dozier and hoping Escobar stays.

I've been disappointed also at how few tough questions seem to get asked by the mainstream media. The Belisle decision is a perfect opportunity. The perfect chance for the new FO to shed light on how they think, and the perfect opportunity for a good reporter/columnist to put that thinking under scrutiny. Name-cailling detracts from your excellent point, however.

While team records and individual performances by the key prospects ought to be discussed in separate sentences, I will argue that, over a full schedule, team records do in fact correlate meaningfully with the overall quality of the system's depth of C+ and better prospects. I can't help wondering if the system, touted for its depth, and not its star power at the start of the season, isn't slightly over-rated when it comes to depth. And it might have been slightly under-rated in terms of star power given the break-out of Kirilloff, Gordon's performance, the emergence of Romero, Graterol's higher visibility, Lewis's steady play at SS, etc.

Hmm, looks like about 8 or so of the 25 players listed here amounted to anything at all, and half of those players were selected by the Twins. Kinda throws water on the idea that the team has been worse than average as talent evaluators over time. Maybe 20 is their lucky number. And in Gibson's draft class, of the 49 players selected in the first round, only 9 players have accumulated more WAR than Gibson, and Gibson most likely will shoot past a couple of them as well. The Trout stuff gets old, since most every team passed on a him, some more than once. Gibson, as hard as he can be on the eyes sometimes, has turned out to be a high-quality decision.

Whose experience are you basing this on? Kidding Mike. Kidding.

While I get your point, I have a slightly different viewpoint. The Twins should be and are in a "win now" mode. It hasn't gone well so far. The assessment by the FO was and is reasonable: They have an abundance of reserve outfielders. Grossman was probably the best option among them to start the season, especially with Granite sidelined. He's been worse than expected, but who would've predicted LaMarre having a sustained level of performance in MLB? Wade may be part of "the future push" but right now, they can win with any one of Cave, LaMarre, Grossman, or Granite as long as the starters are healthy and playing most days. They had a shortage of clearly reliable back end starters at the beginning of the season, especially because Mejia was ineffective, Hughes was abysmal, Duffey looked lost, May was hurt, Gonsalves and Slegers were borderline in terms of readiness, and Gibby is Gibby. (Who am I missing?) Lynn looked like a logical addition. He's been worse than expected. Fortunately, Romero looks to be a "win now" alternative, and maybe both Slegers and Gonsalves will prove to be as well, but I think it was logical to go with Lynn over the guys in AAA to start the season. Hughes. Bad decision, I'd have sent him into retirement. Like others, I don't view pitching as a likely problem area as the season moves along, even if the FO putzes and sticks with Lynn awhile longer. But that view is contingent on a successful return of May and/or Santana and acceptable if uneven performances from Over Easy, Berrios, Romero, and even Gibby. I'm not as convinced that a "win now" goal is helped all that much by substituting Slegers or Gonsalves for any of those six, and you're asking a lot from three or four rookie pitchers to get you a division title. I can see why they're being patient and hoping for Lynn to figure it out here, much as I'd prefer to see Gonsalves or Slegers on the mound. If Sano is healthy and producing, I don't think we care much at all about letting Gordon prove himself over a full season in the minor leagues. Remember, people were kinda writing him off after his second half last year and only recently are back on his bandwagon. Adrianza is a perfectly acceptable utility guy and a perfectly horrifying starting SS. Escobar is fine at short until Polanco comes back. Maybe Dozier gets moved and we see Gordon at the deadline? Back to Nick's point though, which is that this team needs to get production from the players who are already up here and regarded as critical to the "win now" objective. If Buxton and Sano don't produce, this team is not good enough to make the playoffs, IMO. If they do produce, it's an entirely different team.

Kirilloff is looking to be a more exciting prospect than I had imagined. It will be interesting to see how the prospect gurus view him as the season progresses.

I don't know. I just hate to hear the phrase DFA. It makes me cringe as I think of what John Hicks is doing in Detroit or remember JT Chargois.

Not a bad night for their left fielder Gomez either, eh? Our first baseman Rodriquez was eaten up.

Why in the world are we starting THIS guy while Hughes languishes in the pen? *ducks*

And you'll hire the broker that bought the stock from your OLD broker if he can explain the fundamentals that caused him to like the crashed stock your old guy hated. IMO, the FO will cut the cord the minute the field people are convinced Hughes has close to a zero percent chance of reacquiring those fundamentals. I really think that's the driver. Someone apparently, until recently, thought Hughes might recover enough to pull a James Shields. Because with pitching there's such a fine line between failure and success, it seems like organizations give guys like Hughes as many chances as they can to come back. Usually the guy is cooked, but there are enough examples out there to inspire hope. The fact that he's not being called upon from the pen is a bad sign for Hughes and I think a good sign for the fans. They don't always pay enough attention to the opportunity cost of parading that guy out there instead of just going with a Romero, Gonsalves or Sleger as you and others pointed out so well. It's this opportunity cost factor that would cause me to "risk" a bounce-back with another organization after I cut him. I wonder if there's a kind of disconnect that happens, where the field people are acutely focused on exhausting every last chance and are insensitive to the potential opportunity cost of Hughes vs. Romero, and the FO is somewhat insensitive to how remote the chances are of recovery for a guy like Hughes because their conversation with the field people is exclusively about Hughes instead of being a "best decision" thing.

Keith Law recently said he sees Romero as a mid rotation starter. Of course, he also saw Berrios' ceiling as a #3, with a higher likelihood being back end or even relief. The Twins really need those two to be at least #2/3 rotation pieces. Maybe just as importantly, they need someone like Graterol or Enlow to be thought of as an almost can't miss front end guy at the culmination of this season.

Yeah, I feel badly for the guy to an extent. He's suffered the "indignity" of failing in the spotlight, and he's been humble and gracious throughout. He'll move on with the rest of his life and be just fine though. Not just because he's financially set for life, but because from all appearances he's a good guy.