Jack Griffin

I would love taking a flyer on Lamet, but I'd wager he's claimed before he gets to the Twins

I don't think the comment in the OP saying "There isn't much there" with this farm system is fair, for one big reason. When 4 out of your top 10 from the year before graduates from prospect status (Duran, Ryan, Miranda, Winder) of course your system "looks" worse.

Topic: "What to do with Sano" First Reply: "Well if Rocco could put his spreadsheets down, and have pitchers go more than 1 inning, we wouldn't have to worry about this!"

Twins did not have the prospect capital Seattle had to complete that deal, They gave up multiple top 100 prospects+. They gave up a lot for him, It definitely was not being "out maneuvered"

An OF of Mike Trout and Byron Buxton would be an all-time "talented but can't stay healthy" duo

OPS has been used since around the 70s. Also how do you quantify who is a better fielder between 2 players that play different positions? They both have similar OAA at the very least (Average to below average) So not sure where you're getting that info

Well, which one is it guys? What do most scouts say? lol

The almighty, unmeasurable attribute known as "potential" lol

ooo that's a good idea. I know Griffin Jax is the first one that comes to mind. I was pretty low on Kepler after his first month or so too, but that's definitely something I'm gonna like in to.

I don't even wanna think about the name Kohl Stewart after his time with the big league ball club. lol

I agree. I believe most prospects are extremely overrated when it comes to actual value

I'd wager that Sands and Smeltzer won't be a factor in the 2023 rotation, at least to start the season. Sands has been bad the whole season and Smeltzer has really fallen off a cliff in recent starts

It was the Visa, combined with poor results due to bad control. Made it an easy cut

Since roughly 2009 the Twins have had some well... rough seasons. When a team is bad, they become sellers at the deadline, and at least me personally, stop caring as much about the active games, and switch to focusing on prospects and the future. During those bad years I become pretty fixated on prospects, so lets go over some that I really thought were gonna be good. 1. RHP Dakota Chalmers Woof. I was so high on this guy when we acquired him from Oakland for Fernando Rodney in 2018. I blame Garvin Alston, the Twins pitching coach at the time, for talking up Dakota from his time coaching in the A's minor league system. I can't quite remember what he said but I'm almost certain he called him a "potential system changing arm" and I was hooked. Chalmers had a myriad of injuries as well as off the field mental health stuff that lead to him not pitching a whole lot before coming to the Twins, but once he did he had success. In 2019 he even pitched in the AA playoffs, and everyone seemed to be talking about his stuff, I was so intrigued. He was added to the 40 man roster in 2021 and I envisioned all his success, and it was followed by struggles and a pretty quick DFA. I was devastated. Since then he has been on a few different teams with little success, and is currently in the Dodgers system. 2. RHP Fernando Romero Most Twins fans will probably remember this one, and probably at some point felt the same I did. A top arm in the Twins system for years, what wasn't to like about him. A fastball that reached 100 mph (This was pre Graterol and Duran so the Twins just frankly never saw that) and a wipeout slider to boot. We all remember his electric 2018 rookie season, where he had immediate success. He did drop off slightly as the year went on but still, the sky was the limit. That was followed by a ton of control issues in 2019 and after the season, he was out of the MLB completely (Although he potentially had a chance to re establish himself in 2020, but it was stopped completely by Visa issues. Because well... there were some things going on in the world that made it tough to travel) He is currently pitching in Japan. 3. OF Adam Brett Walker This one was more me just being young and naïve more than anything. ABW was a 3 true outcome guy before it was cool. High power, high strikeout, and not a whole lot else. I really had no reason to be high on him besides the fact he had some really exciting homeruns. Wow could he hit the ball when he connected. He really was never much of a true prospect and never even got added to the 40 man in a Twins uniform. His last year with the Twins was in 2016, he bounced around the league until 2018. He then moved to indy ball, and actually some some success as recent as 2021, but it never materialized into a second MLB chance. He's currently playing in Japan. 4. OF Oswaldo Arcia Much like Romero, I feel like most fans will remember this name. Arcia was an international FA signed in 2008, who quickly worked his way up through the levels and had a TON of success at each level. He reached the majors in 2013 and had some initial success, but really couldn't put together any consistency year-to-year. from 2013-2016 he was basically on the Twins taxi squad going up and down multiple times a year. The Twins eventually gave up on waiting and traded him to the Rays, but that didn't last very long. Altogether he was on 4 total teams (TBR, SDP, MIA, MIN) in 2016 but really had no success with any of them. In 2017 he had somewhat of a renaissance in the DBacks system, but I don't think anything could've happened to get him up with the team. Arcia was pretty much the definition of a AAAA player. He is currently playing in an Independent league. 5. RHP Alex Wimmers I don't really have an explanation on this one. He was a first round pick I suppose so that always makes you hope they work out. Wimmers had a 22 game cup of coffee from 2016-2017 and had very mediocre results. in 2018 he struggled at AAA and was released. He had a short stint that year with Miami but registered no official playing time. He is currently not playing baseball anywhere. Some of these are more defensible than others, but I just wanted to talk about them. Thanks.

Yep. Pretty massive difference.

If the cost of acquisition is low enough, I don't see an issue with trading for him. If it works you get a solid bullpen arm, if not you DFA or non tender him this off season. As well as this better be in addition to other moves.

This is exactly what I am thinking. Getting him would be fine, and could work out. But he better not be our ONLY acquisition.

ZIPs gets mentioned like 3 times the entire article? What is it about stats that bothers people so much?

This is such an uniformed lazy take. I don't even like how Rocco has managed but he constantly makes decisions that aren't "from a spreadsheet"

As I read Ted Schwerzler's article from earlier today, this quote from Twins manager Rocco Baldelli stuck with me: "...We want them to be available and ready to finish ballgames when the time comes" What if the time never comes, because you throw in the proverbial towel if the team doesn't have the lead? Last night the Twins got down early, and when the starter Cole Sands got pulled from the game the Twins went to a combination of Juan Minaya-Yennier Cano-Tyler Duffey-Trevor Megill to finish the game. Correct me if I'm wrong but that doesn't sound like a winning formula. That sounds to me like what a team in last place does when they are down big in the last few innings. Lets just throw a position player out there to finish the game. Why not? its a "low leverage" situation. Okay, maybe that's a bit of a reach, but I'm frustrated. How I interpret this is no matter if the team is down 10 runs in the ninth, or 1 run in the fifth, both have the same leverage in the eyes of the team. Now I understand wanting to have some decent relievers available for protecting the lead, that's fine, but being only down 1 run against a very good team and then putting in your 4 worst pitchers, is asking for disaster. Last nights game was just another example of extremely confusing bullpen management from Rocco. The game was winnable, the offense was scoring runs, but the Twins were not committed to stopping the other team from scoring. This team has been playing well, they are leading their (Very weak) division, but this team does not "feel" like a first place team.