ND-Fan

I got to believe that Pelfry or Malone are on the trading block this spring and one of them will be dealt to another club. My guess is its Pelfry and that why they are only talking starting for him as a pitcher. The number of teams that have already lost pitching this spring I can't but help they will be able to move him and get prospect for the future for him. I look at starting pitching and its at premium to find capable pitching to fill in rotation. Malone the The Twins want to keep because they have nobody else ready as left hander in system for couple years ready. I believe Mays will be pitching with the Twins this year if not out of spring training but soon this year he may be the Twins 3 best starter before years over.

From the pictures of Sano he does not look like he's over weight and I believe he's big strong kid. The Twins are going to make some tough decisions in near future and its going to be hard find playing time for a lot of these prospects. Plouffe is developing into very good third baseman and major league baseball analysts will start giving him his recognition if he has another good season this year. Its hard for players like Plouffe to get recognition right way coming from small market team. You watch here now Mauer is going to have better numbers at first base and its because of Sano and Vargas pushing to get playing time. I would think that Sano could also could be developed into corner outfielder if push comes to find him spot in line up. Arcia is going to have bring his numbers up if he wants playing time because of talent coming up he's got to cut down on his strikeouts and give better at bats. The Twins are going to have decide what players they are going to keep and who they are going to trade. Plouffe is in this category if he continues to develop will they trade him or sign him long term. if he continues and develops into one of top 10 third baseman in Major leagues which I think he could. Also Sano may be like Greg Nettles was to the Twins they thought he was to big and not good enough to play third base and traded him see how that turned out for the Twins. Its hard to know how person is going to play a position until they have played it for awhile and especially third with requirements for hitting and fielding for that position. But like I say the Twins are going to have some very tough decisions in near future because of prospects coming up and some of the players that are young making their spot with the Twins of who keep and who move improve themselves in other areas or get another prospect to help them in the future. Its going to take front office with ability to find highest quality diamond out of many diamonds they posses now and how to get future diamonds out these present diamonds.

I thinking that the Twins will be trading a starter this spring to somebody and maybe two starters if Mays and Myer look like they are going to be ready. My guess trade candidates are Milone, Pelfry, and Maybe Nolasco if right offer comes along. Especially if Mays and Myer live up to expectations this year.

I think there are many things that were going on for Joe Mauer last year and past several years. First I am thinking that concussion may have effected him more than people realized and case in point is Justin Morneau it took him several years to recover from the concussions. Its not something that you can see that's effecting a player but it shows up in his performance. Also last year he was starting to hit much better and oblique injury happened and I think that also effected his bat after that. Also another thing I think that may have effected him is his personal life and changes he has had last two years. First getting married changes your routine and priorities right away and it takes time to get priorities back to your job. Then add in having twins last year and shakes up routines and priorities again for preparing yourself for baseball. I am betting this year things improve for him with another year away from the concussion, another year married and the twins are older and he's seen decline in his performance which I believe will motivate him to return to his career norms. I can hear all of you shouldn't effect him with what he is being paid but it does he just human.

I will be surprised if they make as dramatic jump as experts are predicting this year. It could happen but I have feeling that they may not have season everyone is predicting it takes time to put a winner together and play together. Also I wonder if they could run into some health issues before season is done they are depending on couple of big stars to lead them to contention and my experience is something usually happens when your dependent on couple of players. My guess is they play around 500 baseball when all things are said and done.

The Twins need to play good baseball from the get go! If the Twins can get Mauer to return near his career averages and Nolasco to pitch close to the numbers he had when they signed him. With the the young players like Santanna, Dozier, Plouffe, producing like they did last year. Then for Arcia, Vargass, and Hicks keep hitting like they did last fall the Twins will have very good offensive team. The starting pitching needs for pitchers pitch effectively like they showed last year on consistent basis because I believe the twins bull pen will be very effective. Contrary to predictions if this club can stay healthy and this group of players play like they can play could be very exciting team to watch and could contend if things broke their way but should improve to 500 team. Yes AL central looks to be one of the best divisions in baseball but funning thing about baseball what happens during the season very few times happens as it is laid out on paper. The Twins have had several bad years but I also believe if the Twins would have been healthy couple of those years outcome could have been much better than final result we got. Also this time around the Twins are much deeper than they were in last four years when somebody gets injured now talent level at triple A and Double A is much deeper and may have player that could perform better than who they replaced but still needed time in minors to perfect their baseball skills. I believe the Twins are much closer to contending than experts like to think. Also the change of Molitor and Hunter in club house is going to change how the Twins play. My guess is number crunchers are off because team numbers are so low based on history last couple years because of all the change this club has gone through and being forced to play some of these kids when they were not ready to play at this level or playing out of position their offensive numbers suffered because of it. I got excited last fall watching this group players play baseball they were fun to watch and looked like they had upside potential to become a better team. So I am looking very forward to this years team.

I believe the Twin defense will be much better this year than last year look at last year we had Colabella playing outfield for more than month, Willingham playing outfield, and Santanna playing out position and learning to play centerfield. I look at Twins last month of the season the Twins played much better outfield defense than did for the first half of the season. Hunter is still better outfielder than we had playing outfield last year his routes will be better and he can fundamentally play position much better than we have had. Also Arcia I believe will get better fundamentally he still young and with Schafer and Hicks available he can be replaced in late innings by one of them. The outfield defense will be improved over 2014 season and we should be much better hitting outfield too! Also I believe there is help also on the way that Minnesota in future could have elite group of outfielders. We could in the near future have outfield of Buxton, Rosario, Arcia, and Hicks which could be quite outstanding defensively and if all can carry through with minor league numbers on hitting could be quite an outfield. Which should make any pitcher happy to have behind them.

I have few thoughts on make up of this club and I think Ryan has been urged to win this year now and let prospects show up when they are ready if ever ready. My thinking is Harold Reynolds made a predicition that the twins were in on Shields for anther pitcher.then the Twins are looking to reach the playoff spot coming year. Shields would put Twins on projection of 81 plus wins in contention for wild card spot. I wonder if Molitor doesn't have ownership and Dave St, Peter ear that you try to win now not try to base a team on future unproven prospects. Also wondering if Twins are coming up on TV contract renewal in next few years and need to have competitive team help ratings to sign new contract. Gardenhire may have difficult time getting new job because of youth movement in MLB in general managers and he being more of the old school manager not using saber metrics and defensive shifts like this new group in baseball are using. I am thinking he may need become a bench coach on one of the teams using all this data to learn all the strategy in using this be manager again. If not he could become middle man between General Manager and minor league teams and scouts to check on player evaluations and judging the talent coming in the system. I think that was what Ryan had in mind for Gardenhire. I think this club could be a lot closer to winning than any one of us has been thinking. I wonder what numbers project out if Twins get offense these kids showed last couple of months for whole season and Mauer hits close to career numbers for the coming season. Then add there pitching if all these pitchers pitch to the numbers they were expected when they signed with the Twins what would twins numbers come out for projected wins. The central division is a lot closer together than people think. Detroit is aging and lost pitching so I see a drop in wins for coming year. KC I believe has lost pitching and I am betting they have down year after world series. Cleveland could be good but still unproven and will need to stay healthy, Chicago has added a lot of talent on paper look much better but will they be on the field and that will be question mark for this club. Also injury bug could come and bite them before season is done. Twins moves should make them better and like Cleveland a lot of young players have to prove they can win and play full season and one thing they have is they a lot of young talent that could come up and change whole dynamic of team beyond anyone's expectations transforming the team into real contender in baseball.

Twins projected payroll is based on full year runs with the Twins. I could see where Hunter ( if he choose could be Traded), Pelfry, Plouffe, Milone, and Duensing could all be traded before year is done. Which could effect Twins payroll. This club is set up to make a run for wild card this year and if not they will fall back to grand plan of the rebuild bring up remainder of the youngster before year end unless they are contending. The rebuild plan I believe was for us contend in 2016 but this has been shoved back to 2017 because of all injuries to the prospects last year. I believe that is why your seeing signings of pitchers and lengths of the contracts. This could be a very good baseball team from 2016 1/2 thru 2019 with very affordable payroll and could become one of the elite teams again MLB.

I wonder if Hicks has reached point of where he needs fresh start with different organization. The problem with that for the Twins is that they will get nothing for him. I wonder if somebody like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or some other team couldn't fix him. I think his hitting has effected all of his game and now he's not playing very good baseball. The Twins trade of center fielders I believe in long run has been good the pitchers they have received could very well turn this franchise around. I believe we will see some of that this year when we get new pitching coaches and change in philosophy along with that from manager. The Twins have had several pitchers that were thought to be washed up and now have performed very well for Pittsburg. There organization has done wonderful job with Lariano and Worley in last couple of years the numbers speak for themselves. Also they were revaluating there organization after Mornea was there wondering why they couldn't get him to hit the way he was in Colorado. I have heard nothing of this from the Twins on their failures of Lariano or Worley and also Morneau. I think the Twins could be spending some time on this to as way to improve their team.

The problem the Twins face is that their time to add free agents to improve this team was two years ago after the second terrible year. I think Terry Ryan being from the old school was going to rebuild this team way he did in the 90's and into early 2000's this was from within not spending money on free agency. This was the plan and he was more optimistic that team could play close to 500 baseball which he told the Pohlads. The problem was the team under performed and injuries decimated the team to point where they were not even competitive the last month and half of season. This left the fan base with memory of terrible team and one of the worst records in baseball. The problem with this scenario was that it repeated itself for the last two seasons. This is when Pohlads I believe came into discussion of baseball operations of the team telling Terry Ryan that needed to spend enough to keep the brand value up by putting together team that could be respectable until this new wave of talent that is coming will be here at the major league level. The problem that has caused is that Twins did sign pitchers that fit into this rebuild but were not dominate and they have gotten off to poor start. Also the Twins signing free agents I believe have been hampered by free agents don't want to play for looser and just gap filler between that new wave of talent unless its for ridiculus amount of money. This has left us with 2014 and probably part 2015 until we can see the turn around of this team. Not helping this is that new wave of talent is getting hurt further delaying the process. Terry Ryan could be held at fault but he was rebuilding team the way management wanted previously from the within and with very little money spent. He has done that again I believe and has to just wait and keep adding talent to the minors as he goes along. Manager Gardenhire could be held at fault and would likely would have been gone in a lot of other organizations for on field performance but truth is that nobody could have won with this team. Maybe a manager or two could have tweaked one or two more wins or they could have easily lost several more. The Pohlads ultimately are responsible but I do believe they as owners have been willing to put a winning team on the field. I think what we have had here is lack of communication and management plan for the goal of this organization on how quickly they wanted to have competitive team on the field. I am betting this has been addressed in the last year and is on going how to structure and get organization on the same page from owners, baseball management, to total Twins business management on same page and be able to improve the Twins brand. I believe this is the case based on Jim Pohlads statements he has made in the last year. The Twins went through this like in late 70's and early 80's and again in late 90's and early 2000's the difference was in ownership and management how they did it. The first time under Griffiths they just brought all the young talent up and let them play at majors but this was draw for fans to watch future of Twins grow. The risk is that some may never recover from being beaten up at major league level but this group core was basis for Twins 87 world series win. The second time was in early 2000's when they had worked a core group of players until they were ready to be at major league level the result was nearly a decade of winning baseball. Personally I liked the first because I think it created hard core nucleus of players that just wanted prove to rest of baseball that they were winners and they went out and did win the ultimate prize. But the time was different now players seem to have confidence that they can win and if they have lost it they can't get it back. Our only hope is The Twins pitching does get better and Plouffe , Colabella, Mauer, and Arcia when he gets back continue to hit like they have now or in past and Hicks, Dozier, and Suzuki continue to have average performances. What I have seen so far this year by eye test this is better club than last two years maybe stats don't bare this out yet but I can see they are better team and more talented than they have been previous two years. Some players just look better and are prepared to play at this level examples are Dozier, Plouffe, Arcia, and Pinto. Lets just hope things start coming together nothing I like better than to watch baseball if it played well not what we experienced last year at the end of the season.

I think they are heading for rebuilding the Twins pitching staff looks like it structured to be pitching staff for the future as you look the players they signed will come off when there young pitching prospects are projected to be ready and will have one veteran pitcher available to lead these young kids in the future on contract. Offense is on old side but were seeing beginning of change over already with Hicks, Arcia, Pinto and I would include Dozier. Look by year end we could see likes Buxton doing September call up and for sure we would have seen Sano being called up. My guess next year we could see lineup of the following Buxton center, Arcia in left field, and Hicks in Right Field. Pinto Catching, Florimin at SS and Santanna pushing him, Dozier at second, Mauer at First, Sano at third, and Plouffe if he has good year as backup 3 baseman and outfielder. Pitching could be Myer, Gibson, Nolasco, Hughes, Pelfry and number of young pitchers pushing to make the team. I think this what Twins are looking at them selves you would have Sano and Buxton at 21 and 22; Arcia (24) and Hicks and Pinto (26); Flormin, Dozier, Plouffe, Gibson, and Hughes at 27-28, and leaving Nolasco, Mauer, Pelfry and Perkins as 30 years olds on the team. Not a very old team and number players just coming into their prime playing years 27 to 30. Some older pitchers but with Gibson and Myers in their middle 20's very nice balance of young to old pitcher. Also with number of future prospects being able to fill in for some of older players if injuries would occur. The big question will be if these players can produce offense at major league level. I think all of them are good enough defensively to play at major league level. The whole problem with this scenario we have go threw this season which could be long season if some these players don't start producing better than they have shown this spring. They have given Twins nothing that they can sell to the fans why they should be excited about this team. Pitching will be better but not near good enough to win if this team doesn't start producing some offense.

When he was brought up he had pitched near top of innings for pitcher recovering from Tommy-John surgery. I think he was worn down and his control and pitch movement had been effected from being worn down. I bet when we see him again were going to see much more polished pitcher who has better control of his pitches. I also think it was good learning experience for him to know what he had to work on. I think this why Twins did bring him up last year it was teaching experience and also reward that he is in their future plans. I think he will become effective middle of road starter that could have few real quality years for the Twins barring any further injury.

I think it's Come down to Worley himself if he makes the team and if not they will try to trade him or try to pass him through waivers. I think they are going to keep Diamond he has possibilities of still being a starter and if not in bull pen and reason he left hander. He has more value than Worley as a left hander that is capable of pitching at major league level. I think Worley has been hurt or injury he had before he came to Twins was more serious than said and he wasn't pitcher he had been with Phillies. Reason the Phillies were willing to give him addition in the Trade for Reevre . I also have serious concerns that deduno may have more of injury than they have said and may need surgery. It feels a lot like what we went through with Baker and Blackburn injuries until surgery was required to fix the problem. Gibson and Myer I bet are at Triple A when spring training breaks and they will be called up when one of starters have health problems and they will determine if they are ready then to pitch at big league level. If they are one of pitchers that are up will be traded to make room for them and maybe somebody becomes bull pen pitcher. I think the Twins are no big rush to promote pitchers until there ready and that why they have signed all these pitchers.

I think Detroit grade is way to harsh. Detroit is going to be much faster and athletically team this coming year and I bet much better defensive team. I willing to bet there not done adding bullpen strength yet and I wouldn't be surprised they still make a move yet this year to improve there offense. If you look back at last year Fielder had pretty much lack luster year for what he was being paid. I am also betting they did some of this for better club house chemistry. If Fielder continues to decline that trade is going to look amazing for Detroit. The one I would grade poorly is the Fister trade on short run but may be a great trade on long term if pitcher they acquired develops into top starter in couple of years and they are able to sign scherzer( sorry about spelling) to long term deal. Cleveland can't be graded yet they usually make their deals after Winter meetings so a correct grade would be incomplete. KC I think needs to do a lot of tinkering their losses are going to be harder to be replaced and I think they are going to decline this coming year. Just to many spots that need filling and not enough money or ready talent available . My Grade would be a C. Twins moves so far this year would give them C grade if nothing else was done. I think they have added probably at least 6 wins to this club. Mauer moving to first will guarantee Twins offense improves because he's going to much healthier and rested adding more hitting to the Twins. Also like Cleveland there grade is incomplete but I would bet by opening day the Twins will have addressed some of their weaknesses and club will be improved. If they do address pitching and offense some more they could easily be 76 to 82 game winner. Not quite ready to make a playoff run but with Kids coming up should start to be contention by 2015 or 2016,

Some of this can also be attributed to the Twins for some reason have not produced many strike out pitchers in last 20 years. The above named pitchers were were above average strikeout pitchers and I believe in those years were the years they produced most strike outs. Its something I have stated on forums before the Twins need to look at scouting and what they do in developing pitchers because we never seem to get that top of line power pitcher that dominates and strikes people out. The ones we have developed usually have started out in another organization and we have trade or rule 5 drafted them. I look at different organization like ST.Louis , Tampa Bay, and Atlanta have developed so many top line pitchers and I wonder what they are doing were not doing. It would seem to me I would be study these organization and see what there doing were not and doing changing our organization to get similar results. But so far in last 20 years it seems business goes on as usual because Twins had to again trade for top line prospects from other organizations. I don't if its scouting process, or business side where they don't want to spend money for these picks, or if philosophy of pitching to hit strike zone not try to be power pitcher to strike people out. I would think it would be great story for reporters that follow the Twins to write about if they would do there research and also report what other people in baseball think of way Twins draft and develop players.

Your right about no improvement with this team. The prospects you so thought would be here are just not ready and my guess most of them won't be with this team next spring either. Yes we have good group of players coming but Twins have sold everyone the cavalry is just around the corner. The fact is they are probably not going to make significant impact until late 2015 and then starting in 2016 season. Also we may still not have pitching rotation yet solved yet either. That's why I think its important that Twins start signing some free agent pitching now to get quality pitching. Quality pitching signings require multi year deals and they are signed now will help this team now as well be foundation for this next wave players coming but will be ending soon enough allow young pitching talent place on team in the future. Also the Twins need to look for a shortstop through a trade that's in high minors from another team that has high potential to play at the major league at that position. This has been problem for the Twins going on for over a decade a quality starting shortstop or they need to spend some money on young free agent shortstop but that rarely ever happens top of line free agent shortstop available.

The Twins have shown this past three seasons that farm system is bare of pitching ready for the Majors. If they were ready we would have seen them up during the year. Trading I don't feel is option right now why would you trade away prospects that are needed to fill whole in this offense and defense at major league level. I think Free Agency is best bet in that can bring some major league arms that are ready and can make a impact. It would allow some young talent to develop and with Free Agents make credible big league staff. The only player left to bring quality prospects and number of them is Joe Mauer if he can demonstrate he's healthy. I think it should be looked at because by time Twins are ready to compete Joe will be way past his prime and will be declining. His value is now and Twins are probably years away from making big run in playoffs. Unless Twins spend some serious money building up the depth and lineup with Free Agency. My guess is that Twins will continue to loose as they rebuild through farm system.

White sox i think are probably going to have 5 to 7 less wins this year than last year. I base this on that Tigers, Cleveland, and KC all have gotten better this year from last year and assuming that each of teams wins couple more from chicago this alone could take away 6 wins. I think Chicago will be better than the Twins but right now i don't see much difference between them Cleveland and KC. Sad day for me when even before the season has started that i give zero chance and that twins will be in cellar in centeral. Also they probably only better than houston in American league and Miami and maybe Colorado in the National league.