Hawkeye Bean Counter

Winokur and Houston are outperforming expectations significantly. They have brought optimism, and a defensive and offensive jolt Witchita sorely needed. Now Winokur is one who tends to heat up as the year gets going and did something similar in his jump to high A then he leveled off. I am hoping something is clicking with him. These 2 are unicorns. Houston elite defense with very good contact bat with a little bit of pop. Winokur is an elite athletic talent, with potential high end power. At the beginning of the year I said we had 2 lotto tickets in Young and Winokur and that we wanted 1 to hit (literally and figuratively). Winokur was my hope and this ones appears to be working out. As to Wallner - him and Roden can fill in for Larnach if he gets traded or maybe Wallner gets traded to someone wanting to cash in on a bat that get hot for an ok prospect. The baseball being played in the minors right now is much better than even 2-3 weeks ago. I still feel like we are a little light on pitching and hitting, but some of the younger pitchers are starting to figure it out.

This was a team that was never created to compete for the playoffs. The hope was to be mediocre for this year to try and get as many butts in the seats as possible. I do like your description for the bullpen but they are doing better. We have 4-5 arms that are legit bullpen arms. Then you get to the bottom of the pen and like yesterday, they just aren't good enough. Its why I would have preferred to have kept Anderson up. As to the starters, I think there is a reason Anderson went back down and its because we have some serious depth concerns for the starters. Paredes was the depth option and he is now out 4-6 weeks likely. I think they view Anderson as the plug in option. That is what I am gathering. Give him a start and he could be back up. Whether this was a Falvey team, Pohlad team or Zohl team this year was always going to be a bridge year to a full rebuild. Thats why they traded off the bullpen. We just don't have enough talented hitters/defensive combo players. Its why Houston/Culpepper are so enticing. Houston is better defensively than Kreidler and the bat is looking like a legit contact with some mediocre power. Culpepper will likely go to 2nd or 3rd. The range is very good for either position and has more than good enough arm from 3rd to make it work. Sadly this is exactly the type of season that Tom wanted. Decent fans in attendance - keeping revenues higher than a poor performing team while spending minimal prior to the new CBA. This is likely in agreement with the new minority owners. Now they paid at a 2 Billion valuation - what that did was knock down the debt and interest payments. This team will get sold for hope of the future. I see very little chance of them selling of any significant prospect before then. If they get to the playoffs, its a nice revenue boost, but my guess is they are quietly hoping they just miss and somehow get another lottery pick in the draft.

Mike there is only 2 plausible reasons. 1. they had him at the bottom of the pecking order with player option Sands they deemed as ready so sent down. They may have seen his success as a small sample size situation. 2. They want to stretch out Anderson at AAA because they are worried about starter depth for the remainder of the season. They may actually see something in Anderson and they view it as a cheaper to convert him back to a starter than trade for a starter.

Any buying is going to be light buying unless they are buying a long term asset. There is usually a premium at the deadline though. They may even consider Nance as part of the buying - just doing it early. That is the level of player I am expecting if we are trading. So if we trade a few of our 20-30 ranked prospects yet add a top 8 prospect, they system is still better. Do they Trade Ryan though? I don't think so, I think they are continuing to hold on to Ryan which is decreasing value return but is creating leadership to the other pitchers.

Because no one has ever traded a player before. I consider the international leagues a total crap shoot.

Now this is where it gets interesting. In my opinion, we will have traded Peyton Eeles for potentially a top 100 prospect, you can laugh but without getting Alex Jackson I don’t think the Twins consider trading Jeffers. We have a young staff the last thing we need is inexperienced Triple A catchers creating another hurdle in trying to make them successful. Now we got lucky no one put in a claim for Alex at the beginning of the season. I thought we would trade Alex then. However there was no major injuries of catchers no teams having major needs. The supply demand dynamics have completely flipped just as we are getting to the deadline.

If you are traded the qualifying offer can’t be used. Hence why it’s in Jeffers best interest to be traded.

Catcher is the demanding position. So he is risking that his stats are good and health remains good. The current opinion out there is he wants a long term deal. If I’m Jeffers I want to be traded because the QO is now gone and there is nothing decreasing the value of a long term contract. This free agent pool is so weak, he is going to walk away with a bag.

The qualifying offer occurs before the CBA expires. Yes future years it is gone but it’s still viable for this year. Due to market dynamics he is likely traded in an overpay, a team that plans to sign him to long term contract Yankees, or Tampa Bay who views him as the final piece. There are now 5 teams interested in a catcher and Jeffers is the only elite/very good catcher left. The value will be more than a comp pick.

Other than Jeffers we had invested almost zero into the position the last 10 years. Diaw a 3rd rounder, then a bunch of mid to late round prospects. It’s not like the organization was drafting immense talent and not capitalizing on it.

Dang that’s disappointing for Anderson. He was given some opportunities and performed. The question is do they view him as a starter or reliever. If they want to lengthen him out it could be done at the AAA level. Cole Sands back up finally.

I think multiple things can be true and that’s what sums up the Tinney pick. I think Tinney was the path the Twins were going to take if one of the shortstops fell. They can state he was at the top of the board, but what they didn’t state was they wanted to capture significant savings at this pick to sign a high school pitcher later. Tinney signed at a 400k discount. So I’m sure he was high on the board, the stats which I’ll get into later were ridiculous. The Twins have also gotten sniped on catching in past drafts - Bodine and Taitn Gray last year. So getting an elite talent at a discount was likely the best option with the draft strategy they wanted to deploy. To me although it wasn’t set in stone this was a path they were going to take 90% of the time. Tinney if he can be average as a defensive catcher, will be an offensive force. If he can have power even with the possibility of a lower batting average that is an incredibly valuable asset. Go look at the stats though in the last 2 years other than a higher strikeout rate what is the difference between him and Cholowsky? Tinney played this last year in the better conference and had better stats. You compare against Jeffers and Tinney is a much more polished and powerful hitter than Jeffers was in college. Granted Jeffers was considered a massive reach. Tinney is viewed as a slight reach. Yes there is some concerns on chase, but then the question is defense. Similar to Culpepper or let’s say Billy Amick and of course Jeffers. Tinney like them had much better defensive ratings in his last year. With the potential for continued improvement. Tinney has a rocket of an arm so it’s going to be working on pitch framing, blocking, calling games and pop up times. The biggest thing is Tunney’s drive to get better and that he wants to stay at catcher. Both Tinney and and Lapour seem to have an intensity and drive to compete and get better. So there is a possibility he has to switch to 1st, but in my opinion his rankings were valued as a 1st baseman. So if the defense at catcher improves he is an excellent catcher to tandem with Lackey if it were to work out. It’s also insurance if Lackey doesn’t pan out. All in all I really really like the pick.

I do find it humorous this article came out a few hours after Seth’s article stating the Twins were offered 2 prospects for Ryan last year who have both done well with the implication we should have done the trade. But this is Twinsdaily the land of differing opinions. As a fan I can both root for short term and long term success. Do I want short term satisfaction or something that can be a long term joy. As to Jeffers specifically with a high possibility of a Qualifying offer compensation pick the Twins could still capitalize on keeping a player through the end of the season.

The offer as I understood it was 1 or the other not both. Even if it was even today I’m not sure I take it. We needed Ryan this year especially with Pablo going down. There is value in leading these kids the right way. I’ve always been ready to do the full tear dow, but the time to trade was this offseason and Tom said no.

The CBA uncertainty is why the big prospects are still down.

It’s crazy to think in building a bullpen all we spent was $2 million on Rogers, a net 250k of international money, some cash in trades, traded Sprock, Whitaker and Kisting.

Witchita hits has gone on a roll since he was called up. Defense and Offensively he seems to have changed the direction of that team

Amazing what having som solid arms in the bullpen can do.

You can have your opinions. Your timing is the issue. Alas me and you will never see eye to eye. I think it’s time.

Roden, the player you think should be relegated to 4th outfielder and not given opportunities will be largely responsible for 3 wins since coming back up. I’m not sure what Roden can or will be but I wouldn’t continue bringing up the 4th outfield stuff after he just got a big hit.

Put it on his K sandwich and ate it whole.

Now 2- 1 to go.

I personally think he doesn’t have a position. Roden can actually play outfield defense.

Best just to remain quiet. I would prefer Keaschall to continue to work at 2nd.