Mr. Brooks

I dont think either of the last 2 posters realize that I was talking about pitchers they have drafted LATER than the first couple of rounds. I am not really sure what draft order has to do with anything when you are talking about players being drafted after every team has already passed on them at least once.

Players have jumped to the majors with right around that or less, and been successful. If a guy is ready, he's ready. Its hard to get prospective being a Twins fan, because they havent had may prospects good enough to make the jump that quick, but around the league its really not that rare for good prospects to go from AA to MLB with right around 300 PA's. From everything we've heard from Gardy and Terry, he's pretty much ready. I realize that could just be lip service, and if he's not ready thats fine. I was just giving an example of one option out there.

The OP was asking what WE thought, it wasnt an open letter to the Twins FO.

The decision is because Winfield was due to be paid way more than his market value, and he wasnt going to take less. The fun thing about the NFL, is with the hard cap, you cant just look at guys and say, "are they still good enough to start?", like you can in say, baseball. You really have to look at every single position, every single year, and say, "no matter how good this guy is, is he making a dime more than he's worth?" If the answer is yes, you either need to move on or restructure.

He's going even later according to NFBC, at 144.47

Kershaw, Strasburg, Darvish, Sale, Medlan, Halladay

I'm not saying the Rays and A's hit on every single pitcher they take, that would be impossible. I'm saying those 2 organizations hit a lot more than most, so I have a hard time believing that it is purely luck. Clearly there is something those 2 organizations are doing better when it comes to scouting and/or developing pitchers outside of the first couple rounds.

You dont trade a top 100 prospect AND forfeit a sandwich pick for a freaking relief pitcher unless you view him as a lights out, dominant guy. Slightly above average middle relievers just are not worth anywhere close to that much compensation.

The Rays and A's seem to do a pretty good job at it.

Its not about holding a grudge. Its because the FO has proven that they cant be trusted when it comes to Matt Capps. They dont see him as the decent MR arm that he is, they see him (or did) as some elite, lights out reliever. I dont want them to have another opportunity to waste any more resources on this guy.

I've never said they should. I said one thing they could do is put Arcia in RF, move Parm to 1B, Morneau to DH, and make Doumit the bench bat. I also said, if they are not going to do that, then they should go out and sign someone like Thome for that role, someone we know can hit MLB pitching.

The difference is, most of those guys can also give you some value in the field. If a guy is ONLY on the roster for his bat, it had better be a pretty dang good bat.

Benson has a K rate nearly double that of Arcia, so if one of these two has to get their K rate in check I would say that is Benson. As of right now, I think Arcia is well ahead of Benson in the organization's eyes, and I dont even think its particularly close.

He's not better than Matt Garza.

His adp is at 138.2 right now, which means he's going 2nd to last in the 14th round of a 10 team mixed.

Matt Lecroy OPS'd .899 at AA, as a 24 year old, facing equal competition. Colabello OPS'd .836 at AA, as a 28 year old, facing competition 4 years younger than him, with 1500 to 2000 more career PA's than his average peer. So I dont think you can legitimately say that Colabello is a better RH bench bat than Lecroy, when we havent even seen Colabello take a swing at the MLB level yet. I mean, I guess I can somewhat buy the argument that Colabello wouldnt get absolutely exposed and destroyed at the ML level, perhaps he could hold his own and OPS .720 or so. But to say that he'd be the best RH bat we've had in many years? Thats going out on a limb. I mean, Lew Ford OPS'd higher than either of them at AA, at 25 years old.

It has nothing to do with how good or how bad he is. It has everything to do with what he represents. He's not the worst reliever we've ever had around these parts, but he's definitely the worst reliever that we've ever traded a top 100 prospect to acquire, then forfeited a sandwich pick to keep.

Again, I dont have a problem with his weight, per se. Its his attitude about it that I question. And yeah, I read the article, what are you getting at? Here is the synopsis of it: He likes to eat a lot of food, because he was raised to keep eating even after he was full. Sometimes he watches what he eats, but sometimes he just cant say no. In the entire article he talks a lot about food, but only once brings up what, to most of us, is the obvious second part of the equation: exercise. He details a work out routine that seems pretty relaxed for most professional athletes. Perhaps he's just being modest, but he doesnt exactly describe a Roy Halladay/Jerry Rice/Bo Jackson level of intensity to his workouts. He mentions the Phillies had provided him a nutritionist, but then mentions that he hasnt bothered to call her, or find a new one, since the trade. He admits that it messes up his mechanics when he gets too heavy. Then finally he passes the buck saying you cant do anything about it, its just the way I was born. What did I miss? Look, I'm not saying, "OMG, this guy is a bust! He's going to fail! Why would you trade for this fat lazy slob!" Despite my criticism (or perhaps its why I criticize him), I really like Worley. I liked him in Philly, was more excited that we got him than I was about May. I'm just saying, I always wondered why Philly would bail on him so fast. My first thought was maybe they know something about the elbow that we dont, but after being disappointed with his dismissive attitude regarding his secondary pitches, and now reading this, I just cant help but wonder if this played a part in their decision. I cant help but notice a sharp contrast between this article, and the article interviewing Trevor May, where May talks about how awesome it was to be around Halladay, and how much Halladay motivated him and inspired him to work just as hard.

No way. Mauer will have to wait until those of us that watched Kirby have grown old and a new crowd of fans grow up. Kirby was pretty much universally loved around here (at least DURING his playing career). As great as Joe is, the same cannot be said for him. There is a divide among those who love him and those who rip him. He's not universally loved like Kirby is, and Kirby's postseason heroics are a huge factor. Its going to be tough for Mauer to top that, regardless of what he does in the regular season. Note: I'm not saying its Joe's fault they havent had postseason success, just saying it is what it is.

I'd say 2 months is a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, even if he only shows enough this year to relegate himself to 4th OF duty, he could still work his way into the line up after that. It does however, make TR's job a lot easier if he DOES show us something in the first couple months, because if he shows he can be a competent every day outfielder that allows us to move Willy and Justin at the deadline.

I dont think he has to hit .250 to be a serviceable 4th OF'er so long as he can show some power. Mastro is a career .248 hitter with NO power, and I think most of us agree he is a serviceable 4th OF'er, so I think .235 with power would be acceptable.

Yeah I take a couple of those guys as well, but banking on near 300K's from Stras lets me grab 1 or 2 for the back end that I can almost guarantee myself will have solid ERA's, but tend to fall because they don't have big K totals. I didnt mean I'm filling out the entire rest of my staff with those guys. My typical pitching staff might be: Stras, late 2nd, early 3rd Sale, late 6th, early 7th Medlan, 8th-9th Low K/solid ERA guy who's undervalued (Fister, Miley, McCarthy, Hudson, Anderson, etc.) 11th-12th Samardzija, 14th Upside/bounceback candidate (Lester, Beckett, Minor, Estrada, Garcia, etc.) 15th+ If my bench targets are gone in the late rounds I might even pick up a Beachy to stash on the DL.

Yeah, I was going to add that in my post and forgot. The big thing that Hicks has going for him that Valencia/Dozier/Parmalee didnt is his elite defense at a premium position. Its a lot easier to keep running a guy out there during an extended slump if he's giving you + defense. Of course that didnt stop them from bailing on Gomez, then Hardy, so.......who knows.

For me, its Kirby Puckett and its not close. But, I'm only 30 years old. From everything I've heard about Killabrew I can easily see how it would be him for the older Twins fans.

I'm probably totally off base here, I'm far from an expert on the subject of hitting coaches. But, I'm hopeful that this will be less of an issue with Brunansky in there instead of Vavra. I always got the impression that Vavra was good working with the veterans (mechanical issues), but was not very good at all at working with the youngsters (mental issues). Again, could be totally wrong, but that was the impression that I got.