mikelink45

If we have one of the regular OF injured for an extended time it would not be hard to add him to the 40 man. It is time at 22 he is at that age when the really good ones move up quickly or they lose their status. Of course his history of injuries has set him back and is also somewhat worrisome.

Good article - I would like to see the prospects who slot in to each position and whether they are close to replacing someone on the 40 man. For example if one of our starting OF goes down I would want to see Kiriloff take the position (except CF). CF is a real problem if Buxton has more downtime because even Kepler is not really acceptable out there. Is our minor league CF prospect close enough to push if needed? I think 2B is very strong - Arraez has plenty of backup in our utility guys and Gordon and Lewis, but SS if Lewis is not ready to come in is our real weakness and is the most important of the middle positions. Catcher is strong with the three we have and the two prospects.

In the discussions so far there is both Kepler and Rosario in front of him, but in reality your next batter - Kiriloff is truly the one in front of him. Since none of these players is a CF it comes down to the corners, especially now that Sano is at 1B. This also emphasizes that Rooker is the next to follow Raley in a trade since he has too many young bats in his way and no place to play. Even if Cruz moves on and DH opens I do not see them filling it with a young player. Since I have a different sense of what makes a prospect rank high I would also say that I would have three pitchers ahead of him on the list, but I know the TD system so I am fine with what you are doing and I am enjoying it. Good luck Larnach.

I thought you would have more of a profile on Balazovic. We have four good arms here. If 50% of them shine I will be delighted. I like to see good arms used early in their development rather that waiting until after TJ hits. Look at what Atlanta did this year.

I see we are on opposite sides in this philosophy. I wonder if TD will ever have dislikes as an option. You start with a Perez and he gets you off to a good start and then you are hesitant to pull the plus which allows him to erase all the benefit. Give me potential!

I loved that review. Thanks for the work. I think that we can only come to one conclusion in this summary. We lost. Now we have to hope we have turned a corner and have better judgment - the evaluation is years away.

Wow - I have been fascinated by the overtly optimistic essays about this perfect team and its perfect lineup and its perfect front office. Now I see a time traveler comparing the team with the 1927 Yankees. I hope you realize were not playing with the most juiced ball in history. The Yankees won 110 games and they only played 154. They won the World Series in four straight games. They finished 19 games ahead of all other AL teams - no divisions. Yes they only hit 158 HRs. The next best AL team hit 56 - that is a difference of 102. In 2019 we beat the Yankees by 1 HR. Whatever you are on must be really good, but not as good at the 1927 Yankees.

I am for the Twins prospects - Chacin and Wisler may be nice guys, but I hope they are beat out and we get young arms into our staff to build for the future.

See my post about Pete Reiser in the other Buxton article. I am sorry to say that some players are more prone to injury than others - physical, playing style, or some galactic convergence - and to say that they are more likely to be injured than others is not a pejorative. Reiser is just one example of players who saw their careers reduced by injuries while other players go on for what seems like an impossible career - see Nolan Ryan's arm.

Because his game is speed we are starting to see the combination of injuries and age challenging his potential. I have no answer, but I need to see more than a few glimpses of potential before I buy into Buxton the star (let alone superstar). You might want to check out an earlier fence crasher - Pete Reiser https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/92638bc5 Pete was a better hitter than Buxton, but "All attention turned to number 27, who lay on the field motionless, facing the sky, his shoulder separated and blood trickling from his ears. When Durocher reached him, the manager started to cry. Pete was carried off on a stretcher and woke up the next morning in the hospital with a fractured skull and a brain injury." What Buxton has going for him is both better medical attention and better team awareness. "Alas, in the heat of the moment, Pete Reiser just never could pull up and play it off the wall. Every fly ball was his to catch, and catch them all he would—or kill himself trying."

A nice 4th or 5th OF is a nice bonus, but they are like the second string QB. They always look good until they are forced to start and face all the pitchers and all the situations. With our prospects lining up I would look for a nice trade with Cave going to a team in need - like the Marlins. But I keep Eddie until Kiriloff takes over for him (and then we will complain that Kiriloff is not a good fielder).

I still dream of the four man rotation. Give me a 154 game season again. Oh well, that is as big a dream as an effective six man rotation. Teams can't get really good five man rotations, good luck on six.

I am looking forward to Duran and Balazovic in the rotation more than Maeda, Hill and Bailey. I see Cleveland and LA dipping into their prospect list (Plutko, Beuhler, Clevinger, Civale) and I like that. The Twins are finally getting to that position and I hope we do not trade any more of our high end young arms. Which does not mean I will not route for the Twins new acquisitions.

So much for the debate

As we enjoy the new free agents and trades and speculate about the new season we have to also know that the new season comes with one overwhelming story - the Astros and their sign stealing. I cannot solve or resolve this issue although this does give the Twins some hope that this really good team might stumble and present one less obstacle to our own World Series hopes. I do have to admit that going from video and computer to banging a garbage can presents a really hilarious combination. Should the Astros relinquish their title? If it were the tour de France they would - ask Lance Armstrong. If it were the Olympics they might take back the records - ask Jim Thorpe (if you have psychic powers). If it is the NCAA you can ask Louisville (2013) about its basketball record, the UCLA women's softball team (1995), USC football (2004), Marion Jones Olympics (2000), Ben Johnson Olympics (1988), or Mohammed Ali boxing championship (1967). Baseball has a huge rule book and almost everything has been violated. While Jim Perry put up great records for the Twins and he has made our team hall of fame, his brother Gaylord made the MLB HOF despite his admittance and jokes about spitballs. McGuire, Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens have been judged by HOF voters to not make it - yet, but their records still stand? Why. If they cheated their records should not stand either. But they will - lets see Rose has the most hits, but is not eligible for the HOF, Bonds has the most HRs but is not in the HOF. We have some funny standards in MLB. Only the Black Sox have had their title removed - so why not the Astros? Will Beltran still get HOF votes - Jackson, Cicotte and others from his team did not? We now know that the HR heard around the world - the most famous playoff HR was actually tainted by having someone tip off Thomson and Ralph Branca has had to wear the goat crown ever since (not the new G.O.A.T). In an interview after we learned about this infraction this was a pertinent. AMOS: So they cheated? Mr. PRAGER: Yes, they did. Baseball has a sort of strange relationship with the stealing of signs. When you're standing on second base and you're peering in and stealing the sign with the naked eye, baseball not only allows that, it applauds that. But when, on the other hand, you use a telescope, they don't feel that that's appropriate. The full interview can be found here - it is very appropriate for this season. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6186829 Of course this is not a full measure of cheating, stealing signs, cutting up or doctoring the ball and the Twins have not been immune - check out Joe Niekro Of course Joe was a former ASTRO!

I respect your perspective and I enjoyed your discussion.

I agree with your premise - grading the effort is worthwhile.

We can grade the effort, not the results - not yet. We can have great expectations and most of us do, but expectations are not the same as performance.

I actually see him as number 1. For all the medical buzz - none of which we know - the Twins were willing to bring him up at age of 20. They might not see him as a starter at this age - most young pitchers are still being stretched out at that age - just read Balazovic and Duran's essays. The Dodgers are a smart team. They would not give up a four year - team friendly contract for a starting pitcher if they were scared like Boston. Boston was not scared by the medical, they were scared of their fans reaction to the overall trade. Graterol was worth a lot in this trade and in the opinion of two very good teams. I expect that he will start in the BP, get some spot starts and grow into a pitcher we will regret not having. I hope Balazovic gets the same quick call up and replaces Graterol in our hopes for the future. But I see to many comments that reduce the value of those we lose just as we have too many that increase the value of what we get. Time will tell, but right now Graterol has great potential and is already showing it in MLB and Maeda fills a role we need and we hope to see him provide the quality we expect.

I have said this in other grading posts - you cannot grade until the end of the season. At this point we can look at effort and we can look at potential, but the grade comes next fall when we hopefully win the division and some games in the post season. Right now it is all bells and whistles, hopes and wishes.

I have not seen anything that excites me about Thorpe and that is why we have been cluttering up the rubber with players like Chacin. I would love to have Thorpe make the move, but I think he really lost his chance last year when Dobnak passed him.

Why are we stuck with the old paradigm - too young, give him innings in all the minor leagues (even baseball does not really believe in it and they are trying to get rid of a big chunk of minor leagues. Rafeal Devers, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna are just some of the young players that are being pushed to the majors. Even Graterol is a good example. I have no idea if Balazovic has that talent, but this baseball reference page https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/Youngest_leagues.shtml is enough for me to say - get them up before their arms fall off, not after.

The Cruz extension should be one year and only after we see how he does this year, or we can be creative and sign him as a playing coach since we value his locker room presence. Based on the Athletic article about Beltran yesterday, we seem to have gotten the much better locker room leader. Both were strong leaders, but Beltran took their train off the rails.

I would love to see him in MLB before the end of the year. Real talent rises quickly.

Fun, but of course it is just fodder for all of us who are so anxious for a real baseball to appear again.