mikelink45

Wow is this optimism over the top. Pineda, who the hell knows what he will bring. This is not a former Cy Young pitcher. He has been injured then injured again. Do you think that the Yankees wanted to keep him? Odorizzi has really risen to the top versus the Tigers and Royals! Sorry the old SSS comes in to play when we look at his top efforts. I want him to succeed, but lets see. I take Berrios and Romero and then I have my fingers crossed. Stewart had a great game against the Tigers. Gonsalves had a great game against - you guessed it the Tigers. Lets see this against the Yankees, Red Sox, Astros, Indians. Am I bitter, damn right, this team has under performed by every measure and what we see in September does not mean a damn thing. Will I get censored for Damn? The lineup has a lot of guys who would be great in the 7/8/9 slots but guess what there are six more to fill. Put in Polanco and Rosario and Cave and then what? This is not refreshing. We are ninth in the AL and the teams below us have chosen to Tank. Tell me Kiriloff and Lewis are ready, that Gratol is going to make the jump. Then I get excited. Otherwise we are fooling ourselves and the Twins love it.

I cannot equate hitters and pitchers, but it really does not matter to me. This is not about securing second place in the central division, it is about putting young players in the lineup and seeing them play, even if they fall flat. I would go a lot further than these two if I had the chance. I am tired of the keeping control argument. If someone comes up and is good they will get a contract and an extension.

Do wins matter at this time of year? I am more interested in the young arms and wishing we had some young players at bat and in the field. What am I missing. Does it matter how far we are from 500 or that we can beat Detroit and the White Sox? The only reason I do not care about the opener now is that at least we see another pitcher, but why not some other guys. I really do not want the opener to care over to next year, but I am okay with it now. As the season winds down I am even more mystified with the lack of call ups - Reed and Anderson in the pen, Wade and Gordon in the field. I do not care about the minor league stats, they need to be seen and given some exposure to the Twins.

Bullpen. This league has changed the pitching equation. KC started it, Tampa Bay put a new twist on it and now we have openers and closers, we want our primary pitcher to go 4 good innings, we need to have relief pitchers cover innings 1,6,7,8,9. That means 5 relief pitchers a game unless things go bad. Since relief pitchers also need relief we need to let them have off a game or two. So what we need is a 25 man roster of relief pitchers who can also play other positions like Gimenez! Or Ohtani. When I look at the game stats for a 10 day period the relief pitchers are not shut down pitchers day after day. Hildenberg is stretched for outings and certainly as a closer.

We know Gonsalves and Stewart could handle AAA batters, the Tigers being, maybe AAAA are a step up and a good proving grounds, but there is a long way to go for too much optimism. Hate to be a downer, but the Twins do not deserve a lot of leeway at this point. Just keep putting the young guys out there.

Hildenberger is not a closer. Last three games against the high level competition of KC and Detroit and he gave up 8 hits and 7 runs in 2.1 innings. For the season 71 innings, 69 hits, 39 runs. Give someone else the end of the game. He will be in the pen next year, but he is a 6 -7th inning reliever. Not sure losing weight over the off season will correct what Sano is suffering. Does he need glasses? I really want to see him turn it around, but since coming up he has been on a path of regression instead of improvement. With the 20 year old outfielders for the Braves and Nats, are the Twins brave enough to give Kiriloff a chance next year?

Not old school - just an accurate and sad statement. Soon we will have the Sano line and that is just not acceptable. Look at the Astros - they love home runs, but they also get on base, same with the Indians. BA still is important.

Jeffers is the missing man for me. I like the top two a lot, but as a person who dislikes strikeouts Rooker disappointed me. I know he is still up in the top list, but there are others I like more. LaMonte Wade was a disappointment this year for me just like rdehring stated.

The problem is whether Castro and Garver can come back. Joe Mauer stands out as an example of what can go wrong. With everyone back I agree we are in good shape for the short run and hopefully Rortvedt can be ready when either of the top two starts to fail.

A lot of us were shocked by the Buxton treatment this year, from playing him with an injury to denying him his September call up. We were almost equally shocked to see Sano sent to A ball and when he returned people talked about him looking a little thinner, but then the season played on and before ending with another injury he resorted to the same 200 hitting occasional Home Run hitter. September call ups included Matt Belisle and a trade for Gimenez, more time for Johnny Field and not much excitement outside the young pitchers and that wonderful Opener experiment. Gonsalves, our top pitching prospect has stunk, Littell who has been called up a couple of times continues to stink (I know that they want to make that trade look good for the FO). Stewart has improved as we continue to pitch him against the mighty Tigers and Busenitz has demonstrated that AAAA is his best hope (when will they open that league?). Of course there is one rookie who looked really good early in the Season, but he could not even be called up to toss a couple BP sessions - Romero. Among hitters only Astudillo has appeared and that is because we have our original starter out for the season, our next starter out with a concussion, our first reserve traded for last years reserve and only Astudillo available for actually crouching behind the plate. No look at Rooker or Gordon or any other potential hitters. So how good is our player development? I just read the Athletics Matthew Kory in the season ending power ranking and his comments really jumped out at me. "One of the things that good teams do is draft talented players, develop them in the minors, and turn them into stars when they get to the big leagues. The Red Sox have done that with Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts. The Indians have done that with José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor. The Astros have done that with Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman (and George Springer) (and José Altuve). The Twins should have done that with Miguel Sanó and Byron Buxton… but they haven’t. Despite loads of talent, Sanó is barely playable and Buxton supposedly isn’t even ready for a September call-up. If you’re looking for the difference between Minnesota and every playoff team in baseball, that’s it in a nutshell."

Good question. I could find no rating or reaction to Navarro that made me think he had a chance.

Any advance in the medical area is a good advance. I hope he is looking at stretching, weights, general exercise. Although sometimes I think the injuries come from long stretches of inactivity - standing around in the field, sitting on the bench through long innings. I think some small on the field stretching to start each inning might pay dividends. The TJ surgery is a tough one. I might be having it in the next year and I do not pitch, I cannot throw overhand now. It just comes from wear and tear and pitchers put too much wear and tear on a system that did not evolve to handle that extreme motion over and over. Good luck - I do hope that someone comes up with a way to reduce the surgery, but pitching by its own definition is going to max out the shoulder and elbow.

I believe confused describes it. Imagine the first Opener to be named to the HOF!

Interesting list - I am too old to follow the Mike Trout is Mr everything line. Great Player - his teams never go anywhere. Sorry how valuable is he to getting to 2,3,4th place. I know - hit me with metrics, but give me Mookie Betts. Cy Young - Verlander. Sales breaks down every year when the season gets to the critical months while Verlander says give me the ball and we will win. A little Jack Morris there. But Verlander is the guy on want on my staff. AL reliever - Blake Treinen. The A's have a terrible rotation and a great pen and Treinen has his team in first place. Yelich and Arenado are tied for NL MVP for me. They are doing more for teams with less. I have no arguments with the rest of the NL, which must mean I do not follow them as much as I do the AL. Thanks for posting your choices and letting me be a contrarian.

Nice response. I completely agree on Odorizzi. Other than his no-hit bid, he has been dynamite the first time through the lineup and then is questionable. Relief is perfect for him.

Okay what happens at catcher in the next two years? First we have the veteran – Castro – coming back from his injury. Not a great bat, but we got him for his framing. Is his framing still so important and more important is it still better than Garver? Garver started out with lots of question marks. So many doubted his defense, so much that the team was willing to sacrifice his bat for Bobby Wilson. But Wilson was traded – is Garver better? We added Gimenez who, like Wilson, has a very questionable bat, but supposedly is good at defense and in the clubhouse. BA 260, OBP 330. Then along comes Astudillo – chubby little guy that looks like a lifetime minor leaguer – and he becomes a Minnesota legend. Chubby, smiling, always hustling – kind of like a guy named Puckett. He hits, he does not strike out and he does not walk. The announcers question Molitor’s faith in him behind the plate. I cannot judge that. In 19 games his average is 327 and his OBP is 351. In the minors or best prospect is Rortvedt #24 for the Twins 262AB, 331 OBP. The projection for him is 2021. I cannot find any other prospects that get much of a conversation so I have to conclude that there is no one else ready for MLB. David Banuelos is in A ball and seems like the next on the list. Among FA catchers is Matt Wieters who has disappointed two teams so far and hopefully will not become a Twin. Yasmani Grandal, 30, is another FA. He has 95 hits and a 235 BA for the Dodgers. Jonathon LuCroy is now 33 and has bounced around a lot of teams in recent years. A good batter, but I am not sure he fits the Twins profile. And then there is the Braves – Kurt Suzuki, who had 77 hits and batted 271 for the braves this year – we have already had the Suzuki experience. So who is our catcher – and I know I am asking this with Garver suffering a concussion which could throw all these projections off. • Castro • Garver • Astudillo • Gimenez • Rordvedt Do we trade, do we go with what we have? Does Castro get his starting position back? Help me figure this out.

I like your rotation, but I am still skeptical about Pineda until he shows what he has. I like Mejia in the BP, but if Pineda fails he is in the rotation. In AAA lets hope Thorpe and Wells out perform Gonsalves and Little. What about Kohl Stewart? DFA, Traded???

I suspect that Kiriloff will be kept in the minors for another year. I wrote a who's on first blog http://twinsdaily.com/blog/1028/entry-11216-who-will-be-on-first/ and I have Austin as second choice behind Mauer.

I hope they come up with a real closer. I do not think Hildenberg is the right person to be the 9th inning designee. Thanks for finding so many positives in a week that saw us beat the Yankees and lose to the Royals!

I know that pitch to contact is old school, old Twins, but has anyone else read the summaries of the Oakland patchwork rotaion? The words Pitch to Contact keep coming up. I know batting is now K or HR, but if the pitchers are also K or HR what do we have? Something has to change because what we have seen in September is without hope. If the new metrics aren't working do what Oakland has done and create some new metrics.

So hard to get excited any more. Tom, thanks for continuing to inform us.

Dozier has now been benched by the Dodgers. He is not going to be in demand in FA.

Well we will not agree on this, but I would have used any of the three you listed and anyone else not asleep in the BP. I do not leave a ninth inning reliever in because when his is good he is better than the others. Because if he is not good the game is lost.

I am trying to remember which of these teams has the second worst record in the league! As BBAM wrote - who are our next pitchers? If this is what the team considers the best of the rookie prospects how to they rank? From bad to worst - Kohl Stewart DeJong Gonsalves Littell Would Aaron Slegers have been any better? Are any of these pitchers showing enough to say that they can just move on from rookie jitters? With our BP looking gassed there is a lot to be done for next year.

What a rotation I have gone through all but DH in my thought process on next year and I really do not care who is DH since it seems like the Twins like to move it around. But the rotation is the real issue. Bleacher reports had this reflection on Starting Pitching - https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1187854-is-starting-pitcher-the-most-important-position-for-building-a-successful-team . Very seldom do people attend the game because there will be a great match up of closers. We still look at Verlander, Kluber, Severino, Greinke as marquee names for any game. So who starts for the Twins in 2019 and 2020? I can easily write in Berrios. Is there anyone who compares? Gibson has turned the corner and we are still wondering if it is real, but yes, he is number two. Ervin Santana was a wonderful story, but the emphasis is on was! He is gone, I would almost guarantee it, but I guarantee nothing. Jake Odorizzi had a near no-hitter recently so we forget how mediocre he has been. 6 – 10 4.41 ERA 1,32 Whip, 30 games, 155 innings – an average of 5 innings per start. Yes, he will be in the rotation next year. Then there are the September debuts: Kohl Stewart – six games, 24 innings, ERA+ 81, 1.78 Whip, 5.47 ERA. Prospect #28. Aldalberto Mejia – 5 games, 2.01 ERA, 1.16 WHIP Aaron Slegers - 3 games, 5.68 ERA which is lower than his MLB career 6.11, 1.42 WHIP Michael Pineda who benefits from being injured all year and then injured again instead of making a Sep call up He is 40 – 41 with a 4.40 ERA, and a 1.19 WHIP. He will take one of the five spots, even if he has not earned it. Chase De Jong – the FO acquired him so he has a front of the line position and he gave up no runs in his first appearance. His MLB record has him with an ERA of 5.57 and a WHIP of 1.51. Smoke and mirrors so far for MN. Stephen Gonsalves who has dominated the minor league reports for the last four years has stunk in his debut – 9.39 ERA, within 1 of Belisle, and a 2.67 WHIP. Awful. Is it real? He is rated prospect #5. If not for Gonsalves and Belisle Littell would be on the stink listing with 8.44 ERA and 2.06 Whip. Zack was prospect number 20 which was a downgrade from his previous ranking at #11. If not them, who? Among the top 30 prospects – which include the above pitchers is Brusdar Gratol, our number 4 prospect. He is 20 and has proven himself at all the levels he has pitched at. MLB.com says he comes up in 2021. If the above pitchers continue there stink ratings he could be 2020. Blake Enlow is prospect number 9, he is 20, and projected for 2021. He could push 2020. Lewis Thorpe is prospect number 10 and why he did not get a September call up is a mystery to me. He could be in the mix for next year. He was 8 – 7 with an era of 3.54 and a WHIP of 1.24 in 2018. Jordan Balazovic is prospect number 30 and projected for 2021. We also have some pitchers that were acquired in trades this summer, but none seem MLB ready, yet. Then there are the FA. I will not project signing them, but Patrick Corbin of the AZ Diamondbacks hits the market at age 29. His stats look really good. He would be a good signing. Dallas Keuchel of the Astros is a dream, but one I think we should pass on. I am not as convinced as others that he has the ACE potential for the future. Clayton Kershaw – pardon me, I cannot type while I am laughing. With all this information and some experience with seeing how this FO works (or doesn’t) this is my guess. 2019 • Berrios • Gibson • Odorizzi • Pineda • Mejia • DeJong 2020 • Berrios • Gibson • DeJong • Thorpe • Gratol • Wells