mikelink45

Looks like an MLB filler, I hope he develops more, but right now as Number 9 he is not as exciting as I would like to see.

Very optimistic. I would find fault with your number one because a lot of players look great before they begin their careers and I prefer to see them establish a track record before being listed as a number 1 or does this mean that the rest of the potential players aren't good enough to be a number 1? From your description I question Diaz too. Another 1B/DH and you liken him to Vargas. Once again my debate is on potential. I have seen too many potentials go down the tube and for the top five I prefer to see players who have worked their way up. I would love to see the two pitchers really blossom and then see the Twins cut the chaff and get rid of Hughes, Santana, Santiago, Gibson and start working on the real rotation of the future with these two in the mix. Thanks for the work. My criticism is not for your listing, but just my personal preferences.

No surprises in your headlines, also nothing to get excited about. I still believe in Berrios and think it better to stick with him and work out tipping his pitches, getting to excited or whatever and let him learn at MLB. Nothing, no one else on this list has his potential.

Hard to see him as #10. There is not enough track record yet, but I hope you are right and he is going to move fast.

Nick and Seth and Thrylos I do not know where else to post a question to all three of you. As I read these lists and try to read between the lines since I rely on your judgments to replace my lack of opportunity to see and judge myself; which brings up a question for each of you. If you made a roster from just the minor leagues or from your list of prospects who would fill the lineup and rotation - regardless of age or anticipated time of arrival or level of competition. I realize that the AAA guys should whip the rookie league, but if we just look at potential the lower minors look better to me than the upper. Give me a starting 9 and a rotation - more if you like, but put together the all potential team as it is now - no Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Kepler... Thanks.

I want Vargas to play. I see the remainders on the DH/1B bargain shelf and want to run far away from any temptation. If Vargas fails at least we know we have to move on, if we bring in someone for the scrap heap it is probably just a one year signing and we would still need to move on. Palka hit a lot of home runs, but his K's are too frequent, we do not need to give away more AB's to a wild swinger unless Vargas fails.

My last thought on this is that when we draft college players - especially in their senior year they are supposed to be on a quicker path to the majors. The fact that he was 22 was a factor of 4 years playing at New Mexico.

This is an interesting list because I would like to see four of them spend a majority of the year with the Twins. Gimenez is not going to do anything and Garver at 26 is entering his peak seasons if we wait until Castro ends his contract he will be 29-30 and for most players that is the beginning of the downward trend that is in the chart here - see http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/catcher-aging-is-a-curve-not-a-cliff/ That is why my personal desire is to see players in the bigs in their age 25 - 26 years if not before if we think that they are really going to be major leaguers.

There is a point where that develop has to be in the bigs. No catcher should be behind the plate seven days a week and Garver is now of an age where we should be hitting his peak performance.

I have this unwarranted feeling that really good players hit the majors by the time they are 25 so when I look at the upper levels and see ages that are closer to the time when MLB peak (30) has passed - 1B - Ben Paulsen (29), Reynaldo Rodriguez (31), Byungho Park (30) 3B - Matt Hague (31), Dan Gamache (26), Leonardo Reginnato (26) it is disappointing. Even Chattanooga has old players from my development perspective. Given that they would probably move to AAA for a year you would have to add another year to their potential MLB age and now we are getting to the veteran MLB stage - 1B - Dalton Hicks (26), Trey Vavra (25) 3B - Niko Goodrum (24), TJ White (25), Tom Belza (27) All of which emphasizes what has been said before, our future, at least on the corners, is in the low levels.

This is a good list and just frustrates me when I see our high powered FO grabbing Gimenez, a one year 36 year old bullpen pitcher, and trying to go for the left over sluggers. Let's develop these players.

I look at the top ten list and I think there is limited star power if I am reading the reports correctly. A lot of potential bench players here. Blankenhorn surprises me as #2. I guess I have not read enough about him to have any opinion, but his name just has not been in many discussions. Of course the lower levels are exciting and we can hope that out of this group one of them will really emerge!

A nice range in talents in this list. Lets hope they really work on Ben to be there when Castro's contract is done. Burdi has been a tease and I know it must drive him crazy too, but let's hope it is a quick return to brilliance. Vielma makes sense as the defensive replacement that Adrianza is suppose to be. I just wish Haley was higher on this list and really looked good. I am wondering where they hope he will slot with the new signings and the long list of potential starters.

We have not addressed any meaningful change, we just get names to talk about as we hope for the next season, but Stubbs and Shuck and Adrianza represent mediocre players for last place teams. I hope all three are beat out. Give Polanco a full year. Give Sano a full year. Let these players learn and develop. I went to Stubbs baseball record and it is easy to see why he was available. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stubbdr01.shtml He has been with numerous teams the last two years and his days are over. Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Grossman are the outfield. Adrianza had one decent year in four http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/adriaeh01.shtml and SF did not want to keep him. In four seasons he accumulated a 0.4 defensive war. J. B. Shuck has an accumulated Defensive WAR of -1.3 over five seasons and an offensive WAR of 0.1 for the same five years. Where is there upgrade?

Looking at the AAA outfield projection I was struck by the ages. This group has an average age that is older than the MLB outfielders. By next year when they should project up they will be at their prime, but where will we put them if the MLB trio is really set? I suspect Rosario is in the most precarious position. The Chattanooga team is even older. This is not right. If the future is good we should be getting younger at each level (I am not talking the 4th/5th OF). I did not realize that Grossman was as young as he is. If there is any change at the top I would expect that Palka would replace Grossman and Granite might replace Rosario if we decide that we need a glove and a bat this combo would provide it. Beyond that I think the OF is quite set and we might be waiting for Kirilloff.

Okay - help me understand. We sign a pitcher and DFA a hitter. We sign a fielder and DFA a pitcher. Pat Light throws 100 and he's got potential - good bye. Park hits a hundred home runs and fills the DH slot - good bye. Belisle is 36 and is a one year filler. This guy can't hit, cannot make it with the Brewers who are only slightly better than us. What am I suppose to understand?

Interesting, but not encouraging. I can see why KLAW ranked us low. Melotakis and Stewart in your write up have too many flaws and not a great track record when they should be at the age of emergence and Minier without a position and jumping in to the proverbial DH/1B slot is disappointing. I was really hoping for better. Rortvedt is the only one on this list that seems to have the potential to make some jumps and this will be a key year for him to succeed.

Young arms. Nothing in this article gets me excited about Belisle. He is just another filler and its time to move on from that to getting the young arms firing. Tonkin has not impressed me. If he nailed the first three batters and then had trouble I would see the over use, wrong use argument, but he just is not reliable. There are enough other players on this team that need to be tested. I prefer Duffey. I also prefer both Berrios and May over Santiago. I want upside, not just okay.

Spring training will be interesting. Will they change any of the drills, will they have a different evaluation system? We have the same pitching coach which does not seem good, the same manager - questionable, but maybe the new coaches will instill some new ideas - if I read the articles right Molitor seems to be open to input. As far as clearing redundancies, that should be the cuts in the Spring.

Interesting. Not exciting, but at least another name to talk about. They have enough players they can drop that I do not worry about that. Checking stats - the ERA number for the last two years are amazing. Why? His career numbers are really pedestrian - who are we getting? http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/belisma01.shtml

Since Haley represents our big pitching acquisition I would sure like to see him better than prospect 21 in a mediocre farm system ranking.

Okay we will be better. We will lose 90 instead of 103. what good is that? Our best chance for improvement is with our young batters, but if they had been better last year we would still have been last. It is the pitchers and better framing does not put new arms on the same old players.

It is all about approach to pitching. We used to expect 200 innings, it was not an elusive goal, but we began a dramatic shift and what confuses my old mine is that we seem to have more arm injuries in the five man rotation, less inning years than I remember from the 4 man, complete game period. Here are the yearly total innings pitched leaders - note Mr. Blyleven with 271 in 1986 after 293 innings in 1985, and Jack Morris with 293 in 1983. And from 1980 to the beginning of baseball the leaders were routinely getting 300+ of close to it. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/IP_leagues.shtml This Grantland article asks what is happening and starts with: Tommy John surgeries are ripping through baseball at a faster pace than ever before. Twenty-five percent of active MLB pitchers have had the procedure, which reconstructs a pitcher’s torn ulnar collateral ligament, as have 15 percent of current minor league pitchers. Last season was particularly distressing: More pitchers had the surgery in 2014 than in the entirety of the 1990s. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/tommy-john-epidemic-elbow-surgery-glenn-fleisig-yu-darvish/ I must emphasize that this is Tommy John related and now we are seeing a new series of injuries which have not had an operation developed to get them back on the mound. Jeff Passan wrote the book ARM and was on NPR in an interview that I found interesting: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/31/472541597/injuries-increase-as-pitchers-throw-harder-faster-and-younger but none of these answer the question - why didn't we have this many injuries prior to 1980 when pitchers threw more? Of course there were some, but it does not register for me that the numbers match what we have today. I tried to find stats, but could not. Anyway, I find this whole discussion to be interesting and puzzling.

I responded to Brock who questioned my position and I will share with you (a kindred spirit) with this list of Twins wins and losses http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/history/year_by_year_results.jsp and wonder how many stars we can pluck out of this history. I know we have had players like Steve Carlton come on the roster for a short time past their prime, but while they are MLB HOF they did not do enough with the Twins to be on the local HOF. Thanks for your comment.

How many of the recipients can you name? I can't and they do not hang as banners on the lamp posts. I am not mad about this, but I know that every year there will be 1 or 2 more and I cannot see that a team with the record that we have had since I ushered in 1961 has that many stars - http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/history/year_by_year_results.jsp If they choose to add more names I will be fine, just like I look at the MLB HOF and cringe at some of the names I will wonder what it takes to be a Twins HOF member. In the long run it is just something to write about while I wait for the season.