Dman

While I have always liked Gonsalves and his stats, when it comes to prospect lists it typically is about potential. Duran has a 60 to 65 fastball along with an average curve and Change I believe. Gonsalves can never match the speed and likely the movement on Duran's fastball therefor his ceiling will always be lower. In prospect lists no one is saying one player is better than another only that their potential skills have a chance to be higher. In this case given the information we have IMO I think Duran should be in front of Gonsalves. Taking nothing away from Gonsalves but he is limited by how hard he can throw the ball. He has to be more deceptive with his pitches to have the same level of success that Duran would have as he can blow the ball by batters.

I just don't see Gibson signing an extension when he is just one year removed from having another 31 teams potentially bid for his services. If he is good next year there is a chance he could command a four year deal. Granted there is plenty that could go wrong for him next year as well but if there was ever a time to bet on yourself this would be the year he should. Good discussion on Odo but in the end the Twins have a lot more risk in an extension than Odo does IMO. I agree overall he looks to be trending down not up. Maybe he can and will duplicate last years last half numbers but that is a pretty big gamble to take IMO. based on his second half There just isn't enough info to know how he will pitch in the future. Personally I would wait and see on both pitchers. Granted we don't win a lot of FA money wars but we should have money to pay for for at least one of Pineda, Gibson, or Odo if they are worthy of a big pay day.

I get that you are banking on the fact Odo has figured something out just like Gibson seemed to the end of 2016 but his not being able to handle the lineup the third time through kind of scares me. If you are right and he becomes Gibson 2 that sounds like a great deal. If he remains the same or regresses it seems like an overpay. Based on your stats and if they truly can get him to sign a 3/30 contract it might be a risk worth taking. My gut says no but head says maybe. I guess it depends on how much you believe in Odo's end of the year stats and if they will transfer to next year and beyond.

I agree with you here. This year the FO needs to find out what they have in Buxton and Sano. Unless they look absolutely helpless at the plate they need to play them all season. As you stated there is little for Byron to learn in AAA at this point. He has essentially mastered that level. He needs to get comfortable at the MLB level and to do that he needs to play. He has had some success at the MLB he just needs to get more more consistent and stop swinging at those breaking balls in the dirt and that low and away stuff. If he starts swinging at actual good pitches and puts the ball in play he should be just fine. There seems to be a fair bit of consensus from lots of scouts and pundits that seem to feel he just needs to get healthy and get more experience and he is going to be fine. The Twins need him to succeed in order for the team to compete with the better teams. I think this year you throw your chips into the middle and hope you end up with a royal flush in the end. Heck even two pair or a full house would do. Let's just hope we do better than ace high.

As can be seen here breakouts are hard to predict. Would have been nice if you had included the reasoning you thought they would break out. If I had to guess I would say Seth picked his two to breakout as they had had high ceilings and then fell due to injury and should have been back to full strength in 2018. Jorge was an interesting pick as he was never supposed to be more than a number 5 and his stuff was not electric. I assume it was based on his one good start at the MLB level that might have surprised all of us and got us thinking maybe there is more here than meets the eye. Pearson was a bit of an unknown as he had just come over to the Twins but I am guessing the thought was he was a better hitter than what he showed his rookie year. He has not shown that is the case just yet. Miranda was a solid pick as he had shown a lot of power and just needed to improve his eye at the plate a bit more. I liked him as a breakout guy as well, He seemed pretty underrated for what he had accomplished the year before. He still has a ways to go with the bat but he looks good for his age right now. Palacios had already kind of broken out the year before so not sure about that pick for a breakout. I guess that he had more things to work on and in the end I guess it doesn't matter as he got traded. On paper they all looked like good candidates but baseball can be brutal as several of the picks kind of flamed out instead of rising up the ranks last year. Here's hoping they learned a lot last year and breakout this year instead.

I love the handbook and have read through most of it already. Thanks so much putting all that information together!! I just love dreaming how great these guys will be. With the talent in this system you really should be doing a top 60 instead of just 30. Thanks again.

Mike, I agree, Is this team about trying to develop superstars or Average players. Buxton already gives us Super Star defense. He is the fastest player in baseball and has already mastered AAA. We simply have to play him at the MLB level so he can figure things out. That might hurt for a while but if he figures it out you have a Super Star player. The plan has to be give Sano and Buxton the chance to develop their incredibly high ceilings. There really is no turning back at this point. If they fail to develop the Twins fail and they will have to wait for wave two. I see the plan this year as develop (Do) or die trying. If they develop then this team will be pretty exciting with a bright future ahead. If they don't it is going to hurt but will have to move on.

Yeah I think 80- to 90- percent of the board here didn't like that pick. I defended the pick because scouting reports gave him two plus plus pitches with another that could be plus. I figured elite reliever as a floor sounded OK. I think that pick should put the turn reliever to starter idea to rest. Since we have experienced it has such a low percentage of working out it was especially risky to do at the top of the draft. Several posters on here commented about that. I know no pick is perfectly safe but this one seems especially egregious because the likelihood of it working out was so low. I know his story is not finished yet but from what I have seen his stuff has been very hit-table I mean loud contact, that I really don't see him turning it around at this point. Maybe he has simply been hurt most all the time he has been in the system and getting healthy will change things. I wish him well but as things stand today this is a low point for him and the Twins.

It would be a tough conversation to be sure but I guess if it were me I would state that the organization started the year expecting him to be player he was at the end of 2017. That even though he struggled to start the year they were behind him and gave him the playing time he needed to be successful. After being injured, not sure how that all went down but he obviously needed time to heal. With his poor approach at the plate and not being able to play at the same level after the injury we had to send him down to try and get plate discipline and swing back. BY the time it looked like you might be ready join the team again the year had been lost and we didn't want to risk another injury or lose a year of service time as you are an extremely important part of this teams future. We are committed to helping you become the best player you can be and we have confidence that in time you will become an elite player. No one expected things to work out the way they did but we made the best decisions we could to help the team now and in the future. Unfortunately part of helping the team has come somewhat at your expense. Granted that doesn't help the pain of not getting to FA earlier but if he plays well his arb awards will still be good and he has to realize he hasn't been that great of a player just yet. If he had performed during the season not gotten hurt he would have gained that service time. HE didn't perform and they chose to deny him the chance the last month as they had little incentive to play him. That is how I would approach it. Not sure if that would make the situation better or worse but at the end at least he should know why the decisions were made. In a lot of ways things just went too wrong for him to gain that time unless the Twins were really willing to help him gain the time at the end of the season and they weren't.

The one thing that bothers me in his statement is: Asked if he was healthy enough to be recalled before September, he said, “Apparently to them I wasn’t, so I’ll leave it at that, too. Everybody else saw that I was playing every day, but I’m going to leave it at that.” (His health was the excuse the Twins used to not call him up). Maybe the Twins can't directly say they didn't call him up because of the service time issue but his statement there makes it pretty clear that is what the Twins did. Not sure I like how that played out and if I was the player I would never sign an extension with a team that did that to me. That being said I would still play my heart out for four years because that is the only way to get that big payday. Time supposedly heals all wounds. I guess time will tell if he gets completely over this or not. I don't see anything in any of his statements that make me think he is a primadonna. Just someone trying to be real about what happened to him at the end of the year. He has to take some responsibility for the way things turned out and it looks like he has but in my mind the Twins manipulated his service time to gain an extra year. They also need to work on their communication with players because he shouldn't be in the dark about where he stands going into the season. There is work that needs to be done on both sides.

Relief pitchers and pitchers in general seem to be the positions that most teams choose. Seems rare for teams to keep position players unless they have a talent that can used from the bench (i.e great speed, excellent defense). I think Reed could get picked and maybe Navaretto as his a MLB ready defensive catcher. Unlikely but possible would Wiel and Davis they both have good power but haven't proven themselves at AAA yet so fairlyhigh risk selections. Other than that if were other teams I would pass on the rest.

I pretty much agree with you there. I never understood why they rushed him back. The only thing I could think of at the time is maybe the injury just wasn't that bad. That is the part of this deal that doesn't look good to me in hindsight. If they rushed him back and then as a consequence his service time fell short that ends up looking pretty bad to me. I have no idea what information they had when making those decisions but if they didn't have Byrons best interests in mind then that seems like negligent behavior IMO. If Byron felt he was OK and was pushing to get back and proved he could play with it then that decision is on him. I don't know how that played out. I hate that he lost the year of service time but as I have stated things haven't worked as planned for either side so far so I can see how things ended up this way.

I know this is slightly off topic but it appears the Rays are in on Cruz and they have plenty of money to spend. Sooo what does that say about what they think about Cron? Was there some baseball move I don't understand where they lost him or do they not think he is that good? Any ideas?

I don't think there is any question that the Twins screwed him out of a year of service time. At the same time he just hasn't performed that well for the team either. It is a two way street. The Twins started the year with every intention of letting him earn his service time but by the time he was ready the team was out of contention and it made no sense for them to lose yet more time on the clock for a prospect they have a lot invested in. It sucks and if I were Buxton I would be pissed but at the same time he has to know and own that his performance at the plate has not been MLB worthy. At the end of the day it is a business. If he had performed well he would have played more. IMO the Twins made the right decision. If they gave up that year would he have agreed to an extension? I doubt it.

If Buxton is going to be as great as everyone thinks he is, he was never going to sign an extension with the Twins anyway. If he puts it together Boston, New York or LA will out bid us. Once his contract was up he is as good gone with or without the service time move. If he doesn't turn out to be that great shouldn't it be easy enough for us to replace him? It might be a sucky move but the Twins did the right thing for the Twins. Buxton can have his revenge if he turns himself into a generational player and gets a great contract after his time with the Twins.

Yeah when I mentioned Wiel it was a bit of a stretch as I don't think he showed the home run power Austin has and he really just has last year at AA as an impressive season. His OPS was very good in AA and his 51 at bats in AAA show he may have a ways to go. There is a reason he wasn't added to the 40 man. The thing that I liked about him though was the K and walk rate. He seems like he might have a better eye at the plate and that typically bodes well for MLB success. I think he would be a tough rule 5 pick as a team would have to sacrifice a bench spot to a pretty none versatile player. Also he hasn't proven he can master even AAA pitching just yet and he isn't a young player, so it would be a gamble for some team to select him but someone might do it. The signs for success are there but I think most teams would prefer to invest in more versatile bench players. Rooker is the player more comparable to Austin. Their power is similar as is their K rate. Rooker has less experience but would have options and Austin didn't light the world on fire last year. I like his potential but with Cron, Garver, Austudillo, and others somebody is going to have to go and I think it will be Austin but we'll see.

I think the Twins might want to trade Austin and I wonder if they have some team or teams interested. They have Rooker and Wiel in AAA that are similar to Austin and they would be able to move them up and down because they have options. If Raley breaks out some they could even use him in that role. There is no shortage of guys similar to Austin in AA\AAA that give the Twins better roster flexibility. Personally I think he is gone.

Yeah good point unless Rooker, Lewis or Kiriloff are great from the start we have to wait a year or two for them to develop as well. I just hope we can find or trade for some young front line pitching at some point. It feels like unless they find some super stars we are stuck in perpetual rebuild.

Yep what are they gonna do give up on Rosario, Buxton or Kepler and Cave in the outfield? Give up on Sano or Polanco in the infield? Give up on Garver, Austudillo as catcher utility guys? It is too early to give up on those guys we have to hope they develop. Pitching wasn't as bad last year and we have Slegers, Romero, Gonsalves Littel, Thorpe,Mejia and Stewart waiting for chances. We can't keep them in AAA forever. The guys we have need to step up. I agree it seems like we have saying next year for the last four years or so and is getting old but at this point I feel resigned to the fact that we need more of a core before we start making moves. I am willing to give them another year to prove themselves. If guys don't improve then Lewis, Kiroloff, Rooker and maybe Gordon and Wade await their chance sooner rather than later.

Yeah I am not too surprised. My guess is they will wait till the end of Free Agency and try and pick up the guys who didn't get contracts with other teams. They might get one relief arm early but I think they will wait things out and see what falls to them. This team needs its young players to step up and there is talent starting to bubble at AA and AAA so I think it is a figure out what we have year. If things go well I could see them adding players at the deadline this year. If things go bad might need to blow things up a bit and go with wave 2 talent. It feels like this team is close to contending for the division or a wild card spot. Don't see enough talent for a world series win but a winning season would be nice.

I am wondering if they would make a deal with Busch or Waldner or someone slated to go in the 20's and save money for more high schoolers down the line. Has sort of been their MO in recent drafts. I would still like to see them focus on young arms early in the draft as they have seemed to find hitters with decent upside later in the draft and right now we need better pitching in our system. It seems like after the first few guys there isn't a huge drop off in talent from 13 to 30. Seems like a decent scenario to try and save some money for players that fall unless someone they really like falls to them. If I had to guess I would say they will grab someone with a 55 to 60 hit tool or pitcher with a 60 curve. Could be college or high school but that is the type they seem to grab early.

I am surprised. It feels like the FO is waiting for 2020 or at least depending on young guys being ready to step up next year instead of going with more vets. Although I can see Schoop as rebound candidate having him fro just one year kind of stinks and he isn't the type of player I was hoping they would get. I have to say I am a little disappointed. I guess the plan is that the young players we have are going to break out and we are going to try and sign them to long term contracts? Not sure why else they seem not eager to spend.

I did not see this coming. I really thought Eduardo would make it to free agency. If he had become a FA I wasn't sure the Twins would be able to sign him but at least then we had the guys we traded for. His signing with AZ does make me wonder about what was he was offered by the Twins. Even with him gone I still like the trade but I have to say my opinion back when the trade happened was wrong as I thought for sure we would get a crack at him in free agency. I really thought this was a have your cake and eat it too scenario. I guess it is crow for dinner tonight for me. He will be missed in Minnesota but he is not irreplaceable. Here's hoping the FO gets someone who will contribute as much as Esco.

When we traded for him it is his eye at the plate that caught my eye. Good plate discipline will take a player a long way. He does need to hit a bit better and if that power continues to show up he has a real shot at the bigs. As usual that is a lot of "ifs" but right now I feel good about this kid. Next year we will know a lot more about the player he will be.

Molitor has had an amazing baseball career. All-Star, WS ring, WS MVP, silver slugger, and Manager of the year. I guess the only award he hasn't won is league MVP. I nejoyed watching him manage. He never had a ton of talent to work with so hard to say just how good a manager he could have been, but if I were him taking a lessor role might be better than being on the road all the time.