Dman

I am going to be a little schizophrenic on this one. It is hard to replace Correia right now as he is rebuilding some value and there is a slim chance we can get something for him at the Trade deadline. Ultimately though I agree your thinking. Despite the recent interest we are not going to contend this year. We don't have the pitching fire power we need to compete. So why not Bring up a couple of guys and get them some MLB experience? Worst case is they can't adjust right away and get sent back down, but wouldn't you like to know that or have that happen sooner rather than later. We need to build pitching talent to compete. Let's see what we have and get them as much experience as possible this year so that maybe we don't have to waste all of next year developing them.

I agree pitching is the difference maker when it comes to the playoffs. I don't see that we stack up well with other teams pitching staffs. It is also why I don't think the Twins will be in the playoff hunt much longer. I would be happy to be sellers if we get something decent. Not sure what C level prospects bring to a very deep farm system.

I am inclined to agree with you. The Twins won't trade the motorcylce at least not this early as they don't have anything great behind him either. The Orioles would have to give up more than he is worth for a half year rental to get him from the Twins. Maybe later in the season if the Twins are out of it but even then they likely would have to give up quite a bit to get him. I don't see this happening for either club although it is fun to think about.

The better way to go is to buy your ace in Free Agency but the Twins have always been to fearful of the long contract, injury and possible dead money to do it. I would be wary to give up prospects for an ace unless that is your one missing piece. Most likely If you follow the Twins you will have to wait them to develop an ace. So keep after them to draft pitchers with ace potential and lots of them because they break easily.

Hard to argue with you on this one. I think most people on TD didn't "get it". Since he cleared it made sense to try and build his value back up in AAA. Maybe it was VW's attitude or something and they felt he needed a fresh start and they gave it to him. I don't know. There are guys waiting to come up who have greater upside than VW. Maybe they didn't feel there was room. In the end it is what it is. You win some you lose some. The reactionary part of myself felt he was so bad this spring I didn't want to have to watch him anymore. It was a relief when they shipped him off. My better judgement said probably should give him another in AAA and see what he can do before you give up on him. He will likely never be more than a #5 starter and not the center piece of the trade so not too much lost here.

Personally I would be surprised to see Worley work out well for the Pirates long term. This feels a bit like Deja Vu with Liriano. Worley was touted as at tops a number 3 pitcher when we got him and he performed like a AAA pitcher when we started him. The Twins gave him ample time to prove himself and we all hoped to see the best of Worley this year in spring training. After all the prep and hype in the off season he didn't look any better than the year before. Worley seems like a number 5 at best and we have plenty of those already. I would argue we have guys waiting with higher upside than VW. The train-wreck story that is Vance Worley will live in infamy but the Twins will survive it.

Nice article. Good information. Was wondering how he was doing. Kind of seems a bit like Berrios last year where his K numbers dropped and ERA was higher than we hoped it would be. I guess you have to learn to pitch somewhere. Might as well be A ball.

You bet and I am willing to acknowledge all of that, but every pitching coach does that. The question is can he make just any pitcher good enough to be a good to great MLB pitcher? I doubt it. The link that people want to make is that the coach is the difference maker when a player performs well or poorly. The problem is that coaching is static so it should have essentially the same effect on every player. The coach offers advise etc from his perspective and experience and it is basically the same for each player thus improvement should be made. If you are going to state that the coach makes the player better then all players should get better and not worse under the coaches watchful eye. This does not happen in baseball. Some pitchers do well (i.e Phil Hughes) and some poorly (Pelfrey) with the same coach. You can do this for any team in the majors. So how do we correlate the coach with player performance when some get better and some worse under the same coach? It can't be the coach that makes the difference, it is the player and each player is different. If some players do better and others poorly how can we honestly say the coach makes the players better or worse? I don't think we can. You can't have it both ways. That is the problem when you assign blame to the coach instead of the player. It makes everyone look crazy because the results vary from player to player and year to year. It is the same coaching the same instruction it just produces different results typically not always positive. I do agree that a coaches greatest value to his team and players is more psychological than instructional at the MLB level. Believing in your players and putting them in positions to succeed is important because most every player seems to agree that confidence is the one thing that can make them successful.

Sure I am inclined to agree with you as well. I agree coaching is needed and matters otherwise why would baseball have them. My point is how much better is one coach over another? They will all point out things to make players better. A coaches influence is also limited. As for coaches getting stale and fresh starts, sometimes a different approach works better. no questions about it, but it can't make up for a players talent and too many people seem to think that it does else they wouldn't blame coaches for things out of their control. Hughes has more to do with his success than Anderson. Yes they look at things together analytic s and other info like all coaches and players do to try and get better but the coach can't make Hughes execute a pitch in a certain situation. Hughes has to trust his stuff when the time comes and execute the pitch. The player is far more responsible for the results than the coach. If you don't recognize this then you will always be wondering why with the same coaches Liriano isn't as good this year or that Tampa's team stinks this year. How can that be with the great insight and coaching that they are known for. If your theory is correct that should never happen because their coaching and insight make such huge differences. The only way out is to admit it is on the players to perform.

I am of the opinion that coaching has fairly limited influence on players. I don't buy into the line of thinking that coaching changes the player all that much. If coaching was the key then everyone in the Dodgers system should be pitching close to the same as Clayton Kershaw. They have the same coaches the same system etc. and yet only one Kershaw. Why? Talent. He has a rare talent that few posses. Certainly he has been coached throughout his career on how to throw etc but by the time he hits the big leagues he doesn't need much coaching as he is a coach unto himself. He knows what he needs to do and now he needs to execute it. You can mess with mechanics and have thoughts and theories but in the end it is the pitcher and the thing between his ears that is important. There is only so much you can teach. If there was a pitching coach that turned everyone into Kershaw then by all means give them credit. Otherwise it appears to me that a pitching coach is a pitching coach is a pitching coach IMO. I will agree that the people who think Mr. Anderson sucked ala Liriano need to buck up and give him credit for Hughes.

Yep no way they will move him now after all he is on his way up. He gave up no runs tonight and went six. Hard to improve on that even if you are Trevor May.

Yep don't forget they will want him try and learn a third pitch and be careful with his arm this year. They also won't want to waste his mlb service time figuring things out in the bigs that he can learn in the minors. My guess is he shows up next year sometime after the super 2 deadline. If he is as good as advertised they will make room for him then. Next year it is going to be hard to keep the young guys down on the farm. Most all the top prospects should show up for the Twins next year at some point during the season. 2015 should be fun.

There are a lot guys pitching well in A+ right now and they are older than Berrios so my guess would be he isn't the first one moved to AA. Also last year as the innings pitched grew higher his ERA grew higher as well. If I had to guess I would say they keep him at high A this year and move him to AA next spring. He seems to have figured some things out as he is really pitching well and has been consistent all year so far. He looks like a good one. Let's hope he stays healthy.

Yeah this lineup is going to have some serious speed and power once we get the young guys up and adjusted.

Granted I don't know much about Jim Pohlad but based on what I have heard him say in public he seems willing to spend significantly more than the team has. He does typically end such statements as he leaves signings to the FO or more specifically TR. He doesn't appear to get overly involved in baseball operations at that level. So based on that I agree that they are free to spend up to whatever the limit is. With TR at the helm it will likely only be prudent spending and not just to spend to the limit.

I totally agree with you. I hope Cola gets another chance and can stick next time. Not sure what happened to him after the hot start. I know he is old but I still like his potential for a few years here.

He made me eat crow at the beginning of this year as he was hitting so well. I didn't think he was worthy of making the team out of spring training. I wish he would have made me eat crow the rest of the season. Was so happy when he was hitting well. Lot;s of great memories and I would guess he will get another chance somewhere else. Might have to prove himself in AAA somewhere first. Wish him the best.

Well yes technically there is potential downside but I too happy to see it.

Yeah my thoughts exactly. We checked out Cola and Kubel the first couple of months here and although they had hot starts they were liabilities after a while. Waiting on Morales worked out in the end as we kept the second pick Burdi and got Morales anyway. I am stunned that the Twins of all teams were able to get this done. I thought for sure Morales would go to a higher payroll team. There is no downside to this move as it is a one year deal. The Twins have the money and if he does well and the Twins are out of it they have a trade chip. I just can't believe this is happening. Let's hope Morales is ready to play well for that next contract. Awesome job FO.

Yeah I tend to agree with you. Like most I am not overly excited about all the relief pitchers as 2012 doesn't look like it worked to me. Granted these are different guys but this seems to be a dangerous strategy. The first two rounds were supposed to be filled with high upside starters and we took a SS and RP. Definitely went against the strength of the draft with there picks. Not surprised they couldn't really find what they were looking for after the Cederoth pick. We, or at least I always complain about them picking too safe and looking for higher upside. It looks like they did that so far going for high velocity arms and guys with upside coming off tommy john etc. Time will tell but I am trying to come around to the possibilities of this draft.

There strategy had to be take a fairly safe 1st round pick and the go high risk high reward pitching the next several picks. They must have felt the pitching prospects outweighed the position players early on in this draft. Had to be a strategy as they are usually more balanced than this.

That was my thinking for the second and third round picks as both were mentioned as going in the first round at times this year. Seemed like possible value picks and power arms are typically hard to come by. Picks four and five don't strike me that way though.

I had the same thought but will likely see it through. Hard to be excited about this but they must have a plan. Time will tell.

I guess the Twins aren't happy with there bullpen depth in the minors and need all the bullpen arms they can get this draft. I like the flame throwers but it would be nice to have picked one starter in the top 4 picks. In a pitcher heavy draft this is what we get? Color me disappointed so far.

Man the Cubs are gonna have one heck of lineup if they take Schwarber