Jham

This part I disagree with. We're middle of the pack in runs with Kepler only giving half a season, Sano being mostly just ok while hurting us defensively, and Berrios and Buxton giving negative contributions. I don't think you're putting enough stock in the other 11 position players. If Sano bounces back and hits 35 next year, Kepler doesn't regress (not as much a given as you think), and Berrios finds himself, we could be decent and we'd forget about missing Nick Gordon for a few years. Berrios would then be the only player we would be depending on to take a big jump. Let's say we dealt Buxton and Gordon for Sale. Sale, Santana, Berrios, Mejia, May/Hughes.... Potential upgrades at 4/5 spots without sacrificing anything from this year's offense (Nunez is already gone). It's not without risk, obviously this is a bold move, and just an example for example's sake, but I want to see what the young kids can do with some real pitching. I think the defeatest mentality hurts development. If the organization says 2-3 years, what incentive do our players have to play hard and get better tomorrow? They don't have to really compete hard and focus in for a couple years yet.

I agree on trading Dozier. I just think he returns a lot less than Sano or possibly Buxton, and might put up similar or more production over the next few years. Let's say no one offers much for Dozier, like we tried to deal him at the deadline but couldn't. Do we trade him just to make way for Polanco, a fine but probably slightly less valuable 2b? We potentially just made our team worse for no reason. Let's say we think Sano is what he is and other than a career year here and there, probably will be a good but not great slugger without a position? Or that Buxton is still 3 years away from ever being a decent hitter, and that his speed may be dampened by injuries by then? My memory of the Royals may be a little different. I remember people thinking they were further away then they were and criticizing their win now moves. Again, if we don't expect to compete for 3 more years, then Sano, Buxton, Berrios, and Kepler probably weren't as good as we hoped, and not good enough to plan around. We're middle of the road as far as runs go. The pitching needs to improve drastically. If they do, we're contenders.

So the plan is to just cross our fingers while we sit and wait and hope for improvement? How many years of Sano, Kepler, Buxton, and Berrios are we willing to waste hoping that other prospects catch up, or that those 4 actually move forward instead of stalling out? Could we have built a winner or rebuilt faster if we traded 1, 2, all of them for more/better/safer talent? I don't know. But as I've said before, if this core is good enough, why wouldn't we expect to compete in the next season or two? If this core is not good enough, then dear God, please trade some of these guys to teams who still think Buxton = young Trout, Sano = young Cabby, or Berrios = young vote for Pedro.

I almost forgot because I was hammered so hard in the "Trade Sano?" thread, but he'd probably bring a haul including potentially several top end starters and probably some MLB ready pitching as well. We're brilliant if he's Delmon 2.0, prolly a wash if he's Prince Fielder 2.0, and morons if he's Chris Davis 2.0. Assuming we're able to get something like Chris Archer or Chris Sale 1.0 and not Chris Benson 2.0...

Well, if Vargas probably won't stick, who cares? What will we possibly learn about Vargas that we don't already know? And I like Varg. I think his defense at first is underrated. I think when he shortens his swing he's down right formidable, and the Twins major complaints have been work ethic, taking instruction, and other things that typically involve simple maturity. I'd find a way to keep him. The Twins have this way of refusing to get rid of former prospects, so I don't think you have to worry about him getting cut. The alternative of getting more PA's for Grossman or Santana (as well as more MLB evaluation of O'Rourke) is a reasonable , yet less sexy alternative. Santana was always a more well-thought-of prospect than Vargas. Ditto Grossman. Both have just as much of a chance to stick with the team going forward, if not more. So I would argue that we're doing a lot of evaluating. We sent down the guy with options so we could continue evaluating. Sitting your vets for non-health AND non-performance reasons doesn't really benefit anyone. It's true there's only so much you can learn from a minor league history. But there's a fine line. Vargas playing 5 days a week in AAA vs. Vargas playing 2 days week in the MLB... I dunno. It's a fine line. The Twins decided they'd be better able to continue their evaluation if he got more regular time in AAA. Now, if you want to say you don't trust our minor league evaluations, and so you want to evaluate for yourself or allow our MLB staff to evaluate the stock, fine, but presumably the big league staff okay'd the demotion too. Which means you don't trust our minor league scout or our major league staff, and so when you say "we" need to evaluate the player, you really mean... who's left? All season I've said we have an organization-wide problem with prospect evaluation and to some extent valuation. But with all-due respect, I still trust their evals and values more than Spycake's and even Jham's. No offense. Although the race is actually a lot closer than it ought to be.

"I've been a proponent of trading Dozier for awhile for the reason everyone has started: pitching. However, this would in my mind, mean extending Plouffe. I also assume he was made available at the deadline to at least test the market. He is still with us, and 2nd base is one of the deepest positions in baseball. So there is 1 more way to get top line pitching without giving up Dozier. The royals built their staffs by trading prospects. See which prospects the market over values and deal. To me, this is less desirable than getting a getting a horse for Dozier, but if Brian can't generate the return, we have to look at other options.

I have to say, I hate the idea of auditioning guys at the MLB level. What do we really expect to learn about a guy in a few September starts? By call-up results, we should have a pretty strong core of Parmalee, Hermann, and Albers right now. Vargas is pretty close to being whatever he is at this point. Plouffe has only a slight chance of being on the team for even one more season, but still probably has a better chance of contributing to the team's next 3-5 years than Vargas, Walker, or Palka who may well never stick in the League. The place to evaluate talent for an organization is the minor leagues. Only fans and big league coaches/managers have to wait for call-ups. The Twins' best prospects have had only marginal success, but somehow we expect marginal minor leaguers to become All-Star big leaguers. If you want to look at a couple months of sporadic play and at bats in order to plan your roster going forward, that's fine. I'll take the scouting reports and years of minor league data, please and thank you.

Apparently I feel very very very strongly about this...

Plouffe needs to be either non tendered or extended for a discount. Maybe a player opt out if he has a big year. I don't see how he could get 10 mil in arb if he'd get less in FA. Look at the 3b signings last off season. Single years for under $4 mil was the going rate. I'd look for a team friendly deal with Santiago or Millone. Sign one, nt the other. Millone would be my choice, recent results not withstanding. He's very cheap for a starter, usable in relief, and miles better than pat dean despite what others think. It's not like you're out much if he's dfad again. Gibson, Escobar, and presley are locks. I'm just not feeling the 40 man crunch as hard this season. I'd rather keep Palka,Vargas, dsan and abw3,but I'm not going to cry if we can't.

I mean, that was the talk during his last AAA experience too. Everyone was abuzz about his leg kick. Then he comes up, leg kick disappears, K's go through the roof, and it looks like he's just trying to make contact. Is that him trying to adjust because he's over-matched, or is he being coached to shorten up and put the ball on the ground once he gets to the MLB?

I'm really really concerned that they're trying to make him into a slap hitter. They ruined Santana that way, they got nothing out of Gomez that way...

I mean its 2 teams combining for 200 losses...it's been a long season already...

"Santana swings and hits a real screamer towards short..."

A feast is a feast! Hopefully we earn that chicken dinner! Smell them baseballs!

Nick Punto swing by Rosario there. I can't stand when a player takes a defensive swing with less than 2 strikes. I really hate defensive swings in hitter's counts. Even if you make contact, you probably wasted the at bat... then the inevitable K to complete the Punto comparison.

Do you use pulled chicken or more like chicken fajitas?

Interesting... Here's footage from a 2011 Under Armor showcase. Apparently Buxton once had an open stance, stride, and toe tap. Probably helped his timing but maybe further elongated his swing. Might be worth going back to, although I'd like to see the Soriano closed stance approach.

There's a lot of draft picks between #2 overall and signed to a minor league contract out of the independent leagues as well. Potential matters. Perhaps Buxton was over-hyped. Perhaps he has failed to develop. Perhaps success is right around the corner. Pretending all prospects are on the same success vs. failure scale is a bit ridiculous though. Simone Biles was disappointed with a Bronze medal for completing a routine that I'd be ecstatic with simply not dying if I attempted it. Success and failure is always relative.

I think his dominance of the minors was always a bit overstated. You can amass some pretty sweet OPS numbers against minor league defenses (extra bases, extra hits). His HR totals were pretty meh for an elite prospect other than a couple nice runs. But with his speed, an OPS over 1.000 would be considered dominant. Especially in SSS. From an eye test perspective, his swing looks not only long, but difficult to time up and repeat. It's not the most natural looking swing with a lot of moving parts and seemingly low back elbow. I think attempts to get him to shorten up have caused the Danny Santana effect: he's lost aggression and more importantly bat speed, when his problem to begin with is bat speed. This causes a loss of power, a loss of contact, and subsequent loss of confidence. He also seems to open up to a rather extreme degree. His uppercut swing reminds me closest to that of Alphonso Soriano. He had an extremely closed stance which I think helped him stay closed when contacting the ball.

If Dozier is an 8/10 on a fictional player scale,* Polanco is a 6/10, our starters 2-5 are all maybe 5/10** and we can obtain a pitcher who is an 8/10*** we've just gone +1, a 10% gain on that transaction. * Fictional player scale already adjusted for differences in position. ** Assuming practically all starting pitchers provide decent team value, less of a guarantee these days especially with this team. *** an 8 for an 8 representing a perfectly fair trade.

I dunno. I think Eades made the right play. The tag is a much safer player than a throw which would score a run with an error. Runner was going to 3rd either way. Batter had given himself up. Sort of a freak incident in my eyes.

If we had 9 Rosarios on the team Buggs Bunny could strike out the entire team on 1 pitch...

Decent point by Bert... I wonder if Zuke's well publicized issues with framing might have something to do with the relative wildness of our pitching... right on cue...

I was just wondering why he wasn't throwing more change ups when his slider was giving him so much trouble with location. 1 mystery solved. Bigger mystery of how he was the organizations #1 pitching prospect still remaining...

Hmmmm.... Grossman.... hmmm... I'm going to have to think about that...