Dainir

I don't see why he would be, Gibson has better numbers. Gibson has a much lower ERA. He has pitched 8 less innings and allowed 12 less earned runs. Gibson has pitched 6 games where he has allowed 4 or more earned runs, and Correia has pitched 7 such games. So from just looking at the stats, Gibson would appear to be better. Hughes has pitched more innings and allowed fewer runs than Correia. You can't cherry pick starts and say "Hey, player x struggled here in this one game, he must not be the real deal." Back your claims up with stats and trends not just a one time start. Now if you look at just the stats from June and what's been accomplished so far in July you come up with a much better argument for you claim. Put those pieces together then come back.

Another thing to consider to maybe help your perspective. The #4 first round draft pick is a very different beast depending on if the player is just out of high school or just out of college. Just out of high school won't yet be as good (polished) of players as out of college. The keyword is the yet, the high school players drafted that high project as having higher ceilings. That is the case with Stewart, he was drafted out of high school. He will need more polishing, as expected, and the low walk rate means there is one part about him that we don't need to worry about polishing up for now. The big thing that the low walk rate says to me is that he is not afraid to go after batters, which as the youngest player in the league is huge.

Especially when we are talking about a team that is scoring way more runs than it did before, thanks primarily to unproven players, or players who track record suggests that they are over performing. Basically there is no reason to believe that the twins can sustain this scoring. If they keep it up for a while longer, then they will start taking notice. But right now its to early to say they are the real deal and this isn't just blip on the radar.

Mauer takes with RISP because he understands its a team game and he is batting before the clean up batter. It is the clean ups job to get everyone home. So you want him to hit clean up? just look at the numbers posted earlier in this post, the clean-up should be the guy that will change the game with one swing of his bat. That isn't the type of hitter that Joe is. You play best playing to your strengths and capitalizing on them. What matters at the end of the game is the number of runs scored. If you look at the team's stats in the 10 years since Mauer joined the team, there are 5 years that Mauer wasn't either first or second in runs scored. The seasons he wasn't: 2011, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004. 2011 was his injury shortened season where he played 82 games. 2006 He was tied for third most runs. 2004 and 2005 were his first two seasons. Mauer's prowess at getting on base to set up the cleanup hitter, was the beauty of M&M boys. Now that we have Colabello hitting like Moreneau of old, the line up is functioning as it ought to, and is producing runs.

The focus was more on Pelfrey, Correia, and Deduno in terms of not the future of the team, none of which are locked beyond 2015, and all of which are 30 or older. Even Nolasco is 31, so while he may be signed for 4 years, its unlikely he will be the core member of the team in the long run. Hughes at 27 he has the potential to stick around a while, especially if he shapes up as a pitcher.

For me the question is does the club want to aim for as many wins as possible this year or as many wins as possible in the future. If its the future, I wouldn't expect many shake ups anytime soon, unless its to bring Deduno into the rotation, and put someone else in the pen. I say this because none of these pitchers are the future for the Twins other than Gibson. The role of these pitchers with the Minnesota Twins over the next year or two is to improve their stock and to become trade bait. Now in order to do that, they need to pitch. Now, that doesn't mean the starters won't eventually be sent down if they don't perform, its just to early in the season, and has been too cold to make those judgments so far. In two three weeks, if Pelfrey and Nolasco don't show signs of turning things around, expect to see some changes. True reinforcements are waiting with May and Meyer. But I doubt the Twins will rush either of them to the club anytime soon. So again it will be a few weeks before we see some changes because May and Meyer turn in multiple lights out performances. Those are my thoughts for now.

If they were both on the same team, I would say player A isn't doing his job very well. Player B is scoring on 53% of his singles and doubles. Whereas player A is scoring on 52% of his singles and doubles.

It is a good thought with Mauer being as athletic as he is, however, there is more to it than just using his athleticism to the max. If you move Mauer from first who fills that void? If you are just shuffling Mauer to fill position X and having that player play first, you aren't doing much of a service to the team. The lineup would be the same, just the defensive capabilities would change. As for the defensive aspect, having a tall left handed first baseman, that digs the ball out of the dirt with the best of them is the ideal first baseman. That description fits Mauer. So, in order to get Mauer to move from first base, we need someone who would look to be an significant improvement offensively compared to the player whose spot Joe would be taking. Not to mention that player coming up would have to be serviceable as a first baseman. I don't think there will be anyone in the minors that will put that pressure on the club But if Colabello starts tearing the covers off balls or Parmelee finally lives up to the potential we saw in his first call up things could get interesting. If either of those events happen I could see Mauer filling in for Plouffe, or Willingham. The other interesting idea, is that Mauer's athleticism does allow for the Twins to consider trading Willingham or Plouffe with out much trouble for the line up.

With NPB's new regulations on the posting coming out, is it realistic for the Twins to make a serious move at signing Tanaka? If they would this be a long term deal as Tanaka is still fairly young? How much of an impact would you say he would have on the rotation? The max posting bid has been set at 20 million, and there are two accounts floating around now as to how a tie breaker would work. First is that the team with the worst winning percentage would take priority, the second is that the player would decide.

I have also seen reports where the players chooses which team(s) he will negotiate with (1). If that is the case, and all teams that negotiate with the player must pay the posting, it does make the 20MM make more sense. If 8 teams bid the maximum and all negotiate with the player, the NPB team gets $160MM, over a $100MM more than what either team got Darvish or Dice-k. Anyways, I really hope the Twins get on the bidding and negotiations along with locking in a long term contract. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24315418/report-mlbs-latest-posting-system-proposal-calls-for-bidding-limit

My only question in this is why don't you see Deduno playing a role in this rotation as he had the best year of any Twin's starting pitcher?

I would love to be wrong and be stupid, for bringing up what I did. So please make my day and let me know otherwise. But what I based that off of was from a startribune article: Chart: Free-agent talent available this winter | Star Tribune

I think people are missing the point of what Terry Ryan is saying, or at least I hope I am catching what he is saying. If you look at the free agent market for this upcoming off season, we have: Player ERA Barry Zito 5.91 Tim Lincecum 4.44 Scott Feldman 3.51 Phil Hughes 5.07 Joba Chamberlain 4.97 Ervin Santana 3.16 Now let me throw some Twins numbers at you: Sam Deduno 3.83 Drew Albers 3.98 Kevin Correia 4.29 Mike Pelfrey 5.34 Kyle Gibson 6.53 I would like to call attention to the fact, that of the 6 players listed at the top end of the free agency market, only two of them had better years than our top 3 pitchers. Ervin Santana and Scott Feldman. I would love to get either of those, but then again by this years numbers they are the best players to get in free agency, so I would think so would any other team looking for a pitcher. For the rest of the guys in that list, they would fill a 4th or fifth slot as a starter. Keep in mind Kyle Gibson will be getting one of those spots at some point next year, and you can bet numbers will dictate who stays at with the major league club and who goes down to Rochester. So in the free agent market who do you get after Ervin and Scott (both of whom performed well above their career average). Zito and Lincecum are both on extended bad stretches, Lincecum's 2012 campaign was even worse than this years. Zito's Career ERA is at 4.03, but he hasn't seen a sub 4.0 ERA in 6 years. That leaves Hughes and Chamberlain. Hughes' career ERA is 4.52 which won't crack the Twins top 3. Joba hasn't started a game since 2009 and his work since then has shown him to have eras of 4.4, 2.83, 4.35, 4.97 out of the bullpen. 3 of those 4 years had Joba with a worse ERA than anyone in our bullpen who has gotten serious amounts of work this year. (The closest two are Duensing and Roenicke with 4.12 and 4.23 ERAs respectively.) So, please tell me who of the rest would be a clear great improvement to the team? Looking at free-agency, I say wow, I can't even really significantly improve our team by signing two of the best 6 players on the market unless we get the #1 and #2. Now imagine how much that would cost. Now think of yourself as Terry Ryan, could you really pull the trigger on that, knowing these are all guys that have been around the league a minimum of 7 years and still aren't performing all that well. We have the international market or trades open for real significant improvement. We CAN'T get an ace in the free agent market, we can't even come close. We can only sign guys who would give other players in our system a run for their money at the 5th starter position. So yeah, I get Terry Ryan saying, we can't really do it through free agency, at least not if you want a real change.

I would rather trade Dozier than Rosario. Also, what is the likely of Rosario transitioning to Shortstop. God knows we need one of those. Do you feel Danny Santana has a lock on that, or Rosario a possibility?

I really like the thought of adding an ace. The Twins definitely have the salary space to do so. Especially if the Twins trade Willingham and Doumit as I truly hope they do. By trading those two and adding in the Justin Morneau trade, the Twins will have roughly 25 million more in payroll available to sign others, and that will only get the Twins back to their current payroll. If I am the Twins I will be taking a nice hard look at Pinto this September. If he continues to tear it up as he has been, I think next year should be the year that Mauer makes the switch to first base while Pinto starts with Herrmann backing him up. This arrangement makes Doumit rather expendable. With the outfield, we will have Arcia coming ready to play. We will still have Presley, Mastroianni, and Thomas available to play the outfield. Hicks can still work things out and make an impact at the major league level next year as well, if not then, then soon. Add to the fact that Buxton is on his way, Willingham should be gone. We should start seeing our future players coming to Target Field next year as well, the only question is if it will be before September. I would also be excited to see a trade featuring Plouffe and Parmelee. We have serviceable third basemen to replace Plouffe until Sano shows up, and Parmelee doesn't seem to be an upgrade to anyone on the club right now. So send them away now as their value will only continue to drop. In these trades I want to see starting pitching, and not just any starting pitcher. Pitchers that will be ready to take the reigns as number 1 or 2 pitcher within the next two years. Those things would be enough to make me excited.

Does your assessment of Doumit change if Josmil Pinto keeps up what he's done in his first couple games in the majors (obviously not the .700 pace, but hitting well above major league average)?

I am going to figure out how to download the data from Deduno's appearances this year, and try analyze it. But just from looking at the images available online I would say he is throwing slowly rotating fastballs consistently. But that is just from quickly looking through them. I hope to have more for you by Tuesday evening. This will be a fun learning process.

Do you view the K/BB stat differently for pitchers that throw the knuckleball? I ask as I just read the Call it What it is post by E. Andrew, that suggests that Deduno is throwing pitches that behave like knuckleballs, at least in terms of their rotation. This also meshes with the unpredictable nature of his pitches. If Deduno is throwing fastballs and change-ups that knuckle, as E. Andrew's post would suggest, does that change how you look at Deduno and analyze his stats? I personally believe what is written in E. Andrew's post the comparisons make sense to me as well as the conclusions drawn from the graphs. I just don't know if that information translates to what the pitch actually does as it comes in on the batter. edit: decided to add the link below Call It What It Is - Blogs - Minnesota Twins News & Rumors Forum

The implication is that Deduno throws 3 pitches (as labeled per graph 3: FF, FC and CH) that have less rotation than R.A Dickey's Knuckleball. For these three pitches here are there numbers: CH: 14 pitches, 12 rotated slower than 935 rpm (9 slower than 400 rpm) FC: 8 pitches, all 8 rotated slower than 935 rpm (6 rotated slower than 400 rpm) FF: 65 pitches, 61 rotated slower than 935 rpm (10 rotated slower than 400 rpm) What I take this to mean is that Deduno has three pitches the at least in terms of rotation speed, are comparable to a knuckleball. Given: 1."The ideal knuckleball makes just 1 to 1.5 rotations (~150 RPM) between release and home plate, causing the drag on the ball to shift significantly mid-flight as the leading seam of the ball rotates slightly, resulting in unpredictable and uniquely sudden movement.” 2. R.A. Dickey is one of the premier knuckleballers in MLB 3. Deduno's fastballs and change-ups on average have less rotation than Dickey's knuckleball. One would expect to make the following conclusion: 1. Deduno's fastballs and change-ups will show "unpredictable and uniquely sudden movement." Behavior similar to that of a knuckleball. Thus implying the answer to admin's question 2 is yes.