TheDean

There had been a lot of concern in the forums that Hicks, Arcia, and Pinto would all start in AAA. Are we, as a forum, so disappointed that we can't get worked up about their demotion now that they made the team, that we have to take out our stored up indignation on the 25th utility player? Personally, I think its about having a balanced bench, especially after your starting SS had an appendectomy. With Presley and Parmelee, the team had 4 LH corner OF bats with subpar fielding (them, plus Kubel and Arcia), plus 2 RH corner OF bats with subpar fielding (Colabello and Willingham). After the wavier game, they've got a LH/RH ratio of 2/2. Given LF/RF/DH for those 4 players plus Pinto and the rest of the diamond filled (11/13 position players), how do you fill the rest of your bench? Escobar takes the backup IF position, now you're at 12/13. It might be sacrilege on these boards, but I think that it makes sense that they went to Bartlett. There are simply not enough PAs in the OF and at DH for anyone more than the four aforementioned bats plus Pinto (if Gardy is okay with that...a debate for another time). Arcia and Pinto are young and need lots of ABs, Willingham needs ABs to build value, and Kubel and Colabello can fill in on their off days. If they can't use the 25th spot on another slow bench bat, and you've decided against a third catcher, then the only other options are a backup CF or a second UT guy. With a young guy at CF that needs ABs, I see a spot for an experienced, cheap, easily dropped, athletic, RH bat with an extremely distant history of success and ability as a PR. No, this cannot be worth getting worked up about. In fact, if Bartlett can return to vintage 2011 form, his worst full season as a major leaguer, his OPS+ would be higher than last year's performance from Twins players accounting for nearly 2000 PAs. That's roughly 1/3 of the team's total PAs last year. Not going to say he's great, but I'd say there's a chance he does better than Clete Thomas, Carroll, Florimon, et al. The bar is low. Very low.

... and now they've both been waived. Hmm, I guess I wasn't the only one assessing them to be of similar value (or non-value) to the organization. Given the low opinion of the FO around here, maybe I shouldn't be proud of that...

One thing that I've been curious about is whether Presley deserves a similar opportunity at consistent at bats. The thing going against him most seems to be that he's got a couple years of age on Parmelee. Interestingly, they've both had up-and-down inconsistent experience in the majors, they've posted the same career OPS+ (98), they have a similar number of MLB PAs, they similarly crushed minors pitching, they're both lefty bats, they're both probably best suited at a corner OF spot, they have similar batting lines this spring, and (to bring it back to the thread subject) they are both easier on the eyes in the OF than Willingham/Kubel. My guess is that Willingham and Kubel get long leashes since there are few other middle-of-the-order bats on the roster with significant MLB experience. However, I definitely would rather see them get more DH time with Parmelee and Presley patrolling the corner opposite of Arcia. I understand that might not be what actually happens, especially if Pinto needs ABs at the DH slot.

I'd go one further and say that I've seen positive reasons he should be on the 25-man. Primarily, he's making good contact, and I don't want Kubel or Bartlett going north in their current states. At this point, I think Colabello>Ramierez, and this team needs a RH bat to go with all the lefties. A lot of posters want younger players getting most of the playing time in starting jobs, and I agree. In that case, I see no better role for a guy like Colabello than to be RH bench power.

Agreed. Besides that the roster is a bit overloaded with slow corner OF that don't hit LHP particularly well. As a lineup, things are looking bad against LHP. Hammer, Dozier, Mauer, and Plouffe are the only ones that can actually hit lefties. Arcia, Kubel, Parm, Presley, Florimon, Herrmann all would be roster boat anchors on those days. Everyone talks about platooning, but where is the other half of these platoons going to come from if Willingham, Dozier, and Plouffe are all playing regularly anyway?

How does Parmelee factor in to the equation? He made some flashy plays last year, but he seems similarly range-limited as the other three names. I haven't seen too much discussion, but is Parm a lock to make the roster? or would TR consider trying to DFA to Rochester? I see there being some difficulty as all four are big, slow corner outfielders, three of them bat left handed, and all were OPS-challenged last year to put it nicely (I'll give Arcia a pass for being a rookie). Will Parm be relegated to bench bat role, or will it be four guys rotating RF/LF/DH?

Big picture, I totally agree. There's a clear opportunity to upgrade the SS position, and there's money to be spent. If the 2nd rounder can be justified, it would be great for Ryan to pull the trigger (the side debate is whether the Twins are even in the running). I just wanted to make sure that dropping a high pick isn't something that happens often. Despite the fact that the Twins have had seemingly poor results turning 2nd rounders into big leaguers, my guess is that the 2nd round pick this year will be relatively early (unfortunately), and the odds of snagging a good player will be higher than their average odds over the last 24 years.

Hey now; you're cutting our friend Slowey out of your count because he earned exactly 5.0 WAR (so far)? I'm not sure it's fair to say that 3 of 30 have been worth over 5 WAR (or that 23 never really made it) if you're including picks from the last few drafts. I'm not about to give up on Eades, Melotakis, or Goodrum quite yet. Besides that a few of those guys still have a shot to increase (or decrease) their career worth (e.g. Swarzak). As far as the three win improvement over Florimon - I see that in what I would call similarly above average years for both players in 2013, Drew was only +1 WAR above Florimon. I understand that Bbref WAR isn't the best measure of contribution, but if it's okay to use it to assess draft picks, wouldn't it also be okay to assess the potential upgrade of Drew over Florimon?

Great info! I wonder to what extent placement of "soft" pitches is dependent on the chief offspeed offerings of a given staff. For example, a staff dominated by change-up specialists versus guys like Liriano who go to their slider more often. Granted, maybe there's enough variation within staffs that one team's starters can't be distinguished from another solely based on their most common offspeed offerings. Besides, I suppose there are pitchers whose breaking balls don't even fall into the 81-mph "soft range," especially those throwing hard sliders (Liriano?).

This is pretty much exactly how I see it. I'm too new to this all to understand what most organizations use the AFL for, but it seems to provide an opportunity to save some of what could have been a lost year for Meyer. The hitters on the other hand get to see some more advanced approaches from pitchers. Even if they struggle a bit, I feel like it's a low-risk sneak peak at what they might see from pitchers next year. The sample size is so small that the statistics probably don't mean much. My guess is that it helps with some "intangibles" in terms of pitch recognition. I wonder if those kinds of skills are the type that take some time to present themselves in statistics, whether the results are positive or negative.

Not sure if I can follow up the tale from best game in the world, especially because 1987 is half legend/folklore to me as a child of the 90s. My best memories are watching the Twins lose the ALCS to the rally monkeys (along with the Vikings losing their NFC championships-especially '98, the Wild losing their Western Conference championship, and the T-wolves losing theirs. As an aside, I recently attended UW-Madison, allowing me to jettison my Gophers fandom for the Badgers. While more successful than the Gophs, watching three straight Rose Bowl losses has been tough to stomach.) The point of that whole story is that I'm reluctant to get too excited about the Twins' talent in the minors. I've never really witnessed victory by any of my sports teams ever in 20+ years of conscious life. I've seen abject defeat, like the last few Twins seasons. Those are actually easy to take since they had low expectations and low-level results. I've seen boundless hope, as with the Twins in the ALCS a decade ago, which is really fun to be a part of, but has never resulting in anything other than heartbreak. Now that I've introduced myself as a pessimistic, poor-me sap... My concern for next season (not pitching because everyone already knows that): Ability to get on base/contact I realize that on-base percentage and contact rates aren't the same thing, but they're both necessary to improve the offense from this season's dismal showing. It was somewhat expected due to the number of young players this year, but a number of veterans also seemed to regress. The result was an exceptionally high number of strikeouts, and strikeouts significantly lowered the number of baserunners the Twins had, while ensuring that no contact would be made to drive the few souls in scoring position in to home. Ultimately, it's difficult to envision a different situation next year. Mauer will be Mauer, but Dozier/Florimon/Plouffe (or Sano) don't scream "table setter" to me. Arcia/Pinto/Herrman were all young this year and have a lot of room to improve, but their tendencies seem to be in the "swing away" mold (Pinto and Herrman I'm less sure about due to the limited looks we got). Hammer and Doumit are who they are. They've got pop, but pitchers aren't worried about pitching around them since they have no protection and won't hurt them on the basepaths. Given these ideas of who will be filling in the lineup next year, I just don't see who is getting on base to produce runs...with one exception: Hicks. Rapid improvement of Hicks in the batter's box will be necessary to give the Twins a true table setter. Pressley can be a stop-gap (better than Thomas and *probably* Mastro), but Hicks will need to be in place as a top of the order bat by the end of the year. Ideally, he takes the pressure off Buxton once he's up and could slide to #2. I like the sound of Buxton, new&improved Hicks, Mauer.

I see the possibility of re-signing Morneau as a safe investment in the next couple of years at 1B/DH. While he may currently be at the bottom of the league in batting for a 1B, he, Willingham, Dozier, and Arcia represent our >.700 OPS not named Mauer. However, looking at AL 1B batting, he doesn't compare that poorly. If he continues to improve after that brutal midseason stretch, he could conceivably move from his current spot in OPS (11th among 15 qualified AL players who play most games at 1B). That list of 1B includes a number of poor fielders who lose stock by comparison - not to mention a lot of large contracts. Overall, if he would sign for a modest amount, it's not crazy to think that he could be a middle-of-the-pack 1B (offense & defense) for the Twins at a team-friendly rate. He would be playing on a team where middle-of-the-pack production at 1B puts you at second place to Mauer. Don't get me wrong, Parm definitely has youth on his side, and probably still has time to prove himself. It's just difficult for me to stomach watching the Twins next year if he continues his trend of sub .680 OPS as the full-time 1B. stringerbell brings up a good point. The alternative to Morneau or Parm/Colabello at 1B that I like the most is having Mauer play 2/3 of his time at 1B. Mauer's current production compares favorably among the best AL first basemen. He would rank third in both slugging and OPS (behind Davis and Encarnacion) and rank first in both BA and OBP. Considering that he gets beat up behind the plate on a daily basis, I think the comparison should stand out as a testament to his value. Also consider that he has very little protection in the lineup compared to a lot of those 1Bs.

I've been reading the forums for a while, and this is my first post here. I decided to share a tidbit that I saw with the reappearance of Hendriks as a starter for the Twins. For the third consecutive year, he is the youngest pitcher to get a start for the Twins. Yes, I know that he's actually a couple months older than Hernandez, but they're both in their age 24 seasons. I think that it's quite a good measure of the Twins' struggles with developing young pitching talent: Liam Hendriks has been the youngest starter for three years.