maars

Hey all - I'm posting here to see if anyone is interested in joining a new Ottoneu fantasy baseball league for people based in the Twin Cities. I think we've got 5 folks signed up so far out of a total of 12 openings. For those who are unfamiliar, Ottoneu is the fangraphs-linked fantasy baseball site. 12 teams, auction drafts, $400 budgets, and points-based scoring. It does cost $9.99 per season for the non-prize tier, but there are lots of smart players on the site, so I think it's worth it. FAQ here: https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/support Let me know if you are interested!

Yes please. A Plouffe/Francisco platoon at 3B could turn a likely .240/.300/.410 (.710) line into one nearing an .800 OPS. It'd make the 25-man roster even more of a squeeze than it will be already, but a move like this would make me more okay with starting Pinto out in AAA.

Entering Mauer's numbers into a WAR calculator shows that a shift in position from C to 1B, assuming he'll have above average defense, would drop his WAR from 5.4 (bbref) or 5.2 (fangraphs) to between 3.9 and 4.3 over 113 games. Everyone on these forums seems to be assuming that the move to 1B will let him play closer to 150-160 games this season, so taking that hypothesis, an identical performance to last season would make Joe worth between 5.3 and 5.6 WAR at 1B, or between $23.6m and $25.4m.

Normalizing his absurd 2009 to his career average HR/FB rate I got a line of .342/.425/.495 (.920) with an ISO .153 and 14 HRs. I don't think he'll get quite back to those heights, but I do think the best comp for how moving to first will impact his performance is the impact of his missing the beginning of the 2009 season and being fresh later in the season. Based on that, my mostly subjective projection for 2014 Mauer is .335/.410/.485 with 40 doubles and 15 HR.

Definitely, yes. Santana reached AA a year before Florimon, has put up a higher OPS in the minors, and even made fewer errors, with a higher range factor, last year than Florimon did in his age-22 season (Which was mostly at A+). We'll have to wait and see if any of that translates, but he should be better at the plate (.650-.700 OPS) with a close-enough or equivalent glove.

I've been messing around in Excel trying to create an "objective," numbers based prospect ranking list using fielding (including positional adjustment) and career and peak hitting performance for hitters, and velocity, number of pitches, K/9 rate, and career and peak FIP for pitchers, as well as incorporating proximity to the majors and age vs. level of competition. It's not perfect, or scientific by any means, just me messing around to see what's possible, but here is what it's turned up. D.J. Baxendale, A.J. Achter and Logan Darnell are the big surprises for me, but other than that, it looks like a lot of the lists that I have seen around here before. 1. Byron Buxton 2. Miguel Sano 3. Eddie Rosario 4. Kohl Stewart 5. Alex Meyer 6. Lewis Thorpe 7. Stephen Gonsalves 8. Jose Berrios 9. Jorge Polanco 10. D.J. Baxendale 11. Josmil Pinto 12. Miguel Sulbaran 13. Trevor May 14. Max Kepler 15. Sean Gilmartin 16. Felix Jorge 17. Logan Darnell 18. Zach Jones 19. A.J. Achter 20. Randy Rosario 21. Daniel Santana 22. Travis Harrison 23. Ryan Eades 24. Fernando Romero 25. Michael Tonkin 26. Kennys Vargas 27. Yorman Landa 28. Dan Rohlfing 29. Tyler Duffey 30. Lester Oliveros

This is obviously cherry-picking, but if you look at his last 10 games (35 AB/41PA) Hicks put up a line of .342/.439/.600. He struck out 22% of the time, but he was making much better contact in Rochester's last four series. 7 of his 8 extra-base hits in AAA came in those last 10 games. It's not the biggest of rebounds, but it does give me some hope that he was starting to climb out of his slump and figure things out.

Exactly. I was looking at Giancarlo Stanton's minor league history earlier today and was pleasantly surprised to see an almost exact replica of Sano's AA struggles. He was promoted in the middle of the season after mashing in hi-A at age 19 (his birthday is 6 months after Sano's) and saw his batting average drop from .294 to a Sano-esque .231. Unlike Sano, his power also dropped as did his plate discipline but the next season he bounced back to hit .313/.442/.729 in AA before getting called up a few months into the season to hit 22 home runs for the Marlins. Of course there's no way to know that Sano will do the same, but it's a nice reminder of how top prospects can bounce back after a rough first look at AA.

I'm pulling for Hicks to follow in Dozier's footsteps this year and bounce back, so this is my optimistic opening day lineup. 1. Presley (LF) 2. Mauer (1B) 3. Willingham (DH) 4. Arcia (RF) 5. Pinto © 6. Dozier (2B) 7. Hicks (CF) 8. Plouffe (3B) 9. Florimon (SS) Ricky Nolasco (P)

Correia and Deduno are probably our best shots to get something decent in a trade, but even then I'm not sure how good the return would be. If it's a mid-season trade, we're probably looking at a deal with a contender, so that's likely a 10-25 ranked organizational prospect in a not so good system. Dealing either one of them before the season would open up a few more potential partners, so that's what I'm hoping for. In terms of current Twins prospects that I think might be good comps for what's achievable, I'm thinking Mason Melotakis, Miguel Sulbaran, Logan Darnell, Niko Goodrum, or maybe Danny Santana at a stretch.

Minneapolis native and long-time lurker on these forums here. I've been thinking about the Pelfrey signing a bit, and the most sense that I can make out of it is that the front office is going to trade Correia at some point this season. Tommy John aside, Pelfrey has been good for more innings per season than Correia and has a similar career ERA, FIP, xFIP and SIERA. With that in mind, the Pelfrey signing is essentially a one year extension for Correia and a trip back four years in a time machine, plus whatever today's version of Correia can net us in a trade. At least that's what I'm hoping. The two are too similar for the Twins to carry both of them on their roster for too long, especially with the likes of Alex Meyer and Trevor May starting the year at AAA. On a similar note, given the fact that Logan Darnell, Pat Dean, and AJ Achter seem to have earned a chance at the AAA level, I wonder if the Twins aren't at least trying to see what the market is for Samuel Deduno and Andrew Albers. That would leave Diamond, Worley and Gibson to fight it out for the final spot in the starting rotation. Even after the horror show they all produced last season, I'm betting that one or two of them can put it back together well enough to produce around a 4.40 ERA out of that fifth spot. Even packaging Correia, Deduno and Albers together wouldn't likely net the Twins a prospect that would crack the organization's top 20, but between them I would expect the Twins to be able to net two or three C/C+ prospects. Not too impressive, but being able to add another of the likes of Daniel Santana, Miguel Sulbaran, or Niko Goodrum would be good return for any of these players as the Twins continue their rebuilding process.