Ben Noble

Michael Reed, OF claimed off waivers early in the offseason.

Great debut article, welcome!

You've got 13 players listed there. And I have zero interest in kicking off the 2019 season with Sano relegated to platoon duty vs lefty starters.

I'd try stacking him with Mejia; let the right-handed Odorizzi throw the first 60-80 pitches and have lefty Mejia start the first clean inning after that. Or maybe vice versa, depending on opponent's L/R lineup construction.

Wow, great video commentary, Tom! Sorry, but I've gotta steal "looks like that kid just saw a ghost" next season, that's an instant classic.

Those two names are Robbie Grossman and Blaine Boyer, right?

Oh, I agree 100% that it would have to be a one-year deal that the team could easily swallow if he's toast, and even that would be dependent on medicals. I do wonder, though, how long those bone spurs were bothering him and how much they affected his play before he finally went under the knife...but you're probably right, best to watch from a distance if he can bounce back playing for another team.

Idk, depends on how much they'd sign him for, but I might be able to get behind rolling the dice on a high risk/high reward Tulo/Schoop bounce-back middle infield...there could still be plenty of at bats for Polanco rotating between SS/3B/2B/DH if they did it right, and it would help keep Tulo and Sano in particular fresh throughout the season. Not my first choice, but I'd still rather have Tulo/Schoop/Sano/Polanco than Schoop/Sano/Polanco/Adrianza.

Good insight into his approach and development; the "Kirilloff isn’t Frankenstein’s monster" take makes me even more optimistic for his continued success as he moves up levels and will be forced to adjust.

And Scott Diamond had that one solid season. Not making an argument for or against, and the Rule 5 has certainly lost a lot of its luster since the rule change, but I simply don't buy that the Rule 5 is now practically meaningless. I think the real issue is that our front office needs to be much more judicious in both the selections they make and how rostering those players for an entire season affects roster flexibility. Stop reaching for players and only make a selection if and when there's a clear fit. And for pete's sake, pull the plug much, much more quickly if a Rule 5 selection is clearly over his head in The Show. With benches becoming so short, I'd like to see a rule change in the next CBA that allows teams to option Rule 5 players for a limited number of days.

Richie Martin is intriguing as a backup MI, and lefty Breilling Eusebio could be stashed on the DL for most of 2019 after TJ surgery mid-May.

It seems like they've hired the right staff to put Reed in a position to bounce back, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll happen. I'm good as long as he doesn't have major surgery a week before pitchers and catchers report.

Target Field already does have designated lines for people without bags to check, at least at Gate 34, and has for as long as I can remember. They're not particularly well marked, but there's two of them to the far right as you're facing the gate. Let's call them express lines. I think what slows things down is that there are far, far more lines that do check bags than there are express lines, and I'd guess maybe one in six people that go through the express lines still have bags to check. Target Field personnel don't often ask them to exit the express lines, and a collective moan always goes up when the line grinds to a halt for a bag check. Tom's idea of entire express gates is fantastic. It would also really help if Target Field personnel did a better job of directing people with bags away from the express lines before they even get in line, because I totally get not wanting to kick someone to the back of a line after they've made it all the way up to the front.

When we made the series of trades leading up to the deadline this year, I started digging into the prospects those trades brought in, and Duran stood out to me. The more I dug into him, the more I liked. These quotes in particular from his Kane County pitching coach piqued my interest: “He’s learning how to pitch. He hasn’t done it in every start, but I’ve seen him be able to make adjustments on his own. I’ve seen him make quality pitches in locations where I’ve told him he needs to throw them in certain counts.”“Slow down. Gradually work your way up and find command of your pitches. Find the command of pitches at different velocities. Once you find it and you’re comfortable, you can turn it up. I feel like he’s finally understood what I’m talking about.”Another quote from Duran himself via translator: “I work from 92-95, but when I know the hitter gets comfortable at the plate, that’s when I go 98 and keep him off balance. The experience helps a lot. I’m more mature. I go out there with a purpose and a plan. That helps a lot.” So I dug deep across the internets and found plenty of little bits and pieces to support the notion that Duran was evolving from a thrower to a pitcher. Weird little things like reading through the twitter accounts of other Kane County personnel that might have only mentioned Duran by his uniform number. From there, I dug up as much video as I could find, and there's a lot out there if you have the time and inclination to hunt it down. Could definitely be confirmation bias on my part, but it looked to me that they were playing around a lot from start to start with his pitch sequencing: setting up the breaking ball with the hard heat in one start, using the breaking ball early in the count the next start. I honestly can't tell you if his breaking ball is a slider, curve or some sort of slurve, but it looked to play up a lot this year compared to video I found from pre-2018. For what it's worth, if you want to dig up some video on your own, a quick indicator of when the footage was shot is that I'm pretty sure he grew a goatee this year. Maybe facial hair gave him the super power of maturity? Full disclosure: my first legit writing job involved, in part, evaluating high school athletes for a well-known publication. That was over 15 years ago and I was at the bottom of the totem pole, and by no means do I think that gives me any sort of expertise whatsoever, not in the slightest. But that job definitely instilled biases in me that I still look for when researching prospects, and Duran checks all of my highly biased (and possibly antiquated) boxes. I expect Duran and, for that matter, Graterol to top out as late-inning relievers, that's just the nature of pitching prospects. Duran very well might be exposed upon moving up a level, never find consistency, never develop his changeup, etc. But I feel like he developed more in 2018 than the raw numbers would indicate upon first look, and that he's put himself in a position to potentially make a big jump in 2019.

I appreciate the thoughtful response and hearing your reasoning. FWIW, I think his breaking ball has surpassed his fastball at this point in both present quality and future projection. Greater consistency and the continued development of his change up will both be crucial.

I'm sorry, but have either of you dug into Duran at all or, no offense, are you just more or less guessing? Reports are that he was sitting in the high 90s before working with Kane County coaches in the first half of last year to trade in some of that heat for better control. He's now sitting in the mid 90s, but with much improved control of his fastball and command of his secondary pitches, and can still reach back to hit 98 with good movement when necessary. From what I understand, his biggest hurdle is consistently knowing when to dial it up and when to dial it back, but consistency is usually the last hurdle for a starting pitching prospect, often not happening until they're pitching in MLB. I know that all games count, but go back and look at his individual starts last year: he had a few that were utterly dominating and a couple that really skewed his numbers negatively. As an illustration, Duran started against Quad Cities at the end of June and gave up 8 runs without recording an out. One month later, he faced Quad Cities again and didn't give up a hit over 7 innings. His size and velocity have always been tantalizing, but Duran made the transition from thrower to pitcher last year, and showed himself able and willing to make adjustments. It was his first year learning to actually pitch, and he improved as the summer wore on. For me, that's huge. Sure, some guys like Sickels will miss on him...but I think Sickels was also one of the guys who kept repeating the same tired bs that Thorpe is injury prone because he had mono. The national guys do a great job covering a ton of players, and hats off to them, but they also have a tendency to show up to the party late on guys that make midseason adjustments. I think he's easily top 10 now, and a repeat performance in 2019 has him finishing the season in AA and a top 100 prospect in baseball.

Very happy to see Duran getting some love.

Maybe the contextual confusion is along the lines of holding onto prospects and instead focusing on improvement via free agency while the futures of Sano and Buxton are still so hazy...maybe, but likely not.

Graterol is probably this org’s best shot at a true ace and he’s close to making his debut as a starter, so I want him stretched out. If anything, I’d put Brusdar in a multi-inning relief role. Now if the Twins would consistently start using their closer for more than three outs...

Agreed completely on the concept. But not sure if I want to trade too much/too high quality of the redundant talent for relief pitching.

Just scanned it quick and Grandal at 2 yrs/$10m per seems really light to me. Hope the Twins are in on him regardless.

It's entirely possible that the FO felt that Alston complimented Molitor really well, but feel that Alston is not a good compliment to Baldelli. I like fried chicken and I like steak. Chicken and waffles is my favorite thing to eat, but I'd take a hard pass on steak and waffles. The hiring and firing of Alston isn't necessarily a hastily corrected mistake. What the team needs from a pitching coach in order to optimize the coaching staff probably changed with the hiring of a new manager.

Dennis Miller has experience in the broadcast booth. I'm not saying it was a good experience. For anyone. But he does have experience.

I get what you're saying, but I think signing a bat-only DH is cheapskate thinking. Can't speak for others, but I want a player that can hit for power and gets on base AND can play the field. That player will not come cheap.

Exactly. And we should also see if Sano can play shortstop decently. I mean, we don't know that he can't. Was Sano moved off of SS because of JJ Hardy?