tobi0040

His OPS was .825 and .842 in August and September. 15 of his 20 HR cleared the wall in the second half. But his K rate was over 30% those last two months. I can't see the righty lefty split by month, but for the year he was at an OPS of .574 against lefties. He will need a meaningful improvement upon those numbers. His minor league OPS was .917. Only 68 HR in 434 games. Not earth shattering or anything. Lots of doubles.

Good stuff

$8M sounds high, but IMO $5.5M of that was not really a threat. I think they had Pelf in the pen the whole time. Milone still has an option left....so I think Meyer had a shot. Not an even-steven chance...but his play did determine the outcome to an extent.

I have made the appropriate edit. As my grandma used to say, I stand corrected!

I think the Twins could do a better job communicating that not all races are starting at the same point. Case and point would be Mike Pelfrey this year. He would have needed a lot of things to break his way, including likely injuries to make the team. But nobody outside of ChiTownTwinsFan thought Gibson had a shot last year and he proved to them that he was ready. I think the Twins want Alex Meyer in the rotation. I think they had serious reservations last year given he was on a pitch count and they would have had to waste a year of service time, but I think he could have forced the issue had been as dominant as he was but more efficient with his pitches. This spring, I think had he shown he was head and shoulders ahead of Milone and May and had command of the heater I think he would have made the team. We will never know now. But that is my opinion.

At a very minimum, a pitcher needs to show some level of command with his fastball. Meyer was auditioning for a spot in the rotation and walked seven batters in 5.2 innings. He was routinely missing the glove by a foot. It does not matter if he throws 98-99 in that case. So I think the Twins did what they had to do

I didn't mean to be look at this great surprise. But players have different trajectories. Had we brought him up at 21 when he was a struggling AA and AAA SS....I don't think we would have the player we have today. .262/.301/.415 9 HR.

For those saying May and Meyer should have come up last May, I guess we have different standards. Both of these guys had some issues. May has always had control issues and came off two consecutive years at AA that was not the least bit impressive. So 4-5 good starts at AAA is not enough time for me. Meyer would have had exactly 70 IP at AA, then shut down with shoulder issues. Then 4-5 OK starts at AAA. He has mechanics issues, which has been present from the scouting reports and what I saw this spring. So as upset as I was, in hindsight I don't think he was ready and needed more time.

That seems really rosy to me. I don't doubt that Arcia could eventually put up these type of numbers. But I don't see it this year. His career OPS splits are .809/.613. So you are expecting his average to rise more than his career OPS against righties with about a 30 basis point improvement in his BA.

Did you guys factor in defense into the rankings? After the Santana one I didn't think so, but maybe you did here? I am guessing Arcia has a better OPS this year than Melky or Cespedes. Cespedes for sure. Cespedes has basically been a .250/.300 guy with 22 HR the last two years (after tape existed on him). .740 OPS. That is in line with Arcia's age 22 and 23 seasons, where he was literally clueless against lefties and has had contact issues. I would expect a step forward to some extent this year.

I think Meyer and May could have made this team, but 200 ip across aa and aaa is averaging about 15 starts a league. If you saw him in spring training he needs to work out some links. No doubt.

A few of us have commented that trevor is one of the most under-appreciated players in the game. This ranking further validates that. This Is a very weak position in baseball so to be penciling a guy in for 750 is no small feat.

I don't know that I agree. At 22 Gibson went from A ball to AAA. The next season he had 95 IP at AAA and really struggled (4.81 ERA), turns out he needed tommy john and that is why he was struggling. May and Meyer were in another teams system until 22 and 23. One was in high A and the other had a 4.87 ERA at AA. So when you go case by case it seems to me that neither of these guys was coming up at the 22/23 range that are deemed quick.

The bullpen argument has come up quite a bit in Pythag discussions. I looked at the best bullpens in 2014 and compared actual wins versus Pythag. The top 10 ERA', Pythag had 6 more wins than the actual wins. The top 10 by WAR had 13 more actual wins than pythag wins. Not a huge trend here. BY ERA ERA Pythag Wins Actual Wins 1 Mariners 2.6 91 87 2 Padres 2.73 75 77 3 A's 2.91 99 88 4 Nats 3 97 96 5 Giants 3.01 87 88 6 O's 3.1 94 96 7 Indians 3.12 83 85 8 Mets 3.14 82 79 9 Pirates 3.28 87 88 10 Royals 3.3 84 89 Total 879 873 WAR WAR Pythag Wins Actual Wins 1 Yankees 5.5 77 84 2 Nats 5.5 97 96 3 Phillies 5.2 73 73 4 Cubs 5.1 71 73 5 Royals 5.1 84 89 6 Padres 4.7 75 77 7 Angels 4.5 96 98 8 Braves 4.4 78 79 9 Marlins 4.2 78 77 10 Mariners 4.2 91 87 820 833

I could not find it quickly and need to get to work!

The contract was a perfect storm of great year and new stadium. And I think the thing that people don't understand is that the Twins likely view a decent chunk of that $23M as a marketing expense with a high ROI.

So I look it up. Almost all his value was on the defensive side with a negative Owar. Then I realize I am looking at his son.

Gwynn was at .813. Interestingly his career OPS is quite a bit higher, .847. So his 32-40 years were quite a bit better. Boggs was at .920 at 31, then dropped to .858 for his career. His 30's were not as nice to him. Total BREF WAR for the three at 31. Boggs 59.9. Mauer 46.3. Gwynn 41.

These are fair points. And when I initially made the comment I was thinking my lifetime, which excludes these guys. But the broader point is Joe is in the discussion, yet nobody is happy with him. I looked at OPS thru age 31 season. I just summed OPS / number of year for Olvia, Carew, and Killebrew and compared that with Joe's career. So the other guys won't be perfect as the at bats were not evenly distributed but it should be very close. I also started the tally when they were full time MLB players. Joe's OPS is .860. He is ahead of Oliva's 858 and Carew's 839 and well behind Killebrew's 923.

Yeah, Carew was 37 when I was born. So I don't have much to go on outside of baseball reference stats! Career BA is 10 points higher than Joe. Joe's OPS is 38 points higher than Carew's.Joe has a small OPS plus edge. My understanding is Carew had many bunt hits. They will probably end up with the same amount of HR's. Joe has Oliva in every category outside of HR and slugging. OPS, OPS plus, BA, OBP by 48 points. He is at least in the discussion, yet here you will find 4-5 negative comments for every positive one about Joe.

There is a definite trend. But I think this is a causation/correlation issue again. Did we promote few pitchers because we have a different criteria or did we lack pitching talent to promote? Here are the first round picks we spent on pitchers from 2002 to 2010. Keep in mind these are picks primarily in the 20-50 range. The one's that have reached MLB with debut age (Perkins 23, Garza 22, and Gibson, who was knocking on the door at 22. You can add Liriano who we got via trade that was up here at 21. When the talent is there these guys don't waste away at AAA. Here is the list of flops: Hunt, Gutierrez, Waldrop, Fox, Rainville, Wimmers, and Bashore. You have a bunch of guys that never made the show, let alone were promotable at 21 or 22.

These are the same guys that refused drug testing forever right?

There are some that judge Joe Mauer by his HR totals alone. They will always be terribly dissapointed in him. I choose to sit back and enjoy the best pure hitter we may see in a Twins uniform in our lifetime.

I think Meyer and May could be very good MLB pitchers. But players tend to click at different times. Two of the biggest success stores on our team right now are Dozier and Plouffe. I looked at minor league baseballs top prospects from 2009 to 2011 and neither was listed as a top 20 prospect. Both came up around 25. My point is not all players need to be up at 22 in order to be good and for others and it probably would not have been in their best interest anyway. I am sticking to my theory that from 2002 to 2009 we didn't draft very well and we drafted young high school players that are typically in the minors a long time. In addition, we had a contending team with solid to good veterans at most positions. Less talent + fewer available positions = prospects spending a lot of time in the minors. From 2013 to 2016 we will probablly have Hicks, Sano, Buxton, Rosario, Berrios, and Arcia debut between 20 and 23 (most 21 or 22). It says very little about our organizations theory on moving guys through the system and more about talent and open positions. Looking at farm system rankings during these two time periods probably tells the story.

I am sure that the guy uses the media for his own reputation. But in the case of Jared Weaver, he acknowledged going against his agents advice.