tobi0040

I guess I wasn't clear enough. If you only have two OF, you can sign Denard Span on a 3 year, $33m deal to make the OF complete. He has averaged 2.8 WAR per season over his career. He isn't Giancarlo Stanton, but he is well above an average player. If you only have 3-4 starting pitchers, the cost to acquire an equally good SP is in another ballpark, one that we don't have tickets for.

Appel was not drafted #1 because of need. He was assumed to be the best player available. Some thought he would have made the major leagues that same year. The Appel equals need and Buxton equals best player is using hindsight to make a point. But I am not sure Buxton goes #2 in a re-draft. Correa goes #1 and you have guys like Michael Wacha, Addison Russell, Gausman, Giolito, and Stroman in round 1. I think the Twins scouts are absolutely enamored with athletic outfielders and use the BPA mantra as an excuse to take them. With our 18 first round picks since 2002, six of them have been prep OF (Span, Hicks, Revere, Parmelee, Buxton, and Kiriloff). Despite the kudos the Twins keep getting for developing high school outfielders, none have made an all-star game. Hicks, Revere, and Parmelee have made the show. But I am not sure a CF with an OPS of .644 (Hicks) , or a corner OF at .669 (Revere) and .717 (Parmelee) are really feathers in our cap. Span has had a good career with 26 WAR spread across 9 seasons. But the other three have basically been replacement players. Hicks has 2.2 WAR across four seasons. Parmelee is negative in four seasons. And Revere has 6 WAR over 6 seasons. And we have literally invested 1,000’s of MLB at bats in these guys because we are emotionally tied to them and wanted them to succeed. Really bizarre given we could have signed better players without a huge financial commitment. But here is the biggest issue I have. You need starting pitching to win and the draft is really the only realistic avenue for the Twins to acquire that talent in a sustainable manner over any period of time. The same is almost true at the catcher position (whereas OF are a dime a dozen in FA). Catchers rarely hit free agency and the Twins are never going to pay a guy like Brian McCann $85m over five years or Max Scherzer $180m. So I guess the flip side of BPA at all costs is, if your turn comes up ten years in a row and a HS OF is the top on your board each year, what is the plan to acquire five starting pitchers and a catcher? The old we can trade them later sounds good, but how often has that happened? I mean Span, Revere, and Hicks for Murphy, Meyer, and May kind of goes to show you that hasn't really worked out for us. We have moved three of them for one potential starter, who is in the bullpen.

These changes would be disasterous. We may lose 100 games or more.

It is less about our picks panning out and more about supply and demand within the entire league. And you need to field three outfielders and conservatively 6-7 starting pitchers each year.

I am guessing this was partially aimed at me. I don’t think the pick was “wasted”. We won’t know that for years. But I am not excited about another prep outfielder. To me it is about the cost/availability of fielding a position. You have free agency, the draft, trades, and international free agents. We currently have Buxton, Kepler, Rosario, potentially Sano, Wade, Walker, and Harrison in our system. Now we have just added a first round pick and another in the 2nd or 3rd. And this is a position where you can go into the free agent market and find a league average player without a huge financial commitment. The last off-season we saw Dexter Fowler and Denard Span sign for 1/13 and 3/33. Colby Rasmus the previous year signed for a year and $7m. If this was a guy everyone had ranked top five and he fell to 15 that would be one thing. But most rankings I saw had him in the 15-20 range so that is not the case. Starting pitching is a much bigger need and will really always be. To fill out a rotation, we need all the highly touted guys in our system to pan out. That isn’t going to happen and dipping into the FA market to find starters is not what you want to be doing (see Nolasco, Ervin, Pelfrey, etc.). That is a position where sub league average pitchers sign 4+ year deals at 12-15m a year and they are usually 30+ at the time. The same can be said about relief pitching. The prices have gone up, but they still pale in comparison to that of a starting pitcher, both in total commitment and years. But we have used a ton of picks in rounds 1-5 on relievers.

Sounds like they got the best HS hitting catcher and he will stick. Hard to knock this one.

More of the same. A zebra can't change its stripes.

Callis and Mayo have Kiriloff. Yippee. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/182933128/opening-round-picks-in-2016-mlb-mock-draft?topicid=167757330

The number I hear is $4m, which we could probably meet if we were creative. Most 17 year olds are not going to say no to $4m, IMO. Nobody in the second round or late in the first have a shot at $7M. If our choices are 1-1 talent and punt on the second pick, or toolsy HS corner OF who will take 5-6 years to get here and likely will never hit for power....seems like an easy choice.

My personal preference would have a high school bat as the lowest priority and an OF the lowest sub-set of those high school bats.

But if the same folks are drafting now, the move would be to take a guy who is universally thought of as a 1-1 talent, rather than our staff picking the 15th and 56th best.

Not even remotely surprising. Meanwhile the Nats come away with a 1-1 talent at 28, just like they did at 16 with Lucas Giolito in 2012. The only thing I can remember us doing under the slotting rules is go above slot with Gonsalves, who also had "character issues" and/or mystery around why he was sliding. By any account that worked out great for us. Not sure why we would not try more of it.

I posted this to the wrong draft thread initially. But the same thoughts as you: If Groome is a 1-1 talent in this draft, I would completely punt on my second round pick and take him at 15. They could draft me and pay me $20k. Look at this list of second round picks. If you want to find a player with a career WAR over 21 you need to go back 33 years to Frank Viola. Chargois is a hot prospect and you have some decent role players here. But if you did a study to weigh the value of 1-1 versus 15 and 56 I am guessing 1-1 comes out by a wide margin, even if you start with the premise that this is not an Alex Rodriguez, Bryce Harper type 1-1 year. If you start at 2009 and go back, you have 50 second round picks. 42 of the 50 (84%) have a career WAR of less than five. To be quite honest, I would rather see the Twins try something like this and fail than not to try at all. http://www.baseball-...pe=franch_round

If Groome is a 1-1 talent in this draft, I would completely punt on my second round pick and take him at 15. They could draft me and pay me $20k. Look at this list of second round picks. If you want to find a player with a career WAR over 21 you need to go back 33 years to Frank Viola. Chargois is a hot prospect and you have some decent role players here. But if you did a study to weigh the value of 1-1 versus 15 and 56 I am guessing 1-1 comes out by a wide margin, even if you start with the premise that this is not an Alex Rodriguez, Bryce Harper type 1-1 year. If you start at 2009 and go back, you have 50 second round picks. 42 of the 50 (84%) have a career WAR of less than five. To be quite honest, I would rather see the Twins try something like this and fail than not to try at all. http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.cgi?team_ID=MIN&draft_round=2&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_round

The projections on Hudson vary prett wildly. I guess that is why he may be available at 15. I would not hate the pick, especially if he signed for a little less and we were able to pay up with our next pick. http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2016/05/draft-preview-rhp-dakota-hudson-mississippi-state-university/

Says the guy who relies on them for information!

Nope. Nothing does. It would simply be calling someone's bluff. And he is faced with take x now or go to college in three years. You could also do a little homewwork on the family and how much money they have. It would take a ton of work though. You need their address and the ability to go onto zillow.

Yeah, nothing will make any sense at all until we see a leadership change. My neck hurts from all the head shaking.

Jeremy, Unfortunately I think to you are using more creativity amd strategy than the Twins war room.

Agreed Jimbo. This is an unwatchable team. I have been recording the games and just watching the at bats of Buxton, Sano, etc. any start by Berrios, May, and Meyer as well. Not a good sign for the Twins. I may reconsider going to my one or two games a year as the re-sale prices may be in the 5-10 range soon if they aren't already.

Okay. Let me re-phrase. The Twins have not made an investment in the catcher position in 6 years. That guy was only going to catch another few years. They did not plan for the 2013+ period. I am guessing we have been bottom three in the league at the position and the outlook is about the same for the foreseeable future. So we have at least a 2013-2018 gap where we have punted the position, not had a plan, and not made an investment.

That draft pick was 15 years ago. The big contract was handed out six years ago, to a guy that should have moved off catcher a year or two later.

Good catchers rarely hit free agency. Guys like Perez, Posey, etc. get money thrown at them early. The one's that do are typically older and get huge deals. We have just not made the investment and it shows.

I think you need to accept the guy may only get 8-10 years behind the plate. But we have a huge hole at catcher that isn't getting fixed anytime soon.

The problem is I just expect terrible decisions to continue until they completely clean house, if they do at all. Nolasco, Hughes, Ervin Nunez, Plouffe, Dozier, Abad, Jepsen etc. Expect one trade on 7/31 and another for cash in mid August. No meaningful DFA's. And May will remain in the pen all year.