Shane Wahl

I always appreciate your posts! And thank you for being such a great host.

That makes for an alarming bench. Escobar, Herrmann, Presley (if Hicks is up with Twins)?

I would have just gone with Pinto and Herrmann and been done with it.

10 years, $130 million. Options and buyouts involved too. I cannot imagine anyone being silly enough to go for anything less given how crazy the market could be 7 years from now.

Wow, this was a good read, Jim. I find it weird that "assets" like these players have to often scrounge around life while in the minors. I think the *lucky* ones find jobs like substitute teaching which can be fairly easy, with time to think about baseball. If I owned an organization, I would not want my players worried about housing and offseason employment, and eating cheap, processed garbage food.

Arcia and Plouffe, tied at 23.

There is no reasonable argument there. It's mind-boggling to consider clogging this roster with a terrible OF who doesn't seem willing to move to DH. Even as a DH, the Plouffe-Sano situation, the Arcia situation, and perhaps the emergence of Kennys Vargas or someone else seems to limit the desirable of bringing Willingham back. He's an aging veteran with a lot of negative defensive value. This is worthy of consideration how again?

This is good. I don't think there really should be any competition either. Getting some proper MLB seasoning this year Hicks, Arcia, and Pinto so 2015 is not just the unseasoned youth movement with Buxton, Rosario, and Santana. Presley is a solid improvement . . . . over the 4th OFs in recent memory. I do like the idea of Presley getting some time in LF and letting Willingham DH.

I have a friend who is a rabid Red Sox fan and is going to be in Fort Myers for the next week. He is going over to check out the Twins for a bit one day, so I am going to try to find the best time for him to get a glance of Sano, Buxton, and Meyer.

I am not clear on why this is a 70-win team. It already looks to be better than that given the significantly improved rotation and Mauer replacing Morneau plus Arcia developing better. Those are givens. Hicks, the 5th starter, any sort of bounceback from Willingham and Kubel, and any progress from Plouffe, Parmelee, and Florimon added into that and this would seem to be a mid-upper 70-win team.

With Sano in June, Plouffe becomes one. That's really the only hope there. Plouffe and Kubel makes for a good RH/LH combo. Colabello could be an option until then.

In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the jerks at IU have a couple of good players (Schwarber C/1B and Travis 1B).

I really like Kolek. If around . . .

I had wild hopes here, Pseudo . . .

And who knows about Rosario in LF or RF by that time too . . .

And in September, it could/maybe should be: Pinto, Herrmann, Suzuki Mauer, Plouffe Dozier, Santana Florimon, Santana Sano, Plouffe (9) Hicks, Buxton, Arcia, Herrmann, Plouffe, Kubel (4) Nolasco, Hughes, Gibson, Meyer, May Diamond/Worley/Pressly, Ibarra, Watts, Achter, Thielbar, Tonkin, Perkins (12) Obviously I hope for a number of trades involving Willingham, Correia, Swarzak, Fien, Duensing, and perhaps even Escobar. And expecting Mike Pelfrey to Blackburn it up.

Kurt Suzuki, Chris Herrmann Joe Mauer, Chris Parmelee Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar Pedro Florimon, Eduardo Escobar Trevor Plouffe, Eduardo Escobar (8) Josh Willingham, Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia, Alex Presley, Jason Kubel, Chris Herrmann (5) Kevin Correia, Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes, Mike Pelfrey, Scott Diamond, (Deduno DL somehow) Vance Worley (LR), Anthony Swarzak (MR), Caleb Thiebar, Michael Tonkin, Brian Duensing, Casey Fien, Glen Perkins (12) Fryer can't be. Please! Herrmann is a lefty so he has the advantage. Also, a roster with Suzuki, Fryer, and Herrmann (although I think Herrmann can be a .650+ OPS backup at 3 spots) makes for a bad bench (likely precluding either Kubel or Parmelee). Parmelee being able to play LF would be very important for him. He has to know this. A starting OF of Presley-Hicks-Arcia with Willingham DHing, and a bench of Kubel, Parmelee, Herrmann/Suzuki, and Escobar isn't bad. It isn't good, but at least the defensive liability of having Willingham and Arcia out there is reduced. Mastro, Colabello, Bartlett, and Beresford are good fill-in options in AAA. Pinto can force his way up with Sano, injecting life into the lineup. With the 5th spot in the rotation in doubt right now, I think seeing Gibson-Meyer-May at the top of the Rochester rotation (this time, the Twins can be smart about a prospect's AAA innings and limit Meyer there) would be good. Deduno would be my choice for the 5th spot, but barring any other injury, maybe they find one for him to see what can be done about Diamond/Worley. Worley makes more sense initially coming out of the bullpen. Ryan Pressley gets sent to Rochester to work as a starter. Darnell and Gilmartin can be starters 5 and 6 there. With that, the bullpen seems pretty clear-cut.

Another "Parmelee is a horrible defender" remark . . . no he isn't. He would actually be a solid *defensive replacement* late in games for Arcia (and Willingham, if Parm can play LF).

I think they would all be claimed. I also think the Twins should find a way to keep all of them (meaning that one pitcher is DLed--could be one of the other starting four too). Deduno grabs the 5th spot in the rotation and either Diamond or Worley works out of the 'pen. I can't imagine any of the three being around in 2015, however. Parmelee has a problem, and the Twins have to find some way to get anything about minimal value back in a trade. He will get almost no time at first base and has Willingham, Arcia, Presley, and Kubel to contend with for corner OF/DH/bench spot. He would help his chances by demonstrating the ability to play a quality LF.

I agree that AAA is a valuable step, I agree completely with jorgenswest and Kwak's last post!

Good for him, but I am not sure how anyone could reasonably consider extending him even one year.

I agree wholemindedly with this!

I would have signed Capuano instead of Pelfrey. For what that's worth (nothing).

Arroyo is going to end up signing a one-year, $10 million contract. I honestly am not being whine-tastic here, but looking back, that Nolasco deal is not nearly as good as it seemed at the time (and I didn't like it that much at the time either). That said, I would rather the Twins be aggressive and get out ahead of other teams than wait on the whims of the market. It just turned out to kinda go south.

Well is the over/under 26 for the year or 18 there and 8 here? I will take the over on the 26, but I don't know how it will be broken up. He should maul AAA pitching. And he is still going to hit bombs with frequency in MLB, it just might come with a lot of strikeouts so his BA will be lower. I would bet on 35 homers between the two.