slash129

I agree with all but Slegers. He doesn't really need more seasoning at AAA. He put up a solid 150 IP in 2017. Now that could be his ceiling of success. If the Twins don't find a veteran or two veterans to fill in this rotation (as irresponsible as it may bet), I would probably advocate for accepting replacement level starts from Slegers for the first couple months on the big club. I'd rather do that than accelerate Gonsalves and Romero for the sake of need (cough, cough .... Aaron Hicks ... cough, cough). If Gonsalves mows through 10-12 starts at AAA, I'm sure he'll be given the first opportunity at that point. Romero needs to ramp up his innings at AAA and show that he's back and can sustain over a long season before he's being handed the ball every five days. Littell will probably have the path that Slegers had last season - 140+ IP at AAA, then getting need based spot starts when rosters expand. Honestly, Dietrich Enns has had a successful enough MILB career that 10-12 starts of AAA success this season could warrant some replacement level bridge starts as well. Still hoping for at least one vet signing, so this avenue doesn't have to be explored to deeply.

Let's see ... Berrios is going to be a true ACE, Gonsalves has hope of being close to Greg Maddux and we should advance Romero quickly after he petered out at about 100 IP last year .... Can we start branching the comment threads? One branch for fantasy and one for reality.

No ... SMH

Yeah, prospect heaven in CR this year ... Although, the above article doesn't make it sound like Kirilloff will be pushed

I did a horrible job making that sound like a joke. I should have added an emoticon or something.

So Javier, Lewis, Baddoo, Kirilloff, Bechtold, Miranda and Rortvedt are all going to start the season in CR? That should be fun. They might need to promote Lewis pretty quickly, if they want to keep everyone getting their SS reps. Or, do they move Lewis to CF and Baddoo to a corner?

If you're alluding to #2 overall pick, ROY, MVP Bryant, he was drafted in '13, then spent all of '14 in the minors, and was finally called up after about 10 games in '15 @ well over .300/.400/.600 until that call-up. I might be high, but I would think Rooker needs more than 1/3 of the minor league PAs that Bryant got before he gets his ROY followed by his MVP in year 2. Not to mention, that ROY will be harder to achieve than Bryant's, since some on this board appear to have Gonsalves and Romero penciled in for 150+ innings of sub-4.00 FIP ball.

Enjoyed the read ... Hoping Vargas get another every day chance, but that ship may have sailed.

Does Chris Heisey net the Twins a top 100 prospect at the trade deadline?

It's a chemical that's being added to the water in some towns. When you're supposed to see Stephen Gonsalves and Fernando Romero, it shows up as Tom Glavine and Felix Hernandez.

I agree. It's easy to amplify the positives and muffle the negatives, especially this time of year. But, Rooker has way better plate discipline (especially compared to Walker), even though it's a small sample size. That almost .500 OBP in the SEC his senior year does give reason to believe it's his game though.

Well, now they can't trade Kepler, since he's part of the "Nothing Falls But Raindrops" bobble-head promotion.

Add Tillman and Hellickson to that list, and it's what the Twins should do at this point ... Hopefully, they can add a second year club option. If they catch a Charlie Morton-esque reclamation, at least they would get another year out of it. I hope they sign two of those guys. Glass is half-full: Santana comes back healthy and pitches well enough for the club to pick up his option regardless of the automatic innings trigger. Berrios continues his development and becomes what a Twins fan may have to accept as an ace. Not Kershaw/Scherzer, but maybe a good bit better than any of the 2015 Royals starters. Gibson puts together a full season like his second half last season and at least makes the club consider a QO. Hellickson (my short term FA guy) signs for a year and doesn't have to pitch in Philly or Baltimore where he gave up 35 HRs. He puts up 1.0 - 2.0 WAR and the Twins pick up the option. Gonsalves comes up at the end of June and locks down a revolving door in the 5th spot. Mejia bounces back and forth between the big club and Rochester, but he shows signs of figuring it out by the end of the season. Now throw in Pineda for 2019 and you have options and a better idea of which assets you can afford to move. It's easy to do glass is half empty .... Everyone sucks. I wish we had Dodger money. The Tigers and Royals are going to be bad for a few years. The White Sox will probably start to get better the second half of this year, but 2018 isn't the only year in this window. If the Twins were really going to offer Darvish 9 figures, then I'm hopeful that they can offer extensions that will keep our young stars around past arbitration.

I know it's only instagram, but it leaves a positive impression. It appears his game, keeping himself in top form for his game and his family/friends are what's important to him. Not Nuke Lalooshing around.

I'm planning to go back to my old CR stomping grounds in early May to watch the Kernels. I hope Ober starts one of those games.

I actually thought Rortvedt would be slightly higher. He almost tripled his games and PAs, then adjusted and improved at the plate while doing so. Being a secound round pick, the scouting department must have seen a lot they liked. At 19, he had at least one good showing that he has the make-up to handle adversity (slow start at the plate) and handle a pitching staff over a full season. It will be interesting to see if he's assigned to CR to build more confidence, or if that isn't a worry, and his make-up is further tested in the FSL.

I would think Severino is an EST/Elizabethton assignment at 18/19 yo and just GCL exp so far.

That's basically asking them to more than double their WAR as a group based on 2017 numbers. I'll take the under on the 673 Innings part of the calculation.

Thanks, Seth. Good Read! Agree with mikelink45 on Camilo Pascual ... He also played at a time when they only gave out one Cy Young award and Sandy Koufax was on the Dodgers.

Disclaimer: Bit of a fanboy commenting Or, you could resign Dozier and move some of those MI prospects for high-end controllable pitching

July 1, 2018 is the qualifier date for this list. It's stated after the Gleeman list insert.

4/$76M + 5th yr option @ $4M buyout Not my money ... Sign him up Make him an All-Time Twin and let us enjoy his game the whole way!

Likely why the first list has three slow runners, an extremely small sample size and the closest number to 0 of all the data points ... Meanwhile the top four negatives are arguably the four fastest players on the team that have a reasonable amount of data to draw from

I think the catcher should get at least one non-accumulating mound visit per inning that doesn't count towards the visits count. They need to be careful about messing with the pitcher/catcher communication. Signs can get crossed up. Language barriers sometimes exist. A visit from the catcher may end up preventing a dugout visit. Other than that, I don't have a problem with any of these rules. I also don't care if they don't change the rules. It's not a problem from my perspective. I do think many of the arguments from other perspectives are valid. I like the character races, and I usually root for the mosquito.

Looks like the Twins will be ripe for playing games with the 10-day DL the way the Dodgers do ... Keep everyone fresh over the course of the season