slash129

The Twins are still a +2 in terms of prospects over the off-season. As far as moves involving prospects go: Twins give: Jermaine Palacios $2.5 mill Some monopoly money Twins get: Jake Odorizzi @ $6 mill Yunior Severino Jacob Pearson David Banuelos

Pay minor leaguers more.

Well played

Hoping it rounds out with more bats and not too many arms

And the 11 WAR player available and now roster blocked by Sanchez is .... ?

The only people that care about these fringe roster moves are all us commenters on these threads. Most of the fans could care less about the the 40th guy on the 40-man roster, if they even pay attention the 15 guys not on the 25-man roster. Most of the fans don't care about who the Twins didn't sign. Yu Darvish is wearing a Cubs jersey, so who cares about him. If you're so disgusted that you choose to go to less games or not buy that Buxton jersey because say Anibal Sanchez is the 40th man instead of say Luke Bard this spring, I'm sure that giddy fan - who makes it all work - that's excited about a team that made it to the playoffs will more than make up for your cut back on Twins expenditures.

It's probably more likely that Darvish didn't want to play here for anything reasonable to a smaller market team. I also think it's likely that the FO did not feel the team is a Yu Darvish away from making a deep playoff run or unseating Cleveland, so they handled the negotiations and how far they would extend themselves accordingly. I haven't read anything on any of the Darvish threads that even pretends to be from a fly on the wall during any negotiations. I wish everyone would stop making up numbers that would have magically put Darvish in a Twins uniform. It isn't like the Twins had the right of first refusal on him. In reality, I doubt Falvey is too worried about how easy it is to pull something over on a group of stat-crazed, pipe-dream GMs like all of us who represent a pretty small percentage of the fans that they are marketing this product to. They made the playoffs last year, so the majority of the fan base is probably in a good, hopeful place going into this season. They're the fans that look at a 40-64 record on August 1st and say, "Well, they still have time to turn it around," and then double-down after Kepler hits 3 jacks. Darvish is a blip to them.

This really isn't any different than the Vogelsong deal of yesteryear other than the 40 spot that will likely just be Pineda or May hitting the 60-day DL.

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

JJ Robinson and Kolton Kendrick could be in that 1B/DH mix.

Yes ... Seeing Akil Baddoo's Instagram was much more inspiring than "G-Cinco" 's bling-flashing hip-hop video

All things being equal ... Please leave him down in AAA ... I like Polanco's Ceky Viciny walk-up tune way better than that garbage

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?

Maybe the Phillies could sign Wade Miley and then trade him and some prospects to us for Jose Berrios ... Just because their record was bad doesn't mean they are in flush and rebuild mode ... Their other off-season moves point in a different direction

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.