Taildragger8791

Not to mention Burdi hasn't even dominated at AA yet. That would be quite a leap to go straight to the MLB roster.

I know you have to take best player available, but man I really can't stomach another toolsy high school outfielder this year. Get an impact pitcher already.

I think Polanco will be fine. And it's not like you're going to bump Buxton. Kepler did well for a young rookie. There's a lot of potential for good performances there. Mauer isn't a black hole, even if he is underwhelming for a first basemen. He should be moved down the lineup though. LF, 1B, and DH are three suspect spots which I wish we'd done more to bolster. Thankfully, they are also the easiest to upgrade in any given offseason so I seriously hope for those to be addressed before 2018. Catcher is a black hole, but that's not a simple fix for any team. There's a good chance this team approaches top 10 in run production. I'm okay with that improvement for 2017. By 2018 they should be well within the top 10. Hopefully it isn't wasted by bottom 3 pitching again.

The lineup will be fine and potentially exciting. We all know this. But if the extent of our rotation's improvement is staked on May, Berrios, and Mejia then that solidifies why some of us don't see big improvement coming this season. We'd be extremely fortunate if more than one of those players held down a 4.50 ERA all year. It's more likely that group will struggle a lot this year with Berrios still figuring out his struggles, Mejia needing to see if he can make the jump, and May needing to re-acclimate to starting while staying healthy. These guys obviously need to pitch a lot and show us what we have in them. But I'm not going to delude myself into believing this pitching staff won't be a dreadfully annoying dead weight around our neck all year. Hopefully they get long auditions to work things out during another rebuilding/development year and we aren't still wondering what we have in 2018 with them. I wasn't super disappointed by the offseason since there weren't many options out there that made sense. I kind of hoped the front office had some creative ideas up their sleeve to surprise us, but I can't fault them for what wasn't there. It is what it is. Nick mostly summed up my thoughts on that a few posts ago.

I keep hearing this statement but I don't really buy it. It's not like we had a disproportionate amount of injuries. Other than Plouffe, Hughes, and Perkins we were overall pretty healthy, and neither Plouffe nor Perkins would have done anything to stem the bleeding last year. Every team loses a few players, but they don't go on to lose 100+ games because of it. And it's not like we got random bad years from a bunch of established good players either. The players that struggled were either super young (expected) or just flat out aren't that good to begin with (also should have been expected). The young ones can improve, but can they improve enough to carry all the dead weight of the has-beens and never-will-bes?

Or it means expectations were too high on some players and they should be adjusted down going forward. Personally, I think 7 players met or exceeded expectations: Dozier, Ervin Santana, Eduardo Nunez, Suzuki, Polanco, Kepler, and Rosario. Sano was a little disappointing but he wasn't that far off the mark offensively, and he was set up to fail defensively by mismanagement. You could probably even throw Kintzler and Pressley in that list. Yes, some of those players had lower expectations, but that's the roster we had and are bringing back (sans Nunez, and I consider Suzuki/Castro almost a wash). Suzuki and Rosario didn't underperform, they mostly played like they should have been expected to (and played a lot). Naturally, I'd anticipate most of the really young players to continue to grow and do better this year. But I also think it's fair to set low expectations on everyone 25 or older except Chargois, Dozier and E. Santana (and even he worries me with his every-other-year pattern). Unfortunately, most of those players are on the mound or occupying key spots in the lineup (1B/DH). So a bottom-3 finish shouldn't be a surprise without changes or drastic improvement from multiple unexpected players.

If Gibson surpasses 200 innings that means he figured out how to stop big innings and giving up base runners in bunches. That would suggest a big bounce back season for him and be a much-needed boost for the team. I really don't expect it though, unless he has some upcoming change to his repertoire or approach that he hasn't talked about. He just doesn't get strike outs or induce playable ground balls reliably enough. Maybe with a stud defense to back him up, but...

It's not about the money or that he isn't a useful player. It's that he occupies a spot on the field that is the easiest to slot in a powerful run-producing hitter, something that we don't have on the team other than Sano and sometimes Dozier. Mauer hits like 10 homers and 65 RBI when we could have someone over there hitting 35 jacks with 110 RBI. Being 4th on the team OPS+ is alright but we had a lot of struggling hitters, so comparing his averages to a bunch of rookies and role players doesn't mean a lot. He just doesn't regularly have a game changing impact anymore.

I was against the idea earlier this offseason, but now I don't think it's out of the question to sign a DH. Mauer is cooked, he shouldn't be sucking up 500 at bats from the two biggest run-producing positions in the lineup. He and Vargas are platoon candidates at best right now. Hopefully Vargas can be more and take over 1B. I'd like to think Park would fill in at first and DH too but he's far from a sure thing and might need time at AAA to start out anyways. There are plenty of at bats for a solid power and run producing bat. And a vocal locker room leader would be a good influence on this team. Outside of Sano and Dozier there isn't a lot of reliable power in this lineup. Everyone else maxes out between 15-20 HRs. I could see the value in some stability and depth off the bench.

Dude, it's cool. We still got Dozier, and I keep hearing we signed some new superstar named "Regression" who's going to pick up all the slack around here. Hold on tight cuz this rocket is about to take off!

At first glance those other pitchers kinda separated themselves with much lower walk rates than Kohl. Kohl usually hovers in the low 3's and ballooned to 4.3 per 9 in AA this year. The guys on that list were was closer to 2 per 9 most of their time and maxed out around 3 per 9 in a couple brief stints. So now we're looking for success cases with low strikeout numbers without impeccable control. The list just shrunk.

I think the fans would come back quickly if this core takes off and they get enough pitching to climb over .500. I only moved to the Cities last year but I'd love to get a 40 game season package if they were competitive. Until then I'll just buy $15 seats on StubHub and sneak down past sleeping ushers when I feel like going.

The scouting report I found said his slider was a 60 with potential to be a 70. That's plus and potential for plus-plus. It states it had good tilt and late diving action and was a definite out pitch at the next level. That doesn't sound at all like the pitch we hear about now, which is now described as single-plane and weak contact-inducing instead of being strikeout caliber.

I keep hearing this line repeated but I don't see how it matters when the replacements are far from sure things to do any better. It's tantamount to swapping deck chairs on the Titanic. Santiago, Berrios, Duffey (obvious injury fill-in candidate), May, Hughes, Mejia, and Gonsalves could all easily get rotation time this year and replicate those 59 starts. God forbid if Ervin goes down or yo-yos back to Bad Santa(na), now you're really talking trouble. There are so many more paths to being terrible again than there are paths to notable improvement. And currently there are no paths to getting above average in the next couple of years, barring major trades or free agent acquisitions.

The scary thing is that this could be a 100-loss team even if we kept everyone healthy all year. Considering our lack of depth, it gets a lot more likely if we lose any key players (Dozier, Sano, Buxton, Polanco, Ervin, maybe Santiago, and whoever the hell we have in the bullpen) for a significant length of time this year. Most of those guys stayed pretty healthy all year.The drop off is going to be steep behind most of them. And Sano & Buxton already have a propensity to get dinged up.

Has there been any word this offseason on what Sano has been up to this offseason? Did he play in any winter leagues? I'd be curious to see how he looks when he shows up to spring training here, physically and focus-wise. I think it'll say a lot about the season he's going to have. Hopefully he learned he won't get by on talent alone at this level and was motivated to work a little harder at his craft. Another year of nagging injuries, looking sloppy, and appearing mentally unfocused is going to be disappointing. A focused and tenacious Sano should be scary good. I hope that's what we get starting in 2017.

I've heard of guys developing variations on fastballs or changeups like that. I'm struggling to think of a time that a guy successfully overhauled a slider, curve, or some other significant breaking ball though. Improving feel or command is one thing, but changing the action of the pitch and learning to command it seems like a major development.

How often do pitchers find a strikeout-quality primary breaking ball in or after their 5th season in the minors as a high school draftee (or whatever the comparable experience would be for a college draftee)? I honestly don't know, maybe it happens more than I think, but it seems extremely unusual. My understanding is that a pitcher's repertoire is basically established by this point, with maybe some of the fringy pitches being swapped out over time. I also think going into his age 22 season, after 3.5 years of full-time minor league development, we can drop the excuse that he played football in high school. Hell, Mauer was committed to Florida State as a QB and didn't need 3+ years to get caught up.

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I realize good breaking pitches need vertical movement. What I meant was why did it grade so well and why did the Twins not develop the pitch earlier if it was so flat? That seems like a big oversight. I assume they don't grade pitches based on results against HS hitters, but instead on rely on visual scouting. Otherwise every good draft prospect would be sitting on 60+ grades across the board and the reports would be meaningless.

I couldn't find squat for 2016, but it's harder to search for than I expected. Javier at least seems to have power potential as a hitter but has questions on his future defensive position The only notable 2014 signing was Huascar Ynoa. Has a live arm but is a total crapshoot due to control issues. I guess if you go back to 2013 they signed Lewin Diaz for a good chunk of change, that dude looks like a potential monster hitter but apparently can't take a walk yet. Strikeout rate isn't bad yet though. Next year should be a big opportunity for him in Cedar Rapids. Amaurys Minier was the big get in 2012, but has spent 4 years in rookie ball and already moved from 3B to OF to 1B to likely a DH, strikes out a ton, and has work ethic questions. Woof. So yeah, it sounds like we haven't competed much for the top international talent in a while. That's disappointing and no doubt playing a factor in the system falling so far, along with our top draft picks mostly projecting to sub-superstar ceilings. Some of the above guys could put themselves on the map this season as they progress out of rookie ball, at least. The new bonus pool rules next year don't give us an advantage for sucking anymore, so they'll have to learn to recruit internationally on a level playing field. Hopefully the new front office has a better strategy for that than TR did. That also means the pressure is on not to botch the #1 pick.

It's understandable that we would have dropped off a little with so much talent graduating out of the prospect rankings. But it's more than a little disappointing that we've dropped from top-2 to middle of the pack when we've been a nearly last place team for 5 out of 6 years. Shouldn't we have some more impact potential in the low minors? Have we not signed any significant international free agents the last few years?

I'm confused. Wasn't his slider scouted as "plus" (60/70) coming out of high school? The Twins even had him shelve it for the first couple years since he didn't need to work on it and so he wouldn't rely on it. How could it be so hittable then?

I'm just curious if you noticed you said you're okay with the hitters except for nearly half of them. ...and 3 of those are traditionally offense-oriented positions.

I'm curious as to how accurate baseruns tends to be. Is it one of those estimator stats that squishes things to the middle, thus no great/terrible team is ever as great/terrible as their record indicates? I'm more inclined to believe that in 2015 we considerably overshot based on having a losing record in all but one scorching hot month of the season. I'm also inclined to believe we really weren't much better than the 103 loss team we were last year. I don't see how we pick up 12 wins based on luck/regression. This team wasn't that unlucky, they just didn't do much well except occasionally string a whole bunch of hitting together. Their one potential strength, hitting, still has a huge streakiness factor to it due to the high strikeout rates from nearly all the key spots in the lineup. Defense won't be much better this year, outfield should be better without Sano but the infield is going to be an adventure (including that shiny new catcher who doesn't grade out well beyond pitch framing). I guess I'm just not one to expect improvement out of nowhere. It's not like we had a bunch of well-established proven vets that had off years (where you'd expect some regression). The pitching outside of Santana was just flat-out bad and filled with never-has-beens. Berrios is the only one I'd expect much improvement out of, and even that isn't a sure thing until we know if it was just rookie nerves/adjustments or if he's fatally flawed right now. I guess Santiago offers some hope, assuming the Twins don't break him. I'd expect progression from a few of the young hitters, but that won't be enough when we're giving up 6 runs a game. I think this roster will be fortunate to reach 70 wins unless we catch lightning in a bottle on the mound and the young hitters take another step forward.

Or "Rubio practiced 1,000 jumpers a day with shooting specialist Mike Penberthy this offseason".