Taildragger8791

Comments like that just make all the other believers in super aggressive promotions look conservative. There is a line somewhere, between letting guys gradually develop in the minors and pushing them up as fast as possible, and you pole vaulted right over it.

The Twins hardly even publically recognize their Senators history so it's funny to think of them as having a third championship under their franchise. You'd think with Clark Griffith having such a long history with the Senators, and his son Calvin being the one who moved the team to Minnesota, that they'd feel more of a tie to those years. It wasn't even that long ago. Hell, Killebrew was there 6 years before relocating.

If you dump him and replace him in the offseason you aren't very likely to do much better, and now you've just added significantly to your payroll for no real improvement. The Twins aren't exactly a bunch of miracle workers are picking up free agent pitchers.

Why does everyone keep saying to dump Santana? He's one of the few SP above AA with a shot at being decent. You still need to fill out a rotation this year and next and there aren't 5 solid SP behind him. Without Nolasco/Santana/Hughes you'd have Gibson, Berrios, and Duffey as the only decent starting pitchers for next year. Possibly May on the unlikely chance he jumps back to starting. I don't consider Dean a real prospect and the rest of the names are pure lottery tickets. If the Twins went into the season with no reliable #4 and #5 starter, an no options for fallback or injury replacements, it would be absolute mayhem again. Stewart, Gonsalves, and Jay aren't going to be ready for the start of the season and may not even be ready by midseason. I'm not clearing out the major league roster for them this early.

Good list. Unfortunately it's fantasy to believe Terry Ryan will change his stripes and suddenly start clearing out vets, dumping expensive contracts, or trading someone at their peak of value (Abad). This is going to be the same roster next year except for the pieces that we let walk away for nothing. No creativity or gumption.

Barring a setback, I'm expecting Chargois will be up within a month or so which would still give him 2-3 months to adjust at the MLB level in preparation for next year. That would still be an impressively quick rise for a guy who has only 86 innings over 1.5 seasons played in the minors (not counting missing 2 full seasons due to Tommy John surgery). He hasn't been held back at all. The catch-22 we seem to keep running into here is that you can't promote a guy who hasn't demonstrated sustained success at his current level, but as soon as someone does demonstrate that sustained success there are screams to promote and quit holding him back. Yes, there are some guys who have legitimate gripes about lingering at a level, and Chargois is not one of them (yet). The Twins have been moving top performers faster over the last few years and if anything they have moved some guys too fast through the upper levels. Though I do wish they'd flip flop on the handling of pitchers (too slow at times) and hitters (too fast at times) based on the limited shelf life of many pitchers and fewer adjustments needed.

It's a nice outdoor stadium in the middle of downtown, and for some it's still seen as a fun way to spend a nice day on a weekend. A number of people will still show up if tickets are going cheap enough, and then spend a decent coin on massively marked up concessions and team gear. Pretty tough to not print money with that setup.

My guess is season and single game ticket sales will be drastically down next year, and subsequent years until they demonstrate sustainable success. But as the Marlins and Astros have shown that can still be pretty profitable as long as payroll is low enough, and the Twins will be in a position in a couple years to have almost entirely minimum contracts. Especially if they manage to shed some pitchers. So the pressure to win won't come from the financial side of things. The Twins will always print money, especially with that ballpark and MLB revenue sharing.

I think the rule is that you have to wait until the end of September. But once the offseason starts you can no longer look back at this season, of course, because it doesn't have any bearing on next year. It was just a blip and the product of contagious non-hitting throughout the roster. SSS, cherry picking, past performance isn't predicative of future results, etc etc etc.

Is there any word on what Jake Reed's struggles are at AA? He walks a few too many guys but he's very hittable as well. The shine is wearing off him quickly and it doesn't look like he'll be helping the big club anytime in the near future unless there's some yet-unidentified adjustment to be made. It's too bad he and Burdi haven't put it together at AA at all, they were really pushed as surefire MLB relievers that should move quickly. What's the health status on Burdi?

I'm still looking, but so far I haven't been able to find the car in the photo. Are you sure it's the right picture?

This is basically my feeling about any trades like this. The Twins need all their hitting prospects to pan out as it is, because there isn't another wave of talent pushing its way up to the big club in the next few years. I wouldn't be trading any of the top talent. I also can't stomach another decent NL pitcher coming over and getting shelled for 3-4 years after we invested in him. Clearly something isn't translating well in the Twins' evaluation of NL pitchers so I'd hope they keep the phone in the pocket.

This organization is soft all the way down to it's gooey mushy core. They'd get eaten alive for these types of responses and their insular organization that refuses to let outside personnel into their safe space. Can't have anyone coming in and who might upset their cushy bubble. Things have been inbred and sheltered for so long they don't even realize how dysfunctional they are. This is how I imagine a new GM would look entering the organization:

I'm not sold on Buxton being ready considering he still has an extreme K/BB ratio which was the #1 thing he needed to address in the minors. In May he has 15 Ks to 6 BBs, and over his last 10 games it's 10 Ks to 2 BBs. Strikeout rate is 20.5% in May and 23% over his last 10 games as well. So he isn't trending in the positive direction yet. It was expected he was going to put up numbers in AAA due to his speed and the lower quality defense and pitching. It's the plate control and breaking balls that were killing him in the majors, and that's what he needs to show improvement on.

Park won't get voted in because Ortiz is going to crush the fan vote for DH in the AL, and deservedly so. No other Twins position players deserve a vote. So it's going to come down to the manager selection and there still won't be a position player in the top 15 of their position. Starting pitching isn't even in the conversation unless Duffey or Santana goes on a total tear for the next month (not holding my breath). So by default it'll probably be Abad unless he falls off a cliff, which would have been pants-on-head-crazy talk a couple months ago. If he collapses then I could see Mauer getting it based on career accomplishment. Nunez is falling off fast and his numbers may look pretty pedestrian in another month. Honestly, it's pretty disappointing that Sano, Mauer, or someone can't rise above this pretty low-achieving crowd.

Spoiling series sweeps has to be the lowest bar I've ever seen set.

Depressing. Bases loaded with no outs and heart of the order up and you still feel like they won't score. Strikeout, strikeout, fly out. Predictable.

I would assume (hope) that Kepler, Berrios, and Polanco all graduate this year. That leaves Gordon as the only hitter that consistently shows up in the top 15. I scanned around to various lists and you see names like Cabbage, Palacios, Vielma, and Wander Javier (very raw 17-year old in DR) float in the mid- to upper-teens, but they all have a lower ceiling and much lower floor to consider. My only point was none of those are close to the pedigree of guys graduating off this list, so that's a big downgrade. It is nice to see some quality pitching in there, hopefully they can live up to expectations into AA this year. I think that will be the biggest driver in our system ranking next year. The #15 pick has potential of course, but the draft overall this year isn't considered to be particularly strong and the Twins haven't produced much in the first round without a top 6 draft pick over the last 10 years. Hicks, Revere, and Parmalee is about it. That just may be my current pessimism showing through though. It's hard to be optimistic without a track record to point to.

Not commenting on the Twins trying to add talent, but I do wonder where the farm system will rank starting next year. Half of the top 10 is going to graduate or fall off that list and the projected replacements aren't nearly as strong. The shine will wear off the overall system's reputation if these highly-touted prospects continue to struggle so mightily in the majors all season. The next crop is pretty much Gordon and the pile of pitchers in A-ball who are promising but still a big unknown. We don't have a strong draft pick or international FA coming into the system this year either. After looking at it, beyond the AAA/MLB youth we're looking at a dearth of hitting prospects other than Nick Gordon over the next 4-5 years. Failure for this current wave isn't really an option.

There seem to be a lot of "bad attitudes" reported amongst the players on this team lately. So that means we either randomly collected a bunch of bad apples or there's another common source this is stemming from. Gee, I wonder where that could be?

I have to imagine Chargois will be up soon enough. I can't get worked up about it considering he hasn't moved slowly, spending less than a season at each level he's been assigned. He was drafted, had TJ surgery after 12 games of rookie ball, then came back and flew from High-A to AAA in barely over a season's time. That's one of the fastest rises I can remember for a Twins pitcher. If he isn't up in a month or so and is still dominant then I'd start to ask questions, especially since the Twins bullpen isn't deep enough to block a talent like him.

The issue with looking at season averages is it masks the fact that in half his performances he's been pretty solid and in the other half he scuffled with control. This isn't one bad outing he's being judged on, it's just the one where mild concerns over his control were validated a little bit. In 4 out of 8 starts he's gone 6 or fewer innings with 3+ walks. The hits/ERA look good because he's facing less experienced hitters in friendly ballparks that can't consistently punish him. Based on his elevated pitch counts, even in most of his good starts, I assume he's trying to nibble & throw junk and inexperienced hitters are getting themselves out. For that reason alone I think a taste of AA could be a good test and possibly a wake-up call that he needs to throw better strikes.

I think his point was that Gonsalves already has a high walk rate at High A ball but is getting away with it due to the competition level and pitcher-friendly league, making his numbers look better than his actual performance. If the Twins are trying to get him to throw better strikes to avoid a blowup at AA then putting up a game like this shows he has work to do still. Walking 4 per 9 and rarely getting past 6 innings is a potential recipe for trouble when jumping from High A to AA. It's just speculation, but it seems logical.

I think Berrios will be fine. His command was never a problem until this year. I imagine a tweak plus some AAA time will work that out by mid-year. He seems like one of the rare talented, uber-focused, and driven guys that can rise above bad coaching. Not saying the Twins are bad at developing players, just saying that if they were then Berrios seems like one to rise above it. But I'm with you on Gonsalves and Stewart. Their numbers look solid in a pitcher-friendly league but the peripherals are questionable. Young pitchers with control or strikeout issues rarely change their stripes while remaining effective. They might show improvement but those issues resurface as they climb the ladder. I hope for the best with those two but I've had my confidence crushed by this last crop of prospects lately.

Unfortunately, if your first lineup and rotation came true then I'd say we're in for another repeat of this year. I don't see how you could run essentially the same crop of players out there and not expect similar results. That has to be a fireable offense. But I'm also not sure how much you can do about it with so many untradeable players entrenched at their positions. That's why I see this recovery dragging out until 2018 at the earliest. Hitting. I don't know that I see Plouffe leaving unless Terry Ryan goes with him. He has the highest OPS and WAR of anyone not named Park or Nunez. That's a bad thing, by the way. But it also means they may cling to him longer than they should. Dozier & Mauer will be back at their spots due to contracts. SS will probably be a hot potato situation again, although I hope Polanco gets regular playing time there or somewhere even if his defense isn't excellent. Catcher will likely repeat as a black hole. I don't know if there's a catcher out there to get and Murphy will likely get the chance to lose the job again next year. I don't like to bet on a player suddenly becoming something much more than they've shown themselves to be at 25 years old. I'd like to think Buxton will be competent with the stick next year, so that's one improvement. LF is probably a mix of Rosario, and Arcia, with RF being Sano again. Kepler should mix in at all 3 spots. Hopefully they're improved, but there needs to be contingency plan rather than just crossing the fingers and hoping for everything to turn out again. To sum this up, I see incremental but not significant improvement in the hitting and defense. I hope the rotation is turned over a little but I don't know what you can do there either. Santana is the only one with value, but that also means he's the only one giving us a chance to win out there. Berrios and Duffey have to be in there as well. I don't know that I'd give up on Gibson yet, but I guess this season may drive that decision. Nolsaco and Hughes have to battle it out for the 5th spot and the loser goes in the bullpen then. This assumes Meyer resolved his fate this year. Meyer to the bullpen unless something clicks with him and he starts throwing strikes. Then he gets the 5th spot as long as he can keep it. I'd like to see May auditioned as a starter this year too, but management seems to have given up on him as a starter since they screwed the BP situation so bad. Again, incremental but not significant improvement. A lot of banking on improved or sustained performance from players here. Bullpen is a total rebuild. I don't know if there's anyone besides May or Chargois in line to help there next year. Reed and Burdi seem to be stagnating or backsliding at AA so I won't count on them anytime soon. Perkins appears to be done. Abad has looked good but I wouldn't count on repeat or sustained performance there. Similar with Tonkin. The rest is chaff that should be turned over with FAs. Seems like a pessimistic outlook but I don't see Terry Ryan suddenly turning into to Tradin' Terry and making any big moves to flush the clogs out of the system. So this is kind of how I see it evolving next year.