gunnarthor

In 2021, Gordon will be cheaper. The Pohlads won't pay to keep Buxton, Sano, Berrios, Kepler, Rosario and Polanco together. We can hope they'll keep most but they might not even do that. They certainly won't keep all. By 2021, all of those guys salaries could be a combined 80m or more.

I think most everyone understood the premise of the thread. They might even have looked at things other than batting average to make their predictions.

Sure, but Garver's never been a top 100 prospect, let alone a potential elite one like many of the other guys in our system, the manager hasn't given him many shots when he was up here and the FO didn't feel the need to bring him up despite some positional openings - either as a backup catcher over Giminez or to give him some DH at-bats.

That's a long way out. No way Garver will be our starting catcher. Dozier would be 34. Just looking at our system, I think it's more likely to be - C - Rortvedt - he'd be 24 in 2021 and on target to be in the majors by then. DH/1B - Sano/Rooker in some combination. I'm actually pretty excited about both these guys. Sano would be 28 and in his last season of team control. Rooker, 26, is a nice power threat to go with him. Other possibilities could include Diaz (25) or Kepler moving from the OF. 2B/SS - Nick Gordon and Wander Javier - lots of candidates for the MI but Javier might be the most likely to stick at short. Mayo expects him to break out this season. He'd be 23 in 2021 and has some pretty loud tools. 3B - Andrew Bechtold - I liked this pick in the draft last year. I think he turns into a poor man's Koskie for us and keeps the spot open until Jose Miranda is ready. LF/CF/RF - I think the Twins trade Rosario and Kepler in the intervening years to keep money to sign Buxton and Sano longterm. That opens the corners for Akil Baddoo and Royce Lewis. Butxton will be 27 but he will have already signed a longterm extension to stick. Baddoo and Lewis could make it an even rangier OF. The nice thing about the OF for 2021 is that the Twins will have a ton of options - Buxton (27), Kepler (28) and Rosario (29) would all be under team control for that season before getting to free agency. The minors OF depth is really, really good - Royce Lewis (22), Baddoo (22), Kiriloff (24) all have all-star upside in the OF. Pearson, Wade and Granite would all be under team control as well. We'll see how they develop over the next few years.

There's a lot to be excited about in our system next year. To name three that haven't come up as much - Tyler Jay - can he make the pen out of ST? Will this finally be the year our system gives us a true bullpen weapon? Jose Miranda - one of the other second round picks in 2016. Had a really nice season in Elizabethon and looks like he's growing into the power predictions Andrew Bechtold - I think he's a big time sleeper for us and I'm really excited to see how the Twins push him, since he'll be 22 next year.

Rosario put up a 120 OPS+ last year and I think Kepler can probably pull that off this year but I think his will be based on higher OBP and lower slg. He should become a good player for us and a solid piece in the bottom half of the order.

I liked the 2017 draft (although I was a moody little bitch on day one and way to angry we didn't draft for need) but I'm not sure it's as good as either 2012 or 2016. Time will tell. It's also good to remember that pushing prospects isn't new this year. We've been very aggressive with our prospects ever since Brad Steil took over the minor leagues.

We bought a small amount of AT&T for our IRAs. They seem like one of the big winners in the ****ty tax plan so ....

I posted this before but here are the starting pitchers the BBWAA has elected since 1990 - Jim Palmer, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, Blyleven, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Pedro, Big Unit. That's an incredible list of all-time greats. Seaver, Unit, Maddux, Niekro and Blyleven are all top 10 all time in pWAR. Carlton and Pedro each had two of the all-time seasons for pitchers. Ryan owns many records and is probably the most famous pitcher. Perry and Sutton threw over 5000 innings, etc. The BBWAA has been very small hall when it comes to pitchers, demanding innings, hardware and substantial peaks. If these 14 are the standards for being a HOF pitcher - and they shouldn't be - guys like Moose and Schilling are going to wait but eventually get in and guys like Johan Santana and Kevin Brown don't even get considered. Sutton and Niekro had to wait five or six years. Blyleven longer. My guess is that Moose and Schilling will both get in sometime in the next 3 years.

Yeah, tough ballot. I think he should be in but I'd vote for 10 guys before him.

On the PED guys, if I had a vote, I'd vote for 10 guys. If there were 14 guys who I thought had reasonable HOF claims I'd vote for the guys who I thought weren't roiding up before I voted for the roiders. I'm positive the voters have already elected some roiders so it's really a question about the handful of guys who were actually linked to PEDS in some way. Most roiders got away without any punishment.

I'd vote for 10 guys just because I like a big hall. In no particular order, I'd vote for Andruw Jones, Vlad, Edgar, Moose, Schilling, Walker, McGriff, Thome, Johan Santana, Chipper.

Wait, you think a team should have 14 players producing 4 or more WAR each year? I don't think that has ever happened. Cleveland won 102 games last year and had 4 players produce 4 WAR or more. Houston won 101 and had 6. Dodgers won 104 and had 5.

Might depend on what we expect out of them. I see Rodney as a fairly reliable, safe 60-70 innings guy out of the pen. Maybe as a closer. Not elite but no worse than Everyday Eddie. Pineda is a lottery ticket who might throw a few innings this year and might be able to give the Twins 20 or more starts as a #3 type next year. I'd have been fine giving Kintzler or Neshek the two year deals they got but it might very well be that the FO is pinching pennies to sign Darvish or Cobb. I figured they had about 20m to spend, others think it was closer to 30. We've spent about 8.

Yeah, not a huge move but he's an upgrade and I'm ok with him closing and having other (better) options pitch in different parts of the game. And if my mental math is right, we've added about 7m or so to payroll this offseason. Not sure we can do much more and sign Darvish.

Well, if the Bucs traded for Burdi, I think it's a lock that they'll keep him next year when he's recovering from TJ surgery. Bummer but with his injury history, I'll give the FO another pass here.

It's not a bad signing. I'm good with it. Not the answer to all our problems.

Granite, as a LH hitter, isn't a great fit for our current OF anyway. Ideally, we'd want our 4th OFer to be a righty to give Kepler a day off against lefties during the season.

Agreed. I think he's an NL pitcher only.

We might also be over estimating Cole. He has name recognition but he was decidedly average last year and only threw 116 ml innings the year before. He can eat innings but his era and fip weren't great. What do we think we're getting for his two years?

Sano is represented by roc nation, just like his idol, Robinson Cano. http://rocnation.com/miguel-sano/ Lewis is a Boras client (and so is Gerritt Cole)

I thought a trade for Cole would have to include Gordon and Romero/Gonsalves but I think Jay and Granite is a roughly equal to that. I like Gordon a lot (I think he's our #1 prospect) and Jay could be an absolute killer in the pen but his injury history is such that I think its ok to move on. But he could really come back to bite us. But Cole could be a nice piece in our rotation. I think the deal is fair - might be a bit too kind to Pitt and maybe they need to throw in a small piece back - but it's certainly a decent starting place for a negotiation.

I like the optimism. I think the Twins will give him a shot.

Well, Kintzler was actually pretty good, so .... I think there are two issues and one is being ignored or missed. The first issue was "is trading Kintzler good for the season?" That's been addressed. Team had 5% chance of making playoffs, yada, yada, yada. But the second question, "is a weakened bullpen a problem if we make the playoffs", is being ignored. And let's remember that we didn't get a great prospect back for him. We got a c-level prospect. He'll be 21 next year and likely pitching in high A ball. He didn't make Sickels top 20. MLBpipeline seems to be the highest on him and has him at 18 in our system. According to them, his fastball rarely touches 90. He has no plus pitches, he has control problems. They think he still has some room for projection left as he grows into his body but I suspect that part will change in their next write up. Other writers have been less kind. And that's the prospect that the FO decided was worth getting in exchange for weakening a bullpen in the post-season.

One could think that making our bullpen worse for a C-level prospect was a mistake regardless of a one game playoff in NY. Perhaps the fact that we had a weak bullpen made us have to use two starters in one game? I think fans have gone a little overboard about trading talent. It seems like some are ok so long as we did 'something' because something is better than nothing when that's not necessarily true.