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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    Oh, sure. But that's a few different regimes/draft coordinators. Things really changed under Deron Johnson. And "safe" college arms, to me, sounded like the control specialist college pitchers Radcliff drafted - Slowey, Baker, Duensing et al. Completely different from the high upside velocity/high risk reliever strategy of Johnson.
  2. gunnarthor
    I'm not sure that's true at all. Their drafts since 2012 have been some HS OF with tools but also several HS arms and some non-typical college arms (lots of relievers). Actually, looking at picks taken in the top 100 of each of those drafts only 5 players qualify as a "safe" college arm or HS OF - Buxton, Eades, Kiriloff, Babadoo and Jax. Lots and lots of college relievers and a fair number of HS SS were nabbed as well.
  3. gunnarthor
    What are the chances that Bakauskas can clean up his delivery enough to be a starter at the ML level? If we could sign him #1 at #4 money ...
  4. gunnarthor
    I think you're overreacting a bit.
  5. gunnarthor
    I think you're reading a bit much into this. The international signings under Smith were great and he pushed ownership to pay a record amount for Sano. That's all great. The point I was trying to make with Romero was that Romero wasn't a huge financial signing but a scout pushed for him. As for Ryan, not sure why we're set on dragging him into this but since we've just seen the 2009 international signing guys make the majors, we'll probably have a few years before we can see the 2012+ groups. As for why people are somewhat dissatisfied with Smith is because he inherited a pretty young ML team and made some trades that didn't work out in either the short term or the long term.
  6. gunnarthor
    Yeah, they've certainly had their misses, too.
  7. gunnarthor
    ? I suppose we could argue that Ryan would have passed on Sano et al but we've seen his international signings as well so I'm not sure that's a huge point. And while Sano is a huge get, I'm not sure guys like Diaz, Javier et al won't be equal to or better than guys signed under Smith. It just takes a while to grade out the classes when most of them are signed at 16. But Ryan probably wouldn't have traded away Garza or Ramos either, so ...
  8. gunnarthor
    In all honesty, he deserves credit for pushing in Latin America and continuing to do so after he was dismissed as GM but the credit for Romero (and a guy like Thorpe) belongs to the individual scouts that said this kid was worth a quarter of a million dollars. I don't know who that guy was but he did good.
  9. gunnarthor
    I like Romero a lot. Probably wouldn't have him #1 but six months from now it might look like the obvious decision. It's also a nice reminder that both Romero and Thrope were relatively unheralded international signings in 2011 that look pretty exciting.
  10. gunnarthor
    Man, Matusz. Remember when he was an absolutely untouchable pitching prospect? He followed that up with a solid but unspectacular rookie season and then kind of stumbled.
  11. gunnarthor
    Perkins 08 season isn't a horrible comp but I think Gonsalves would have better peripherals and, if fip matters to you, a better fip.
  12. gunnarthor
    I like Gonsalves but I'm not sure he's more than a legit 4/5 type pitcher. That's not a bad thing. He might be a 95-105 ERA+ type with 180 ip or so for a few years in the majors once he gets acclimated. But I like Romero, Stewart and Jay more than him and if Thorpe can get healthy, I like Thorpe more, too.
  13. gunnarthor
    I think Rodon would go #1. Sean Reid Foley might jump up into the top 10. Schwaber would go to a DH team with what we know. So maybe Rodon (Astros get the pitcher they need) Turner (Miami) Schwaber (White Sox)? Conforto (Cubs. He'd look good in LF for them) Gordon? (Twins over Finnigan and Nola?) Knowing what I know now, maybe Reid-Foley?
  14. gunnarthor
    He's a fun prospect and probably our best pure hitting prospect since Sano. But he is far away. I like that the development people pushed him to E-town early. And I like that he was up for the challenge. I'm hoping for a Cuddy-like player with better defense.
  15. gunnarthor
    He had a nice season and he was a high ranked prospect but he's looked bad in his very limited ML appearances in the IF. We'll see if he can stick at short but I don't think he can - at draft time some scouts said he was a second baseman at this level. And his .388 babip and 4% walk rate probably suggest a bit of coming back to earth. And as we've seen with the Polanco discussion, moving a guy off of shortstop kills his future potential there. But the real problem is comparing a HS pick to college picks less than three years after the draft. Turner was the better prospect - so far - but the distance isn't so far between them as to end discussion. If you thought Gordon was the right pick on draft day there's really no reason to have buyer's remorse yet.
  16. gunnarthor
    I think it probably depends on what you think their jobs are. Klaw has been pretty complementary of the Twins scouting and development people, for instance and there is no doubt that the Twins success in the 2000s was in large part due to the development people. Because of the nature of the draft (and international signings) we usually have a 4-7 year drag time so changes made in 2012 might just being seen at the ML level and not recognized by fans and changes made in 2008 might be impacting the ML roster right now. My opinion is that the changes made by Steil have been very good on the development side. The drafts under Johnson were not as sound although they got better after Ryan put more oversight on him. I would expect that Falvey and Levine, both of whom came from orgs that did a lot of building from within would have an understanding of that process that is better than "Stewart isn't striking anyone out, the development squad has failed us." And we've seen them make changes in regards to Johnson and left Steil (and others) in place.
  17. gunnarthor
    I'd take Gordon over Nunez (and Vielma). And even if we redid the draft, I'm not sure if we'd take him over Nola who finished the year with elbow problems or Turner who has been moved off of short at the ML level already.
  18. gunnarthor
    Third base if the Sano experiment fails, second base if they trade Dozier, bench option if he's crap at short. Basically, he has to hit from the get-go to stay in the lineup with his defense. Escobar was a disaster last year but he looked pretty good - offensively and defensively - before that.
  19. gunnarthor
    I think Duffey will be a starter in AAA to start with. The new FO might let him have one more shot at starting before moving him to the pen.
  20. gunnarthor
    I'm not sure this is the big colossal problem people make it out to be. Polanco isn't a great option at short. That's been part of his scouting reports for years. He's a future second baseman and it's a reason some are concerned about the defense this year. At the start of last year, the Twins probably thought that short would be handled at the ML level by Escobar, Santana or Nunez and it was time for Polanco to focus on his actual position - second base. Turns out, Nunez did ok and Escobar had his worst season. I suppose you could argue that, come May, the Twins should have changed their strategy but I'm not sure since Dozier also looked DOA in May. I believe we had a few posts here saying it was time to promote Polanco to play second base over Dozier. In any event, I think Escobar will end up making more starts at short this year than Polanco.
  21. gunnarthor
    They've already made some pretty big changes by replacing Deron Johnson. Jay himself wasn't a bad pick and he had a lot of helium at the time, he certainly wasn't a reach. The rumors had the Twins on him, Carson Fulmer, Daz Cameron and Kolby Allard, IIRC. The Jay pick - like the Stewart pick - were high upside gambles. Jay arguably had the best stuff in the entire draft (Klaw specifically said so). Most observers thought he could make the transition to starter and his floor looked like a knock-out relief pitcher. The rub on Benintendi was his build - 5'10" - and weak arm.
  22. gunnarthor
    Surprised he's this low. I think pretty much every national ranking has him #1 in our system and for good reason. Not really much to say with him. He'll be 21 next year and in AA. He has a few things to work on - like every prospect - but he seems pretty likely to be a solid MLer.
  23. gunnarthor
    That video is two years old.
  24. gunnarthor
    He's an exciting prospect. I don't think it's too early to rank him this high - I believe a few places have him in our top 10. The fangraphs prospect guy said Javier has the most upside of anyone in the system and ranked him #6. Sickels had him #9 and also gushed about the possible tools.
  25. gunnarthor
    Why did Mejia only get 2 innings in the majors last year? That really bugged me. Unless he was hurt, the Twins really screwed up by not giving him a few spot starts down the line. I like Mejia. He is what he is but that's not a bad thing. Relatively high floor with that lower ceiling. I like having him in the pitching depth line over guys like Walters and Albers. Most of the national write ups on him have been relatively kind as well.
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