gunnarthor

He was a nice pick. I think he's a sleeper for us.

I think the owners are colluding. Probably not the players though ...

What's worse was that Fox News had the story pre-election and didn't air it.

Honestly, until the owners step up and show what kind of payroll this team can support, I don't think there is any reason for Buxton to sign longterm. He makes minimum this year and then has three arb years left. He could realistically make 40m in just those three arb years without locking himself to the team. First arb year - 4-7m second arb year - 11-16m third arb year - 16-20+ Charlie Blackmon just got 14m in his third year, Donaldson just got 23m! Machado is going to the arbitrator b/c he couldn't come to an agreement but he'll easily get 20m, I'd bet. Salaries are sky rocketing. And as a FA at 28, he should bet on himself at this point.

Man, salaries are increasing. Machado and Orioles aren't going to reach an agreement either so he could, if he wins, push salaries higher for guys like Buxton down the road.

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.

Good for everyone. He gets a nice pile of money, Twins get a nice UI-type player.

5? Players strike out more so we're going to have to get used to that. Doing a fangraph search and there were 345 players in the rookie leagues that got at least 150 at-bats last year. 65 of them had a worse K% than Javier. Many of them were older.

Well, by 2009, he was an established big leaguer in his second season with the Twins and about to put up his second 200ip, 2 WAR season so ... But right before the 2008 season, Nick Blackburn was ranked #56 overall by BA. They liked him a lot and said he could be a #3 type. I don't think Kiriloff will be ranked in BA's top 100 so Blackburn would likely slot in at #3 on this list. We don't seem to have the data for his ground ball rate in the minors, except for 21 innings in 2010 (and it was over 60% in that SSS), but I remember reading about how Blackburn was a worm killer (and he was #9 overall in the AL in 08-09 in that) and his fastball sat around 92 (fangraphs agrees). The concern was he didn't miss enough bats but write ups were really excited about some changes he made in the 07 season and he struck out nearly a batter an inning in the Arizona Fall League. Klaw wasn't as big on him, BA was the high man, but even Klaw thought he had a good command of his pitches and understood pitching so thought he could be a solid back-end starter, which he was for a few years.

Interesting list. They are certainly high on Javier and Mayo had a similar article on him earlier this offseason, that I don't have a link to. BA was generally the low man on the Twins system last year (bottom third, IIRC) and I think they'll take a similar view this year with maybe only two players in their finished top 100? I'm glad we have another list - both BA and Sickels are higher on Rooker than I thought we'd see (and Javier, too, but that might just have been my ignorance on him).

I know he was only a Twin for one year but it was a memorable year and I always liked him. Hudson is on the HOF ballot this year - he won't receive a vote - but he had a nice career and Poz gives him a nice write up. https://www.mlb.com/dbacks/news/orlando-hudson-overcame-odds-to-excel-in-mlb/c-264056974

Good for him and I'm glad the FO brought him back to the org. One of my favorite Twins ever and from everything I've read, he's a truly nice guy.

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.

I don't mind 98 as much as others. We didn't play bad and Atlanta just played better. It happens. They were a good team. Same goes for the Walsh miss and the Saints loss, both were tough losses but the games were pretty entertaining. I was a kid when Darren Nelson dropped the pass in the end zone and that made me cry. The 01 Championship game in NY is actually the one I hate the most as an adult. We just flat out didn't show up. I was in school out east at the time and I had made several bets against Giants fans and ordered a crap ton of food. We were down 24-0 before my pizza arrived.

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2018/1/4/16849216/yu-darvish-free-agent-rumors-twins Author suggests Twins are either stupid, incompetent or Darvish doesn't want to sign with us.

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.

Yeah, I compared his numbers to other first baseman and he's probably about the 10th or 11th best over the last three years. He's not elite but probably pretty solidly in the second tier of first baseman (and he'll still make less/year than what our third tier first baseman is making). I imagine they are paying for his age (28 next year) and reasonable walk and strike out rates. He also benefits from being one of the truly good FA hitters in a thin market. And his offense probably jumps up a notch in the NL. And really, what do you think a .300/.385/.500/25hr/4WAR/130 OPS+ 27 year old hitter with durable track record should get? 20m/yr seems pretty reasonable and I suspect the extra year is part of a bidding war.

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 saw this during the Saturday night game against the Packers. The players were ranked by something called pro football focus and the announcers talked a lot about how Harrison Smith was the #1 safety. But the rankings for other guys - Xavier Rhodes was something like 29 out of 90+ corners, Kendricks was 50ish out of 100 or so linebackers - seemed low to me but I don't obsess about football that much. Can someone explain why their rankings are lower than what I would have assumed. If I'm understanding the rankings, about every team has a corner as good as Rhodes while I thought he was having a pretty good year.

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.

Here's the thing. No Twins GM has ever said they'd sign a top free agent. Ever. Both Levine and Ryan have said similar things about payroll - stay within limits, build up a better farm/analytic department, look for good fits in FA. But every year, fans get super excited about a big name free agent signing here and then blame the GM when they don't get him.

Agreed, Adams is the better pitching prospect right now b/c he's closer to the majors and has a safer floor but we have several pitchers with better ceilings. The Twins could compete if Adams is the centerpiece. They can't if Frasier is.

That's not true. Adams is a nice floor guy, close to the majors but I'd take Romero's stuff (and Gaterol and Thorpe) over him. He and Gonsalves are similar as prospects but Adams has more success in AAA. Although Adams is more likely to move to the pen than Gonsalves.