gunnarthor

Interesting read. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/17/the-guy-who-predicted-comeys-memos-thinks-comey-may-be-trying-to-take-down-president-trump/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_fix-miller-330pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.ae41030189ae

I don't like the Jay move either and I wonder if it was something that the player and agent pushed a bit more. Relief pitchers get paid a lot nowadays and if he is a knock-out reliever, he'll reach FA a lot faster than if he was a starter since it'd take him longer to reach the majors. But it's done so ...

Nice article. It'll be interesting to see how some of these guys in the rookie leagues play this year as well.

Wells is a fun prospect. Apparently he put on some weight in the offseason. Pipeline said of him: "Wells isn't going to blow anyone away with his stuff, but there are plenty of lefties in the big leagues who fit a similar profile. Just 20 for all of 2017, his feel for pitching could let him move a little more quickly, with the end result being a back-end starter at the highest level." Fangraphs said "Wells’ eccentric left-handed delivery is deceptive, which allows his 88-93 mph fastball to play up a bit. His curveball will garner swings and misses down beneath the strike zone but it doesn’t have the depth to compete within it. It’s a fringe-average offering in aggregate and could be average at maturity. Wells has intriguing changeup projection because of his arm speed and short arm action. His delivery is a bit violent and he’s definitely going to be more of a control than command guy, but he can get his breaking ball over early in counts and at least lives in the zone with his fastball. He has a chance to be a back-end starter or a deceptive three-pitch reliever."

I'm not sure that's right, Mike. McKay has been listed as top 10 as both but Greene, to my knowledge, has not.

Again, the time periods you are using aren't the same so your comparison automatically fails. The period you are complaining about, the Twins had three top 6 picks and lost out on two second round picks. They managed to find a couple top 100 guys outside of the first round in Burdi and Gonsalves. (Who is a top 100 depends on whose list, pipeline has three Twins, Sickels four, fangraphs one). Gordon is a top 10 shortstop. Wade might be a sleeper. And they made two high risk picks in Jay and Stewart. We know that not every top pick is going to pan out and HS arms are the riskiest. The three picks they have in this years draft will be the highest pick and the 5th and 6th highest picks they will have in the entire period (and we'll see a massive jump in our system). There are problems with the drafts as I pointed out above. But it's more nuanced than many are suggesting and the results aren't as bad as people seem to think, as well.

See, this is why your posts are sorta nuts. You want to complain about the last 10 years, now. OK. But over the last 30 years the Twins are tied for 4th most World Series. See, anything taken out of context is kinda silly. The professional evaluators - BA, Klaw, BP, etc - have been ranking the Twins system highly for several years. I believe this offseason, Klaw was the high man and had it ranked 11th and BA had the low end at 21. The results show that the farm systems have been among the best in baseball since 2012. As to your last question, here's the answer. Assuming you want to only look at drafts that are still part of the system (i.e. ignoring the 2012 draft), this is what you have: 2013 - Stewart, Gonsalves and Garver. Gonsalves and Stewart both made a few pre-season top 100 lists. Garver is a potential back-up catcher. Both pitchers were among the youngest arms in AA last year. 2014 - Gordon, Burdi and every relief pitcher ever. Gordon was a consensus top 100 guy, Burdi made some lists before his injury. Both are playing well this year and Burdi should be in MN fairly soon. 2015 - Jay. That's it. The Twins didn't have a second round pick because they signed Santana and their other second round pick didn't sign. (The draft also gave them LaMonte Wade who might be something). Jay made several top 100 lists pre-season but is now injured and moving to the bullpen. 2016 - Kiriloff and a bunch of very young players. Kiriloff was ranked top 100 in several rankings as well. This was an exciting draft but it's much too early to get a read on it. Several players were 17 on draft day. Kiriloff is out for the season. So, that doesn't seem like we drafted badly. Some bad luck with injuries but several top 100 types. No Buxton/Berrios in there but Gordon is probably in that second Kepler-like tier. Basically, the argument is that Jay and Stewart aren't what we want them to be today so the Twins must be horrible at drafting/developing.

My problem with posts like yours is that they are very broadly stated. They fail to recognize the "moment in time" or take it seriously. Baseball America, for example, has rated teams systems for since at least 2011. Only three teams have had been top 10 for four or more years in a row -Twins, Astros, Red Sox. (Rangers were close, too, because of international signings and that's a good omen for Lavine). The Astros had more picks in that period and the Red Sox took great advantage of their financial assets. Jayson Parks mocked the Angels system by saying the Twins 11-20 guys were better than the Angels 1-10. And he was right! The Twins dropped this year but anyone who has been following minor league systems know that the Twins have had amazing talent in their system. To suggest that they aren't good at drafting or signing etc during a very defensible down year is pretty cynical. And the Twins will easily be a top 10 system next year. Guys like Kepler, Polanco and even Berrios were not highly regarded guys. Berrios was a supp pick and neither Kepler nor Polanco were major signings in their international group (both were in the 18-20 range on bonuses). The team developed them. Rosario was a 4th rounder. So was Gonsalves. Thorpe and Romero were cheap signings. So was Wells.

So maybe someone can correct me but I think I'm about 95% right. Here are the GM/scouting directors over certain periods. 95-07 - Ryan/Radcliff. I think we all more or less agree that this duo did good in this era. They did have some misses on pitchers but got some good seasons out of some important picks. 08-11 - Smith/Johnson. Rough period with limited successes. Gibson is the only pitcher that made the majors from those drafts. 12* - Ryan/Johnson/Radcliff*. Good draft. Duffey made it as a starter before going to the pen and Berrios looks promising. 13-16 - Ryan/Johnson - jury is still out but looks underwhelming but the classes are still in the system. Only 4 starting pitchers taken in the first 100 picks of any draft. 17- Lavine/S. Johnson - big draft coming up. Probably takes a few pitchers. * I put this asterisk here because I'm positive I read a lot of articles in 2012 about how Radcliff was a big advisor but didn't read those stories in subsequent years. I think Radcliff had a lot of input on that draft and was the de facto draft decider that day. Jeremy or Seth could correct me. I think it's fair to analyze why Deron Johnson's drafts looked different from Radcliff's drafts, since they both probably had similar scouts (I know that's not completely true). I've mentioned before that Johnson had some strategies that I didn't love but at least understood - taking velocity over control and relief pitchers as a potential spot for finding ML starters. Those two decisions probably impacted how our system is currently sitting. Johnson also seemed to go for HS pitchers more and some have looked good - Berrios and Gonsalves. ** I don't know who was in charge of international signings in these periods.

Is one of the two (McKay/Wright) considered a ground ball pitcher or fly ball pitcher or are they both about normal?

If it doesn't change by June, our draft went in a whole different direction ...

And just a few more stats Nolasco, ERA+ 91, -0.2 fWAR, 0.4 bWAR Santiago, ERA+ 108, 0.6 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR

Well, sure. Dave just seemed to present as fact that we were bottom five and I was trying to figure out if this was based on something or just a number he pulled out of his behind. We all agree that the system is low on top of the rotation types. I currently believe only two pitchers have the potential to make it that far and they are far from realizing it (Romero and Thorpe). The rest are 4/5 types but I think that's somewhat common among all teams. If Romero steps up his game, do we move from 22 to 13, for example, and does that matter?

I have no idea of who/what they should spend international money on. I suspect teams might have connections with certain agents and take those players. It does seem like most int. lists are players, not pitchers, but I could be wrong.

Yeah, the overall record this year might be anywhere between 75 and 85 wins depending on luck but the emergence of these young players is the more important thing. I really wish May hadn't gotten hurt. I'd have liked him to get 30 starts this year.

Oh man, Chitown took this more seriously than I wanted. Hope she didn't read the tag ...

Because the time period covered in that statement doesn't equate to the time period covering the current farm system. The Twins have drafted two pitchers high in that time period - Jay and Stewart. They lacked a second round pick and failed to sign another second round pick. They drafted several relief pitchers. In fact, in the time frame you are covering the Twins drafted four pitchers in the top 100 picks of any draft - Jay, Stewart, Eades and Jax. On the international side, the Twins aimed at hitters. I think (I could be wrong) that the only 'big' dollars they've given to pitchers were Jorge (about 350 IIRC) and Ynoa (800k).

Did you forget to copy the grammar? I went to Brietbart last night to see how they were dealing with it and it was pretty bad. More anonymous leaks, MSM agenda, libtards, Comey incompetent. etc. I think Trump might never get an approval rate lower than 30% no matter what he does.

Wasn't fangraphs the high man on Romero?

What do you think most teams have? There are very few 1/2 in the minors. A few more threes.

Doesn't Sickels' comment "mid tier at best, probably bottom tier" suggest it's better than bottom five?

Rough story, apparently he passed away two weeks ago. Bernadino with the link today. Didn't see it posted elsewhere, apologies if it was. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/high-school-preps/sd-sp-preps-henry-sanchez-20170504-story.html

We have several emojis available to us. I'd like to use this one :shoot: in response to Dave. Is that allowed?

Yeah, I don't think any of our positions are in danger, long term, so we're going to ride it out but hold onto our cash a bit longer. I'm kicking around selling Shopify since I doubled my money in six months but I'll probably let it ride, too. There might be some good buy positions in a few months. If I was more of a gambler, I might short a few things but I'm not, so I won't.

Meyer is 27 years old. He's made 10 starts in the majors. He's worth negative value so far this season. I mean, if you think the Twins shouldn't move on from guys before they're 28, that's ok. But otherwise, it was over. Move on.