gunnarthor

I think there might be a sense that the Dodgers are in a desperate "win-now" mode. They've arguably underachieved in the playoffs four years in a row and Kershaw, although still young, is starting to show mileage. With SF in the same division they have a lot of pressure to get a ring soon so I'm not surprised that writers outside of MN might think the Dodgers will overpay (in our view) for an established second baseman. The Dodgers do have some really good young talent debuting as well but the team does seem to be entering a bit of a transition phase. Last year they had 9 players amass 2 WAR or more but only 2 of them will be younger than 27 next season (Seagers is their best player though). That said, I have no idea what the Twins can get back for Dozier although I hope Falvey/Levine blow us away.

Molitor and it's not even close.

I laughed although I agree that Dozier won't get a top 10 guy (although I'd be thrilled if he did).

Sure, there are some currently elite short stops but that's normal. Top prospect lists always have a lot of short stops (and RHP). That's where the athletes are. But what happens is that the players will move into tiers and the elite tier will be a few players - maybe 5-8 - and then you'll see another drop and another tier. Gordon doesn't project to that top tier but he seems fairly capable of making that second tier. mlbpipeline has him #47 in the game and #11 shortstop in the minors. Some of the guys you like more will not make the majors until Gordon's been up for a bit and others will drop out of the elite status, etc. I'd happily trade him for Lindor, of course, but he still profiles to be a pretty good player.

Molitor. Blair Walsh. A few people associated with the U of MN sports. Mauer. Speilman for not fixing the line. Pohlad. Molitor should win.

Depending on what you want to consider an "ace" guys like Radke, Buehrle, Kluber, Dallas Keuchel, Jose Quintana, and John Lackey were also never top 100 prospects. All of those guys have a claim to being an "Ace" - either several 5 WAR seasons or even a couple Cy Young awards.

Actually, they misspent some dollars, too, but big payrolls are able to handle those misses better than other teams.

I think you're overstating the shortstop talent pool. It's not surprising that most prospect lists (team wise and top 100) have lots of shortstops (and starting pitchers). That's where the best players play. But right now the majors have maybe 4 legit elite short stops (Seager, Lindor, Russel and Bogaerts) and two more elite third baseman playing short (Correa and Machado) and Crawford if you like him. After that, it's not that much. If Gordon can be avgish defensively and avgish offensively - meaning that he can play defense well enough as Nunez did this year and hit something around a .320 wOBA, he's a 2.5-3 WAR player. (Basically, Nunez this year). If his defense is better than avg by just a tick or he hits better than that, he's even better. And if he can develop some doubles power (his ISO this year wasn't great), he can improve even more.

Johan Santana was never on a top 100 list. If you're using something like Sickel's definition of an ace, you're probably right that most are identified. If you're going off of ML results, many pitchers slip through and are far better - even pitching at ace levels - without being heavily regarded in the minors.

Yeah, for those who want a conspiracy theory, they have one now. I'm fine if she challenges the results - it's her right and it's within the legal window to do so. But I'd be stunned if she gets any state to switch.

Not sure if this is the right place or the other baseball section but Ben Badler of BA - who is probably the best writer on the international baseball market - had some pretty good thoughts on the international pool, the draft and how to better help small market teams. He opposes a draft and favors increasing all teams draft pool to an equal amount (12m) and possibly increasing penalties for going over that 12m. http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/increased-bonus-pools-make-sense-international-draft/#LiZM1U3FJO3pMoTT.97 "One of the major flaws of the current system is that the bonus pools are too small. In an effort to help owners keep more money by limiting signing bonuses, MLB implemented the bonus pools in 2012, but by making the pools so restrictive, MLB ended up incentivizing teams to go over their pools. .... As one international director pointed out to me, raising the bonus pools might even have the impact of making the top Cuban players more affordable. When Moncada was available in early 2015, the Red Sox and Yankees were already over their 2014-15 bonus pools, while the Cubs, Dodgers and others were already planning to go over theirs later that year when the 2015-16 pools kicked in on July 2. That’s a lot of leverage for Moncada’s camp to use. Or when the Dodgers signed Yadier Alvarez for $16 million on July 2, 2015, the Alvarez camp had the same type of leverage options to them. However, if players no longer have 10 teams over their bonus pool or willing to go over their pool at once, that leverage dissipates. If no teams are willing to go over their bonus pool or only one team is willing to go over, it’s hard to drive the price much past $12 million, though a special talent like Moncada would probably be an exception." I'm not sure his plan is perfect but he does bring up a lot of good points.

If it's to play catcher, then I'd take Castro because I'm not convinced McCann will be able to stay behind the plate. He'll be 33 next year. He's been pretty durable and frankly I think he's been a bit under rated these years because he was never quite as good as Mauer, Posey and, for a few years, Molina. But he has legit power that might play up a bit in that joke stadium Houston has. But, yeah, I agree with Levi and would rather have Castro, esp since I don't have to give up prospects for him.

Well, hopefully he can help nibblers like Gibson

I started this thread so I will try and re-summarize my position. I don't overly care if the payroll this year is under 100m or not. But I do know that the Twins have the capacity to have a payroll pushing 110 or even 120m. So, my issue is that I don't think ownership will push payroll OVER in the good years despite clearly saving money in the down years. I admit, we don't yet know if that will happen but I think it will. So I do think we should remember that the Twins didn't add payroll in certain years when the Twins start bitching about how they can't spend PAST a certain number.

The Cubs built through free agency and trades. The draft thing is a false narrative.

Well, if you're just looking at grades you're not going to see many above a 60. That's a really high grade. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-21-prospects-los-angeles-dodgers/ The Dodgers Alverez - who hits 100 - and has good secondary projections only got a 60. The same guy wrote both the Twins and the Dodgers write up so his conclusion was "There’s also blatantly obvious risk. Alvarez is young, raw and throws astoundingly hard which all present potential pitfalls. But this combination of body, delivery, arm strength and impact breaking ball is the stuff young aces are made of and the ceiling here is immense. I think this is one of the highest upside arms in the minor leagues." But those kind of write ups are rare. I think most of his prospect rankings will fall in the 45-55 FV (which is probably where they should). He also has Jose De Leon, who we are bringing up a lot in our Dozer dream trades, as a "solid #3 or #4 starter."

http://joeposnanski.com/porcello-v-verlander/ A few days late but a nice little read. Pos points out that a lot (if not all) Verlander's WAR lead was because of how WAR calculated defense. And Pos doesn't think those numbers accurately reflect what happened.

Probably depends on when and who is doing the ranking. Both Stewart and Berrios have been called aces by various prospect rankings over the years and Jay certainly had #2 projections put on him. As have Meyer and Thorpe (pre-injury, of course).

Sure, but you're basing it on one guy right now. Sickels gave the Twins 5 B+ guys. I like Gordon a lot, always have and he'll be a top 40-60ish prospect to start the year on most lists. Stewart was the type of pick every one was demanding the Twins take while forgetting that HS pitching arms are very risky. Look at Kolek, Aiken and Trey Ball. Would you still be complaining if Stewart was the 4th round pick and Gonsalves was the first round pick? Stewart is 21 and pitching in AA. Jay was a riskier upside pick but looking at what was available it wasn't a big miss (I was hoping Tate would drop or we'd draft Cameron so it's a good thing I wasn't drafting) and will still be a top 100 guy on most lists. So, basically, the Twins had 4 picks in the top 6 or better. One was an elite prospect who is now in the majors. Two more are still generally top 100 prospects and the fourth in a HS arm in AA. I mean, realistically, that's not bad. Sure, it could be better but when you're only looking at four guys and two are pitchers and three are HS players, you're drafting some risk. Some of that risk will mean that the upside isn't reached but you're still looking at four players who are all likely to be ML regulars.

Seems mostly fair. I think we're a bit overly concerned about the grade - esp for guys far, far away. But some issues - Gonsalves' stuff for example - has been hinted at before. He was also higher on Javier than I would have guessed. The team seems to have depth but not a ton of upside right now. But it's also important to remember that this is just one guy. We'll see a lot of reviews in the next few months and ideally we look at the rankings as a whole and not just focus on the one really negative or really positive one. But the Twins have already graduated a big group of players that they expect to be more than just regular guys so it's not surprising that the system is a bit down. They still have some nice talent and will add more in the June draft and might add more if/when they trade Dozier and/or Santana.

Occasionally.

Looks like the Twins will probably have a payroll under 100m this year. I imagine the money saved will not be used to increase payroll a few years from now when we could use it.

Good to see. I've always liked Hunter and the players do too.

As to the second issue, I just personally don't like one big thread to discuss everything because I want to see if/what other people wrote before I comment and I don't want to read through tons of pages on other stuff that isn't related to that topic. Others may feel different - I know Mike has a thread for all national publications on the Twins which I also ignore.

That and a belief that Garver is ready.