gunnarthor

Ben Rortvedt is their second round pick. It's a nice pick. Solid HS catching prospect.

There's nothing wrong with this pick. It's not a reach and you don't draft for need in the MLB draft. I'm not sure why this is a "Twinsy" pick since they've been all over the place with their picks. Plus, the Twins have actually done a pretty good job of getting HS OFers to the majors.

Well, it looks like it was a good pick. Just not an exciting pick. But his bat is apparently pretty good for a HS kid and he certainly has some baseball background from his dad so maybe he's a fast mover through the system. Best of luck to him.

Shoot. I was really hoping for Hudson.

Well, Kiriloff (sp), Dunn and Hudson are still available so one of them will probably be a Twin.

I don't think so.

Yeah, that could suck.

Well Padres, as expected, took Quantrill. And Garrett is already off the board.

That's part of it but it's also a weaker group. Deep, but weak, if that makes sense.

Yeah, ignoring everything else, I can't believe they are doing this. Even if you think PEDs had nothing to do with his improbable career arc, he's been a jerk to this franchise every chance he's had.

I could be wrong but I thought there were rumors of him drinking a bit too much in high school.

http://www.startribune.com/dancing-when-17-40-twins-have-no-shame/382314661/ It's pretty rough - no one is spared. Players, coaches, development staff, FO, TF prices, etc. Except, he's actually pretty nice about ownership, which I find surprising. But what's wrong with the Twins/who is to blame has been covered enough on TD so this thread doesn't have to be that. Instead, I have two thoughts on this: 1) Say what you want about Reusse but I really think he love baseball. He wants the Twins to be good b/c baseball is his favorite sport. He seems more like an fed up fan than a columnist. 2) He's advocating for a complete blow up and this isn't the first time this year. Regardless of whether you agree with him, I suspect he knows (or has a very good hunch) that ownership will make some changes one way or other at the end of the season. He didn't rip on the Pohlads so maybe he has had conversations with them about the teams future? Is he just angry or does he know more?

Some people think Groome is 1-1 talent but not all agree. And part of making it to the majors is factoring in other issues including make up. Teams value those risks and act accordingly. I don't know what the issues Groome has are but others do. Keep in mind that HS pitchers aren't the safest bet in the first place, I'm not sure I'd throw my draft into chaos to take this guy. If we draft him with plans to give him more than slot, we have to know he'll take it, otherwise we wasted those picks. And if he's telling us he won't sign for (example) less than 4.3m, they might want to use the money on more players.

Royals deny shopping him while the reporter doubles down and says he has more sources - http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/06/royals-have-recently-offered-yordano-ventura-in-trades.html My guess is that the Royals could get a pretty good haul for him, warts and all. First, his contract is pretty team friendly. Second, even if he fails as a starter, he has the stuff to be a darn good bullpen piece and his contract isn't so high that a team would feel the need to start him to make it work. Third, he has good stuff so teams will dream on that. Lastly, next years free agent class for pitchers is utterly horrible. The possibility of getting a good starter (or solid bullpen piece at worse) will get a pretty good bidding war going, even if Ventura continues to slump. And that's unlikely, b/c he's better than how he has pitched so he's likely to have a few good starts coming up just to remind people that he is good.

Sure, tackling is allowed in football. And in baseball, throwing at a hitter is allowed. Pitchers do it all the time to claim the inside of the plate. Intentionally hitting someone is against the rules, just like tackling someone after the whistle is against the rules. Both happen (and, in fairness, sometimes the motives aren't evil intent - a pitcher just might want the other team to not be comfortable. A player might not have heard the whistle). And in both, players deal with it in the manner that is acceptable in their setting. Also, as a side note, this must be the fourth thread of mine that you've derailed into this argument. At a certain point, it's trolling. Maybe sit some of these out, ok?

Every sport allows "extra" things - not just hockey and baseball. In football, its on every play - its so common we don't even notice it anymore. Captain Motterlyn (I absolutely misspelled that) suplexs Drew Brees into the ground and gets an unnecessary roughing penalty and we all complain about the call. Saints players openly intend to knock the QB out the game and we all go, sure. In basketball, players hit each other with "accidental" elbows to send messages. Even in horse racing, jockeys hit each other with their whips. Your complaint that you can do violence in sports but not a bar is silly. You can't tackle a guy in a bar. You can't spike the whiskey bottle in a bar. You can't swear or cuss out someone else in a bar. You can't swing a bat in a bar. You keep comparing the social norms of one setting (sports) and complain that they don't work in another setting (work place or a bar). You can't compare them. They are too different. There's crap I can't do in America that I could do in Europe - it's useless to make those kind of comparisons.

That's silly. Every single sport - frankly, every workplace - has unwritten rules about proper behavior. I suspect you say stuff on the internet that you wouldn't dare say to a co-worker because the setting is different. You know which people in your office you can cuss around without concern and which co-workers would consider it harassment. Every workplace. Why do we expect pro players to be calmer? Some idiot on the internet insults you and, even after letting it stew for 10 minutes, you post something in return knowing full well that if you said it to his face, he'd deck you. And vice versa. Expecting professional athletes, who are way more competitive than us to not respond to someone disrespecting them is naive. That's why there are rules, unwritten as they are, on how to respond. As Maddon said, you can go to first or go to the mound. You don't get to bring your bat. It makes sense, in its own way. And every sport deals with it in its own way.

Again, these are just wildly silly comparisons. If a snake had shoes, would he wear them? I mean, it's nonsense. The better comparison is to compare actions that your workplace would find tolerable and compare that to other social settings that wouldn't. That doesn't mean that one setting is right and the other isn't.

All games police themselves. This isn't just baseball. Baseball just romanticizes it. But every sport has rules for respecting your opponent and nearly every scuffle/fight/brawl in any of these sports is b/c someone disrespected someone else. That's certainly not unique to baseball.

At 15, you're going to have warts. He has (arguably) the best stuff of any college pitcher. mlbpipeline's write up on him concluded with "His stuff, durable frame and performance give him the look of a frontline starter." He has stuff to work on but his upside is pretty darn good and a realistic floor for him would be a darn good closer. That's not bad.

We've had our differences on this and I continue to be baffled by you constantly comparing things on a baseball field to either normal work atmosphere or a normal social setting, like a bar. It's so far off the mark that we just end up arguing the silliest things. So, instead, I'll just post a few thoughts from others that I sort of agree with From Jayson Stark: "Joe Maddon is a big fan of the game policing itself. So he had no problem with Manny Machado charging the mound on Yordano Ventura -- and said he'd have no issue if one of his players felt a need to do that. "I've always told my players, `You've got two options (after you get drilled): Go to first or go to the mound.'" And if it meant having one of his best players suspended? "It was absolutely warranted. So why would I not want him to do that? We were in a pretty good fight with Boston (with the 2008 Rays). We had guys suspended for a whole month. And we went to the World Series."" So, either Maddon is a sensible dude or he has a lizard brain and enjoys watching criminal activities. From Deadspin's Barry Petchsky (and I think his line of thinking is probably accurate for most of us: "It’s been a good year for basebrawls, and I’m still wrestling with why I enjoy them so much at the same time I’d like to see staged fighting disappear from hockey. There are a few reasons, I think. Their rarity; the fact that they occur out of genuine anger as opposed to mere frustration, or an attempt to change a game’s momentum; what we know about the toll hockey already takes on its players’ health, something that seems to fall especially hard on enforcers. All I know is a good baseball fight is something special, and this was a good baseball fight."

I think there's a sizeable difference between an immature guy like Ventura and athletes who have done real harm to others. I find Ventura to be somewhat fun to watch from 500 miles away. He's exciting, got good stuff and is liable to start a baseball brawl. That's entertaining. Now, compare that to people like Chapman or Adrian Peterson. Those are the kind of guys I don't want on a team I'm rooting for.

Also, since we're on college pitchers, did Kyle Cody sign the piece of paper that would let the Twins redraft him this year? Is that bridge burned?

I'm a bit wary of taking Sedlock and am pretty firmly in the Hudson camp. Speaking of college pitchers, do you have any idea how the Twins view Alex Hansen? Would they consider him at 56?

I do think getting traded from a WS winning team to a last place team might be a big wake up call for the kid. But I think it's unlikely that the Royals would want to trade him within the division.