gunnarthor

Give him more time before we overly worry but his bat still doesn't look good and he's not Andruw Jones or even Torii Hunter out there in CF. He needs to hit a lot more than he has otherwise he's a AAAA player.

The proposal isn't as bad as people here think. Revere and Howard does make some sense if the Twins are trying to contend this year (and waiting to see if Toronto wants to dump Bautista does too). This came up in the offseason and Philly would pick up most of the salary, making the Twins pay Howard about 6m this year and another 6m next year. Revere is still under team control for two more seasons. Howard, when healthy, is certainly a better hitter than Vargas or Pinto. Revere has always graded out well in the corner OF spots and would be an upgrade over Schafer/Robinson, if nothing else. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/05/rosenthals-latest-papelbon-marlins-padres-angels-twins.html Obviously, the Twins aren't going to have to give up their top prospects for those guys. It would depend on the deal but it's not crazy, esp with the limited production they've gotten so far from DH/1B and CF. I like Hicks' defense in CF but (in 10 games) he's putting up a 34 OPS+. Until Buxton is up, CF is a black hole for us. If the deal was some bigger part of the salary, Jake Reed and Hu, I'd probably be ok with it.

Honestly, I think he's having a very good season. You should expect rust but it looks like he needed just two or three weeks to get the swing back - His krate and walk numbers looked good from the get go. Frankly, I think we should all be extremely excited about our AA prospects, they are doing great.

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/bryan-price-ejected-from-game-before-it-even-starts-1706547924 I'm honestly not sure if I've seen this before but the Reds manager got thrown out prior to the game starting. Apparently he was still upset about some bad calls the game before. The Reds are not good and he's probably on the hot seat at this point.

Twins love toolsy HS guys, they love bloodlines, they've been scouting the crap out of GA the last few years and they are pretty good at developing CFers. He seems (to me) a perfect fit outside of being represented by Boras.

I've marched in the MPLS pride parade several times now and as a reminder, you can march with groups as well. One such group is the ACLU of MN, which worked hard on both the Vote NO! campaign and lobbying for same sex marriage has a facebook page where you can sign up and march - you get a free shirt as well. https://www.facebook.com/events/906122516096172/ The parade will be June 28th at 11am. The parade is a lot of fun and you can carry signs or pass out candy. It's also very open and a bunch of different types of people participate.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/05/21/hit-and-run-tim-lincecum-joe-mauer-san-francisco-giants-minnesota-twins It looks at Mauer's lost power and concludes with "Minnesota may not wind up contending, but if Mauer and some of those other players can get going, it could at least break its four-year string of sub-.500 finishes, turning the corner toward a time when top prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano become centerpieces of the lineup." The most interesting thing in the article is that Mauer has lost a lot of distance on his fly balls while his strike out rate has increased. I'm certainly not a scout but it always seemed to me that his bat always took a long route threw the zone, which led to a lot of opposite field hits. But his bat speed may have slowed a bit, leading to more strikeouts and less power (esp up in the zone). So maybe he needs to completely abandon his inside out swing and use his lower half more? Someone like Parker would know more than I, obviously.

Yeah, at his age he could fossilize at any moment. I think Molitor is doing a good job of resting him. He's only started 35 of the first 40 games (a 140 game pace) and DH'ed him in 5 of those so he's been fairly rested in RF. Ideally, Hicks/Rosario/Arcia/Buxton start pushing him for playing time and with Vargas' struggles, he could DH even more once Arcia is back. But right now Rosario and Buxton aren't ready.

I think most of us thought last year would be an outlier and that he'd be better on the Twins for a few reasons - first, he missed time last year in the first half with lower body injuries. We don't know how that affected his defense but we do know his offense picked up in the second half. Secondly, the Twins have some success positioning players (Orlando Hudson) so I liked the idea of Molitor working with him more than Ausmus. And Comerica might be the hardest RF to play in the AL. In any event, it's always fun to look at the defensive stats. According to fangraphs, Hunter has made the second most plays out of zone. -shrug- So he's doing ok for a guy on a one year deal who isn't blocking anyone and was supposed to help the team's chemistry. Good for him.

Recent mocks don't have him lasting to #6 but fangraphs had a nice write up on him. In conclusion they say: "Bregman may not be a top-10 pick in a more typical draft year, but that’s what he’ll be in June due to a sheer lack of top-flight talent and injuries to some prospects that would have gone in that range. He lacks the upside I want in a player who will be selected so highly, but he’s one of the draft crop’s safest bets to hit in the big leagues and has a chance at playing a premium defensive position. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hits at the top of an order for a decade and makes an all-star team in a peak year, but as a bad-case scenario, he should be an everyday regular who offers some defensive flexibility up the middle." Honestly, he seems like a boring pick to me but it's a good thing I'm not in charge of the draft.

I can't see Tate falling to #6 but would love for it to happen.

The problem is a lot of experts on these boards don't actually know what a good baseball decision is but are more than willing to insult those making them.

As to Meyer, I'm being stubborn but I want to see him fail as a starter in the majors before we give up on him as a starter. Even if he's failing as a starter in AAA. But considering how good he was (when healthy) last year, I think it has to be a mechanical issue and the Twins probably realize that.

http://www.und.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/021315aaa.html Don't really know where else to place this and it's a bit old but apparently Hunter jr missed his senior year of baseball b/c of an injury and then went to Notre Dame on a football scholarship to be a wide receiver. He'll be playing on the baseball team this year though but it's been a three year lay off for him. Obviously, he must be a great athlete and football seems to be his first love but does anyone know how well regarded he was as a baseball player in HS before his injury? Could he have been a real prospect?

Actually, Turner is not the highest selected catcher since Mauer. That honor belongs to Jose Morales, taken #77 in the 2001 draft. He was a pretty good hitting catching but ripped up his knee in 07 and never really made it. Played a bit with Colorado. Anyhow, minor league ball did a list of the top 20 or so catchers in this draft. Weak as a group and a few are all bat but probably won't stick at the position. http://www.minorleagueball.com/2015/4/7/8357559/2015-mlb-draft-the-catchers A guy like Hickman could be interesting as a third round pick, I suppose.

Thanks Jimmer, I've been trying to think of how to formulate my concern not so much with the stat itself but the weight we should give it or maybe how we should perceive it. (And it's possible I'm the only one reading these predictions in this way when we should remember they are projections instead). According to current standings, the Twins are a 91-71 team. According to current pyth w/l, the Twins are a 83-79 team. According to current base runs, the Twins are a 64-98 team. So, going forward, which is right? Are the Twins a really lucky but secretly horrible team as base runs implies? Are they a playoff team as their current record suggests? Are they a .500ish team as I predicted? I think my concern is someone might look at the stat as a snapshot today and say, "Oh, team X is playing well/bad" when that isn't necessarily the case. The Twins offense has been #1 in runs in May and #4 in OPS (not adjusted for parks). That, unsurprisingly, has coincided with Dozier, Hunter and Plouffe starting to come out of early season slumps. It's likely that Mauer and Santana are also going to get better. The Twins had a -29 run differential after the first 7 games. They've had a +34 over the last 32. (While playing the 5th hardest schedule). I would imagine a lot of baseruns standings are still relying heavily on that first week. I know baseruns changes daily and as such should be reminded that it's just a snapshot. A team can make changes - the A's last year in the link you sent me were a 103 win team by baseruns. They finished with 88 after they made some dubious personnel moves. The Twins team today isn't the one that will finish the season. Danny Santana, Arcia, Gibson, HIcks will improve simply b/c they are still inexperienced players gaining experience in the majors. So, outside of that first week, I don't think the Twins have played like a 98 loss team. I think they are a .500ish team going through expected growing spurts - sometimes hot and sometimes cold. And I think the FO will make changes to the team as the season goes on that baseruns can't account for.

I have no idea how fangraphs calculates those stats but I would guess that some of the same factors that give them a lower pitching WAR is used (lack of strike outs probably being huge and their fip calculations) - So if you think Gibson and Hughes are replacement level pitchers right now (as fangraphs does) that probably affects the longterm outlook of the team. We already see a 2 WAR difference between fWAR and bWAR on the pitchers and a less extreme split on the hitters (although that's probably related more to defense). I would be nice to see how predictive baseruns was but I don't see fangraphs having it listed for previous years standings.

Do we have scouting reports on Meyer? Is he trying to do something specific, results be damned? Or is he just struggling so much with his command right now that he has to throw things over the middle of the plate?

Yep, Twins aren't trading anyone unless they are out of the race.

I'd hang onto Plouffe and hope that he moves down the batting order as guys come up. His play at third defensively is really good and his bat is good enough. A lineup where he's hitting 6th or 7th could be pretty deep. If they trade him, the other team will have to give up a ton and I don't think the Twins will trade him if they are still sniffing .500. (Although they could. Ryan traded Castillo mid season). But I don't think other teams will meet the Twins price for him. And the good teams that need 3B help the most, don't have good prospects to offer back.

Nice line, although a few too many walks. 6ip, 1 run, 2h, 4bb, 6k. 93 pitches.

Yeah, missing out on Appel doesn't look so bad. And it's also a good reminder of how his agent really helped him by having him not sign with Pitt. Everyone attacked Boras and said his client would get more eventually as a FA but right now it looks like going back to school made a lot of finical sense for him.

I love the optimism. Hughes, Gibson, Santana, May.

Someone else (willhammer?) posted the stats of LSU's catcher who is supposed to go somewhere in the 4th round area.

I thought they'd be ".500ish" and I'll stick with that. I think the ML team is doing a great job of holding its own and with potentially big reinforcements coming this season (and younger guys improving), I might be on the low end. But I'll stick to ".500ish".