gunnarthor

I believe Severino was signed for 225K by the Yankees a few years ago and just broke out this season. Yankee prospects can be overrated on occasion but he looks like a stud. Funnily enough, I haven't read the same "too short" complaints about him that I have read about Berrios. That said, I sure haven't read every article on him.

A unhappy Packers friend made this. Thought it was funny.

mlb.com's rankings are coming out slowly but they've already released the top 10 RH pitchers. The listings are made by Callis and Mayo. Callis, of course, used to be the BA guru. I like him and Mayo better than any of the other rankers out there. Mayo has very good industry contacts so he tends to know a bit more about how teams rank players. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2015/#list=rhp Meyer is #10, which means he's probably a top 25 overall prospect on their list. (LH pitchers will be released later today - but we won't have any of those guys.) "In his first season with the Twins after joining them via the Denard Span trade, Meyer managed to throw just 78 1/3 innings because of shoulder issues. Eager to prove his worth to the team that dealt for him, Meyer did just that in 2014, staying healthy and throwing well in Triple-A while also pitching in the Futures Game in what he hopes to be his home park, Target Field. Coming from his huge 6-foot-9 frame, Meyer's upper-90s fastball gets on hitters in a hurry. He throws downhill, with sink, consistently, leading to groundballs when he isn't missing bats. His sharp slider adds to the strikeout rate, 10.4 per nine innings through 2014, and his changeup has improved, giving him another sinking weapon. Meyer still struggles with his command -- his walk rate jumped back up in 2014 -- largely because so much can go wrong with a delivery from a pitcher this tall. That, along with shoulder fatigue at the very end of the season, may have been the reason why the Twins didn't bring him up last September. The 25-year-old Meyer is ready for a shot and could make a big contribution to a young rotation in 2015. If he can harness his stuff a bit more consistently, he could stick around for a long while."

Back in the dog seasons in the late 90s, I got some great tickets at the Dome to see KC/MN. (A friend's mom cleaned the house for the Pohlads so they gave her four tickets, they even had Pohlad written on them). We were down 4 runs in the 9th and most people left long ago but we stuck around and watched a rare comeback. Rough year.

Technically, they can't trade Burdi yet (they could do it as a PTBNL but that's so rare, I really only know of it in one instance). And the Nats would be trading for now, not later. So waiting half a year for Burdi to be available (where he could get hurt) doesn't really work for them. Duffey has no trade value. Rosario is maybe a top 10 Twins prospect but might not be that high. He really had a bad year and hasn't shown the ability to hit in AA yet. He has attitude issues and a drug suspension. He did have a good AFL but I think he has no value to other teams. So it's 3 years of Plouffe for 1 year of Zimmerman? Doesn't really fit for them. They have Rendon at third and he's better than Plouffe. I don't think that trade works.

Maybe they like Hicks/Schafer better. Maybe they don't like Rasmus at all - he had a .287 OBP last year, he missed a lot of games and he has had attitude issues dog him.

Well, they traded away several guys including Folty and Ruiz and Singleton and Springer graduated. They might be top 5 but I'm not sure. I like us, Cubs, Red Sox, Pirates more without thinking about it much. But "highly touted" I took to mean the organization, not the farm system. The Astros the last few years have been so dysfunctional that I don't think you can label them a highly touted organization.

Thanks, I can't believe I forgot that he started the stupid game. Must be getting old.

I forgot he was in the futures game. Anyone want to remind me how he did? And his nickname is the Machine? Awesome.

I'm much bigger on projection than results, I guess. Guys like Colabello, Parmelee and even Plouffe when he was crushing AAA pitching were old for their level and I didn't really trust them to be ML hitters. I think the things I care about the most are 1) age of the prospect to his competition. Berrios, at 20 in AA, had worse numbers than other starters like Gilmartin, Taylor, Wheeler. But he's a heck of lot better prospect then those three. 2) For hitters, I think stats that show some understanding of the strike zone - Sano strikes out a lot but does take a walk. Adam Walker doesn't. So I trust Sano more to make the adjustments as he goes up the ladder. 3) High prospect status at AA or above. If they are still ranked well after tasting AA, they are more likely to succeed. 4)I trust elite level guys a whole lot more than a top 50 player. I'm not sure the Astros are a "highly touted" organization. But I think the Twins are doing fine on the promotions. It takes players time to adjust. Morneau was a top 20 prospect and he still needed about 1000 ML PA before he became the player we think about. In the last three years, they've promoted 4 top 100 guys to the majors (Hicks, Gibson, Arcia, Pinto). And May was a top 100 guy before. They got some good results from some less regarded prospects - Dozier, Santana, Vargas. They have a bunch of highly regarded guys at AA or above - Buxton, Sano, Rosario, Berrios, Meyer, May. It'll work out.

That's a good point - defensive metrics never liked him but the Astros did do weird shifts that might have made him worse than he was.

Well, Strasburg might be available after all. http://www.guyhut.com/mlb/stephen-strasburg-rumors-like-nationals-trade/ Twins/Nats trade could make sense. Nats might like to send Strasburg to a last place team in the AL so it's less likely he haunts them. The two teams have made a few moves prior, obviously. 4 relatively cheap years of Dozier for 2 years of Strasburg? If the Nats think Dozier is a true 4 WAR guy, that would be pretty close to even trade, frankly. Strasburg has name recognition but Dozier has been the better player the last few years. In fact, Ryan might not make that trade. But I think the two teams could certainly work something out around those two, if they felt like it.

Dexter Fowler to Chicago for Luis Valbuena and Dan Straily. I really liked this trade for the Astros. Fowler was a pretty overrated player and both Valbuena and Straily (while not great players themselves) really help out Houston right away. Valbuena had a bit of a break out season last year, although at 29, that may have been his career year. Straily was one of those A's pitchers who looked ok in Oakland but struggled outside of it. But that's a solid return for Fowler, who is a FA at the end of the year and just a butcher in the OF.

Can't see it making any sense for the Nats to trade any starter. They're all in right now, pitchers get hurt and a few of them will be gone anyway in a couple years. Span, Fister, Zimmerman and Desmond are all FA at the end of the year. But they have the best SP prospect in baseball (Giolito) and a couple other solid prospects debuting soon - CFer Michael Taylor (and Brian Goodwin) and a solid starter - AJ Cole. Tanner Roark was a 5 WAR pitcher for them last year and hasn't even made it to arbitration. About the only position they are weak at is second base, so they'd probably listen on Dozier but I don't think they are desperate enough to move some of their elite players for a luxury at this point and a Zimmerman/Dozier deal doesn't make much sense for the Twins, either.

I'm honestly surprised they were this high and I think Ryan will do something during the season to lower it - maybe/hopefully move Nolasco. I think the Twins can be a .500 team this year but if they aren't, I think ownership would be very unhappy having a 100m+ losing team. The other thought is that baseball's finances are in great shape and teams simply have a lot more money to spend and the players are getting a bigger piece. I don't think salaries have necessarily kept up with the reported finical gains of the industry. A few years ago, it was reported that baseball was a 6 billion a year industry. A few days ago, I read they were now making 9 billion a year. So the owners must be swimming in money.

If the rotation stayed healthy, yes. ESPN etc probably wouldn't label them as favorites though.

The reason I wrote "ignoring the rest of this thread" was b/c I didn't feel like reading 30 posts that hadn't been updated in a day. I had no intention of being disrespectful to you. Sometimes internet posts are not read in the manner intended. My very real apologies if I offended you. I thought Mr. Seymour's article on the Charlie Hebdo massacre was pretty on point and presented an point of view that too many people were either ignoring or afraid to address. That the murders were horrific but too many people were supporting racism and that the racist (and not satire) position of the magazine shouldn't be forgotten. I don't think we should show our support for freedom of speech by buying racist material, even though we have that ability. And I am more concerned that many people don't realize that the magazine is racist. I thought Mr. Seymour's article, as well as the article written by the rabbi linked by another poster, were good starting points on this. The Washington Post had a slightly less strong article on that the other day. My very first post in this thread indicated that I felt that religion was being unfairly blamed in the massacre and that the causation was more related to other issues such as poverty, racism, social structure etc and we (as a whole society, not Twins Daily) were ignoring them. Those articles seemed to support that as well.

Yeah, you missed the point. You can be against the murders and, at the same time, not support the racist opinions of the victims. You can support free speech and, at the same time, not buy the racist magazine.

You missed the point If someone killed a bunch of Nazis in St. Cloud/Times Square/Washington DC no one would support that but the Nazi's wouldn't sell 3,000 copies of their Nazi newsletter, let alone 3 million. So people are either ok with buying a racist magazine (or are too dumb to know it's racist) or think it's ok to support a racist magazine b/c it's mocking a religion they don't like/understand/tolerate etc.

Ignoring much of this thread, I liked this piece by Richard Seymour: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-islamophobia/ "I think there’s a critical difference between solidarity with the journalists who were attacked, refusing to concede anything to the idea that journalists are somehow “legitimate targets,” and solidarity with what is frankly a racist publication. I will not waste time arguing over this point here: I simply take it as read that — irrespective of whatever else it does, and whatever valid comment it makes — the way in which that publication represents Islam is racist."

Well, sure, some players will regress (Santana would be a 6 WAR guy over a full season) and others are probably/hopefully better (Mauer). Last year, Hughes and Gibson combined for 6 WAR. One might go up and one might go down but I think they can combine for that or better this year. And you can do that through the roster. If Santana turns into a pumpkin at short, he isn't going to get 400 PA there - Escobar will take over. If Nolasco doesn't improve, Meyer is taking over, etc. The team has some real depth this year. This probably deserves it's own thread (and WAR isn't the greatest stat) but this team looks to me a lot more like the 2001 Twins than they do to you.

No, I think the Twins can be .500 this year and a playoff team next year. They've got a loaded farm system but people forget they've already graduated 4 top 100 prospects already. I think this years team will have a lot of similarities to the 2001 team. Both teams came off of bad seasons (69 and 70 win teams). When you look at the big jump in 2001, three things stand out: 1) Emergence of a couple former top 100 prospects - Guzman and Hunter had great years. 2) One surprisingly good player - Koskie was never a big time prospect but he was a 6 WAR player 3) No really sucky players - Almost every player was at least 0 WAR or better. The team had about negative 4 WAR total among all it's players and the worst was Hawkins (-0.7WAR). A .500 team should have a team WAR around 35 or so. Last year the Twins were around 25 (the 2001 Twins jumped from 29 to 40). So to get to .500 the team needs to improve by about 10 WAR. That seems pretty doable. 1) Emergence - they have a bunch of young former top 100 guys who could have a breakout season. Gibson, Hicks, Arcia, May, Meyer, Pinto, Hughes, Schefer (and an older former top prospect in Mauer). I think Gibson and Arcia will have big years, hopefully Mauer isn't sucky and Meyer will be a stud. And I'm a big fan of May. The rotation will be a lot better. 2) Surprise guys - they probably don't have two 6 WAR guys like the 2001 team did (Koskie and Mays) but Plouffe and Dozier have shown themselves to be pretty good and neither were ever top prospects. Escobar and Santana could also join them. 3) No crappy players. Fangraphs had a post about this the other day, Twins are (projected) to have the 3rd fewest number of low WAR guys next year. They had nearly 9 negative WAR from players last year. This team has depth so they don't have any DeVries or Albers pitching this year. So you can get to that improved 10 WAR by simply subtracting some negative WAR away (basically they got 600 PA and -4 WAR from Morales, Parm, Colabello and Kubel last year). So if Vargas is even a 1 WAR player at DH this year, that's a 5 WAR improvement. Ervin Santana replaces the Correa/May starts last year (combined -1.0 WAR) and is a 2 WAR guy. That's a 3 WAR swing. etc, etc.

Ignoring guys below AA: Buxton, Sano, Arcia, Meyer, May, Santana, Hicks, Burdi, Berrios, Vargas, Polanco, Rosario. That said, 25 is an arbitrary cut off.

It seemed people hated the Twins strategy of drafting under Radcliff, too. So Johnson decided to go after flamethrowers instead. I preferred Radcliff's strategy of grabbing college pitchers like Baker, Slowey etc. Alex Wood and his 90 mph fastball would have looked good in the second round. IIRC, the high school pitcher the Twins were linked to in 2012 was Rocheseter's Mitch Brown. But they passed on him and he struggled his first few years. Had a bit of a better year last year in low A but still far away. I don't have a problem with letting relievers start for as long as they can (Klaw has said the same thing). First, the Twins have a ton of potential impact bullpen arms so I'm not worried about which ones are actually used. Second, Johnson is hoping that one or two of these relievers can turn into a solid starter - or better. Individually, the odds are against them but as a large group (he drafted a bunch more in 2014), perhaps it works. I think the Rangers have had a little success moving solid relievers into starters. And lastly, the return on picks in the range the Twins were drafting relievers isn't particularly good. If they get one solid reliever out of the draft to go along with Buxton and Berrios, it's a great draft.

I wouldn't go quite so far on either claim - Max Fried is the best prospect they got by a good margin and they are probably in the 11-15ish range in systems. But it is a good start for them and a nice return for Gattis.