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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    Real young guys like Kepler and Polanco get another option year.
  2. gunnarthor
    Nothing surprising here. I'm not too worried about Achter - he walked a lot of batters and we have depth in the bullpen.
  3. gunnarthor
    They have a small thing on every team, here's the Twins write-up: Minnesota Twins (36) Extremely Likely Protections: SS/2B Jorge Polanco. Possible Protections: 1B Kennys Vargas, OF Max Kepler, LHP Logan Darnell, RHP A.J. Achter. It’s hard to see Kepler sticking and contributing to a big league roster in any way after just a half-season at low Class A Cedar Rapids, especially since he’s not going to add defensive or baserunning value. But the Twins have the roster spots, so they can likely avoid the risk of exposing a legitimate prospect. Polanco’s spot on the 40-man roster seems much safer. Even though he hasn’t played above Class A, his defense, speed and athleticism is the kind of profile that allows a younger player to contribute to the 25-man roster even if his bat isn’t ready. Think Everth Cabrera, whom the Padres Rule 5′d in 2008. Vargas is a switch-hitter with some power and feel for hitting, but he’s far enough away that it’s likely worth the risk of leaving him exposed. Achter and Darnell are a pair of upper-levels pitchers with feel for setting up hitters, but neither has a plus pitch to likely entice a team to draft them. http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/watch-list-for-rule-5-protection/
  4. gunnarthor
    Team has a ton of space and could jettison a lot of guys before we have to worry about losing anyone of value. See the other thread.
  5. gunnarthor
    Sure, I think these are the possible starters on the 40 man roster right now - Albers, Correia, Gibson, Deduno, Diamond, Hendricks, Johnson, Worley. The Twins need depth there and Johnson could end up the 3rd best of that group. In the bullpen the team has Burton, Duensing, Fien, Ibara, Perkins, Pressly, Swarzak, Tonkin, Thieldbar. (With a bunch of other potential 40 man additions). Johnson fits the teams needs better. We can bitch and moan about Johnson being a bad player but we're talking about the bottom of a 40 man roster. The team wasn't going to turn Welker into anything else. So why keep him? Roll the dice on Welker and see if you can get a Scott Diamond again.
  6. gunnarthor
    Sometimes their value is that they are overrated. Twins turned Bullock and got a 2 WAR season out of a back end starter. Same thing could happen here. I just don't get the fuss over this. As others have pointed out, Welker isn't anything special, isn't that valuable and he plays at a position of depth on this team. It seems like a good idea for the team to trade a guy like that for something that fits better.
  7. gunnarthor
    We need the 'like' button back.
  8. gunnarthor
    Ryan has brought in a lot of different type of pitchers since he got back. Meyer, May, Berrios, Stewart, Gonzalez, Worley, Hernandez, Welker, Johnson, Albers, Pelfrey, Correia, Deduno, Fein, Eades, Harden, Burton etc. They run the gamut from potential Ace to reliever to AAA depth to injured lottery ticket.
  9. gunnarthor
    I don't think Walker has Trumbo's power. I think his ceiling might be closer to a guy like Jacque Jones - Jones had BB/SO issues in both the minors and majors but had some real speed (something Trumbo doesn't have) and was a better defender than Trumbo - at least in most years. Jones could hit about 20 HR and would occasionally approach 30. But he didn't walk much so, unless he hit .300, he wasn't anything special. But he had a nice ML career and made $25m. That's not bad.
  10. gunnarthor
    It's one draft. Over the last decade, the Cards and Twins have drafted about the same WAR (if you exclude players that didn't sign). Cards had a great draft in 03 (even ignoring unsigned guys like Ian Kennedy and Max Schertzer), 05, 06 and 09. Twins had great drafts in 02-05. Twins bombed 06, Cards bombed 04. The more recent drafts are hard to gauge yet. If you want to argue that the Twins drafted worse after Ryan and Radcliff gave way to Smith and Johnson, you certainly can. Some of the more recent guys - Hicks, Gibson - are just getting here so those drafts will (hopefully) improve in hindsight.
  11. gunnarthor
    Tons of guys his age or younger have posted that kind of power in A ball with high K rates and even better walk rates. Angel Morales, Matt Olson, Jacob Wilson, Alberth Martinez, Anthony Garcia, Cameron Garfield, Benjamin Mcmahan etc. You can literally pick any year in A ball history and find a dozen guys 22 and younger who post ISO over .200 w/a 20% or worse krate. Some of them make it to the majors. Most don't. No one is dissing him, he's a nice player to have in your system and a very good 3rd round pick. But he hasn't put his tools together yet to be ranked highly in the prospect lists. As Parks says, he's loaded with tools and if he manages to put everything together, he's a first division player. That is fantastic and I really hope it happens. But he's not close to there yet. The Twins will give him tons of time to get there but he needs to show plate discipline in both improving his krate (which he has started to do) and his walk rate (which he hasn't). If he can't fix his plate discipline, he won't get past AA.
  12. gunnarthor
    I think clutterheart is right. Walker is a 22 year old college guy in low A ball. That's a scary krate. And, more frighteningly, his walk rate fell to about 5%.
  13. gunnarthor
    I wonder if the Rangers would give up some pitching for Arcia? He's still not a complete player yet and the Rangers are in win-now mode but he's not that far off and his bat in Texas' park could be pretty exciting for them.
  14. gunnarthor
    Our financial system is a lot different now than it was in 2007. The Twins drafted under slot in many of those years so I'm not sure we should be ripping Parks' conclusion based on things that happened 6 years ago (and we did sign some pretty good guys before that, including Wilson Ramos in 2004). Additionally, what is the pay off you're looking for? The team scouted in Europe heavily enough to sign Van Mil who they traded for Fuentes to help the 2010 team down the stretch (not that Fuentes did much as he got hurt). If the Twins sign 20 kids from Australia how many have to make the majors? Would one - Thorpe - turing into a top 30 prospect make it worth it even if the other 19 never make it out of A+? Do we ignore the impact of the international players that have had significant impact in the majors (and/or minors) that our front office traded for? Do we ignore the strong presence in Puerto Rico since that's part of the draft now? And lastly, our we really arguing (as you seem to be) that the Twins only signed ONE Miguel Sano and they should have signed more? Your post reads like you're worried that Terry Ryan is getting some undeserved credit. Not sure if that's how you want it to read.
  15. gunnarthor
    We got to teach him how to use a masking agent next time. Anyhow, I'm sure he's not the first guy who got hurt and took something he shouldn't have. It's not an excuse but it sounds like he took the drugs to get back rather than perform better. That's a bright side, I suppose.
  16. gunnarthor
    I want to say some team did this in the last decade - the Mets, I think - they grabbed some 21 or 22 year old OFer with tools who was totally overwhelmed but they kept him at the ML level all year, got him into a number of games and he was just horrible. Then the next year they sent him to AA and he was still horrible and he never made it back. I don't think any team will take an A ball hitter and stick him on their ML roster. (But that doesn't mean they couldn't try and work out a trade after poisoning the well a bit). But in the Twins case, I just don't see why they'd need to risk anything. Polanco and Kepler will get another option year b/c of their youth so we don't really lose anything by protecting them this year and we have enough guys that we can remove if needed.
  17. gunnarthor
    I was doing a quick write up of Parks' podcast. Those comments were his, not mine. I believe the Twins have had 3 Aussies make the majors so far - Hughes, Balfour and Hendriks and besides Thorpe, I think we have one more Aussie in our top 50.
  18. gunnarthor
    I looked it up. Jack Goins commented on Twinsdaily "A relatively new company TrackMan records much of the same info as Pitch f/x along with batted ball data. You should follow Josh Orenstein on Twitter at @JoshOrensteinTM. He is tweeting out a bunch of fun info from the Arizona Fall League right now." Fangraphs had an article on TrackMan and Alex Meyer. And that twitter feed included lists of things like batted ball speed. In any event, it sounded like the Twins used this company.
  19. gunnarthor
    True, but they have a few hitting prospects that could blow up too - Polanco will certainly be on the top 10 lists but a guy like Minier could have a lot of helium in a year or two. And Harrison could be a top 8-10 type guy in a year or so. And the most interesting guy could be Walker. I don't think it happens but Parks noted in that podcast that Walker was a toolsy first division type if it all comes together.
  20. gunnarthor
    I think Logan and Polanco are for sure adds. Logan is a starting pitcher at AAA. And a lefty. Someone would take a flier on him. After that, I don't think it matters much. I do think they'll leave one spot open for a potential rule v pick but as others have noted, they can dump a few guys off the 40 man roster pretty easily - Hendriks, Herrmann, Hermsen, Parmelee, Colabello.
  21. gunnarthor
    We don't but I think the Twins actually have that service. Goins mentioned that they were using some company (I forget the name) and that company was at the AFL trying to get more business. One of the things they did was track batted ball speeds (Kepler had one of the highest in the AFL). I have no idea what the Twins would use this information for but it's out there. Sorry I can't remember the company but someone else might.
  22. gunnarthor
    I wonder if that quoted section has something to do with Target Field. It seems to suppress LH power. If I was a team like the Rangers, I'd try and nab Arcia to replace Cruz. Either way, he's a nice guy to have for a rebuilding team.
  23. gunnarthor
    All right, I'll bite. Who is this Landa guy? B-R lists him as a 6'0" righty we apparently signed out of Venezuela. His peripherals don't look great (although at rookie ball it doesn't really matter)
  24. gunnarthor
    Not going to argue with you Clutterheart but I will say that Parks noted that the Twins had depth throughout the org - not just in the low minors or rookie ball. Some of these guys will fail but others will step up. No one saw Thorpe exploding this year and he's already at the point where prospect guys are weighing in on him, some pretty heavily. Sure, he has a long way to go. Now, obviously, if the Twins graduate Buxton, Meyer, Sano and Rosario this year (with fellow top 100 guys Gibson, Arcia and Hicks graduated this year) the team rankings will fall. I'm ok with that. 7 top 100 guys reaching the majors in two years is great. That's the type of fall you want. After that, you have one potential ace in Stewart, a #5 pick in the next draft and maybe one or two players break out (say 2 of Thorpe, Berrios, Polanco and Harrison) and the team could conceivably still have 4 top 100 guys for the 2015 season. (Berrios and Thorpe could be top 100 guys in some lists this year). That's a strong system and still better than middle of the pack.
  25. gunnarthor
    Howie - re: the power arms. One point Parks made in his podcast was that some of these k-guys might not be k-guys in the majors. He brought up Berrios in particular as a guy he likes but his stuff might not lead to a lot of strike outs in the majors. And he reminded us that a lot of low k-guys in the majors struck out a lot of guys in the minors. Slowey avg 8.4. Radke 7.0. Baker avg about 8 at AA and AAA. Meyer will strike out guys and Parks liked Jorge longterm for that, as well. But it's a good reminder that the k's don't always travel.
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