gunnarthor

Yeah, I thought the Astro's did a bit better than I would've guessed for Lee. Hopefully, the Twins can take advantage of a seller's market if/when we make trades.

Dude, he's on a roll. Don't stop him with things like facts.

Puerto Rico is part of the draft and the Twins have been one of the more active teams in scouting PR - Angel Morales, Eddie Rosario, Daniel Ortiz, JO Berrios, Jorge Fernandez were all recent draft picks from PR.

Well, Blackburn did give the team a few pretty solid years.

Yeah, all three of those guys have been nice positives. I'd also add Revere and Burton. Both are cheap and should be part of the Twins the next few years.

He had a solid enough June - .288/.357/.370. He's only 21 in A+, that's pretty good.

1. The White Sox will win the AL Central with a record of 85-77. 2. The Minnesota Twins will finish in 5th place in the division with a record of 70-92. 3. Current Twins who will be wearing new uniforms after the trade deadline include: Span, Liriano, Capps (assuming he comes back from injury). 4. The Rangers will defeat the Dodgers to win the 2012 World Series.

Fangraphs: “His soft hands, quick feet, [and] strong accurate arm give him every chance to stay at shortstop… He has the natural athletic ability to play any position on the field. Niko is still learning the art of shortstop and the mental grind of playing every day by not talking a bad at bat to the field or an error to the plate.” That same scout also summed up Goodrum at the plate: “He has a fluid, balanced, easy swing… not much wasted movement… The power will come as he physically grows into his frame… He needs 2,000 at-bats for memory work of reading spin and how pitchers work in certain situations. The learning curve is the stage he is in now.”

No, he was right. The Twins had a pretty good system established in Venezuela - Wilson Ramos was one of our big signings from there but so was Oswaldo Arcia. The politics in Venezuela made a lot of baseball teams move out, including the Twins.

Twins were linked to Gilmartin in the 2010 draft, too. I'm sure he still has some fans in our FO.

Nice write-up, I've been hoping we make a move with the Dodgers before. Span, particularly, would be a great fit for them. Lee apparently vetoed the trade to LA so Morneau would still be an option although I still don't think the Twins will trade him this year. Plouffe's an interesting idea but my guess is that the Twins would rather hold him, since he's cheap and we don't have an obvious third baseman if he's gone.

Cool, I really like our efforts in Latin America.

I'm not a 100% sure I agree on that premise, although that's not the same as disagreeing. He takes more walks but that might also be a symptom of taking too many hittable pitches. Scouts have said he looks too passive at the plate at times and I wonder if he's scared to swing and would rather walk when he's hitting from the left side.

I figure it's one of three things A) He's hurt his concussions have disrupted his brain enough that he won't ever be able to "see" the ball as well as he had in years past and, with his age, he'll continue to play like this. Good power when he connects but lots of strike outs and bad at bats or C) He's still incredibly rusty from not playing much the last few years and, when he has played, has been dinged up. He needs a lot of at bats to shake the cobwebs out but, as the summer progresses he'll start coming back to normal, finish the season strong and give us reason to hope that next season will be a strong one for him. I think it's more C than B but it could be A. He's hitting righties pretty well so I think it's just a matter or repetition for him to get back to more or less normal. It'll take a while but I think the Twins have to keep him in the lineup to find out either way. I have no problem if Gardy wants to move him down the order.

I think the Twins are in great shape with Span. They don't have to trade him like they had to trade Santana. While some of his offensive stats might be depressed a bit by playing in Target Field, he's been worth 4.5 WAR over his last 140 games and is on pace for about 5 WAR this year. That should lead to a lot of teams being interested in him and, hopefully, a seller's market. His contract means that, unlike Pence, more teams can be in on him as well.

Hicks has had a nice little run and is now hitting .261/.353/.415/ on the year. He has 10 2b, 3 triples and 7 homers. As greengoblin noted, he had a strong June and hopefully that carries over to July. Last year, Hicks posted an OPS over .900 in June and July before injuring his thumb, so maybe that continues.

Harrison's been pretty exciting, really. Sure it's only 10 games but it's nice to see him walking more than striking out.

Yeah, Joe's 141 OPS+ should quite the 'no power' camp (although it won't). I think AJ's durability at catcher has been amazing and would've liked to see him on the team over Napoli but Mauer and Weiters are more deserving.

Gotta disagree with you John. He had a solid 2010 season, not as good as 2009 but still very good - arguably his second or third best year. For comparison, while it was a viewed as a down year, he still had a higer OPS+ that year than the Teixeira, ARod, David Ortiz, Pedroia etc. And that doesn't even attempt to consider his defensive value. That offseason saw Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth get stupid money. Yanks, Tigers and Red Sox were all looking for a catcher. (As an aside, can you imagine Mauer playing fulltime at Fenway? His inside outside swing would pepper the monster and all those outs would be base hits there). One of those three teams (or the Nats or someone else) would've flown over the 8/200 mark for him. And I still think people underestimate his offense. He's a great hitter, even for a first baseman. His career OPS+ (only an offensive stat) is highter than Teixeira, Morneau, David Wright, HanRam, Youk etc. While we are mentioning that he is playing more 1B/DH this year, he's usually playing them when he's banged up a bit. If he was a fulltime 1B or DH, I'd expect his OPS+ to increase with the decrease of his catching duties.

From http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/jon-heyman/19444756/twins-are-believed-more-willing-to-deal-span-than-willingham Twins want a young starter in return. Heyman mentions Nationals, Marlins and possibly the Yankees as potential partners. He says if the Twins don't get the offer they want, they'd hang onto Span.

Yeah, that was weird. I know we drafted Wimmers based on his change-up. Did it mean he thinks high school kids shouldn't be throwing curves? Or is more interested in fastball speed and control over other pitches?

Oh, hell, why not. John Sickels said of it at the time: Capps reinforces the Twins bullpen for the stretch run. Testa isn't a prospect, but Ramos definitely is. I have some misgivings about his bat due to his sketchy plate discipline, but his glove has really come around and his power potential remains impressive. I like him, but not enough to pan the trade from Minnesota's point of view; I think it is fair for both teams. In my Shadow Twins universe, I will make this trade. To your points: - Ramos is under team control but is hurt, a problem he always had. Baseball America noted that at the time of the trade: "The Twins had issues with his conditioning, and he's heavier than the above indicates. He's a base-clogger and well-below-average runner." They dropped him 30 spots in their prospect ranking after that. Twins fans seem to think Ramos is the second coming of Johnny Bench or something. He hits 8th in an NL lineup. In truth, he's a league avg catcher if he stays healthy. Washington Post was writing about his defensive regressions prior to his season ending injury. - Twins dropped 10 games in standings in summer 2010 and bad bullpen was a major reason. Nathan wasn't coming back in 2010 (and really, he wasn't all that good at the start of 2011 either). Twins credited Capps with stabilizing the pen for them. Fangraphs noted that Capps was easily the Twins best bullpen arm. - Catcher wasn't a position of weakness, they had a HOF caliber catcher making Ramos a nice luxury that a team in win-now mode didn't need. As I pointed out, WAR value makes the trade a wash, although hopefully the Twins still move Capps for something this year.

Perhaps, but I think it's fun to point out WAR's valuations in a thread where people are angry that the Twins (seemingly) aren't into advanced stats like WAR.

By bWAR, Capps has been equal to Wilson since the trade.

SABR announced that they will be giving Ryan their Roland Hemond Award which "recognizes the baseball executive who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to professional baseball scouts and scouting, and player development history" in 2013.