chpettit19

This year's Akil Baddoo. Except he'll actually be in a Twins uniform.

Have to disagree with the premise here. The concern of high-effort delivery and head violence is repeatability of delivery and we have decades worth of data on that being a real concern. It doesn't mean nobody can make it (Scherzer is a great example), or that a team should try to make any massive changes to a pitcher's motion because of it, but it's important information when discussing possible pitfalls a prospect may face and what their future holds. The Twins didn't draft Petty in the first round with the plan of completely reworking his mechanics, but they know it's harder to maintain command and control when your head flies out (I don't see as much of that with Petty as guys like Keith Law seem to) and/or you're throwing max effort every pitch. Petty looks to be a very good athlete and he seems to work very hard at his craft. He doesn't need to throw 100 on every pitch and that'll be something the Twins work with him on to increase his chances of him staying a starter. High-effort deliveries make it much harder to get your plant foot in the same spot, your arm in the same slot, and keep your hand where it needs to be in relation to the ball (among many other things) on every single pitch. And that's what makes the great pitchers great. Repeatability. He may be a Scherzer-esque guy who can go all out every pitch and maintain command and control, but it took Scherzer a long time to finally lock that in and become the guy he is now. High-effort delivery and head violence are absolutely things that should be noted in scouting reports and can be real problems. Doesn't mean they have any intention of blowing up his delivery or changing anything at all, but it's things every scout and coach in pro baseball looks at and something they'll look to tweak if he starts to struggle.

I'm yet to see any scouting report that doesn't think he has the arm, range, or hands to stay at short. The question is his bat. His upside is tied to his ability to stay at short because people don't think he'll have the bat to profile at a corner spot. But at this point I don't see anyone suggesting he's likely to outgrow the position or have to move off SS for his glove or arm. My understanding of Owen is that he could play SS (but would be slightly stretched there), but Cleveland had just traded Lindor for 2 young shortstops and have a number of other young short stops as well so they don't feel the need to play him there. He was a 3rd round pick out of college while Noah is a first round comp pick out of HS. People feel Noah has the higher upside.

You're sort of making my point here. You suggested age was important and provided a chart to explain why. I said there's more factors, but obviously the younger the better. I then provided examples as to why just going off the age of prospects is leaving a lot out. Now you're doing what I suggested in the beginning and using more factors to explain why age is important, but not all that important since there's all these other factors. I don't get why age is a "huge difference," but then suddenly it isn't for Lewis, or Torkelson, or Rutschman, or any of 100 other guys I could list if I wanted to take the time. My point is that it's better to have guys reach the majors at a young age, but to simply say "this prospect is too old so he should be dropped in rankings" is leaving a lot out of the equation. And you've provided many other factors as to why you can't simply look at Torkelson, Rutschman, and Lewis' ages and compare them. Which has been my point from the beginning. Plus the fact that we're currently looking at a list of prospects that we should be happy if they even make the majors which means their ages matter even less. I mean just comparing Rutschman and Torkelson you can make the argument that their ages don't matter. I think Detroit would trade Torkelson for Rutschman straight up right now, but Adley is a year and a half older, and been in the minors longer. So age is a factor, but not much beyond the idea that it's better to have them there sooner. Enjoy your weekend as well!

But if we're talking ages then their draft year doesn't really matter, right? So Torkelson will debut at 22. If Royce Lewis debuts before June he'd debut at the same age, but people view him very differently since he was drafted well before Spencer. Time in the minors vs age are 2 very different things to me. That's why age isn't that huge to me. And that's why I keep saying there are far more variables and rankings are more complex. And the Rutschman vs Wallner comparison was one I was never trying to make. The Rutschman example was simply a response to the idea that the age of a prospect is uber important. Wallner is not the same kind of prospect. Never was. That's a comparison of the #1 prospect in baseball who was drafted 1.1 vs the guy TD ranks #13 in the Twins system. The expectations for them are very different. That's why I keep bringing up the fact that we're talking about the #11-15 prospects in the Twins system. These rankings are literally saying the TD writers don't have great hope in Wallner. They're saying they'll be happy if he makes the majors and has any sort of positive impact at all.

I'm not a Wallner believer so I don't disagree with your stance on him. But there are a lot more factors that go into these things. And to me its more about us currently looking at prospects #11-15. Top 5 system prospects fail more than they succeed so #11-15 should really not be expected to do much. If anyone on this list (Miller excluded as he was just drafted out of high school) becomes a legit ML contributor to a contender we should be very impressed. Celestino as a 4th OFer would be a very nice result. Sands and Louie turning into solid relievers would be a win. But there's just so many factors. Louie was drafted in the 15th round in 2019 out of the same college where I played, and I'm no major leaguer. Him even being mentioned as a possible major leaguer is a win already. He was drafted, missed the entire covid year and saw himself rocket into prospect rankings in his first professional year. I don't care if he's 35, that's a good enough track record to get him to #15 in a system for me.

For sure. The true stars of the game tend to make themselves known early in the minors and burst onto the scene quick. I'm by no means arguing that age means nothing, but Torkelson and Rutschman are big time prospects that people expect to be elite players and one turns 23 this season and the other is already 24. I think those are 2 great examples of the covid year playing a role. I'd love to see the Twins turn some of their recent international signings into young stars. The trick is balancing the high risk, high reward with the more "sure thing" guys. The Twins have tried to recently, but the high reward guys haven't looked good recently (I have hopes for Lewis this year, though). And I agree much of this is more on the position player side than pitchers. I'm not concerned about the age of any of our arms. They're a different kind of beast.

I wasn't comparing him to anyone or saying we should view the Twins prospects in this post the same way. Simply an example of age not meaning as much as we sometimes think. Spencer Torkelson is turning 23 this season and I don't think anyone is concerned about his age either. That's why I brought up the covid year. They were both effected by that. I think the bigger thing is how you view the guys we're talking about in this specific post and range of prospects. We're not talking about the top 5 prospects in the system we're talking about 11-15. They're guys you hope make the majors and can provide some sort of productive performance. Or if they're young like Miller you hope they work their way up the rankings. Nobody is building a team around the idea that their #11-15 prospects are their core and will be all stars. If your "excitement" (for lack of better word) about any of the guys on this list is based on them being a future all star you'd obviously be very disappointed. That's not who we're looking at here. Especially with the older guys.

Wonder what covid year will do to those numbers over the next 5 to 10 years or whatever. It is interesting to think about how we view prospects. We certainly all want everyone in the Twins top 20 to turn into All Stars, and it gets a little wonky when we start discussing these guys as just pieces to a major league team. Debut age based WAR (or stats instead of All Star appearance in general) would be an interesting look as well. There's only so many All Star spots to go around and it's even further reduced when it comes to position availability. I'd argue there's far more star players at SS than C, but you miss a bunch of those SS stars when just looking at the AS team. Interesting things to look at, though. I think everyone can agree that the younger the better when it comes to debut years (assuming the debut is earned and not out of injury necessity or something like that). But I think age can also be overblown. For example, Adley Rutschman is pretty universally thought of as the top prospect in baseball right now and he's 24. Service time and covid have played a huge role in that. If he played for a playoff team he most certainly would've debuted already, but the O's had no reason (other than the integrity of the game, but who cares about that?) to play him on terrible teams and start his clock.

The interesting thing I'm following with all the young arms is who moves to the pen. I think 2022 will see some very creative pitcher usage, and am curious as to how all these young guys are used. Varland, Sands, Strotman, and Duran all feel like bullpen pieces to me. Which isn't a bad thing in my mind. They've all shown they can sustain for multiple innings and I'll be interested to see how they're used in 2023 and beyond as the FO tries to balance out more traditional starters/relievers and some new creative pitcher usage. I'm not sold on Wallner and he'd be much lower on my list. The power is real, but I don't think he'll hit for enough contact to take advantage of it. With the numerous corner bats they have I think he gets pushed aside. Maybe he goes back to the mound as others have mentioned. Not a bad backup plan to have available. Celestino was impressive at AAA and I hope he's able to use that as a springboard into taking over the 4th OF role at some point in 2022. Miller feels like he's in the right spot to me. Real chance to stick at SS as he progresses, but no super flashy tools. Feels like a 10-15 type prospect to me. My hope for the post-lockout Twins is that they sign Story and I think it plays in well with Miller's timeline as he's not going to be ready for a number of years most likely. Story for 4 or 5 years and let Miller become part of the fold at the end of Story's deal with a natural handoff to Miller (assuming he develops. Keep drafting SSs until one makes it).

A .364 OBP is pretty solid plate discipline for a guy who hit .214. And at the age of 18 in his first ever professional season. Also, it was a 37 game sample size. Let's settle down a little. A large part of prospect ranking is projection. Looking at tools and guessing what future performance might be. Crushing a kid who should have still been in high school for having some initial strike out issues against professional pitchers seems a little ridiculous. As @roger points out, he was signed during the international signing period in 2019 and had no 2020 season. The 10 HRs and 23 BBs in 37 games was quite promising.

You can't have it both ways. Either they have options on this team or they don't. You don't get to list Martin, Lewis, and Gordon as better options and then say they aren't options. And I have every expectation that Royce Lewis will debut and play SS for the Twins at some point during 2022 if they don't sign Story or trade for a long-term SS. And both Gordon and Polanco played SS for the Twins last year so writing them off completely seems misguided at best. In fact Simmons was the only SS on the Twins roster to start 2021 which gives every reason to believe Polanco was their Plan B for a long-term injury at SS since they had nobody in the minors with the track record of success that Beckham has. Beckham's OPS+ over 5 major league seasons is 98. He's almost the exact definition of league average. He had an .876 OPS in AAA last year. That could drop by 100 points in moving to the majors and he'd still have been above average. I don't need names of current FAs. Give me an idea of a guy you think would be willing to take a minor league contract who would be a significant improvement on Tim Beckham. Ehire Adrianza? That type of guy? He's had an OPS+ of 100 or better 1 time in 9 seasons and that was a 103 in 83 games for the Twins in 2019. Better glove for sure. But his career OPS+ is 84. That's the level of player we're talking about here. He signed a $1.5M deal with the Braves last year at the age of 31. Beckham got a minor league deal this year at the age of 32. One is a solid glove/bad bat utility infielder. The other is a solid bat/bad glove utility infielder. Your expectations for minor league contract players are far too high. He's minor league depth. So, like I said at the beginning, we need to have some perspective when we're talking about these deals. The offseason isn't over. We have literally no reason to believe Tim Beckham will be anything more than the Saints opening day SS in 2022. If the lockout ends and the Twins don't trade for or sign a SS better than him then you can freak out. Until then all he is is minor league depth. And as far as minor league depth goes he's better than your typical AAA SS.

I think they'll share a bunch of the DH duties in 2022. When Sano is hot he'll be in the lineup everyday. When he's striking out 75% of the time he'll get time off. The Twins have the flexibility to rest guys and sit guys when they're cold. At least around the IF. With JD, SS yet to be brought in, Polanco, Sano, Kirilloff, Arraez, Gordon, and Miranda I'm not worried about injuries with the IF.

If you think Polanco, Martin, Lewis, and even Gordon are better depth then what are you even complaining about? Tim Beckham has been a league average hitter over 5 ML seasons. Is your argument that he was juicing that entire time and never got tested until 2019? He's certainly not a good defender at SS. Can't argue that. But, again, he's a proven MLB hitter on a minor league contract. How is that in any way bad? How is it bad to have league average MLB hitters as depth in your minor leagues? So Cave was bad depth and Refsnyder was a bad example of depth, and Beckham has had a better career than both, but he's also bad depth? I seriously don't understand what you want out of depth players. The difference in our stances seems to be that you're at least somewhat convinced this is it. This is the last depth move they make and they'll go to him the second there's any need at SS. The comment you originally responded to from me was literally me saying there's no reason to assume that and people who complained about the Cave deal were immediately shown that their assumptions were wrong and he was waived from the 40-man. So I'll end this back and forth where it started. There's a lockout so no big signings are happening so I get that there's more emotion tied to these minor league deals, but there's literally no reason to think this signing is some sort of sign that the Twins are expecting to rely on Tim Beckham in any way, shape, or form in 2022. And even if he's a main part of their depth plan, he's much better than any other depth options they've had recently. As a backup infielder you can do much worse than a league average hitter with legit power. And he's not even their backup infielder, he's not on the 40-man and, unless he lights up spring training and others flop, he'll start the year in the minors. The options for improvement on your AAA, depth infield signings is quite small and that's why you've yet to provide a single name that would be a better signing right now. We want Drew Maggi back instead? Depth pieces like this are often bad glove, solid bat or solid glove, bad bat. That's why they're depth pieces. This is a bad glove, solid bat infield depth guy. Palacios is a solid glove, bad bat infield depth guy. Now they have one of each. Not a bad place to be in the middle of a lockout.

The throws are different. Competitive throws from the outfield happen far less than competitive infield throws. Most hits to the outfield are "guaranteed" singles or doubles. A strong arm can help cut down the in-the-middle outfield hits where a guy is trying to "stretch" a single or double for an extra base. Most outfield throws have enough time to allow the outfielder to get behind the ball and round it towards the base he's throwing to, or crow hop into it if he's really trying to let it fly. Infield throws come with a player running in all different directions and having to throw against his body, spinning, falling forward, with a guy sliding into him, etc. To go deep in the hole at SS and throw across the diamond happens quite often. Cutting a ball off that's headed for center and having to spin and throw off balance, or open your shoulders with your lower half still heading to centerfield and throwing with your momentum going the opposite direction, to first in the air happens quite often. Charging slow rollers and throwing off balance to get a guy happens quite often. Gordon has the arm to take routine grounders and throw across to first. He doesn't have the arm to routinely make the other throws that come with playing SS.

Again, give me names. You want better depth. Describe what that actually looks like. Which players better than Tim Beckham are you wanting as the backup SS for the MN Twins? Who says Plan B isn't Martin, Lewis, or Polanco? That's your assumption, not mine. What legit ML SS is going to be willing to go to any ML team and be the utility infielder or the AAA SS to start the year? Give me examples of what depth moves the Twins should be making. I mean you listed Rob Refsnyder as real depth before. That's 100% 20/20 hindsight to list him as real depth but suggest Tim Beckham isn't. Go look at their career stats. Refsnyder has negative WAR for crying out loud. Beckham has a career .733 OPS. Not out of this world, but lightyears ahead of your desired depth of Refsnyder and his career .618 OPS.

Who do you suggest the Twins, or any major league team, sign to minor league deals that are significantly better than Cave and Beckham? I'd honestly like a list of players you think would be willing to take a minor league deal with a ST invite that have had better seasons than Cave and Beckham have in the majors. Who do you want them to have as depth? Who should be the non-40-man roster players in the minors that will get you excited about the Twins depth?

To me you're just defining minor league depth. People were all angry last year because the Twins didn't have "depth" to deal with their injuries. Now people are mad that they have former major leaguers in the minors. Cave has no more of an inside track than any other player not on the 40-man. They're going to fill the 40-man before the season starts. They're not going to cut someone to put Cave on it over Rooker, Larnach, or Celestino. This is exactly what I'm talking about, though. They didn't sign Beckham to be their starting SS or waive Cave with the intention of him being their 4th OFer. I'm thoroughly confused by the idea that signing Beckham is bad if you expect their move is to sign a "middling journeyman SS" and you don't think Lewis or Martin are the answer at SS this year. Signing Beckham has no impact on, and makes no statement about, them making a "major splash" at SS. Either they're signing Story, a "middling journeyman," or making a trade. None of those things are impacted by Beckham. If you don't think Lewis or Martin are the answer you should be happy they added a former major leaguer between them and the bigs to give more cushion. Is the better move for a team that says they want to compete to have no former major leaguers in the minors as depth for injuries to guys on the 40-man? That doesn't make even a little sense to me. Why is it bad to have former major leaguers (who, by the way, had at least a little success in the majors) in the minors? I don't understand how it's a bad thing in any way, shape, or form.

It honestly blows my mind that people get so up in arms over these minor league deals. Remember when Cave got resigned to a nothing deal and people's heads exploded because he was still on the 40-man and it meant he was basically guaranteed a starting spot and all that then he was removed from the 40-man like 2 days later? I know things aren't exciting with the lockout ruining the offseason, but we need to gain some perspective. These deals happen all the time. They aren't some org altering thing or any sort of guarantee that he's the starting SS opening day. It's a minor league deal with a ST invite. It means nothing. Teams hand them out like candy to get veteran players to take minor league deals. Can we all just relax?

Fair enough. I'll never understand why you'd trade 150-200 innings for 10-15, but to each their own. As far as Winder himself goes I hope we can agree that he's got some exciting upside with that 4 pitch mix and I definitely want to see a bunch of him in Minneapolis next year!

Your assessment of the rule isn't all that accurate, though. The rule as currently written is that 172 days counts as a full year of service time. There are 187 days in the MLB year. So they have to hold a guy in the minors for 16 days during a year to save an entire season. The idea that they need to sacrifice the majority of an earlier age season to gain that extra year of control is false. If they put Winder on the opening day roster he'd likely be the #5 starter since he's never pitched in the majors before. Here's the Twins first 16 days of the schedule (for now...) Mar 31- Starter 1 Apr 1- Off Day Apr 2- Starter 2 Apr 3- Starter 3 Apr 4- Starter 4 Apr 5- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 6- Starter 5 Apr 7- Starter 2 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 8- Off Day Apr 9- Starter 3 (1 day extra rest) Apr 10- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 11- Starter 4 (lots of extra rest) Apr 12- Starter 2 (keep him on his normal rest) Apr 13- Starter 5 (lots of extra rest) Apr 14- Off Day Apr 15- Starter 1 (keep him on his normal rest) The question is whether having Winder (or whatever rookie) on the opening day roster so he can make 2 random starts in the first 16 days worth an entire extra year of his career when he's an established pitcher? I'd say no. I'd throw bullpen games on those 2 days. Especially since the second one has an off day immediately following it and the first one has an off day 2 days later.

To be fair the rules make it so they only need to keep them in the minors for 16 days, not 2 months. 2 months would be for super 2 status. But 16 days gains them an extra year. I agree it's a bad look, but for a league with the disparity in spending power like baseball has it's not too crazy to keep a guy down for 2 weeks. Especially a back end rotation guy who would make maybe 1 start in the majors in the first 2 weeks of a season.

Feels like maybe that's just being stubborn to be stubborn. It's certainly not ideal if Martin, Lewis, and Gordon don't produce a major league SS, but just refusing to improve the position because you missed on those guys seems unproductive at best. At this point it's a done deal on Gordon. He's not an everyday major league SS. There's no sense in complaining about it or holding onto hope anymore. Martin has very, very little chance of sticking there. Lewis is a tossup at this point and it will depend on what improvements he made during his rehab and the covid year. The Twins should have a very good idea of if he can stick there or what he's looking like after having him in their facilities and working directly with their staff 7 days a week for nearly 2 years. If they don't think he's going to stick there either what is the point of being stubborn and not signing Story just because you really wanted one of those 3 to turn out? I don't get the argument of "we have a really big problem in 2 spots, but this problem is much bigger so let's not invest anything to fix the second really big problem." The Twins don't have a starting SS for opening day 2022. Why not sign a top 10 SS to fix that hole when they have 40 mil left to get to the place the payroll has been at the last few years and there's no SP worthy of that kind of money? They're not fixing the rotation as drastically as people want. At least not in the way people want. They're not spending a ton of money there. It's just not happening. So at this point why not invest in Story and have him, Buxton, and Polanco all locked up in the middle of your defense and lineup for a number of years? Donaldson and Sano both coming off the books soon so it's not like it'll crush their payroll. Just because the pitching is bad doesn't mean they shouldn't fortify the rest of the roster. Why go into 2023 with question marks on the pitching side still and the very real chance of still needing a major league short stop? If Lewis turns out to be a real SS then you can trade him or Story for the pitching you'll still need. I just don't get the idea of not bringing in good players just because they need good players at other positions as well.

It's been shown that the road/home splits for Colorado players don't mean a whole lot. It is easier to hit at mile high, but also then harder to hit on the road when pitches do different things. So it creates an even wider gap and you can't just say "his road stats are his real stats" or even "his road stats are closer to his real stats." Arenado had some pretty gnarly home/road splits too and I think St Louis is quite happy with his 121 OPS+ for them last year. For the most part good hitters are good hitters wherever you put them. And he's still drastically better as a whole package than anything the Twins have run out at short in a long, long time. He's night and day better than Simmons with the bat and way better defensively than Polanco at short.

Brusdar had pitched 9.2 innings for the Twins before he was traded. Our definitions of major leaguers vs prospects are very different. He threw 23.1 innings for the Dodgers his first year there. Your original argument was for wanting major leaguers because they'd established they were major leaguers. 9.2 innings is certainly not establishing that you're a major leaguer. You're moving the goal posts on me a little there. I don't know if you're being serious about their usage of the starting staff or not. If you're trading for Glasnow as a "true ace," as you described him, the Twins would absolutely be looking for significantly more than 100 innings for him. Berrios threw 121.2 innings for the Twins as their de facto "ace" last year and he was traded in July. Maeda threw 106.1 and he missed half the year with multiple injuries. Happ threw 98.1 and he missed starts before being traded in July. Ober threw 92.1 and he was on a strict pitch/innings limit in his 20 starts. Shoot, Griffin Jax threw 82 innings and only made 14 starts. Not expecting Glasnow to get to more than 100 innings is even more confusing to me. You're now suggesting the Twins trade for a "true ace" that will pitch barely more than a bad closer (Colome threw 65 innings last year). Him being 28 doesn't have anything to do with him being able to throw 170+ innings that you'd want from him. He didn't do it before he was 28 and not coming off TJ so I'm not sure why him being 28 would suddenly make him able to do it when he couldn't when he was younger and not coming off surgery. Buxton was a homegrown superstar. It took Buxton wanting to spend his entire career with 1 team to get that deal done. And took years of back and forth to get it figured out. They're very different situations. Not to mention this FO very clearly being far more weary of pitching injury struggles than position players. They also paid JD a ton with his injury concerns. They're more willing to take on position player injury risk than pitchers. I don't have any problem with people wanting to take a gamble on him. And if the price is right every player should be a target. I just don't get people suggesting he's going to come here and be the savior when he's never pitched an entire season and will then be coming of TJ with 1 season of playable control. If they're trading a bag of BP balls for him so it's just a financial thing, cool. But talk of Duran and other top 10 prospects being the cost blows my mind. Glasnow isn't the pitcher to be sending top 10 prospects out for. There's nothing at all to suggest he's the missing piece to get them over the postseason hump in 2023 because there's nothing at all to suggest he can pitch an entire season and lead a postseason staff.