chpettit19

Agreed the Twins need to do everything they can to see if Duran can stick as a starter, but he feels like a reliever to me. And I don't see that as a bad thing. If he can go 2 innings at a time with his 100 MPH fastball and low 80s "splinker" he'd be a great weapon out of the bullpen. Teams are moving more and more towards building staffs of "out getters." The ideal is still having a staff full of deGrom, Scherzer, Bieber, and Buehler types, but those guys are special and not growing on trees. For teams who can't (won't?) spend 25+ million on a starter the strategy is to get a collection of guys who can get outs and figure out how many outs they can get on a regular basis. Is it once through the order? Twice? 1 inning? 100 pitches? what is their ability and what can their arm handle. It feels like the Twins will go this way a little more this year as they have so many arms on the 40-man who have no MLB experience and don't have great innings numbers after the last 2 years. The playoffs last year will give teams even more hope in this strategy. The 2 teams in the World Series both went pretty hard on the "out getters" strategy in the postseason (for various reasons).

I'd be more than happy with Royce taking the SS spot in Minneapolis for the next 10 years, but I have these images in my head of a Martin-Buxton-Lewis OF on opening day 2023 that takes away extra base hits all day, every day and I think I'd prefer a Story-Polanco MIF with that OF if signing Story is a real possibility. With the league going more and more to lifting the ball and looking for extra base hits I'd love an OF featuring 2 of the fastest guys in the game and another incredible athlete in LF. But those are all hopes and dreams at this point.

I think he was terribly mismanaged last year. First by the Blue Jays and then by whoever let him go to the Olympics and not throw a single pitch. After not throwing a competitive pitch in 2020 he should've started at high-A for the Blue Jays and taking 6 weeks off in the middle of the season to throw 0 competitive pitches and not even be around his developmental coaches was terrible. I look at him as basically a brand new prospect after these last 2 years. I don't know that I'd rank him significantly higher or lower than this on my list, but I'd view him as basically a new draftee/signee. His track record is completely wiped out for me after the last 2 years. Fresh start and let's see what he looks like this year.

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

I just don't know why someone would offer Rodon even 20M on a 1 year deal when the team he just had his career year with who's trying to win a world series wouldn't even risk him accepting a 1 year 18.4M deal. It's entirely possible they think Keuchel is going to bounce back or one of their flame throwing relievers can step into the rotation, but if you're the sox and you're trying to win a world series and you think Rodon can be good again don't you try to bring him back? That's a huge red flag to me.

I'd much rather they pay Story with the $40M they have left between last year's payroll and the current payroll. No pitchers available on the FA market or trade market that cost so much they can't throw a ton at Story and still bring in an arm or 2. (I'm not a Rodon believer. Chicago didn't even put a qualifying offer on him and that says they don't think he's got any chance of being healthy and good.)

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 agree that DHing isn't for everyone and takes a specific type of player to fill it, but I'm not sure why you think NL teams wouldn't be looking to improve their team. There's certainly teams who will go "DH by committee," and teams who have a guy they'd like to try there, but an internal DH move means you're taking a guy who couldn't crack your top 8 and putting him in as your DH. For the most part if a guy is one of your top 8 hitters you find a spot on the field for him even if he's terrible on defense (see Castellanos, Nick). So then it comes down to whether a guy like JD or Sano brings more value than whoever their #9 guy may have been. I'd argue JD would be better than the #9 guy on any NL team so then it's just a matter of which teams could fit him in at 3B by already having a hole there or being able to move other guys around. I think you're underselling what another lineup spot means to NL teams.

I think the struggle with this whole situation is that it's not just NL teams who are open to signing the guys you listed, or any FA or trade target. The rumors are it's the Yankees who were in the hottest pursuit of Freeman, and were looking at bringing Rizzo back if they didn't get Freeman. So there's one of the guys you listed that isn't filling any hole on an NL team. So even with 4-5 teams not trying, and 3-6 choosing to go internal (not sure which teams you think those are or how you came up with that guess, but it seems fair enough), there are still more than 4-8 spots open in the league and, again, if Sano is a better hitter than the lesser defender that one of those guys displace then he's an option to fill that DH spot. I do agree the Twins probably get a better, or at least not lower, return for Sano if he has a good first half and a contender has a hole to fill. Also agree they don't need to create more 2022 budget space as I don't see many, if any, realistic FA or trade targets that are going to fill the budget to the point it's been the last couple years anyways.

Teams aren't signing Freeman, Bryant, or Rizzo to DH. And you're not trading what it'll cost to get Olson to move him to DH. Those are all guys with defensive value, Olson being possibly the best defensive 1B in baseball. So not sure how they fit into the conversation about the DH beyond teams moving their current 1B, or other position players in Bryant's case, to DH. But then the question is whether Sano is a better hitter than the guys Freeman, Bryant, Rizzo, or Olson would displace.

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.

I think the whole situation is very complex when you're talking about the court of public opinion. I don't like men who need/want to beat a woman to enjoy their "private time." And I've read the texts. He asked to slap her in the face and admits to choking her unconscious before he knew she would be ok with that. But I get that people are "into different things." And I totally get why he wasn't charged with anything. I certainly read those texts as giving consent. But the court of public opinion is full of people who think he's guilty of a crime, some who think he didn't commit a crime but is a creep/bad person, some who think he did nothing wrong, and on and on. That's where things get very blurry. I've followed Bauer for a while. I enjoyed a lot of his takes on baseball things, especially his "war" on sticky stuff, until he used sticky stuff to get a crazy deal and became a huge hypocrite. But Bauer is about as arrogant as it gets, and has proven, with his own words, to be a pretty big jerk. He's alienated teammates in every clubhouse he's ever been in since high school. I don't expect everyone to get along with everyone, but Bauer takes it to another level. There's a way to challenge the status quo without being a jerk about it. I mean if you go look at the things he's said and the way he's treated people it's not pretty. He complains about people online bullying those they don't know when they go after him, but he sent/tagged over 80 tweets in 3 days harassing a college girl who commented on one of his tweets about Alex Bregman (her favorite player). Like he scrolled through years of her tweets to publicize old things and turned his twitter mob on her. It was ugly. And that's just 1 example. I don't want him anywhere near the Twins.

Fans love Barry Bonds. That's what my statement was about. Teams can survive a short-term PR hit because if players win fans forgive them very quickly. Self-righteous writers may be a different story...

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.