diehardtwinsfan

There's risk. There's also upside (as 2012 showed us). I don't think anyone would argue that. But you are also looking at younger talent that's more likely to improve (as he did this year) than to get worse. He was already one of the better 3B in the league last season, and while I think he has value, a second season doing that would make him very valuable and allow the Twins time to see if Sano forces the issue. I'd much rather roll the dice with Plouffe who has demonstrated that he can play 3B above average at the MLB level then on Sano who may need time to knock off the rust and hasn't exactly played much in the high minors. This is a decision that should be punted to next season in my opinion.

There isn't a person in any minor league system that didn't dominate in High School. Just to get you an idea, the best ball player in my high school who was one of the best in our conference never made it out of A after spending a few years in college absolutely dominating that competition as well. The same can be said for college. Even Drew Butera posted a .915 OPS his junior year of college. This is pretty normal for all prospects to do well in HS/College. There's a reason Walker was drafted in the 3rd round. To be clear, I like the guy as a prospect, and if he can get beyond those contact issues, I think he will be a star in MLB. I think he can (at his ceiling) be a Vlad Gurerro type guy, who Ks a lot, but still posts overall good numbers... that assumes he can develop a bit more patience and start laying off pitches that he cannot hit. As a prospect, that makes him a pretty good one, and like someone else said, a few years back, he'd be a top 5 prospect in the system. I'd also note that he'd be in the top 10 for most baseball teams if he were in their systems. He's not at the moment in large part b/c of the depth that exists in the Twins' system. There's nothing wrong with that.

I think you trade him when Sano forces it, not until them. If Sano rakes in AA next year (and possibly AAA), then Plouffe becomes and offseason trade candidate or the default LF if that is still a problem. I'm not sure I'd want him in the OF as I think I'd rather keep him at 3B.

I'm with Seth here. If Buxton dominated AA/A+ like he did last year in A/A+, I might be up for this experiment. But he wasn't that good in Fort Meyers and he didn't finish one game in AA. He needs to not only earn it, but simply show he's healthy. I don't want another Hicks situation, and I especially don't want to see valuable service time eaten up b/c a kid was promoted and wasn't ready. I'd say the same for Sano, though I could see starting him in Rochester to open the season and giving him a call up sooner than later. Moving both of these guys up looks more like desparation than anything. Regardless of which, it won't be hard to find a CF on a 1 year deal. What the Twins really need to do is figure out LF.

I think we will be thrilled if he hits .320 with 30+ HRs in AA. I'm not holding my breath on that. I'll be thrilled if he can maintain his A+ BA and keep the power. This is going to be a very big jump for ABW.

I don't remember comps, but potential middle of the order bat was something that was listed as a ceiling. That said, he was never considered a cant miss type though for what it is worth, so needing time to adjust to the majors is certainly reasonable.

You can see a nice progression in his OPS the second half of the year with a > .700 OPS in July and a > .800 OPS in Aug/Sept. I'd say something changed. Hopefully it carries over.

I don't see why both cannot be on the ML staff next year. For the Saber reason alone, I'd probably prefer Molly, but something tells me that Dougie could bring some advantage to the clubhouse as well, particularly in motivating and relating to younger guys as well as helping out on teaching defense.

I don't think May is really eligible anymore... at least in my opinion. He's going to be off most of the lists this offseason. Rogers is way too high. His development is encouraging, but he won't amount to much more than a back rotation guy if he cannot miss more bats.

He could be had for a song. Teams won't give up prospects for the right to pay a guy 100M to play a position at a 50M rate. I don't think the Twins would need to give up Plouffe. They'd likely need to trade a C/C+ low minors type guy with some decent upside.

That's just it. It isn't just Sano. It's Sano, Meyer, Rosario, Walker, Wheeler, Kepler, and Harrison. All of them (except maybe Wheeler) look to be average to above pieces... several of whom could be stars. Adding Stanton and Latos might turn a 70 win team to an 80 win team, but I can say with certainty that some of thoe prospects will pan out and add far more wins over the life of their careers. This has Garza for Young written all over it... I'd be up for trading prospects when there's one or two gaping holes needing to be filled, but no way in this stage of the Twins development would I think it's a good idea to give up that type of talent for that short of a rental.

Exactly, this was a salary dump more than anything else. If you want that, go get Kemp. You can get good production simply for taking on his salary. There's no way I'd part ways with Sano for a couple years of Stanton.

I'd say unequivobally no. These two guys won't turn around this franchize. The guys you are moving most likely will.

I think in terms of the rebuild, it began when the Twins traded away Span and Revere for pitching. They may not have publicly stated as much, but that's when their actions indicated that this was a rebuilding team. I agree with what others said about 2011. That's a hindsight discussion. They had just come off of a 94 win season and were picked by many to return to the playoffs. Even 2012 was more of a 'we had a ton of injuries, so let's see what happnes when people are healthy'... It didn't work, but to me the rebuild started officially 2 years ago. They were fortunate to have 2 bad years prior to that to help stock the system.

yeah, if I were Ryan, I'd plan for Hicks in AAA. If he's dominating there, he can be called up, but he has an option left, and I'd rather exercise it and force him to earn the job than to hand him the job and be forced to exercise it if he fails. I like the idea of getting Rasmus. He signed a 1/7M deal for Toronto and really didn't have a great season, though his .720 OPS with good defense would be fine in CF for the year. I'd think a similar deal or a deal for slightly more would get him here in MN, as I don't see anyone offering him a long term contract.

1B coach, so you can watch him give the slide signal for every ground ball.

He's not a good hitter either.

The only thing I see here is that Kemp was actually pretty decent this year... He just didn't perform at a 21M/yr level. I'd love to swap Kemp for Nolasco to make room for Meyer or for perhaps a second trade to bring in another high ceiling starter, but unless LA is desperate to get rid of Kemp, I think they will want something of more value than Nolasco... If that's all it takes, I'd do it yesterday. I am somewhat curious if they would be interested in Escobar. With Hanely being a free agent, they have a vacancy at SS. Not sure what their minor league situation looks like as I thought they had a cuban defector at SS coming up through minors, so that might not be an option.

I like Walker, and I was really encouraged by his 2nd half improvement of contact numbers in high A, but he hasn't played in AA yet, and with his contact issues, I'd suspect he'd be eaten alive by major league pitching, worse than Hicks I might add who has a much better approach at the plate. I have high hopes for Walker and think he could be a star if he can figure out those contact issues, but I highly doubt he moves beyond AA next year, and I fully expect him to struggle a bit there.

I'm guessing the point about a batter being successful is a typo 1 out of 10 trips will make for a very short major league stay..... Hicks wasn't that bad Should we emulate KC? I'd say no. I didn't like the Meyers move given that they weren't in a situation where they just needed a pitcher. Moore went all in on a single pair. It didn't pay off last season, and while they made the playoffs this year, that could very well be a 1 game thing. I would not trade Buxton or Sano for 2 years of 2013/14 Shields, and that's about what it cost them. There are too many holes on this team to fill.

The Dodgers OF is looking like an interesting problem that could be taken advantage of. They have 3 high priced guys under contract to go with Puig who isn't going anywhere. Also, they have a young prospect in Joc Pederson knocking at the door with no room. If I were the Twins, I'd look at targeting Kemp. He's way overpaid and under contract for four more years, but at the same time posted a > .800 OPS this year, and he's only 29 I think. I don't know what his defense looks like these days, but he used to be a CF that (if memory serves me right) played pretty good defense. In the corner, I would think he'd be fine. I'd love to go after Pederson, but I'm guessing he's going to be very expensive. Kemp, on the other hand, could be had relatively cheap if the Twins were willing to eat the contract. He'd instantly upgrade the offense in LF, and I have to think he'd better defensively than what we've trotted out there the last couple seasons. With the team getting younger, the payroll should be dropping over the next couple of years, so having another expensive guy like Kemp won't hurt them.

Keep in mind that the Twins weren't the only team to pass on those high upside arms... It was a bit different back then, especially given a Metrodome budget. But yeah, I get the angst. Wimmers was also considered to be a 2/3 type guy too at the time. Unfortunately, it hasn't panned out. Side note, I'd have Garver above most (if not) all of thse.

Now that the season has wound down and the Twins have finished their fourth consecutive 90 loss season, it's time to start looking at a plan for 2015. While the 2014 season did not look so great in the record book, there were some very nice building blocks for the team. For one, the offense did quite well. This is especially noteworthy given that at the beginning of the season, the offense was, to put it mildly, horrid. The improvement was generated by seeing a healthy Joe Mauer return to the team and successful debuts of Danny Santana and Kennys Vargas. Oswaldo Arcia was also much better in the second half of the season posting an OPS > .800 in both August and September. While Vargas and Arcia have been personal top 10 prospects of mine, Santana has escaped my radar the last two seasons, and all he did was rake. Two younger players also established themselves as regulars. Brian Dozier followed up his second half spike last season with a sustained effort. While his batting average was lower than most would have liked, his power stats and on base stats were exceptional for a second baseman, and he did it while playing very good defense. Trevor Plouffe also earned a starting job with improvements in both his bat and glove. Overall, he was a top 5-10 3B placing him solidly above average. This bodes well for the future of the club. The pitching side, however, was a disaster. Only Phil Hughes was an above average pitcher. Kyle Gibson did improve significantly posting numbers that would be equivalent to a 4ish starter. Given his age and minor league career, there's a good chance he builds off of this. The team saw debuts for Logan Darnell, Yohan Pino, and Trevor May as well, with May getting the bulk of the starts near the end of the season. May was terrible in August, though he improved to merely bad in September. However, here too there's reason for hope. He kept his K rate over 9 and dropped his walk rate significantly in September, walking only 8 in 5 games while striking out 29. He clearly has work to do, but like Gibson, there's good reason to think that he can take a big step forward in 2015 after his AAA breakout this year. Pino looked like a guy who can be stashed on the 40 man while he has options and brought up for the occasional spot start. Darnell clearly needed more work, but given his K rates both in the minors and in the majors, could amount to something, whether that's with the Twins remains to be seen, especially with what is coming up the pipeline. The peripherals for the team improved as well. In 2013, their Pythagorean record indicated they were significantly worse than their overall record, being bested only by the Astros. In 2014, their Pythagorean record said that the team was better than the record indicated. While that alone doesn't indicate improvement, it does say that lady luck may have played against the Twins a bit this season. That said, it's becoming more clear that ownership wants to see a return to winning. Season ticket sales have been dropping steadily for several years now, and with no all star game to boost them this offseason, the drop off is likely going to be severe. While at this point, there's little to stop the short term losses, a return to respectability is going to be a priority. The following is my plan. I'd start with coaching. I do not agree with the presumption that coaching has little effect in the win column, as a coaches job is to consistently put a team in position to win. Often, this is accomplished through managing egos in the clubhouse, which is very difficult to put a metric on, but the coaching situation involves motivating players, developing younger players, identifying flaws in a player's mechanics that other teams are exploiting, and managing games in such a way to minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. Given the four consecutive 90 loss seasons, I thin, it's reasonable safe to assume that new voices need to be brought into the organization. As such, I'd suggest that it's time to start cleaning house here. I'd keep Molitor, Cuellar, and Brunanski, but beyond that, I'd retain no other major league coaches. The Twins will likely let Gardenhire stay on another year, but I think it's time for them to find a new voice to manage the clubhouse, and in particular one that is open to many of the new ideas being brought forth by statistics people. Of these three, I'd promote Molitor to the manager role, if he were inclined to take it. If he were not, I'd consider going after Joe Maddon or an external candidate, likely paying very close attention to the Cardinals or Rays organizations. I'd also bring up Doug Mientkewitz from the minor league staff and possibly Jake Mauer to fill position roles. I'd also look outside the organization for remaining vacancies. Player moves are a bit more difficult to do, as free agency does not appear to have what the Twins most likely need. The Twins are also in an odd situation where keeping many of the players that they currently have would be in their best interest, as many of these guys will likely play a role in the future. While the offense was good, the Twins were hurt by poor defensive play, due to playing players out of position and playing players who just could not defend. The goal in 2015 is to improve here. Let's start with the guys who aren't going anywhere: 1B - Mauer - 23M/yr. As a catcher, Mauer might have some demand. As a 1B, he has very little. He rebounded quite nicely the second half and looked more like his old self. Bottom line though, he's not going anywhere. His defense at first should improve, though he was hardly the problem when it came to bad defense. 2B - Dozier. In 2014, Dozier established himself as a member of the next wave. While his batting average was a bit low, he showed exceptional plate discipline as well as some much needed power for the organization. He is one of only a handful of Twins to have a 20/20 season, and for a while there was some thought that he could have 30/30 season. To add to it, he played defense at a nearly elite level. He's arbitration eligible in 2016. Given the situation, I think the most prudent course of action is to work out a contract extension with Dozier over the offseason. He has four years of team control, so the team could likely work out a 5 or 6 year deal. I would attempt to sign Dozier to a 5 year, 30M contract with a 6th year team option of 10M, with a 1M buyout. This would lock him up for his most productive years and keep him relatively easy to trade should another 2B prospect step up. RF - Arcia. Arcia really improved his offense in the second half of this season. His overall numbers, however, were not terribly impressive. What Arcia has shown is that he can hit. His problems deal with a swing too often mentality as well as defense. Given the improvement on the offense, I'd recommend that he spend a lot of time this offseason working on his defensive skills, noting that a step forward in 2015 would likely earn him a very nice contract that offseason. C - Suzuki/Pinto. Signed for another 2 years, Suzuki is not going anywhere. I would, however, plan on Pinto being his primary backup as well as occasional DH and maybe some OF duties to keep his bat in the lineup. I'd let Pinto know that he should be working on taking a few fly balls in the offseason to get used to some occasional time in the OF and that he will be catching 60-80 games next year should Suzuki remain healthy and productive. DH - Vargas. Vargas has a pretty good rookie year and at this point, he's earned the right to break with the 2015 team. While I would not be shocked if he were to struggle (and be sent down) in his sophomore campaign, for the time being, this job is his. 3B - Plouffe. He's getting one more year. Sano is going to need time to develop and Ploufe was an above average 3B. I think he stays on the roster for another year and will likely be a trade candidate in the 2015 offseason if Sano develops as hoped. SS - Of the position players, this position is the most difficut to fill. Both Escobar and Santana put up above average numbers for the SS postion, though Santana put his up primarily in CF. While I like Santana as a long term solution, his numbers were inflated by a very high BABIP and a K rate that says he's going to come crashing back down to earth. On the flip side, he certainly earned a job to start. The problem as I see it is that his future is at SS, and from what I've read, he needs some work on his defense. I'd dangle Escobar this offseason to see if he could fetch something of value, as he too deserves to be a starting SS, however, this move comes with some risk, as there really isn't a fall back plan should Santana find he needs some work. I wouldn't trade Escobar unless he brought back something of value. If that were the case, the Twins could move Escobar to a super utility role and have Santana starting at SS or they could let Santana spend some time in AAA working on his defense. SP - Hughes, Gibson, and May. Each of these guys are staying for various reasons. Hughes had a record breaking season this year. He will be the opening day starter and will remain with the team. Gibson had a pretty good first full season notching a 4.47 ERA in approximately 180 innings. While those numbers are not outstanding by any means, they were above replacement level and should continue to improve with experience. As it is, these numbers are more of a number 4 type starter, and another year should see improvement on all of them. Baring injury, I'd expect Gibson to pitch 200 innings and bring ERA down a bit closer to 4 with a slight rise in the K rate. Trevor May will also return in my plans. While he didn't do as well as I'd have liked in his rookie campaign, he did improve significantly. His break out season in AAA indicates that he has little to prove there, and given his ability to miss bats, he will likely settle in next year and put up much better numbers. RP - Perkins, Fein, Theilbar, and Pelfrey. While I suspect Pelfrey is going to get every opportunity to start, I don't see may ways for this to happen. I could see arguing that this is a sunk cost, but this isn't how the Twins do things. I suspect Pelfrey will get a shot in the pen. Perkins will remain, and I'd keep Fein and Thielbar around. However, that leaves at a minimum 2 open slots, most likely 3. I'd non-tender Duensing and Swarzack or trade them for whatever I could get. I'd tap internal candidates for these roles giving an open tryout for Tonkin, Guererra, Pressley, Oliveros, Thompson, and Achter. Free agency: I don't see the Twins dipping into free agency that much. This is due to not matching up well with needs. I would make an effort to sign Colby Rasmus to a 1 year deal to play CF. I'd try to get an option out of that deal as well. Rasmus would provide a bridge to Hicks/Buxton. Trades: First big trade: I think trades make a lot more sense to the Twins this offseason as there are some teams that match up a bit better. The LA Dodgers are a big one with 3 expensive contracts in their OF, a cheap option in Puig who isn't going anywhere, and some nice prospects coming up through their system. I'd target Matt Kemp, who put together a decent season but isn't worth the 21 M they are paying him over the next 5 years. The Twins need a LF, there's no replacement in the near term. Kemp played CF, puts up better than average numbers with the bat and should be average or better in a corner defensively. Given his contract, the Dodgers won't be getting much for him unless they kick in a large portion of this salary. Given the Twin's youth movement, they should have cash for the forseable future as their payroll will largely drop. This won't hurt their future, though it could potentially hamstring some free agency moves if Kemp were to suddenly stop playing well. That said, he's 29, so he should be able to be productive through the remainder of his contract, just not to the value of his contract. I'd attempt to dangle Escobar or Nolasco plus maybe a C prospect to bring Kemp over to MN. The second trade I'd attempt to make is to add some higher ceiling pitching to the team. The problem as I see it is that finding this type of talent is pretty difficult to do. Two teams looking to be making some moves would be the Diamondbacks and the Reds. The problem, however, is that I don't see the Twins having what it would take to get a guy like Archie Bradley or Robert Stephenson. Both of these guys would be insanely expensive, and there's no chance either team would let someone like that go without acquiring something of equal value. I don't see the Twins dangling Buxton or Sano for one of these guys, so in reality, I don't see it happening. Perhaps AZ might be willing to deal as they showed a willingness to deal Trevor Bauer to Cleveland, but given their play this year, and their need for pitching at the major league level, trading one of their 3 top 100 prospects playing in the high minors makes very little sense. In the end, I don't see this happening unless the Twins are completely sold on Plouffe. Minor league moves. I'd send Rosario, Sano, Berrios, Burdi, and Buxton to AA with the hope that each could earn a midseason promotion. Meyer would start in AAA, and I'd expect him to be called up at some point in the season. Final Roster C - Suzuki/Pinto 1B - Mauer 2B - Dozier 3B - Plouffe SS - Escobar (if no trade is made) LF - Kemp CF - Rasmus RF - Arcia BN - Pinto, Beresford (utility), Schaffer (4th OF), Nunez, Parmelee SP - Hughes, Gibson, May, Nolasco, Millone BP - Perkins, Fein, Theilbar, Pelfrey, Tonkin, Pressley, Oliveros, and Guerrera,

Thing about Garver is that he was picked in round 9. That means the Twins passed up on him 8 times, and so do most other teams. When picked that low, he obviously has some glaring weaknesses. I don't have too much of an issue letting him play in Cedar Rapids as I'd imagine that was the point... It's a league where he shouldn't have too much issue competing, but also one that will allow him to work on whatever those weaknesses are. I'm pretty excited about the guy b/c he performed very well there and showed all the requisite skills that are necessary to succeed at higher levels. I don't fault the Twins for putting him there, they had reason. I do think that he's got the potential to be a good major league catcher. He's got 3 more seasons until he's a 40 man decision. Next year should give us a real good idea if he's for real.

If you owned the Twins, would you be willing to jettison the Nolasco and Pelfrey contracts? I think Jim P. is first and foremost a business man and I while I could see him calling Pelf a sunk cost, Nolasco is going to be a different story with 36M left on teh table. I think that's a pretty big deal, b/c if they go out and get another expensive FA pitcher and that doesn't work, then what? At one point, these contracts make it very difficult for them to be competitive. What I do think is that it might be in the Twins best interest to see about aquiring a stud pitcher and/or a stud LF in the high minors. They do have some minor league depth to pull it off, and if it could be achieved without giving up on Sano, Meyer, and Buxton, then I think they would be wise to do it. I'd note though that I think the odds of pulling this off are pretty low given that those pitchers are very very expensive. Their major league trade chips (Plouffe, Escobar, and maybe Gibson) combined with a lesser minor league prospect might get something to a team looking to win now (particularly an LF), but I don't see those guys netting a quality pitcher.