diehardtwinsfan

I'll leave the top prospects off as I think we all agree that most of our top 10 has pretty good upside too. Hitters: 1. Walker tops the list. If he figures out the contact stuff, he's going to be a beast. 2. Kepler. No one doubts the tools here. He's just got to figure it out. 3. Minier 4. Michael 5. Garver (accounting for positional scarcity on this, but I'm pretty high on him). Pitchers 1. Thorpe (could technically be top 10, he wasn't in mine). 2. Gonsalves 3. Burdi 4. Hu 5. Reed, Z. Jones, and T Jones (I have to admit, the pen over the next decade could be downright sick with shut down guys for the 6-9th).

Based on the pick, Boyd looks like he's built like me. If that's the case, he's going to have trouble maintaining weight most of his career. To get you an idea, I'm 5' 8" and weigh a good 230 pounds. I ran a marathon this fall (my 2nd) and still cannot loose weight. In that aspect of things, I sympathize with the kid. That said, his lack of success thus far is probably going to do him in here. Vargas was still a prospect and had decent results before all of this. Boyd hasn't done much in that area, though given the 7 figure investment, he'll get every shot he can get until he's a minor league FA. That said, there's a huge difference between a diet pill or even weed vs. other drugs of abuse. We dont' know what he did, but at the end of the day it's a bad choice. He can over come it, but I'd have to think that he's running out of opportunities.

I've been doing that a bit on my own. Rocketlanguages has nice little self study program. It helps that I did 3 years in highschool though. On that line of though, I really wanted to put my kids through a Spanish immersion program when they were younger. From a business standpoint, I think knowing 2 languages is going to be a real asset going forward. I do think the Twins are being smart here. Perhaps a bit too late, but baseball in particular is shifting more towards Latin American players.

I think this is a .500 team as constructed. I'm not terribly worried about the pen, as while guys like Burdi won't break camp in the majors, I suspect they will be here before the end of the season. This will be another transition year, but with a lot of young guys already having some experience, I expect it to be a fun season. We should see Buxton and Sano debut this year too, and while they will take their lumps, their talent level says that they should still produce while doing so.

I could be wrong here. But for the 2013 season, the Twins won more games than their Pythag record said it should. For 2014, it was on the other side (or so I thought). I do think they underachieved a bit. Bad OF defense was probably the main culprit, as every pitcher had a signficiantly lower FIP than their ERA. That's probably my biggest beef with the Hunter signing. The flip side of this is that Hunter KNOWS defense, even if his 39 year old body can no longer play it well. I'm hoping from that aspect that the knowledge transfer to Hicks, Rosario, Buxton, and Arcia in particular will be very beneficial. I'm also hoping that Arcia will make major strides defensively. He's young and athletic enough to do it. To me, that would make a massive difference for 2015. That said, I do think that this team will probably win around 81 games and if things break right, could stay in it through most of the season (though I'm firm in that they are more pretenders in 2015).

That's what happens when you lose. I think that problem will start to rectify itself in the near future, but they had to know when doing a rebuild that this would happen. If they didn't, well, I don't know what to say. That said, I echo what others have said. When it costs $200 or so for a family of four to attend a game, it's not something that's going to happen often. Period. That's a reality in this economy. Baseball has 81 games to fill each year, there aren't enough diehards to do that. Lower ticket prices, and people will come, even to see a bad product.

Moving to minor league forum

Moderator note. Be real careful accusing people of racism, especially in what involves a reasonable business decision.

Nolasco may be on notice, but he's going to get all season to prove it. The reality is that Nolasco, Santana, and Hughes will all be in the rotation, and I'd be hard pressed to see Gibson not in it too given that he pitched well last season in what was his first full season. The real problem is that we will have the same issue (minus Pelfrey and possibly Milone) next season. I suspect Ryan will likely be trading someone at the deadline or this offseason, especially with Meyer and Berrios likely making a case to head north.

Only exception is cheap beer, cheap hotdogs, and a Chuck Knoblauch return.

It matters, but it isn't the be all end all of prospect development. It's one of many things you look at. The younger ages tend to come from HS draftees or int. signees, who tend to have a lot more obvious tools and so they get drafted high enough to stay away from college. Elite players also tend to be more advanced than their peers, and so they have the age to league thing in their favor. They also tend to dominate their leagues. And as they physically mature, they become stars in the big leagues. That said, what I hate about this is that some tend to think that this means you should push a guy, regardless of the player's development needs. That's silly. Like Thrylos said, you have to be able to hit a curve ball or throw one before you hit AA. If you cannot do that, there's no reason to put the guy in AA because he'll fail. Not everyone will be an elite player. Yes, we want them, and we get real excited when a guy like Berrios or Thorpe does quite well in their league relative to their age, but it doesn't mean that you push a guy like ABW simply to get some tougher competition. Perhaps that works and he shines, but baseball is littered with guys who were rushed and never showed anything for it.

I'm with Nick here. Meyer was walking way too many hitters in AAA, and that number isn't going to go down in the majors. I don't think we want to see a kid coming up walking 5-6 batters/9, and that's what Meyer would likely be doing if he started the season in the majors, not to mention, he's yet to go through a full season either. I think the right choice is to give May the ball for now and see if Meyer can put it together in Rochester. Meyer can be the first guy called up during injury.

I don't see the Twins being a match here. The Nats do have excess pitching. I heard on the radio yesterday that they guy getting bumped had an ERA under 3. No ideas on the peripherals and what not, but they have someone that someone would want. That said, the Twins would need to unload some of their longer contracts. The Nats have no use for Gibson, or May. They might be interested in stashing Meyer in the minors for a season or two since he has options. I'm sure they'd like Berrios too. However, they would need a guy under control for a while. Trading for a guy like Strasburg with 2 years left makes zero sense. If they were in a win now situation, absolutely, but until the Twins are legit contenders, it's better to let someone else overpay for this deal.

I'd probably do this. Sounds like it would be a fair trade, but given the splits mentioned above, this is as high as I'd go. As for Gibson, I have a feeling he's being traded at the deadline or this offseason. Someone will have to be traded if May continues to improve and Meyer has a decent year in AAA, and I highly doubt that it will be Santana (1st season) or Hughes. Nolasco might be that guy if he has a decent season. If Gibson has a reasonable improvement on this last season, it will be interesting to see what he fetches. I'd imagine it would be a decent return.

Yard man, going yard... same concept. No mas.

I'd agree with Sickels on this personally. I think there's a few more guys who should be higher than Gonsalves (and don't get me wrong, I really like the kid). As was mentioned earlier, Polanco (number 9), was in the top 101 last season. They may have dropped him down a bit, but to me this means that Gonsalves is a top 150 prospect in their book. It just seems a bit high and rather odd that guys like May (possibly ineligible), Rosario, and Pinto are somehow missing. It seems like they are pretty much assuming he's going to break out this year. I hope they are right.

Speaking of 2012, I find it somewhat amusing that this was considered a very weak draft. I remember a lot of us being unhappy that we had so many extra picks in what was a week draft, and then being rather upset when the Twins went out and drafted a bunch of college relievers. In retrospect, it's beginning to look like it was a very special draft for the Twins. Buxton and Berrios look like they could be all stars, or at the very least well above average players. Walker is a wild card given his contact issues, but if he figures them out, he's a stud. Combine it with these college relievers, most of whom (at the least the healthy ones) have been very successful thus far in their roles and this is looking like a draft that could easily produce 4 or 5 regular players and a few more minor role players. That's pretty impressive when you think about it, as getting 3 big leaguers in a draft is typically considered successful.

Plouffe had a very good season, and I find it amusing that he's so underappreciated by Twins fans (in contrast to Dozier who's likely overrated a bit by us). He's an above average 3B. He's not an all star, but when you look at the total package, there's somewhere between 5 and 10 3B in baseball who were better than him. The real question is whether or not he's going to take another step forward. He was a bit of a late bloomer, so I'd say it's possible, but even with minor improvements to his defense and bat, he's a pretty valuable piece to have on any team. If Sano hits the ground running in the minors and Plouffe has the same season or better, I suspect Plouffe will be a very valuable trade piece and will likely bring back a top 100 prospect and change. If he's not traded, he moves to left. That's not bad either, cause I have to think he'd be an upgrade over what we have in the corners presently.

He's got quite a bit of power. A few of us got to see him hit an absolute bomb against Detroit in August. It hit the flag at the top of the flag pole in the right field concourse. It makes me drool a bit more over Sano, who by all scouting reports has even more power.

Levi, I won't argue that religion has influence on people. To me, that's a greater issue of power. Power attracts the worst types of people, and it's those same people that have no problem using religion, governments, or anything else at their disposal in order to achieve whatever means they are attempting to achieve. What' I'm saying though is that religions is more often than not a convenient excuse for such atrocities. Anger and hate have far more to do with them. But I'm arguing that if there was no Islam, these things would still happen. That mess we have in the middle east right now has a whole lot more to do with meddling in the affairs of a people group who truly despise it. If they were atheists, it would still happen. There would simply be a different vehicle for it. But as I said before, these attacks do happen without Islamic faith. Look at Sandy Hook. The killer wasn't Islamic. Look at Abu Gahrib. The victims were Islamic, but this was done by our military while the chain of command at best turned a blind eye to it or at worst ordered it.. There was no religious motivation involved with either of these events (and I'd argue that Abu Gahrib is one of many reasons why this Paris attack happened). What the people in the middle east do know is that they are at war with the west. There may not be a declared war per say, but western troops have sat in their countries since the world wars and their way of life has been impacted. None of this would change if they were not Islamic. Islam may very well be a convenient crutch for these folks to gain some courage and justify their actions, but in my opinion, it's also a convenient crutch for the non-religious who think that somehow the world's problems would go away without religion. They won't. You'll still have the Paris attacks of the world. You'll still have the Sandy Hooks. Your problem, at it's very core is human nature.

I'd be real careful in blaming religion for the brutish nature of things. Extremism is extremism, and there's plenty of it to go around. While religion has certainly had it's fair share of extreme behaviors, it's hardly alone in that. The problem is the thinking that people need a reason to justify their anger/hatred and religious provides a very convenient excuse, but it's hardly alone. It wasn't religion that allowed the atrocities at Abu-Gahrib to continue. It was hatred. It wasn't religion that caused Sandy Hook. After 9/11, when the British subway bombing occurred, the police gunned down an innocent man and even went so far to note that they'd do it again... and people rejoiced. It's much the same with the French situation. Like it or not, the state accused these individuals of completing this task, and with out trial these folks were executed. Did they do it? Probably. But it's a callous view towards human life and liberties combined with plenty of anger and hatred over whatever that causes this. And there's a long list of folks (in both the religious and non-religious spheres) who are quite willing to look the other way and justify these actions. Many Muslims justify what happened in Paris, just as many non-Muslims justified what happened at Abu-Gahrib. At the end of the day, what's really going on is sheer utter depravity, something that mankind has plenty of and will continue to have plenty of until the day Christ returns. The extremism is everywhere, and very few of us can honestly say it doesn't touch us in some way. Just as religion is the crutch for some to commit these types of crimes, it's a crutch for others to pretend that's why they happen. There's a much bigger problem here, and that's the core nature of humans. If you take away faith, I guarantee you that these events still happen.

I'm with you. We don't need to drop bombs on them. They'll do it to themselves. The only way to stop them is to let them shoot at us instead. I personally am not comfortable risking the lives of our service men and women for that.

This. I know it's not fantasy, but I tend to do the same thing with late round fantasy picks. They aren't much different than what you get on the WW. Draft for upside. Sure, that kid might be a massive project with a low probability of success, but finding just one of those late round type gems every other year can be a massive boost for an org.

wow... Griffey will be the first guy taken 1 overall to get into the HOF. That's an eye opener. As for Mauer, I think switching hurts him. Another couple years behind the dish and I think he'd have been a no-brainer. What he did in the limited time he caught is pretty impressive, but baseball is littered with guys with shorter careers who did very well with them. Time will tell I guess. He may be one of those guys who is debated for many years (unless of course he puts together a couple of stellar seasons as a 1B, but I don't think he hits enough HRs to sway voters).

That region has been at war with itself for more than 1000 years. There's so much hatred and animosity there that in all honesty, I don't they'd be able to create a super country. It would more than likely descend into a bloody war and move backwards 100 years. You may see some countries borders shift, as the west unilaterally drew borders without consideration to the people groups that live in them (i.e. see the fear that some have towards a Kurdistan), but that would also start a war. That said, we've been practicing an interventionist policy in the middle east now for far too long. It doesn't work, and I'd argue that alone has given groups like ISIS more sway than what they would have had we just left them alone. I find it rather hypocritical that a country that claims to pride itself in freedom has gone out of its way to control the lives of these individuals. I think the easiest thing to do is find a peaceful way out if one exists.