diehardtwinsfan

You should probably read up on his grading scale. He doesn't hand out the high grades like they are candy. I believe he gives out only 30 A/A- type grades to get you an idea. Sano got an A-, whereas Buxton, Arcia, and Meyer were all B+ guys. He's pretty consistent with that too.

Given the innings limit and the likelihood that this season will not be a good one, I fully expect Gibson to be in AAA, unless by chance the shift him to the pen at the end of the year and give him a taste. He's not ready now, and by the time he gets ready, exactly how many innings will he have left? Oh, and are people going to call Parmalee a failure so long as he cannot OPS over 1.0 in MLB? If he maintains a .800 OPS in his first full year, I'd say his season was an incredible success and a sign of very good things to come.

I don't think we'd be having this conversation if he was getting this many at bats per inning

I can see the second point, but it seems as though Gardy always had too much fascination for guys like Revere, Casilla, Gomez, etc.

I'm not sure you can attempt to explain any of Gardy's behavior using logic and common sense.

Minor stuff that can be fixed by compatibility view, but I'm having a few issues. Site tends to freeze a bit and the Enter key doesn't work when I reply to posts.

I'm not a Gardy fan by any means, but he's stuck between a rock and a hardplace for this one. If you bring in Burton to start the 8th and he blows it, the same people are screaming about why KC was taken out. I tend to agree that Burton and Perk should have been warming up to keep KC on a short leash, but I'm not so certain that the naysayers wouldn't have been out regardless.

I would be willing to put a pretty decent sum of money on the fact that these players WANT to play in the majors. In the end, it really isn't that simple. They cannot just will themselves to be able to play baseball in the ML at a high level. It comes with practice and patience. I'm not sure Hicks was ready to skip AAA personally, but that's a different issue alltogether. Bottom line is that he's here now, and he should get an extended tryout where he knows the job is his before any decisions are made to send him down.

These were college pitchers, so I think so. They brought Garza up from A+ up in one season, so I think it's certainly possible.

Hmm... several of these draftees from last season are having very nice debuts... Hope that continues.

I'm really beginning to wonder if the 2nd Liriano trade is going to be as lopsided as the first Liriano trade. I'd like to see Escobar in the line up more often.

Juuuuuuuuuuuust a bit out side.

They said that this season is supposed to cover 1/2 of the book. It looks so far like they just skipped 1/4 of the book. Not a bad idea since it took a while for the first part of the book to get interesting.

I'm shocked this is a debate. It has more to do with principles than it does the money. I get the fame route, but lets not pretend that these guys don't have access to the exact same issues in the minors. People know who they are and plenty will want to be with them. Mathematically speaking, it's a no brainer too. Very few careers out of college will make 100k a year. Most will be well under 50 and in today's climate, a huge chunk of grads are unemployed. They won't have the mountains of debt to go with the unemployed, but I fail to see why they'd bypass it. With some smart planning, they'd be set for life even if they never made it out of the minors. Even if they didn't want to be proactive, they could still be better off after a failed career in baseball and a return to college than simply going straight there.

And then there's the whole underslot component. I'd bet Anderson would sign underslot, and they can use that savings to get a tough prep sign... Then you essentially have 2 lower first rounders (one of which fills an immediate need), which might be a better option if there's no good standout in what you need.

can we stop pretending that a pitcher and a hitter have the same value on a game? A hitter will see 4 at bats, maybe 5 in the average game. A pitcher will typically face the other team 3 times and has more impact on the outcome of a game than the hitter ever will. I get that a pitcher goes once every 5 days, but on any given day, your most important starter is the guy on the mound.

To answer John's original question... I'm one of the ones against the Buxton pick, and so far he's making me look wrong. I do hope that he continues to do so, but I think there needs to be some pause here. First, this is 1 week into the season. Players do what Buxton has done thus far for short periods of time... all the time. While it's nice, he needs to keep the torrid start going for at least a month (if not 2) before he heads to Florida. To answer the other question, my problem with BPA relates to the subjectivity of it. Who would you rather have on your team, Griffey in his prime, or mid 90s pedro in his prime? Personally, I'd lean towards the pitcher, but when you are looking at ceilings, all of these guys are top. You then have to price in risk, floor, and a whole bunch of other factors. To this day, I don't see that much of a difference between Buxton and Appel (or Gausman, Zimmer,etc) as they all had ace type potential and are much closer to the show. Hopefully, the Twins made the right call here. So far, it looks very promising, but we need much more time to make that determination. As regards to this draft, again, I don't think there's going to be some guy that just stands out above the rest. The standout guys right now appear to Appel and Gray. I doubt either are there at 4. They will likely have to choose between one or two OFers, Manaea, and Anderson. In this situation, I'd think long and hard at drafting for need with an underslot pick. If Anderson, for instance, would take 2M, then sign him and take the 2M savings and go after one of the prep bats that are looking to slip due to signability. I seem to remember a HS 3B that was looking like a mid first rounder that was leaning hard towards college. Draft him in a later round and put the 2M on him and see if he bites. That would yield two first rounders with 1 pick.

Two words: Andi Dinkleman

You have to take the money. Set 80K aside in a low risk investment as college money should baseball not work out. Invest the rest wisely and you have a nice supplemental check for the rest of your life... or blow it all on whatever you want, just don't touch the 80k until you've played a few years in the pros.

Probably should have said "a top prospect"... 4th on this list. BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Rankings: Organization Top 10 Prospects: Minnesota Twins: Top 10 Prospects With Scouting Reports And I'm 90% certain Seth gave him number 1 that year.

The big thing I don't understand is why relievers are only expected to handle an inning. I think you can make a health argument that it's better for them to warm up and pitch a couple of innings and get the next day off then the warm up/stand down/warm up/pitch routine that happens... Plus, I never understood pulling a reliever after striking out the side in 10 pitches. If he's on, let him and pitch and rest the rest of the pen.

I think the other thing it misses is that it treats runs in the first inning less than runs in the 8th. I get that there's less time to make it up, but a run in the 1st is just as important as one later in the game. That kind of thinking is what makes people say that April games don't matter. We saw last year that April games really do matter. Good points though.

Remember when Tyler Robertson was our top prospect? Me too.

This. I'm not going to pretend Dozier is the answer in the middle, but he's got more potential than just about anyone. Personally, I'd like Escobar and Dozier handle the middle infield for the season and see if they improve... If they don't, then plan for a stopgap until Rosario, Michael, and/or Goodrum are ready.

The first few weeks of baseball always has some interesting sample size stats. I doubt the Twins will do much of anything to any of these guys for at least two months. I seem to remember Sano getting off to a hot start last season and then hitting a very very very long dry spell.