2wins87

Thorpe had his third start today. He pitched 3 innings, gave up 5 hits and 2 runs, but walked none and struck out 6. He also pitched 2 scoreless innings in relief on Tuesday. His totals for the year are: 13 IP, 12 H, 0 HR, 4 R, 2 BB, and 20 SO. Of the balls in play that have been converted into outs 12 have been ground outs and 7 air outs. This would put him as an above average groundball pitcher.

Harrison was 8 for 26 (.308) over the past week with a homerun, a double and 5 walks. Pretty much par for the course recently. His walk and strikeout rates continue to trend in the right directions, now at 10.7% and 21.8%. He did get charged with two errors this week.

If he stays in A+ he'll get to play in the playoffs in September. New Britain might make the playoffs, but not in their position right now. This probably isn't a huge consideration but it could be reasonable justification for keeping him down in order to get a bit more playing time. But he does seem to adjust ridiculously quickly. I would like to see him reach AA this year.

He's just over 23 and 1/2, the average for the Eastern League is 24.4. I'm not sure if I'd call him a young prospect for the league. He's certainly not old.

The Padres signed Mayky Perez for $600,000 some. I guess the Twins and the other teams that were interested in him (it sounded like there were quite a few) weren't too high on him. $600,000 is a nice bonus, but not huge. I hope the Twins get Tseng, seems like they've been getting quite active in Taiwan in the last couple of years. It sounds like he's the biggest target left on their list.

I'm not really into the idea of tiers, I think you lose a lot of context. For example Kepler still has the potential to be an all star, but that's very uncertain, there's still a chance that he ends up as a bit of a bust as well. While Rosario looks to be a pretty good bet to be at least an average second basman, and he might make a few all star teams, but he doesn't really have that star potential. Does that put them in the same tier? I have no idea.

The point of the pool isn't to blow it all on one guy for no reason. Here are the players that have signed for more than Diaz's $1.4 million so far this year: Jose Almonte - TEX - $1.8 million Gleyber Torres - CHC - $1.7 million Micker Zapata - CHW = $1.6 million There are a few top prospects left still, so this list will get a bit longer. But clearly the Twins aren't being cheap, they are signing the guy who they believe is the best. Earlier today it was reported that the Rangers wanted to trade for some of the Twins international pool but the Twins turned them down because they intend to spend all of it. So it sounds like they intend on doing exactly what you want and yet you are still on here complaining.

Cooper also gave an assessment of Buxton's tools (based on his observations and conversations with scouts) for insiders only. He got two 80s and his lowest grade was a 60. Not that we didn't already know he has seriously good tools, but still, it's always nice to hear.

He hits the ball so hard that he has time to walk to third while the outfielders are taking cover. When at first base he glares at the catcher until the catcher accedes second base.

Another good week for Harrison, mostly powered by his 2 for 4 day yesterday with a double and home run. He also picked up 5 more hits including 3 doubles in the rest of his games last week. His home run was his 13th on the season, moving him ahead of Walker and Hicks for the Kernel's team lead. His triple slash is up to .274/.372/.514 on the season. His walk rate has also ticked up to 10.2% over the last two weeks while his strikeout rate has ticked down to 22.4% and his ISO is up to a healthy .239. All very encouraging trends.

I could see a team taking Polanco or Kepler with the intention of trying to work out a trade with the Twins. They get a bit better leverage that way since they could stash them on their 25 man roster (though this is harder to do with position players than with pitchers who can pitch out of the bullpen in low leverage situations). It's possible that an AL team (maybe Houston) might like Vargas's bat well enough to try to keep him as a bench bat, but I don't know how likely that would be.

He probably fits best in LF. He's not as fast as he was when he was younger and smaller and his arm is probably just average.

Second start of the year today for Thorpe: 4 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 8 K That's a 12-1 K-BB ratio in his first two games.

If the source for this article is to be trusted, DeMuth will return to Indiana next year (Halstead, the Twins 26th round pick, will also reportedly be returning to Indiana). No word on Slegers. We'll have to see what Eades' signing bonus ends up being. If he goes for slot the Twins will have about $400,000 to offer Slegers without exceeding their bonus pool. If DeMuth doesn't sign he'll be in a pretty similar situation to LJ Mazilli last year. Mazilli got $300,000 from the Mets this year (about $140,000 less than his 4th round slot value). I don't know if their was any public knowledge on how much the Twins offered him as a 9th round pick last year, but they were nearly $300,000 under their total pool last year, so they could have theoretically offered him over $400,000. I don't think DeMuth will be looking at an offer much bigger than $200,000. Still a pretty nice sum of money to turn down.

Final line: 3 for 7, BB, 2B, 3B, HR, 1K Nice to see him breaking out in AA

How good are his slider and changeup? Would either be a fringe plus pitch at the MLB level?

I was going to point this out also. I'd guess that if you have a team of 8 hitters who all have around .400 OBP and .400 SLG, you'd rather have your ninth guy have an OBP around .300 and SLG around .500 rather than another .400/.400 guy. Maybe the example isn't extreme enough to be true, but you get the idea. Also, regarding SB. I looked into the risk-reward of different base stealing situations using a run-expectancy matrix a while back. It'd be good for it's own post, I'll have to find the spreadsheet, but bottom line, a lot of situations you need to do better than an 80% success rate to generate positive value. While some of the lowest necessary success rates actually come from attempting to steal home. The problem is just that it is difficult to find a situation where you are reasonably sure you will be able to steal home.

Molina definitely has elite defense. Fangraphs puts his career defensive runs above average at 72.5 and baseball reference at 90. Mauer's totals are -3.7 and -8 respectively, which is basically average. Mauer also hits way better than the average catcher which is what has made him so valuable. Until recently, Molina never hit well enough to compare with Mauer, even with his elite defense. I think it's an interesting question to consider which will be better going forward. There have always been questions about whether Mauer was too tall to play catcher and whether this would make him burn out faster. If this season is any indication, he's still doing fine.* Molina has the traditional catcher build, but this also means that he is a bit on the heavier side, which has been correlated with earlier declines. If I had to pick a player going forward without considering salary, I'd take Mauer with his superior athleticism and longer track record of success. He'll also be more likely to remain valuable even while playing less time at catcher. Molina's value is much more tied to his being a great catcher, and it's not easy for anyone to keep playing catcher through their mid-30s whether they are 6'5" or 5'11". Will Mauer be worth $9 million a year more than Molina over the next 5 and a half seasons? Maybe, but probably not. Still, Mauer is already starting to compare favorably to many Hall of Fame catchers. And with a few more solid seasons at catcher he'll be a virtual lock. I think we need to appreciate that as fans. *Side note: I think Mauer's success at catcher while being so tall sometimes goes unappreciated, since he has managed to at fracture one of baseball's long held perceptions that tall guys can't stay at catcher. Would Matt Wieters have gone 5th overall in 2007 if the only comparison for a 6'5" catcher was still Larry McLean?

Splitting hairs but he's actually 24. If he makes his debut in September he will be 24 years plus 5 months old, still younger than the average for catchers. If he debuts sometime early next year he'll be a shade over 25.

I don't mean to hassle you, but while we're at it I'd be tracking Polanco and Goodrum ahead of DJ Hicks (I'm not saying you shouldn't be tracking Hicks, but Goodrum and Polanco are younger, especially Polanco)

Nice to see him start in rookie ball rather than the DSL. Although he started at 3B, so I'm guessing they aren't even going to try him at short like they did with Sano.

A good week for Harrison, he was on the base paths a lot. He went 5 for 12 with 3 walks and 2 HBP. Two of his hits were doubles and two homeruns. He also made an appearance in the midwest league all-star game, where he went 0 for 1.

Thorpe was the opening day starter for the GCL Twins Friday. He gave up 2 runs on 5 hits, but also struck out 4 while walking none in 4 innings of work. All in all, a good start for the 17-year-old; nice to see him missing bats.

Although it's not like Markakis is really a better choice.

Mine are: Buxton Sano Arcia Rosario Meyer Berrios Gibson Stewart Polanco Harrison I'd like to see Stewart at least get a few innings in before ranking him ahead of my current top 3 pitchers. If he struggles he probably stays in the same place. If he's brilliant he probably moves ahead of Gibson and Berrios.