TRex

In regards to Thorpe and other young pitchers making the jump to full season ball... I think the main driving force for the slow promotions of the Twins (and other clubs) is innings pitched. Berrios was promoted at the end of April due to injuries and look at how he struggled with decreased velocity at the end of the season. It seems like he handled the mental part of his struggles okay, and that his mechanics didn't get out-of-whack (which could lead to injury). But will the 20-30 innings of low-A work he got by being promoted in April vs. mid-to-late May really have that much impact on when he gets to Minnesota!

I don't remember any scouting reports that suggested Dozier would (not could) be an average ML shortstop based on his minor league body of work. I realize Seth has a lot of quotes from pitchers praising Dozier's defense, but I do not recall any similar praise from talent evaluators. <snip> I don't know why this is sticking in my craw... I am about as 'glass-half-full' of a Twins fan as you'll find, and would love to have the batting lineup this would afford! I promise you can have the last word if you want...

If we had a veteran rotation like Detroit or Tampa, I could entertain the idea of a Dozier/Rosario DP combo; but with the group of guys that the Twins will be using in 2014 and 2015 I think it would be suicide! However, maybe your ulterior motive is an Astro's-like coup of a Appel/Rodon combo!

You have several great sleepers there, Ox! Just a note on Thorpe, however, that he actually was a rather big money signing. He received $500,000, which is the highest bonus for an Australian for at least the last three years.

My own personal feeling is that anyone rated in the top-20 (prospects) of their league by BA can not be a sleeper... especially since BA acknowledged that Walker's status is discounted because of his age and walk to strikeout ratio.

With great personal intent on NOT derailing this fine thread, I think the fact that the Twins had at least 1 scout on hand for every pitch Stewart threw in his Junior and Senior years demonstrates the power of an 'organization' over someone with excellent sources. I have no doubt that the Twins rated Stewart as the BPA... especially since they pretty much knew the whole time who would be left after the big-3!

I second the motion, and am sorry that Today is the final day!

Now all he needs for the clean sweep is to get top prospect in AA and AAA next year and MLB ROY in 2015!

This is going to be a really difficult discussion if Kepler has a poor showing in the AFL, because I think we (mostly) would agree that he doesn't need to be protected. But I will still be highly agitated if he is picked. I know a good argument could be made that he won't stick, but each of the other 29 teams would have a shot at him before the Twins could get him back after waivers. Does anyone know if we could take him back and put him on OUR 25-man roster?

There is a reason I try hard not to get too funny when I post... I am really not very good at it (despite my delusional opinion otherwise)!

I am surprised that so many people are distressed by Hicks' not getting a call up (not necessarily you, SW). There was so much hand wringing at the beginning of the year about Hicks' service time, but for all intents and purposes doesn't the August 1st demotion pretty much guarantee that he will not reach the Super Two mark? That means his service time will be 63 days short of the full year (or more than the 2 months we previously discussed).

I think looking at who WAS taken as a comparator for whether Kepler WILL be taken is a bit of a non-sequitur. The real question (although much harder to answer) is how many 20 year old, $800,000 bonus babies that were already ranked as one of their teams top-10 prospects were left unprotected? That is pretty much the equivalent of the Twins not protecting Kohl Stewart next year. OK, maybe Torii Hunter is a better example to use after the .248/.330/.348 line he put up in his second full year (albeit in high-A). And remember, while his 2013 season in total wasn't overly dominant, teams are looking more at projection, and he was at a line of .261/.343/.459 before he went in the tank the last week of the season. Also, as we discuss so much with AB Walker II, Kepler's walk rate, strikeout rate and W/SO numbers have been very good the last two years (over 10%, under 20%, and ~0.7). Finally, remember that Kepler played this whole season with an injured elbow but, like Oswaldo Arcia in 2011, was still able to play through it. Oswaldo came back with a monstrous 2012 season, so we may not yet have seen Max's best. I think other teams could also take the chance the 'injury' would allow them to put him on the 60-day DL and 'hide' him from the 25-man roster. Remember, it's only a $25,000 gamble and Kepler has done nothing to indicate he wasn't worth his $800,000 signing bonus! Is it too early to start crafting jokes for when Kepler establishes himself as the leagues best hitting left fielder (ala Willingham)... you know, about the Beattle's song... Bang, Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down upon his (the pitcher's) head, Bang, Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer made sure that he (the Tigers and Justin Verlander) was dead

...not to mention that the decision doesn't have to be made until after we see how he does against the tougher competition in the AFL. If he does really well, some team would definitely take the risk. If he is over his head, maybe he wouldn't be completely ready by 2017 anyway. But even Denard Span, who seemingly took forever to develop, was 'ready' at 24 (though the Twins sent him down for what I believe was an arbitration clock adjustment).

I definitely do not think that is expecting too much, as Ryan himself has hinted at the possibility of Buxton being called up next year. I wouldn't even mind if you substituted Arcia for Rosario! Either group is an excellent mix of speed, power and defense!

Not to pick nits, but if you non-tender Duensing, I don't think you can sign him before May.

I am a little late to the party, but... I like the Mackey article, and think it is 'our' job to challenge the teams' status quo (or at least those who can write coherently). However, I think his comparison of the Twins as 'Blackberry' and the Rays as 'Apple' is quite off. The Twins did not invent some new toy and fail to acknowledge it's limitations and the progress of their competitors. Instead, the Twins excellence resulted from several 'time honored' baseball truisms. Therefore, I think the the more fitting comparison would be that the Twins are IBM while the Rays are Apple. And I think the last 20 years have shown that, no matter how hard they try, IBM will never be Apple. In fact, NO ONE else (not even new, start-up companies) have been able to reproduce 'Apple'... and no one has been able to reproduce Billy Beane. But on the other hand, IBM (and IBM wannabe's) still maintain the lion's share of the market and they may be better off honing their own product rather than trying to re-create WYSIWYG (always wanted to type that, hope I wasn't supposed to use *******). Finally, however, I hope that the Twins at least acknowledge their operating system is a little clunky and they learn to mimic some of the functionality of their competitors (i.e. maybe have more than just 1 or 2 guys in their analytics department)! I also hope that they let their scouts be scouts and don't try to get them to develop new statistical analytics... baseball scouts/brilliant mathematicians are hard to come by! And in case the Twins are willing to hire Mackey... he is my favorite Twins writer, and I could be hired away from my current job without much ado!

Guess who made the cover of the 2014 Baseball America Prospect Handbook!

Hey lightfoot... as the lead drummer for Walker, are you 'disappointed' that he was only 15th? I, for one, think that that is quite a feather in his cap considering the group of pitchers and position players in front of him... especially since he came into the season without any top-100 hype. This also means that he was the second best position 'prospect' on CR... ahead of Polanco, Keplar, Harrison, Goodrum and Hicks. That is not a bad jump for his first full-season. I think this shows just how legitimate his power/speed combo is, and I think if he can even come close to repeating this years numbers in the FSL next year (even without improving his W/SO rate) he will garner some top-100 votes.

<with tongue firmly in cheek. I would imagine that, since the scouting scale is probably over 100 years old, it pre-dates our fascination with 'rotation slot'... do you presume they need to change their scale because of us?

I agree it would be amazingly bad, but you would have to imagine it is (nearly) the same throughout baseball. I would image that the top 10% of pitchers own 90% of all WAR. Does anyone know/think differently?

I got all excited because we are only 1 W from 4th place, then I wondered what happened when two teams tie? I looked it up, and the team with the worse record from the year before wins (loses?). That means Chicago wins the tie, and we are actually 2 W back... with only 10 games to go:( . However, we have the tiebreaker over Milwaukee, so there is now almost no way that we are worse than fifth (i.e. even if Milwaukee goes 0-10, we would need to go 4-6).

I guess I disagree with your interpretation of the quote... to me, the scout is saying he will, AT WORST, be average. While in mean/mode speak, you are correct in that average is the most likely possibility, this is a 1-tailed and not a 2-tailed distribution (i.e. it is not 'possible' for him to be worse) which is very different. I would also rather pay $10 million/year for years 26-29 with Abreu than years than $14 million/year for Swisher's years from 33-36 (same for Morneau). I also like that Abreu's raw power (like Sano's) will allow him to reach the seats at Target Field. And the best thing about a potential Abreu signing is that, similar to the 'League of Nations' infield that returned relevancy to the Twins at the turn of the decade, the Twins could sport an all Caribbean 'League of Nations' infield when Rosario comes up... Abreu (Cuba) at 1st, Sano (DR) at 3rd, Florimon (DR) at SS, Rosario (PR) at 2nd and Pinto (VZ) behind the plate!

I don't think he will 'lose' 2014, he will (hopefully) be pitching by mid-July and get into 10-15 games before the minor league season ends. He is/was a major college reliever, so he should be experienced enough to go to Instructionals for September and the first half of October and then pitch in the 30+ game AFL season. They always need relievers, so it's not like he would block another prospect. That would give him almost as many appearances/innings as he would have gotten in a full minor league year (~16 vs. 20 weeks). I think it is fine if you still dislike the policy, but I think the Twins (and other teams) have shown us that this is what they think is the best route (and I personally think it is a defensible position).

Your assertion would be perfectly valid if major leaguers swung at the same number of 'out-of-zone' pitches as High-A players... but they don't! And, in contrast your example, where winning was the goal, the goal for Jones is to ready himself for the big leagues. I especially imagine that Jones gets most of his strikeouts by elevating the fastball, like many other high-A pitchers we have discussed. However, unlike 20 year old kids, the pros are more likely to lay off that pitch (or give it away as a souvenir)! Somewhat related, it was interesting to hear Buxton say that the most significant difference between low-A and high-A was pitchers worked the corners rather than the middle of the plate... which may also be something Jones needed to work on before he was ready for AA.

This line is starting to grow really old... WHY do TJ surgery before you have to, and why would you want to do it before now? If you do it in June, like many fans want, the pitcher could be ready for spring training the following year... big deal! They are going to be on a strict pitch/innings limit, especially Chargois, who didn't pitch much this year. If he's ready for spring training and breaks camp with Fort Myers, he reaches his innings limit in May, and is then shut down for a much longer time than he is used to. Instead, the Gibson/Wimmers timeline shows the (IMHO very well thought-out) blueprint that the trainers want for rehabilitation after TJ surgery... back on the mound in June, in games in late July or early August, build up innings through the AFL or Instructional League, have a 'normal' off-season and be ready for a full schedule of games the following year.