jimmer

Mauer is another year removed from concussion. He's had one bad year in the last three years and that was last year, and that was after a concussion ended his 2013. And he's only had one other bad year in his career and that was 2011 when he played 1/2 a season.

Three years? His 2013 was very good until the concussion (which is out of his control), his 2012 was also very good. So not sure what you were hoping for or how you think he hadn't rebounded. The people telling you he'd rebound must not have known his mean either. 2014 was an off year for him for sure, but he was showing good signs in the 2nd half as he gets further from his concussion.

That report came out in 2011 I believe. I mentioned it earlier and posted a quote from the article.

Mauer looks like he's in good shape to me. Then again, I have HDTV. Mauer, when healthy, makes in impact. Whether he does it the way some feel a 1B should or not is, sadly, debatable. Bulking up doesn't necessarily mean anyone is going to make 'an impact' more than if he didn't bulking up. It's about bat speed, torque, getting the barrel of the bat on the ball, knowing what kind of batter you are, etc.

Yeah he is. Almost as old as our starting RF. Oh wait, I guess they are exactly the same age for a few months.

A position battle. A position competition. Those phrases suggest that it's in the player's hands to perform and may the best players win. Problem is, and as you point out when you say a lot of things go into these decisions (as we all know, BTW), that's not the case. So maybe they should stop saying that, is my point (and that goes for most if not all teams). They should stop trying to sell that to the fans and players. The rest of what you're saying has nothing to do with my point. I wasn't asking why those guys didn't make it? I didn't think any of them would make it from the very beginning. I said so. But I kept being told there was competition. I guess because the FO said there was. Sano could make it, Meyer could make it. May could make it, look Rosario might too. Then when they didn't it's 'well, clearly they weren't ready'. None of the moves back to the minors surprised me. Span was doing the best in the three player battle for CF (Gomez, Pride, Span) when Gomez was named the winner and Pridie was gone quick in ST and never got a start in CF. Slowey had the best numbers of all 6 pitchers in competition for the 5 spots, he went to the pen. Who had the best ERA of all the guys up for the 5th spot this year? Were all these decisions wrong? Who knows. Could they all have been right, could be. But we're talking about the players and fans being told about a competition.

Pohalds just saw the value of their team jump by almost 50% in one offseason, didn't they?

yeah, but NEXT year.

I couldn't disagree more about the Twins being a good ball club. They aren't as currently constructed at the MLB level.

Not to mention one (Gomez) didn't even make his MLB debut with us :-) And the names brought up earlier (Santana, Hicks, Vargas, Gibson) were brought up as examples of people who were fast-tracked. So if THAT is what we call fast-tracking.

You think so? How many of those guys mentioned were 21/22 when they debuted? The years in the minors I gave weren't from when they were signed, it's from when they debuted on the field. Most started at 17/18. I'm not sure I'd call it fast for all those guys. Some of those guys spent 2-3+ years in rookie ball alone.

How many years in the minors constitutes fast tracking? Slow tracking? Normal tracking? Before getting promoted to MLB: Vargas 6 years in the minors. Hicks 5. Danny Santana 7. Arcia 5. Rosario 5 years and still not promoted (though there's been some suspensions). Are we going to call this fast-tracking? Study came out a couple years ago that stated the Twins were the slowest to promote their players of all MLB teams. 'The result is that some teams develop a reputation for especially aggressive or conservative tendencies in promoting their players. When I asked Kevin Goldstein to name an organization known for being conservative in this respect, he immediately mentioned the Twins, confirming my own impression.' If that trend is changing, may take awhile to break the perception.

Not that it matters, but Fangraphs lists our CF position as 29th out of 30. Of course, they didn't see the Shane Robinson part coming and they envisioned Hicks as the guy starting out, but I'm not sure the ranking would change in the positive with the switch-up. Only the Braves with Upton/Young Jr project worse.

Even if one hasn't bought into all the hype, I still don't think it's a bad thing to want to see the youngsters play. I think it's fair to questions whether or not Meyer is truly ace material, or even #2 or #3 material, if at 25, he still can't earn a spot on this rotation. Same thing for May (though May has been less touted). Bright side is, we can keep bragging about how good our farm system is and can be safe in the idea Mauer's contract will be off the books well before any of these studs in waiting are due a significant pay raise.

Apparently plenty of people care. Some feel that when enduring lost and supposedly rebuilding seasons (such as last year and this year), that with having such a highly touted farm system, now is the perfect time to give some younger (and in Meyer's and May's cases, not so young) players time to see what they have.

I like what Cleveland did with it's rotation options. So many options. No room for Salazar yet (though I might have gone with Salazar over McAllister) but Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, McAllister and House is a fine rotation with Tomlin and Salazar waiting in the wings.

In fairness, I believe the Fangraphs 'predictions' you talk about are actually ZiPS PROJECTIONS posted there. Those are based on what players are expected to do, but they know players will do better or worse and they can't account for sequencing. I've chatted with a few of the writers there and none of the ones I talked to actually expect them to win 75 games.

That includes pitchers like Colon and some of those guys at 28.5 have been in the majors for many years, like King Felix. I think the age discussion has more to do with rookies. What's the average age of a pitcher that loses his rookie status? How about pitchers who are top prospects, like Meyer? Were these guys touted as better than average, especially Meyer? I just thought about this. Seems King Felix has been around a long time. He's just about to turn 29.

Neither is Meyer. Not in baseball terms anyway. They're both 2 decades younger than me :-)

You got to ask yourself WHY they are swinging more. Baseball has studied this and they are looking into adjusting (shortening) the strike zone because they believe it has affected offense. 'Since 2009, the average size of the called strike zone has jumped from 435 square inches to 475 square inches, according to Roegele’s research. The results: Pitchers are throwing more in the lower part of the zone, and hitters are swinging at an increased rate, knowing the tough-to-drive pitches will be called strikes.' 'This was always the most simple and logical solution to increasing offense, so it’s encouraging to hear that MLB is at least looking into it. And good on folks like Jon Roegele and Brian Mills for putting the numbers out there for everyone to see. See, analytics aren’t so bad.' http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/02/12/report-mlb-could-change-strike-zone-to-boost-offense/comment-page-1/ 'Roegele’s study estimated 31 percent of the offensive drought could be attributed to the strike zone while Mills estimated it’s between 24 percent and 41 percent. After seeing a strong correlation among the size of the strike zone, all-time-high strikeout rates and historically low walk rates, members of the committee now are fairly certain the relationship is causative, too, and seem primed to do something about it.' 'Most agreed that raising the strike zone almost certainly would spark offense. The potential issue: More offense equals longer games, and with pace of play one of new commissioner Rob Manfred’s priorities, balancing the two remains a difficult proposition.' http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--mlb-could-alter-strike-zone-as-response-to-declining-offense-232940947.html

Let's not forget who though signing Pelfrey in the first place was a good idea much less re-signing him for two years at an even larger salary (though not large in the grand scheme of things overall).

The point was, with the strike zone being called larger and larger, it gives the pitchers a larger area in which to do their work. It hurts the offense.

It's not just the leaving of the steroid era. The strike zone that the umpires call has grown steadily larger over the last 5 years. That helps the pitchers greatly.

I don't think too many people expected or are disappointed that 6 or 7 rookies didn't make the Twins out of ST. I think some, myself included, are disappointed that NONE of our touted guys did. As far as having the best rotations we've had in YEARS, the barometer isn't exactly high now is it? And many said the same thing last offseason.

Maybe after Ryan re-signed him for two years and more money after the kind of year he had with us his first year, he felt his spot was pretty secure. That was an interesting precedent set by Ryan.