RJA

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato is doing what they wanted Austin Martin to do.

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

Prato kind of reminds me of Spencer Steer as he has not had a lot of hype and has flown under the radar, but my oh my, he has exploded at St Paul much like Steer. If he keeps this up, he will force himself into the picture for next year. And, he hits right handed and is killing southpaws this year. 

You can never have enough bullpen arms, so my biggest complaint is that they did nothing in the off-season when players were available in free agency and would not cost anything in the way of prospect capital. Signing Gallo was a huge mistake—even if they thought he would bounce back some.  He is left handed for gosh sakes. Why add him to Kirilloff, Kepler, Wallner, Gordon  and Larnach?  His salary alone could have netted 2 relievers. But, no worries, Luplow is going to solve our southpaw issue. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Injuries and age of caught up with them? That may very well be true but bear in mind Byron Buxton is not even turn 30 yet. It’s kind a hard to say that a 29 year old player is being waylaid by the ravages of time.  If that’s what we’re going to go with then all praise of him should end today

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Buxton and Correa both look like injuries and age have have caught up with them.  Having 50 million a year tied up in them is going to a big problem if they don’t rebound. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

I can't imagine that Correa's "bad" ankle is causing his poor performance in the batter's box.  If his ankle was bothering him, there's no possible way he could play shortstop the way he does.

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

Amen. Not catching up with fastballs is the first sign of an aging bat. He has looked “old” at the plate all year. Plus, I think his obsession with analytics may be messing with his mind. Hopefully, he will adjust his approach, clear his mind in the off-season and get better, even if he can’t be what he once was. Boy, if this situation turns into one of those albatross contracts, the Twins are in big trouble. 

I guess I am not sure why we are in such a hurry to trade Matt Wallner.  He had a top 5 OPS in AA last year at 1.033 and at AAA this year his OPS is .927 and currently at the MLB level granted a SSS he has a .988 OPS.  Most of those numbers are better than what Jullien put up.  So what exactly are we going to get back that is better than that?
I get he has some K rate issues as he hovers around the 30% mark but his walk rate is around 10% as well which offsets some of that.  He has an unsustainable BABIP at AAA right now at just under .400 so there are some warts in the profile but this is two years in a row with elite OPS production in the two top leagues in the minors so I guess I don't understand why you wouldn't give a bat like that a chance at the MLB level before trading him for a withered old veteran for a team barely over .500.
His defense at least what I have seen at target field is far from élite but he tracks down most balls and his arm makes up for some of the range issues.  He is no Rooker out there.  
If they want to trade a Lefty outfielder trade Gallo, Gordon, Kepler, Larnach likely in that order as I think Wallner has more potential than all of them.
While I would like to get something for Maeda before he leaves given the Twins are only 1 and half games up and he has a relatively fresh arm and has pitched about as well as the other four guys it seems like they might need him down the stretch to keep Cleveland at bay.  If they think Kuechel can hold that 5th spot without too much damage and they think Varland and Headrick could fill in a pinch I guess I could see them trading Maeda but it better be a nice return and it should be young pitching IMO.  Might be playing with fire there but this team has so many flaws maybe in the end it doesn't really matter.,

Am I mistaken, or are Raley's splits this year not good against lefties?  Hand's splits are much better against lefties this year I think.  Plus, his home and away splits are much better out of Coors Field, which is not surprising.  I am not in favor of adding any reliever on anything other than an expiring contract as there is too much fluctuation between seasons.  I agree totally with you on the bats.  Let's not make long term, costly additions there until we see whether Buxton is every going to play CF again, and whether Lewis is an option.  If not, make a trade in the offseason when the asking prices are more reasonable, and we know more about player availability.

Great article.  When one reads this and then Gleeman's article today on the total failure of the Twins highest paid position players to produce, it is easy to see what the problem is and what the solution is.  With the exception of Solano, it seems like the Twins players are caught in a ground hog day sort of loop--they keep doing the same things day after day and seemed surprised that they are not getting better results.  What is the old definition of insanity???

Wouldn't it be something to trade away Steer, CES, and Kirilloff at back to back deadlines and see them all blow up in your face?
I love Goldy. Would absolutely trade for him. But I'm not trading Kirilloff to do it. Goldy is on the way down. Still very good, and would look great in the heart of this lineup, but Kirilloff is doing what we all hoped he would, and is on the way up. Unfortunate timing to have this article come out at a time when he's hit 3 bombs in 4 games and claim he probably can't slug. 
We've also been talking about all this great depth, and all these great prospects, for years now. And I'm still not seeing it. I'm not trading Kirilloff because ERod may learn to make more contact, or because of an 18 year old who isn't even signed yet. Lee looks like he may be able to be at Kirilloff's level in the near future, but there's no other all around bat in AA or higher that we need to think of clearing the way for. If we end up with more stud young players in 3 years than we have spots I'm sure we'd be able to figure out something to do with them.
I also don't think adding Goldy while subtracting Kirilloff would improve this lineup enough to risk so many more years of Kirilloff. They need to add Goldy while taking guys from the bottom of the lineup, not the top.

Would be one of the biggest mistakes this FO could make. 
AK has played little to no baseball for the past three years.  Now that he is finally healthy, he is developing into the player we always thought he would be.  Come next summer we will see what that is.  Why trade away a future star, who is currently inexpensive for an aging super star who is very expensive?  Stupid in my opinion.