twinstalker

Baseball seems to be centerfielder-crazy right now. Ryan is right to take advantage of that. Taking advantage of a system's inefficiencies is so...so MoneyBall.

It appears the #1 suitor for Revere is Philadelphia. The Revere thread was about Revere, so I wanted to take the discussion in another direction. They need a CF, and the FA alternatives are incredibly expensive. Who is reasonable to get back from Philly if we give them Revere? The candidates: Vance Worley, 25. He's not a bad young pitcher. His peripherals don't predict amazing success, but they're good by Twins standards, he's outpitched them over his two years with the big club, at least until his elbow started hurting. And the Phillies are trying to move him. So what's the problem? He's injured and is a surgery waiting to happen. Worley hurt his elbow this past season, rested, and tried to play through it. No such luck, as he was shut down in late August. They say bone chips, but that's often a precursor to TJS. Okay, being a pitcher is often a precursor to TJS. Jesse Biddle, 21. One of three Philly prospect pitchers that might get the Twins attention. Biddle had a good year in the FSL and should be ready for AA and perhaps beyond 2013. Trevor May, 23. Philadelphia's most intriguing pitcher is a K machine. Okay, make that a BB machine. He's struggled with his control, and his first few months of 2013 were near-disaster, but he put together a nice August. From 2011 A+ ball to AA in 2012 May's K rate declined, and his BB rate increased. The Phillies top pitching prospect last year might never get it together in a starting role. I'm hoping for May so stupid Twins fans can refer to our young SPs as Mays and Meyers. Julio Rodriguez, 22. Pitching at age 21 in AA, Rodriguez threw up numbers that weren't that different from the age 22 May (both have had birthdays since). His high A numbers in 2011 were tremendous and also mirrored May, and it give you pause with Biddle's nice 2012 season there in Clearwater. Ethan Martin, 23. What is it with Philly pitchers? Martin pitched 158 innings between AA and AAA inn 2012, giving up only 118 hits and striking out 147, but yielding 79 walks. Adam Morgan, 22. Morgan had a very good season between A+ and AA in 2012. A 3rd rd pick from Alabama in 2011, Morgan threw 159 innings with 169 K, and a K/BB of 4.33. The majority of those numbers were at Clearwater, and he didn't dominate as much at AA Reading in seven starts, but his year is remarkably similar to Alex Meyer's. Others: Jonathan Pettibone 22. My preference? I do like Worley, but I think having a bone spur removed from your elbow is a bigger deal than some might. Still, he's expected to be fine by spring training. He's a #3 starter at best, but he's a good pitcher who did well when healthy in a horrible park for pitchers. The Twins should jump on Worley if one of the others is included, but that's probably asking way too much. Maybe that gives the Twins a chance to be creative. Perhaps Revere and Nate Roberts can persuade the Philles to give up Worley and one of these prospects. That could be a tremendous deal for the Twins. But getting Worley alone might be too risky if his elbow doesn't both hold up and allow him to get back to early numbers.

If the Twins planned on signing two FA pitchers, and they signed two plus Marcum, I'd be okay with getting him at a safe price. Otherwise, I view him as damaged good.

Revere does some good things, but there are reason to deal him, too. While he's a great CF range, speed on the bases, and high BA, 1. He doesn't walk 2. (redacted) Hicks, Arcia, Buxton, with Willingham, Benson, maybe Roberts as bridge to Buxton. 3. His arm sucks for center. He'll be sucking up most of the balls in the outfield, but he has no arm and teams will run wild. 4. He has no power. Zero power, almost. Many of his hits are infield and don't move runners along more than one base. 5. Someone mentioned getting a crappy Juan Pierre-type to replace him. Well, his GOAL is to be Juan Pierre, because that's his upside. 6. Revere will (or should, anyway) be dealt when the kids arrive. At that time, he'll be overpriced in terms of salary. Right now he's a min salary player, which could mislead teams to give up something for him. 7. He's easily replaceable in a losing season with a platoon. While the lefty hitting guy might not be quite as good, the rh guy should be close, and if it's remotely close, that's all you need to bridge to Hicks. Mastroianni could provide the right side of a platoon this year with a late, cheap FA getting ABs from the left side. There are plenty out there who could put up a .320 obp. Of course, what's the point if the Twins can't get anything in return? I really don't know what the Twins could get for him. It's somewhat possible that they could get a pitching prospect that''s in the 100-150 range, but those guys are incredible variable, or they'd be in the top 50. It would be giving up Revere to throw a dart at a board. Could the Twins trade him to the Braves? Well, I think he could play left for them (because of his arm) or center (because of range) with Upton moving to a corner. Will the Braves give up a Randall Delgado for him? Probably not. They'd probably offer Sean Gilmartin, and I suspect the Sean Gilmartins out there are Revere's value. Revere is valuable enough to not give away for something you could just as well get in FA, but if they can get any pitcher with upside who could pitch in 2013 or 2014, they should probably pull the trigger. Revere helps the rebuild only slightly and as a bridge.

Haven't read through the last eighty or so comments, but I just saw this tidbit out there on the interwebz: Meyer is a Boras client. That should tell us all we need to know about how horribly the Twins will handle Meyer and his contract status each year. Meyer will never sign a team-friendly contract, and the Twins will likely shop him too late. Oh, well. The initial excitement about this just wore off. Let's hope he provides a positive contribution his first few years. On the other hand, it will maybe keep the Twins from handing out a Blackburn/Mays/Baker contract when they don't have to.

Keith Law is more respected than Dave Cameron? I think that is probably true among people who don't understand sabermetrics as well. In the same way Souhan is probably more respected than Gleeman.

Here's why Meyer is a much better return than Mike Leake. Mike Leake has no more upside than what he's shown, and if Meyer doesn't pan out, you can find FAs who are basically as good as Leake. Top prospects for average guys when you're a losing team is absolutely the most cost-efficient and talent-optimal way to do business. And I really dislike Terry Ryan.

I had hoped he wouldn't draw any attention prior to my draft that starts this weekend. Meyer was in my sights, and now I suppose he's in everyone else's, too.

Geez, John, Meyer is anything but a C prospect. He's the guy I was hoping we'd go for if we couldn't figure out how to pull Minor for Span. He's a B prospect, maybe a B+, according to Sickels, I'm sure. I'm disappointed the Twins didn't get more, but if they couldn't get more out of the Nats, this is a guy they couldn't walk away from. He starts at A+ and moves to AA this year.

Who? They have Pastornicky and Ahmed, both of whom project as utility guys. We're not getting Andrelton Simmons for Span. Dozier is absolutely just as good and maybe better than Pastornicky.

Gardenhire doesn't understand the value of true platoons, so by dealing JW the Twins could end up with six lefty bats in a row to get mown down by some chump loogy, instead of the four in a row that never see a rhp now after the 5th inning. But they're going to lose anyway. If they're semi-smart and give up on the season, they could actually maybe get some good return for JW.

Yeah, Bauer commands Sano+. No? Then Arizona will take Bauer and easily trade him to a team with good hitting prospects. The Red Sox would easily part with Bogaerts to get Bauer. Cleveland would give up Lindor and anything else Arizona wants. Bauer has the value of a young Curt Schilling, circa 1993. We could get him, but Sano and Rosario would be the return. What they should do is see if Texas will give them Andrus and one of their good prospects like Rogned (sp). Their middle infield could be set for years.

Hey, wtf?

There are probably three very distinct reasons why Molitor is "not a good fit." Either: 1. Molitor does not want to be a full-time coach. He doesn't want to travel. 2. Molitor has some unknown recently that reflects poorly on him and would on the organization if he were full-time. or 3. Molitor is the replacement if the team lets go of Gardenhire, and they can claim they went outside the organization. There's also the possibility he doesn't know how do simple things like access stats on the internet. :-)

I have this major criticism. In the Deduno blurb, you need a comma after "of" and before "well, baseball." That's the only thing that could have made this a more cogent account of the state of Twins pitching. Nice job. Speaking of Deduno, though, my intellectual side totally agrees with you. My emotional side has me just a tiny bit intrigued. I fully realize that he is the contemporary portrayal of all those pitchers I've always wondered whatever happened to: Les Straker, Roger Erickson, Terry Felton, Mike Smithson/John Butcher, Allan Anderson, Tom Johnson, Bluegill Hughes. All, except for Felton, had good years out of nowhere and basically sucked the rest of their careers. Felton somehow fits as a less successful Deduno.

Fine. Name those offered. Why would you say this unless you also mentioned the names? Sounds like hyperbole to me. Ryan made a huge mistake here. Worst case, clearing salary.

What's up with Joe C.? He followed that lame one up with one on five pitchers on their way to help that basically illustrated entirely too clearly that the Twins have nothing to be waiting for, at least compared to other teams. I actually wonder whether Dave St. Peter wrote it.

I suspect if you look real hard when in the DR, you'll find someone age 19 who's name is Miguel Sano. If in doing so you you also come across some Jeans, you might want to check for letters and wired payments from Florida, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. But then the name thing is always funky within the hispanic culture. A friend of mine from CR introduced herself by one name, then starting using another. The maternal/paternal surnames are pretty inconsistent in the culture from our perspective.

Understandable, because "in the hunt" wasn't meant to be typed. I must have been on poor autopilot. "In the hunt" should be "making offers" and my thought process was that the Reds were a team talking to him for another player (Span, tr: we want Cingrani, reds: you can't have him, though you could for JW, tr:not enough). From everything Ryan said, he didn't shop Willingham and gave no encouragement to teams putting out feelers. I am saying he might not have gotten enough of an offer for Willingham (which I believe), and that's probably because he didn't get any offers for him or maybe only one or two "feeler" type offers. You need to shop your best trade bait, hit it hard. You don't just wait for the phone to ring, and we all know that wrt Willingham, that's the best he did. So...he needed to trade JW, and he probably wasn't offered enough if he was offered anything. I think that's pretty consistent, if my first statement wasn't. And it represents prettying bad GMing.

DeVries has no chance of staying on the 40.

Up until this year his minor league numbers shouted severe mediocrity for his MLB potential. And unfortunately for us, the Twins would have likely been fine with that. However, they may have gotten lucky. As with Span and Plouffe, it looks like Parmelee could be better than his minor league numbers. You would think that whatever is in the Rochester water would be something they'd like all their real prospects to drink, so it's amazing they're so willing to skip that level (Parmelee, Dozier).

The sad thing is that there will always be a solid segment of the population that wants to believe that natural variation/noise in their favor is actually truth. Mastroianni has batted well in the minor as a much older player, much like Dozier. However... Dozier has done it as a pretty good middle infielder. Mastroianni has played a grand total of seven minor league games at 2B after his first season (five years). DM's hitting at the high minors, after posting a .390 obp as a 24 yr old in AA in 2010 (Dozier-like), has actually be mediocre since, or worse if you adjust his .276/.358/.389 for playing in Las Vegas, the easiest park to hit in. Even this year his minor league numbers were .283/.341/.345. How people expect this guy to be even that good at the MLB level is beyond me. Because he hustles and had a good game? The Twins will try to hype anything and everything they can, so I imagine a lot of people get influenced by TV and such. He wasn't good enough to play 2B in the Toronto minor league system, he hasn't hit well enough to deserve anything Yet people are crossing their fingers and hoping for a miracle. When an older non-top prospect destroys AAA for a period of time, such as the recent examples of Span (2008), Plouffe (2011), and Parmelee (2012), then he's ready for a true shot at MLB. Or when an age-appropriate player proves he can hit AAA decently (hopefully Hicks next year), then he deserves a true shot.

Yeah, the Twins middle infield situation is really crap. Carroll, if he plays like this year (which isn't a given), is ideally a utility guy but may have to start. I think Dozier is a nice bridge to something at shortstop, but the Twins might not have that something. It's really sad they didn't have a shot at Correa. Personally, I'm optimistic that Dozier will be an okay shortstop, and I'm hopeful that Levi Michael will be good. Dozier, I believe, will most certainly be MLB-worthy, but you can't as an organization automatically expect even a 25 yr old to jump to MLB after a half-season at AA. Why the Twins are willing to judge a prospect as ready after only seeing him hit straight fastballs through most of spring training is a wonder to me. Dozier should have been at AAA until he proved it wasn't challenging, which I believe he would have by now. The Twins crossed their fingers (once again) with him, and since he never was Manny Machado or Jurickson Profar, the expected outcome occurred. I think he'll be okay, but who knows how much development time was lost by putting him in over his head. Michael's first season has seeming been disappointing, but there are a few reasons to be optimistic. First, he is getting his first long-term exposure to wood bats at the hiA level in a pitcher's league. For top prospects, he's age appropriate without the benefit of a short-season or loA buildup. On June 1 Michael's on-base pct, the stat that will most define him, was .298. However, in June it was .357 and in July it was .366. This tells me he's caught up to the league, and while the Twins may want him to show he's too good for A+ by having him start there again in 2013, I think he'll soon enough be in AA. Whether Michael stays at short I'm not sure. He seems a natural MLB 2B, but if Rosario can stick at 2B, Michael will have to play short with the Twins. I can see the Twins with a decent middle infield three years from now (Rosario, Dozier, Michael), but more likely they'll be searching to fill one of those spots.

While I agree with dealing Willingham, there are a few points to consider as an argument. First is that the time has passed. The Twins are the kings are missing opportunities, and they may have done so already. Teams will be "fixing" their problems in the offseason without giving up young talent. Second, perhaps Willingham is not worth all that much to teams in the hunt. I don't doubt that Terry Ryan might fail to recognize a good offer, but I also can see where the best he was offered was someone like Tony Cingrani, who, while a nice prospect, really isn't as sure a thing as they'd need to make sense. Two Tony Cingranis (say, Cingrani and Corcino) probably would ultimately provide a good pitcher, but from Cincy's viewpoint, that may have been far too much. Certainly it would be in the offseason. You're not going to get a Bundy or Machado or similar for Willingham, so you might be hoping for a team with excess MLB pitching that needs a hitter, and there just doesn't seem to be teams out there with excess anything (except Arizona with a lot of close pitcher but no need for an outfielder, much less a bad-fielding one). Third, without Willingham the Twins have gaping holes in two areas: power and right-handed sticks. That makes JW even more valuable to the Twins. Only Plouffe sort of fills both, not that one other player is enough, and he's no sure thing to continue to do so. The rest of the lineup, from Doumit to Mauer to Morneau to Parmelee to Arcia is decidedly left-handed (Doumit is pretty meh against lhp). They will have to go outside the organization to replace JW, which is going to cost one way or another. I agree that trading JW is preferable, but the Twins really needed to do it before the deadline. At this point they are much better served to wait until next year's deadline, but the Minnesota jinx almost guarantees he'll be hurt then or unproductive before then. In either case (hurt/unproductive) it behooves Minnesota to then hold onto him. Ryan blew it by not shopping this guy and taking advantage of his best year (at age 33!). It's this type of GMing that plagues the franchise. He's given a gift in the middle of a mess, and he just lets the mess swallow it up. Fans will come to see a winner, not names, and especially not names most hadn't heard of until months ago. Whether it's failing to seek a Willingham trade or allowing Liriano to pitch after his 15 strikeout game, it's clear Ryan doesn't have a grasp for taking advantage of situations or more generally how to build a winner. Maybe he can stumble into another team that has four of the best thirty players in baseball and bumble crap around them to compete for the Central division title annually, but I think that's unlikely and really shouldn't be the goal.

Maybe they'll throw in Machado, too. In fact, maybe they'll just close the doors to the franchise after next year.