twinstalker

That's fine. If he crushes the GCL, they'll move him up. If he doesn't, he needs to stay there...as well as improve during the instructional league in the fall. Simple as that. I think he starts at Beloit next year. I don't see him staying in extended spring training after playing this summer.

There is no doubt about Correa's hit tool. With Buxton there is all kinds of doubt. People compare him to BJ Upton. I'll be honest, I'd be disappointed if they ended up with someone equally as good as BJ Upton. Correa may take four years, but he'll be in the majors raking. Of all the players mentioned for the top seven, Correa has the best risk/upside combo.

Sickels loves Correa and wants the Twins to take him (he's a Twins fan). I also think he's the one.

Repost from another thread: The best player in the draft is Carlos Correa. John Sickels, a Twins fan, is almost beside himself with the possibility the Twins will pass on him. (Note: you'll find a mock draft where John takes Appel, but the draft where he got to choose who he wanted, he took Correa).

The best player in the draft is Carlos Correa. John Sickels, a Twins fan, is almost beside himself with the possibility the Twins will pass on him. (Note: you'll find a mock draft where John takes Appel, but the draft where he got to choose who he wanted, he took Correa).

Willingham, I guess, sorry.

Jerald Clark, Tony Batista, Jason Marquis, I want to add Craig Monroe because he's was added with Ryan's rec...almost every free agent Ryan has had anything to do with has been bottom of the heap. Or if not, then expected to do far more than capable of (Carroll, e.g)

I did guess that he'd be the worst pitcher in baseball. And so did everyone else in my fantasy simulation leagues. He was the only starter with a for-sure job who was not chosen in my three leagues he was eligible (drafts occurring prior to his daughter's accident). And that's with Target Field being viewed as a pitcher's park. So at least forty-some of us all knew it. It doesn't surprise me that Terry Ryan didn't.

If they're looking at upside with a pretty high floor, I think Correa might be the guy. As far as I'm concerned all pitchers have a pretty low floor, and if none are an 80 (and none are), I don't think you risk it with the #2 pick. Man, just keep Garza. I hope that lesson is learned.

One player will be a superstar, the other could be a solid player for ten years. Let's not throw glitter on both and pretend they're close to the same. One is holding his own in the major leagues at age 19. That's just plain stupid. It doesn't happen. Harper and Arod.

The Twins and I (because I matter) are scared to sign pitchers long-term. I think Baker/Blackburn is the last straw for that notion. Secondly, I think the Twins are a long way (and a long pitching way) from seriously competing. That being said, if the Twins were to spend on a pitcher who would be around if the Twins suddenly started making good personnel decisions and began winning, I think they could do a LOT worse than Greinke.

Wrote this on April 2 on one of these threads where the Parmelee excitement was a little out of control: Parmelee euphoria, I love it. Where solid rationale goes out the window. I won't go into the minor league numbers, which were extremely consistent and everyone knows (K rate high, hit rate pretty low). Parmelee was all along touted to be an eventual major leaguer. He's fulfilling that promise right now. But he's pretty much been projected to be a second division regular if everything goes his way. Justin Morneau was projected to be an all-star. To even put them in the same sentence, unless that sentence starts with "Due to Morneau's inability to play first base..." is blasphemy. Parmelee's upside, meaning if everything goes right (which they usually don't) is hitting like Cuddyer. Problem is, Cuddyer's numbers were not good, not first-division, for a 1st baseman. And make no mistake, it's highly unlikely Parmelee ever plays much OF.* In 2008 Denard Span completely "found it." In 2011 Trevor Plouffe had something click that hadn't shown itself before. And then in September Parmelee had a good month. Unfortunately, good Septembers happen to a lot of eventually mediocre players. He's followed that up with a very good spring training...again, not normally the basis for sound projections. So...here's my thought based on all the evidence: Most likely scenario is that Parmelee is a mediocre, below average 1B. However, we have no evidence that the Span-type light didn't come on. The Plouffe AAA sudden explosion. In other words, there's hope that something special clicked. I hope so, too. But realistically, Parmelee is going to be below average as soon as MLB pitchers discover how to pitch to him. Here's crossing our fingers. *Almost the only way Parmelee plays in the OF is if he's in the lineup with Morneau, Mauer, and Doumit, AND Mauer is at 1B. In other words, I don't think it's going to happen all that often. Six weeks isn't enough to crucify him, either, but the rational prior on Parmelee was that he is who his AA stats say he is. In other words, an eventual second-line MLBer who needs to be in AAA right now.

No, a lot of people agree with you, it's just that some of us who agree with you don't come here that often...not when supposed Twins fans/intellects advocate dumping Span for, say, a reliever. It's bad enough we have a GM without much of a clue...who might actually do something like that.

Traded to Oakland in the Gio deal. I do hope, though, we trade our good obp, good lead-off, good CF, good contract, and one of the few hopes for the future. That would be a great idea.

Officially the Twins traded Mulvey for Rauch, but in reality giving up Gomez and Mulvey were as much about Bill Smith trying to fool the MN public that he was getting something ultimately for Santana. Hardy and Rauch were contracts their teams wanted to get rid of, no one wanted to take them on...except for Bill Smith, who was trying to twist perception.

Two things: 1. Willingham will bat .265, 345, .475, okay, but not exactly a star. The way noise works is that someone has to perform much better at the beginning, and someone has to perform much worse. To take a look at the guy that's "high" and pretend you have something special is a pretty fallacious line of thinking. He will put up Cuddyer numbers. More HRs, less everything else. Oh, and not enough more HRs. 2. Still, you may be right, not because JW is so good, but because the Twins haven't really signed a FA hitter, except off the scrap heap. So to say he's the best FA hitter since Chili isn't saying, well, anything. If the Twins have signed more than one other "good" player still close to the prime of his career, let me know. I doubt JW's season will be better than Molitor's, but it could be.

Consensus is that the talent is waaaaaaaayyyyy down at the top of the draft. Buxton is rated slightly worse than Starling, and the consensus said Starling was drafted too high. The top pick this year would maybe have gone 8-10 last year. While it may be true that this is a deep draft, that doesn't matter at all for the 2nd pick. As usual, the Minnesota team gets hosed with its top pick after a miserable previous season. What's really sad is that last year's pitchers were all the guys the Twins need this year: Bauer Cole Bundy Hultzen Bradley and then there's Anthony Rendon, a 3B/2B who could quickly take Valencia's spot (Sano's going to end up corner OF) The Twins would have taken ANY of those five pitchers long before any pitcher this year. Zimmer might have some possibilities, but I think Houston will take him if he's good enough to go #2, which is debatable. Appel is getting hit and not striking guys out at a good enough rate for a very high pick (3.32 ERA in 57 IP, 55 K as of last week). This looks bad. Right now the safest pick Zunino. Giolito would have been the first pick, I think, and I guess now I'm following Gausman, Wacha, and Stroman. All these guys are reaches right now, but maybe two will look better come June.

He's super bad in the outfield. Just because we've had "super bad" in left for the last few years doesn't mean it's okay. At least Young could throw. I'm glad he's hitting well so far, but unless he's the DH, he's nothing to celebrate. The Twins can't afford to have bad fielders...and they shouldn't ever have to, if they're doing things right.

As long as it doesn't hamper any positive moves, and as long as the Twins are willing to get rid of him at any time, this is okay. Get Revere the AAA time he needs. Unfortunately, the Twins, as usual, cannot be counted on for understanding this, and we already have our first indication they might think a 28 yr old with mediocre minor league stats is actually viable: I'm sure Gardy recalls the one homer and two triples Thomas has hit against the Twins. The same way he recalled how difficult it was for Joe Mauer to hit Dusty Hughes. Revere gets to play everyday for now. Hopefully that's all this is about.

I understand the sentiment, though I might be a bit nicer about it. Two things have been bugging me about Span: he's looked a bit lackadaisical in the OF thus far, and I'm not sure what's up with his concussion. HOWEVER, finding a .370 obp decent CF who can hit both lhp and rhp is pretty rare. He's on a pretty good contract, and I really don't think the Twins are going to be able to replace his leadoff, CF, and obp skills. The Twins almost dealt him for a reliever a couple years ago, but they couldn't even get the guy with Span. I wouldn't count on the Twins to score a major victory by dealing him. Outside of one trade where he was dealing from a position of strength with one of the easier GM marks, Ryan has never shown himself to be adept at making major league trades.

Wake me up when the runs he creates minus the runs he gives up makes him at least average. Delmon Young's best year was bad because of this, and Willingham seems no better in the field, though he's likely to at least hit every year like Young's best.

Right now a new manager won't mean crap, but he's by far the biggest reason the teams given to him underachieved. He won't be around by the time the Twins are good again, but that's mainly due to how long it's going to take.

Heh. I shouted as loudly as I could on these internet thingies that Ortiz was their best hitter, and that Ryan was an idiot if he got rid of him. I don't think losing Ortiz was anything but an ill-informed decision by the man who is supposed to be the most informed man in the organization. Ask him why they got rid of Ortiz, and he won't give you one good reason that really stands the test. It certainly wasn't statistical or his locker room presence. They would have been able to sign him for $1.5 million at most. These "little" decisions add up. At the same time I was screaming about this, I was screaming that they need to get rid of Jacque Jones. This was fall/winter 2002 when Jones was coming off what was predictably a season he wouldn't repeat, Ortiz was their best hitter, and Kelly had been gone for over a year (for the poster who blamed him). There are all sorts of efficiencies and inefficiencies at play in this game, and Ryan has consistently been oblivious to nearly every one.

Let's look at it in a Bayesian way. The prior, except for those who were inordinately and irrationally optimistic, was that the Twins hitting would mostly suck, and that their manager was not good at getting the team mentally prepared for seasons/postseasons. Then you get data. The data are to the wrong side of the prior, which makes the original rational hypotheses of Twins suckiness even stronger. Pitching? The prior was for even more suckiness. Nothing really to starting moving from that position. Even if this was much worse than the Twins will look on average this year, there was ZERO that gave any hope they might be better than expected, if you look at the hitting and pitching as wholes. The Yankees must have done badly in some ways this weekend, but the prior is that it's a 90+ win team, so the events occurring this weekend likely won't change it that much, and it's much more plausible to believe it's a hiccup. For one, the best closer of all time and best last year, too, blew a save. Either he'll be back to form, or two other pitchers that no Twin can come close to will take over. Even a couple of the relievers the Twins will have to count on (Burton and Maloney) could do nothing but suck. It's an ugly, ugly looking season for the Twins. That could change, yes, but it's improbable. Even the reasons for optimism that probably won't affect the season (Morneau hitting, Swarzak pitching) can't really be looked at as anything but noise around the Twins suckiness.

Various? Did anybody but the bobos who will always accept anything like it? I think the more knowledgeable among the internetters were pretty much all against it.