Rosterman

Walker NEEDS to come up, if nothing else to meet the coaches, sit on the bench, and see a pitcher or two as a pinch-hitter. Palka power has come abck down to earth, but he is still a prospect to watch. So, is Diaz the Twins firstbaseman of the future? Be interesting to see where Blankenhorn ends up. Y'know, could he be here to start 2019? Will he still be a third base, or is Trey Cabbage the future for that position. Joe Maloney would do good to find somewhere to work up his catching skills. Would make him a valuable possibility. The total lack of prospects at Rochester shows that the Twins are relying too much on minor league free agents these days, or the few names that were elevated at the end of the season from Chattanooga are just getting a taste. Would hopefully see the entire Chattanooga roster at Rochester and less emphasis placed on minor league free agents, who then come up and take rosters spaces and tread water in the major leagues. Don't get me wrong, great for guys who are looking for that spot paycheck. Boy, the Twins did raid the indy leagues. Was surprised they did't bring Caleb Thielbar and Mark Hamburger back into the fold!

Was it unique for a player to pitch in the Arizona Fall League for two straight seasons? What winter league would be suitable for Reed this round? Or do you shut him down.

Strong class of pitchers at Cedar Rapids. Always interesting to see what happens as they make the next two or three steps. Who falters, who makes it, who is a minor league arm forever type of guy. I wish we actually had some starter arms showing up in spring training on the level of Berrios last season. But I don't see it. Even if we still had Meyer, I fell he would need a good portion of the year in the minors to get some innings under his belt. I almost feel the same way about the bullpen. With the guys thrown out there in major league land tonight *September 4th), I wish there were 2-3 guys getting a September callup that might not be ready but would be dazzled by being in the major leagues. I look at the entire Twins bullpen and can almost say I could live without any of them in the next season (except for another longer look at Chargolis). Which is sad. But this is about the rotation. We might able to work in an arm (besides Berrios) next season. Another in 2018. And hopefully have to ready for 2019. Which means come that season we will have a total home grown rotation and won't need no stinkin' free agents!

I think someone has to explain what kind of player do the Twins want him to be. A fine defense guy in the outfield showing speed for coverage and great arm. Do we want him batting leadoff, drawing walks, mixing up between full swings and chops and bunts (and is he capable of that). If so, how do they get him to that point in major league coaching, as the playing field up here is totally different than it is in the minors. Do you want him to develop power, take the Carlos Gomez route? Is there tension between the organization and Buxton on how they see the skill set. If so, why? How did it happen at the major league level, yet he is so comfortable with his family in the minors (probably Chad Allen hitting coach). We know Buxton will be a fine outfielder. But when the time comes, is he a $50 or $100 million player for the Twins. Kepler is learning well. He will have his slumps and has to work on them, knowing how to change up his at bats. He is still riding a high, especially on the home run front. But he is showing that he an intelligent hitter who will work on his craft when called upon. But imagine the joy he is showing out there on the field, chasing balls, putting ball in play, playing the fun game of baseball. He isn't perfect ye.....but you want to pencil him into the daily lineup.

Well, part of your broadcasters job is to try and spin the game in favor of the organization. You do want people to come out and support the game. That said, making a star from the the other team the player of the game afterwards is not what I tune into the game to watch. It's the press, or the press that have "columnist" credentials that can be a bit bitter and take a bite out of things. Often it is just to get readership to the thing you write (as a columnist, you are a personality now). For for the beat guys, and in some ways even the staff broadcasters, taking subjects like "Plouffe and his future with the team, pros and cons" would be a nice article for the nite, or"Schafer the journeyman and what it means to the Twins future" or "Meyer is doing good for the Angels, reflections by coaches in the minors on how he got there." Even here in Twins Daily land, we want tohe Twins to succeed, we want people to not forget about them (which can happen as the frustrations grow) and we often pepper our downright damnation with a bit of fluff and searching for that one good spot (Dozier showed up at the Stadium swinging a bat...something will happen).

Arrrrrrrgh! Can't we see what we got in Walker, in Palka, in Granite.....even would take a look at Michael and Harrison, who are on the bubble of being keepers or totally cutloose - although I guess we can keep them in the system for still one more year. But Logan Schafer!?! Go and watch a Saints game, Paul, if you want to see that! And maybe next year you will be able to be a season ticket holder!

I would rather see smoke given to Baxendale than the guys they are calling up and putting on the 40-man. At some point, the Twins have to forget about who they promote and when do they really have to add them to the roster. Which seems strange because the 40-man currently contains at least three (maybe Walker the fourth) who WON'T be on the Twins opening day roster next year and will probably need a full season of seasoning before getting a shot at the Twins, three of them not expected to even get halftime notice until 2018. Go figure!

Her, the Twins bumped Tanner English all the way up to Rochester for the last five games!

With the call-up of Buxton, the Twins now have 13 offensive players, that means 13 guys that are capable of putting the ball in play and getting a hit, NOT people you don't want to ever see again. As a matter of fact, tonight's lineup looks pretty much like the starting lineup will be in 2017 (minus the catcher, who will change) but I still don't like the order. Dozier leading off. Plouffe batting third. Polanco batting FIFTH! Of course, we were hoping Suxuki would be left-behind in Cleveland, but instead they called up journeyman minor league catcher Adam Moore who would give Drew Butera a battle for most years on a major league roster but fewest at bats and lowest batting average. He's cheaper than the million Suzuki would've cost, can probably catch behind the plate, and the Indians sure don't want to give the Twins any kind of PTBNL that could haunt them in years to come, I guess. The joy is Ervin Santana has 13 total victories as a Twins hurler and now will seek his 7th win this season, tying his mark from last season. Who knows, he might get to 10. If Ervin can get us thru seven innings, we can bring out Pressly and Kintzler and save the game, since both have been off for a couple of days and faced 13 batters between them in their last joint appearance. The real story will be how the Twin Cities roads and light rail handle the flurry of Thursday Night sporting activities that hit the town, amidst the Minnesota State Fair that has Billy Bob Thornton in the bandshell and Alabama in the grandstand. What will be the total amount of people on-the-town tonight! Myself, am sitting here hoping the Twins stop the streak, as my fantasy team only ahs their stats happening on this lite baseball activity day!

This is my favorite from the story on the Twins site: "Buxton, 22, gives the Twins another outfielder, as Robbie Grossman has been bothered by a sore oblique. He's expected to see time in center with Logan Schafer, who was called up on Monday." Let's make sure Schafer gets time in the outfield. Who knows, he might become the next....

Granite may be tapped to play winter ball somewhere else. The AFL isn't the only place players go to play more.

No one doubts Mauer's place in Twins history, and we would like to see him remain a Twin always and forever. What will be interesting to see is what happens when his contract expires and if he wants to continue to play. He is a Hall of Fame catcher, but his status continues to go down the longer he plays as a lesser first baseman. He's not bad, he's just not in the best. It's one of those things where he can work, but the Twins have to revolve their system around him and his needs for playing time and at bats. You don't want to be a first baseman in training if Mauer is holding down the bag for two years, and what if he decides to play for another 3-4-5. And you can usually find better alternatives to the designated hitter. The Twins have two right now. Sano and, in the wings, Walker, albeit probably shortterm for one, but the other could develop into a David Ortiz decade of being the big smiley face of the Twins. We want Joe to play, to be great again with the bat, to shine, and get those October moments along with another batting title or two and become a Hall of Famer. We do. But somehow, the team is going in a different direction.

It will be an opportunity (hopefully) for Garver to catch everyday. So that is a plus. What are the qualifications for a player to go to AFL? I think they have to be Hugh A+ or above. It is usually a stepping stone to going on the 40-man. And most do make the major leagues in some capacity.

You have to see what offers come to the table. He is still a tradeable asset thru next July. You can always buy starting pitching. But that has a downside. You must compete against other teams and you may overpay or over extend. In doing so, you have to look at the entire contract as a 1-2 year contract. If the pitcher isn't working, you move on. OPtherwise, you are stuck, as the Twins will be in 2017 with Hughes and Santana heading the rotation. When dealing with your own product, you have to look at a guy, say, Kyle Gibson...and entertain offers when he may have more value but less outlook in your own plans. Like Delmon Young and Josh Willingham before, but unlike Ben Revere, Carlos Gomez and Denard Span, the Twins often don't move a player when they can get top dollar and replacement value within the organization. I also feel you do have to push young starters in the system. you get them up here to take their lumps sooner rather than later. There is probably not much of a difference. You can always send a player down to work things out. Are we being better served having Berrios up and getting clobbered this year? He can still go down to Rochester, heck he can still stay at Rochester most of next season and mature even more. But the initial plans probably saw him not making the Twins, not making the 40-man until this November. Would the team as a whole be better served if we were also looking at Stewart and Gonsalves now in August and September (than Albers and Dean). You can always patch in thise fringe guys. But you need to see what you have, how the adapt to the major league spotlight, and see if they will really THEN work at getting their pitching acts together. When you are a losing team, having youngsters gain experience and failing is not as bad as trying to work inexperience into a contending team.You have to see what you have now and in the near future to make those free agent or trading decisions that will improve you going forward rather than treading water. And if you have to write off contracts to go after more contracts, do so. You don't make money if you don't put fans in the seats. And you need to be paying players that will/are producing to do that, not just guys working out their contracts. If you do too much of contract eating, than it is an issue in team management, not players,

Albers and Dean each should get a second start to prove themselves.

Why is someone with 30 home runs batting leadoff?!?

What you say is so true for the current team. The Twins have had four gret draft years (according to the numbers) and those players should all be in the high minors or on the cusp of the major leagues. But somehow that hasn't happened and the Twins still saw a need to fill AAA Rochester with minor free agents and guys we were talking about as little as two seasons ago still are in the minors and NOT near ready for the major league call. But that still doesn't mean they can be exposed or added to major league life. We are, afterall, looking at the future. For all the comments by a manager that he didn't want to play rookies because it isn't serving to the vets NOT to win, to management feeling we are a few pieces away from being competitive in 2017. Well, the strength of the team and organization is the prospect route, unless you have loads of money to throw away on hits and misses. You can always buy a team. But even that is suspect, with possible little return according to the dollars spent. You MAY be just as well served going with the unproven, the hungry, the guys you spent hours watching and giving bonus money to play pro ball because you believed they could be fashioned into a major league player. Something happened in development. We will see if the Twins do have prospects and who they lose in the Rule 5, the minor league portion of the draft, how many roster spots disappear because of minor league free agents that THEY DEVELOPED not having a 40-man spot. 40-man rosters can suffer when you have to protect players two years away from the minors. A lot can happen in that big jump to AA or AAA ball. Team management may shudder when they look at the results of Buxton and Berrios and a few others. But we didn't get to where the team is now because of them. We got there because of at bats to Park, injuries to numerous players, a pitching staff that has ONE starter with the others wallowing between a glint of greatness and many glints of just plain all-out badness. And still they lose. But part of the process is creating a player base that can survive the highs AND the lows, that play together, enjoying playing the game of baseball together, and then playing for each other as a team. If you have no prospects, or borderline prospects, you can afford to play the aging vets, the guys looking for that last big paycheck, the ones that give you some depth but are still the 41st-42nd-43rd man, at best, on any team's depth chart. But the Twins don't have to do that. They can throw Stewart and Gonsalves out there just as well as Albers and Dean. You can (wait...we don't want too many innings). Amidst a team that has players, it seems, no one really feels has value (Santiago, Suzuki, Plouffe amongst others) we add more players that most all other teams have already given a pass, while players that other teams are eyeing flounder in the minors.

It is always fun to see where predictions end. It's like looking at those Top Prospects lists we make every year and eventually seeing where they went.

If they add Park and put him on the 60-day, they get a 40-man roster spot. Assuming they might also get one with a trade of Suzuki, and possibly releasing someone, I would like to see Beresford get a shot. He won't get many at bats, unless you use him to spell someone in the later innings of a losing effort. Why Jamie? He has put up decent numbers this year and last. He's a longterm prospect. He has been a solid part of the organization. Maybe you want to keep him involved in the organization if he doesn't return to Australia. Besides, what can it hurt. He's a free agent anyways. Give him some major league money, a few at bats. If you don't keep him, someone will then be able to grab him. Yes, we should be bringing up as many prospects or future 40-man adds as possible. Some guys will be going to the Arizona League after the Lookouts pennant play. Some don't need to added to the 40-man (which would've still been the case of Berrios) until November fer sure. In the real world, I wish we were in a situation where we would want to see Burdi, reed, Jones, Hildenburger and Bard all come up in September to push aside everyone else and give us an advance look at the future and the past a rest. But there aren't enough roster spots, too many injuries to those youngsters, and not the way the soon-to-be-old-school Twins operate (or so we hope).

The flip side of player development is just that. You can have the multi-tooled players that you draft, but at some point, they all need some tweaking and work. All of them. Of course, you usually have a "Way" that you draft around, taking players to increase your depth, that MIGHT work in your park, that show skill sets that you think important vs. those you don't. Not all players are able to be tweaked, which is the downside of drafting and why so many of the 40-50 players taken each year don't last into, say, Year Three and maybe 5% ever ever make it to a major league game. That's a lot of money and time invested in players that have flaws and weaknesses and can't be molded. Sometimes you see such players in otehr organizations and they conform more to your "Way" than the other team, so you get a short cut at the other team's expenses. Or some guys just can't handle it. You are given a chance at 18 or 21 to embark on a career that in as little as 2-3 years and as many as 5-6 MIGHT see you making a million dollars a year. The dreams of baseball. The system as a whole works with 150 players a year and hopefully 2-3 graduate to some level of play at the major league level each year, with 40 dropping off the radar and another 40 filtered into the mix. It comes from the top down. The General Manager (or President of Baseball Operations) with his various Directors of Scouting, Minor Leagues, Player Personnel go forth to put together a major league team each year and a backup plan at each and every position and an organizational depth chart pipeline to keep things going over a 3-5 year period of time. I can be a coach or manager or a coordinator and work my butt off to teach a kid to play baseball, but if they don't wanna learn, or don't overcome issues, is it my fault? Yes, at some level it is...if that player goes elsewhere and thrives. Then you can question about how many guys were cut from the list that might've thrived given a different environment (which is why we have minor league free agency, the Rule 5, and ultimately independent league ball). But it starts at the direction the organization as a whole wants to take, laid out by the powers-to-be, and if you don't fit with that vision, and contribute players in your reports that mean what the "Way" is looking for, you don't stay, are canned, put in time until caught. The coaches and managers you hire in development land do come together with a shared vision and a shared outlook on how each and every player must move thru or out of the system. That is the basis of the game. If you have trouble getting a message across, there should be someone who can come in and try, and if not...pfuttt!

The Problems: Sano in the outfield, meaning no place for Arcia and the reps you gave Quentin and Sweeney were all a waste, too. And then, bammmmm, Kepler comes on board and you plug some time with Grossman, so some things look good. But Sano is not an outfielder, got behind in his reps and third, and becomes part of the DH mix-up. Park. Sometimes the Twins are pretty good at tantalizing us that they are on the cusp of keeping their own free agent, are negotiating for the best booty possible for their pending free agent, or reach out and sign the impossible to come and be the savior for the team. I still thing winning the Park thing was a surprise, and them signing him for the four years they did at what they did was an even bigger surprised. Then they knew not what to do with it all, and we end up losing Arcia, having Sano in limbo, Vargas showing he might be worth his keep and the Twins contemplating keeping Plouffe for one more season. Line Up Construction. Guys are all over the place. What are the match-ups. Did they work? Why so many K's. Are they not looking at pitches. No speed on the basepaths. Somehow, we did have one part of a season of excitement as Eduardo Nunez seemed to be a one-man wrecking crew in average, getting base, stealing bases, hitting homers and doing a better-than-though job of fielding before he came back down to earth as the utility guy Molitor felt he was in San Francisco. The rotation. It stunk. I though fer sure it would be better than it was. Maybe we would see 60-70 wins from the Big five +. Now we might not even see 30. One will hit 150+ innings. A disaster. An expensive disaster. Thus, Pushing Players. And still we have guys wandering the halls of A+ and AA rather than pushing harder to get them on the road to the majors. In the Twins way, most of these guys won't be around until 2018 now. Go figure. The bullpen. Rhyme or Reason. Overworked. Never have I seen so many pitchers used is so many games. The saving grace is that the Twins have used something like 20 guys in relief situations. 20 GUYS! Whew! Some are working a record amount of games (Pressly & Tonkin). There is not a long guy )think Swarzak) in the bunch. May was misued. Kintzler became the closer with no games to close. It seems th guys are on a rotation. No idea of matchups or situations. Who decides these things. And the future, for the second year, is still buried in the minors. So many names: Burdi, Reed, Hildenburger, Bard, Jones, Landa, Melotakis. We amazingly have seen Chargolis, who still is trying to get over his jitters. And Wimmers MAY be a good prospect, at last. And we got Pat Light, who is all over the place. The bullpen in 2017 promises to be more of the same, a patchwork of more (as someone calls Tonkin the 13th guy) end pieces than precision throwers. Management! Somehow they thought they had a winner. Not sure what they could've done. Everyone in the division seemed to have done something, and the White Sox even seemed improved but fell hard from grace. I personally thought ALL the teams might've been pretty close in the long run - 5 to 10 wins separating first from last. But what did I know. All I can say is that as a fan, I am excited about seeing more of the future, be they good or bad for now. I also look forward to seeing a new direction in management. Even if everything is totally torn apart and solid prospects are sent packing and money is thrown at more worthless free agents, and a big contract bombs, I will still be a Twins fan. It is, after all, a tough game, this major league baseball. Always more losers than winners. But it is a beautiful game when things happen well on the field and the teams play to a competitive balance.

But is there some coaching strength in the kinors. Is Dougie and Mike and Jake quality managers getting the msot out of the prospects. Do we hear good works about Chad Allen and Tommy Watkins? Is Jim Dwyer actually a solid hitting coach? Is Cliburn, Artega, Bonilla the real thing? Do the Twins have a solid analytical guy in Joe Vavra? I listen to Bruno talk on the radio and like it, but maybe he needs to be the minor league hitting coordinator, if we trust him with that responsibility. Some of these minor league guys have been around...forever. But looking at the major leagues...did we make right choices by bringing in new blood. We essentially have two pitching coaches in Eddie and Neil. We have three hitting coaches in Vavra and Bruno and Hernandez. We have Butch and Gene doing something. And we have one of the better hitters ever in Molitor who knows and loves the game...but does he know and love the players? He has worked throughout the Twins system, but I'm not sure what he is doing up here in Year Two. The lineup. Has he figured out where to bat whom when yet? Of course, the new GM will have some say in this. The new President of Baseball Operations could do a major housecleaning (or will be doing a lot of interviews of folks already with the organization). But something is amiss. You big guys are failing (Sano to some extent, Berrios who is still early, Buxton who was rushed) yet you can see success in Rosario, Kepler, Santana, Polanco. Wow! Those are 7 powerful names to have on a 25-man roster. We shouldn't be...this...bad.

But the Twins did go out and got better-than-average starting pitchers. Starting with Correia and continuing thru Pelfrey, Santana, Hughes, Nolasco. We, as fans, clamored that the Twins needed to spend money on PROVEN talent -- not just keep it in stockholder accounts. The pain was they we overpaid. We gave Pelfrey more years that necessary. We did the same with Hughes. The team, committed to being competitive, did what it took to get fan interest away from them stockpiling dollars from the cash cow of Target Field to actually putting some dollars on the field. That the powers-that-be are afraid to gamble $100 million or more, going back to the days of Hunter's contract demand and what it would've cost to retain Santana, is the kink. Who could've predicted that the majority of these paydays to guys who came here because of their payday would so totally go south for the Twins that they would be in a similar boat if they had fielded a staff of cheaper alternatives and One Big Stud. And we were competitive last year because...so many flukes.The top teams were heads-and-tails above everyone in their divisions, and pretty much all the other teams crashed and burned. Coming up from behind, we didn't crash because you couldn't be any lower than you were the year before. The sad point is that unless some guys perform brilliantly in the Fall League, we have this great crop of candidates: Gonsalves, SMejia, Stewart, Cederoth, Jay, maybe Wheeler, Romero, Slegers, Hurlbut, Jorge, LeBlanc, possibly fillers like Greenwood, Bencomo and the still young (25) Duffey. But NOT ONE of these guys is going to throw 150 innings this year and asking any of them to do 200 next year may be impossible. Yes, at this point, it would've been nice to see 2 or 3 besides Berrios get a call to the majors instead of whom we are throwing out there, even if we went with a 6-man rotation in September, and if the 40-man spots existed (yes, the dreaded 40-man, don't add anyone before their time...right now management is probably wishing they hadn't added Berrios until the need this November). It's thinking ahead, but I actually do wonder if the Twins suddenly saw the weaknesses in their drafting ways and were hoping that the BIG signings would carry them thru to 2018 and into 2019 with patchwork from other free agent starters while the offense carried the team. It all boils down to the disaster that became Meyer and May, two guys the Twins traded to be starters, that haven't become starters, and you can readily assume that if Meyer was still with the Twins and if May is converted, neither would be able to give us 150 innings in 2017, which shows you the time that was wasted doing whatever with these two talents. Yet we don't want to part with our prospect talent sooner rather than later, and although the checkbook is open to spend, anyone can spend money, but what you get in return for the money is the true value. And sometimes you overspend for quality because it is quality and maybe you have to hire one less assistant general manager or a couple less ushers and ticket people as your payroll goes beyond that 55% hogwash of your cash cow Target Field, now being replaced in the public eye by the Vikings boat full of human-interest cash machine.

So true. If the process doesn't work out, then the Twins have a lot of empty seats. But, hey, that 45% of their revenue that they don't spend on 40-man salaries has to be spent somewhere.

It's not the organizational meetings that is the Big IF on the horizon, it is the end of the World Series and then the Winter Meetings. Something has to be in place by then. If you are looking for a Director of Baseball Operations/President, then you are looking for a GM, probably two assistant GM's, a Director of Player Personal, a Director of Scouting and a Director of Minor League Operations, not to mention a Field Manager and then his coaching staff. That's an awful lot of jobs that could have major turnover in the organization on the side of baseball operations, and the trickle down could also come to all the minor league coordinator, manager and coaching positions, too. Whew!