nicksaviking

Desmond's AVG, OBP, SLG and UZR have decreased each of the past three seasons. This doesn't look like a one year blip, it looks like a trend. I wouldn't want to give a declining offensive and defensive shortstop a long term deal. I also wouldn't want to give a declining offensive and defensive shortstop a short term deal considering he's going to cost the Twins a first round draft pick. Escobar isn't sexy, but his bat is above average and there is nothing to indicate that he is anything other than a middle of the road defender, which I can't believe isn't fine considering the issues this club has had with the position for nearly its entire existence. Unless he's been bad in the few games I missed, shortstop doesn't look anything close to a concern to me at this time.

I'm still pretty annoyed that the Mets and the Wilpons got off with only monetary penalties for the whole Bernie Madoff scam. Then I was further annoyed that the players union and the MLB didn't put up much of a fight when the Mets tanked their payroll to pay for those monetary penalties. I figured if Selig wasn't so tight with the Wilpons, they would have been forced to sell the team due to the scam. And yet, I still say go Mets! Their con ran much shorter than the con the Cubs ownership(s) have been running the last 100 years or so.

What am I missing with Vavra, why would he leave leave willingly? He basically got promoted to second in command last year and he's from Western Wisconsin. He wasn't one of Gardy's guys either. Ryan brought him in from outside the organization to replace Gardy's guy Scott Ulger. Also his kid's in the system, and doing unexpectedly well.

Well there were 12 SS with 500 innings and a positive DRS in 2015. And Escobar was one of them. Reyes wasn't. Desmond's DRS of one was less than Escobar's.

Judging by past critiques of defensive minded catchers from Twins fans, Zunino's sub-Mendoza schtick isn't going to out-weigh any defensive addition he provides for very long. It's not just his MLB stats either, since he made a splash in 2012, his MiLB numbers have been terrible. I wouldn't have guessed it was mathematically possible, but Kurt Suzuki's sad .610 OPS was 80 points higher than Zunino this year. And everyone wants Suzuki replaced. If we want Zunino, might as well check to see if we can get the just as (in)effective store brand version they have over in TB for cash considerations first. That one's called J.P. Arancibia and his lack of draft position pedigree will probably cause him to cost nearly nothing.

I think Michael is almost certainly going to make the big leagues even if only because of the fact that he was a 1st round pick. Only three college players drafted ahead of him have yet to hit the majors and two of those almost certainly would have by now if not for injury. As a utility infielder with good on-base skills and the pedigree of a 1st round pick, there's a pretty good chance he'll get picked in the Rule V. If the Twins protect him and put him on the 40-man, they almost certainly will give him a call at some point.

I am so done with ground ball pitchers. I don't think ground balls even come close to making up for a lack of strikeouts, in fact, based on the fact that grounders are more susceptible to errors than fly balls, I'd much prefer a fly ball pitcher who can't get strikeouts than a ground ball pitcher who can't. Also, I trust pitchers leaving Oakland slightly more than I trust batters who leave Colorado. I don't much care about the splits, I do care about the historical ineptitude of Oakland pitchers leaving Oakland. I'd like Sonny Gray if he was on my team, but I'd hate to pay for him because you'll have to give up ace value for him, and he's no ace. The Twins need to infuse the rotation with guys who miss bats, this wouldn't help. If anything it would hurt.

Glad to see I'm not the only non-Cubs fan. It seems a sense of pity is supposed to spur everyone on to cheer for them. Sorry, I didn't cheer for the Red Sox either. Big pocket big market teams that don't win don't make me feel bad, they just make me feel like they've taken advantage of the fans for a century knowing they'll still show up regardless of outcome. Regarding the stadium, I like old historic buildings, but the team clearly put the same effort into that place that they put into their team most years. Fenway was old but there were clear attempts to make the stadium updated and useable for modern baseball fans. Also, and really I hate to say it, but the White Sox get a raw deal from that city. It's not like the Mets with the Yankees or the Angels with the Dodgers, those two teams are still the new kids in town. The White Sox have been overlooked for over a century now too.

I wish I knew more about mechanics, most of my knowledge is anecdotal and rehashing what I have heard smarter people say. But if it is something the Twins are doing, I'd have to think it's the reduced stride to the plate; the typical Twins stride certainly appears to be pretty minimal. IF (still just speculation) the Twins coach the stride out of pitchers I wonder what the reason is. Is it believed to improve control? Do they believe it keeps pitchers healthier? Or is it simply a more effective way of limiting the leads of base runners? And again, I don't think a reduced velocity or strikeout rate is the intention of the club, if there is a causation related to a Twins philosophy, it is almost surely just a side effect not the actual objective.

Good read, and I agree that focusing on the "pre-integration era" seems silly and short-sighted, however I don't believe that they are doing it with any malice. Simply the various committees have been tasked with reviewing a particular era every year, it was this era's turn this year. Hopefully they decide that they've already mined all the HOF worthiness from that era that is left. I will agree with the point on Buck O'Neil. I was never more disappointed when they failed to elect him while he was still alive. Surely they left him off because they felt his numbers didn't quite stack up, but he was one of baseball's greatest ambassadors, and there are plenty of guys in the HOF due to intangible contributions.

I agree they did, but I'm not holding it against them anymore as I think they changed, at least when it comes to the draft. But I am curious, Ryan has said many times that Deron Johnson and the scouts are really the ones who run the draft, and lately they have been getting harder throwing guys (the results can be a different topic of discussion) yet in free agency, the Twins still seem to favor the control guys. It also seems that many guys who were drafted with high 90's heat or projections for high 90's heat have now fallen to low to mid-90's guys. I don't think this is entirely unique to the Twins, and some of that could be due to age, as pitchers seem to lose velocity pretty early into their careers these days, but I wonder if there is any kind of disconnect between what the scouting department covets in a pitcher and what those that develop them ultimately want to see from them. To clarify, I don't mean to ask if those who are developing pitchers want to get rid of strikeouts for PTC because I don't think they do, I more wonder if a strong focus on mechanics or asking guys not to throw max effort may impact college or projected velocity compared to what we see in the minors. Or maybe I'm just mus-remembering pre-draft velocity reports entirely.

I'd prefer the higher velocity, as noted several times including in Seth's OP, it allows for a larger margin of error. However, watching games, it seems to me most pitchers get their strikeouts on breaking balls. Kyle Gibson has fine velocity, but he relies on his sinker quite a bit, and sinkerball pitchers don't tend to get a lot of strikeouts. Funny thing is that Fangraphs rates Gibson's slider and changeup as easily his best pitches, it would be nice to see him whip those out more in two strike counts and see if the results change.

Mike Chernoff might disagree. I wouldn't, that trade looks pretty awesome in the Twins favor. I like Tyler Duffey a ton, but if the Twins are going to be adding more starters, someone is losing a spot and Duffey right now probably has pretty solid trade value even while none of us knew it two months ago. I'm a much bigger fan of the 25-year-old Salazar than I am of Carrasco for the record.

I agree that the Twins philosophy on over-emphasizing control was a huge issue, however I think that changed after the 2010 draft. Hudson Boyd was a high schooler who was supposed to have an electric arm, same with Stewart and Berrios has all kinds of ceiling. I was never more disappointed in the draft as when the Twins picked Wimmers over a half dozen HS arms with tons of upside, but they've drafted 3 HS arms in the 1st round since and even if the philosophy hasn't paid off, they have been going after high velocity/strikeout guys in the past several drafts. Now whether or not they know what they're doing with the high velocity arms is a different story. Their ability to scout and develop pitchers surely is fair game.

I liked the effort Ryan made in signing fairly big deals for those guys, as I didn't think he had it in him. However aside from Hughes, I didn't actually like the players signed, and they appear to be albatross contracts now; I don't want more. It seems an awful lot like betting and losing $25 every hand at black jack and then thinking if you bet $100 just this one time you can get all your money back. It's a house game and it's rigged to fail in the players favor as they got screwed out of their big earnings when they were young and in their primes. Let the Twins be one of the teams that pay minimally for young effective pitchers and let other teams pay for their twilight retirement plans.

But we're not paying for the past 5 years, we're paying for the next 5 years. Considering only 4 pitchers who started the year older than 30 are in the top 20 in WAR in 2015, only 3 were in the top 20 in 2014 and only 3 in 2013, I don't want anything to do with long term deals for these kinds of pitchers any more. In the past two years, the only pitcher in the top 20 in WAR over the age of 32 was Adam Wainwright last year. The age of the veteran pitcher is over, if you can't develop or trade for your own young arms, you're team's in trouble.

And all of them are under the age of 28. Except for Melancon, who seems like an odd inclusion in this list and who actually did pitch for Boston when he easily had his worst year. Pass on Cueto, no more pitchers going into the back nine of their careers please.

It's not the velocity that is missing from the Twins rotation, it's the strikeouts. Too often I tie the two together, and while there is a strong correlation with velocity and strikeouts, there are high velocity guys who don't miss bats and low velocity of guys who do. So I'm fine refraining from asking this team to sign high velocity guys, just so long as they start getting high strikeout guys.

I think I might be the only person on the planet not excited about Daniel Norris. He had one great half season in High A and a good strikeout rate prior to reaching the higher levels. I get that he's a lefty but that 91 MPH heater isn't going to get the same results at the MLB level. I just can't seem him having a ceiling any higher than an innings eating back of the rotation guy.

Rude or not, what does that have to do with signing or trading for a guy? You cut the talent options considerably if only gentleman and philanthropists are welcome.

That could be, but now the comps to Plouffe this year make his numbers look much more pedestrian.

Burdi's stride is much shorter than in college and he used to throw the ball from behind his ear. I hope they're right about getting velocity back and glad to hear that it's been acknowledged.

Morneau has a $9M option or a 750K buyout. Should the Twoins want, they can sign Morneau in about a month. As much as I like Morneau, they better not want.

I like that even after one full year Cederoth still has a quirky delivery, I've always been disappointed in what I perceived as cookie-cutter approach for the Twins. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe they've changed (I still hold that Burdi's delivery was drastically changed). What happened to Cederoth's velocity though? He was able to hit triple digits at times in college, now he's down to 93? That seems pretty concerning.

Which article specifically are you talking about because both Ryan and Molitor said Sano is a 3B and too young to be a DH. Ryan said Plouffe was a 3B as well, which is a pretty big indicator that the team will be looking to move him. Also, Ryan already said that May better prepare to be a starter next year. I'm not sure if there would be one bit of information that comes out the rest of the winter that would put me more at ease than hearing that. Obviously nothing is in stone, but hearing that Ryan considers him as a starter is the absolute best any of us could hope for. The past two off-seasons have seen the Twins sign four starting pitchers and a corner outfielder for much more than they were worth, what makes you think simply signing two middle relievers this year would is all that Ryan will do and that he'd try to sell that as a big change? I personally want the club to do minimally this off-season and dump more contracts than they take on while giving every and any youngster in the high minors a chance to take the jobs. I don't think that will happen though, I'd be surprised if there isn't a big free agent or a big trade. I would like a front office shakeup as I think there are many areas this organization needs to adapt to that they have dragged their feet on, but there has been absolutely nothing Ryan has said since the season has ended that indicates the team isn't going to fix the areas that 90% of Twins fans have been saying needs to be fixed since the July swoon. I might not agree with him, but Terry Ryan is anything but a liar or conman.