nicksaviking

Well I have high expectations for her this season.

May, not even close. Pelfrey can go to the pen, Milone can sit in Rochester until he's needed for a spot start. I still like Meyer better, and like the highest upside guys infinately more than high floor guys, but May isn't without upside even if it's not quite as high as Meyer.

That would be great and I'd love to go but alas my wife has me schedulded for some pretty substantial renovation work for her photo studio. Tell him I said hi, I'm sure he remembers me

The only one under control long enough to fit into the Twins logical window of contention is Gio Gonzalez and he doesn't seem to be available. I'd take Strausburg, but I'm not paying a kings ransom for two years of him then watch him walk right when this team looks like they might be ready. With his injury history, you might not even be able to offer him a QO to recieve the comp picks. Fister, Roarke? Blah, yuck. The Twins have enough high contact pichers, they do nothing for me.

I would be surprised if he averaged a 4 WAR the next 7 years. Last year only one pitcher over the age of 32, Adam Wainwright, had a WAR over 3.7. Only five had a WAR over 3.0. Scherzer isn't a pitcher he's a hurler, he just rears back and throws as hard as he can. When the velocity gets low enough, he's going to be pretty average if not flat out bad. The stats already show that when he doesn't miss bats he gets hit hard.

I don't know, I'm putting it on the Twins to make the assumption. If the organization thinks Santana is the most likely candidate to be playing SS everyday 2-3+ years from now they should keep him there. If they see it a different way, give him a chance to be a Jack of all Trades.

Lauder was one of my favorites as a kid. We went to Rod Carew Day at the Dome in 1987, they drove him around the field in a convertible and then retired his number. Pretty cool stuff to a kid. We were sitting behind the Twins bullpen but all game long I couldn't work up the nerve to ask for any autographs which was probably good since Mike Smithson was pitching which meant the guys in the pen needed to be alert and ready for action. However Sal Butera was starting that day and when multiple bp arms were warming up (again, Smithson was pitching, so basically all game long), Laudner would trot out to the pen to help out. I already thought highly of Laudner because the back of his baseball card said that we shared a birthday, and to an eight-year-old, that's a pretty big deal. He was warming up Jeff Reardon for the 9th and I finally got the nerve to ask for his autograph but he turned to me and said, "Not right now kid, I got to go catch" and he trotted to the field with Reardon to close out the Blue Jays (but not before giving up a bomb to Cecil Fielder). In the top of the 8th Buetera had been pinch hit for by Roy Smalley, and my undevloped baseball mind hadn't yet pieced together what the logical outcome would be for Laudner heading into the bottom of the 9th. I should have found my nerve earlier. The funny thing is that I've gotten many autographs since then, and have largely forgotten the circumstances in which I got them. The fact that Tim Laudner gave me the time of day during the middle of a game probably meant more to me than an autograph I probably would have lost by now.

If the club is fairly certain Santana is going to be the long term SS, I agree. If on the other hand there is a strong possibility that Escobar continues to hit, Polanco proves to be a better all around SS, Gordon shoots through the system or some other situation has some strong plausibility, I'd actually be OK letting Santana not only get more CF time, but perhaps get a shot at other positions and see if he can fill some kind of super utility role. Everybody loves a Ben Zobrist type of guy. I long ago let myself think of 2015 as a development season. It doesn't mean the team won't compete, but if Santana isn't going to be the long term fixture at SS, I'm fine with seeing if he can beef up his resume.

If you want your nine best hitters in the lineup, Santana in CF and Escobar at SS is the way to go I guess. Of course that's based on last year's numbers and those two are pretty big regression candidates, Santana in particular. I really am not trying to be a pessimist, but I suspect this situation will play itself out in short order due to dissapointing production. Hopefully only from one, not both.

Especially when he is putting up those blasé numbers in the equally offensive inflating PCL.

They wouldn't. I think you're missing the underlying messages in the posts. Most posters here seem to agree, he's a Coors Field mirage and the numbers back it up, so the Twins shouldn't give up anyone of value for him. The Rockies over-value him, so the unstated implication is, no deal will occur.

Rasmus isn't very good defensively though, at least not if you're going to plug him into CF. Offensively he's not too pretty to look at either. I know his 20 HR potential is sexy, but even with his moderate power, he's had an OPS .735 or less in four of his six seasons.

Well I hope The Gardener sticks stateside. Hmmm, or does that sound like a bad joke idiot white guys would make regarding the type of work people of his ethnicity often get if they are undocumented?

His road OPS last year was .617. Aaron Hicks' was .615.

Yup, I'd offer um, Logan Darnell? His road OPS looks like what you expect from your defensive minded back up catcher.

I'd guess that most of the folks on this site would have pegged the Twins 2014 victory total within 6 wins of how they ended and it would have nearly been unanimous that everyone would have been within 10 wins. In fact, I think most people would have predicted the records of every AL Central team similarly. Whether it's computer or random guy using top of his head evaluations, most people/stats are going to give teams like the Padres and Cubs a bit of a boost due to acquistions and a team like the Braves a knock due to losses. Teams like the Red Sox and Rangers will both get boosts because they failed to meet expectations last year but still have talent. For indivdual players, both humans and stats are going to predict players' improvement/decline based on age, team, ballpark, last year's production, batting order protection, change of position, injury history etc. It's not rocket science, it's common sense. ZiPS can break it down if they want to, but the general concensus isn't going to change much. There will always be outliers, but for the most part, these are going to line up with human expectations.

The only thing funnier than putting much stock into predicting statistics for a player is putting stock into predicting statisticas for 40 of them and expecting anything resembling accuracy. It's not surprising that these ZiPS or Steamer numbers ultimately end up in the ballpark, as predicting how a team will fare can also be done fairly accurately by any John Doe who follows baseball even without the help of numbers. Most teams' final finish can be determined fairly accurately using simple common sense.

Oh, well yes, then my opinion would be that they would be better, I also think the AL Central is going to be fairly bad this year. An 89 win team may be able to win. I do not see the Twins winning 89 games, but stranger things have happened. However even with the slight chance of making the playoffs, I'd prefer to not sacrifice the future for a long shot at glory and I do believe that anyone who signs Scherzer is going to soon regret it.

He'd be great on this team next year, probably the year after, But when he hits his decline, he's going to hit it hard. He either misses the bat or gives up hard contact, so when his velocity starts waning, he's going to get rocked. He's also terribly inefficient with his piches. He was third in the league in pitches thrown but only 8th in innings pitched. The two guys who threw more pitches than him, Price and Cueto threw over 20 more innings than he did. He averaged 16.5 pitches per inning. Had Gardy been his manager, he would have been pulled after the 6th most games as he would have hit the 100 pitch mark. We're looking at a guy, who if he was in a Twins uniform, would more likely be putting up an IP number closer to a Francisco Liriano season. I didn't like Gardy's insistance on pitch counts, but I don't see any way that Sherzer's inefficiency isn't going to come back and strangle him when he has to rely on veteran guile instead of his overpowering heater. And that's if he doesn't end up blowing out his arm before his natural age decline sets in.

Looks like he first got picked up by El Paso in the American Association, the indy league most of the people in this area are familiar with. I thought the Frontier league was a step below the AA, though perhaps that has changed. He sure didn't seem to put up the same kind of numbers Colabello put up in indy ball, but hey, nothing to lose here. Looks like a good athlete, maybe you catch lightning in a bottle.

"Oh, the Twins are spending like they're winning now. While the Phil Hughes deal might be wise and proactive, their decision to give scores of millions to Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco before Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton are ready was bizarre. I don't blame them for not wanting to get caught with a half-team, like the Padres did last year with their good pitching and woof hitting, but go for the reasonable options, man. Leave some money for when Sano and Buxton actually get there, and get the pitchers who are good then." Those were my thoughts this offseason.

Well if those people are going by WAR, he also would have been the best player on four of the five teams in the AL East, placing 2nd to Jose Bautista overall.

I'm not sure which awards show that is taken from. Are you suggesting the Twins hire Paul DePodesta who Jonah Hill portrayed in Moneyball, or the guy he portrayed in The Wolf of Wall Street?

Honorable, but paying players for what they did yesterday instead of paying players for what you think they will do tomorrow is how teams start giving out $100 million deals to 35-year-old pitchers. It's bad business sense.

And that Michael Cuddyer was a super utility player.