nicksaviking

I don't like him as much as you do, and probably don't want him at five, but I want him more than the low velocity college guys like Nola and Fedde. I probably still like Grant Holmes a bit more.

The Twins didn't go with many young players though. They left the gate with Hicks and Arcia as starters and Pinto as a backup catcher. The Twins only have three players under the age of 25, one being a middle reliever and another (Arcia) in "rehab" games in the minors. The Twins only have the 12th youngest roster, there are too many players here that are not a part of the rebuild. The Twins management can win. By winning. I'm not sure why it's unreasonable for Twins fans to want their team to win and win the World Series at that. Are we simply supposed to be satisfied that they put a team on the field?

English please, not all of us speak Dungeons and Dragons.

I like it, but I think there are always going to be issues until some of these guys prove it at the MLB level. It's disconcerting that the Twins haven't gotten much of anything from the minor leaguers. You'd think you'd catch lightning in a bottle once in awhile from one of them. The first wave has already arrived and the results haven't been good. No need to mention the issues with Hicks but I'm concerned with what has happened with Arcia. There seemed to be NO concerns with strikeouts in the minors, he was wiffing at a 19% rate. Now he's at 30% at the MLB level? Where did that come from? What happened in the transition? Where did Gibson's lack of control come from? Control was his best asset, why has it dropped off this much at the MLB level? The same thing happened with Hendriks also. Something's not right here.

It's a tough spot. Obviously the front office can't manage the team the exact way the fans want, but it's got to be embarassing when you do something that 90% of the fans disagree with and it turns out the fans were overwhelmingly right and you were embarassingly wrong. Happens to all clubs from time to time I'm sure, but two year deals for Mike Pelfrey and sticking Jason Bartlett on the 25 man after a miserable spring certainly do stand out as awful decisions with clearly visable results. I don't think cries of "What were you thinking?!?" are out of place.

I'd actually agree that they do more things right than wrong, but it's still not a good enough percentage for me. I'm excited about many minor leaguers, but there's still never going to be a payoff if it's always the minor leagues that are the positive and the major league club is the failure. They are continually failing in the area that counts most.

A .500 winning percentage isn't going to win anyone a World Series. I expect a better than 50/50 split between positive moves and utter FUBAR.

I wish it was just for pitchers

I'm sure most people won't see it.

Remember when you could get comparable starters Jason Hammel, Roberto Hernandez, Chris Capuano, Aaron Harang, Colby Lewis, Ryan Voglesong, Edinson Volquez and Paul Maholm signed to one year deals? Man those were the good old days.

Yup. Regardless of which side of the pot issue you fall on, if the guys who you are trying to get a million dollar paycheck from tell you not to do it, well it's your own damn fault if you disregard their warning. I'm mostly in favor of legalizing it, but the continued drug failures of these professional athletes who face losing millions of dollars if they use it really does point to an addiction problem with weed. Ruining your career and losing a boatload of money because you can't resist speaks of a pretty bad problem.

How so? Did I really need to clarify that he couldn't hit anywhere but Fenway Park last year? I thought that was obvious. Players get old and decline fast. Perhaps none more so than middle infielders. The signs are all there.

Where are the road numbers for Drew the last several years. Or even 2013 if you want to go with the 'recovered' defense? I don't care what he did as a 25 year old in AZ. I care that he couldn't get on base away from Fenway last year. I care that he can no longer hit lefties and has seen his strikeout rate sky rocket. He's done. If not this year, he will be next year. And he's probably done this year. Position players who take three months off for non-injury reasons don't have a great track record of success.

I guess the same reason that others continually tout Drew as a quality player without noting as a qualifier that he couldn't hit anywhere but Fenway park nor could he hit against lefthanders.

I'm not much for unwritten rules. Free agency changed everything, Yankees and Red Sox players are allowed to be civil to each other and attend the same broadway musicals together. Still, there does seem to be a bit of a slap in the face when you take a $48 million dollar paycheck from one team while advertising for another. Pretty sure Nike would see Tiger Woods in court if he started sporting a Ping cap. Still, with that paycheck he shouldn't be wearing a baseball cap. Are tophats out these days?

I'd flip out if the Twins took Nola. They're supposed to be done with this low ceiling crap. I don't think they will, they do appear to value upside in their 1st round picks, though the Eades pick in round two last year gives me a little pause.

The murder and/or imprisonment of government detractors or the enslavement of professional athletes?

Playoffs get moved up and start tomorrow because of a confirmed Armageddon due in June. Who starts the one game play-in game for the Twins? I choose Meyer sight unseen.

I wouldn't draft him at #5 if the plan was for him to catch in the pros. There hasn't been a useful catcher drafted and developed out of HS since 2002. I'm not sure if the game has changed somehow, but it would seem there is too much to learn about calling a game for both the offense and defense to develop. You're going to have to get head start in college, the talent would be wasted.

Yup, the Twins have a finite amount of time with Meyer. If he is a stud, he will not be here past his rookie contract unless he drops Boras as his agent. Boras almost certainly won't let the team buy out free agent years and the Twins almost certainly won't offer a pitcher a contract past four years once he becomes a free agent. We need to enjoy Meyer while we can and hope the front office puts the pieces to compete for a WS in that 6 year window.

Looks like the guy can't hit, but isn't too shabby at drawing a walk. Sounds like a poor man's Aaron Hicks. And a rich man's Darrin Mastoianni. This is getting me dizzy.

This was my point. We can project all we want about how a guy's defense is going to hurt too bad to play the position, but in the end, no one is taking Jed Lowrie's job away from him. He plays lousy defense and we assume lousy defense is going to cost the team a bunch of games, but in the end, his manager would not keep putting him out there if he truely was.

Flyball pitchers are getting a bad rap these days. I'm not sure why, history's best pitchers were all flyball pitchers. http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/33991/bill-james-doesnt-like-groundball-pitchers Even if Bill James is wrong, who would want a groundball pitcher with this infield defense? If his breaking ball ends up being subpar at the MLB level, sure we have a problem, but I'm not sure why you jump to that conclusion now.

Which part of his profile isn't encouraging? He's a 6'5" workhorse who is among the league leader in strikeouts at every level he's been at. Besides the control, what else do you want from him?

The acquistion of Eduardo Nunez got people speculating about when he would get a chance in the Twins lineup over the struggling Pedro Florimon. Florimon's defense is an asset but it is not making up for his inability to hit. Nunez has been getting panned for his poor defensive play, despite this, he is still looked at as a shortstop option for the Twins. This makes me wonder, what exactly is it that allows poor defensive players to continue getting chances at short when defense is continually hailed as of utmost importance? We often hear about minor leaguers who "need" to move to 3B or 2B because they just won't cut it at the MLB level. Many of these guys get moved not because they play poorly, but because the perception is that they lack range, arm strengthy, speed or proper footwork. But that begs the question, how did Nunez get through, and more importantly, why is he still considered a shortstop? Or Jed Lowrie? or Asdrubal Cabrera? Or Jhonny Peralta? Brian Dozier was deemed unworthy to play SS last year before he was demoted to Rochester. Since his return, he has only been considered for 2B duties, and almost surely that will never change. Is he really an inferior fielder to Nunez? Or Lowrie or Cabrera? I doubt it. It seems to me, that once a player sneaks through to the majors and sticks at SS for any considerable amount of time, he will be considered as such, despite his shortcomings defensively. Lowrie, Nunez and Peralta are all working on their questionable SS play for thier second and third organizations and Cabrera will hit the free agent market viewed as a SS next year. I think this shows an overly critical evaluation of minor leaguers. Defense matters, but managers routinely put subpar SS in their lineups because they aren't losing games despite what evaluators may project. Jorge Polanco is being given another chance at SS, and I'm happy to see that. But even if he hits, if his range or arm start to play at a subpar level, he'll risk being moved. I always wondered what would have happened if JJ Hardy had been developed by another orgainzation. He's big, he's slow and by the eye test he does not appear to have much range. I would bet that there are a good number of clubs that would have moved Hardy to 3B long before he ever got the the majors, which of course would be a shame considering he is one of the top defensive players at his position today. My overall sentiment is that defensive measurables for a shortstop seem to be more valuable in theory than the do on the field. How many perfectly acceptable shortstops are judged unworthy early in their careers?