nicksaviking

Hicks ended his season, along with his teamates seasons, in dramatic fashion with a walk off grandslam in the decisive game of the Appalacian Leage championship. Congrats young man, it may be rookie ball but it's one hell of a story. He finishes his season with a .270/.382/.435 slash to go along with four HR, although the last one was probably worth more than the first three combined. The four HR was a little light for the all-or-nothing slugger but he did miss three weeks in the end of July/beginning of August. I have not been able to find an explanation for the absence anywhere. The 37 K's in 136 PA was high but expected. There is plenty of work to do in 2013, but the Appalacian League hero hopefully has a place in the organization come next spring as opposed to next summer.

There are so many scenarios for the 2013 OF/1B/DH/C rotation that a positive outcome should be available. I don't mean to be pessimistic, but I don't know that I trust his frong office to make the right decisions though. In recent years they seem content to do little and let the problems work themselves out either by letting young guys who could be in the majors sit in AAA or wait for an injury to make the decision for them.

I'm in. This has got to be the least decisive thread this site has seen in the last three months.

I'm really trying not to get my hopes up about the 2012 pitching draft class until they have success in New Britain, but it is hard not to be optimistic that some of these guys will find their way onto the top ten list as very few have yet to stumble. While the sample sizes are small and most of these guys have only pitched an couple innings at a time in relief, it would seem that many, if not most of these guys should be in over their head during their first taste of pro ball, but I'd say only a couple pitchers drafted late really are in too deep. Barrios- 49K/4BB, 30 IP, 1.17 ERA between GCL and E'ton Bard- 7K/7BB, 7 IP, 3.86 ERA: GCL/E'ton Melotakis- 34K/6BB, 24 IP, 1.88 ERA: E'ton/Beloit Chargois- 22K/5BB, 16 IP, 1.69 ERA: E'ton Jones- 31K/11BB, 19 IP, 2.37 ERA: E'ton/Beloit Duffy- 27K/2BB, 19 IP, 1.42 ERA: E'ton Martinez- 11K/9BB, 14 IP, 4.50 ERA: GCL Powell- 30K/7BB 15, IP, 5.74 ERA: E'ton Baxendale- 31K/2BB, 18 IP, 0.98 ERA: E'ton/Beloit Rogers- 73K/17BB, 61 IP, 2.35 ERA: E'ton/Beloit Muren- 12K/9BB, 24 IP, 1.46 ERA: GCL Huber- 10K/8BB, 14 IP, 7.71 ERA: E'ton Goldsmith- 5K/5BB, 4 IP, 6.75: GCL Ferreira- 13K/7BB, 10 IP, 1.80 ERA: E'ton Merck- 28K/6BB, 24 IP, 4.07 ERA: E'ton These are the 15 pitchers from the 2012 draft class that have already got innings with the organization. Only three are failing to strikeout a batter an inning, while Barrios, Melotakis, Chargois, Duffy, Baxendale, Rogers and Merck seem to have very little to no control issues at this point. Only one of the top six pitchers taken has an ERA over 2.50, and nine of the 15 overall are lower than that figure. Six of the pitchers got a mid-season promotion, and Chargois and Duffy, maybe even Merck deserved one too, but it's tough to find room for that many pitchers late in the year. There is enough talent here, hopefully most of these guys get a shot at starting and can carry over most of the success they have had in relief. We won't know if drafting relievers and transforming them into starters is going to work for several years, but with the success up to this point, I would not be surprised if the Twins take the same approach in next years draft.

Perhaps the medical staff has only made moderate mistakes, or perhaps just league average mistakes. If this is true, than Ryan, Gardenhire and anyone else making personel decisions based on the uncertain injuries are hangin the medical staff out to dry. There is no rule that you need a firm diagnosis to place a player on the DL. Either the medical staff is not giving useful enough preliminary findings to the decision makers, or the decision makers are too indecisive to make a decision without a complete and accurate diagnosis. Bottom line is, it didn't matter what was wrong with Span, SOMEONE should have had the foresight to have said, he's going on the DL seeing as he can't play now and this team is out of contention anyway.

Those bats are exciting. About the only complaint is that only two pitchers are worthy of the top ten. Hopefully another arm or two from the 2012 draft class can find their way onto the list next year.

Hiring a baseball writer/analyst is a great idea depending on the role. Pretty easy to check on his accumen simply by doing an internet search on the guys blogs and articles over the past X amount of years. Unfortunately I agree with Parker though. The Twins hiring away from the family tree and sabermetric geeks to boot, probably isn't in the cards.

I see Deduno and Florimon were from the same city and are only 3 years seperated in age. I wonder if they played against each other growing up?

Awesome. That hits on both fronts of my geekdom; baseball and maps. Looks like the Twins need to do some scouting in New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii to get someone from each state. Shane Victorino is a free agent after the season, but the OF is getting full. You'd think Alaska would be pretty tough but I see Daniel Schlereth and Aaron cunningham are both from there.

Considering the lack of strikeout ability from the staff, more probably scored than we'd like to know. That was great analysis, clearly he is not moving to get into position to make a throw before he recieves the pitch like he did in the past. As someone mentioned above, this should be easily fixable and I don't know why it hasn't been taken care of by now.

It does seem strange but maybe they plan on shutting him down and put him on the 60-day. Maybe they plan on calling up several guys they don't currently have on the 40-man. Still, can't imagine there are four guys not already on the 40-man who the Twins would want to call up.

They did a good job of keeping this one under wraps.

I assume when Doumit is not catching he will be taking the extra outfield at-bats along with Matroianni, while Parmelee and Morneau rotate at 1B while also sharing DH duties with Mauer? The only time I see being cut is Matroianni's. I don't think Parmelee has any need to play the outfield this year unless Gardy feels like experimenting.

I too like the idea of Haren. He may or may not take a 1 year deal, but he still has an option year left which is out of his hands. The Angels may pick it up and keep him if they can't re-sign Greinke, but they also may pick it up with the idea of trading him. If a team like the Twins picks up most of that salary, they might not have to give up too much.

"You've going to have to take some risks and you're going to have to look at all markets, not just free agency, but trades and waivers and Rule 5s." Yeah, because waivers and the Rule V draft is so risky. Or was he referring to his previous paragraph: Ryan isn't happy with the production of his lineup but recognizes that the organization's foremost need is starting pitching. That's why he would consider re-signing Baker or Pavano. Because resigning one of them on a 1 year $3-5 million dollar deal is such a risk. "Even when we had rotations that were darn good, we got them from about every avenue. We have to do the same thing moving forward here." Which of the "darn good" rotations had free agents in them? The time they gave Kenny Rogers a one year $2 million dollar deal?

Getting Mauer's salary off the books isn't going to help get a front line starter here. The money it takes to pay pitchers is only a fraction of the issue in dealing with aces. The Twins just aren't going to give an elite pitcher the years other clubs are willing to offer. In no way do I see Terry Ryan getting rid of the last seven years of Mauer's deal only to take on five additional years with Greinke. Ryan is terrified of pitchers, and frankly, five years of Greinke should be a little frightening, he's not the most stable of characters.

I guess I should have put one of these after my post because I actually wasn't excited about the direction the thread had taken. "Go get Greinke" has probably been written 100 times on this site already. I liked Dave's thread, the scrap heap can be boring, and at times infuriating, but sometimes you get bargains like Ryan Doumit and Jared Burton. I like the idea of going after Jorge De La Rosa, with the idea that if he can't cut it in the rotation any longer, the Twins give him a fair shake in the bullpen. He hasn't been a reliever in a long time, but he has pretty good stuff that might be dominant in short outings and he might be able to drop one of his weaker pitches. He should be sufficiently recovered from TJ surgery next spring and you could get lucky and find a middle of the rotaion arm for cheap.

So I guess the scrap heap thread is dead and a regular free agent/trade thread has taken over? It was inevitable really.

Vargas is not a high reward guy. He's having an outlier season which is A) going to surely be his career high point, and drive up his arbitration figure for the next year. Saying Vargas is better than anyone the Twins have isn't saying much, but I still don't think it's true. He belongs in the 5th spot of an average rotation, the 4th spot on a poor one, but the Twins would be forced to look at him as a #1 or 2 due to the salary. Having him on the team does more harm than good. Let a playoff team overpay for his mirage 2012 season. Scott Baker, Joe Blanton, Eric Bedard, Kevin Correia, Jorge De La Rosa, Jeremy Guthrie, Jason Marquis, Roy Oswalt, Carl Pavano Joe Saunders, Randy Wolf and Carlos Zambrano. None of these guys get me too excited, but they will all likely be cheaper than Vargas and I don't doubt just as effective while not costing a prospect.

With Marcum, Liriano, Greinke, Jackson, Sanchez, and others hitting the FA market this winter, there is really no excuse for the Twins not to pick up one of those guys in the $12-15m per year range in a 3-5 year deal. They have the money and they have the need. History be damned, they need to pick up one of those guys. There may not be a good excuse for not signing one of them but TR has already said that it's not the way he plans to go. Unless Ryan suddenly decides to change his MO and spend big in free agency for the first time how else do you fill out the rotation? If you're going to be making trades, it better be for younger and higher upside arms. Why waste more time with another nobody like Vargas AND give up players because of a percieved higher value? Ryan isn't going to pay for free agents just to spend money, but by the same token, he shouldn't be making trades just for the sake of making trades. If you get Vargas, his salary is going to force the club to look at him as a top of the rotation arm, yet every red flag this year, and everything that he has done previous to 2012 points to him being a #5. That's the same problem the Twins have faced the last two years. They have guys they expected to perform as a 1-2 starter and and up getting #5 production. It's crippling the team and it needs to stop.

Vargas is a one-hit wonder. No thanks, I don't have interest in any free agents or trades for starters making that kind of money with stats that suspicious. This guy is time bomb waiting to explode in another uniform, he doesn't strike anyone out and gives up a ton of HR. His splits away from Safeco are alarming. 2 points higher ERA away and he's given up 23 HR on the road compared to 6 at home this year. Do the Twins really want a guy who is 3rd in the league in HR allowed when he spends half of his time at Safeco? If the Twins are going to be giving a pitcher $8 million next year, he better be able to top a 6.0 K/9. Vargas has disaster written all over him for who ever acquires this journyman having a career year.

The Red Sox dumped three of their biggest players and only got 1 reasonable prospect in return. The move was made to shed payroll. If the Red Sox were to come after Mauer and Morneau, surely they would see this trade under the same light, namely a salary dump in which they would not be forced to give up many high ceiling prospects. I'm not interested in dropping Mauer in a scenario where the Twins don't load up on a bunch of prospects. Given his salary and the precedence set by the Dodgers/Red Sox trade, that doesn't seem likely.

I didn't understand the need to cut Bashore this year though, he didn't require a 40-man roster spot and he was healthy enough to pitch. The Yankees picked him up and while he's not knocking on the MLB door, he looks to be pitching well enough that his recovery looks successfull.

It's a week until rosters expand, I could care less if Carson gets 6 additional at-bats or if Waldrop gets three extra innings of work. I'll save my frustrations for the moment we find out who does or does not get a September call up.

Everyone seemed pretty excited about snagging Gibson at the time. If people want to get depressed about it and play the hindsight game, blame the Santana trade instead of the Gibson pick. Had the Twins let Santana walk instead of taking the Mets version of the Derek Jeter "I enjoyed screwing you" gift basket, the comp picks could have resulted in Trout, Tyler Skaggs and the Twins would have still had Gibson.