nicksaviking

Morales' hot start is even further in the rear view mirror as the slump continues. Over his last ten games he is batting .152 netting only five hits, striking out 12 times compared to only three walks. A promotion does not soon look likely and seven year veterans rarely stay in A ball. The clock is ticking, this season may be his last with this organization.

Trumbo is an intetesting name but his low OBP and high K rate probably aren't a fit for a young rebuilding team. Rumor was Toronto was inerested but they can't afford to part with the bullpen arms the Angels want. The Twins could step in with a package around Perkins and possibly snag one of the young starters in Toronto's system.

Walters, DeVries, Hendriks and Diamond are far from exciting and none of them appear to be a good bet to be anything higher than a #3, but I guess the same could have been said about the early 2000's staff made up of Radke, Mays, Milton and Redmon. Maybe they can be adaquate enough to keep the team in games and at times flash moments of near All-Star-worthiness. I still think the team goes anywhere without an ace, probably two, but if we can start moving the vets, I'm ok with riding out the season letting the young guys get their feet wet.

Just curious, but when he told you this, was in still in the pen or was it after his transition to starter?

The Twins need to be giving everyone they have a hope of trading as much playing time as possible. Intermixing the soon to be departed with the young blood is going to start clubhouse tension if it hasn't already. Give the trade pieces regular jobs and pray they build value by the deadline. Starting August 1, assuming five or so vets get moved, than the youth movement can begin. Letting all the youngsters play together will help the cohesiveness better than having them play alongside the vets they are going to replace. At that point, when we see a lineup with 4-6 newbies, when we can start to evaluate them against the early 80's and 00's young teams.

But isn't it all about winning the World Series? The White sox did in this past decade. Because of that season they also get to claim resurrection credit for Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" which is probably comparable to winning a second.

Unless anyone thinks Rizzoti, Bates or Colabello are long term options there's not much else to look forward to at 1B. None look like more than bench bats though. If Sano and Harrison both turn into power hitters capable of hitting MLB pitching, I'm sure the club would be interested in flipping one of them to the other side of the diamond but that is still years down the road. Parmelee, Mauer and Doumit seem to be the only options this year and probably just Parmelee and Mauer next unless the team wants to go the free agent route. James Loney would bore me to death. I would pass and prefer to continue to gamble on Parmelee at that point. I would be ok with someone like Carlos Pena though. A terrible average turns people off but his OBP makes him tolerable. His power and defense are terrific and in my book he is undervalued.

They are rushing them through or bypassing AAA entirely but that doesn't mean they aren't conservative with the prospects. Perhaps if nearly all of the high school players weren't required to play short season ball until they were 20, go to Beloit for a minimum of 1 year and spend 2 seasons between Ft. Myers and New Britain, they would have more time to spend at Rochester. College players have it a little better. Most only have to play one season of rookie league. The orgainzation thinks it is manipulating the youngsters' contract situation well, but it is backfiring. These guys are in the system so long, almost all of them are forced onto the 40-man roster when they are still only in AA, with some having to be assigned while still in Ft. Myers. This is not good planning. The Twins are forcing themselves to make roster decisions on guys who are still several years out. There is an esoteric arguement against this approach as well. While it is only conjecture and in no way could it ever be proven, the long wait to the majors could be killing the drive of these guys. If you are a high school player drafted by the Twins, you can almost put it down in ink that you won't have a chance at seeing Target Field for six years. To an 18-year old, six years is an eternity, it is in fact 1/3 of the time they have spent on this planet. For plenty of young men, knowing you have next to no chance of reaching your dream for a half of a decade could really dampen the fire that got them drafted so high in the first place. For the love of the game, move Sano from Beloit ASAP. Why must his defense and contact rate be refined in Low A ball? His main attribute is his power and that is easily passing expectations. He can improve his glove and batting eye at Ft. Myers just as easily. Ditto for Rosario, .410 OPB with 17 BB to 15 K's? What more does he have to prove other than two months isn't quite enough time to adjust to a new postion. Ft. Myers can help with the transition, they have better coaches anyway. At this rate they too will fall into the same trap. A full year in Beloit followed by a year split between Ft. Myers and New Britain. The next year they start at New Britain which is when whispers of a call up bypassing Rochester takes place.

I think the belief is that Valencia needs to play everyday because the law of averages says at some point he's going to get hot again which could increase the return on any trade that is in the works for him. It's a moot point anyway. Casilla normally would have seen a DL stint or two by now, he's playing on borrowed time. When he goes down there is no need to sweat the infield roster shuffle.

Nice work Capps. It's all about building value at this point and that was a step in the right direction.

I don't know if this is true, but his walk rate has doubled this year while his strikeout rate has remained the same. This would tell me they are pitching around him, which also tells me keeping him in Beloit is not going to help his development. He's not going to improve much if he's not getting challenged by pitching that more closely matches his skill level.

I really want to get excited about Diamond, but it's hard to be positive about a 25-year-old rookie who can't top 7.0 K/9 in AAA and who's career minor league WHIP is 1.40.

When Nathan went down in the spring if 2010 there was actually a rumor of a Slowey for CJ Wilson. The Twins were reported to want more than Wilson who was the set up guy at the time. The Rangers smartly decided to move Wilson to the rotation while the Twins held Slowey until his value was basicly nil. In Lohse's case he was lights out every spring and all the baseball wonks would always say this is his breakout year, he was much like Baker today. Every April Lohse would fall apart and finally the Twins decided to give him away after a highly publicized spring blow up with Gardy who had no problem dicussing Lohse using a bat on the manager's door if memory serves. Hardy had one injury filled but defensively positive season with the Twins. His salary was the main reason for his departure but his value was at an all time low and Gardy's well known criticism about his reluctance to go the other way didn't help.

Well than maybe Carroll's their guy. He can play anywhere in the infield, a definate Rays kind of player. I'm beyond exasperated that the Twins only shop their players when they are at their lowest value. Young, Hardy, Slowey and Lohse should all have fetched better returns but they all got moved when they were at rock bottom with the club and the 29 other GM's knew that Gardenhire wanted them gone. In his young career, July has been Valencia's best month by far. Wait it out and trade him at the deadline, even if the trend doesn't continue his value won't be any different than it is today. Additionally, Gardy needs to be instructed to only speak highly of possible trade chips from here on out. Telling the world they are a clubhouse cancer or lazy isn't a good negotiation tactic.

I agree, I ripped the organiztion for striking out on the Plouffe pick for years. He doesn't look to be anything other than bench option. His defense isn't very good but the club knew that coming into the year. Still they were really trumpeting him this spring with Gardy implying that he was the favorite for the RF job. Plouffe's not my first choice, or even second for RF, I just think they have mis-managed the situation seeing as Gardy and Ryan seemed very high on him a month ago. No one seems to have a game plan at this point and there have been several knee-jerk reactions. These are the signs of a front office and coaching staff in desperation.

Good call on Giolitto, someone's going to take him much higher than expected. He's still the most talented player in the draft, his only knock is he's had the most recent injury. I don't think Zunino will be too close to MLB ready. He's leading his team in strikeouts which in the Twins system means you have to repeat levels. I've also read he has a level and compact swing generating little loft. Twins batting instructors do seem to like that, but as we've seen in Target Field, no loft equals no HR.

I have no problem taking a shot with a young guy who still has potential. The team might get lucky, even so, OF is one spot where the team actually does have multiple options. However this probably speaks volumes as to how the Twins feel about Trevor Plouffe's future and maybe Ben Revere's too. This is the second time the Twins have picked up a waiver-wire dump off, instead of giving either of those players a real shot at a full time gig. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I don't think anyone can get a fair read on Plouffe if he can't get more than a couple days at a time getting starts at the same position.

No sucker would bite at this deal. The Twins traded BA's number 58 prospect for a 26-year-old closer who was at that time pitching with a 2.74 ERA, 7.4 K/9, 26 saves an All-Star birth and a year left on his rookie deal. The Twins are now shopping a guy currently pitching with a 5.00 ERA, 3.0 K/9, 4 saves who is now 28, getting paid $4.5M while Fangraphs lists his value as negative 700k. He will fetch nothing of significant value especially considering after last year, these numbers look like a trend, not a mirage. Brett Myers is also available and knowing Billy Beane, Grant Balfour can be had at any time. The Twins have no leverage in shopping him. It was a terrible re-signing, and judging by the fact that about 100% of all fan comments following the signing last winter echoed this sentiment, yes Terry Ryan has appeared to have lost touch with the game.

The Giants, Nationals, Blue Jays, Red Sox and now the Yankees have already lost their closer. Only the Twins view a pitcher with a sub 5K/9 as a closer. If the Twins released Capps at this moment meaning they would have to eat all but a portion of the league minimum salary, I bet there would be plenty of teams who have bullpen problems who wouldn't even make a play for him.

I didn't hear any excuse there. The quote is obviously skewed to fit the writers needs anyway. The only way that is an excuse is if the question asked was, "Why didn't you get any hits tonight?" which would be among the poorest questions ever posed to a major league hitter. Like was posted above, the question was obviously along the lines of "Why was Weaver so hard to hit tonight?" and mentioning a deceptive release point isn't an excuse, Span was just very discriptive in his analysis. Listen to any of the Fox Sports baseball guys or Span for that matter when they join Paul Allen's show on KFAN, they are all knowledgable and discriptive baseball people who don't pussyfoot around and give vague stock answers, and they all should be complimented. Critcism like this is why 90% of all athletes interviewed give boring cliched answers to every question asked of them.

I'm from Fargo so I'd love to have a Twins affiliate in my hometown, but from a marketing standpoint, getting Des Moines from the Cubs would be a gigantic advantage for the Twins. There is no competion for the Twins in the Dakotas, but getting Des Moines would give them a huge advantage in the volitile area that currently has large groups of Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers fans. Getting a larger marketing footprint would help in getting more television rights which is where the money currently is. Although I guess it's entirely possible the Twins wouldn't invest a dime from the additional television revenue into the payroll, in which case I could care less about a Des Moines club.

I'm pretty sure F-M would listen if the Twins came poking around. The current independant team just suffered their first losing season in it's history last year after switching to a new league. Travel was certainly a factor as the league stretches from Winnepeg to Texas. I would doubt that those opporating the team would object if a MLB team took interest and was on the hook for travel, not that I pretend to know how that finacial dynamic works. Travel of course would be the catch for any team in the upper-midwest. Rochester can easily take the bus to the teams in their division. Not sure if the already tight Twins would ante up to charter flights to either coasts for one of their affiliates on a regular basis. I think it would be tough to get more minor league affiliates around here unless a mass of MLB teams decided the stronger Midwest economy would be ripe for relocation and an existing league decided to form a new division with several of the medium midwest metro areas. Scranton and the other leagues on the East coast may be struggling as one poster mentioned, but the teams in the Midwest are still pulling strong numbers.

It makes sense to people on this site not to bring up any higher ceiling prospects, but the organization may need to try to reel back in the average fan. I don't need to see any of the bigger names, but wins and attendance are going to be a big factor in who returns next year. Ryan, Gardenhire and the rest of the coaching staff can't feel too comfortable about thier future employment. They are going to care less about furture development if they aren't going to be a part of it.

Unless the Twins eat most of Mauer and Morneau's salary, they won't be getting any ace-type prospects in return for them. At this point, why would the Twins even consider trading for back-end of the rotation arms. That's all the organziation has now.

I still have a hard time seeing Giolito falling that far. There are several teams with two first round picks, those are usually the teams who take chances. Even so, with his stock rising again, he might get back in the top 10 if not higher.