MangLitch

Nah, lay on the negative talk. Saying we are in second is like saying we are in second driving a ford pinto and the leader is driving a formula one car. The only reason we are in second is because the 3 behind us are on bicycles and there is a chance our pinto blows up and we end up in last anyways. What a dumpster fire

Fair.... but he is around the league average age, has 46 starts there (1.5 seasons) and hasn't had a track record of striking out 10.5 k/9 innings. Probably more of a mirage than a trend, agreed. But the premise was that it would be nice if he figured things out and was on an upward trend. I get it, people want to be down on him and for good reason. But he was a kid with baseball as his second sport. Not saying that attributes to the slow learning curve, but its not impossible that he blooms late. Likely, no. Would it be awesome, absolutely.

Stewart looks like he may be settling into a nice groove, although only 4 games. But since his two 6 ER gaffes, 4 games/1.48 ERA/10.74 K/9 ........ albeit with a 1.48 whip but if he can continue to get punchouts he can continue to bail himself out. Man, Stewart coming on late would be a fantastic development for the pitching pipeline. Berrios, Romero, Graterol, Gonzo, Stewart etc..... wouldn't look bad in a few years. I have nothing to say about buxton and sano that hasn't already been said.... bummer dude...... so far anyways.

.... and troy williamson will someday learn to catch..... But in all seriousness, i couldnt agree more. Lynn is hopefully at the bottom of his performance, dozier/morrison/sano same. Buxton has some upside when he comes back and Planco could be the guy he was last year. Only downside is, if the above isn’t true, you have a much bigger problem on your hands. You start to enter the realm of not knowing what you really have and pressure will mount to make some sort of move. The downside of going from worst to playoffs so fast is expectations, which we may be a bit ahead of ourselves. But hopefully not.

Don't forget he bent Santana's finger back while playing a game of thumb war. Santana tried to pull the tag team cheat with the finger and Molitor bent that b!@#$ right back. You don't cheat in thumb war versus Molly

Here lies the problem with 162 games. We are a society of daily reactions and the MLB is the perfect inverse of daily reactions. 1 of 162. Was it disappointing. Absolutely. Have I seen worse losses. Yep. Positives - Odorizzi got back on track after an awful start. At least we know he isn't coming of the rails and will be able to give us 6 out of 7 solid starts. That is something to value. The negatives have been well covered here. But for real, there is no move at this point or no real need to get worked up. Like Tom wrote, they have 50 games to figure it out. Buxton, Mauer, Morrison, Santana, Polanco all out for some or all of the season so far. They were key guys at some point last year, morrison would have been if on the twins. This team has been injury plagued. Simple as that. Rosario and Escobar are raking. Have some high level prospects looking good. Have potential boosts coming from injury/ suspension. I think we are seeing the worst of the worst right now. So we should give something a try in the day and age of instant gratification.... LET IT PLAY OUT. Worst case, we trade the expendable pieces at the deadline and move on to next year and a high draft pick. But I think July-Sept could be a good ride yet. If the last 3 years has proved anything, it is that this offense is full of streaky hitting. But we actually have some pitching it seems this year without our ace of last year healthy. Just keep the Tribe within 5 games at the end of June and it should get interesting. Rant over

Fair, they have more information than me. And power bats seems to all of the sudden be lacking in our system. So maybe they think this kid can come in and rake. Seems like him and Rooker are the mold they are trying to add to the system and get lucky that one of these guys will provide some pop for future 1b/DH/OF roles that are filled right now on 1-2 yr deals. I have no real beef, just like to complain I guess. So now I am bored, thanks for that

College bats... the catcher I can see I guess as a guy with potential to be here in a couple years seems to be a good hedge. But I cant wrap my head around the OF pick. Wasn’t necessarily BPA, doesn’t really stand out in one area, not a CF prospect, and we seem to be in fairly good shape on outfield depth. Am I missing something here. We didn’t check any of the boxes really, unless he really is that far under slot

I got all worked up about Lewis last year, and I ate my words a bit as the seemed to have a pretty nice draft.... so far. So while I think this is unspectacular, I thought the same of Lewis and he has proved me wrong and allowed them to get some good guys later. Long and short of it, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt

Id take a college reliever at 20 and try to turn him into a SP.......

I hate to say it but I think I’ve moved more to intrigue about who we trade away at the deadline and further away from hope this thing gets on track. What a dumpster fire of a season so far. Pitching and hitting can’t get on the same schedule, guys can’t stay healthy. Here is my cynical MN sports fan prediction. This thing comes off the rails and the twins are 15+ games out of it a month from now. We sell some pieces and look forward to an impact draft, only to watch these guys figure it out in mid August and go on a meaningless tear that takes us out of a top pick and gives us that big word for next season...... HOPE And this is the vicious cycle of a MN sports team. Am I jumping the gun yet?

Really? Does he have steam that is moving him up the board from mid 20's? Everything I am seeing has him around for the Twinks, but I guess with nickname potential like that he should probably get top ten steam

Grayson Rodriguez please. GrayRod - worth the pick just for the nick name. Oh and he is filthy

Or even using the circle button on the controller for contact swing..... Sano's "Contact" swing still goes 400 ft in MLB: The Show... therefore, it does in real life. Sano is a monster if he just learns to press O sometimes..... 2 strikes mainly. PLEASE GOD JUST PRESS O

Understandable, I just can't get my around around any metric of why these guys should hang out at a level for a set period. Krilloff missed a season, I get it. But he is mashing and I would argue that he is really not being challenged at CR anymore. Lewis isn't crushing it, anymore, but he has proven that he can and will. My point is, i guess, when do we stop treating these kids with "kid gloves" and stop worrying about if there confidence will tank if they fail at a level. I think their mental make-up is strong enough that we should have faith in moving them until they struggle. I think they are good enough kids that they will benefit more from the struggle than sitting at a level that isn't really pushing them. Further, the big league club will need both of them very soon as shortstop and impact bats have been missing so far this year (Escobar is being bucketed in 3B) (Not that they will see action this year). The movement so far with the Albies, Soto's, ETC by successful clubs has shown that it may not be a terrible idea, if the kids have the right makeup, to push these kids along until they fail.... and hey, they might not. Or they might, but it shouldn't shake them, or at least I dont see it shaking Lewis or Krilloff as they both seem like high character and heady kids. My two cents

Do Krilloff and Lewis really have anything left to prove at CR? Not that they will factor in this year, but you would think with the lack of depth in impact bats at mlb level we would be moving these guys fairly aggressively. It just feels like these two could use a new challenge at FM

Can Fernando Spark The Twins!!!!!! I think so! That was fun. Seeing him be electric even when he wasn’t his best. That kid was fun! But seriously, when does Phil Hughes come back to starting?

Big take here: I may be an idiot for saying this but I have been more than impressed with Romero and Gordon this spring. There is no doubt to me that these kids are ready to play and I think you bring them North very early. If Gibson is the Kyle of the first half, I think you cut bait and give the kid a shot at the bigs. That kind of fire power brings a big boost to a #5 spot. I also think Gordon belongs at SS. This kid is hitting 500 and looks the part. I’ll take the fielding lumps. Hell, if you aren’t going to sign back Dozier, trade him off and put Gordon at 2B, though I’d prefer to keep Dozier around.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but I think at some point this season, both are gone. It will be interesting to see if the Twins play Rooker in the outfield a bit in the minors. I could see him continuing to rake and then pushing the FO to bring him up to platoon with Morrison and Kepler, whomever struggles the most with lefties. Oh the intrigue and embarrassment of riches we now have..... could happen

Maybe we are going the contrarian route and pulling a “greatest show on turf” strategy. We won’t stop the other team, we will just try to outscore them. Now we just need a Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk HOF type 3 & 4 hitter and we might have a chance at this working. In all fairness, I still think we get to watch a wild card game this year for the twinkies. And maybe Berrios really is a dominant guy. Only have a 162 games to watch and see. Is it April yet?

What a fun thread! 1. Dozier has been incredibly valuable to this organization and he does deserve more than Jay Bruce lol. 2. We here in MN land tend to be a bit defensive about people wanting to be here, but I qualify this statement as not a part of that complex. I don’t think I want Dozier here for big money, or even market money. Unless, somehow, our pitching situation figures itself out this year and we get 3 guys to take huge steps, I’d rather spend that money on an elite guy at SP and leave some room up the middle for one of our 18 INF prospects. I get it, it’s a lot of production to make up but I like the odds of our budding lineup to make up for that versus our very young pitching prospects to become an elite frontline starter by next year (maybe berrios but still 4 other pitching spots to fill) So in true MN homer fashion, “So you don’t wanna be here next year? You don’t Love us Brian? Well good riddance to you, you sucked anyways”

Love...... this...... move....... looks like a great value play with high upside

I just haven’t seen people say he is heavy and weak. Injury risk.... fair. But power isn’t a result of conditioning as much as quick twitch and strength for bat speed. When I see his bat speed and batted ball velocity drop, then I’ll get on his case. Could it be that he is stronger from working out but just can’t choose the chicken breast over the pizza? I don’t need the guy to have a six pack if he still hits the ball 500 ft

Again, the first point was simply that I’ve seen many 290lb men that are way more athletic than most and we get hung up because he isn’t sculpted and have some arbitrary number for what his weight should be. I guess I am taking the weight and see approach to how he handles it (see what I did there?) And the second piece was more of a “is it really that big of a deal?”. I’m sorry but I think if he is a below average fielder at third, I would argue he isn’t more valuable there because if you DH/1B him he gets to focus more on his bat. Not that defense becomes moot, but be realistic here, he is a bopper and not a gold Glover. If he had a shot at one I would be more worked up but in this day and age I think you can look to add a better defensive piece at third anayways. Maybe I’m wrong and he was expected to light the world on fire defensively, I just never had that impression once he got past High A. Play the bat, it’s what he loves and it’s where his real value is. I think we need to adjust expectations ourselves a bit.

Physical fitness and conditioning as often times correlated to weight, to which I do not particularly agree. If you want a marathon runner, weight is important. If you want a guy to hit a ball a long way and move 90 feet at a time. Less so. I have seen plenty of 300lb men dunk a basketball and run some pretty fast sprints. As long as he can do his job and his numbers play, I don't really care. Sano isn't stealing bases or outrunning a ground ball to short. His value is in the pop in his bat. If he can play third, even more valuable but we all kind of knew he would go to 1st/DH at some point. I guess I will freak out when he can't play 3rd because he cant bend over to grab the ball. I just do not see the end of the world if he is a 1st/DH guy. He was never a gold glove candidate and honestly, we may have better options defensively the way it is. His bat plays anywhere and who knows if we need to move a Dozier/Polanco/Gordon/PTBNL (I know this isn't perfect, just an example) there to actually save runs at third. Let the ripping begin