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The calendar has turned to 2010 and it's time for BP Baseball to rank its top 20 Minnesota Twins' prospects as we head to the 2010 season. My approach is to include those who have not accumulated significant time in the Major Leagues already (you will notice that Brian Duensing and Jeff Manship are not on this list, as both are solidly in the mix for starting positions in Minnesota this spring and spent time with the big club last year). There is one exception to this rule, and you'll notice that later in this post.
My aim is to rank the prospects based on their long-term impact in Minnesota. If we measured MLB readiness, the list would be full of AA and AAA-type players. Instead, you'll note plenty of players in the minor leagues' lower rungs. It's a list which will generate some public debate, have many of you questioning my sanity, and will allow readers to compare to the "real" experts like Seth Stohs, Aaron Gleeman, Travis Aune, Josh Johnson, and others.
So, without hearing anything further......
We're going on hiatus until the end of the year and will back at it full-board in 2010. In the meantime, check out Joe Posnanski's wonderful book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, The Machine. It's not too late to put it on your holiday list, and you won't be disappointed. Also check out Hardball Times writer Chris Jaffe's book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers. This wonderful book contains everything you ever wanted to know about baseball's pilots, and has plenty to say about some of the men who have called the shots in the Twins' dugout over the years.
For Twins' fans, 2009 was a fun season, and there's plenty of which to look forward as we move toward 2010:
- Joe Mauer's extension
- Inaugural season of Target Field
- Off-season decisions remaining at second base and third base
- Spring training beginning in just seven short weeks
We'll have you covered here at BP Baseball, along with our friends on the blogroll. As Twins' fans, we are blessed with some of the best baseball writers and analysts right here in Twins Territory. From Joe C., LEN3, Kelsie Smith, The Twins Geek, Aaron Gleeman, Nick Nelson, Parker Hageman, Seth Stohs, Josh Johnson, and many more, we are lucky to have the best and most level-headed coverage of any team in this market. I am proud to be associated with this group, and I thank you all for your support as I got the ball rolling here in 2009. Thanks for sticking with my sporadic posts on Donny Puck, to my foray with the Examiner, and finally on my permanent home here.
I wish you a joyous holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or nothing at all, may the peace of the season be with you all and your family.
The decade of the "00s" concludes in a few days and the Minnesota Twins have just completed the team's most successful ten-year span since moving to Minnesota in 1961.
The numbers bear this out:
- Team Record: 853-755
- Winning Percentage: .530
- Home Record: 472-335
- Home Winning Percentage: .585
- Run Differential: +310
- Division Titles: Five
- Attendance: 19,705,865
The team's record is the best of any decade other than the 1960s, when the Twins recorded a winning percentage of .542. Of course, if one includes the team's final season in Washington, 1960, the winning percentage drops to .536, still better than the 00s, but on par. The 853 victories is a decade-high mark for the Twins, as are the 472 home victories and the attendance figure. Although no World Series appearances were made in the 00s, the team won an unprecedented five division titles and lost a tie-breaker game in still one more season.
For a decade which started out with the Twins riding a streak of seven-consecutive losing seasons, plus still one more sub-.500 season in 2000, the Twins certainly righted the ship. Threats of franchise contraction abounded in 2000 and 2001, but the Twins had a solid core of young players which were given opportunities to learn at the Major League level in 1999 and were emerging by 2001. Players such as Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, Corey Koskie, Cristian Guzman, Doug Mientkiewicz, Eric Milton, and A.J. Pierzynski (and Johan Santana in 2000) formed a solid nucleus of talent which would lead to three-consecutive AL Central Division titles between 2002 and 2004, plus another in 2006. Manager Ron Gardenhire replaced longtime skipper Tom Kelly after the 2001 season, and the Twins have won five division titles under his tutelage.
The decade of the 2000 also featured just two losing seasons (2000 and an injury-plagued 2007 campaign), which is the fewest in any decade since the team moved to Minnesota.
The winter meetings were somewhat quiet last week in that the off-season's biggest potential prize, Roy Halladay, remained in Toronto. One week later, the baseball world was rocked by deals involving not only Halladay but Cliff Lee as well.
The Blue Jays sent Halladay to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitcher Joe Blanton and three minor leaguers: pitcher Kyle Drabek, catcher Travis d'Arnaud and outfielder Michael Taylor. The Jays will send Taylor to the Oakland Athletics for third baseman Brett Wallace. The Phillies also signed Halladay to a three-year extension worth $20M annually with a $20M vesting option for 2014, which eliminates his testing the free agent market after the 2010 season.
Drabek and d'Arnaud were first round draft picks for the Phils in the 2006 and 2007 drafts, respectively. Taylor is a power-hitting outfielder who reached AAA for the first time last season. Wallace was a first-rounder in 2008 for St. Louis who was acquired by Oakland last summer in the Matt Holliday trade.
In a companion deal, the Phils sent left-handed starter Lee to the Seattle Mariners for minor league pitchers Phillippe Aumont and Juan Ramirez and outfielder Tyson Gillies. Lee had said he wanted to stay in Philly but wished to test the free agent market after this season regardless.
Aumont is a highly-touted prospect who first received wide attention pitching for Canada in last season's World Baseball Classic. Ramirez is a 20-year-old strikeout machine who reached high-Class A ball last season. Gillies is a career .321/.419/.447 with no power, but stole 40 bases in Class A ball last season.
ESPN's Keith Law breaks the deal down in this effort and gives the edge to the Mariners and Jays and the disadvantage to the Phillies. Jayson Stark calls the deal historic in this piece, and it's hard to argue. With Cy Young winners effectively being dealt in the same swoop, it is a big deal.
Time will tell whether the prospect acquired by Toronto and Philadelphia will pan out. The Blue Jays will have a very difficult time selling tickets next summer with Halladay as a drawing card, but fans saw this day coming for a very long time, and the Jays managed to snag Kyle Drabek in the process. The Phillies were glad they held Drabek and J.A. Happ in last year's trade for Lee. Blanton will help next year's rotation. The acquisition of Wallace should also be noted, as the Jays may have found their third baseman of the future and turned a more risky prospect (Taylor) into a more polished one (Wallace).
The Phillies get Halladay, along with a three-year extension. The lose Lee, who is only one year younger, but get a potential late-inning guy in Aumont. I agree with Law that the package for Lee is worse than the package they surrendered for Lee one year ago, and definitely not as good as the prospects sent to Toronto for Halladay. The Phillies will be good again in 2010 and adding Halladay to a rotation with Cole Hamels and J.A. Happ will be a plus.
The Mariners get a legitimate ace in Lee to go along with Felix Hernandez to form a formidable top-two. Seattle did surrender Aumont in the deal, but all will be forgotten if they are able to sign Lee to a deal when he hits the market. The Mariners are re-tooling this off-season with the trade for Lee and the signing of free agent Chone Figgins, and should be a factor in the AL West next season.
All and all, it was a blockbuster deal and one which will pay some immediate dividends. A good old-fashioned four-team deal certainly stokes the hot stove fires in the cold winter months. At first glance, the Mariners and Blue Jays come away looking better than the Phillies, but if Philadelphia returns to the World Series again in 2010, that may be revised.
The winter months have turned cold, but with a market expected to favor buyers, some teams have begun the process of re-tooling their rosters for 2010. Two of the Twins' American League Central Division rivals, the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals, recently made moves which affect their lineups for the 2010 season.
The White Sox signed injured reliever J.J. Putz, late of the New York Mets and made a trade for outfielder Juan Pierre, who spent the past three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Each move constitutes a low-risk, high-reward scenario the White Sox hope will pay dividends.
Putz was one of the game's elite closers with the Seattle Mariners in 2006 and 2007, accumulating 76 saves in 85 opportunities over those two seasons. He was nearly un-hittable in 2007, allowing just 37 hits and 11 runs (all earned) over 71.2 innings, posting 40 saves in 42 opportunities, notching an ERA of 1.38, and striking out 10.3 batters per nine innings. Not surprisingly, his over-use caught up to him in 2008 and served as a microcosm of the Mariners' disastrous 2008 season in which they became the first team in MLB history to lose 100 games with a team payroll over $100M. Beset by injuries, Putz saved 15 games and blew eight opportunities. He was limited to 46.1 innings.
Signed as a free agent by the New York Mets prior to the 2009 season, Putz's time in Queens was a nightmare. Expected to bridge the gap to new closer Francisco Rodriguez, Putz instead pitched a total of 29.1 innings, allowed 29 hits, and posted a 5.22 ERA. He underwent surgery in June to remove bone chips in his pitching elbow, and returned with no success. He was finally shut down in August and released a few months later.
The White Sox signed him to a one-year, $3M contract, to serve as a bridge to closer Bobby Jenks. He will complement lefty set-up man Matt Thornton from the right side. The key to this acquisition is health. Putz has gone through two seasons of non-stop injuries and the White Sox are counting on him to provide quality set-up work not seen from Scott Linebrink last season. A $3M contract is rather steep for an injury-plagued pitcher who has struggled mightily for the past two seasons, but shows the White Sox are serious about upgrading their bullpen to keep up with the Twins.
The trade for Pierre, for two minor leaguers, was made to effectively remake the Chicago outfield. Starters Jermaine Dye, Scott Podsednik, and backup DeWayne Wise are out of the mix for 2010, and Pierre will join Carlos Quentin and Alex Rios to form a different alignment. The White Sox also signed Andruw Jones to a free agent deal a few weeks ago. Pierre brings no power to speak of to the table. In ten big league seasons, he has a career slugging percentage of .372. He is a career .301/.348/.372 hitter who seldom walks, but can bring speed to the top of the order. He has led the National League in steals twice and has stolen no fewer than 30 bases in each of his nine full big league seasons.
The Dodgers inexplicably signed Pierre to a five-year, $44M deal prior to the 2007 season. After playing regularly in 2007, Pierre was forced to a backup role after the acquisition of Manny Ramirez in 2008.
The White Sox will only be on the hook for $8M of the $18.5M owed to Pierre over the final two years of the deal. The move is decent for Chicago in that they acquired a true leadoff hitter rather cheaply. He'll hit for average, never walk, hit for no power, steal some bases, and play solid defense (career +5.5 UZR/150 in the outfield) for a changing White Sox lineup.
Over in Kansas City, the Royals effectively swapped catchers this week. The team non-tendered veteran John Buck (who quickly signed a one-year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays) and signed free agent catcher Jason Kendall away from the Milwaukee Brewers. Incredibly, the Royals gave Kendall a two-year, $6M deal. This for a guy who hit .241/.331/.305 for the Brewers last season. This for a guy who hit 10 home runs in 2001 and then has gone on to hit a total of 20 homers since, including a homerless 2005. This for a guy who has managed to hit no higher than .246 in the past three seasons, despite playing no fewer than 134 games. I could go on, but you get the point.
Kendall is a career .290/.369/.383 hitter who has been on a downward plane for the past five seasons. He will be 36 by next year's All-Star break and is, at best, a replacement-level catcher at this point in his career. As Joe Posnanski points out in his blog, the free agent catcher market is thin this winter and the Royals had no obvious move internally staring back at them. Still, why give Kendall a multiple-year deal? It makes no sense. Of course, trading Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs (and then releasing Jacobs a year later) makes no sense. Trading J.P Howell for Joey Gathright makes no sense, either. The Royals are stuck in neutral. Despite all the lip service of the "improving Kansas City Royals," the team has shown no obvious improvement anywhere - Billy Butler, excluded - on the diamond. Alex Gordon has not panned out at third base, the team has no starting pitching behind Zack Greinke, and they have too many 1B/DH types. GM Dayton Moore may prove to be solid, but is building a puzzling track record while his team continues to reside in the division's basement.
ESPN's Buster Olney's blog on Sunday noted that there are 266 major league free agents this winter. The staggering amount of available players does not include "big" prizes like Chone Figgins, who signed with the Seattle Mariners during the winter meetings last week in Indianapolis.
The MLB Trade Rumors site noted that 39 players were not tendered contracts before Saturday night's deadline, adding more to the free agent market. Some bigger names were in that list including Yankees' pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, Colorado Rockies' 3B Garrett Atkins, Pittsburgh Pirates' closer Matt Capps, and Oakland Athletics' DH Jack Cust.
The Twins still have holes at third base and second base, and have long had an interest in Atkins. The seven-year veteran has spent his entire career in Colorado and had some solid seasons in 2006 and 2007. However, he hit a paltry .226/.308/.342 last season with 9 HR and 37 RBI and played slightly lower than replacement-level defense at third base. His career URZ/150 at third base is -5.0, but he is a .289/.354/.457 hitter who is much better than last season suggests. At age 30, he made $7M last season on a one-year deal and will certainly make no more than that in this market. He would be worth the risk for the Twins on a one-year deal. He is younger and healthier than last season's 3B free agent signing, Joe Crede, but the Twins lose a lot of defense with Atkins instead of Crede. However, the potential for an offensive bounce back season, coupled with the fact that he will likely not get any cheaper, may suggest the Twins' kicking the tires on Atkins.
The Twins appear to be set in the rotation, having the top four spots filled with Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Carl Pavano, and Kevin Slowey. If the Twins wanted to go after someone like Wang as a fifth starter type, he may be worth the risk, given that he is a more proven commodity and has more experience than any of the team's internal candidates. However, he has been injured the past two seasons, is coming off a shoulder procedure this past season, and probably won't be ready to pitch until May at the earliest. Besides, Brian Duensing pitched well enough last season to earn an inside track to the fifth starter's spot. Wang doesn't seem to fit the Twins' plans at this time.
Had the Twins not gone after Jon Rauch at the August deadline last season, Capps would have been a perfect fit. He was the Pirates' closer the past three seasons, notching 66 saves in 79 opportunities since 2007. He is only 26 years-old and probably projects to being a set-up man with his next team. One has to wonder what the Pirates are thinking in letting both Capps and John Grabow (last season at the deadline) go. Of course, that's probably why they have not had a winning season since 1992. Capps is younger than Rauch, but the Twins have Rauch on the hook for $2.9M to fill essentially the same role Capps would fill in Minnesota. Personally, I'd sign Capps and try to trade Jesse Crain, but it's unlikely the Twins will do this.
There are a lot of free agent options for the Twins to consider this winter, and the Twins would do well to pursue either Orlando Hudson or Felipe Lopez to play second base. The team will likely play it cautious for a while and let the market unfold. It's a buyers' market and will likely be a late-developing one to boot. The Twins may well wait until late in the off-season to make a move, and there certainly promises to be some talented players available and looking for jobs late in the winter.
The baseball winter meetings have concluded and the Minnesota Twins left lovely Indianapolis making the following "moves:"
Although it's far too early to determine the importance of losing two young pitchers in the Twins' low minors, the Rule V losses have no impact on this year's roster. Adding Pavano to the rotation solidifies the top four spots in next year's rotation, while cutting Bonser saves the team not only money for the arbitration-eligible Bonser, but eases the crowded bullpen situation somewhat.
Still, the Twins have obvious holes at third base and second base still to address. It was rumored that the Twins were taking the following action in Indy:
Still, one has to be happy that the Twins did NOT do the following:
- Sign RH set-up man Brandon Lyon to a three-year, $15M contract (What in the world are the Astros thinking? Lyon is a middle-level reliever at best.)
- Sign LHP Randy Wolf to a three-year, $29.75M contract. The Twins have Pavano for one year and between $7-8M, which is a steal compared to the insane length of contract which the Brewers gave Wolf.
The winter meetings always feature the absurdity of some teams and their inability to analyze statistics to determine player value. As frustrating as it is sometimes when the Twins do not make moves to address obvious needs, it's refreshing to see the organization's conservatism when compared to the stupidity of the two contracts listed above.
Still, the off-season has much work remaining. The Twins have holes at 2B and 3B, and the rumors surrounding players such as Kouzmanoff, Beltre, and Feliz (although Feliz ultimately signed with Houston for a respectable one year, $4.5M deal) show the Twins are actively looking to upgrade at these positions. Of course, the biggest situation to address is Joe Mauer's extension, which makes all moves pale in comparison.
Still, by doing essentially nothing at this year's winter meetings, the Twins came out no worse than their AL Central peers with an eye toward 2010. The Tigers made a good move for the near future in moving Curtis Granderson for some young talent and the other teams remained virtually silent.
The free agent market is still a possibility for the Twins to address their holes. Second base options Felipe Lopez and Orlando Hudson are still out there, although all indications are that the Twins had no contact with their representatives at Indianapolis. Still, the marketplace is in its early stages and look for the Twins to make a move via free agency to address these situations.
The winter meetings are great for rumor-mongers. Heck, I found myself refreshing MLBTradeRumors.com far more than I usually do. Still, the Twins' measured approach in the fever swamp that was Indianapolis this week was the right strategy.
Now, on to the business of addressing the Mauer, second base, and third base situations.
