From the Startribune... "The Twins are scheduled to unveil a new-look road uniform along with subtle changes to their home uniform Monday at IDS Crystal Court. The Twins have worn the same primary home and road uniforms since 1987."

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This is the time of year where everyone hopes to trade unwanted Twins for unwanted all stars.  How much are some Twins worth?  More than I thought.  How much are some stars worth?  Less than I thought.  The trade value calculator is based on the idea that a team should be willing to trade assets equal to a players value minus his salary.  This is why Joe Nathan is going nowhere.  He is a good player being paid exactly what he's worth. 

Prospect valuations courtesy of Victor Wang and 2009 Hardball Times.  Prospect Rankings courtesy of John Sickles and Baseball America.  Trade Value spreadsheet courtesy of Sky Kalkman at Beyond the Boxscore

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The Twins have a minor league system that develops a continuous supply of starting pitchers.  Beginning with Scott Baker, who arrived in 2005, the Twins staff has seen Garza, Slowey, Perkins, Blackburn, Liriano and Bonser (the last two were obtained by trade) step up to become quality major league starters.  Add Swarzak, Manship and Duensing, who made their first appearances this season, and you have ten starting pitchers who have stepped up when needed over the past five years.  What is most interesting is that none of these (other than Liriano in 2005) would have been considered as top prospects by those who rank minor league systems and prospects.  Rather, they are a group of fine young athletes who have bought into what the organization teaches, an organization that continues to turn out solid starting pitchers. 

It is likely that two of the three who joined the Twins in 2009 will return to Rochester next spring to fine tune their game so that they are ready for a permanent spot in the rotation when the next call comes.  Who else is down on the farm who will be available later next year or in the years following?  This year's top ten starters all fit the mold of what the Twins look for and all could some day find themselves toiling on the mound at Target Field.      

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"You hear about the future, the future. I don't know who gets to decide when that is or when they think that is...You have a core of a lineup that can compete with anyone in the league. One of the best closers in the game. Young starting pitching that might be missing one veteran guy to show them the way...It makes a difference to have someone like that.'' - Justin Morneau

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I have started started a free fun dynasty league in which each person takes control of a MLB roster & minor league system, drafts, signing free agents....

If this sounds interesting to you, go check out the league message board & league rules and sign up. There is no prize for the winner for each season, it is all just for fun, so join!

http://jt20.proboards.com/

Need a GM for the Twins!!!!!!!!

thought people here would be interested sign up soon!

Baseball-reference.com did their postseason update today.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/3276

The most entertaining part of the update is the sim scores and age-based sim scores are now updated through the end of 2009.  Most are familiar with Sim Scores.  They are a Bill James invention but they were purposely designed to mimic HOF induction behavior circa 1990 or so.  Because of that, they don't include park/era effect and tend to rely mainly on the more traditional counting stats.  His thinking at the time was that the BBWAA/VC didn't incorporate those things.  So, sometimes you get some quirky comps, but even the quirky comps can be fun and even a bit telling (e.g. Jason Tyner's comps are predominantly dead-ball era players).

Caveats aside, here are the latest comps for our Twins:

• Joe Mauer (26) -> Robinson Cano
• Justin Morneau (28) -> Paul Konerko
• Nick Punto (31) -> Frank O'Rourke
• Orlando Carbrera (34) -> Julio Franco
• Joe Crede (31) -> Kelly Gruber
• Delmon Young (23) -> Carlos May
• Carlos Gomez (23) -> Curt Welch
• Michael Cuddyer (30) -> Milton Bradley
• Jason Kubel (27) -> Jason Giambi
• Denard Span (25) -> Homer Summa
• Brendan Harris (28) -> Sandy Alomar, Jr.
• JJ Hardy (26) -> Miguel Tejada

• Nick Blackburn (27) -> Rheal Cormier
• Scott Baker (27) -> Scott Bankhead
• Francisco Liriano (25) -> Odalis Perez
• Glen Perkins (26) -> Joe Saunders
• Kevin Slowey (25) -> Edinson Volquez
• Carl Pavano (33) -> Ramon Ortiz
• Joe Nathan (34) -> Jeff Montgomery

Kansas City has Alberto Callaspo on the trading block. He's a pretty solid bat as a second baseman and he seemed to have a some pop everytime I've had a chance to see him. I don't know exactyl what the Royals may be demanding in return, but they did mention they might be looking for help behind the plate. Maybe the the Twins should make a run at him. A combination of Hardy and Callaspo in the middle of the infield sounds nice to me.

I like the Twins move to resign Cuddyer and the trade for Hardy but unless the Twins really open up the pocketbooks this restricts them for any long term signing this off season.  The combined 2011 salaries of Nathan (12.5), Morneau (14), Cuddyer (10.5), Kubel (5.25), Mauer (20, likely), Baker (5), Hardy (7?) is a big load to bear  (74.25 million).  This and the fact that Slowey, Blackburn, Span, Neshek, Bonser, Young, Harris, Casilla, Tolbert and Liriano will all be in their 1st or 2nd years of arbitration at that point means the Twins have a lot of money already committed for 2011.  I realize that some of those arbitration eligible players will likely be gone either through being non-tendered or traded but even if you lose half of those the rest could be set for big paydays (Slowey, Span, and Blackburn especially).

It's really going to be tough for the Twins to make any big commitments to other players if they hope to keep their own key players.  I can really only see the Twins going after a one year type player this year(Beltre or Crede) to fill one of the holes at either 3B or 2B.  One option would be to structure Mauer's contract in a way that 2011 is a cheaper year and make up for it over the rest of the contract.  This makes sense because the Twins will likely be done with Cuddyer, Kubel, and possibly even Nathan saving them roughly 25 million in 2012.  They will have to be the expendable players and likely someone out of the group of Tosoni, Benson, Revere, Hicks, or Morales will have to be ready to replace Kubel and Cuddyer at this point.  Backloading Mauers contract might allow the Twins to go after a guy like Felipe Lopez and pay him 5-6 million over the course of a 3-4 year contract or Pavano to a 2-3 year deal.

Another option to consider would be packaging one of our top young prospects with pitching to get a 2B who might be blocked in another system.  I'm not familiar enough with other teams farm systems to suggest any names but this is an idea that I hope the Twins are looking into.  It lets the Twins keep payroll down thus being able to resign Mauer without back loading his deal causing problems in the future or giving them a shot at maybe picking up a veteran pitcher this year and/or next.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm expecting the Twins to sign Mauer to a big extension and then the rest of the off season to be pretty quiet.  Hopefully I'm wrong and they make a move to pick up a good OBP guy to hit between Span and Mauer but I just don't see it happening.  Maybe someone like Polanco would sign for a 1 year deal, heck if Hudson and O-Cab did last year I guess it could happen this year too.  The Twins will likely depend on Punto to cover 2B and Tolbert/Harris to hold down 3B until Valencia is deemed ready to take over.  This isn't an awful scenario but it does leave the Twins lineup looking pretty bad should any of their big hitters go down for any amount of time.

Although the top prospect in the organization probably is a catcher and the best power prospect a first baseman/corner outfielder, center field is clearly the top position in the organization.  Not only are the following Top Ten the strongest group of any position, the organization has two very good players capable of playing center field who were included with the corner outfielders...Joe Benson and Rene Tosoni. 

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