Credit: Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

Last week I reported on the origins of the Pleiss brothers’ Twins prospect challenge. A year into the process, a year that saw eight Twins make their MLB debuts, Eric and I decided to make a change to the prospect challenge.  A quick review of the rules for the prospect challenge, in case any of you here on the Pond want to join: Each person gets to select a position player for each position, three RHP and three LHP. Any player chosen who debuts in MLB within three years of selection will earn one point.  The person with the most points each year is declared the winner.  Last year I picked Scott Diamond as one of my selections, and as a Rule-5 draft pick, he was virtually guaranteed to get called up to the Twins for his MLB debut when theyheaded north out of Ft Myers. To prevent easy pickings like this, and to put more emphasis on projections and predictions we made a very simple, and yet very challenging rule change. Going forward, no prospect who has played above AA is elligible for selection in the prospect challenge.  In addition to the rule change, a year of following prospects and REALLY following the Twins from the top of the organization on down, I learned a lot that I’ll be putting to use for this year’s prospect challenge.   (more…)

July 10, 2011; Phoenix, AZ, USA; World pitcher Liam Hendriks during the 2011 Futures Game at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE

Last year my brother Eric (@ERolfPleiss) and I made a trip down to Ft. Myers to see the Twins play a couple games and get our eyes on some of the up and coming stars of the organization. A couple weeks before the trip we each purchased a copy of Seth Stohs’ (@SethTweets) prospect handbook to help acclimate ourselves with the guys who would be wearing the high numbers at Hammond Stadium. As we worked our way through 170 pages of prospect goodness we each found ourselves drawn to different players and we began exchanging phone calls, e-mails, texts and tweets about who we thought would be the next big thing in Minnesota.

After a few of these discussions we decided the only way to settle the debate was to put our predictions down on paper. The winner would be declared the Pleiss family prospect guru and would be entitled to a case of beer at the losers’ expense. The rules for the first year were pretty simple, each of us would choose a player for each position around the diamond along with three right-handed pitchers and three left-handed pitchers. One point would be scored for each of the chosen players who made their MLB debut within three years. Follow the post after the jump to see which players Eric and I choose with our 2011 selections…

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Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Spring Training is just around the corner.  The Seattle Mariners have had their pitchers and catchers in camp for almost a week already, getting a head start on the rest of the MLB.  The Twins’ pitchers and catchers will be in camp and working out with team officials before the end of the weekend.  Excitement.  Early reports are beginning to trickle in as Twins players arrive to camp early, and get in some work on their own and with the exception of Luke Hughes all the news is good (even Hughe’s news is fairly optimistic, as his strained shoulder shouldn’t cause him to miss much more than a couple of weeks of Spring Training before the team begins playing games).  With Spring Training bearing down so quickly, I’ll get right to the links:

This is going to be one of the most useful links of Spring Training.  The Tenth Inning Stretch has a list of all of Minnesota’s Spring Training Invitees including their uniform numbers.  If you’re headed down to Ft. Myers this spring, don’t miss this.

Tom Powers of the Pioneer Press reports that the Twins are bringing plenty of extra pitching to Spring Training this season, just hoping that someone sticks.

On The Road With… (more…)