Minor League Recap (9/9): Balazovic Back On Track

[Lucas Seehafer PT]

The Twins former top pitching prospect is returning to his old form. Plus, Wichita explodes offensively and Marco Raya stays hot.

Image courtesy of Rob Thompson, St. Paul Saints

TRANSACTIONS

- Jake Jewell, who was DFAd when the Twins added Louie Varland to the 40-man roster on Wednesday, cleared waivers and was outrighted to the Saints. 

- The Cedar Rapids Kernels also announced the 2B/LF Alerick Soularie has been placed on the Suspended List. 

 

SAINTS SENTINEL
Toledo 3, St. Paul 2 (F/10)
Box Score

Runs were hard to come by as the Saints fell to the Mud Hens in extra innings on Friday night.

Jordan Balazovic put together yet another fine start, striking out nine and not allowing an earned run in five innings of work. Although the 2022 campaign has been a lost one for the former top pitching prospect, Balazovic has thrown nine innings in September and surrendered only one earned run while picking up 15 strikeouts. For comparison, the most strikeouts he had accumulated in a single month this season prior to September was way back in May when K’d 17 in 16 1/3 innings. (He posted an 8.82 ERA.)

Matt Wallner led the Saints offensively, going 2-for-5 with a double and triple. Elliot Soto also contributed two hits, including his 18th double of the summer.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 13, Northwest Arkansas 7
Box Score

The Wind Surge resisted a late Naturals rally to overcome Northwest Arkansas on Friday evening. The Naturals’ five runs in the top of the eighth inning were offset by two innings of three runs and one of five by the Wind Surge. Wichita added two more in the bottom of the eighth for good measure.

Brent Headrick started on the hill for the Wind Surge and struck out six in 3 2/3 innings. He surrendered one run on a solo home run. Jordan Brink was awarded the win after tossing 1 1/3 scoreless innings in relief, striking out three and keeping his Double-A ERA at 0.00 (through two outings and 2 1/3 innings).. 

Wichita had a great day at the plate, tallying 16 hits, six of which went for extra bases. All Wind Surge players reached base at least one time. Will Holland (3-for-4, 3 RBI), Anthony Prato (3-for-5, 2B, 2 RBI), Yunior Severino (2-for-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBI), Edouard Julien (2-for-4, 2B, RBI, BB), and Leobaldo Cabrera (2-for-4) all contributed multiple hits. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
South Bend 4, Cedar Rapids 1
Box Score

The Kernels’ bats went silent against the Cubs while the pitching staff underwent a bullpen day as Cedar Rapids dropped their game to South Bend.

No Kernel contributed multiple hits. Jeferson Morales (1-for-3, 2B, RBI, BB) drove in the team’s only run and hit their lone extra-base hit.

Righty Ryan Shreve tossed a succinct two innings, striking out three and allowing only two runners to reach base on 25 pitches, 19 of which were strikes. He lowered his ERA to 3.08 on the season. 

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 4, St. Lucie 0
Box Score

The Mighty Mussels and Mets were slated for two games Friday evening, but Mother Nature struck once again, pushing the second contest to Saturday. 

However, the inclement weather didn’t stop Marco Raya from feasting on the mound. The 20-year-old continued his hot summer by striking out seven in four shutout innings of work. He has now struck out 76 batters in 65 innings with the Mussels and owns a 3.05 ERA.

Keoni Cavaco (1-for-2, RBI) and Ben Ross (2-for-3, RBI) each clobbered solo home runs while Tanner Schobel (1-for-2, 2 BB) added a double. 

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Pitcher of the Day – Jordan Balazovic (St. Paul): 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K
Hitter of the Day – Yunior Severino (Wichita): 2-for-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBI

PROSPECT SUMMARY
We will again keep tabs on the Twins top prospects. You’ll probably read about them in the team sections, but if they aren’t there, you’ll see how they did here. Here’s a look at how the current Twins Daily Top 20 performed:

#2 - Brooks Lee (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-4
#4 - Austin Martin (Wichita) - 1-for-5
#7 - Noah Miller (Fort Myers) - 1-for-4
#8 - Marco Raya (Fort Myers) - 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R/ER, 1 BB, 7 K
#9 - Matt Wallner (St. Paul) - 2-for-5, 2B, 3B
#11 - Jordan Balazovic (St. Paul) - 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K
#14 - Edouard Julien (Wichita) - 2-for-4, 2B, RBI, BB
#18 - Tanner Schobel (Fort Myers) - 1-for-2, 2B, 2 BB
#20 - Kala’i Rosario (Fort Myers) - 1-for-3, RBI

SATURDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
St. Paul @ Toledo (4:05 CST) - RHP Josh Winder (0-0, 3.38 ERA)
Wichita vs. Northwest Arkansas  (6:05 CST) - RHP Daniel Gossett (2-1, 2.34 ERA)
Cedar Rapids vs. South Bend (6:35 CST) - LHP Jaylen Nowlin (1-1, 4.40 ERA)
Fort Myers vs. St. Lucie (3:30 CST) - TBD
Fort Myers vs. St. Lucie (TBD CST) - TBD

 

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[FlyingFinn]

Lots of good pitching this week, tonight it was - Balazovic, Headrick, Olsen, Raya as starters and plenty of good relief pitching as well, but not McMahon, who has struggled greatly since his promotion.

Wallner with a couple hits including his third triple for the Saints. Wow, for someone who is supposed to be slow, he sure gets a lot of triples and steals his share of bases.

[Danchat]

Balazovic has a long ways to go, even with this step in the right direction. He's got to prove 2022 was an outlier with a hot start next year.

I wouldn't mind getting Wallner up to the majors with some of our bats cooling, I'd like him over Cave and over Garlick vs RHs.

[bean5302]

Wallner does seem to be quite a bit faster than advertised. His first triple was a fielding error more than a triple, but his triple for the cycle on 9/1 was legit. Haven't seen tonight's effort. Also, for a guy who seemed to have a lot of detractors on the site because of a short very cold start to his stint in AAA, he's hitting .247 with an .829 OPS overall at this point. Good thing we went out and got Billy Hamilton so Baldelli could start him in the outfield. In any case, I hope Wallner will have a shot at making the team out of Spring Training next year at this pace.

Julien continues to hit in AA. Not sure he has anything to prove at that level anymore. 

Brooks Lee has really done everything the organization could hope for at this point. I expect he'll spend next year at AA if he keeps up the pace.

Balazovic must feel really good after that effort. It's the very first time this year he's gone more than 4.0 innings (seriously), though it certainly seemed like he should have been given the opportunity to throw another inning a couple times, but that could be the Falvey Philosophy to prevent pitchers from accumulating value.

[RJA]

Good pitching performances but it sure would be nice to see them allow Raya (and others) to pitch more than 3 or 4 innings with 50 some pitches.  I continue to believe it is a mistake to limit innings/pitches so severely in the minors.  I see no evidence that it is limiting injuries.

[roger]

As the season comes to an end, isn't it fantastic seeing Balazovic pitch like we expected?  Hopefully, this will carry him thru the winter and he will get off to a good start at AAA next spring and be ready to move up to the Twins come June or July.

Really liked the Raya pick when they drafted him in the COVID draft.  Like him more this morning.

Will disagree with the above comments about Lee.  I see him as the Twins version of Robin Yount.  That means he will begin 2023 at AA and join the Twins by August 1.  The rest will be history.

[terrydactyls]

Does anyone know for sure if the organization's philosophy is that starting pitchers cannot pitch past the fifth inning?  It is only a couple weeks until the end of the minor league seasons and I would think that the pitchers should have stretched enough by now to pitch in to at least the 7th inning.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

Does anyone know for sure if the organization's philosophy is that starting pitchers cannot pitch past the fifth inning?  It is only a couple weeks until the end of the minor league seasons and I would think that the pitchers should have stretched enough by now to pitch in to at least the 7th inning.

Baldelli has mentioned the TTO deal more than once this year. I do also think the Twins have implemented soft pitch limits (seems around 80) for MiLB prospects to try and protect them from wearing down. I don't think it's a good thing and I don't see it working for the team at all.

[FlyingFinn]

4 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

Does anyone know for sure if the organization's philosophy is that starting pitchers cannot pitch past the fifth inning?

A five inning rule just isn't true. Festa 6.2 innings on Sept 7th for Cedar Rapids. Gossett 9 innings on Aug 19 for Wichita. Carr 6.2 innings on Aug 16 for Fort Myers. Rodriguez 6 innings on Aug 5 for St. Paul. So there isn't any five inning rule at the top four levels of the Twins minors.

[ashbury]

49 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

A five inning rule just isn't true. Festa 6.2 innings on Sept 7th for Cedar Rapids. Gossett 9 innings on Aug 19 for Wichita. Carr 6.2 innings on Aug 16 for Fort Myers. Rodriguez 6 innings on Aug 5 for St. Paul. So there isn't any five inning rule at the top four levels of the Twins minors.

Concur that 5 innings isn't some kind of rule.  But the examples you give are outliers to what is probably their actual intention.

Daniel Gossett is a 29-year old retread, and I have no idea what conditions led to him throwing 120 pitches that day but I wouldn't imagine he represents any kind of typical plan for development.  Derek Rodriguez likewise is a 30-year old retread, but his 6 inning stint required only 62 pitches.  Instances like Festa, well he was efficient that day too, and threw only 75 pitches to achieve that innings total.  Jordan Carr likewise, with 79 pitches.

At the major league level they worry about 3rd time through the order and all that.  But for development, they just want to see the young arms get a measured amount of work, likely in terms of pitch counts (maybe they even get down to requiring an exact mix of fastballs vs breaking stuff, or have other measures for "work" than raw number of pitches), so innings worked is only an indirect measure of anything.

[FlyingFinn]

28 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Concur that 5 innings isn't some kind of rule.  But the examples you give are outliers to what is probably their actual intention.

True.

I think the Twins have projected innings totals for each pitcher for the year and those are now limiting the innings they pitch in September even though they are stretched out to go longer. Age is certainly a factor. A good prospect would never have been allowed to go 9 innings.

Is it the right thing to do is the real question? Have the Twins and other teams done this for years or is this a change? Does this prevent injuries or help the pitchers in the future? It's my impression that there weren't many major injuries this year to our guys in the lower minors. The Canterino and Balazovic injuries the past couple years certainly aren't good but many say Canterino's injury was due to the way he was overused at Rice University.

I'm thinking the Twins and other organizations try to answer these questions better each year. I imagine nobody has #'s on whether everyone does about the same thing with their minor league pitchers as the Twins do.

Good discussion.

[SkyBlueWaters]

17 hours ago, Danchat said:

Balazovic has a long ways to go, even with this step in the right direction. He's got to prove 2022 was an outlier with a hot start next year.

I agree.  Balazovic has a long way to go to show he has the kind of consistency a winning MLB team needs.

You can even see this in his rookie league A stats. He certainly put up some excellent numbers his first season in 2016, 1.97 ERA, 0.969 WHIP, but what happened in his 40 innings the next year (also Gulf league) where he jumped to 4.91 and a surprising WHIP of 1.661? That's a lot of rookie league baserunners.

Yes, I'll cut him some slack for being a teenager, younger than most of the guys he faced. And his stats in single A are very promising.  But it's worth noting that in Wichita last year over 97 IP in 20 starts his WHIP was 1.402. Even trying to be charitable, as he was 2.7 years younger than the league average, that to me indicates he had a lot of good days and bad.

Sadly, the Twins already have a lot of pitchers who mix good and bad days. I hope Jordan allays these concerns, as he matures, and he develops the kind of consistency the front of a winning rotation needs.

On a brighter note, Johan Santana struggled quite a bit in the minors, too. And he matured into a model of consistency, so I'm not without hope.

[dvaupel]

Any idea why Soulaire was added to suspended list? I haven't been able to find any info...

[Rosterman]

I find it interesting advancing Shuffield, a 2022 draft signee, to AAA. Why not Lee?

Wallner deserves to be in the majors more than Cave, Billy Hamilton. Especially with the wounded outfield. Put Kepler on the IL and bring in Wallner.

[DJL44]

18 hours ago, ashbury said:

Daniel Gossett is a 29-year old retread, and I have no idea what conditions led to him throwing 120 pitches that day

Gossett threw a no-hitter.

Twins Daniel Gossett throws no-hitter for Double-A Wichita | MiLB.com

I think the fact that he is considered a "non-prospect" is the only reason he was allowed to pursue a no-hitter.

[DJL44]

46 minutes ago, Rosterman said:

I find it interesting advancing Shuffield, a 2022 draft signee, to AAA. Why not Lee?

Shuffield is playing 2B. I imagine they want Lee playing SS.

Nice of them to give Shuffield the pay bump at AAA considering he signed for only $20,000.

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Gossett threw a no-hitter.

Twins Daniel Gossett throws no-hitter for Double-A Wichita | MiLB.com

I think the fact that he is considered a "non-prospect" is the only reason he was allowed to pursue a no-hitter.

"No idea."  Apparently!  Ell oh ell oh ell oh ell. So much for my reading comprehension of game logs.  Thanks for the gentle tap with the Clue Bat.

[jkcarew]

Exciting for Balazovic. Hopefully he can build off of this in final start or two. AFL candidate?…if he is truly healthy. They don’t throw many innings…it might be a chance to get his head/confidence back and build some momentum for next year? I can’t remember if the AFL has an age limit that would disqualify Balazovic?

[Rosterman]

On 9/11/2022 at 11:26 AM, DJL44 said:

Shuffield is playing 2B. I imagine they want Lee playing SS.

Nice of them to give Shuffield the pay bump at AAA considering he signed for only $20,000.

I imagine it was a chance to give both guys playing time, with Lee staying for the playoffs for Cedar Rapids. Yes, often these short advancements is because of a position-to-be-filled need. Usually happeens at catcher. Kyle Schmidt was the past bouncer in the minors. This year it has been Ernie Yake and Frank Nigro.