Twins Minor League Report (8/8): Saints Bludgeon the Bats

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, Major League Ready said:

I don't understand the continued call for him a 1B because he really does have terrible hands and foot work.  Severino has become the guy I am hoping they can teach to play 1B but IDK that he has the right tools either.  My thought is he becomes more useful if he can cover 1B/3B/DH.

Yeah, I don't see any signs of him being an adequate defender anywhere on the dirt. It really makes me wonder what he looked like in the grass. He's not overly fast, but he's not Vazquez either. 2B and LF are the only options I see for him. And if they're sticking with him at 2B when he looks like this I can't imagine how he looked in LF.

I haven't seen enough of Severino in the field to have a thought there. It's very weird that they're struggling to find guys who can play 1B. Not a good sign for the fielding abilities of these other IF prospects if we don't think they can flip over and cover 1B adequately. 

[RpR]

9 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Polanco has been one of my favorite twins but I think he gets traded if they get a reasonable offer.  He does not look good at 3B and he is not taking 2B back from Julien.

Then the Twins absolutely need an quality fielding Second Baseman to take Julien's place at the end of close game to replace Juliens iron glove.

[FlyingFinn]

8 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Yeah, I don't see any signs of him being an adequate defender anywhere on the dirt. It really makes me wonder what he looked like in the grass. He's not overly fast, but he's not Vazquez either. 2B and LF are the only options I see for him. And if they're sticking with him at 2B when he looks like this I can't imagine how he looked in LF.

59 stolen bases for Julien the past two years in total. He's not slow so I don't understand how he's not better on D.

[chpettit19]

8 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

59 stolen bases for Julien the past two years in total. He's not slow so I don't understand how he's not better on D.

I mean he's not Vazquez slow, but he's not exactly fast. He's a good base runner who was capable of taking advantage of lower level pitchers who weren't good at holding runners. I have to imagine he's just brutal at reading fly balls. No idea why else he couldn't survive in LF. He's certainly faster than Arraez, and they played him in LF when they needed to. Them giving up on him in the OF so quickly is interesting.

[jmlease1]

20 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I mean he's not Vazquez slow, but he's not exactly fast. He's a good base runner who was capable of taking advantage of lower level pitchers who weren't good at holding runners. I have to imagine he's just brutal at reading fly balls. No idea why else he couldn't survive in LF. He's certainly faster than Arraez, and they played him in LF when they needed to. Them giving up on him in the OF so quickly is interesting.

Julien's got a pretty bad arm ever since his injury, that might have something to do with it.

I wonder if Severino might make the move over to 1B; he's not a very good 3B but might be able to find more opportunities at 1B. His bat looks like it might play just fine there, but we'll see how he adjusts to AAA. Even after a slow start at AAA you have to think Severino is getting added to the 40-man 

[chpettit19]

24 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Julien's got a pretty bad arm ever since his injury, that might have something to do with it.

I wonder if Severino might make the move over to 1B; he's not a very good 3B but might be able to find more opportunities at 1B. His bat looks like it might play just fine there, but we'll see how he adjusts to AAA. Even after a slow start at AAA you have to think Severino is getting added to the 40-man 

Yeah, I'd only put Julien in LF. Arm isn't ideal there, but if he can field fly balls halfway decent I'd prefer that over him at 2B.

I'd be pretty surprised at this point if Severino wasn't added to the 40-man, and if he can play 1B that's probably his best bet. At least add that to your options to give yourself 1 more spot where you could get the call.

[Jocko87]

17 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Yeah, I'd only put Julien in LF. Arm isn't ideal there, but if he can field fly balls halfway decent I'd prefer that over him at 2B.

I'd be pretty surprised at this point if Severino wasn't added to the 40-man, and if he can play 1B that's probably his best bet. At least add that to your options to give yourself 1 more spot where you could get the call.

Left field is probably it, surprised they are waiting this long. Run to the fence, throw it to Correa. Go hit.

In the general first base mix what does it say that in the recent promotion wave Sabato is still in Wichita? Even if a Chris Williams was in the mix Sabato would be the fill in. They could move him any time I guess but Wichita is a ghost town all of a sudden and he missed out.

[roger]

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Can't wait to see how it shakes out will all these position players over the remainder of this year and then how the roster is constructed next year.  Lewis has a full-time spot for sure.  How will this shake out for the rest.  Could Prato or Severino get a shot before Lee?  Where do Prato and Severino play defensively?

The lynchpin is where they play Lewis.  If ends up in the OF two-thirds of the time he plays, that opens up 3rd base for a competition between Miranda / Lee / Prato and Severino.

So, what does that do to the bench next year.  I see some combination of Castro / Gordon / Prato / Martin / Larnach / Miranda / Severino and perhaps Kiersey.  It may not be a certainty they bring Farmer back with all these options.  Somebody needs to learn to play 1B.

A lot of people will disagree, but I see Castro as replacing Gordon, who just may have played his last game as a Twin.

[Jocko87]

2 minutes ago, roger said:

A lot of people will disagree, but I see Castro as replacing Gordon, who just may have played his last game as a Twin.

And into next year he would be behind Martin I would assume.  Not having options (positional and minors) in that role is really tough.

[Major League Ready]

24 minutes ago, roger said:

A lot of people will disagree, but I see Castro as replacing Gordon, who just may have played his last game as a Twin.

I think Castro's spot is the most secure of any bench/role players.  However, he and Gordon could certainly co-exist.  Salano and MAT are free agents and I don't see either one being retained.  They have Castro / Martin / Gordon and Kiersey Jr as CF back-ups and several replacements for Solano.  IDK how this plays out between all these prospects but we should have great depth for the next several years.  

[twins_89]

I'm curious if anyone knows why Simeon Woods Richardson's fastball was consistently sitting in the 86-88 mph range? I thought he used to have a 92-94 mph fastball.

[Blyleven2011]

St. Paul saints ...

I posted last night in thread that saints were starting  3 first round draft choices  , 1 , 2 and 3 in the batting order , Lewis  , Lee and larnach  ....

Another first rounder is on saints in Martin  , all sounds exciting on paper but you just never know ....

Larnach should go to driveline this winter and work on his off speed approach , last chance For larnach if he doesn't improve on off speed for 2023  , otherwise he is just going to be a bench player pinch hitting ...

[Mike Sixel]

For how major league career, some of which he played hurt, Larnach is only for prevent below average in wrc..... People seem much too down on him relative to actual results.

[gman]

I think part of Larnach's problem was not having enough AB's at 3A. He only had 87 before this year. He has had steady AB's the last 2 months and his hitting has suddenly rocketed to 276/392/918 in 156 AB's this year. In July he hit 300 in 3A and 478 this month.

Total AB's last year were 206 and so far this year he has 318 between 3A and the Twins.

 

Martin finally got his timing down since the middle of July. He is hitting 400 with a 516 OBP. I think he can play center field.

 

 

[mikelink45]

6 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

I'm not too worried about them falling in love with Luplow. He's fine but doesn't have the upside of guys like Martin, Larnach, or even Miranda.

I can see Castro sticking. He's doing very well as a utility guy, covering a lot of defensive positions well, the speed & baserunning makes him useful in close & late situations as a pinch runner, and it's always nice to have that switch-hitter with positional flexibility on your bench. You just need to be realistic about what to expect: don't expect him to start hitting HRs, don't expect him to hit .300, or have an OPS+ of more than the 85-95 range. The OBP has been solid this season and going 28-32 in SBs is outstanding and valuable. I think he stole Nick Gordon's job.

It'll be interesting to see how the Twins sort out the infield for next season. Lee is off to a slow start in AAA, but I doubt anyone is particularly worried about it. I would hope Julien would look at picking up a 1B glove in the offseason because there is going to be a lot of competition for 2B and 3B innings between Julien, Lewis, Polanco (if he returns), Lee, and Miranda will likely be back in the mix as well. It's a good problem to have...so long as you you pick the right guys and make the right trades. And we haven't even mentioned Severino, who seems likely to be added to the 40-man and could slug his way into the conversation much like he did in AA this season.

I do hope they find someone to take on Polanco.  Even his fielding is not at the level we need.  Gallo (enough Said)

[Steve Lein]

21 hours ago, twins_89 said:

I'm curious if anyone knows why Simeon Woods Richardson's fastball was consistently sitting in the 86-88 mph range? I thought he used to have a 92-94 mph fastball.

He's been like that the entire season. Can definitely point to it as a contributor to struggles this season. This start was actually one where he was doing enough right for it not to matter, until they put him out for the sixth inning. I was watching the entire game and thought 100% he was, or should have been, done after the fifth. In that 6th he hung a couple changeups that went for the home runs.

 

[Mike Sixel]

22 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

For how major league career, some of which he played hurt, Larnach is only for prevent below average in wrc..... People seem much too down on him relative to actual results.

Four percent. Good golly, I should proof read.