Minor League Report 8/18 Andrew Morris Finally Falters

[Matt Braun]

Also, it was a bad day to be a relief pitcher. 

Image courtesy of William Parmeter

TRANSACTIONS
No moves were made on Sunday, but Jeff Johnson is reporting that Kaelen Culpepper will join the Cedar Rapids Kernels.

 

Saints Sentinel
St. Paul 6, Indianapolis 7
Box Score
Andrew Morris: 3 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K
HR: Michael Helman (13), Rylan Bannon (16)
Multi-hit games: Payton Eeles (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R, RBI), Wynton Bernard (2-for-4, 2B, R)

The Saints were walked off on Sunday.

Andrew Morris finally hit a roadblock. Took long enough. The Texas Tech bulldog entered the day with a season ERA of 1.97—23 earned runs across 105 ⅓ innings—and left it with a mark of 2.16. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde. All of the carnage came in a brutal 2nd inning, when a pair of walks portended three earned runs. Morris escaped thereafter, but a mixed bag in the 3rd moved Toby Gardenhire to yank his youngster. Better days are ahead.

St. Paul came to rumble, though, and they didn’t allow their starter to carry the decision for long. Payton Eeles and Michael Helman teamed up to plate two immediate runs, before a 5th-inning knock from Yunior Severino officially let Morris off the hook.

 

Then: chaos. Indianapolis and St. Paul exchanged runs like kids in the ’70s exchanged baseball cards, as hits and homers abounded, ruining ERAs and soiling pitchers’ spirits. Every Saints reliever not named Hobie Harris exited the game with an earned run against him. 

Matt Gorski ended the misery with a 9th-inning solo shot, sending the Saints home losers for the 63rd time this year.

Indianapolis features a plethora of talent, including former big-leaguers like Billy McKinney, Jake Lamb, and Jack Suwinski; a 1st overall pick in Henry Davis; and Pittsburgh’s 6th-best prospect, Nick Yorke. Yorke pinch-hit and struck out.

WIND SURGE WISDOM
Wichita 3, Arkansas 12
Box Score
Christian MacLeod: 4 ⅓ IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Tanner Schobel (2-for-5, 2B, R), Jake Rucker (2-for-5), Carson McCusker (2-for-4, RBI)

The Wind Surge crumpled and imploded on Sunday.

Christian MacLeod bounced back, though. Following an impromptu Triple-A start, the lefty rejoined Wichita and pitched a tidy (if inefficient) outing. Over 84 pitches, MacLeod elicited 13 outs, striking out four with just one earned run. Even that runner only scored after MacLeod exited the game. For a guy looking to get back on the horse, Sunday’s outing was pretty much perfect.

That’s about when the fun ended, however. Each subsequent reliever allowed an escalating number of runs, starting with two from Mason Fox, and ending with five from John Stankiewicz. The most effective reliever was Jorel Ortega. Jorel Ortega is not a pitcher. 

Wichita’s hitters didn’t have a prayer in matching the scoring. They did fine early, holding a 2-0 lead as late as the beginning of the 5th inning thanks to RBI hits by Carson McCusker and Ricardo Olivar, but they couldn’t match Arkansas’s cartoonish output.

Tanner Schobel is slashing .269/.321/.577 in August.

The Travelers are led by two excellent Mariners prospects: Cole Young and Harry Ford. Ranked 37th and 53rd, respectively, on MLB Pipeline’s top 100, Young singled and walked three times while Ford homered and singled. 

KERNELS NUGGETS
Cedar Rapids 4, South Bend 1
Box Score
Jeremy Lee: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Walker Jenkins (2-for-4, R), Jose Salas (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R), Poncho Ruiz (2-for-3, 2B, 2 RBI, BB)

The Kernels cruised to a victory on Sunday.

Two hurlers spearheaded the pitching effort: Jeremy Lee and Spencer Bengard. Lee—a 13th-rounder out of South Alabama—covered the first four frames, holding the Cubs completely at bay while punctuating his outing by K-ing the side in the 4th. Then it was Bengard’s turn. Drafted two rounds later from about six states farther West, the righty matched Lee in effectiveness, covering four more innings with a lone, unearned run against him. Blame Rubel Cespedes.

With some help from the Cubs, the Kernels gave their pitchers enough space for comfort. Poncho Ruiz started the scoring with a clean two-run single in the 2nd, before errors in the 4th and 7th added a pair of bonus scores. Best not to stop your enemy when they are making a mistake.

Nolan Santos nearly closed the game but, following a second error by Cespedes, was pulled in favor of Gabriel Yanez. He struck out his batter in five pitches. It was Cedar Rapids’s 61st win of the season. 

Walker Jenkins collected two hits and stole two bases, his first multi-steal game since Jul. 2 with the Mighty Mussels.

Third baseman Pedro Ramírez slots in as the Cubs’ 11th-best prospect. He walked once in four plate appearances.

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 3, Lakeland 4
Box Score
Ross Dunn: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Jaime Ferrer (2-for-4, 2 2B, R, 2 RBI)

The Mighty Mussels could not complete the comeback on Sunday.

Modesto native Ross Dunn earned the starting nod. A relative elder on the squad—he was drafted all the way back in 2023—the lefty utilized his seasoning and wisdom to nearly strike out a season-high, sending seven Flying Tigers back to the dugout empty-handed. He rebounded nicely from an immediate 2-0 deficit partly caused by a Kyle DeBarge throwing error to allow just two earned runs; his August ERA sits at just 2.08 over 8 ⅔ frames.

Fortunately, Fort Myers’s bats opened the game with a pair of first-inning runs as well. A walk and an error placed two men on, and 2024 4th-rounder Jaime Ferrer cracked the first of his two doubles on the day, scoring both runners on a slicing drive.

The Mighty Mussels fell asleep for the next seven innings, though, as they failed to score again until the 9th. It was too little, too late: Jay Thomason drew the game within one with an RBI knock, but the eventual tying run was thrown out at home attempting to score on the same play. Brandon Winokur lined out to end the game.

Minnesota’s 1st-round pick, Kaelen Culpepper, singled once in four at-bats and stole his second base of the year.

The Flying Tigers are an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, whose talented farm system mostly populates their High-A team. Because of this, not a single player from their MLB Pipeline top 30 played in Sunday’s game. 

TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Jeremy Lee
Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Michael Helman? Jaime Ferrer? Payton Eeles? Take your pick.

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed:
#1– Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) - 2-4, R
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) - 0-4
#9 - Kaelen Culpepper (Fort Myers) - 1-4
#11 - Andrew Morris (St. Paul) - 3 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K
#12 – Brandon Winokur (Fort Myers) - 0-1
#16 - Kyle DeBarge (Fort Myers) - 0-3, BB
#17 – Tanner Schobel (Wichita) - 2-5, 2B, R

MONDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
DSL Twins @ DSL Colorado (10:00 AM) - TBD

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[DJL44]

I am surprised they are promoting Culpepper with just a few weeks remaining.

[Mike Sixel]

7 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I am surprised they are promoting Culpepper with just a few weeks remaining.

Agreed

[FlyingFinn]

45 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I am surprised they are promoting Culpepper with just a few weeks remaining.

Guess he just looks too good for this level. Move to the next to challenge him.

 

[bean5302]

Image is of Kaelen Culpepper, I'm pretty sure. Just in case people are wondering.

[bean5302]

Payton Eeles should definitely be in everybody's top 20 Twins prospects at this point, and he's sure making a good case he deserves a top 10 spot. Decent pop, good speed, and he doesn't commit a lot of errors since the Twins coaches didn't have enough time to teach him how to slap down line drives with a closed glove and kick grounders around properly. To see him need no time to adjust to the drastic ramp up in talent he was playing against is a real treat. 

The Twins should have him up in September.

[DJL44]

7 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

doesn't commit a lot of errors since the Twins coaches didn't have enough time to teach him how to slap down line drives with a closed glove and kick grounders around properly

If you want to be a jerk and insult the Twins minor league coaching staff you can do it without bringing a particular player into the conversation.

[Dman]

10 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Payton Eeles should definitely be in everybody's top 20 Twins prospects at this point, and he's sure making a good case he deserves a top 10 spot. Decent pop, good speed, and he doesn't commit a lot of errors since the Twins coaches didn't have enough time to teach him how to slap down line drives with a closed glove and kick grounders around properly. To see him need no time to adjust to the drastic ramp up in talent he was playing against is a real treat. 

The Twins should have him up in September.

If Eeles holds those numbers at AAA he really should be considered top 10 IMO.  He currently walks more than he K's,  bats for decent average.  His BABIP is normalized and while you'd like to see the slugging a tick higher it's still really good for that level. Given his college numbers it is kind of crazy he didn't get drafted but Kudos to the Twins scouts on finding this guy and bringing him in.

I thought what Lee did was amazing in technically his second year of pro ball but really his first full year making it to AAA.  Although he started that year in AA and Eeles started in A ball and wasn't even on a pro team until May 7th of this year.  Eeles also has better speed than Lee. Again if Eeles holds his numbers they will be better than what Lee put up last year at AAA by a wide margin.  He'd have to work harder on this slugging to beat Lee's AAA numbers from this year though.

There is a lot of season left and he's only been at AAA a little over a months worth of games, but if those numbers are even close to the same at the end of the year it would be like taking a player in the first round of the draft last year but getting him outside your top 20 picks. It would be like winning the lottery the odds are so slim.

It's still too small of a sample to say he's going to be as good as his current numbers indicate, but given his numbers have essentially been the same at every level so far there's a good chance his approach is just solid and will allow him to continue to be successful. Just because he wasn't drafted doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to be a high level prospect.  His numbers will do the talking for him and they have been really good at every level so far. It's still a bit wait and see as there needs to be a larger sample size to make sure he is who the numbers currently say he is, but right now what he is doing seems unprecedented.

 

[wabene]

The Twins drafting and player development is so much better than what I am used to as a long suffering Twins fan. Due to this they are moving players more aggressively than in the past. It has to change the way we talk about them. This is definitely more fun than it used to be.

[Doctor Wu]

10 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Image is of Kaelen Culpepper, I'm pretty sure. Just in case people are wondering.

I've seen his photo enough at this point to make that a no-brainer, but still ... why don't they identify the players in the photos more often? Seems like it would be an easy thing to do. 

[Doctor Wu]

5 hours ago, wabene said:

The Twins drafting and player development is so much better than what I am used to as a long suffering Twins fan. Due to this they are moving players more aggressively than in the past. It has to change the way we talk about them. This is definitely more fun than it used to be.

Agreed! The last few years we are starting to see some very encouraging player development. I hope that is the new organizational method!

[Old Twins Hat]

10 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Payton Eeles should definitely be in everybody's top 20 Twins prospects at this point, and he's sure making a good case he deserves a top 10 spot. Decent pop, good speed, and he doesn't commit a lot of errors since the Twins coaches didn't have enough time to teach him how to slap down line drives with a closed glove and kick grounders around properly. To see him need no time to adjust to the drastic ramp up in talent he was playing against is a real treat. 

The Twins should have him up in September.

Who is this guy?  And why has no one talked about him?

Over .300 average, 900 OPS, 5' 5" tall.  WTF?

How can someone that small fly under the radar?

Or, did I just answer my own question.

[Doctor Wu]

6 minutes ago, Old Twins Hat said:

Over .300 average, 900 OPS, 5' 5" tall.  WTF?

The next Jose Altuve?

[Omgbenji]

Matt, I love the format of your writeups. They really are a good read and how you start each affiliate with multi-hits, etc is great. It's also nice to get a quick notion of the other teams' top prospects. 

I would love if Eeles got some prospect love in the end-of-season write ups. He is a pretty extraordinary story and I really hope he doesn't just languish in AAA as roster filler!

[mikelink45]

I did not see these two coming - 

Quote

Payton Eeles (2-for-4, 2B, 2 R, RBI), Wynton Bernard (2-for-4, 2B, R)

where are they in our prospect ranking?  They have been impressive. 

For that matter Carson McCusker was not on my radar either.  I guess I need to fix my radar.

Thanks to a comment I know that Bernard does not belong on my list, although the old timer is having a good year. 

[DJL44]

49 minutes ago, Doctor Wu said:

The next Jose Altuve?

Or the next Tony Kemp? Altuve was already a 2-time all-star at the age Eeles is now. Kemp had an 800 OPS in AAA at age 24.

If he's somewhere between those two players, he'll have a decent career.

[roger]

Continue to be impressed by MacLeod.  Thought he was an interesting draft pick back when.  Then forgot about him when he rehabbed for over a year.  

Also great seeing another two hit night from Jenkins.  Been a lot of those of late.

[jmlease1]

Jenkins seems to have settled in nicely at cedar rapids, it'll be interesting to see if his power stroke comes around more as we head to the end of the season. (I'm not worried, but it would be nice for him to rip a couple of dingers at High A before the end of the year) Curious as to where the Twins go with him next season: start back in Cedar Rapids with an early promotion, or just send him to Wichita from the jump?

Props to Eeles for giving himself a chance. he's showing more pop in his bat than I think people were expecting and he's doing a fine job controlling the strike zone. but there are still going to be fair questions as to whether or not he can make the jump to MLB. He's done a great job in getting himself to AAA coming out of the Independent leagues, but if he didn't dominate at A-ball at 24, then he's not a prospect of any kind. Handling the jump up to AAA, skipping AA entirely, impresses me more. I think the AAA numbers are very good, but still a small enough sample that I'd pump the brakes on him a bit. but he sure looks worthy of a spring training invite next year (how does his bat hold up against MLB players?) and could be intriguing depth.

Schobel has really heated up over the last month, and it's good to see. he'd been scrabbling this year in AA and I was wondering if he'd hit a wall. He needs to finish the season strong, but it's looking much better now.

Not worried about Morris getting bit; it's going to happen. Looking forward to seeing how he responds. he's had a fantastic season regardless but let's see how he responds to a little adversity.

[LambchoP]

Morris was due for a clunker at some point. They've been pretty aggressive with his promotions. He's still young too, he'll be just fine. Good AAA depth for next year. Hopefully we see one of Zebby or Festa in AAA to start the year because that'd mean we have a healthy rotation and hopefully signed a competent starter in the off-season. When will Severino get a shot? I don't think he plays second does he? If he did I'd have loved to see him called up rather than the automatic strikeout Julien. I know Severino K's a lot too, but his game changing power and switch hitting could be a nice boost for this banged up lineup... Wouldn't mind seeing Keirsey in the OF soon too. I cringe Everytime Margot is out in CF.

[Dman]

18 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Not worried about Morris getting bit; it's going to happen. Looking forward to seeing how he responds. he's had a fantastic season regardless but let's see how he responds to a little adversity.

I was thinking the same thing and I think this is why it was a good thing to promote him AAA essentially a little early.  He can get acclimated to what he will need to do to be successful at this level and then work on tweaks over the offseason.

Seems like everyone struggles when moving up to AAA Festa, Matthews doesn't matter.  There are skilled veteran hitters there so the approach generally needs to be more refined IMO.  

I agree with you he's really young for the level at age 22 so plenty of time to work out the kinks at the highest minor league level before the big jump. It will be good to see how he responds.

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I did not see these two coming - 

where are they in our prospect ranking?  They have been impressive. 

Wynton Bernard is a 33-year-old journeyman minor leaguer who is happy to be able to put on a uniform. He's not a prospect.

[bean5302]

14 hours ago, DJL44 said:

If you want to be a jerk and insult the Twins minor league coaching staff you can do it without bringing a particular player into the conversation.

It was a joke.

People seem to have this image of me running around throwing weed killer on the neighbors flowers and peeing on the clothes they hung out, but I don't do those things, either.

[cmoss84]

Thought Yunior would have cracked the top 20 prospect list. Biggest surprise for me. 

[mikelink45]

11 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Wynton Bernard is a 33-year-old journeyman minor leaguer who is happy to be able to put on a uniform. He's not a prospect.

Thank you - I don't remember ever seeing his name so I knew nothing about him.  I will take him off my question list.