Twins Minor League Report (9/3): Langenberg Dazzles, Winokur Wallops

[Steve Lein]

There were only two games in the Minnesota Twins farm system on Tuesday, and both teams struggled to score runs. One of them did have a fantastic pitching effort, but would it be enough? A slugger in Fort Myers also reached a franchise milestone before rain cut their game short.

Image courtesy of William Parmeter, Fort Myers Mighty Mussels (photo of Brandon Winokur)

TRANSACTIONS

• In Triple-A RHP Jarret Whorff was assigned back to the Wichita Wind Surge as RHP Caleb Boushley was outrighted to the St. Paul Saints from the major-league club.
• Down in Cedar Rapids SS Rayne Doncon was activated from the 7-day injured list, and C Matthew Clayton was transferred to the Development List.
• OF Jose Rodriguez was activated from the temporary inactive list for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels.

The St. Paul Saints and Wichita Wind Surge enjoyed Tuesday off, but are both back in action on Wednesday. The Saints face off against the Iowa Cubs at CHS Field, while the Wind Surge head to Frisco, TX to face the RoughRiders.

KERNELS NUGGETS
Wisconsin 2, Cedar Rapids 1
Box Score
The Kernels got a fantastic start from right-hander Ty Langenberg at home against the Timber Rattlers. He went five shutout innings, taking a no-hitter into the fifth. He retired twelve of the first thirteen hitters he faced, then erased a leadoff walk in the fifth with a double-play ball before surrendering a single. He followed that up with his seventh strikeout of the game to punctuate his night. Of his 80 pitches, 56 went for strikes (70%), including 11 swinging.

Despite his efforts he’d end up with a no decision as left the game with the score still tied at zero, as Wisconsin’s Stiven Cruz matched him as well as he could for those five innings. In the sixth, Cedar Rapids was finally able to break through with a two-out rally. Rubel Cespedes drilled his 21st double of the season to put a runner in scoring position, and Nate Baez followed with a single that included a fielding error, allowing them to go out front 1-0.

Samuel Perez came out of the bullpen in the sixth inning and continued to keep the Timber Rattlers off the scoreboard for his two innings. He allowed two hits, walked one, and struck out two. 

Nolan Santos came on for the eighth and got the leadoff man to ground out, before allowing a single to put the tying run on base. The next hitter, unfortunately, took him deep for the 2-1 lead. Santos retired the final five hitters he faced to give his team a chance in the ninth.

Rixon Wingrove led off the bottom of the ninth by driving a ball to left field that landed for a single, but looking to play hero and get himself into scoring position he ended up being thrown out at second trying to stretch it. The next two hitters went down swinging to end the game in the loss column.

Wingrove was the only Kernels hitter with multiple hits, going 2-for-3 on the night. Walker Jenkins, Cespedes, and Jose Salas added doubles to the effort. Gabriel Gonzalez (1-for-4, K) and Kaelen Culpepper (1-for-3, BB) each had a single.

In good news for the day, Walker Jenkins was named the Twins Minor League Hitter of the Week.

MUSSEL MATTERS
Fort Myers 2, Lakeland 5 (6 innings)
Box Score
The Mighty Mussels and Flying Tigers began their six-game series on Tuesday with a second half West Division championship, and playoff spot, on the line. Rain was also in the forecast, and it would end up cutting this one short in the sixth inning.

On the mound for Fort Myers was left-hander Cesar Lares. He worked a one-two-three opening frame, including two strikeouts, but in the second his defense let him down a bit. He hit the first batter of the inning, but recorded two outs on the next two hitters before a double scored the first run of the game. Then consecutive batters reached on throwing errors from third baseman Nick Lucky that made it 2-0 Lakeland. Lares was able to pick up another strikeout to get out of the inning with limited damage. He would go on to pitch into the fourth inning, but a single run in the third and then two more in the fourth put an end to his outing after 3 2/3 innings. He was charged with all five runs (four earned) on four hits and a pair of walks. He struck out five.

Tyler Stasiowski pitched the final 1 1/3 innings, allowing no hits, walking one, and striking out one.

The Mighty Mussels offense put up single runs in the fourth and sixth innings, but were denied any further comeback attempt by the rain.

In the fourth, down 3-0, Brandon Winokur connected for his 14th homer of the season. To say he got all of it would be an understatement.

Winokur is the first player since 2014 to hit that many bombs in a season for the franchise.

In the top of the sixth, Caden Kendle (single), Winokur (walk) and Khadim Diaw (single) loaded the bases with one out. They were only able to score one on an RBI groundout from Jaime Ferrer to make it 5-2 before the tarp came on the field for good.

Winokur was the only batter to reach base twice. As a team they were 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left only four men on base.

With the loss, the Mighty Mussels lead over the Flying Tigers is just 0.5 games, which means the rest of the series will function as a “best of” five games to determine the West Division winner.

TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Pitcher of the Day - Ty Langenberg, Cedar Rapids Kernels (5 IP, H, 2 BB, 7 K)
Hitter of the Day - Brandon Winokur, Fort Myers Mighty Mussels (1-for-2, R, HR, RBI, BB)

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our recently-updated Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Tuesday.

#1 – Walker Jenkins (Cedar Rapids) – 1-for-4, 2B
#2 – Brooks Lee (Minnesota) – 0-for-4, 3 K
#6 – David Festa (Minnesota) – L, 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, BB, 7 K
#7 – Gabriel Gonzalez (Cedar Rapids) – 1-for-4, K
#9 – Kaelen Culpepper (Cedar Rapids) – 1-for-3, BB
#12 – Brandon Winokur (Fort Myers) – 1-for-2, R, HR (14), RBI, BB
#16 – Kyle DeBarge (Fort Myers) – 1-for-3, K

WEDNESDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
Iowa @ St. Paul (6:37 PM CDT) - TBD
Wichita @ Frisco (7:05 PM CDT) - LHP Jaylen Nowlin (5-6, 4.90 ERA) 
Wisconsin @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 PM CDT) - RHP John Klein (8-3, 4.92 ERA)
Fort Myers @ Lakeland (5:30 PM CDT) - RHP Charlee Soto (1-6, 5.04 ERA)

Please feel free to ask questions and discuss Tuesday’s games!

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[roger]

Great seeing Jenkins with another double, Steve.  Seems he has been hitting a double or home run nearly every game of late.  After a slow start in Cedar Rapids, is now hitting like we would have hoped.  Question, is it likely he begins 2025 at Wichita?

[jmlease1]

I'm going to be interested to see if/where Doncon lands on the prospect list next year. He's had a solid season this year, showing real improvement over his last year with the Dodgers and earning his way up to high A at 20. He's still playing plenty of SS, which says there's still decent performance defensively. It's a bummer that he missed basically all of August, so hopefully he can get in a little more game time before the end of the minor league season, but it seems like a successful one for him. I'm guessing he starts next season in Cedar Rapids and we'll see if he can earn his way to AA by midseason.

His trade partner Noah Miller got promoted to AA recently, and has struggled with the bat. While his glove is excellent, I think we can see exactly why the Twins were ready to move on from him: he's simply no threat at the plate at all. While it's a small sample size in AA so far, it looks like facing pitchers with better command is going to be a real problem: he can't buff his numbers with walks the same way, not against guys who aren't afraid to throw him a strike and have the ability to do it when they need it. He's showing no real pop in his bat and without superior contact skills, even his excellent glove isn't going to be enough. I don't think the Dodgers "fixed" anything here. he's still fairly young and could develop as a hitter, but in 3 full seasons of professional baseball, he hasn't improved at the plate.

Winokur is finishing the season strong, and that's good to see. he certainly had some challenges this season, but seems to have found his power stroke again. I think he'll move up to Cedar Rapids as well next year.

 

[LambchoP]

Jenkins may not be hitting tons of home runs, but he's collecting doubles like crazy. Dudes still really young so I expect some of that extra base pop will turn into home runs as he builds up and develops more power. I think he probably starts at A+ next year. Hopefully he'll finally stay healthy and put up a solid, full year of production, leaving a late season promotion to AA a possibility. Jenkins will be a lot of fun to watch for a lot of years, as long as we can somehow keep him healthy and keep him from turning into a brittle, injury probe Buxton or Lewis...

[Steve Lein]

1 hour ago, roger said:

Great seeing Jenkins with another double, Steve.  Seems he has been hitting a double or home run nearly every game of late.  After a slow start in Cedar Rapids, is now hitting like we would have hoped.  Question, is it likely he begins 2025 at Wichita?

The doubles number with Cedar Rapids has certainly climbed pretty quickly the last couple of weeks! In those last 17 games mentioned in that tweet, he has 12 XBH (8 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR), 8 walks, and just 11 Ks.

I think beginning at Wichita next year is a little less than 50% likely at this point (he's just played so few games). If he goes to the Arizona Fall League (which I'm crossing fingers for!), that might creep it to over 50% likely for me.

[jmlease1]

16 minutes ago, Steve Lein said:

The doubles number with Cedar Rapids has certainly climbed pretty quickly the last couple of weeks! In those last 17 games mentioned in that tweet, he has 12 XBH (8 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR), 8 walks, and just 11 Ks.

I think beginning at Wichita next year is a little less than 50% likely at this point (he's just played so few games). If he goes to the Arizona Fall League (which I'm crossing fingers for!), that might creep it to over 50% likely for me.

I'm not sure it matters much where he starts next season; I suspect he'll be in Wichita pretty quickly even if he starts in Cedar Rapids. he's flying through the minors at his age and I expect he'll make his MLB debut in 2026. What a talent.

[DocBauer]

I've been so impressed with what Brandon Winoker had done this season. I suspect we'd be talking about him a lot more if it weren't for Jenkins, E Rodriguez, and some of the great pitching performances we've seen.

6' 6" and 210lbs playing primarily SS, followed by CF, while ot 18yo at A ball. While he's K'd way more than you'd like, he's hit .253 with an OB% of .332. His SLG% is .443 and a total OPS of .774. And he's flashed surprising speed in the form of 23 SB in 29 attempts for a 79% success rate.

The FSL is a notoriously difficult hitters league, and he's thriving there as a 19yo. Very eager to see what he does as a 20yo in Cedar Rapids next season.

[SaberNerd]

Langenberg has looked real good the past couple months.  Hopefully he gets a similar velo bump in year 2 that he got in year 1.  Has a really solid sweeper that should work with a good fastball.

[Steve Lein]

3 hours ago, DocBauer said:

6' 6" and 210lbs playing primarily SS, followed by CF, while ot 18yo at A ball. While he's K'd way more than you'd like, he's hit .253 with an OB% of .332. His SLG% is .443 and a total OPS of .774. And he's flashed surprising speed in the form of 23 SB in 29 attempts for a 79% success rate.

To put this OPS number into context, the average age in the FSL this year is exactly 21.0 (Winokur is 100 days shy of 20.0), and the average OPS is .679. This line rates as non-adjusted 127 OPS+, and that .774 mark ranks 4th in the circuit among qualifiers.