Twins Expected to Land Top International Prospect in January

[ashbury]

6 hours ago, EGFTShaw said:

Beavis: heheheh, hehhehehe.  He said egregious.

NYCTK, FTW with one of my favorite words along with Audacity: Egregious

Shallow and pedantic for me, please.

 

[sftwinsfan]

I hope that along with looking at how they're acquiring these players and what has been going wrong, they also look at the development side of things. So many of these guys, especially the hitters do well in the DSL but then almost all just hit a brick wall when they come state side or by A ball at the latest. Something is clearly wrong with the system for as little as they have to show over this amount of time. Wish we could have gotten a full system reset, but I guess we're stuck with Falvey. 

[Doctor Wu]

On 1/6/2026 at 11:39 PM, NYCTK said:

"Twins Expected to Land Top International Prospect in January"

"Merlo is ranked by MLB Pipeline as the 34th-best prospect in the 2026 class."

Come on man. I know we live in a post-truth world now, but this is egregious enough of a stretch to be called a lie. 

Yep. A very deceptive headline. 

[ashbury]

Merlo's signing seems to be confirmed, among others.

 

[Russ]

Wasn't there a story recently that the Twins were getting a player linked to the Dodgers but there was an age issue or falsifying his age?    Did that ever happened now that the signing period has happened?  Don't remember the name or if he included in this years signees?  Because of the age issue, they could get him for $500,000

[bunsen82]

1 hour ago, Russ said:

Wasn't there a story recently that the Twins were getting a player linked to the Dodgers but there was an age issue or falsifying his age?    Did that ever happened now that the signing period has happened?  Don't remember the name or if he included in this years signees?  Because of the age issue, they could get him for $500,000

Angel Ozuna.  He is not in the list  from the Twins player development.  This also the quietest release I have ever seen for an international draft class.  

Edit: I do wonder if Angel could have been classed as a 2025 signing.  I have no idea if they had any money remaining,  but he would have qualified for his age and that article came out around the deadline for the prior year.   

Maybe someone here on Twinsdaily will track down what happened.  

[bunsen82]

4 hours ago, Russ said:

Wasn't there a story recently that the Twins were getting a player linked to the Dodgers but there was an age issue or falsifying his age?    Did that ever happened now that the signing period has happened?  Don't remember the name or if he included in this years signees?  Because of the age issue, they could get him for $500,000

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2026-mlb-international-signings-tracker/

I went through the entire list.  He didn't sign with anyone else.  I though we had used all our money last year but maybe there was still some budget left.  As it stands he is not on the current signings for the Twins.  

[Peter Gravett]

On 1/6/2026 at 2:12 PM, Dman said:

I agree, This is my view as well.  It's just really, really, hard to know by essentially age 15 what their skill set will be around 18 or 19 or 20 like the MLB draft.  Certainly there are traits to look for, but the hit tool is just so hard to predict because as you move up levels and the ball dips and dives etc. it takes some special hand eye coordination to be successful.  Way to hard to know at 15 IMO.

I would echo @nicksaviking it feels like it has been a long time since the Twins have gotten anything meaningful from their International signings and it can really help the farm when more of those players hit.

I also concur with @Seth Stohsthat the better strategy in general seems to be to take more guys in the $900,000 to $400,000 range rather than one big 4 to 5M guy.  The more darts you get to throw at upper level talent the better the odds IMO.  The best hitter for the Twins in the DSL last year was Joyner Perez (.950 OPS) and he only cost $390,000 versus Leon 1.7M who had a (.700 OPS).  Granted this is the DSL where stats mean very little, but I think it shows the amount of money spent on one player doesn't mean much other than hopefully higher potential if everything clicks and everything clicking doesn't happen that often.

The Phillies got Tait for $90,000K and helped them get Duran one of the better closers in Baseball.  I get that it's hard to figure out who to grab, but the Twins could use some better luck in this market.

And we got one who is impressing thus far in Bohorquez for $10K.