Twins Minor League Report (5/17): Taj Bradley Starts a Rehab Assignment

[Matt Braun]

Image courtesy of William Parmeter (photo of Taj Bradley)

 

TRANSACTIONS
Twins RHPs Taj Bradley and Cody Laweryson were both sent to start their rehab assignments with the Saints in Columbus. 

Fort Myers placed infielder Bruin Agbayani on the 7-Day Injured List. Previously, he had missed about a month with a thumb injury. 

RHP Dylan Questad began his rehab assignment with the FCL Twins.

Saints Sentinel
St. Paul 2, Columbus 3
Box Score
Taj Bradley: 1 ⅔ IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K
HR: None
Multi-hit games: Hendry Mendez (2-for-5, RBI), Aaron Sabato (2-for-4, 2B)

The Saints lost a frustrating endeavor on Sunday.

Runners left on base—the ire of players, coaches, and fans alike. That mysterious curse struck the Saints once more on Sunday, as the team went just 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position, and only plated two runs, despite putting a runner on base to start a frame in six of their nine innings. 

On-base madness took a backseat to the starter. Taj Bradley pitched for the first time since his May 5th outing in Washington. With his pectoral injury evidently under control, the righty worked 1 2/3 inefficient innings, walking two while allowing a pair of hits. He threw 42 pitches and topped out at 97.8 MPH with his fastball. 

Hendry Mendez continues to wallop AAA pitching, as his two hits pushed his batting average at the level to .395. Perhaps even more fascinating has been the lefty’s ability to walk more than strikeout (currently at a nine-to-eight rate). He completed this trick across all of 2025; can he repeat it at the highest level of the minors? So far, the results have been encouraging. And he won’t turn 23 until after the season ends. 

The Clippers are an affiliate in the Guardians system. Known to specialize in switch-hitting middle-infielders, Cleveland once again claims a youngster with such skills: Angel Genoa. The 47th-overall prospect in MLB singled once in four at-bats.

Wind Surge Wisdom
Wichita 6, San Antonio 3
Box Score
Eli Jones: 4 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K
HR: Garrett Spain (10)
Multi-hit games: None

The Wind Surge needed just four hits to win on Sunday.

You, the attentive reader, may wonder how they did so, while scoring six runs along the way. Here’s how: walks and errors. Nine and three of them, respectively. Evidently, one of San Antonio’s Missions was not to play clean, orderly baseball.

Jhony Brito started for San Antonio on MLB rehab. He breezed through three clean frames before starting trouble in the fourth. A pair of walks begat a run-scoring fielding error, which was soon worsened when Brito threw away a pickoff attempt, scoring a second unearned run. 

Should a pitcher’s fielding error count as an earned run? The argument both ways makes sense. We’re digging deep into the technicalities of what “earned” should mean in this context, yet it does feel right that a pitcher should be penalized for a mistake under his control. 

Garrett Spain homered in the eighth to put a third run on the board; Andrew Cossetti doubled in Jorel Ortega to quickly make it a fourth score. 

The final two runs score in the ninth when wunderkind prospect Ethan Salas fired a ball wildly into left field in an attempt to nab Spain stealing third. Instead, both Spain and the trailing runner, Caleb Roberts, safely trotted home. 

The aforementioned Salas is not the uber-prospect he once was, but he still ranks as the 52nd-best youngster in baseball, according to MLB.com. He singled twice in five plate appearances. 

Kernels Nuggets
Cedar Rapids 8, Fort Wayne 11
Box Score
Miguelangel Boadas: 2 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
HR: Brandon Winokur (5), Yasser Mercedes (1)
Multi-hit games: Marek Houston (3-for-4, 2B, 2 R, BB), Brandon Winokur (2-for-5, HR, R, 5 RBI), Yasser Mercedes (2-for-5, HR, 2B, 3 RBI)

The Kernels lost a high-scoring affair on Sunday.

Brandon Winokur continued his hot-hitting ways with a two-run homer in the first. The 21-year-old hit a paltry .198/.323/.358 in April before exploding to hit .364/.453/.564 in May, with just three hitless days in the month. That’ll play.

Cedar Rapids’ second homer of the day off the certainly not Nominative Determinist Jamie Hitt, was a three-run shot by Yasser Mercedes, his first as a Kernel.

Mercedes has actually improved his OPS since his promotion, jumping from 1.081 as a Mighty Mussel to 1.198 as a Kernel. It’s been a tremendous season for the 21-year-old in his 40-man decision year. 

On a day not for faint-hearted hurlers, Paulshawn Pasqualotto authored a fantastic relief outing. The righty whiffed four across 2 ⅓ scoreless innings. His season ERA is now 1.59.

A.J. Preller’s dealing ways have left the Padres’ system weak on talent. As a result, the best prospect in the game for the TinCaps was Kavares Tears, ranked 26th in their system. He doubled and singled in four trips to the plate.

Mussel Matters
Fort Myers 9, Bradenton 2
Box Score
Justin Mitrovich: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K
HR: Jayson Bass (4)
Multi-hit games: Quinn McDaniel (2-for-5, 2B, R, RBI), Bryan Acuña (2-for-4, RBI)

The Kernels erupted in the ninth to win on Sunday.

Quinn McDaniel, hitting machine, scored the first run with a double cracked into the right-center gap.

Then? Nothing. Perhaps an odd baserunner. A rain delay. Bradenton took the lead in what felt like one of those times a team simply ran out of gas before they could repeat their scoring ways. Their first hit since McDaniel’s double didn't arrive until the ninth inning. 

But what an inning it was. JP Smith II singled and was pinch-run for by Jayson Bass—remember this. Ramiro Dominguez sent Bass to third but was thrown out at second attempting to stretch his hit as far as possible. No matter: Ryan Sprock walked, Irvin Nunez singled, Quentin Young walked, and Bryan Acuña singled to give Fort Myers the lead.

A Harry Genth walk and Dameury Pena single made it a 5-2 game. That ushered Bass to the plate with the bases loaded. He was brought in for his legs, but he made the biggest impact with his bat: the lefty demolished one so thoroughly that even the pitcher had no choice but to stand on the mound and watch in pained awe as the ball flew over the fence.

Marauders’ third baseman Murf Gray is ranked as the Pirates’ 17th-best prospect. He singled once in three at-bats.

TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY
Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Paulshawn Pasqualotto
Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Yasser Mercedes

PROSPECT SUMMARY
Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects performed:
#5 – Eduardo Tait (Cedar Rapids) - 0-1, K
#7 – Marek Houston (Cedar Rapids) - 3-4, 2B, 2 R, BB, K
#10 – Gabriel Gonzalez (St. Paul) - 1-4, BB, 2 K
#12 – Andrew Morris (Twins) - 1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K
#13 – Hendry Mendez (St. Paul) - 2-5, RBI, K
#14 – Quentin Young (Fort Myers) - 0-3, R, BB, K
#15 – Brandon Winokur (Cedar Rapids) - 2-5, HR, R, 5 RBI
#19 – Khadim Diaw (Cedar Rapids) - 1-5, 2B, K
#20 – Kyle DeBarge (Wichita) - 0-4, 2 K

MONDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS
FCL Braves @ FCL Twins (11:00 AM) - TBD

 

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[Vanimal46]

Matt Bowman and John Brebbia exercised their opt-outs. 48 hours to either add them to the 26 man roster or grant their release. I would add Bowman and DFA Garcia. If Brebbia takes off thanks for the memories. 

[tony&rodney]

Yasser Mercedes looking strong at the plate, in the field, and shows good speed on the bases.

[FlyingFinn]

Who's hot with the bat this week - Mendes, Gonzalez, Mercedes and the incredible McDaniel!

[Alex Wilde]

When are we going to start talking about Sabato getting a chance over Bell and Caratini? On another note, I feel like Mercedes needs to jump back into the prospect conversation…has over 1.000 OPS and is still only 21.

[Sampson5]

Mercedes is a obvious add to the 40 even if he falls back down to earth the tools alone make it a easy choice imo . 

[twinstalker]

Quote

even more fascinating has been the lefty’s ability to walk more than strikeout

This has been bugging me for a while.  The two are independent, sort of.

Walks and strikeouts are not either/or options.  Other pairings are similarly absurd: homer vs gdp, SBs vs 2Bs.

Walk rate in the minors is good or not good depending on how close it is to the 10-14% range.  K rate is good when it's low, generally, though too low could be troublesome in some respects.  But K rate is almost always over 15%.   So what BB > K says most always is that the K rate is low.  Which we could just say, and I do, though what's low and what's not low depends on a lot of factors, namely age vs level.

Good hitters will not walk at very high rates.

Walk rate in the minors should be around 12% for the best prospects.  Some are walking at a 20-25% rate.  That's simply passivity, and everything above 15% is a degree of passivity that is rewarded now and is meaningless projecting to the majors, at least in a positive way and, hence, misleading.

Once I learned how meaningful K rate is and how misleading BB rate is, I've never used the two together.  That's for minors.  It's different in the majors, where walks lead to winning games.

(They do in the minors, too, but the point of all minors' stat analysis is projecting to the majors)

 

 

[jkcarew]

Fwiw, McDaniel shouldn’t be playing low A…will turn 24 in September, 5th round pick out of college back in 2023. He’s played 2 full seasons of A+ ball in ‘24 and ‘25. Strikeout problems…though the OBP and OPS not terrible (not good, either) due to some walks and some x-base pop. I’m guessing the Twins are treating his Fort Myers stint as a bit of a spring training, as he hadn’t appeared in any affiliated games this season before the Twins acquired him. Realistically, he should be succeeding at Cedar Rapids with a good chance at a late season promotion to AA if he’s going to stick beyond this season.

[terrydactyls]

45 minutes ago, twinstalker said:

 

Good hitters will not walk at very high rates.

 

 

 

AI Overview

 

 

 

The best MLB hitters who also walk a lot are elite players who combine high on-base percentages with incredible power or contact skills. 

Leading active and recent examples include:

• Juan Soto: Widely considered the best pure eye in baseball. He consistently posts walk rates well above 20% and frequently finishes near the top of the league in both bases on balls and on-base percentage (OBP).
• Aaron Judge: A towering offensive force who combines historic home run power with immense strike zone discipline. Pitchers are often forced to pitch around him, leading to massive walk and intentional walk totals.
• Bryce Harper: A perennial MVP candidate who boasts an elite walk rate, routinely drawing over 100 free passes a year while remaining a massive slugging threat.
• Mike Trout: Historically one of the most well-rounded players in MLB, combining top-tier hitting, 30+ home run power, and a highly selective approach that limits chases outside the strike zone.
• Carlos Santana: The active leader in career walks among all MLB players, serving as a legendary veteran presence known for his patient, professional plate appearances.
• Shohei Ohtani: A two-way superstar whose selective, aggressive-but-disciplined approach leads to a high walk count alongside MVP-level run production. 
  Baseball-Reference.com +9

[terrydactyls]

49 minutes ago, twinstalker said:

Good hitters will not walk at very high rates.

I did a quick google search and found six current hitters with high walk rates:

• Juan Soto
• Aaron Judge
• Bryce Harper
• Mike Trout
• Carlos Santana
• Shohei Ohtani

These guys seem like "good hitters" to me.

The four players with the most walks in MLB history are:

• Barry Bonds
• Ricky Henderson
• Babe Ruth
• Ted Williams

These guys were also pretty "good hitters".

Your assertion just doesn't hold up.

[DataNerd]

Mitrovich up to 9 innings with 0ER in A, 4H 3BB 14K.  Fastball was 93 with 19"IVB, changeup only had 2 and has been missing bats.

Mercedes continuing to hit, and in the SSS at CR has a sub 20 K%.  Easy plus power and speed, hopefully he figured something out this offseason and this isn't just a hot stretch.

 

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, terrydactyls said:

I did a quick google search and found six current hitters with high walk rates:

• Juan Soto
• Aaron Judge
• Bryce Harper
• Mike Trout
• Carlos Santana
• Shohei Ohtani

These guys seem like "good hitters" to me.

The four players with the most walks in MLB history are:

• Barry Bonds
• Ricky Henderson
• Babe Ruth
• Ted Williams

These guys were also pretty "good hitters".

Your assertion just doesn't hold up.

He’s not explaining it clearly, but he’s only interested in using minor league walk rate to predict future MLB performance. A really high walk rate can mean the batter is unable to make solid contact and fouls off pitches until they get the walk. That approach won’t play in MLB.

The thumbs down is for posting an AI summary. I will auto thumbs down any post written by AI.