Twins Daily 2024 Top Prospects: #7 Cory Lewis, RHP

I'm suspicious that Lewis has a bit too much helium as a prospect currently but I hope I'm wrong!

Assuming Raya and Festa are in the top six, that would mean nine out of our top twenty prospects are pitchers, with all or most of them still projected as starters.  To go along with Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Varland, it would seem that over the next several years we will have a solid, young, fairly cheap, controllable, and deep starting corps - something we haven’t been able to say for a long time.

Hopefully, one or two of those nine could develop into a true #1, although it’s not clear who might be the candidates for that.  

Lewis  , Culpepper  and zebby Matthew's  all had good seasons  ...

Lewis should be the first one promoted to AA   and if things go well  he could be knocking on the door in a 2025 debut  ...

Lewis is a really interesting case and a bit of the showcase for development kind of player if he can continue to get it done. now, as a college player from a reasonably-sized school with a serious baseball program, I would hope that he would do well out the gate in low A, and the expectations for him in high A would be a little higher than a 20-year old kid as well.

That said...he's met those expectations. He had more starts and more innings in his first year as a pro and handled it well. He showed respectable control, solid numbers of Ks, and did a very nice job of keeping the ball in the park, while not being terribly easy to hit. he jumped all the way up to high A in his first season of pro ball and had ERAs that are hard to ignore.

I think AA will be a very good test for him. Can he keep throwing so many different pitches against more refined hitters? Will his stuff hold up, or does he need more velocity (or bite on the offspeed) to succeed? I'm excited to find out. If he can legitimately throw 6 different pitches...the guessing games involved might help his pitches all play up a bit more. how do you sit on a pitch when the guy can throw enough of them that you might never see that one in 2 ABs or more?

Plus, I love a knuckleball, at any velocity, so I'm rooting hard for this kid.

Really like what this group of Twins scouts and draft guys have done by drafting college pitchers in the rounds following the first couple.

We have already seen Ober and Varland reach the majors with it appears several more on the way.  Considering how difficult it is to feel good after guys like Stewart and others flamed out, this sure seems to be working.  Expect a lot of credit is also due the pitching coaches in the system who are getting the most out of some of these guys.

Now if the doctors can get Prielipp and Canterino healthy, we just might have a lot of fun watching this team over the coming years. 

I like Lewis. We have become obsessed with 99-100mph pitches. We would now turn our noses up at Greg Maddux in his prime. Good Luck Cory, keep doing what has got you here.

19 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

I like Lewis. We have become obsessed with 99-100mph pitches. We would now turn our noses up at Greg Maddux in his prime. Good Luck Cory, keep doing what has got you here.

I love speed.
I have a Need for Speed.

But I think Greg Maddux might have been hands down the best pitcher in the modern era.  He knew how to pitch with stuff, as mentioned above, would be sneered at today.

He flat out could pitch.

I always wanted to hire Mike and Greg Maddux as my pitching coaches. 

I'll say this about the Twins Org, they are developing young pitchers.

I hope he makes it just for the knuckleball. He had a good year in A ball but he really should as a 23 year old college pitcher. This year will be a much bigger test. 

38 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I loved Greg Maddux, but pitchers aren't throwing harder today just because they can, they're throwing harder today because in today's game everyone can hit an 88 MPH fastball and umpires don't give 3 inches on each side of the plate to experienced veteran pitchers. Whether we like it or not, velocity matters a great deal.

I'm curious about Lewis' command. He struggled with walks in college, but not last year. Was it because he improved? Or was it due to 18-year-olds chasing his weird repertoire?

This year will be telling if he can get the 21-24yo advanced hitters to bite.  He gets in their head and messes up their timing, he might get a fast track to the show. 

10 hours ago, LewFordLives said:

Thanks for these write ups and the videos. Some of us have heard the names, but we don't get to watch them play.

Lewis has kind of a funky delivery. He starts his windup with his glove lower down his chest than others. It seems to allow for a quick delivery and maybe makes his fastball seem faster than it is. 

The MLB at bat app let's you listen to any big league game and you can choose which team's ratio broadcast to listen to. You also get video of every MiLB game on demand. It's now $29.95 a year. If Lewis pitches innings 1-5 of a game you could just go watch those half innings and fast forward the rest. Sometimes I wonder why I pay the $93 a month for the big league club. 

It keeps going up in price, but it's still a huge value. 

19 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

it would seem that over the next several years we will have a solid, young, fairly cheap, controllable, and deep starting corps - something we haven’t been able to say for a long time.

yes indeed! I can't remember when the Twins had this many quality pitching prospects in the minor leagues. A lot of young players to be excited about, or at least to be very hopeful. I hope this much vaunted pitching pipeline doesn't spring a leak!

Bob Ueker when asked how to best catch an Niekro Knuckleball: "Wait until it stops rolling and pick it up...."

Draft everyone who's last name is Lewis except Jerry.

Very interesting. Control will be his key with similar velocities on different pitches. Plus the knuckleball being in the back of the hitters mind should have an impact on the mind game. Should be fun to watch.