Twins Minor League Report (5/11): Royce Returns

Great write up. I think it'd be useful to include Lewis, Miranda, and Larnach in the prospect summary, even though Miranda/Larnarch no longer qualify as prospects.

I'm just happy to have Royce back out on the field. Hope he's feeling good.

Hope Emmanuel Rodriguez is starting to settle in. He's a really interesting prospect. feels like he's still adjusting to a new level coming off the injury, because holy cow is he whiffing a ton. Hoping he stays healthy and in the lineup for the next month or so and we can really see where he's at, because he has a ton of talent.

Lee has been awful lately, can't remember the last time I saw he had a hit in one of these summaries. Royce Lewis clearly does not have it anymore after having 3 Ks. SWR is a lost cause. Helman appears to be the only guy in the organization with any potential.

Wonder what SWR's velo numbers are recently.  The performance contrast from last year has been stark.  SWR's trade partner, Austin Martin, has a medical issue, too.  The Twins have been a wonderful source of income for orthopedic surgeons in recent years.

One can't help but wonder what constitutes sufficient medical due-diligence for the FO.

1 hour ago, twinsfan02 said:

Lee has been awful lately, can't remember the last time I saw he had a hit in one of these summaries. Royce Lewis clearly does not have it anymore after having 3 Ks. SWR is a lost cause. Helman appears to be the only guy in the organization with any potential.

Welcome to TwinsDaily.
Similar to what @wsnydessaid, it is a long season, so hard to know on some players until you get a larger sample size.  For Lewis, I would encourage you to wait a few weeks before deciding if he doesn't have it anymore (unless you were kidding on this one.)  Even major league stars go to the minors for rehab assignments and have some horrible first few games back.

For Lee, I agree that he hasn't been doing great the past few weeks.  I clicked on his name above to go to the Baseball Reference page and then his splits tab.  It can be discouraging seeing his numbers for the last 7 days (or last 28 days).  As said above, the season is long and the teams play the same team for the whole week, which I find can provide streaks by hitters in good and bad ways.  Also encouraging for Lee is that he has had 4 ABs against younger pitchers and is 2 1/2 years younger on average!  That is incredible.  Still lots of time for Lee to do even better than his current .751 OPS this year. 🙂

Hopefully Royce and Brooks will be playing a week from tomorrow when I'm at the game in Wichita 

Larnach is smoking AAA pitchers. Trouble is there is no room with the Twins now (hard to say that when we are hitting so poorly) as I think Gallo, Taylor, Kepler continue to play the OF. Another "when Buxton can play CF" a spot opens up but we seem to say that about too many players (Julien and sometimes Miranda if his D is going to be awful).

1 hour ago, Dman said:

I think De Andrade is passing Miller for me.  De Andrade's hit tool looks better and I believe he can be solid at short as well.  Miller seems to be falling into the same funk as last year. Should be good competition between those two.

I've starting digging into statcast data from low A last year, and Miller really did not hit the ball hard very often.  He controls the zone well but all the weak and medium contact makes it tough to maintain a very high batting average. For him it seems to be basically waiting around to see if he can gain strength and develop enough power.  It could certainly happen as he gets older, but I'm guessing he's still much the same as last year and won't put up a very impressive line overall while he's still just a singles hitter.

De Andrade does seem to have a bit more power at this stage, but honestly hasn't hit the ball that much harder so far.  He did have a great game yesterday with all 3 balls in play having exit velos over 100 mph, including 110 on his single.  I'll want to see where he ends up in another month or so.  I also don't know much about his defense besides the fact that they do keep playing him at short most of the time so presumably the goal is to keep him there.

Getting Larnach going, and Royce Lewis back up to speed, could have a huge impact on the Twins offense.  Good to see.

SWR has lost his next man up status for me and his prospect rank is too high.  Other Rookie and A+ he has consistently had a +4 era.  Time to think about who is next now that Varland and Ober are in the Twins rotation (to stay - I hope). Sanchez, Dobnak and Headrick are all over 5 era so far this year in AAA.  Is Balazovic for real this year?  

The way that the Twins players seem to get well in St Paul has me wondering if their hitting coach should be in Minneapolis. 

2 hours ago, FlyingFinn said:

Larnach is smoking AAA pitchers. Trouble is there is no room with the Twins now (hard to say that when we are hitting so poorly) as I think Gallo, Taylor, Kepler continue to play the OF. Another "when Buxton can play CF" a spot opens up but we seem to say that about too many players (Julien and sometimes Miranda if his D is going to be awful).

Do you think it might be wise to get him at least 100 plate appearances in this reset before being worried about room?

Slash stats will still be meaningless at that sample (100 PAs) but they can look at strike out rate. They will also assessing how he is handling AAA breaking balls.

Entering this year Larnach has limited experience at AAA and he has not performed well there. He needs to dominate there over an extended weird of time.

Did anyone notice that the Frisco RoughRiders had 7 errors vs the Wind Surge? That's what you might expect if a group of actual RoughRiders played some softball after a long day of breaking broncos. 

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

SWR has lost his next man up status for me and his prospect rank is too high.  Other Rookie and A+ he has consistently had a +4 era.  Time to think about who is next now that Varland and Ober are in the Twins rotation (to stay - I hope). Sanchez, Dobnak and Headrick are all over 5 era so far this year in AAA.  Is Balazovic for real this year?  

The way that the Twins players seem to get well in St Paul has me wondering if their hitting coach should be in Minneapolis. 

 

Fans of several other teams might be wondering the same thing. The average OPS in the IL is nearly 800. Teams are scoring 5-6 runs per game. The average pitcher ERA is 5. The run scoring context is very different.

Fwiw…Lewis did steal a base after the HBP. Nice to see that.

Danny De Andrade…is it too early to get excited?
 

Michael Helman…is he a 2023 option (depending upon injuries, etc.)? Regardless, nice to see an 11th round grinder work himself to the door step.

Has anyone heard anything about Martin? There should be some kind of plan by now, I would think.

what about Prielipp?  Have not heard anything since his first start!??

20 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

SWR .... according to the stats has great stuff. ..... But nothing is working this year. Weird. Still not worried about him .

 

well, I'm getting a bit worried about SWR. I had high hopes for him, but he numbers so far this year look scary.

Seems like I see DaShawn Keirsey Jr.'s name pop up frequently in these reports. I realize that he's not a top prospect, and maybe not someone we will see called up for another year or two, but might he not end up being a steady backup or utility player at the MLB level?