Twins Minor League Report (8/6): Lewis Great Again, Shuffield Slugs

Dalton Shuffield gets no respect. He goes wherever the Twins need a warm body. Last year, it was A, A+, and AAA. With the Saints he batted .271, with 3 doubles, 2 triples, and 2 homers. His reward.................back down to A ball with a little time in the FCL and A+. Brooks Lee gets called up and Shuffield is needed at AA Wichita. 2 home runs and a walk yesterday and they are treating him like Barry Bonds. 3 walks today and the one time they pitched to him he hit a home run. He now has an OPS of 2.317 with Wichita.

7 hours ago, FlyingFinn said:

Dalton Shuffield gets no respect. He goes wherever the Twins need a warm body. Last year, it was A, A+, and AAA. With the Saints he batted .271, with 3 doubles, 2 triples, and 2 homers. His reward.................back down to A ball with a little time in the FCL and A+. Brooks Lee gets called up and Shuffield is needed at AA Wichita. 2 home runs and a walk yesterday and they are treating him like Barry Bonds. 3 walks today and the one time they pitched to him he hit a home run. He now has an OPS of 2.317 with Wichita.

You are right; Shuffield doesn't seem to get much respect or prospect hype, especially considering the numbers he's been putting up at each level. He's looking like a handy player to keep around. 

14 hours ago, Ted Schwerzler said:

The Saints started Kody Funderburk as an opener for their tilt on Sunday. He worked 2 1/3 innings and gave up a run on one hit and two walks. Funderburk struck out four, and after Moran’s option, continued to position himself for a call-up to Minnesota.

Funderburk and Moran do have the walks in common but I hope that doesn’t put him in a good position to be called up. His 24 walks across 52.2 minor league innings this year should keep that door closed. 

The links for Austin Martin always seem to be wrong links.  His name is too common a baseball name it would seem. 

50 minutes ago, Dman said:

He could stand to not walk as many guys but his WHIP is still barely over 1.00 at AAA.  Guys there can't touch his stuff so they aren't getting hits off of him. Also his FIP and x FIP disagree with your premise as they have him predicted at an ERA of around 3.00.

Maybe his stuff doesn't play as well at the MLB level hard to say with any pitcher but his profile sure makes him look like a 40 candidate to me.

I don’t think his performance is that uncommon. Seems like they have a reliever like this every year in AAA. Last year it was Evan Sisk with virtually the same WHIP, good strikeout rate and poor walk rate. Ian Hamilton has had seasons like this as a minor league reliever. The small sample stat line for a minor league reliever isn’t very helpful in guiding roster decisions.

Although he is no longer listed among the Top 20, always great seeing Miller with a multi-hit day.  Still has lots of time to develop into a hitter similar to his brother.  When combined with his glove, that would be a very good big league player.

Assume Lewis will be in your Top 20 next time you do it?

all you have to look at is felix Bautista Appeared at three different minor league levels, beginning the season with High-A Aberdeen and finishing with Triple-A Norfolk...Went a combined 1-6 with a 1.54 ERA (8 ER/46.2 IP) and 77 strikeouts across 40 appearances, all in relief...Posted a combined 1.07 WHIP with a .126 opponents batting average between High-A, Double-A and Triple-A...Recorded 11 saves in 14 opportunities combined between each affiliate...Allowed one hit in seven appearances (8.1 IP) 

Kody Funderburk  2023 INP 52.2  H 37 14 ER BB 24 SO 79 AVG .195 WHIP 1.16 HLD 7 3 SV HIS NUMBERS ARE COMPARABLE TO FELIX ALL IN TRIPLE A. I GUARANTEE YOU MARLINS ARE REGRETTING  LETTING HIM GO.  Dman  i don't understand why not call him up and see what the kid can do he a rule 5 and i would hate to see him leave BUT WE WILL PUT IN DALLAS KEUCHEL WHO TOPS OUT AT 88!  

4 minutes ago, william said:

Kody Funderburk  2023 INP 52.2  H 37 14 ER BB 24 SO 79 AVG .195 WHIP 1.16 HLD 7 3 SV HIS NUMBERS ARE COMPARABLE TO FELIX ALL IN TRIPLE A. I GUARANTEE YOU MARLINS ARE REGRETTING  LETTING HIM GO.  Dman  i don't understand why not call him up and see what the kid can do he a rule 5 and i would hate to see him leave BUT WE WILL PUT IN DALLAS KEUCHEL WHO TOPS OUT AT 88!  

I'm all for giving Funderburk a shot, but for the record he sits like 90-92, so velocity isn't exactly an argument in his favor (and he's definitely a different kind of pitcher than Bautista).

90-92 is right  at times he 94 to 95 but he's a big k guy . No home runs in over 50 inning!

1 minute ago, william said:

90-92 is right  at times he 94 to 95 but he's a big k guy . No home runs in over 50 inning!

Yes he can touch 95 (he never sits there).  I'm just pointing out that stylistically he might be as close to Keuchel as he is to Bautista.

I think maybe Tayler Saucedo could be a pretty good comp.

i read the headline that Lewis was great again and my first reaction how in the heck did I miss Royce starting a rehab assignment. Oh well.

1 hour ago, roger said:

Although he is no longer listed among the Top 20, always great seeing Miller with a multi-hit day.  Still has lots of time to develop into a hitter similar to his brother.  When combined with his glove, that would be a very good big league player.

Assume Lewis will be in your Top 20 next time you do it?

Obviously I will double check, but... he dropped out?

2 hours ago, Dman said:

Agree SSS makes it almost impossible to predict relievers.  He doesn't have a big fastball but lot's of lefties don't.  If you go back to 2022 though he was a starter and his line wasn't all that different from Varland's except Louie had a much better K rate.  While in the pen Funderburk has increased his K rate.  His numbers feel almost the same throughout his minor league career so I have a bit more faith than most about him.  

To be honest he might not be that different from Sands and he got his shot.  Same with Ortega.  He isn't getting any younger why wait until he turns into Ian Hamilton who would be our Bullpen ace if we had given him a chance.  Hamilton has a 1.67 ERA and 1.19 WHIP at the MLB level for the Yankee's this year and he never really got a chance in MN.  If Funderburk stinks then waive him because he isn't going to be any better than he is right now as like I said earlier his numbers have been good but static.

If Funderburk averages 100 mph on his fastball combined with a plus second pitch like Bautista’s split finger they need to bring him up.

I don’t have access to pitch level data and the relief pitcher data we can see isn’t helpful in knowing whether he will be successful in the majors. Those kind of numbers for relievers in the minors are not uncommon. The Twins have much better data besides working with him first hand. 

1 hour ago, jorgenswest said:

If Funderburk averages 100 mph on his fastball combined with a plus second pitch like Bautista’s split finger they need to bring him up.

I don’t have access to pitch level data and the relief pitcher data we can see isn’t helpful in knowing whether he will be successful in the majors. Those kind of numbers for relievers in the minors are not uncommon. The Twins have much better data besides working with him first hand. 

FYI, you can see pitch level data for AAA and most A games via baseball savant's gamefeeds.

Here is the pitcher breakdowns for the Saints' last game when Funderburk was the opener.  The data is a little less detailed and sometimes less reliable than for major league games but you can get a pretty good idea of velocity and spin from just a couple appearances, and I like to track whiff rates on individual pitches across multiple appearances for guys that I'm interested in.

Funderburk is a bit over 40% whiff on his slider, around 30% on his 4-seam, and 20% on his sinker.  All of these are good but not spectacular whiff rates for those pitch types.  Overall he's getting whiffs on more than 30% of his swings which does back up the K-rate, though Balazovic, for one example, had a slightly better whiff rate in AAA which hasn't quite translated to the majors. The Twins probably also have some additional ideas on his pitch shape, release point etc., but from my perspective I don't see any reason he wouldn't be at least decent in the majors.

I think the front office has shown that they aren't looking for just one type of pitcher, so he doesn't have to be like Felix Bautista to get a shot.  It does seem like they value veterans, probably to excess, so that seems to be the main issue for him. Trying to crack not just the mlb roster but the 40-man as well, when the front office seems intent on holding onto every veteran who they've made even a tiny investment on.

Thanks. Looks like velocity was in the 90-91 range on the 4 seam fastball and 92-94 on the sinker yesterday.

I didn’t bring up Bautista but replied to another post how the two had similar stats as relievers in the minors. That kind of AAA success for a reliever is not uncommon but from my one game look it appears the tools that Bautista and Funderburk used to get there are pretty different.