The Come Up: 3 Twins Prospects Who Improved Their Stock in 2023

Oh yah, Festa is looking like a find. I like baseball and especially like watching the game in person. You can pick up so much about how good a player is or how projectable they are watching games live. Unfortunately, my exposure to Festa, Schobel, and Rosario is limited to milb.com. 

My take on Festa is that he is a guy who could be a #2 starting pitcher as soon as 2025. He has some impressive pitches but still has some challenges in staying consistent over more than five innings. I'm thinking Festa is just raw in his craft and needs experience. We will learn quite a bit this coming year because I think the Twins will let him stretch out and allow him to pitch through more situations than he has faced thus far in his career. Festa might be a guy who develops quite bit (physically) this winter. Man, he looks skinny. Experience, refinement of his pitches, and physical maturity should push Festa high up national rankings by mid season. I believe Festa is the Twins top pitching prospect by a fair margin.

I also have watched Schobel and Rosario quite a bit and like both of these guys. I'll save the lengthy read to agree that these two are also making a strong impression. Schobel does so much right and Rosario has worked to be quick to the ball and more selective. Nice post Nick on three fun to watch prospects.

Triple A should be a fun season for the prospects in 2024 one step away from the show ... 

Could our starting outfield lineup in ‘25 consist of three rookies: Jenkins, Rosario, and Rodriguez? Maybe Wallner and Martin as reserves and DH? Probably not how things will work out, but fun to imagine.

Boy, throw in Lewis, Lee, Julien, Jeffers and a healthy Kiriloff and that could be quite the young core. If Correa, Buxton, and Vasquez rounded out the 13 position player spots, that would be quite a fun lineup. The Twins outlook is very solid. 

I saw a pitcher in AA Pierson Ohi.  Does anyone know the story on him?  Is he a solid pitching prospect?  He has solid numbers.  

The Twins are seeing a lot of success developing pitchers. Varland, Ober and Festa are all producing far better than the consensus believed. I'm glad they drafted pitcher heavy last summer so they can have more development successes.

Would the Twins be tempted to trade Festa for an established MLB starting pitcher with multiple years of control? Would Festa alone be enough to get that kind of trade done, or would the Twins need to add position players? A lot depends on what the trade market looks like - with the free agent class not being great and with the Twins unlikely to dip their toe into that end of the pool, trading for a pitcher always seems like their preferred path. Additionally, a lot will depend on how Ryan, Ober and Varland are viewed internally - are they seen as future core pieces of the rotation or are they seen as guys with limited ceilings, i.e., 4/5 starters.

Festa is on a really good track right now. I expect to see him working in AAA to hone a 3rd pitch and get deeper into games, both of which will be needed for him to succeed in MLB. He's got some great tools and his performance has been strong.

I've been a big Rosario booster for some time, and he had a great season. he's still very young, and I think his experience in the AFL will help him. He's going to have to keep working on his contact skills, but the ball definitely explodes off the bat and he's going to get opportunities to show his talent. It's exciting to see a player of his youth develop quickly so that you start to know who they are and have them in the upper minors before they need to go on the 40-man.

Schobel...well, we'll see. He should have dominated high A, and he did. He might be one of those players who adjusts when he repeats a level, and those guys can have success too.

1 hour ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

Would the Twins be tempted to trade Festa for an established MLB starting pitcher with multiple years of control? Would Festa alone be enough to get that kind of trade done, or would the Twins need to add position players? A lot depends on what the trade market looks like - with the free agent class not being great and with the Twins unlikely to dip their toe into that end of the pool, trading for a pitcher always seems like their preferred path. Additionally, a lot will depend on how Ryan, Ober and Varland are viewed internally - are they seen as future core pieces of the rotation or are they seen as guys with limited ceilings, i.e., 4/5 starters.

We NEVER have enough pitchers. Trading for a #1 or #2 would be great but not at the expense of trading our best pitching prospects. I’m still salty that Chase Petty is no longer a Twin. 

1 hour ago, arby58 said:

Festa is not established, why would a team trade an established MLB starting pitcher with multiple years of control for him? Besides, a team trading starting pitching is generally not looking for it back, they would have other needs. Maybe they need an outfielder, and Kepler/Wallner, Larnach makes it happen (although I wouldn't give up both Wallner and Fiesta unless it was a really solid starting pitcher).

Good question, and I don't necessarily know the answer but I would think the starting point is a team being conscious of cost and wanting to keep payroll down.

Good article, Those three players all show lots of promise. In addition to those guys, I was pleased with the progress of many others players in the system this year. As the song goes: the future is so bright, I gotta wear shades!

Soto is a guy we haven't seen or heard much about since he was drafted.  It's waaay too early to consider dealing a guy like him.  Gotta give us some time to see what he can do.  That said, guys who are risers can and should always be considered for trades to improve the major league team.  It just depends what their actual value is in the trade market and what you could get back.

As a trade partner, consider the Milwaukee Brewers.  Manager Craig Counsel is interviewing with the Mets.  Counsel gets more out of less than any manager in baseball.  He's practically the "Anti Dave Roberts."  If he goes, and with Brandon Woodruff out all next season with Tommy John surgery,  I expect the Brewers to trade Corbin Burnes.  Burnes is 28 years old and has already won a Cy Young.  He's ONE year older than Joe Ryan.  Would the Brewers be interested in Festa? Schobel? Would Bailey Ober interest them?  The appeal to the Brewers is money.  Burnes is a better pitcher than Ryan, Ober and probably Festa will ever be.  But he's going to cost a LOT.  Could the Twins make a deal with the Brewers to put Burnes and Lopez at the top of their rotation?  Could we afford to pay Burnes with no TV deal in the near future?  

It's always hard to trade the "fallers" because their value is at a low point.  It's sometimes shrewd to trade the "risers" because their value is peaking.  There's no way I'm trading Brooks Lee at his peak value because I'm convinced he will be a star.  How sure are the Twins that Festa, Rosario or Schobel will be stars?  Who will be next years "risers??"

2 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

There's no way I'm trading Brooks Lee at his peak value because I'm convinced he will be a star.  How sure are the Twins that Festa, Rosario or Schobel will be stars? 

That is a fair question and one all front office people ponder. Remember Kyle Lewis or Evan White from Seattle? Sure-fire all stars and Seattle even signed White to a long term deal. Stuff happens. Baseball is a rough business.

I'm high on Brooks Lee as well, but he has never been labeled as a regular All Star type player. He will be a regular starter for an MLB team with solid performances. This has been and continues to be his line. If you watch Lee, he is really solid and does some good things on the field, but he isn't a wow player who puts up crazy numbers. He is just really good, which is something.

Festa is in some ways opposite to Lee, albeit a pitcher. He has a lack of polish and is very inexperienced. However, starting pitchers who can locate 3-4 pitches with a fastball hitting 96-98 with regularity and a wicked slider are not common. Festa has at least another year of learning but I would not be surprised to see the skinny 6'-6" right-hander become a #2 starting pitcher.

You are correct that a team will get more in trade for a highly rated prospect and that the evaluations are tricky. For a sure thing, I would bet on Lee. For star quality, I would pick Festa. Then again, both could be Evan White.

I'm also keen on an attempt to add Burnes via trade, but I think one or two other moves need to happen first.

23 hours ago, Fatbat said:

We NEVER have enough pitchers. Trading for a #1 or #2 would be great but not at the expense of trading our best pitching prospects. I’m still salty that Chase Petty is no longer a Twin. 

I feel very, very confident in saying that Chase Petty will never be as good as Sonny Gray. I think a lot of fans have this idealized image of Petty where he's this flame-throwing starter in the mold of Jacob DeGrom, where he routinely hits 100mph and has a wipeout slider. In reality, he sits around 95mph with a decent slider and change. 

I don't see any places putting him in the top-100 global prospects, and he's probably the 3rd best pitching prospect in the Reds' system. He may very well be a productive big leaguer, but I will take a top-2 Cy Young season and another great year for six years of a #3 starter, which is probably Petty's ceiling.