One Twins Prospect Shares Similarities With Brian Dozier

Thank you for the write up. Prato has been off my radar but if he can sustain this in St Paul, we should all be paying more attention.

No, I don't think he is the next Dozier. I think Schobel has a chance to be that. Prato hitting .171 at Wichita is a huge red flag to me. Others disagree but I don't think the Twins see him as a future MLB player at this point. He does fit the utility role. For next year, he will behind numerous guys in that area - Martin, Helman and of course, Willi Castro with the Twins. Prove me wrong Mr. Prato!

I think there might be some resemblance, I haven't seen Prado enough to really know. What I valued in Dozier was his grit, love for the game & his team. Even for Prado to be a utility player it'd be an up-hill battle.

39 minutes ago, FlyingFinn said:

No, I don't think he is the next Dozier. I think Schobel has a chance to be that. Prato hitting .171 at Wichita is a huge red flag to me. Others disagree but I don't think the Twins see him as a future MLB player at this point. He does fit the utility role. For next year, he will behind numerous guys in that area - Martin, Helman and of course, Willi Castro with the Twins. Prove me wrong Mr. Prato!

Why focus on 156 ABs this year at AA when he has hit the rest of his Milb career, including hitting .294 / .403 / .419 at AA the year before.  He is behind Martin, Hellman, and Castro at this moment but sustaining his current pace could change that positioning.  It also not like we only need one utility guy.  Theoretically, you could have four of them and there are always injuries to cover.  

Nice to have a good month and a half at AAA, hopefully the power isn’t a mirage.  The Twins turn out second baseman like butter.  Maybe another team sees him as a spencer steers and he is a good piece to move at the deadline.

Dozier was not a big guy but he did have probably two inches and at least a dozen pounds of muscle on Prato (at least as he's currently built). Dozier was able to get to power with more of a slide step than a full big leg kick, and probably that helped him to maintain his timing and good levels of contact.

I do worry about Prato's size and big leg kick translating to the majors where pitchers are generally better at changing speeds and throwing off timing. He's shown a decent knack for contact despite it in the minors, but even now the power is kind of marginal and I do have a hard time seeing him getting to Dozier level power.

I still see more of a utility profile, especially if the strikeouts were to tick up a bit without added power, but as long as he keeps producing I don't see why he couldn't be a major leaguer given the right opportunity. 

I get the comparison, but it seems like a stretch, first Prado will already be a year older than Dozier (assuming he isn't called up this year), the Twins were not in compete mode at all. 2011(63-99), 2012(66-96) Dozier's first year, 2013 (66-96), 2014 (70-92), Dozier was terrible in 2012 in 84 games, no chance a team trying to compete is going to give a 26 year old rookie that kind of leash. So IMO he just won't have the opportunity that Dozier had unless he is traded to a team trying to rebuild and can give him the chance to succeed like those terrible early 2010's Twins.

46 minutes ago, arby58 said:

Only so many slots on the 40-man roster, and four of them aren't going to be utility guys. 

There were 3 utility guys all year.  (Farmer / Castro and Gordon)  Four, if they are the right four is not that big stretch and three vs four does not negate potential value in Prato.

3 minutes ago, arby58 said:

They didn't sign Farmer as a utility guy - they signed him because they believed Correa was gone.  You could say Solano was a 'utility guy' but the reality is they signed him to be a right-handed platoon player, which was situationally necessary. 

I am not sure how the pretense under which they signed him has anything to do with this discussion which is how many "utility guys" could conceivably make sense to roster or in a broader sense have in the system.

5 minutes ago, arby58 said:

You list him as a utility guy, but the Twins decided to bring him onto the roster to be their starting shortstop. Lots of guys have flexibility - are you going to refer to Kirilloff or Gallo as 'utility guys' because they can play first base or the outfield? What matters is the role the team believes they fill, and they are not going to keep four guys with no defined role. 

What difference does their original intention make?  We are talking about his roster position TODAY and going forward.  The intent when they signed him has absolutely nothing to do with the current discussion.