Scouting Twins Prospects: Sawyer Gipson-Long

What does his fastball top out at?

Thanks for the great article.

I noticed his peripherals recently and remembered his name from being a second day draft pick, but it's good to get some recent scouting data.  I wonder if he's a bit too in the zone which has lead to a bit higher batting averages against him than you might expect with the rest of his peripherals.  If he's already got the command he can work on refining his approach in different counts and situations though.  That slider looked perfectly placed to get hitters at any level though.

We're starting to see a lot of potentially solid mid-rotation arms pop up from all over the system.  It seems like developing those top of the rotation arms is still a challenge as always, but I definitely believe they've built up the depth to fill up the middle and back of the rotation with competent homegrown guys for years to come.  Hopefully if the front office can stop needing to fill out the rotation in free agency they can get a couple top targets to build around.

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I don't have a problem with Gipson-long being left out of the top 30. There is a huge amount of mid-level talent in the Twins' system and it makes it hard to rank players. While the strikeout and walk numbers are very good, he gives up a ton of hits. The stats on batted balls is pretty sketchy from the minors, but it looks like he's a high ground ball rate pitcher which is nice. The ERA is suffering because of a high BABIP. That indicates one of two things. One, his stuff doesn't play and batters are barreling him up frequently or two, he's just been unlucky at every level so far.

Here's hoping the changeup turns into something nice for him and he's able to get some starts in without the red flag on the hits/BABIP.

Infield defenses in low A don't tend to be great at suppressing BABIP on ground balls

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

BABIP doesn't inflate because of errors. In A+ this year for the 165 pitchers with 50+ innings, the median BABIP is .305.

There are a lot of ways that inexperienced, stretched, or just bad defense can lead to guys getting on base without the official scorer handing out an error.

My only worry is that Sawer Gipson-Long and Simeon Woods-Richardson will consume a total of 3 lines on the 40-man roster.

On 8/31/2021 at 9:18 AM, Dodecahedron said:

G-L could be one of those guys who figures things out, but if that happens it will probably be as a very good reliever.

Waaaaaaay too early to jump to to a conclusion.  He is 23 and we lost  a season of development last year.  We have seen them add velo with other guys.  A couple MPH could make a big difference and this guy has the frame and athleticism.  Refining the changeup for a 3rd pitch would be big and he has plus control.  Let's not write the guy off top the BP just yet.  The negativity around here is a real downer.