Brandon

Andy MacPhail, a former Twins GM who helped construct the 87 and 91 World Series Teams once said his goal was to promote 2-3 players per season up to the majors to fill roles on the team. A good farm system can do that. So, with that in mind let’s review the previous drafts in the Falvey era, not to grade them but to see how Falvey. Levine and company are doing in developing 2-3 starters/ regulars (or really players who can stay on the roster all year including bench and relievers) a year. Below the starters I will include several who at least played a role of some kind and list if anyone else still has a chance to make it to the show. Let me know if I forget someone. I am not the draft hound as others here. 2017: was their first draft year and the players who are starters include: 3B Royce Lewis OF/DH Brent Rooker SP Bailey Ober And that is pretty much it. There are others who may still make it up for a role including Blaine Enlow, Mark Contreras, Calvin Faucher is with the Rays, and maybe Andrew Bechtold This draft is a success as Ober and Lewis are a big part of the team now and moving forward. 2018: has many potential role players or players who can carve out niches but there are some who start for the Twins and others who contribute. C Ryan Jeffers OF Trevor Larnarch RP Cole Sands RP Josh Winder RP Kody Funderburk The jury is still out on Larnarch. Cole Sands and Josh Winder are likely to be 7th and 8th man on relief pitching with the potential to get better. Kody Funderburk is just getting started but is off to a nice start and looks promising. In terms of others who may make it up at some point include DaShawn Keirsey Jr., Chris Williams, Austin Schulfer This draft needs a little more time to be judged. Jeffers is a starter and Larnarch should be. If Kody Funderburk becomes a solid reliever and we get some innings 20-50 from Winder and Sands in the pen in each of the next 2 seasons I would rate this draft as solid. 2019: we had the misfortune of drafting Keoni Cavaco in the first round which set the draft performance back quite a bit. But it looks like we still did well in this draft. Matt Wallner (also drafted by the Twins in 32nd round in 2016) Spencer Steer Eduouard Julien Louie Varland Inn addition to these guys Casey Legumina who we trade to the Reds for Farmer, Sawyer Gibson-Long who we traded to Detroit for Fulmer just made his major league debut and Brent Headrick pitched over 20 innings up here this season and is on the shuttle with Josh Winder and Cole Sands as the 7th and 8th relievers Alex Isola is a solid hitting C prospect in AA and Matt Canterino is a top pitching prospect who is injured. I gotta say this was a great draft for them. 2020: was a lost season and while we only drafted 5 players, we do have 3 prospects from this draft. Alerick Soularie in AA, Kala’I Rosario in A+, and Marco Raya. I would rate this draft a success if one player makes it up and is a starter. The best bet is Raya if he can stay healthy. 2021: We traded our first 4 picks from the 2021 draft to be more competitive last year. Petty for Sonny Gray, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Steve Hajjar were included in the trade for Mahle, and Cade Povich was included in the trade for Lopez from Baltimore. Festa is in AAA and is getting close to an opportunity at some point next season. Christina Strand is now up with Cincinnati, Povich was in AA with a high strikeout rate. Jaylin Nolin is a top prospect and Noah Miller is already a major league ready defensive specialist if he can learn to hit at all so he can at least be a solid bench player. I would say there are lots of depth players in this draft outside of Encarnacion-Strand if we get a few of them to contribute this can be a good draft. 2022: is too early to grade as is 2023 but there are many prospects from the 2022 draft who did well in their first full minor league season including Brooks Lee who made it to AAA and Tanner Schobel in AA. And the Twins were voted as having one of the top three drafts in terms of talent acquired in the draft in 2023. Overall, the Twins have consistently done a good job of developing players for the major leagues under Falvey. I think the surprise is that they have not drafted and developed very much pitching, but have drafted many good hitters, who they developed for the lineup or trade. I do see many promising starting pitchers down in A and A+ ball so it will be fun to see how that translates as they pitch at more advanced levels next year and so on. I would rate the 2017 draft, 2019 draft, with 2022 and 2023 drafts looking to join them as the most successful and the 2018 draft is on the cusp. 2020 is an incomplete as COVID torpedoed the season. The success of the 2021 draft will be determined by players no longer in the organization. Do you feel like the Twins in the Falvey era are succeeding in drafting and developing players to contribute at the major leagues?

Rocco is channeling his inner Jim Dwyer. (Former Twin who was at one point all time pinch hitter with the most hits as a pinch hitter).

There are 13 games left. So if he could get 65 AB with 9 XBH and 15 RBI with a few other counting stats or something close to this I can see him being runner up . Being in the headlines often is the key for his chances. But I think he would still be 2nd to Gunnar Henderson. Boston’s 1B is out the rest of the season. Diaz doesn’t walk but has a shiny 20+ HR, and Jung does as well. maybe 2 or 3 more grand slams will make the difference. But I think he would need close to 400 AB to be in serious contention for the award. This is a decent rookie class. I like Julien’s chances better with a good hot streak to close out the season. I. Terms of getting 2nd place not first.

So far 2019 draft class is their best draft. I’ll say more soon.

I do like how our bullpen is shaping up. I still want to see 3 or 4 more appearances from Varland out of the pen which he should easily get before the playoffs. and I am rooting for Paddack and Brock to be ready for the playoffs bullpen too.

You forgot Headrick. Sands, Winder, Balazovich, and Headrick…..

Theilbar seems to have plenty left in the tank. I wonder if the Twins sign him to a 2 year deal or possibly three year deal this offseason. If he just added velocity he will probably be fine at age 40. 2 year 8 million with 1 million buyout on a 3rd season at 4 million . I imagine Theilbar leaves a little money on the table in exchange for more certainty that he finishes his career in Minnesota. So a 15 team no trade clause or even a full no trade clause.

Maybe we should just bench LEwis and wait for the bases to get loaded so he can pinch hit every night at least one time with the bases loaded. At 4 per 11 times up with bases loaded that equates to 58.9 grand slams per 162 games. Talk about fun with numbers… 232-236 RBI….

The 2023 Twins team is 2nd in the league and 1 HR shy of Tampa who leads the AL in HRS. THe Twins have 210 Hrs to Tampa's 211. The Twins top HR hitter is ranked tied for 27th in the league with 22 HRs which is half of what the league leader Ohtani (44) has by himself. Also, the Twins have 11 players with 10 or more HRs with Killeroff at 8 and Castro at 7. The Twins also have 3 with 20 HRs with Correa at 18 and Buxton at 17.

I will go with scooby do for dress up day. and Headrick is on the reliever usage chart twice. Bombs, rookies, wins against the white Sox, and rock and roll!

If we kept Arreaz, we probably don’t sign Solano. He has a similar on base percentage that 2022 Arreaz had here. Lopez is a down ballot CY Young caliber player this year. It’s not usually good business to trade a fan favorite player who is not an impending free agent. Fans don’t like losing players they are vested in. But I think this is an even swap for both clubs. At this point the Twins get the edge because of the team friendly extension Lopez signed. We probably saved 5-7 million a season after the season he is having now. It would be cool to see one of the 2 prospects we received do anything in the show to give us a bigger edge.

I’m going to answer this question with a definite maybe 🤔

Velazquez has been hitting better since the All Star break. Closer to the .680 OPS range which is close to his career average. Also I can see why his numbers are down this year as he is seeing more RHP this year and fewer LHP which is probably why he is getting the pinch AB. Jeffers numbers are also likely better cause he is facing more of the lefties in the C platoon of 2 RH C.

It’s not just health but for the players coming back need to get in a rhythm and we want to see them play at a high level. Buxton had a cortisone shot and we will see how that helps him manage the pain in his knee so he can play. If it works he will be out there if not he won’t. Taylor will be easily ready for the playoffs. The Twins are just going slow with him as they are being more playoff focused than regular season. He could be ready in short order if needed. Brock and Paddack are the ones we really want to make sure they are ready for the playoffs. Hopefully Brock can keep pitching like before his injury and hopefully he gets into 2 or 3 regular season games before the season ends.. Same with Paddack.

I think this year is give him opportunities in low level situations while he adjusts to the majors. Next season he should be more comfortable up here so he can focu more on the lefty on lefty matchups.

This is what I’m thinking. Let Larnarch and Wallner compete for the spot next spring but the competition should go on all season in case one of them has a huge slump in the majors. The other OF gets a chance if earned. Maybe Lee can play LF instead.

The Twins just needed tweaks at the deadline. 1. To eke out every win possible because Cleveland was still in the race and 2. To make us stronger in the postseason. We need a reliever and RH hitting OF that is way better than Luplow. We ended up fine for the season as we close in on the division title. But having the two spots filled makes us stronger going into the playoffs. We didn’t do this. Seeing how we made so many other improvements especially on offense. It still stings that we didn’t address those two things because we are still lacking better talent in these two areas and we are now built for post season success and the 2 runs saved that a skilled reliever saves or the hit the bat we should have acquired would have made could be the difference in an extra win or loss in the postseason. Or not as we are talking about complimentary players. I think improving around the edges can be big. See Don Baylor for a good example.

The Twins are playing bottom level teams the rest of the season. They will end up with 86-88 wins on the season.

We didn’t need to do much at the trade deadline to begin with. All we as fans were asking for was a competent RH hitting OF and a reliever. We are probably fine without the reliever but you can never have too much pitching and we can still use a good RH hitting OF. I’m not too disappointed because the asks were small but we should have done something. Also Baltimore’s rotation is shaping up nicely going into the playoffs. They got their top pitcher back from TJ today. He is a solid 2-3 starter. Grayson has a 2.95 ERA his last 10 starts after a forgettable first 10 starts. Bradish has been solid all season with a sub 4 ERA. Not quite as good as our but our offense is not as good as theirs either.

Of course you keep Polanco. This isn’t a hard decision. If you can trade him for a number 3 type starter with a few seasons of control then of course move on but Polanco can be the player who moves around the Diamond and we will be glad he is here if someone gets hurt. There is no bad 1 year contracts. He costa 1/15 of the budget. I don’t think we have too many arbitration raises to worry about. If we do then we can trade Farmer whose bat is not near as good and will cost almost as much. We should keep Solano if we can give him many days at DH, something like 60-90 games. Polanco should only need to DH 20-30 games. Julien will need the same 20-30. 10 for Killeroff, 5-10 for Correa, and 5-10 for Lewis. Others should get a few games in there and I hope to see Miranda again when his shoulder is healed and he gets his swing back. At the rate we are going we will be opposing a second baseman we developed every other series soon…..Steer, Polanco, Probably Austin Martin, Severino, Tanner Schoebal, Luke Keaschall….. I almost forgot to mention the total HR count from the Twins 2009 international class (Sano, Kepler and Polanco). Their total is currently in the low 420’s but it would be nice to see Kepler and Polanco get more of their HRs here to see that number cross 500 or even 600 before moving on to other teams.

I guess he will need 2-3 more rehab appearances and 2-3 appearances in the majors before we can make a fair decision if he can handle pitching in the playoffs. We should know this by the last day of the regular season if we are lucky.

And the wild card is if the Twins decide to promote Lee for the playoffs. I doubt it. But it has happened before.

Testa won’t or shouldn’t be in the starting rotation averaging 4 innings a start. Could he be a multi-inning reliever for bulk innings? Todays game didn’t help the offense either. 0 runs. Though Lopez had a great day pitching 8 scoreless innings with 14 strikeouts.

To make this article better consider using situational stats like how many plate appearances he has with a runner on First. And compare that to years past.

The answer is clearly to replace Stevenson. But that won't happen for a week or two, so he does have time to make the decision more interesting. I don't know if Gordon has enough time to show he is good enough for the post season. Although he and Castro make good pinch runners in a playoff game if the pitchers are reduced to 11 or 12 for the series but so is Stevenson. Luplow is expendable and Gallo should be DFA'd. I guess this is for the appearance that may appeal to other free agents who may want to sign here which could be why he hasn't been DFA'd or that he can be used defensively in the OF and 1B or as a favor to Boras who we seem to be together at the hip all of a sudden. (We do lots of favors for Boras. Keuchel and Gallo.....)