JosiahDeBoer

Nothing too surprising. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see Headrick, Canterino and SWR all get some innings with the Twins this year but none ever had a real shot at breaking camp with the team. Lets see how they play over the next few months with St Paul to see if/when they'll get their shot!

Alex Fast on twitter also pointed out that Paddack's curveball looks a bit different than it did last year - he's messing with two pitches right now. (Curveball has a slightly different shape and was clocking in ~3 mph faster than last year)

Powerful, Cody. Thank you for sharing.

I'd really really like Jose Miranda to make the OD roster. If he's back to his 2022 self, this lineup gets a lot scarier and a lot deeper. That's not to say that if he doesn't make it, I'll think its the wrong decision, but just that if he plays himself into a roster spot, that really matters.

Super young pitchers without a third pitch are super high risk. I get that. That said, everything I've seen here looks great. Excited about Bowen's potential.

I'm actually kind of skeptical of pitching signings here. There's a handful of IFA pitchers that worked out (eg Mariano Rivera) but the hit rate is so low on those, even compared to the low hit rate on the batters. I'm cool with signing a bunch of pitchers in the 50k-200k range, but if the Twins start devoting the majority of their IFA resources to pitching, I'll have serious concerns. It's just really hard to project a 16 year old pitcher.

Aside from Cavaco and Holland, everyone either didn't play much or performed at an encouraging level last year. As you mentioned, Cavaco probably gets a pass for year one, so we can't even read much into that performance. Overall, I'm excited about that draft class

If you wanted to speak out about the cost of silence then by all means, go ahead. Its an important discussion to be having and your site is a viable place to have that discussion. But don't bring Kepler into this: he's not American, he wasn't trying to make a racially charged statement, and posts on social media are far from the most effective way to make a difference anyways. We should use this opportunity to make a difference ourselves: protest together and then return the next day to help clean up. So many of us focus on making this a politics issue where we have to chose a side and be divisive when we can acknowledge Floyd's murder, and protest against police violence while also not needlessly alienating others. I appreciate the desire to write on this topic: its important! But this was a poor way to do so.

Last year only one player in the top 30 in batting wins above replacement featured a strikeout rate above 27% (Eugenio Suarez, of the Reds.) This makes me think that, since sustained elite play doesn't seem feasible with a strikeout rate above that range, that is what Sano needs to reach if he were to ever become elite. A high strikeout rate wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but as long as that rate is sizeably above that 27% line, it will concern me.

Last year we had one of the best backup catchers in the majors. This year, Avila, while capable, is not special. Garver will catch 75-80% of games this year, and would likely do that in the future as well. (For reference that's 120-130 games over a full year, probably with another 15-20 at 1B and/or DH)