Sielk

The 2022 international class looks absolutely amazing right now. Yasser Mercedes, José Rodríguez, Bryan Acuña, Anderson Nova and Harold Grant who wasn't even mentioned in this article. That's five players who look like they could become legit prospects! Obviously it remains to be seen if those guys can translate their success to the US. But no one could have asked for a better start, that's for sure. I wonder if the Twins will allow some of them to skip the FCL and immediately start playing in Low A next spring? Provided they look the part, of course.

They were for Native American Heritage Night.

A lot of money saving going on today. In a vacuum today's picks would sound rather uninspiring to me but that's the price of going for two highly regarded guys early. I'm really looking forward to what the Twins do tomorrow, though. Seems like they saved money with almost every pick today. I hope they grab one or two of those falling HS pitchers that they could try to sign if they end up having some money left.

Agreed. The longer I watch different shortstops, the more I've come to the conclusion that a strong, accurate arm is really the most important tool for a SS. Sure, good hands and speed help a lot. But a good arm allows you to play deeper and take your time on a play. It can just erase so many deficiencies a SS may otherwise have.

I assume they had to go under slot here to afford Lee and Prielipp. Don't dislike Schobel, even if I'm not excited either. But after nailing the first two picks this is hardly a make-or-break pick anyway.

You gotta be kidding me. The Twins have three picks today and there is a commercial break directly before each of them? Do they want to torture Twins fans?

Honestly, that was my first reaction, too. Sigh of relief. Now please don't screw this up.

But I think that scenario was most likely with Green, and he is off the board now. I think it's likelier that the Twins just pick who is left between Lee, Parada and Collier. It will get interesting if more than one of them is there.

Wow, and now the draft is going crazy. Also guarantees one of the "top 7" being there for the Twins, if they want.

True, but the Twins have been quite successful lately turning questionable defensive catchers into at least average ones. I'm not that worried about it, at least not to the point where I would pass on him if he's there at 8.

Glad I could help. Not all teams have the same amount of bonus money available, though. If you have the first pick in every round, the sum of your slot bonuses is way higher than the team picking 30th in every round. That, of course, equals to better prospects for the bad teams. Here is a list of the bonus pools and individual slot amounts, if you're interested.

I'll try to explain... Somewhat similar to, say, football each pick in the MLB draft is assigned a certain signing bonus. But unlike football, a player drafted with that pick doesn't automatically get that signing bonus. Instead the slot amounts of all the picks a team has in the first 10 rounds are added up together and then can be distributed among the drafted players however the team sees fit. Very simplified example: It's important to understand that teams usually negotiate signing bonuses with players before they draft them, not the other way around. So, let's say our team has three picks with the slot values $3M, $2M and $1M, meaning they can spend $6M in signing bonuses total on their draft class. Of course they could just hand it out like that. But maybe don't like the consensus top players for their first pick and draft someone lower on the board who they found out is willing to sign for only $2M. They now have $4M for their other two picks. Meanwhile, there are always some players in every draft who fall because no team is willing to meet their asking price. Often HS players who have the leverage that they can just decline and go to college. Since we "saved" money with our first pick, we now have more left than most other teams, $4M, and can just go to one of those should-have-been first-rounders in the second round and throw first-round money (e.g. $3M) at them. So, to sum up, instead of getting a first and a second, we ended up with a slightly worse first-rounder and another guy that should've been a late first. It's basically baseball's version of a trade down, except that the actual picks are never traded. Like with the Mets, it can work the other way, too. Maybe in my example the team really likes a player expected to go before they pick. So they go to that player and offer him $4M to sign. If that player then communicates to the other team that he won't sign for less than $4M and no one else is willing to give that to him, they might let this player slide right to our team. Of course, that also leaves only $2M for the other picks, meaning that we'll have to use our second-rounder on a player that's not really worthy of a second-round pick but doesn't have better offers from other teams. That scenario would basically be a trade up. I hope that helps a bit? I agree, the MLB draft can be confusing to watch, especially because fans don't know those prenegotiated deals until the players actually sign a month or so later.

I commented something very similar under yesterday's minor league report. To see so much power with a kid that just turned 17 is remarkable. Would be great if the Twins really hit it out of the park with one (or more) of these international signings. But I have to say, this year's class has mostly gotten of to a good start in general. When I glimpsed at the DSL box score last year, there were a lot of kids with an OPS around .500 or .600. This year there are several who are playing really well. I'm also intrigued by Yasser Mercedes who seems to play a pretty good all around game. He hit his first pro homer today. Let's hope it continues!

Great report, as always. What do you know about José Rodríguez? I feel like I notice him in the box score every game. I mean, it's only 23 games in the DSL and you don't want to overreact to that. But he is also one of the younger players of the most recent class (born June 2005, just turned 17) and that's quite a start he has had, especially since so many international players seem to struggle in their first taste of pro ball. In those 23 games he's a decent AVG and OBP and six homers, which seems like remarkable power for a kid that young. K% is also reasonable. Maybe someone to keep an eye on? Meanwhile, at AAA... Is Ronny Henríquez finally turning a corner? That would be such a positive development after he and Balazovic got absolutely destroyed in every start for most of the season so far (and for Balazovic that's still true, unfortunately). Fingers crossed!

It's disappointing to me that some players put themselves before the team's success because they don't want to take a vaccine that millions of people worldwide have taken largely without issues and that many people are actually required to take for their jobs. Kepler's rather tone-deaf statement doesn't make it better. If you aren't getting vaccinated, at least own it instead of making excuses and acting like a victim. On a positive note, I am happy for Ian Hamilton that he finally gets his chance after seemingly every other reliever in St. Paul got a call up before he did. Maybe he can do well enough to show that he can help the Twins this season. He sure has the stuff to do it.