Jim H

No, top prospects aren't treated that way and prospects who have a good chance to carve out a regular role aren't treated that way either. It is hard for anyone to go from playing everyday to playing very sporadically. That is what happened to Clemens for example. When he got regular playing time he went from being considered a AAAA player to a middle of the order bat. Now I agree, Fedco may be lucky to get any major league run whatsoever. Nevertheless you really can't tell much about whether he has a major league bat when a player is used that way. Especially on his very 1st major league call up.

In your 4th year as a professional, age to level is no longer much of a consideration. His numbers don't suggest he was dominating High A. Moving him to double A was probably necessary but I agree with several posters, playing him at SS 1/3 of the time makes little sense. That suggests he isn't good enough to be a full time shortstop. Take advantage of his athleticism and put him in centerfield. Hitting is what he needs to work on. Power isn't very useful if he can't get to it very often in games. One of the problems with drafting project high school kids is that they are still kinda young when you need to put them on the 40 man roster to protect them from rule 5. He needs to show before then that he is more than a utility player.

The Twins have indeed done similar things to young players before. Fedko was playing basically everyday at AAA, batting in the middle of the order. I expect that has been true his whole minor league career. He comes to the park, is in the lineup almost everyday, it makes no difference which hand the pitcher throws with. When he gets to the majors he sits on the bench till a lefthander starts, probably comes out the game if a right handed enters the game. He gets no ab's for 12 days. Wonder why he struggled? Now the problem is, that this is probably his role if he manages to carve out a major league career. He is not a top prospect, his skill set is a bit limited and there seems to be a lot of other higher rated prospects in the upper levels of the Twins system. Nevertheless this a tough way to treat a guy on his first look in the majors.

I hope the Twins keep Ryan mostly because he is fun to watch pitch. Also he he has stayed healthy which may be luck but could an efficient throwing motion and the fact he doesn't have to throw 100 % on every pitch to be effective. I expect he could be one of those pitchers who can continue to effective into his mid thirties. The Twins can certainly sign him either now or when he becomes a free agent if they are willing to pay him market rates. Since a salary floor seems pretty likely, I would like to see the money spent on a real star like Ryan. Because the money will be be spent somewhere, probably for aging non stars like they have been doing the last few years. Only at inflated rates because everybody will have to meet the salary floor. I don't know how close to truly competitive the Twins really are. I expect that depends on how good the near ready prospects turn out to be. Having an ace, maybe two if Lopez can come back to his former effectiveness, would go a long way to anchoring a competitive team.

I turned it over to the Cleveland broadcast. I like to know what is going on in the game I am watching, not what happened in the clubhouse 15 years ago.

I believe Bradley needs to continue to throw his fastball over 50% of the time. He needs to continue to work on his command. A well located upper 90's fastball is not easy to hit even for very good hitters. Also, as previously mentioned, breaking pitches work better when set up by fastballs. You can often get away with a poorly located breaking pitch or even one that doesn't break very well, if the batter has to look for the fastball.

I have wondered what the Twins were trying to accomplish with their deadline deals trading expiring contracts and their entire effective bullpen. They clearly added a couple lottery ticket low level catchers. That made some sense. Catching was/is an organizational weakness. They also acquired a whole pile of currently starting pitcher prospects. Mostly upper minors or limited majors exposure. This makes some sense. No organization has enough quality major league starters and dominate relievers are almost always former starters who fail to stick as major league starters. The biggest question was why did they prioritize adding 3 left-handed hitting corner outfielders Outman, Roden, and Mendez. This only makes sense if you think they can be better than what you already have in the majors or upper minors. If you never make room for these guys to play at the major league level, why did you make the trades? Even though Larnarch is playing well right now as platoon leftfielder and Wallner has a track record of some major league success, neither figures to have a real place in the future of the Twins. A rational observer has to wonder why they are still here. Is keeping them around worth some limited current value or some theoretical better future return?

I am rooting for Raya. I would rather see the young guys with live arms pitch than the rotating vets who don't have the stuff to succeed or have struggled with control for years. At least there is hope the young guys might improve. I also wish TD would drop the young for level excuse for poor performance. Mostly high school draftees were drafted because they exhibited superior talent and maturity at young age. They have also, along with young international talent, been held in the complex league until they dominate that level, where they are age appropriate. Injuries can be more of an excuse, but Raya has been a pro long enough that he had to be added to the 40 man. Age really shouldn't be a factor in whether he can succeed at higher minor league levels. Talent and the ability to adjust to better competition are bigger factors.

Its kind of hard to draw a lot of hard and fast conclusions from this. Since the best hitters on the team thru about the first 50 games were Buxton, Jeffers, and Martin, logic might suggest they should of been doing better against left handed pitching. Still the switch hitters, especially Lee, have been better against rh pitchers. Basically the offense has been so inconsistent from week to week and even game to game that I am not sure that the handness of the starting pitcher or which side of the plate the hitters are standing should be what the Twins should be concerned about. Contorting the lineup to gain a platoon advantage always seems counterproductive to me. Defense matters. If you are going to play Lewis at first, maybe you give him more than 1 game in the minors to learn the position. Maybe you just leave him at first for awhile instead of shifting him around to 2nd or 3rd to gain a marginal platoon advantage. Like you, I don't like deciding left handed hitters will always struggle against left handed pitchers, so you have to protect them from hitting against left handed pitching from the day they appear in the majors. I hope that when the well hyped young left handed hitting prospects finally appear in the majors, they get a real runway to show what the might do against all pitching.

Yes, this. Some of this is caused by all the injuries. Some it Is caused by the trade off of relievers last summer. Some it is likely the lack pitching talent in the system. But a lot it is the limitations imposed by the 26 man roster and 40 man. You can't carry enough pitchers on 40 man to cover all situations. Nobody wants to lose a real prospect. So this is what you get. This is bad for everybody. Players shouldn't be subject to the constant churn this is causing. Fans shouldn't have to watch a guy who right now might be the 40th best pitcher in the Twins system. I wish MLB would look at this a little more closely when they redo the CBA.

If the new CBA is going to include a salary floor or something equivalent, then why would you trade Ryan or Jeffers? You are going to have to spend money on somebody. Also whatever you get is not going to as good as those two, at least immediately. So how close to being truly competitive is this team? Is trading our best starter and maybe a near all star catcher going to postpone whatever competitive window the Twins might be approaching? I don't believe that any of the young starters you have named, have actually proved that they can remain in a major league rotation. Maybe one or two can a top of the rotation starter maybe not. Ryan is that. I hope they don't go to a six man rotation. All you are likely to accomplish is reduce the number of innings our best starters can cover in a season. I doubt that the reduction in workload will actually reduce injury. Having one more bottom of the rotation starter or more all reliever games doesn't seem like a benefit to me.

Earned runs can also be misleading going the other way. Often an infielder will bounce a throw to first. Usually if the throw is not caught by the first baseman the error is given to the infielder making the throw. Often, those throws are caught by good first basemen. The Twins have had either poor first basemen or inexperienced first basemen playing there a lot. So, that is another example of a play that could of been made and cost an out that may of led to a run.

Earned runs can be a bit misleading. Not every play that should have been made, is ruled an error. In a game where Clemens was playing CF he came up just short of catching the ball. A little faster player or probably a more experienced center fielder catches that ball. It was ruled a hit, rightly. But it would have an out if a better fielder had been playing the position. This isn't a knock on Clemens, but the Twins don't have a lot of good fielders. They also have been putting players in positions they have barely played before. A lot plays that should be made are not being made and not all them are ruled are ruled errors. Earned runs can be misleading.

An interesting set of numbers for me. Last spring for Alabama (2025) Quick pitched 62 innings in 14 starts. This year at 2 class A teams for the Twins, he has pitched 33 innings in 10 starts. Largely once a week, about 4 innings innings per start. I didn't look up pitch counts. Clearly, the Twins are trying to protect his arm. This leads me to several questions. Is he dealing with arm issues this year? If not, are they holding him back a bit for other reasons? This schedule would seem to suggest no chance to pitch in the majors this year? How do you get to preparing a pitcher for a major league starter's workload under a program like this?

Unless he really wants to be traded, trading him is likely a bad idea. Barring a bad injury, he should a productive player for years. It is usually a bad trade if the best player in a trade is the player you give up. Finally, fans don't usually like losing the face of franchise especially when there are few other reasons to be watching the team .

I don't know Keashall's future, but I hope they don't juggle him around like they seem to be doing with both him and Lewis. Keashall might have a future as regular 2nd baseman. He isn't good enough defensively to be a utility player, and while he could possibly be a corner outfielder or first baseman, I expect there will eventually better choices for those positions. So either the Twins should continue to play him almost everyday at 2nd base or option him back to AAA. Doing some sort of juggling act with him and Lewis is likely counter productive for both players.

Sorry for highjacking the thread. I just wonder sometimes how certain narratives get started and continue for years.

Oh I understand what you are saying, but 2 pts. Most players in power 5 conferences don't get drafted at all, so most of the the guys you you play against in college are clearly less talented then the guys in low A who have been drafted. Also the guys playing in the power 5 who opt to go college were most likely not considered top of the draft candidates or they would have been drafted and signed. If you are already top 20 player in the whole country, you have better chance of diminishing your draft stock in 3 years instead of enhancing it. Still , I have heard the claims about the SEC for years. I think that top level college players are polished and play an entertaining brand of baseball. I still think teams in low A full of players who have already played in those same power 5 conferences plus enhanced by international players who are the best of those signed 3 or 4 years earlier should be much more talented.

I wonder why people think that class A baseball is below the quality of baseball in the SEC. Everyone playing class A is one of the best college players selected from across the country, or one of very best high school kids who would of soon been dominating at college if he had gone to college, or international player who likely has been a pro for 3 or 4 years. The talent level is certainly higher in class A baseball even if the age level may not be.

I don't know if Wallner or Lewis have earned a return to the majors after a multi season stretch of not being very good. Most of the top prospects are injured or are deemed not quite ready for the majors. So, get him back to the majors, give both him and Lewis another chance to prove the belong in the majors. They haven't really earned a long runway, so if they don't perform like the middle of order bats they are supposed to be, I would like to see any of the top prospects that are earning an opportunity.

To answer your title question. It is pretty much the same reason Bell is playing everyday, Outman is still on the team, Lewis and Wallner playing nearly everyday for 2 months, Caratini played nearly everyday for a month, and now we have 3 utility infielders getting lots of playing. Roster construction, injuries, and not ready for prime time prospects have left few other choices. For what it is worth, I believe they should be playing Keashall everyday at 2nd base. Maybe eventually there will be a better choice, but for right now they need to find out what they got in Keashall. I don't think they should change his position either. 2nd should be his best fit skill wise.

Wallner seems to me to be the kind of player that is often overvalued. He reminds of the Dave Kingman or Joey Gallo type player. If you give them enough at bats, they will hit a significant number of home runs. Even major league pitchers make enough mistakes that players like this will get their opportunity to hit homers. They also miss a lot of their homer opportunities as well, when their timing is off, they're expanding the zone, etc. Guys like tis are generally very inconsistent even if they have good strike zone recognition. The reason that I feel this type of hitter is overvalued is that many of the most used stats including OPS, overvalue home runs in comparison to other hits. While I could write a whole post about why I believe that, I won't do that here. The real problem with a Dave Kingman type hitter is that when ou take out the games where they hit 1 or more home runs their contributions in all the other games is at best right around replacement level. You have a lot of games where they contribute basically nothing to potentially winning a game, especially if they are poor defensively. The best hitters in baseball combine power with hitting for average, and often add in a lot of walks as well. Most major leaguers can't really do all three at elite levels, so they lean into one side or the other, perhaps managing both power and average during their peak years. A good example is Kirby Puckett who came to the majors as a contact hitter, added in power for a number of years and was trending back to a contact hitter wen he had to retire. I tend to believe contact hitters are a bit more consistent and probably more valuable than most low average power hitters unless the power numbers are quite high. I could of course be wrong.

Well written post. Your no.2 is spot on. The eye test seems to say there is no real consistency with this team.I feel like there are too many boom or bust guys on this roster, too many platoon, guys, and not enough real hitting talent. It doesn't help that some of the guys who were expected to be at least big league everyday regulars, are not and may never be.

Calling Ryan "a major success of the Twins developmental process" is a it a bit of a stretch. He spent no time in the Twins minor league system and was an effective major league starting pitcher immediately when he joined the Twins. Lets settle for helping him refine his processes. As for the actual story, it is certainly possible the coaches got a little too cute with their adjustments. Ryan's stuff and command is good enough that even when a hitter is looking for a particular pitch he is usually difficult to hit. Major adjustments probably not necessary.

What i noticed from this list is that except for Paredes, every pitcher averaged less than 4 innings a week. Doesn't seem to matter age or level. Development is sure different from when I started following the Twins minor league teams years ago.