Thrylos

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- I had the opportunity to watch the Rochester Red Wings' last 3 games (the double header last night and this afternoon's game) in my back yard against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs over the weekend. My list of must dos were to see whether Alex Meyer was as good as he was this Spring, in real game situations and to see what Eduardo Nunez was all about. Happily to say, that I have done that and more and I am ready to share. Speaking about sharing, on the first leg of the doubleheader last night, the IronPigs wore their new bacon uniforms, so here is a shot of them. If you look closely, the bacon strip on the hat spells "IronPigs" in a Salvador Dali-like script. Back to the Twins: Little known fact, but Alex Meyer is doing a variety of resistance exercises on his shoulder for a good 20 minutes before he goes to the pen to warm up. I guess that loosens the shoulder In this game Meyer showed why he is the Twins' number 3 overall prospect and the Twins' top prospect who is playing the game right now. His Fastball sat all night between 94 and 96 mph, touching as high as 97 and as low as 92 on occasion, and was a ball that he threw all over the zone. Inside and out and up and down. If being a batter trying to catch up to a 97 mph inside FB after swinging at a 94 mph outside FB was not enough, Meyer's best pitch is not his fastball that has a wicked downward motion and it is very hard to lift. Arguably, his Fastball is his third best pitch. He is using his FB to set up a knee buckling high 70s curve (his best pitch by far) and a low to mid 80s changeup, with a tailing motion. These two are his out pitches. He also has a slurvy slider in mid to upper 80s, which is an average pitch at this point. So we are talking about a repertoire of 3 plus pitches (with at least the curve being plus plus) and an average and improving pitch. All a batter can do at this point is to put the bat down in the zone and pray that contact is made and there is a bloop or an error on the other end. And that was what happened yesterday. A couple of bloops, a couple of errors by Deibinson Romero and a couple of soft singles down the middle amidst a bunch of broken bats, soft grounders and strikeouts. Here are pictorials on the velocities that Meyer operates within (Radar readings upper right corner) : Those were: Fastball, Slider, Change up, Curve, Curve. And his fastest Fastball clocked at 97, while his slowest curveball at 78. This is a good 20 mph or so range and he held that range throughout the game. By far, he has the best stuff in the Twins' organization and definitely top of the rotation potential. Next: Eduardo Nunez.

Got to double check some of the other ones, but this is wrong. He is playing for the Reading Fightin Phils (sic) and that is in the Phillies organization, AA Eastern League.

If so, I hope it is with another team.

Oh yeah. I was at the doubleheader tonight. He has this habit of standing very close to the plate and at the second game, the pitchers were so mad at him that started throwing inside. All of his hits were really solid. Made a really boneheaded move (not sure if Glynn greenlighted him) to try to go to third on a ball that barely rolled off the catcher's mitt and was thrown out, but other than that, he was pretty solid today.

Yes. Rochester has Eric Farris and New Britain Cory Wimberly playing CF at the time being and I don't think that Mastro will get claimed if waived.

I will wait for a larger sample size in the majors before I could qualify that. Here are some facts: Fact #1: Gibson's career K/9 in the minors is 8.0 Fact #2: Roy Halladay's career K/9 in the majors was 6.9 and in the minors 5.9 Fact #3: Greg Maddux' career K/9 in the majors was 6.1 I suspect that nobody can argue that Halladay's and Maddux were not aces because of the low K/9. Arguably Gibson can have better K/9 than both of them. Can he be an ace in a world champion team? Likely not. I think that he will be a good #3 pitcher in a winning team, same way that (Hall of Famer) Tom Glavine was a good #3 pitcher in a winning team.

Nope. Rollins was a third baseman. The third baseman who made Killebrew move across the diamond. Not utility. Career 830 games at 3B and 27 in other positions

I was at the Red Wings double header tonight (and going tomorrow too) and Nunez looked good. He was at SS the first game and DH the second (flipped with Santana.) Here is the thing: With Nunez on board at AAA, either he or Santana will be the DH every day, which is not really optimal. Nunez was fine on the field (he even started a successful dp after he bobbled the ball) and good with the bat making solid contact. The HR was off Mike Nesseth who is actually a decent relief pitching prospect for the Phillies (and is from MN FWIW.) I think that Florimon is not a major league player at this point. He is at the Butera level... re this: The only ones with options on the list are Tonkin and Florimon. Hard to see them DFA Mastroianni because even Rochester does not have a CF. They are playing Farris there. Gets even worse: With Buxton out, New Britain has another veteran MiLB middle infielder (30 year old Cory Wimberly) play CF. You have to go to Fort Myers to find another Centerfielder in the Twins' organization. I don't think that Mastroianni is going anywhere. I think that the "DL" is the last nail in Bartlett's coffin. He cannot play. Done. Mastroianni will likely take his place, unless the Twins pick up another CF on waivers some place and Mastroianni can get waived and outrighted to Rochester. I agree that a reliever will go down for Arcia (I hope Fien or Thielbar) and likely Herrmann will go down for Willingham.

That will work.

I bet that Tonkin will not be in shape to play tomorrow, unless he is on his way already. All early flights from Lehigh Valley International are full and the earliest he can get to MSP is around 1:30 PM local via either Charlotte, NC or Atlanta. Other alternatives are early flights from either Philly or Newark and that means an early wake up call and 1.5 hr car ride to those airports. Was surprised to hear that he will be available tomorrow, based on the logistics out here...

After he gets blindfolded and tied onto a barber's chair for a good hour or two...

Not sure that Deduno has earned anything, but pretty sure that he was not the best Twins' SP last season (unless your measuring stick is ERA and W-L.) My biggest issues with him are durability and control. As far as this goes: I don't think that being "among the top 5 in terms of stuff" (and let's assume that this is correct), warrants a starting job. One can make the same argument about Glenn Perkins, based on "top 5 stuff" (and actually his FB and slider are better than Deduno's top 2 pitches...) But we know what Perkins did as a starter. And, frankly, if the Twins have to use another starter for some reason, I'd rather see either Meyer or May than Deduno.

Nolasco and Suzuki (as newly signed free agents) cannot be traded yet, for starters.

Not yet. I'd love to see an OPS around .775 + for at least one full season before they should commit.

Nope. That would be revisionist history. TK was the manager when the team kinda climbed off the dark hole of the 90s in 2001 with 85-77 and should be credited with the "turn around". Gardy inherited a winning team that he did not go far with it...

In the wrong way. All time low: 20,650 sold tickets. Let's see how many times it will be broken this season if things do not improve or if nobody is held accountable for this mess... Maybe the bottom line will do what the amassing losses did not make happen: Make the immovable objects move and have the ownership finally clean house of this mess...

Pelfrey and Nolasco and Hughes do not worry me much. Deduno and Fien and Thielbar and Burton do. Again, I think that the Twins should try to see how their investments will pan out with a different pitching coach before they do something silly, like what the did with Liriano...

With all this production and hype and celebration of #Gardy1K, I think that if the Twins were merciful they would give him the ax the day before he hits 1000 losses. He needs 46, so if the team plays .400 ball this would be in 77 games or so. Around after the All Star game. That works. #Gardy1K

At some point the real question should be 'how long Anderson's leash should be?" My answer is "shorter than Pelfrey's." (Or back to the original question, Pelfrey's leash should be longer than Anderson's.)

+1 but I suspect that MLB At Bat is good enough for that. I was wondering about the space considerations as well Schedule of Twins games Not the games themselves

Fort Myers has 3: Grimes, Turner and Rodriguez New Britain has 2.5: Koch, Knudson and Kvasnicka Rochester had 2.5: Fryer, Rohlfing and Herrmann The Twins now have 2.5. So more like the norm in the organization. They really like their Cs to get work in other positions as well...

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Reusse's piece was written the day that the Twins decided to celebrate their manager's personal achievement on the tail of 99, 96, and 96 loss seasons? Nothing like adding insult to injury... If the Twins' fans need a scapegoat or 2 about the lack of World Championships after 91 and the free fall the last 3 seasons, they should look at the dugout and at the suite where the front office sits. Mauer has been playing fine. He does not hit home runs. Would the people who criticize him, rather have Adam Dunn at 1B? I never remember Wade Boggs or Tony Gwynn, very similar hitters, get any grief for not hitting HRs.

Never said that. Matter of fact this is what I said about them defensively (from here) and talking about Escobar's best position (and that was before he got the SS Gold Glove in Venezuela; just ignore the Dozier bit for the sake of this argument) : Which basically is reciting facts. Did not say "Better" or "Worse", just compared facts as far as these 2 guys go. And my argument is that Escobar will be a better overall SS for the Twins than Florimon, because they are close on defense and Escobar is better with the bat already and has better potential.

Vielma's glove is already better than Florimon's. I kid you not.

In addition to the obvious fact that Sano was never drafted, the second sentence is 3/4 false as well. Polanco moved 100% to SS this season, resulting to Goodrum moving to 3B and Harrison to the OF, Santana will stay at SS and Nunez is too early to see yet. Add Cuddyer, Levi Michael and Tyler Grimes to the list of SS drafted by the Twins and moved positions...