Celebrity Weddings!

A spot on the hot sheet definitely deserves it. This looks like another first round pick that wont work out for the Twins.

I'm surprised at his GB% this season. When I saw him last week, Bowie had an impossible time elevating the ball against him. At the very least, it seems like a skill that's well in progress. He also sat 89-91 all game, so the reports of a well below average fastball seem a big exaggerated.

That's not true. Parmelee, Hicks, Revere, and Benson all had between 200 and 250 plate appearances in the year they were drafted. Buxton has 102 so far, but if it weren't for the hamstring tweak he'd probably end up in the same ballpark for plate appearances. Every one of those guys started the year after they were drafted in full season A-ball, with Benson and Parmelee actually getting to that level in the year they were drafted for about two weeks at the end of the season. Buxton is being set up for the same thing - a spring debut in full-season A ball.

Is this really that odd? Benson and Parmelee both saw time at Beloit in 2006. And Revere and Hicks both skipped E-Town so their lone assignment in the first season after being drafted was in Beloit. The group of high school pitchers is comparatively smaller, but Rainville and Swarzak actually logged substantial innings at Ft. Myers in the first year after their draft. Waldrop and Robertson both logged a lot of innings at Beloit in the year after their draft. It seems like the team has some varied approaches to the same end with 1/2 round positional HS talents: Get them in full season ball by the year after their draft. Both Buxton and Berrios are being positioned for that.

I saw him play against Bowie last week. He hit a long homerun to centerfield on a night when the ball wasn't carrying much. He clearly has some pop in his bat, but he hits right-handed and didn't strike me as a particularly strong defensive first baseman. Though, in fairness, the entire New Britain infield had a pretty awful night, even noted glovesmiths like James Beresford. Maybe it was the long busride.

I was at the New Britain vs. Bowie game. I drove out there to see the outfielders, so that was kind of disappointing. Arcia and Benson both worked walks, and Arcia ran down a couple of balls in the gap, looking rangier than I expected given that he's kind of a square gentleman. The pitching was impressive though. For whatever reason (I'm going to blame this board) I had expected weirdly below-average velocity for Hermsen, but that wasn't the case. It looked that way early as he worked slower in the first, but after that it was 89-91. Not terrific, but in the range of average. He's clearly really tough to elevate too. The New Britain infield wasn't doing him a lot of favors (the error total was, I believe, generous to the Rock Cats) but he kept getting grounder after grounder. It's not sexy, but it was kind of fun at the time. He didn't throw much breaking stuff though. I saw one excellent slider that struck out Manny Machado, and a couple pitches that came in around 84-85 that must have had some kind of a wrinkle because they sort of froze guys. Bruce Pugh, on the other hand, does throw pretty hard. He couldn't hold it for all three innings he worked, but he was 95-96 steady for awhile, with a good slider as well. I think he threw a couple changeups to righties too, which took me by surprise. All told, a fun night at the park. I was seriously hoping for fireworks from that outfield, but I'll settle for some more interesting pitching performances that I'd expected. This is unrelated to the Twins, but Manny Machado is a pretty good shortstop. When I hear writers say that scouts like "his motions" at short, it sounds like one of those contentless baseball expressions where they're replacing some kind of relatable meaning with jargon - but with Machado, I get it. He's really smooth, even on one absurdly terrible hop, he didn't look remotely put off.

J.O. Berrios seems totally unimpressed with these hitters he's facing.

I assume they just want Rosario to get re-familiarized with the pace of the game before he returns to a more challenging level? Because I don't think there's a set of rehab goals to prove that his face works.

Isn't AA where pitchers are supposed to start finding and exploiting those holes? Lefties don't have much difficulty with him, but I think Molitor's knock is a rather delightful bit of hype for whatever Arcia looks like when he's "ready".

Somebody else can verify that I'm not just imagining this, but I could have sworn there was something this winter (maybe BA's DSL top-10?) that indicated Jorge's fastball was already showing a bit more fast...ness.

A quick eyeball says all the XBH came against righties too. That's a big, fat day for Mr. Hicks.

Unless he's discovered the Oswaldo Arcia promotion cheat code: 1. get injured while you're hot 2. rehab well in front of the right people in Ft. Myers 3. Save the team the airfare

I'd be very careful about judging the work ethic of a nineteen year old who's being asked to balance some huge expectations with learning a new language and being dropped in the middle of Wisconsin because you saw a bunch of games in the bleachers and your brother caught him taking it easy on a hot day. If these young men were finished products, we wouldn't need an "On the Farm" board; we could just set our watches and wait. Additionally, for all the flaws, psychological and otherwise, that you've noted, he's having a pretty good season in a notoriously rough league for teenage hitters. I'd also be through the moon with Hanley Ramirez as an outcome."ent *edited for the source of his alleged entitledness

Nice night for Angel Mata. He's Verve's fellow, correct?

That's what I thought too, that he was still dealing with some of the (ankle?) injury stuff for awhile after signing and he went from zero pro experience to the FSL really quickly. Baseball is hard. He's drawing walks, still playing shortstop, and has shown a less-disastrous bat the past two months. Seems like an admirable response to an ambitious assignment.

Maybe Buxton can take Hicks' place as the prospect that Twins fans absolutely demand produces immediately and unequivocally. He can have a year where he does some surprising stuff and instead of being pleased we'll point out the stuff he still doesn't do well. Then he'll start to learn some of that stuff, but not learn it fast enough for our sake. Hicks has responded kind of impressively to this honor in his first AA season.

Buxton's on the board! Single, walk, and a caught stealing. Fun fact: professional baseball is pretty hard.

I'm with you. Though without pretending that it makes sense, Gardenhire's extreme antsiness with respect to having a catcher ready in case of emergency is probably the reason. Not a good one, but a reason?

I'm not really sure facing a lefty who throws 102mph and strikes out nearly half the batters he faces results in the sort of horrible-looking that can be fixed by coaching.