jmlease1

Kepler should be looking over his shoulder right now. Wade is coming for him, Rooker is coming for him and Kirilloff is coming for him. and kepler has hit like a 4th OF this year. Kirilloff looks great, no problems adjusting to High A so far, which is great to see. lewis seems to be managing the adjustment fine too.

I'm a little surprised my candidate didn't get discussed: Max Kepler. Kepler doesn't have the excuse of injury to explain his struggles, and simply has not taken that step forward we were looking for. he had a hot start in Mar/April, struggled in May, was a disaster in June and has had a good start to July. But right now he's nowhere near the hitter we were hoping for and his abysmal BA and lack of power so far is making him look much more like a 4th OF than a guy who can be a staple in the OF for the next 5 years. Morrison has been unlucky and bad, but I didn't expect as much out of him: his signing always felt like a "well, this guy is out there for cheap, why not add the bat?" rather than a "we're counting on Logan Morrison". Buxton and sano have had injuries which is a shame, but...it happens. yes, neither has hit like we need when in the lineup, but I might actually be more concerned about the guy who is healthy and isn't hitting than the guys who haven't had that same health. I'm not giving up on Kepler, but he faded badly last season and has had a poor first half. He needs to start mashing RHP or instead of holding down RF as a mainstay he's going to be fighting with Lamonte Wade for the 4th OF job, and that's a waste of talent.

I assume Romero is being treated as if he's on the current MLB roster, and Nick intentionally left all of them out. but I'm still not seeing Felix Jorge as the 5th starter even on this squad over someone like Thorpe or even Kohl Stewart. Catcher and 3B are the thinnest spots in the minor league development pipeline, but there's been some effort to start working on that area. But it's definitely an area of weakness unless Sano can get it figured out or Escobar lands there permanently for a few years at 3B and catcher doesn't have guys that are likely close. I like Rortvedt, but he's still not there yet. But that does happen in every system, and I'd rather be flush with guys that can play up the middle.

Really interesting group of prospects here, and a good sign for the Twins system that these are all guys that are projectable as MLB players yet sit outside the top 10. Wade is a really fascinating case. BA is actually becoming an underrated tool in MLB these days, so if Wade can continue to get on base and slap singles all over the park he could be a real asset for the team. Hitting for power is an extremely valuable thing for a hitter, but when your lineup is filled with guys who are clocking in a BA under .250 and there are Ks everywhere, there's increased value in finding guys who can score hits and make contact consistent. It will be interesting to see if Wade can be one of those guys. Rortvedt is progressing pretty nicely, only wish it could be faster. Good catchers who can add offensive value are few and far between. you could argue he deserves a bit higher ranking than this based on his lack of drop in hitting upon moving up a level. He's a young guy doing well in a tough environment. At a certain point, Thorpe is going to have to have the results back up the peripherals, but he had a big injury and tougher recovery, so I think it's ok to be a little more patient on him and rank off potential still. If he finishes the year healthy, no scholarship next year. right? Kind of a fun group of prospects here, breakout potential balanced with decent odds most of them never accomplish much in MLB. Will be fun to see if they can keep progressing and put it all together

1. ok, if moving out Doug Mientkiewitz is a significant factor in the collapse of some of the younger players on this squad, those guys are in deep trouble. If guys like kepler, buxton, and sano are so disturbed by their former minor league manager is no longer with the franchise (even though he hadn't been their coach in multiple seasons), you have to wonder about their mental toughness. Or, maybe this is a complete non-factor that doesn't even get brought up unless someone is looking to manufacture evidence against the FO. 2. You're really dropping a lot on the intangibles side of things here. Dozier wasn't looking for a team-friendly extension after last season. Dude wanted to get paid (and looked like he might be worth it). He's followed it up with a pretty miserable season in which he's cost himself somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-50M. If his attitude after seeing his hopes of a 5 year $100M contract go up in smoke has infected the team and dragged them down...that's on him, and on Molitor for not dealing with it. This has been a frustrating season because so many things looked like they were lining up. The signings looked like they had shored up some weaknesses, we had some young guys who looked ready to take the next step...and then things started going haywire. Polanco was supposed to be a key member of this team, and got suspended. hard to blame the FO for that. Santana was supposed to be the veteran leader of the staff and still hasn't pitched. hard to blame the FO for that either. castro was supposed to guide the younger pitchers and got wiped out by the knee injury. Buxton has been hurt and bad. sano has been hurt and bad. kepler had a hot start and then fell off the face of the earth. Dozier has been way, way down. That's a lot of guys who were supposed to get a lot of run for this team in key roles that have either gotten hurt, sucked, or both. The Logan Morrison signing hasn't worked out, but it was a cheap 1 year deal. I blame them FO a bit for not moving on from Robbie Grossman, a marginal player who adds zero defensively and isn't much of an offensive player either; this year he's unsurprisingly been bad and there were other options. but your 4th OF/occasional DH shouldn't make or break you. Hughes I think everybody knew wasn't likely to go, but when Ervin went down it was hard to blame the FO for at least trying to recoup some of the sunk costs on that guy. It didn't work and they moved on. Again, though: hughes was looked at as a 5th starter, if he could get it together. Lance Lynn and Odorizzi have been respectable; imagine what happens if we don't go get them and Ervin goes down? It's been a mixed bag for the FO so far. The biggest questions are in player development because we need young players to develop to their potential and right now we're seeing some big failures. How much of that is on the current FO is a little hard to say just yet. Their free agent moves haven't all worked out, but they've made sense and haven't hamstrung the team's future.

Granite is having a bit of a lost season; with Cave on the roster and Buxton coming back it's hard to see him getting anything more than september callup this year. I was hoping he could be that high-average, high OBP plus defender guy that could make it easy for the Twins to move on from Grossman and slot him in as a 4th OF. Right now, hitting for average is an increasingly absent skill, and I suspect it's an undervalued one as well. Hopefully, the injury has only delayed Granite's evolution. Curtiss looks like another one of those fungible relievers that's good to have in your system but you shouldn't ever spend real money on. I suspect he'll eventually stick on the MLB roster and then have a really nice season that will sucker someone into giving him a multi-year deal. but maybe not. The walks might limit his effectiveness as a fireman, but it's always good to have relievers of his capacity waiting in AAA.

Kirilloff seems to be adapting to high-A just fine...would like to see Royce Lewis get the same kind of opportunity this year, but maybe the minor knee trouble has the Twins thinking they don't want him to try to press with a new level while he works through it?

He's been better than I had expected. I was always sort of "whatever" on the acquisition in the offseason, because I think the role of "closer" is super overrated and vastly overpaid. If it meant that better relievers got to pitch more in higher leverage situations rather than be held out to come in to finish the 9th inning, good. I figured if rodney was cooked, he'd be easy to walk away from. Turns out, he seems to have plenty in the tank! Good for him. Looks like a very good signing. It'll be even better if he can teach his changeup to Romero...

Berrios is looking like the ace we've all been hoping for. He's having a great run right now and it's not based on smoke & mirrors. He's 5th in WHIP, 8th in pitching bWAR, 10th in FIP in the AL. The innings are good, great to see him get at least 6 innings in the last 8 starts. In those starts he's only given up more than runs once. He's had at least 10 Ks three times. Game score over 70 4 times. That's a guy that can lead your staff. Plus, he's FUN to watch. when that curve is bending and he's hitting his spots...watching guys flail away at it is just a blast.

It depends on what he does when he goes back to AAA. One of the reasons he's scrabbling right now is MLB hitters are figuring him out a little now that there's enough innings to have a book on him, and he needs to understand that he can't just gas it out and expect to overwhelm guys. He's got to refine his command and control, and dropping back to AAA is a perfectly reasonable place to do it. Meija deserves a shot again as well and has been excellent in AAA. Remember they did this with Berrios and things seem to have worked out just fine there. Just because a guy doesn't have anything more to prove against AAA competition doesn't mean they can't use the opportunity to figure out things they need to do to have success in MLB. More good news on Kirilloff, hope he continues to rake in high A. I don't understand the thought that the Twins are somehow the wrong team to develop him; his development looks to be right on track and going very well. The only hiccup he's had so far is a significant injury that had really nothing to do with the Twins, and he's rebounded about as well as any human could ask for. Just because Buxton has struggled to hit consistently in MLB doesn't mean they're somehow incapable of handling Kirilloff, who has an advanced approach at the plate and an excellent hit tool.

congrats to Kirilloff on the promotion, it's well deserved. Should be fun to see how he does hitting in high A for the rest of the year; if he keeps on rolling that's a really good sign. He's still really young, so it's nice to see him bump up a level. I wonder if the tender knee is a reason they're not moving Royce Lewis up right now? Maybe they just want to him play through it and have concerns that he'll overstress things pushing too hard at a new level? On performance, he's earned it. Really pleased with Rortvedt's development this year. He's taken a nice step forward, showing a much improved hit tool. He's a guy I'm really curious to see if he can develop into a guy that could be a quality starting MLB catcher. still a lot of work to be done, but I'm rooting for the guy.

Agreed. For the first time in a long time the twins have guys from 1-5 that give them a chance every night, and there's depth in the high minors (and with pending rehabs) that aren't low-impact flyers you hope can survive through anonymity for a few weeks. Having that level of depth gives you a lot of flexibility. Odorizzi has stumbled a bit lately, but he's been a solid veteran. When Ervin gets back they'll have some decisions to make, but they'll also have options.

Your scenario works when you're only talking about one game and assuming no other impacts from other players. Over the course of a season, avoiding making outs is a more important individual skill for scoring runs than hitting for power. The same thinking applies to the cliche of "a walk is as good as a hit". In isolation, that's true: both have avoided spending an out. But a hit, even a single, is more valuable than a walk because of all the other things that can happen because of it (driving in a run, creating the possibility of a fielding error, creating the possibility of a throwing error, advancing a runner an extra base, etc).

You are correct, sir! I think what we're seeing is why we not only signed him this season but tried to get him to commit to a multi-year deal (2, as I recall). If you've got a guy like Lance Lynn as your 3rd or 4th starter, your rotation is probably in pretty decent shape. It's going to be an interesting call on whether to move him at the deadline (there's no question he'll have value, but how much?) or whether you try to re-sign him in the offseason (not mutually exclusive, of course but I suspect it'd be much easier to get him to come back if we don't rent him out to someone else for most of the second half). Bad start, but he's still a solid pitcher. He's going better than Romero or Odorizzi over the last month. It's nice to see him start getting consistently into the 6th inning

A little crow, but still not quite ready to declare him finally the pitcher we'd hoped. He's had nice runs before. The walks are still an issue; he dodged out of trouble last night, but walks nearly ended his night early. I get nervous that the wheels are going to fall off the wagon when he's walking 3.9 per 9. But his approach is overall much better, he's keeping the ball in the park, and trusting his stuff to get more Ks. It's finally a workable formula and he pitched well last night. Offense still needs serious work, but it's good to see Dozier rip a dinger last night. Maybe that will help him kickoff a second half run a little earlier this year?

I think it's reasonable to consider a limit, based on innings, pitches, etc. And I think the Twins management will be thoughtful about it. I wonder if it would be better to space things out so that he's pitching late in the year, though, to get him used to the length of the MLB season, even while he's building up to the innings? Is there value in giving him a little extra rest in July/August (skipping his turn in the rotation while still having him do his regular work) and having him actually pitching later in the year just to try and acclimate him to the length of the season while trying to not overstress the arm. I doubt there's any good data on this yet, and you know what they say: it's better to read the case study than be the case study...

In favor of whom, Chris Carter? Vargas? Morrison started out in a horrific slump, seemed to have pulled out of it, and is struggling again. But you don't dump a vet with a good track record coming off a terrific season after just 200 ABs, especially when there's not exactly a young prospect pushing for his job. Part of the problem the Twins have with their bench is...they don't have enough spots. With a gazillion pitchers, there's not much room for position players.

I'm fine with Rooker spending the full year in AA. Let's let him get a full season of ABs, see how he does getting through a full year season with 450+ plate appearances and a long season. Remember, he's already played almost as many games this season as he did all of last year in the system, so let's see how he goes in a full year at AA. He's on schedule and doing fine, but there's nothing going on that says "you must push him to AAA" in my mind. Kirilloff continues to keep raking. It's great. His promotion to Fort Myers is coming, just a matter of when they announce it. Good for him. And good for Rortvedt! He's one of the guys I was most interested in going into this year and so far he seems to be on track.

I appreciate the note on Kirilloff's defense as well. I know this is about the hitting, but I've been curious about his defensive development. sounds like he has work to do, but is not a hopeless flailer out there who will need to move to DH ASAP. The hit tool is strong with this kid. He's really mashing it and it's great to see a guy bounce back this well after a fairly significant injury. I can't wait to see him move up to High A and see how he does there.

Well, I wanted them to add depth in the minors at C and 3B, and they've added another C so that's good. If he can stick at catcher, then this is probably a pretty good pick. It's seems pretty rare to find a guy who doesn't need work defensively at catcher? And when they do pop up, it's even more rare that they can hit their weight. So let's get him in the system and start the work. Now, about 3B...

Evaluating picks outside of the top 4-5 guys in a baseball draft is so damn hard. This guys seems fine? Hit like crazy this year playing for a top program against good competition, so that's good. Sounds like they think he still has upside as a hitter based on their scouting? I dunno. Would have liked him to show some better defensive skills, because odds aren't great that he's going to get stronger in that area, but if his hit tool is good enough, it should be a high floor pick. If this was "best signable player available" at 20...I'm ok with it. so far this management team has earned a little slack on drafting after last year's apparently excellent choices.

Nice win, good series for the Twins. After the first game I was wondering if this was going to be a series where it all fell apart for them, and they ended up taking 3 out of 4. And this game really was big: taking 3 out of 4 against a division rival rather than let them salvage a road split is a really good thing. Gibson looked great early and then it looked like he started missing his spots in the 5th & 6th. Encarnacion just brutalized us. Ugh. LaMarre had another very nice game, Sano had a great play...but this was all about Eddie. Imagine if he'd managed to make that catch at the wall too? (It was a great effort) I hate running out an 8-man bullpen. Magill sitting for 5 straight games? Sure limits the bench when you have that nonsense going on.

Rooker is coming around nicely. AA was the right spot for him and he should run the full season there. Hopefully he stays strong throughout the year and piles up 450-500 ABs and we see how he does late in the year with a lot of baseball under him. Nice to see him respond after a slow start. Goodness Kirilloff is hitting well. Any reports on how his defense looks? A little curious to see how he's developed on that after the year layoff.

All true statements, but have little to say on their own, about the pitching staff. The new regime has generally handled pitching acquisitions smartly. Phil Hughes didn't work out (again), but a) he was a legacy player and was coming off an injury stretch. It's a pretty reasonably move for any team not in the Yankees/Dodgers monetary weight class to give him another shot to see if it works out. Lance Lynn was generally hailed as a smart pick up, and it looks like he's rounding into shape. Lynn may be the poster child for "holdouts won't help you get that fat deal", but as a 4th or 5th starter his recent performance (which has shown improved control) is very solid and should be not only repeatable but subject to improvement. I was a little skeptical about Rodney, but I've thought for a long time that the "closer" role had become increasingly overrated and overpaid so having someone like Rodney meant to my mind better deployment for a guy like Reed or other, better arms. Well, Rodney has been just fine as the closer. And Reed (who I think everyone liked as a signing, especially for the price) has been great as a fireman. I wasn't sure Pressly would ever figure it out, and I was ready to move on, but he's been outstanding. Hildenberger has had a couple of glitches, but he's been mostly the same guy as last season and while he's not elite, he's a guy we would have needed to set up games last season. There's no question he's further down in the pecking order. Duke has been a worthy addition now that's he's gotten his control back (last two outings have been a miss, but that's inevitable) and it keeps Rogers from being overworked and exposed. That's a really solid bullpen construction. They're not asking guys to do things they're not capable of doing, they've got pitchers that throw with velocity and can miss bats, and there's a lot of flexibility built in here. The pitching staff is well-insulated against injury this season as well, as we've seen. Losing Santana sucked, but Romero has stepped up. Grabbing Odorizzi meant that we didn't need to expect as much from Gibson. There's real depth, with May looking to come back, with Santana rehabbing, Gonsalves pushing in AAA...the last few years we've been desperate for anyone who can go 5 inning and not embarrass themselves. Expectations are higher now. we're not an elite staff, but nobody is up here on scholarship any longer. That's a good start and bodes well for the future. Nick is right: it's great to have the best two starters on the team as young guys under team control in Berrios and Romero.

Just because a guy may be ready doesn't mean there's a spot for him when it comes to MLB. Tough break for Slegers, who isn't going to get a chance absent additional injury. I do wonder if a guy goes down before Santana or May are ready (of if a couple of guys get wiped out after) if Gonsalves or Slegers gets the call. Kirilloff is exciting right now. He seems to have bounced back wonderfully from the surgery and is hitting the cover off the ball. It'd be crazy if he doesn't get promoted to FM at the break. Can't wait to see how he does when he gets there.