Seth Stohs

Sure, they can call up Moran and Winder any time. This doesn't stop that.

They're not calling up Winder or Balazovic any time soon... Need arms.

Balazovic has had four AA starts since his return injury, and only has a playoff start for them in 2019. Winder, they're going to protect him as much as they can. Sands is now on the IL too. They need arms. Ober is up. Jax is now on the 40. Barnes is close.

Luke Farrell has looked pretty good... Nothing wrong with being aggressive at the back end of the 40-man roster, especially with a 24-year-old former first round pick... with options.

I think a lot of times, several of those minor league veterans might have been released by now, allowing pitchers to move up the ladder. Unfortunately in this season of injuries, teams just don't want to release pitchers because they need it. And unless they're planning on calling up Winder or Moran soon, it probably doesn't matter much if they're getting those innings at AA or AAA. I do think Varland is probably pretty close to a promotion.

Week 7 was a good week, mostly, for the Twins organization. Ft. Myers and Cedar Rapids both had strong weeks. Wichita is also over .500 on the season. The Saints have struggled. The biggest issue in the minors, like with the big-league club, has been all the injuries. As always, I welcome your feedback on what you would like to see from these Week in Review articles, so let me know in the comments below. Of course, I also encourage you to read Nick’s Twins Week in Review from yesterday. With that, let’s look at Week 6 in the Twins minor leagues: RESULTS Triple-A: St. Paul Saints: Week (2-3, Sunday game suspended, hosting Iowa), overall (19-22) Double-A: Wichita Wind Surge: Week (3-3, hosting Springfield), overall (23-19) High-A: Cedar Rapids Kernels: Week (5-1, hosting South Bend), overall (22-20) Low-A: Ft. Myers Mighty Mussels: Week (5-1,hosting Lakeland), overall (25-17) IN CASE YOU MISSED IT With the Twins struggles early this season, we have had a lot of minor league articles including articles on players who could be promoted and the daily minor league reports. Twins Minor League Week in Review: Mussels Making their Mark Tuesday: Duran, Balazovic Deliver Contrasting Performances Wednesday: Clean Sweep Thursday: Kernels Shuck Cubs on Smith’s Big Night Friday: Late Drama Across the System Saturday: Runs Galore Sunday: Baby Bombas Highlights We will start with the Twins choices for the organizational hitter and pitcher of the week, and then mention several other Twins prospects who had good Week 7 performances too. But first, check out the triple play turned by the Saints earlier last week. Twins Player of the Week: Tomas Telis, St. Paul Saints Tomas Telis hit .330 for the Rochester Red Wings in 2019. He chose to return to the team in 2020 and spent the summer at the alternate site. He came back again in 2021.He had played in 122 MLB games between 2014 and 2018. He actually spent a day on the Twins active roster during their COVID run but didn’t get into a game. This week, Telis played five games (suspended game not included until it is completed). He hit .421/.500/.737 (1.237) with two home runs. Twins Pitcher of the Week: Jordan Balazovic, Wichita Wind Surge For the second straight week, a pitcher with the first name of “Jordan” was the Twins choice for player of the week. This is a good example of the different timelines used for this report and the Twins weekly awards. The Twins “week” is Sunday through Saturday as their players of the week are named on Sunday morning. In that timeline, Jordan Balazovic made a start and struck out eight batters in 4 1/3 scoreless innings. Under our Tuesday through Sunday “week,” Balazovic had a second start. On Sunday, he went 4 1/3 innings again, but this time he gave up six runs on ten hits and a walk. Regardless, Balazovic is one of the top Twins pitching prospects. Other Strong Performances this Week St. Paul Saints The highlight is likely the start of lefty Charlie Barnes on Saturday night. He tossed five innings and struck out seven batters. He gave up no hits. However, he walked four and tossed 94 pitches through his five innings, so that ended his night. Almost as impressive, Chandler Shepherd followed up his take-one-for-the-team start the previous week by tossing five shutout innings in his Week 7 start. He gave up five hits but no walks. Andrew Albers gave up one run on four hits over six innings in his start. Bryan Sammons came on in relief and saved the bullpen by going 5 1/3 innings. He gave up only a solo homer. In five games, Drew Maggi hit .429/.500/.714 (1.214) with a double and a homer. Damek Tomscha hit .375/.412/.625 (1.037) with a double and a homer over four games. Daniel Descalso played well. In three games, he went 3-for-10 with a single, double and a home run. Wichita Wind Surge Ernie de la Trinidad may not be the Twins biggest prospect, literally or figuratively, he had is having a great year and he had an incredible week. In six games, he hit .455/.556/.864 (1.419) with a double, a triple, two homers and nine RBI. Jose Miranda had another great week too. He played in all six games and hit .407/.448/.741 (1.189) with three homers (2 on Sunday). Jermaine Palacios hit .292/370/.708 (1.079) with a double and three homers. Caleb Hamilton hit .278/.458/.611 (1.069) with three doubles and a homer. He also walked six times. Roy Morales hit .333 (8-for-24). The Wind Surge also had strong starting pitching. Austin Schulfer tossed six shutout innings in his start. He gave up six hits, walked zero and struck out four batters. Josh Winder stayed hot. He gave up one run on six hits, two walks and struck out eight in six innings. Chris Vallimont gave up one run on three hits and a walk in five innings in his start. He struck out seven batters. Cedar Rapids Kernels Spencer Steer had another amazing week. Over his six games, he hit.429/.586/.857 (1.443) with a double, a triple and two more home runs. He also walked seven times. Trey Cabbage played four games and wasn’t at 100%, but he hit .308/.438/.692 (1.130) with two doubles and a homer. Outfielder Max Smith played in all six games. He hit .400/.500/.600 (1.100) with a double and a homer. That was helped by his five-hit game on Thursday. Seth Gray hit .423/.483/.577 (1.060) with a double and a homer. He came through with some huge hits in clutch situations and drove in 11 runs. Gabriel Maciel hit .368 (7-for-19) with a triple. Catcher Jair Camargo played in three games, but he had his second two-homer game of the year. Former position players turned pitchers Zach Featherstone and Jordan Gore both were quite good. Featherstone gave up one hit and struck out six over four scoreless innings. Gore struck out six without allowing a hit or a walk in 4 2/3 innings. Derek Molina (a college shortstop) struck out eight batters over 5 1/3 scoreless, two-hit innings. Tyler Watson worked 4 1/3 relief innings and struck out six batters. He allowed only an unearned run. Finally, Tyler Palm had been struggling, but he struck out five batters over 2 1/3 scoreless innings in relief. Ben Gross provided the best start of the week. He went five innings and gave up only two unearned runs. He struck out six batters. Ft. Myers Might Mussels Edouard Julien has been an on-base machine this week, and that was absolutely the case in Week 6. In six games, he hit .429/.680/.714 (1.394) with a double and a triple. He also walked TEN times in six games, and he stole five more bases. In five games, Jeferson Morales hit .353/.400/.706 (1.106) with three doubles and a home run. Charles Mack went 3-for-10 with two walks and another home run over his three games this week. Misael Urbina hit .333 (7-for-21) with a homer over six games. Yunior Severino hit .304 (7-for-23) The start of the week again belongs to RHP Louie Varland. The Minnesota native tossed 5 2/3 scoreless innings. He gave up just three hits, walked two and struck out seven batters. Sawyer Gipson-Long tossed five shutout innings in his start. He gave up four hits, walked three and struck out six batters. Lefty Brent Headrick also had another strong start. He gave up one run on three hits over six innings. He struck out six. Steven Cruz led the way out of the bullpen. He struck out seven batters over 4 1/3 one-hit innings over two games. Matthew Swain struck out six batters over 4 1/3 scoreless frames. He gave up three hits and walked one. Lowlights We are talking about small samples for these six-game weeks, so it’s important not to make any big decisions or develop a full impression on a player from this small size. It’s just a reminder of the fact that baseball is hard, and all players have good and bad stretches. St. Paul Saints The lowlight of the week had to be Jhoan Duran. In his one start, he gave up two runs on two hits and three walks and only recorded two outs before being removed at 35 pitches. That’s not good, but all starters have games like that. The lowlight was that on Sunday he was placed on the Injured List with a right elbow strain. That is the same injury that both Blayne Enlow and Matt Canterino were IL’d with last month. Rob Whalen is a great story, but he had a rough start this week. He gave up nine runs on ten hits and three walks over just 3 1/3 innings. Robinson Leyer pitched twice and over 2 2/3 innings, he gave up three runs on two hits and three walks. Mark Contreras played in four games and went 2-for-17 (.118). Keon Broxton went 1-for-10 (.100). Wichita Wind Surge Jhonleider Salinas was one of the Twins minor league Rule 5 picks. He had some visa issues so just arrived in Wichita recently. This week, he pitched twice. In 1 2/3 innings, he gave up two runs on two hits (one homer) and four walks. Springfield, MN, native Jordan Milbrath has struggled since joining the Wind Surge. In his one innings this week, he gave up three runs on one hit and three walks in an inning. In his three outings, he has 10 walks over five innings. Yeltsin Encarnacion played in four games and went 1-for-15 (.063). BJ Boyd went 3-for-19 (.158). Cedar Rapids Kernels Michael Helman went 2-for-18 (.111) on the week, but he did have a big, walk-off double to push the Kernels to one of their comeback wins. Gabe Snyder went 2-for-15 (.133) on the week. Catcher Chris Williams went 2-for-11 (.182) but he had eight strikeouts in his 12 plate appearances. Lefty Kody Funderburk has been quite good for the Kernels to start the season. However, this week, he had his first clunker. He gave up eight runs on six hits and two walks over just 2 1/3 innings. Ft. Myers Might Mussels Things have been pretty good for the Mussels the past three weeks, and this week, there really wasn't anyone that had a bad week. Trending Storyline With the realignment of the minor leagues this past offseason, MLB decided not only to have minor league baseball be for development, but also for trying out new rules. Each level is testing some rule changes to see how they affect the game, positively or negatively. In Triple-A, they are using bigger bases. In Double-A, they are required to keep two infielders on each side of the infield. In Low-A, they are using the electronic strike zone. At the High-A level, pitchers are required to step off the rubber before throwing to a base. The idea is that base runners will be able to steal more bases. While that is true, it certainly isn’t a rule that anyone really likes. Kernels manager Brian Dinkelman, who won his 100th game as a manager on Sunday, said, “I don’t think the players are too crazy about it. It’s something they’ve never done before.” He acknowledged that stolen base attempts and success rates are up. One Kernels player recently said that the players were talking about it and they think that it is actually slowing the game down. That said, he acknowledged that steals are up, and that as long as it is the rule, they should and will take advantage of it. That doesn’t seem like a rule that will make its way up to the big leagues. PROSPECT SUMMARY Here’s a look at how the Twins Daily Top 20 Twins Prospects have performed on the season (as well as too many unfortunate injuries). This was requested in the comments. Let me know if it provides value. #1 - Alex Kirilloff (Minnesota) – St. Paul (2 rehab games, went 3-6 with 2 homers, 2 K), Minnesota (38 games, .254/.293/.428 (.717) with 7 doubles, 1 triple, 5 homers, 21 RBI, 8 BB, 34 K) #2 - Royce Lewis (Wichita) - Out for Season (torn ACL) #3 - Trevor Larnach (Minnesota) – St. Paul (3 games, went 3-11 with two homers, two walks, 8 strikeouts), Minnesota (37 games, .267/.380/.431 (.811) with 7 doubles, 4 homers, 10 RBI, 16 BB, 40 K) #4 - Ryan Jeffers (Minnesota) – St. Paul (24 games, .217/.340/.446 (.786) with four doubles, five homers, 16 BB, 26 K), Minnesota (24 games, .210/.256/.420 (.676) with 3 doubles, 1 triple, 4 home runs, 8 RBI, 3 BB, 26 K) #5 - Jhoan Duran (St. Paul) – 5 G, 4 GS, 16.0 IP, 16 H, 13 BB, 22 K, 5.06 ERA, 1.81 WHIP (on IL with a right forearm strain) #6 - Jordan Balazovic (Wichita) – 4 GS, 14.0 IP, 17 H, 6 BB, 19 K, 6.43 ERA, 1.64 WHIP #7 - Keoni Cavaco (Ft. Myers) – 28 games, .264/.333/.340 (.673) with 3 doubles, 1 triple, 1 homer, 11 RBI, 10 BB, 32 K, 4 SB (on Injured List, Concussion) #8 - Aaron Sabato (Ft. Myers) – 35 games, .188/.388/.304 (.683) with 7 doubles, 3 homers, 15 RBI, 42 BB, 62 K #9 - Matt Canterino (Cedar Rapids) – 4 GS, 18.0 IP, 10 H, 3 BB, 35 K, 1.00 ERA, 0.72 WHIP (went on the IL with right elbow strain) #10 - Blayne Enlow (Cedar Rapids) – 3 GS, 14.2 IP, 13 H, 6 BB, 23 K, 1.84 ERA, 1.30 WHIP (underwent Tommy John surgery on June 9th) #11 - Gilberto Celestino (St. Paul) – Wichita (21 games, .250/.344/.381 (.725) with 5 doubles, 2 homers. 11 BB, 24 K), Minnesota (8 games, .115/.115/.154 (.269) with 0 BB, 5 K) #12 - Brent Rooker (St. Paul) – St. Paul (35 games, .225/.361/.500 (.861) with 3 doubles, 10 homers, 24 BB, 47 K), Minnesota (8 games, .103/.133/.241 (375) with 1 double, 1 homer, 2 RBI, 1 BB, 13 K) #13 - Matt Wallner (Cedar Rapids) – 17 games, .333/.384/.621 (1.005) with 3 doubles, 2 triples, 4 homers, 14 RBI, 5 BB, 28 K. (on IL after having hamate bone surgery) #14 - Misael Urbina (Ft. Myers) – 28 games, .194/.307/.266 (573) with 2 doubles, 2 triples, 1 homer, 22 RBI, 19 BB, 33 K, 6 SB) #15 - Cole Sands (Wichita) – 7 GS, 31.2 IP, 22 H, 18 BB, 42 K, 2.84 ERA, 1.26 WHIP #16 - Edwar Colina (Minnesota) - 60-Day IL (had surgery on his right elbow to remove bone chips) #17 - Ben Rortvedt (Minnesota) – St. Paul (5 games, .286/.318/.571 (.890) with 3 doubles, 1 homer, 1 BB, 6 K), Minnesota (20 games, .128/.180/.213 (393) with 1 double, 1 homer, 4 RBI, 2 BB, 19 K) #18 - Alerick Soularie (Complex) – N/A (injured) #19 - Jose Miranda (Wichita) – 41 games, .323/.392/.557 (948) with 6 doubles, 11 homers, 33 RBI, 15 BB, 20 K #20 - Bailey Ober (Minnesota) – St. Paul (4 GS, 16.0 IP, 13 H, 5 BB, 21 K, 2.81 ERA, 1.13 WHIP), Minnesota (4 GS, 17.0 IP, 18 H, 2 BB, 21 K, 3.71 ERA, 1.18 WHIP) LOOKING AHEAD Ft. Myers @ Palm Beach (TBD, Miguel Rodriguez, Brent Headrick, Casey Legumina, Sawyer Gipson-Long, Louie Varland): Lansing @ Cedar Rapids:(Jon Olsen, Andrew Cabezas, Ben Gross, Cody Laweryson, Tyler Beck, Kody Funderburk) Wichita @ Midland: (Austin Schulfer, Josh Winder, TBD, Jordan Balazovic, Chris Vallimont, Austin Schulfer) Iowa @ St. Paul: (Chandler Shepherd, Rob Whalen, Andrew Albers, Charlie Barnes, Griffin Jax, Chandler Shepherd): Feel free to provide some feedback below regarding these reports. What do you like to read? What types of information would you like added? Also, feel free to ask any questions you like. View full article

Akil Baddoo got Rule 5'd because he was a prospect though. I don't think DLT will regress a ton. He's a nice, solid player. Miranda and Bobby Witt are younger, they're prospects. But yeah, if he maintains a 900+ OPS over the full season, they would have to at least have a quick discussion about adding him. I would still assume they wouldn't, but they'd at least discuss protecting him from the Rule 5.

.240-.250 isn't a bad average for a plus defensive SS with power... That 800 OPS would be fantastic. He just needs to play after being on the injured list for about a month.

De La Trinidad is off to a terrific start, but he's not going to add anything to a trade's return. He won't get Rule 5d most likely.

Just IL'd yesterday. I'm sure they'll do the imaging and such in coming days and we'll find out more. Hopefully no structural damage. So many injuries all over baseball this year after missing last year.

He wasn't in our preseason Top 20 rankings... Could be now, depending on the ranker.

Buxton isn't a minor leaguers. And are people still questioning if he's healthy??

I've watched Miranda quite a bit this year. I think he's a pretty solid third baseman. Seems to have a strong arm. Maybe average range. I like that they are playing him all over. Talking to Deron Johnson a couple of years ago, even though he was playing second, they knew he would grow into his power and be a third baseman. Bechtold continues to play 3B and 1B. Good to see him hitting again.

He's not a big guy, but no, he's not 145... probably 180ish.

Have to fill rosters... They sign organizational guys all the time. And, of course, teams scout these guys and they want good organizational fillers.

Chatting with him last week, he sure seems to be very happy to be back...

Palacios wouldn't have even been considered. He just didn't hit with the Rays at all.

Tampa didn't release him. He just became a 6-year minor league free agent. The Rays, Marlins and Yankees were all teams who contacted him this offseason, but he chose the Twins.

Long ways to go, but the fact that he has three pitches that are decent to good already means there is a chance. Honestly, at this point, he just needs innings! But yeah, definitely could be considered!

1.) I think most are thinking that Balazovic is more likely to remain a starter, but 2.) Duran has always had pretty decent control. Struggled so far this year, but he's still just like 4 starts into his return from injury. Not worried about Duran.

Thank you, Griffin Jax! Signed, The Bullpen, the Coaches, Teammates

Correct. That (Sunday to Saturday, I assume). That quote comes directly from the media notes.

2020 draft was just Sabato, Soulerie, Raya and Rosario... the last two are high school guys at the development complex. Soulerie would be at Ft. Myers with Sabato is he wouldn't have had a spring injury. 2019 has had some injuries, but several of the pitchers are debuting well in Ft. Myers.