Seth Stohs

I would say that health was a part of it, for sure...

"Like"

Busenitz has been tremendous...

ICYMI: The Twins released minor league catcher AJ Murray and RHP Michael Cederoth.

After reading this... I just dropped the price of the electronic version of the 2017 Twins Prospect Handbook by $2... http://www.lulu.com/shop/seth-stohs-and-jeremy-nygaard-and-cody-christie/minnesota-twins-prospect-handbook-2017/ebook/product-23012872.html

Two years, eight months and 19 days. A total of 992 days. On August 31, 2014, Lewis Thorpe threw four shutout innings for the Cedar Rapids Kernels. It was his last start of the season. Unfortunately, it was his last start until tonight (May 19, 2017) because he left that game with pain in his elbow. It’s been a long and winding road back for the talented left-hander from Melbourne, Australia, but on Friday in Ft. Myers, Thorpe made his return. It’s something he - and the Twins and their fans - has been awaiting for a long time. You can’t blame him if he was a little excited and anxious before the game. When he was warming up in the bullpen, he was definitely feeling it.Thorpe said he was “very nervous and had lots of emotions running through my head.” But he pitched well. The first Bradenton batter that he faced was shortstop Cole Tucker, and he struck out him. He got a pop up to the catcher and a fly ball to center field to end a clean first inning. The second inning was perfect for Thorpe as well. After one out in the third inning, he gave up a single. After a fielder’s choice, Thorpe picked off the runner for the third out. Nine batters faced, nine outs. Cole Tucker led off the fourth inning and hit a home run. Thorpe then responded with a strikeout, a ground out and another strikeout. That was it for Thorpe’s 2017 debut, but considering it has been nearly 1,000 days since his previous start, the 50-pitch limit probably makes a lot of sense. 31 of his 49 pitches were strikes. Thorpe noted after the game, “Everything was working well, and I had good command of all four pitches.” It’s been a long couple of seasons for Thorpe. He attempted to rehab the partially torn UCL. He had Tommy John surgery in April of 2015. There was the rehab from the shoulder injury, and there were some other setbacks in his return. “There’s always going to be some tough times when you rehab for two years. I think I handled myself pretty well overall. There were some times when I got really down, but I got through it.” As we know, there are several people in the Twins organization that Thorpe could talk to during his elbow rehab because they have been through it too. That kind of support is helpful. But Thorpe spoke of a lot of support he has received along the way. “Everyone including my family, coaches and teammates have been a huge support for me. It was a tough two years, but I’m finally back.” There is a lot of similarity between the return of Thorpe and last year’s return of Fernando Romero. Romero had missed about two years following his Tommy John surgery. His first start last year came on May 20th. Romero was shut down, missing only one start at the end of the season. Romero made 16 total starts a year ago, five in Cedar Rapids and nine in Ft. Myers. He didn’t throw more than 82 pitches until his eighth start. He worked a total of 90.1 innings on the year. We shall see if the Twins have Thorpe follow a similar path through the 2017 season. Despite not making a start for nearly 1,000 days (have I mentioned that?), Thorpe will not turn 22 years old until late November. His future remains bright. But he’s not thinking too far into the future. He is keeping his goals simple, to “just continue to throw the ball well and have fun out there. Staying healthy is going to be tough too.” Twins fans should be very excited about the return of Lewis Thorpe to the mound. He was a Top 10 Twins prospect by many (even most) publications. Henry Bonilla is the Miracle pitching coach. He pitched seven seasons in the Twins system, and three more in the Angels organization. This is now his sixth season as a coach in the Twins organization, his second with the Miracle. He was impressed by how Thorpe handled himself. "I'm really proud of how he controlled his emotions. Personally, Friday night, big crowd, against a first-place team, I would not be able to be as calm as he was. Or at least as calm and cool the way he did. Good first step after a long layoff." Oh, and on Saturday, Stephen Gonsalves will be making his first start of the 2017 season, for Chattanooga against Biloxi. Click here to view the article

As Keith Law said regarding Greene and Wright in his conversation with me the other day... Me Paraphrasing: Greene - ceiling is multi-time All Star, true Ace.... floor - his risks are such that he could top out at AA or something. Wright - barring injury, the floor for him is probably #3 starter in MLB (probably!), but there's a chance he could be a number two or even a #1. So, for both, ceiling is #1 starter... Floors are different (to reiterate, barring injury)... And yes, there is always the TINSTAAPP theory, which can happen to anyone.

Along with the Lewis Thorpe news, Stephen Gonsalves is pitching for Chattanooga tomorrow... (Saturday)...

Who would you suggest they call up for one game? Should be someone on the 40-man roster, and there aren't a lot of options. Of course, you could always DFA Rucinski to make room for someone, but again, for one game, seems like too much.

Carlson is in Top 15 (maybe 20 in some) rankings of draft-eligible players. Hand, Brown and Windle weren't in that neighborhood. Level of competition is important, but all these guys play each other in those summer showcases. So yes, Carlson's playing in MN and now California or Georgia, but he's proven himself against those guys, like Mauer did then. Listen, the draft is always a crap shoot. I'm not going to say he's going to be an MLB All Star, but based on his rankings by the national people/sites, he's worth of a mid-first round pick. And, since he's from here, we're really excited to profile him and will probably do more as the draft approaches.

That would be the dream, though he'll likely be long gone, regardless of his asking price, but the time the Twins pick again. We can hope though!

In the fourth and final installment of a conversation with Keith Law, we discussed what goes into the thinking when a team has the #1 overall pick in the draft. What factors would he use if he was the scouting director for the team with the top selection? I think his response speaks very well to the fact that it is not an easy decision this year. Law’s comments about the options remind us that there are choices at number one, that it’s not a slam dunk choice. One more reminder, tonight at 6:30, Keith Law will appear with fellow baseball authors Peter Schilling, Jr., and Michael Fallon for a book reading, discussion and signing. Head to Moon Palace Books in southeast Minneapolis to be a part of this event. Get your copy of Smart Baseball signed by Keith Law. We all know the catch phrase that teams like to use when talking about early draft picks. “Best Player Available” is the popular, and correct, thing to do. Who will be the best player in the minds of your scouting department? That is the player you want. However, there are many factors that a scouting department will consider in determining who they will select and invest millions of dollars.I asked Keith Law for his general thoughts on what a team should consider when making the #1 overall pick. “My personal philosophy… The history of the #1 pick, you are more likely to get a generational talent or an all-world sort of player than any other spot. It’s a rare opportunity. Of course, you never want to pick there again.” The top player on Law’s board is the top player on most people’s board right now, though even now that is subject to change. “If you look at Hunter Greene, the 17-year-old high school right-handed pitcher/shortstop from Southern California, he’s first on my rankings, and I believe he’s first on MLB.com’s too. I think he has a chance to be an absolute superstar. I would take him recognizing the risk, but you want to roll the dice on a chance to get a franchise-defining sort of player. However, that is simply my philosophy, and it isn’t my money so it’s pretty easy for me to say that.” Money is a factor. While the draft slots have changed a bit this year, teams at the top - those with the most slotted money available to use - can still be creative. The best example in recent years was the Astros selecting Carlos Correa first overall in 2012 and signing him for well under slot value. They then used the extra slot money to select Lance McCullers and Rio Ruiz later. Could the Twins consider that strategy? Should they? “And money is always a factor. If Hunter Greene wants $8 million and Kyle Wright of Vanderbilt says he’ll sign for $5 million, you might be able to do great things with that $3 million in savings.” Law continued, “Taking Wright, even if you don’t believe he’s the best player, may be the better choice because of the value. They have one extra pick and another at the top of the second round, you can overpay guys later and get more talent in total.” With the Twins farm system lacking the high-end talent (as we discussed in Part 3), adding three high-quality prospects in the draft certainly sounds appealing. We don’t know what Greene or Wright or McKay or others would ask. Those discussions will start occurring in the coming weeks. But the strategy is sound.” With the #1 overall pick, you simply cannot take a guy who busts completely. Ceiling is great, but floor likely comes into play as well. Law explains, “There is another philosophy that says if you pick first, you don't want to zero out on that. Hunter Greene is a high school right-hander. No high school right-hander has ever gone first overall. It’s risky. Maybe you take Wright, who’s at Vanderbilt, who’s the best college pitcher in the class for me. He’s been pitching out of his mind the last month. He’s got size. He’s got stuff. He’s got command. I mean, Vanderbilt is as good of pedigree as you can get for a pitcher. So maybe you say, we know that guy’s a big league starter. He’s at least a three, probably a two, and he might be a one. That’s good. You would take that. Especially the Twins. They’ve struggled to develop good young starting pitcher. You would take that.” In summary, Law agrees that Greene presents the highest ceiling. However, he comes with a lot of risk. Wright has a high ceiling, though not as high as Greene, but his floor is most likely significantly higher too. “Would you take that if I told you that in passing on Hunter Greene, there’s a 30% chance you’re passing on Bob Gibson. Maybe Hall of Famer is a bit much, but a multiple-time All-Star, a Cy Young contender in Greene. He might be that.” Law recently had the opportunity to see Greene and talk with him for an upcoming story. He came away incredibly impressed. “He might get to the big leagues by 20. He’s 17, and I got to interview him a couple of weeks ago. This is an impressive person. It’s an impressive body. You don’t see kids like that. I see kids all the time for the job. I don’t see many kids build like that, athletic like that, loose like that, still projectable and already throwing in the upper-90s.” With the Twins having so many young players in their pre-arbitration and pre-free agency years, maybe there is a goal to get someone who can help more quickly. “At the same time, do you want to wait 3-5 years for a high school pitcher, or do you want to take the college pitcher who could be in your rotation in 12 months?” These are all factors and considerations that Twins first-year Scouting Director Sean Johnson has likely thrown around in his head, and thrown off of all of the area scouts, and thrown off of Derek Falvey, Thad Levine and others. Simply, there isn’t an easy #1 overall choice in the 2017. There isn’t a Stephen Strasburg, there there isn’t a Bryce Harper. Making it even more difficult, Law acknowledges there are likely more than just the two players (Greene and Wright). “I could go back and forth, and I could make a good case for either side. Those are just two of them. You will hear Brendan McKay’s name though he’s falling off at this point. But he may still be a strong consideration at one. There are other names in this group because there’s not a hitter. There’s not a Bryce Harper where you look and say that’s a sure thing. The bat plays and he’s got power. I can check off a bunch of things that are virtual guarantees. We’re talking about pitchers, and pitchers are scary. I’ve been in draft rooms with Toronto where we took pitchers and we were sure of what we were getting, and we didn’t get that.” I mentioned to Law that I had just done a radio spot and when asked who I would take with the #1 pick, I surprised the show’s hosts by saying Kyle Wright. Law made me feel better about my (admittedly hypothetical) selection. “You’re not wrong. I guess there are wrong answers, but Kyle Wright is not a wrong answer. I don’t know if there’s really one right answer this year.” McKay’s name has surfaced with the Twin and the top overall pick. Those voices have seemingly quieted of late. And it’s because of the things scouts (and fans) have seen the last couple of weekends. “When I saw him in February, he was 90-95. We’ve had reports from the last two weekends where he’s been upper-80s and topping out at (91 or 92). That’s a little concerning. He was never overpowering. He’s going to live by command, by mixing his pitches. Now you’re telling me it’s an average fastball? It’s not a high school kid's where you’ve projecting it to get better. It’s a college arm thinking this is probably what it is. That would worry me. He’s still a good pitcher, but at this point, if I were in Falvey’s shoes, I’d say we’re not doing that at one. So what do you think? There are a lot of ways to think about who the Twins should draft with the first overall pick. All of them make sense. Things to consider include: CeilingFloorLikelihood of reaching ceilingFinancial creativity (can you get two of three high-level talents by signing someone for less at one?)TimelinesI would really like to thank Keith Law for spending some time talking to me the other day about a variety of topics. It was a nice conversation that felt like it could have gone much longer. One more time, you’ve got the opportunity tonight to rub elbows with Keith Law, hear a reading of his new book Smart Baseball, listen to some baseball discussion and get autographs. 6:30 tonight at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis. If you missed any of the previous article, here they are: Part 1 - Keith Law On Smart Baseball Part 2 - Keith Law On Derek Falvey And The 2017 Twins Part 3 - Keith Law On The Twins Minor Leagues Click here to view the article

Yeah, he put up numbers that were better than Thorpe did in Cedar Rapids as a 19 year old... They're pretty similar.

The press release post-game said 92, so I changed it to that... I don't know which is right, to be honest.

Yup, the transition has been rough for Buxton and Berrios (last year)... It went pretty well for Sano and Polanco. Of course, for all of them, there will continue to be ups and downs, but hopefully more ups!

Rain won the day at Target Field on Wednesday. All four Twins minor league affiliates played, and there were some wild games. There was a very impressive pitching performance, and there were some big offensive showings. Two hitters were a triple away from the cycle. However, we start today with a very sad news in the Twins minor league report. We learned today from the San Diego Tribune-Union that Henry Sanchez died due to synovial sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. Sanchez was a supplemental first-round pick of the Twins in 2005, known for his tremendous power. He struggled on and off the field and was let go shortly into the 2009 season.Find out everything and more that happened happened in the Twins system on Wednesday night, starting with the transactions of the day. TRANSACTIONS Check out the transactions through the minor league system on Wednesday: Chattanooga placed RHP Todd Van Steensel on the disabled list with a groin strain. Taking his place is RHP Alex Wimmers (who had been sent to extended spring training on Monday from Rochester).Because of the doubleheader Thursday, the Twins are able to call up a 26th man. That player will be RHP Drew Rucinski.RED WINGS REPORTRochester 8, Lehigh Valley 11 (11 innings) Box Score In his first four starts this season, lefty David Hurlbut gave up a total of four runs in 22.1 innings. He had his first clunker of 2017 on Wednesday night. He was charged with seven runs on nine hits (two homers) and a walk in just 3.2 innings. Alan Busenitz came on and was terrific. The hard-throwing right-hander gave up just one hit over 3.1 scoreless innings. He struck out five without issuing a walk. Michael Tonkin came in for the 8th inning, protecting a one-run lead. He gave up a solo homer to tie the game, but he then worked scoreless innings in the ninth and 10th innings. Kevin Chapman came in for the 11th frame. He gave up three runs (two earned) on three hits in the inning to take the loss. The offense provided plenty of support. Byungho Park went 3-4 with his fourth double. JB Shuck was 3-4 with a walk and his fifth double. John Ryan Murphy went 2-5 with his third homer, a three-run shot. Matt Hague and Daniel Palka each went 2-5 with a double. It was Palka’s fifth and Matt Hague’s third. In the bottom of the 10th, the Red Wings got to go through the Pat Venditte Experience. Venditte is the ambidextrous pitcher who has moved up and down from AAA to the big leagues the last few seasons. The bases were loaded, but John Ryan Murphy grounded into a double play to end the threat to end the game. For Lehigh Valley, old friend Pedro Florimon went 5-5 with a double and is hitting .349 on the season. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga 6 Birmingham 8 Box Score It was an early start on Wednesday for the Lookouts. Their fifth and final game of a home series against Birmingham began at 11:15 local time. Following the game, the Lookouts headed to Biloxi for their next five-game series. Down 2-0 in the third inning, TJ White, Ryan Strausborger and Nick Gordon hit doubles to tie the score at two. Then in the bottom of the fourth inning, Levi Michael added a two-run homer to put the Lookouts on top. It was his first homer of the season. They added two more on an Edgar Corcino single. But that was it for the offense. In fact, after that fourth inning, they didn’t have another hit. The one base runner reached on a walk and was erased immediately by a double play. Felix Jorge was strong through six innings. He gave up an early two-run homer, but that was it. Until the seventh inning. He started the inning with a strikeout, but then he loaded the bases with a walk, a single and another walk. That’s when Mason Melotakis came in. Melotakis gave up a pinch-hit, grand slam and the game was tied. After recording the inning’s second out, he gave up a single which was followed by another home run. That gave the Kernels their 8-6 deficit that ended up being the final score. Melotakis worked a scoreless eighth frame. John Curtiss did pitch the ninth inning as well. He has now pitched 13 games this season, and in 14.2 innings, he is yet to allow a run. He has 19 strikeouts. However, he’s also given up nine walks to go with nine hits. TJ White was the lone Lookouts hitter with more than one hit. He went 2-4 with his first double. MIRACLE MATTERS Ft. Myers 3, Clearwater 1 Box Score Complete games are a rarity in minor league baseball. Pitch counts are more tightly monitored, and especially in the lower levels, the pitchers are young and will be taken care of. However, on Wednesday night, lefty Lachlan Wells delivered a complete game in a Miracle win. Wells gave up a double to lead off the game. After a sacrifice bunt, the run scored on a ground ball. After that, it was eight straight shutout innings. In fact, only one more runner the whole game reached second base. He gave up the one run on four hits and two walks. He struck out four. Most important, he needed just 92 pitches (67 strikes) to complete the game and win his second game of the season and reduce his ERA to 3.51. No surprise. It was the first complete game of his career. Offensively, the Miracle offense waited an inning to do their scoring. In the bottom of the second inning, Daniel Kihle launched a three-run homer, his third of the season. That was it for the Miracle offense, at least in terms of runs scored. After hitting a walk-off home run the night before, Chris Paul added two hits on Wednesday. Rafael Valera walked twice. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 7, Peoria 4 Box Score It looked as if Wednesday’s Kernels game had the potential to be a long one. Through two innings, a combined ten runs had already been scored. However, just one more run was scored the rest of the game. The Kernels got a two-run homer from Lewin Diaz in the bottom of the first inning, his fifth of the season. Sean Poppen gave up three runs in the top of the second frame, but the Kernels put up a five-spot in the bottom of the second inning. Aaron Whitefield drove in a run with a single before Jermaine Palacios launched a three-run homer, his fourth of the year. Two batters later, Mitchell Kranson hit his third homer of the year, a solo shot. Palacios had been in a bit of a slump, seeing his average drop from .398 to .326 over the past 13 games during which he hit .196. However, on this day, he went 3-5 with his eighth double, fourth homer and he stole his sixth base. Mitchell Kranson went 3-4 with his 12th double and third home run. That’s two guys who ended the day a triple shy of the cycle. Brandon Lopez went 3-4 with his second double. Aaron Whitefield went 3-5. Ben Rortvedt went 2-4 in the game. Sean Poppen made the start. The right-hander from Harvard gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits and a walk in six innings. He struck out five. He has completed six innings in all seven of his starts this season. Zach Tillery came on for his first appearance of the year and in a year. He gave up a run on three walks in his inning. It was his first appearance since May 7, 2016, with the Kernels. He missed the year with a shoulder injury. Alex Robinson recorded his second save with two shutout innings. He struck out four. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Lachlan Wells, Ft. Myers Miracle Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Jermaine Palacios/Mitchell Kranson, Cedar Rapids Kernels THURSDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Lehigh Valley @ Rochester (12:35 CST) - LHP Jason Wheeler Chattanooga @ Biloxi (6:35 CST) - RHP Fernando Romero Clearwater @ Ft. Myers (5:35 CST) - RHP Brady Anderson Cedar Rapids @ Wisconsin (6:35 CST) - LHP Domenic Carlini IV Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss Wednesday’s games. Click here to view the article

In the third installment of my conversation with ESPN’s Keith Law, he and I discuss the Twins minor league system. Law’s work in scouting as well as his knowledge of analytics make him a very good resource for this topic. He posts his Top 100 Prospect reports, and as we’ll mention a little later, he came out with this Top 25 Under 25 rankings. Of course, we also want to remind you that Keith Law will be participating in a book reading, baseball discussion and signing at Moon Palace Books in Southeast Minneapolis Thursday night at 6:30. If you are able to go, you will want to. And, if you haven’t already, be sure to pick up your copy of Law’s recently-released book, Smart Baseball. In Part 1, Law discussed his book, why he wrote it, the process, and some of his thoughts on the analytics of the game today. Part 2 with Law was a discussion of Derek Falvey and the 2017 Twins, specifically the youth of the Twins roster. He noted that regardless of the win-loss record at the end of the year, it is most important that the right players are playing, getting innings and at-bats. He specifically talked of the patience shown with Byron Buxton and how we all hope that he takes off soon offensively.This week, Law posted his Top 25 Under 25 at ESPN.com. Two members of the Minnesota Twins organization appear, Byron Buxton (#8) and Miguel Sano (#21). In addition to those two, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Jose Berrios and Eddie Rosario are 25 and under and getting the most reps at their positions (obviously Berrios will only pitch every fifth day). Adalberto Mejia may soon be back. The future is exciting as these guys continue to get playing time. There is reason for optimism in the minor leagues too. Although Nick Gordon is really the only consensus Top 100 prospect in the organization, that is not necessarily an indication of a weak system, especially with that young core in the big leagues. According to Law, “There are plenty of guys in the system that aren’t Top 100, but they may be in the next 50. They are prospects of value. They will be effective major leaguers in some role.” The key for fans is not to put too much stake in whether a guy is a Top 100 player. The Twins have had Top 100 prospects. Each of those “core” players mentioned above has appeared in Top 100 lists. Nick Gordon could be added to that core group. But just because a player isn’t a Top 100 guy doesn’t mean he can’t be a solid major league player in a role. Who knows? Several stars never appeared on Top 100 lists. Brian Dozier never did. Law noted, “A lot of people get hung up on the Top 100/Non-Top 100 distinction. I try to emphasize this every year because I get the same reactions every year. Just because I don’t put a guy in my Top 100 doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re any good players or won’t be any good players. Plenty of great big leaguers have not been on my Top 100. Paul Goldschmidt was on nobody’s top 100 ever, ever. He’s turned out OK.” We talked about a few players in our brief conversation. “Tyler Jay, I really wish they hadn’t moved him to the bullpen, but OK. If that’s going to be his role, it’s going to be his role. Stephen Gonsalves. These guys are going to be big leaguers, as long as they stay healthy, they’ll be good big leaguers.” He continued, “There are guys like Lewis Thorpe somewhere out in the ether. Lewin Diaz, there’s value there. Travis Blankenhorn. I saw him one game in spring training. He’s pretty exciting. I’d like to see a full season of good contact rates and consistent performance, but he could be really good. For a big guy, he is big, that’s a big person, he moved really well at third base. He got off his feet fine, he’s got plenty of arm. It was good. And the contact was impressive.” Of course, Law also acknowledged the elephant in the room as it relates to Twins minor leaguers and their adjustment to the big leagues. Jeff Pickler was brought in as a new Twins coach this year, and part of his responsibility is to work on players' transitions from the minor leagues to the major leagues. “A lot of those guys haven’t gotten over the developmental hump. And that’s probably a whole other conversation, why they haven’t gotten guys over that hump, but there’s talent in the system. I think they’ve drafted OK, they just haven’t been able to convert enough of those guys into the big leaguers commensurate with the expectations of where they were drafted.” Speaking of the draft, the Twins have a great opportunity in another month when they will have the #1 overall pick in the draft. That is what we will discuss in Part 4 of our conversation with ESPN’s Keith Law. If you have a chance, pick up his new book Smart Baseball and meet Law at Moon Palace Books on Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. Click here to view the article

ESPN’s Keith Law will be at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night. He’ll be part of a reading, discussion and signing his new book, Smart Baseball. We discussed the book with Law previously, but he was kind enough to discuss some Twins topics as well. We’ll share some of those thoughts in the next day or so. In this installment, Law discussed his thoughts on the quality start of the 2017 Twins season, and what he believes Derek Falvey’s needs might be.The Twins are off to a solid start this season. Entering play on Wednesday, the team is 19-16 and remains a ½ game ahead of Cleveland in the AL Central (admittedly with 127 more games to play). So, I asked Keith Law what his thoughts are on the Twins start and the team’s new front office regime. How would Derek Falvey and Thad Levine rank according to other front office leaders? Can we tell anything yet? According to Law, “I would say it’s probably too early.” The reality is that the Twins were a ways behind most of the competition when it comes to analytical staffing and such. They’ve come into the system that, despite all the great work from Jack Goin and his group, had some catching up to do. “They're certainly behind in terms of time. They were one of the last two teams to fully commit to having an analytics presence in the front office in terms of an actual department. I think everybody had one or two guys who were there to do numbers, even the Diamondbacks did. Dave Stewart would apparently say hi to them every once in awhile, and that would be the extent of it.” Yes, that one literally made me laugh out loud over the phone. Law continued, “(The Diamondbacks) have an analytics department. The Twins have an analytic department.” While the Twins did little in the offseason as far as on the field, Falvey talked a lot about building up the infrastructure of the organization. That can be done in all the departments, but especially in the analytics area. That comes with challenges that most fans probably never even thought of. “When I spoke to Matt Klentak of the Phillies while researching the book, he talked about the first year of having an analytics department was just set up, building the architecture to handle things like Statcast data to be able to integrate analytics output with the scouting department’s output. Obviously scouting reports are in a system somewhere. Well, that system has to be able to talk to the stats system. Once he said it, I thought it was obvious, but I’d never taken the time to think that this is months of work, not to mention a lot of money, to set up all the software and hardware required to handle this job. If Derek Falvey walked in and they had nothing in place - the Twins had a couple of people doing stuff, they didn’t have a full-fledged department with a budget committed to this - there probably had to be a point where they had to say, ‘What do we have to buy? We need servers and architecture, physical and software to be able to do this.’ And it takes so much time. If I was in Falvey’s shoes right now, that would be one of the things keeping me up at night. We’re just behind because they started last.” The Twins added a couple of veteran catchers who scored well in terms of defensive value and leadership in Jason Castro and Chris Gimenez. A few other small moves were made, but for the most part, there were not a lot of player personnel changes. So what are Keith Law’s thoughts on the Twins 2017 season? “They’ve still been outscored on the season (fact check: Twins have scored 158 runs, allowed 165 runs). I’m expecting them to finish below .500 on the season. Improving the situation behind the plate was critical. It took a lot of people by surprise that they chose to make that investment. But once you look at the players involved, who they got and who they replaced, and what the actual impact could be of having a good framer, a better game-caller back there. They’re going to ask him (Castro) to work with some young pitchers now and in the future. There’s some pretty clear value there.” But what else should the Twins do as the 2017 season plays out? “I would be fine with them not playing great the rest of the year if that’s because they are playing the right players. Remember two weeks into the season people were writing post mortems for Byron Buxton? I think they gave him one day off at one point, and whatever they did, whatever they said to him, whatever he’s decided to do himself, he’s looked pretty darn good these last three weeks or so. I was going through his game logs, and if you cut off at the day off, and I think he’s had exactly 50 plate appearances since then, that player with plus, elite level defense in center, is a star.” Law continued, “They could have just given up. I think a lot of organizations would have said, ‘Oh no, we rushed him. Let’s get him back to AAA. Maybe we need to bench him.’ They didn’t panic, and that’s a recognition too.” Under Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, Law sees a plan. “This organization is now building, and it’s going to take some time, but there is a lot of young talent in this system. I’m glad now you’ve got a situation that’s probably from ownership on down that’s willing to be patient too. And if that means you’re going to wait on a Byron Buxton a little bit longer, that’s OK. That’s how you run a team that's trying to build for the long term as opposed to having it both ways. I do think they got a little too much in that mode the last maybe two years or so.” The Twins do have a young team. Six of their regulars are 25 or under. Jose Berrios is now up, and Adalberto Mejia is likely to return this weekend to join Ervin Santana in the rotation. Keith Law finds that very important for a building team and illustrated with an example of the opposite. “The fact that the major league team is young is extremely important. I was doing a bit on a Bay Area radio station yesterday. They pointed out that the A’s are supposed to be a young team, but I look at their roster and they’re really not very young. He was right. They have two regular position players out of nine that are under 30. And Khris Davis is 29 years old. That team is not young. They may be unknown, but they are not young. And, the Twins obviously are saying they’re young, and they are absolutely young ,and they are giving the playing time to young players.” In past years, as the team waited for the Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Jose Berrios group to get to the big leagues and take their lumps, the Twins had a lot of stop gap veteran-type players. They were building toward becoming a young team by being a little bit older. At the same time, it was clear that the plan was to bring those guys up when they were ready. As a reminder, ESPN’s Keith Law will be at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night. If you can make it, you'll have a great time. We’ll continue our conversation with Keith Law in one or two more installments. We’ll get his thoughts on the Twins farm system as well as his thoughts and philosophies on what the Twins should do as they think about the #1 pick in June’s draft. Click here to view the article

I'd also add that we shouldn't give up on the power potential either. I'm not saying a 20+ HR guy, but he is strong and can turn on a ball sometime.

Struggled with control and keeping the ball in the ballpark. By the way, today he was assigned to Chattanooga.