Hawkeye Bean Counter

Feel like we got Eddie Guardado out there.

3 inside heaters to get 1 out.

Its 12:10 - is the game delayed?

Gabriel Gonzalez is regaining that prospect shine. .333/.387/.550 slash line is very pretty. He is crushing high A pitchers right now. I had always been skeptical of how he would do as he climbed the organizational ladder, especially with just a meh season last year at A+. He very well could push himself into the top 10 prospects again.

What is the issue with Bader?

Any update on France? Hopefully precautionary and he is feeling better.

I think the streak continues with a double header win. Hopefully we can get to the bullpen early in the first game.

If 2 of the 3 considered stars are hitting well this team will do well. It is no surprise we went on a winning streak at the same time Correa began to heat up for a bit. Correa's slow starts are really frustrating. Buxton has been the best Buxton can be, aggressive hitting, baserunning and in the field. The strikeouts are up, and I still have a concern he becomes a black hole against the best pitching teams and in the playoffs as they attack his over aggressive nature. Lewis, is a major question mark whether he can stay healthy and/or hit well. At this point I think we will be ok if an injury or underperformance occurs as both Lee and Keaschall appear to be solid options. Bader and France have brought some professional approaches to the plate, and also some very good defense. Jeffers and Larnach both appear to be turning a corner. The offense as we have it will be pretty potent with at worst 1 to 2 likely outs in the lineup. It would be nice to continue to strengthen the bench a bit, even with Kiersey's big moment this weekend. Clemens, Bride and Keirsey is pretty underwhelming for the bench. Now we will just have to see if last week was a flash in a pan, or will the hitting continue to improve and being able to maintain through the season. I am pretty optimistic of that and have been for a while. I figured sooner or later the bats wouldn't remain that cold and getting some injured players back would help.

Alcala had a heck of a year last year. Not sure what is going on but other teams are hitting the crap out of him, almost double the rate of last year. If he can return to last years form and Jax continues to reassert himself, this bullpen is loaded.

Well Correa ended up with 3 days off in a row. Hope he comes back swinging as well as he did last week.

Buxtons biggest issue in the last 4-5 years has been the knee, and fingers cross that appears to be fixed with the procedure they did in 2023. 2024 we saw what was healthy, relieved Buxton. In 2025 we are seeing a confident Buxton that has had the days limit restrictions removed. He has made smarter plays on balls at the fence sliding or slowing down to avoid unnecessary injuries. He has been a primary driver in this winning streak and I hope he continues it this season. A healthy buxton makes the contract look silly. A hurt buxton makes the contract look like an overpay. If we can get both peak Buxton and Correa you are looking at a pretty potent team.

This team has been built about 3 potential stars, Lewis, Correa and Buxton. If all 3 are firing you have an excellent ball club. Buxton appears to be locked in, Correa had a good week last week, Lewis is just coming back. You also have France and Lee and Bader provide professional at bats to the lineup which is needed with the 3 free swingers above. Jeffers and I think Larnach and Lee have the potential to rise up and be solid difference makers throughout the year. If we have 2 of 3 stars show up this year throughout the season you have the makings of really good season.

This is probably the most talented roster and deepest we have had in the Falvey era. You have a deep bullpen, 5 solid starting pitchers with 2-3 more solid options in the minors in Festa and Matthews. And the hitters are really pretty solid, even though underperformed early in the season. They seem to be turning a corner. I am expecting an upper 80's to lower 90's win team this year in one of the toughest divisions in mlb. All in all that is not a bad outcome, and likely is better than some of our other records earlier in Falveys tenure where we beat up and weaker teams in the division.

You are talking about players that have played for 2-3 seasons or less. Let them play them play their careers out. Holy crap. Larnach looks the most confident I have every seen him in the last week. He looks like he is turning a corner. Lewis just got back, lets see if he can stay healthy. Lee also seems to be getting more comfortable at the MLB level Keaschall just had a cup of coffee. If you want to limit players calling them AAAA players be my guest. You will see what you want to see. I see a pretty solid roster with a lot of players picked by Falvey. They are also on an 8 game winning streak which makes the timing of your post incredibly odd.

I think I am done with this topic. We have had the prospects come up Lee and Keaschall from the last 2 drafts. We have 5 players starting who Falvey has drafted. It really seems the goalposts are being moved and I am not sure what the argument is anymore. I think the minors is the strongest and most balance overall it has been in decades, pitching and hitting. The MLB ready bats have already been called up this year due to injury and underperformance in Lee and Keaschall, there isn't as much currently ready other than McCusker which wasn't a drafted player, but does provide some depth to the outfield if we have more injuries.

Lee and Keaschall Jeffers, Wallner, Lewis That isn't up for debate. That is a solid 5 starting players that will have a decent WAR this year. Jeffers had a 3.2 in 2023. He has a career 7.5 WAR Wallner 4.7 career. Lewis 3.2. Larnach 3.4. What are we arguing here? We are not only giving false information, we are ignoring the successes Falvey has had because it doesn't fit your agenda. Their WAR's are less because they are still young players. Now the real question is how can they continue to improve or give us quality performances the rest of this year and in future years.

538-494 That is the scoreboard that matters. If we are talking about recent success of drafting and developing hitters then you have Lee and Keaschall, The current hitters that have been drafted include Lewis, Lee, Jeffers, Wallner, Larnach and Keaschall. Honestly that is pretty solid draft success in my opinion with some high upside as well. And that doesn't include the players that have been traded away to supplement our pitching which when Falvey came on the cupboard was absolutely bare. The concern for the last 5 years is Falvey hasn't developed the pitching pipeline he was suppose to develop. Now we have the best starting 5, with 2-3 MLB prospects in the minors and the best quality of pitching prospects we have had with extremely high ceilings for as far back as I can remember. Now we have flipped back to hitting prospects which all in all is still pretty solid, but AAA is depleted because we have called up most of our best prospects to the MLB level.

For Outfield So Jenkins is supposed to be at AA, Rosario has been decent. AAA - you have Mccusker who is absolutely mashing and a top 20 prospect now. Martin likely won't have the bat or defense to make it. Erod has the pedigree who could turn a corner. Then the player who I think really turned a corner before his injury last year was Holland. Yes there is some question marks, but there is over 2/3rds of the minor league year yet for things to become clearer on organizational strengths and weaknesses. This is with Larnach, Wallner and Buxton who should be are 3 outfielders next year. What more do we really need. Its not as if most organizations can supplement their entire team from AAA or AA. Its not as if there are many holes in the infield other. France could possibly sign another short term deal if we are interested. There are potential trades, injuries or prospects outperforming or underperforming that can change our opinion of what is a need or not. As I posted the upper levels are not as strong because we traded a majority of our prospects from the 2021 draft. As to negative: I have received downvotes because I think Amick is a solid prospect. Because I think the minors have a decent amount of hitting prospects even though a lot of the higher end prospects are in A ball and high A ball you want to think there aren't any decent prospects in AAA. Even though you admit, we won't move up McCusker because we really don't have an opening. Then you have others who want to question the Twins on this winning streak because it seems like they either want this organization to lose because they don't like the ownership, or lose so we can fire Falvey and or Baldelli. Just look at this article, Bean wants to fire Falvey because he wants to state he hasn't drafted well enough, while ignoring the rest of the picture on developing the team. I just don't get the negativity. Yes we can be objective, but it seems like we are rooting for failure. Yes you got a bit of pushback because of previous interactions. I just think as fans we should be rooting when we are doing well, and the prospects and pipeline we do have. Worst case we have enough prospects capital to trade for any hole we may have and pretty deep pitching pipeline.

Why not just run with Larnach, Buxton and Wallner. Again what is your issue. Mccusker and E rod can continue to mature. What happens if Miranda, Julien, or Martin suddenly start to click. Or someone flips a switch like Holland, Severino, Gasper or Ford. Why don't we worry about this year rather than next year.

Seriously what is wrong with this board. Are we all just negative nellies? By then July you could have the following roster - Infield - Lewis, Correa, Keaschall, France - Lee as super utility Outfield - Bader, Buxton, Wallner, Larnach - McCusker and Castro as bench players or keep Kiersey up if you want more speed. Catcher - Jeffers Vasquez Or keep Lee at second and Keaschall remains in AAA. Other than outfield, I feel pretty good about next years roster. Every year we will have some 1 year deals, I don't understand the consternation. We are loaded on infield prospects. Its the outfield that is questionable.

Keaschall (AAA to Majors take your pick) - McCusker - Looks like a solid power options. Rodriguez (probably not ready). Eeles, who knows when he will be healthy. Then you have the rest of the prospect hitters that have had some shine come off but could still be options to help the team, Martin, Julien, Miranda.

Overall I am fine with how the prospects are doing. Yes Jenkins hasn't played, but so far Raya, Winokur and Lewis are the only ones really struggling. I think the positives have outweighed the negatives so far, and my guess is things will continue to improve on the prospect front as the season goes on. Keaschall looks like a stud. If Jenkins can get healthy and solidfy his top 5-10 status this minor league season is effectively a win. The long term pitching hopes fall on 4 young arms, Soto, Hill, Questad and Priellip. There will be others that do well as well, but all 4 have very high ceilings (Questad may still be a work in progress).

I had a post a couple months ago about Amick. I mentioned then there were some scouts and even a contingent of Twins fans who had a very negative view of him. I guess I just don't understand the pessimism. At pick 60 he was well worth the roll of the dice. This draft was considered to be light on hitting prospects. So to get a player who has very good power potential, and by all accounts is working at and continues to get better better at 3rd base. I am more than willing to give him that shot. He has been getting opportunities at 1st base as well, so the Twins may be easing him into that position. He has cut down on some of his swing and miss although it is higher than it was last year. If he can maintain this chase rate and strikeout rate he should be able to continue to rise the prospect ladder as well as the organizational ladder. He easily could flame out, on the defensive side and the offensive, but at this point there is some solid potential there. Its still early though.

Linus, its only confusing if you don't want to understand it. His defensive metrics at Clemson were below average. When he transferred to Tennessee he had improved immensely on the defensive side. Most baseball prospect ratings come out well before the start of the college baseball season and last year he was still primarily being graded on his prior metrics at Clemson than how he was currently performing. You state he is a not a good fielder now - which completely disagrees with what the article states - "Defensively, his arm and actions at third base grade out as average to above average, giving him the potential to stick on the left side of the infield." He had 2 major question marks in the draft. 1. His defense, if he can stay at 3rd it opens up his options immensely. 2. He had too much swing and miss specifically on off speed pitches. He appears to be cleaning this up some. Whether small sample size or due to a different approach so far the power that he was touted for has not shown up. In either case he appears to have improved on his biggest question marks. If he can also show up with his biggest strength then I would expect him to continue to move up the prospect rankings. He seems to be on the Spencer Steer track in my opinion. This isn't pie in the sky- if it was he wouldn't be a top 20 prospect right now.

Tigers, Cleveland and KC are all solid teams. I fully expect 1 to begin to struggle due to either injuries or just luck or poor performance.