Hawkeye Bean Counter

After changing to a different account, I still like to come back and look at this draft. This will likely go down as one of the best drafts in Twins history, even with some misses. And at 5 years we are pretty close to having a full picture. Both Wallner and Steer appear to be solid MLB hitters that will likely have solid careers. Edouard Julien likely has the highest upside of these 3 but has struggled a bit this year. Gipson-Long, Legumina, Headrick and Varland have all had varying degrees of success. Most are fringing pitchers at the MLB level but a few may stick. Canterino, still likely has the best stuff of any pitcher the Twins picked this draft but just can't stay healthy. Holland's hit tool final showed up this year in AAA but his season was derailed by an injury at the cubs game a couple weeks ago. There is no top end talent per say, but the number of players that have played in the big leagues is truly staggering.

And sometimes Lopez looks like a #1 pitcher.

This was never going to be a draft as exciting as the 2023 draft, the high end quality of players just wasn't there and the Twins didn't have a high end pick for a potential generational talent like Jenkins. What this draft did have his 4 picks in the first 69 selections, and what the Twins have excelled at in past drafts, finding good players they can work with at pretty much any selection was still evident in this draft. Culpepper and DeBarge are not sexy picks. What they are is excellent hitters, 2 of the best hit tools in the entire draft. The Twins went with the odds that these will be 2 of the most likely hitters to make it to the big leagues. When you look at it in those terms yes its likely the right decision. Whether as trade capital or players that have a relatively good probability of making the big leagues I am very happy with that. Would have I preferred Brecht over DeBarge, yes. I still feel his potential is likely there to be a #1 pitcher. But his probabilities of success are all over the board, with a much higher probability of failure, due to injury risk, lack of command, ect. Ultimately the Twins still took a chance on a high end pitcher in lefty pitcher Dasan Hill. Like Brecht, has a nasty slider. He doesn't currently have the velocity of Brecht but is close, and with his lengthy frame, will likely have minimal difference in perceived velocity due to his extension. He is still a work in progress, but command is likely viewed better than Brechts. Ultimately if it is a pick between those 2 players I am fine with the who the Twins picked. He has about as much upside as Brecht. Billy Amick is interesting. Basically a mix of Steer and CES. There is some questions with hit tool, but it looks good enough, power looks very very good. Honestly I think the Twins feel pretty comfortable with this pick. The most interesting thing is he has been viewed as poor speed, poor defense, what has happened this year is the metrics have effectively gone neutral to begin to flash plus for both defense and speed. So if you can have potentially a CES/Steer with above average speed and defense, that becomes a very valuable player. The rest of the hitters, look solid. High OPS, decent hit tools, most with big years this last year, and at varying levels of competitive ball. The pitchers, again look solid. The peripherals maybe not quite as good as say 2022 years picks, but at this point I fully expect to hit on several of those pitchers. Will just be curious to see which one flashes. 1st Blush I am not as impressed as say 2019, 2022, 2023. Do I still think it is still a solid draft and will give us some viable pieces or trade bait, yes. Hill likely has the highest ceiling of any of the players. The next is probably Amick. Culpepper and Debarge have the highest probabilities of making the big leagues, but will they be starters or utility players or even make it to their full potential, that is the question. The rest is flyers. They have a long enough track record to trust the picks they have made. I will continue to watch as I have in prior years.

In 2017, they have had 4 players that have played in MLB 2018 - 5 players played in the MLB 2019 - they have had 7, let me repeat that 7 players that have played in MLB and that doesn't include Holland or Canterino who have a shot. Currently, the 2019, 2022 and 2023 classes appear to be the best drafts of this organization with quality and quantity. I understand the 10% is a normal rule of thumb, but it is not representative of what the Twins have done in the drafts recently.

Either they think can be an elite reliever or most likely a starter. It does seem like at the lower levels, there is no true role. Pitchers will pitch 2, 3 or 4 innings, piggybacked with another potential starter prospect. Then they begin to define more roles as they go up. I don't see the quality of pitchers of prior years. I see some size, but the k/9 pitching ratio they are usual big on, is not showing up at all. Most of these pitchers are in the 6 to 7 range.

Who says it is bad???? They did ok, not great in the 2017-2019 drafts, not great. 2020 draft is a throw away draft. They traded away most of their pitchers from the 2021 draft. The 2022 and the 2023 draft appears to be very successful at finding some quality pitchers. Several already in AA, most of the roster in high A and A ball are comprised from these 2 classes. Most likely they have 2 quality long term pitchers out of these 2 classes. In reality that is all you need. We don't need major reinforcements until 2026.

They seem to be finding enough pitching with putting minimal resources into it. They are now beginning to go for bigger swings on the pitching as well. We will see if 1 of these pitchers can become the true #1 this team needs to really be in the conversation of competing for WS.

Might be a good starting point before you want to have a conversation about something 😉.

If its chronic, don't you think it would be in the same foot? Since it is not, and not as severe as last year, Im not too worried about. Looks like a way to get correa a good rest to go into the 2nd half of the season.

Amick might be costing more than we realize and the 2 top picks might be closer to slot than we realize.

Whatever you are good at, you need to capitalize on it. Currently the Twins have a pretty good method to their madness and have been pretty successful with their strategy. I saw where they said our farm was the 3rd rated. My guess is that is with Brooks Lee still included. Now we didn't gain any huge prospect like last year. But a few of these guys will likely do well. Right now we are producing enough pitching prospects. Some years it will be like last year where 75% of the picks were pitchers, otherwise the Twins have been pretty close to 50/50 most years.

They needed more bats after taking so few last year. Yes I am hoping for 4-6 more lottery arms today, to see if they can find something usable. One other thing I was thinking about, Sam Parker was a follow and sign option as he went to Juco, it appears he didn't sign with us.

Looking at it after today, pretty clear they were trying to get some more money from early picks in day 2. Means they paid extra for Hill and probably Amick. That is ok. I would rather get 4 solid prospects and honestly that is what this looks like. The rest taken in day 2 still look like decent prospects but definitely some savings occurring there. Solid draft, nothing spectacular like last year, but solid none the less.

Great post. I mentioned pop up prospect as not on any current top list, but yes he has been a very solid hitter over his college career, where he really improved this year was a big jump in power. If he really can be a solid catcher my guess is the Twins will give him that chance, even with picking 2 others. They love positional flexibility. Will be interesting to watch his development. As I stated his stats were just as good as the other 2 FSU players taken in the first round.

Yep, for some reason looked at the wrong statistic.

Likely has 1 elite pitch they want to build around, and likely increase velocity.

In genenral we usually start going hot and heavy on pitchers starting around the 7th round. I would guess you will see several. Usually pitchers in the 7th round to 15th round is where we have found our best under the radar pitching prospects in the last several years.

Another outfield with high OPS, 1000+ this year, senior sign. They are definitely trying to find some money while still taking some decent hitting prospects. Drafted in the 10th round last year, decided to come back.

Maybe a little, but those stats and the performance in the college world series dictate otherwise. Had 2nd most homeruns on team, behind Tibbs and ahead of Cam Smith. Pretty good company.

Honestly we had a lot of top end hitting talent in the minors, but really didn't have enough hitting prospects overall in the minors due to going extremely heavy on pitching prospects last year, which is why we have had to supplement with a lot of independent league hitters this year. I would guess we are just trying to restock the hitters in these rounds before we go with the regular pitching heavy draft to end the rest of the draft. We may be trying to find money but Jaime Ferrer, looks again like a player that had a pop up year at Florida State, 1.083 OPS and 22 HR. We tend to gravitate to these players hoping they are being underrated and have figured something out. Rather than going for the player that has had a down year. It looks like a reasonable pick. There may be more hitters in this draft that what the prognosticators had stated.

Actually sounds more athletic, stated as a good hit tool, but similar to Cavaco limited in exposure due to injuries so the hit tool may be a little more questionable and may look good due to small sample size. Even still, this organization has seemed to be very right when they have taken a relatively higher pick on a Catcher. He looks like he has a chance to be a very good ball player.

Curious if he gave any hints about their bonus situation, whether under, over or flat on their bonus situation

The batting quality falls off a cliff after the top 60 prospects, not that you can't find someone to succeed but will be lower probabilities than normal. I am still expecting 1 to 2 more high contact hitters, similar to Harry like player taken last year. Also a catcher prospect or 2 at some point as they took none last year.

This issue was he was not picked in the first 2 rounds. So if it was leverage, he would need a massive overpay. I hope this is true and the Twins have a deal in place with him or another team. Otherwise he would likely have no leverage at this point due to the decreased bonus allotment for each pick.

The issue with Oakie is he really wants to be a Hawkeye. So the only way this works is a large overpay. I don't see us likely having enough money to pull this off. I agree if we were able to get Oakie this would likely be a slam dunk draft, 3 solid hitters, and 2 high upside high school pitchers. I just don't see this coming to fruition. The real question is how much bonus money do the Twins have remaining for overslot players in the remaining rounds. I do think we will take 1-2 catchers in this draft. The Twins have historically punted this position so I will be curious if they spend any capital on this position that is one of the few positions that was considered deep in this draft class. Otherwise yes, I do agree this will likely be a heavy pitching next 2 days in the draft. The Twins still have 2 opportunities to draft players fror the Hawkeyes, they would be Marcus Morgan and Cade Obermueller. They both have above average stuff and would be very similar to Langenberg. Would both likely be overpays as they likely may be willing to come back to try to improve their draft stock.