Cody Schoenmann

Image courtesy of © Pablo Robles-Imagn Images Last Wednesday, the Minnesota Twins traded for Yoendrys Gómez from the Tampa Bay Rays, for cash considerations. Bouncing between the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox, Tampa Bay, and now Minnesota since the beginning of the 2025 season, Gómez has embodied the nomadic reliever trope, being vaguely desired by many clubs but rostered long-term by none. Despite hopping between clubs, the 26-year-old finished his 2025 campaign relatively strongly, netting a 4.84 ERA, 4.85 FIP, and 22.6% strikeout rate over 48 1/3 innings pitched for the White Sox. Chicago flipped Gómez to the Rays this offseason alongside fellow right-handed reliever Steven Wilson, for outfielder Everson Pereira and utility prospect Tanner Murray. Unfortunately, he struggled to begin his 2026 campaign with Tampa Bay, posting a 6.23 ERA, 7.28 FIP, and a less impressive 15.9% strikeout rate over 17 1/3 innings. Tampa Bay had Gómez using a five-pitch mix, which isn’t unique for a right-handed reliever. The righty primarily utilized his four-seam fastball and sweeper, both of which graded out as true plus pitches. Yet, he also often used his sinker, cutter, and changeup, all of which graded out below average. Opposing hitters generated a 142 wRC+ against his sinker this season and a 303 wRC+ against his cutter while Gómez was with Tampa Bay. To preface, hitters also excelled against Gómez’s four-seamer when he pitched for Tampa Bay, with a 186 wRC+. As noted earlier, the pitch graded out well above average (121 Stuff+ at FanGraphs), suggesting his struggles were the product of bad luck rather than a low-quality pitch, but there are things to clean up. Command will be crucial. Gómez did, however, excel at throwing his sweeper with Tampa Bay, netting an elite -100 wRC+ and 125 Stuff+ at FanGraphs with the pitch. So far, albeit in a sample so small as to be almost meaningless, Minnesota has effectively cut his sinker, cutter, and changeup from his repertoire entirely, with him using his four-seamer and sweeper in 14 of his 17 pitches thrown with the Twins. Again, I am analyzing a 17-pitch sample. Still, Gómez has excelled with a two-pitch mix for the Twins, posting a 0.00 ERA, 3.13 FIP, and plus grades on both pitches through 1 2/3 innings. Gómez also earned his first save with the club on Sunday, mowing through Daniel Schneeman, Angel Martínez, and Travis Bazzana on 10 pitches. The newly acquired relief arm has been stellar in his first three appearances for Minnesota, functioning as a breath of fresh air for what has been the fourth-worst bullpen in baseball, according to Wins Above Replacement at FanGraphs (fWAR). dnZ3REtfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1VnWllBUUlBVUZFQURGSUtWZ0FIQmdGUUFBTlJWbFVBVTFJTkJBb0JVMVVEVlZBQw==.mp4 Given that Cody Laweryson, Garrett Acton, and Cole Sands are on the 15-day IL; Kody Funderburk was surprisingly demoted to Triple-A St. Paul on Sunday; and Justin Topa, Taylor Rogers, and Anthony Banda have struggled mightily to begin their respective 2026 campaigns. Minnesota’s bullpen is arguably the most volatile in the sport. Yet, with volatility comes opportunity. Andrew Morris has capitalized on his opportunities in various roles. Eric Orze has impressed despite blowing a save against the Seattle Mariners in late April. And 39-year-old Luis García has been thrust into high-leverage situations despite joining the club on Apr. 28. Given that Minnesota targeted Gómez from Tampa Bay and that he has immediately succeeded in high-leverage situations, the 26-year-old could quickly become Minnesota’s preferred high-leverage arm. View full article

i’ve long thought 3B is Brooks’s best position.

Image courtesy of © Geoff Burke-Imagn Images Brooks Lee hit the ground running faster than Cole Thomas Allen down a Washington Hilton hallway over the first week of his major league career, hitting .458/.462/.625 with a 206 wRC+ over 26 plate appearances. The switch-hitting infielder quickly cooled off, however, hitting a far less impressive .182/.233/.270 in 159 plate appearances over the final three months of the season. The eighth overall pick in the 2022 MLB Amateur Draft sputtered last season, too, hitting a modest .236/.285/.370 over 527 plate appearances. Netting a well-below-league-average 75 wRC+ over his first season-and-a-half in the majors, Lee also struggled in the field, netting -6 Outs Above Average (OAA) during that stretch, causing those who follow the club to question if he was playing his way out of the Minnesota Twins' long-term plans. Through 36 games played this season, however, the 25-year-old has broken out at the plate, rekindling the flame of optimism surrounding the former top prospect. Over 136 plate appearances, Lee is hitting .278/.331/.437 with a 114 wRC+. The Cal Poly product has also hit five home runs, continuing the plus-power profile he flashed during his sophomore campaign last season, in which he hit 16 dingers. Some of the same weaknesses remain in Lee’s player profile, particularly defensively, despite last night's heroics. Minnesota’s shortstop has netted -4 OAA, making him the fifth-worst defender at the position this season. He also has one of the weaker arms of all middle infielders in baseball, continuing a career-long trend. Still, Lee performing like one of the best offensive shortstops in the sport has largely offset his defensive shortcomings, making him one of Minnesota’s steadiest presences early this season. The past two seasons, Lee struggled from the left side of the plate, posting a 68 wRC+ over 482 plate appearances. The switch-hitting shortstop has performed dramatically better while hitting left-handed in 2026, hitting .291/.333/.456 with a 119 wRC+ over 84 plate appearances against righties this season. Right-handed pitchers are throwing Lee more strikes this season. At the same time, Lee has been more aggressive on balls in the zone than in the past two seasons, often pulling the ball hard and in the air. Lee excelling as a left-handed hitter while holding his own from the right-handed batter’s box (106 wRC+ over 52 plate appearances) has resulted in the best month-and-a-half stretch of his young career, signaling he has finally blossomed into an above-average regular. The 2026 Twins are not a good baseball club. In fact, they might be one of sport’s worst. Still, there will be a time when the seeds of the next Good Twins Team poke their head out of the dirt, germinate, and blossom into a postseason-contending 26-player collective. It just won’t be this season—or next; and maybe not even the next after that. Yet, if the progress Lee has demonstrated at the plate this season proves sustainable, he could be a core member of that club. View full article

Walker JenkinsEmmanuel RodriguezKaelen CulpepperConnor PrielippGabriel GonzalezRiley QuickEduardo TaitMarek HoustonKendry RojasDasan HillHendry MendezAndrew MorrisQuentin YoungCharlee SotoRyan GallagherBilly AmickCJ CulpepperKyle DeBargeJames EllwangerKhadim Diaw

Walker JenkinsEmmanuel RodriguezKaelen CulpepperConnor PrielippGabriel GonzalezRiley QuickEduardo TaitMarek HoustonKendry RojasDasan HillHendry MendezAndrew MorrisQuentin YoungCharlee SotoRyan GallagherBilly AmickCJ CulpepperKyle DeBargeJames EllwangerKhadim Diaw

Committing to Clemson University in 2021, Amick quickly became one of college baseball’s best hitters, hitting .414/.464/.772 with 13 home runs over 192 plate appearances in 2022. The right-handed-hitting corner infielder transferred to the University of Tennessee for the 2023 season, where he hit a less-impressive yet still elite .306/.387/.639 with 23 home runs over 292 plate appearances, playing a role in Tony Vitello’s club winning the College World Series. Sporting a keen approach and plus power during his college career, Amick was projected to be selected in the back half of the first round in the 2024 MLB Amateur Draft. Surprisingly, however, he slipped to the second round, where he was selected 60th overall by the Minnesota Twins. Since joining the organization, Amick has somewhat surprisingly become an afterthought for those who monitor Minnesota Twins prospects—understandably so. Recent draft selections Walker Jenkins, Kaelen Culpepper, Connor Prielipp, Marek Houston, and Riley Quick have excelled through the organization’s minor league system, entering Top-100 prospects lists and operating as primary reasons for optimism surrounding the club’s long-term success. International free agent signees Emmanuel Rodriguez, Kendry Rojas, Eduardo Tait, and Hendry Mendez have also demonstrated flashes of becoming plus major league contributors, effectively clogging the available headspace of Twins Territory prospect perverts. Still, there are understated possible future contributors to be unearthed amidst the amalgamation of young talent, with Amick potentially being the least-discussed. Appearing in 18 games with Single-A Fort Myers after being selected out of Tennessee in 2024, the right-handed hitting corner outfielder hit .222/.351/.413 with three home runs over 77 plate appearances. The former volunteer continued his hot start, generating a 101 wRC+ with Fort Myers before being promoted to High-A Cedar Rapids in late-March, 2025. Amick excelled with Cedar Rapids, hitting .310/.418/.455 with four home runs and a 152 wRC+ over 244 plate appearances. The now-23-year-old is again performing well at a higher level this season, hitting .235/.309/.482 with six home runs and a 100 wRC+ over 97 plate appearances with Double-A Wichita. Amick’s impressive Double-A numbers have largely been accumulated since Apr. 18, with him hitting four home runs and netting a 128 wRC+ over 41 plate appearances during that stretch. As he did during his three-season college career between Clemson and Tennessee, Amick has hit the ball hard and in the air the past couple of weeks, evidenced by him netting a well-above-average 17% pull-rate during that stretch. The 23-year-old's success in Double-A is especially encouraging, given that he is over a year younger than the average position player at the level. High whiff and strikeout rates have been and always will be a concern with the former college star. He has whiffed 40.5% of the time and struck out 28.9 of the time at Double-A. Still, his swing and miss concerns can be forgiven if he hits the ball hard upon contact, a trend he has continued during his first cup of coffee in the high-minors. The concern with Amick, of course, is him becoming a three true outcomes, Matt Wallner-esque hitter in the majors, hitting for power while striking out roughly 40% of the time and walking at an 8-10% clip. Twins Territory understandably has a negative view of that player archetype, given Wallner’s abysmal start to his 2026 campaign. Still, given Wallner’s success from 2023 through 2025, there is precedent for players of that archetype succeeding over multi-season stretches. Amick also plays positions higher on the defensive spectrum, playing mostly third base and first base at Double-A this season. Given the club’s long-term uncertainty at both corner infield spots, lack of right-handed hitting position player prospects, and Amick’s sustained success between Low-A, High-A, and Double-A the past three seasons, the 23-year-old could climb up Twins’ top prospects lists, inserting himself into the club’s long-term corner infield plans. View full article

A little over a week ago, North Side Baseball’s Matthew Trueblood wrote a piece illustrating how Pete Crow-Armstrong is the best centerfielder in baseball, and potentially the rangiest centerfielder ever. Advanced metrics support this claim, with Crow-Armstrong sitting atop the position in FanGraphs’s Defensive Runs Above Average (7.2 DEF) and Baseball Savant’s Outs Above Average (7 OAA). Arizona Diamondbacks centerfielder Alek Thomas sits in second at both metrics, generating 3.2 DEF and 3 OAA over 183 innings at the position this season. Andy Pages (Los Angeles Dodgers) and Michael Harris II (Atlanta) reside in the third and fourth slots in DEF, generating 2.4 and 2.3, respectively. Interestingly, however, Byron Buxton has generated the fifth-most DEF (1.7) in the third-highest OAA (2) at the position this season, slotting him alongside Thomas, Pages, and Harris II as the second tier of elite defensive centerfielders behind Crow-Armstrong. Thomas, Pages, Harris II, and Buxton are all fast, rangy centerfielders with plus arms and route-taking skills. Yet, what separates the trio of Thomas, Pages, Harris II (and Crow-Armstrong) from Buxton is that they all play for National League clubs. Buxton is tied with Evan Carter, Denzel Clarke, Steven Kwan, and Tristan Peters for first in OAA and tied for first in DEF once again alongside Kwan. Buxton, however, has generated 184 innings at the position compared to Kwan’s 189, meaning he made more of an impact at the position in fewer innings played (albeit only five). Buxton is neck-and-neck with Carter, Clarke, Kwan, and Peters in OAA and Kwan in DEF. Still, if one were to look even further below the hood, they would notice the 32-year-old Twins outfielder is leading the four other plus AL centerfielders in other important metrics. Buxton is the best among the quartet in making plays running in, sporting 1 OAA in those scenarios. Buxton is tied with Clarke and Kwan with 1 OAA on making plays to his right and trailing only Peters, Kwan, and Carter on plays to his left. Again, there is very little wiggle room between Buxton and Kwan; Carter is not far behind them, either. Still, there is one metric Buxton truly separates himself from the pack in: sprint speed. According to Baseball Savant’s sprint speed metric, Buxton is the 12th-fastest player in baseball, and the third-fastest player in the AL behind only Bobby Witt Jr. and Chandler Simpson. That being the case, Buxton is the AL’s quickest centerfielder, sprinting 29.5 feet per second. Peters is close behind him, running 28.6 feet per second. Still, he is far behind Buxton in DEF, sporting only 0.4 over 96 innings at the position. Carter sprints 27.8 per second. Like Peters, he trails Buxton in DEF, netting only 1.5 over 222 2/3 innings in center. Most notably, Kwan is one of the slowest centerfielders in baseball, sprinting 26.7 feet per second (ranking him 34th out of 38 centerfielders). Buxton is not leaps and bounds ahead of fellow AL centerfielders like Crow-Armstrong is compared to the rest of the sport. Heck, he is barely even a top-five centerfielder in the sport, with Thomas, Pages, and Harris II firmly planted ahead of him. Still, given Buxton’s competition in the AL, and him resembling the elite defender who won the Platinum Glove in 2017, the long-time Twin could again be the AL’s best defensive centerfielder, a remarkable feat for a player who recently reached ten years of service time. View full article

Nothing has been intentionally skewed. It’s possible that I missed a LHH position player who LF or RF on a team or two. I looked over each team three times to confirm, though. Again, human error is possible on my end, but if there are any mistakes it’s within a 1-2 player margin and accidental.

The only alternative is Roden and he probably deserves to start more than twice a week.

when did you become a silver caretaker?

There's really only like 10 LHH cOFs who hit LHP well and most of those players are stars like Cody Bellinger, Corbin Carroll, Kyle Tucker, and James Wood. Wallner actually fares well against LHP. He has a 102 wRC+ over 130 plate appearances against them since last year. Still, though, LHH cOFS who hit LHP well are few and far between. The Twins are lucky to have one in Wallner.