Steve Lein

Arcia was an OBP machine in the winter leagues this year (19 BB's in 31 VWL games), as he made a conscious effort to work on it (which has also been discussed here on TD). I think he'll be a key offensive cog for the Twins this year, and he'd probably by my guy to bat 3rd in this lineup if he's going good.

He didn't show anything?! A 2.59 ERA and 1.14 WHIP while using his best out pitch sparingly?! That tells me nobody was squaring him up... And frankly, I think he was better (by a good amount) than Berrios was in the MWL at the same age... He definitely wasn't using it much. I know Seth wrote an article where Stewart himself said he didn't throw a single one in the game discussed. The idea, from what I've gathered, was because he was a HS draftee who didn't focus full time on baseball until being drafted. All the potential is there, but the best way to get him to reach that potential was focusing on the most important aspect of pitching, which is locating the fastball, as he hadn't actually spent a ton of time pitching to develop this based on his multi-sport background. All the reports and profiles leading up to the draft praised the slider as his best strike-out pitch, and a swing-and-miss one at that (plus). I would think it's quite logical (and obvious) that he wouldn't rack up as many K's as expected if he was throwing 5 or less of them per game, or none at all.

You can read all kinds of opinions on how #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5 starters are defined (Kiley talks about this on fangraphs) But typically, I think you can say there are maybe 10 true "Aces" per season (this is greater than a #1). If you go by Kiley's scale, this would be guys with a >6.0 WAR. There were 6 such starters last season. There's probably a few more #1's than that, but not by much. If we classify them as >4 WAR, you come up with 9 pitchers in that range last year. Then you can probably double that total number of "aces and #1's" for #2's and #3's, which gives us about 30 names. Again, Kiley's scale classifies these as >2.5 WAR, and this gives 31 pitchers from last season. Then you have a boatload of #4's and #5's. The "league average" pitcher is what I'd typically describe as a #4 pitcher, or as an example from the Twins last year, Kyle Gibson (though he actually qualifies for a #3 in the exercise above, with exactly 2.5 WAR).

I wouldn't put him above Stewart or Meyer yet either. Especially based solely on his age in comparison, which is what I think is being done here. But you can't deny what he did last year, at least in the FSL - he absolutely dominated it. But he was quite ordinary after being promoted if you ask me. If he makes the same adjustment to AA early this season as he did going into the FSL though, it'd be very hard to argue. And I also think it's a mistake to doubt him at this point. Just a bit premature on moving him ahead of Meyer (based on stuff) and Stewart (based on potential) for me.

Nice catch. My line of thinking still applies!

I think Stewart pitched better at Cedar Rapids than Berrios did the year before, all while primarily shelving his best strikeout pitch. I think that's going a bit unnoticed. He also didn't have much of Win-Loss record because of the pitch limit that made it hard for him to get through 5 innings. I'm very excited to see what he can do in the FSL if they loosen the reigns a bit.

Without seeing actual video, it could be anything but a Fastball. I'd wager it was his new changeup though based on it appearing like his palm is 'open' after release. New pitches can be quite inconsistent, so might have pulled the string a bit more on that one. I don't know. And I think a pro-pitcher can probably add and subtract just fine. Heck, that's how I threw a 'cutter' vs. a 'breaking ball' back when I tried to "pitch" q;) Same grip, but it sure had different movement based on how hard I threw it and what finger I used to put pressure on the seam. But I do like your report, and everything about him screams 'why isn't he in the majors already' to me!

They had him on a limit of 85 pitches or 6 innings. There were starts in there that he dominated, but was pulled after 6 innings at 85 pitches or so. From a Judd Zulgad article after Futures Game last year: "The Twins, rightfully so, have been extremely cautious with Meyer this season. He missed two months last year because of shoulder soreness and the Twins have been very strict with how many pitches the 24-year-old is allowed to throw per outing. "It's been six innings or 85 pitches, whatever comes first," he said. "Last time our pitching coordinator was in town so I got to go a little bit longer, but I think (the decision to be careful) comes with the shoulder injury from last year."

Yeah I've seen a bunch of conflicting notes about his breaking ball. Most call it a Slider, some call it a curve or knuckle curve. Think it gets the slider label most often because it's typically in the mid-80's, which is more of a slider velocity. Lets just call it a 'breaking ball'. He throws the 4-seamer, which is what will come in 95-98 MPH. Then a Two-seamer (that's probably the better pitch and gets his groundballs) at 92-95. Then there's the breaking ball, and while I don't doubt he can add and subtract from it, I think it's the same pitch. Then the changeup he's developing. I think those are what his "4 pitches" are.

I read this several times last year, and recall quotes to this effect from several in the front office and his coaches at Cedar Rapids. In this TD article from Seth, it mentions he didn't throw a single slider in the start discussed. It also comes up in the Adopt-A-Prospect thread for him.

If we have 4 starters with 12 or more wins, I think that's a team in a pennant race, not just .500! The Twins had only 2 starters that went over 10 wins last year. After them the highest win total was 6.

If I base it on stuff and ceiling, I'd have them Meyer, Stewart, Berrios. If I add performance relative to each other to the equation thus far, I'd still have them Meyer, Stewart, Berrios. They're all excellent to me, but Meyer has shown the stuff to dominate at the MLB level. He has the quality, plus, pitches. I believe this trumps everything else when we're talking about prospects. Stewart outperformed Berrios at the same age in the MWL, and he did that while primarily shelving his best strikeout pitch (slider) to work on fastball command. That's also why I don't look at his K-rate and become alarmed enough to knock him down. Berrios set the world on fire this year and certainly brought himself a lot closer to those two (not behind by much), but there are reasons the others still get "top of the rotation" evaluations for their potential, and Berrios still gets "mid-rotation" starter marks, and it's the quality of their "stuff" in relation to getting MLB hitters out in the future. I think you could argue it any possible way though. Everyone likes certain traits more than others, which makes it fun!

Arcia and Gibson. Plouffe and Hughes as runner's up.

I agree with you here. It's not just you who thinks it. The Twins are constantly referred to as one of the most conservative teams in bumping prospects, often times the most conservative. With Meyer, I think their overall plan was to make sure he could stay healthy for a season without the pressure of contributing in the majors. I don't agree with several parts of that premise, but there are some talking points. One of which I'm sure the Twins would point out, is that before last year Meyer's highest innings total as a pro was 129 in his first year (2012). He pitched 130 last year, and has had those injuries in between. That's not a very high peak total for a SP prospect in the minors. Trevor May has pitched 150+ innings essentially 4 times. Kyle Gibson pitched 150+ his first year. Jose Berrios pitched 140 last year. While the Twins purposefully limited Meyer in 2014, it may well have had a direct relation to his health. This is the only argument with Meyer that holds any merit to me in relation to why he hasn't been called up, though I still wouldn't use it as the reason not to. He without a doubt has the best "stuff" of any pitcher in the Twins organization, is 25 years old, and has shown he can dominate the AAA level. He can't 'learn' to stay healthy. It's time to bring him up so he can continue to develop into that top-of-the rotation MLB starter they think he can be, as I don't think there's anything left he needs to or can learn at AAA that he can't in the majors. That said, I'm fine if he starts off there because he didn't 'win a battle in ST,' but that better mean he's on a very short list (of one) for the first call up if anything else hasn't gone wrong.

I'm of this thinking as well, but wouldn't quite put him past Glen Perkins just yet. Though I do think that is inevitable.

Love reading this story. I wasn't a huge fan of the Wimmers pick, but then he came out and was fantastic that first season and changed that thinking. I remember listening to his last start that year (think it was a no-hitter? at least for as long as he was in the game) and the Miracle play-by-play guy was in love with him. Then the next year came along, and the same play-by-play guy was flabbergasted by his first start, as he threw 4-pitches over the catchers head to the backstop. That's when the injuries came up. It's taken a bit of time for him to come back, but I wouldn't write him off yet, and I'd still rate his ceiling as higher than some other more recent guys we're talking about now as starters.

Dang. Definitely a lot of love. Polanco and Gonsalves are the two guys on their Twins Top 10 that didn't make it. Meyer's rank is the most surprising to me. Wonder what the overall thinking there is.

In Mauer's case, I don't think it's there because it literally does not hurt their payroll. Sure it's a large percentage of it, and you would hope for production better than last years at that price, but you also have to consider that the Twins have been spending more money on FA's then they ever have the past few seasons, all while his contract was part of it. Granted, you can say "well that's because they never spent such money" and I think you have a point, but it has not been an albatross preventing them from doing anything like some would like you to think.

Examples of players who could hide command issues in low-levels is as old as the minor leagues. Well, the modern minor leagues (Rookie leagues through AAA). Shooter Hunt is a perfect example of one for the Twins. Billy Bullock is another. If I spent time looking I'd probably find at least 20 others for the Twins... In just the past 10 years... If you're at all into reading sites like Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, etc... which focus on the minor leagues, you will have read at some point a statement along the lines of: "[so and so] has a ceiling of a [whatever], but could also end up a AA-command flameout." It is very much a thing.

I think there are tons of easy common sense ways they can speed up pace of play, but I'm not even sure it's the pace of the game that needs to be adjusted, but also the pace of how they broadcast it... For pace of the actual game, why does a relief pitcher need to throw 10+ warm-up pitches from the mound? Why does a hitter have to step out of the box after every pitch? Those are just a few examples, each of which would shave off 10-20 minutes of time on their own. The bigger problem I think, however, is the pace of the TV broadcast caused by the associated advertiser $$$. Everything is sponsored now: Pitching changes, the seventh inning stretch, the scouting reports they show on air... All these things have a "sponsor" that gets pitched. I'd love to see someone track how much time is spent on plugging a product during a baseball broadcast these days. And I'm not even talking about commercial breaks, I'm talking about the things during the game broadcast. "This call to the bullpen is brought to you by [fill in the blank]," etc... I think those seconds would add up pretty quick to significant amounts of time. There's so much extra stuff than the actual game being played, that I think this is what turns off the ADD crowd, or just the casual fans they're trying to cater to.

Saw him throw an inning in Cedar Rapids (along with a start from Lewis Thorpe) that I wrote about here. He does have some form of a changeup, and it is inconsistent. But in that article I have video of a 3-pitch strikeout he had. The last pitch to the guy was one of the dirtiest changeup's I've ever seen. It dropped off the table and froze the hitter in almost comedic fashion to catch the outside corner for a looking K. He may not need it, but it's a great extra weapon to have.

I thought it was Keith Law I saw a blurb from, but I haven't been able to track it down again. But there was something I read that said that it ended up being less than originally feared, and he should be ready to go. Of course we won't know on that for sure until it happens, but I was pleasantly surprised to read that. Just wish I could find it again.

1 million times this. High strikeout pitchers can get away with a lot of walks. He was also 7th among all qualified pitchers in the International League in ERA. That tells me the walks weren't a major issue.

Van Slyke would have been one of my top trade targets heading into the offseason, but they went with Torii Hunter to fill that opening.

Yup, I love those metrics too. I'd use them in this argument as well though (the batting #2 vs batting #3). What "RC" does fundamentally to me, is combine two different abilities of a hitter: His ability to put himself in a position to end up scoring a run himself (essentially OBP), and ability to bring in runners available to him (essentially SLG). In this way, Mauer's number is driven largely by his ability to put himself in a position to score (high BA/OBP), which is worth more in the RC calculation than the ability to bring in runners (high SLG), as it should be. He's very very good at this (one of the way's he is great), one of the best in the game over his career, so his number in this is very good. Dunn's number is driven by his power, but it's limited because he's not good at putting himself in position to score in other ways (low BA/OBP). That's why you see the difference in those numbers and what I'm showing. Not at all arguing Dunn was worth more to his team than Mauer (that's something that's not debateable either), just that he produced more direct offense to scoreboards for his team.