Steve Lein

well, he's leading American League Rookies (per MLB.com), in doubles, HR's (tied with Hicks), RBI's, and is second in OPS (to Jose Iglesias of all players), so yes, I'd say he's a legitimate candidate!

BABIP, to me, is a statistic that can be maintained over a single season, it doesn't necessarily regress or progress to the mean of that player's career all the time (such is the case with any stat where "luck" can apply), thus I hate when it is used with that caveat thrown in - But I guess that's not what my comment turned into here here today... Ergo -> While it's not a very good judge of things on the whole, I have this incredibly detailed (and cumbersome) spreadsheet dedicated to Joe Mauer and comparing a whole bunch of stats to other players (a lot of it dedicated to comparing him to other teams primary #3 hitters from 2012), and it's quite interesting what one can come up with messing around with all those numbers. For instance, Adam Dunn, who hit .204 (110 hits) last year and struck out 222 times (34% of his PA's), drove in a higher % of ALL Total possible baserunners (including himself) than Mauer did (and Joe hit .319 (174 hits) and K'd in only 13.7% of PA's). The quick math for you on that is this: Mauer: 1055 total possible baserunners, 85 RBI on the year (8.05%). Dunn: 1028 total possible baserunners, 96 RBI on the year (9.34%). You can 100% attribute that fact to Dunn hitting 41 HR's (.468 slugging) compared to Mauer's 10 (.446 slugging), but I find things like that interesting -> Dunn was a better "run producer" with a batting average of .204 than one of the best pure "hitters" in the game. For further comparison's sake, Miguel Cabrera of Triple Crown winning fame, drove in 12.18% of all possible baserunners (1141 TPB, 139 RBI). Of note in relation to this article, is even with a few more HR's, Mauer's TPB% I've given above is considerably lower this year, only 5.26% (and he's slugging .060 points higher too), and that likely means that his increase in K's is not a good thing in that regard - or demonstrates how bad the hitters have been in front of him. There is a -10% difference in how many PA's he's had with runners on base compared to 2012.

Basically looks like what is expected, though I am surprised to see so many misses up high - to me that says they're absolutely avoiding going after him and trying to make him do too much, and somewhat succeeding at that. But he'll be fine.

I hope it's soon! He's also one of my favorite prospects we have down in the system. I too like his swing. The year before this I got to watch quite a bit of him at Spring Training, where he was playing with the Beloit roster (that included Sano, Vargas, Rosario), and he was the best in-game hitter without a doubt. You tend to notice when everything he hit was a line drive somewhere. This one was especially well-struck: Max Kepler lines a double down the opposite field line (video) on Twitpic Never like to hear the injury questions when it comes to Twins players like this though, hasn't boded well for them in recent times...

Lots of good stuff in that one too. I like the increasing chatter on Twins having possibly 2 of the top 5 prospects in all of baseball next year.

J.J. Cooper from BA answered this question on Buxton in his chat today: Rich (CA): What was your take on Byron Buxton after seeing him in person ? Does anyone compare to him at all ? J.J. Cooper: My wife Tweeted today that she was wondering if she had something to be concerned about with my newfound love of Buxton. Hopefully she was joking. I expected him to be a very good prospect, but he was better than that. I'd go on and on, but we'll have a lengthy feature on Buxton running in the near future which will pass along a whole lot of info and detail on Buxton. -More high praise, and I'm looking forward to the feature! This question just came up as well, name-dropping another Top Twins prospect: Eric (Boston): In light of performance, call ups and injury status' of other top prospects, is there a case for Xander Bogaerts as the number 1 overall prospect right now? Already the youngest player the the EL he just got promoted. Who's he competing with for next years top spot? J.J. Cooper: I'm getting ready to dive into that very question before long for our midseason update. Buxton is in the discussion. Oscar Taveras is still a worthy competitor for the title. And I think Miguel Sano has to be considered as well. But Bogaerts is part of the discussion. -Buxton and the Twins are pretty popular today: Byron Buxton (Cedar Rapids): Do you think I will head to Ft. Myers after the AS game? J.J. Cooper: I'd expect so. From what I saw and what scouts who I talked to have seen, there's few challenges left for him in Cedar Rapids. John (Arlington, VA): Buxton or Sano, who has the highest ceiling? J.J. Cooper: Buxton. He does more things. Could have nearly Sano's power while doing a lot more of the other things. -Even answered my own question: Steve L. (Minneapolis): Other than Buxton, any Cedar Rapids Kernels leave you with a good impression? Such as Travis Harrison, Adam Walker, or J.O. Berrios? J.J. Cooper: I didn't get to see Berrios pitched as I missed him by one day. Walker does some impressive things. He's adjusting to a steady diet of breaking balls and pitchers who pitch him away, away, away, but he has excellent power, runs well and in the short time I was there showed a good glove in right field. His swing seems a little long, so he'll likely always have some strikeouts, but the other tools are enough to probably work around that. Harrison didn't impress. Had scouts scratching their head as far as what was there to go 50th overall in the '11 draft. Melotakis showed a good fastball but needs to work on his secondary stuff (his changeup did show flashes when he beared down against Dan Vogelbach). Jorge Polanco looked solid at shortstop. Pretty insane that when healthy that team has him and Niko Goodrum up the middle.

Good take courtesy of my brother about this brawl: Don Mattingly, Kirk Gibson, Mark McGwire, Matt Williams, Alan Trammel, Rick Honeycutt, Charles Nagy, and Don Baylor were all involved in the brawl. What is this, the 1991 All-Star Game?!

I love this line about Thompson: "He also, allegedly, has a sweet mustache. So that may be the source of his new-found success." And I no doubt believe it to be true as I once did research on Carl Pavano's time with the Twins, and how his stats compared when sporting the mustache vs. being without. It was actually pretty staggering in favor of the Mustache - he pitched longer in games (over 1 inning longer on average), almost a full run less on his ERA, higher strikeout totals, something like 8 complete games with 'stache vs. only 1 without, better WHIP, etc..., etc... He also went the entirety of the 2011 season without the 'stache, pitching considerably worse than he had in 2010 while sporting it most of the time, until the Twins were 62-99 in the win-loss columns. He brought it out for game 162 and proceeded to pitch a Complete Game Shutout (and a 1-0 win) to avoid 100 losses. This is not an unexplainable phenomenon, the 'stache has power... q; )

By my eyes, this team hasn't looked worse. I certainly remember a lot more putrid baseball being played last year... At least they have a competent defensive middle-infield (yesterday's gaffes notwithstanding). But you're right in a lot of ways, too. The pitching is certainly frightful, and unfortunately the one guy they were counting on, Scott Diamond, has always struck me as a lefty Nick Blackburn, and has been performing as such of late.

Agreed. Just had to point that out.

^ I like how people constantly ignore sentences providing context, such as "Still, compared to the last two seasons, ... " when they attempt go after you, Nick. q; )

Ya, and there's actually been a lot of guys who improve their numbers when moving up to New Britain from the FSL, too (Arcia did so last year). I'm interested to see if Sano can match Stanton's 2010 #'s at AA in what will be roughly the same amount of time.

I was hoping one of the big three would fall, but we found out again a lot of the draft talk and rumors are smoke and mirrors. But can't really complain at all about this. What I like from scanning the opinions out there, is that he has a 4-pitch mix already, and none of those pitches are an extreme work-in-progress, with 2 of them already being labelled as "plus". I also think being a QB-recruit helps him with the development of one of those pitches, the changeup, due to the similar pronating motions with the hand at release throwing a football. At least that is something I consider... I think he slides in right behind Meyer at this point on the Twins prospect lists, ahead of Berrios pretty easily (I think a lot of people are getting ahead of themselves with Berrios, a great prospect for the Twins, but those expecting him to be an ace are going to end up disappointed).

Interesting. One thing to note that I remember from the pre-draft discussions when the Twins selected Kyle Gibson, was how the forearm or whatever injury he had during the college season which caused him to slip in the draft, was a precursor or pretty good predictor of future elbow problems...And look how that turned out...

So, where is your evidence to suggest that they would promote a HS pitcher this early in his career based on performance then?!... I find this to be an interesting paradigm...

The comments after Mauer was picked at #27 are cute...: "extensive injury history" / "how was Yadi not picked before him?"

You actually believe that would be the case?! Get out from under your rock...! q; )

I'm actually more surprised by Keith Law's article with the "one-time indiscretion" remarks. That's completely laughable to me, but it appears MLB teams actually buy that BS, or they don't care...

Except it's not a non-existent track record (unless you stick to your very precise requirements), as much as you would like it to be or think it isn't. The same line(s) get spouted by the 'experts' when discussing the Twins and their promotions all the time, so there is obviously a correlation. I'm just telling you the performance isn't going to factor much into the Twins decision to promote, or not promote, Berrios this year because he's a HS drafted pitcher playing his first full season - there are more important things for them to worry about with him this early in his career. It's not a question of if there's a guy to compare him to, even though you want this to be the case.

Also, look what D.J. Baxendale did at Fort Myers to earn his early promotion to New Britain. That's the type of dominating I think it would take.

Again, he's a High School Drafted pitcher, 19 years old, and will be on an innings limit (probably less than 130, certainly not any more than 150) because of this. He might go to Fort Myers for a few starts at the end of the year, but he's not going to get promoted before that unless he starts blanking teams every time out. And if bad plays during a game tend to bring out some emotions like people here are suggesting, that's another mark for holding him back this early in his career. I'm not arguing against your promote based on performance thought. I'm telling you it's not going to happen soon because he is a pitcher drafted out of high-school in his first full season, not really anything more to it than that. I honestly hope I'm wrong, as I've stated already I think his talent level right now is above Low-A, but you're arguing a point I'm not even trying to make, or one that I disagree with you on. And I can find a few guys who got promoted after 7 starts in a league, but they were drafted out of college pitchers putting up better numbers than Berrios has so far, in a higher/tougher league (Gibson, Baker, Garza). Heck, it took Slowey 14 starts in High-A before being promoted, and he put up better numbers there than any of them.

It's definitely not laziness, and quite frankly, if you go by how some HS prospects were thought of at the time they were drafted or a year after like is the case with Berrios now, there has been plenty of guys who were thought to have similar upside: Kyle Waldrop (many thought he had best curveball in his draft), Jay Rainville (Mid-90's FB, hard slider), B.J. Hermsen (thought his body projected him for increased velocity, and was refined already), Hudson Boyd (mid-90's heat, workhorse body), etc... You will notice it's not all that great of a list, so my advice is just to temper expectations for a while. You may think Berrios is far above these guys, and he might be, but it's very early for him, which is basically the main reason for a slow timeline right now. As for "fairly dominating" - He is giving up more than a hit per inning to go along with it. When that is the case, you tend to get more opportunities for K's and suggests inconsistency with some of his pitches. He's kept the ball in the ballpark so far as well, and that's not going to be the case at higher levels.

In this scenario, I take Bryant after pondering it for like .000038659 seconds. I like the idea of Kohl Stewart, but not the risk associated with him or the amount of time it will take to get him to the Twins. Bryant will be like Mike Zunino with the Mariners (already in AAA knocking on the door less than a year after being drafted), except Bryant is an even better hitter than Zunino. Plug him in at 1B and get him to the Twins ASAP.

Also some Twins questions in the related chat with Ben Badler: Amanda (Minneapolis): What % chance do you think Sano has of sticking at 3B? How about Eddie Rosario at 2B? Thanks! Ben Badler: Sano has the tools to stay there, he's just such an enormous human being already that you have to wonder how much range he's going to have if he puts on more weight. What's crazy is he's a pretty good athlete for someone his size, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt to be able to stay at the position. Ian (MPLS): Buxton or Sano? Ben Badler: Buxton. He might be the best prospect in baseball by the end of the year. Amanda (Minneapolis): Can J.O. Berrios be a successful MLB starter, or does his height doom him to the bullpen? Ben Badler: I've never subscribed to the idea that a pitcher isn't tall enough to be a starter. There's no reason his height should limit him to a relief role.

Think this is the first list of the year without Buxton or Sano on it, but another Top Twins hitting prospect made it: No. 12 Eddie Rosario, 2b, Twins Team: high Class A Fort Myers (Florida State) Age: 21 Why He’s Here: .474/.500/.789 (9-for-19), 1 HR, 3 2B, 5 RBIs, 5 R, 2 BB, 2 SO, 0-for-1 SB The Scoop: In his first season spent exclusively at second base, Rosario has shown a wide array of skills that could make him a future above-average regular at the position. He’s hitting .328/.367/.508 through 177 at-bats, ranking third in the Florida State League batting race and third with 34 runs scored. Rosario and Miguel Sano are the driving forces behind the Miracle’s FSL-leading .353 on-base and .444 slugging percentages. Link to full article: Prospect Hot Sheet (May 31): Wil Myers Heats Up - BaseballAmerica.com