Dman

Camargo's K rate is problematic but anything he hits seems to go for extra bases. I am starting to wonder if approaches like that lead to generally higher BABIP's with the extra K's offsetting that approach. At any rate I think he needs to take more walks to be successful. Being overly aggressive only takes you so far. I like call out on the Cedar Rapids staff and honestly Mooney and Legumina could be added to that list. SGL has been good at getting K's but always had trouble giving up runs as well. If that issue is better resolved he looks like a good prospect to me. I expect him to be in the top 30 this year. Headrick is probably the biggest surprise for me on your list. He was very hittable last year and gave up plenty of walks as well. If he keeps this K rate up and WHIP down he looks like a good lefty reliever to me. Possibly he could start but I am not sure the velocity is there. At any rate he moves from bust to possibility now in my book. Povich is too good to be at High A, but it is what it is. I always wondered how Stankiewicz would do as an after thought in the 2020 draft. He bet on himself coming out that year and it looks like that is going to pay off. I don't know a ton about him and I hope they allow him to be a fast mover. Especially if he continues to dominate like he has. He could be sneaky good but will just have to wait and see. Prato is a nice underdog pick. I think if he can hit he makes it. If not with the Twins then somewhere else as a utility option. He has a good eye, good speed and a solid glove. Just needs to prove he can continue hit on his way up because he lacks "special" skills and is more average except for Onbase skills which could be above average if he keep the batting average up.

Nice to continue to see Royce Lewis getting hits and doing his thing. Miranda needed a multi-hit game and got one as well. Both Cano and Minaya had good relief outings and look like potential big league pen options if needed. SWR has defeinately righted the ship to start the year. No earned runs over 16 innings and very little hard contact made from what I have seen. He has been very efficient getting guys out only giving up 5 hits and 4 walks for a .54 WHIP. The K rate is little low for him compared to last year but still close to a K an inning. He looks really. really good right now. If he can continue to keep the walks down he looks ready for the next step. His outing was even more impressive than normal because the team he faced had 6 guys batting over .300 and pretty much every guy in their lineup had an OPS over .750. That is a tough lineup to hold to 2 hits and no walks. Was pretty much the same old Cruz. When he starts walking guys bad things happen. The guy does throw very hard though so I guess we hope for better days ahead. Happy to see the bats have heated up at AA. Everyone except Wallner with at least one hit last night. Emmanual Rodriguez is on a KKKKKK Kold streak after being rested last Sunday. I don't think he has a hit yet this week and is back to striking out a lot. Fedko remain hot with a 432 batting average and two more hits last night. he looks like he wants to get promoted. Hajjar with an impressive outing this time out. Gave up no hits this time out and 10 K's. He has the K touch.

Falvey turned us into the Indians alright. We can pitch now but no hitters to be found and the 30 Million dollar man has been less than clutch to this point. These guys need to find themselves and fast if they want to save the season.

If we can't even beat the Royals I don't really know who we plan to beat. Maybe once they get Buck back they do something but this lineup is thin on hitters right now. Can't win any games if you score no runs. Gotta say the hitters look horrible, just horrible to start the season. Hopefully they take extra batting practice because they need it.

Kind of shocked Cotton made it through waivers. I really thought Baltimore or maybe even Texas would pick him up again. I guess he isn't as well thought of as I thought he might be. Honestly I think this is good news for the Twins. Get Cotton back to throwing strikes and trusting his stuff and they can think about re-adding him again if needed.

Yeah I would give you ten likes for this if I could. I think you hit the nail on the head. He is not the strongest in game manager IMO. He does excel on the relationship end though. Also he can only play the hand he is dealt. The FO did him no favors when it came to the pen.

Pagan was more of a throw in type veteran replacement for Rogers than a real solution IMO. We all knew he was headed in the wrong direction sans the trade and yet given the state of our pen he looks like one of the few arms trusted in high leverage situations. So I am hoping the Twins can find something to make sure he can be a solution and not another problem.

I am trying to avoid thinking another veteran reliever could sink this team early. The numbers on Duffy look even worse than I initially thought. Still he got better last year as the season wore on. Certainly not a guy you want working high leverage situations unless things change for the better. We are only ten games in though and it seems way too early to give up on him as well. I hope he can figure things out but if he is this hittable he isn't just done with the Twins he is done completely.

I wouldn't say that was a good matchup. Thielbar has had a lot of trouble getting righties out IIRC. If I had to guess I would say he had too much confidence in Thielbar in that situation. When Caleb is on he can be tough on both sides but I do find that an odd situation to put him in early in the season. Would love to know the thought process on that one. Going with the gut instead of the numbers? Or the numbers told him something about those matchups? I will agree with you that on the surface that one doesn't look good.

I think I am with Ashbury on this for the most part. To start the season Rocco hasn't had a ton of consistency from his pen arms. In many ways Baseball is a confidence game. When players are doing their jobs and playing well they seem to have more belief that their outcomes will be positive. When in a slump confidence in what they are doing wains and they seem more prone to stay in a slump until extra coaching and or practice get them back on track. That being said Managers\coaches have to have confidence in their players and give confidence to their players. I think Rocco does a really good job in that regard. We have heard Cruz talk about the positive atmosphere in the club house and Buxton wanting to stay a Twin (look at all the adversity he faced and always had Rocco's support). Correa and Buxton were just talking about the "positive" vibes in the clubhouse. So you know that is important to players. Knowing your manager has your back allows you to stay focused and on track IMO. If I were the manager and I have a bunch of unknowns in the pen am I going to lean on less experienced guys or more experienced guys? For me I am going to put my trust in the guys that have been there and done it before. Guys like Duffey and Theilbar have good track records. Does that mean they are going to be successful every time they go out there no it doesn't. I feel the angst everyone else does about Duffey and Thielbar being Colome killers. They collectively sunk several promising games this season. Possibly three games lost by their collective failures. Still it is too early to throw them in the trash heap. Rocco still has to have confidence they can do the job and needs to give them the confidence they need to be successful again. Right now it is a bit of a waiting game IMO. Could both players be washed up and not going to get back on track or better until it is too late. That is one possibility. Odds are though it is early and they just need to settle into what works and what doesn't right now. The manager has to believe every player is going to pull their weight and be able to do their job. While he can create matchups to help them be more successful in the end the players have to perform and the manager has to keep his players in a good state of mind to create as much consistency as possible. I think Rocco does a decent job of that.

Sands with one of those games that make me worried about him staying a starter. I wonder if he is going to show up on the injured list as usually when he has one of these games something isn't quite right. St. Paul was brutal in pretty much every way possible last night. Pretty much total system failure. Nice to see Canterino get some of his groove back but his control problems continue. He has been less than efficient on the mound. Hoping this is where he gets things going again. The bats were better for Wichita but still several hitters struggling there namely Wallner. Martin knows how to steal bases and seems to be back to his OnBase ways with little to no power. Looking fairly Arraez like with speed right now. Povich wasn't as efficient as he has been but still K'ing nearly two guys per inning. He has been pretty dominant for a level that should be challenging him. If he can stay healthy looks like he will move up to AA mid season. CES with 2 more hits and 2 more Strike outs. That K rate is starting to climb and I always say his .500 BABIP has to come down but it didn't last year. Will just have to wait and see what that looks like through a full season but right now he looks like the best hitter on the Cedar Rapids squad. Camargo has had a hot bat to start the season as well. He generally is a K machine with good power will have to see if he can keep things going and find better plate discipline. Raya looked shaky his first time out to me and then he goes out and nearly throws 6 perfect innings with 10 K's. He had a lot of hype coming into the season and I wasn't so sure he would stand up to it, but he has me believing now. 1 hit and no walks through 6 is really hard to do unless you are throwing really, really well. A dominant performance like that puts him on the must watch list. Fedko came through the big hit and 2 RBI's but it was a tough night for the bats on both sides. The walks were the difference in the game IMO. Lot's of really good starting pitching with the exception of Sands. Keep that pipeline coming. We are going to need the arms.

I agree with you. I don't know what it is but this team feels like it will be competitive this year. Maybe my rose colored glasses are bit too tinted but if the pen can pull things together and the starters stay this hot I am pretty sure the bats will come around they always seem to every year. Even if the starting pitching falls off a bit I feel good about this team this year. The 6,7,8,9 spots in the lineup are in flux right now but once Correa gets going and Buxton is back and the warmer weather warms Sano's bat things will likely change for the better. I like this team and the young players that are close to ready that can make a difference later in the year. If nothing else we should have good depth.

I am going to highlight a few guys myself. Seth already stole my under the radar Stankiewicz pick, but Brent Headrick has been awefully dominant to start the year. I know it is only 9 innings but he has 16 K's 3 hits and 0 walks for a .33 WHIP. That is crazy, crazy good. This from a guy who last year gave up more hits than innings pitched and has a fairly high walk rate. After last year I was kind of wondering if he had peaked at the college level. I know he cannot maintain that pace but if he can miss more bats and keep plugging the zone with strikes he looks like a lefty reliever at worst and number 4 or 5 at best. For hitter I am going to go with Charles Mack. He started hitting the ball better at the end of last year but he looks even better to start the year this year. He always was supposed to have good power and he does. He started as a third baseman but moved to catcher and his brother was taken in the first round last year so he has ability to be a good one I think. If his hit tool is for real, and there is a ways to go yet, he could be a solution at catcher for the Twins. He has a decent eye at the plate with 52 walks versus 72 K's last year. He just needed to make more contact. All these sample sizes are too small to have any real value but I think he could be a breakout candidate this year. Catcher is a tough position with injuries easily affecting at bats but I will be watching him closely this year. Also going to highlight Prato. So far this year he is finally the player I thought we were getting when he was drafted. A pest at the plate and on the bases. A solid defender with decent range. A good eye at the plate and someone who can put the ball in play. Might not have great power but can move the ball around. If he keeps playing this well his future looks bright IMO. Lot's of under the radar guys are off to good starts this year. Hopefully they maintain that level throughout the year with the ups and downs that come with a long season.

It was big to get the split with Boston. Only series loss was to the Dodgers and just two games. We need to be the better team in the division if we are going to go anywhere so those games will have added importance. I have to say Bundy has been much better than I thought he would be to this point. He has been an efficient strike throwing machine and very SSS but keeping the ball in the park to this point. I may be eating a fair bit of crow given my dismissal of his potential contributions to this team. Celestino had a huge at bat for essentially a Rookie. Getting behind in the count and battling back to draw that walk was huge. Polanco got the big hit but not making an out there saved the rally. Given his lack of experience I was happy he found his way on base. OK I am going to monologue a bit here. When the Twins sent Jax out for 8th inning after the big rally I thought that was a huge mistake. I thought for sure he would get lit up and either lose the lead or at the very least lose the cushion we had with the runs scored. I mean this is a guy who got pounded in his last spring training game and wasn't even added to the 28 man roster to start the season and this is the guy they run out there to protect the lead in an almost must win situation? In fact you run your weakest essentially last man out there not just for the 8th but the 9th as well? I get that we had a 6 run lead but with the lineup the Sox have no lead is safe with 6 outs left. Let alone against a pitcher who has been prone to give up big innings. Why allow for such great potential to give the lead back? Maybe he was on a fairly short leash but at the time I thought it was an unnecessary risk. In hindsight it worked out great for Jax's confidence and the team win. I just didn't have a good feeling about it though. This was an important win. If the starting pitching holds up you have to like this teams chances. Lineup still could use some help but they usually turn things around once the weather warms up. Very happy they got the win.

Your list of DFA candidates is spot on. It just seems a little early in the year to give up on Strotman and Vallimont IMO. Honestly i think they both would get snagged by another team and although I am low on both of them mainly because of their WHIP's. They both have the ability to K guys as well. Like the OP said they are getting older and still haven't made it out of the minors but I think you would want to give both one more try before losing them for good. Strotman's delivery looks really good to me but he needs to get better results with his stuff. I am kind of ready to give up on Vallimont. The lack of feel for finding the zone is almost comical as he has a 4.33 WHIP in his SSS this year and honestly struggled with walks last year as well. It is the elite K rate though that keeps you hanging on. Both those guys need to show something this year or they are gone IMO. Stashak hasn't been good in a while and doesn't have "great" stuff so he might make it through. Romero is a bit of a wild card guy for me. He has strike out stuff and can throw strikes but he seems hittable as well. Just don't know enough about the guy but my feeling is another team might be willing to give him a try. They are both borderline 28/40 man adds though so I think they would be the first ones to go. They could be replaced by another waiver claim or the farm IMO.

Interesting to me that both Rodriguez and CES were rested going into the day off. I guess they want to keep those two in tip top shape? Fort Meyers could have used Rodriguez's bat as they looked a little anemic without him in the lineup. Adams had a nice night on the hill. 7 K's in 5 innings keeping that ERA at a cool .90 with an even better WHIP to match at .60. I wasn't a fan of the pick when the Twins made it. Kind of thought he might be the weak link in their draft but he is off to a great start. When Prato is healthy he is a pest in the box and on the bases. His over 1.000 OPS is nice and it almost seems like it should be higher as it feels like he is on base all time. Mack is finally finding more contact and his 1,469 OPS puts him right there with Emmanual Rodriguez and CES. There are some Pretty impressive hitters at High A right now. Lewis with another multi-hit game keeping that OPS above 1.000 along with Contreras, Cave and surprisingly Baneulos. Miranda continues his slow start. Might have to wait for the weather to warm up before he gets going.

Jermaine Palacios had miself a game. Brought his OPS .958 level with a 4 for 4 night. He is right behind Lewis for OPS and he plays good D at short as well. Looks like he is starting to find his groove. Lewis Thorpe was Brutal again giving up 8 earned runs along with 2 Homers. I know it is cold in St Paul but he is making a case against himself at this point. Martin continues to come on strong A 3 for 4 day with 2 walks. He seems to be waking up to the season. Steer is still the best hitter with a 935 OPS. Sabato had more RBI's but Camargo went 4 for 5 with 2 HR's. Quite the day the young catcher. CES still went 2 for 6 and keeps his OPS in the .1300 range. Gipson-Long finally getting that WHIP below 1 with 9 K's in 5 innings and 0.00 ERA. He is becoming an elite pitcher. Got a feeling he will make it to AA after the all-star break if not before. The Twins might have something in Festa. He gave an inopportune 3 run HR but still managed 8 K's in 5 innings of work. The Twins might have something here. Another nice night for the MiLB system. Guys are going to moving up this year.

I knew Stankiewicz was good but man 11 K's in 6 innings with a .50 WHIP is utter domination. Nice to see another arm with a solid K rate. I don't know a ton about the guy but he has me keeping a closer eye on him now. Fedko is off to a hot start. Nice to see another outfielder swinging a good bat. I guess the former big east player of the year is trying to add to his resume. Man Rodriguez is hot. Even hotter than CES IMO. Two home runs last night and another walk the kid is turning into a very well rounded hitter earlier than I imagined possible. A couple of months away but he looks like he will move up this year. Fort Meyers has a fun team to watch this year. The farm is on fire this year except for Wichita where the lineup just hasn't done much until recently.

I agree. I am willing to wait. I think he is just one of those players that doesn't do well in the cold. He heats up right around mid May and once he gets going pitchers try to pitch around him and his bat becomes dangerous. I still think he will have a big year this year but we will see. We need to just hang on until he gets it going and all will be well.

Steer is the only AA bat that seems even remotely ready to start the season. Wallner has been miserable at the plate with a 50% K rate. Martin is off to a slow start as well. With Julien out it isn't surprising this team has trouble scoring runs. Thankfully Varland was back to doing his thing. Striking guys out and going almost 6 innings. Mooney got his typical number of K's but he was wilder than I remember from last year. First game out and he seemed to get better the longer he was out there. Cedar Rapids is building a strong lineup with Prato, CES, Mack and Gray all with over 1.000 OPS's. If Soularie and Morales get going that is going to be a tough lineup. Legumina looked really good the first couple of innings, but per usual fell apart late. These type of games continue to reinforce my belief that he is a better reliever than starter. We will see if he gains better stamina as the season moves on. He has the stuff it is just a matter of how long he can keep it going. Was hoping Ohl was going to do a little better than he did. After watching him in one of Seth's interviews he seems like a mentally tough young man. This is his first taste and I am sure he will get better was just hoping for him to be solid from the get go. Emmanual Rodriguez is having a great start to his season. He is doing much better than I ever thought he would for a 19 year old in a tough A ball environment. While his 389 batting average is really good the more impressive stat is that his OBP is over 200 points higher at .621. The big knock on him last year was the lack of patience and his K rate. He currently has more walks than strikeout's. If he maintains that with his contact skills he is going to be a really, really good player. Pretty excited about this kid right now. Long ways to go as pitchers adjust to his approach but just the fact that he can do it bodes well for his future. Also it looks like one of the problems he is having is pitchers not throwing him strikes because he is one of the few players in the lineup that can hurt a pitcher by taking him deep. They seem more inclined to work around him. If Fort Meyers can find some better bats to stack behind him maybe he can get more balls to hit.

Twins will probably take Susac if he is there I think Parada is going to go earlier. I really like the lefty Barriera. If he can hit 99 he should be able to maintain 94 -95 and for a lefty those are good numbers. He has three plus pitches already. Pitching currency is the gold standard I would double down on pitching. Especially since it is a weaker class for pitching. Lets zag instead of zig. The farm is hurting for up the middle players so I guess if they find a bat they like they probably go bat but like I said I really like Barriera. Good lefties are hard to find and the farm is in short supply as well.

I think this team can set itself up well for veteran deadline deals. They have Bundy, Archer and Gray all on two year deals. They have Sanchez on a one and done and Urshela on a two year deal. They also could deal Sano, Kepler or Arraez if the price were right and of course the big piece to unload would be Correa. Granted those players have to perform well in order to make it worth trading and not all of them will have good to great years but the Twins are well positioned for a sell off if they decide to go that route. Bundy and Archer seem the most likely to go IMO. They have Maeda coming back next year and Paddack for two more years and I have to believe one of Winder, Sands, Balazovich, Henriquez and SWR should push for time at the big league level this year. That would\could give them three young starters in Ryan, Ober and Winder et al to go with Gray, Maeda and Paddack. I still think this season is all about the young guys and hoping they push the older players out of their spots giving the Twins a chance to reload the farm while hopefully promoting good young talent to the MLB team. The Twins will need to seriously be in the hunt for the FO to not make trades for the future IMO.

The only real bright spot last night was Sands. He really has no fear sticking most all of his stuff around the strike zone. I just can't shake that his fastball looks kind of flat to me at times and the guy who hit the HR off of him got a flat one. If his fastball does play at MLB level I think he can make it as starter but I still sense he ends up a reliever. Will have to wait and see. Hard to argue with his results as he has been solid year in and year out in the minors. He will probably prove me wrong. I know it was just one game early in the season but have to say I was disappointed with Hajjar's debut. The 6 K's in three innings show that he has swing and miss stuff but the 2.0 WHIP and 4 runs shows he is also quite hittable as well. Only one game so can't draw conclusions just yet but those are Chris Vallimont type numbers and that is not a good thing. Also he was the only pitcher to give up any runs in that game at all. I can see now why they kept him in A ball instead of sending him to High A like Povich. Emmanual Rodriguez is looking really locked in. 2 more walks as pitchers appeared to be trying to get him to extend the zone. I believe he has the highest OPS on the team as a 19 year old. If the plate discipline is there the Home Runs will follow. I am getting excited about this kid. Rossario is a K machine right now with a K rate of 50%. There is some work to be done there. Not feeling real bullish on him right now but the OPS is OK for the moment. Only 19 so there is time but always kind of a bad sign when the K rate gets that high.

The Dodgers are a perennial division winner. playoff team, battling for a World series every year. I am not too surprised we had trouble handling them early this season with castoff pitchers and pen arms. Lot's of great lineups can get silenced by great pitchers and Kershaw was on today. Heck even this great Dodgers lineup can get silenced by great pitching. Not that the Twins lineup doesn't have a fair number of holes like Kepler, Sano, Celestino and even Gordon, but credit Kershaw with pitching well in the cold. All this series says to me is that right now early in the season the Twins don't appear to be able to compete with world series type teams. I expect they will have issues with Boston as well. Maybe it is my rose colored glasses but I do think they will grow with some of the young arms as the season moves along and I still believe in a lot of the bats they have. These were two games played in sub-optimal conditions and the Dodgers were just more ready and quite frankly the better team talent wise all the way through. The Twins will rebound and I still think if they stay fairly healthy they have a shot for a wild card spot.

I think over the offseason I forgot how valuable Luis Arraez is at the plate. I think right now he is a bigger part of this team than I thought he would be. With Kirilloff, Kepler and Sano giving fairly little at the plate thus far it is good to have a guy you can plug in that will have good to great at bats. I get that everyone is down on his defense after last nights game and generally I am not an apologist for Arraez's defense but the first ball was hit hard and he came in on it I presume to try for the double play. He misplayed it horribly. The other ball was scorched and he wasn't in great position to do much except glove it and he missed that one as well. The thing is the weather was poor and the field somewhat slippery. Not ideal conditions for great defense. Some players just don't do as well in wet or cold conditions. I just think the weather cannot completely be discounted as a factor in his defensive miscues last night. In other words I think he is better than what he showed yesterday. Arraez will never be much more than average defensively but the eye and bat are pretty extraordinary. He is and will be a difference maker for this team this season. I was one that thought trading him wouldn't be a bad idea but with Martin struggling to hit AA pitching and Miranda not off to the fastest start the Twins still need him pretty badly right now IMO. He has his plusses and minuses but we still need his bat.