TheDean

I noticed that Kvasnicka hasn't been playing catcher anymore, so I guess he's a pure OF now? Maybe I was wrong to group him with Herrmann then, but at this point I would have thought that having flexibility to play C could really help his chances of at least getting a look in Sept '15. We know how much the management loves versatility!

I guess I'm not clear on how the college option works for draftees deciding not to sign; could someone clarify? If someone signs with a four-year school, is there a minimum number of years they have to stay in school? Likewise for a JuCo school? Someone alluded to some kind of "gentleman's agreement" between MLB and other pro leagues, so college of some kind is the only alternative for these kids?

Considering it's a thread on the OF of the future (and not a(nother) Dozier trade thread ), I figured I'd try to spark some discussion about less-heralded OF contributors. Does anyone know what the reports on Ortiz are like over at AAA? The numbers don't look great since leaving NB, but could he be a role player mid-season 2015? I know nothing of his defense, but he seems to get time at both corners and played some CF in his early pro days. It seems like he is closer than Rosario (or even Hicks ) because he's already shown that he's past AA. Definitely needs AAA seasoning, but I just felt like he doesn't get much talk in these threads. It's a little sad that there's really no one else in the upper minors OF to talk about beyond Ortiz, Rosario, and Hicks. Everyone else is a late 20s/early 30s replacement player (Rodriguez/Ramierez/Farris/Wimberly/Rahl). The only exceptions are maybe Herrmann and Kvasnicka who seem to be low-ceiling mid-20s backup catcher/utility types.

Actually, Bbref keeps track of ML splits separately. But it does combine in the minor league screen. So, in theory, you could subtract the ML split PAs from the totals shown in the minor league splits screen... That's where it gets weird: Bbref has Hicks taking 2 PA RHvsRHP and 100 PA LHvsRHP at the major league level. Bbref also has him taking a total of 78 RHvsRHP and 86 LHvsRHP at all levels. The numbers don't add up. We know he's taking LH PAs vs RHP at AA, but somehow his total split at all levels in that category is 14 PAs lower than the recorded PAs at the ML level? A Bbref error? Or am I reading this wrong?

There's also one further over of him hitting a homerun while batting left-handed from early July. So he's been hitting switch (again) since at least the beginning of the month...probably longer?

I was going to ask the same thing. Looks like it must have been plain WAR. Even with oWAR, there's the position bonus, so a great-hitting 1B isn't going to look as good on the chart because they don't benefit from that bonus. I guess it can be argued whether or not it's a valid addition to the point being made in the post. I might take the Rbat subscore if you're just looking at quality of "hitter." Decide whether or not you want to include baserunning, double play, or replacement scores too.

In 11 ABs (4 games) since his four-for-four-Fourth, Barrie has only managed one hit. Over the same span, he struck out 3 times and walked 3 times. Nothing too concerning. At this point, playing time is limited for these 18 and 19-year-olds in the GCL. Stats are less important than the opinions of the training staff. Still, I wish there was more media on the prospects in both Rookie leagues, though at least the Appy league gets a bit more coverage.

Garver made his return to the Kernels on the 5th of July and proceeded to hit in 7 straight games. His hitting streak ended yesterday, but he did take a walk and score a run. It appears that the Kernels' catching-heavy roster enabled the management to ease Garver back into catching duties. He only caught 3 of his last 8 games. Before his concussion, he had started to take a much larger share of the catching duties than he had in the beginning of the season. He has played 38/35/4 games at C/DH/1B. Garver's June (OPS .997) nearly matched his ridiculous April (OPS 1.041). His post-DL numbers look good as he's hit .303/.361/.364 in July. I think the power will come around once he shakes the rust.

I see what you're saying. WAR isn't a counting stat because it can count backwards, but it's a cumulative stat in that a player needs to play a lot of innings defensively or acquire a lot of PAs to move the needle on their dWAR or oWAR, respectively. In other words, Fuld will need to start being a sub-replacement level player for him to lose any WAR. Being replacement level offensively might mean a drop in average from here on out, and replacement level defensively might mean lower UZR/150, but replacement level will keep his WAR exactly where it is right now because nothing is being added or subtracted to it. That said, replacement level will not allow him to become the #1 CF in MLB dWAR is finicky because it uses UZR, which is highly variable for small sample sizes (at least compared to oWAR). From what I can tell, this variability lends itself to assign defensive values that are so unrealistic that they override WAR's ability to be self-sample-size controlled. So just how I read it is that a good (or lucky) fielder can increase (or decrease) their dWAR much more quickly with a series of improbable catches than a good (or lucky) batter can increase their oWAR with a series of improbable hits. For example: Chris Colabello has mashed with a series of doubles and homers since his callup to the tune of 3.8 batting runs. Fuld has gone full insane on defense over the last 30 days for 5.2 fielding runs. Next closest are Florimon and Nunez at 0.7. That's crazy. *Should note that I'm mostly using fWAR for all of this, but mostly should apply to rWAR too.

It's already been mentioned here before... but it's almost too enticing to think of what peak-level, career-numbers, highly-respected Suzuki could fetch midseason in a market desperate for ML-caliber catchers. We know that concussed, poor-defense Doumit fetched an upside prospect (#28 pick of 2011 Draft), and good-riddance Butera fetched Nunez through an upside pitcher. All of that was said earlier in the thread... but as sad as I'll be to see one of my favorite 2014 Twins go, I am hoping I'll be impressed by the haul. Hopefully one that represents how much better I think Suzuki is than the previous two Twins catchers to be traded.

I'm especially leery of parsing LEN3's tweets. He's not bad or false in his reports, it's just that he speculates quite a bit (I admit, all reporters do)...and then I start speculating on his speculation...and then it's easy to get abstracted from the reality of what's going on. That being said, I'll gladly and shamelessly partake in the speculation. As a fan, I'm hoping for both Meyer and May by season's end. By deadline, there could be three spots open in the rotation Correia (traded), Pino (replaceable), Nolasco (indefinitely DL'd? - this one might be a stretch). I see no reason not to give both a shot with those voids opened up.

I'm not 100% on all the 40-man rules, but doesn't Meyer need to be added to the 40 this offseason to protect him from Rule 5 anyway? I don't see the harm in adding him in September and letting him get a few starts or at least relief appearances. Would hardly count for any service time (he's too old to worry about service time too much anyway), and you could keep him active so as to not use an option even if you shut him down late in the month. Or are there other considerations I don't understand, aside from innings limits?

In two of Peterson's last three outings, he has pitched the ninth inning of non-save situations. On both occasions, he struck out two. However, he walked two yesterday in the ninth. Though he escaped unscathed, it was the first time he has allowed multiple walks in an appearance so far this season. In a July 3rd game, Peterson pitched one and two-thirds innings of relief. He got the last out of the 6th after Tomshaw exited, stranding two inherited runners. He allowed a single and a double in the 7th for an earned run. Dougie kept him in for the one out of the 8th before bringing in Melotakis to get the final two outs of the inning.

Should have mentioned earlier that Garver last played on the 24th of June having been placed on the 7-day DL after the game. It appears that he was dealing with concussion-like symptoms. Presumably, the Twins organization will use caution in deciding when he is fully prepared to resume catching. In his absence, Bryan Haar has taken full ownership of slugging duties for the Kernels.

In Barrie's third game, he earned a hat trick: 3 Ks in 3 ABs. If anyone thought that means that the young Aussie is overmatched playing professional baseball in North America, he was sure to prove them wrong with a 2-RBI double on July 1st and a 4-4 showing yesterday on the 4th of July. Haven't taken the time to look up the statistics, but 4-hit games must be rare at any level, especially in Rookie leagues where both hitters and pitchers are quite raw. After 17 PAs, Barrie sits at .400/.471/.467, 5 Ks, 3 RBI, and 1 2B.

Did not see that coming.... I like this Polanco guy.

The ol' ball under the glove trick, where you just let it pass on by.

I thought I had seen someone joking about Polanco being the backup CF...but looks like he's really the backup CF, unless Parmelee. I guess we just have to hope Fuld doesn't go down, as much fun as a Hammer/Parms/Arcia OF sounds. Maybe give Nunez some time in CF at NB?

60-Day DL, May and Meyer added to the rotation, obviously

If not for the rules specifying DH for the pitcher, I honestly believe Mauer should have batted for PFlo, and Nolasco should be the one taking hacks.

Nolasco should have bought him a pair...could have saved him an RBI ground rule double.

After getting back on track against Bradenton, Peterson has pitched 5 scoreless innings. He struck out two in two innings of work at St. Lucie, and struck out 3 in the final two innings of a non-save situation against Charlotte. Finally, he was called in for the save in yesterday's home game against St. Lucie. He struck out 1 and got two flyball outs to earn his first FSL save (he had earned 3 in the MWL). I'm sure that everyone has seen it on the frontpage, but Seth has a great leaderboard for midseason statistics among minor league pitchers. Peterson is top-ranked in almost all relief pitcher categories. [TABLE] AgeDif Tm W L ERA G GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP BK WP BF WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9 SO/W -0.7 2 Teams 2 1 1.67 23 13 4 32.1 24 7 6 0 7 46 0 0 3 127 0.959 6.7 0.0 1.9 12.8 6.57 0.0 CedarRapids 1 0 0.71 9 7 3 12.2 9 1 1 0 2 19 0 0 1 48 0.868 6.4 0.0 1.4 13.5 9.50 -1.2 FortMyers 1 1 2.29 14 6 1 19.2 15 6 5 0 5 27 0 0 2 79 1.017 6.9 0.0 2.3 12.4 5.40 2 Seasons 2 3 2.26 42 27 9 59.2 46 16 15 3 16 86 0 0 5 238 1.039 6.9 0.5 2.4 13.0 5.38 [/TABLE] Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 6/26/2014.

I'm really not informed on how to project prospects, but since Peterson is my AaP, I thought I'd give my two cents. A couple weeks back, I wondered how he compares to other recent relief prospects, and in researching the stats, there are a lot of similarities to Tonkin. They're different builds in that Tonkin has a few inches of height on him, but their peripheral stats have some similarities at similar levels/ages. Tonkin joined the Twins organization out of HS, and Peterson out of college, but they both split time at A/A+ during their age 22 season. Both players seem to have (IMO) high BABIP in their age 22 season (.321 for Tonkin, .333 for Peterson), but Peterson has benefited from putting up a goose egg in the HR column. I also haven't seen any of his games, so I don't know if there's anything else to his arsenal besides a low to mid-90s FB and a nice slider.

Sounds like I ought to mention the lack of recent HRs more often! I should also point readers to the great summary of the Twins organizational batting leaderboards that Seth posted earlier. Spoiler alert: Garver has surged back to the top of many categories, about where he was when I adopted him back in mid-May. Still hoping for a promotion in the near-future. It'd be great for Garver to be able to join that playoff-bound Ft. Myers team!

18-year-old Barrie debuted for the GCL Twins last weekend, playing on Saturday. He also played yesterday. In both games he got the start at 1B. In 7 PAs he has walked twice and singled. In both games he was lifted midway through the game for a PR or a defensive replacement. A debut in MiLB also means a debut in Bbref! That's exciting on its own!