Taildragger8791

Agree we shouldn't be putting that kind of pressure on a AA prospect who is probably a year away. I figure Pineda is good for missing 2 months per year, so you need a fallback there. Maybe that's where Gant comes in. I would never assume this team will successfully sign a #2 pitcher though. Hardly any of those are available in a given year and they get paid. Pitching prospects, even promising ones, struggle to make the leap to MLB all the time. I don't think we can count on anyone outside of Ober for next year. I think Ryan will get a significant opportunity but you still need to assume he'll struggle. I would make every other prospect force their way into the rotation unless we're calling it a rebuild year and are prepared for 100 losses. I don't know how you fill in the other 3 rotation spots at this point.

I don't think the Twins can make any plans that count on this kid next year. He's found money if he turns out to be healthy & effective. In my classic Minnesota pessimistic view: He's still sidelined with a vague elbow strain, right? I imagine he's going to rest/rehab until spring '22 at this point. Maybe it's something that heals on its own but we've seen enough times this lead to eventual surgery that will wipe out another year and a half. At which point he'll be 25 years old with 3 years of minimal innings. If all goes well and he holds up health-wise then he'll then spend 2nd half of 2023 establishing innings/command. So new ETA is 2024 at 26 years old, probably with a new ball club.

Sabato and Cavaco both wearing golden sombreros tonight. Oof.

Lewis Thorpe...big guy, 6'4 280. He loves his scotch. Hell of a salesman. He once punch a bald eagle because it wasn't American enough. Big guy, 6'7 384 lbs! I once saw him eat a whole live chicken. His first words as a baby were "grab your clothes and beat it sweetheart!". Big s.o.b, 7-8' and 500 lbs! His colonoscopy tape got higher rating than How I Met Your Mother. To Lewis Thorpe! A 10' tall 2-ton son of a b---- that could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing! (I may have confused some of these stories with a big fella named Bill Brasky...)

Ryan, Winder, Sands, and Canterino are the only ones that seem like they could be more than a 4/5 and are ready to try out next year. Sands/Canterino may run into innings limits though. Ober/Jax better not be planned for more than a #5/RP role out of the gate. Everyone else has a combination of innings limits, health issues, or control/consistency problems to work out. It would be irresponsible to assume any of them will see MLB time before late '22.

I put less stock in AFL numbers vs the entire season he had leading into it. Gordon had a similar breakout in AFL just to fall back again, so clearly the environment down there can lead to unrepresentative results. But grading on potential alone I can see why he’d be #1 until he comes back healthy and shows where he’s at.

You don't understand how a 22 year old more than holding his own at AA in his first season is looked upon much higher than a 25 year old finally popping up in his 3rd year at the same level (plus whatever he was doing in 2019)? Maybe he's legit figuring it out but that's pretty old for a prospect. He has more HRs than doubles which is a red flag to me that something is unsustainable. And he'll likely have to move off of SS meaning there is little margin for that bat to slip.

If we don't find 3 respectable veteran arms to fill in those question marks it'll be pure negligence by the front office. Maeda is no sure bet to rebound to even a #3 next year. Ober and the rest of the prospects could be fine or could be up and down all year working through adjustments. And most of our pitching prospects have innings limits, balky elbows, or other health risks. Any team needs to plan for 7-8 starters to get through a year, minimum. The floor can get a whole lot lower than we saw this season if we don't backstop the rotation with some real arms.

His fastball is rated 45/50, and his curve is the same. Slider is 40/40. Change-up is his highest rated pitch but I haven't heard much mention of it. Fangraphs shows everything other than his fastball gets hit really hard. Maybe these numbers will regress downward as he gets more experience but so far it doesn't look like his raw stuff is capable of beating major league hitters. Season Pitch Pitches BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO BABIP wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ 2021 Fourseam (FA) 465 8.4% 28.6% 0.29 .222 .286 .370 .656 .148 .292 11.6 -2.7 .286 89 2021 Slider (SL) 128 3.3% 26.7% 0.13 .241 .267 .655 .922 .414 .222 5.2 1.6 .378 152 2021 Changeup (CH) 110 6.1% 12.1% 0.50 .355 .394 .677 1.071 .323 .333 7.7 3.7 .451 199 2021 Curveball (CU) 94 6.3% 25.0% 0.25 .286 .375 .786 1.161 .500 .250 4.0 2.1 .474 215 Season Pitch Pitches LD% GB% FB% IFFB% HR/FB Strikes Balls Pitches xMov zMov Mov 2021 Fourseam (FA) 465 26.0% 31.5% 42.5% 22.6% 9.7% 304 161 465 -3.7 7.9 8.9 2021 Slider (SL) 128 22.2% 16.7% 61.1% 9.1% 27.3% 82 46 128 6.7 0.4 7.0 2021 Changeup (CH) 110 29.6% 37.0% 33.3% 22.2% 33.3% 72 38 110 -9.2 4.0 10.2 2021 Curveball (CU) 94 10.0% 50.0% 40.0% 0.0% 50.0% 73 21 94 6.2 -8.7 10.7

Color me skeptical. With more time for adjustments I worry major league hitters will figure out his sub-par stuff. The margin for success is thin on a guy who needs to be executing on all levels to get by. Lose a little command or movement or run into a team that won't chase and that guy gets crushed. Maybe that's a back-end starter for a typical Twins team but you wouldn't typically find that guy starting for a quality playoff team. Or maybe the misguided Dobnak experience is too recent in my memory.

Wander Javier had a nice little hot streak for a minute there, but man he still strikes out a lot and seems to be highly allergic to walks. Does he just swing at everything, or does he just have issues making contact in the zone?

That’s why I mentioned the part about the pitching staff being cobbled together year to year. It worked until it didn’t. Good pitchers were still good pitchers despite the 2019 bouncy ball. And bad pitchers are bad pitchers without it. Everyone had the same ball to contend with. The bouncy ball significantly helped certain profiles of hitters which we happened to have a number of. Those are the guys that won’t easily rebound and that’s why a handful of Twins hitters popped up and fell back to earth.

Sounds a little like a guy we just traded away...

A kid can work as hard as he wants but still may not have the 'stuff' to excel. Jax's pitch repertoire and command is nothing special. He'll need to find an extra edge that helps him stay ahead of major league hitters.

Bomba Squad window closed when they de-juiced the ball. The window was barely propped open to begin with because the pitching staff is cobbled together year-to-year outside of a few mainstays.

I see the ranking on SWR but he concerns me with his control issues. He averages over 18 pitches per inning and is walking over 5 guys per 9. Granted, 3 terrible games make up the bulk of the walks but he still throws a lot of pitches to get through 5 innings at AA. Control is one of the hardest things to fix it seems like, so hopefully there's a good solution in mind.

$15 million / year is not going to happen. He wants $20+ which means you're banking on him taking another step. Otherwise he'll be an overpaid #3. Also, a staff of Berrios, Josh Winder, Jordan Balazovic, Griffin Jax, and Bailey Ober sounds very high risk to not pan out well. Pitching prospects are so volatile. The absolute ceiling for Jax and Ober is a 4th/5th starter, but they have a ways to go to get there. Winder and Balazovic could be solid mid-rotation guys or could bust completely out. Overpaying Berrios because you're penciling in prospects to fill out a rotation in 2 years is a monster gamble.

Looking at Santana's stats, a crazy thing stood out to me where his 2004 season had such a rough start that he missed the all star game, but his second half was so dominant he won the Cy Young and finished 6th in MVP voting. Wow. Final 22 games that year: 1.36 ERA, 0.69 WHIP (nice), 11.5 K/9, and over half the runs he gave up were solo and 2-run home runs. Crazy.

His numbers look similar to Brent Rooker with a little less power; who himself looks like yet another AAAA power-only hitter so far. Tough to see it translating to MLB without a significant improvement in strikeout/walk rate. But good on him for making the jump. Maybe he can become a quality backup with some more improvement.

For a guy who just started AA this year and is blocked at the MLB level, I'm cool with him continuing to learn at the AAA level until September. There isn't really much playing time for him unless they want to bounce him all over the field. Rooker/Astudillo/Sano/Donaldson have 3B/1B/DH covered. Gordon/Polanco/Simmons have the middle infield. Arraez could come back. Let's not yank him around during a crucial breakout period. Also don't want to burn an option year unnecessarily just to get a peek at a guy.

This has disaster written all over it. The elevated walk rate makes me think he lives on the edge of the zone or just outside with mediocre stuff, which gets strikeouts in the minors but will lead to a ton of trouble against major league hitters.

So is he likely a bullpen candidate without an effective change up or some other true third pitch?

I think some people got on Javier's bandwagon a little too quickly. He went on a nice power-hitting tear over 2 1/2 weeks but fell back to earth hard. Season strikeout rate is ~33%. Cutting his season up into three parts: First 21 games: .179/.238/.282 with 37% K-rate Hot streak (next 15 games): .317/.362/.698 with 22% K-rate June 18th (last 13 games): .135/.220/.191 with 44% K-rate Overall numbers aren't that far off from 2019, just with a little more pop for that middle stretch.

While he's improved to 3 walks per 9 this year, that's still kind of high for a reliever. And that's against AA hitting. He'll need to improve that command or he'll just be a (maybe slightly better) Hansel Robles type. If his fastball/slider are really major league pitches, shouldn't he be evaluated as a starter with that elite changeup as a 3rd pitch?

I'm with you, but who do you put these guys behind on the rankings then? There aren't better hitting prospects in the system, which to me is concerning because there is high risk attached to poor-contact hitters. I don't expect future major league starting-caliber hitters to struggle heavily with contact in the low minors, especially college bats. It's like these guys are lacking in the raw 'hit' tool and hoping to develop it just enough to leverage their other tools, but that is really tough. Maybe I'm way off base though.