gunnarthor

If they trade Dozier, they'd have an open spot on the 40 man for Gordon or Petit.

Probably too early to know/worry. AAA pitching staffs are better than AA ones, even if on a individual night, a AA starter might be the best pitcher Gordon faces in the minors. So Gordon will have to make some adjustments but the fact that he's hitting .300 with some pop is a good sign, even if he couldn't sustain it without making those changes in the long run.

Yep, he's a diamond who had a lot of helium on draft day. mlbpipeline had him #127 on their list in 2016 an they wrote "While still a bit raw, there's a lot to like with this Auburn commit. At 6-foot-3, he's not physically developed yet. There's plenty of room to add strength and velocity. His arm works really well and fires fastballs up to 92 mph already, with heavy sink. He also has a good feel for his changeup. His breaking ball has a ways to go. Right now, it's a slurvy slider kind of caught in between a curve and a slider, with three-quarter break and thrown in the 79-82 mph range. He stays in the strike zone more often than not." BA wrote "Balazovic has a polished changeup that he can locate at the knees with late fade and tumbling action. He throws a breaking ball with 11-to-5 shape in the mid-70s. Balazovic gets his core extended over his front side well and extends his glove hand high for extra deception. Scouts note how rare it is for him to be squared up." Twins signed him for 150k over slot in the 2016 draft. Balazovic was young for his draft class and could have returned to 13th grade in Canada to get drafted the next year, he also had a strong commit to Auburn. He needs to pitch and stay healthy but he has real nice upside. Side note but the 2016 draft is going to push the 2012 draft for the best Twins draft in the last 15 years. The Twins went nuts on high upside and really young high schoolers - 2nd rounders Baddoo and Miranda, 5th rounder Balazovic, 17th rounder Kidany Salva and 28th rounder Matt Jones (also from Canada) were all 17 on draft day. They also picked Kiriloff and Rortvedt and Tyler Benninghoff for over slot in the 11th round.

Agreed. Not sure what's wrong with him but he's not getting the number of grounders and strike outs that I think he should be getting. He'll probably eventually get a call up but he's not looking like an big future part of the pen.

I tend to agree with you but I don't like our current SS options, I think we'll trade Dozier at the deadline (a different thread) and Polanco/Gordon MI should finish out the year.

Nice to Rooker keep hitting. I don't know if he'll be up in the majors this year but I would like to see him get pushed to AAA if he keeps this up. Rortvedt getting a promotion is nice. I didn't expect that. Gordon is on a tear right now but his walk rate is very low and his babip is insanely high. That's likely to change but it's also a good indication that he's taking good at-bats so even if there is regression, he's got the right approach. I hope he gets promoted soon but I'm not sure the FO is ready to do that.

I think we have a lot of talent but I think we've dug too big of a hole to make the wildcard this year. We absolutely should not get rid of our core but we should get a new manager and make moves that help 2019, like bringing up Gordon.

I wonder how much more Levine needs to see before he moves on from Molitor. Molly just isn't a fit for this club.

Pretty uneventful draft, really. Larnach could be something special but the rest of these guys are pretty 'eh'. I was afraid this draft would be like the 2015 one and that's what it looks like. I wish they had reached for higher end talent that was available.

I'm sure that'll come out in the next few days but I really only think Larnach is in our top 10 right now. I could be wrong but I don't know if the others get in there. Larnach could fit in anywhere between 5-10, really. I think Lewis, Gordon, Kiriloff and Gonsalves are clearly ahead of him (assuming Romero isn't a prospect). So I think we slip him somewhere around Rooker, Graterol, Baddoo, Diaz, Enlow. Maybe ahead of Baddoo?

Nice to see Rooker get more walks and home runs.

Looks like the Twins are viewing May as a multiple inning reliever and not a starter. Since he has options, he'll stay at AAA for a bit. Kiriloff and Lewis have been great this year, hopefully they get promoted soon. Miranda started pretty bad but over his last twenty games or so, he's been the guy I expected we'd see. Hopefully, that bad start was part of the adjustment to a higher level and he continues to smack the crap out of the ball. Man, Bechtold and Cabbage are struggling.

The Twins might have enough savings to nab a 4th round talent or two today. I also hope they look at the Puerto Rico players. None were drafted yet this year but with the hurricane ****ing everything up down there, those kids probably didn't have a lot of baseball time. There's talent on that island and we've scouted it heavily in the past. Nab a few of these kids and hope that they break out.

Sounds like he can stick as a starter. Reads more like a guy out of the Slowey/Baker/Duensing cloth.

Yeah, I agree. He's a solid pick. I wanted a pitcher but his bat could be special. The catcher is a bit puzzling but the fangraphs guys are higher on him so .... maybe?

I have to say, I really don't like that the Royals got both Singer and Kowar.

I'm not against the pick - he's a solid pick who has plus power. Great to have. But it was a boring pick. Someone like Rocker in our system would have instantly been more gratifying.

Here's a write up on Larnach before the draft. Frankly, he could very well have been BPA at 20. https://www.minorleagueball.com/2018/5/23/17328850/2018-mlb-draft-trevor-larnach-of-oregon-state-university

Even with some modest savings, I suspect today will be pretty boring and include a few senior (cheap) signings. They don't have enough to nab a guy like Rocker but they might have enough banked to sign a few guys tomorrow in the 200-250k range. Anyone know who the top talents from Puerto Rico are? The Twins have taken a number of guys from there over the last few years.

After day one last year, I was a whiny little bitch. So I'll hold off until we see what they do today. But they don't have a couple picks they could/should've had so I'm not sure what we're going to see. I think this draft is going to be more like the 2015 draft where we took Tyler Jay early, didn't have a second round pick, didn't sign our next pick and then used some money to get guys like Blankenhorn, Kendrick and Cabbage. I don't see an Enlow happening this year. Working on the edges isn't horrible but it's certainly not going to be as sexy as last year or the 2016 draft (which I still think will rival 2012). Getting a few extra 3rd/4th round types is probably what's going to happen.

Well, I mean. OK. Not really where I thought we were going there. I guess we'll see if a Larnach/Lewis/Kiriloff OF does better than the Rosario/Buxton/Kepler one.

He might be another Tyler Jay.

Kowar.

Well, this means one of Kowar and McClannahan will be there for us. College arms that could/should move fairly quickly.

Big question is would we actually pick them?