2wins87

Actually surprisingly high ranking for Lee based on his floor, given that Law himself says the list is more focused on upside. "Lower chase rate than Juan Soto" is a pretty good tidbit on Rodriguez.

Partly, pitching in the futures game messed up his schedule. I would have expected him to be closer to normal by now though. He is still very lanky so maybe they do want to protect him in the same way as Raya.

I agree with this, and I'll note that the International League is much more similar to the MLB in terms of left-handed pitching (at least 25% or so). The Texas League is weirdly short on LHPs this year, so if they want him to see more lefties a promotion would be the way to do it.

I remain convinced that there is a real, non-random component to his struggles in high leverage situations which have been present over his entire career. Last night looked good. He didn't seem to be nibbling early, and by getting ahead he was able to pitch a clean inning. I will remain open-minded that maybe somehow something will click and he can remain as reliable in high leverage as he's been in other situations. But I am very nervous that in Stewart's and Thielbar's absences, he seems to have worked himself back to 3rd in the bullpen hierarchy.

Two pitches before Julien's HR I was thinking "They keep pitching him inside, I really think he could turn on one of those." Really fun seeing him do exactly that. He's really locked in right now and he's got such a professional approach that it's hard for opposing teams to find a good way to get him out. There are still holes in the offense, but now 5 games out of the break with 5+ runs in each game, it's already around the longest stretch of competent offense they've had this year. Don't want to get too optimistic yet, but it's been nice seeing some run scoring.

Walker Jenkins Walker JenkinsBrooks Lee Has lived up to every expectation except power production early on. I suspect the lack of impact is also behind his somewhat low BABIP. Still some All-star potential, but very high floor. Looks good on defense though range might be limited.Emmanuel RodriguezMatt Wallner Has done a decent job of keeping Ks in check. Still a bit of a risky profile, but no indications that he can't hold his own in the majors.Marco Raya Still a relief risk given nagging injuries and limited workload.David Festa ERA looks much worse than peripherals. Still needs to fill out.Charlee Soto Physically reminds me of Jhoan Duran. Super high ceiling as a starter.Austin MartinConnor PrielippKala'i Rosario Great EVs in A-ball last year (90th percentile: 106.5 mph). Tapping into the power with solid improvements on plate discipline numbers this year. Not going to provide a ton of defensive value but still one of my favorite bats.Yasser MercedesYunior Severino I'm a sucker for a switch hitter with power from both sides. Doesn't really look great on defense so he probably ends up at 1B rather quickly.Luke Keaschall Somewhat similar to Schobel pick last year. Seems to have a bit better feel for contact and a bit better speed, which could give him value as an outfielder. Despite lack of raw power, has shown a very strong ability to get to power in games. Will have to see how that translates into professional ball, but seems like more than the sum of his parts.Brent Headrick Low 90s fastball, touching 95/96 (pretty solid velo from the left side). Mostly uses fastball/slider for outs, and relief might be most likely long-term role.Jordan Balazovic Making a bit of a comeback this year. Still sits mid 90s hitting 97. FB, slider/curve should work as a reliever, but changeup still looked very usable in AAA.Tanner Schobel Smallish guy who didn't hit the ball very hard in A-ball last year. Has had a power surge this year, a little reminiscent of Spencer Steer two years ago. Still profiles best as a utility player.Simeon Woods Richardson Still 22, I think he puts things together at some point. Somewhat unique, over-the-top delivery with decent extension, but the low 90s FB doesn't leave much room for error and probably doesn't help the secondaries play up.Cory Lewis Has featured knuckleball as a secondary to great results. Fastball only 89-92 range, but seems to have good enough secondary characteristics to still be quite effective. Slider has been an effective secondary for him as well, with changeup probably the 4th pitch right now. Knuckleball might give him an additional weapon against lefties, putting less pressure on the changeup.Brandon Winokur Will have to watch out for contact issues in pro-ball. Plenty of potential if they can keep his swing in check .Jose Rodriguez Still very young, but may not have much physical projection left. Holding his own in the FCL with enough contact but less power than he showed in the DSL. HM (21-30): Enlow, Cossetti, Canterino, Matthews, De Andrade, Miller, Salas, Cardenas, Nowlin, Ortega, Helman Might be low on Salas and Miller, but both need to prove themselves with some production. I'd sort of like put Cossetti in the top 20, but given his age I'll hold off unless he starts dominating in A+. Matthews sits in the mid 90s with his fastball and has excellent control but has gotten roughed up a bit in A+, which makes me wonder a bit on the secondary characteristics of his fastball and the level of his secondaries. Still think he could go on a run soon. Cardenas doesn't impact the ball hard, but has solid plate discipline and a good arm. Nowlin still struggles with command but has 3 good pitches. Ortega seems to have a pretty good knack for line drive contact and could be a utility type.

Edman is basically Kepler but at infield positions. Doesn't move the needle for this team offensively, I don't see how it would be worth whatever they would have to give up. I would have tepid interest in Hicks who would be cheap to acquire. He still struggles to throw strikes, I'm not sure how much he can be trusted. Goldschmidt, obviously, would help, but I agree it's kind of hard to even contemplate how that trade would come together

It does add a small delay but have you seen the process? It takes about 10 seconds maybe; it will only make a small fraction of the difference that the pitch clock has made. I just don't think between the umpires union, players union, and owners they are going to decide to make the big change to a fully automatic system right away. Another reason might be the weird added pause as the umpire relays the call, which people might just aesthetically dislike. Once some sort of ABS system is incorporated it's probably inevitable that they eventually go to the fully automatic system, I just don't see it happening right away. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to see Manfred try to push the challenge system as soon as next year.

How many times this year has Sonny been cruising only to completely lose his control in the 5th or 6th?

Yeah I agree that a hitter that knows the zone should benefit a lot from the automatic zone. The guys with the best judgement should only get better if they get to see the same zone every at bat too. It seems like the challenge system is much more likely to make it to the majors soon. I would guess that the games played under the challenge rules haven't been affected to the same level as those with the automatic zone. I'm sure someone will tease out some conclusions from the data this off-season so I'll be interested to read that piece.

Was not aware he was still grinding away in the minor leagues either. Good to see him rewarded with a chance in the majors. An aside, browsing his stats I saw that Cabbage's .934 OPS for Salt Lake is actually only a 114 OPS+, so 14% above league average accounting for park factors. That's not meant as a slight on Cabbage who is certainly putting together a good season. It's really fascinating to me how crazy the run scoring environment is in AAA this year, especially in the PCL which has always been a hitter's league. For comparison, Marcus Semien's .784 OPS is a 114 OPS+ in the majors. I saw a couple weeks ago that Jo Adell hit a 500+ foot HR in Salt Lake. Even Coors looks like a decent place for a pitcher compared to the Salt Lake stadium. It's been an under-covered story so far how much the ABS system is increasing offense in AAA, which I've only started realizing in the last month or so.

MLBPipeline - Brooks Lee tapping into power 1.087 OPS in July now. I kind of expect they'll want to see him sustain his current level of hitting for a bit longer, but one thing I've noticed is that the Texas league seems to have a disproportionately low number of left handed pitchers this year. I would argue both Lee and Severino could benefit from moving to AAA just to see lefties a bit more often.

To me the first half of last year does look like long relief. Maybe you could say it's a multi-inning role in between long relief and late-inning relief, but at any rate, he did well pitching multiple innings. I think he could be even better if it is only in limited situations when he's been very efficient for the first inning. It's not really about last night specifically for me which I've said was a 50-50 call in my mind. The Boston game was much more memorable to me. Jax looked good and clearly could have at least started a second inning. You have no idea if Duran will be efficient enough to go 2 innings there. I think I am usually on board with the majority of Rocco's tactical decisions, but I've felt for several years that he tends to be inflexible when it comes to bullpen decisions. I think he's evolved on usage, but he still seems to approach most games with sort of a set plan on reliever situations/matchups and I'd like to see him let the results dictate usage a little more.

When did they try that? Because I can't recall it. From my memory and a quick glance at the game logs. He started last season as a long reliever, was good in the role, then became a late inning reliever and they haven’t tried multiple innings since. I'm 50-50 on last night's game given it was back to back. But at the same time he's probably unavailable today either way, and it's not like they were going to pull him from the inning early if he had a couple long counts and got to 20 pitches but was otherwise getting outs.

It's only one game. He's been around a 15% K rate the whole season. Since he's had a bit of a power surge starting mid June his K rate has basically been the same. He's a guy that can do both contact and power and probably needs to. He's not going to get many hits putting the ball on the ground.

Nope. Jax hasn't gone more than one inning since the middle of last year. Basically as soon as he became a trusted late inning guy he's also been a one inning guy. It was his performance in those multi-inning appearances that got him into that role though.

Yes it could be, I did want to acknowledge that. But that doesn't mean they couldn't push him a little further when he's been really efficient. I don't want to see it regularly, but I wish Rocco would call an audible every now and then when someone comes out to pitch only inning 6 or 7 and ends up looking really good and efficient. Wouldn't have to be Jax, though he's probably the only guy I would trust out of the current healthy group

20 straight scoreless appearances for Jax now dating back to May 22. All 1 inning or less and 18 or fewer pitches. The usage might be helping him to be successful but I've been wondering why Rocco hasn't even asked him to start a second once. I feel like there have been a couple times when Jax finished an inning in less than 10 pitches only for Rocco to go to Duran for 2 innings or to go to a lesser reliever. I could be conflating it into more occurrences than in reality, but Jun 21 against the Red Sox was one that particularly stood out in my memory. Jax finished the 7th in 8 pitches and Rocco went immediately to Duran with the clear plan of having him go 2 innings. Duran did go 2 innings but not before giving up the lead in the 8th and using 32 pitches. They did end up winning in extras. Maybe tonight's game wasn't an ideal situation either after pitching last night and against a team where you can put a little more trust in the lesser relievers. But after breezing through the 7th on 6 pitches, I would have been very tempted to stick with Jax rather than risk going to Ortegas. It worked out fine, but I don't really understand why Jax is the one guy who never goes multiple innings when he's been so efficient and so good. And he was a starter two years ago, and a multi-inning guy even more recently than that.

@Brock Beauchamp I see someone on my ballot named Walter Jenkins who, from the name, kind of sounds like he might be a HS chemistry teacher turned drug dealer. I take it this is supposed to be Walker? I like the new feature though.

Low-balling is I guess a pejorative way of putting it, but I'm really just describing how they operate

Some of the quotes are a little strange to hear, but it's really unclear from the quotes what he's actually thinking about his impending free agency. Would he want to stay in Minnesota or does he have another destination in mind? Does it mean he would actually accept a QO to stay put even if though he can get a multi-year deal? Or is he looking for one final long-ish contract? Won't change how the Twins will approach it which is to offer the QO and probably low-ball their FA offer as they tend to do with every FA pitcher. Probably still most likely that he'll be playing somewhere else next year.

Just saw this new feature on baseball reference today. Sort of a wordle type trivia game for baseball. Apparently it has been fairly popular but I didn't find out about it until it was acquired by baseball reference. I don't think I'm great at baseball trivia but I ended up doing fairly well, though it was harder than I thought it should be to come up with guys who played for both the Marlins and White Sox. It seems like a fun daily game for baseball fans. Anyway, here was my result for today: Immaculate Grid 101 7/9: Rarity: 453 🟩🟩⬜️ ⬜️🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 Play at: https://immaculategrid.com @immaculategrid x @baseball_ref

On the whole, I loved the potential for high upside early. You can get talent late in the draft, but odds are the franchise-building, all-star types are going to get taken early. They got a couple of good options there. 15 out of 21 picks were pitchers. Only two college bats. This wasn't a draft designed to impact the major league team quickly, but I'm OK with that. If they have one developmental strength as an org it's improving those later round pitching picks, so in that sense they were drafting to their strength. There could be trade chips to fill the gaps in a couple of years.

The guys that were traded away could hit before they left. The guys who are still here can't though, and that part might be telling.

I think MLB's 50s are more like 45+ or even 45 on Fangraphs. They are at least self-consistent though so they would appear to be much higher on the draft picks vs the Twins' current list than Fangraphs is.