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2wins87

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Everything posted by 2wins87

  1. 2wins87
    I don't know how much of the early season data and scouting is getting incorporated into the reports from fangraphs. It's sort of a preseason list but a couple months late. Some of the writeups clearly reference developments since the start of the year but I don't know how hard they worked on upgrading every individual tool grade, particularly for guys down the list where a lot of the info could still be mostly from last year. They do have him 23rd which is higher than he was on the TD preseason list. If he keeps producing people will take notice and scouts will take note of any swing path changes or other adjustments.
  2. 2wins87
    I'm surprised how little criticism there has been of Vazquez since he has been a black hole in the lineup most of the season. We knew he was signed for defense, but it hasn't been fun to watch at the plate. Theres a level of offense where the defense just doesn't make up for it, I think its called Butera-esque. He has had a couple of good games lately, but more importantly Jeffers has been tearing it up in increased usage which has been critical for a couple wins. I've always been a fan of Jeffers and really thought he would be a seemless replacement to Garver with less bat but enough additional defense not to miss it that much. I had to temper my expectations last year that he would be that kind of starting catcher, but I've never totally given up on the dream. I think Jeffers' defense has continued to improve at the MLB level. His biggest issue has been a large platoon split which tends to kill a batting line for a regular RH hitter. He's actually crushed righties this year and I'm hoping it's a sign that he's just breaking out as a hitter.
  3. 2wins87
    Mahle was a positive for the brief healthy stint he had. Injuries happen in baseball, especially to pitchers, so I disagree with him being on this list because of it. I'd say Jorge Lopez may be creeping onto the list at #5 for me. He's not too negative on the WPA list right now because he had some early saves, but it's hard to put any trust in him right now. And at what point does it become a fluky good half-season with Baltimore versus a disappointing end to last year and start to this year? I remember a lot of arguments at the time of the trade that we could ignore all of his stats prior to the start of last year, which always seemed absurd to me. Well, the career high K rate disappeared and he's back around his prior norms. Same with the career low HR rate. The only thing making him look good at the beginning of the year was his ridiculously high GB rate, but that's back to just moderately high now. I'm pretty worried about him going forward.
  4. 2wins87
    Buxton still leads the hitters in win probability added. I'm not saying that's predictive of what's going to happen going forward in clutch spots, but he's found a way to help the team above and beyond his overall stat-line. He's also been a plus on the base paths. He'll surely have another hot streak soon enough. It's disappointing that there's been so little time where everything has lined up with the health but he's hardly been a disappointing player to me. I do think that it's probably beyond just keeping him healthy and that he must still be dealing with inflammation or something in the knee on a semi-regular basis, so it's discouraging that he might not get to the point health-wise where he's even a half-time CF for the regular season. I do think he will at least get out there some in August or September.
  5. 2wins87
    Matthews got the first promotion and he'd be my pick too at this point based off statcast and stat-line data. His FB is generally in the mid 90s averaging over 93 mph and he's topped out at 96.3. Seems like he can spin a good breaking ball too though he probably needs to refine into one or two consistent shapes. His changeup didn't get a ton of whiffs in low A so he probably still needs to work on it and that probably adds to to his reliever risk somewhat. His control seems to already be really good though which helps to put him over the top. He had a miniscule 3.3% walk rate against low A hitters while striking out over 35%. Lewis is right behind him for me. The fastball only averages around 90.5 mph and has topped out at 93, but it has been pretty effective so I think it may have some good secondary characteristics. The knuckleball has unsurprisingly baffled low-A hitters getting whiffs on over half of the swings. But his slider has also been really effective so he's really got a full repertoire to go with the knuckle ball and it makes me interested to see how his stuff plays as he moves up. Culpepper is definitely intriguing beyond the stat line as well. He's the hardest thrower of the bunch averaging around 94 mph and having topped out at 97.5 in game. I don't know what he was throwing pre-draft, but based on where he was drafted I'm guessing he added a bunch of that velocity in the Twins' off-season camp. He probably has the most refinement still needed on his pitches and command, but he has the profile of that late round pick from a smaller baseball program that they develop into something solid.
  6. 2wins87
    Wow, what a night in Lansing for the Kernels hitters! I think they had a couple full weeks earlier in the season where they didn't even score close to 24 runs. It seems the 8 runs in the 9th were off of a position player, so take those stats with a grain of salt but still a great night for many guys. Watching Tanner Schobel earlier this year he looked like a guy who could punch above his weight though the stat line didn't really show it at the time. He's been coming on lately though. 7 game hit streak in which he is 14 for 33 and now HR in back to back games. I also commented a few weeks ago that Rosario seemed like a guy that could be a minor tweak away from a breakout and it seems like it may have happened. 5 HR in the last 2 and 1/2 weeks and the plate discipline numbers continue to trend in the right direction.
  7. 2wins87
    Even with his typical 95 wRC+ Kepler is easily a starting caliber player putting up at least 2 WAR each of the last 6 full seasons thanks to his defense. Not sure where the fit is but yes another team would have no second thoughts about picking up the contract, which is why he would be traded rather than dropped. I don't think the FO is as ready to move on as most fans, but when they are I don't think they are wrong that he has some sort of trade value. The trade value is probably not as high as they believe it should be but it's still there.
  8. 2wins87
    Oh that already happened btw. 1.245 OPS in March/April, .616 OPS in May.
  9. 2wins87
    For a healthy Polanco it's a no brainer. If he's stays relatively healthy and productive the rest of the season they could still easily pick up the option and flip him for something of value if they decide to go a different direction at 2B. He has another similar option for 2025 so it's still essentially two years of team control at a reasonable price. For the time being Polanco is still the better option on both sides of the ball though. Probably the hardest decision is if he's only mostly healthy and that limits his productivity, which is certainly a possibility the way the last few years have gone for him. I don't see Julien getting a whole lot better on defense that quickly, so if he is the starting 2B next year they will probably need a high defensive floor platoon partner for him, and maybe they already have it with Willi Castro fitting that role and playing better defense than he ever has prior to this year. It's hard to see Julien as a building block 2B long term though. He'll probably be a good bat 2B/1B/DH with someone else covering the defense at 2B more often than not.
  10. 2wins87
    I don't think Julien has been undisciplined in the majors. He's had a pretty good eye with two strikes. It seems they've been trying to have him swing at strikes more aggressively early in the count, and he had some success with the approach at first, though lately it seems that either he's just a bit off or he's gotten more quality strikes that just haven't been as hittable. He hasn't really gotten himself into hitters counts too often, which speaks to how he's been pitched and the reason they've wanted him to be more aggressive. It'll have to be a balance of attacking early so pitchers aren't able to go right after him as much but making sure that the pitches he attacks are ones he can actually do something with.
  11. 2wins87
    You can look it up but he doubled off a lefty reliever last night
  12. 2wins87
    There has been some consternation over Brooks Lee recently Now he's on a 6 game hitting streak with 4 of those games being multi-hit efforts and with 4 doubles and a HR mixed in. Overall the power still seems to be a bit behind where it was supposed to be when he was drafted, but if he continues his current performance for another week his overall line should be right around where you want for a top prospect.
  13. 2wins87
    I like contact in prospects, maybe even more than your average prospect ranker. But if contact is the only tool you end up with Nick Madrigal basically, which is a name I've heard mentioned in the same sentence as Wilson. Maybe the ceiling on Wilson is a little higher than that but I'm not sure what the safety is worth if the ceiling is too low, which is my worry on Wilson.
  14. 2wins87
    I think they have shown a willingness to go multiple directions early in the draft. You can see some clear tendencies from later picks but that probably doesn't have as much bearing on their first round pick as the talent available in the draft. I'm not putting very much stock in rumors either. I think the reason their model would prefer hitters over pitchers probably isn't too nuanced in the end and it's the same reason that every team's model does: injuries. I think it's clear from they way they have gone about acquiring major league pitching that they have a pretty strong weight on injury risk, and every pitcher is going to have that, not in the least those throwing in the upper 90s or topping 100. I would think they would still be perfectly willing if not thrilled to go for Skenes at #5 though, whatever the rumors. Of course they are going to do their own due diligence and their board could end up different than the consensus. It's also a guarantee that someone outside of the consensus top 5 will go on to have a better career than most of them, if not all.
  15. 2wins87
    I was curious if that 2 RBI pop fly hit would show up in Willi Castro's statcast page since it seemed like he got a bad jump and let up a little early. Sure enough it is there today. 5.4 seconds of hang time, 91 feet needed, 90% catch probability. So yes, most true centerfielders would make that play. It's just interesting how only watching the end of the play it looked like there was no way he could have gotten there. But going back to the beginning where he had a bad read off the bat and slow jump it was actually a play that should be made most of the time. Anyway, not to rip on Castro who probably shouldn't be relied on to be a center fielder very much. It was once again the offense as much as anything that sunk them, and Castro was just one part of that yesterday, though he certainly didn't have a good day in the field either.
  16. 2wins87
    Good to see Cossetti carrying over success into high A so far. I'm preparing myself to start really getting excited about his stat line if he can repeat his low A numbers for a couple months with Cedar Rapids.
  17. 2wins87
    They haven’t drafted many HS pitchers but I'd be curious if they have a long term health strategy where they limit his in game pitches a lot early on while development is still going on behind the scenes, at least until he gets to the upper minors where his workload can be built up. It seems like last year he actually pitched deeper early in the season before having a few brief absences and then somewhat short outings in the second half. I think there were a couple minor health issues in there but I don't remember any specifics. So that seems more like they are trying to manage his health more specifically to avoid any of those nagging issues from popping up. Makes me wonder a little more about his durability long term but if it does manage to get him to the majors without any major injuries that's a big plus.
  18. 2wins87
    After Clark at #5 I'm doubling down on upside with surefire shortstop out of HS Adrian Santana at #34 and then their prototypical "positionless but he can really hit" college bat with LuJames "Gino" Groover III at #49. Then in rounds 3-10 probably about 6 college arms a couple of whom come out next year having added 2-4 MPH at velocity camp. Maybe not the most likely scenario but I think still fairly on brand for this front office. Probably of the guys left Yohandy Morales might be the most likely at #34 who fits into the college hitter type that they like.
  19. 2wins87
    He seems probably like maybe a #4 right now, but I still think there could be more. Seems like his secondaries aren't always working great for him. In his latest outing against the Angels he had to rely heavily on his fastball. He's been able to get it done a few ways though. I remember in his start against the Yankees he went to the cutter a lot, especially early in counts, to keep their hitters off of the fastball. Having good command and a fastball that can be effective even when thrown over 60% of the time is a good foundation though. Not too dissimilar from where Joe Ryan was when the Twins acquired him. I'm optimistic he can work with the coaching staff to hone his secondary stuff and end up a solid #3 or maybe even #2 type.
  20. 2wins87
    Nice to see Cossetti getting a pretty early promotion, I'm going to be very interested in how he does against tougher competition. There were no nits to pick with his batting line in low-A except for his age. I think Rafael Cruz could be on the verge of an offensive breakout in low-A. The strikeouts are an issue and his numbers haven't been good yet but he is hitting the ball very hard quite often.
  21. 2wins87
    This thread is going to be a cesspool of negativity but I want to point out that while a bunch of different relievers have had their hand in blowing leads lately, Duran has pitched just 5 times in the month of May (without giving up any runs other than a Manfred Man). This is a case where Rocco's managing is actually way too traditional and he can't seem to imagine anything other than a traditional closer role. Duran obviously isn't going to save any game all by himself, but when the team is scuffling it seems like one solution would be to try to get one of the best relievers in baseball involved earlier in the game before you have a chance to blow it and maybe have a chance to tack on. Anyway, enough of the negativity for me, I'm going to try to do something more fun.
  22. 2wins87
    Fangraphs hasn't updated their board since before the college season started and they were already higher on Taylor than anyone else. He has hit pretty well but not on the level of pretty much any of the college bats ahead of him, many of whom also play in the SEC or ACC.
  23. 2wins87
    I think they play it pretty straight for the most part. The first year of the Falvey and Levine regime was 2017 when they saved some money on Royce Lewis with the #1 overall pick and nabbed HS pitcher Blayne Enlow overslot with the first pick in the 3rd round. Lewis got a smaller bonus than Hunter Greene, but wasn't really a reach at #1 in what turned out to be a pretty weak draft (I mean, no one who knows anything about draft history will criticize you for passing on a HS pitcher #1 overall). This will be their highest overall pick and easily their largest pool since then. Their tendency is to go for impact bats early, with a bit more emphasis on college guys with good data behind them, and then to target college pitchers on day 2 and 3 who are somewhat under the radar, often from smaller baseball programs, who have aspects that leads the front office to believe they can develop them into much better pitchers. Two of their current rotation pieces Ober and Varland were developed that way. Given their tendencies your scenario seems very plausible. I would also be pretty into a scenario where they go for upside via one of the deep group of HS SS prospects at #34 regardless of whether they got one of the HS OF at #5. That might be a less likely and less balanced scenario, but I would argue still a good way to use their high picks and slot money that doesn't come around very often. Either way it is an exciting draft to be in their position with what should be a much better and deeper draft class than 2017. I think I am a fan of the new draft order lottery system even if the Twins don't get lucky again for a long time.
  24. 2wins87
    Yeah, I imagine most of those guys will be gone by the end of round 1. I like following the draft but can't pretend to really have a good idea of who I like beyond the top 10. Lots of exciting depth though. I really appreciate all the work on this coverage. I still have a lot of blurbs to read on the board.
  25. 2wins87
    I pretty much agree with this and I'd say Skenes is feeling pretty unlikely to get past 3 at this point as well. Although the top of the draft always seems to be a little less settled than we think prior to the draft (Just look at the Rangers picking Rocker 3rd and adding a bit of chaos into the top 10 last year). I've seen Langford mocked to the Twins a couple times, and I could certainly see it happening as there are always a few teams that are looking for toolsy HS kids. Not sure about the tendencies of the teams ahead of us this year. I think that might be my preferred, somewhat realistic scenario right now, though I will be happy with either Jenkins or Clark as well. It is kind of hard to see the scenario where the Twins have a choice between 2 or more of the top 5 but there probably is some universe where one of the top 4 (probably the Rangers) decides to get weird with their pick. I'm getting more interested in the comp round pick. I think it could be a good year to get some of the left over HS talent that drops out of the first round. I could also see one of the big college hitters like Wilken, Hurley, Davis, Schanuel, or Ledbetter making it to the Twins, and it's kind of hard to see this regime passing on one of those bats.
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