2wins87

Still in the first impression stages of this draft so we really have no idea if it was good or not. I think Lee has been everything promised at draft, except for his somewhat lacking power so far, which was supposed to be at least average to a tick above. Otherwise he's moved fast and taken enough walks while making lots of contact. I think the power should come, but it's held back his top-line numbers so far. Prielipp has pitched 35 innings in competitive baseball in the last 4 years. I think it was a good gamble for his talent, but we really have no idea what they got yet, and they'll need to treat him very carefully as he tries to build up to even a reliever workload, let alone starter. I think I'm a little lower on Schobel than the consensus, but he's done a pretty good job of making contact so far despite the leg kick, which he probably needs to get to his power given his size. At that point in the draft a scrappy MLB utility player would still be a solid outcome. Following the Twins farm system closely, it should be basically an expectation at this point that a couple of pitchers are going to pop up from the second and third day picks every year. Matthews is my top pop-up guy so far with an incredible walk rate under 3%, K rate over 30%, and a mid 90s fastball. Lewis is right there with him, and Morris could be too though we need to see him pitching healthy for a bit longer. A little behind them I have Jones and Culpepper. Jones they liked enough to start in high A; he hasn't gotten enough whiffs there but his control has been very good so he could still be a couple tweaks away. Culpepper came into this year with good velocity but the fastball doesn't overpower low-A hitters so I'm waiting to see how the whole package comes together as he moves up. Cossetti's numbers in high-A are coming around. His K rate and ISO are both already basically in line with what he did in low A. The walk rate is quite a bit lower which is unsurprising, but he's had plenty of extra base hits so I think the low BABIP in A+ is pretty fluky. His CS% on defense has been excellent. I'm sure that's not very representative of his overall defensive package, but with his experience I expect he should at least be good enough to stick. It's pretty rare for one of those 10th or 11th round senior signs really turns into a legit prospect, but I think he's just a couple strong weeks in the midwest league away from looking like it. Probably the other guy that deserves mention is Ortega, who's showed good plate discipline and a knack for line drives, and success on the base paths in low A. He'll need to move up soon and perform at high A, but seems like there could be MLB utility potential there too. I don't know yet if this was a good or bad draft, but I think it's a good example of them drafting to their strengths. With some luck, they were able to go for good college hitters early, they got a risky but potentially depressed asset in Prielipp, and got some college pitchers later on that they've already been able to improve quite a bit. I wouldn't mind seeing this kind of draft play out every year as long as they are able to successfully fill in gaps via trade, which hasn't always worked out great in terms of return or what they've agreed to give up.

For the record, "touching the mid 90s" in his case meant topping out at 93 and averaging about 91 in low A. It's more about secondary characteristics (i.e. spin and movement) and deception for him

Was going to say something similar. I will add, I think his timing on moving to receive the throw was really spot on leaving no way the umps could have called a lane violation. After a few calls last year, it's not totally clear what a catcher needs to do to avoid a lane violation in some circumstances, but it's hard to see how Jeffers could have done it better, clearly set up in fair territory and only moving to receive the throw at the last possible moment.

Was going to comment about the play too. I'll add that I think his timing for when he moved to receive the ball was really good. After a few calls last year it's really not clear exactly what the catcher is supposed to do to avoid a lane violation in some cases, but I don't know how they could have called it there and thankfully the umps in NY agreed. He was standing on the fair side of the plate and only moved to catch the ball when he absolutely needed to. I guess what has been called as a lane violation are situations where the catcher moves to receive the ball just a little too early before it actually gets there. Jeffers did a nice job avoiding anything that they could have possibly called against him.

Probably give half credit to Sabato. Obviously the errors have to go to Lee when both were in the dirt, but they were also both in the vicinity an neither were scooped.

Good to see Mercedes in the FCL and Castro in the DSL both hitting homers. There have been a few slow starts for the most promising prospects on those Twins affiliates, so hopefully they can put the first week or so behind them and start beating up on the competition.

Check out yesterday's thread

I suppose the 40-man could be a concern. Probably depends on the nature of the injury and expected timeline. I think Alcala could probably be put on the 60 day IL at any point too, since his stress fracture sounds like a very tricky injury and he's already at the point where he'd get to 60 days in a full length rehab stint, which seems likely given his ineffectiveness early this year.

I have no inside knowledge but honestly I think Camargo, not Wolters, would be the emergency add and call-up right now. Camargo has a good arm and has always been good at controlling the run game. I think he is fairly solid at other defensive aspects behind the plate. Maybe there would be questions about how well he can call a game and handle the pitching staff. I don't know that he has an issues with that, but it is the one area where Wolter's veteran-ness would give him an edge. At the plate, Camargo's slash line is never going to be particularly pretty, since swing and miss is just a part of his game. He's improved at being a little less aggressive this year so that is good. But when he makes contact, his exit velos are impressive, very much on par with Wallner's, and the two of them are at least a head above every other hitter on the Saints in that area. I kind of think his ceiling is as a 3rd catcher because he's going to strike out a ton. But he will also crush some pitches here and there, and if they needed him I think he could do that in the majors right now. For Williams, I think it's pretty clear from his playing time that the Twins don't really think of him as a catcher anymore. He's only caught 16 innings this year.

Jax, Stewart, and Duran, in some order, should be a gauntlet for opposing teams. I have a lot of trust in all of them. Duran is obviously great. Stewart is currently on 8 straight appearances without allowing a walk, which was really only his only issue initially. I don't think the struggles were all just bad luck for Jax early on, but he was never broken. He needed a pitch mix change, and he's accomplished that now. The sweeper usage is now around 50% after being at 70% early in the year, and he's increasingly mixed in a cutter which has probably improved as a pitch as he's gotten back his feel for it. It's been harder for opposing hitters to spoil his sweeper and he's had an easier time getting ahead and not having to get so deep into counts all the time. His fastball has also gone from being incredibly ineffective early to incredibly effective lately, and I'm not sure how much of that is just luck. Probably the cutter helps to keep hitters off the fastball. They could really use a healthy Thielbar for spots in lineups stacked with good lefites, but I think Moran is good in the role he's in, and I do think Lopez needs some fixing but I would hope he can get back to the point of playing a similar role. If the offense can continue giving them some more 2 and 3 run leads rather than just 1 run leads they should be pretty well set up to hold down those leads.

I would too. I've tried searching for any news to figure out why his rehab assignment was shut down last week but haven't found anything. Doesn't help that his name is so similar to Aston Martin.

I think Akil Baddoo being selected in the rule 5 and sticking in the majors all year was one of those stranger things. Upside is much higher with ERod than it ever was with Baddoo. I think he'd be almost guaranteed to be taken in the rule 5 unless he really falls off for some reason.

That's an interesting stat. They've had their share of blown games this year too though. Sometimes losing like that is also unsustainable. Their pythagorean win-loss record is 38-29, which I think is a good indicator of what's sustainable. For last night, I think it was one of those games that probably shouldn't have gotten to 92% in favor of their opponent. In the middle innings they had a bunch of hard hit line drives right at someone, they lacked timely hits, and mixed in a baserunning mistake. Then there was Larnach's barely foul drive in the 8th. After the first trip through the order the at bats against Burnes were generally really good. They eventually got 3 runs off him but could have had more. The good ABs continued against the relievers and finally they broke through. It was a surprising win but not a lucky one to me.

Good list. Based on recent mocks the consensus seems to be that Schanuel will go around the mid 20s probably. The high school guys are probably around 50-50 to be available there. I like the idea of possibly going with two HS guys in their first two picks, though I don't really know who to hope for out of the group that could figure to go at #34. Hurley feels like the most likely based on their draft tendencies and his likelihood of being there (I'd set it probably a bit over 50%). Keuhler could be a good pick there too, though this year in particular I wouldn't mind seeing them stick with their tendencies and go for bats with all 3 of their earliest picks. I think there's just a ton of good depth among both HS and college bats that is going to last well through the first 50 picks.

I agree that the Max Kepler hate has gotten really irrational. I do have a couple critiques on the list, though first a couple things I don't object to. I definitely won't object to defensive WAR as a concept or as a valid measure for comparing value. It is difficult to measure, it is a noisy statistic, and it does tend to have relatively large swings from year to year. Like any stat though, measuring over multiple years gives a more accurate picture of overall talent, and the fact that Kepler has always rated well across many years and many statistics gives me little doubt that Kepler is truly an elite defender for a corner outfielder. I also object to somehow discounting defense for a position lower on the defensive scale. WAR already has the positional adjustment for this, and the additional plays made or missed still impact the game equally regardless of whether they come at a more or less demanding position. I wouldn't use fWAR for historical comparisons though. Fangraphs is always open to changing their metrics to align with the best currently available measures. They have better defensive metrics than range factor for recent guys, but these metrics will never be available for historical players, so I would just default to bWAR, which doesn't really alter the picture significantly. I would agree that just taking a total without considering peak vs longevity is a bigger issue. I think something like the JAWS approach of averaging peak and total WAR would be better, though a 7 year peak is clearly too long for a team list where many guys didn't even last that long on one team. I don't know what the proper peak length should be for a team list, but 4 years feels about right. Based on this, I would take your list and slide Denard Span and Larry Hisle ahead of Kepler pretty easily. Tom Brunansky would also be very close to Kepler at this point. At any rate, the list of great to really good outfielders is probably a little light for 60 years of history. I would put Kepler in a group of guys who were good for one or two years but then pretty average-ish otherwise, so Eddie Rosario, Michael Cuddyer, Jacque Jones, Brunansky, etc. There's a good argument that Kepler will have been the best of that bunch, so hopefully he won't be remembered any worse for all of this collective acrimony around him towards the end of his tenure.

I was not too confident going into the 10th with Jeffers on second and realizing they had no bench move to make. His base running ended up getting it done though. A faster base runner makes it look easy, but getting to 3rd on Lewis's dribbler was really key. Given his speed he had to get a good break on it from second, which he did. And he was just fast enough to make the catcher hurry fielding the hop on a pretty good throw on the sac fly. Who would have expected Jeffers to have so many pivotal moments on the base paths?

No chance his option vests but it's still pretty likely the team picks it up. He's been their best position player after Buxton over the last few years and they have another option for 2025 too. If they can get his legs healthy (which does seem to be a pretty huge if at this point) it shouldn't be hard for him to be worth $10 million. There's no reason they couldn't still trade him after picking up the option if they have another plan at 2B. His legs have taken a significant hit to his value but there is still value in his 2 years of control, so there's no way any front office would just throw away both options.

The Gray question has already been answered, but as has happened to him repeatedly in his recent starts, his command completely fell apart in the 5th. I think the question on Garlick/Lewis is not so much why is Garlick 3rd but why is Lewis 7th. As someone who is supposed to mash lefties, we've seen him starting in the 3 or 4 hole against them quite a bit over the last two years. He hasn't done what he's supposed to do this year, but 19 ABs isn't a sample you can draw any conclusions from. You can certainly question whether they really needed one more RH bat over this stretch just for a couple of lefty starters. I have that question too. On Lewis, he's getting it done but he has been swinging at everything. Not sure if any of his hits last night were on strikes and only one was hit hard (on a pitch that was definitely not a strike). Now Castro basically does the same thing and he's recently been in the 1 and 2 spot, so it's not a full explanation. But Lewis definitely has some significant adjusting still to do if he's going to keep being productive going forward.

Given that spring training is a month and a half for pitchers, his spring training basically ended around early or mid May. I don't disagree that the opener is being used to keep their options open for him, but he is still stretched out as a starter. The 3 or 4 inning outings are a result of him being innefficient. It seems like his target pitch count has been 70-80 pitches lately, which isn't too different from how they were handling Ober before he joined the major league rotation. Realistically though, what role could Balazovic play for the Twins this year other than reliever? The rotation could be decimated, but Maeda is coming back and I think Headrick would still be ahead of him for now.

I think it was forearm strain IIRC. Hopefully he can be mostly healthy from here on out, but just getting him built up could be a project. He's pitched 32 innings in competitive games over the last 4 years.

If the Rays FO is so good and ours is so terrible, what is your explanation for the Joe Ryan for Nelson Cruz trade? Seems like a much bigger fleecing IMO.

I have not been a huge fan of this FO's love of the positionless, college masher type, but when they take a shot at their guy in the sandwich or second round I'm fine with it. Sabato at 27th overall isn't really that different. And Matt Wallner is looking like he could still be the player that proves the strategy worthwhile. For a weird short draft, this could end up being very good for the Twins, though for their last two picks not the first two. Still, too early to tell is the mantra for basically any draft as recent as 6 or 7 years. Player development takes a while and first impressions in the majors can be misleading.

Sure they have to have those discussions, but we also have to discuss Joe Ryan, Brock Stewart, etc. at the same time. If we cherry pick the guys that got away and had success it's going to be a bad look for the development team. But they've had a lot of success doing the similar things with other scrap heap or minor trade guys.

I think about 3 more weeks of major league games and he'll graduate.

Ortega is a guy that hasn't been discussed very much but has been just steadily productive all season. I've looked at his exit velos in low A and it seems like he's not a guy that hits the ball particularly hard, though he's not completely without power. He does have very solid plate discipline, seems to have a knack for getting moderately hard line drive contact, and can run a little bit. Probably the next guy in line for a promotion to high A, though they'll have to move some guys up for some space in the young Cedar Rapids infield. Probably Schobel and/or Ross could be moved up around mid season.