2wins87

Really thought that was turning into another frustrating loss. Lewis might be the leader in WPA for the hitters soon, in like a week of play.

This Royce Lewis kid, could be something special.

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.

Oh that already happened btw. 1.245 OPS in March/April, .616 OPS in May.

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.

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.

You can look it up but he doubled off a lefty reliever last night

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.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=717956

According to statcast Bregman's HR would have gone out in 1 of 30 parks. Unfortunately they happen to be playing in that 1 park.

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.

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.

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.

He didn't get a good break before that so I think definitely catchable with maybe a pretty low probability. Not sure it'll show up in his statcast page but I'd be curious about the probability if it does.

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.

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.

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.

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.

MLB Pipeline and Keith Law have new mocks this week and both have Wyatt Langford going to the Twins at #5. I have to think Langford falling into their laps at #5 would be an ideal scenario for them given what we know about how they like to draft. Law also mentions rumors that they are looking at Jacob Gonzalez and Jacob Wilson and might not be particularly into the HS bats at #5. I'd take that just as presented, a rumor, but interesting enough to mention. After 28 picks the best players from the consensus boar left in the MLB draft are: Brock Wilken, Jack Hurley, Chase Davis, George Lombard, Colton Ledbetter, Roch Cholowsky, and Dylan Head After 30 picks for Keith Law the best available are: Brock Wilken, Thomas White, Jack Hurley, Chase Davis, Yohandy Morales, Walker Martin, and Charlee Soto. I kind of doubt that a couple teams won't want to take a shot at the #2/3 HS pitchers in the first round, but there is enough depth in the draft that it's the scenario Law came up with. Both have some big college bats left after the first round. The names could change, but it seems like one of them could be a very likely taget at #34. This especially makes me hope they aren't actually that gun shy over the HS guys at #5. I think they will have a shot at a college bat that they will probably really like at #34. There are also some very intriguing HS position players left in each mock, so if they get Langford I would hope there might be a HS player they really like there.

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.

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.

Yeah the bullpen has had a tough time this month and Duran has pitched in 5 games. 5 games in all of May. For all the criticism Rocco gets for some of his more new school managing his use of the closer role is basically from any manager 25 years ago. Duran had one of the best reliever seasons ever last year pitching in all sorts of tough situations and now because he was good they can't use him unless it's a save situation. There's zero creativity there. I don't understand it.

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.

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.

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.