2wins87

They just added 18 guys in the draft and there is a 180 minor league player limit that I think gets enforced sometime in early August. I'm not sure how many minor leaguers the Twins actually have so they could already be under the limit, but it also might mean a couple more cuts of journeyman types which tends to happen post draft.

Overall good trade deadline. I think they checked all the boxes for what they needed to acquire and all of the deals were pretty reasonable. They did thin out the farm somewhat significantly, but didn't have to give up the very top guys. I don't think it's likely we look back in a few years and see that they've lost a star, but probably they will have lost a couple of valuable role players. Nothing that can't be made up more good decisions and development. If I wanted to criticize, I think it was pretty obvious from the last day of the offseason that the pitching was pretty iffy and they didn't seem willing to pay free agent prices for real upgrades. They gave up quite a bit today. They could definitely have been in a similar position now with more of their prospect capital or maybe have used the same capital to be in an even better position.

Finally, the blockbuster deal we've been waiting for! ?

I wouldn't put anything close to Miranda or Votto contact grades on CES. Miranda literally had a career minor league K rate half that of CES, and Votto always had K rates under 20% as well. What he does have is a crap ton of power with a still very reasonable amount of swing and miss. Trying to come up with power/contact comp quickly maybe Matt Olson? Encarnacion-Strand still needs to walk more though. Maybe if you really want to dream on him Pete Alonso? Again, CES has work to do on his plate discipline to really be in the conversation at that level. I still think Steer is the big loss in this one for that reason, though I absolutely think CES will be a good major leaguer too.

Ok fine, I would say it's fairly similar even if it doesn't look that way on paper according to the lists by national publications. Most of the lists have not really been heavily updated since March. Martin was ranked very high on some lists at the beginning of the season but he was already having a bit of a slower start than hoped. He probably should have been viewed around #50 where he ended up at the end of the season. Steer is on the rise and I would not be surprised to see him around #50 on some lists coming into 2023. CES will likely be more of a bubble guy on the outside of the top 100, but paired with a solid arm, I don't think it's unreasonable to put a similar value to SWR last year, maybe just a bit lower. The main point is that the Twins are trading risers for Mahle while the Blue Jays traded a guy who was trending down a bit and a guy who was having a bit of a hiatus in his development because of the Olympics.

CES is more likely a 1B prospect also despite playing mostly at 3B so far. Doesn't really change the depth chart considerations.

I like Mahle, but yeah, certainly not painless. Compared to the Berrios trade, you could probably say it's fairly similar. Steer doesn't have the pedigree that Martin did at the time but he's rising fast and his season this year has not been far off what Miranda did last year at the same two levels. There are a few mitigating factors that make me skeptical that Steer will transition quite as easily as Miranda is right now, but it still could be a trade where we see what we gave up rather quickly. CES and Hajjar combined maybe don't rank as highly as Woods Richardson did either, but I think CES is a legit masher regardless of where he ends up. I'm less sold on Hajjar since he's only in low A where stats very often look deceptively good for a 22 year old pitcher, but still a good arm nonetheless.

Beckham is 32 years old on a one year minor league contract. He just doesn't fit as a starting player on either a contending team or a rebuilding team. Unfortunately for him the role that he fits best in is the one he is currently in, which is emergency minor league depth.

I would generally have said Kirilloff over Miranda at any point in the past year, but it's getting very close. Kirilloff's approach generally seems very good, but I wonder a little bit about him underperforming his power potential going so heavily the other way. It seems like pitchers have continued to stay away from the inner half mostly, knowing that most of the time he's only going to make it to the warning track going opposite field on an outer half pitch. We've seen some good stretches from him but still just haven't seen the kind of stretch that Miranda has had the last two months. His track record doesn't really show any more ability to draw walks, and while he makes a lot of contact he's not on Miranda's level there either. For the record, the most prominent values on Baseball Trade Values are surplus value not just overall value and both are projected to have the exact same years of control remaining with nearly identical projected value over that time. Kirilloff is just projected to cost $5 million less over that span, and I don't think that assumption really seems correct though I haven't dug into it. So right now projections are incredibly close as well.

I've been trying to figure out what has made Laweryson so effective this year, and I think hitters must have trouble picking the ball up out of his hand. He's got a funky delivery with his glove flicking up in front of him, and the ball probably comes out from right behind the glove. Otherwise his fastball is only 89-92, though he gets some swings and misses on it probably in large part due to deception, and I think he was featuring a low 80s curve and low 80s changeup last night. He also did benefit from two nice throwing plays from his defense last night and very likely would have given up at least a run otherwise.

You can find the tracker under the triple-bar menu and "Twins Resources" sub-menu. Not the most accessible, there ought to be some more prominent way to get there. I'm personally much more interested in concrete information vs trade rumors that mostly end up being meaningless. At any rate, the tracker has the first 18 of 20 picks signing, and it also states that the last two already announced their intentions to go/go back to school. So the signings are done, just mostly not announced. There are only 5 bonuses listed so far, the widely reported $5,675k for Lee, $1,825k for Prielipp, $1,002k for Schobel, $250k for Ortega, and $140k for Lewis. The last two make up about $100k of the $400k+ overslot for the first two picks. I think the rest are expected to be at or below slot, and they are already less than 5% overslot, so anything else under slot is really just to reduce the tax.

Well, sort of redundant. Is Buxton ready to go tomorrow? Is Kepler's foot ok? If the answer to either question is no then this is a move that makes them pretty thin in the outfield, even if just for one game. There is a chance we end up seeing an outfield of Gordon, Kirilloff, and Garlick tomorrow, with no subs available. That probably won't happen, it's probably just one or two games at most, and if the answer to both questions is yes then there really isn't much of a depth problem at all. Still, knowing Buxton can't play CF every game, it's not ideal roster construction. Over the medium to long term, we probably get a little more Gordon than we should, and a little less Miranda. I understand the move, and obviously it's happening now because the only other option is just to let Sano walk for nothing while eating all of the rest of his guaranteed money. Still the timing isn't ideal with Kepler's foot now a bit of a question. Hopefully it's only through the trade deadline. Larnach should also be ready to return in about two weeks, and it will probably be a lot harder to justify keeping Sano on the roster against Larnach than it is against Celestino.

I mostly agree with this assessment, except I think some of the fringe pitchers are are worth really thinking hard about. Schulfer in particular as a guy getting AAA hitters out with an upper 90s FB and solid looking slider seems like an easy stash for some team. I think of Nick Anderson who dominated AAA but didn't even get a September trial and was then traded to Miami for basically nothing because they weren't going to use a 40 man slot on him. He was already 27 but they seriously misjudged his ability to get MLB hitters out as he went on to dominate quite quickly with Miami and Tampa Bay. One of the new FO's worst self-scouting mistakes IMO. I don't know that Schulfer's stuff will necessarily play as well in the majors but I think it would be a good idea to find a way to get a look against MLB hitters this year. Laweryson, one of the few pitchers still looking great in the very high offense Texas league could also probably be stashed, though I'd agree he is a lot more fringy to be taken in the rule 5. Given the needs of the MLB club they should be very motivated to include some of these guys in trades. Even though I'm very high on Steer I'm pretty open to trading him at the right price for that reason. If they find that another team is very high on one of these guys it would probably be a good move to cash in their value now.

Definitely the most intriguing day 2 pick for me. Good size, I will be watching to see if the development staff unlock a bit more velocity. The national outlets all say the knuckleball is a legitimate weapon; it'll be interesting to see how they approach his pitch mix. Most likely an eephus-like change of pace pitch for the time being, but something he'll definitely want to keep around as a fallback.

Awesome news! Looking forward to getting to follow his career very soon.

The leaguewide OPS in the DSL is .718, which isn't particularly high and is only a bit higher than the Complex League and Midwest League. The DSL Twins lead the league with an .815 team OPS, so they have been a very good hitting team. The majority of organizations have two DSL teams now, so I don't know if the overall talent pool has been diluted a bit, but there are a bunch of young first year guys doing quite well for the Twins. The next biggest signings behind Mercedes unfortunately have not been among them, with both Herrera and Acuna struggling quite a bit, though I think they've both been a bit better as late. Jose Rodriguez has really been great. He's also younger than Mercedes (actually he's one of the youngest in the league) and has hit for more power with fewer strikeouts. I haven't found any signing bonus information for him but I think he was mentioned in BA's international signing roundup so I'd guess low 6 figures. Anderson Nova is another young 17 year old who's hitting very well with good plate discipline numbers. Daniel Pena is about the same age and has also hit pretty well, with little power and few walks but also with a pretty low strikeout rate. I'll also mention Isaac Pena, a Venezuelan who is already 18 but is also in his first year and basically never strikes while also taking some walks. Fun fact, his hometown is just about an hour's drive from Arraez's hometown of San Felipe. As always, DSL stats are the least reliable for statline scouting, so we can expect some of these guys to fizzle out as they move up. However, the Twins seem to have done very well with the latest signing class.

This is about right. No way Lee should be lower than 2nd. I really like what we saw from Lewis this year so I'd also still have him at #1, but Lee could maybe overtake him if he really crushes it in his first taste of pro ball. I'd have Prielipp a little lower due to reliever risk. I'll take Steer and SWR ahead of him for now. I'd put him ahead of Canterino though, who has even greater reliever risk.

No, that's only for the first 10 rounds. The $125k is a maximum before it starts counting against the pool from the first 10.

While lots of players in the draft are always listed as shortstops, especially in high school when they are generally the best player on their team, this draft has really taken that to an extreme. Taking a bunch of shortstops and catchers and then letting them fall down the defensive spectrum as they go doesn't seem like a terrible strategy overall. In the near term playing time at SS could be highly competitive though. I also don't know that they've gotten anyone particularly speedy that could end up in center.

Northwest Florida State is a Junior College program. I don't really know how exactly how the commitments work, but maybe it's possible to have commitments both to a JuCo and then a 4-yr school a couple years down the line.

From Prospects Live: Seems like maybe a tough sign. Could be more of a contingency plan if the end up with extra money somehow. Or maybe he they know his price tag at a couple hundred thousand and think they have the money to get him.

Senior sign, so it seems they are still in the mode of taking guys they definitely expect to sign. I do think it's pretty likely that at some point they will take someone who will likely demand above slot, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars. Jaylen Nowlin was sort of that guy last year in the 19th round out of Junior College. I think the money saved yesterday was pretty much just to sign their top two picks, but it makes sense to take a shot at one or two slightly tougher signs on day 3 in case they do end up with a little extra money saved up.

I never expect to know what to think about day 2 immediately after it happens. Seems like Morris has some talent for the dev team to work with, and Lewis sounds like the best early candidate to the guy that comes out next year with improved stuff, though you really can't predict when or where that might happen. Ortega also sounds like a bit of a late bloomer a la Encarnacion-Strand, so I have some hope for a continued breakout from him as well. I think they might take a shot or two at a potential overslot guy today in case they end up with extra savings from day 2. It won't count against their pool if they don't sign someone today so there could still be some good value left to get.

All of the teams' boards are all over the place at this point. The only thing that really qualifies as a reach would probably a pick that's not even on most of the boards. I don't know that I love the pick, but from here on out it's pretty much wait and see how it turns out.

I wonder if the Twins would be able to sign Malcolm Moore. Would be a good addition to their first two picks and satisfy the call to get a catcher.