2wins87

The Southern League seemed to eat up a lot of relief pitchers this year. The FSL is always a very pitcher friendly league while the Southern League is probably slightly hitter friendly. The parks in the FSL are usually pointed to as the main culprit, but I wonder if the umps in the Souther League call a tighter strikezone as a lot of relievers (Burdi, Jones, Chargois, Reed) had a drastic difference in walk rates between the two leagues.

I've never posted about him before now but I've noticed his silly K and BB rates. Sounds like it was put together by BA staff, so it should be based mostly on scouting reports.

"Ok Alex, step one, lose about 10 mph of velocity off your fastball. Upper 80's is all the velocity anyone should need."

Everyone loves a good milestone chase, and everyone should love Ichiro Suzuki too. For several years now we've been able to speculate on the rest of Ichiro's career and project him somewhere very close to 3000 hits. It's never seemed clear cut either way which is fun. At the end of July, however, it was not looking good. He was sitting at 2901 hits, but was batting under .250 with only 57 hits on the year. It seemed probable that it would take him another 2 seasons to reach 3000, and his performance didn't make it likely that many teams would be interested in having him on their roster next year. But August has been different. August has been vintage Ichiro. He's already collected 20 hits while hitting at a .351 clip. Right now he stands at 2921 career hits and I'd say it looks pretty probable that he'll get to 3000. Here's my math: I'll assume that Ichiro stays pretty hot for the rest of the season. The Marlins will play him pretty often for the rest of August so he should have no problem getting 25-35 more at bats before rosters expand on September 1st. After that his playing time will probably drop off a bit, but if he's still hitting well he should still get 40-50 more at bats. If he finishes the final month+ hitting .300 and gets 80 more at bats he'll have 2945 hits at the end of the year. If he plays another year hitting around .270, he'll only need to get a bit over 200 ABs to reach 3000 hits. His overall line this year should be good enough that some team is willing to sign him next year and play him enough to get there; maybe the Marlins, maybe the Mariners, maybe someone else. It's still not a sure thing, but I'd put the odds at around 80% now, maybe even a little higher. Do you think he'll get to 3000?

6 Twins on the top 100 list: Buxton - 1 Sano - 4 Berrios - 26 Jay - 76 Polanco - 89 Gordon - 91 Kepler was also listed as the 8th best 1B prospect

Yeah I don't know, people stopped paying attention after his slow start in the first two months? In June and July Gordon has hit .301/.358/.386, right in line with a top SS prospect, and scouts really like his defense. He has to add some muscle still (hopefully), but he's still a top prospect.

Most publications had Cabbage higher than Blankenhorn predraft, so this doesn't really surprise me. Also worth noting, Cabbage was on the young end of the high school class while Blankenhorn was among the oldest, so Cabbage may take a bit longer to develop.

These project what the player would be expected do in the major leagues this year, so they tend to be--understandably--quite low on guys who haven't made it out of A-ball yet. Kepler will probably look pretty good according to these projections next year, and I would expect that he will be a top-100 prospect on most pre-season lists.

For the record, the Twins AA players now play in the Southern League where Kepler does have enough qualified ABs and is second in OPS. The Southern League seems to be slightly hitter friendly, while the Eastern League was always slightly pitcher friendly. Regardless, the main point about Kepler having a great season stands. Considering that Kepler was already placed on the 40-man before the 2014 season and next year will be his final option year, I'm absolutely on board with sending him up to AAA before the end of the season. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, the front office clearly doesn't think AAA is much more challenging than AA for most prospects.

The six signings at 50k was replaced this year by unlimited signings under 10k. They are currently 1.3% over without any trades, which leaves them with just under 150k before the penalties start to kick in. I hope they make a trade still, but it doesn't make sense if there isn't an international prospect that they like more than the prospect that they have to trade away.

I've been in the camp that he is unlikely to be a good major league player due to his trouble with the K/BB ratio in the minors. However, he's not a total non-prospect. My favorite comp is probably Steven Moya of the Tigers, who ranked as their top (or maybe 2nd best) prospect coming into this year. This speaks mostly to the vast gulf between the two farm systems, but I think Walker would get a lot more scrutiny from prospect rankers if the Twin's system weren't so deep. I wouldn't be surprised if he got a cup of coffee in September when the rosters expand. On points 3 & 4. If he manages to produce similarly in the majors of course he stays there, unless his defense is bad enough to offset his offensive value. The problem is not that a major league player can't be productive while striking out at a high rate, but that Walker probably won't be productive at all against major league pitchers and scouting reports which will consistently exploit his weaknesses. I would be interested in seeing his production vs highly regarded pitching prospects in AA, this would be a lot of work to compile but might help illuminate if he's got the talent to produce against the best pitching talent. Even then, once advanced scouting reports start circulating, most players find it much more difficult to continue to produce in the majors. There really aren't a whole lot of players who have had numbers as extreme as Walker's have been in the minors, so he really might be a bit of an anomaly among anomalies. But history would suggest that players of his type don't tend to produce in the majors. We'll have to wait and see, I think he'll get his opportunities, though maybe not for very long so he'll probably have to be impressive to stick around.

The guys signed during this years signing period aren't allowed to start playing in any league until next year. But they can start getting instruction at the team's academy.

There is money out there if they want it. The Diamondbacks have the largest pool and are unable to sign guys for more than 300,000 (and they have no reported signings or trades thus far). The Red Sox have signed 4 guys for thier 300k limit but still have over 2 million in their pool. The Marlins, notorious for leaving money on the table have traded away $500k, but I wouldn't put it past them to trade away more. The Yankees haven't been reported to be involved in any signings or trades yet. In addition the Dodgers have realized that money is just a social construct that only has value because we collectively agree that it does and have traded away all of their slots after blowing through their limit. Maybe the Cubs follow suit.

If the reports on Vlad Jr's signing are correct the Blue Jays will also be at least 10% over their pool

Kepler and Polanco were both 2009. Excellent haul that year.

Yeah, via BA, Javier Pimentel was the biggest in 2010 at $575,000. Jorge signed in February of 2011, which is part of the 2010 signing period. 2011 also included Fernando Romero who got $260,000.

Next year is going to be interesting. The Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Angels, and Diamondbacks are still going to be subject to the $300,000 penalty from last year. Based on the information available now, the Dodgers, Giants, Cubs, and Royals will be joining them. The Phillies and Braves are also well over their pools but have plenty of maneuvering room via trade. I think I'd rather have the Twins trade for space and stay under cap this year. Next year could be pretty interesting and projecting the strength of future international classes is next to impossible.

Not sure there really were any big signings those years. I've got Felix Jorge down for $250,000 during the 2010 signing period.

Kepler got $800k, Polanco $750k

Robinson's signing bonus was $382,700. Source

link The Twins travel to Oakland in mid July. It'd be cool to get to see the Twins face him.

I've been feeling that they should send Santana down and bring up Vargas for a little while now. I do think Escobar is a better hitter than Santana, at least right now. I don't expect him to repeat last year but I do expect him to hit better than he has so far. And UZR actually likes his defense at short. We saw him make a bad error yesterday, but Santana hasn't been great either. Santana's been better fundamentally lately but he doesn't seem to have the best range. I don't think Escobar/Nunez would be much worse overall, and if Vargas has figured something out in his time at AAA having a legit bat at DH would be a lot of help right now.

Huascar Ynoa was the top international signing from last year. Jean Carlos Arias and Darling Cuesto were also 6 figure signings. Arias has had a good couple of games. Generally anyone born in 1998 is worth keeping an eye on.

I'd probably go Bregman, Tate, Tucker, Jay. I haven't really been following the draft as closely as the last two years though. The consensus scouting report on Bregman seems to be that he has a good bat, probably Dozier type power with maybe a higher average. His glove isn't great but at least half of the reports do think he can stick at short.

After a tough start on May 15, in which he gave up 6 runs (5 earned) in just 3 innings, Cederoth has been trying to regain form pitching out of the bullpen, with his spot in the rotation going to fellow 2014 draftee Keaton Steele. The move to the bullpen seems to have been a good one so far. In 4 appearances, Cederoth has gone 7+1/3 innings, giving up 3 runs (1 earned), walking 2 and striking out 10. If he maintains that K/BB ratio he could see himself moving through the system quickly as a reliever, or possibly get another shot as a starter.