2wins87

BA updated their draft database, they have Cederoth at slot as reported by mlbtraderumors. They also have Steele at $115,000 and LeBlanc at $90,000

Romero made his second start last night, and while he only gave up 1 run in 4 IP, he had a bit tougher time of it than he did in his first appearance. Romero got into trouble giving up a run on three straight singles in the second inning. One wild pitch and a walk later the bases were loaded with nobody out. However, he showed some poise getting out of the jam with a 1-2-3 double play and a strikeout to end the inning and limit the damage. Overall he gave up 5 hits and two walks and only managed the 1 strikeout. Reports had him throwing from 91-96 mph with his fastball last night. Pitching coach Luis Artega, quoted in SD Buhr's article from earlier this week, put his velocity even higher, at 94-99 mph. Either way it sounds like he's added a couple more mph from where he was at the end of last season, and it seems reasonable to think that he'll be able to work in the mid 90's consistently as he continues to develop. That's an exciting arm to watch.

Berrios started falling a part a bit (presumably due to fatigue) around this time last year. That said, his first half has been even better than last year and he's already pitched a lot more innings than he had this time last year. The biggest thing is to see him hold up through the entire season. It'd be pretty nice to see him knocking on the door to the majors next year, but I'm more worried about seeing him build up his stamina this year rather than how quickly he moves.

Jeez, small sample size much? He had 6 Ks in 5 innings in his first start. I wouldn't sweat a single performance. Reports are that he's added a few more MPHs to his fastball this year and his breaking ball is a legit swing and miss pitch if it's on.

Goodrum is currently trying to pull himself out of the worst cold streak he's had this season. His 4 singles in his last 4 games (14 ABs) are encouraging but he hasn't had an extra base hit since May 27. His slump has depressed his numbers, which now look pretty similar to his offensive output over the last few years. He has a .256 average with a .111 isolated slugging. The one main difference is that he does appear to continue to have a more contact oriented approach, with a 9.9% walk rate and an 18.8% K-rate, both of which are below his rates over the previous 2 seasons.

Check out the game logs on Baseball Reference: http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=may---001tre&type=pgl&year=2014 He's definitely a flyball pitcher. He's only got a 36% GB this year, and it was only 40% last year. Guys with similar rates in the majors this year are Tommy Milone, Jered Weaver, Aaron Harang and Drew Hutchison. All of these guys are having solid seasons, ranging between 6 and 9 K/9, which is probably achievable for May in the majors. They do all have walk rates below 3 BB/9 though.

Toronto and Milwaukee both got some great talent with their three picks, it'll be interesting to see if they are able to sign them all.

I'm not sure how signable the top available high school talent is. I'd still like to see the Twins get some high school pitching. I like Keaton McKinney and Keith Weisenberg as projectable guys with already solid stuff.

Romero made his first start for the Kernels tonight and pitched a very solid game. He went 5 innings, and needed only 74 pitches to get through it. He gave up 2 runs on 7 hits (1 homerun) and a walk, leaving the game in a tie. He struck out 6 along the way. He was quite economical, throwing more than 2/3rds of his pitches for strikes and striking out over a batter per inning.

Would have preferred someone with starting potential, he can throw hard...

Yeah it's getting pretty surprising that some of these high school guys are falling this far

I'm going to go with Joey Gatto. I'd like Jacob Bukauskas, but I don't think he'll fall.

I liked his interview

I'm happy with it. Took me a little while to come around on him but the scouting reports only seemed to get better as the draft approached. I'm hoping for a high upside HS arm in the second round.

I'm not so sure the Sox will, $6 mil is only a little over their slot value, I'd think they'd work out a deal

Ok, here we go: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/8/12/2358507/world-series-win-probability-added-leaders So pitchers seem more valuable in the playoffs. At any rate, a team needs both to make it all the way to the World Series and if you rate regular season and post season equally they are probably pretty close to equally valuable. So yeah, let's just hope the Twins draft the player that ends up having the best career.

If we want to compare hitters and pitchers over a full season, why not just use WAR. A quick look at the top 30 pitchers and hitters last season by fWAR shows that the hitters averaged about 25% more WAR. So a good hitter is more valuable. If we want to look at a single series or playoffs I would agree with John that WPA would be the place to start. I'm not sure where to get a good handle on this data but I would imagine that pitchers would come out a little ahead since the aces often pitch 3 times in a 7 game series.

Later in the draft where you have less clear distinctions between players this might make sense. But you can be sure the front office will have a clear preference between Kolek, Gordon, Nola, Jackson and anyone else they might be considering at #5. When you have a pick as high as #5 you take the guy that you believe is the most talented and worry about things like strength of the draft and organizational need later.

MLB is lower on him than any other ranking I've seen. Kiley McDaniels has him 36th, most other rankings I've seen have him 60th or so. So it's a possibility. I'd hope they go with the strength of the draft and load up on pitchers in the first few rounds. Getting Jackson or Gordon in the first round and then going after the deep pitching class with most of their next early picks would seem like a pretty good draft to me.

Fernando Ernesto Romero, RHP Born: December 24, 1994 (19 years old)in the Dominican Republic Height: 6'0”, Weight: 215 lbs. Fernando Romero was signed as a16-year-old international free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2011. His signed for $260,000, which was the 4th largest bonus handed out by the Twins that year. At the time of his signing his fastball was his best pitch, sitting in the upper 80s and low90s. In 2012 Romero made his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League. His numbers were solid for a 17 year old facing a lot of more experienced competition. He pitched 31 innings with a 4.65 ERA, walked just over 4 batters per 9 innings and struck out just over 8 per 9. Last year he moved up to the Gulf Coast League, where he anchored the pitching staff along with fellow international signee Lewis Thorpe. Romero pitched 45 innings with a 1.60 ERA, improving his walk rate to 2.6 per 9 and his strikeout rate to 9.4 per 9. Scouting reports had his fastball sitting in the low 90s and touching 95 mph on occasion. His hard curveball has also emerged as a swing-and-miss pitch with sharp break. His changeup is reportedly furthest behind but has shown good action. While we can't read too much into GCL stats, his ability has been noticed, and he placed highly on several preseason Twins prospect lists, most notably16th on mlb.com's list and 12th on BaseballAmerica's. Romero seemed to be on track to continue climbing the ladder through the organization one step at a time, starting with the Elizabethtown Twins this year. However,reports yesterday indicate that he will be joining the Cedar RapidsKernels. He'll get a chance to get a few more weeks of game action and will probably have the chance to finish out the season with theKernels if he pitches well. His success will largely hinge on his ability to improve his changeup, which will be an essential pitch if he is to remain a starter. He will also need to continue improving his command and control. If he can do this he could make it as a starter in the majors, most likely a #3 but maybe even better. If he can't get his changeup working he might still end up as a dominant reliever, so he should be fun to watch over the following years.

Goodrum's been a bit unlucky since my last update, going only 4 for 30 in the week+ span. However, one of those hits was his first home run on the season. He also notched another double, so he continues to do a pretty good job of driving the ball. While the hits weren't falling in, he did show some of the plate discipline that has been one of his strengths, drawing 5 walks, but also striking out 8 times. His walk rate on the season is up to 9.8%, which is getting closer too his minor league average. His K rate is at 19.1% which continues to be lower than in any of his previous seasons.

Matt Garrioch of Minor League Ball has compiled his list of the 350 best draft prospects: http://www.minorleagueball.com/2014/5/23/5743674/2014-mlb-draft-top-350-prospects He often has pretty different opinions from other analysts.

I would agree that DIPS don't translate exactly to the minor league levels as the coefficients are based on regressions to major league rates. These rates surely vary from level to level, but the theory behind them remains pretty solid. You can't compare the numbers directly to major league numbers, but if you compare them to other guys in the same league they can be pretty useful. I would also add that minor leaguers are often working on specific aspects of their game which is why results in general don't mean much without scouting reports to provide context or additional information.

It's still early, but if anything he looks better. Baseball Reference has game logs for minor league guys now which include ground balls, flyballs, etc., so if you add up the columns you can calculate true ground ball rates, etc. as fangraphs does for major leaguers. These are more stable than the GO/AO ratio. Rogers had a 55% ground ball rate on batted balls last year (which was, I believe, the main reason he was so successful despite having only an average strikeout rate). This year it's at 50%, but his strikeout rate has increased by the same amount from 16% to 21%. In addition his line drive rate has decreased from 19% to 14.5%. It seems like some of the weak contact he was generating last year is turning into whiffs this year, while he hasn't been as lucky (his .286 BABIP was probably a bit low for a pitcher generating so many ground balls). The park probably depressed a bit of the run scoring against him last year also, as his homerun rate has doubled (though it's still not too high).

It's been far too long since my last update, but I should be updating weekly for most of the rest of the season. With a month and a half of the season under his belt his rate stats have started to level off so it's easier to tell what kind of season he's been having. His overall line is at .292/.358/.417. If he can keep hitting around this level it'll be his best season at the plate thus far in his major league career. Digging in a bit more, his 8.8% BB rate is fairly low for him, however, his 18.2% K rate is a career low. He seems to be putting the ball in play a lot more this year, and given that his plate discipline has always been one of his strong suits, the more aggressive approach this year seems to be a good change, as long as the results continue. He's yet to hit a homerun in the notoriously pitcher friendly parks of the FSL, but he's been making plenty of solid contact and using his speed to stretch some of his hits. He hit his league-leading 5th triple of the season last night. His .125 ISO is up from .109 last season. He's also stolen 8 bases on the season, which ties him for 10th best in the league. A lot of his value as a prospect will depend on him finding a defensive home. He continues to play almost every day at third base. While we've heard some encouraging things from Mientkewicz about his play, the few defensive statistics we have suggests it's been a somewhat difficult transition to 3B. He has the 5th best range factor per game out of the 12 starting third basemen in the league, but is 9th in fielding percentage at .916. Neither of these stats are great defensive stats, but suggest he's got solid range for a third baseman but is still having trouble consistently making plays. Overall, it seems like the first month and a half of the season has been a step forward offensively for Niko, he continues to be an interesting player to watch as he still has potential for more as well.