twinstalker

At least he'll be accumulating service time while he's hurt. I'd hate for him to get hurt at AAA and extend team control. Also, remember, immutable forces help those who help themselves.

I don't think we have to wait for years to look back on the title of this article and laugh.

He has as few flaws as any position prospect I've seen come through the system since Mauer, though the upside isn't close to Mauer, especially given defensive position. I highly doubt LK is a hall of famer, but that's okay, plus the dumb and dumber chance is there with him, unlike all but a few others since Mauer. If one did a prospect comparison with, say, Royce Lewis, I think the obvious result would be very different players who could both be great in different ways. The problem with Lewis, though, was that so much of his prospect status was about his athleticism, and he's been robbed of that, really, as the speed is gone, the body is different. Keaschall is a different sort. His immense talent is his bat to ball skills and ability to control and recognize the strike zone. Teams often have this sort of player and win because of it. The Twins very rarely have this type, and that's the Twins fault. In my opinion, jobs should be lost because of this, as it's a very basic reason the Twins are never really contenders for the title. It's why I didn't like the Arraez trade, despite the good return. Almost always Keaschall and Arraez will have good ABs. Keaschall then offers a lot more with speed, some power, and probably much better and more flexible fielding.

That game this past week stressed me out like no other. Morris and Lewis are favorites of mine. Morris is my favorite Twins prospect (not saying best), and I actually met Lewis a year ago when he was in town for the Diamond Awards (minor league pitcher of year). I think Lewis' 2024 is one of the most misleading statlines due to rustiness after missing time with the shoulder. After early walk issues, he was dominant. Morris is 15 months younger than Zebby. That doesn't matter as much with pitchers, and they're both around 24, not 19, but in terms of Twins development, I do think it's a thing. Zebby did not have Morris' 2024 back in 2023. Admittedly, they were drafted the same year and seem to have taken the same path from there, with Zebby jumping ahead, so I'm not sure the age difference means anything in this case.

I understand this sentiment, and you're right based on the premise you lay out. But is he wearing out? Two things: first, the Twins are likely limiting the number of pitches, and there might be some third time through order issues (rather than being taxed) if he's getting hit later, I haven't looked. Second, low pitch counts for minor leaguers are common, especially early. 70 pitches isn't as much the result of being tired, it's just the process of getting to 100 pitches by August. Maybe that's all one thing, not two!

As big a fan as I am, I agree with this.

Zebby is fantastic, but two points I've made before: 1. Zebby wasn't lined up to take Pablo Lopez' start. It would have been after four days rest, and he was working on 5-6 days rest right then. He pitched on a Tuesday, and Pablo's start was to be Sunday, four days rest. It was too rushed for him to get all that many innings. Starting Festa on his regular day and moving part of the rotation back was the smart, necessary move. 2. I think the Twins will do everything they can to keep Zebby under 124 days of service time, which means if they keep him down through very early June, he'll wind up with less than 172 days through two season. That will give them this year and six more prior to free agency. While that's tough on Zebby, arbitration will still be the same offseason, and his salary will rise to nearly what he'd get in his first free agent year in the end. Except the Twins will have control for that year. Bonus point: Zebby is awesome!

EmRod could have hit 3 HRs, and it wouldn't have been as impressive as Keaschall was last night. What we saw was a player who's really not going to get figured out in the long run. He still has a learning curve against better pitching than Elder, but I doubt he'll struggle too much.

It all seems the same because the Twins hitting approach is the same, which is far below standard. There are batters on other teams (we know because we face them) who make the plate appearance a nightmare for the pitcher. Except for very rare and seemingly random occurrences, the Twins just don't do that and certainly don't versus the caliber of the better Twins pitchers. This disparity really shows itself in the quality of ABs by teams considered true contenders. Yankees hitter, even rookies and lesser players, constantly put together quality ABs. Maybe they're cheating and know what's coming. Meanwhile, the Twins go into games with strategies like: swing at the first pitch. Perhaps all hyperbole and imagined trends, but that's my feeling.

It would be a laugh if Twins hitting development tried to take credit for this guy. You draft one guy (not considered the #1 for most years--Jenkins) who shines. It's just a random occurrence at this point.

He's far and away the best hitter in the system after Jenkins and more ready than Jenkins, even if WJ weren't hurt. Still this seems unfortunate that the Twins place him on the 40 this early. Lots can happen over the season (injury, struggles) that would make this move hasty. Instead of getting an extra year, potentially, this pretty much means that LK's seven year clock starts now instead of next year. He's the one guy I'd lock up for the next nine years. This year, the next six pre-FA years, and the two FA years. He will hit. EmRod probably won't hit, you don't know if he'll figure it out. Keaschall? If you bat him, he will hit. Jenkins? Agent won't let him be locked up. Keaschall is the man, and it starts now. It's too bad Eeles has been hurt. Wonder how he's doing?

Thanks, Seth, it's a good and relevant article, if 10-12 games can ever be relevant. I think one in each group is going to regress significantly (with qualifications), Schobel should be at AAA in his development. Losing a year like 2024 for him pretty much told us all we'll ever need to know, though the "why" is still missing. I suspect there's an exit velocity problem (Statcast data is not available from A+ and AA), but the optimist might hope there was an injury. The numbers in 2024 were so bad in a hitters park that the first thought is must strike out a ton. But his first full season, across A+ and AA, he struck out at a rate of 18.8%. I would have guessed based on his 2024 slash line that the 2023 rate would have been about 25% or worse. In 2024 during a really bad season for him, Schobel's K-rate increased to 23.8%. That 5 points isn't all that common. It's troubling. As some may know but many don't or simply ignore, a strikeout rate in the neighborhood of 25% is a bad sign for someone who isn't an obvious power hitter. The increase is surprising, and I haven't seen an increase like this where it isn't troublesome. Foremost, the year before (2023) Schobel was a year younger playing at A+. He should have matured over the next year to keep the rate constant. Further, in 2023 he spent a good amount of time at AA and K'd at 19.3%, which seems very plausible from his 2023 A+ rate of 18.4%. A move up in the same year, you'll strike out more. It's possible the Twins tried to tinker with his swing. To me that makes some sense because they really seem to not have a grasp on hitting development. I don't either, but it's not my job. Really, the only other things that make sense are poor exit velocities or unusually low BABIP in 2024. In 2023 at A+ Schobel's BABIP was .319. Unlike pitchers who all hover around .300 on average, it's not immediately clear what Schobel should be at, but we see his batting average from that was .288. I would not assume that .319 is a representative BABIP for Schobel, so I also would not conclude that a .288 average is representative. In 2024 Schobel's BABIP was all the way down to .265 at AA. That 54 point drop will likely drop a normal hitter like Schobel down 30-40 points in batting average itself. His strikeout rate increasing by .050 will drop it another 40 points, and it's no surprise that his .288 batting average at A+ in 2023 dropped to .211 at AA in 2024. So the question is: was 2024 an anomaly or was 2023, or was it a little of both? What I notice in all his season/levels is that the highest BABIP Schobel had other than that .319 in 2023 A+ was a .303 in 2022 low A. Others were: .250 (2022 FCL 16 PAs) and .277 (AA promotion in 2023). It's hard to tell, but I'm not optimistic that Schobel hit into much bad luck compared to normal last year. This year he's started with a .324 BABIP and 14.0% K-rate in his first 50 PAs. I don't doubt he'll do better this year at AA, but his current .310/.400/.500 slash seems destined to go down at least somewhat. Danny Andrade. i won't get into the detail, but I've followed De Andrade closely since his signing. I've projected him to be the shortstop that takes over for Correa. He's been really young for his level prior to this season, and he's held his own with very good fielding, from what I understand. He started last year as the only real shortstop prospect in the full-season system after Brooks Lee. He was coming off a really good age 19 season at Fort Myers, where his .244/.354/.396 is underrated due to the park and league. His ISO was better than Jason Kubel's there the year prior to his 1.120 OPS season at New Britain AA. De Andrade was a year ahead of Kubel age-wise (adjusted for the FSL level change), and he's a legit shortstop. The issue with DDA is his K-rate of 21.7% in 2023, which is too high for a non-power guy hoping to make a run at the bigs. Kubel's (10.2 % at low A) was much lower, but also it was a different time. Plus there's the flood of shortstops and shortstop pretenders on his own team now, taking his development time and maybe tanking his confidence. K. Culpepper, at least, should get promoted. I personally don't think DeBarge is worthy of his draft status, but he'll get every opportunity. Winokur will never be a shortstop, so I don't know why they're giving him run there. If DDA is not at SS, I don't see a real path for him. And to differ with Seth a bit, his K-rate is 20.0% at A+ (combined), and yeah, that's still a little reason for concern. A minor league with little power K'ing at 20% is a bit of a concern, especially now that his age vs level isn't what it was at the beginning of last year. This started as an argument against him being included in the "down," but I'm struggling right now with his overall situation. I think it will get better as the Twins learn DeBarge isn't as good as they'd hoped. DeBarge is 9 months older. We'll see. I don't think I'm wrong on DeBarge, but his early K rate of 14.3% keeps him in the SS photo. Of course, I think college first round picks should be good enough to be playing AA in their first full season, and he struggled just to get through low A without a promotion to A+ last year.

To think, we could be spending on the hitting development side, the scouting, and the draft room, neither of which are anything but crap right now. That's worth a ton more than Correa. What would frustrate me if I were Falvey is all the success there is on the pitching side. They can take pitchers from rds 4 to 20, target them, draft them, and develop them. Anything on the hitting side, even early, is strictly bites at the apple or getting lucky with the lottery in the maybe the biggest top-end draft year ever. The front office seems to be fooled by any success in the minor league hitting department, truly not understanding which performances translate to MLB and which don't.

Morris is my favorite prospect, as I like the sort-of underdog. To note, he's 15 months younger than Zebby, who was pitching at A+ last year with not a great strikeout rate: 8.0 per 9ip in his previous 66 ip at A+ in 2003. He improve that rate last year quite significantly, but he wasn't starting the year at AAA. One thing I've noticed in my avid follow is that Morris always starts off a level with a low strikeout rate then improves it significantly as he goes along. I have no doubt that will happen at AAA. I did tell my friends, though, after his second outing where it looked like Morris could be in line for a call-up after Zebby that "don't expect much initially, as I suspect he won't be able to get the ball past MLBers enough to look good." He'll figure it out.

Oof, three of my five favorite pitchers in the system (Morris, Lewis, Bengard) got absolutely drilled. This was a humbling night for me...and perhaps for them. /s I hope none of it's due to injury. For me that leaves Soto and Dasan Hill as mostly unblemished. I don't like Raya, and I don't yet know all the new-ish pitchers, but I need to find out the story with Dylan Questad. He looks interesting from a brief glance.

This statement reminds me long ago when I went to a Twins game with, among others, a kid who had been in my confirmation class. We were sitting behind home plate, and every time a batter popped the ball up to the infield or short outfield, the kid would yell "It's in here, it's in the park!" Yes, Jeff, we all know that and knew it while you were analyzing the arc of the ball. There was never a doubt. But thank you. :-)

Keaschall is the only guy ready who's an upgrade. Period.

He surpassed him long ago, like when he was drafted. I don't think it's close. It's easy to walk in MiLB, it's really hard to not strike out. And in the majors all those mistakes EmRod hits out won't be there. He'll be low average, some power, some obp. Keaschall will be a stud. Why? He is super tough to strike out, and when he's not striking out a little, walking a fair amount, or homering, he'll be hitting at a rate of about .325. to begin with. Keaschall's always been better than EmRod.

No sh**.

I'm sure it's been said more than once, but Ober is still allowed to come out of the game even if he allowed a baserunner, right?

Thank you, love these.

I'm dubious. Paraphrased: "I changed to do better vs lefties, but I'm not allowed to face lefties, and I can't change back." Nope. Julien was not nearly as good the last two months of 2023 as he was the first four months, losing about 200 points of ops, most of it slug. Pitchers figured out his passivity by 2024 and just started chucking the ball down the middle. It was almost impressive that he could watch so many two-strike pitches cross the heart of the plate. He sounds like he's looking for excuses or for reasons life's not as good as it was pre-2024. I'd suggest he was walking a different route to the park each day.

Bengard's been in my top 10-12 since last year. And Raya's been 20-25. Because? One's good, the other's very meh. It's not that difficult.

Lost Miller, yeah, that was huge. Twins have made bad choice after bad choice, and it was obvious from the beginning Miller was another. To waste 1st round picks on Miller and DeBarge, Sabato and Cavaco, I wonder how the drafting department has jobs. They've made one good early pick that wasn't obvious (Jenkins, Lee, Lewis sort of), and that's Keaschall. In eight drafts. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are drafting Anthony in the 2nd rd and Campbell in the 4th, Braden Montgomery with the 12th pick, Kyle Teel at 14, Nick Yorke at 17, Casas at 26, Houck at 24. While Keaschall is an exception with the Twins, the few exceptions over the same eight years for the Red Sox are the ones who didn't make it. They don't know what to look for with hitters, and they don't seem to be able to develop it. Noah Miller was a wasted pick. Someone who fields well enough but will never have the bat necessary. And that's a travesty with a round 1 supplemental pick.

2.5 prospects, at least until CJ Culpepper and similar get there. I think he's got arm problems they're trying to ignore, surgically. Meanwhile we can (hopefully) watch Jenkins, Prielipp, and see if Olivar might be anything. Rosario (not a real prospect in my book) will hit well there when he's not striking out. It's not the most exciting roster, but it might be more interesting to watch than Cedar Rapids. CR has Bengard, Soto, De Andrade, and a bunch of overrated recent draftees. It might be interesting for a while. Doncon is starting there. I think we'll see DeBarge and Amick for the poor choices they were. K. Culpepper will have a chance to show if he might be something. But all three are too old to not do well as high draft choices