Here are twenty five guys. I think the Twins would prefer that DeVries is just a commuter between here and Rochester until Diamond is ready to go, but truthfully I don't know if Liam Hendriks has distinguished himself enough that the pecking order is a lock. And Gibson is going to be up sooner rather than later.

Jared Burton
Kevin Correia
Cole De Vries
Brian Duensing
Casey Fien
Liam Hendriks
Mike Pelfrey
Glen Perkins
Ryan Pressly
Tyler Robertson
Josh Roenicke
Vance Worley

Catchers
Ryan Doumit
Joe Mauer

Infielders
Jamey Carroll
Brian Dozier
Eduardo Escobar
Pedro Florimon
Justin Morneau
Trevor Plouffe

Outfielders
Aaron Hicks
Darin Mastroianni
Chris Parmelee
Wilkin Ramirez
Josh Willingham

Mauer Doubles vs. Willingham Homers
Hicks steals vs. Plouffe homers
Florimon plate appearances vs. Florimon on-base average x 1000
Dozier extra base hits vs. Parmelee homers
Morneau walks vs. all other infield walks
Doumit games caught vs. Mauer games caught
Hicks homers vs. Mauer homers

Give me..... Mauer, Hicks, plate appearances, Dozier, Morneau, Doumit, Hicks

>Mauer Doubles vs. Willingham Homers
mauer - don't see the same year from willingham

>Hicks steals vs. Plouffe homers
hicks - see above

>Florimon plate appearances vs. Florimon on-base average x1000
eesh ... OBA. POSITIVITY!

>Dozier extra base hits vs. Parmelee homers
parmelee

>Morneau walks vs. all other infield walks
morneau ... another eesh. does this include post-trade walks?

>Doumit games caught vs. Mauer games caught
mauer

>Hicks homers vs. Mauer homers
hicks

>>Florimon plate appearances vs. Florimon on-base average
>x1000
>eesh ... OBA. POSITIVITY!

I thought this was a particularly devious question because there's a few ways it can go.

1. Florimon could hit and get on base better than we think and therefore get 500 plate appearances and come out on the bottom here

2. Florimon could hit and get on base better than we think and still be an offensive liability that needs to be replaced, so he'll get fewer plate appearances and win the OBA prize.

3. Florimon could hit exactly as poorly as we all think, and then there's almost no way he wont rack up enough PAs to eclipse this mark because that's really not very many PAs.

>>Morneau walks vs. all other infield walks
>morneau ... another eesh. does this include post-trade walks?

Oof. I'm not sure how to answer that. Bad stuff.

>Mauer Doubles vs. Willingham Homers
Doubles
>Hicks steals vs. Plouffe homers
Plouffe
>Florimon plate appearances vs. Florimon on-base average x
>1000
Plate appearances
>Dozier extra base hits vs. Parmelee homers
Parmelee
>Morneau walks vs. all other infield walks
Infield
>Doumit games caught vs. Mauer games caught
Doumit
>Hicks homers vs. Mauer homers
Hicks

>Mauer Doubles vs. Willingham Homers
MAUER

>Hicks steals vs. Plouffe homers
PLOUFFE

>Florimon plate appearances vs. Florimon on-base average x
>1000
PLATE APPEARANCES, unless i don't get math

>Dozier extra base hits vs. Parmelee homers
DOZIER

>Morneau walks vs. all other infield walks
ALL OTHER (assuming you mean combined)

>Doumit games caught vs. Mauer games caught
MAUER

>Hicks homers vs. Mauer homers

HICKS
>

Kevin Correia strikeouts vs. Glen Perkins innings
Kyle Gibson innings vs. Cole DeVries innings
Scott Diamond wins vs. saves recorded by not Glen Perkins
Mike Pelfrey GIDP vs. Bullpen wins
Liam Hendriks walks vs. Tyler Robertson innings

Ugh. This was a bummer so I'm stopping.

Give me Perkins, Gibson, Diamond, GIDP, Robertson

>Kevin Correia strikeouts vs. Glen Perkins innings
perkins

>Kyle Gibson innings vs. Cole DeVries innings
gross, gross, gross. devries. *SIGH*

>Scott Diamond wins vs. saves recorded by not Glen Perkins
diamond

>Mike Pelfrey GIDP vs. Bullpen wins
bullpen, of course. *BIGGER SIGH*

>Liam Hendriks walks vs. Tyler Robertson innings
robertson

Got a favorite prospect and want to know which league he shall be whaling upon this season before his inevitable promotion and rise to fame? Here are assignments of noteworthy prospects:

AAA Rochester
-Kyle Gibson
-Bruce Pugh
-Sam Fuckin' Deduno
-Anthony Slama
-Deolis Guerra
-Chris Herrmann
-Joe Benson
-Oswaldo Arcia

AA New Britain
-Mike Tonkin
-Alex Meyer
-Trevor May
-Alex Wimmers (DL)
-Josmil Pinto
-Danny Santana

A+ Ft. Myers
-Madison Boer
-Zach Jones
-Adrian Salcedo
-Eddie Rosario
-Miguel Sano
-Levi Michael
-Nate Roberts

A Cedar Rapids
-Luke Bard
-J.O. Berrios
-Hudson Boyd
-Mason Melotakis
-Manuel Solimon
-Niko Goodrum
-Jorge Polanco
-Travis Harrison
-Byron Buxton
-Romy Jimenez
-Adam Walker

Soooooo, we've got a good system now so there are actually reasons to pay attention to all of these. That doesn't always happen. Arcia's promotion to Rochester gives them, along with Gibson, an upside that occurs in addition to the usual "these guys will be MLBers". Bruce Pugh is a bullpen name to watch though. I saw him this summer and he had some back-of-the-pen stuff. And Sam Fucking Deduno will be there. Enough said?

I think New Britain has the least interesting affiliate, but May and Meyer fronting that rotation make it noteworthy on its own. Wimmers should be out until mid-summer at least, but he'll be interesting when he returns. And if Danny Santana is going to take the leap, this is where he needs to show it.

Ft. Myers has the star power with Rosario and Sano. This wont be an easy stop for them because it's a very, very difficult place to hit. So if they do, you have my permission to freak the fuck out.

Cedar Rapids is probably the best affiliate here, which is nice in case any of you are planning a road trip. To Iowa. They've got legit prospects at every position but catcher (and the recently converted Tyler Grimes is still pretty interesting) and that Jimenez, Buxton, Walker outfield could be one of the minorleague's best. Fun stuff in Cedar Rapids this year.

at least, joyce kept popping up in rockies discussions.

still baseball-related with a team as arbitrary as the Colorado Rockies coupled with Walleye's affinity for literature leads me to believe that the Rocks part was just to throw us off the scent.

Probables!

The Most Equal Vanimal vs. Verlander
Correia vs. Sanchez
Pelfrey vs. Porcello

Pick'ems!

Twins wins vs. Tigers wins
Correia earned runs vs. Verlander strikeouts
Mauer hits vs. Cabrera putouts
Hicks walks vs. Dozier defensive double plays
Mastroianni starts vs. Escobar starts
Most Equal Vanimal backwards-Ks vs. Porcello strikeouts

Give me:

Twins, Verlander, Cabrera, Dozier, Escobar, M.E. Vanimal

>The Most Equal Vanimal

As in "King Asiatic Nobody's Equal"

If you can confirm this, I will paypal you 50 dollars

or donate to a charity of your choice

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

I cannot tell a lie. About this at least. Because we discussed it briefly in the Twins spring training thread.

The nickname "Vanimal" was imported from his days as a Philly. Nobody particularly likes it but we couldn't do any better. So I proposed as a temporary solution that we crib the final, essential command from Animal Farm: "all animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others".

Most Equal Vanimal

So, I'm sorry to disappoint you and whatever cause could have used the fifty dollars.

>So, I'm sorry to disappoint you and whatever cause could have
>used the fifty dollars.

I'm in the habit of donating to causes fairly frequently
anyway so don't feel like total shit

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

We could have really upped the class in here and choose some "Road to Wigan Pier" Orwell, but that one's still packed away at my grandmother's house.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/ranking-30-opening-day-starters-around-major-league-172314066--mlb.html

verlander? #1 with a no-hitter alert.
TMEV? #28 ... eesh. feel like i will be typing that a lot this summer.

>Twins wins vs. Tigers wins
tigers

>Correia earned runs vs. Verlander strikeouts
verlander

>Mauer hits vs. Cabrera putouts
mauer

>Hicks walks vs. Dozier defensive double plays
hicks

>Mastroianni starts vs. Escobar starts
escobar

>Most Equal Vanimal backwards-Ks vs. Porcello strikeouts
TMEV, because ... fuckit.

>verlander? #1 with a no-hitter alert.
>TMEV? #28 ... eesh. feel like i will be typing that a lot this
>summer.

Look. We suck and he's really good. I'm comfortable with that. But the lineup still features two former MVPs and a three-time batting champion. If there were a reference in that article to the hovering-around-freezing temperature then maybe they'd get a pass, but it doesn't come up and of all the various reasons the Twins suck this year an inability to scratch some singles against a great pitcher wont be one of them.

I also have marginally higher hopes for The Most Equal Vanimal than the 28th best pitcher on this particular group of starters, but I'm not going to argue with yahoo this early on that point.

Let's get optimistic

>Pick'ems!
>
>Twins wins vs. Tigers wins
Twins
>Correia earned runs vs. Verlander strikeouts
Verlander
>Mauer hits vs. Cabrera putouts
Hits
>Hicks walks vs. Dozier defensive double plays
Dozier
>Mastroianni starts vs. Escobar starts
Mastroani
>Most Equal Vanimal backwards-Ks vs. Porcello strikeouts
MEV

>
>Pick'ems!
>
>Twins wins vs. Tigers wins
TWINS

>Correia earned runs vs. Verlander strikeouts
VERLANDER

>Mauer hits vs. Cabrera putouts
MAUER

>Hicks walks vs. Dozier defensive double plays
HICKS

>Mastroianni starts vs. Escobar starts
MASTROIANNI

>Most Equal Vanimal backwards-Ks vs. Porcello strikeouts
VANIMAL

Liked The Most Equal Vanimal's fastball movement, if not the velocity, and gained some hope that he'll have some really nice days with this approach. He'll get dinged a lot too though.

Liked Hicks' final plate appearance after getting worked by one of the best pitchers in baseball. That's why he's here already.

Didn't like the relative absence of actual, identifiable off-speed pitches from Worley - though I can concede this could improve as the weather warms. That's how the Brad Radke army became more Blackburn than Radke.

Didn't like Hicks getting abused that badly. Put the ball in play, chief.

Didn't like Florimon booting a potentially important ball at short in the late innings.

Didn't like the shallow bench.

And the Kevin Correia era began with the same lineup as Monday.

1. Hicks - CF
2. Mauer - C
3. Willingham - LF
4. Morneau - 1B
5. Doumit - DH
6. Plouffe - 3B
7. Parmelee - RF
8. Dozier -2B
9. Florimon - SS

The only traction the Twins have is that they've worked Sanchez pretty well considering they haven't gotten anything going. Take a strike or two, sir.

The good:
-The lineup is mostly working counts
-defense looked strong. they'll need that behind this staff

The bad:
-no thump so far
-need to keep working counts against the bullpen too. hear that, Mr. Hicks? That's supposed to be your strong point. It's not going to be a seamless introduction to MLB life for you one way or the other, but don't struggle because you're swinging at high and away fastballs.

it's the second game of a 162 game season.

mission accomplished?

*goes back to waiting for E2 of GoT*

i've already marked a spot outside the local at nicollet & 10th.

120 wins, bitch.

Question. Is a Twins player permitted to do that if they don't play second base?

If this doesn't violate some organizational rule, then I like the potential OBA stack at the top of the order.

Take pitches, Twins. Take pitches.

1. Hicks - CF
2. Mauer - C
3. Willingham - LF
4. Morneau - 1B
5. Doumit - DH
6. Plouffe - 3B
7. Parmelee - RF
8. Dozier - 2B
9. Florimon - SS

SP: Worley

quite a while is the answer. let's hope willingham and morneau can show out like 3-4 hitters so gardy doesn't get the itch to slide mauer back.

granted, you would need an actual #2 hitter to move into the slot, but lets fret about one thing at a time.

>quite a while is the answer. let's hope willingham and
>morneau can show out like 3-4 hitters so gardy doesn't get the
>itch to slide mauer back.

Basically. It's weird to think that this is the personnel to do it when we've had better lineups. But those two can be two L/R thumpers we need in that heart of the order.

One thing that interests me about the timing of this (it's happened before, but has never seemed so permanent as to occur on opening day, I think) is how much Hicks has to do with it. He's there for his patience and his OBA, and Mauer's power contribution is gap doubles so it's easy to see how that will work. But I also wonder how much Gardenhire reasons that he's there to provide protection so that Hicks is encouraged to get the bat off his shoulder once and awhile. His breakout last year was by getting more aggressive without sacrificing what he already did well - more inducement to continue that could be the goal.

Relevantly, most research seems to agree that lineup protection doesn't exist - either by results or pitch selection. But that reasoning hasn't really gained much traction with managers.

I'm going off expectations for this one because I'm fascinating by the off-season additions of Meyer and May, both in the New Britain rotation.

I have no idea what the order of probables are for the Rock Cats, but with a four-gamer to open the season in Richmond then I think we can be assured that both of them will start games if they're ready. May will be repeated AA for his new organization, while Meyer is receiving an aggressive bump from his relatively few high-A games in 2012. Keep an eye out.

Gibson is at five IP, 3 K, 5:2 GB:FB rate so far. One earned run, two hits.

Buxton: .563/.611/.938, 2 SB
Arcia: .400/.526/.933
Sano: .438/.526/.563... and apparently looks good at third early
Rosario: .389/.421/.611
Meyer: 5 IP, 1 Er, 8 K, 1 BB
Gibson: 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 K, 0 BB

buxton = HOLY SHIT + my avy.

if i'm reading sano's line right, that's a lot of singles which seems ... weird. i am entirely delighted that he's putting contact tool to work, but still weird. good news on the glove as well.

any news on rosario in the field?

>buxton = HOLY SHIT + my avy.

The Twins are the sort of organization to wait for him to adjust to the adjustments. But another team might look at this and think, "This is dumb. If he's still doing this in a week then move him up."

Some of the stuff that hasn't shown up in the line but has made game descriptions has been cool too. He's apparently gotten on base through fielder's choices a couple times by simply being too fast to double up even on routine DP grounders. I'm a bit too excited to wait for the other shoe to drop like it did with Sano last year where MWL pitchers just stopped throwing fastballs, because the idea that Buxton could be ahead of the curve in turning his tools into an actual baseball player is pretty appealing. Reality can wait.

>if i'm reading sano's line right, that's a lot of singles
>which seems ... weird. i am entirely delighted that he's
>putting contact tool to work, but still weird. good news on
>the glove as well.

There's been a couple of doubles but I took note of that as well. Bracketing the fact that it's been a small sample of games, if this continues I think the things we should look to as explanations are:

-Ft. Myers, where hitting for power is really tough

-Some attempt on Sano's part to make better contact. He didn't strike out until yesterday's game (2) and given his previous rates that's a notable amount behind the curve. Minorleaguers rather notably don't add skills in a linear fashion, and it's possible that the thing he'll have to do to make better contact for awhile is to sell out for the homer a bit less frequently. As long as he keeps up the walks (so far so good on that) and finds his power eventually without sacrificing his gains (this is where we rely on scouting that in contact says he doesn't need to put a good homerun swing on a ball to hit it out of the park) then this is all part of a good thing.

>any news on rosario in the field?

No. But I read a chat with Jason Parks of BPro, who is a notable un-fan of Rosario because he thinks he can't play second and will be a tweener in the outfield. Without committing to "Rosario can play second," Parks' admission that Rosario is looking more and more like a real, future MLBer indicates something I'd read elsewhere this winter: that scouts think his athleticism and work ethic will lead to more or less continuous play at second as long as he hits. So, the glove matters, but if the Twins see a bat that they need at second to get into the lineup and they see Rosario as somebody who will keep working to improve - then the glove might not matter.

I'm interested to see what that looks like, but in the meantime I'd just rather have him be good over there. He had a great WBC for Puerto Rico, but they didn't play him at second much, if at all.

do you have a particular MiLB site you peruse for information or do you just go to our affiliates websites?

also, i completely glossed over the super-sexy pitching line by meyer. more please.

Baseball Reference now has stat lines for the minors, but I don't think they keep splits and game logs, so I go to minorleaguebaseball.com. They also added a feature recently where you can sort daily box scores by affiliate, which is a good way to just give it a once-over and look for any interesting lines:

http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?sid=milb&org=142&ymd=20130407

Though, my Buxton enthusiasm meant I completely missed the big Cedar Rapids story this weekend, which is that three pitchers combined to throw a no-hitter for the Twins low-A affiliate. Only one is a semi-prospect that I know of, Tyler Duffy, who went 7 IP with 7 K. But pretty cool for all of those guys.

Additionally, the latest Twins group-blog project, Twinsdaily.com has enough writers scattered around the country that they've been posting actual game stories with a focus on Twins prospects that, say, the local Cedar Rapids paper might not include. That's where the tidbit about Sano's glove came from, for instance.

He could move fast if he achieves some kind of mechanical consistency. Every description of his stuff sounds like an extremely unhappy day at the park for hitters, so if he's around the plate and they can't wait him out... trouble trouble.

More nickname information, I suppose. Did anybody ever watch "Burn Notice"? Perhaps it's still on. Whatever. That show used to drive me crazy because it's lead actor would be running around Miami, shockingly well dressed, and fighting bad guys *without* sweating. Like at all. I had to stop eventually because it was driving me crazy that he hadn't ruined all of his clothing.

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_22919159/tom-powers-twins-starter-vance-worley-can-take

Tom Powers: Twins starter Vance Worley can take the heat, even in the cold
By Tom Powers
tpowers@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 04/01/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT
Updated: 04/02/2013 10:39:01 AM CDT

It's 35 degrees and, with the wind chill, feels 10 degrees colder. No one is comfortable. Fans are huddling under heat lamps. Players are scurrying up to the clubhouse for a quick thaw.

But Vance Worley is lounging on the bench with a towel wrapped around his hands. If anyone should be kept warm and dry between innings, it's the starting pitcher. Yet Worley sits there watching the old ballgame.

"I was down on the bench sweating," Worley said after the Twins' 4-2 loss to the Tigers on Monday, April 1. "It's genetics, I guess. I don't need sleeves or anything like that."

Yes, he pitched in short sleeves, and several of us turned blue just watching him.

"For me, I stay hot all the time," he said. "I was sweating just walking out there to play catch today. With sleeves, it would have been really hot out there."

Here's a fellow you probably wouldn't want to sit next to on an airplane or in a crowded theater.

"It's just on a ball field," he explained.

Before it was all over, Worley went six innings. For Twins fans who have suffered through the past two years, here's what was different:

Worley had some bad luck early, but quickly stabilized the ballgame. After getting nicked for three runs over the first two innings, in large part because of a couple of bleeders, he regained control. The game did not spiral out of control, as it so often did in 2012. Instead, he got things turned around.

Here's what was the same: The Twins lost.

"It would have been

nice to get a W,' " Worley said. "The ball is going to roll a certain way."
He went six innings, throwing 101 pitches and allowing just those three runs. The Twins eventually closed to 3-2 and had the bases loaded with one out in the seventh. That was the moment. But Trevor Plouffe couldn't put his bat on the ball, and then Chris Parmelee swung at a 3-2 pitch in the dirt. End of rally, inning and game.

But Worley certainly looked a cut above what we saw take the hill in 2012 for the Twins.

"I thought he settled in really nice and did a heck of a job for us," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He gave us a heck of an opportunity. I really love watching him out there. He works fast; he holds runners. He had a good angle and a nice breaking ball. He did a really nice job."

Here's the other thing: How many guys are going to give you 100 pitches on Opening Day in near-freezing temperatures? This was a great sign. And although the Twins lost, it was a competitive ballgame, interesting to watch. And the Twins were done in by a lack of clutch hitting, not starting pitching.

Gardenhire noted that Worley was up in the strike zone very early, perhaps because of Opening Day adrenaline. But Worley made an adjustment. He fixed what was wrong and was able to keep the Twins in the game.

"I like groundballs; that's what I try to do," Worley said. "I try to get quick outs. Strikeouts, for me, aren't a big deal.

"I need to get the ball down. I finally got it down. Next (second) inning it started to work its way down. Finally, by the end of that inning, it was coming out where it needed to. Towards the end of the second inning, I started feeling everything was coming out the way I wanted it to. You'll have games like this. And you'll have games where you go out there and say, 'Here it is.' "

This is a good thing. I'm not saying we've got a Cy Young winner on our hands. I'm saying here's a guy who knows what he is doing. Here's a guy who can make adjustments on the fly -- the way a big-league pitcher should.

And here's a guy who has the metabolism of a large reptile. How else could he pitch in short sleeves like that?

"I sweat a lot. It was just a matter of time before I heated up," he said.

It was a solid debut for Worley, who could help make it a better summer for the Twins. But if he sweats this much in near-freezing temperatures, he might just be a puddle by August.

Tom Powers can be reached at tpowers@pioneerpress.com.

Twins in Charm City. Win Twins. Take pitches.

Arrieta vs. Hendriks
Tillman vs. The Most Equal Vanimal
Hammel vs. De Vries

How about we pick'em?

Mauer total bases vs. Hicks strikeouts
Twins rotation strikeouts vs. Twins bullpen strikeouts
Twins wins vs. Orioles wins
Tyler Robertson batters faced vs. Twins homeruns
Twins stolen bases vs. Glen Perkins saves

Give me:

Mauer, rotation, Twins, homers, stolen bases

>Arrieta vs. Hendriks
>Tillman vs. The Most Equal Vanimal
>Hammel vs. De Vries

do we really not like de vries? or eden prairie?

>Mauer total bases vs. Hicks strikeouts
mauer

>Twins rotation strikeouts vs. Twins bullpen strikeouts
bullpen

>Twins wins vs. Orioles wins
twins

>Tyler Robertson batters faced vs. Twins homeruns
twins dingers

>Twins stolen bases vs. Glen Perkins saves
stolen bases

BONUS PICK'EM: double-fictional, wheelchair-bound orioles fan from the west side playing hooky and in attendance vs gardy ejections

It gives teams a chance to use four guys the first run through the rotation. Some teams had it stacked so they could go another week, but not us.

>do we really not like de vries? or eden prairie?

I just... don't understand how he gets people out. And I don't like not understanding. As a non-native, I'm agnostic on Eden Prairie.

>BONUS PICK'EM: double-fictional, wheelchair-bound orioles fan
>from the west side playing hooky and in attendance vs gardy
>ejections

EJ!

>I just... don't understand how he gets people out. And I don't
>like not understanding. As a non-native, I'm agnostic on Eden
>Prairie.

so, you'll find it hard to stay on the fence, but your non-resident status will allow you not to cast a ballot for a while.

>>BONUS PICK'EM: double-fictional, wheelchair-bound orioles
>fan
>>from the west side playing hooky and in attendance vs gardy
>>ejections
>
>EJ!
>

i was trying to come up with something equally unlikely ... like parmelee steals, but ... that happened, so i was stumped.

M21 was nice enough to lend me S5 recently for my second completion of the series. forgot how much i LOVE gus. probably helped in contrast to scott and "the dickensian aspect" senior editors, but still ... great character for only a season.

>so, you'll find it hard to stay on the fence, but your
>non-resident status will allow you not to cast a ballot for a
>while.

I went to Edina once. I had breakfast. Story over.

>M21 was nice enough to lend me S5 recently for my second
>completion of the series. forgot how much i LOVE gus. probably
>helped in contrast to scott and "the dickensian aspect" senior
>editors, but still ... great character for only a season.

My wife gave our entire box set to a friend (somewhat coincidentally from Baltimore) before we left Nashville. If we ever see those again, I will be slightly surprised.

Gus was pretty terrific. For whatever reason, I was never taught to ... value... journalism. I suppose that't the best way to put that. So it took awhile in for season five to grab me. Simon's not the subtlest writer around, but his willingness to go on-the-nose once again and have a character embody what is good about a field that he obviously loves was pretty helpful.

or somewhere south of the river isn't becoming the new Eden Prairie. One Eden Prairie is already too many Eden Prairies for this state.

We used to go there when we visited my wife's family down in Montgomery. I didn't realize it had grown past that absurdly large megaplex.

But I couldn't actually tell you anything else about Lakeville.

She burned her hand in the fryer there. And then stuck it in the ice bin. So... if you ate some potatoes there in 1998 and washed it down with a soda then you probably consumed some of Mrs. Walleye's handskin.

Or that Burnsville had a mall. It sounds familiar, though.

>Mauer total bases vs. Hicks strikeouts
Bases
>Twins rotation strikeouts vs. Twins bullpen strikeouts
Bullpen
>Twins wins vs. Orioles wins
TWINS
>Tyler Robertson batters faced vs. Twins homeruns
Dingers
>Twins stolen bases vs. Glen Perkins saves
Saves

He runs a good bullpen, on the whole. Nobody languishes on the bench. Players rarely get over-used except when the rotation can't hold up their end. And he's had a long history of getting great performances out of guys with mixed track records elsewhere.

Furthermore, departing relief pitchers continually remark on how the strength of his management is giving people defined roles that put them in a position to succeed. That's part of managing people, and it's non-negligible.

At the same time, we needed somebody better than our third-best lefty in to face Davis (shit, and Markakis) yesterday. Our closer happens to be pretty good and left-handed, so maybe that was a good opportunity to think outside the box and bring Perkins in to retire the best part of the Orioles order.

Correia vs. Santana
Pelfrey vs. Guthrie
Hendriks vs. Davis

I'm losing confidence that Liam Hendriks is going to get it. Or that this is the right organization for him to do so anyhow. I actually like his off-speed stuff better than most of the other Clone Army recruits to come through the past few years. He can be closer to Scott Baker than to Nick Blackburn, for instance. But watching him nibble nibble with that iffy fastball is just so frustrating.

Anyhow, not changing the prognosis of this team and pretending they're good just because they're in first (wooo?!) but I like our hitters against these three righties. Even on the bad days, the lineup has been working deep into counts, and that could do a lot against Santana. Hopefully, one of these guys will get Mauer going.

How about some pick'ems?

Correia strikeouts vs. Santana walks
Mauer strikeouts vs. Morneau walks
Pelfrey GIDP to Twins game two GIDP
Twins wins vs. Royals wins
Eduardo Escobar starts vs. Jamie Carroll starts
Twins stolen bases vs. Twins homers
Billy Butler doubles vs. Brian Dozier hits

Give me: Santana, Morneau, Pelfrey, Twins, Escobar, homers, and Butler

huh?

>I'm losing confidence that Liam Hendriks is going to get it.
>Or that this is the right organization for him to do so
>anyhow. I actually like his off-speed stuff better than most
>of the other Clone Army recruits to come through the past few
>years. He can be closer to Scott Baker than to Nick Blackburn,
>for instance. But watching him nibble nibble with that iffy
>fastball is just so frustrating.

walleye circa 2009/10(?) was all interested in watching him nibble the corners and pull the string, so to speak. guess it's good to know you don't jump ship easily ... which makes sense as a twins fan.

>Correia strikeouts vs. Santana walks
correia

>Mauer strikeouts vs. Morneau walks
morneau

>Pelfrey GIDP to Twins game two GIDP
pelfrey

>Twins wins vs. Royals wins
twins

>Eduardo Escobar starts vs. Jamie Carroll starts
carroll

>Twins stolen bases vs. Twins homers
homers

>Billy Butler doubles vs. Brian Dozier hits
butler. :(

>walleye circa 2009/10(?) was all interested in watching him
>nibble the corners and pull the string, so to speak. guess
>it's good to know you don't jump ship easily ... which makes
>sense as a twins fan.

You're right. I think I may have seen Kevin Slowey with identifiable breaking stuff, but the elite command either vanished or I made the fundamental error of player comps - they're not always helpful.

If that wishcasting had come true, we'd have somebody whose fastball would play up even without plus-average velocity but who could actually finish somebody with a curve or a changeup. That's not a Brad Radke clone. That's Brad Radke, somebody who has really taken some hits with the (still appropriately named) Clone Army even though he was more valuable in his career than, I'd guess, every member of the BRCA put together.

He's still young. Only 24. But there's a wave coming up behind him (I hope) and he's not going to get infinite chances.

>Correia strikeouts vs. Santana walks
>Mauer strikeouts vs. Morneau walks
Walks
>Pelfrey GIDP to Twins game two GIDP
Game two
>Twins wins vs. Royals wins
TWINS
>Eduardo Escobar starts vs. Jamie Carroll starts
Carroll
>Twins stolen bases vs. Twins homers
DINGERS
>Billy Butler doubles vs. Brian Dozier hits
Butler

I object to using pitch count to evaluate Kevin Correia's readiness to continue a game. Every pitch that he throws is one pitch closer to people in the outfield seats being injured with well-struck baseballs, so if you get seven shutout innings out of him and you, further, are intentionally hamstringing your bench by carrying 12 pitchers then it's time to bring in somebody who isn't Kevin Correia. And then to thank fates that the game is still winnable.

I mean, losing two of three to the Royals is kind of a sign of the times anyhow, but we sort of got wanged by this Sunday in Baltimore to Monday day game in Kansas City schedule. Of course, we also invited said wanging by not employing enough good baseball players - but one complaint at a time.

In other news, Miguel Sano hit a homerun. So now the Florida State League knows what's up.

4 IP, 2 ER, 3 BB, and 7 K yesterday. I'm not checking the box score, but I'm guessing he threw more than a few pitches to get that four inning hook. Still, a skillset we don't have a lot of above A-ball.

The first week of the season was a pretty strange one for our man Miguel Mejor. No homeruns and only a strikeout or two. Weird.

Since then, he's been becoming who he is: absurd power with some swing and miss. Two homers and six strikeouts in the past three games has him at .393/.452/.714. We'd all love to see him put the barrel on the ball in a way that looks like somebody who can give you a consistent .260-.270 in the big leagues, and scouts see it in his swing. But until that happens, at least he isn't going backwards. Hitting the ball out of the park in the Florida State League isn't common, but he seems... untroubled by the idea.

Every time I hear Bert call a pitcher a pussy for leaving after 100 pitches I'm going to remember that he once charged the mound with a bat after brushing back Mike Schmidt twice.




Bert Blyleven tracer
Posted by Chris Jaffe
In a recent broadcast, Twins color man Bert Blyleven commented on the recent dust-up between Zack Greinkeand Carlos Quentin. (Grienke hit Quentin with a pitch, Quentin ignored that fact that it was likely an accidental HBP, charged the mound and in the melee the highly paid pitcher broke his collarbone).

Anyhow, Blyleven noted that in his ba-zillion years pitching, no one ever charged the mound on him. He did, however, once charge the mound himself after getting hit by a pitch.

Let’s look this up.

Blyleven was hit by a pitch just twice in his career, so this is fairly easy to check up. As it happens, he was ejected in neither game, which is unexpected. However, the wonder and glory that is Retrosheet helps fill us in on the details. Its recaps don’t simply record what the plays were, but what incidental drama also happened.

It was May 26, 1980 and Blyleven’s defending world champion Pirates were playing the Phillies.

The fun began in the bottom of the first. With two out and none on, Blyleven threw a brush-back pitch to Phillies star Mike Schmidt. He didn’t hit Schmidt, but ended up walking him. Then up came Greg Luzinski, who also walked after surviving a brush-back. Blyleven escaped his self-created jam without allowing any runs, and the game went on.

Schmidt came back to the plate to lead off the third. Again, Blyleven brushed him back. Schmidt had had enough of this, and took a few steps to the mound. He didn’t go much further, but both benches cleared. Things cooled down, and no punches were thrown. Blyleven ended up walking Schmidt (again) and Schmidt scored on a homer by teammate Garry Maddox.

Shortly after, Blyleven came up to bat to lead off the fourth for Pittsburgh. Nothing happened though; he just grounded out. But the game wasn’t over.

In the fifth, the Phillies had a new pitcher in, reliever Kevin Saucier. He got some payback for the club, hitting Pirates star slugger Willie Stargell.

Next inning, Blyleven came up again. With two out and none on, Saucier plunked him. That’s when Blyleven charged the mound. It’s odd that the pitcher who started it would be the one to charge, but I guess he felt the matter was over once Stargell was hit. However, according to the Retrosheet account, he did a bit more than just charge the mound—he picked up the bat and charged the mound. Yikes!

A big brawl broke out with both benches cleared. After a while, the fight appeared to have stopped, butr it caught fire again with Phillies bullpen coach Mike Ryan in the middle. The umpires eventually restored order.

Somehow, Blyleven wasn’t ejected. For that matter, neither was Ryan. Instead, Pittsburgh outfielder Lee Lacy and Philadelphia coach Herm Starrette got the thumb from Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey.

The game kept on, with Blyleven lasting until the eighth inning. The Phillies rallied to win on a walk-off single by Larry Bowa in the ninth.

So why did Blyleven go after Schmidt like that? It was the first Phillies-Pirates game of the year, so there was nothing that happened recently between the clubs. Schmidt did a good job against Blyleven over their careers, but there was nothing in their immediate past that would suggest this.

However, the last Phillies-Pirates game of 1979 had a very odd twist. On Sept. 20, 1979, Phillies outfielder Keith Moreland hit a fly to left that third base umpire Eric Gregg lost in the lights. He saw the Philadelphia Ball Girl jump up and down saying “home run!” so he ruled it a home run.

But it wasn’t a homer. It wasn’t even close to a homer. The Pirates raised all holy hell about it, and the umpire crew had a conference and in a rarity, decided to overturn the call.

Now it was Philadelphia’s turn to spit nails. Manager Dallas Green argued the call, earned an ejection, and threw some equipment on the field. Also throwing equipment on the field was star third baseman Mike Schmidt—the same guy Blyleven threw inside to next time they faced. So that must be the back story.

The umpire in that 1979 game was Doug Harvey, the same man who refrained from ejecting Blyleven in 1980. I’m not sure if that helps explain why Blyleven wasn’t ejected, but it is interesting.

So Blyleven’s memory holds up well about his career as a mound charger.

Retro-active umpiring karma conspiracy. Hall of Famers. Perfect.

I can't remember the last time three Twins made the hotsheet. I like Arcia up top among the Twins. I've been guilty of ignoring him amidst the shiny new toys, but he is... really good. Tyler Duffey is this week's entry in "Helium Report" too.

3. Oswaldo Arcia rf, Twins

Oswaldo Arcia
Team: Triple-A Rochester (International)

Why He’s Here: .458/.536/.917 (11-for-24), 3 HR, 2 2B, 8 RBIs, 8 R, 3 BB, 6 SO, 1-for-1 SB

The Scoop: Aaron Hicks’ rise to the big leagues wasn’t the only instance where the usually conservative Twins went against type with where they assigned a player. Arcia was dispatched to Triple-A with just a half-season of Double-A experience under his belt, an aggressive move by Twins standards. He’s rewarded the organization’s faith so far, though. A powerful lefthanded swinger, Arcia homered in each of Rochester’s first two games and added a third Thursday night, and he also mixed in a couple of three-hit games along the way as well.

4. Byron Buxton cf, Twins

Team: low Class A Cedar Rapids (Midwest)

Age: 19

Why He’s Here: .500/.565/.950 (10-for-20), 6 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR, 6 RBIs, 3 BB, 5 Ks, 2-for-2 SBs

The Scoop: It’s been a rough couple of years for Twins’ fans. But for the first time in a while, there are signs of hope on the horizon—just take a look at the three premium prospects the club has on this week’s Hot Sheet. It’s only one week of stats, but Buxton’s fast start is a great sign for a prospect who has an overabundance of tools.

8. Miguel Sano 3b, Twins

Team: high Class A Fort Myers (Florida State)

Age: 19

Why He’s Here: .393/.452/.714 (11-for-28), 6 R, 3 2B, 2 HR, 4 RBIs, 3 BB, 8 Ks

The Scoop: Picking the top prospect in the Twins organization isn’t easy. On one hand you have a potential five-tool outfielder (Buxton). On the other, you have an infielder with a cannon of an arm and some of the best raw power in the minors. Sano’s hit tool likely will never be as refined as Buxton’s, but if he can keep the strikeouts to a moderate level to allow his power to play, the rest of his skills and tools will take care of the rest.

Tyler Duffey, rhp, low Class A Cedar Rapids (Twins): Minnesota drafted a raft of college relievers in 2012—righties Luke Bard, J.T. Chargois, Zach Jones and Tyler Duffey and lefthander Mason Melotakis among them—and gave them all the option to start as pros. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Duffey was among those who accepted the offer, with the Twins hoping he’d maintain his above-average quality low-90s fastball and hard breaking ball (alternately described as a curve and slider) over longer outings. Mission accomplished in his first pro start Sunday night—Duffey tossed seven perfect innings and struck out seven before leaving the game due to a pitch count. He dedicated the performance to his late mother, who died in 2012 at age 44.

Wilkin Ramirez is going on paternity leave for a few days. Oswaldo Arcia is getting a taste of the big leagues while he's away, according to Phil Miller. He's not really got an opening in front of him since Wilkin is a 4th outfielder, but Arcia's not coming up to sit on the bench. Let's see how fast the "new level learning curve" is this time around for him.

It's no guarantee, obviously, given the amount of things that could go wrong. But I haven't been as confident that a Twins prospect will hit as a bigleaguer in awhile. He just seems to adapt to new challenges with freakish speed.

but the box score is kind of fun:
1/3 on 6 pitches with an error.

he also crushed a ball to the track off an angels prospect who hasn't been in the minors more than a year.

does he know how to work a count?

otherwise, good for him. must be nice to see the guy batting .047 come in for him. poor aaron.

EDIT: annnnnnddddd ... already sent back down. would have thought he'd stick around for the rest of the angels series. whatever.

>does he know how to work a count?

He wants to hit, but he made big strides in his walk rate last year. I think he'll always be an aggressive hitter but is totally comfortable taking a walk if it's not there. Jason Kubel is the most common comp, but estimations of Arcia's hit tool and power keep rising, particularly the latter.

His rate of improvement is the most interesting thing about him to me. He needed to strikeout less and walk more last year in AA and he did.

edit: if you want to dream on him, Justin Morneau might be a better comp in terms of average/power together and an ability to be aggressive and still work a walk. But Kubel's body is a match. Arcia is like a perfect square.

Miguel Mejor went 3-4 with a homerun last week. After our brief wonderment at the lack of homers, he's hit three in about five games. Still too many strikeouts and he hasn't really started walking yet, but since nobody is getting him out when he puts the ball in play we'll have to be patient on that last one.

He's at .400/.440/.725 right now, and Doug Mientkiewicz's Ft. Myers Miracle are at 10-0. I don't usually care about that, but you don't give famous and tenured former Twins jobs in the Twins organization without the willingness to consider them for future jobs, so getting the Miracle winning and winning often is an interesting development for this management prospect. That's a stacked roster for position players as soon as Sano and Rosario were assigned there, but most of the interesting arms are in the bullpen so it's not like it's a 25-man group of prospects ready to bust out.

Other notable Miracle developments:

-Big-fastball-owner Zach Jones has faced twenty one batters. Three have reached. None have scored. Seven have struck out.

-Eddie Rosario is hitting .372/.391/.558. He also hasn't committed an error and has helped turn six double plays. I think he's a real sleeper on leaguewide top-100 lists next year, because that power isn't just vanishing like some folks expected. Rather, he's looking more like a Brian Roberts 40 doubles and 15 homers type.

Obviously, he's good.

Is it just a factor of rooting for a team where I can't experientially accept the stability of a great player's talent? I understand that progress and decline are weird things, both slower and faster than we think they should be. But I've never seen a truly great Twin where minor, temporary changes for the worse in their game didn't make me think that they were irretrievably broken. Remember when Santana used to always have terrible Aprils? Every new one meant that this was the year he stopped being incredible, as far as my worry went. Then came 2011 with Mauer's injuries. And early this season with his weird rash of strikeouts.

But if Joe Randa decided to come back, I'd probably assume he'd remain a nigh-All Star.

Anyhow, Mauer's looked like Mauer lately. It's a long year and old knees and etc. but it's been fun. Watching him hit is kind of amazing.

Do you think the 09 power's ever coming back, though?

They became doubles when he bumped all the way up to 43 of those in the new park. The signature Mauer homerun (if somebody who struggles to hit a dozen in a year can be seen as possessing a signature homer) is a liner that carries into the first ten rows of the left or left-center wall. Hitters are starting to figure out how to take it out of the yard in Target Field, but it remains a really difficult place for left-handed hitters to hit opposite field shots. I'm actually pretty comfortable contending that Mauer's 2010 and 2012 were closer than they looked to his 2009 just on the basis of well-struck extra base hits. It's just that they're banging off of Target Field's walls where they went out of the Dome.

The one caveat, I think, is that I have a minor suspicion that his higher strikeout rate in the early going comes from an attempt to turn on more high fastballs. I trust him to make adjustments more than almost any hitter I've seen, but that's almost because I trust him to return to work-the-left-center-gap Mauer pretty quickly if it's not working.

But if he finds a happy medium, we could see him yanking more balls over the RF wall and he could scrape 15-20 homers. Kind of depends on if he wants to given the cost of fewer balls in play.

1. Sano: 2-3, HR (a grand slam), BB - .413/.472/.761 on the season
2. Buxton: 3-4, 2B - .474/.556/.737, 4 SB
3. Gibson: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 5 K, 9:1 GB:FB
4. Trevor May: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 8 K
5. Oswaldo Arcia: re-recalled to Minneapolis for DL'd Darin Mastroianni
6. The Miracle won their 12th straight
7. Eddie Rosario got two hits like he does almost every night and still only ranks as the seventh most interesting thing to happen yesterday in the system. He's at .388/.407/.551.

because it sounds like PTSD to me.

all those pieces of info are great.

at what point do the twins realize that hicks probably should not have skipped a level?

>because it sounds like PTSD to me.

Hicks is probably the only candidate on the team for that right now.

>at what point do the twins realize that hicks probably should
>not have skipped a level?

They probably realize it already, but believe there's some value (particularly for a team that isn't expected to be good anyhow) in making it seem like tacit policy for players who win a job out of spring training to hold that job for at least 4-6 weeks. I suspect they also like to be able to send Hicks to Rochester with more specific instructions than "stop sucking so much."

But yeah, he was rushed. Apparently nobody has struck out this many times through the first ten games of their career ever or something? They're hemmed into a bit of a corner right now with Mastroianni injured, Benson hitting nearly as poorly as Hicks only doing it in Rochester, and Wilkin Ramirez not really a centerfielder.

I think dropping him in the order was smart and might kickstart him in the way that putting him at leadoff did in New Britain last year - it'll simplify his process. The toughest thing to watch about him so far was seeing him do things that, even at his occasional MiLB low points were never part of his game, like swinging at fastballs outside the strikezone. With no real CF options besides him right now, he can get the Rochester treatment just by virtue of low expectations: take better at-bats; be yourself and work the count.

Whatever his problem, I'd rather be him and pathological opportunity-misser Joe Benson right now. .171/.216/.200 and striking out almost as often as Hicks.

I think that high-A is the point where the Twins begin to seriously consider promoting extraordinary players more aggressively. They're still the Twins, so they'll wait to see how Sano adjusts to the adjustments. But if he's still hurting pitcher's feelings by Memorial Day, then he could spend a substantial portion of the 2013 season at New Britain.

That domino could mean a 40-man add, particularly if we start selling off big-league parts like Morneau and Willingham and any rental starting pitcher that isn't sucking.

And the 40-man domino would mean that he could be a Trevor Plouffe calf strain away from a big club debut.

It's just of him dunking a couple of singles in the major league spring training games he appeared in, but it's still pretty cool.

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130416&content_id=44961500&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milb

also, they couldn't get anything other than a couple of singles for the guy with the best power tool in all the minors? nomc.

I was pretty annoyed at that too, but I think their selection criteria was "highest quality footage". A spring training appearance against the real, live Yankees is probably as good as it gets in that regard.

Still, I have a hard time believing that there isn't something at least 70% as visually appealing that where he hits a 500 foot homer. That's how you drive home a point. So, I'm with you here.

But hopefully it wont matter before long. My general impression is that games are more likely to be locally televised the higher the level. There was cool video of a New Britain walkoff last year, punctuated by Oswaldo Arcia's insouciant bat-flip. I want that with Sano. Soon.

edit: and he is indeed a human giant. he looks fit right now. just... huge.

Worley vs. Peavy
Diamond vs. Floyd
Correia vs. Axelrod

Three righties. That's a nice start for our bats, in theory. Past that, who really wants to prognosticate what these starters are going to do beyond some pick'ems?

Twins wins vs. White Sox wins
Diamond strikeouts vs. Mauer strikeouts
Morneau homers vs. Plouffe homers
Hicks outs vs. Twins game one total bases
Perkins strikeouts vs. Twins starter strikeouts

Give me: Twins, Diamond, Morneau, Twins, starters

>Twins wins vs. White Sox wins
sox

>Diamond strikeouts vs. Mauer strikeouts
diamond

>Morneau homers vs. Plouffe homers
morneau

>Hicks outs vs. Twins game one total bases
this is just ... diabolical. total bases ... because ... shit.

>Perkins strikeouts vs. Twins starter strikeouts
perkins

I got six "emergency" texts from University of Chicago campus police yesterday, which was a weird reminder that I am still a student.

I'd rather like to see a nice Vance Worley start, since I spent the months preceding the season convincing myself to like THE MOST EQUAL VANIMAL. Or whatever. Alex Meyer has allowed three earned runs in about twenty innings this year, so that'll work as far as edifying box score reading.

Ugh. This team is going to draw me in with the first decent April in what seems like forever. In fairness, I was a lost cause anyhow.

Relatedly, here's a story about Miguel Sano being kind of a badass and getting thrown out of a game along with Doug Mientkiewicz and DJ Baxendale. I like that our prospects also come with some "fuck you" in their game.

http://www.twinkietown.com/2013/4/21/4250738/miguel-sano-homers-after-message-pitch

Maybe I'm dramatizing this a little bit. I wasn't there. I haven't seen the tape. But whatever the intention may or may not have been, the result was awesome. Here's what happened.

With two outs in the top of the fifth, the Fort Myers Miracle were trailing the Palm Beach Cardinals 5-3. Cardinals pitcher Brandon Creath threw a pitch that appeared to be meant for Miguel Sano's body. According to Brice Zimmerman, play-by-play announcer for the Miracle, it looked like it was actually headed for Sano's head.

Sometimes baseballs get away from pitchers. Especially minor league pitchers. And for a guy who is walking 5.1 batters per nine innings this season, it's not like a lack of command is unexpected. So maybe he was throwing at Sano, and maybe he wasn't.

But Sano took exception. From Brice Zimmerman's Twitter account:

Brice Zimmerman @ZimMiracle

Creath's first pitch to Sano was at his head, but missed behind him. Sano then launched a 450-ft plus HR on a 3-1 pitch.
4:46 PM - 21 Apr 2013

Brice Zimmerman @ZimMiracle

Mientkiewicz wanted Creath tossed for throwing at Sano, but HP ump just warned him and both dugouts.
4:46 PM - 21 Apr 2013

Brice Zimmerman @ZimMiracle

Sano admired his HR, then turned to the Palm Beach dugout and pumped his fists, was tossed, Mientkiewicz and Baxendale tossed too.
4:47 PM - 21 Apr 2013


Sano felt he was being thrown at. Clearly manager Doug Mientkiewicz (I still don't have to look up how to spell that name) thought Creath had done it on purpose. So did D.J. Baxendale.

Usually I'm not a fan of players showing someone else up. I love seeing passion in our players, and I love that Sano punished Creath in the best way possible by launching a massive home run, but sportsmanship matters to me. So I also have no problem with Sano getting tossed for making so blatant a gesture.

Whatever Creath's actual intent, however events actually played out in terms of Sano's gesture and Mientkiewicz's belief of intent, two things are certain. Sano thought Creath was throwing at him, and Sano took him yard.

Awesome.

Fun Fun. There was a question in the hot sheet chat on Friday about whether these two could be the 1/2 prospects in baseball next winter. The chatter (Callis?) did not treat it like a stupid suggestion.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20311

Miguel Sano, 3B, Twins (High A Fort Myers)
Independent of Sano’s impressive .377/.443/.705 line, with five bombs in 16 games, the word that keeps coming up when talking about the 19-year-old third baseman is “improvement.” There was a different look to Sano in the box during spring training than when I last saw the prospect at Instructs, and scouts have also commented about that difference. The slugger has been making strides picking up the spin out of opposing pitchers’ hands, which has shown in his body language at the plate and in a smoother weight transfer. Sano has been less apt to commit early onto his front foot in the early going, allowing the powerful right-handed batter to sit back and explode through pitches to create more consistent hard contact.

This can be a leading indicator pointing toward growth with Sano’s hit tool. My main question after seeing him in the fall was how exactly it was going to translate against more advanced competition. The big test will come when Sano eventually makes the jump to the Eastern League, but the early look and subsequent chatter from evaluators lend positive signs that progress is being made. —Chris Mellen

Byron Buxton, OF, Twins (Low-A Cedar Rapids):
It is tough to imagine a better start to the 2013 season for the Twins’ top prospect than we’ve seen. Further, as tough as it is to believe, Buxton’s gaudy stats (a .415/.523/.642 slash line) don’t fully capture his performance. He was often guilty of expanding the zone during his stint in short-season ball last summer, split between the complex league and Appy League. It has been a whole new Buxton in the Midwest League. The talented center fielder has upped his aggressiveness early in the count, punishing early count fastballs. He will still struggle to properly identify quality secondaries, but until the league adjusts and starts feeding him off-speed early on it isn’t going to be an issue. Buxton is also giving away fewer at bats; even when down in the count he has been able to shorten up and get the ball in play, rather than checking out mentally, flailing at a two-strike pitch out of the zone, and looking ahead to the next at-bat. Defensively, he remains a similar player to the physically gifted but underdeveloped talent we saw last summer – great speed but indirect routes and periodic misplaced first steps off the bat. Likewise, there remains big upside but a lot of work to be done on the bases, with Buxton’s struggles with jumps a clear indicator of his limited exposure to more advanced pitchers and their ability to disrupt baserunners’ timing. While the holes in his game remain evident, the fact that Buxton is so clearly undeveloped in so many aspects of his game actually makes his torrid start that much more impressive. While the future holds potential pitfalls aplenty, it’s hard to look at the returns from these first two-plus weeks and not think this could be a very, very loud summer for the second overall pick in last year’s draft. —Nick Faleris

another game, another HR.

also, a two hit perforamance without a SO.

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=3B&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=593934

is AA where he goes to learn how to walk? because obviously high-A ain't got shit for him to "learn" if he's mashing for yuks.

>is AA where he goes to learn how to walk? because obviously
>high-A ain't got shit for him to "learn" if he's mashing for
>yuks.

His walk rate last year proved he's willing to wait for his pitch, but if he's hitting nearly .530 on contact (with power) then nobody's going to tell him to be more selective. So I think you've got the right development plan, if one that the Twins will wait for a bounceback to execute. He needs somebody to actually get him out before drawing a walk becomes important. If that's at New Britain, even better.

because going 2-5 with triple and a stolen base when your 7-3 and 436 pounds is damn-hell-ass-awesome!

wish i was near ft. myers at some point this summer. that looks to be a very fun team to watch.

BA was making some noises in the recent hotsheet chat about how even the Twins wouldn't leave him down there to murder the Florida State League for long. I haven't read any scouting reports on his defense, but Mientkiewicz isn't going to let shitty work with the glove slide and the error totals are way down.

Eddie Rosario is heating up too. Sano is too exciting for the Twins to force some kind of paired ascension, but I still rather love the idea of them promoted together as long as they're both playing well. At .351/.381/.546, it's pretty crazy that he's in Mejor's shadow, but it actually makes sense.

This is actually causing a weird thread tension. There are a ton of exciting prospects on the farm playing really, really well. But the big club is actually winning once and awhile.

According to Wikipedia, it's a nice place to pick up Christmas ornaments carved chess sets, so it's really a win-win even if Miguel isn't up there.

So, yes.

I'm hoping he keeps hitting and gets promoted before the summer. New Britain comes down here to play Bowie once or twice a year and that'd be way easier than going to Connecticut.

Fun fact: Byron Buxton has walked more than he's struck out so far this year. While pretty much all of pro baseball is tending towards three true outcomes, it's interesting seeing a young player who was noted for being extremely raw put together a decent contact rate whilst also taking a bunch of pitches. It's against the current wave, and it's great considering his speed.

"3. Miguel Sano, 3b, Twins

The Scoop: With a peak Hot Sheet chart position of No. 1 (last week) and two other top-10 finishes (including No. 3 this week), Sano is the top hitmaker in the minors. His eight-hit, three-homer week bumped his season batting line to .377/.430/.753 through 77 at-bats, and he now owns at least a share of the Florida State League lead for home runs (eight), RBIs (20), runs (17), slugging and extra-base hits (13). Oh, and despite being a teenager in a pitcher’s league, Sano is tied with Max Muncy (Athletics) and Scott Van Slyke (Dodgers) for most home runs in the minors."

Lots of Twins in the chat too:

"Ben (Iowa): Who has a higher ceiling? JO Berrios or Alex Meyer?

Ben Badler: Meyer. The combination of velocity, life and angle on his fastball is filthy, and his slider has a chance to be a 70 pitch. Pitchers with Meyer's size need to be given a little more time for their control to come around, and if he just has 50/55 major league command, you're talking about a frontline starter."

"Miguel Sano (Ft. Meyers): What the hell am I do here and when will I be promoted up to New Britain?

Ben Badler: The Twins are usually on the conservative end of promotions, although with Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia maybe that's changing. But with Sano, yeah, I don't see him spending too much more time abusing FSL pitchers."

"Steve (SHS) (Sioux Falls): Byron Buxton has been impressive no doubt in SSS so far. To be fair, is it more impressive that he boasts a 13/12 BB:K ratio or that he may force the Twins hand to promote him to the Florida State Lg. before the season is mid-way through.?

Ben Badler: How about we just say that everything Buxton has done so far has been impressive. He's got bat speed, he can hit, he recognizes pitches, he's a 70 runner, plays good defense in center field and I think he's got the chance to end up with 50 or better raw power, maybe even a 25-homer season because of his contact frequency, bat speed and physical projection. This guy is a monster."

We've got the Pythag of a roughly .500 team with 88 runs scored and 89 runs against. Morneau hasn't really hit yet and the Aaron Hicks experiment has been a mess. So the offense really should pick up from those 4-and-small-change runs a game. At least I'd hope.

The starting pitching has been extremely lucky. There's no two ways about that. I haven't had a complaint about Kevin Correia in weeks and, truthfully, even if he pitches as badly as I expect for every start of the season - this is 36 better consecutive innings than I expected to get out of him at any stretch. Even if it is just balls finding gloves.

Additionally, the rotation could actually improve when Gibson gets a call. So there's reason to think that whatever the Twins are right now - Suck, not suck, maybe possibly not suck - that they could actually get better. I hate that this just occurred to me because I really had settled into a nice little synthesis for understanding the season. Talk about Mauer and hope for another season that is markable on his HOF-peak argument. Talk about Morneau and the hope that he'll resume his decent career. Look for trades of the highly paid talent. Complain about the rotation. Finish off with a nice round of "look what Miguel Mejor just did!". Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Now I have no idea what to do.

>Additionally, the rotation could actually improve when Gibson
>gets a call. So there's reason to think that whatever the
>Twins are right now - Suck, not suck, maybe possibly not suck
>- that they could actually get better. I hate that this just
>occurred to me because I really had settled into a nice little
>synthesis for understanding the season. Talk about Mauer and
>hope for another season that is markable on his HOF-peak
>argument. Talk about Morneau and the hope that he'll resume
>his decent career. Look for trades of the highly paid talent.
>Complain about the rotation. Finish off with a nice round of
>"look what Miguel Mejor just did!". Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

but you've summed up my approach to the year very nicely here. basically, i was going to pay some attention to the big club until they started the slide to suck, at which point my 75/25% split on minor league prospects would increase to 90/10%. the intial 5-6 game losing streak accelerated this process, but they have been plucky of late despite the hicks mess. like you, the starting pitching has been ... surprising. i haven't been able to watch any of the games, so ... yeah. this is all confusing. but i will continue to not pay attention because they seem to prefer our relationship that way.

i just wish hicks would be the same. he seems kind of needy in that way.

>Now I have no idea what to do.

exactly.

.240/.394/.280 in the past two weeks. It's not good, but that OBA is a big, useful number. I think there's light at the end of this tunnel which doesn't necessarily require a trip to Rochester.

There's going to be plenty of ups and downs, but April was a really, really good month for the system. Moving through BA's top ten, the only disappointing performance has been Hicks' after an aggressive promotion straight to MLB. Bard is being stretched into a starter in extended spring and Kepler is dealing with an elbow injury. But past that, the only surprises are good. Sano, Rosario, and Arcia have raked - with the latter being promoted. Daniel Santana hasn't looked overwhelmed with a AA promotion. Kyle Gibson has shown the same improved velocity that he did in the AFL and is ironing out his command - the last thing to return after the long TJ layoff. Byron Buxton has, incredibly, surpassed expectations in the early goings.

And Jose Berrios made his second start in the MWL yesterday and looked like the Jose Berrios we giddily remember from last year. He went 6.2 innings, permitted just one run on a pair of hits, and struck out eight. His fastball apparently sat 92-94 and peaked at 95.

So, with some of the extended spring guys (interesting pen candidate Josh Burris also debut'd at Cedar Rapids) starting to show up, it may be time to start chatting about system depth a bit. Because there are some lesser-discussed guys doing sexy stuff too. Here's some names, some you may have known but bracketed away with Sano fever:

1. Adam Walker - think of him as the poor man's Miguel Sano. A corner-only outfielder with even more swing-and-miss, he also has power that actually could maybe be mentioned in the same breath as Sano's. Lately he hasn't been missing and is .357/.426/.833. In spite of being drafted out of college, he is regarded as extremely raw and will be moved slowly, but a stronger than expected contact rate in low-A is a good sign that he'll put the barrel on the ball enough for us to keep watching him. An absolute upside for a player like this is Josh Willingham, but if he doesn't achieve that there seems to be a growing league-wide need for big RH pop - so he can profile as a useful extra outfielder even without playing center or hitting lefty.

2. Joe Benson - we all know Benson, chronic opportunity-fumbler. He's still crazy toolsy but has been hitting the ball hard after a Hicks-ian start at Rochester. Still a 27:4 K:BB rate though.

3. D.J. Baxendale - part of the rush on senior college pitchers from the 2012 draft, he's at Ft. Myers already and is pitching well, with a 1.54 ERA and 20 strikeouts in 23 innings. The additional good news is that he actually throws kind of hard. Not Alex Meyer hard, but he'll sit low-to-mid-90s into starts so there's reason to think he's not just dominating less experienced players and the results could stick. He could be a solid 4th starter.

4. Jorge Polanco - twinned as a Dominican signee with Miguel Sano, he's been passed by both Sano and Kepler in reputation, but the bat is starting to come around. He doesn't walk enough, but he's a tough out and is starting to show power in cold ass Iowa. Hitting .353/.385/.506. Middle infield depth is an excellent, excellent thing.

5. Levi Michael - Remember him? He's back in Ft. Myers, allegedly healthy, and hitting .200 with all of his his going for extra bases. His stock has sunk since he was drafted, but injuries keep providing ambiguity - the chance we aren't seeing the real Levi Michael.

I promised draft stuff, but I really don't have much. The front two names are starting to solidify. Mark Appel has convinced scouts that he has refined his fastball command and his changeup enough that he has genuine #1 upside and wont get squared up in MLB Jeremy Guthrie-style. And Jonathan Gray is throwing 100mph for Oklahoma and striking out everybody. The bad news is that those guys are probably going 1/2 unless one of the prep outfielders Meadows or Frazier really distinguishes themselves. A lot of Twins fans are nervous that the Twins are in on Meadows/Frazier, which would add yet another "toolsy outfielder" to a system full of them. That... isn't a stupid worry, but requires the following notes:

1. The Twins needed pitching even more last summer, but Byron Buxton has so far shown why the Twins may have seen him as something different than just a toolsy outfielder type. His performance so far is why you draft best player available.

2. Opinion ranges from negative to mixed on whether Meadows or Frazier can play centerfield as pros. It seems worth pointing out that "toolsy outfielder" to the Twins has meant "guys who profile as strong defensive centerfielders" in the first round. The Twins would have to either believe one of those two (i read they have a preference for Austin Meadows of the two) is a genuine plus defensive centerfielder, which would put them outside the full range of conventional wisdom *or* be so in love with the bat that they scrap the more detailed version of their usual preferences. I'd be surprised if this happens.

That leaves some strong pitchers, but guys with a bit more questions than Appel/Gray. Sean Manaea has been up and down this year, but he's a lefty who hits the high nineties, holds his velocity into starts, and holds the chance that being in a cold weather school means we haven't seen his best. Braden Shipley is the new pop-up candidate, Kyle Zimmer-lite. Keith Law tagged a plus fastball and a plus changeup. Twins will really like the latter. He also saw above-average current curveball that needs more use. The cool thing, which the Twins also like, is that he's a really good athlete, expressed in his delivery, but also has a good power pitcher's body at 6'3". He seems to fit the Twins preferences a bit more clearly than Manaea.

Prep righty Kohl Stewart, Arkansas righty Ryne Stanek, and Jacksonville State (which we know the Twins scout with an affirming eye due to the aforementioned Adam Walker) righty Chris Anderson are also candidates.

Come for the usual raves on Miguel Mejor's bat, stay for the notes about his improving defense.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/led-by-miguel-sano-fort-myers-miracle-are-minors-top-team-in-april/

Led By Miguel Sano, Fort Myers Stands As April’s Top Team
May 1, 2013 by J.J. Cooper

No minor league team had a better April than the Fort Myers Miracle.

It’s a pretty easy claim to make. The Miracle finished April with the best record in the minors, 21-4. They are third in the minors in run differential (+50) and fifth in runs scored despite playing in the high Class A Florida State League, where runs are scarce. As you would expect, the four teams ranked above them are all clubs that play either in the California or Pacific Coast leagues, far and away the two highest-scoring leagues in the minors.

And the Miracle have done it behind the hitting of one of the top prospects in the game, third baseman Miguel Sano. The 19-year-old leads all of minor league baseball with nine home runs. In itself, that isn’t all that surprising. Sano threatened the Appalachian League home run record when he launched 20 for Elizabethton in 2011. Last year, he led the Midwest League with 28 for Beloit.

But what Sano is doing in Fort Myers is nearly unprecedented for an FSL hitter because of how difficult it is to hit home runs in the spacious parks and ever-present humidity. He has more home runs than one FSL team (Dunedin) and has equaled another (Jupiter). While the modern single-season home run record for every other full-season league is 40 or more, Jim Fuller’s 33 home runs in 1971 is still the FSL standard. If Sano can come close to equaling his April rate, he ought to challenge that mark.

As good as Sano has been offensively, he’s also making strides defensively. Fort Myers manager Doug Mientkiewicz and Twins infield coordinator Paul Molitor have worked to get Sano to set up a few steps farther back at third base. By playing deeper, Sano is getting eaten up by in-between hops less often, while his double-plus arm gives him a little extra time to get to a ball and still make a timely throw.

Sano has gotten plenty of help. Second baseman Eddie Rosario is hitting for average and power (.346/.386/.583). The catcher combination of Kyle Knudson (.400/.481/.578) and Matt Koch (.364/.453/.473) has been equally impressive.

“The reason they are off to good start is they have players who are there to win,” Twins farm director Brad Steil said. “They’re playing together and they never think they are out of the game. They’ve had guys getting on base at the top of the lineup, and Rosario and Sano have done a good job of getting them in.”

The Fantastic Five

It’s been a great first month for the Twins. While the big league club has been a better than expected 11-12, it’s in the minors that Minnesota has had plenty to celebrate. Not only does it have the winningest team in the minors in April, they also have the No. 2 club in the low Class A Cedar Rapids (18-5).

And if Sano’s nine home-run April has caught the eye of scouts, then top prospect outfielder Byron Buxton has been arguably even more impressive in his full-season debut. Playing for Cedar Rapids, Buxton leads the Midwest League with a 1.194 OPS thanks to his .392/.510/.684 line that includes four home runs, nine steals and more walks (19) than strikeouts (17).

Here’s a look at the five winningest teams in April, along with each team’s top prospects.

This is pretty cool. Callis at BA fielded a question in the chat yesterday indicating that he wouldn't be shocked to see Meyer debut this year.

http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-rock-cats-alex-meyer-0430-20130429,0,6825994.story

Rock Cats' Alex Meyer Throws Knuckle Curve That Could Be Ticket To Majors
He Pitches Tuesday Night In New Britain

By DOM AMORE, damore@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
4:54 p.m. EDT, April 29, 2013

NEW BRITAIN—
David Meyer, umpiring a high school game in Indiana, saw something he'd never seen before, an unusually sharp-breaking curveball.

"My dad wasn't sure what it was," Alex Meyer said, "so he asked , 'What are you throwing?' and he showed him the grip for it. My dad came home and showed me, and I started messing around, playing catch with it."

Alex Meyer was a freshman at Greensburg High, and the pitch was a spike curveball, which was becoming popular. It is thrown with the forefinger bent, the tip on the ball. Meyer eventually put a very different spin on the pitch.

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And now his "knuckle curve," as he calls it, and another unusual pitch, his no-seam fastball, have him very close to the major leagues. Meyer is 2-0 with a 1.64 ERA for the Rock Cats, and Twins GM Terry Ryan is expected to join the team and watch him pitch against Harrisburg at New Britain Stadium Tuesday night.

"And if my dad hadn't umpired that day and asked that kid, I probably would never have learned to throw the pitch," Meyer said.

Meyer, a 6-foot-9, 220-pound righthander, was Indiana's Mr. Baseball in 2008, when he went 8-0 with an 0.95 ERA and 108 strikeouts in 51 innings. The Red Sox drafted him in the 20th round and offered $2 million, but he chose to attend the University of Kentucky. Three years later, Meyer was touching 100 mph and had dominated the SEC and was drafted in the first round, 23rd, by the Nationals in 2011, signing for $2 million.

After a strong first season in Class A, Meyer was traded to the Twins for outfielder Denard Span in November.

Meyer, 23, pitched five innings in big league camp, allowing one hit.

"The big kid," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said after one outing, "is really fun to watch."

He was assigned to Double A and in four starts for the 'Cats has allowed 21 hits and eight walks in 22 innings with 26 strikeouts and a 3.75 groundout-to-flyout ratio.

"He's tall to begin with, and everything he throws is hard and down," Rock Cats manager Jeff Smith said.

The knuckle curve is baseball's wild card pitch. A handful of pitchers have thrown it, and nearly always it is a pitch they invented themselves. Burt Hooten, who pitched for the Dodgers and Cubs in the 1970s, had his knuckles on the ball and thrust his fingers forward as he released it. Mike Mussina, who pitched for the Orioles and Yankees from 1990-2008, tried to throw a conventional knuckleball, with two fingertips on the ball, but found his pitches would dive if he instead thrust his fingers out and made the ball spin faster, instead of not at all. These knuckle curves were slow pitches. Jason Isringhausen has also thrown a version of a knuckle curve during his long MLB career.

Meyer's version, too, is his own and presents its own challenges.

"I've never met anybody who throws it the way I do," he said. "I really stick my fingernail into the seam. You have to have big enough fingers to be able to do it. Most guys have the finger up against the ball. With me, if my fingernail is not right that day, it's going to be really hard for me to throw it. I've learned to adapt so that the length of my fingernail is where I like to have it. I use a nail file during the season."

Meyer digs his fingernail into the seams and flicks the ball as he releases it with his three-quarters motion. But there's nothing slow about Meyer's knuckle curve, which is why some scouts think it is a slider. He throws it better than 85 mph and it has a late, violent swerve.

"It's a hard slurve," Smith said. "The hitters' reaction? Not good. Especially right-handed hitters. He gets a lot of swings and misses with it."

Of course, a pitch released in this manner is bound to be hard to control — and since no one else throws it, Meyer has had to become his own pitching coach.

"My junior year in high school I really started throwing it," Meyer said. "I really struggled to throw it for a strike. When I was throwing it for a strike, most guys were turning out of the way, thinking I was going to hit 'em. Once I got to college, it was OK. It still had the big break, but there were days I couldn't throw it for a strike. By the time I left there, and into now, I feel pretty good, where I can throw it for a strike when I need to. No one has ever tried to coach me out of it."

At Kentucky, his conventional four-seam fastball was hard but straight, and it got hit. Former major league closer Bill Caudill, who later became his agent, suggested he try a no-seam grip. A four-seamer is gripped against the seams, a two-seamer, or sinker, is gripped on the seams. Meyer throws his fastball with his fingers in the bare, horseshoe area of the ball. It's 93-to-97 mph with a late sinking action, and he has had opposing pitchers this season asking him what the heck it is.

"Despite the unusual grips, Meyer is able to make all his pitches look identical coming out of his hand, which might be the most important element. I really look for that," Smith said. "And most of the time I can't tell what he's throwing."

not epic proportions, but a stat line filled with numbers we don't really like ... except for 8ks over 6.

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2013_04_30_haraax_nbraax_1&t=g_box&sid=milb

seeing how he responds should be fun.

I read some game report indicating people were impressed with how he rallied after, but the way in which he lost the handle is the continual thing we have to look for. Big guy = big mechanics, and sometimes the plate might vanish, and even if that means just getting behind in the count then that means throwing a few less of those hard and funky offerings for some hard and straight ones.

Hernandez vs. Masterson
Correia vs. Kazmir
Pelfrey vs. Kluber

I have very little thoughts about these matchups. Hernandez has been surprisingly effective, basically a poor man's Scott Diamond. This concerns me because even though I like Scott Diamond I kind of think that he's the poor man's Scott Diamond. But in the Twins fashion over the past half-decade, you apparently can't have enough of those.

Save us from ourselves, Alex Meyer.

Pelfrey has been the disaster I expected Correia to be, but I also have no faith that Correia hasn't also been the disaster I expected Correia to be - except for the luck of giving up a lot of balls in play which have found gloves. Cleveland can actually hit, so expect... whatever you end up expecting. The team is .500, which is sort of mind blowing, so feel free to think outside of the box I'm drawing.

How about some pick'ems?

Twins wins vs. Indians wins
Mauer strikeouts vs. Pelfrey earned runs
Reynolds homers vs. Hicks stolen bases
Hernandez innings vs. Twins bullpen strikeouts
Morneau homers vs. Plouffe starts

Give me:
Twins, Pelfrey, Reynolds, Pen, Morneau

>Twins wins vs. Indians wins
twins

>Mauer strikeouts vs. Pelfrey earned runs
pelfrey ... duh.

>Reynolds homers vs. Hicks stolen bases
hicks

>Hernandez innings vs. Twins bullpen strikeouts
eesh ... hernandez

>Morneau homers vs. Plouffe starts
plouffe ... though i would love to be proved wrong. as would every other OKTwins fan, i'm sure.

I thought it'd be the first week without a positive Twins entry, but then all three of these guys showed up in the honor roll (so to speak) section.

If we're .500 and Gibson is throwing as well as this mention indicates, who do we want out of the rotation? Pedro Hernandez is the guy we're least committed to. Mike Pelfrey is the present worst. Kevin Correia is still my pick to finish the season worst.

Byron Buxton, cf, Twins. Last year’s No. 2 overall pick has been worth the price of admission all by himself at low Class A Cedar Rapids. The five-tool center fielder added two more homers this week, one of them victimizing Blue Jays prospect Roberto Osuna, as part of a .304/.469/.696 (7-for-23) showing that also included a whopping eight walks and three stolen bases.

Kyle Gibson, rhp, Twins. If the Twins need starting-pitcher help at some point this summer, Gibson should be ready and waiting. He’s only had one awful start in his first five appearances at Triple-A Rochester this spring and he’s had three really good outings, like the one he threw this week (zero runs in 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts and two walks). The 25-year-old has shown no lingering effects from his Tommy John surgery and by all accounts looks just about big league ready.

Jorge Polanco, ss, Twins. A smooth defender with a light bat when he signed in 2009, Polanco’s hitting continues to move in the right direction. The 19-year-old is hitting .337/.369/.474 in 24 games in the low Class A Midwest League.

OKTwins need to be creative with this one. our hicks adventure hasn't helped at all which leads me to believe the earlier we set precedent, the better the results. see: MEJOR, MIGUEL.

Trevor May, you're a Twins pitcher now. Seven innings pitched. Three hits. One earned run. Two walks. Three strikeouts. I am not going to knock this start, but it's not entirely comforting to see that the Twins have managed to "fix" May's walks/homers problem (for one day at least) concurrent to a steep decline in strikeout numbers. Trevor May strikes dudes out. That is the reason why we acquired him. There are substantial warts that can keep him from becoming a usable big league starter, but there is no happy ending to the story for Trevor May where he doesn't use the plus fastball and plus curve to make batters swing and miss.

There's a middle ground here, where this is the part of the process where May learns to command his fastball to get ahead in counts. Last time, he got rocked for a bunch of singles and doubles. This time, balls found gloves. If there's a step beyond this where, imbued with the confidence to pound the zone with 93-95mph fastballs, he resumes striking bozos outs with that curve, then I will drop this worry. But only then.

Miguel Mejor hit another homerun. Because it was Sunday. Three for four with a homer and four RBI. He struck out once, but didn't make any errors. His fielding his been, at the very least, much, much cleaner this year. Rightly or wrongly, the Twins are an organization that believes in errors and Mejor's ability to handle balls without throwing them into the seats behind first is a perhaps-disproportionately-important sign that he may be capable of playing third for Minnesota.

Also, he's hitting .377/.446/.755 right now. That batting average is rather implausible with 32 strikeouts in 118 plate appearances, but if you want the profile of somebody who is theoretically capable of hitting .540 on contact it's somebody who hits every ball really, really hard - and a bunch of them over the fence where there's no chance that anybody can catch it.

At this point, it may be reasonable to ask yourself whether anybody in the system is outperforming Sano. The strict answer according to the above batting line is "no," but Buxton* is putting up a pretty similar batting line (.383/.504/.681) with really eyebrow-raising peripheral numbers that don't make us doubt the batting average in the same way that they do with Sano. Drafted, Buxton was the toolsiest of toolsy outfielders, which provokes the very useful dual question of whether and when he can turn those into baseball skills. For the first test of pro, full-season ball the answer is clearly "yes" and "right now". He is way more polished than anybody initially anticipated, proven with a 23:20 BB:K ratio. Further, evidence of his learning curve is that pretty much the only early knock on him was that for somebody fast he seemed to get a poor jump on the basepaths a lot. That was digging deep for something to ding Buxton for, but I think he was only something like 5 out of 9 stolen bases attempts. Now? He's 12 for 16.

The Twins will keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on both these guys, and wisely. But I think that if I had to choose which one was a better candidate for promotion based purely on performance, it'd be Buxton - arguably making more of a joke out of his present competition. That probably wont be the way it plays out because these decisions aren't based purely on performance. The Twins have seen Sano struggle and snap out of it - not so yet with Buxton - and more information always makes for safer promotions. Plus, they like to one-level-at-a-time for the lower minors even more than the upper levels.

*I'm imagining Myron Fuxton as his nerd doppleganger, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=87_Pc31EIFQ

it's not quite perfect, but the resignation is what works. especially after watching the video and seeing just how little MEJOR has to put into that swing.

2/3 yesterday with a double and a walk. two errors though. i love that affiliate site you put me on to.

I'm mildly concerned that Twins fans wont be comfortable with his candor and ambition. But we're mostly idiots. It sounds like he works his ass off to be better than good enough. Both him and Oswaldo Arcia seem to have a substantial helping of "fuck you" in their game, which is exactly the sort of thing the organization should be encouraging.

Mientkiewicz thinks he belongs in AA. Talking about that with ESPN is not very company line. But it's hard not to at this point. What's our over/under if things continue like this? July first?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9239068/top-twins-prospect-miguel-sano-starring-documentary

Star turns for Twins' Miguel Sanó

Minnesota's top prospect excels on the diamond and in front of the cameras

Originally Published: May 4, 2013
By Enrique Rojas | ESPNdeportes.com

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Miguel Sanó, one of the Minnesota Twins' top prospects, is a movie star -- literally.

Sanó won't turn 20 for a week, but he is not intimidated by the cameras recording his every move as he hits his way up the Twins' farm system toward the majors. At his current rate, he'll most likely arrive at Target Field sometime in the 2014 season, although Sanó isn't ruling out the possibility that it could happen this summer.

Despite being the youngest player in the Florida State League (Advanced Class A), the shortstop-turned-third baseman is hitting .368 and leads the league with nine home runs and 24 RBIs in 24 games with the Fort Myers Miracle. And he's doing it while smiling for the cameras that have followed him everywhere since he was a 15-year-old boy growing up on the playing fields of San Pedro de Macoris on the east side of the Dominican Republic.

"This does not affect me at all," Sanó told ESPNdeportes.com before a game in Clearwater this week. "I believe it helps me because when I'm in the majors, I will be surrounded by cameras, right? It helps me get used to it."

Sanó's journey through the minors has been filmed for the past two years by Guagua Productions for a documentary titled "The Miguel Sanó Story." The producers' intent is to stick with him until he makes his big league debut with the Twins.

"The Miguel Sanó Story" will pick up where "Ballplayer: Pelotero" left off. Focusing on Sanó and another young Dominican player, Jean Carlos, "Ballplayer: Pelotero," which premiered in 2012, examined the controversial and frequently corrupt process by which promising Dominican athletes are scouted, recruited, signed and incorporated into MLB training camps in the Dominican Republic.

In 2009, after a long MLB investigation that included bone structure tests and other examinations to determine if he really was 16, as his documents and his tutors claimed, Sanó received a $3.15 million signing bonus from Minnesota.

The executive producer of "Ballplayer: Pelotero" was Bobby Valentine, at that time the manager of the Boston Red Sox. The film created some discomfort in Major League Baseball's central offices. When it was released, commissioner Bud Selig called it inaccurate and spoke with the Red Sox about Valentine's role with it. Valentine is not a part of "The Miguel Sano Story."

If Sanó was affected by the controversy over "Ballplayer: Pelotero," it's difficult to discern.

"I feel happy," said Sanó, who was ranked 11th on Keith Law's top 100 prospects list in February. "Having a movie is something that makes you feel good. The second one will be better than the first one. That will not affect me. I keep a clear mind, focusing on the important things."

Being the center of attention certainly hasn't seemed to hurt Sanó's game. Through three-plus seasons in the minors, he is batting .287 with 64 home runs and 212 RBIs. Last year, he hit 28 home runs and drove in 100 runs in 129 games for Beloit in the Midwest League (Middle Class A).

Enlarge
Enrique Rojas/ESPNdeportes.com
Any wonder Sanó is a fan favorite? He is a movie star, after all.
Nearly half of his 35 hits for Fort Myers this season have been for extra bases -- seven doubles and a triple to go with his nine home runs. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that he is thinking about the next level and doesn't rule out the possibility of playing at Target Field this year.

"The team says that I could be promoted next month, but I'm not distracted by that," Sanó said. "Every day, I try to play tougher. And when I'm there, I will do the same thing: play hard every game, every day, every inning.

"I hope to be in the big leagues by the end of the year. I'm working on that. If it's not this year, it will be at the start of next year. I believe that I deserve the chance. I have the skills and potential."

"Miguel looks very comfortable doing what he is doing," said Fort Myers manager Doug Mientkiewicz. " more mature and each day closer to being ready for the big leagues. We are talking about a very young man but one that has a lot of pride and never settles on doing things halfway."

Before he gets to the majors, though, Sanó knows he needs to learn a few things and improve on others. He is still in the transition from shortstop to third base, and his knowledge of the strike zone can use some work. He struck out 144 times in 2012 and is averaging more than one strikeout per game in his minor league career.

"After playing my whole life as a shortstop, it was tough settling in as a third baseman, because my legs moved a lot," he said. "I worked hard in winter ball and then with Paul Molitor in training camp, getting used to it.

"I'm not worried about swinging the bat. It's a matter of adjustment. Last year, I took 80 walks, and this year I've got plenty. I think I can become a ballplayer who gets 100 walks."

What worries him the most? The language, and his weight.

"I really want to improve my English," Sanó said. "I've focused 100 percent on that and would like to speak better English by the time I get to Double-A.

"I arrived to training camp around 238 pounds, but now I'm down to 229, which is my ideal weight."

Getting to the Twins Double-A team in New Britain, Conn., is the next item on Sanó's to-do list. While he thinks it could happen soon, his coaches would rather wait and let his development be the guide for the next step.

"Organizations have a general plan that includes a ballplayer and also the next team for him," said Ivan Arteaga, Fort Myers' pitching coach and the general manager of Margarita in Venezuela's winter ball. "Sanó might get 200 at-bats in Class-A, another 200 in Double-A, before he is ready for the next level. When he gets to Double-A, he will be real close to the big leagues."

"I don't get the final word, but I think he is ready for Double-A," Mientkiewicz said. "You have to understand that Minnesota doesn't want Sanó to be promoted and then go back. When he gets called to the big leagues, it will be for the long run."

Until he gets the phone call to inform him of his next assignment, Sanó will enjoy the two things he really likes: hitting a baseball and posing for the cameras.

"I love being filmed, but I don't lose my focus," he said. "I never lost it when I was signed and got what might be for a guy with a humble origin a lot of money. I'm a humble guy, from a humble family, who has got much advice from many people, including big league players."

One of those big leaguers who has helped him, he said, is fellow Dominican and New York Yankees star Robinson Cano.

"Cano taught me how to deal with things like making a lot of money … women and stuff like that," said Sanó, already a star in his own right in real-life movies.

1. Fangraphs posted a nice interview with Scott Diamond. We, rightfully, complain a lot about the clone army - but the fact is that a guy who throws 87mph probably needs to just be who he is. Diamond acknowledges the tension between the value of strikeouts and that fact in this rather nice interview.

“That said, you can throw too many strikes. I’ve had that problem. I faced the Rangers two starts ago and kind of got myself into that. I’m learning to do a better job of throwing fewer strikes to expand the hitter’s strike zone.”

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-scott-diamond-twins-control-artist/

2. Here's a statement which should be totally uncontroversial that I suspect the team is less than a month away from acknowledging. Oswaldo Arcia is better than Chris Parmelee right now. He hasn't started making better contact or drawing walks at the improved rate he showed last year yet, but he's shown the ability to hit MLB pitching hard and Parmelee really hasn't yet.

That doesn't have to be a big deal yet. Doumit's been struggling and has seen sporadic playing time. If he stays hot after last night's big, fat day then I think a simple switch in roles with Arcia and Parmelee is in order. Parmelee is bat off the bench. Arcia is starting RFer. And Doumit goes back to a simpler time share of DH/C.

3. There's been a couple bad nights for the pen lately, but truthfully I rather like this group. Also, not a lot of help on the farm at the moment. Guerra was ready to help when he got the black plague (or shoulder problems or whatever) during the WBC. Michael Tonkin is somebody on the 40 man to keep an eye on and he's pitching really well at AA, but not so well that it demands a call-up. And I assume somebody in the organization feels a moral obligation to make a decision on Anthony Slama, but he's been shitty so far this year.

especially with arcia going 4/5. it took him, what? a month? really hope he is f'real.

is sano hurt? just checked the affiliates page for yesterday's game and he wasn't in the lineup. maybe a call up? can't believe they would wait until july.

and myron fuxton is not going to work. i was liking the fuxton part a bit too much for lothario and opposing pitcher psyche purposes, but it was an idea which should have stayed in my own head.

He's day to day, but it's not serious.

Was this just the one crazy game of the year (like in '11 when we lit up Madison Bumgarner for like 8 runs in the first inning)?

but i guess the first two innings took well over an hour. it was 5-4 bosox at the end of the first and then we scored another 7 in the top of the second.

surprised they got the game in under 4 hours.

>especially with arcia going 4/5. it took him, what? a month?
>really hope he is f'real.

f'real. f'real? f'really real?

cotdamn.

Mocks are starting to come out, and the general consensus is that a hard top tier of Jonathan Gray (RHP, Oklahoma University) and Mark Appel (RHP, Stanford) will go in the 1/2 slots. There's a substantial "anything can happen" caveat to that, but this isn't a particularly deep draft and between the hard slotting requirements and the gap in talent between those two and a second tier of top ten talents, nobody seems to seriously think that either of those two will fall.

Which is a shame, because both of them could start pro careers at a high level and get to the majors quickly. The Twins could really use that in their system.

Since we're out of the top two, that leaves a solid class of four or five names that are now starting to get connected with actual teams. Here are a few of the ones associated with the Twins - with BA scouting reports.

Jim Callis of BA mentioned a rumor the other day that the Twins were exploring a pre-draft deal with Reese McGuire that would permit them to spent more later in the draft. I don't object to this plan (basically what the Astros did last year with Carlos Correa) in theory - if the Twins like McGuire disproportionate to his perceived draft value, it's a good idea - but I don't think that a shallow draft where the Twins don't have a surplus of picks is the time to do it.

Keith Law indicated in his chat the other day that the Twins have cooled less on Manaea than other teams have, if that makes sense. He reported that his injuries were a bigger concern than his inconsistent results this spring and that if he finishes strong that they could still pop him. I'd love to believe he can be a LH ace, so that'll work for me.

A couple writers have mentioned the Twins strong interest in Kohl Stewart, which would be severely out of character. But at #4 you can't not consider prep righties just because they're out of your comfort zone. The longer BA swipe on Stewart mentions his signability. He's a football commit to play QB at Texas A&M, but most scouts think he'd rather sign and play baseball than sit behind Manziel.

The outfielding duo of Meadows/Frazier is separating with the Twins (according to Jeremy Nygaard, writing on TwinsDaily) agreeing with most teams that Frazier is the better prospect. This would seem to be in character for them, but I still think that hinges on whether they see Frazier as a CFer. His bat could very well be amazing, but I can't imagine them going overboard on an undersized prep outfielder who profiles better at a corner.

I included Kris Bryant because I see him show up once and awhile with Appel and Gray as a top-tier guy. He's an add-on because nobody thinks he'll go #1, where that projection is presently about 60/40 for Appel over Gray with no third candidate. So the people who are including Bryant are usually saying he stands out as somebody who is closer to a lock at #3 than in that 4-10 mush. But that's hardly been unanimous, so I figured I'd include him. I suspect the Twins appreciation for him is the same as other teams' - a great talent who becomes a necessity if you think he can play third. That would make him redundant with Sano in position and skillset, but that's a good kind of problem.

Sean Manaea, lhp, Indiana State
Manaea broke out in the Cape Cod League last summer as its pitcher of the year and top prospect. He struck out a league-high 85 batters in 52 innings while holding opponents to a .119 average, thanks to an explosive mid-90s fastball that never seemed to find the barrel of a bat. His first pitch this spring was 96 mph, but he has mostly pitched at 88-93 mph and not held his velocity deep into games. The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder has to rely on his fastball, which features plenty of life and deception when he’s right, to help his secondary pitches play up. He’ll flash a quality slider and uses a split/changeup as his offspeed pitch, but neither gives him a consistently above-average No. 2 pitch. His command and control, which were sharp last summer despite his low three-quarters arm angle, also have regressed. Manaea continues to post quality numbers (1.61 ERA, 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings, .192 opponent average), but he has been far from the guy who overmatched the Cape.

3. Kris Bryant, 3b/of, San Diego
Bryant’s best tool is his plus-plus righthanded power, allowing him to launch towering shots over the light standard in left field or hit balls over the fence to the opposite field. He has adopted a wider base and a simpler approach at the plate this year, and he has impressed scouts with his ability to turn on inside fastballs or go the other way with sliders over the outer half. His plate discipline and ability to consistently barrel up a variety of pitches make him a safe bet to be at least an average hitter, and many scouts think he’ll be better than that. Bryant’s arm gives him another above-average tool. His athleticism gives him at least a chance to stick at third, although he’ll need plenty more repetitions to master the position. Some scouts project him as a prototypical right fielder. He has average speed and can be faster under way, and he has shown good instincts in right and center.

Kohl Stewart, rhp, St. Pius X HS, Houston
He may not get the No. 1 overall pick buzz of righthanders Jonathan Gray (Oklahoma) and Mark Appel (Stanford), but one scouting director said, “Stewart’s pure stuff is as good as theirs, and he’s more athletic than they are.” Scouts love the 6-foot-3, 190-pounder’s arsenal, athleticism and competitiveness. They say that he has better present stuff than Jameson Taillon did when the Pirates took the suburban Houston righthander No. 2 overall in 2010. Stewart has boosted his fastball from 88-93 mph last summer to 91-96 for much of the spring, though his velocity tails off at times in the later innings. His life and command with his heater make it even more dominating, but his best offering is a power mid-80s slider with tilt. He has improved his curveball and shows feel for his changeup, and he’ll display four above-average big league pitches at times. He has a clean delivery and should get even better once he concentrates solely on baseball. Stewart has been limited at times this spring because of minor shoulder (a carryover from football), hamstring and thumb ailments, but none is a major concern.

12. Reese McGuire, c, Kentwood HS, Covington, Wash.
He is a natural behind the plate. He remains loose, even after adding strength to his 6-foot-1, 190-pound build. His receiving, blocking and arm strength are all above-average, and he has been calling his own games since he was 10 years old. He has a high baseball IQ and game awareness. The question will be how much McGuire will hit. He has a smooth lefthanded swing with strength and bat speed and shows the tools to be an above-average pure hitter with average power. The San Diego recruit runs better than most catchers. Even if he doesn’t reach his offensive ceiling, McGuire’s defense will allow him to be a big league backup, but if he hits he has all-star potential.

Clint Frazier, of, Loganville (Ga.) HS
While he’s modestly sized, Frazier has fast-twitch athleticism and strength in his hands, wrists and forearms. He generates tremendous bat speed and plus-plus raw power that should play at any level. He hits ‘em far and hits homers with regularity. While Frazier has a compact swing, scouts expect him to swing and miss a decent amount with his aggressive approach and modest feel for hitting. He’s an above-average runner whose speed plays better offensively than in the field. Frazier’s defense in center field remains raw; he lacks instincts and tries to outrun his mistakes. He has shown above-average arm strength in the past, but scouts say he has played through pain this spring and his arm has played as average or worse at times. Thanks to his bat and power, Frazier should hit enough if he has to move to a corner and fits in the first 10 selections.

Good for him. That looked like a lot of fun.

Relatedly (or not) the bats have kind of heated up lately. This division has so far looked better than it should be, so it's nice not to be the shit team out.

"aaron hicks with two homeruns..."

WHA?!

i am happy for him. hope it's the sign of him getting a bit more comfortable at the plate.

and, really, of all people to show the rest of the twins how to hit a homerun at target field, it's the switch hitting CF who is batting .152?

is it just me or does that beard make ryan dunn very, very punchable?

surprised this division is as competitive as it is right now. what's up with the tigers?

Just a bit left of dead center and then to the tough, tough left-center gap on a line. Not a lot of homers hit to either spot there, and he didn't seem to have a tough time.

This will work for me if he can continue to, as you rightly put it, become more comfortable with what he's doing at the plate and putting those natural skills to work. The result could be, for awhile, something closer to lower-minors Aaron Hicks where he jumps all over lefties (both homers yesterday were against the same LHP) and works long, leadoff-y at-bats against RHP. And we accept the BB/K tradeoff inherent for Hicks in the latter.

Bringing back Dunn's homer was icing on the cake too.

>is it just me or does that beard make ryan dunn very, very
>punchable?

That is absolutely not you.

>surprised this division is as competitive as it is right now.
>what's up with the tigers?

They're scoring/preventing runs like a 24 win team, so it's a bit of bad luck at the moment. Some against the Twins, who have taken a lot of the one-run karma leaguewide so far.

Ordinarily, if a team is underperforming their RS/RA expectations, the bullpen is a place to look for an answer that isn't "luck" and though the re-installation of Jose Valverde says that by the time the season is over we may end up pointing to that, but that's not the case at the moment as this bad-on-paper pen is pitching really well. A couple guys given back-end responsibilities have been trouble though. Coke, Dotel, Rondon.

They'll be fine, sadly. It's not a historically great team, but I actually really dig the cleverness with which they were assembled. Sort of an anti-Twins on the run prevention side. This is unintentional Ceej-bait, I realize, but they are defensively an absolutely miserable team. With the hitting personnel they've assembled, it's obviously a sacrifice they're comfortable with. And they should be, since living with Miguel Cabrera's defense at third so you can get Prince Fielder and (well... on paper) Victor Martinez both in the lineup is totally different than, say, living with Brendan Harris' defense at shortstop because of his bat.

But then they doubled up on that principle and asked themselves how they can help out all of their shitball defenders. The answer: put together a staff that strikes out just shy of TEN guys per nine innings. Now aforementioned strangegloves only need to turn seventeen balls in play into outs instead of twenty seven.

It's not like this is rocket science. The reason elite power bats (Cabrera and Fielder) and high-strikeout starters (Verlander, Scherzer, and Anibal Sanchez who is suddenly strikeout out guys at TWICE his career rate*) are supercrazy expensive is because there are exactly thirty GMs in baseball who know that those are the some of the best things you can have. Still, the idea is cool from a team construction perspective.

*take the under on that as the season goes on. though it's odd that he's getting fewer swings on balls both in and out of the zone but batters are making less contact. did he develop a pitch that's literally an optical illusion?

This is from May 2nd. Means he's not a pure slapper from the left side. So that's good.

"Buster Olney
‏@Buster_ESPN
ESPN Stats/Info:Aaron Hicks recorded a triple on a 101 MPH fastball from Bruce Rondon–the fastest pitch hit for extra bases since 2010."

The thing is kind of a "meh" from seeing one of Buxton's few games where he didn't do something outlandish and amazing. And Sickels still came away with the understanding that Buxton had some outlandishly amazing skills - see the part about beating a routine grounder to third.

The takeaway, though, is that between talking to scouts and watching him, he didn't see anything that makes Buxton seem flukey. Good news.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/5/13/4326724/prospect-report-byron-buxton-of-minnesota-twins

Prospect Report: Byron Buxton, OF, Minnesota Twins
By John Sickels on May 13 2013, 12:43p

I went to Davenport, Iowa, last week to see the Cedar Rapids Kernels (Low-A farm team for the Minnesota Twins) play the Quad Cities River Bandits (Low-A affiliate for the Houston Astros). The CR team is particularly loaded with prospects. Quad Cities has talent as well, although unfortunately the two best hitters on the team, Carlos Correa and Rio Ruiz, were injured and on the disabled list during my trip. A rainout interfered and I also missed Lance McCullers, but I still came away with some interesting information and observations to share with you. We'll get this started with a solo report on Minnesota Twins uber-prospect Byron Buxton.

As you are no doubt aware, Buxton was drafted by the Twins in the first round last June, second overall, from high school in Baxley, Georgia. He was considered to be the top position player prospect in the draft by many experts, featuring outstanding overall tools including speed, power potential, a strong arm, and excellent overall athleticism. There was some muted concern in high school about how his swing would translate into pro ball; his production against weak competition as a prep was uneven, but his upside was so high that most observers didn't particularly care and it was felt that his problems were correctable. If his power blossomed, he could develop into an Andrew McCutchen-style across the board star. If his bat proved troublesome, he might be more of a Cameron Maybin type.

Buxton hit .216/.324/.466 in 27 games in the Gulf Coast League last summer, followed by a .286/.368/.429 mark in 21 games in the Appalachian League, combining for 19 walks and 41 strikeouts in 165 at-bats. That wasn't bad at all, especially considering that the Twins were spending a lot of time reworking his swing. The results this spring have been outstanding: .352/.458/.608 in 33 games for Cedar Rapids, with 25 walks and 29 strikeouts in 125 at-bats. He has also stolen 13 bases in 19 attempts.

Born December 18, 1993, Buxton is a right-handed hitter listed at 6-2, 190. The height/weight looks accurate visually: he wasn't a beast on the field in terms of size. The athleticism, on the other hand, does stand out: he's loose and a bit lanky, but moves with ease and grace at all times.

I knew he was fast, with at least 70-speed, but he still took me by surprise. In the first inning, he hit a routine ground ball to the third baseman. It was a normal play, the third baseman made a normal scoop and made a normal, on-time, on target throw to first base. Buxton beat the throw for a single; I literally said "holy shit" out loud. There are reports that he's been timed at 3.70 down the first base line and I completely believe it. He's almost as fast as Cincinnati Reds prospect Billy Hamilton.

Buxton was not challenged on any fielding play in center field in the game I saw, so I didn't see his legs or arm fully tested. However, he appeared alert and active in the field, backed up the infielders properly, and looked very good in pre-game outfield drills. Scouts give his range and arm plus ratings and I didn't see anything to make me question that.

Buxton didn't have a great game with the bat, going 1-for-4 with that infield single, a walk, and two strikeouts. He was very selective early in the count and is developing a very good batting eye, but both strikeouts came on sliders outside the strike zone that he'll need to lay off at higher levels. His bat was quick and his swing was compact, but despite the outstanding numbers he's put up this season, in this particular game the ball did not jump off his bat with much authority.

His swing looked level to me, and if I didn't know who he was, I don't know I would see him as a huge future home run hitter based on just this one game. He looked like a guy who would hit for average with doubles power, but like I said, it was just one game and I didn't see anything that would be a red flag that his overall numbers are a fluke. Midwest League sources who have seen him play frequently buy into him completely.

I paid a lot of attention to his body language before and during the game. He looked like he was having a good time, but also appeared focused and serious when appropriate. Buzz about his makeup is positive, and I didn't see anything to make me doubt that. He hustled and did everything he was supposed to do when he was supposed to do it.

There is a lot of speculation about when the Twins should move Buxton up to High-A. Based on what I saw Wednesday, he still has a few things to learn in the Midwest League. The Twins usually don't rush their prospects, and I don't see the harm in leaving him in Cedar Rapids for another month or so.

Overall, although it wasn't one of his best games, I came away from the Quad Cities very impressed with Buxton. He's the real deal and clearly one of the best prospects in the game. I was a bit cautious with his ranking on my initial Top 150 Prospects for 2013 back in March, ranking him 37th. I'd jump him up at least 25 spots right now and probably more, into the Top 10. As other players graduate off the list, Buxton will likely be in the Top Five.

I'm positive that I've brought this up before, but the one thing that's stood out to me in Oswaldo Arcia's ascension is his ability to adjust quickly and durably to new levels of competition. Progress up the ladder of pro baseball is a weird thing, filled with big steps forward followed by inexplicable steps back (Andy Marte, whose acquisition by the Indians caused me to predict that 2006-20015 would be the Indians' decade in MLB) and small steps forward followed by small steps back followed by much bigger steps forward followed by ... something else (Aaron Hicks).

Oswaldo Arcia has, heretofore, been the wonderful, boring example of the straight line. Acquired as an amateur free agent as a Venezuelan sixteen year old in 2007, he wasn't a big-ticket get for the Twins and they never really showed any grand plan to promote him aggressively until he showed a weird knack for acclimating quickly and conclusively to improved competition.

He showed the same base of skills in both his pro debut (DSL at age 17, .293/.343/.432) and his stateside debut (GCL at age 18, .275/.337/.455). Those skills can basically be described as an aggressive approach which, at best, welcomed a walk but strongly preferred to launch powerful linedrives to all fields and to pull flyballs over the rightfield wall. One of the things which will benefit him in this analysis is that he hasn't been tasked with the same defensive responsibilities as guys like Eddie Rosario, Miguel Sano, or even Aaron Hicks. Arcia started his career as a centerfielder, but in spite of being pretty fleet and possessing a strong, accurate arm, he's basically a box-shaped human and has always profiled in a corner.

What happened next, in continued short-season ball, was an age-19 promotion to the Appy League - the last year Arcia would see a level-by-level promotion schedule. The interesting performances at DSL and GCL there manifested in something that will probably give Appy League pitchers lasting nightmares, as he busted out to a .375/.424/.672 line. What's interesting there is that his strikeout rate ballooned to over 20%, generally a problem mark and he showed his same general disinterest in drawing walks - but it didn't affect his batting line negatively. Dude whales on everything.

A big spike in strikeout rate is a red flag, even if you square up the stuff you make contact with well enough that it's (slightly) plausible for you to have batted .375. But that performance was too much to hold him back, so Arcia started Opening Day of 2011 in Beloit. Between the cold weather and the first time pitchers have even a mild clue what they're doing, this is generally where Appy League flukes go to die. But Arcia didn't, posting a .352/.420/.704 line in 20 games. His strikeout rate remained around 20%, and at that 20 game mark he went down with a (rib, if I recall) injury.

The Twins like to see serious rehab done at homebase, so after healing he returned to Ft. Myers for some GCL rehab work. Evidently, the Twins liked what they saw because they just told him not to bother unpacking and re-assigned him to the Miracle. It was one of the weirder promotions I remember seeing as a Twins fan, as they don't usually do in-season promotions for guys in low-A; don't usually promote in the first month of the season; and regard health as an important enough skill that injury is actually a real knock on young guys.

But he didn't take notice of the exceptional circumstances and, after initial struggles, finished with a .263/.300/.460 line. The strikeout rate remained high, but that nigh-.200 IsoP in the power-suppressing Ft. Myers summer was eyebrow raising. Still, there's obviously stuff to build on in that line for somebody who will need to hit like a true corner guy in the majors, so for the first time in his career, Arcia was re-assigned to a level he'd seen before on Opening Day 2012.

Giving Arcia a second look at a level, given his reputation for quick acclimation, was an unfortunate stroke of luck for FSL pitchers. He lowered his strikeout rate, raised his walk rate to a career high, and bumped his power above that .200 IsoP mark. That led to a now-usual midseason promotion to New Britain, where he basically continued all of the above trends (but for a small uptick in K-rate) and hit .328/.398/.557. As we've discussed before, the AA promotion is the big one. This is where pitchers are capable of executing real plans against hitters and can spin above-average big league breaking pitches with regularity. What was cool too, is that Arcia started to iron out what had been a worse-than-you'd-like-to-see split against LHP and whaled against them in a pretty similar shape to righties in New Britain.

Again, the basic skills remain the same. Lots of hits and a high batting average based on strong on-contact numbers and in spite of occasionally high K-rates. Good power and the ability to use all fields. And the seasonal curve was starting to get really familiar: 2+ weeks of struggles followed by a gradual, but easily observable, return to batting dominance. He just doesn't take long to become himself.

Soooooo, with the exception of an absurd and brief stay at Rochester this season, Arcia has looked like himself in the majors this year. With twenty two games, he is basically right at the one month mark of his MLB career and we can split those neatly in half:

First eleven games: .216/.275/.405
Last eleven games: .372/.386/.581

He's not done yet, obviously. As long as he carries a 20%+ strikeout rate he'll be prone to slumps. And MLB pitchers will exploit his aggressiveness better than anybody has prior, so he'll need to draw walks too. The difficult thing for predictions is that he hasn't had to show both those skills in bulk yet, but the cool thing for imagining a really kind of awesome future is that he's never been in one place long enough for that. The one glimpse we got was 2011's return to Ft. Myers, where in his second look he successfully chopped his strikeouts to a perfectly normal level and raised his walks to around that magical 10% mark.

There are no new levels in front of him, so we can take a reasonably sunny view that these are skills he both can add and knows how to add rather seamlessly. So we may have to get used to having him around.

Our relievers have been busting ass for the terrible rotation lately, so Hernandez was returned to Rochester for bullpen help - but the other shoe is that we'll still need bodies to start games. Gibson has had two complete game shutouts in his last three starts and dinged 96mph with his fastball a couple times in the last game. He may not be ready ready as he still re-finds his post Tommy John command, but he could still be better than all five of his competitors.

Relatedly, Chris "nice story" Colabello has been hitting like crazy at Rochester. He's not on the 40-man, but they've recently started finding room for him in the outfield. If Parmelee struggles, Arcia will be the prime beneficiary, but they'll keep looking for ways to get Colabello a nice story debut.

Here's Byron Buxton hitting a walk-off grandslam. Estimated at 450 feet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESFtlpmPxT4

Forgot about him. He lost all the buzz he gained with an awesome WBC by getting hurt. Hasn't been great in Rochester, but he's still doing the Fucking Deduno thing - which was fun last time around.

Let's see what happens.

Jason Parks' writing is kind of a pain. But he loves tools and the Twins draft and develop them. The note on Rosario seems to be where most people are heading. We haven't talked about him as much as his higher-ceiling'd comrades, but I'm getting excited about a real, live middle infielder that the team developed. He's hitting .318/.359/.487 in Ft. Myers. I'd like to see more walks from him, but he doesn't strike out at a particularly high rate and the power still isn't going away like some people thought it would. He'll be more of a 15+ homerun guy at the MLB level if this all works out, but it's looking more and more like that will come packaged with 40 doubles.

I can live with that.

-Byron Buxton, OF, Twins (Low-A Cedar Rapids)
After a scorching start to the season (1.194 OPS in April), Buxton has cooled (somewhat) in his second month in full-season ball, but thanks to game heroics and flashes of his future brilliance, Buxton’s stock has never been higher. Equipped with eye-splitting tools, including elite speed and easy plus raw power, the 19-year-old is well on his way to being the top prospect in the minors. Buxton recently hit a walk-off grand slam that one scout source in attendance said traveled an estimated 450 feet and was launched off a 98 mph fastball. Perfect Game’s Justin Hlubek captured the event on video, and if you have a change of pants handy, please click this link and drift into a euphoric state. --Jason Parks

-Travis (Minnesota): Eddie Rosario a solid MLB 2nd basemen in a few years?

Jason Parks: Yes. He can do what major leaguers do: hit. I say this a lot and I'm going to keep saying it until they run my out of this position at BP: Do you know what good hitters do? They f*cking hit. Rosario can hit. It's the most important carrying tool, and he possesses it. Discount him for other reasons, be it his power ceiling or defensive skill-set, but he can put his bat on a baseball, and that's the game.

-Travis Harrison, 3B, Twins (Low-A Cedar Rapids)
Harrison was a first-round draft pick in 2011, and after an impressive short-season debut in 2012, entered 2013 as a player to watch at the full-season level. His ticket to the show is the stick, and the reports coming out of the Midwest League are promising; he has some swing-and-miss and can get aggressive in his approach, but the bat has legit thunder and has a chance to play, even in an outfield corner. Better pitching will challenge the hit tool, but with power potential in his game, he doesn’t have to be a .300 hitter to make an impact. He’s a long way from realizing his potential, but don’t lose sight of Harrison in an increasingly strong system. –Jason Parks

via TwinsDaily.com. But he's not on the 40-man, so who goes down?

Wood or Mastroianni could be 60-day'd. There are a couple relievers that wouldn't kill us to expose to waivers.

This is like the second or third time in pro ball he's taken advantage of a double header to go yard twice. He's at .359/.453/.712 right now. There are increasing reports of improved defense at third. I'm rather enamored of his last week, where in spite of fewer balls in play falling for hits - he adjusted by raising his walk rate and knocking a few more pitches where nobody could catch them. In his past ten, he's .294/.429/.676 with seven strikeouts to six walks. That's how you *don't* slump.

edit: here's a note from BPro:

"Miguel Sano, 3B, Twins (High-A Fort Myers): 2-3, 2B, HR, 2 R, RBI, BB, K; elite power; big-league bat speed; received a very positive report about his defensive ability recently; shouldn't be long before I am able to see him in the Eastern League; .359/.453/.712 with 11 2B, 2 3B, and 13 HR in 153 at-bats."

ip - 3.2
h - 10
r - 8
er - 8
bb - 2
so - 3
hr - 3

that's fugly.

two consecutive can't-find-the-plate walks and they left him in. Then left him in when he ran it to 2-0 on Gattis. The 3-0 was a close but away call, but still...should have taken the walk and changed pitchers.

wonder if we've just set the record for fastest opening day starter to end up in AAA? credit for that whodunnit goes to KFAN.

The good thing is that this is the point where command/control righty is exposed to the front office as something that doesn't work. Maybe. Truthfully, I'd rather have Worley up and Correia floated out to sea because that string of decent starts at the beginning of the year was some borrowed time shit.

Or not. With the exception of Gibson, this shitty rotation isn't really even a stopgap for guys who are nigh-ready.

There was a good draft rumor yesterday though, that the Astros were trying to cut a pre-draft deal with UNC thirdbaseman Colin Moran. That could let one of the two pitchers drop to fourth, since Colorado is almost certainly going for a position player.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but Mark Appel would be the best pitcher in our rotation today. By a long distance.

>I don't want to get my hopes up, but Mark Appel would be the
>best pitcher in our rotation today. By a long distance.

which is very, very frustrating.

goes back to the argument on gibson going into this season. he's obviously the best starting pitcher we have. i understand he is on limited innings and we don't want to stretch him much, but then we let him pitch complete games down in AAA? seriously? get him up here if you're going to do that shit.

The Twins are presently weighing in at below the league average in runs scored, but have some sort of interesting characteristics in that below-average offense which are eye-opening insofar as being out of the norm for a Twins team. Sooooooooooooo, let's take a look.

At just below 4.40 runs per game, we can classify the present output of this lineup as somewhere between "meh" and "shitty". They've had some bounceback from a pretty terrible April, so I think that we should err towards the "meh" side of that but they haven't bounced back to exhibit anything greater than that, stomping of Jeremy Bonderman notwithstanding.

They don't hit a lot of homeruns, at 14th in the AL. That's not new. They aren't hitting a lot of doubles, at 10th in the league. That is new.

But what has caught my attention in particular is the two mundane cousins of the three true outcomes - walks and strikeouts. The Twins spent most of the aughts being dinged by nerds like me (but not actually me) for not caring enough about plate discipline and OBA. There's a bunch of reasons why this wasn't a valid critique (drafting and developing Joe Mauer being one, their insistence that their pitchers avoid walks being another) but it's always been true that the Twins don't really draw a lot of walks as a team. This year, though, they rank 5th in the AL - right behind three SABR-friendly teams (BOS, OAK, TBR) and a team with two guys putting together HOF-caliber peaks in the middle of their order (DET) that probably couldn't avoid a ton of walks if they tried.

That's weird. Though it's being driven by known quantities Willingham and Mauer. Willingham has made up for his nosediving batting average by drawing enough walks to, honestly, kind of make up for it. And Mauer is being Mauer, at least in this regard. Giving regular playing time to rookies who made their MiLB bones by knowing the strikezone a bit (Hicks and Parmelee) has also helped, as have veteran hitters like Morneau and Doumit. In short - this team can work a count. That bodes well if the offense is ever to truly turn a corner.

What's additionally weird is the strikeouts. The Twins rank sixth in the AL in that category, and the surge has been driven by exactly the same people. And Brian Dozier, who has just been terrible. Mauer's mounting strikeout total is kind of odd too, though I'm not really sure what to make of it as he pounds out what has heretofore been a vintage Mauer season at .335/.417/.490. There should be another shoe there for him, but since this is so unusual for him, the other shoe may be that he just stops striking out so much. There's no existing trend to point us to that conclusion, but it certainly seems possible.

The slightly cool thing with Mauer is that if he's selling out for more power - it's sort of working. He's on pace to hit over 50 doubles and fifteen homeruns. Not earth-shattering 2009 stuff, but the kind of numbers that would (should...) put him strongly in the MVP race on a better team. So as long as the other shoe isn't a plummeting average then I'm whatever with this.

But the rest of these assholes? I don't know. I have a hard time caring about Willingham's batting average. He'd obviously be better if he made more contact, but he's still getting on base almost 36% of the time and if you split the difference and turned a bunch of those walks into singles, then I doubt a BA/OBA line of .250/.360 really scores than many more runs for this team. Or, rather, not enough to make it that much better. Singles are better than walks, just not by nearly the amount that people think. Particularly when they're being hit by creaky robots like Willingham.

Anyhow, if I'm envisioning a .500 Twins team it would be nice to pretend that there was a playoff-calibre offense being held back by the rotation that's so bad that I don't even like talking about it in this enormous post. But that's not really the case right now. The only thing this team has going for it is lineup potential and shitty competition. If Detroit starts playing the way it should (actually, the way it has, just with more wins - they've been unlucky and when that stops and/or Leyland stops making relief decisions it's going to get ugly for the AL Central) then it wont really matter playoff wise, but I think we were all prepared for that.

Kind of a terrifying level of hype, but still a fun read.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20812#commentMessage

June 4, 2013
Prospects Will Break Your Heart
Poll the Industry: Sano vs. Buxton
by Jason Parks

Debating the stature and status of prospects is my chosen field and, for many of us, our chosen passion. We compare and contrast at every developmental turn, putting our various forms of magnification to work with every box score, every scouting report, and every opportunity to get close to the action. Not only is the value of Player A as it relates to that of Player B a fascinating exercise for the novice and industry veteran alike, but the establishment of present and future value helps form the skeleton structure of this particular commodities market.

Last fall, the Baseball Prospectus prospect team engaged in our most fervent debate of the offseason, when Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton battled for prospect supremacy in a talent-rich Twins system. The brilliance of the debate was that a defendable case could be made for each, and at the time I teetered back and forth in my conclusions like a drunk walking the yellow stripe. Do you like the five-tool high school kid with up-the-middle skills and loudspeaker athleticism or one of the better power bats to come out of the Latin American market in recent memory, a potential middle-of-the-order power behemoth? Revisiting the debate is intoxicating and my equilibrium is once again on the tilt.

The 2013 season hasn’t made the debate any easier, as Buxton has exploded in his full-season debut and Sano is doing violent things to baseballs in the Florida State League. The preferred hypothetical when it comes to value assessment and debate is the “If you could only have one in your system, which one are you choosing and why?” At this point in the season, this is the best one-two prospect punch in the minors, with each moving up into the rarified air of the top 10 talents in the game. I decided to ask 20 industry sources—ranging from scouts on the ground to general managers—which member of the dynamic duo they would rather have in their own farm system. What was anticipated to be a tight race turned out to be a landslide. Buxton in a blowout.

Industry vote: 18-2 in favor of Buxton.

A few money quotes

“I would take Buxton (as I told you last year). He's about as close to Mike Trout as there is out there right now, a true five-tool CF with so many weapons and ways he can beat you. I like Sano, and think he will have big power, but I wonder about the body and his future position. Both are top-25 prospects, but you could make a case that Buxton is the best prospect in all of baseball.”

“I'd take Buxton. Middle of the field player.....impact on both sides of the ball. Will probably age better and have more longevity. I think Sano will have more immediate wow factor and contribute faster, but Buxton would win the long-term race. Hard to argue either way and I love the exercise, but I'm taking the athlete who contributes in every facet of the game. It would put me in the fetal position to pass on Sano though.....”

“Buxton; he’s a much safer bet to become an above average MLB player due to his well-rounded offensive skillset and likelihood that he’ll develop into a quality center fielder.”

“Sano’s raw power is tremendous and I like him a lot, but there’s a good chance you end up with a first baseman who hits .240 with 30+ HR annually. That kind of player is nice to have but not nearly as hard to find the Buxton-type player.”

“Buxton. The athleticism and the power/speed combo. More ways to impact game and I eventually see Sano as corner OFer.”

“Buxton is the best player I have ever scouted in the minors..”

“Sano could change the fortunes of a team, Buxton could change the fortunes of the league. I think he could be that special. Potential to be the best player in the game. Elite.”

“I’d take Buxton, but its weird because I just got through telling a story about a Sano batting practice display that still sends chills up my spine. His power is special. I’d give my firstborn to get Sano into this org. I wonder what I would have to give up to get Buxton?”

“The game is changing, so Sano’s power could make him one of the biggest impact bats in the league. I’m talking 40 bombs at his peak. But Buxton is going to give you an up the middle presence with a loud package of tools that could make him the top player in the game. We have an internal comp to Mike Trout, but the tools might be even louder at full potential. He’s the top prospect in the game.”

“Buxton is showing more game development than I thought he would have at this stage of the game. The run is elite; the arm is very strong and should keep improving once he learns how to command it; the hit is easy plus for me and could be 70; the raw power could end up just as extreme as Sano. He doesn’t even know how to hit for power yet. But the explosion is there. He’s a power bat down the line. He will be able to do it all. With his range in center, the glove, the arm, the feel for baseball and the dual threat hit/power, he’s Eric Davis with a better bat. I love Sano, don’t get me wrong. But Buxton could be the real package. It would be great for the game if Buxton becomes Buxton.”

You are free to form your own conclusions, but the quotes speak for themselves, especially that last one. I keep reading it over and over, as the line, “It would be great for the game if Buxton becomes Buxton” really speaks to me. What a great line, and it would be great for the game if another Eric Davis showed up, or another Trout, or even the first Buxton. It’s a cyclical game, and as much we all love the long ball, even at the expense of contact or fundamental play, the return of five-tool talent is the wave of the future, an all-around game that is more skill than show. This isn’t a knock on Sano or any other prospect of extreme (if not one-sided) value in the minors. But I look forward to the new wave of well rounded toolsheds that come complete with baseball instincts and feel that could one day consume the major-league landscape, the Profars, the Taverases, the Yeliches, the Correas, and the future face of that movement, Byron Buxton.

I'm getting really excited for 2016 and The Buxton Ascent.

sounds like some sort of math/physics postulate. i like it.

and, i expect some serious MEJOR repercussions. he will not be disrespected like this.

thirdly, walleye, where you been at? twins rip 6/7. were you sitting on your lounger with your rally cap on, not willing to post until they had a free day?

finally, maybe, anyone else hear the wonderous stat that twins starters are allowing a .330+ OBA? i really think it's unfair that twins hitters don't get to hit against their own pitchers from time to time.

>sounds like some sort of math/physics postulate. i like it.

Yeah. This has some upside to it.

>and, i expect some serious MEJOR repercussions. he will not be
>disrespected like this.

I agree. Eddie Rosario made the hot sheet last week too, and I don't think he'll let that stand, upstaged first on his own squad and then nationwide in a prospecting article.

>thirdly, walleye, where you been at? twins rip 6/7. were you
>sitting on your lounger with your rally cap on, not willing to
>post until they had a free day?

My wife and I are moving to a new apartment. And I've also been in Nashville and in Chicago in the past couple weeks. It's been weird. And it felt like every time I got my feet under me to post they were already halfway done with a series.

>finally, maybe, anyone else hear the wonderous stat that twins
>starters are allowing a .330+ OBA? i really think it's unfair
>that twins hitters don't get to hit against their own pitchers
>from time to time.

Worse, if I understand it correctly, it's suppressing their OPS+ because Target Field has suddenly become a slight hitters' park by virtue of the Twins arms. Not fair at all.

>My wife and I are moving to a new apartment. And I've also
>been in Nashville and in Chicago in the past couple weeks.
>It's been weird. And it felt like every time I got my feet
>under me to post they were already halfway done with a series.

given your profession, i can only imagine how many books you're toting from location to location. i wouldn't even unpack at this point. hope it goes smoothly, though.


>Worse, if I understand it correctly, it's suppressing their
>OPS+ because Target Field has suddenly become a slight
>hitters' park by virtue of the Twins arms. Not fair at all.

gross. i hadn't considered that, but target field has been full of pop lately ... and not just for the visiting team.

>>Worse, if I understand it correctly, it's suppressing their
>>OPS+ because Target Field has suddenly become a slight
>>hitters' park by virtue of the Twins arms. Not fair at all.
>
>gross. i hadn't considered that, but target field has been
>full of pop lately ... and not just for the visiting team.

Right? Chris Herrmann going opposite field yard was something you really only saw Jim Thome do a few years ago.

He's not really a prospect, per se. But Herrmann is a really interesting player that I want to see succeed. Given Gardy's weird hair-pulling over losing the DH if his catcher goes down, having Herrmann become a real boy would be nice. He's basically an athletic Doumit with more versatility (as in, he can actually play the positions that Doumit occupies) but less bat. But he could still have some bat. And some is good enough for a LF/RF/C.

Basically, Herrmann the big-leaguer is like having a 26 man roster.

1. Byron Buxton - CF
2. Eddie Rosario - 2B
3. Joe Mauer - C
4. Miguel MEJOR - 3B
5. Oswaldo Arcia - LF
6. Kennys Vargas/Adam Walker - DH
7. Aaron Hicks - RF
8. Daniel Santana - SS
9. Chris Parmelee - 1B

Or something. Vargas could play first and he has a ton of power. He's at Ft. Myers now and matching MEJOR homer-for-homer(ish). Scouts have some mixed opinions on whether his batspeed is sufficient for upper levels, but we'll see. And Walker has been getting some notes lately as having nearly as much power as MEJOR, but with even more contact concerns. The likelihood of them making a solid DH platoon isn't bad though.

Throw in the dream scenario of pitchers who can get people out...

SP - Alex Meyer
SP - Trevor May
SP - Kyle Gibson
SP - Jose Berrios

Exciting stuff.

>3. Joe Mauer - C
do you think joe-joe-joey-shabadoo will still be behind the plate in 2016? given his current splits, i wonder if moving him to 1B/DH in the next few years would be the more likely scenario.

>4. Miguel MEJOR - 3B
him staying at 3B really makes this lineup WAAAYYY more sexy.

>5. Oswaldo Arcia - LF
>7. Aaron Hicks - RF
hicks in RF due to defensive abilities? i assume that is the reasoning, but want to be sure. i remember reading somewhere that arcia's arm, while not hicksian, can play in RF.

>Exciting stuff.
but i want 2016 NOW! (c) veruca salt

>>3. Joe Mauer - C
>do you think joe-joe-joey-shabadoo will still be behind the
>plate in 2016? given his current splits, i wonder if moving
>him to 1B/DH in the next few years would be the more likely
>scenario.

Not really, but he's actually catching more frequently so far in 2013 than he did in 2012 and he's back to throwing out 30-40% of runners. Since catching is kind of the one thing he's actually explicitly passionate about, I think the deciding factor will be if he still wants to.

>>4. Miguel MEJOR - 3B
>him staying at 3B really makes this lineup WAAAYYY more sexy.

Defensive reports out of Ft. Myers are positive so far. His errors are way down and his plus arm means he's making some plays that scouts are actually noticing. His size might end up being the deciding factor, but this says good things about his willingness to work at the position and the Twins' ability to teach him.

>>5. Oswaldo Arcia - LF
>>7. Aaron Hicks - RF
>hicks in RF due to defensive abilities? i assume that is the
>reasoning, but want to be sure. i remember reading somewhere
>that arcia's arm, while not hicksian, can play in RF.

That is accurate. Arcia can definitely throw like a RFer, just probably not as much as Hicks. If it were up to me, the decision would actually put Hicks in LF because there's more space to patrol there. But Gardenhire hasn't seemed to use that as a basis for decision yet, so I don't really expect him to.

There's also a non-zero possibility that Hicks is the better centerfielder than Buxton in 2016 too. He'll only be 26 and one of the few nitpicks on Buxton (which basically amounts to "he's 19") is that he's still learning his routes as a professional centerfielder.

>>Exciting stuff.
>but i want 2016 NOW! (c) veruca salt

A consensus front two of Appel/Gray has become a consensus front three of Appel/Gray/Bryant. The quality of draft rumors has improved in proportion to draft coverage, it seems. The big surprises that always seem to occur at the front of the draft don't necessarily mean the rumors were false, but rather that they were overruled at the last second. Houston deciding to spread its bonus allotment and take Correa caught a lot of folks off guard. Ditto for Appel dropping.

This year, the last-minute rumor has been Colin Moran's consideration as a below-slot pick for 1-1. This story has been broken by a few writers, and the gist of it seems to be that the Astros like the idea of a steady, NCAA positional bat, probably think Moran can play third, want to spread their bonus allotment around to rebuild the system in depth, and have a habit of doing that established last year. This final reason is where I think people have maybe gone too far in considering this. That the Astros did something last year, when they had a bunch of picks and clearly liked Correa as much as Buxton and saw some guys sliding due to signability (McCullers and Ruiz), doesn't mean they'll follow the same strategy this year.

Still, it's worth keeping in mind for a Twins fan because if somebody like Moran breaks up the big three, that means one of them falls to the Twins.

The interesting thing is that the Twins have been more firmly tied to an individual name than I can ever remember - Texas prep righthander Kohl Stewart.

Here's BA's writeup on Stewart:

"A premium football recruit as a quarterback, Stewart passed for 8,803 yards and 87 touchdowns in three high school seasons before committing to play two sports at Texas A&M. It's unlikely he'll ever play for the Aggies because he's the top high school pitcher in the draft. He may not get the No. 1 overall pick buzz of righthanders Jonathan Gray (Oklahoma) and Mark Appel (Stanford), but one scouting director said, "Stewart's pure stuff is as good as theirs, and he's more athletic than they are." Scouts love the 6-foot-3, 190-pounder's arsenal, athleticism and competitiveness. They say that he has better present stuff than Jameson Taillon did when the Pirates took the suburban Houston righthander No. 2 overall in 2010. Stewart has boosted his fastball from 88-93 mph last summer to 91-96 for much of the spring, though his velocity tails off at times in the later innings. His life and command with his heater make it even more dominating, but his best offering is a power mid-80s slider with tilt. He has improved his curveball and shows feel for his changeup, and he'll display four above-average big league pitches at times. He has a clean delivery and should get even better once he concentrates solely on baseball. Stewart has been limited at times this spring because of minor shoulder (a carryover from football), hamstring and thumb ailments, but none is a major concern. Neither is his signability, because he'll get picked early enough to be paid handsomely and teams don't believe he'll go to Texas A&M to sit behind reigning Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Some clubs could shy away from Stewart because he's a Type 1 diabetic, though Brandon Morrow went fifth overall in 2006 with the same condition. Stewart should go in the same range this June."

His signability has been widely discussed, but mostly for the purpose of amateurs like me pretending to be smart. He's not turning down the #4 slot money to sit on the bench at A&M.

The Twins rather notoriously avoid prep arms early in the draft, but they like athletes and they know they need pitching. Drafting for need at #4 is never a good idea, but Stewart has probably a stronger argument for best player available than any other candidates *unless* the above situation with Moran occurs. Still, guys like Keith Law are reporting that the Twins are deep on Stewart, so a shakeup at the top might not affect them.

If that's the case, it might be more like the 2012 Astros than people are projecting the 2013 Astros to be. The Twins don't have a ton of picks, but there could be some interesting guys slide to the later rounds that could benefit the Twins if they saved some cash on Stewart.

Local, toolsy outfielder Ryan Boldt was considered a mid-first rounder until an injury ended his season and left scouts to speculate on the ability of a cold-weather prep player based on some early workouts. The Twins love local and toolsy.

There are also a bunch of interesting prep catchers available, and a better crop than usual of local arms.

I think that, with these three, there's no need to try and balance out safety and upside. All three have greater or equal upside to Kohl Stewart and are probably safer given their relative experience. If one of them fell to the Twins, I'd rather see that pick than Stewart, but I wont kick myself about it. The Twins going against type and taking a potential ace in a prep righthander is more of what the organization needs.

Oklahoma University RHP Jonathan Gray:
Gray's metamorphosis from a live-armed but chubby high schooler to a potential No. 1 overall choice is reminiscent of Stephen Strasburg's. His stuff calls to mind Gerrit Cole, another top overall pick. After maxing out at 94 mph in high school, he now works comfortably at 94-97 and can hit 100 mph while looking like he's just playing catch. Gray's fastball also features heavy life. He shows the ability to dial it down to 92-94 in the middle innings before turning it back up toward the end of games, a la Justin Verlander. He has refined his slider into a wipeout pitch with depth and bite, and he can make hitters look silly with an improved changeup that bottoms out at the plate. Gray has firmed up his frame to a solid 6-foot-4 and 239 pounds, and he has his delivery and his pitches more under control than ever.

Stanford University RHP Mark Appel: He's 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds with a clean delivery, and he is a solid athlete who played basketball in high school. Appel's fastball sits in the mid-90s and gets as high as 98 mph, and he holds his velocity deep into games. His slider is a plus pitch that generates swings and misses with its sharp, late break. Under Stanford pitching coach Rusty Filter--who was Stephen Strasburg's pitching coach at San Diego State--Appel has gotten a little more downhill with his fastball and has improved his changeup as a senior, and it should be at least an average third offering.

University of San Diego 3B/OF Kris Bryant: He posted a 1.081 OPS and nine homers as a freshmen, then a 1.154 OPS and 14 long balls as a sophomore, but he has taken his game to new heights as a junior, posting a 1.357 OPS and 25 home runs (seven more than any other Division I player) through 49 games. Opponents have pitched him very carefully, but he has remained patient, posting a 56-31 walk-strikeout mark. Bryant's best tool is his plus-plus righthanded power, allowing him to launch towering shots over the light standard in left field or hit balls over the fence to the opposite field. He has adopted a wider base and a simpler approach at the plate this year, and he has impressed scouts with his ability to turn on inside fastballs or go the other way with sliders over the outer half. His plate discipline and ability to consistently barrel up a variety of pitches make him a safe bet to be at least an average hitter, and many scouts think he'll be better than that. Bryant's arm gives him another above-average tool. His athleticism gives him at least a chance to stick at third, although he'll need plenty more repetitions to master the position. Some scouts project him as a prototypical right fielder. He has average speed and can be faster under way, and he has shown good instincts in right and center.

I may grow tired of watching him pitch eventually, but I will never grow tired of hearing Ryan Doumit* describing his fastball as "a 91mph knuckleball".

*who, for context, has been repeatedly dinged as the worst pitch-framer in baseball by a wide margin.

in other news, kyle perkins leads our team in strikeouts. that's not awesome.

maybe mr. deduno can change that?

Jesus. The clone army has instituted martial law.

next closest is ... breath ... correia at 29.

burton is next with 28.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2013.shtml

i mean, it's not white sox offense infamous, but this is not a good trend to be highlighting.

And there's so little upside there. Ugh.

It's why I like Sam Fucking Deduno. He can fail and still represent a moment where the Twins were willing to fail big instead of shoot low and still get terrible results.

We talked about Stewart above. High school pitchers have been traditionally associated with greater upside and greater risk, but the second half of that equation is changing with more specialized attention given to players at a younger age. Somebody, somewhere linked a study that the bust rate for HS arms is actually pretty much the same as NCAA arms. So there you go.

Stewart has two plus pitches right now, a fastball and a slider. He's a great athlete who hasn't yet really focused on baseball. Apparently, some people think his nascent curveball can rival his slider pretty soon. Finding a changeup will be key, though that's not particularly common in high school righties.

Eades is a more traditional Twins pick in the sense that he's an NCAA seasoned pitcher from a big program, LSU. It sounds like he's got a bit more stuff than a typical clone army member, though it comes freighted with high school labrum surgery - which is scary. So, some more upside with him, but possibly real injury worry. LEN3 said the Twins were fine with his medical reports but... 2011 happened, so whatever on that.

Here's BA:

Eades doesn't pitch Fridays like most potential college first-round picks, but that's more a testament to sophomore righthander Aaron Nola, a potential top 10 pick in 2014. Scouts are watching to see if Eades loses steam down the stretch as he did last season, and they've been watching Eades for a while. He was hitting 94 mph as a 16-year-old, then injured his shoulder when he was a prep junior. He had labrum surgery and missed his senior season but has been healthy all three years at Louisiana State. He has an athletic 6-foot-3, 198-pound frame and looks the part of a frontline starter, running his four-seamer up to 90-95 mph and adding a two-seamer this year to get more early-count contact. He's honed his breaking ball into a power curveball that scrapes the low 80s, and has improved his changeup under the tutelage of pitching coach Alan Dunn, a longtime pro pitching coach. Eades grades out better than he's performed, though he has improved his strikeout rate from 6.0 strikeouts per nine innings to 8 K/9 IP as a junior. Eades tends to miss armside and high when he leaks out on his front side or gets fatigued, but his strong work ethic has reduced that in 2013. He slots into the 20-40 range on most teams' draft boards but could go higher with a strong finish.

I love the Stewart and Eades picks. Hate the Stuart Turner pick. Is plus defensive catching really such a big deal that it needs to be acquired in the third round? I'm sure a review of #78 overall picks will reveal a grand total of, like, 2.4 WAR among forty-odd players. But still. Give me upside or give me death here.

Back to the good, I liked the sound of Stephen Gonsalves when we first started talking about this draft. 6'5" lefties with low-90s stuff don't grow on trees, and folks like his changeup already. There's a lot to try and project, but our quite-good system is desperately low on lefty starting candidates so this is a good pick here.

Aaron Siegers is interesting. At 6'10" I have to hope that he makes it and we can pair him with Alex Meyer in the rotation so we can have the best basketball team among MLB starters.

Navaretto is okay to me too. This was a curiously strong class in prep catching so it would have been weird to not take one. Though with Chris Herrmann looking like an MLB bench player and Josmil Pinto kind of breaking out in AA, maybe it's not as much of a position of need as it initially seems.

or do we just assume we can convert toolsy OFs to 2b every time?

Keith Law joked that after the White Sox 1st round pick, the analysts might as well just pack it in because the draft was out of shortstops.

Secondbasemen are a less drafted than created. Shortstops (and centerfielders, in the case of our man Rosario - as you point out) move there and maybe NCAA talents like Pedroia and Kinsler were already there.

But yeah, that's emerging as another system weakness. Jorge Polanco went from slick fielding shortstop prospect who might not hit to a guy who can rather hit but wont stick at shortstop. I'm not sure how that happened, but whatever. Niko Goodrum is toolsy as hell, can draw a walk, and can definitely play short, but his father is like seven feet tall and a solid 300 pounds so nobody's really holding their breath. And Daniel Santana is yet another try at the "can hit almost everything, swings at literally everything" approach. So we'll see.

This is turning out to be a weird start to the decade. It'd be kind of odd if the Twins clawed their way back to respectability while drafting high in two of the weakest drafts in recent memory. Buxton was delightfully lucky, but think of the Nats adding Strasburg and Harper in consecutive years. That's ... kind of nuts.

His father was making noise on the local news about how excited he was to start a pro career apparently. That's good news. The only thing I liked about the new draft regulations in the last CBA was the earlier signing deadline, so getting Stewart on a pro mound as early as possible is a good way to get him moving. Berrios is already hip-deep in a full season league, which would be an ideal path for Stewart.

Ryan Eades is starting for LSU today. Game is at six on ESPN2, I think. Get your scout on.

I haven't seen any experts try to reckon out a new Twins top ten, but I'm guessing Stewart is pretty likely to slot right behind Sano/Buxton with Hicks already graduated and Arcia/Gibson likely to graduate this year. Rosario is putting up one of the quieter great seasons in the minors this year at .332/.372/.520. If he stays there and scouts start to turn in positive reports on his defense (notably, Jason Parks of BPro is already saying it might not matter... he's an MLB second baseman because "he fucking hits") then it's possible he could challenge Stewart. That's a lot of departure from the top-10, but for the good reason of guys becoming MLBers. So, let's take a try?

1. Sano
2. Buxton
3. Stewart
4. Rosario
5. Meyer

That's a really strong top five if those guys stay healthy. I think all are good top-100 candidates. After that, we've got some murkiness from BA's 2013 list.

Bard and Kepler have yet to debut. I have no idea how close either of them are, but both probably need to show up in full-season leagues to make the list again. Berrios has been up and down in Cedar Rapids, which is fine for a pitcher his age but he grabbed the #6 spot based on an impressive statistical profile. He's sporting a pretty terrific 50:12 K:BB rate in 42 innings though, and he's apparently been hit hard by defensive problems behind him. A 2.35 FIP backs that up. Somebody who watched Cedar Rapids' last game noted some bad body language on the mound when it came to defensive lapses behind him. The Twins are going to crack down on that fast. No more Kyle Lohse. In any case, I think he's probably #6, but Eades, Baxendale and Bard could challenge with strong seasons because of their higher floor.

For our man Drizzit, middle infield remains a problem. Danny Santana has been "meh" in his AA test. He's a tough strikeout but just swings too goddamn much with only FIVE walks so far this season. I suppose if he turns into a top-shelf defender at short then we can wishcast some of that contact rate (he is hitting .290, after all) into a viable MLBer but nothing too exciting.

I'm more interested in the chance that Niko Goodrum could make an appearance. He strikes out too much, but he's a switch hitter and has a nice, strong walk rate in his full-season debut. At 6'3" and 24 out of 55 hits in 2012 going for extra bases, there's projectible power there too. Raw, but if he stops growing he's a real, live shortstop with a chance to do some interesting stuff instead of just passably occupy the position.

This is it. It might be rough for awhile as Parks indicates, but he's proven capable of making adjustments before and reports on his defense continue to be on the right side of "good enough".

What the BPro swipe omits is that he's being promoted with Eddie Rosario - another aggressive bump for a player that's been almost as impressive as Sano for three straight levels whilst learning a new position. Once-and-maybe-future prospect Angel Morales will be joining them. It would be reasonable to wonder at this point if Buxton could be making the move to Ft. Myers.

From BPro:

Miguel Sano, 3B, Twins (Double-A New Britain)

Sano has been getting column inches since his amateur days, and thanks to a breakout spring, the press love shall continue. We all know that Sano has some of the best raw power in the minors, with plenty of strength built into a leveraged swing with loft. He was born to hit the ball a long way, and so far in 2013 he’s put 16 balls into Florida State League seats. The 20-year-old takes the headlining spot in this week’s Ten Pack because of his upcoming promotion to the Double-A level, where the precious talent will face his biggest professional challenge. The swing has some length, and his willingness to expand his zone makes him vulnerable to quality secondary offerings and pitchers with a plan. Double-A arms are better equipped to exploit such weaknesses, and if Sano is slow to make the adjustment (shortening up, looking to go the other way, not selling out for power), his on-the-field production could take a step back before it inevitably takes another step forward. –Jason Parks

fielding setback causing the unfortunate knee-jerk of moving him to OF. ugh.

good luck and god's speed to him, though. the ball will fly a little better in new britain.

>fielding setback causing the unfortunate knee-jerk of moving
>him to OF. ugh.

I was pleased to recall from another article that Molitor is a roving instructor. I assume he's following both Rosario and Sano to New Britain to make sure that this precisely doesn't happen.

>good luck and god's speed to him, though. the ball will fly a
>little better in new britain.

That second part is definitely true as soon as he adjusts to the steady diet of non-straight stuff they're going to feed him. That happened in Beloit last year and resulted in a lengthy lull that he did snap out of with an increased willingness to just take walks. These breaking pitches will be better in every way, but if the approach sticks he's got a chance.

This has suddenly become a watchable affiliate now, with at least four (Sano, Rosario, Meyer, and Santana) of the Twins top-10 and possibly a fifth with Trevor May.

I don't recall ever watching that much live baseball in one day. A Twins win would have made it less exhausting.

I thought that Diamond deserved a better outcome than he got, and that perhaps a flip of the game one and game two lineups might have had a better outcome. Or not.

Chris Herrmann had a nice day. Watching Deduno pitch was weird. He has more command of his secondary stuff than his fastball, but those other pitches aren't particularly good. The idea that a pitcher needs to pitch off of his fastball really has heightened stakes with him on the mound. What was crazy was that he couldn't even find the catcher, let alone the plate, on his warmup throws during every single inning break. I think he dirted like 7/8th of his pitches.

Click through to the article. There's video of a recent start against Harrisburg and that knucklecurve is... not fair. He floated a few decent changeups in there too, including to a righty once or twice. Sticking as a starter will require health, finding the plate reliably with that fastball, and a simple adequate change-up.

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130602&content_id=49355596&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb

By Robert Emrich / Special to MLB.com
Alex Meyer had been struggling to find his way into the win column. After making some adjustments between starts, he appears to be back on course.

The Twins' No. 3 prospect recorded a season-high 10 strikeouts and gave up a run on two hits over 6 1/3 innings Saturday night as Double-A New Britain edged Bowie, 4-3.

Meyer (3-3) had trouble with just one batter -- Brandon Waring. The veteran first baseman led off the second with a single and hit a solo homer in the fourth. The 23-year-old right-hander also issued two walks -- one to Waring -- and faced three batters over the minimum.

"It was good to finally get out there and get a good one going tonight," said Meyer, the 23rd overall pick in the 2011 Draft. "It was good. I was finally able to go out there tonight and throw three pitches and keep them off-balance.

"My catcher, Josmil Pinto, we were on the same page the whole night, which made it a lot easier. It was just a good night and it was good to go out there and get a win."

The 23-year-old right-hander had lost three straight decisions since beating New Hampshire on April 25. In his last two starts, he'd given up nine runs on eight hits and seven walks over 11 2/3 frames. Meyer, who throws a fastball, knuckle-curve and circle changeup, had spent the past week tinkering with his delivery.

"I had a couple of mechanical adjustments to work on this week and trying to fix a couple of things," he said. "Something throughout my whole career I've had to work on is holding on to my front side. It's something that was addressed this week. They really want me to work on it, so I got back into doing that.

"I felt like I was more in control out there , I felt like my delivery was more clean and crisp. I felt like I was able to repeat my delivery."

Meyer (3-3) lowered his ERA to 3.69 ERA in 11 starts and ranks second in the Eastern League with 73 strikeouts in 61 innings. In a season that's featured its ups and downs, it's easy to single out Saturday's outing.

"I would say it was one of the best ones," MLB.com's No. 38 overall prospect said. "I had a good one back against the Red Sox , where I gave up a hit in six inning, but I felt like I commanded the ball a whole lot better. I had the two walks, but they were 3-2 , so I still felt in control the whole night.

"I was able to work both sides of the plate. When you're able to throw three pitches, I think it makes it a whole lot tougher on the hitter."

Blake Martin followed Meyer and was charged with two runs on two hits in one inning. A.J. Achter pitched around two hits over the final 1 2/3 frames for his third save.

Danny Santana went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two stolen bases, while Daniel Ortiz scored twice for New Britain.

Robert Emrich is a contributor to MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobertEmrich. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PDaiBZz0WM

He also hit a single, double, and a triple that the centerfielder apparently cut off before it could run the gap - but Buxton made it to third anyhow. Speed kills, apparently.

Alex Meyer will miss his next start with a sore shoulder. At least the good news came first.

they were discussing this on KFAN this morning and byron walked/strolled into his double. TK was in the booth and said the manager would be on him about that. next at bat, triple without the ball reaching the wall ... like, "was that what you wanted, coach?"

guess i don't see what he really needs to learn at low-A still. the kids 18? 19? i get it, but lets challenge him a bit.

>they were discussing this on KFAN this morning and byron
>walked/strolled into his double. TK was in the booth and said
>the manager would be on him about that. next at bat, triple
>without the ball reaching the wall ... like, "was that what
>you wanted, coach?"

Ha. Nice. If his whole MiLB career is fixing the stuff that TK nitpicks, he'll be in good shape. Or exhausted.

>guess i don't see what he really needs to learn at low-A
>still. the kids 18? 19? i get it, but lets challenge him a
>bit.

So, this is a largely stupid reason except that it probably isn't a matter of much more than a few days. But the story is that Cedar Rapids clinching a playoff spot (Midwest League gives out playoff spots for the first half of the season and the second half of the season) is of some importance to the Twins. This is supported by the fact that the Sano/Rosario/Morales promotions occurred right after Ft. Myers clinched a spot in the FSL playoffs.

Anyhow, Morales moving up from Ft. Myers left a hole in CF there that hasn't really been filled yet. So apparently when CR clinches, Buxton (and maybe others, but he's the obvious candidate) will get a bump to high-A ball and the more challenging FSL.

I mean, stuff happens. Prospects don't pan out. But then JJ Cooper, esteemed Baseball America writer went on a Buxton jag on twitter.

In order:

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 9 Jun
I have now seen Buxton bat three times. He's 0-for-0 with three walks. Doesn't swing at balls out of the zone. #pleasethrowhimastrike

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 10 Jun
Jeimer Candelario lines a clear double in the lcf power alley. Scratch that. Buxton runs it down and makes it look easy. Insane range.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 10 Jun
Ok buxton just topped his first great catch with an indescribable diving catch near 407 sign in lcf. should be on espn/mlb tonight

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 23h
Buxton pulls a 93 mph Pierce Johnson fastball for a bases clearing double. I need a cigarette and I don't smoke.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 21h
I normally have no way to answer "when is X" being promoted questions. But I'll say this Byron Buxton is done with the MWL.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 21h
He may be here through the All-Star Game next week, but he is simply too advanced for the opponents he's facing.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 17h
Hamilton significantly faster. But Buxton is an 80 RT @MattErskine: How does the speed of @OfficialBuck103 compare to that of @b_ham_3 ?

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 15h
OK, I'm not done gushing about Buxton. He robbed two other hits today as well. Took away potential doubles from Candelario and Almora.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 15h
Should make clear. Buxton is the best teenager prospect I've seen in person. Haven't seen everyone (missed Harper/Trout).

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 15h
Best teenager I saw before this was seeing Andruw Jones as a 17/18 year-old for 60+ games in 1995. Was BA Minors POY that year.

JJ Cooper ‏@jjcoop36 15h
To wrap up my Buxton stuff for the night (maybe). Best teenage prospect I've ever seen. I've been doing this nearly 20 years. #notascout

i'm looking forward to his move to high-A.

Thus far, Delmon Young's revenge on Minnesota is rated: low.

Wah?

Twenty one outs. Seventeen by strikeout or grounder?

More of that, please.

Nice night for Ossssswaldo Arcia too.

He's having a kind of fascinating season, with a .327/.412/.492 line that looks pretty distinctly Mauer-ian, except with 20+ additional points of SLG. Whether an increased strikeout rate is a sign of trouble in the future or not,* it's clear that Mauer has been:

a)selling out a bit for power
b)actually succeeding at hitting for more power

What's odd is that we're not really looking at a big homerun spike. If he hits fifteen, that would be his 2nd highest total of his career, but not enough for us to say "oh, that's something new". 2009 was a clear oddity in the power department, but I maintain that the move to the new park has done more to keep his liners in the building than anything structural about his game. About 34% of his hits have gone for extra bases this season, higher than his lifetime mark of 29%.

It'd be rather cool if he settles into a synthesis whereby this power increase sticks, but the strikeouts return to normal levels and we have the same old Mauer spraying linedrives all over the park, but with isoP numbers more like 20009 than any year before or since.

*added strikeouts and homers has been referred to as the development of "old player skillset" but that doesn't quite describe Mauer. I'm a bit more comfortable finding signs of decline in new platoon issues, which Mauer isn't exhibiting, actually hitting LHP better this year. Justin Morneau's .282/.320/.338 line against lefties is what it looks like for a player getting old fast.

No word on assignment. 21 of the first 25 picks have signed, with CWS guys like Eades and Slegers dragging due to their seasons continuing.

Twins used some over-slot money on California prep lefty Stephen Gonsalves, who was regarded as a pretty tough sign after entering 2013 as one of the top prep arms and pitching rather poorly. Rebuilding his draft value in college might have been his aim, but the Twins landed him.

I'm also excited about Brian Navaretto, a prep catcher from Florida.

I'm not sure what an ideal situation would be for a team that we knew would be bad is, but we may not be far from it. The Twins are competitive and playing like a club worth watching from time to time. I think the one thing that has rather soured, weirdly considering the W/L situation, is off-season changes to the big club. Hicks has been bad. Worley and Pelfrey have been terrible. Correia's been better than expected without doing anything particularly well, which I refuse to be comfortable with.

Then there's the matter of mid-season trade chips, which leave us in a worse position than I wanted. I think it's clear the Twins aren't in a position to deal for a shot at the 2013 AL Central, even if we're closer than we should be. The Tigers are outplaying the division badly and are still considerably better than they look.

Our three main trade chips should have been Morneau, Willingham, and Perkins. Morneau's power loss has been big trouble, and teams aren't going to cough up much for a pricey half-season of a Doug Mientkiewicz impersonation. I'm fine with Willingham drawing walks instead of hitting singles, but .217 batting average is near disaster point for teams that will want somebody who can provide middle of the order *hits*.

And the closer market always confounds me, if only because the last team I remember badly overpaying for one is the Twins and we can't trade Perkins to ourselves. The Red Sox and Tigers are contenders who need a closer, though more could shake out before the deadline. The Red Sox have some internal candidates that they should be stubborn enough to keep pushing. It's a great system there right now, but I don't see them coughing up a major part for a lefthanded closer to pitch in that park without thoroughly exhausting the guys already on the roster. Detroit's system is pretty terrible right now, but they have a history of not being afraid to pay for proven talent. The in-division thing is a pain, but if they have the best offer then... whatever.

I guess we'll see. Arizona may be a spot to keep an eye on.

I'm not even linking. The answer is "seller". That this team resembles a competitive club in late June if you stand at the right angle and squint is a massive achievement by Ryan and Gardenhire. But they're still in FOURTH PLACE IN THE AL CENTRAL. There should be some rule in place that no team behind the Royals should ever "buy" in a playoff race.

Now there is. I'm calling it Walleye's Midseason Trade Principle. If your record is worse than Kansas City's, then you have no business acquiring talent for a playoff push. For the moment, we'll ignore the fact that I believe this principle would have forbidden the fairly successful Shannon Stewart trade.

But yeah, the organization is in a good place and a nigh-adequate big league squad is sort of gravy.

their conversation was cyclical, but two points stood out:

1. it's kind of silly for the twins FO to still be banging the "we're still in this drum" at this point in the year and with the bodies we have on the roster. i'm unsure whether it's more a nod to the clubhouse to keep veterans happy, but, if the players need this kind of unrealistic story in the press to stay positive ... ugh.

2. we have absolutely nothing of value right now. you mentioned this earlier or later in this last set of updates -- ripped through these this morning after returning from an overseas trip. willingham isn't showing the RH power bat we had last year nor is morneau sniffing his once lofty MVP numbers. you mentioned perkins as a possibility, but you also mentioned the closer market being stupid, so i'll leave that. G&tG mentioned some article where plouffe was tossed around as possible trade bait. his numbers suggest a "perfectly adequate" 3B ... but i don't like this either. have him keep the sport warm for MEJOR and provide one of the only RH bats in our lineup.

it's a sad day when trevor plouffe is profiling as your most dangerous RH bat.

Nolasco and Garza are going to get the real hauls back in return, but they'll chum the water with more contending teams. If we can get a month of not-sucking from Correia or Pelfrey then I could see getting something back that was low-level but with upside. Particularly Pelfrey, who is at least comprehensible in a playoff rotation at his best.

This would also require a boldness I'm not sure the front office presently has, in light of your point about the "we're still in this" fib. We can form a more interesting rotation without Correia and Pelfrey, and possibly a better one if we let Gibson and THE MOST EQUAL VANIMAL hack it out at the MLB level. But "rotation predictability" is probably written in an ancient, demonic language on some seal in the team's headquarters upon which every employee is required to take a blood oath.

Plouffe is, as you say, tough. With confidence that Sano will be great, I am not confident that there wont be warts. Plouffe becoming tradeable makes him more desirable as the guy who we want to scream about blocking Sano. If this is who he is (and I'm fine with imagining that since we're not presently in the midst of some five-homers-in-a-week outburst from him) then this is somebody who we will have multiple opportunities to trade.

edit: I also think we're potentially overlooking the fact that Ryan Doumit's extension this past winter makes him more, rather than less, tradeable. If he keeps hitting he could be worth something.

>edit: I also think we're potentially overlooking the fact that
>Ryan Doumit's extension this past winter makes him more,
>rather than less, tradeable. If he keeps hitting he could be
>worth something.

i feel his ability to give mauer a break behind the plate -- despite his defensive "abilities" -- makes him far more valuable to the twins than another team.

still, "everybody has a price" (c) the million dollar man.

I'm hopeful that Herrmann can soon enough provide a similar aggregate value, but I doubt he'll hit enough for the same C/DH shape that has managed to both help Mauer keep his legs under him and provided an actual DH-worthy bat when Mauer's behind the plate.

I think that 2015 is the real window of Herrmann's usefulness if it is to actually occur. Ideally, we'll have more bats than we have off-days and Herrmann's better-than-backup-catcher-grade bat and ability to back up pretty passably in the outfield becomes the new Doumit.

I'm not expecting an All-Star, but he was an adequate shortstop who is more than sufficiently tooled for his present 2B assignment. He made great contact as an MiLBer until his K% rocketed as a big leaguer.

Ordinarily, this is the point where I offer an answer but I don't really have one. Watching a replay of his homer last night provoked the question, because he turned on a 97mph fastball from a pretty good pitcher like it was absolutely nothing. He's at .299/.390/.522 line the last month with a noticably diminished K%. Maybe that's the key?

I don't know. Fangraphs likes his defense so far and he's on track to be a 2 WAR player without his bat truly even heating up. That's sort of what I expected, I guess. But there are flashes where it looks like he could give us something in the .280/.350/.420 range.

http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=28193815&sid=milb

He's struggled a bit there for basehits, but he's working through the slump with patience. Six walks in 24 plate appearances. It seems clear the book on him arrived in Eastern League pitchers' hands as soon as he got off the plane: don't throw him fastballs like the one in the video. He'll need to wait things out before he can see more pitches like that, but that's why walks are important.

Rosario continues to hit like it's the only thing his hands know how to do. .300/.391/.350. He's turning into a fascinating prospect.

Gibson is debuting on Saturday. There was some teeth-gnashing when Pedro Hernandez got the call this weekend instead of him, but whatever the reason (something something about rest days, if I recall) it's fixed now. Kyle Gibson, MLB pitcher.

Buxton will start in centerfield for the Miracle on Tuesday.

Sano's had a rough two weeks in AA, but it's not been without its moments. He's striking out too much, which he already did in Ft. Myers, but it seems like the approach is intact: 8 walks in 43 plate appearances. He's also hit two homers and a triple. The stitches are going to show for a little while at least, but it's not all bad.

It's on. Please note the accelerated timeline the article offers for Buxton. From Jason Parks:

#1 CF Byron Buxton (Twins)

Placement on Pre-Season 101: #8

Current MiLB Level/Affiliate: High-A Ft. Myers

Reason for Inclusion in Top 10: Buxton has the most exciting tool collection in the minors, which is why he ranks ahead of Taveras as the premier prospect in the game. The beauty of Buxton is the impact potential he has in all phases of the game, as the 19-year-old can go 1-for-5 at the plate but still patrol big swaths of real estate in center field and use his elite speed as a weapon on the bases. One scout source suggested his floor was Torii Hunter, which should be some indication just how high the ultimate ceiling could be. This is a special talent. You buy tickets to watch this kid play.

Prospect Trajectory: Holding steady; likely to remain top prospect in the game.

Major League ETA: 2014

#6 3B Miguel Sano (Twins)

Placement on Pre-Season 101: #21

Current MiLB level/Affiliate: Double-A New Britain

Reason for Inclusion in Top 10: Sano has been climbing up prospect lists since he first signed with the Twins as a 16-year-old, and after an offensive explosion in the Florida State League, the 20-year-old is now among the top prospects in the game. The backbone of his game is the enormous raw power, which most scouts feel comfortable throwing an elite grade on. The hit tool is still a question mark, as is his defensive profile, but both the bat and the glove have received positive reviews in 2013, a good sign that Sano might offer more than just prodigious power.

Prospect Trajectory: Down; the Double-A test is upon Sano, and given his age and exploitable weaknesses at the plate, his stock could slip if he struggles to make consistent contact. Given his offensive potential and adjustment potential, he isn’t likely to fall too far down the list.

Major League ETA: 2014

#44 RHP Alex Meyer (Twins)

Placement on Pre-Season 101: #88

Current MiLB Level/Affiliate: Double-A New Britain

Prospect Trajectory: Up; most likely still an underrated prospect; questions about ultimate role add risk to a higher ranking; has no. 2 starter upside and a floor of a late-innings bullpen arm; strong second half and improved command could lead to huge offseason jump up the list.

Major League ETA: 2014

After staying behind in extended spring dealing with a mysterious elbow situation that kept him from playing the outfield, Kepler is in Cedar Rapids for his full-season debut. After the weekend, he's at .278/.350/.444. I could see the Twins moving him quickly if his mature approach continues to play against full-season competition.

Amaurys Minier is the next name we may need to become familiar with. I can't recall the bonus total exactly, but I'm pretty sure he's only behind Sano among Dominican signees for the Twins. He's another big 3B, but with less giant-ness than Sano and fewer questions about his future position. Good power. Good hit. .364/.500/.909 over the weekend. He's only seventeen. Keep an eye out.

For once, the E-Town team is packed with pitching instead of hitting. Guys to watch include 19 year old righthander Felix Jorge, Minnesotan lefty Austin Malinowski, Kuo Hua Lo, and Yorman Landa.

Good news. Trevor May has strung together a pair of pretty good starts too. Combined with the recent draft, Berrios' solid-to-strong work in Cedar Rapids, and some decent bullpen sleepers, we could start to see a better rounded farm system emerge over the next nine months or so.

Twins | Alex Meyer dodges bullet

Minnesota Twins P Alex Meyer (shoulder) had an MRI on his right shoulder Tuesday, June 11, and the test showed no structural damage, according to general manager Terry Ryan. Meyer remains on the 7-day disabled list for Double-A New Britain.

Read more: http://www.kffl.com/gnews.php?id=857034-twins-alex-meyer-dodges-bullet#ixzz2XKlrBR7x

.231/.311/.455 with 99 strikeouts and 31 walks in 341 plate appearances.

I'm just going to leave this here as we try to get a handle on Miguel Sano's learning curve in New Britain.

It's just fun. Mauer vs. Slowey. You already know what's going to happen. Sadly, the Twins rotation vs. any MLB lineup has virtually the same level of certainty. I hope Kyle Gibson gives us reason to be excited on Saturday. He's not going to turn around the season himself, or even necessarily be a net improvement over whoever he's replacing this time (DeVries, Hernandez, Hendriks have all occupied the same spot but who does it properly belong to?) but semi-regular glimpses of future rotation competence just sounds really nice right now.

In other news, Sano had three hits in a doubleheader yesterday and none of them were singles. A homer, double, and triple. I think he walked too. up to .191/.305/.489.

Ideally, over the next couple weeks we'll see him start to trim the 29% strikeout rate; keep the 16% walk rate; and approximate the 66% extra base hit rate. Just approximate though. That last one might be impossible to genuinely sustain, though it anybody can do it, it's Miguel MEJOR.

In other news, Jose Berrios went seven innings and struck out nine. Five hits and two runs. Kepler hit another homer and drew another walk.

Discuss his encouraging adequacy here.

I liked the hard-ass two seamer. That's not pitching to contact, that's hurting people. I liked the slider but got the feeling this wasn't as good as it gets. Changeup was "meh" but I liked that he threw it to righthanders like Billy Butler. That's balls.

He didn't look (yet?) like a pitcher that's going to make me want to change into my lazy pants, but this was pretty fun.

An article like this that doesn't mention whether or not Sano is on the 40-man roster (he isn't) is just click-bait for Twins nerds. But Mackey does get credit for actually asking Terry Ryan. So, B- effort here.

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Could_Miguel_Sano_make_MLB_debut_this_year_Twins_havent_ruled_it_out062913

by Phil Mackey
1500ESPN.com
Email | Twitter

MINNEAPOLIS -- Miguel Sano has absolutely lived up to his status as one of the top 10 prospects in Major League Baseball this season.

After homering twice and driving in five against the Reading Phillies on Friday night, Sano is now hitting .310/.403/.655 with 22 home runs and 64 RBIs between High-A and Double-A.

If Sano continues to progress, the common thought was that he'd make his major league debut sometime in 2014 - after perhaps being given an outside shot to win the starting third base job in spring training.

But is it possible Sano could debut as a September call-up this season?

The Twins aren't ruling it out.

"I guess we'll let him dictate that," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said Saturday in an interview with 1500 ESPN.

"And certainly it'll be a little bit of a situation of what's going on with the major league team as well. But he's got quite a bit to learn before you start thinking about that. ...

"His defense is better than his offense down there (at Double-A) to this point, which is good. I think anybody that's seen him realizes he's going to hit, and certainly in time I think he'll catch up with Double-A pitching. But his defense has been pretty darn good."

The transition to Double-A was a slow one at first. But through 17 games Sano has raised his batting line to .236/.328/.655 with six home runs and 16 RBIs. Sano does have 78 strikeouts in 73 games between both levels - a trend the Twins would like to see him cut down on - but his bat can't be too far from MLB-ready.

Stay tuned.

... it would be telling us that Pedro Florimon is the second-best defensive shortstop in MLB.

My eyeballs haven't bothered incorporating him into some leaguewide ranking, but he does look really, really good over there. Lacking an immediately better option,* what do we feel about having somebody at short who is - at the very least - really, really good at one thing?

*internal prospects ranked according to readiness are the thoroughly "blah" Daniel Santana, the ghost of Levi Michael, the probably-not-shortstop Jorge Polanco, and Niko Goodrum. The last of these two are still in Cedar Rapids.

3-3 yesterday with his first extra base hit and first stolen base. Up to .333/.364/.381 after slow start.

In bad news, the clean results of Alex Meyer's MRI don't mean he'll be on a mound anytime soon. That's worrisome, but it's aggravating to hear people pretend to have information that they don't. No reason not to be cautious, so until he actually has a diagnosis or surgery on something, we'll assume that's it.

This is getting weird. But still awesome.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/deja-vu-byron-buxton-stirs-echoes-of-mike-trout-in-cedar-rapids/

Deja Vu?: Byron Buxton Stirs Echoes Of Mike Trout In Cedar Rapids
June 30, 2013 by J.J. Cooper

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—When the idea first popped into a scout’s head, it seemed preposterous.

Just two years after he dominated the Midwest League for Cedar Rapids, Mike Trout produced one of the best rookie seasons in baseball history. So how is it possible that there’s a guy in the same league–in the same city–who is … (looks around to see if anyone is within earshot) . . . better?

It seems crazy to compare anyone to a player who just produced one of the greatest age 20 seasons ever. But scouts who have seen Cedar Rapids center fielder Byron Buxton this spring are no longer wondering whether he’s the best prospect in baseball. They are wondering how the Twins farmhand–the Kernels switched affiliations from the Angels to the Twins this season–compares to the best prospects they’ve ever seen.

“I am positive he’s the best prospect I’ve seen in (more than a decade) of full-time scouting,” a pro scout for a National League club said. “It’s not even close. Tools, athleticism, feel and vision. Time will tell what kind of major league player he becomes, but the sky is the limit.”

Another scout, referencing the 2-to-8 scouting scale, said (somewhat) jokingly two days into five days of watching Buxton: “What don’t I throw an 8 on?”

A third pro scout has seen Midwest League stars come and go for more than a decade. In his eyes, Buxton’s hitting approach is better than Trout’s was when he was in the league. He hedges a bit, saying that he doesn’t know if Buxton will develop as Trout has, but says strictly based on MWL performance, Buxton has been better.

“Joe Mauer, Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, that’s the grouping I have him in as far as pure hitting approach,” said the scout, who saw all three of those future big league stars come through the MWL.

Amazing At-Bats

The amazing thing about Buxton’s season isn’t that he’s good. As the No. 2 overall pick in last year’s draft out of a Georgia high school, everyone knew he was really good. When scouts have seen Buxton this year, what surprised them was his aptitude and his hitting approach. Even if you expected to see a player who can run and hit for power, how does a 19-year-old just a year out of high school learn how to grind out at-bats like he’s Joey Votto?

“I was expecting to see a raw tools guy who flashes brilliance. That’s what a normal 19-year-old from a small town does in the Midwest League. That’s not him,” an NL scout said.

The speed wasn’t surprising.

Oh, it’s special. The way Buxton glides from first to third with massive, fluid strides, he seems to eat up 60 feet, 6 inches in just a few steps. And scouts love that they get 4.0-4.1-second times consistently when he’s running from home to first, without ever seeing him jog one out. But before Buxton arrived in Cedar Rapids, everyone knew he could run.

The arm wasn’t surprising.

It’s the same arm that struck out 18 batters in the deciding game of the Georgia 2-A state championship series last year, as Buxton fired 92-93 mph fastballs.


Byron Buxton (Photo by Paul Gierhart)
The power wasn’t surprising.

Buxton has a whippy bat thanks to his excellent bat speed. He’s skinny with plenty of muscle definition, but not a whole lot of bulk. The biceps aren’t that big. His chest isn’t the chest of a power hitter. He’s a teenager who looks like a teenager. But because of his bat speed he can drive the ball to all fields, and when he really connects, the ball carries. He has present power, and scouts expect he’ll have significantly more as he fills out and matures.

The defense wasn’t even surprising, though it has been better than expected.

Buxton’s speed allows him to cover plenty of ground, and he pairs it with good jumps, good technique and excellent routes to makes the gaps just a rumor for opposing hitters. Scouts saw it in high school, but to see him make Gold Glove-caliber plays in pro ball is that much more impressive.

But the hitting. Who could have imagined this?

Buxton is just a year removed from playing 2-A high school baseball in Georgia, where he saw few 90 mph fastballs and even fewer quality breaking balls. Twins scouting director Deron Johnson saw Buxton six times last spring and said he never saw him face a pitcher with professional potential. And when he first arrived in pro ball, it showed.

Buxton went 1-for-27 to start his pro career in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League last year. Two weeks into his pro career, he was hitting .037 with no extra-base hits. He looked like a kid from south Georgia over his head in his first taste of pro competition.

But what Buxton has shown already is that he is a fast learner. After going hitless in seven of his first eight games, Buxton had at least one hit in 18 of his final 21 in the GCL and jumped to Rookie-level Elizabethton, where he helped lead the E-Twins to an Appalachian League title. And between summers, Buxton showed that he had caught up to and passed his contemporaries.

“You saw the stuff. In instructs, you saw he had great aptitude. He really took off. This year in spring training, he was absolutely ready. He’s been doing this since more than just April,” Twins vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff said.

This year, Buxton’s longest hitless streak is two games, and he quickly proved he was ahead of the pitchers in the Midwest League. At the time of his promotion to the high Class A Florida State League, he ranked in the top five in the MWL in batting, on-base percentage and slugging percentage and virtually every other offensive category. The only significant categories where he didn’t rank in the top five were home runs and doubles.

“He’s not afraid of hitting with two strikes,” Cedar Rapids hitting coach Tommy Watkins said.

Buxton’s approach and hitting ability make him standout from the other prospects who combine power and speed. Those players are always intriguing. But the players who combine power, speed and hitting ability at a young age? Well, that’s a much smaller and more elite group.

Twice Lucky

If Trout was a once a generation talent, how is it possible that Cedar Rapids ended up just three years later with another center fielder who belongs in the same discussion?

It’s an easy joke to make to ask if the people of Cedar Rapids have been living right. A lot of solid big leaguers have come through Iowa’s second-largest city, but diehard fans have to recall Eric Davis’ 15 home runs and 53 steals in 1982 to remember the last player before Trout who dazzled them with similar speed and power. Getting a talent like Trout or Davis once a decade or so seems reasonable. Twice in four seasons? Preposterous.

But Cedar Rapids definitely is living right when it comes to its baseball team. The Kernels have a booster club that sponsors picnics and other activities for the players and supplies gift cards so the players can eat properly on the road.

Cedar Rapids isn’t the only team that provides host families its players, but how many cities have waiting lists for host families? And how many send people to spring training to talk to the players personally, to make sure they match the right player with the right family? Allergic to cats? Well, these families won’t work for you. Latin American? The Kernels will try to match you up with a family that speaks Spanish.

It matters to the players, more than you may expect. Yes, some of the Kernels will grow up to be big league stars, but when they are Cedar Rapids, they are 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids often in their first full year of life on the road. So a little stability, an opportunity to have a place to stay rent free and a little taste of home life is a godsend.

Twins middle infielder Alexi Casilla played in Cedar Rapids in 2005 as an Angels farmhand before he was traded to the Twins. In 2008, the Twins told Casilla he was headed to Cedar Rapids for a rehab assignment with the Beloit Snappers. They gave him the name of the hotel where he’d stay, but Casilla told the team he didn’t need a hotel. If he was headed back to Cedar Rapids, he’d stay with the family that took him in back in 2005. He has since come back to Cedar Rapids on an off day to catch a Kernels game and spend some time with his host family–a quick 275-mile jaunt down the road.

A Second Chance

Being blessed with Buxton just a few years after Trout has helped the Kernels in other ways as well. When Trout left town, the Kernels’ front office realized it may have missed an opportunity. The mantra in the minors is that you don’t market the players, you market the team, the experience and the promotions. IN part that’s because most minor league players are not well known, and also because the minor league team can’t control how long the player will be around.

But after Trout was promoted out of Cedar Rapids, Kernels general manager Doug Nelson (who was then the assistant GM) kept hearing from fans disappointed that they hadn’t come out to see Trout play before he left town.

“When Trout was here, normally we promote the team and we do not single out individual players,” Nelson said. “We realized we missed out on an opportunity to promote him in the community.”

So when Buxton arrived, and quickly showed that he was worthy of a trip to the park, the club started promoting him and his teammates in local radio spots.

“We heard a lot of fans say, ‘Boy, I wish I saw Mike Trout,’ ” Nelson said. ”We told fans, don’t make the same mistake you made with Trout. Come out and see them before they’re promoted.”

Even with two more rainouts than last year, attendance was up about 5 percent over 2012, thanks in part to the Buxton effect.

The Kernels also ordered a batch of 48 Kernels t-shirts with Buxton’s name and No. 7 on the back, marketing an active player for the first time in recent memory. The first shipment sold out in a week, and the second shipment of 72 shirts didn’t last much longer. Between online orders and sales at the park, the Kernels had to order more every couple of weeks.

“We thought we’d see what happened, but it’s such an overwhelming response,” Nelson said.

Who Would You Take?

Beyond comparing Trout and Buxton, scouts in the Midwest League had the opportunity this season to revisit the top of the 2012 draft and ask the question: Knowing what we know now, would you rather have Buxton, or the Astros’ draft haul of No. 1 pick Carlos Correa, as well as supplemental first-rounder Lance McCullers Jr. and second-rounder Rio Ruiz?


Carlos Correa (Photo by Paul Gierhart)
The Astros decided in 2012 to spread their draft budget over multiple players. So they signed Correa to a below-slot deal, then used the savings to sign McCullers and Ruiz to above-slot contracts. All three are now at Quad Cities. Correa is already considered one of the best shortstop prospects in the game. McCullers has showcased his excellent arm in the Midwest League, and Ruiz has shown flashes of his excellent potential at the plate.

Still, a survey of scouts who have seen all four indicates that one Buxton is better than the trio of Correa, Ruiz and McCullers, as a majority would take him over the Astros’ trio.

“Come on. It’s not even close,” an NL scouts said. “As I look at it, even if you had the plan to try to get three impact guys instead of one, the minute you walk into Buxton’s game, you have to scrap that plan and say, ‘We’re going with this guy.’ “

That opinion is not universal, however.

“Awesome as Buxton has been, I think you have to take the Astros’ trio,” an AL scouting executive said. “Especially because you might be getting another stud premium position player in Correa, who is still a little bit younger than Buxton. If this deal was on the table, I honestly don’t know who would say no first. Any way you slice it, the fact that we’re talking about trading three guys, one of whom went 1-1 last year, for a 19-year old in low-A ball is pretty insane.”

Like A Pro

It’s a kids run the bases/autograph day at Cedar Rapids’ park. When the game is over, kids file down to the field to experience what infield dirt feels like under their sneakers. Just beyond the base scampering in shallow right field, the line begins.

Want an autograph of potential future big leaguers like Adam Brett Walker, Jorge Polanco or Niko Goodrum? You can walk right up, get an autograph and have a conversation. No waiting.

Want an autograph of Buxton? Join a hundred or more fans in line. You could get the autograph of each and every other Kernels player in less time than it will take to get Buxton’s signature. The fans don’t care, though; they want to meet and greet the future star.

Buxton signs t-shirts. He signs scraps of paper and Kernels programs. Two tween girls walk up and remove their right tennis shoes, then hand them to Buxton to sign while they hop on one foot. After he signs, they thank him and then slide the shoes back on, walking away with extra pep in their steps. He also signs pristine baseballs that are quickly placed in protective acrylic cases, likely to appear on eBay in either the near or distant future.

It’s not the most enjoyable part of the pro baseball player’s life. But Buxton engages the fans, gives them a smile, makes a little small talk. The rest of his team, with nothing left to do, heads to the clubhouse while Buxton still has dozens of fans still in line. He keeps on signing. Finally the Kernels make an announcement that the field needs to be cleared so the grounds crew can do its work. Buxton is finally free to head in. He smiles as he signs his last item. He may be a 19-year-old, but he shows he understands what it is to be a professional baseball player.

Moving Fast

The Twins had high hopes for Buxton’s first year, but they didn’t think he’d be this advanced. Minnesota is an organization that would generally rather hold a prospect at a level a little longer than necessary than push him too fast. When Aaron Hicks was in the minors, Minnesota kept him in Class A for more than 300 games before he was deemed ready to move up to Double-A.

Buxton has already scrapped any similar plans for the Twins. In a half-season at Cedar Rapids, he more than proved he was ready to go to high Class A. With the way he’s progressing, life in the minors will move quicker for him than the average prospect.

“We’ve run guys through there all year. Paul Molitor for baserunning. All of the scouts that go through. Tom Kelly went through there,” Radcliff said. “All of them come out of there raving about not his bat speed, or his speed or his arm, but how great a kid he is. He listens, learns, processes and applies it two minutes later.

“It’s the ability to process things, the aptitude. It goes from showing him how to do something to taking it to the game the next day. It was the same with Joe (Mauer). You told him something once, and it was in there the next day. With minor league players, it’s all about repetition. That’s how they learn. But you don’t need much repetition with guys like this.”

At this point it’s reasonable to expect Buxton to open the 2014 season in Double-A. From there, a good performance could mean a late-season callup or an Opening Day 2015 arrival in Minnesota.

“As we sit here today, no reason to think a fast track isn’t possible,” Radcliff said. “He’s surpassed all the expectations we had. He’s passed with flying colors so far.”

also, this:
http://kernels.milbstore.com/store_contents.cfm?store_id=66&product_id=41229

Baseball American also polled some scouts who point some outlandish numbers on his physical tools. Fuck it, I'll post it below.

The problem with me is that I'd rather have some guys in front of him or some skills he still needs to actually acquire. As it is, there's nothing but the prediction of greatness and an indeterminate amount of time before that greatness wears a Twins uniform. I don't really have a mental limbering-up for that procedure. It seems like 2+ years of waiting for something to go wrong.

This scouting report is embarrassing. Bo Jackson probably had higher marks for power, but was probably not even a 50 for hit. I'd guess. So, this is probably a better report than the grandaddy of all scouting legends. Shit.

Here's the article:

Scout’s View: Scouting Byron Buxton
June 30, 2013 by J.J. Cooper

The following is a breakdown of Buxton’s tools compiled from talking to multiple professional scouts. All grades are future projections, not present grades and are meant to be quite conservative—undoubtedly there are reports sitting in the databases of teams with higher grades than these.

Hitting: 70. Buxton’s approach draws near universal accolades. He watches so many balls off the plate and recognizes pitches so quickly, scouts said they had to see him for multiple days to make sure he wasn’t just making pre-pitch decisions to swing or not swing. Buxton’s swing is short and direct to the ball. It’s helped immensely by his massive strong hands that generate excellent bat speed.

Power: 60. Buxton’s power is somewhat surprising as he’s still relatively skinny, even if he has a very well-defined musculature. Because of his whippy bat, he generates excellent present gap power to all fields and occasionally drives the ball for tape-measure distance home runs. Most scouts surveyed don’t see him ever becoming a 220-pound masher, but project him to hit 25-30 home runs once he’s matured and filled out.

Speed: 80. Buxton turns in consistent 4.0-4.05 times to first base from the right side. He’s even better going from first to third or second to home, as his long strides eat up yards with ease.

Defense: 80. One scout simply asked, “Who in the big leagues is better?” Buxton is working on being more aggressive at charging on base hits in front of him, but he already covers lots of ground, has shown a fearlessness on going back to get balls at the wall and understands both positioning and reading balls off the bat.

Arm: 70. After showing a 92-94 mph fastball in high school as a pitcher, Buxton has shown the same arm strength this season in the outfield. He shows the accuracy to hit the cutoff man and the arm strength to throw on a line to third base or home with excellent carry.

No related posts.

The defensive report on Sano is really encouraging. He's not a big Rosario fan here but he's expressed admiration in the past so perhaps a follow-up visit when he's adjusted more to AA pitching is in order.

Pinto is turning into a real sleeper. I was kind of interested in May's quibbles just because Parks makes them sound sort of fixable.

"New Britain Rock Cats

3B Miguel Sano

Series Stats: 5-for-15; 3 HR; 4 K; 1 BB

Notes: I’ll be writing a full scouting report on Sano this week at BP, but I’ll drop a few notes here as a tease. First of all, Sano is one of the best players I’ve ever seen in person. I was able to watch numerous batting practices, pre-game fielding drills, and live game action, so the sample might be small but it offers ample sustenance. Sano is a legit five-tool talent, which goes against several reports that you might be reading online. He’s a gifted physical specimen, with mature size and strength, but the body isn’t as high maintenance as I expected and his overall athleticism was above average. On several occasions, Sano showed a burst of speed down the line and on the turn that resembled an NFL tight end, a graceful out route from a 6’4”, 250-lb. beast of a man. I clocked him at ~4.17 from home to first on a ball he rolled over to the left side, which is absolutely flying for a man of his measurements. The power is extreme and it made me question my religious beliefs, but the biggest discovery of the trip was Sano’s skill at the hot corner, a position that many (if not most) assumed would not be his home at the highest level. Sano is going to play third base in the majors, and he has a chance to be above average at some point in the future. He is still raw and error prone, as I saw him step back on a ball and let it chew him up. But the leather is better than people realize, and with more repetition, he will refine that tool to major-league quality. Sano is at his best coming in on the ball, as he has a feel for fielding and making a quick glove-to-hand transition. He can flash the leather to the backhand as well, showing off a few highlight reel plays that saw him react quickly to the arm side, backhand the ball from the ground, spring to his feet, and fire a 70-grade missile to the first baseman for the out. He has the chops. He just needs refinement. The hit tool is his biggest weakness and I doubt he hits for average at the highest level, but he has good bat control for his size and swing leverage, and he understands the difference between a ball and a strike. The end game for Sano is probably .265 with some on-base ability (fear/recognition), and power that could play to its potential, which means 35-plus bombs year after year. Given that fact that he will be a competent (if not better) third baseman, his profile could make him one of the most dangerous and valuable players in the game.

C Josmil Pinto

Series Stats: 6-for-14; 1 2B; 2 BB; 2 K

Notes: Pinto can really hit; short and quick to the ball and he makes hard contact. The 24-year-old has a good approach, and I liked his ability to recognize pitches out of the zone and lay off. A good fastball hitter, he was able to track and barrel balls to all fields, and he showed good raw power in batting practice. I don’t see a great hitter, but he isn’t an empty stick, and his approach puts him in situations to take advantage of mistakes. Behind the plate he is okay, but I didn’t see a great catcher. He can receive, but he was only popping in the ~2.02 range, which is acceptable but not above average. The arm itself is strong, although his release isn’t especially quick and his arm action can get long. Despite his age and lengthy minor-league experience, I think he’s a sleeper prospect in the Twins system, and a player with a major league valuation.

2B Eddie Rosario

Series Stats: 1-for-11; 1 2B; 1 K; 1 BB

Notes: I was disappointed in Rosario’s defense at second, as he looked uncomfortable on balls hit right at him and his reactions to either side appeared slow, both in live action and in warm-ups. It should be noted repeatedly that the field conditions were terrible because of consistent rain over the weekend, but his approach and his actions weren’t of major-league quality. Given his athleticism, it seems likely that the outfield is a better location for his skills, but with repetition perhaps his glove can take steps forward at the keystone. But in the small sample, it wasn’t just the fact that he made errors and didn’t play well, it’s how and why those errors were made in the first place.

At the plate, he was struggling to find holes on the diamond, which is partly due to his approach to hitting. Rosario has fast hands, and the bat speed is easy to recognize as a positive attribute. But his swing path is very elevated, as he appears to be trying to hit the ball over the fence with every swing. It’s a batting practice approach that he brings to live action, and it might pay off for the 21-year-old if only he had the strength of a power hitter in the first place. The majority of his line drives fell short of the fence, despite being very well struck. He clearly has a natural feel for hitting, but I didn’t get the impression that he knows who he is as a hitter yet. Instead of using the whole field and spraying line drives with a more linear swing, Rosario worked in the deepest part of the field (up the middle) and lacked the punch to find over-the-fence success. He doesn’t have the body to develop the type of power his swing is trying to execute. With his bat control and bat speed, he could really develop into a good hitter if he works the gaps and takes advantage of his strengths instead playing into his weaknesses. He’s a tweener for me right now, more a hit tool/speed type than a complete player."

Interesting. He wasn't really hitting in Rochester during rehab, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out the team was looking for a reason to just keep him down there after his rough MLB start.

But he's a real life centerfielder and Clete Thomas is not. I think what's kind of funny about this is that it shows the youth movement occurs in small moments and moves and not big ones. Want to make sure we get a good look at all the young(er) players we need to evaluate? Then don't buy into Clete Thomas' hot run and give them some playing time. This move says that seeing how Hicks and Arcia and Parmelee (who is probably running out of time himself) is more important than whatever marginal 2013 value that Clete Thomas provides over Aaron Hicks. And I fucking love it.

It also says that Byron Buxton is coming fast. Maybe faster than anybody is comfortable with. Hicks needs a good, long look before the storm starts.

edit: because it's not really worth it's own post, Max Kepler is hitting .295/.392/.659 in Cedar Rapids right now. And a 17 year old making his stateside debut, Amaurys Minier, is at .345/.394/.621 for the GCL Twins. In a system that will be hit hard for the best possible reason, graduation of top-100 guys like Hicks, Arcia, and Gibson, those two are big upside players that could replace them in the Twins top-10 this next winter. I think that Kohl Stewart is supposed to debut sometime this week too, but I'm not sure when.

what the holy fuck?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=willijo03&year=&t=b#month

and you can see it in his production dropping off. ugh. wonder if it was willingham wanting to play through it or another medical staff muck up.

thanks for that awesome trade value.

We've got a DH spot, Doumit's ostensible outfield glove, a whole raft of AAAA guys and real OF prospects who need a look, and the availability of a DL to get him well and back on the field in time to build his trade value.

Instead, we run him out in leftfield nigh-daily and wait until a month before the trade deadline to schedule a surgery and 3-7 weeks off. Ugh.

Willingham, healthy-ish, is a classic mid-season trade for a contender. And the increased interleague basically doubles the market because NL teams don't have to worry about his shitballs glove. We've got winter to try something and next deadline, but this can't be considered anything but a fuckup at the moment.

For prospects without NCAA seasoning, we'll see occasionally that a righthanded hitter suffers from the lack of experience with left-handed pitching. Even high-school kids in California and Texas whose schedules resemble younger professionals just don't get left-handers with more than one pitch very often. Soooooo, they struggle against guys that they're suppose to see pretty well.

And then they don't, because that actually doesn't make sense.

Byron Buxton, in a tiny sample, has a .571 OPS against lefties. Expect that to change soon.

Not because I'm particularly attached to his success, but because it's boring. My long and glorious experience as an internet know-it-all has really made me cherish the very rare occasions where I'm wrong, and in 2012 I was super wrong about Scott Diamond.

When he was acquired, it was through a trade for hard throwing and truthfully rather stupid looking relief prospect Billy Bullock. Diamond was initially selected from Atlanta via Rule 5, but the Twins shipped them Bullock for the right to keep Diamond and demote him to Rochester.

It seemed almost like the Twins had drifted into self-parody, picking the soft-tossing lefty starter and punting on Bullock's high-90s gas. But then Diamond's 2012 gave the Twins 170-something innings of, shockingly, good component stats. It really didn't look like a Joe Mays lucky season where balls in play just found gloves. Instead, Diamond induced a ton of grounders to go along with his tiny walk rate. Strikeouts rule, obviously, but 54% grounders and no walks will play.

Meanwhile, Bullock never found the plate with his fastball like he could while still in the Twins organization, and his walk rate peaked at higher than TEN per nine innings last year. Throw in a 50-game suspension for "drug of abuse" and now Bullock is looking for work somewhere. The Twins looked... pretty smart on this.

So we'll stop thinking about him. Diamond has already accumulated more MLB value than Bullock is likely to create, so whatever on the trade. But he has returned to the pitcher we worried he was going to be. His strikeout rate has, miraculously, gone down. He's walking more guys - still not very many but this isn't a sharp line. Fewer grounders and more balls leaving the park means disaster. xFIP still doesn't hate him, but the nicest thing you can now say about him is that he kind of throws like Cliff Lee.

In any case, it's boring. I don't want to be bored. Be better, Scott Diamond.

The cool thing is that Brian Dozier looks pretty good, so not all of our underwhelming rookie appearances in 2011-2012 are going poorly.

>In any case, it's boring. I don't want to be bored. Be better, Twins.

this isn't meant to undercut what you just wrote, because it was spot on, but this season seems like a bataan death march to the inevitable. why can't we just withdraw from the rest of the season for a nominal fine?

>this isn't meant to undercut what you just wrote, because it
>was spot on, but this season seems like a bataan death march
>to the inevitable. why can't we just withdraw from the rest of
>the season for a nominal fine?

What sucks is how little pleasure I'm getting out of the nice spots. Joe Mauer, recent slump notwithstanding, is having a good year. Brian Dozier looks like a keeper defensively, is drawing walks and showing some pop, and really just needs a few more singles to fall in. If you drop Aaron Hicks almost impossibly (I seriously wouldn't believe it if he hadn't done it) bad April, he's actually been really rather good. Oswaldo Arcia is on the Rookie of the Year shortlist until he gets dinged for just aggravating the hell out of the advanced defensive stat gods. Actually, ditto Trevor Plouffe except for the rookie part. He just can't glove to save his life, but Plouffe's bat might let us play smart with Sano so that's good.

That's a bunch of good stuff that you'd love to see in a bad team. Star at the core playing well and some leaps forward from rookies with a great farm system ready to provide more talent. Perhaps if those weren't all on the same side of the ball then I'd be more hopeful about it, but as it is - meh.

That was actually pretty fun. I want a Hicks, Buxton, Arcia outfield very, very much. Though Arcia has looked shakier on defense then both scouting reports and when I saw him in person. I imagine it's difficult to adjust to finding the ball in a stadium full of people than in a half-empty minor league park.

Gibson's had a weird 4th inning, but he's still getting swings and misses on both his slider and that hard, hard sinker. He also walked two guys and uncorked what looked like a 52 foot slider. Work in progress.

Still, hitting 92-94mph on that two seamer is going to work. It looks like his cutter is still lagging the furthest behind, as he's tried nipping the outside corner (to righties) with it and has kept missing by small amounts. I really hope the velocity sticks when the command finally comes around though, because it's solid #2 stuff when that happens.

July fourteenth. Sano on the Int'l roster and Buxton on the USA roster.

This is our All-Star weekend.

*big sigh*

ortiz
cuddy
hunter
gomez
hardy
crain
nathan
balfour

at least we didn't draft all eight. that would be more disheartening.

>*big sigh*
>
>ortiz
>cuddy
>hunter
>gomez
>hardy
>crain
>nathan
>balfour
>
>at least we didn't draft all eight. that would be more
>disheartening.

So what've we got acquisition-wise:

-Ortiz acquired in trade but at a pretty low minorleague level. For Dave Hollins, I believe.
-Cuddy was a first round draft pick, ditto Hunter
-Gomez, ugh, the Santana trade
-Hardy for Gomez, I feel like they cancel out here then... sorta
-Crain, early round draft pick. I want to say second.
-Nathan, the Pierzynski trade
-Balfour was an Int'l free agent from Australia

I'm pretty ambivalent about the meaning of their post-Twins success for Twins fans. Several of them are making a ton of money and wouldn't have been smart choices to retain. But the general sweep of this is that it makes us look like baseball's grown-up farm system. I'm more fine with that then I'd expect when the Twins are winning, but in another 95+ loss season, big ugh.

so, it's really not terrible, but a couple do hurt a bit more than others because of how they were acquired and how/what we did with what we got for them when they were shipped. oh well.

you're right that the exercise isn't really worth it, but when you're staring at another 90+ loss season, the pieces listed could really, really help ... though, i still think bitching about ortiz is futile.

I'm going to admit that three terrible years in a row has made individual game/series posts the exact opposite of captivating. The likelihood that nothing interesting will happen during an unpleasantly predictable loss is so strong that it's sort of a bummer to point out the patterns like a stars-n-scrubs lineup with fewer stars than usual and pitchers that rely on really, really well struck balls in play being turned into outs by a good-not-great defensive background.

That's it. That's the season.

So, what do my fellow okayTwinsfans want to talk about? The minors is always fun, but even with our prospects advancing both successfully and to imminent debuts it still seems kind of abstract. It'll be there, obviously, but I think if we're going to make this the New Britain Rock Cats 2013 season post we should call it that.

How about our tradeable assets? I think that giving this whole thing some sort of teological thrust is a good idea. So between the inevitable focus on our really rather good system and the likelihood of being deadline sellers, there's a theme being developed of:

WHAT WILL THE NEXT GOOD TWINS TEAM LOOK LIKE?

Anything that serves that purpose interests me. So does complaining about Kevin Correia and appreciating Trevor Plouffe in that weird way where even though he's totally servicable I know we'll remember the Trevor Plouffe era as dark days in Minnesota. So we'll do that too. But not dwell on it. A good Twins team exists in the organization at present.

like that softball team which only had 5 players? because then we could go:

buxton
mauer
arcia
sano
hicks

with gibson, meyer or whoever throwing the ball when needed.

sounds more fun that way, but i can't see mauer making the run over to first for every play there like the softball team. maybe our pitchers could help out? or buxton can make the run from short RC ... he does have an 80 speed rating after all.

in all seriousness, i'm willing to discuss just about anything about this team. we haven't discussed gardy and his future yet, which seems all the rage in the local media. or how rick anderson seems to have lost the midas-y touch. bruno hasn't caught much flak yet, either.

in other words, distraction seems to be the course of action.

>or buxton can make the run
>from short RC ... he does have an 80 speed rating after all.

this idea is better though.

>in all seriousness, i'm willing to discuss just about anything
>about this team. we haven't discussed gardy and his future
>yet, which seems all the rage in the local media. or how rick
>anderson seems to have lost the midas-y touch. bruno hasn't
>caught much flak yet, either.

Oi. The coaching staff thing is so weird. I'm willing to listen to any of the people on this board talk about it more than I am other local voices that I know because you guys are marked as non-crazy.

To Gardenhire... I guess I don't particularly object to the idea that new blood is needed, but outside of coming freighted with some oddities that most managers have, I actually think he's really good. He runs a good pen. He uses his bench to keep players engaged and healthy. The less control over roster construction he has, the better - but that's something which can be organizationally flexible. Terry Ryan is perfectly justified in saying "no third catcher" or "eleven pitchers is enough" because Gardenhire's job is to use the 25 guys he has.

So whatever. If we can do better then I suppose we should do it. But as I've found out recently in painting our new place (and helping a friend with hers) I'm one of those people who finds the un-named general less attractive than the specific.

To Anderson... yeah. Something's broken, but I'm not sure if he's a cause or an effect. My read is that he was the perfect pitching coach for when the team was just acquiring good, raw arms and he was assisted by like-minded coaches down the line (like Bobby Cuellar). People like Santana and Juan Rincon and Liriano and Latroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado really flourished having coaching which identified one or two things they could do really well and then added the Twins of "do that... and stop walking people".

But it seemed like eventually the team started acquiring arms which already fit this mold rather than forming them into it. Rick Anderson coaching Nick Blackburn is the baseball equivalent of John Malkovich entering his own mind.

In spite of this, there've been some successes that he hasn't gotten full credit for. Dude kept Carl Pavano healthy and effective for two and a half seasons. That's an achievement. I don't actually carry much water for pitching coaches though, so I'm comfortable with the somewhat unjust practice that when the pitching sucks, pitching coach has got to go. Unlike Gardenhire, I'm more confident that we can do better and that we're actually prepared to since elevating Bobby Cuellar to an MLB roll.

Bruno is a mystery to me. My inclination is to base an evaluation on the success of the young players who really need help adjusting to MLB pitching. But my overall attitude towards that learning curve is that guys become who they are. Dozier and Plouffe are looking like they can carry MLB average bats for their position. Nice job. Chris Parmelee looks like a bench player. Bad job. Unless that's who Chris Parmelee was always going to be. Aaron Hicks first month was bad to the point of near-statistical impossibility. Like, I might have actually lucked into more singles in April 2013. Bad job. Hicks since has looked like the slightly flawed but still very valuable player we expected. Adjustment is part of coaching, so good job. But Arcia was great when he first arrived, slumped hard, and then was shipped outside of Bruno's supervision to Rochester. Sooooooo?

I think hitting coaches should be treated as wizards in the court of some crazed, fictional medieval monarch. Nobody really knows what he does, but when he's working the wizard is pretty terrific. When things go poorly, find a new wizard.

>in other words, distraction seems to be the course of action.

2014 Draft is going to be a good one. Finally, we're sucking at the right time. Ace pitchers (even lefties!), true shortstops with plus bats, and catchers all abound.

i do agree that our pitching development has stagnated over the past 5 or so years. your point on the lirianos* vs blackburns is very good ... though, it tends to point at blame being a 50/50 thing rather than all on anderson. FO should be providing the type of pitchers he works best with while anderson needs to also adjust a bit to the players he's given. either way, i'd like to see shakeup there. the twins seem to be drifting, ever so slowly, away from the BRCA and i think part of that transition needs to be a philosophical change from the top.

i agree on gardy/bruno. i think sports fans these days are conditioned to think changing managers/coaches is the simple way to inject life/change into a team. while there is some merit to the discussion, a coach/manager can only do so much with what he is given, and by that standard, i still think gardy is doing a great job.

* - have we spoken yet about liriano's year with pittsburgh? do we want to?

>the twins seem to
>be drifting, ever so slowly, away from the BRCA and i think
>part of that transition needs to be a philosophical change
>from the top.

This makes sense. I also think it's the most likely area where the organization agrees. Cuellar isn't around to be a bench coach or bullpen coach.

>* - have we spoken yet about liriano's year with pittsburgh?
>do we want to?

Oi. I'm happy for him because I think he got a bad rap with the headcase thing from people who forget that baseball is hard. He's also a great fit for the NL.

So I'm glad he's doing well and the Liriano who walked under 3.5 guys per nine will always have a chance at greatness.

But if we want to shade it a little, here's some stuff:

-he's allowing homers on only 6% of his flyballs. that might be unsustainable

-he's throwing a higher proportion of sliders than he has in any year since 2006

>-he's throwing a higher proportion of sliders than he has in
>any year since 2006

so, we just allow him to throw more sliders and he returns to the high-end-though-not-ultimo version of liriano? *oktwins sigh*

but, he does have a couple sac flies, so he's showing that good, twins way at the plate. dem fundamentals!

that kind of thing doesn't happen much anymore, does it?

>So I'm glad he's doing well and the Liriano who walked under
>3.5 guys per nine will always have a chance at greatness.
>
>But if we want to shade it a little, here's some stuff:
>
>-he's allowing homers on only 6% of his flyballs. that might
>be unsustainable

still at 3.5 BB/9 and 6.5% HR/FB, very impressive. good to see him doing so well.

1. Keith Law released his mid-season top fifty and FIVE Twins prospects made the list. List is insider, as are scouting reports, but the numbers are: Buxton, 1; Sano, 4; Kohl Stewart, 30; Meyer, 38; Rosario, 41. That's really good.

2. Eddie Rosario has responded much more quickly to the AA promotion than his partner in (hitting) crime, Miguel Sano. After a hot week, he is at .312/.375/.464. He's actually hit lefties better and has started to fill out those power numbers a bit lately. As Jason Parks said when asked to explain Rosario's path to an MLB second baseman, "he just fuckin' hits." If the defense is non-embarrassing, he'll stick there.

3. Adam Walker has had an absurd week at Cedar Rapids and may be in line for a mid-season promotion himself. He's probably got the second-best pop in the organization behind Sano, and he's slowly ironing out his much more significant contact issues. He slugged .800 in the past ten games, which probably hurt some pitchers' feelings.

4. Mixed with the occasional turd, Trevor May has pulled a bunch of strong starts in AA over the past month or so. I kind of like what's emerging. His control/command will probably keep him from turning the corner to a frontline starter, but I think the result might be a workhorse of a #3 with the distinctly non-Minnesota twist of big strikeout numbers. Vance Worley just went down at Rochester with a shoulder issue, and May might be the guy in line to move up and take that rotation slot. Keep an eye on it.

Bonus "in the team picture" for Australian GCL lefty Lewis Thorpe.

No. 6 Adam Brett Walker, rf, Twins
Team: low Class A Cedar Rapids (Midwest)
Age: 21
Why He’s Here: .370/.357/.889 (10-for-27), 4 HR, 2 2B, 11 RBIs, 8 R, 0 BB, 6 SO
The Scoop: Just think how much better Walker’s week could’ve been if he hadn’t taken an ugly 0-for-7 in a 12-inning game on Wednesday. Nonetheless, the Twins’ 2012 third-rounder might be hitting his way out of the Midwest League now that he’s surged to the top of its home run leaderboard with 18. No one doubts his power, but the real encouragement comes from how much he’s cut down on his strikeouts (82 in 87 games) from last year in the Appalachian League, where he whiffed 76 times in 58 games.

No. 7 Eddie Rosario, 2b, Twins
Team: Double-A New Britain (Florida State)
Age: 21
Why He’s Here: .433/.452/.633 (13-for-30), 1 HR, 3 2B, 4 RBIs, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 1-for-2 SB
The Scoop: Free to develop at his own pace while Twins uber-prospects Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano draw the spotlight, Rosario has hit .322/.375/.503 in 84 games across two levels this season and just might be the stealthiest prospect in the upper minors. He won a home run title (21) in the 2011 Appalachian League, but don’t be discouraged by his relatively meager output (eight) this season. Rosario has played in a couple of tough home-run parks in New Britain and high Class A Fort Myers, though with his lefty bat, contact skills and solid power, he’s on the short list of elite second-base prospects in the game.

Lewis Thorpe, lhp, Twins: The 2012 international class is shaping up to be an outstanding one for lefthanders, with Julio Urias (Dodgers), Luiz Gohara (Mariners) and Jose Castillo (Rays) leading the way. But don’t sleep on Thorpe, an Australian who signed for $500,000 shortly after July 2 last year and has been excellent in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. With a low-90s fastball, a potential plus changeup and an improving curveball, the 17-year-old Thorpe has a 3.05 ERA and has shown much better control than expected with a 31-2 K-BB mark in 20 2/3 innings.

Here are some things which are interesting:

-Sam Fuckin' Deduno's walk rate is nearly two walks below his career average per nine. His strikeouts have declined at a fairly similar rate. Since we discussed the Rick Anderson'ing of our staff, it might be worth pointing to this Samfuckin' weirdo's new success as a scarce data point in Anderson's recent favor.

-Joe Mauer has thrown out 48% of attempted basestealers. I was worried had over fanboy'd by pointing to the relative indifference of Twins' pitchers to their (astonishingly frequent) baserunners as a reason for Mauer's declining CS numbers. So, going into 2013, I was fully prepared to not-Jeter on Mauer and say that he derrived his valued by manning the position as long as he could man it in a non-embarassing way. I guess he still has something to say back there.

-Dozier and Florimon are looking like a really good up-the-middle infield duo defensively. With Dozier seeming more and more like he might one day hold an MLB average bat, this is the kind of thing that looks a little less gloomy about our season.

-Trevor Plouffe's 6.5% walk rate bums me out.

-Aaron Hicks' last month: .250/.318/.467

Soooooooo, here's the interesting thing. If I had some faith in our recently acquired pitching prospects and the foolishness to think the Twins could walk into some extra luck, there's a recipe here to turn things around fast. It's based on the amount of people I've described above as potential plus-defenders. Hicks, Dozier, and Florimon all profile as really good defenders. Mauer was there once and may, apparently, be there again.

Terry Ryan went out of his way recently to describe Sano's glove as ahead of his bat at AA.* He's on a perfectly normal track for a 2014 debut and with the notion that he could be a better defender than Trevor Plouffe at the hot corner (not great compliment, except that the Twins have trotted Plouffe out there daily for two years now) it might be really easy for him to challenge for the Opening Day job.

Finding run prevention in weird ways is how teams make big leaps forward, and if the Twins suddenly turn from a middle-of-the-road team at this to an elite team at it, then the (fingers crossed for health) arrival/development of Meyer, May, and Gibson could be smoother than expected next year.

*a note on that - Sano seems to be coming alive down there at .286/.405/.600 for the last ten games.

Honestly, I don't need playoffs right now. Just knowing that there are signs of life is enough until Sano/Buxton arrive.

As long as we don't lose out the entire month of August.

>As long as we don't lose out the entire month of August.

like tim robbins in austin powers. would you?

Their new-level slumps might be lessening. Sano's in particular, as he's 5/7 of the way to a hotlist mention this coming Friday.

I hope his wife and the babies are okay. My understanding is that twins are often premature?

Anyhow, sounds like Arcia is back up. He's been murdering Rochester and they want him around anyhow, so that's cool.

Depressing scavenger hunt: comments on Twins articles chastising Mauer for not playing last night and/or taking the short paternity leave MLB allows.

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_23718531/minnesota-twins-joe-mauer-heads-home-fatherhood-awaits

Minnesota Twins' Joe Mauer heads home; fatherhood beckons
By Mike Berardino
mberardino@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/23/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT
UPDATED: 07/23/2013 11:21:32 PM CDT

Twins catcher Joe Mauer was scratched from the lineup shortly before Tuesday night's game so he could head home to the Twin Cities for the impending birth of twins.

Mauer went through his normal pregame activities before receiving word wife Maddie's water had broken. The original due date was Aug. 31, but Mauer said several times recently that the couple's first children could arrive at any time.

Maddie Mauer recently was placed on mandatory bed rest, a fact Joe Mauer revealed while in New York City for his sixth appearance at the All-Star Game. Mauer, his parents and grandparents took a private jet back to the Twin Cities immediately after the All-Star Game on July 16.

"Everything is good," Mauer said of his wife at the time. "She's been doing great."

Asked in New York if the twins could arrive in July, Mauer said that was possible.

"It could be," he told the Pioneer Press. "I don't know. I hope it doesn't. Hopefully it's more in later August than earlier. I just want to get those two babies out healthy and safe as possible."

As for names, Mauer said no decisions had been reached as of last week.

"We're working on that," he said. "That's a work in progress. We have to come up with four of them just in case."

By choice, the Mauers did not learn the gender of their children in advance.

It was not immediately clear who would replace Mauer on the 25-man roster or if he would even need to be placed on paternity leave. However, Triple-A outfielder Oswaldo Arcia was pulled from the lineup at Rochester after two innings, exiting around the time Mauer would have learned of his wife's status.

Follow Mike Berardino at twitter.com/MikeBerardino.

SO excited.

this seems appropriate to dump here given the near arrival of the mauer twins. it comes from a guardian gallery of daily newspaper covers reporting the new royal raisin.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/7/23/1374575944464/Private-Eye-007.jpg

*slow clap*

In the rare occasions when somebody is silly enough to ask, I identify politically as a monarchist. But even I'm flummoxed by the fever over this.

Relatedly, my wife has a colleague named Kate at her office. She's English and married to a guy named Will. And their daughters birthday (she's like four) was yesterday.

Dumb story, concluded.

So we got this:

https://twitter.com/1500ESPNJudd/status/360441859874631680

Judd Zulgad
‏@1500ESPNJudd
Paul Molitor told us AA prospect Miguel Sano is expected to sit for a few days after how he handled himself following a home run this week.

In response to this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QAc9SRdKz8

Please note the hilarious seven seconds it takes for him to even appear in the frame after hitting the homerun.

This isn't the first time that our man MEJOR has been in trouble for this, but the last time he was given a decidedly awesome pass from Mgr. Mientkiewicz because the pitcher he homered off of rather deliberately hit him last time he was up. Seems fair.

I don't really care about this, though I suppose I'd rather not have him get hit with pitches in retaliation. It's not particularly Twins-like, but neither were Pierzynski and Hunter and Jones when they came up. Neither was Santana walking off the mound before his changeup landed in the catcher's glove.

>I don't really care about this, though I suppose I'd rather
>not have him get hit with pitches in retaliation. It's not
>particularly Twins-like, but neither were Pierzynski and
>Hunter and Jones when they came up. Neither was Santana
>walking off the mound before his changeup landed in the
>catcher's glove.

we have discussed this before and, i think, we're all on the same page that the twins need some 'fuck you' in their organization. i would like to assume MEJOR was upset about something for this kind of reaction, but whatever. he's still awesome and as long as this benching doesn't serve as some sort of catalyst for friction between player and organization, i don't really care.

i get we don't need our most visible prospects to be complete cunts, but you can't be that good at something without some swagger.

oh, and ditto about not wanting him getting plunked or thrown at ... but he is 7'3" 465 pounds ... so, good luck with that 21 year old pitchers.

>he's still awesome and as long as this benching doesn't serve as some
>sort of catalyst for friction between player and organization,
>i don't really care.

Good point. My only beef either way is how public this is. I guess he's famous enough that sitting for a few games will provoke questions, though. Even with the rise of Buxton, Sano is my first stop in MiLB box scores because nobody puts up more fun lines than Sano. And that's at least one person who will notice an absence of more than one game.

But then I flop back and think more than a game for this is beyond disproportionate. If it's important, ream him out in the clubhouse, bench him for a game and give him the stinkeye every time you walk past him in the dugout, and then get him on the field for the next game.

>i get we don't need our most visible prospects to be complete
>cunts, but you can't be that good at something without some
>swagger.

Hitting 450 foot homeruns looks like a lot of fun. I know I'd want to see where it lands.

>oh, and ditto about not wanting him getting plunked or thrown
>at ... but he is 7'3" 465 pounds ... so, good luck with that
>21 year old pitchers.

Yeah. He'd eat them.

The jackass who took the video followed the ball like his shitty camera phone was going to be able to pick it up. At least he had the decency to take the video horizontally. I don't really feel like this needs to be the thing you try to exert your will over Sano for; he's having fun and he'll probably do something to actually warrant punishment at some point in the future, so why do this now?

Who needs a full week of games?

8. Miguel Sano, 3b, Twins
Team: Double-A New Britain (Eastern)
Age: 20
Why He’s Here: .429/.538/1.095 (9-for-21), 4 HR, 2 2B, 10 RBIs, 6 R, 5 BB, 6 SO

The Scoop: Miguel Sano is back to doing Miguel Sano things. Believe it or not, his four homers this week were his first of July, though granted he missed a couple days to go to the Futures Game. He ended his drought with a grand slam in the fourth inning last Friday against Binghamton, his first homer since June 28. After breaking the ice, he homered three straight days from Sunday through Tuesday. Sano moved back into a tie for fourth in the minor league home run race with 26 (10 at Double-A), two off the pace of leader Ryan Rua. Meanwhile, his Double-A average had dipped below the Mendoza Line to .190 coming into the week, but a six-game hitting streak has brought it back up to .231 through 121 at-bats.

Prior to the comeback in the 9th?

Maybe it was unearned runs but I thought I heard a crazy stat like that

I don't remember what Iwakuma's was, but yeah... fifty definitely isn't an off-the-wall exaggeration even if that's not the exact number.

It wasn't even that good, but Fuckin' Deduno threw a gem, there were bats and gloves. Etc. Been awhile.

In any case, Mauer rejoins the squad today - which would make the people complaining about his absence TO TAKE CARE OF HIS WIFE AND MONTH-PREMATURE NEWBORNS happy if they were actually capable of joy.

In MiLB news, the Sano thing became sort of national, at least among people who talk about baseball prospects. But he returned to the lineup and went 1-3 and walked a couple times. Hopefully, whatever the hell happened is all in the past.

Eddie Rosario had recently missed some time with strep throat (he gets uncommon injuries, between this and the batting practice liner to the face last year) and has returned with a 1.004 OPS his last ten games. His bat is looking... ready.

And Byron Buxton seems to be in the process of figuring out high-A ball. The strikeouts are out of character for him, but he's like a year into his pro career and is now facing seasoned NCAA competition, so we'll trust the scouting reports on a very plus hit tool until he gives us reason to doubt that. He's at .244/.333/.578 the last ten. The power is surprising for a player with his profile, at his age, at this level. Hopefully it shows he's getting a handle on this pitching and he can start building that K:BB rate into the elite level we saw at Cedar Rapids.

In other news, my cat, Duane, died. He was somewhere between 16 and 20 years old, so we should have been readier for it. But he really went downhill fast. I don't think cats have baseball fan affiliations, but he's probably watched somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 Twins games on TV in the time we've had him.

>It wasn't even that good, but Fuckin' Deduno threw a gem,
>there were bats and gloves. Etc. Been awhile.

i was in and out on saturday, having driven across the great state of wisconsin to get home and then further across the cities to pick up my dogs from my parents place. deduno's outing was being strongly praised by the radio folks, so i was happy. if only he could sustain this kind of play, but his style doesn't really allow for that.

also, morneau had a nice afternoon on saturday. more, please.

>In MiLB news, the Sano thing became sort of national, at least
>among people who talk about baseball prospects. But he
>returned to the lineup and went 1-3 and walked a couple times.
>Hopefully, whatever the hell happened is all in the past.

no explanation from molitor or management makes me think he was feeling himself a bit. again, if i'm that awesome at 19-20, pretty sure it's going to bleed out a bit. that age isn't known for great decision making and wisdom.

>Eddie Rosario had recently missed some time with strep throat
>(he gets uncommon injuries, between this and the batting
>practice liner to the face last year) and has returned with a
>1.004 OPS his last ten games. His bat is looking... ready.

i assume his glove profiles/is worse than dozier. where does that leave us? assuming rosario has the livelier bat, then does that create another deep infield bench "problem" for the twins?

>In other news, my cat, Duane, died. He was somewhere between
>16 and 20 years old, so we should have been readier for it.
>But he really went downhill fast. I don't think cats have
>baseball fan affiliations, but he's probably watched somewhere
>in the neighborhood of 1500 Twins games on TV in the time
>we've had him.

sorry for you and the mrs. losing a pet/friend/fellow couch potato is the pits. luckily, some other unfortunate creature will find a new, far more awesome home soon and learn the tragedy of being a twins fan, i'm sure ... just in time for the Buxton Ascent.

>i was in and out on saturday, having driven across the great
>state of wisconsin to get home and then further across the
>cities to pick up my dogs from my parents place.

I miss a lot of things about the upper-Midwest, but one of the weirdest is the totally different sense of proportion for day-trips in a car. Thanks for holding that tradition up.

>deduno's outing was being strongly praised by the radio folks, so i >was happy. if only he could sustain this kind of play, but his
>style doesn't really allow for that.

No. The sausage-making is never going to be pretty, which is yet another reason why I like the "90mph knuckleball" analogy - it gives us a pass from critical thought regarding his outings. The Fuckin' Deduno thing will work some days and not work others. We'll just hope there are more some days than others.

>also, morneau had a nice afternoon on saturday. more, please.

Totally. Could have used it a month earlier, but whatever. It'll be interesting to see what the Twins do with him. I have a suspicion that a qualifying offer is something that he'd snatch up entirely - but if Parmelee isn't the guy then maybe that's not such a bad thing. Most one-year deals can't really be bad, so it seems like the worst case scenario for that money is that we re-do the Make-Morneau-Tradable experience in 2014.

>no explanation from molitor or management makes me think he
>was feeling himself a bit. again, if i'm that awesome at
>19-20, pretty sure it's going to bleed out a bit. that age
>isn't known for great decision making and wisdom.

Reusse wrote a confusing article which was edited once after initial publication, but the gist seems to be that you're right. Throw in oddities like a confrontation with his manager and possibly one with Terry Ryan himself.

But yeah, we're all idiots if we pretend this means more with him than the dumbass things we did at that age meant about us. I, for instance, grew a goatee.

It was 1999. Sorry.

>i assume his glove profiles/is worse than dozier. where does
>that leave us? assuming rosario has the livelier bat, then
>does that create another deep infield bench "problem" for the
>twins?

My growing affection for Dozier's game and the rather excellent DP combination of him and Florimon has made me worry a bit over this too.

The good news is that the upside for Rosario's bat is legitimately middle of the order - though maybe not middle of the order when Sano and Mauer are around. But something like Mauer without walks but maybe more speed and a tiny bit more homerun pop is what we're looking at, a regular .310/.360/.480 type.

But yeah, he's not likely to become Dozier's caliber glove at second. Dozier came up a shortstop and didn't really prove he couldn't play the position as prove he couldn't play anything in 2012 and have the pressures of shortstop blamed. So... maybe he's a shortstop when Rosario's up?

The question mark there says no. I'm guessing that, due to the slightly less loud nature of his game and the increased defensive responsibility that Rosario is going to be the one to force his way up - and maybe that's for the best. Dozier's looking like he has a chance to be a league-average bat with good defense at second, but he'll be 27 next year. We've seen too much of the bad Dozier to get excited right today about his trade value, but there's some in there if the bat is only partly realized.

But if it isn't then I think I'm with you on useful bench infielder. We can find 300+ good at bats for him in an infield that includes both the bat-challenged (Florimon) and the young/glove-challenged (Rosario/Sano) and I still like Gardenhire enough to make those 300+ count.

>sorry for you and the mrs. losing a pet/friend/fellow couch
>potato is the pits. luckily, some other unfortunate creature
>will find a new, far more awesome home soon and learn the
>tragedy of being a twins fan, i'm sure ... just in time for
>the Buxton Ascent.

Good call. We named our other one after Lew Ford. I like the way you think.

i hadn't realized how quickly his A+ line had turned around in the past 7-10 days. you alluded to it in an earlier post, but it's great to see him 'remembering he's good at baseball'.

there was also a lengthy piece on sano's revival on twins daily. it gave a bit more to the benching story. good to know it had more to do with coach interactions/insubordination than just showboating.

http://twinsdaily.com/2150-farmville-buxton-named-fsl-offensive-player-week.html

All hail Lord Byron.

It took him awhile to adjust to his new Fort Myers digs, but Byron Buxton is once again doing man things. On Monday, Buxton was named Florida State League Offensive Player of the Week for the week ending July 28th, further cementing his status as the top prospect in baseball. To celebrate his latest achievement, he went 2-for-5 with a stolen base and a run scored Monday night, pacing the Miracle to a 5-0 win over Scott Baker (!!!) and the Daytona Cubs.

After disrespecting Midwest League pitching to the tune of .341/.431/.559 as a member of the Cedar Rapids Kernels, including 32 steals, 33 extra-base hits and 56 RBI out of the leadoff spot, Buxton was finally promoted to Fort Myers on June 25th. After a slow start with the Miracle, he apparently remembered that he’s good at baseball, and now sports a strong .282/.338/.476 line over his first 29 games in the pitcher-friendly FSL. Monday night marked the sixth time in seven games that Buxton has tallied two hits, part of a 12-for-30 stretch.

As noted by Baseball America’s Ben Badler in his Monday Prospect Notebook, Buxton is mounting a strong case for BA Minor League Player of the Year honors in his first full pro season. Badler further speculates that a promotion to Double-A by season’s end is a possibility for the 19-year-old, with a 2014 major league debut not out of the question. Not that the Twins could use the help or anything.

>i hadn't realized how quickly his A+ line had turned around
>in the past 7-10 days. you alluded to it in an earlier post,
>but it's great to see him 'remembering he's good at
>baseball'.

Yep. And he's doing it by returning to control of the strikezone. The slump had been strikeout-driven, which makes sense for a player of his experience moving up to high-A ball for the first time - but lately he's been working the count excellently and drew three walks last night. In Cedar Rapids, the homerun power seemed to key off of that selectivity - so if he's really taking to the more advanced pitching then that's... excellent.

>there was also a lengthy piece on sano's revival on twins
>daily. it gave a bit more to the benching story. good to know
>it had more to do with coach interactions/insubordination than
>just showboating.

Yeah. Four games for a long homerun trot was pretty excessive.

>Badler further speculates that a promotion to Double-A
>by season’s end is a possibility for the 19-year-old, with a
>2014 major league debut not out of the question.

Those two things definitely go together. I'm going to try and get out to see New Britain in about three weeks, so it'd be rather excellent if Sano, Rosario, and Buxton are all there. And if Alex Meyers is back.

He doesn't have a whole lot of time to earn this promotion though. Their season ends in less than a month, and it's one of the few Twins affiliates that isn't playoff-bound at the moment. On the other hand, the CFer in New Britain, Jordan Parraz, is pretty much an organizational placeholder so there's nobody stopping him there.

Oh wait. I did. He's hit six homeruns in those ten games and is slugging .750. Thanks, chief.

I want him to be well and resurrect his career after a legitimately tragic (in baseball scope - not in life scope now that he's fine) derailing in 2010, but if he gets crazy hot between July 31 and the end of the season, I'm going to be a little bit grouchy about it.

At the same time, there's a reasonable conclusion (which a Morneau hot streak would confirm) that he's the best firstbaseman in the organization in 2014. Parmelee doesn't look like the contender. Mauer isn't being called a firstbaseman yet. So that's it. Those are the guys.

We didn't get anything back on him by the deadline. A waiver trade could work with a guy his salary, and we're not far along yet that the return of a decent prospect that doesn't need to go on the 40-man is something to turn down.

But I actually think that the qualifying offer isn't a bad idea for him. There isn't a lot of money committed next year so he doesn't prevent us doing more if he takes it, and the Twins get a pick if he doesn't.

So how about Oswaldo Arcia? Dude can hit, right?

That's probably not theologically accurate. But I wanted to make it sound dramatic. After some initial struggles against Eastern League pitching, Miguel MEJOR is back to do doing what he does best - inspiring anti-bullying PSAs vainly hoping to protect the broken feelings of pitchers he's faced.

In the 21 games since the AA All-Star game, Sano is at .325/.441/.701. Dude is slugging over .800 in August. That's how you make the AA transition.

He still strikes out too much, but ... and this is the sort of stat-sheet scouting we're absolutely not supposed to be doing... it's seeming like every ball he puts into play is hit so breathtakingly hard that he's capable of sustaining a usable batting average going forward. He's still drawing walks at an elite rate and has seen an incredible 61% of his hits go for extra bases.

There's some real decisions to make at the end of this month. For the moment, I have a hard time believing that a September debut and/or an opening day assignment with the big club for Sano is one of those things, but here are the signs to watch for if you want to convince yourself that it will happen:

-A lingering non-replacement for Jamie Carroll on the 40-man. Right now, there are 39 spots used, with 60-man DL candidates Mastroianni and Wood in non-counting limbo. Sano doesn't need to be added to the 40-man until after *next* season, and there are some tough decisions coming up... Alex Wimmers, for instance. But holding steady at 39 for the next few weeks could indicate a willingness to give Sano a try.

-A 40-man add and a September call-up for Deibinson Romero. Romero has been a marginal prospect for the Twins for a long time now, but has stayed on the right side of relevance by playing a position we haven't staffed well since Corey Koskie and by mostly hurting his status with injuries instead of straight poor performance. He's been healthy this year and has his .273/.383/.441 in Rochester. He's got to be getting near MiLB free agent time, and that means fish or cut bait on him. Giving him a look in September means that Plouffe's place is not particularly steady and that Sano might have a real shot of winning the job in Ft. Myers next spring.

-Joining Rochester for the AAA playoffs. It's weird, but the Twins really care about this kind of thing.

likely in the excellent "stupid baseball questions" from a couple years ago, but i don't want to dig that up.

>-A lingering non-replacement for Jamie Carroll on the 40-man.
>Right now, there are 39 spots used, with 60-man DL candidates
>Mastroianni and Wood in non-counting limbo. Sano doesn't need
>to be added to the 40-man until after *next* season, and there
>are some tough decisions coming up... Alex Wimmers, for
>instance. But holding steady at 39 for the next few weeks
>could indicate a willingness to give Sano a try.

does not needing to designate MEJOR for the 40 man until after NEXT season have any ramifications on his arbitration clock? given the strength of the labor union, i would be damned surprised if the twins could take a flier on him before he necessarily needs to be on the 40 man. i'm coming at this from a euro-footy place, so i apologize in advance for the question, but youngins in europe don't really "count" in some situations.

>does not needing to designate MEJOR for the 40 man until after
>NEXT season have any ramifications on his arbitration clock?
>given the strength of the labor union, i would be damned
>surprised if the twins could take a flier on him before he
>necessarily needs to be on the 40 man. i'm coming at this from
>a euro-footy place, so i apologize in advance for the
>question, but youngins in europe don't really "count" in some
>situations.

The short answer to your question is "no" but we both know I can't supply a short answer, so here we go. First, a review of the 40-man rules which are relevant here:

-Basically, teams have completely unfettered control of players for several years after acquiring them as amateurs. After that variable period, some rights start to kick in - so there's a milestone where your analogy to European football leagues gains traction.

-Players who were acquired at an age eighteen or under (where "acquired" is a constant date of the June 5th before their first pro contract) must be added to the 40-man roster after five full seasons. If they aren't, they're exposed to the Rule 5 draft. Players who were acquired at age nineteen or older by this same June 5th must be added to the 40-man after only four full seasons.

-If you want to shorthand the above, knowing you'll have to check on the occasional liminal birthday, HS draftees and Int'l free agents get FIVE minorleague years before a 40-man decision is made on them and NCAA draftees get four.

-Once a player is added to the 40-man roster, they are eligible to be called up to the active 25-man roster at any time.

-Furthermore, any year in which a player is ON the 40-man roster but spends time in the minors (not counting injury rehab) an option year is used.

-Teams have THREE option years on a player. After those are exhausted, sending that player to the minors at any point means exposing them to waivers.

The reasons for manipulating a player's appearance on the 40-man roster are financially motivated, but in a much more indirect way than manipulating the arbitration clock. Players on the 40-man roster do make more money, but even for a cheap-ass team like the Twins, the difference is negligible. The reasons to wait until the latest possible date to add a player to the 40-man roster relate to the options system - if you're concerned that a player may take a few tries to adapt to MLB play/life but do think that player can be a valuable part of the big club's roster at some point, you don't want to waste those option years unnecessarily.

As an example, two of the players acquired early in Bill Smith's tenure, Phil Humber and DELMON! both signed deals when they were drafted that required they were added to their teams' 40-man rosters, which made it extraordinarily difficult for the Twins to be patient with their growth as they struggled. Because their previous teams had unnecessarily burned option years that the Twins then couldn't use.

Anyhow, a player's arbitration clock is based entirely on their time spent on the active roster. The two things aren't unrelated, particularly for a team that isn't going anywhere that will NEED Sano's services in the very immediate future, but adding Sano to the 40-man roster doesn't necessarily mean they have to promote him to the big club - which is where he starts accumulating time towards arbitration and eventual free agency. It just means they can do that when they want.

There's also a pretty substantial trickledown which occurs. The reasons not to add Sano to the 40-man at this literal moment are pretty strong, even if they don't have much to do with him. But the team needs to have a workable 40-man set by December, and if they're going to tell people that he has a shot to debut in 2014 then it's pretty easy to start moving the sticks backwards. An honest shot at Opening Day means he needs to be on the 40-man by this December date... which means the team has to start thinking about which of those slots are going to empty between now and then. Fitting Sano into those plans isn't tough if you really want to (Morneau and Pelfrey will go off the roster in mid-November; Mastroanni and Wood may be eligible to return by then, but do we want both of them... or Wilkin Ramirez and Clete Thomas?) but with our system being deeper than usual there will also be some players that we'll want to keep around that need to be added.

i had always merged the 40 man requirement with the arbitration clock. like you said, they are not totally exclusive, but merging them was most definitely the wrong way to go. stupid lazy brain!

as a sidenote, when did oswaldo "i only hit homeruns" arcia get added to the 40 man? this spring? he was another 5 year player, i assume. just wondering what his journey was ...

>as a sidenote, when did oswaldo "i only hit homeruns" arcia
>get added to the 40 man? this spring? he was another 5 year
>player, i assume. just wondering what his journey was ...

By my count, that's at least a year early for him. But he made a rare an unexpected two-level jump for the Twins in the 2011 season and that winter was a particularly ugly year for our farm system as the only other new 40-man adds (from within) were Carlos Gutierrez (of the 80 grade sinker and the... nothing else, including arm health) and Tyler Robertson.

So, I guess they had the space and were willing to consider a 2012 debut for Arcia. Which was a reasonable guess, actually. He got a good half-season at New Britain and went .328/.398/.557 there. I seem to recall some clamouring for a September call-up then.

... I think he's capable of drawing more walks and playing the outfield like somebody with working legs and eyeballs because he's done both those things in the past.

But in the meantime, he basically *is* Jason Kubel. Not bad for a 22 year old.

He was projected as a possible first rounder coming into 2013, but tumbled due to a poor HS season and some apparent makeup concerns. But he tossed a gem last night for E-Town and tweeted:

"Stephen Gonsalves ‏@TheSGonsalves 12h
5innings 1run 4hits 7ks no walks and got the win. Making it known that everyone that passed me made a mistake."

Not ready to treat him like a prospect yet, but more of this please. Players need some "fuck you" in them if only to prevent the ossification of "the Twins way." You can make sure outfielders hit the cutoff man without telling them that they can't demolish Jamie Burke at the plate, like Torii Hunter. And you can have catchers meet endlessly with pitchers to hone pitch sequencing without stripping their sheer delight in crushing Billy Koch's soul, like AJ Pierzynski.

Is it too early to get excited about this?

I don't think he can really succeed longterm with his whole schtick. The pitches just aren't there. In that sense, it's probably too early.

On the other hand, weirder things have happened than a soft-tossing lefty with really good command succeeding as a big league starter. So if you can't get excited yet, then we're basically saying that we can't ever be excited about him. Which is dumb because this is a pretty awesome debut+ for him.

How about this? If we remember to couple excitement about Albers with praise for what's starting to look like a really, really good defensive middle infield that did a lot of great work for him yesterday (and will be required going forward) then I'm definitely not going to use the phrase "smoke and mirrors."

Unrelatedly, I think he looks a lot like Justin Morneau.

22 runs scored in the last 5 games all from hitting the ball over that fence which is REALLY far away.

i don't get it. (c) ceej

I think it's clear that the parts of a legitimate offense were buried within a thick layer of suck, but I'm rather pleased with some of the names we're seeing lead this weird homer charge. Two in particular, Arcia and Dozier. If we're going to be interesting in 2014, it will be because those two provide real offensive depth combined with the return/growth of Hicks and the debut of Sano and Rosario.

The Rosario/Dozier thing is getting more interesting by the day. I think Dozier's bat is "for real" to the extent that I think he can be a league average hitter and is a *really* good defender at second.

I don't think we will have the pitching to punt infield defense, moving Dozier to short for Rosario. It would be kind of funny if after all the hand-wringing about Sano's ability to stay at third, we moved him to first because of a logjam elsewhere.

Or one of Dozier/Rosario becomes a trade chip. Good problems, I suppose. I will say that as much as I admire Florimon's defense, he's not the sort of player to hold up a prospect flood.

this. is. so. weird.

and, honestly, with the dearth of potential at 1b in our system, i'm surprised there hasn't been more clamor for sano to at least spend some time on the other side of the diamond. it would at least give us some flex going forward.

5/7 with 4 RBI is nice, but i was hoping to ride this wave forever.

it was delicious.

That was pretty great.

or is he practising his MNice thing by keeping the hopes of LF/CF alive for a catch?

regardless, it was a wonderful reminder of mauer awesomeness.

John Sickels is as surprised as you are.

I like the idea of a 5'10", 185 lbs. pitcher seeking out the Martinezes for guidance.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/8/13/4619266/drew-butera-miguel-sulbaran-los-angeles-dodgers-minnesota-twins

Twins get genuine prospect for Drew Butera
By John Sickels on Aug 13 2013, 8:10p 8

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins completed the Drew Butera trade today, the Dodgers sending lefty Miguel Sulbaran to Minnesota. Although Sulbaran isn't an outstanding prospect, he's an interesting one, and getting anything at all for a 30-year-old catcher hitting .208 in Triple-A counts as a steal for the Twins. Here's a report.

Miguel Sulbaran, LHP: Sulbaran was signed by the Dodgers out of Venezuela in 2011. He debuted that summer with a fine performance in the Dominican Summer League, posting a 2.81 ERA with a 52/18 K/BB in 58 innings. Moved up to North America in 2012, he spent most of the summer with the Arizona Rookie League Dodgers, posting a 2.51 ERA with a 62/9 K/BB in 57 innings. He also made a trio of spot starts at higher levels.

Moved up to Great Lakes in the Low-A Midwest League for 2013, he's had a very good season with a 3.01 ERA and an 85/27 K/BB in 93 innings, with 89 hits allowed, being used as both a starter and reliever.

Sulbaran is a 5-10, 185-pound lefty born March 19, 1994. Despite his size, he has a good arm, boosting his fastball from the 86-88 range when he signed into the low-90s now. He has a curveball and slider, is working on a changeup, throws strikes, and has trained in the past with Pedro and Ramon Martinez. Thus far he's performed very well as a professional, and at age 19 he has plenty of development time ahead of him.

Short pitchers often generate skepticism, but so far Sulbaran looks pretty solid. He has a chance to make it as a fourth or fifth starter, and failing that he has enough arm strength and command to fit in a bullpen. That's a nice return for a journeyman like Butera.

The NCAA football preview issue. They even occupy a little spot in the corner of the cover with the awful, awful jinx of "The Next Mike Trout and The Next Bryce Harper."

Mainstream coverage is good fun, but that over-the-top nonsense doesn't serve anybody.

Still, nice for them and their families.

If ... life cooperates.

It'd be cool if I had somebody to tell about all of this. Everybody is paranoid about the boards suddenly dying. We've spent too much time the past three seasons bullshitting about the Twins minor leaguers to not have an end of the story.

Suggestions?

i hope life -- and MEJOR -- cooperates in this endeavor.

while i would love to believe this place will be around forever and ever and ever, the last few weeks have shaken that belief. typically, i'm more 'head in the sand' than proactive ... especially since OKS has become like a second neighborhood of friends to hang out with. a FB OKTwins page may work well, if you're into that sort of thing.

i don't know what this reddit thing is about. apparently my regression to old, senile, tech-phobe person has started as i don't really want to try and understand it. seems a bit of a mess.

so ... not sure is the answer you get from me.

*crosses fingers that OKBs will be around forever and ever and ever*

figured you would have filed a report if it had, but maybe you're still in a state of MEJOR shock.

>figured you would have filed a report if it had, but maybe
>you're still in a state of MEJOR shock.

The dark specter of needing to graduate and get on with my weird life appeared to me in a dream, so I spent the weekend pushing a pair of chapters out the door. I also got just super, duper drunk on Saturday after a particularly fruitful day of writing.

The suck thing is that I basically could have picked a day at random and seen something awesome. Sano hit two homers on Sunday. Meyer returned to the AA rotation, struck out five in five innings and apparently dinged 100mph on the stadium gun a couple times on Saturday. And Rosario went 5-5 and only missed hitting for the cycle because he hit a pair of doubles on Friday (or Thursday, I forget).

Bowie isn't far at all from where I live, but it's close enough to require some planning. The people I was going to drag with me - my wife and her friend - were actually involved so I would have a reason to actually drive 45 minutes for minorleague baseball. If it was a plan for three people, I'd be more likely to get it done. But nobody could plan on it so it didn't happen.

I consoled myself by saying that Buxton will be coming through next year, but New Britain only comes down to Bowie twice a year and it's probably not smart at this point to bet the Byron Buxton will spend more than two months at any remaining minor league level. I mean, he very well could. But... yeah.

Ummm... pretty good?

does e-town play shorter games?

my frustration is that 5 innings seems to be the new bar for "successful" outing. my fear is it's trickling down through the system as well.

we don't have the talent for complete games from our starters right now, but we so rarely have a starter get into the 7th. probably a talent thing, but sometimes i feel it's more kneejerk from management.

>does e-town play shorter games?

Nope. But they do have a lot of raw arms who haven't been sorted out as future starters or relievers though. Ditto the GCL Twins, so you'll see a bunch of dudes topping out at 3-4 innings an outing but going only 1 inning is almost as rare as going 7+.

>my frustration is that 5 innings seems to be the new bar for
>"successful" outing. my fear is it's trickling down through
>the system as well.

I agree, but in the case of Stewart remember that he's only been in the system since July. Prior to that, he was at the mercy of a club/HS schedule that may or may not have bothered to balance his future with the fact that he was the most talented kid in a 500 mile radius. In his case in particular, he hasn't been a full-time baseball player yet either. So they're proceeding carefully. He actually beefed up to 4 innings, but I think they'll probably top him out at five this season before really taking ownership of something that more resembles a starter workload.

But yeah, I'm not sure they're really preparing kids to work deep into ballgames. I'd be comfortable with that level of care if I thought it was the cost of developing healthy and effective pitchers but... yeah. The results there kind of speak for themselves.

In any case. You're right, but I'm not sure Stewart's first two months as a pro is the specific point to put your stake in the ground.

I mean, along with the giant "meh" of Parmelee, Sano's newfound defensive acuity, Justin Morneau's decline and expiring contract, and the emergence of Chris Hermann and Josmil Pinto as something we can at least wishcast into an offensively above-average catching platoon?

Joe Mauer, firstbaseman for your 2014 Minnesota Twins?

Enjoyed the article, hate the hype. I had to pass on Sano, Rosario, and Meyer this weekend. The upside was that I got a ton of work done. The downside is that I missed Meyer return to (hopefully) healthy AA action and apparently scrape 100mph, Rosario have a five hit game, or Sano hit two homers today. Kind of a "take your choice" scenario of awesomeness.

Maybe Buxton will come through next year. Or maybe he just wont bother. I can't remember the last time he had a game where he didn't reach base twice. MiLB.com confirms that it was a game on August 21st. But he had a doubleheader that day and got on twice in the first half of it. So, whenever it was, it was before August 15th.

My recommendation is read it, have fun, and then try to re-adjust our expectations back to "I sure hope this works but history says 'meh'"

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1208346/1/index.htm

August 19, 2013
Glimmer Twins
IMAGINE HAVING THE NEXT BRYCE HARPER OR MIKE TROUT IN YOUR SYSTEM—THEN IMAGINE HAVING THEM BOTH. THAT'S HOW MINNESOTA FEELS WITH BYRON BUXTON AND MIGUEL SANO, NEITHER OF WHOM IS OLDER THAN 20. TIME IS ON THEIR SIDE
ALBERT CHEN

We could begin with the power, or the speed, or the athleticism that has inspired comparisons with Bo Jackson, Josh Hamilton and Robert Griffin III. But let's begin with the arm, with a tale that has nothing to do with baseball.

True story: Byron Buxton once threw a football 82 yards. It was before a high school football practice two years ago in Baxley, a hamlet tucked away in a thinly-populated swath of southern Georgia. Someone asked Buxton, then a junior and the quarterback at Appling County High, how far he could throw a football. Buxton walked to the goal line, took a half step and launched the ball into the air. Twins scout Jack Powell, who was in town to check in on Buxton—also a star centerfielder for Appling—recalls squinting when the ball finally made landfall. "They measured it out—82 yards," Powell says. "One of the most amazing things I've ever seen."

Powell, 58, has been scouting in the South for more than three decades—he signed Jose Bautista and Matt Moore, and can spin yarns about a young Jackson blazing across the baseball fields of Alabama and of a young Hamilton hitting 500-foot home runs in North Carolina. Of all the players he's seen, only Hamilton rated higher than Buxton: On the 20-to-80 scouting scale Hamilton was an 80 for every tool—power, speed, average, arm and range—while Buxton topped out in every category but power. "Byron was a 70—Josh was an 80 because he was bigger and stronger as a teenager, but Byron will be an 80 eventually," says Powell. "Like Josh, like Bo, Byron could always do anything he wanted on the baseball field—these are guys that come around once every 10 years."

When Walt Whitman wrote, "Gliding o'er all, through all,/Through Nature, Time, and Space," he could have been describing the mesmerizing poetry of Byron Buxton in motion. His 190 pounds of sinewy, fast-twitch muscles are seemingly exempt from the laws of physics. You would call him a man among boys, except for the fact that he's a baby-faced teenager who's been among the youngest on the roster at each of his minor league stops. He doesn't throw baseballs from the outfield, he launches them. He doesn't run across the field so much as float, with strides that are long, loose, almost liquid.

Buxton is so fast that he reaches first on two-hoppers to the shortstop, scores from second on wild pitches and steals bases on pitchouts standing up. In 2012 he carried Appling to its first state championship, not only with his bat and his legs but also as a starting pitcher—he struck out 18 in a shutout in the final and had his fastball clocked as high as 98 mph. The Twins took him with the second pick in the draft, and a year later he is rocketing up prospect rankings (he started this season ranked 10th by Baseball America and was No. 1 on its midseason list) while tearing through the Minnesota system. He began the year at Class A Cedar Rapids and after 68 games was promoted to High A Fort Myers, where at 19 he's the second-youngest player in the Florida State League. In his first 104 games of the season at the two levels he hit .318 with a .402 on-base percentage and 12 home runs, 15 triples and 42 stolen bases. "What he's doing at his age, it's comical," says Fort Myers manager and former Twins first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. "He looks like a god wearing a baseball uniform. Forget the bat. If he were playing centerfield in the majors he'd be a Gold Glover right now."

Barely a year removed from his senior prom, Buxton is already being called, among other things, a baseball phenomenon, the savior of Minnesota baseball, the Next Mike Trout.

And yet, Byron Buxton may not even be the most talented prospect in the Twins system.

No, Buxton, he's the best—he can do everything," insists Miguel Sano, the 20-year-old third baseman from the Dominican Republic who is making his own run at the title of Best Prospect in Baseball. He can do at least one thing better than Buxton: hit the ball a country mile. A product of San Pedro de Macoris, a city teeming with goat-chewed neighborhood fields and milk-carton-gloved boys with dreams of becoming the next Robinson Cano or Alfonso Soriano, Sano was one of the most celebrated baseball stars on the island as a teenager. In 2009 he signed with the Twins for $3.15 million, and he is fulfilling his promise, and more. After putting up the highest OPS of any hitter in 14 years in the Florida State League (1.079) in 56 games with Fort Myers, Sano was promoted to Double A New Britain on June 10. Through Sunday he had hit 13 home runs and slugged .597 with an OPS of .961 in 47 games there. He is already being compared with the great righthanded power hitters in the game, from Miguel Cabrera to Albert Pujols to Giancarlo Stanton.

Sano placed third on Baseball America's midseason prospect list. Soon, perhaps as soon as next summer, he and Buxton will be in the lineup together in Minnesota, resurrecting—the Twins hope—a franchise that hasn't had a winning season since 2010. "Most of us wait a decade to have one guy in our system that's a franchise-changing talent," says the general manager of an American League team. "To have two? It's like having Harper and Trout both, in one organization."

With Miguel Sano, there's only one place to begin: the power.

True story: In 2009, with an armada of big league scouts in attendance and a potential multimillion-dollar contract at stake, Sano, then just 15, stepped up to the plate at the Twins' training facility in the Dominican and hit eight straight balls out of the ballpark. The last home run sailed over a flag beyond the centerfield wall, over a clump of trees beyond, over a creek and then onto a parking lot. "You just don't see kids that age do that," says Minnesota vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff. That was the day Minnesota decided it was all in on the boy known to the locals as Bocaton (Loudmouth).

The last teenager with this kind of raw power was a certain faux-hawked bro from Las Vegas; when you see Sano's swing and power in person, the Bryce Harper comps make sense. "The power is extreme," Baseball Prospectus writer Jason Parks reported after a trip to New Britain, "and made me question my religious beliefs."

Sano is a 6'4", 200-pound man-child, the kind of physical specimen that would have SEC football coaches breaking NCAA recruiting rules. His swing is a quiet, compact whip—instant violence, without the long follow-through of, say, Pujols. Sano's head stays down and his meaty hands back to react to the late break of the pitch. Even his pop-ups are impressive: During a recent game in New Britain, Sano skied a ball to leftfield, well short of the warning track. When it finally landed two scouts in the stands, both holding stopwatches, looked at each other, dumbfounded: The ball had been in the air for 7.8 seconds. A seven-second hang time on a fly ball is extraordinary. Seven-point-eight is unheard of.

The drama leading up to Sano's signing—he and his family were rumored to have falsified his identity and his age by a year or two—was chronicled in the 2012 documentary Ballplayer: Pelotero, which follows Sano and another young Dominican, Jean Carlos Batista, in the months before they were eligible to sign with a major league team. Sano was cleared of any wrongdoing (in the documentary, Sano's family makes a convincing case that he was wrongly accused), though not before the damage was done. It had been widely thought that his signing bonus would shatter the record for a Dominican player, but by the time Major League Baseball gave teams the green light to sign Sano, only two aggressive bidders remained: the Twins and the Pirates, who offered just over $2 million.

Sano's age now seems almost irrelevant. "Is there a chance he's not as young as they say he is?" says a Twins official. "Even if there's a 10% chance, it doesn't change the fact that whether he's 20, 21, or 21 years and six months, he's a great player."

Fred Guerrero, the Twins' scout in the Dominican, saw it six years ago, when he first glimpsed the then 160-pound Bocaton on a field. "You could see the swing back then—so free and easy, the ball just jumping off the bat," he says. "Even then, the sound of the baseball off his bat was different, like a gunshot." Guerrero and Sano talk and text regularly, but they hadn't seen each other in three years when Sano returned home last fall to play in the Dominican winter league. "I was surprised at how big he was," says Guerrero. "Then in the game he hit a ball that went about 500 feet to straightaway center, the longest ball I've ever seen at that stadium."

Sano is fearless, on the field and off: Though his English is still a major work in progress, he conducts interviews without an interpreter, and in the dugout during games he's the most vocal player on the bench. "He's loud, and you don't want to cross him," Mientkiewicz says. "He was the best motivator we had—but it's more like you're motivated out of fear."

Earlier this year in a game at Fort Myers, Sano hit a grand slam against West Palm Beach; when the two teams met again the following week, the opposing pitcher, apparently not happy with Sano's slow trot around the bases, lasered a fastball at Sano's face. Sano dusted himself off, and two pitches later he ripped a tape-measure home run to left—and barked at the other team's pitching coach, shouting, "They have to learn to respect me."

The Twins haven't had a player hit more than 35 home runs in a season since 1970; Sano is the middle-of-the-order masher the franchise is starving for. Baseball industry insiders already view Sano as the best signing out of the Dominican since Hanley Ramirez went to the Red Sox for $20,000 in 2000. Eight years after Minnesota drafted local boy Joe Mauer with the top overall pick, the Twins found its next franchise-changing player.

And then they found another.

True story: Byron Buxton—back in Baxley, he's known simply as Buck—once scored from second base on a sacrifice fly. It was during a Georgia state high school playoff game last summer. Buxton was on second base, and the batter hit a ball to deep right. The rightfielder fielded it cleanly, and Buxton tagged up at second, ran toward third and—just kept running. He scored standing. "The rightfielder was in such shock, he just kind of flipped the ball into the infield," says Twins scouting director Deron Johnson, who was at the game to see Buxton. "People were just looking around ... confused."

During a game in Fort Myers last month, Buxton laced a ball down the leftfield line that was fielded on three hops. By the time the leftfielder threw the ball into third, Buxton was already sliding in with a triple. "Who else triples on a hit down the leftfield line?" says Johnson. "He goes from first to third as fast as anyone I've ever seen."

The scary thing, and the Twins brass is emphatic on this point, is how raw his skills still are. (He still needs to work on his jumps, for example.) Though Buxton was the most intriguing prospect in baseball's draft last summer, some evaluators didn't see him as a future star. They were looking at the competition he faced in rural Georgia, where he rarely saw fastballs that hit 90 mph or quality breaking balls, and at his modest home run totals. (He hit just two his senior year.) After the Astros passed on him to take shortstop Carlos Correa with the top pick, Buxton fell to the organization that had targeted him since the summer of 2009, when Powell first saw him play as a 15-year-old in a travel-team game. Powell had called Johnson that day to tell him that he had found the player who would be at the top of the Twins' draft board three years hence.

The Astros went down to the wire with their choice—the Twins first heard that Houston was taking Correa 10 minutes before the start of the draft. Houston signed the shortstop out of Puerto Rico for $4.8 million, a below-slot deal, partly so they could afford to sign two other high draft picks to above-slot contracts. Correa, who reminds some of a young Alex Rodriguez, is already regarded as one of the best shortstop prospects in the game, "but no one would argue he's better than Buxton," says one scout. " plan was to get three impact guys instead of one, and I understand that—but when that one guy is another Mike Trout, how do you pass that up?"

Buck and Bocaton: They are the future of the Twins, and they make an unlikely pair. Buxton grew up in a small house, off a dirt road, with "no cellphone service," he says. "If anyone wanted to reach me ... well, they couldn't." He's the soft-talking son of a truck driver and a school cafeteria worker—"he still calls me 'Sir' all the time even though I always tell him I'm not that old," says Mientkiewicz—and remains very much of Appling County. After he agreed to his $6 million signing bonus in June 2012, his splurges were a modest new house for his parents in Baxley, a new truck for his dad, and a new paint job and new tires for his own F-150. His idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon is "cutting grass while listening to some country music," he says. He wakes up each morning at 7:30, without an alarm, and goes to breakfast alone at Denny's. "Always make sure to get a good breakfast in," he says, in his slow Piedmont drawl.

Bocaton—his nickname has stuck with teammates in the U.S.—speaks breathlessly, and he cannot stand to be alone. He grew up impoverished in the suffocating downtown of San Pedro; with his signing bonus he bought a new gated house, just down the road from the old one, for his parents and two siblings. He misses big-city life and the simple things. "Rice and beans," he says. "Good rice and beans."

They grew up in different parts of the world, speak different languages and have never been teammates. They are not yet household names, but already are sensations on the minor league circuit. "The last player to have an impact like this on our team was Joe Mauer," New Britain owner Bill Dowling says of Sano. "You see people stop in the stands when he comes up to the plate, because you don't want to miss what he's going to do next."

In Cedar Rapids this season the club sold out T-shirts with Buxton's name and number 7 in less than a week, and before heading to the park fans would call the front office to make sure he was in the lineup. When he was promoted to Fort Myers, the first batch of Buxton T-shirts lasted three days. The outfielder returned from a recent road trip to find piles of fan mail spilling out of his locker in the home clubhouse. A player shook his head as he walked by and said, "Joe Mauer doesn't get that kind of mail."

It was a few hours before first pitch, and Buxton had begun his pregame ritual of taking 25 swings off a tee and inhaling a bag of Skittles. That night he homered for the second time in three days. The next night he tripled twice. Two days earlier, up north in New Britain, Sano ripped his third homer in four games. It's easy, over stretches like that, to dream about the not-so-distant future, Buck hitting leadoff, Mauer hitting third, Bocaton at cleanup.

The comparisons and the expectations are only going to grow. "It makes me cringe," says Mientkiewicz, who broke into the majors with a wave of top Twins prospects led by outfielder Torii Hunter, the star of Minnesota teams that won four division titles between 2002 and '06. "We forget how hard this game is, and I blame Trout, Harper and Machado for that. What people don't realize is that they aren't the norm—they're the exception. Before them, who was the last guy to make a splash at 19, 20? Ken Griffey Jr.? A-Rod?

"But then you see these two young men in person, you realize everything you've heard about them is true, and you can't help but believe, and dream."

reads like a damn SI for Kids article ... but i guess it's the only route when talking about young, up and coming prospects.

*crosses more fingers*

I'm sure he's a marvelous human being, but how often does laying it on that thick *not* backfire? Best-case scenario is that the smallest way he disappoints people who take all of that to heart is that he grows up and gets too expensive when he realizes his own value like we expect most human adults pursuing careers to do.

It was fun to hear that a Twins scout identified him as first on their 2013 draft board when he was a freshman in high school.

As another quibble, my understanding that the nickname "Bocaton" for Sano was given because he, quite literally, has a really big mouth.

He's an interesting prospect but we've sort of got a bunch of those and - though he'd be up there in a lot of systems he might not even crack most Twins' top ten lists. Sooooooooooo, let's talk about something else.

When I first started reading an absolute shit ton about baseball, say 10-12 years ago, it was like 90% material written on behalf of the statistical movement that would spawn "Moneyball". Plus some smug dickheads. But this is the internet and rhetoric is kind of forced towards smugness no matter which side of an argument is being presented.

Of the many, many, many statnerd hobby horses, a big one was results for high-minors players being ignored in favor of scouting reports. Particularly in the case of slow-footed mashers (Roberto Petagine was a favorite of most people) but also with deception-based pitchers posting huge strikeout numbers (Anthony Slama, more recently for Twins fans - but Pat Neshek also had some trouble getting the call) there were a bunch of results, complete with splits for the first time, that were readily available for fans who wanted to better understand roster moves.

And the questions were fair. If you're a fan of the 2004 Kansas City Royals, asking why Calvin Pickering was hitting .314/.451/.712 in Omaha and only saw 142 MLB plate appearances that year is a valid point.

We didn't always know it at the time, but the answers were fair too. Royals scouts could look at Pickering and point out that he was defensively useless, maybe couldn't stay on the field often enough to even DH effectively, and wouldn't make enough contact at the big league level. But if you're a shitty team, the scouts need to be proven right or wrong.

Anyway, nobody who wanted more Calvin Pickering or Pat Neshek or Anthony Slama was going to hear it until they actually saw it. Which, again, is reasonable for a shitty club. But things are swinging back around because one of the least fair knock on stat nerds was that they aren't interested in more information. If you like baseball, learning more about baseball is always desirable and I don't know any SABR-inclined people who are remotely interested in limiting conversation in the way that Harold Reynolds or Ken Harrelson is.

So that brings us to Adam Brett Walker, who has inspired a delightfully no-stakes controversy because literally nobody thinks he belongs on a big league roster based on his MWL results. Right now, the argument is this:

Pro:
-Huge, huge pop
-decent outfielder
-weird basepath acumen
-Improving strikeout numbers

Con:
-Defensively limited to a corner
-Righthanded hitter
-Do improving strikeout numbers mean an improved hit tool or adjustment to inadequate competition?

If this were 2005, I'd have a loud and mostly obnoxious answer for that last one. But it's 2013 and I'm old and the answer is "I guess we'll find out". I will add that the quibble about which side of the plate he hits from is outdated. There's a weird lack of righthanded power in baseball right now and it's possible that in a couple years we'll see the profile of an ideal 4th outfielder shift to RH hitters instead of left.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/adam-brett-walkers-potential-divides-scouts/

Adam Brett Walker’s Potential Divides Scouts
August 26, 2013 by J.J. Cooper

By most any account, Twins right fielder Adam Brett Walker is having an excellent first full pro season.

His 26 home runs were tops in the Midwest League, while his 106 RBIs (in 122 games) are second in all the minors. He stood among the Midwest League leaders in slugging percentage (.536), extra-base hits (63) and runs scored (81). He went a perfect 8-for-8 stealing bases.

Yet the 21-year-old Walker’s big numbers at low Class A Cedar Rapids have failed to convince many scouts that he’s going to be able to translate that success to higher levels and higher-caliber pitching. In many cases they want to see an encore performance next year.

“Walker is a great mistake hitter. I’ve kept the same (overall scouting grade) on him all the way through,” a pro scout for an American League club said. “For me, he’s still a slow-twitch guy. The jump to the Florida State League is when it comes out. There the breaking balls are a little sharper. (The pitchers) have better command.

“I still have questions about Walker. I don’t know if he can catch up to good fastballs. He can hit the cripples, no doubt. He hits them a long ways.”

Even those scouts who see him as a backup in the big leagues or as an organzational player are impressed by his power. But the skepticism about his hitting ability began two years ago with a really bad month.

A Costly Cape

One month in the summer of 2011 cost Walker a good bit of money. On July 10 that summer, he was hitting .272/.306/.413 for Hyannis of the Cape Cod League. Then the bottom fell out.

Over the final month of the summer college league season, Walker hit .089/.180/.156 with one extra-base hit and 23 strikeouts in 45 at-bats. With plenty of amateur scouts and front office executives checking in on him over that stretch, the lasting impression was of a hitter who seemed overmatched.

Sandwiched around that disaster of a month, Walker won the Atlantic Sun Conference’s player of the year award as a sophomore, hitting .409/.486/.682 in 2011. As an encore, he hit .343/.426/.581 as a junior, but that wasn’t enough to wipe away the impression in many scouts’ eyes that he was a player with impressive power but a questionable hit tool.

Walker’s awful month led him to fall to the third round of the 2012 draft, but as he sees it, he learned useful lessons from his slump.

“That was the first time I’ve really struggled. I had a hard time dealing with it,” Walker said. “Overall it helped me—you learn from it. We all think at some point we’re going to struggle a little bit. It would have been great to go to the Cape and tear it up, but you try to learn from experience.”

When Walker makes contact, his power gives him the potential to make an impact in any game he plays. Scouts who like Walker’s potential focus on that power, especially since it’s paired with plenty of athleticism and average to above-average speed. More scouts are joining the club with every solid swing he shows for Cedar Rapids.

“His power is unbelievable,” said an amateur scout for a National League club who saw Walker in college and this year as a pro. “In a home run contest for the Cape Cod League at Fenway (Park) . . . he made (Stanford’s) Austin Wilson look like he was hitting in Williamsport.”

Wilson was the Mariners’ second-round pick in the 2013 draft, but the same scout sees Walker as the superior prospect.

“For all the fanfare on Austin Wilson, this guy is better . . . (and) it’s not close. And Austin Wilson is only (four) months younger than (Walker).”

Raw Power With Few Rivals

Walker has hit home runs in bunches. He hit six in April, then six more in May and June combined as he had to adjust to pitchers who stopped coming in on him, preferring instead to work away and with plenty of breaking balls. Facing that approach every day forced Walker to take another step toward learning to unlock his power while keeping his swing under control.

“I had to work on using the big part of the field,” Walker said during June when he hit just two home runs. “I’m not getting as many fastballs. I’m adjusting to the pitches I’m getting.”

Walker managed to make that adjustment when he bounced back in July to hit 10 home runs as part of a .304/.325/.652 month. He said that pitchers have now returned to trying to bust him inside with fastballs, but now they often try to get in on his hands off the plate to keep him from getting comfortable.

Double-A third baseman Miguel Sano has perhaps the best raw power in the minors, but in the Twins organization, numerous front office executives will point out that Walker’s raw power rivals that of Sano. His productive power isn’t bad either. Give him credit for the 14 homers he collected with Rookie-level Elizabethton last year and Walker has hit 40 home runs in a season and a half of pro ball.

“(His power) is similar to Sano. It’s fun to watch,” said Cedar Rapids hitting coach Tommy Watkins, who has seen both Sano and Walker come through the Midwest League. “You try to get him to understand that he doesn’t have to do too much. When I was a player, I had to put everything I had into it. He’s just such a big, strong guy that he doesn’t.

“He’s making strides with the hit tool. It goes back to understanding himself. He doesn’t have to try to do too much.”

With four times as many strikeouts (102) as walks (25) and a .321 on-base percentage this season, Walker still has work to do regarding his approach.

He also has a knack for picking his spots on the basepaths. He’s an average runner from home to first and faster than that underway. With that kind of speed, Walker is not someone who will likely ever steal 30 bases in a season, but when he does run, he’s safe. He’s a perfect 12-for-12 as a pro. At Jacksonville, he went 28-for-29.

“You’ve got to pick your spots right,” Walker said. “I usually steal my bags off the pitcher. I try to work on my baserunning, get some bags here and there. You’ve got to pick your times right. Sometimes I’ll check out a guy in the bullpen. You can figure out what they are from there, if they are slow out there, I know their slide step won’t be all that fast.”

Twins are sending Byron Buxton, AJ Achter, Alex Meyer, Trevor May, Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario, and Zach Jones. Sooooo, let's talk about these guys.

1. We all know Byron Buxton, but he's interesting in this case because it shows that the Twins are all in for an accelerated timeline if he's up for it. His adjustment period in high-A was brief but convincing. After an uncharacteristic about of swinging and missing, he has drawn 19 walks in August to 12 strikeouts. Shit, he stole more bases in August than he had strikeouts. There's been less homerun pop, but he's hitting a ton of triples and nothing in continuing scouting reports indicates his power profile (25ish homers?) has changed.

2. AJ Achter is a guy. He has shown good results. We'll see.

3. Meyer is a cool add because it indicates the organization is satisfied that his shoulder is fine and wants him to resume getting innings. Now, I'm not ready to trust them that his should *is* fine, because this is the Twins medical staff we're talking about. But them thinking it's fine is probably better than thinking it's injured. Right? Anyhow, he pitched well the other day, scraped 100mph, and will probably get one more AA start. Surviving the AFL intact puts him on track to get a debut in 2014.

4. May is an interesting case because he's thrown a lot of innings this year. I think the team would have loved to see the consistency to jump him to AAA, but there's been some really good starts and high-K numbers mixed in with the bad. And he seems like he's profiling as a workhorse. What's odd about him is that people kind of skip over an optimistic middle ground where he doesn't end up in relief but is a high-K guy who is 3/4 in the rotation. That actually is a thing elsewhere, but not in Minnesota. Remember Boof Bonser? Anyhow, he's going to get bombed in the AFL because flyball pitchers have a rough time there, but a guy who can strikeout 7-8 guys over nine innings and throw 200 MLB innings isn't a reliever.

5. Max Kepler is an oddity here. They apparently have to make a 40-man decision on him, but he's only at low-A and seems pretty unlikely to get scooped up in the Rule 5. The scouting reports have remained great, but he's been banged up a lot and the results have been inconsistent. If there's a such thing as an organization being high on a player but still being very open to trading him, I'm guessing this is it. But he also missed a lot of playing time with a lingering elbow injury, so it could just be the Twins getting him more plate appearances. You're only supposed to get one exception per team for a player who hasn't advanced past A-ball, but I'm guessing Buxton was good enough that he didn't count?

6. Eddie Rosario is my conspiracy theory choice. Generally speaking, players who come from places with a viable winter league aren't supposed to go to the AFL. We like being able to send Americans to the Dominican Winter League or the Venezuelan Winter League or the Puerto Rican Winter League, so we don't steal their players for Arizona Fall. Rosario "played" in Puerto Rico last year because he is a Puerto Rican and a good player, but not only did he see pretty sparse action - they didn't play him at second. That's their prerogative, of course. Those teams want to win games and not develop players for the Minnesota Twins. But he needs reps at second if he's going to stick there. So, AFL it is. There'll also be time to play in Puerto Rico after, so this is less a conspiracy theory than an acknowledgement that he needs to actually play in the infield and this might be Minnesota's only chance of guaranteeing that happens.

7. Zach Jones is a reliever who throws really, really hard and strikes out everybody. If we had the same system we did in 2008, we'd talk about Zach Jones a lot. But having the liberty to kind of "meh" at relief prospects is nice. He's also not pitched above A-ball, so I'm guessing we're just shrugging our shoulders at that "rule" this year?

Buxton and May get writeups. I like his conclusion on May. The ups and downs are balanced out by the durability. Sort of like... Bartolo Colon with walks? Is that a thing?

Byron Buxton, OF, Twins (High-A Ft. Myers)
The top prospect in the land continues his assault on the baseball world, hitting for average and showing good pop with a mature approach, in addition to his top-shelf defense in center and elite speed on the bases. It’s a performance trend that started in the Midwest League and has continued after his promotion to the Florida State League. Simply put, Buxton is a superhero, showing all would-be contemporaries and spectators that they are mere mortals and insufficient next to his special baseball powers. The 19-year-old cape-wearing man from mythology is set to play with the Glendale Desert Dogs in the AFL, and if you haven’t put eyes on this exceptional prize, do whatever it takes to make your way to Camelback Ranch this fall. *Lycra Spandex costumes are optional. –Jason Parks

Trevor May, RHP, Phillies (Double-A New Britain)
Earlier this summer I was able to sit on a May start, and at the time I wasn’t overly impressed despite a positive on-the-field outcome. May is a big, strong horse of a pitcher, with a well-rounded arsenal that includes a meaty fastball and multiple secondary offerings that flash above-average, but his delivery minimizes the natural advantage of height, and as a result of his drop-and-drive approach his plus velocity often arrives flat-planed and edible. The command comes and goes, but when he’s on and staying over his offerings, May looks the part of a no. 4 starter, one capable of logging innings and keeping his team in the game. He’ll be pitching for the Glendale Desert Dogs in the Arizona Fall League and will get to wear the same uniform as Byron Buxton, so I expect May to take a step forward this fall and carry it into his 2014 campaign, where the big righty will likely have the opportunity to pitch at the highest level. –Jason Parks

Here's a fun question which I don't know the answer to:

Who is the best player received in return for a waiver trade this close to September?

/researches

*bends over barrel*

>
>Who is the best player received in return for a waiver trade
>this close to September?


Willie McGee by the A's on 8/29/90? He also won the NL batting title that year.

This is a pretty stupid way to make the point that Josmil Pinto is gathering some real buzz as a prospect. Ramos debut'd four years prior to when we'll see Pinto, so the idea that the front office regarded them as redundant talents is... so insulting I'd prefer to think that Miller made it up.

Their games are pretty different too. Pinto's defense has apparently improved quite a bit, but lags behind Ramos' still. I don't think he'll have Ramos' pop either. But he has shown flashes of plate discipline that Ramos never did while still remaining the same tough strikeout that Ramos was in the Twins' system. The "flashes" are an odd thing, as he didn't draw walks at an interesting rate until AA this year, when he nearly doubled his 2012 walk rate. He was repeating the level, but it was the sort of improvement you like to see.

He's gone back to high-contact hacking a bit at AAA, but he's hitting .303/.324/.455. I'm comfortable with the prediction that they can offer similar sized, if differently shaped, offensive value. But the frame here is silly. Ramos has been a good MLBer since 2011.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/twins-see-shades-of-wilson-ramos-in-josmil-pinto/

Twins See Shades Of Wilson Ramos In Josmil Pinto
August 30, 2013 by Phil Miller


MINNESOTA—The Twins’ front office took a lot of criticism back in 2010 when they dealt Wilson Ramos to the Nationals for closer Matt Capps. The decision looks worse today, with Capps out of baseball while Ramos develops into one of the best young catchers in the National League.

But the Twins knew something when they decided to trade Ramos: They had two of him.

The second one is named Josmil Pinto, and while he’s not exactly Ramos’ identical twin, he seems destined to become the Twin that Ramos never was—and soon.

“He has an excellent chance to be in the major leagues next year,” Twins’ vice president for player personnel Mike Radcliff said. “He’s made tremendous progress.”

Progress that Radcliff noticed five years ago in Ramos, whose linebacker build is similar to Pinto’s, whose ability to hit 400-foot home runs is comparable, and who grew up less than 10 miles away from the Nationals’ catcher in Valencia, Venezuela. At 24, Pinto is almost two years younger than Ramos, and their games are close enough that Radcliff isn’t certain who will have a more distinguished career.

But he likes Pinto’s chances.

“He’s probably not quite the catcher that Ramos is; Josmil has a plus arm, Wilson’s probably plus-plus, and he’s better at calling a game,” Radcliff said. “They both hit it a long way, but I’m going to say Pinto is a little better hitter than Ramos was at this stage, all-around.”

He’s proving it this season, hitting .308/.411/.482 with an .892 OPS at Double-A New Britain that included 14 home runs in 386 at-bats, earning him a promotion to Triple-A Rochester in August.

“He’s not far away from being a big league hitter,” Radcliff said. “And he’s worked hard to get better behind the plate. He learned English so he can work with pitchers, he’s getting rid of the ball better, he’s turning his defense into an asset.”

TWIN KILLINGS

• The Twins released reliever Cody Eppley after he posted a 4.88 ERA and 13 walks in 24 innings with Rochester.

• Righthander Alex Meyer, the Twins’ top pitching prospect in the high minors, missed two months with shoulder inflammation. He touched 98 mph and struck out nine in 3 2/3 innings of a rehab start in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and was returned to Double-A for the season’s final two weeks.

Read away for Buxton's absurdly mature approach. Rosario's barrel awareness. And Meyer's swing-and-miss power arm.

1. Byron Buxton, cf, Twins
Team: high Class A Fort Myers (Florida State)
Age: 19
Why He’s Here: .474/.655/.684 (9-for-19), 2 3B, 9 R, 1 RBI, 9 BB, 3 SO, 2-for-3 SB

The Scoop: The first 140-game season is an adjustment for anyone, and it has been for Buxton, who last hit a home run on July 28. But this is the No. 1 prospect in the game, so even if he’s not hitting the ball out of the park, he’s continuing to be an line-drive machine.

This week, Florida State League pitchers gave up and stopped throwing him hittable pitches. Buxton, a 19-year-old with an advanced understanding of the strike zone, responded by simply taking ball four. He walked nine times this week to go with his nine hits. With two games left in August, Buxton has a .545 on-base percentage for the month, easily the best mark among full-season players.

No. 10 Eddie Rosario, 2b, Twins
Team: Double-A New Britain (Eastern)
Age: 21
Why He’s Here: .382/400/.559 (13-for-34), 1 HR, 3 2B, 8 RBIs, 6 R, 1 BB, 8 SO, 1-for-1 SB

The Scoop: Rosario entered the week hitting just .197 (15-for-76) for August, but he had enough in the tank for one last hurrah. With four extra-base hits this week, he matched his total for the first 20 games of the month. Rosario faces an assignment to the Arizona Fall League in October, and he’ll probably be thankful for the month off after hitting .255/.297/.355 through 26 games in August.

11. Alex Meyer, rhp, Twins
Team: Double-A New Britain (Eastern League)
Age: 23
Why He’s Here: 1-0, 0.00, 9 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 11 SO, 2 BB

The Scoop: After missing nearly two months with a bout of shoulder soreness, Meyer seems as good as new. Tthough he went just five and four innings, respectively, due to innings limitations, the 6-foot-9 righty used his high-90s gas to carve up Bowie and Trenton. He probably will make one more start before the Rock Cats’ season ends, meaning he’ll finish with more than 100 strikeouts in not nearly as many innings.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/pirates-trade-for-twins-first-baseman-justin-morneau-192711995.html

I'm not sure what the Twins need Alex Presley for, and losing the 2-3mm they owed Morneau for the rest of the season doesn't really seem worth the move given the payroll trimming they did prior to this year. Maybe the PTBNL is a guy, but that hardly ever happens.

I hope he plays well in Pittsburgh and gets some team's attention in the playoffs to maybe get himself some money this winter. His career since the concussion in 2010 has been a weirdly underplayed tragedy. Whether or not he deserved the 2006 MVP (he didn't, but his roommate did) he was well on his way to a legitimate MVP in 2010 with a Jim Thome-classic style batting line and defense at first that had improved to "wow, that's rather quite good." A pair of MVPs, a handful of playoff appearances, and a reputation as the team leading bad cop to Joe Mauer's boring cop is enough to at least make a Twins legend on the level of guys like Torii Hunter - who probably wont be Hall of Famers but will get some down-ballot action and never pay for a meal in Minnesota. That last one is probably still true.

Instead, he had two years of living miserably - not just in his career but in life. And then never really got his footing back with his health.

He was a great Twin though, and we were happy to have him here.

Giant power relief arm who is near ready. This is better than just Presley. With Tonkin and this fellow up next year, the Twins could have a really nice, high-K pen. Think... the exact opposite of their rotation.

http://www.piratesprospects.com/2013/08/duke-welker-is-reportedly-the-ptbnl-in-the-justin-morneau-trade.html

Duke Welker is Reportedly the PTBNL in the Justin Morneau Trade
Posted by Tim Williams on August 31, 2013 | 8 Comments
Duke Welker is reportedly the PTBNL. (Photo Credit: David Hague)
Duke Welker is reportedly the PTBNL. (Photo Credit: David Hague)
Tom Singer reports that MLB.com sources say Duke Welker is the player to be named later in the Justin Morneau trade. The Pirates sent Alex Presley and a PTBNL to acquire Morneau earlier today. After the trade, Neal Huntington said that the PTBNL would be a “legitimate piece”. Welker is certainly a legitimate piece, as he throws upper 90s with a good breaking ball. However, if your view on relievers is that they’re expendable, he’s not a guy the Pirates will miss. That’s especially true when you consider how good the Pirates have been acquiring right-handed relievers.

They traded Vic Black as the PTBNL to acquire Marlon Byrd. If the report is true on Welker, he would have to clear waivers before joining the Twins, thus the reason for the PTBNL status. If he doesn’t clear waivers, the Pirates could pull him back and send him to Minnesota after the season. Welker would have to clear waivers in the NL before he could make it to the Twins in the AL. However, I can’t see anyone blocking the deal, since teams usually have a gentleman’s agreement in place.

Welker had a 3.25 ERA in 61 innings with Indianapolis this year, along with a 64:29 K/BB ratio. He made two appearances in the majors, with 1.1 combined shutout innings.

Might as well do this the day after he hits a pair of homers. He's the kind of player we talked about a little bit above, with AAA numbers that are too busy for him to get fully passed on but a scouting report that says he belonged in the Can-Am league for a half decade.

But a team this shitty that needs a firstbaseman can't ignore .352/.427/.639 in AAA, so here he is - getting his chance and hitting a pair of opposite field homeruns in a park that actually plays pretty big that direction.

The approach is weird, with that Mike Piazza thing standing off the plate and poking balls over the RF wall. The amount of people who are strong enough to do that is pretty small, but I'm not sure it's actually a thing unless you're Mike Piazza. Is he going to get beat with real velocity on the outside part of the plate? Is he prepared to cover quality breaking pitches from right-handers?

My vote here is going to be "maybe" and "no" on those two questions. His strikeout rate doesn't support that batting average and, furthermore, it doesn't support much average at all against righthanders. 25% K-rate against RHP in Rochester is... substantial. We can project that Sano will grow out of that or will walk enough to make up for it, but not the case with a 29 year old. Colabello may be an MLB player, but whatever he is, he's that already. Right now.

I think he's a useful platoon player as a ceiling. That kind of pop isn't to be under-estimated, and the baseballing world has gotten weird enough that being a R/R guy might not keep him from earning a bench spot, particularly if he's willing to play in the outfield. But giving him a chance to a be a real boy at firstbase is the smart play. Good for the Twins.

In other news, Brian Dozier has hit .264/.319/.511 in the second half. He's 8th in MLB in WAR among secondbasemen, and that's with being dinged by UZR for defense that's looked surprisingly strong to me. He's turned into a player, and... we need some of those.

E-Town seems to have missed it in the first time since forever. And New Britain didn't make it in spite of having the services of our best batch of prospects. Though, in fairness, some of those guys were responsible for Ft. Myers' early dominance.

I don't have much to add here. I'd hope this stops Rochester from whining about how we treat their team, but Kyle Gibson hit his innings limit and will be on the bench for their playoff series so I'm sure somebody is going to whine about that too.

These matchups are occurring this week. Follow with tepid interest.

He's really just not good at baseball this season.

http://i.imgur.com/60z2EYc.gif

i want to give him some benefit there, it being darvish on the mound and plouffe-y 100% thinking something much, much faster was coming. still, that side shot is ... embarrassing.

Plouffe did apparently hit a double off of Darvish later, so whatever.

This absurd swing-and-miss actually reminds me of a post I was thinking of making while watching Baltimore and Chicago play last night. The whole pitch-to-contact thing with the Twins has made watching other teams play a whole different experience because it's clear that the league has just entirely escaped the Twins pitching philosophy. I've never seen baseball actually look archaic before, but last night I saw two guys with completely mediocre stuff (Quintana with Chicago and Gonzalez with Baltimore) rack up just shy of a strikeout an inning between the two of them as though it were nothing special.

And it's not these guys (I think Gonzalez' splitter is the only really good swing-and-miss pitch in either guys' arsenal) that are driving this. Batters just don't care about striking out anymore. It's an out they're happy to make - and I think the flipside very well could be that ball-in-play contact is a lot harder than it used to be. There's some evidence to support this, but I don't feel like digging it up. I do remember an interview on BPro recently that indicated that, leaguewide, defensive efficiency (the rate of balls in play turned into outs) is noticeably down from where it was a few years ago, but without a corresponding increase in offense.

Basically, Twins pitchers are pitching to a mindset ("don't strike out") that nobody has any more. The objective, then, to create soft contact, is a lot more difficult than it was even a short time ago because batters as well are working to avoid soft contact. They'd rather swing through a 61mph curveball and create a humiliatingly giffable moment, then double in their next at bat, then ground out to the shortstop.

In conclusion, this is the Trevor May post. I really liked the BPro blurb on his inclusion in the Arizona Fall League because it identified him as something that is now common leaguewide, but which the Twins haven't really had since Boof Bonser's one good season: an innings-eating workhorse 4th starter who strikes out 7+ guys per nine innings. May's going to get dinged in some true disaster starts. But he's also going to make up for that with 10 strikeout games. That's baseball in 2013, and it seems worth betting that it will be baseball in 2015 as well. The needle will move again eventually, but right now we're caught really behind the times.

It's also an Alex Meyer and Jose Berrios and Kohl Stewart post. And a Kyle Gibson post, because I still have nope there. But all those guys have higher upside than Trevor May, who I think is more perfectly emblematic of where the Twins need to be in pitcher development then those guys who are on a track to develop into good #1-#3s in any environment.

And there's a post-script that should be here about defensive shifts, which we're also really behind the curve on. But that's for another time.

>And a Kyle Gibson post, because I still have nope there.

my brain made the correction, but my eyes wandered back and then came the funny. thanks, even if it was unintentional.

i think we're all a bit fed up with the BRCA, pitch-to-contact philosophy. we've discussed it quite a bit. we'll just have to cross our fingers the prospects don't get remodeled in their development.

>we'll just have to cross our fingers the prospects don't get remodeled >in their development.

So far, so good. Finding guys with live fastballs is step one. The good version of Liriano, for instance, could follow a Twins philosophy of getting ahead in the count with fastballs and then finishing guys with quality breaking stuff because his fastball was also really tough to hit. I've heard Rick Anderson describe this as "pitch to contact" but really it's just "get ahead in the count and don't be afraid of contact." I can live with that if we don't have the Kevin Correia's of the world on our roster. That guy should definitely be afraid of contact.

Alex Meyer posted a high K/9 than he did in the lower levels in the Nats organization. Trevor May was repeating a level and showed a marginal uptick in K/9. Berrios' K/9 dropped substantially, but as much as I'd like for him to have repeated his 2012 dominance it wasn't particularly likely in his full-season debut.

Rookie-level guys like Kohl Stewart, Stephen Gonsalves, Randy Rosario, and my favorite for Twins pitching sleeper, Felix Jorge, all still profile as real bat-missers. So... if this whole stupid thing is personnel driven then we're part of the way to fixing it... provided, as you ably note, that the organization doesn't fuck it up with their stupid philosophy.

i was going to try for a spin on mitch hedberg's great yogurt line: "fruit on bottom, nope on top", but i think you're already the leader in the clubhouse by some length.

having given a casual glance at berrios' line in cedar rapids, i'm a little sad. still has the high K numbers, but his H/9 ballooned and the SO/BB tanked. to be expected, like you said, but i was hoping those wouldn't show the dramatic drop they have.

>having given a casual glance at berrios' line in cedar rapids,
>i'm a little sad. still has the high K numbers, but his H/9
>ballooned and the SO/BB tanked. to be expected, like you said,
>but i was hoping those wouldn't show the dramatic drop they
>have.

Yeah. The walks were pretty disappointing to me. It's not even an above-average amount, but he was throwing darts in 2012. I'm going to remain agnostic on H/9 for the lower levels because the consistency of defense behind him is... not strong at that level. And I read a few notes, specifically on Berrios' starts, that he needed to do a better job of shaking off the particularly unimpressive defense that was often played behind him. Which is still a criticism, but a different sort.

I'm going to swipe a Baseball Prospectus "Eyewitness Report" on Berrios that was mostly optimistic, but interesting for a dimmer view on his fastball than others. I think the big takeaway was that acclimating to a full-season league meant he went into some starts kind of dragging ass - which happens. Because returns on his fastball this season were definitely mixed, from bumping 97mph on occasion to this one of 91-93mph. And there wasn't a straight line of decline either. This one also came after the report I read dinging her for composure after getting some bad luck - and specifically complimented him for doing just that. We'll see, I guess:

Compact delivery; solid tempo; easy arm action out of 3/4 slot; repeats slot and arm speed across offerings; maintains tempo from wind-up and stretch; some sweep on the backside but generally hits checkpoints; slightly larger circle than previous views; can occasionally get late hand break entering stride, causing arm drag.

#1 Pitch
Fastball: 91-93; velo built throughout start and sat in upper range in final inning; at best works east-to-west and sets up secondaries; lacks plane and is easy to lift up in the zone; enough giddy-up to miss bats, particularly when working backwards.
Grade: Present 50/Future 55

#2 Pitch
Curveball: 77-78, 11-to-5; future plus pitch flashes already; good shape and late action; high comfort level with offering; worked inside to RHH without fear; first time through lineup set up with fastball, then flipped second time through; slight inconsistencies in arm action/release threw off command, but correctable; typical low-level inconsistencies in shape, but not long-term concern; will be a weapon at highest level.
Grade: Present 50/Future 60

#3 Pitch
Changeup: 79-81; will flash sharp late drop; not commanding pitch yet, but showed some ability to drop in the zone; enough comfort to throw when behind in count, but primarily a change-of-pace pitch when ahead; will be third average or better offering; enough overall feel for craft that it wouldn’t surprise if pitch ultimately surpasses future grade.
Grade: Present 40/Future 50

Other
Diminutive height robs fastball of plane, forcing him to work down in the zone; upper-level hitters will force more precision when he elevates; sturdy lower-half and arm speed help generate velocity; projects to solid durability in spite of size; advanced feel for sequencing, given developmental level; plus mound presence—handled bad hops and inconsistent defense behind him with aplomb; handles running game well; 1.29-1.37 to home; “gets it” on the mound; knows how to pitch.

Overall
The easy knock on Berrios is his height, and as noted he can get into trouble when he works loosey-goosey when elevating. While he’s shown a plus fastball in the past, the pitch and the package look more like a future 55 right now. Mature approach, centered mound presence, and feel for secondaries are all big pluses. Sequencing and quality of CB/CH combo should help keep barrels off the fastball, but he’ll need to be precise in the zone. Projects well as starter, but lack of dominant fastball limits overall ceiling. High risk due to distance from majors and lack of track record over full season. If shifted to pen, would not be surprised to see fastball sit mid-90s when all said and done. In short bursts, FB/CB combo could be late-inning caliber.
OFP Grade: 55; no. 3/no. 4 Starter
Risk: High

... among Twins starters.

On the up side, Josmil Pinto is not hitting a completely absurd .565/.600/.913. There's still something to be said for being a tough strikeout, apparently.

Via Seth Stohs and TD. Apparently, Matt Harrison will start a move to the outfield, which might be his quickest route to the big leagues but seems silly if he can actually play third. And Eddie Rosario will resume some looks in the outfield. I guess the team is impressed with Brian Dozier, but it doesn't sound like Rosario is moving back permanently - just keeping options open.

http://twinsdaily.com/2312-twins-announce-florida-instructional-league-roster.html

The Pitchers: Jose (JO) Berrios, Brandon Bixler, Madison Boer, Hudson Boyd, Ryan Eades, Brian Gilbert, Stephen Gonsalves, Chih-Wei Hu, CK Irby, Felix Jorge, Yorman Landa, Austin Malinowski, Mason Melotakis, Alex Meyer, Ethan Mildren, Brandon Peterson, Fernando Romero, Randy Rosario, Aaron Slegers, Kohl Stewart, Tyler Stirewalt, Miguel Sulburan, Lewis Thorpe, Alex Wimmers

Thoughts: There are some very exciting prospects on this list. The 2013 top pitching draft picks will be there. There is reason for optimism with Kohl Stewart, Stephen Gonsalves, and even Ryan Eades despite unimpressive numbers at Elizabethton. Miguel Sulburan may be invited, in part, to get to know more people in the organization. Randy Rosario ended the Elizabethton season in the DL with some shoulder discomfort, but he is fine and will join fellow E-Twins starters Yorman Landa and Felix Jorge. Alex Meyer will get more work in even before the AFL after missing so much time during the season.

The Catchers: Jorge Fernandez, Mitch Garver, Brian Navarreto, Michael Quesada, Alex Swim, Stuart Turner.

Thoughts: Jorge Fernandez and Brian Navarreto were both impressive in the GCL. Turner and Garver were top college catchers who got off to a good start in Elizabethton. Quesada completed his 50-game suspension before spending the final months with the Kernels.

The Infielders: Niko Goodrum, Travis Harrison, Dalton Hicks, Aderlin Mejia, Levi Michael, Amaurys Minier, Javier Pimentel, Jorge Polanco, Kennys Vargas, Engelb Vielma, Ryan Walker.

Thoughts: This is a little older group of prospects, but they are guys with something to work on. I would say that, particularly with infielders, any extra mechanical work will be beneficial. They will work on the hitting side of the game, but I would venture that defense will be a primary focus for this group. That said, there is some serious upside in this group.

The Outfielders: Zach Granite, Zach Larson, Jeremias Pineda, Dereck Rodriguez, Adam Walker, JD Williams.

Thoughts: Walker and Williams had very solid seasons, but both have some work to do defensively, and even offensively. Rodriguez has so much talent, but he keeps getting hurt, so this is an opportunity for him to get more work in. Larson was a late-round pick last year who put together a very nice 2013.


There is the list of players. Although box scores and any information are difficult to get out of Ft. Myers during the instructional league, it is a good opportunity for these young players.

Some charts in here that I didn't feel like formatting. But a nice writeup anyhow. I'm still scared of the hype, but maybe I can enjoy it over the winter?

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2013-minor-league-player-of-the-year-byron-buxton/

2013 Minor League Player Of The Year: Byron Buxton
September 11, 2013 by Matt Eddy

More than 250 players in the full-season minors out-homered Byron Buxton this season. Yet that didn’t prevent the 19-year-old center fielder from ranking as the No. 1 prospect in baseball at midseason or from winning the Midwest League MVP award or from—spoiler alert—ranking as the top prospect in both Class A leagues in which he played this season.

The Twins even ticketed their uber-prospect, in the words of one scout, “The best minor leaguer I’ve ever seen,” for the Arizona Fall League in October.

Now, Buxton can add one more feather to his cap: Baseball America Minor League Player of the Year, a distinction he sewed up with an all-around game seldom seen from a teenager in his first full season.

In stops at low Class A Cedar Rapids and—following a late-June promotion—high Class A Fort Myers, Buxton hit a cumulative .334/.424/.520 with 49 extra-base hits, 55 stolen bases and a sparkling 76-to-105 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 125 games. He led the minors with 18 triples, finished second with 109 runs scored—one behind Marcus Semien of the White Sox—and 12th in stolen bases.

More impressively, Buxton ranked sixth in the minor league batting race, 10th in hits (163) and seventh in on-base percentage, despite being a full year younger than any other member of those top-10 lists.

Adding another layer to his accomplishments is the fact that just 15 months ago, scouts voiced concern about Buxton’s ability to adjust to quality pitching as he left the high school ranks for pro ball. The rapidity at which Buxton, the second overall pick in the 2012 draft from Appling County High in Baxley, Ga., has put those concerns to rest truly belies his youth.

“You think, ‘How can he get better?’ Well he’s going to get better,” a pro scout for an American League club said. “He’s just going to get better with repetitions and with a little tweaking here and there.”

So while Buxton’s 12 home runs this season, eight of them in low Class A, don’t overwhelm when compared with the output from top young sluggers such as the Rangers’ Joey Gallo (40), the Cubs’ Javier Baez (37), the Astros’ George Springer (37) or the Twins’ own Miguel Sano (35), he’s on virtually the same trajectory as another five-tool stud for whom power developed later—and suddenly.

Angels center fielder Mike Trout took the baseball world by storm as a rookie in 2012, mashing 30 homers and leading the majors with 49 stolen bases and 129 runs scored. Yet just two years prior to that, a teenaged Trout hit 10 home runs in 131 games during his full-season debut at two Class A levels, one of them the notoriously hitter-friendly California League.

Trout in 2010 excelled at many of the same things that Buxton did this season. He hit for average, he drew walks, he stole bases and he showed budding extra-base power. He even played for the same Cedar Rapids club in the Midwest League, back when it was an Angels affiliate.

To fully realize the eerie similarity between the two players, the chart at right lays out how Buxton (age 19 all season) and Trout (who turned 19 on Aug. 7) compare in several traditional statistical categories and, because this is Baseball America, how scouts projected their tools at the time they played in low Class A.

“The books are full of guys who didn’t show the power numbers in the low minors,” the AL scout said, “and (Buxton) is already showing it.”

While scouts don’t necessarily see Buxton developing into the 30-homer beast that Trout has become, they feel confident that he’ll go deep 20-25 times a year with regularity once he matures.

“Buxton was by far the best I have seen in a long, long time other than Trout,” said high Class A Palm Beach manager Johnny Rodriguez, who managed against Trout in the Midwest League in 2010. “Trout has more power, but Buxton probably does more (things). He has a better arm. He is a better defender than Trout, with better range and jumps.

“They’re both so explosive, and Buxton probably is a better hitter. He has fewer holes than Trout had. That’s what is so amazing, Buxton has very loose hands and has such bat speed, he just sits back on the ball and then explodes through it.”

Peer Pressure

Ask evaluators for Buxton player comps and Trout is not the only name on the tips of their tongues. One scout for a National League club evoked the name of the Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen, saying that Buxton has similar upside potential but is more physical at the same age.

Taking a wider view, Buxton stands out among his peers for his advanced skill level. Matching up his output during his first full season with 11 comparable players of recent vintage—that is, toolsy teen outfielders who were premium draft picks and who enjoyed immediate pro success—reveals that Buxton’s overall rate of production is unsurpassed. A few others reside in the same general neighborhood, but no one is obviously better.

For the purposes of this comparison, Buxton’s peer group consists of Jay Bruce (Reds), Josh Hamilton (Rays), Bryce Harper (Nationals), Jason Heyward (Braves), Cameron Maybin (Tigers), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), Corey Patterson (Cubs), Giancarlo Stanton (Marlins), Mike Trout (Angels), Justin Upton (Diamondbacks) and Delmon Young (Rays). Save for Stanton (second round), all were top-half-of-the-first-round draft picks.

Here are the 12 young standouts, all in their first full seasons, sorted by the “technical” version of Bill James’ runs created metric:


Player Year PA AVG OBP SLG HR XBH SB BB SO RC
Trout 2010 600 .341 .428 .490 10 47 56 73 85 120
Buxton 2013 574 .334 .424 .520 12 49 55 76 105 116
Stanton 2008 540 .293 .381 .611 39 68 4 58 153 111
Young 2004 578 .322 .388 .538 25 56 21 53 120 109
Patterson 1999 509 .320 .358 .592 20 72 33 25 85 102
Heyward 2008 533 .316 .381 .473 11 46 15 51 78 91
McCutchen 2006 590 .294 .359 .450 17 45 23 50 111 88
Bruce 2006 498 .291 .355 .516 16 63 19 44 106 82
Harper 2011 452 .297 .392 .501 17 43 26 59 87 80
Maybin 2006 445 .304 .387 .457 9 35 27 50 116 72
Upton 2006 501 .263 .343 .413 12 41 15 52 96 65
Hamilton 2000 423 .302 .348 .476 13 39 14 27 71 65
• Buxton (57 games) and Trout (50) spent by far the most time at a level higher than low Class A in the sampled seasons. Harper (37) and McCutchen (20) spent time at Double-A, while Heyward (seven) spent a week at high Class A.


Buxton leads the field in walks (76) and walk rate (12.7 percent of plate appearances) and ranks second in in OBP (.424), average (.334), steals (55) and walk-to-strikeout ratio (0.86). He places third in OPS (.944) and fourth in slugging (.520), and if anything this player comparison undersells Buxton’s ability because it includes only the players who experienced initial success.

Other premium prep outfielders with bumpy introductions to pro ball, such as Chris Lubanski (fifth overall, 2003), Ryan Harvey (sixth, 2003), Donavan Tate (third, 2009) and Bubba Starling (fifth, 2011), are not included in the sample.

Tough Competition

Despite Trout’s incredible all-around 2010 campaign, he did not win the BA Minor League POY award that year. (He did win in 2011 after a stellar year at Double-A.) That honor went instead to Rays righthander Jeremy Hellickson, who went 12-3, 2.45 in 21 starts at Triple-A Durham, striking out 123 in 118 innings while walking 35 and allowing five home runs.

The 23-year-old Hellickson made his big league debut that season, logging 36 innings for Tampa Bay, then continued to pitch well in 2011 and ’12 (3.02 ERA over 60 starts) before taking a giant step back with a 5.04 ERA this season.

In an echo of 2010, Buxton’s chief competition for the POY award this year also happens to be a 23-year-old prospect who excelled in the upper minors but who has a lower ceiling. This time it’s Astros center fielder George Springer, who with 37 homers and 45 steals very nearly became the first 40-40 player in the history of the modern minor leagues.

Springer had a huge year, hitting .303/.411/.600 with 68 extra-base hits and 83 walks in 135 games split between Double-A Corpus Christi and Triple-A Oklahoma City. He even recorded in the highest power-speed number—a harmonic mean between a player’s homers and steals—of the past decade. Springer’s propensity to swing and miss, however, places him at greater risk to fall short of fulfilling his ceiling.

Here are the top power-speed performers since 2004 along with each player’s strikeout percentage per plate appearance.

Player Year Peak Level Org SO% HR SB PSN
George Springer 2013 Oklahoma City (AAA) Astros 27.3 37 45 41
Grant Desme 2009 Stockton (Hi A) Athletics 26.8 31 40 35
Terry Evans 2006 Arkansas (AA) Angels 22.7 33 37 35
Justin Maxwell 2007 Potomac (Hi A) Nationals 24.2 27 35 30
Greg Halman 2008 West Tenn (AA) Mariners 26.3 29 31 30
Charlton Jimerson 2007 Tacoma (AAA) Mariners 32.2 25 35 29
Nelson Cruz 2008 Oklahoma (AAA) Rangers 19.4 37 24 29
Chris Young 2005 Birmingham (AA) White Sox 23.3 26 32 29
Delmon Young 2005 Durham (AAA) Rays 16.4 26 32 29
Dan Carroll 2011 High Desert (Hi A) Mariners 26.4 18 62 28

• Springer also places 11th on this list based on his 2012 campaign in which he hit 24 homers and stole 32 bases (27 PSN). So too do Evans (27, 2009) and Young (27, 2004) make multiple appearances inside the top 20.
We’ve seen how contact liabilities have limited the utility of Justin Maxwell and Chris Young in the big leagues, where they’re part-time/platoon outfielders who offer plus range in center field and plus power production versus lefthanders. It’s a different story against righties, where Maxwell has a career .716 OPS (499 PA) and Young is at .711 (2,808 PA).

None of the other power-speed players with a strikeout rate in excess of 20 percent fashioned a major league career—though Grant Desme and Greg Halman are two of the all-time great what-if propositions, for entirely different reasons.

So while Springer certainly will be a valuable piece to a major league team one day, Buxton’s ceiling is simply too immense, his production too loud when placed in context and his case for POY too strong to ignore.

What’s more, we think Buxton’s case will only grow stronger with time.

J.J. Cooper and John Manuel contributed additional reporting to this story.



Minor League Player Of The Year Winners
1981 Mike Marshall, 1b, Albuquerque (Dodgers)
1982 Ron Kittle, of, Edmonton (White Sox)
1983 Dwight Gooden, rhp, Lynchburg (Mets)
1984 Mike Bielecki, rhp, Hawaii (Pirates)
1985 Jose Canseco, of, Huntsville/Tacoma (Athletics)
1986 Gregg Jefferies, ss, Columbia/Lynchburg/Jackson (Mets)
1987 Gregg Jefferies, ss, Jackson/Tidewater (Mets)
1988 Tom Gordon, rhp, Appleton/Memphis/Omaha (Royals)
1989 Sandy Alomar Jr., c, Las Vegas (Padres)
1990 Frank Thomas, 1b, Birmingham (White Sox)
1991 Derek Bell, of, Syracuse (Blue Jays)
1992 Tim Salmon, of, Edmonton (Angels)
1993 Manny Ramirez, of, Canton/Charlotte (Indians)
1994 Derek Jeter, ss, Tampa/Albany/Columbus (Yankees)
1995 Andruw Jones, of, Macon (Braves)
1996 Andruw Jones, of, Durham/Greenville/Richmond (Braves)
1997 Paul Konerko, 1b, Albuquerque (Dodgers)
1998 Eric Chavez, 3b, Huntsville/Edmonton (Athletics)
1999 Rick Ankiel, lhp, Arkansas/Memphis (Cardinals)
2000 Jon Rauch, rhp, Winston-Salem/Birmingham (White Sox)
2001 Josh Beckett, rhp, Brevard County/Portland (Marlins)
2002 Rocco Baldelli, of, Bakersfield/Orlando/Durham (Devil Rays)
2003 Joe Mauer, c, Fort Myers/New Britain (Twins)
2004 Jeff Francis, lhp, Tulsa/Colorado Springs (Rockies)
2005 Delmon Young, of, Montgomery/Durham (Devil Rays)
2006 Alex Gordon, 3b, Wichita (Royals)
2007 Jay Bruce, of, Sarasota/Chattanooga/Louisville (Reds)
2008 Matt Wieters, c, Frederick/Bowie (Orioles)
2009 Jason Heyward, of, Myrtle Beach/Mississippi/Gwinnett (Braves)
2010 Jeremy Hellickson, rhp, Durham/Charlotte (Rays)
2011 Mike Trout, of, Arkansas (Angels)
2012 Wil Myers, of, Northwest Arkansas/Omaha (Royals)

That list of MiLB players of the year is pretty accomplished, particularly for up-the-middle players who can contribute on both sides of the ball. Not a lot of bad careers in there, and some really excellent players as a top end.

There's also Buxton's August, where he stopped hitting homers and started doing... literally everything else.

.402/.523/.494 line. Twenty walks to sixteen strikeouts. Sixteen stolen bases to six caught stealing.

The power is going to be there. He hit for 30% XBH in his first full-season year over two levels that aren't really kind to anybody trying to hit for power, let alone teenagers. That's for next year, though I'll be through the moon if he keeps up a high average, high discipline approach with doubles and triples while stealing a shit ton of bases and playing gold glove centerfield. That's an annual MVP candidate without homers.

There's also a recorded google hangout with Byron Buxton. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it's kind of a shame about slow-talking southerners. He *sounds* like a dumb kid, with the "ummmm" before each question and the impossibly slow cadence. But his answers aren't cliche and are incredibly intelligent for a 19 year old. There are MLBers who can't explain their approach at the plate that clearly.

So, I'm calling his media personality floor Joe Mauer - not awed by the camera Jacque Jones-style, but still pretty boring. With an upside of somebody like Torii Hunter or Doug Mientkiewicz, a legitimately good interview.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/google-hangout-with-byron-buxton/

Greg (ohio): How did Buxton perform at summer showcases? Did he always look like a future superstar?

John Manuel: He wasn't as "famous" as some other players in terms of being a showcase superstar and veteran. But he was toward the top of the 2012 draft list early on and impressed at the 2011 East Coast Pro Showcase. He was in the finals of the Under Armour All-America game home run derby with Lewis Brinson, losing to Brinson for the derby title, but the guy stood out among his peers as a prep. He was No. 3 on our preseason Top 100 http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/early-draft-preview-2012-top-100-draft-prospects-12884/

andy (minneapolis): the selection of buxton, begs this question, how much did Sano performance at AA degrade his chances at POY consideration?

John Manuel: It didn't help early on, that's for sure. As he got hot in August at New Britain, though, it enhanced his chances. It was hard to separate out the power guys this year though; Sano, Springer and Baez were the top three guys in that regard, along with Maikel Franco and obviously Gallo. Gallo hit .250 and spent the whole year in low Class A so he was less in the POY picture, but there wasn't a ton of separation among the other power guys when it was all said and done. Springer had the best all-around season among those players, in our opinion, but obviously we thought Buxton's season was more unique and historic.

HongNinja (Phoenix, AZ): We've heard all this hype on Buxton, and I'm totally SOLD on him. However, are we being realistic with his ceiling? Is he truly "Mike Trout/Bryce Harper" type of potential? He does have a better arm then Trout, and has a great make-up, work ethic, and is humble. Thoughts?

John Manuel: Yes, that's what we're saying, he's in that realm.

Christian (Houston, TX): Did Buxton win over Springer simply because he is the better prospect with more glowing scouting reports at a younger age? Springer clearly outperformed him statistically, right?

John Manuel: I just wanted to answer one more here because no, Springer did not clearly out-perform Buxton statistically. Buxton's competition was easier, low A and high A vs. Double-A and Triple-A. But Buxton was in less offensive environments and put up a .334-.424-.520 slash line. He out-hit Springer by 30 points, had a higher OBP (Springer's was .411) and out-stole him. He's a better defense. Springer slugged about 90 points higher, obviously hit more homers. But for me, their seasons were very similar in terms of what they produced on the field.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/minnesota-twins-why-now-time-ron-gardenhire-era-154000368--mlb.html

This article wasn't good though.

"They'll likely hit 90 losses again for the third time in as many years, and many of the players have either regressed or tuned out Gardenhire's coaching as we head into another meaningless October."

This only works in ambiguity. Players like Trevor Plouffe and Scott Diamond have regressed, but only from the "surprisingly useful" mark they dinged for exactly one year each. Josh Willingham has become the player that every Josh Willingham becomes - where the old player skillset takes over and he doesn't provide anything outside of the three true outcomes. I'm not going to hold Gardenhire responsible for the literal passage of time.

Meanwhile, he's figured out how to spread out Mauer's use after the 2011 disaster season in order to pull two consecutive 5-ish WAR seasons, presided in some way over Brian Dozier becoming the first useful middle infield prospect signed/developed internally since... Luis Rivas?

Furthermore, the writer is going to hinge a lot of his ongoing argument as the article continues on Gardenhire and the Twins pushing some obsolete philosophy. While I get why "tuning him out" would be a negative mark job-wise, he can't then claim that *and* hang individual bad performances on Gardenhire. Not both ways.

"That's because things have seemed to pass Gardenhire and his staff by as the game has changed. His small-ball approach is one that can be effective, but it's also one that limits what his current personnel can do."

I don't think it's accurate that the Twins are a small ball team. They're below league average in sacrifice bunts and right near the bottom in stolen bases. Stereotypes die hard though.

"For example, Josh Willingham and Trevor Plouffe are natural pull hitters, but the team implores them to use the whole field while hitting. While that's a good approach for a great overall hitter like Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, it saps these hitters of their power, which adds the spark to the Twins' lineup."

Except that Trevor Plouffe has been in the Twins organization for literally his entire career so any experiential knowledge of his pull tendencies cannot have come from anywhere but the Twins. And Josh Willingham had a career year last year playing for a team that apparently intentionally saps his power. Boooo.

"As a result of this, the Twins have scored just 558 runs on the season, which is right above the lowly Houston Astros."

This is accurate. We fucking suck. I still pin it on all of the bad baseball players on the roster.

"The pitching hasn't been any better for the team. Gardenhire's sidekick, pitching coach Rick Anderson, has also been stubborn to change his ways. That's led to the Twins possessing one of the worst rotations in baseball since their last division championship in 2010."

This addresses something in a paragraph which we've spent huge chunks of the past half-decade discussing. I think Anderson's technique is demonstrably outdated, but just because those two have been BFFs for decades doesn't mean their job performance should be yolked together.

I'll also say that my larger beef is with personnel acquisition. Don Cooper's approach in Chicago isn't terribly different - but the White Sox, in lean years and in fat, have actively pursued power arms for him to refine. That's the mix I'd like to see for Anderson. His success with Liriano and with Nathan and with Santana was in narrowing their approach to highlight one plus swing-and-miss pitch and in getting them to throw strikes. Nothing bad about that. But the team started acquiring pitchers that already fit this system instead of ones who could benefit from its tweaks. Hence, the Brad Radke Clone Army.

In any case, I'm not entirely against Gardenhire's departure. The conclusion that the team simply needs a new voice is one that good, fair baseball teams draw all the time - and three 90+ loss seasons are good support for that conclusion here. But we don't need to bend over to bad arguments about what he's done poorly to support the idea that we just need a change.

Josmil!

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2013-minor-league-all-star-team/

C Josmil Pinto • Twins
Triple-A Rochester (International)

Tom Murphy of the Rockies mashed 22 homers and slugged .571, while the Mets’ Kevin Plawecki hit .305 with a .390 on-base percentage, yet those 2012 college draft picks did the majority of their damage at Class A. Pinto showed those attributes—power, feel for the barrel, on-base skills—while mastering the upper minors and earning a September callup to Minneapolis, where the Twins see similarities between him and Venezuelan countryman Wilson Ramos. Pinto ranked among the Double-A Eastern League leaders in average (.308) and OBP (.411) this season.

1B Chris Colabello • Twins
Triple-A Rochester (International)

Having spent the first seven years of his professional career with Worcester of the independent Can-Am League, Colabello opened eyes by belting 19 homers at Double-A New Britain in 2012. He didn’t capture the industry’s full attention, however, until this season when the 29-year-old won the minor league batting (.352), slugging (.639) and OPS (1.066) titles while also earning Triple-A International League MVP honors. He got a chance to play every day in the big leagues after the Twins’ trade of Justin Morneau to the Pirates in August.

3B Miguel Sano • Twins
Double-A New Britain (Eastern)

After annihilating the high Class A Florida State League for two months with 16 homers and a 1.079 OPS, Sano scuffled along at Double-A before beginning to find his footing in August, when he batted .255/.364/.649 with nine homers in 25 games. He needed that extra boost to outpace the Phillies’ Maikel Franco and the Rangers’ Joey Gallo in a three-way race of hot-corner prospects with elite raw power. Only Chris Colabello and the Angels’ Zach Borenstein had a higher slugging percentage than Sano (.610) this season, and only Javier Baez had more extra-base hits than Sano’s 70.

CF Byron Buxton • Twins
High Class A Fort Myers (Florida State)

From No. 2 pick in the 2012 draft to No. 1 prospect in the game in one season flat, Buxton blended tools and production like few minor leaguers before him to win the BA Minor League Player of the Year award in a crowded prospect field. (Just look at this all-star team!) A 19-year-old Buxton ranked sixth in the minor league batting race at .334, seventh with a .424 on-base percentage, second with 109 runs and first with 18 triples, evoking lofty comparisons with Andrew McCutchen and Mike Trout.

There's not a lot going right, but seeing a breakout like Pinto's has been sort of fun and made the Mauer-may-be-done-catching talk a bit easier to take. So, without wanting to talk about the horrifying results of actual Twins games, we'll take a pass and talk about an actual 2014 roster which probably wont be the opening day one, but which could be a usable one by June or so:

1. Aaron Hicks, CF
2. Joe Mauer, 1B
3. Miguel Sano, 3B
4. Oswaldo Arcia, RF
5. Josh Willingham, DH
6. Eddie Rosario, 2B
7. Brian Dozier, 2B
8. Alex Presley, LF
9. Josmil Pinto, C

Bench: Chris Herrmann OF/C, Pedro Florimon SS, Eduardo Escobar IF, Chris Parmelee 1B/DH

Rotation:

1. Kyle Gibson
2. Scott Diamond
3. Alex Meyer
4. Trevor May
5. Kevin Correia

Bullpen:

Glen Perkins
Anthony Swarzak
Casey Fien
Jared Burton
Mike Tonkin
Brian Duensing


That's 24 guys. It seemed silly to speculate on the rest of the bullpen, which actually looks pretty good anyhow.

The good here is a strong, balanced lineup that can work walks, hit for power, and even has a little bit of speed spread in there. Presley is "meh" to me but he's played pretty well since he was acquired, hits left-handed, can defend that big-ass leftfield, and is a perfectly cromulent placeholder for Buxton.

The bad in the lineup is defense. Outside of Hicks, Presley, and Mauer - none of those guys have a particularly strong track record. And Mauer's isn't even at first, though I've been happy with him when he's played there. Pinto is improving. Rosario is a work in progress. Sano has gotten some good marks but mostly in the "he can stay there" sense. And fielding this lineup would mean punting on the really quite good defense Dozier has provided at second (I realize UZR disagrees but I don't care) for a one-year breakout performance with his bat.

Still, that's a good lineup.

The rotation will be up-and-down, but has a shot at not finishing at the absolute bottom of the barrel in the AL in strikeouts if Meyer and May occupy it at the same time. I rather like that idea.

Bullpen looks good. In the Central, the above is a team that can play like a 3rd place club while getting their feet wet. That's not a lot, but more than half of that lineup has their career years in front of them.

the pitching? we'll see.

1. i'm assuming with how his power profiles, The Buxton Ascent will be moved to a corner OF position. do you take the swaths of green in LF or the cannon arm in RF? think i'd take left just to see what him and hicks can do ... i mean, there's no sense in moving hicks to LF, is there?
2. have we really "missed" on every single high draft pick that was a pitching prospect? we have some interesting people in the low minors, but gibson/wimmers are the New Nope. we traded for may/meyer. i think my pessimism in the twins pitching prospects is coming back full swing. to that end ...
3. when does the honeymoon period end? are we (royal) really going to continue to support a AAAA team/pitching staff every year on our way to 90+ losses? is there a point where the FO might actually open the wallet for a top end arm? if they are committed to winning or righting this ship, they have to realize santana/F-BOMB as top of the rotation talent were key ingredients. sure, buxton/sano are great for keeping me interested, but it doesn't really matter if the other team is scoring 7-8 a night off our pitchers.

we've been over most of this before, but it's fun to pick at scabs. chicks dig scars ... or something.

>the pitching? we'll see.
>
>1. i'm assuming with how his power profiles, The Buxton Ascent
>will be moved to a corner OF position. do you take the swaths
>of green in LF or the cannon arm in RF? think i'd take left
>just to see what him and hicks can do ... i mean, there's no
>sense in moving hicks to LF, is there?

I would have thought that, but early reports have his defense even better than Hicks. Part of what has made the "ascent" so compelling is that he's proven to be a far better instinctive ballplayer than people thought. This was the case too, but he was still getting dinged for tricky routes at Buxton's age.

I think that if Buxton comes up as a centerfielder that he'll stay there.

I agree about moving Hicks to left though. His arm profiles better in right and the Twins haven't really assigned outfielders with much consideration to the fact that left is bigger than right. See: the Revere, RF experiment.

I guess the wildcard there is Arcia, who actually got high praise for his corner defense in the minors but has looked terrible out there with the Twins. If he can figure out whatever is troubling him out there, than his arm profiles well for right. That could push Hicks to left, which is maybe suboptimal but fine. Two plus-defensive centerfielders in the outfield can't really be a bad thing.

>2. have we really "missed" on every single high draft pick
>that was a pitching prospect? we have some interesting people
>in the low minors, but gibson/wimmers are the New Nope. we
>traded for may/meyer. i think my pessimism in the twins
>pitching prospects is coming back full swing. to that end ...

That would be a completely fair characterization, with the exception of Matt Garza and Glen Perkins if you want to include successful relief conversions. I think Baker was a second-rounder too. If you go back to the early 2000s, it's been really ugly for first round pitchers taken by the Twins. If you include sandwich guys, counting backwards:

Kohl Stewart
Jose Berrios
Luke Bard
Hudson Boyd
Alex Wimmers
Kyle Gibson
Matt Bashore
Carlos Guttierez
Shooter Hunt
Matt Garza
Glen Perkins
Kyle Waldrop
Matt Fox
Jay Rainville
Adam Johnson (a #2 overall pick)
Ryan Mills (a #6 overall pick)

That's... really bad. And in an astonishing variety. You got TWO cases of Steve Blass disease (Hunt and Wimmers). Catastrophic shoulder injuries (Gutierrez, Fox, Bashore, and Rainville). I think I see three TJ victims, which isn't a career killer but when you're dealing with option years for high draft picks, it complicates things (Gibson, Wimmers, Fox). And Johnson and Mills were just straight up bad scouting.

The less said about Wimmers, the better. It's interesting that the results when he hasn't been suffering from a psychic strike-throwing meltdown *or* a severe elbow injury have been quite good. But if something happens there, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised at this point.

Gibson is still too early to give up on. He came back from TJ with a fastball averaging 92mph (which probably ranked him first among Twins' starters, though I don't feel like checking) and getting grounders at a 50% rate. What was missing was the thing that got him drafted int he first place: fastball command - but that's usually the last thing to come back after Tommy John surgery. If he sucks next year, I wont argue with you. But I still think there's a good #2 in there.

Berrios is wait and see with me too. He had a good year in the MWL and the scouting reports on his pure stuff are generally even better. But you can't help but read "I wish he were 6'3"" into all those reports.

>3. when does the honeymoon period end? are we (royal) really
>going to continue to support a AAAA team/pitching staff every
>year on our way to 90+ losses? is there a point where the FO
>might actually open the wallet for a top end arm? if they are
>committed to winning or righting this ship, they have to
>realize santana/F-BOMB as top of the rotation talent were key
>ingredients. sure, buxton/sano are great for keeping me
>interested, but it doesn't really matter if the other team is
>scoring 7-8 a night off our pitchers.

I hope the answer is during this absurdly depressing string of games. It's so obvious that our entirely organizational pitching philosophy, both for internal development and external acquisition is entirely fucked. We can't strike guys out. We can't get soft contact. And the pitchers who can't do either of those things also can't stay healthy. Literally nothing is working.

On a team with a strong farm system and good pitcher development, I'm strongly against big contracts for free agent pitchers. They just work so rarely and I know the team wont spend the money to cover for a bad expenditure.

But there really isn't a choice yet. If our farm system is as good as it appears, the window is going to open up fast, and it's better to be prepared. Don't fill in the holes; anticipate them and be ready.

Getting free agents to come here without going all mid-2000s Detroit and overpaying free agents is going to be tough though. And even they weren't great at it. There's a pitcher from Japan who is supposed to be posted this winter. He projects as a #2 in MLB, with a real swing-and-miss pitch in his splitter - which I read somewhere was "the best in the world." The posting system may be ideal for the Twins in this case because it will:

a)slightly deflate the actual value of this pitcher's contract, hopefully in terms of years commitment
b)limit the amount of teams we're bidding against (provided we win the post) to zero

from BA:

"He’s built upon that record with a strong season for Rakuten, which is in first place in the Pacific League. Tanaka has earned attention for his perfect 17-0 record, while his more meaningful numbers—a 1.20 ERA with 130 strikeouts and 22 walks in 158 innings—have also been impressive. His ERA is the lowest in all of NPB, his strikeouts rank second in the PL and his 1.3 walks per nine innings rank second among starting pitchers with at least 50 innings in the PL.

At 6-foot-2, 205 pounds, Tanaka throws a low-90s fastball that can touch 96 mph. Even though Tanaka can reach the mid-90s, his fastball is the pitch that gives some scouts pause because it comes in on a flat plane, making it more hittable than the velocity might suggest. Tanaka has two secondary pitches that have earned grades of 60 or better on the 20-80 scouting scale, including a 70 splitter with late downward action to keep hitters off his fastball. His low- to mid-80s slider is another plus weapon, while he’ll mix in a curveball as well."

>On a team with a strong farm system and good pitcher
>development, I'm strongly against big contracts for free agent
>pitchers. They just work so rarely and I know the team wont
>spend the money to cover for a bad expenditure.
>
>But there really isn't a choice yet. If our farm system is as
>good as it appears, the window is going to open up fast, and
>it's better to be prepared. Don't fill in the holes;
>anticipate them and be ready.

plays to your first point and then kneecaps your second. the guy obviously thinks the FA market still operates in the mid-to-late 90s pricing.

i agree with your point ... and it's unlikely you see great pitching talent on the FA market without some warts, anyway, but to "attack" the FA market with marginal cash isn't going to address your second point. especially when that HUGE outlay was more out of necessity because you let cuddy and kubel walk. TR and the twins have to be well aware that the rotation is ... bad. go out and be pro-active to paper over some of the cracks for now, buying time before meyer, may, wimmers, gibson, et al. figure it out. provide us something other than a 95 loss season ... and don't be so condescending and disingenuous to the people who funded your shiny new stadium. i mean, if the astros are clearing $100m, what the hell are the twins clearing?

I was through the moon at signing Rich Harden as this year's lottery ticket. That's not a good relationship.

Here's the depressing link to 2014 free agents:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014-free-agent-power-rankings/

Matt Garza is the highest ranked pitcher. I don't think that's a union that's likely to resume. I liked both Kuroda and Santana last off-season as buy-lows, but that wont be true of either this winter. AJ Burnett would be a dream to have in the rotation when May and Meyer debut, but he's pretty explicitly said "Pittsburgh or retirement" which makes me miss the old "get money" AJ Burnett because the Twins might be in his current price range.

Josh Johnson could be looking for a one-year "make good" deal, but his arm and our medical staff is a sadly hilarious combination.

Tim Lincecum seems to have overplayed his hand (or, arm) on those one-year contracts when he was destroying arbitration records. And he actually had a better year than his traditional stats suggest. But I don't think he's a match.

So that leaves exactly nobody that I can see Terry Ryan taking based on your annoying apt observation. Meanwhile, the team is actually pleased with Kevin Correia - a fact I find insanely frustrating while still being able to admit that he did outperform my expectations this year.

#7 on the GCL list. He got raves in the BA chat on this list too. three potential plus pitches and scraping 95 as a 17 year old lefty. He wouldn't even have been eligible for this last draft if he were an American, and Ben Badler said he liked him better than most of the late-first round arms taken in the 2013 draft.

7. Lewis Thorpe, lhp, Twins

Age: 17. B-T: R-L. Ht.: 6-1. Wt.: 214. Signed: Australia, 2012.

Some international scouts considered Thorpe the best prospect to come out of Australia in years when the Twins signed him last year for $500,000, and he pitched even better than advertised in his pro debut. Thorpe led the GCL with 64 strikeouts, then left the team at the end of August to pitch for Australia in the 18U World Championships in Taiwan. Pitching against the United States, Thorpe struck out eight with no walks in 5 2/3 shutout innings in Team USA’s only loss.

When Thorpe signed, he sat at 86-88 mph and touched 91 with long arms, but he’s grown an inch and added 55 pounds, which helped his fastball tick upward. He pitched at 88-93 mph in the GCL, then in Taiwan he touched 95. Even when he was throwing in the high-80s, Thorpe’s fastball was a swing-and-miss pitch because the ball explodes out of his hand and looks quicker than it is with sneaky late action. His changeup, a potential plus pitch, is his most polished offspeed offering with sink and fade.

Thorpe’s breaking stuff has developed since he signed, including a slider and a curveball with a lot of spin and downward action. Thorpe racked up a lot of walks as an amateur, but he always had a good delivery and now control looks like it will be a plus for him after walking 1.2 batters per nine innings in the GCL.

1. Chris Parmelee: Do we need to wait to see if he can hit lefties if he's only managed a .257/.332/.419 in nearly 500 PA's against righties?

Add on. We'll fix this roster yet.

We scored two on the Appy League top-20, which is fewer than usual. One of the odd effects of our recent run with drafting highly is that the Twins usual Appy League success has been neglected with more high-end prospects either bypassing the league or spending relatively little time there. This year, Kohl Stewart has a good shot of landing in BA's top-50 without qualifying on playing time for the list of either rookie league he appeared in.

In any case, listed are one of my favorite pitching sleepers in the system. Felix "La Flechita" Jorge is a lanky righthander with good fastball velocity, a very projetable frame, and an early feel for a good swing-and-miss curveball. Stuart Turner was a controversial draft choice among Twins fans who follow this stuff because of a Buterian profile as a catch-and-throw backstop. However, the recent fad in the SABR community for quantifying the skill of pitch framing has had Twins fans re-think their position on defense-first catchers.

I wont link the studies unless I get bored later, but one that got a lot of publicity earlier this spring was one which suggested that Jose Molina was basically worth something absurd like 4 wins above replacement (10 runs of any measure = 1 win, generally) due *entirely* to his ability to control the strikezone with his glove. Umpires don't miss strikes when he receives them and they call an eyebrow raising amount of balls as strikes when Molina is back there.

We can debate whether or not this ability can be worth four wins (I... just can't imagine) but one thing which has been less controversial is the suggestion that Ryan Doumit is the polar opposite of Jose Molina. Strikes become balls. Balls... stay balls. It's bad. Mauer received very high marks for his ability to coax strike calls out of balls high in the zone, but comparatively low marks for balls low in the zone. We can probably attribute that to his height and the creep of lesser flexibility with age, but it's probably not a great look for a team that actively tells its pitchers not to pitch up in the zone. And a minorleague study now has Josmil Pinto ranking near the bottom of MiLB receivers.

The point: this is not a skill that the Twins seem to value.

The second name on this list got good marks from BA's sources on pitch receiving. So let's see if that's worth something as he moves up. He also hit, notably, but that could just be an NCAA-in-Appy-League thing.

14. Felix Jorge, rhp, Elizabethton (Twins)

Age: 19. B-T: R-R. Ht.: 6-2. Wt.: 170. Signed: Dominican Republic, 2011.

Jorge had a solid domestic debut last year in the Gulf Coast League and continued his success this summer with the fourth-highest strikeout rate (28 percent) in the league and a 4-1 K-BB ratio.

The long, athletic Jorge offers significant projection in his wiry frame and lean lower half. He has long arms and large hands that allow him to manipulate the baseball. The ball jumps out of his hand as he produces 90-94 mph fastballs and touches 96 at his best, usually sitting 90-92 with good run and sink. Jorge’s breaking ball can flash plus with slurvy action, and his changeup is developing. His control is ahead of his command.

With continued physical development, improved command and sharpened offspeed stuff, Jorge has the ceiling of a No. 3 or 4 starter. His arm-heavy delivery has effort, however, and might play better in the bullpen.

18. Stuart Turner, c, Elizabethton (Twins)

Age: 21. B-T: R-R Ht.: 6-2. Wt.: 220. Drafted: Mississippi, 2013 (3).

A first-team BA All-American in the spring, Turner was the second college catcher drafted in 2013, signing for $550,000. In a league full of talented but mostly unrefined players, he stood out with advanced defensive skills and a higher probability of reaching the majors.

Turner was one of the top defenders in the league because of his soft, steady hands, advanced blocking ability and plus arm with good accuracy. Mangers applauded his quick feet, quiet movements behind the plate and above-average framing ability. His defense alone should make him a solid major league backup if his bat does not progress.

Turner has the strength to hit for average power, but he has more of a line-drive swing that may keep him from reaching that power ceiling. His swing also has some stiffness and length. He’s a pull hitter and a well below-average runner.

Headline roundup, my dudes.

1. Terry Ryan will return as GM, Gardenhire decision coming

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Terry_Ryan_will_be_back_as_Twins_GM_Gardenhire_decision_coming_soon092813

I lurve Terry Ryan, but it is a fact that he hasn't done shit with this team. Bill Smith's tenure was like 85% disastrous, but he did one thing that we're still tangibly benefitting from by building the present farm system and one thing that we can still thematically benefit from by showing what positive urgency looked like in 2010 by acquiring Hardy and Hudson and Thome to pad out... a team that looked like a WS contender. It didn't work, but it was bold and correct regardless of outcome. I'm not sure I trust Terry Ryan to see and act in that moment.

The farm system thing can't really be laid at either man's feet. Rantz, Radcliffe, and now Deron Johnson did that. Good work, fellows.

We've been over the Gardenhire thing. I like him. It may be time for a new voice. It might not matter that much without the personnel. If it's a choice between a new manager and better ballplayers (which is a silly choice, but for the sake of argument) I'll take the latter.

2. Arizona Fall League starts October 8th

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130921&content_id=61297124&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

The saturation point is here. Scouts have run out of good things to say about Byron Buxton. Jim Callis announces in the above article that he's made a gentleman's agreement with fellow MLB.com prospect writer Jonathan Mayo to pick people who *aren't* Byron Buxton to hype in their prospects-to-watch-for series on the AFL. Because he's too obvious.

In any case, there will be good players wearing Minnesota Twins uniforms in October. Because we're fucking classy, there wont be an off-season post until the actual end of the season, but we'll find some way to dig into AFL chatter like it means something.

Relatedly, Jim Callis moving from Baseball America to MLB.com is good news for anybody who wants to keep a close eye on the Twins prospects without paying any money for it. Jonathan Mayo was MLB.com's lone prospect guy and he is... not good at it. Callis was one of the head shits at BA, a fine and collegial fellow, and MLB.com's free prospect coverage will improve tremendously with him on board. Check thou it out.

3. At least our pen didn't suck.

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Despite_rough_September_bullpen_registers_as_a_bright_spot_for_Twins092813

The immediate future is bright for the guys who are charged with holding (purely hypothetical at this point) Twins leads. This article mentions that Eddie Rosario is moving back to the outfield. As I understand it, this is not strictly true.

4. Reverse standings!

(I'm not linking a fucking Bleacher Report article, but that's the first thing I got to come up in a search for reverse standings)

Right now, we'd pick fifth behind Houston (fuck these assholes and their tanking shenanigans), Miami, and both Chicago teams. Unlike 2012 and 2013, this is supposed to be a deep, loaded draft. It's going to have pitchers and shortstops who can hit. It's probably too early to kick around some names, but you can probably assume i'm going to do it anyhow.

So, it's not the manager. And it's not the coaches. Or Terry Ryan.

That means it's the players, a conclusion I'm comfortable with. But we're going to need some new ones then. Because the answer to "why did we lose ninety six games?" can't be a shoulder shrug. Something isn't good and needs to be replaced.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/225822921.html

Ron Gardenhire will return as Twins manager
Article by: STAFF REPORTS Updated: September 30, 2013 - 12:46 PM
The Twins have decided to retain Manager Ron Gardenhire and his entire coaching staff. A press conference is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today.

Ron Gardenhire will return as Twins manager and is expected to get a two-year contract, according to a Twins official.

Another team source told La Velle E. Neal III that the entire coaching staff will return next season as well.

The Twins have called a 2:30 p.m. press conference at Target Field. The press conference will be available live on startribune.com. You can watch it by clicking here.

Gardenhire’s Twins finished the 2013 season with a 66-96 record, losing 20 of their final 25 games and being outscored by 90 runs during that closing stretch.

Gardenhire met with GM Terry Ryan on Sunday to discuss the direction of the team and the state of the organization in general as the two of them often do during a season. Gardenhire is 998-947 in his 12 seasons, but just 195-291 over the last three years.

In bringing him back, Ryan is sending a message that the problem lies much more with the talent on the field, and particularly on the mound, than in the dugout.

"We have struggled. I'm the one who has given him the players, and I understand that," Ryan said last week. "We've got to have the talent for any manager or coach to succeed. But we know where we are and I think we've got a pretty good idea of where we are going, and I'm trying to take a lot of responsibility for what's going on with this record.

"I'm not pretending that he's got the most talented roster we have ever seen him have, so we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

Gardenhire had early success as Twins manager, winning six AL Central titles in his first nine seasons, before the recent downturn. The Twins are known as a model of stability, and have had only two managers since the end of the 1986 season, when Tom Kelly replaced Ray Miller. Kelly and Gardenhire have managed the team continuously since, giving the organization the sort of stability seldom seen in professional sports.

Gardenhire ended the season as the second longest tenured manager in the majors, trailing only the Los Angeles Angels Mike Scoscia.

Gardenhire was hoping to win his 1,000th career game this season, but ended the season with 998 after the Twins lost 10 of their final 11 games.

Gardenhire has a reputation as a popular players’ manager with his talkative, outgoing style. His sharp wit and humor were personal trademarks.

He inherited a team in 2002 that the previous summer under Kelly had snapped the organization’s streak of eight straight losing seasons. The 2002 team included a core of young players — Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiwicz, Cristian Guzman, Corey Koskie and A.J. Pierzynzski — most of whom became regulars for the first time in 1999.

Gardenhire’s recent years with the Twins had no similar wealth of young talent ready to help at the big league level. The Twins went 94-68 in 2010 — the fifth time Gardenhire’s teams had at least 90 victories — but stunmbled to 63-99 the next season.

Team officials blamed the dropoff on injuries that limited team stars Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau to a combined 150 games. But the team went 66-96 in 2012, and it became clear the bulk of the team’s problems could be linked to an inept starting pitching staff.

Gardenhire entered the 2013 season in the final year of his contract, and with several new pitchers — Vance Worley, the Opening Day starter, Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey — who failed to provide the team with the sort of pitching needed to show improvement in the standings.

Twins starting pitchers were last in the majors in almost every major statistical category.

Gardenhire backers within the organization pointed to the improvements made by players like second baseman Brian Dozier and shortstop Pedro Florimon. The Twins biggest areas of improvement this season were in defense and the bullpen.

to the = X they've provided us. new players. how do you get new players quickly? you spend for them, via trade or via FA.

it's put up or shut up time this offseason.

also, can we get some different leadership in the lockerroom? i get the feeling joe's laidback, "aww, shucks" personality really isn't lighting a fire under other players. ugh.

can't afford to be bringing our highly rated youngsters into a culture of losing in MLB.

>to the = X they've provided us. new players. how do you get
>new players quickly? you spend for them, via trade or via FA.

Yep. I appreciate the call for new voices, and actually was surprised at my slight disappointment when the Gardy news came out. But you've pretty much nailed it and, fortunately, I do think the playing personnel is the right answer. Outside of a very small core, this was a terrible group of baseball players.

>it's put up or shut up time this offseason.

There is a delightful rumor that Gardenhire had as a condition for his return (for those of us expressing surprise at the idea that he could possibly have conditions for his return, we should remember that he won pretty much constantly for a decade with tight, small payroll teams - he'd be snapped up before next week if he were on the managerial market) an increase in payroll. I would be pleased if this were true.

Seth Stohs wrote an article about the Indians for Twins Daily. I was kind of surprised that they splurged on Swisher and Bourn this off-season. True, both guys sort of fell into their lap - but they didn't fall into their lap in the one year deal sort of way that Thome and Hudson did for Smith in 2010. Those guys both got paid. My impression at the time was that the Indians weren't close to ready until they addressed their terrible staff - but they got two bouncebacks from talented, if inconsistent players, with Masterson and Ubaldo; they got lucky with their lottery ticket with Kazmir; and they had a prospect take a big leap forward with Danny Salazar.

We don't have two pitchers on staff with the upside of Masterson or Ubaldo, so put us two years behind this on-the-fly rebuild for Cleveland. Guys who are as good as those two *are* available on the free agent market this year.

The other copy-worthy thing about Cleveland's expenditures was that, though not cheap, Bourn and Swisher were both tradable if the plan didn't work. Those aren't burdensome contracts - just bigger deals for players with diverse (more so than it appears for Swisher) skillsets.

>also, can we get some different leadership in the lockerroom?
>i get the feeling joe's laidback, "aww, shucks" personality
>really isn't lighting a fire under other players. ugh.

I still haven't yet arrived at the point of feeling deeply about this. It's frustrating to think that there are professional athletes who need more than Joe Mauer's quiet excellence to get inspired to do their jobs. He clearly works extremely hard and his entire approach to the game oozes the sort of internal discipline that any player would be lucky to approximate.

So, I guess it's not that I disagree - just that I hate what it would say about players I otherwise rather like to agree with you.

>can't afford to be bringing our highly rated youngsters into a
>culture of losing in MLB.

This. I agree with. The actual W/L success of the farm teams has never mattered much, but I did take some note of it this year because it would be nice to have these guys arrive as players used to leaving the field as winners.

Whether or not that matters at the MiLB level, I don't know - but if it does then having three affiliates make the playoffs is a good thing.

Read for Buxton raves, pleasant Berrios context, Adam Walker dream power, and a real, live middle infielder in Jorge Polanco.

1. Byron Buxton, of, Cedar Rapids (Twins)

Scouts debated whether Buxton was the best prospect they’ve seen or simply one of the best. Coming out of tiny Baxley, Ga., he was supposed to need time to catch up to the MWL. Instead the league never caught up to him. Buxton showed advanced pitch recognition, an ability to drive the ball to all fields and better-than-expected power.

“It’s a simple, direct swing. It’s lightning fast and physically correct,” Twins vice president of player personnel Mike Radcliff said. “His hands are so fast and the barrel goes so directly to the ball.”

Defensively, Buxton was exceptional, showing the ability to make highlight-reel plays in center field. In fact, a diving catch he made in Cedar Rapids was a SportsCenter play of the day.

In the long term, Buxton projects as a plus hitter with above-average power, top-of-the-charts speed and defense. That includes a plus arm. He’s already moving quicker than the Twins expected. Promoted to high Class A Fort Myers after the MWL all-star break, he may be ready for Minnesota by the end of 2014.


13. Jose Berrios, rhp, Cedar Rapids (Twins)

In most years, Berrios’ youth would stand out, but in a league with 17-year-old wunderkind Julio Urias, his advanced feel for setting up hitters seemed less spectacular. But scouts were very impressed with Berrios’ ability to mix his three pitches in both pitcher’s and hitter’s counts. He also fills the zone with many more strikes than the average teenager.

Berrios’ fastball sits at 91-93 mph, though he’ll add and subtract for anything ranging from 87 to 95. He mixes in a solid-average changeup and a hard curveball that he can vary in power and tilt. He got hot early, pitching for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic, then wore down in the second half, which is understandable considering his age and reasonably heavy workload.

15. Adam Brett Walker, of, Cedar Rapids (Twins)

A terrible end to his summer in the Cape Cod League in 2011 hurt Walker’s draft stock, and he’s been making pitchers pay for that slight ever since.

Walker’s 27 home runs led the MWL, and his raw power is exceptional. Unlike most home run hitters, his average home run is a towering flyball that has enough carry to make it to the seats. When Walker really connects, no center-field batter’s eye can hold the ball in the park.

Walker is an average runner from home to first but is better than that underway, as evidenced by his 100 percent success rate on stolen bases. In right field, he still has work to do on his jumps, and his arm is average, which leads scouts to project a future in left field if he’s going to be a big leaguer. Other scouts believe his ultimate destination is first base.

20. Jorge Polanco, 2b/ss, Cedar Rapids (Twins)

For a middle infielder who was once hampered by his lack of strength, Polanco has blossomed as the natural maturation process kicked in. He posted the fourth-best OPS in the MWL among qualifying middle infielders, trailing only Correa, Seager and West Michigan’s Devon Travis.

Polanco has a sweet swing from both sides of the plate with a solid understanding of the strike zone and more than enough pop for a middle infielder.

When both he and Niko Goodrum were healthy, Polanco played more second base than shortstop. But Goodrum was banged up enough that Polanco ended up splitting his time almost evenly between the two positions. He lacks the plus range evaluators like to see from a shortstop, but he is reliable with good hands and an average, accurate arm. He projects as a potential everyday second baseman who could slide over to shortstop in a pinch.

...

Michael (Valpo): Travis Harrison? Is he the Twins' 3B of the future? Goodness knows they need one!!! He did alright, didn't he?

J.J. Cooper: It was a solid season for Harrison, but I’m going to go with Miguel Sano as the Twins 3B of the next five years or so. Scouts weren’t blown away with Harrison’s work at third base, although he did show some feel for hitting.

DH (Pittsburgh): Do you go along with the McCutchen - Trout comps for Buxton?

J.J. Cooper:Yes. I’ll be stunned if he doesn’t hit for average, play a great CF, steal bases and hit for at least some pop. The real question barring something completely unexpected like a serious injury is just how much power he’ll end up having.

Scott (Minneapolis): We kind of have an embarrassment of riches, and I'm glad Adam Brett Walker is getting attention, but isn't Polanco too low, especially considering defensive position?

J.J. Cooper: Again, who do you put him ahead of? If I thought he was a regular SS, he would probably rank higher, but he projects much more as a solid second baseman who can play shortstop in a pinch.

LaRoy (The Bronx): Am I the only one who just doesn't see the power potential for Buxton? Did any scouts have skepticism that his power will only be average at best?

J.J. Cooper: Yes, there are some who project him to have average power. Which would mean his projections are that he’ll be a .300-.315/.375-.400/.450-.500 guy with 15-20 home runs to go with Gold Glove defense, potentially 40+ SBs and an arm that keeps baserunner’s honest. That’s the big question with Buxton, but most of the guys who project Buxton as a 50 power guy see him as a 70-80 hitter, with 70-80 defense, a 70 arm and 80 speed. And there are guys who throw a 60 or 70 future power on that grade as well. He’s really, really good.

Michael Stern (Rochester NY): I thought Adam Brett Walker would rank higher than 15th on this list. His top shelf power seemed to me to be a big time seperator. Where were the main questions with him? His defense? Plate discipline? What are the scouts saying? Thanks for the chat.

J.J. Cooper: Defense is a question and some see him as a hitter who feasts on pitchers mistakes, which become less frequent as you climb the ladder.

Steve (Saint Paul): Does Mason Melotakis actually have a chance to make it as a starter, or is he destined to end up back in the 'pen like most thought coming out of the draft?

J.J. Cooper: My guess is he ends up back in the pen long-term.

This can be true while still being a stupid column by an increasingly poor writer. It's a bad article because the answers to the question "how does a team play baseball well?" are pretty finite. It's one thing to suggest that Twitter has an ingenius business model - a topic on which I am both ignorant and agnostic - and entirely another to write an article on how a baseball team is out of fresh ideas without discussing in meaningful depth what it means to adopt fresh ideas.

There are a couple of answers, sure. Oakland's weird barrage of waiver claims and off-season tinkering looks (again) like it brilliantly maximized marginal improvements in player value. But the Cardinals RISP success is the sort of thing that the statistical community (the one he credits with innovation here, as evidenced by simply pointing to the number of analysts on the Rays payroll rather than taking a stab at what it is they actually do) would brand a pretty big stroke of luck.

And then there's the "Indians are Apple."

The Indians were a terribly run franchise, smug in their ability to turn 75 wins into a cheaper 75 wins and notable primarily for drafting extraordinarily badly, until they weren't this year. I think what they did in this past off-season is a good model for the Twins, but it's not really different than the 2004-2005 Tigers and, further, it doesn't really require new ideas to spend money in order to replace shitty players with good ones.

ttp://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Mackey_Once_a_model_team_Twins_now_lack_innovation_outside_ideas093013

Updated: September 30th, 2013 10:19pm
Mackey: Once a model team, Twins now lack innovation, outside ideas

by Phil Mackey
1500ESPN.com

MINNEAPOLIS -- For those of you upset about Monday's announcement of a two-year contract extension for Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, I've got news:

He isn't the problem.

Rick Anderson isn't the problem. Nor is Terry Ryan. Payroll isn't the problem.

The problem with the Twins is that there is no singular problem.

The problem is they're all looking around the room at the Target Field offices saying, "OK, we know we've got to fix this." But that room is filled mostly with the same group of people who oversaw the infiltration of those problems in the first place.

The Twins were once one of the premiere organizations in baseball -- elite when it came to drafting, developing and building a core from within, and not all that long ago.

But now they lack innovation. They lack an outside perspective.

The Twins either need to add more innovative people to the room, or change the people who are in the room.

Sports are unique in that blueprints are widely available for teams to duplicate. Successful teams obviously would prefer to keep their blueprints a secret, but in this age of unprecedented information and transparency, secrecy is almost impossible.

The Oakland A's are masters at "dump" trades, drafting and platoons. They rarely miss on an opportunity to cash in on the peak value of players who are unlikely to re-sign. Also, because the A's don't have the financial resources to field a lineup of nine every-day players, they rely on platoons; Brandon Moss, Seth Smith, Stephen Vogt and Eric Sogard play mostly against right-handed pitchers, while Chris Young, Derek Norris, Alberto Callaspo and Nate Freiman play mostly against left-handers.

The St. Louis Cardinals dominate two categories - offensive productivity with runners in scoring position and groundballs induced by pitchers. In any given season, you'll see Cardinals pitchers ranked at or near the top of the groundball list and Cardinals hitters at or near the top of the batting average w/ RISP list.

The Tampa Bay Rays are the kings of innovation. The Rays' media guide, for example, lists nine employees in their baseball analytics and research systems departments. They probably have several more interns who aren't listed. Because Tampa Bay operates with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, they must make up for it by beefing up their research and analytics, and manager Joe Maddon embraces this fully.

In addition, the Rays plucked their GM, Andrew Friedman, from Bear Stearns nine years ago. The Rays also hired a Pitch F/X analyst and told him to shut down his personal Pitch F/X blog ("You work for us now"), and their Baseball Systems Developer came from Baseball Prospectus.

The Twins don't have a Baseball Systems Developer. In fact, they have just two people in the baseball analytics and research department.

The Pirates hired their Baseball Systems Developer from Baseball Prospectus. He focuses his energy on defensive shift data, increasing groundball rates and researching preventative health practices for pitchers. Pirates manager Clint Hurdle recently told TribLive.com, "One of the things I've always said is, 'I don't have all the answers.' It was time for me to challenge myself."

Innovation. Outside ideas.

The Indians' director of Baseball Analytics was a sabermetrics writer who invented Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). He also graduated from MIT and worked with tech start-ups in Silicon Valley.

Innovation. Outside ideas.

"I don't want to be flippant about (that) approach (more analytics), but I'll tell you one thing - we were the team that everybody patterned themselves after for a decade," Ryan said in an interview with 1500 ESPN on Monday. "So, with that being said, we've got 25 guys who are analytical, sabermetric-type people, and they're called scouts. Every one of them should be responsible, should be able to decipher some of the sabermetrics, which I do and have done, and we've done it for about 25 years here. And we've got a (statistical) department, as you know."

Of course, Blackberry was the model cell phone 10 years ago. MySpace was the model social media site.

The Rays are Apple. The Indians are Twitter.

Does this mean the Twins should rush to Silicon Valley and hire a bunch of programmers? No. Does it mean they should hire a bunch of bloggers and tell them, "You work for us now"? Absolutely not.

But the Twins don't currently have enough of an influx of innovation and outside ideas. The Twins aren't masters of anything right now. They don't do one thing better than the other 29 teams in baseball. They used to. But they don't anymore.

This needs to change, or the Twins will continue to trail far behind their peers.

The thing is, nobody is saying, "Terry, you don't know what you're doing." It's more like, "Terry, you're really good at what you do, and you could supplement it by helping to assemble a larger staff of innovative people."

In reality, Jim Pohlad should be the one initiating this, but it appears he isn't.

If you are only hiring and promoting from within, it's hard to see outside of your own ecosystem - an ecosystem that, despite the emergence of Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton, is lagging far behind the top teams in baseball.

Three guys who got time with the 2013 Twins who wouldn't have seen time with a good team, and one AAAA filler in Rochester who probably isn't a threat to be waiver-claimed.

This is good stuff. Not a big deal, but as we discussed above, the team has decided that the players are the problem. Getting rid of bad players is step one. The hard part is replacing them with better players - but some of the names that are likely to be added to the 40-man are pretty exciting. Sano and Meyer are both likely.

Positive mentions "... or 'pos-mens'" for Sano's defense, Pinto's bat going forward, etc. Not sure what to make of Rosario not showing up here, but he was high in the FSL one.

Picking the Twins to find the top-100 is a bit tougher this year than last, though it says a lot that they graduate Arcia, Hicks, and Gibson and the system has probably improved. Buxton, Sano, Stewart, and Meyer are probably locks for the top-100. Rosario and Pinto are maybes. There are some outliers like Felix Jorge and Jorge Polanco that could wind up in the way, way back too.

2. Miguel Sano, 3b, New Britain (Twins)

When you’re 20 years old and have two documentaries devoted to you, there’s a good chance your future is pretty darned bright. Such is the case with Sano, who boasts 80 raw power and a 70 arm at the hot corner.

More than the arm, Sano showcases strong athleticism and solid reactions at third base, though his footwork could use a little polishing before the Twins are ready to pull back the curtain on one of their most prized assets.

Scouts praise Sano’s approach at the plate, including his improved—though not perfect—plate discipline. Combine that with his top-shelf bat speed and sculpted frame, and he could be a player who hits between .275 and .300 with 30-plus homers a year.

Some league observers have questions about Sano’s makeup, especially after the Rock Cats sat him down for a few games after he styled on a home run late in the season. The concern is minor and, based on anecdotal evidence, he has learned from his showboating ways.

“I think he hit three home runs against us,” Binghamton manager Pedro Lopez said, “and on none of them he showed anybody up.”

5. Alex Meyer, rhp, New Britain (Twins)

Even after being limited to 78 innings, Meyer still managed to whiff more than 100 batters at two levels, most of which came in New Britain. His bread and butter is a heater that sits in the mid-90s and can touch as high as 98 mph. The fastball can lack life, though, and he has a tendency to leave it up in the zone. He complements it mainly with a curveball, but can mix in a slider or changeup if he needs to give hitters a different look.

The concern with the 6-foot-9 Meyer, as with all exceedingly tall hurlers, is control. Trouble repeating his arm slot —not a surprise with someone so tall—led to a walk rate of 3.7 per nine innings, a figure that will need to be refined.

In his first year with the Twins after being acquired from the Nationals in the Denard Span trade, Meyer also missed significant time with a cranky right shoulder. MRI results showed no significant damage, but anything involving a pitcher’s shoulder bears watching.

20. Josmil Pinto, c, New Britain (Twins)

Pinto reached Double-A in his seventh pro season and began this year as a New Britain repeater, but the late-blooming catcher rocketed from the EL all the way to Minnesota in 2013. He parlayed tremendous plate discipline and an ability to hit both strikes and mistakes into the best season of his career.

Evaluators aren’t fond of Pinto’s ability to block pitches and suggest his game-calling chops need sharpening, but he has a plus arm, which he isn’t afraid to show off. He threw out 26 percent of basestealers.

Pinto’s offensive potential mitigates his modest defense. He has a stocky body and a big swing capable of producing average power. His emergence comes as Twins incumbent Joe Mauer battles concussion issues and could see more time at first base.

i think it should just be a blanket statement about MN sports being the land of the unbalanced.

was really hoping the vikes would mine more optimism in 5-6 weeks of play ... but apparently i will need to return to the world of miguel MEJOR and THE Buxton Ascent sooner than planned.

so ... alex meyer. if he gets himself an MLB changeup, does that rubber stamp his ace-ness?

EDIT: assuming his control issues can be controlled. not erased, but controlled.

>was really hoping the vikes would mine more optimism in 5-6
>weeks of play ... but apparently i will need to return to the
>world of miguel MEJOR and THE Buxton Ascent sooner than
>planned.

Which is a shame, because the Vikings should have least managed some hopeful excitement-generation. And because we can't do an off-season post until the actual off-season. But I welcome the remnants of Twins attention.

>so ... alex meyer. if he gets himself an MLB changeup, does
>that rubber stamp his ace-ness?

I think that in order to get that fully on big, fat ace stamp the changeup will have to grade out as plus rather than MLB usable-to-average. That, or fastball command.

My understanding is that both of those things are presently below average. And the result of bringing either up to average is a strong MLB #2 - a guy who'll look like an ace more times out than not.

Here's a writeup from Baseball America for the guy who is about to be the AL Cy Young winner from when he was 23. Note the changeup grade of "useful".

"Strengths: Scherzer's fastball can overmatch batters, arriving in the mid-90s with sinking action at its best. His slider also can be a plus pitch, though he's working on consistently commanding and getting a good plane on it. His changeup has improved to become a useful third pitch. The Diamondbacks love his strong frame, his athleticism and competitive demeanor.

Weaknesses: Some scouts who saw Scherzer as a starter at midseason wondered what the fuss was about. His fastball sat at 89-93 mph range, and his overall stuff, command, feel and delivery all drew questions. Then they saw him relieving in the Arizona Fall League and he was a different pitcher, touching 98 mph. He has a violent head jerk in his delivery, which also would seem to point toward a future in the bullpen.

The Future: Arizona's official opinion is that Scherzer is a starter, but there's even disagreement within the organization. If he continues in the rotation, he'll likely open 2008 back in Double-A. If he moves to the bullpen, he could provide immediate help in the big leagues and has the pure stuff to eventually close games."

Scouting grouches like to really bracket off that "ace" stamp. Which makes it ridiculous to people like you and me that Max Scherzer isn't an ace. But he's only working with two plus pitches. But he did do what the Twins are asking Meyer to do - develop a changeup that is usable simply as a third look to make that plus-plus fastball play up even more. And to throw strikes with some aptitude for throwing where you want even within in the zone.

The profile here is pretty similar, right down to the "maybe he's a pen guy". The growth to get to a Scherzer-like projection requires very little imagination, and I'll take Scherzer at the top of the Twins rotation regardless of what we decide to call him.

probably helps in some way ...

thanks for the info - as always.

interesting thought: who are the other two faces on the twins prospect rushmore?

i was going to say something like, "i won't put meyer on the twins prospect rushmore just yet, then ..." but then i wondered who else would be there.

TBA, MEJOR, Meyer and Rosario?

Kohl Stewart will probably be the next highest ranked after Meyer though. He's fallen in between the cracks because he didn't get enough GCL innings or Appy League innings to qualify on either league's top-20 list, but he should be somewhere in the top-50 on the big list whenever that comes out.

I haven't been hyping him like Mejor/Rosario a few years ago because now that are system is getting closer to bearing real MLBers it seems like a bummer to scoop all the way down into the low minors again. But Stewart is really, really good. BPro put future "70" grades on his fastball and his slider with both the curve and changeup grading out as average.

He's got #1 upside, he's just an 18 year old now though and since this isn't the lean days of 2009 we don't have to pay as much attention to him.

Or... we could wait on plotting out faces until the summer. We pick 5th in the June draft this coming year, but the group is the deepest it's been since the Twins were actually good. And the top ten is almost entirely power pitchers and shortstops/catchers.

He prefers Stewart to Meyer. Interesting. I think what people overlook with Meyer is that his height has effectively made him a raw-ish project in spite of NCAA seasoning. But I'll take it.

Lewis Thorpe is an interesting riser here. He made the GCL list for BA, but I'd be surprised to see them spot him this high on the final Twins list. Seventeen year old lefties who make big leaps forward in velocity are definitely noteworthy though.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/10/15/4838866/minnesota-twins-top-20-prospects-for-2014

1) Byron Buxton, OF, Grade A: Currently the best prospect in baseball, combining outstanding athleticism, speed, on-base ability, developing power, and superior defense. He is currently equal to or slightly ahead of where Mike Trout was at the same stage of his career, with one pro season under his belt. That doesn't mean Buxton will be as good as Trout, of course, but it does indicate superstar-caliber ability. ETA: late 2014 or 2015.

2) Miguel Sano, 3B, Grade A: Power-mashing beast, comparable to a young Miguel Cabrera. He may not hit for the high averages that the mature Cabrera has produced, but power should be similar. Sano has made a lot of progress with the glove and a move to first base is not automatic. ETA: late 2014.

3) Kohl Stewart, RHP, Grade B+: 2013 first-round pick was the best high school pitcher in the draft and showed good command of plus stuff in his pro debut. Some scouts like him better than Mark Appel and Jonathan Gray, the two top college arms in the draft, though he'll need more time to develop. ETA: 2016 or 17.

4) Alex Meyer, RHP, Grade B+: Hard-thrower pitched effectively in Double-A, although a shoulder injury caused him to miss two months. Healthy now, should be ready for major league trial in 2014, projects as number two starter if everything works out with his arm. ETA: 2014.

5) Eddie Rosario, 2B, Grade B: Solid line drive hitter with consistently good production through the Double-A level. Converted outfielder has made good progress learning second base. Strong makeup adds to package. Development of Brian Dozier means the Twins won't have to rush Rosario. ETA: late 2014.

6) Jose Berrios, RHP, Grade B: Supplemental 2012 pick out of Puerto Rico was solid in the Midwest League in '13, although he lost some velocity as he got tired down the stretch. At his best, throws three major league quality pitches for strikes and projects as mid-rotation arm. ETA: late 2016.

7) Lewis Thorpe, LHP, Grade B-: Australian lefty dominated the Gulf Coast League after gaining 5 MPH on his fastball and improving his secondary offerings including slider, curve, and change. A long way off at age 17, but GCL sources loved him, see mid-rotation upside, and possibly more. ETA: 2017.

8) Josmil Pinto, C, Grade B-: Age 24, this Venezuelan catcher has hit the snot out of the ball for two years while improving his glovework. He looked excellent with the bat during September trial with the Twins, but is still underrated/overlooked as a prospect. Even with a so-so glove the bat will play. ETA: 2014.

9) Jorge Polanco, INF, Grade B-: Solid switch-hitter showed gap power and hit .308 with decent strike zone judgment in Low-A at age 20, along with defensive versatility. Good athlete, has a chance to develop into a regular second baseman or a fine super-utility man, perhaps more. ETA: 2016.

10) Max Kepler, OF, Grade B-: German-born outfielder was inconsistent but flashed good hitting skills in Midwest League despite missing half of the season with elbow problems. Needs to resolve difficulties against left-handed pitching and improve his defense, but I still like him. ETA: late 2016.

11) Travis Harrison, 3B, Grade B-/C+: Offense-oriented third baseman with above-average power potential, still finding the right balance between aggression and passivity. Doesn't have Sano's upside but could still be a solid regular. ETA: late 2016.

12) Trevor May, RHP, Grade C+/B-: Hard-thrower acquired from Phillies for Ben Revere has had two erratic Double-A seasons, collecting plenty of strikeouts but with wobbly command. Could still develop into a rotation workhorse or perhaps a dominant reliever. ETA: late 2014.

13) Adam Brett Walker, OF, Grade C+/B-: Led Midwest League with 27 homers and it is real power, also an effective stealer and underrated defensive outfielder. Questionable plate discipline prevents a higher grade at this point, but if he tightens the strike zone he could become a regular. ETA: 2016.

14) Michael Tonkin, RHP, Grade C+: At this point on the list, the rankings get more flexible: you can make a case for slotting any of the Grade C+ guys from about 14 on, so don't sweat the exact placements. Tonkin is a hard-throwing reliever who has performed well the last two seasons and has little left to learn in the minors. He should slot into the Minnesota bullpen and might get a shot at closing games somewhere eventually. ETA: 2014.

15) Danny Santana, SS, Grade C+: Speedy switch-hitter had solid Double-A campaign. Erratic but promising on defense, can swipe a base, needs to sharpen OBP ability to make it as a regular but could be a fine utility player with disruptive speed and valuable glove. ETA: late 2014.

16) Kennys Vargas, 1B, Grade C+: Switch-hitter from Puerto Rico with excellent power, hit 19 homers and 33 doubles in High-A and has some feel for hitting. Would rank higher but his glove is quite poor and he may be a born DH who finds it hard to slot into a position. ETA: 2016.

17) Felix Jorge, RHP, Grade C+: Dominican right-hander dominated the Appalachian League, throws strikes, and has enough stuff to be a mid-rotation starter with proper development. I wouldn't expect him to be rushed, but he could rank much higher on this list next year. ETA: 2017.

18) Zack Jones, RHP, Grade C+: Saved 14 games in High-A with excellent strikeout numbers, has been clocked as high as 100 MPH. Command needs work; currently pitching in the Arizona Fall League and should begin '14 in Double-A. Potential closer option. You can make a case to rank him as high as 13. ETA: mid-to-late 2015.

19) Stephen Gonsalves, LHP, Grade C+: Fourth round pick in 2013 looks like a real bargain; mechanical problems in high school sapped his velocity but this wasn't an issue in pro ball and he dominated the rookie levels in a short stint, fanning 39 in 28 innings with a 0.95 ERA. Could rank much higher once he gets some innings in. ETA: 2017.

20) Ryan Eades, RHP, Grade C+: Former Louisiana State workhorse, results haven't quite matched the talent perceived by scouts but he still showed enough to be drafted in the second round. Mid-rotation potential. ETA: 2016.

It's always too early to tell in October, but barring injury Rodon is about as strong a #1 prediction as there's been in awhile. Since Harper, probably. Hoffman's got huge stuff but is giving off Appel vibes with his performance - which before Appel were known as Gerrit Cole vibes and look at how he turned out.

Now that we've dipped into the HS arms situation with Stewart, Kolek isn't off the table.

I really like the idea of Trea Turner as a consolation prize if those power arms get snagged up. Our last foray into NCAA position players has gone poorly (Levi Michael) but Turner's grasp of a standout tool kind of makes the pick a bit sexier. And if he can move fast and join Sano and Rosario in the infield quickly, even better.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2014-draft-top-50-october-2013-carlos-rodon/

1. Carlos Rodon, lhp, N.C. State: Could have ranked No. 1 in previous two draft classes with a 93-95 mph fastball and premium slider.

2. Jeff Hoffman, rhp, East Carolina: His stuff isn’t far off from Rodon’s, but he hasn’t performed to a comparable level (6.8 K/9 in two seasons).

3. Tyler Kolek, rhp, Shepherd (Texas) HS: Six-foot-6, 250-pounder has touched 99 mph and fits the Texas fireballer description.

4. Trea Turner, ss, North Carolina State: Ankle issue hampered him in 2013, but he offers bat speed, athleticism and top-of-the-scale speed when healthy.

5. Jacob Gatewood, ss/3b, Clovis (Calif.) HS: Long, lean and toolsy athlete with a plus arm and arguably the best power potential in the class.

6. Alex Jackson, c/of, Rancho Bernardo HS, San Diego: Pairs plus power and arm strength with athleticism and a chance to stay behind the plate.

Rosario is positively raking. Meyer has dinged 100mph a couple times. And Buxton seems to be learning fast - as he has at every step so far.

Kepler and Buxton will be the interesting cases here. Those guys are crazy talented, but haven't been pressed like this before. Buxton nails it in his quote at the end - that he hasn't seen guys who have command of three or more pitches and can use them whenever like this.

Relatedly, he comes off a lot like Joe Mauer every single time he speaks to a paper: extremely analytical towards the game and pretty boring. I'd like to see their dull excellence paired with Sano and Arcia's rather obvious aversion to Minnesotan-ness. Though it does prompt a rather weird racial/national vibe that more or less explains why I don't particularly like talking about players' personalities. Eddie Rosario also seems pretty boring. But Puerto Rico is part of the United States. So now what? I think we need a white American player with some Harperian fuck-you in his game.

Maybe Trevor May will be the AJ Pierzynski of pitchers?

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/The_latest_from_the_Arizona_Fall_League_on_Byron_Buxton_and_Alex_Meyer101513

The latest from the Arizona Fall League on Byron Buxton and Alex Meyer
by Derek Wetmore
1500ESPN.com

The Twins top prospects may not help the product in 2014, but they may not be far behind. Some of the top names in the team's farm system are impressing in the Arizona Fall League.

Since there aren't many innings in the Fall League, it's nearly impossible to glean very useful information about a player's future from the stats. But it annually provides a quality instructional league for some of the games brightest prospects.

--Alex Meyer, perhaps the Twins top pitching prospect, threw two perfect innings with three strikeouts. He threw 33 of his 52 pitches for strikes Monday for the Glendale Desert Dogs.

The right-hander told MLB.com's Teddy Cahill that he wants to prove he can help the Twins:

Meyer knows part of the reason he's pitching in the AFL is to make up developmental time he missed due to a shoulder injury this season, but he said he is relishing the opportunity to compete against many of baseball's best prospects in the AFL.

"The main thing, though, is to play against the best talent I've ever played against," Meyer said. "I want to show I can handle this quality of baseball and show the Twins that I'm hopefully able to help them out as soon as they're ready for me."

--Later, Trevor May pitched two innings and allowed four hits and an earned run with a strikeout.

--Consensus top prospect Byron Buxton hit a homer in a 2-for-4, two-RBI performance after a quiet first week of the Fall League. He's still adjusting to better competition, he told MLB.com Monday. The 19-year-old has not played above Class A Advanced Fort Myers.

"They've got more than just the fastball to fall back on," Buxton told Cahill. "They go in and out and mix up their pitches real well. They can throw a curve when they want it, a changeup when they want it."

--German prospect Max Kepler played first base Monday and went 2-for-4 with a run scored. The 20-year-old is batting .286 in a small sample size.

>Relatedly, he comes off a lot like Joe Mauer every single time
>he speaks to a paper: extremely analytical towards the game
>and pretty boring. I'd like to see their dull excellence
>paired with Sano and Arcia's rather obvious aversion to
>Minnesotan-ness. Though it does prompt a rather weird
>racial/national vibe that more or less explains why I don't
>particularly like talking about players' personalities. Eddie
>Rosario also seems pretty boring. But Puerto Rico is part of
>the United States. So now what? I think we need a white
>American player with some Harperian fuck-you in his game.
>
>Maybe Trevor May will be the AJ Pierzynski of pitchers?

i'm crossing my fingers for kohl stewart will bring the TX hayseed/redneck FU to the clubhouse.

is there a cap to the number of prospects each team can send to the AFL? is it like an off-season all-star development league?

The other rules are written hard but enforced unevenly. All players must have played at the AA level - but each team gets one exception. Except that the Twins got two this year: Buxton and Kepler. One "foreign" player is allowed, provided that player doesn't come from a country that has its own winter league. Except that the Twins got two: Kepler and Eddie Rosario. I realize Puerto Rico isn't a foreign country, but I believe its usually treated this way for AFL rules because the Puerto Rican winter league is a pretty big deal.

So, yeah. Each team has to send six and follow the above-listed rules unless you've got some awesome prospects that people want to see.

>i'm crossing my fingers for kohl stewart will bring the TX
>hayseed/redneck FU to the clubhouse.

Early reports, from the substantial grain-of-salt of a Twins fan who posts on TwinsDaily and lives in Ft. Myers is that Stewart is not particularly well-liked due to some combination of the qualities you mention and the awareness that he is really, really good.

As long as that comes with the work ethic to bring it to fruition, then that gets a big "yes, please" from me.

Bunting, baserunning, infield instruction/positioning.

So, he'll be in charge of Molitor-related activities. Works for me.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/10/managerial-coaching-links-molitor-dodgers-tigers-hale.html

Managerial/Coaching Links: Molitor, Dodgers, Tigers, Hale
By Steve Adams
The Twins announced today that they have added Hall of Famer and St. Paul native Paul Molitor to their Major League coaching staff. Molitor has been an oft-rumored candidate to be Ron Gardenhire's successor in the Twin Cities media, but with Gardenhire receiving a two-year extension, Molitor will oversee baserunning, bunting, infield instruction/positioning and assist with in-game strategy from the dugout. He has previously served as the Mariners' hitting coach and coached with the Twins under manager Tom Kelly in 2000-01.

A couple things.

1. Watching the catcher get handcuffed a couple times on fastballs that tail towards the right-handed batter's box makes me think that the Twins are going to need to get smart on good receivers. I have no idea if the catcher back there has a good reputation for framing pitches, but some of those fastballs might be strikes with some Molina/LuCroy action back there.

2. This video is why the "pitch to contact" thing with Liriano was overblown. Yes, it's a dumb strategy that the Twins employ with too many pitchers. But applying it to a guy with power stuff doesn't mean "don't strike people out". It means getting ahead with the fastball and letting all your other pitches play up. The second hitter, LaStella, just got hammered with fastballs even when he was down 0-2. Handling 97-98mph from Meyer's angle is not easy.

3. That slider to finish Dickerson at the 3:00ish mark was fucking absurd. Then he threw two better ones against O'Brien. Is that still the knuckle-curve that we keep calling a slider because it's in the mid-80s? Whatever it is, it's delightful.

http://vimeo.com/77375120

the pitching was swell, too.

can't imagine trying to get a bat around on those fastballs.

Not everything goes with a Charleston SeaMaggot jersey, you know?

He'll be out of a job in Boston as long as they'll roll with Bogaerts at shortstop. He's a free agent with a kind of iffy injury history. And he's probably costing himself some real money this off-season (he's like 2-43 or something).

On the plus side, he's a solid defensive shortstop, draws walks at an above average rate, and has some pop.

I suspect the first team that shows four years gets him. 4/36mm maybe?

He's not the defender that Florimon is, but Florimon is really, really good. Then we fuck around with the batting order just for funsies:

1. Mauer, 1B
2. Drew, SS
3. Sano, 3B
4. Arcia, RF
5. Willingham, DH
6. Hicks, CF
7. Dozier, 2B
8. Presley, LF
9. Pinto, C

Got plus defenders at first, short, second, center, and left. Got average-ish at catcher and third. Arcia was terrible in right, but he's got the tools to be quite good at it.

I don't know. Sano's not likely to start the year at the big league level, but hopefully he'll play his way there that he gets the bulk of 3B appearances. It's starting to occur to me that we should start jettisoning guys like Trevor Plouffe, who are almost good hitters but really aren't offering enough with the glove until they get over that hump. Our pitchers don't get anybody out themselves. Hopefully, that'll change with a new wave of pitching, but until then we need defenders who can do it. Sano's bat is worth the trade off, but Plouffe's is... not. Emphatically not. So what about playing Florimon there until Sano is ready. We'd have a lockdown defensive infield.

The argument here is that it's better to have a player who is genuinely great at *something* than one we have to imagine is kinda alright at one in order to excuse his terribleness at another.