Twins Spring Training Report from Fort Myers: 3/15/14: Top prospects galore take the back fields.

The (big) boys were out of town today and this left only the two A-level squads in action at the Lee County Sports Complex fields playing the A and Advanced A level Orioles' squads.   One of the things that need to be noted, is that these squads do not see each other in regular season competition.  The Twins' Advanced A team, the Fort Myers Miracle, is in the Florida State League, whereas the Orioles' Advance A team, the Frederick Keys, is in the Carolina League.  The Twins' A team, the Cedar Rapids Kernels, is in the Midwest League and the O's A team, the Delmarva Shorebirds, is in the Southern Atlantic League.  Even their higher level short season teams are in different leagues:  The Elizabethton Twins are in the Rookie Appalachian League, whereas as the Aberdeen IronBirds are in the Short-Season A, New York-Pennsylvania League.  So the players (and the coaches) are not really familiar with each other.

Another fun thing about today was that there were 9 of my top 40 Twins' prospects playing today and at least 3 more players who will receive consideration for next season: Numbers 8 (Berrios), 10 (Gonsalves), 11 (Eades), 12 (Jorge), 13 (Harrison), 16 (Kepler), 18 (Walker), 24 (DJ Hicks) and 26 (Duffey.)  Here is what I saw from them today:

Jose Berrios, was on top of his game.  He probably gained a couple on inches of height from last season and his fastball gained a few notches.  He was throwing easy 94-96 mph four seamers, his curveball was its usual plus pitch (but probably the third best curve by a Twins' pitcher today; more on that later) and his changeup is improving.  He struck out the side first inning and cruised afterwards.  A solid pitcher for that number 8 ranking, who might move a bit higher if he shows some endurance and pitches a bunch of innings at Fort Myers this season.

Stephen Gonsalves, my 10th ranked prospect, threw the single nastiest pitch on both fields today:  His 12-6 slow 69-73 mph curveball is a devastating pitch.  And coming from a tall lanky lefty who is all arms and lengths, is even more harder to hit.  Solid 89-91 mph two seamer and a good high 70s changeup complement his offerings.  I have Gonsalves ranked as the highest ranked LHP prospect in the Twins' system, and unless I get really flabbergasted by Luis Thorpe, it will still be the case.  That curveball (or any plus plus secondary "out" pitch) is very hard to develop, while adding mph on one's fastball is easier.

 

I admit that I also got a bit of heat when I ranked Ryan Eades as the Twins'  11th best prospect.  And the reasons I did, are the same reasons that today I think that the ranking is pretty good:  He is a very polished pitcher with at least 4 above average pitches:  His bread and butter is a 89-92 mph two seamer with crazy movement.  Think Deduno, but with better control.  Today, the results were not good, because he had to throw it up the zone because the home plate umpire did not call the low strike at all, but this is a plus pitch at that level.  Add above average to plus slow curve, cutter/slider and change, and you got a complete pitcher.

Felix Jorge (my number 12 prospect) is a guy who a lot of people think that he is throwing high 90s heat because of the sound of the ball when it hits the glove, plus he has this nice frame and fluid delivery and looks like he can throw fast.  Here is my mini scouting report in the prospect rankings (go to number 12.)  His fastball touched 92 today, but it is a really heavy sinker.  This guy is a warm killer.  Great downward movement and good horizontal tailing.  The breaking ball (called it a slurve back then, still stand with it) is tight. Second best breaking ball today.  Very easy delivery.  I think that the change up with improve, and I bet that he has a four-seamer in his back pocket.  Really.

Keeping with the pitchers and skipping up to number 26:  It was good to see Tyler Duffey pitch and I have this feeling in the back of my head that he will be a reliever again.  His fastball was up to 95; and this is about 4 mph more than his average last season. And that was a very effective pitch.  He is also throwing a slider and change, which both are above average.

As far as the position players go:

These two guys (who were first and second on one of the most meaningless stats - RBIs - in the Twins' organization last season)  look even bigger this season.  Florida State League beware.

Travis Harrison is in incredible shape. The last couple seasons, he was the prototypical slow power hitter guy, even as a teenager, making people think that he is a corner OF/1B/DH type.  This season the Fort Myers' (and likely New Britain) fans will be in for a treat.  Today he legged out a triple, he has much better range at the field.  A total delight to see.  Dark horse to shoot up the prospect rankings big time.  And he hit in the second hole tonight.

Speaking of people who will shoot up the rankings (at least mine) here are 3:

Engelb Vielma.  This is the single one most unknown superstar in the making in the Twins' organization.  He turned two unassisted double plays (one a line out/throw out the other a step on second throw at first) today and he made them seem so easy.  Like it is an everyday kind of thing.  Looks like his contact tool is getting better.  He has crazy nutty speed and as a cutoff guy, he almost threw a guy out at third on a easy triple. Very strong arm.  And he has room to grow.  I think that he will move into second in my SS rankings after 6th overall ranked Jorge Polanco.

The other two guys are catchers who just look like ball players: Brian Navarreto (pictured below) and Mitch Garver.  All of a sudden, I think that the Twins are alright in catcher depth in the organization.

Twins Spring Training Report From Fort Myers: 3/14/2014 and the newest dashboards

Second day of live coverage of the Twins Spring training from Fort Myers.  Today there was mainly major league action and some minor league drills before the Miracle and Kernels games, with the Red Wings and Rock Cats squads traveling.

 As a reminder, you can find all Spring Training coverage here. 

On the single A Beloit side of things, there was a lot of fielding practice going on, including a lot of serious work with the pitchers.  I think that these gentlemen might make a pretty mighty squad this coming season:

On the field few paces west (Field 2) the high A squad was doing drills with Doug Mientkiewitz and company.   This is more of a note to self, but this guy, is one to follow, especially after his lights out appearance at Elizabethton last season.  Second tallest person in the Twins' system (Loek Van Mil now has replaced Tanaka in his previous team in Japan) and I think that his future is bright.

And, yes, Hudson Boyd looks a lot slimmer and he ever volunteer to carry stuff around:

Even this guy was practicing with the Miracle:

And it was good to see him rip a couple and let them go.  (This is Alex Wimmers, if you don't know.)  He then joined a bunch of Red Wings' pitchers like Alex Meyers, Yohan Pino, Danny Turpen and company for a toss.

The main affair at Hammond Stadium was a 2-2 a piece tie with Baltimore.  Mike Pelfrey started and he pitched a fine 3 innings.  A couple things to note (actually one) :  Either he is working on a sinker (yes) or they calibrated the Hammond Stadium radar (yes too).  He was tossing mainly two seamers with a couple of curves and splitters mixed in today and his two-seamers were sitting around 89-91 a good 4-5 mph below his usual four seamer velocity.

Good to see Mattie Guerrier throw today, especially after Jared Burton, because he was so much better than Burton.  Easy 92-93 mph, nice mechanics, I am not sure whether he should be regarded as a dark horse at this point.  Give him a week or so of work and I suspect that he might make the team.

Glen Perkins signed a contact extension and this was what he had to say:

 

The other half of the Twins' split squad punished the Yankees 7-2 up in Tampa today.  

Here are the newest Spring Training Dashboards reflecting both games today:

(You can find all of the 2014 Spring Training dashboards here) :

A reminder of the scoring system:

For the pitchers, I quantify using  a measurement created by Bill James more than a decade ago called "Game Score".  It is calculated as follows:

You start with 50 points for each pitcher.
Add 1 point for each out.
Add 1 point for each strikeout.
Subtract 2 points for each hit.
Subtract 4 points for each earned run.
Subtract 2 points for each unearned run.
Subtract 1 point for each walk.
There is a point bonus for pitching more than 4 innings as well, adding 2 points for each IP after the 4th, but this is not too applicable here.

Game Scored of 49-51 are "average" (yellow),
everything higher than 51 "above average" (green),
and everything below 49 "below average" (red).

For position players, I devised a similar metric that goes like this:

Start with 0 points (unlike the pitching Game Score that starts with 50)
Add 1 point for each Run, RBI, 2B, SB, BB, and HBP recorded.
Add 2.5 for each hit, 3 for each 3B and 4 for each HR.
Subtract 1 for each CS and GIDP,
subtract 1 for each error,
for catchers add 1 for each CS
Subtract 0.2 for each SO and 0.5 for each AB.

Again, as in the Pitching Battle Dashboard, the Position Player Battle Dashboard is color-coded based on average, above average and below average performances, where:

Average is Batting Game Score between 0 and 2
Above average is Batting Game Score higher than 2
Below average is Batting Game Score less than 0

Players on the 40-man roster are in bold.  The ones without options are also underlined.  Left-handed pitchers are in italics.

Here is the Dashboard for the Twins' position players:

 and for the pitchers:

Twins Spring Training Report From Fort Myers: 3/13/2014

I am on site at Fort Myers and this will be the first in a series of reports regarding the Twins' major and minor leaguers from the Lee County sports complex grounds.  As a reminder, you can find all Spring Training coverage here. 

Miguel Sulbaran came to the Twins from the Dodgers in the Drew Butera trade last season and started four games for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the Twins single A affiliate.   Sulbaran did not make it to my top 40 off-season Twins' prospect list,  but he made the cut in plenty lists, so I was intrigued to see him pitch for the first time, throwing live pitching practice to Pedro Florimon (mostly) and Nate Hanson.  He is stockier than his listed 5'10", 185 lbs, with strong lower body.  He has a good fastball in the low 90s with good pop.  He threw a very good changeup, and an excellent curve, which had Florimon guessing.  He also has a slider that is a cutter-like pitch. 30-40 live batting practice pitches are not a big sample size, but I think that the Twins have something here.  On the other hand 30-40 pitches were plenty enough to see that Florimon is not even close.  He made contact with only 2 balls, neither of which left the cage.   The biggest issue is timing.  I just cannot see how he can make the team with just 2 weeks left in Spring Training.

Today the Twins were hosting the Red Sox at Hammond Stadium and had another Spring Training attendance record with 92xx people.    Phil Hughes was the starter for the Twins. He started the first inning throwing primarily his four-seamer that was sitting between 92-94 and touched 95.  He also threw a few cutters  at 88-91 and his curveball that was pretty much the story of his game.  He is working on it this spring to replace his slider and it was the main pitch he threw his last 2 innings of work, along a few two-seamers and cutters and a couple of high 70s low 80s change ups.  His curveball hit anywhere from 69-75 mph and he threw one for strikes (one of them caught David Ortiz looking at strike 3) as well as at the dirt.  His appearance was much better than the results that were in part on a fielding error by Plouffe or a ground ball and on another on Mauer on a low pick off throw by Hughes (that one actually could have been on Hughes as well.)

 

Hard to see Mauer at first base, but he was fine (other than that one play)

Matt Hoffman pitched a couple of innings for the Twins and I think that he is in competition for a Lefty Spot in the pen.  

He really has 2 pitches now, a fastball that touched 89 and a breaking ball of sorts that was thrown around 80.  That is somewhat of a slurve, but with more of a change up type of motion and I can see it raking havoc against left hand batters.   

Deduno has pitched for 3 innings and they were strong 3 innings.  I could not believe that he would be ready this close to his shoulder surgery, but he threw really well.  His fastball was as lively as ever from 88-92 and his control was better than I have seen from him before.  I was really impressed today.

Mike Tonkin finished the game for the Twins and he had a solid outing.  One thing that might mean something or might not, is that his fastball was clocking from 91-94 (with the Hammond Stadium radar) with is a few ticks lower than his usual fastball.   He is a candidate to break camp with the Twins this Spring

I am not sure that any of these gentlemen, on the other hand, will be breaking camp with the Twins:

And the reason I am saying this is that Hicks has been solid both with the bat and on the field, while Presley has been anaemic with the bat and error prone at the field and he has a long way to climb now to even reach the back up level, while Frier is probably fourth in the depth chart, behind Hermann, Pinto and Suzuki (alphabetically.)  Chris Herrmann might have been the surprise of this spring, along with Danny Santana, and will be interesting to see these two guys up North.  Chris Collabelo is another player who might be knocking at the door and this might mean bad news for Jason Kubel.

There was a replay today on a disputed home run call, and I cannot believe how primitive looking the replay apparatus is:

All in all it was a good game.   There was a questionable stop sign by the Twins third base coach, Joe Vavra, with 2 outs and down one at the eighth inning, but I guess coaches have Spring Training as well.  Regardless, if the Twins are to climb off the 90 loss hole, they need to be more aggressive at every phase of the game including base running.

The Elusive Twins' 5th Starter Battle: It does not exist and it is not a bad thing necessarily

One of the most contested spots for the Twins, on paper,  this Spring Training was going to be that of the 5th starter.   The newly signed (or re-signed) Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes and Mike Pelfrey, in addition to holdover veteran Kevin Correia, had four spots, while the three out of option guys (Samuel Deduno, Scott Diamond and Vance Worley, in alphabetical order) were to battle for that fifth spot, maybe with the addition of first round draft pick Kyle Gibson and newly acquired once top prospect lefty Kris Johnson.   Even opinions that maybe two of the later group might win spots and force a trade of Kevin Correia were mentioned.

That was on paper and theoretically.  Here is what is happening in reality:

Ron Gardenhire had this to say about Samuel Deduno: "He's healthy. Coming out of the 'pen, whatever, I like the guy. I would love to have this guy on my staff".  In other words, one of the no-options-left pitchers is all but destined for a bullpen position.   In addition, here is the list of the pitchers who have started the Twins' games this spring (including the "B" and intrasquad games) :

2/27 (intrasquad) : Hughes
2/27 (intrasquad) : Correia
2/28 (Red Sox) : Pelfrey
3/1 (Red Sox) : Diamond
3/2 (Rays) : Nolasco
3/3 (Blue Jays) : Correia
3/3  (Pirates) : Worley
3/4 (Marlins) : Hughes
3/5 (Orioles) : Pelfrey
3/7 (Pirates - B game) : Correia
3/7 (Pirates) : Worley
3/8 (Blue Jays) : Hughes
3/9 (Phillies) : Pelfrey
3/11 (Rays) : Nolasco (today)

So other than the 3/1 game, Scott Diamond has been pitching in relief, like Samuel Deduno, Kyle Gibson, Kris Johnson et al., which means that if he makes the club, it will likely be as a reliever and the Twins all but handed the 5th starter job to Vance Worley.   And this is not a bad thing necessarily because he is the youngest of all 3 pitchers with no options, has the highest upside and has had the most success in the majors.

Updated Twins Spring Training Battle Dashboards Reflecting the First Cuts

Here are the latest Twins Spring Training battle dashboards updated for yesterday's game and the Spring Training cuts.  The players who were cut are not longer listed.  You can find all of the 2014 Spring Training dashboards here) :

A reminder of the scoring system:

For the pitchers, I quantify using  a measurement created by Bill James more than a decade ago called "Game Score".  It is calculated as follows:

You start with 50 points for each pitcher.
Add 1 point for each out.
Add 1 point for each strikeout.
Subtract 2 points for each hit.
Subtract 4 points for each earned run.
Subtract 2 points for each unearned run.
Subtract 1 point for each walk.
There is a point bonus for pitching more than 4 innings as well, adding 2 points for each IP after the 4th, but this is not too applicable here.

Game Scored of 49-51 are "average" (yellow),
everything higher than 51 "above average" (green),
and everything below 49 "below average" (red).

For position players, I devised a similar metric that goes like this:

Start with 0 points (unlike the pitching Game Score that starts with 50)
Add 1 point for each Run, RBI, 2B, SB, BB, and HBP recorded.
Add 2.5 for each hit, 3 for each 3B and 4 for each HR.
Subtract 1 for each CS and GIDP,
subtract 1 for each error,
for catchers add 1 for each CS
Subtract 0.2 for each SO and 0.5 for each AB.

Again, as in the Pitching Battle Dashboard, the Position Player Battle Dashboard is color-coded based on average, above average and below average performances, where:

Average is Batting Game Score between 0 and 2
Above average is Batting Game Score higher than 2
Below average is Batting Game Score less than 0

Players on the 40-man roster are in bold.  The ones without options are also underlined.  Left-handed pitchers are in italics.

Here is the Dashboard for the Twins' position players:

 

 

 

And for the Pitchers:

 

 

 

 

The Twins make their first cuts of Spring Training and there are just a few surprises

Yesterday I speculated about the first cuts of the Spring Training for the Minnesota Twins.  This morning the Twins announced these cuts and there were only a couple names I have not mentioned yesterday.   After these 16 cuts, the Twins now have 48 players in the major league camp. Here is the full list of the cuts:

40-man roster:

Optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings:

LHP Logan Darnell
LHP Edgar Ibarra
LHP Brooks Raley
RHP Trevor May

Optioned to AA New Britain Rock Cats:

1B Kennys Vargas

Optioned to A+ Fort Myers Miracle:

OF Max Kepler
SS Jorge Polanco

Non-roster invitees:

Re-assigned to the Minor League Camp:

OF Byron Buxton
C Kyle Knudson
C Matt Koch
RHP Alex Meyer
RHP Lester Oliveros
RHP Yohan Pino
OF Chris Rahl
3B Miguel Sano
C Stuart Turner

The only surprises that I did not see yesterday, were Oliveros, Pino, Raley and Buxton.  I thought that the Twins might want a longer look at the first 3, and even-though Buxton looked over-matched, I thought that they might want him to hang around a bit longer.  It made sense to cut another catcher, since they re-assigned more pitchers than I thought.

Even more importantly is who did not get cut, especially among players who never played in the majors and are on the 40-man roster.  It was not a surprise, but a confirmation that the Twins will not hang the starting SS job to Pedro Florimon, without taking a long look at Danny Santana (and Eduardo Escobar,) both of whom are having a great Spring.  Also not a surprise that the Twins let the two Jasons (Bartlett and Kubel) be around a little longer, even though they are definitely not performing.