It was another beautiful weekend for baseball in sunny Southwest Florida. The baseball gods were smiling down as there was a rematch of last weekends pitching prospect phenoms of Stephen Gonsalves of the Twins vs 17 year old wunderkid Anderson Espinoza. Before the matchup, I got a little video of Gonsalves warming up in the bullpen where he appeared a little wild. After his two innings of pitching, where he showed off his plus changeup that upticked his 90-92 mph fast and the feel of a good curveball (~74 mph). When I asked about his bullpen warmups, he said he wasn't feeling the slider so scraped it for the outing. When asked to order his comfortability with his pitches Stephen said usually it's a FB/CH/SL/CV order as his curveball is a fourth pitch offering that he's working on to give the hitters another look. As soon as Instructional League is over with Gonsalves said he'll shut it down pitching wise until January when he'll start long tossing and by February he'll be ready for his bullpen sessions, in the meantime he'll be ramping up his workout schedule.

Making an appearance over the weekend was Twins' masher Adam Brett Walker II, he's only gotten bigger since I saw him in Spring Training, truly a man-child. Walker was impressive at the plate working deep counts, making pitchers work while taking his big cuts. Adam left the game on Friday after four at bats with slight soreness in his wrist but was good enough to play on Saturday while maning leftfield at Fenway South.

Another prospect in town getting some reps before the AFL was righty power reliever Jake Reed. Reed looked real good at times in his one inning outing showing off a nasty slider with a hard 95mph fastball yet having a little command issues.

Yet one Twins prospect got the lion's share of the praise from the 20 or so scouts that were on hand this weekend, and that would be SS Nick Gordon. Gordon sat out on Friday but played SS and batted second on Saturday. The scouts I talked to raved about Nick, one AL East scout echoed the same sentiments I heard from BoSox coach Joe Oliver in that Nick's going to be better than his older brother Dee. The comp that the scout put on him might be unfair but should make Twins' fan overjoyed was that of pinstripe legend Derek Jeter. The scout elaborated for me that Gordon has all the tools across the board (he's going to stay at SS, can get on base, can steal, can hit and has some pop that he'll grow into), has great leadership, and great overall makeup.

Other tidbits from Instructs, Mike Cederoth has a very "unique" delivery if you've never seen it, where most pitchers push off the rubber, Mike takes a little hop and actually pushes off an inch or two in front of the rubber. The Red Sox players/coaches were shouting from the bench that "he's cheating" but the umpire said he was within the guidelines of "the book". By doing so, Cederoth is able to increase his extension and release point which in turn makes that 93 mph look like it's 95 mph.

Lamonte Wade shows an advanced approach at the plate, working counts and puts good wood on the ball often; keep on eye on him. Tyree Davis is itching to get on the ballfield and from the sounds of it might be ready for the last week of Instructs. If you don't know, Davis injured his elbow and elected for rehab for the torn joint instead of surgery. Tyree has bulked up while he's been off the field, adding 20 lb of muscle; he wants to play winter ball but is unsure if he'll get the okay from management. Yorman Landa saw some game action that had his fastball at 94-95mph and threw for two innings. Pitchers on Friday included Stephen Gonsalves (2IP start), Yorman Landa (2IP), Alex Robinson, Logan Lombana, and Johan Quezada. Pitchers on Saturday included Sam Clay (4IP start), Brandon Poulson, Jake Reed, Mike Theofanopoulos, Mike Cederoth, and Rich Condeelis.

I'll be back next weekend as the Twins wrap up their Instructional League play and players either head home for the winter or off to Arizona, Mexico, Austraila, or the Caribbean for more playing time.