The Torrance Tornado- Jason Wheeler

[MWLFan]

I am doing some catch up here on Jason's end of season. The Snappers made the post Season squaring off against Clinton in the opening 3 game series. Jason was handed the ball in game one after ending the Season with 14 wins. It was not one of his best starts but the Snappers were still in the game after he left down by 2. But his line score was not something to write home about. 4.2 innings pitched, 10 hits, 5 runs, 4 earned, 2 walks, 4 K's, and a wild pitch. Not exactly a shut down game one starter there. But Clinton was the hottest team in the league coming into the playoffs and their offense was a pretty good one. Jason gave up 2 Homers in the game after only giving up 12 in 27 starts this year and both came to the Clinton leadoff hitter who had only 7 this year. Baseball is a funny game sometimes. I will do a more substantial recap next week. Thanks to the Snappers for a great, maybe final Twins, season in Beloit!

[MWLFan]

Life intervened again for the Jason Wheeler recap. So I apologize.

 

However I can recap where he is falling on Top prospect lists.

 

Shane wahl- Number 27

Seth Stohs- No Big Jason Love in his top 30. (Levi Micheal?? Guess you have to slip a number one draft choice in there somewhere.) Seth had him at 39 in his prelim top 50 before the Twins stocked up on arms. My Guess is he dropped a bit after that.

 

John Sickels gave him a One to watch shout out along with about 20 other prospects earlier too.

 

So far that is all I have found. As Spring training starts I will update more.

 

Have a great Twinsfest for those going!

[MWLFan]

Jason comes in at # 34 with a bullet on the Great Gleeman's Top 40 prospect list. Gleeman heaps praise upon the large lefty with choice stats like "Wheeler's nice-looking ERA and win-loss record overstate how well he pitched for Beloit, as he got a ton of run support from a stacked, Miguel Sano-led lineup and managed just 115 strikeouts in 157 innings. " and "Physically he's among the largest pitchers in baseball, minors or majors, but Wheeler works in the high-80s and low-90s with his fastball." Gleeman also called out Jason's propensity for keeping baseballs in the yard, but in the same sentence pointed out that he tends not produce as many ground balls a you would like for a guy with a sinking fastball, teams hit .281 against him, and had less then stellar control. Don't you hate it when stats get in the way of celebrating a players accomplishments, but since Jason is MY adopt a prospet from 2012 I will be the half full person here and look for the silver lining. Aaron did finish up by saying that "If the Twins' coaches can somehow figure out how to turn his massive frame into added velocity at age 22 he could be a breakout candidate," and will leave his last sentence off this blog as this baseball "genius", slipping into Sid here, seems to have a fixation on the negative and since Mr. Wheeler once pitched for a Northwoods team and lived in Minnesota for a few months I can confer one of us status on him with all the self protection rights granted under the Hartman rules . Not once did Mr. Gleeman mention what a nice guy Jason is, you call that journalism with all your facts and stats clouding our minds. If you are interested in his last thoughts on this fine young man you may go to aarongleeman.com to read it.

[MWLFan]

Game one of the Season for Big Jason tonight. He takes the ball for the Miracle against a Top 20 prospect in the Pirates system. Here is the linep behind Wheeler,

1. Morales-CF 2. Rosario-2B 3. Sano-3B 4. Gonzales-1B 5. Vargas-DH 6. Ray-RF 7. Goncalves-LF 8. Knudson-C 9. Pettersen-SS

 

Sounds like some runs.