2021 MLB Draft Day 2 Thread

[HrbieFan]

6 hours ago, Dman said:

After grabbing the hardest thrower in the draft they went with 4 other pitchers who don't throw all that hard but appear to have good secondary pitches.  I take it they feel they can get those guys to throw the fastball harder and use the system to develop them.  They haven't taken this many pitchers this high since their first year so will be interesting to watch these guys progress through the system.

They took a lumbering 3rd baseman who might have to move to first or catcher (surprise) in the 4th with an unconventional swing who has had a lot of success hitting the ball to this point, but who might struggle with higher velocity and breaking pitches.  I guess again they hope to develop him by getting him shorter to the ball, but that is a hell of a lot of development needed for a 4th round pick.  I guess the Twins see him differently than others.  Another 3rd baseman in the 7th with a flaw the Twins don't tolerate in that he has low exit velocities and has weak contact issues so an odd pick for them unless of course they see something they think they can correct.

A primarily defensive catcher in the 8th and a more offensive prone catcher in the 9th that might not be able to hit breaking balls.  They both look like value picks according to the MLB site rankings, but both need a fair bit of polish.  

In the tenth they took a shortstop no one seems to know anything about or at least has no writeup.  

It is impossible to know if any of these guys will be any good but I sure hope there are some pitchers who are fast movers in this group.  They took pitcher's higher in the draft like I asked them too now those picks just need to work out.

Personally I like Cleveland's draft for pitching better than the Twins as 10 out of their 11 picks were spent on Pitching much of which could move quickly to the big leagues.  Detroit spent 8 out of 11 picks on Pitchers 2 in the first round. Chicago didn't use their first two picks on pitching but still spent 8 out of 10 picks on pitching and finally Kansas who was more balanced but also used their 1st two picks on pitchers spent 6 of 11 picks on pitching.  In the MLB central arms race the Twins only spent 5 of their 11 picks on pitching. 2 or 3 of which look to have potential to be fast movers the rest are wild cards IMO. 

I think you can see why Cleveland does so well with pitching depth they spend a lot of capital on it.  It looks like they, Chicago and Detroit want much more pitching depth that can quickly move to the MLB level ASAP thus the reason so many of their early picks on pitching especially college arms. 

Hopefully the Twins can keep up.  They have a tendency to pick mostly pitchers in rounds 11 through 20 so I am sure they will get more bites at the apple but I think they might have been better served by taking Cleveland's approach and taken as much potential fast moving quality pitching as possible.  After all it is the thing they need the most.

And Cleveland has came up with 2 bats in the past 10 years. Yes the Twins need to do better on developing and drafting pitchers, but it isn't all about throwing darts 

[twinstalker]

12 hours ago, SteelDodo said:

Also, one interesting trend I just noticed: it seems like the Twins like the Twins really like using the second round pick to take someone WAY below slot value.

Each year since 2017, the Twins only paid their second round pick ~75-80% of their slot value.

Landon Leach signed for $1,400,000 (slot value was $1,846,100).

Jeffers signed for $800k (slot value was $1,140,600).

Canterino signed for $1,100,000 (slot value was $1,338,500), 

and Soularie signed for $900,000 (slot value was $1,185,500)

This might be Noah Miller this year.  That was my impression when they made the pick.

[NapoleonComplex]

I feel like we could skim quite a bit off picks Comp A through round 6 to entice a HS commit to sign. I see enough potential savings between those rounds to bring pick 11 up to round 2/3 pick value. 

Braden Montgomery is tops on my wish list. Two-way guy, with lot's of potential either way. Also seems very mature and humble judging by his interview with Baseball Prospect Journal. Potential five tool guy, good character, team centric ... lot's to like about him. 

[roger]

Looking at the second day, I thought "I don't know."  Know absolutely nothing about any of these guys.  Love that they focused on college pitchers in 4 of 5 rounds (2-6).  Yet, when reading about the pitchers nothing jumps off the page to excite me.  But then I guess if it did they would have been first round picks.  Certainly no one like Canterino a few years ago who I believe was taken in the second round.  So I just have to sit back and wait to see how hard they work and what the Twins staff can do with them.  Assume 3 of the 4 will never make it to the big leagues, just hope like heck the fourth becomes another Josh Winder!

Still wondering why so many people had negative comments about the Miller kid taken with their Comp pick.  Checked out his brother, who is on Cleveland's 40-man and has been called up a bit this year.  Don't know where he was drafted out of high school, or if he was.  But see that he was a third round pick in 2018 out of college.  Well, if this kid is that much better than his brother to be a first round/comp pick, his future should be very bright.  I know I would be happy as the proverbial pig in you know what should: a) he get his first taste with the Twins in say five years (he is high school vs. his brother coming out of college); and b) I am still around to see it.

[MN_ExPat]

11 minutes ago, NapoleonComplex said:

I feel like we could skim quite a bit off picks Comp A through round 6 to entice a HS commit to sign. I see enough potential savings between those rounds to bring pick 11 up to round 2/3 pick value. 

Braden Montgomery is tops on my wish list. Two-way guy, with lot's of potential either way. Also seems very mature and humble judging by his interview with Baseball Prospect Journal. Potential five tool guy, good character, team centric ... lot's to like about him. 

I'd have to agree, seems like a pretty good kid.  Although the part that he was thought to be a 1/2 round talent and wasn't selected, leads me to think that he's pretty sold on the college route.  Nothing wrong with that in my mind, guys just sometimes really would prefer to go to college first.

[NapoleonComplex]

1 minute ago, MN_ExPat said:

I'd have to agree, seems like a pretty good kid.  Although the part that he was thought to be a 1/2 round talent and wasn't selected, leads me to think that he's pretty sold on the college route.  Nothing wrong with that in my mind, guys just sometimes really would prefer to go to college first.

Absolutely agree. More especially being a Stanford commit. Doesn't get much better from an education perspective. 

[Dman]

10 hours ago, Monkeypaws said:

Here's what Seth Johnson had to say"

Sounds like luck of the draw. 

Very surprised by that response from Johnson  I guess I get no game plan coming in makes some sense as you can't predict what talent will fall to you as the draft goes on, but let's be real I have to believe they have a list of about 6 to 10 to 20 different guys they could choose from when they pick..  If outfielders were the best picks the whole way would he really take 10 outfielders in a row? I doubt it. The picks are subjective and they can choose guys that fit whatever direction they want to go.  There is no real BPA after the first round and the talent appears to clump into groups of twenty to thirty guys evaluated about the same.  There are lot's of ways they can decide to go.

Do they plan to take a catcher in the 3rd and outfielder in 4th no they don't and I get that but they obviously feel a need to balance their draft and they do, otherwise they could easily justify taking pitching 10 out of 11 picks like Cleveland.  So in some sense he does have a "game plan" IMO.  It is to remain balanced with offense and defense. We have seen that trend ever since he took over. So not really Luck of the draw IMO because they have plenty of guys to choose from it is more steered than that IMO.

[Dman]

13 hours ago, DocBauer said:

My thoughts, with apologies I didn't have time between work and lawn work afterwards to read everyone's comments. I just want to toss my $.02 worth.

Even with the crapshoot that is the ML draft, your top 10 selections remain pretty important. And as an outsider looking in, I'm really pleased thus far.

As I stated in the 1st day thread, pleasantly surprised by Petty and just don't understand why/how a HS pitcher with 100MPH heat and some decent secondary offerings and projectability lasts that late. I'm trusting the Twins scouting department watching an athletic, defensive SS probably more intently than others. I'm trusting their hitting projections at this point over the scorecard I've seen concerning his hitting and power potential. 

But I was very pleased with day 2, again as an outsider who pretends to know anything.

I laughed and shook my head about comments regarding Big 10 pitchers, I get it. But there has been a real shift the past few years in the Big 10 when you look at Indiana, Michigan and Nebraska, etc. And I applaud 3 LH college arms added day 2. It's not only a need, but a trio of solid arms with results and projectability that have potential to add velocity and develop the rest of their repertoire, which is exactly the formula they've been following with Canterino, Sands, Winder and others. I wouldn't be surprised if Macleod, with professional coaching, doesn't turn out to be the best of the three.

Both catchers, if the reports are correct, have defensive chops. Cardenas has flashed offense before a disappointing 2021. And Winel comes from a smaller school who missed the abbreviated 2020 season due to arm surgery, That can be a big deal, But if his arm is good going forward, sure seems like he has some potential in both sides of the plate offense and defense. The organization has a handful of interesting catching options at A ball but needed to add to that, I think they would have jumped at Mack if he had slid a couple more spots over SS Miller. But they got a "slider" in Cardenas and another solid option in Winkel if his arm remains sound.

Just not sure what to think of the infielders. OK State has a good program and Ecarnacion-stroud seems to have the bat and the arm, but there are questions about hands and range. Not trying to be a blind optomist, but I've seen a number of guys including some great Twins 3B, that had similar questions before time and work turned them in to quality defenders. With a bat and arm, he's worth working with, For those who oppose the Twins early college bat choices they waited until the 4th round this year, lol. But a big bat and a good arm are WORTH taking a look at, right?

Rucker reminds me of Steer and an infield version of 2020 draftee Alerick Soularie, also from Tenessee. A decent bat and glove with offensive potential who may not play up enough to be a top prospect but who may have a ceiling we don't know yet that could surprise. Yake seems like a possible Dozier clone. And there is merit in that.

You don't draft from pure NEED in the ML draft like you do in the NBA or NFL, but you can still draft in regard to organizational need. So far, between 2019 and 2021, with a few others tossed in, the Twins have hit the infield pretty hard. They've added a pair of top 10 selections at catcher to follow Jeffers and Rortvedt. And then they added a trio of intriguing college LH arms, much needed, after taking a HIGH upside HS arm. The only selection that I'm scratching my head about is Adams from Sacramento State. The numbers just don't scream anything. I need to look closer, assuming I can find anything of value it must be build and length and something they see potentially. [Winder part 2]?

Not entirely sold on the college infielders, but really like everything they've done the first 2 days.

Nice write up Doc!  The more you read up on these guys,  the better the picks look. Hajjar and Mcleod were talked about being first rounders at certain points  in the season and look like good values where they were picked. There was a nice write up on the 4th round third baseman as well that helps me understand why the Twins were interested.  Most all these picks have had some really good moments and are really good players,  Scouting reports are ruthless on these guys though because we know only 5 to 10 percent of these guys will make it.  Slight weaknesses add up to not making it but here is hoping most of these guys find a way to reach the top level.