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Royce Lewis didn’t get off the ground this year after missing a traditional minor league season in 2020. We haven’t seen (and likely won’t) Jhoan Duran or Jordan Balazovic to this point. Although Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach have both made their debuts, it’s been pitching where Minnesota has missed most often in 2021. Despite the poor performance, we have seen a trio of potentially overlooked arms brandish their stuff.
Bailey Ober
Realistically the arm with the highest upside of this group, Ober was a 12th round pick in 2017. He’s 26-years-old and owns a 4.53 ERA through his first 13 big league starts. That number drops to 4.19 if you throw out the clunker in his debut, and it’s an even better 3.55 across his last seven starts. He recently beat both the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox, and has tallied a 9.7 K/9 while owning just a 2.7 BB/9.
The fastball velocity has averaged 92.6 mph, but when it’s coming from a guy standing 6’9” it’s going to get on you with incredible quickness. While Ober is getting ground balls just 33% of the time, he’s allowing hard hit balls only 37.8% of the time. He has generated a respectable 10.5% whiff rate, and owns a 28.3% CSW (called and swinging strike percentage).
This wasn’t a guy ever destined to be a top prospect, and he’s hardly cracked an upper half of any organizational prospect list. That said, it’s never been a concern that the stuff hasn’t played. Ober dominated during his time in the minors with a 2.41 ERA and 11.1 K/9. The caveat is that it came in under 200 innings across four seasons. Injuries remain his chief bugaboo and he’s quickly approaching a new career high in innings pitched. For a team needing rotation help though, Ober’s emergence in 2021 should garner him serious consideration for an Opening Day roster spot next spring.
Griffin Jax
Taken in the 3rd round of the 2016 draft, Jax made his debut this season at 26-years-old. He went through a gambit of hoops to get here, first and foremost working around his commitment to the Air Force. Another guy that has never been considered highly when it comes to prospect status, Jax has succeeded at each level and always seemed “safe.”
I opined that it seemed shocking no big league team wanted to take a chance on him as a Rule 5 option, but it’s great that he’s still with the Twins. Although the current 5.45 ERA is hardly anything to write home about, his 38 innings of work have been punctuated by the last four starts. Across those 20 1/3 innings he owns a 2.66 ERA and .153 batting average against. Those outings feature two tilts with the White Sox, and one against Houston; both of which are high-powered offenses. Jax isn’t a fireballer or big strikeout pitcher, but there’s also nothing he does particularly poorly.
It’d be a long-shot to assume that Minnesota has a top half of the rotation arm here, but they’ve once again produced something of substance when it comes to rotation help and pitching depth. Jax hasn’t had the run needed to cement the belief that he’ll stick, but the track record and recent results suggest that he’s more than just a fleeting name during an otherwise lost season.
Charlie Barnes
Minnesota took Barnes out of Clemson in the 4th round of the 2017 draft. He’s the youngest of this group, not yet having reached his 26th birthday. He’s also seen the least amount of opportunity at the big league level, but it seems more could be in front of him down the stretch.
Posting strong ERA numbers during his first two seasons of professional baseball, Barnes made it to Triple-A in year three at 23-years-old. In 2021 he forced his opportunity with the Twins by turning into a solid string of performances with the St. Paul Saints. Barnes doesn’t strike a ton of batters out, with just a 7.7 K/9 in the minors, but he’s done a decent job of limiting free passes and has been stingy with the home run ball. More of a soft-tosser, the lefty will need to miss additional bats as he looks for a lengthened opportunity to stick.
Easily the most suspect arm in terms of both tools and production from this trio, Barnes has earned the role he’s currently in. There will need to be further advancement, but Minnesota pushing another fringe prospect to the big leagues is a win. His big-league debut against the Detroit Tigers went well, and despite the blow up against Cincinnati, he rebounded somewhat against a much tougher White Sox club. There’s more work to be done here, but this is a good foundation.
The real takeaway here is that you can never have enough arms, and development isn't solely put in place for the top prospects. Minnesota has stockpiled pitching talent, and while it has taken time to bear fruit, the infrastructure implemented by Derek Falvey is beginning to pay off. We can only hope to see that in the coming years with more success stories like these, and realization of top tier talent as well.
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