Twins Minor League Report (4/21): Double Walk Offs and Shoving Smeltzer

15 minutes ago, Ted Schwerzler said:

After a Morales single pushed across the tying run in Prato, Encarnacion-Strand stood at second base.

That is what the guy wrote on Gameday. Actually, Morales hit a ball back up the middle off of the pitcher to the second baseman who stepped on second to force out Encarnacion who had singled the Manfredball runner Pratto to third base and then the 2B made a poor throw to first. Morales was safe at first and Pratto scored the tying run. Then Carmargo hit one off the base of the fence in rightfield and Morales scored from first base. The players celebrated wildly. Two walkoffs - fun night.

Thank you for writing the summaries. They are excellent.

Encarcion swings a pretty mean bat right now. He is a free swinger.

Interesting to see Smeltzer pitching well as of late, with Thorpe going in the opposite direction and getting axed. I wouldn't be surprised if Smeltzer gets called up for mop up work in the near future, when we're back to 26 man rosters.

Thanks for the updates, but Wichita and FM box scores are from earlier games.

Agree that Smeltzer should be with the Twins soon.  See him in a role similar to Winder, piggy backed with pitcher X.

24 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Another good game for Martin and he played center field. 

He has 9 hits and 5 walks in his last 27 PAs.  ?

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

Another good game for Martin and he played center field. 

He started off a little slow, but picking it up.  I have huge expectations for his hitting game, just where he will play on defense will be the question.  He bat should play at the majors.  

First let me say I am sad to see Thorpe go.  He brought a lot of hope with him at the lower levels that we might have a strong lefty starter.  He piled up the K's and kept the velocity up through 2019 and then things started to fall a part.  Whether it was injury or that he just peaked is hard to say.  His velocity was down from when he was younger and he started giving up too much hard contact.  The Twins gave him a long time to try and get things right even keeping him on the 40 man all winter but he never quite found the stuff he once had.  I wish him well and hope things still work out well for him.

Smeltzer appears to back to his old self.  At some point the Twins will need to put him back on the 40 man.  He was great this spring and has been very good at AAA as well.  At the very least they could use him as a long man lefty reliever.

The way the season started I thought the AA lineup was going to be the weak link.  With the weather warming so have the bats warmed up and Martin is now closing in on an 800 OPS after a brutal start to the season.  Steer is still the best bat at least for the moment.  Everyone up and down the lineup is hitting except Wallner who has a .073 batting average and 47% K rate.  He can't hit a slow pitch softball right now and has been a rally killer automatic out so far this season.

Vallimont still looks Shaky out there to me.  3 hits and 3 walks in 4 innings is not ideal.  Hoping he can straighten things out as the weather warms up.

The pitching is good and the hitting is good at High A so it is no wonder that they are 10-2 at this point.  It is a tough lineup with Prato and CES at the top.  Sawyer Gipson-Long and Povich are two best pitchers and Headrick has been right there with them to this point.  Still Mooney, Legumina and Laweryson are pretty solid as well.  As long as this team stays together they should be tough to beat.

The muscles need to find their bats if they want to win more games.  With Rodriguez in an 0 for 9 slump the other bats need to heat up.  The only consistent bat in that lineup seems to be Fedko. 

Varland at AA and Headrick and High A should be more must watch Twins affiliate baseball.
 

I don't think we're going to see Smeltzer any time soon, frankly, even with him pitching well. he's in place as starter depth and insurance, and until someone else gets hurt for an extended period, I wouldn't expect to see Smeltzer coming back up to relieve this early in the season. Good for him for getting back on track.

Wallner is off to a brutal start to the season. He's not making any contact at all, the K rate is absurdly high, and yesterday was another rotten performance at the plate. He probably needs a day off or two and a complete reset, because right now he's looking horrid. (in my mind he's too old to send back to high A; not sure beating up on younger pitchers who are still figuring out how to control their stuff and learn to pitch will help him) I have to say I'm surprised at how poorly he's doing: after his performance in the AFL, I thought he would transition to AA better than this. It's still early, but this is not good for him.

6 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Probably better for Winder’s development for him to get regular work in the St. Paul rotation. I think a Winder for Smeltzer swap makes perfect sense. 

Could not agree more, stringer.  Get Winder back to starting every fifth game, although one advantage is that his current work load will keep his innings down a bit this year.  

If Twins looking for 2 inning RP, why not Smeltzer. Pitch him every 3-4 days, left handed and good change of pace from power pitchers. Watched Henriquez pitch, looks good, may be another piece for bulllpen when he is ready.

Martin could move up to AAA. He doesn't look like power is in his immediate future but he barrels the ball and gets on base a ton, and brings athleticism to the field with his agressive running. The Twins could use a couple of athletes as soon as possible, whenever that works. Polanco, Gordon, Buxton, and Kepler are it right now and the Twins can count on Correa to play a wonderful shortstop and he will hit. We all hope Kirilloff, Sano, Arraez, Urshela, Larnach, & Garlick hit but they are mostly station to station. Jeffers and Sanchez get a bye because they are catchers. 

It looks like the worm is turning in baseball away from the power laden lineups of the past living or dying with the home run to more old timey situational baseball. that means we need more athletes and fewer boom or bust HR guys.  Martin may be that kind of athletic guy. Let's at least give him a shot at AAA to see. No reason to be paying Cave every day there, he's not going to help the big club. Put Martin in LF in AAA and see what he can do. If he succeeds, we've increased our options at the MLB level. If he fails. he goes back to AA and we haven't lost anything since Cave is not in the Twins future. 

59 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

It looks like the worm is turning in baseball away from the power laden lineups of the past living or dying with the home run to more old timey situational baseball. that means we need more athletes and fewer boom or bust HR guys.  

That will make me enjoy the game more!

They need Carlos Correa to play like a 30 mill/per year shortstop.  

24 minutes ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

They need Carlos Correa to play like a 30 mill/per year shortstop.  

He is, as long as he plays like Ozzie Smith, he was not hired as a Designated batter. (if they do not get a hit, they are just batters.)

12 minutes ago, RpR said:

He is, as long as he plays like Ozzie Smith, he was not hired as a Designated batter. (if they do not get a hit, they are just batters.)

C'mon....he's not being paid $30 million per season to hit under .200 and be almost hitless with runners in scoring position.  

17 minutes ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

C'mon....he's not being paid $30 million per season to hit under .200 and be almost hitless with runners in scoring position.  

He is paid that so we do not have a Polanco level defense at Short Stop.

3 hours ago, cheeseheadgophfan said:

C'mon....he's not being paid $30 million per season to hit under .200 and be almost hitless with runners in scoring position.  

It's been 13 games.  Mookie Bets is hitting 178 with a wRC+ of 61.  Mitch Garver's wRC+ is 71.  Josh Donaldson is 78.  Glebor Torres is at 56.  Goldsmidt and Bichette are at 50.  Marcus Semien is at 42 and Joey Gallo is at 29.  They had a 3 week spring training.  We can condemn Correa or all of them 50 or 60 games from now if they continue at this pace but 13 games is nothing.