Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Month - May 2021

Nice summary - gives me some more hope for the future.  The only one I question is Rooker - I know he is an honorable mention, but with his age and experience his all or nothing approach leaves me cold, and it would seem that the Twins are not too impressed either. 

Miranda is looking pretty special and is another good contact hitter.  I agree with him that being patient works in his favor.  If he hunts good pitches to hit he can do damage.  He has very solid numbers with his BABIP at only 304 which could be sustainable.  He could stand to walk a bit more but with a 563 slugging percentage and only a 10% K rate maybe swinging away makes more sense.  At any rate this is what we all have been waiting for and he is only 22.  Miranda should be a good Blankenhorn replacement.  Hopefully his fielding is good as well.

Have to say I am pretty excited to see Palacios in this list.  We need better SS play and more options for guys that can play that position.  His K rate is OK at 25% and his walk rate at 12% but both could stand to be just little bit better.  His BABIP of 400 is high so it look like there will be some regression in his numbers but those are solid numbers and you have to be encouraged by the slugging percentage and ultimately OPS of 875.  He needs to keep it up but he is looking like he could be a solution at SS sooner rather than later.  He just needs to hold those numbers longer into the season and he looks like a solid utility player as his floor everyday SS as his ceiling.  He just needs to keep that bat going.

I like Gabe's numbers but let's be honest he is a 26 year old playing at High A.  If his numbers weren't that good he likely would need to hang up the spikes.  The Twins should promote him to AA ASAP to see if the bat plays there so that he has chance to move AAA where his age plays better for the level.  Don't get me wrong I love what he is doing but they need to move him up before the numbers mean much.

Julien has been in a slump pretty much ever since I said he should be moved up.  He has a good eye at the plate though so moving up shouldn't be a problem for him.  The Twins can afford to be patient but he is one of the best hitters in the system so I would think moving him up fairly soon would make sense.

I like Wallners numbers but I see a ton of regression in his numbers.  His near 40% K rate is going to catch up to him and his BABIP is high as well.  He is fools gold right now.  It is great to see him doing well and putting up nice numbers but that K% will bring him to his knee's eventually.  He looks very Rooker like to me right now but hopefully he can get that K rate down and OBP up.  He has power I have no doubts there but he needs to make more contact and improve the eye at the plate if he ever wants a shot at MLB.

I don't know what to think of Kyle Schmidt yet.  His numbers for the month of May all say solid hit tool.  K% and walk rate are good.  He isn't hitting HR's but the 6 doubles keep his slugging up so he is hitting the ball hard.  The one regression point he has though is his BABIP is 472.  He isn't going to keep this up.  Still he looks like a balanced hitter to me at this point and being a catcher the bar for hitting is much lower.  Will be interesting to see how his numbers turn out this year.

I am a big Ernie fan so happy to see him make honorable mention.  2019 was a terrible year for him.  I was wondering if would be able to recover or if he was done.  His numbers are back and I love his game.  He has solid hitters numbers he just needs to add to slugging to round things out.  I am rooting for him.

It is a fun list but Miranda is far and away the best hitter on this list IMO.  His low K% normalized BABIP % and high slugging make him the best candidate to sustain his production through the season.  Hopefully he keeps it going and the Twins have another star in the making.

I'll have to give Miranda a bump up my prospects ranking, I haven't been as high on him as some others have, but he seems to finally be having his breakout year. Sometimes you've got to have patience with a prospect... a lot of patience.

29 Ks for Wallner? Woof. That's not good, despite the rest of the numbers looking sexy. All these power-only prospects in our system me of a past contentious prospect who went by the name Adam Brett Walker...

Palacios has me intrigued, but he's got to keep raking for me to believe it. He tanked against AA in 2018 and 2019 for the Rays, He is still 24, so perhaps he can get his prospect status back on track.

I am looking forward to updating my prospects ranking this summer!

My vote would have gone to Miranda.  Great seeing his bat explode, which if memory serves began during the second half of 2019.  Is that correct, Seth?  I know he came in as a third baseman.  Considering that is going to be an open spot for the Twins in the next year or two, is he strong enough defensively to be considered as their next full time third baseman?  The most exciting number to me was his strikeouts of 11 in 94 at bats.  The Twins need a few more players who put the ball in play rather than walking back to the pine 2 or 3 at bats every game.

The other player that was most exciting for me was Julien.  He has to be the surprise of this spring, at least to me.  I very seldom disagree with Dman, but I will do so regarding his comment on Snyder being too old for Hi-A ball at 26.  We need to remember that these kids all missed an entire year last year.  We need to disregard looking at age for the next year or two.

Sort of going off Roger's question about third base defense, what's Miranda's defense like at all 4 infield positions?

2 hours ago, roger said:

My vote would have gone to Miranda.  Great seeing his bat explode, which if memory serves began during the second half of 2019. 

He had a pretty solid August, and was really good in the playoffs for Pensacola despite not being called up until the last game of the regular season.

Interestingly, he's been an absolute playoff monster in his minor league career, even going back to 2018 when he had a pretty rough regular season: https://www.milb.com/stats/florida-state/2018/postseason-cumulative

I don't really think we should read too much into minor league playoff performance, though we can certainly include it the full picture of their yearly performance.  Still he seems to have a knack for performing in big spots, evidenced again this week by his huge 2-run bomb against a pretty solid relief prospect who had Wichita down to their last out. 

I could see him really jumping on his first opportunity in the majors when that call eventually comes.  He's really looking like a great overall hitter now after a few years of not quite living up to the potential that was there.

Great month for Miranda, who is setting himself up to potentially replace Donaldson in the future. I especially like seeing the BB/K numbers he put up; if he can keep from being a K machine while doing damage on pitches in the zone he's going to be a heck of hitter. he's been one of those players I was really worried missing a year was going to harm, but so far he's rising to the challenge. good for him! AA can be where guys really separate themselves as players and he's off to a very nice start.

I'm curious about Whitefield; the D must be there if he can compete for Celestino for time in CF and even get an emergency call-up to MLB, but those K's make me nervous. he had a solid month at the plate but that's a LOT of whiffs.

Nice article Seth, no argument with your choices. Hopefully they can all continue to have success. There is not a huge need at MLB level for 2B-3B type player but at some point this month would think Twins would move up Miranda to AAA. Twins will have to protect him from rule 5 draft this year, move him to AAA and see how he does. Not much to prove at AA level yet. Did Celestino get moved up to Saints? Being on 40 man roster, may need Celestino in case of emergency with so many injuries to OFs.