Twins Minor League Report (4/5): Happy Triple-A Opening Day! (The Return of Royce)

Bazebol !!!!!

I liked seeing Lewis steal, and I liked seeing Miranda make a big defensive play after having his defensive abilities doubted into oblivion over the offseason.

That gawky looking reliever for the Bats seemed pretty scary but I looked him up and he doesn't seem to have a history of being very good. I'm making a mental note to keep an eye on him.

Thanks Steve. Good article. It's great to be back to reading about minor league games. Play ball.

Awesome, so thrilled to see Lewis back on the diamond.

Balozovich on the DL to start the year already? C'mon man.

So happy that baseball is back! Thanks for the report.

8 hours ago, Unwinder said:

I liked seeing Miranda make a big defensive play after having his defensive abilities doubted into oblivion over the offseason.

The change of perception regarding Miranda's defense is so weird. Last year pretty much every scouting report called him an average or even above average defensive 3B, and by no means a liability.

Then he had his monster season and suddenly every evaluator started questioning his defense and made it sound like he was a player without a position.

Almost like they desperately wanted to find a knock on him.

Let's go Lewis <clap, clap, clap clap clap>

Good to see Lewis playing.  Personally, I am not concerned about his knee injury. Most people return to full strength from that surgery with little issue.  Mostly it is the mental side of things that you feel like you can do what you did before without issue.  I had the surgery and after 6 months physically I could do what I did before, but it took awhile to get my mind right to say do what you want it is fine.  I was back doing everything I did after about a year with no issues for many years. I would not worry about it for him, he is far removed from the surgery. 

Watched game on MiLB TV, not much hitting either team. Banuelos absolutely crushed his HR. Weather was main factor as will be with a lot of games the first few weeks. Terry is a big man at 1B. 

Great seeing a real baseball game last night, although the MiLB Louisville announcers kept cutting out early in the game.

Thought that Lewis looked solid defensively.  Made all the plays look routine, which is what we could hope for.  Should be exciting while at bat and on the bases.  Miranda did not look comfortable at the plate, although that was a real nice play to end the game.  Thought Larnach made solid contact on that ball that was caught on the warning track.  Two months from now that would be out of the park.  

The bottom of the 9th sure reminded us of how the baseball gods can affect a game.  A check swing dribbler down the third base line puts the lead off guy on in a two run game.  Seemed that Cano has awfully good stuff and should be ready to help the Twins later this summer, if needed.

Will be interested in seeing how many of their starting rotation are prospects versus minor league veterans?  

Ugh, Balazovic is hurt already?!

Being half asleep, I only saw the words "Royce Lewis" in the header.  I thought it was another article about Lewis preparing for the season.  When I clicked on the link and immediately saw the link to the Saints box score, I knew it was the minor league daily recap, and the joy of baseball returned.  This has been my favorite column since I joined TD and the one I always save for the last read.  Yippee!!!

Lot of fun guys to be tracking in Saint Paul this season. I'd kind of forgotten about Cano as a relief prospect; he's a little wild, but has the stuff to get outs, so could be an option if he can get himself to a reasonable walk rate.

38 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

Great to see Lewis doing well from Game 1. Tell me again, why is he at St. Paul and our #1 prospect (Martin) in AA? I believe Lewis is younger than Martin as well.

Perhaps the Twins view Lewis closer to ready with the glove to play SS in the major leagues if there is a need. You may disagree with that view but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

I would love to see the Varland brothers square off against one another in Wichita, although I'm not sure Louie and Gus' parents would feel the same way about it .

2 hours ago, Steve Lein said:

I've always seen his defense referred to as "potential to be average at 3B/1B" in the majors. That's not a knock on him and also doesn't mean that they're not able to make good plays from time to time, and he certainly had a couple in this one. He's definitely a third baseman, no doubt about that, and can play first as well as second base in a pinch. He's not a gold glover is all any of those scouting reports are pointing out, and he doesn't need to be.

Yeah, I don't think anyone who really knows what they're talking about has been treating him like a defensive liability, just comment sections where everything gets blown out of proportion, particularly in a frustrating offseason.

6 hours ago, Steve Lein said:

I've always seen his defense referred to as "potential to be average at 3B/1B" in the majors. That's not a knock on him and also doesn't mean that they're not able to make good plays from time to time, and he certainly had a couple in this one. He's definitely a third baseman, no doubt about that, and can play first as well as second base in a pinch. He's not a gold glover is all any of those scouting reports are pointing out, and he doesn't need to be.

I didn't mean to say that I doubt his ability to play 3B just fine. Whenever I watched him he looked good there.

I just feel like there have been more questions raised ever since his prospect stock rose so dramatically. Maybe that's only natural when a prospect suddenly gets so much more attention. Just confused me a bit because all that talk came so out of nowhere and I never got the impression that he wasn't at least an average 3B.