2wins87

Definitely the most intriguing day 2 pick for me. Good size, I will be watching to see if the development staff unlock a bit more velocity. The national outlets all say the knuckleball is a legitimate weapon; it'll be interesting to see how they approach his pitch mix. Most likely an eephus-like change of pace pitch for the time being, but something he'll definitely want to keep around as a fallback.

Awesome news! Looking forward to getting to follow his career very soon.

The leaguewide OPS in the DSL is .718, which isn't particularly high and is only a bit higher than the Complex League and Midwest League. The DSL Twins lead the league with an .815 team OPS, so they have been a very good hitting team. The majority of organizations have two DSL teams now, so I don't know if the overall talent pool has been diluted a bit, but there are a bunch of young first year guys doing quite well for the Twins. The next biggest signings behind Mercedes unfortunately have not been among them, with both Herrera and Acuna struggling quite a bit, though I think they've both been a bit better as late. Jose Rodriguez has really been great. He's also younger than Mercedes (actually he's one of the youngest in the league) and has hit for more power with fewer strikeouts. I haven't found any signing bonus information for him but I think he was mentioned in BA's international signing roundup so I'd guess low 6 figures. Anderson Nova is another young 17 year old who's hitting very well with good plate discipline numbers. Daniel Pena is about the same age and has also hit pretty well, with little power and few walks but also with a pretty low strikeout rate. I'll also mention Isaac Pena, a Venezuelan who is already 18 but is also in his first year and basically never strikes while also taking some walks. Fun fact, his hometown is just about an hour's drive from Arraez's hometown of San Felipe. As always, DSL stats are the least reliable for statline scouting, so we can expect some of these guys to fizzle out as they move up. However, the Twins seem to have done very well with the latest signing class.

This is about right. No way Lee should be lower than 2nd. I really like what we saw from Lewis this year so I'd also still have him at #1, but Lee could maybe overtake him if he really crushes it in his first taste of pro ball. I'd have Prielipp a little lower due to reliever risk. I'll take Steer and SWR ahead of him for now. I'd put him ahead of Canterino though, who has even greater reliever risk.

No, that's only for the first 10 rounds. The $125k is a maximum before it starts counting against the pool from the first 10.

While lots of players in the draft are always listed as shortstops, especially in high school when they are generally the best player on their team, this draft has really taken that to an extreme. Taking a bunch of shortstops and catchers and then letting them fall down the defensive spectrum as they go doesn't seem like a terrible strategy overall. In the near term playing time at SS could be highly competitive though. I also don't know that they've gotten anyone particularly speedy that could end up in center.

Northwest Florida State is a Junior College program. I don't really know how exactly how the commitments work, but maybe it's possible to have commitments both to a JuCo and then a 4-yr school a couple years down the line.

From Prospects Live: Seems like maybe a tough sign. Could be more of a contingency plan if the end up with extra money somehow. Or maybe he they know his price tag at a couple hundred thousand and think they have the money to get him.

Senior sign, so it seems they are still in the mode of taking guys they definitely expect to sign. I do think it's pretty likely that at some point they will take someone who will likely demand above slot, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars. Jaylen Nowlin was sort of that guy last year in the 19th round out of Junior College. I think the money saved yesterday was pretty much just to sign their top two picks, but it makes sense to take a shot at one or two slightly tougher signs on day 3 in case they do end up with a little extra money saved up.

I never expect to know what to think about day 2 immediately after it happens. Seems like Morris has some talent for the dev team to work with, and Lewis sounds like the best early candidate to the guy that comes out next year with improved stuff, though you really can't predict when or where that might happen. Ortega also sounds like a bit of a late bloomer a la Encarnacion-Strand, so I have some hope for a continued breakout from him as well. I think they might take a shot or two at a potential overslot guy today in case they end up with extra savings from day 2. It won't count against their pool if they don't sign someone today so there could still be some good value left to get.

His start to AA is looking pretty similar to his start to the season at A+ earlier this year. I'm very excited about his bat.

All of the teams' boards are all over the place at this point. The only thing that really qualifies as a reach would probably a pick that's not even on most of the boards. I don't know that I love the pick, but from here on out it's pretty much wait and see how it turns out.

I wonder if the Twins would be able to sign Malcolm Moore. Would be a good addition to their first two picks and satisfy the call to get a catcher.

Seems to be a bit of reaching for college pitching going on. Could be interesting what high school pitching and bats are left in the second round.

I like it!

I have a feeling they are more in on the college bats. I guess I'll say Lee, but I really could see it go either way. Their model may really love a 17 year old JuCo player too.

I think I want Parada now, but I have to think I'll be happy with whoever they take. Hopefully not another big surprise.

A switch hitting power bat is interesting, but I also think it can be more risky for him to really hit as well as projected when he has two swings to keep dialed in, so yeah, much more happy with a shot at an up the middle bat.

Right, I think we should be prepared for a scenario where the Twins don't take whoever falls too. They guy(s) that fall to the bottom might not be all that highly regarded by the Twins either. Still, I doubt the Twins were going to be in on Rocker so it seems to be setting up pretty well to get someone they like.

Fangraphs updated their draft board this morning as well. A couple of notable guys outside the consensus on their board are Collier down at 9 and Green down at 11, with Neto up at 5 and Horton up at 12.

Povich doesn't have the highest ceiling. He's got a solid floor though. As a lefty that can get into the mid 90s, it seems like he ought to be valuable as a reliever at the very least, though it certainly looks like he could be a solid mid rotation starter too. For highest ceiling I'd probably still go with Canterino, if he can ever stay healthy. He has a great starter's mix, which makes it hard to give up on him potentially being a starter. But since he hasn't stayed healthy, odds are he will end up in the bullpen. I'd also take Festa for ceiling over Povich. He's been sitting mid to upper 90's as a starter and easily puts away high A hitters with both his slider and change up. I'm looking forward to seeing how those pitches hold up against AA hitters. CES sticking at 3B is probably still doubtful, but that's no reason not to keep giving him reps there. Javier has been hitting quite well for over a month now. Given how long it's taken him to get here though, he's now older than his average competition and he still has a ways to go. By all means give him a challenge at AA, but when the 40-man roster crunch comes at the end of the season, it still seems very unlikely he'll be among those that need to be protected.

Not that I have inside information or a perfect memory of drafts, but I think the strategy of trying to push a player down in the draft is pretty tricky and probably hasn't really been executed effectively very often. The Mets have $4.78 million allocated to their first pick at #11, and the Cubs at #7 have $5.7 million allotted. If they wanted to push one of the consensus top 7 down they would have to be offering them well over $6 million, since the player would otherwise see their floor value at around $5.7 million, and they would also probably have a decent chance at going a slot or two higher as well. So if the Mets went over their first pick slot by $1.5 or $2 million they would have to either make it up by signing lesser guys to below slot deals later in the draft, or if they can't manage to save enough money they start losing picks in future drafts. It sort of defeats the purpose, especially in the MLB draft where good players routinely come out of later rounds and high picks still bust quite a bit. The Mets' #11 pick is actually a compensation for not signing Rocker at #10 last year, so they actually have another 1st round pick at #14, giving them a unique opportunity to try something like that this year. They could get an underslot deal in place at #14 with someone that doesn't expect to go until late in the 1st round otherwise, and use the savings to up their offer at #11. In most situations it can be a lot trickier when the team is trying to save money on 2nd and 3rd round picks that have smaller slot values and smaller gaps between where the player could reasonably expect to go otherwise. There is always a lot of talk about bonus pool manipulation because it can be fun to speculate, but I think when it comes down to it, most teams have ended up going pretty straightforward with their picks most of the time, going with their favorite of of the still available picks. There are a few good examples of creative strategies but I don't think it actually happens that much.

Also Wallner is 6'5". I think there might be more tall catchers in professional baseball now than ever before after Sandy Alomar and Mauer proved it's possible to be tall and a good defensive catcher, but I would guess that there is still more of a challenge for a tall guy to learn to use his body effectively behind the plate. Guys like Mauer, Alomar, and Wieters had tons of reps to get there, and I doubt it would go well generally for a guy trying to do it for the first time in AA. Not to mention the wear on the player from playing at catcher which can have an adverse effect on their offense. If the idea is to turn him into a catching prospect, they would most likely do better just trading him for the best catching prospect they can get in return.

I was going to say something similar. Against a team with multiple aces we draw the bottom of the rotation, which probably means the bats will go silent. Probably we are taking too much away from a few good outings against good pitchers and a few bad outings against worse pitchers, but I still have to wonder. Is there more focus put on advance scouting for the better pitchers? Do the worse pitchers pitch to the hitters' weaknesses more and the good pitchers pitch to their own strengths more, which leads the advance scouting to be more effective against good pitchers? Is it just random luck? Probably mostly the last one.

Parada falling out of the top 7 seems like maybe the ideal scenario for the Twins. Unfortunately it has seemed less and less likely as the summer has gone on. I doubt there's more than a 5% chance of him being avaiable. That's probably on the high end.