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Cam Booser was born in 1992 and grew up in Tacoma, Washington. He enjoyed baseball, but it wasn’t his favorite sport. On the football field, he played linebacker. He played a little receiver, tight end, but spent most of his time on the defensive side of the ball. “Football was a passion growing up, but injuries just kind of took me out of it really. My dad was my biggest coach.” The injuries were not insignificant either. ““I had knee surgery in high school. I broke my back in high school.” Injuries, unfortunately would become a theme for Booser. He turned his attention from the gridiron to the baseball diamond. However, it wasn’t on the pitcher’s mound initially. “I got into baseball, and really liked it, fell in love with it a little bit. Grew up as a hitter. Went to college as a hitter.” He continued, “I actually didn’t start pitching until I got to college. My first few starts, I had a little elbow soreness and thought that was just a normal thing for a pitcher to have. Ended up being a tear in my elbow, in my UCL.” Booser had Tommy John surgery after his freshman year at Oregon State and missed his entire sophomore season as well. He transferred to Central Arizona where he threw 19.2 innings in 2013. He went undrafted, but the Twins signed him late that year. “I signed about the second-to-last week of August in 2013. I really just went down to Ft. Myers to check out the facility, meet a few people, the coaches, and kind of see how everything works.” At the end of his first spring training (2014), Booser experienced some elbow tendinitis. His season was delayed by about six weeks. When healthy, there wasn’t space on the Cedar Rapids roster for him, so he went to Elizabethton and pitched well. He struck out 42 batters in 31.1 innings. He walked 14 and was really still just learning how to pitch. Following the season, he went to the Twins Florida Instructional League. He became one of the better stories of the fall. It was reported that he was throwing very hard, touching 99 mph at times. However, following Instructs, it was back to the operating table for Booser. “I just had a scope surgery back in November, in the elbow. They took out some bone fragments. They just cleaned it out a little bit, got some debris out of it.” After seemingly every athlete’s surgery, we read the same thing. The player had “successful surgery.” For Booser, his Tommy John surgery did not go well, or at least did not go as it should have. “The Tommy John didn’t exactly go as planned. There have been some setbacks ever since Tommy John. We always thought it was tendinitis or some inflammation. Then after getting MRIs and x-rays, found that there was quite a bit of debris in there, bone fragments and bone chips. It really shouldn’t have been there from the Tommy John, but it was. Surgery didn’t exactly go as planned, but it happened. I got the scope. Dr. Steubs up in Minnesota did it, and it feels fantastic.” He had the scope in early November and was back to throwing by about February 1st. Now he is excited to get to learn how to pitch. Booser said that because of all of the injuries, he “never really had that time to learn that much. You can learn as much as you want watching videos, but you’ve got to do it in a game.” Booser is already 22, but he knows that he is still young enough to learn. He is just learning from anyone and everyone. Of course, a lot of the instruction comes from Kernels pitching coach Henry Bonilla, who was also his pitching coach last year in Elizabethton. “I worked with Henry Bonilla last year and I learned an incredible amount. Now I can translate everything that he taught me, now that I’m healthy, and work on those things and take time every day to work on those things. He knows how to relate his job to every single guy, and he doesn’t just have one way of thinking. He can look at a guy, look at how they throw, watch them in a game and the next day have answers for you on what to do better or what he thought about. He’s incredibly knowledgeable. He’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with.” But just as much as learning from his pitching coach, Booser learns a lot by observing his teammates as well. “I’m working with guys on the team, guys like (Stephen) Gonsalves who is two years younger than I am but knows a lot more than I do. He’s very knowledgeable about how to pitch. He’s a guy who is 20 years old and giving me insight on how to do it. He’s one of my good buddies so I talk about him a lot. He’s 20 years old and he’s logged 500 innings in his life, and I’m barely breaking 100 so far.” As it relates to working out of the bullpen, he added, “I’m kind of tweaking my mechanics a little bit, but then also, watching how some guys like (Randy) LeBlanc, or (C.K.) Irby, or (Trevor) Hildenberger, how they attack certain guys.” Booser has really taken to the bullpen role. His competitive fire – maybe from his football days – is allowed to come out. “Closer is the role they would like me to throw, I think, from conversations we’ve had. It’s a role I like, pressure situations, late in the game. It’s what I would want to be doing. After surgery, I just kind of stayed in the bullpen, felt more comfortable out there. I kind of felt more comfortable throwing every day rather than every fifth day. Personally, everybody’s a competitor, but I really like to compete so being able to come into that pressure situation late in the game is what I thrive on.” Booser is blessed with a big arm. He throws the upper-90s fastball and has a good slider that can be devastating to left-handed hitters. He’s also working on developing a third pitch, a changeup. “I’ve been working on it for quite some time, but with injuries, it’s hard to go up on the mound every day and work on pitches. Last year, it was hard to develop pitches and work on mechanics when it hurt to throw a baseball. So now this year in the offseason I really worked on developing a changeup to the best that I could. But primarily fastball, slider. As a reliever, you can kind of get away with having just two pitches.” As you would expect, his number one goal for 2015 is to remain healthy. However, when asked about his goals, Booser returns to his baseball and pitching education. “Everybody wants to be a dominant pitcher, but learning how to stay down in the zone, learning when to throw what pitches, just learning how to be a good pitcher. Yeah, it’s nice to throw hard, but everybody can catch up to 95, 96, 97 if you throw it every single pitch. So knowing when to throw it, or knowing when to throw a slider or a changeup. Everybody wants to get promoted. If you do your job, it will take care of itself.” He expanded upon his thoughts, “You might be able to get away with getting guys with fastballs, but if you get to High-A Ft. Myers, those guys are grown men. They’ve seen it all before. You can’t get away with that. No one is Aroldis Chapman. No one throws 105. So you can’t get away with that every single pitch. For me, the adrenaline gets doing a little bit, and you overdo it a little bit, and then you leave fastballs up. You do that every pitch and that’s not going to go well. They’re straight and they’re in their wheelhouse as hitters. Learning to get the ball down.” For right now, he’s enjoying the process, and he’s enjoying being a part of this year’s Cedar Rapids Kernels team. “I would say probably 85 or 90 percent of this team is last year’s E-Town team. Aside from the returners in (Zack) Larson and (Zach) Granite. (Max) Murphy was there. Gonsalves was in E-Town. We’ve got a lot of guys that are really close together, and it’s a great group of guys, and there’s a lot of talent here too.” Booser has gone from a relative unknown, signed as an undrafted free agent, to one of the more intriguing pitching prospects in the entire Twins system. He’s got a big fastball, a humility to know that he has a lot to learn, and a willingness to work very hard to get there. Hopefully he will be able to stay healthy, and if so, he will have a chance to move up quickly.

After another strong season, Trevor Hildenberger is joining some lofty company. Last year, Jose Berrios won the second of his back-to-back Minor League Pitcher of the Year awards before making his big league debut. Now Hildenberger hopes to follow the path laid by Berrios as he has been named the organization’s best minor league relief pitcher for the second consecutive season. Hildenberger got a jump start on his 2016 campaign by competing in the 2015 Arizona Fall League. He made eight appearances and allowed three earned runs on 13 hits. Over 12.2 innings, he struck out 12 and didn’t walk a batter. When reflecting on his AFL season, Hildenberger said, “My experience in the fall league was eye opening to say the least. I distinctly remember the first two pitches I threw in my very first outing out there were both fastballs away that got barreled up and spanked into the outfield for singles (one of them by Daniel Palka). So immediately I realized how important it would be for me to mix speeds and location no matter the batter, the score, or the inning.” He went on to say, “I was coming into that fall straight from A ball and quickly everyone in those lineups had immense talent 1-9. I think working my way through the first half of the fall league helped me learn how to get more advanced hitters out and the second half, maybe my last 6-7 innings, was much smoother. So coming into 2016, I knew if I wanted to continue having success, I needed to mix speeds out of the gate, use my changeup against hitters from both sides of the plate, and utilize my over the top arm slot.” In the AFL Championship Game, he took over for fellow Twins pitcher Taylor Rogers and pitched a perfect inning with a strikeout. The Scottsdale Scorpions would go on to win the game. As the 2016 season commenced, the Twins took notice of Hildenberger’s AFL performance and brought him over from the minor league side of spring training. This was one of his first opportunities to impress the major league coaching staff. Paul Molitor told the Pioneer Press, “I just know a lot of people have pretty high expectations of what he might be able to do eventually.” In one appearance, he faced off against the reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper. He tried to get ahead of Harper with a fastball but Harper pounced on it for a double to the gap. Hildenberger would get Ryan Zimmerman to finish the frame on three pitches. After the game he told the Pioneer Press, “It was a ton of fun. I hope to draw a lot from it. The experience of warming up and getting the jitters out of the way and facing those two really good hitters- big name guys- and getting one of them out, I feel like that’s a little bit confidence building.” He used that confidence as the 2016 season got underway. During his first six appearances with the Miracle, he allowed one earned run over 9.1 innings with eight strikeouts and no walks. By the end of May, he made his Double-A debut. In two of his first five appearances, he allowed two home runs while holding batters to four hits in 6.0 innings. This would be just the start of something special. Over his final 27 appearances, Hildenberger went on an unbelievable run. He allowed one earned run in his last 32.2 innings (0.28 ERA) with a 39 to 5 strikeout to walk ratio. Opponents hit .150/.193/.159 against him during that stretch. “It was a lot of fun pitching during those few weeks when I felt extremely comfortable on the mound,” Hildenberger said.”I was trusting my catchers, both [stuart] Turner and [Mitch] Garver, to call what they felt appropriate and I had the ability and confidence to shake them off (which was rare).” He went on to say, “During that stretch, I was throwing strikes and getting ahead of hitters; I felt really comfortable challenging them early in the count because of my confidence in the defense behind me. This led to a lot of quick outs and therefore quick innings. Being able to execute with two strikes and put hitters away was important too, it shortened at bats and innings. Pitching is way more fun when you have the confidence to execute any pitch at any time, and I was lucky to stay that sharp for a portion of the summer.” Lots of coaches have helped Hildenberger to be able to put together this dominate run. “I've been in the Twins organization two and a half years now and I've learned a lot from numerous coaches. You kind of take bits and pieces of what a coach says and work with what helps you the most. For example, the way one coach talks about mechanics and body awareness may click with you more than another coach.” “Personally, Henry Bonilla and Ivan Arteaga have been the pitching coaches that have helped me the most in my pro career. They have been the only two coaches I've had the past two full seasons and have helped me be more aggressive, patient, and calm against increasingly better hitters.” “Henry helped me discover what I can be good at when I was in Cedar Rapids, and how to attack hitters with my strengths. He also helped my mechanics become more repeatable and reliable. Building off that, once I wasn't competing against myself when I was on the mound, Ivan has helped me identify and exploit hitters weaknesses in order to keep getting good hitters out. I think he has a way of getting his pitchers to make adjustments and learning to make those adjustments on their own that is crucial to development.” Besides coaches, pitchers and catchers also have to build a strong relationship. When asked about his battery mates, Hildenberger said, “I've been lucky enough to throw to several good defensive catchers throughout the system. Rainis Silva was my main catcher in the GCL who is a young guy with a rocket arm and controlled the running game well.” “I threw to Brian Navarreto during my time in Cedar Rapids in 2015 and the early part of 2016 with the Miracle. He is another stud who seems to throw out everyone that tries to steal a base. His receiving is what I enjoyed the most because of his ability to get below the ball and bring some fastballs back up to the strike zone which is important for a sinkerballer like me.” Other catchers have also left their mark with Hildberger. “All the defensive praise Stuart Turner receives is true and accurate, but my favorite part about throwing to him was how smart he is. I miss throwing to him since he's with the Reds now. He helped me get hitters out late in games when he remembered their previous three at bats, and possibly more from the night before.” “Mitch Garver is my favorite though, we have always been on the same page whether it be in Fort Myers, the Fall League, or Chattanooga. He has a great feel for how a hitter is feeling in the box, what they are looking for, and how to exploit it. He knows how to get a lot of different kinds of hitters out, and I'm very comfortable throwing to him. Obviously it helps that he threw out close to 50% of attempted base stealers this season. All these guys are so good at controlling the running game that it helps a pitcher worry less about the guys on bases, and focus on the guy in the box.” Hildenberger’s last appearance during the 2016 season was on July 27. He was diagnosed with tendinosis or tennis elbow in his throwing elbow which can result from chronic overuse of the elbow. After undergoing an MRI, doctors found no structural damage and his ulnar collateral ligament, the ligament associated with Tommy John surgery, looked good. At the time of the injury, he told the Pioneer Press, “The ligament is great.” He went on to say, “My flexor tendon has some wear and tear, so I’m shut down for the season.” This winter Hildenberger said, “My arm feels fantastic and I'm ready to enter spring training 100% and ready to compete. I spent the first couple months this offseason down in Fort Myers rehabbing my forearm with Chad Jackson and Corey Dietze. I did a throwing program and got off a mound before coming home to California right before Thanksgiving and it felt great. Like I said, I'm healthy and ready to compete.” Teams have to be cautious with players returning from injury. Each player is going to move at their own pace. Hildenberger has already worked through multiple hurdles and this has helped him to focus on the 2017 campaign. “I have a few goals for the upcoming season: including staying healthy the entire year, pitch in the playoffs, and improve over the course of the year,” Hildenberger said. “But my number one goal is to debut in the big leagues in 2017.” “Trevor had a great year,” said Twins Minor League Director Brad Steil. “He posted dominant numbers in Ft. Myers the first few weeks of the season and then improved on those numbers when he was promoted to Chattanooga.” Steil went on to say, “The most important aspect of the season for Trevor was that he continues to improve in all areas. Both his slider and change-up have improved, and he continues to attack hitters. His competitive focus and work ethic are important factors in his success.” When asked about how it felt to be a back-to-back winner of this award, he said, “It's always nice to be recognized and to be acknowledged like this two years in a row is an honor. I appreciate you guys taking the time to recognize minor league players and their accomplishments. Twins Daily does a good job of keeping up with the Twins affiliates for the diehard Twins fans out there so again, thank you again for this recognition. Back to back is nice and all, but I have no interest in the three peat, hopefully I've graduated from the minors by that time.” Hildenberger is looking to join a Twins’ bullpen that pitched the most innings in the American League in 2016. As Minnesota looks to get back in contention, young arms like Hildenberger will be key to turning the organization around. He has been fantastic for two consecutive seasons and expectations are high for him to make his debut before the end of 2017.