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After posting out Twins Daily Minor League Hitter and Starting Pitcher of the Month of May the last two days, we will look at the relief pitchers who got their jobs done in May. There were a bunch and like the starters, you could make arguments for a couple of these guys to claim the title. All nine guys mentioned before deserve the recognition. But who won? We talked to the May Relief Pitcher of the Month to see what helped make him so successful. In case you missed them here are the previous May winners: Hitter of the Month: Byron Buxton, Rochester Red Wings. Starting Pitcher of the Month: Tyler Jay, Ft. Myers Miracle. So, who will join them in the May Twins Minor League Awards? Continue reading to find out.First, a few relievers worthy of mention: RHP Michael Cederoth (Cedar Rapids) – 7 G, 1-0, 3.09 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 11.2 IP, 7 H, 5 BB, 16KLHP Buddy Boshers (Rochester) - 7 G, 1-0, 1 Save, 2.08 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 8.2 IP, 5 H, 3 BB, 10 KRHP Brandon Peterson (Ft. Myers) - 11 G, 2-0, 3 Saves, 3.00 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 15.0 IP 12 H, 3 BB, 17 KRHP Marcus Walden (Rochester) - 7 G, 1-0, 2.45 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 15.2 IP, 12 H, 5 BB, 10 KTHE TOP FIVE RELIEF PITCHERS Number 5 - Chattanooga – LHP Luke Westphal - 7 G, 2.45 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 11.0 IP, 10 H, 2 BB, 16 K It was a long and winding road for Westphal from affiliated ball to the Twins organization, but the southpaw from Wisconsin has been quite good since signing with the Twins 16 months ago. Last year, Westphal went back and forth between Ft. Myers and Cedar Rapids, and between the bullpen and the rotation. This year, he’s been exclusively in the bullpen. He was promoted to the Lookouts at the end of April and had a good first month in AA. In May, opponents hit just .238/.273/.262 (.535) off him and he struck out 13.1 batters per nine innings. Pretty dominant showing. Number 4 – Chattanooga – RHP Trevor Hildenberger - 11 G, 1.20 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 15.0 IP, 9 H, 3 BB, 13 K Hildenberger was our choice for Twins Daily Relief Pitcher of the Year in 2015 when he split the year between Cedar Rapids and Ft. Myers. He’s appeared in these monthly reports pretty much every month the last two seasons and here he is again. After a solid showing in the Arizona Fall League a year ago, he began 2016 with the Miracle, but he was up in AA within a month. At a level where even the top relief pitching prospects have struggled, Hildenberger keeps getting the job done. The side-winding righty limited opponents to a .176/.222/.294 (.516) slash line for the month. He took over as the team’s closer and recorded five saves. Number 3 – Chattanooga – RHP JT Chargois - 8 G, 1.12 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 8.0 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 11 K 2012 2nd-round pick was finally healthy and bringing the high-90s heat in games in 2015. He was added to the 40-man roster in the offseason and showed well in big league spring training. He started with the Lookouts but in early May he was promoted to AAA Rochester where he’s continued to dominate. For the month, Chargois held hitters to a .182/.280/.318 (.598) slash line. While control has always been his problem, he has shown some strong glimpses in 2016, though a walk every other inning is all that is likely delaying his promotion to the big leagues.Soon the reliever whose last name is pronounced shag-waa will become a household name for Twins fans. Number 2 – Cedar Rapids/Ft. Myers – RHP Nick Anderson - 8 G, 0.64 ERA, 0.43 WHIP, 14.0 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 22 K The Twins signed Anderson last August out of the independent leagues. The mid-90s throwing right-hander from Brainerd (via Mayville State) continued to dominate in Cedar Rapids until a mid-May promotion to Ft. Myers. He had a remarkable and dominant month. Look again at the strikeout-to-walk rate of 22-to-1! He also struck out 14.1 per nine innings. Opponents hit just .109/.128/.130 (.258) off him. And the Twins Minor League Relief Pitcher of the Month is: Cedar Rapids – LHP Mike Theofanopoulos - 7 G, 0.73 ERA, 0.57 WHIP, 12.1 IP, 4 H, 3 BB, 20 K Mike Theofanopoulos was the Twins 30th-round pick in 2014 out of California. The left-hander grew up about a half-hour from Berkeley so when he was offered the scholarship, he immediately accepted, happy to play Division 1 baseball and get a Berkeley education. After spending the rest of that season, in the GCL, he spent all of 2015 in Cedar Rapids. Though he was likely disappointed in returning to the Kernels to start the 2016 season, he has handled it very well and grown from the experience. According to his pitching coach JP Martinez, he’s used his return to the Midwest League to better himself. “He’s a gritty kid, not a high pick, so he’s had to produce. He had a really good year here last year, and it just turned out that it was a numbers game so he had to come back. The good thing for him is that there is a comfort zone can work on things that they need to clean up so they’re ready for the next level.” Maybe it was frustration - or maybe it was just cold - but Theofanopoulos struggled the first week or so of the season, but he quickly got things back and made some improvements and he has been very good since. “I really wanted to harness in and focus on not walking guys. Earlier on in the season, I started pretty slow, putting guys on, trying to do too much and walking the world. I’m in a nice groove now, just realizing how to use my pitches. Fastball command has been there. That’s a huge part of it which allows me to get to my offspeed which are my strikeout pitches. Being able to finish hitters and put them away. I was trying to overproduce and do way too much.” In May, Theofanopoulos had a streak of 19 scoreless innings that ended with an unearned run. Opponents hit just .093/.152/.140 (.292). He also struck out 14.6 batters per nine innings. “Left-handed and breathing” is a saying in baseball, but Theofanopoulos shows more than that. He has a good fastball that sits 90-92. He has a curveball and a changeup, but his second breaking ball seems to have helped him to another level. According to “Theo,” one of the keys to his success has been “Developing a harder curveball. That’s been a big piece for me, especially against left-handers, changing the hitter’s eyes.” With Nick Anderson being promoted to the Miracle, Kernels manager Jake Mauer says that Theofanopoulos may be in line for some late-inning, closer opportunities. “He started out real slow, walking a lot of guys, but he’s been real good lately. Really good. We’re probably going to use him late. He’s giving us some pretty good reason to use him later in games.” His pitching coach (Martinez) said of the southpaw, “If you get a lefty with two breaking balls who can spot his fastball, that’s pretty tough to hit. I wouldn’t say he had fastball command issues, but he wasn’t getting ahead with the fastball as much as he could. We made a couple of adjustments, and I think he got comfortable right around the second week. He looked relaxed out there. He looks comfortable on the mound, like there’s no place he’d rather be than on the mound. He’s a pretty cerebral guy so he knows how to attack hitters. I think what he’s done really well is spot the breaking ball and the fastball early and then be able to put that breaking ball away later in the count.” Theofanopoulos will continue to work later in games for the Kernels. We would have to assume that like John Curtiss, Nick Anderson and Randy LeBlanc before him, it should just be a matter of time before he gets called into his manager’s office and told he too is heading to Ft. Myers to join the Miracle. He’s ready. There were several very strong relief pitcher performances in May. Feel free to agree or disagree with the order, if you like, but congratulations to each of these individuals on an excellent month of may. Congratulations to the Twins Daily Minor League Relief Pitcher of the Month for May 2016, Mike Theofanopoulos. Click here to view the article

It was an eventful day in the Twins system, as you would expect September 1st to be. Lots of moving parts, and still some big games as two teams approach the playoffs and one team isn’t quite ready to give up their playoff hopes. There were some awards named, transactions and the Arizona Fall League rosters were announced. The season came to an end for another Twins affiliate.All that and more can be found below. Let’s start with some transactions. ALL-STARS The International League named two members of the Rochester Red Wings to the league’s postseason All-Star team. First baseman Reynaldo Rodriguez and second baseman James Beresford were both very deserving. ARIZONA FALL LEAGUE Major League Baseball announced their 2015 rosters. The Twins will be represented by seven players. The four pitchers from the Twins organization are Nick Burdi, Jake Reed, Trevor Hildenberger and Taylor Rogers. The Twins are sending two catchers, Stuart Turner and Mitch Garver. Adam Brett Walker is the other Twins player who will spend six or seven weeks in the Phoenix area. TRANSACTIONS The Twins made official on Tuesday afternoon what we knew here on Monday night. The team recalled pitchers AJ Achter and Michael Tonkin, and infielders Kennys Vargas and Danny Santana. They also put Eric Fryer back on the 40-man roster and called him up. What we didn’t know is the roster move to make that possible. We have since learned that the Twins have out-righted Jason Wheeler from the 40-man roster. Rochester obviously needed to add some players to make up for the players promoted. Equally obviously, the Twins aren’t going to mess with the Chattanooga roster as they prepare for the playoffs. Eric Farris and Allan de San Miguel came off of the disabled list. Also, Loek Van Mil was in uniform for the Twins. Baseball America had announced that the team had signed him. He last played in affiliated ball in 2013. He has played some in Japan since then. RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 1, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 2 Box Score The Red Wings are barely holding on in their division. After this loss, Scranton’s magic number to clinch the division over the Red Wings is just one. Rochester does have a little more wiggle room in the wild card hunt, but not much. Michael Bowden started and gave up just two runs on four hits over seven innings. He walked two and struck out eight. Alex Meyer came on and worked two scoreless innings. He gave up two hits, walked two (one intentional) and struck out three. Unfortunately, the Red Wings weren’t able to muster much offense. In fact, Reynaldo Rodriguez scored the lone run of the game. He got on after striking out and the ball got by the catcher. He advanced to second. He stole third base (his 13th steal of the year), the throw went into left field and Rodriguez scored. Aaron Hicks had one of the four Red Wings hits. He played the whole game in right field. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga 7, Birmingham 1 Box Score Adam Brett Walker struggled for about five weeks, but he’s been providing some extra-base hits again of late. On Tuesday night, he hit his 30th home run of the season to match the number of doubles he has this season. He was 2-4 with a walk and the homer. He also drove in two more runs, giving him 103 on the season, second-best in minor league baseball. Levi Michael went 3-5. Max Kepler went 1-3 with two walks and two RBI. Cleanup hitter Travis Harrison also drove in two runs. DJ Baxendale gave up just one run on four hits over six innings. He walked one and struck out four. Corey Williams pitched a flawless seventh. Nick Burdi gave up a hit and walked two, but struck out three in a scoreless inning. JT Chargois got the final three outs, two of them via strikeout. MIRACLE MATTERS Game 1 – Ft. Myers 5, Jupiter 2 Box Score Kohl Stewart was again good in this game. He went six innings and was charged with only two unearned runs. He gave up four hits, walked four and struck out three. He improved to 7-8 with a 3.20 ERA on the season. Jake Reed picked up his first save with a clean seventh inning. Chad Christensen led the offense. He went 3-4 with his second and third triples. Mitch Garver was 2-3 with a walk. Logan Wade hit his 21st double and drove in three runs. Zach Granite was 1-2 and notched his 20th stolen base. Game 2 – Ft. Myers 6, Jupiter 1 Box Score Luke Westphal improved his Miracle numbers to 5-5 with a 2.82 ERA. The southpaw went five shutout innings. He gave up four hits, walked two and struck out five. Todd Van Steensel struck out the side in the sixth. Matt Summers gave up a solo home run in the seventh. LaMonte Wade hit his fourth triple. Aderlin Mejia went 1-2 with a walk. Chad Christensen walked twice. Zach Granite drove in two runs. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 4, Peoria 5 Box Score Sam Clay put together a real solid start, but the Kernels fell with two outs in the ninth. The left-hander Clay gave up two runs on eight hits over six innings. He walked two and struck out three. He walked two and struck out three. Yorman Landa pitched the next two innings. He gave up two runs on one hit and two walks. Zach Tillery came on for the ninth. He got two outs, but he gave up a run on two hits and a walk to take the loss. Sean Miller was leading off. He went 2-4 with his third and fourth doubles. TJ White went 2-4 with a walk. E-TOWN E-NOTES Elizabethton 6, Bristol 1 Box Score Dereck Rodriguez was named the Appy League Pitcher of the Year last week. Tonight, he put together, arguably, his best start of the year. In six innings, he gave up one run. He allowed seven hits, walked none and struck out 11. He improved to 6-3 with a 2.85 ERA. Onesimo Hernandez threw two shutout innings. He gave up three hits, walked one and struck out two. Kuo Hua Lo worked a scoreless inning to finish the game. LaMonte Wade went 2-4 with his fifth triple. AJ Murray was 2-3 with a walk and his 11th double. Brad Hartong and Nelson Molina each went 2-4. Zander Wiel walked twice. The Elizabethton season is complete. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Dereck Rodriguez, Elizabethton Twins Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Chad Christensen, Ft. Myers Miracle WEDNESDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Scranton/Wilkes Barre @ Rochester (6:5 CST) – TBD Chattanooga – No Game Scheduled Ft. Myers @ Jupiter (12:05 CST) – RHP Ethan Mildren Cedar Rapids @ Wisconsin (6:35 CST) – LHP Randy Rosario Feel free to leave any questions or comments below Click here to view the article

There wasn't too much to be happy about across Twins Territory on Sunday. The big league club got destroyed out in Oakland and four of the team's five minor league affiliates were also unsuccessful in their attempts at victory. Even with not such positive outcomes in the win-loss column, there were still some strong performances at multiple levels. To see who fared well through all the losing, keep reading.RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 6, Lehigh Valley 2 Box Score Greg Peavey picked up his first win since being promoted from Double-A at the end of last month and the bottom half of the batting order provided enough offense for the club's 51st win. Peavey tossed six frames while allowing two earned runs on six hits. He struck out five and walked three. Michael Tonkin and Logan Darnell combined for three perfect innings to close out the win. Rochester got off to a slow start in this one as they were being no-hit through four innings but they combined to go 4-for-5 with runners in scoring position. Eric Farris, Argenis Diaz and Carlos Paulino all had two hits as they batted seven through nine in the order. Diaz drove in two runs and scored two while Paulino drove in three and threw out a runner from behind the plate. With the win, Rochester improved to seven games over .500 as the club leads the International League North Division by one game over the Scranton/WB RailRiders. The Red Wings next opponent, the Gwinnett Braves, is two games under .500 and seven games out of first in the IL South Division. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga --, Biloxi -- (Postponed- Rain) Rain postponed this game before a pitch could be thrown. The two clubs will not meet again during the regular season so the game will not be made up. The Lookouts won three of the four games in the series before tonight's cancellation. MIRACLE MATTERS Fort Myers 2, Jupiter 3 Box Score Jupiter pounded out 10 hits to slide by Fort Myers. Nick Burdi took the loss after allowing two runs in two innings of work. Stephen Gonsalves started the game and pitched five innings of one-run ball with two strikeouts and two walks. Brian Gilbert pitched two shutout innings to end the game. TJ White was the lone Miracle batter with multiple hits as he went 2-for-4. Mitch Garver kept the team in the game with a solo home run, his seventh of the year. Alex Swim collected a pinch-hit double but that runner was one of nine runners left on base by the club. Fort Myers has lost seven of their last nine games but the club is surprisingly only four games out of first place in the Florida State League South Division. The Miracle will look to get back on track as they continue the series against the last place Jupiter Hammerheads on Monday. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 1, Quad Cities 5 Box Score Luke Westphal took the loss but it wasn't because of his performance on the mound. He went six strong innings while allowing two runs, one earned run, with four strikeouts and two walks. At one point, the southpaw retired nine straight batters. After Westphal left, Chris Mazza got beat around for three runs on four hits, minimizing the chances for a comeback victory. Edgar Corcino reached base three times as part of a 2-for-3 effort. Tyler Kuresa scored the lone run of the game for the Kernels. The only extra-base hit came off the bat of Pat Kelly, his eighth double of the season. Nick Gordon saw his 17-game hitting streak come to an end after going 0-for-4. Overall, the team left five runners on base and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. The Kernels have lost six of their last eight and they sit eight games behind Kane County for first place in the Midwest League Western Division. E-Twins E-Notes E-Twins 3, Burlington 13 Box Score The E-Twins found themselves in a very tight game before the B-Royals pounded out eight runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. Tyler Stirewalt and Jose Abreu surrendered all eight runs in the inning with seven of the eight runs being earned. Cody Stashak started and finished with six innings, two earned runs, five strikeouts and three walks. It wasn't all bad for the E-Twins. Amaurys Minier went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. Daniel Kihle reached base three times in four trips and hit his first triple. LaMonte Wade scored a run and knocked his third triple of the season. It wouldn't be nearly enough as the team was sent to a double-digit loss for the first time all season. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day – Greg Peavey, Rochester Red Wings Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day – Amaurys Minier, Elizabethton Twins MONDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Rochester vs. Gwinnett (6:05 CST) – LHP Taylor Rogers Chattanooga vs. Montgomery (6:15 CST) – LHP David Hurlbut Ft. Myers vs. Jupiter (6:05 CST) – TBA Cedar Rapids @ Quad Cities (1:00 CST) – TBA Elizabethton @ Burlington (6:00 CST) – RHP Dereck Rodriguez GLC Twins vs. GCL Orioles (11:00 am CST) – TBA Click here to view the article

I've always assumed that I'd invariably get my baseball news secondhand from my younger brother, a fanatical baseball fan and true stats geek, until we no longer lived in the same household and I would be obliged to do the research on my own. That is, until he finally managed to talk me into starting a Twins Daily account last November.At first I rarely visited the site, only doing so when he succeeded in persuading me to post an idea I'd have now and then, but, as time went on and baseball came back for good this spring, I got more consistent and even learned to broaden my horizons to other baseball websites and look up more than just the Twins score every day. When this year's minor league season started, my brother was super excited since it was his first year to be able to participate in Twins Daily's "Adopt-a-Prospect" feature. He was hoping to be able to take Kohl Stewart, but though he got on just minutes after the thread started, he was disappointed to see that Stewart had already been claimed by another member. But then he noticed that Byron Buxton, the top prospect in baseball, hadn't yet been claimed; I guess everyone else, like my brother, was assuming that he'd already be taken by the time he had a chance to make a pick. Naturally he immediately jumped at that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and took him. I was pretty excited for him. Writing about baseball was something he'd dreamed about doing for some time, and to get Byron Buxton on such a prestigious website as Twins Daily was a huge deal. He told me that I should take someone, but I kind of shrugged it off and said that I wouldn't have time. However, he kept pushing the point, and finally I decided to just take a look at the prospects still available. At the time, I hardly knew anything about the players, and only recognized the top names from hearing him talk about them so much. I decided to choose in an unorthodox manner; scrolling through the Twins minor league rosters, I looked for a player who wore the number 33 on his jersey. (I go by "always33" on Twins Daily since Justin Morneau has always been my favorite ballplayer, and I thought it would be kind of fun to have my prospect wear 33, too.) The player on the Fort Myers Miracle who wore 33 was at the bottom of the pitchers. It was a name I'd never heard before, Luke Westphal. "Is he any good?" I asked. "Well, it's a kind of cool story," my brother responded. "He's from Wisconsin, but he never got drafted, and then he went to play winter ball in Australia last year, and the Twins signed him during the offseason." That was enough for me. The story caught my attention, and I suddenly wanted to write about this guy. Westphal is a guy who had to go all the way to the other side of the world to sign with a team not four hours from his native town. I signed up and got to work. The next day I spent hours researching Westphal's career from college to independent baseball to Australia winter ball to Fort Myers. I scrolled through pages of Google results and read everything I came across until there wasn't another page to be found. With pages and pages of notes, I organized my information as best I could and put together my first ever Adopt a Prospect page...and my first ever article about a baseball player, much less a minor leaguer who had only made one appearance so far. By the time I was done and had it posted, I was feeling pretty exhausted. My brother, who had also adopted Zach Jones, wanted me to take a second player as well, but I put my foot down and said no. One was enough...at least for the time being. But maybe five weeks later, I became interested in another minor leaguer's career: Trey Vavra, son of Twins' bench coach Joe Vavra. He was terrorizing pitchers in low A and had just been awarded Twins Minor League Player of the Week after posting 10 hits (1 double), 8 runs, 2 RBI, and 6 walks in just 19 at- bats, earning a .560 batting average on the week. I got excited about him and decided to adopt him, too...and then when I started doing research about him I discovered that he not only wore 33 but had been drafted in the 33rd round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft. I was pretty thrilled, to say the least. How cool was it that I now had two prospects who shared jersey numbers with my favorite all-time player, however short the time would be that they'd keep them. I got Trey's page up and was rewarded when Seth Stohs, my new writing hero whose articles I always read with enthusiasm almost equal to watching the Twins play, thanked me for doing so and told me that I had done a great job. I don't mean to brag about myself, but I was so excited that I adopted D.J. Baxendale, a starting pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, not twenty-four hours later, if my memory serves me right. And he wasn't the last one, either. Just a few days ago I got Todd Van Steensel's page going, and now I have four prospects to follow and update on a minimum of a weekly basis. It's been a lot of fun, and while I was right that it would be time consuming, it's well worth it. I've developed a sort of sentimental attachment for each and every one of those players, and it's going to be pretty sad if I can't get them all again next year, for whatever reason. But I'm enjoying following them now (and all the rest of the Twins' minor leaguers, even though I can't adopt them all), and I'm going to relish every moment of it while it lasts. I've included a brief overview of each of my prospects below, and if you're interested in learning more about them, you can click on their names to read their Adopt-a-Prospect pages. It's been a lot of fun reading about their careers, and I hope you enjoy reading the pages I've put together for them! D.J. Baxendale, right-handed starting pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, was drafted in the 10th round of the 2012 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Arkansas by the Minnesota Twins. Since then, he has worked himself up to Double A, and this year he has made nine starts and posted a 3.47 ERA over 49.1 innings pitched, striking out 42 and walking 16. His record currently stands at 3-1. Luke Westphal, left-handed pitcher for the Fort Myers Miracle, was signed by the Twins in early 2015 after being discovered by Twins scout Howard Norsetter when he was pitching for the Doncaster Dragons of Australia’s Baseball Victoria Summer League where he started 14 games and collected 141 strikeouts with an ERA of 0.49 in 80 innings. He was assigned to High-A to start the season, and so far he has made 12 appearances, starting 5 games and picking up 2 wins and 2 losses. He currently has 20 strikeouts and 13 walks over 29.2 innings pitched. Todd Van Steensel, right-handed closer for the Fort Myers Miracle, has had a somewhat rocky minor league career but was given a second chance with the Minnesota Twins when they signed him to a minor league deal on February 6, 2014. This year he has played in 16 games at Fort Myers and is currently 1-2 with 4 saves in 6 opportunities. He has allowed just 24 hits over 29.1 innings, and he already has 42 strikeouts whilst walking 17. Trey Vavra, first baseman, left fielder, and designated hitter for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, was selected by the Twins in the 33rd round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of Florida Southern College. His father, Joe Vavra, and older brother, Tanner, were already parts of the Twins organization, so it was pretty special for Trey to come to the Twins, too. This year he has played in 42 games at Class A, batting 319./.392/.454 (.846) with 10 doubles, 1 triple, 6 home runs, 28 RBI, and 29 runs scored. Unfortunately he was placed on the 7-day DL on May 27 due to a sprained left ankle after banging into the tarp down the left-field line chasing a foul ball. However, the week is almost up, and I'm eagerly anticipating his return to the field. --- Read full entry here: Twins Daily's "Adopt a Prospect" - How I Became Addicted Click here to view the article

I've always assumed that I'd invariably get my baseball news second hand from my younger brother, a fanatical baseball fan and true stats geek, until we no longer lived in the same household and I would be obliged to do the research on my own. That is, until he finally managed to talk me into starting a Twins Daily account last November. At first I rarely visited the site, only doing so when he succeeded in persuading me to post an idea I'd have now and then, but, as time went on and baseball came back for good this spring, I got more consistent and even learned to broaden my horizons to other baseball websites and look up more than just the Twins score every day. When this year's minor league season started, my brother was super excited since it was his first year to be able to participate in Twins Daily's "Adopt a Prospect" feature. He was hoping to be able to take Kohl Stewart, but though he got on just minutes after the thread started, he was disappointed to see that Stewart had already been claimed by another member. But then he noticed that Byron Buxton, the top prospect in baseball, hadn't been claimed yet; I guess everyone else, like my brother, was assuming that he'd already be taken by the time they had a chance to make a pick. Naturally he immediately jumped at that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and took him. I was pretty excited for him. Writing about baseball was something he'd dreamed about doing for some time, and to get Byron Buxton on such a prestigious website as Twins Daily was a huge deal. He told me that I should take someone, but I kind of shrugged it off and said that I wouldn't have time. However, he kept pushing the point, and finally I decided to just take a look at the prospects still available. At the time, I hardly knew anything about the players, and only recognized the top names from hearing him talk about them so much. I decided to choose in an unorthodox manner; scrolling through the Twins minor league rosters, I looked for a player who wore the number 33 on his jersey (I go by "always33" on Twins Daily since Justin Morneau has always been my favorite ballplayer, and I thought it would be kind of fun to have my prospect wear 33, too). The player on the Fort Myers Miracle who wore 33 was at the bottom of the pitchers. It was a name I'd never heard before, Luke Westphal. "Is he any good?" I asked. "Well, it's a kind of cool story," my brother responded. "He's from Wisconsin, but he never got drafted, and then he went to play winter ball in Australia last year, and the Twins signed him during the offseason." That was enough for me. The story caught my attention, and I suddenly wanted to write about this guy who had to go all the way to the other side of the world to sign with a team not four hours from his native town. I signed up and got to work. The next day I spent hours researching Westphal's career from college to independent baseball to Australia winter ball to Fort Myers. I scrolled through pages of Google results and read everything I came across until there wasn't another page to be found. With pages and pages of notes, I organized my information as best I could and put together my first ever Adopt a Prospect page...and my first ever article about a baseball player, much less a minor leaguer who had only made one appearance so far. By the time I was done and had it posted, I was feeling pretty exhausted. My brother, who had also adopted Zach Jones, wanted me to take a second player as well, but I put my foot down and said no. One was enough...at least for the time being. But maybe five weeks later, I became interested in another minor leaguer's career: Trey Vavra, son of Twins' bench coach Joe Vavra. He was terrorizing pitchers in low A and had just been awarded Twins Minor League Player of the Week after posting 10 hits (1 double), 8 runs, 2 RBI, and 6 walks in just 19 at bats, earning a .560 batting average on the week. I got excited about him and decided to adopt him, too...and then when I started doing research about him I discovered that he not only wore 33 but had been drafted in the 33rd round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft. I was pretty thrilled, to say the least. How cool was it that I now had two prospects who shared jersey numbers with my favorite all-time player, however short the time would be that they'd keep them? I got Trey's page up and was rewarded when Seth Stohs, my new writing hero whose articles I always read with enthusiasm almost equal to watching the Twins play, thanked me for doing so and told me that I had done a great job. I don't mean to brag about myself, but I was so excited that I adopted D.J. Baxendale, a starting pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, not twenty-four hours later if my memory serves me right. And he wasn't the last one, either. Just a few days ago I got Todd Van Steensel's page going, and now I have four prospects to follow and update on a minimum of a weekly basis. It's been a lot of fun, and while I was right that it would be time consuming, it's well worth it. I've developed a sort of sentimental attachment for each and every one of those players, and it's going to be pretty sad if I can't get them all again next year, for whatever reason. But I'm enjoying following them now (and all the rest of the Twins' minor leaguers, even though I can't adopt them all), and I'm going to relish every moment of it while it lasts. I've included brief overviews of each of my prospects below, and if you're interested in learning more about them, you can click on their names to read their Adopt a Prospect pages. It's been a lot of fun reading about their careers, and I hope you enjoy reading the pages I've put together for them! D.J. Baxendale, right-handed starting pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts, was drafted in the 10th round of the 2012 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Arkansas by the Minnesota Twins. Since then, he has worked himself up to Double A, and this year he has made nine starts and posted a 3.47 ERA over 49.1 innings pitched, striking out 42 and walking 16. His record currently stands at 3-1. Luke Westphal, left-handed pitcher for the Fort Myers Miracle, was signed by the Twins in early 2015 after being discovered by Twins scout Howard Norsetter when he was pitching for the Doncaster Dragons of Australia’s Baseball Victoria Summer League where he started 14 games and collected 141 strikeouts with an ERA of 0.49 in 80 innings pitched. He was assigned to High A to start the season, and so far he has made 12 appearances, starting 5 games and picking up 2 wins and 2 losses. He currently has 20 strikeouts and 13 walks over 29.2 innings pitched. Todd Van Steensel, right-handed closer for the Fort Myers Miracle, has had a somewhat rocky minor league career but was given a second chance with the Minnesota Twins when they signed him to a minor league deal on February 6, 2014. This year he has played in 16 games at Fort Myers and is currently 1-2 with 4 saves out of 6 opportunities. He has allowed just 24 hits over 29.1 innings pitched, and he already has 42 strikeouts whilst walking 17. Trey Vavra, first baseman, left fielder, and designated hitter for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, was selected by the Twins in the 33rd round of the 2014 First-Year Player Draft out of Florida Southern College. His father, Joe Vavra, and older brother, Tanner, were already parts of the Twins organization, so it was pretty special for Trey to come to the Twins, too. This year he has played in 42 games at Class A, batting 319./.392/.454 (.846) with 10 doubles, 1 triple, 6 home runs, 28 RBI, and 29 runs scored. Unfortunately he was placed on the 7-day DL on May 27 due to a sprained left ankle after banging into the tarp down the left-field line chasing a foul ball. However, the week is almost up, and I'm eagerly anticipating his return to the field. --- Read full entry here: Twins Daily's "Adopt a Prospect" - How I Became Addicted

There are so many interesting stories in minor league baseball. The Twins are well-known for scouring the furthermost reaches of the globe to find players that have some potential. Last offseason, they signed another kid who was playing in Australia, but this one was a little different. He is actually from Wisconsin. Get to know the story of left-handed pitcher Luke Westphal below.Luke Westphal was born and raised is the town of Clintonville, Wisconsin. Clintonville has a population just over 4,500 residents. It is located about 45 miles north of Oshkosh in northeast Wisconsin. He pitched for four years at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, a school that was a huge Division III powerhouse for decades. However, following his four seasons of college baseball, Westphal wasn’t drafted. Following his 2013 graduation, he received an opportunity to pitch in the independent Frontier League, for the Gateway Grizzlies. The team is located in the St. Louis area. He posted a 1.59 ERA and struck out 21 batters in 17 innings coming out of the bullpen. He returned to the Grizzlies in 2014 for the full season. He went 3-5 with a 2.91 ERA in 52.2 innings over 35 games. He struck out 68 and walked 39 batters. So how did he wind up playing in Australia? Westphal recalled, “I had a teammate out at Gateway who was actually from Australia. One day, he was just talking to a couple of my other teammates who had played over in Australia also. He was talking about guys heading back. I thought it sounded like a great plan and a good idea. I approached him and asked if there was any way there would be any interest in me playing over there. He said he’d make a couple of phone calls. I got an e-mail within the next couple of days asking if I’d like to come over and play.” He jumped at the opportunity and went to Australia for the winter. Now, he didn’t play in the Australian Baseball League. Instead he played for a team in Doncaster, in Victoria. Westphal was excited for the opportunity in baseball, but also for an opportunity to see something new. “That was my first time out of the country, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. I went over there. Friendliest people you’ll ever meet.” He continued, “My teammates were terrific.” He had been a starter in college, but with the Grizzlies he had pitched out of the bullpen. He wanted another opportunity to start. “I had been in the bullpen in independent ball but I’d like to start. So, I had the opportunity to start over there. They let me build back up as slow as I wanted. It was four innings the first two outings. Five innings the next two. Six. Seven. They let me build my pitch count up. They were great with me, and I had an unbelievable experience. It was awesome.” Though we don’t have final statistics, at one point right before the end of the season, Westphal had 136 strikeouts in just 74 innings. That’s 16.5 strikeouts per nine innings! It wasn’t the Australian Baseball League, so the competition wasn’t quite as high, but there was still some really good talent. According to the left-hander, “It was a very wide range of talent. Every team had a couple of terrific hitters. Every team had a couple of guys with affiliated experience, whether it was High-A or AA. Then every team had a couple of guys that were 18, 19 years old, looking to go to college or to sign with somebody. It was a big gap. It was a wide range. It was different.” The Twins had scouted Doncaster before. In fact, Lewis Thorpe was signed after playing for Doncaster. Matz Schutte was signed as a 16-year-old from The Netherlands, but the Twins sent him to Australia to play with Doncaster as well. Twins scout Howard Norsetter who is responsible for so many of the Twins international signings, particularly in Australia, got the chance to see Westphal pitch, probably by accident. Westphal said, “The club that I played with is where Lewis Thorpe had signed out of, Doncaster. Actually Daniel McGrath, who is with the Red Sox, he signed out of Doncaster as well. And then Matz is with the Twins. He was over there to get innings. So I think Howard probably showed up to see Matz, and I was starting and then Matz would come in after me most games. He watched me the first time he saw Matz.” Doncaster, he said, typically played on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Westphal usually was the team’s pitcher on Saturday, but late in the year, he was asked to make a couple of starts on Tuesday instead. It can be a little more difficult, you see, because Westphal had to work Monday through Friday. In his second-to-last start, his first Tuesday start, he had his worst outing of the year, by far. In about the fourth inning, one of his teammates pointed to the stands and told him that there was a Twins scout (Norsetter) there. Understandably, Westphal was quite disappointed. He said, “Oh great, that’s the game he came here to watch. Went home, wasn’t in a great mood and was watching some ESPN. Ended up finding a voice mail on my phone. He had actually called me after the game and said he wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t believe it. He liked what he saw and wasn’t too worried about the results. He’d seen me previously as well, and he gave me the opportunity.” Westphal is a left-handed pitcher, listed at 6-3 and 240 pounds. He throws fairly hard. Asked what his pitches were, he said, “Right now I’m throwing a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball that sinks a little bit. Curve ball, slider, change-up. So, four pitches with a little two-seam variation off my fastball. I’d probably say that I like to go to the slider, especially to the lefties. I like my two-seam versus lefties or righties. I like my curve ball as well. The change-up is probably the pitch I use least.” As for his hopes for 2015, Westphal is keeping it simple and enjoying the ride. “I’m just super thankful for the opportunity, and I’m really hoping to come in to spring training, throw as well as I can, show them everything I have, and when we break camp, I just hope I’m with a team and whatever level they decide they want to put me at, I’ll be happy with that as long as I have the opportunity to make it out of spring and try to move up from there.” Westphal is another guy you can’t help rooting for. Just seeking an opportunity, the 25-year-old southpaw from Wisconsin traveled halfway across the globe to sign with the team from Minnesota. Baseball can be a funny game. Click here to view the article