2016

Miguel Sano: Probably a cornerstone of the 2016 Twins

This year's Twins are better than the 2012 edition, who thankfully were better than the 2011 edition (well, it was hardly possible to be any worse). All signs indicate that the 2014 edition will continue on that track of improvement. The trend is slow. Painfully slow. But the direction is undoubtedly correct.

I'm no expert on the Twins' minor leagues, or on prospecting in general. For the past couple seasons, though, I have seen guys come and go -- and sometimes come back again -- from New Britain. I've been fortunate to watch Joe Benson, Chris Parmelee, Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia, Chris Colabello, and even "new guys" like Alex Meyer and Trevor May. In the coming months, I'll watch Miguel Sano and Eddie Rosario. In short, what I lack in expertise I make up in convenient geographical location.

I've been thinking a lot recently about when the Twins can next win the AL Central -- not just "compete for it" -- and what their roster might look like. My best guess for the year is 2016, and what follows is a bunch of crazy roster projections.

Keep in mind, many, many prospects don't pan out. Even guys that dominate all levels of the minors routinely fail when they get to the majors. Also keep in mind that my projections don't take into account front office moves that may (I'm cringing typing this) move a few of our best prospects in coming years. I hope Terry Ryan & Company are still in a mindset of collecting, not dealing, prospects, but you never know. With those caveats in mind, here's a position-by-position look at how the Twins are going to win the AL Central in 2016.

Catcher: Joe Mauer: He's still under contract, still catching some, and is now playing some combination of first base/DH/right field in the 50 percent of games he doesn't catch. He can still hit .300, by the way, because he's awesome at the game of baseball and his knees are getting very routine rest.

Josmil Pinto: I hope he continues to produce and grow as a catcher. There's no reason he can't be catching half the Twins' games in 2016 and batting .280 with some power while doing so. I've watched him play probably a dozen or so games, and he is a professional hitter.

Chris Herrmann: He can, at the very least, be a third catcher/outfielder. I have every confidence that he can, in time, be a .270 hitter with a good eye at the plate. An all-star -- probably not. But an affordable back-up that can call a good game, absolutely.

Third Base: Miguel Sano: He's not a gold glover, but we don't need that. He plays adequate defense and is a force to be reckoned with at the plate. As I'm writing this post, he was just promoted to AA New Britain, so rest assured the Twins are not going to let their top prospects languish in the minors. If Sano cannot hack it at third base, he can always play first. But here's a question -- when was the last time that you heard a legitimate source claim that Sano was a serious question at third? Probably the very beginning of this season or the end of last season. Clearly there has been improvement!

Centerfield: Aaron Hicks. He will continue to improve, just as he did in 2012 with the Rock Cats, and just as he is slowly doing in Minnesota.

Byron Buxton: He might be one of the top 2 prospects in baseball right now. It's crazy to type that, but legitimate writers claim that as the truth. Buxton has a long way to go before he pans out, but I have yet to read any report suggesting that he does not have the skill set to become a solid major league player.

Corner Outfield: Oswaldo Arcia. He's already gotten a taste in Minnesota this year, and I was pretty impressed. Although he slumped at the end, he didn't look in over his head, and he demonstrated why he was named the Twins' minor league hitter of the year last season. He's good now, but he'll be great in a few years.

Aaron Hicks: If Byron Buxton becomes the player we hope he becomes, he will eventually win the centerfield job, pushing Hicks to a corner position.

Angel Morales: I honestly don't know much about him, but am looking forward to finding out more. He's 23 and now is in AA.

Joe Mauer: The guy has a cannon, and is just an all-around great athlete. I predict he'll get a 20-30 games in left field or right field.

Danny Ortiz: I've really like what I've seen from him in New Britain. I'm not sure what the scouting reports say, but I saw a good arm, and his batting stats have been impressive.

Middle Infield: Eddie Rosario. Rosario is young, and is still learning to play second, but has demonstrated that he is up to the challenge. By the way, he's probably one of the best offensive second base prospects we have had since Chuck Knoblauch. As with Sano, the reports of Rosario's difficulty learning the position have subsided this season.

Brian Dozier: 2013 is a little better than 2012. His glove is better, anyway. Will he get it together? Time will tell. In any event, if he does, he'll be an affordable option in 2016.

Levi Michael: I have yet to see Michael play, so I'm hesitant to judge. I'd love to see him have a breakout second half of 2013 and turn some heads.

James Beresford: He was just promoted to AAA today. Congratulations, James! He's not a first-tier prospect, but he has an excellent glove. Can he continue to hit .300? We'll see. Beresford, however, could be a great utility infielder, as shortstop is his natural position. If he was called up to the Twins today, the bat would be an issue, but I'd put his glove right up there with anyone in this organization.

Pitching: In short, pick 5 starters from this list:

Alex Meyer
Trevor May
J.R. Berrios
Alex Wimmers
Kohl Stweart
Kyle Gibson
Logan Darnell
D.J. Baxendale
Sam Deduno
Scott Diamond
Ryan Eades

Now, add a bullpen out of guys that didn't quite make it.

This list of players, of course, is conjecture. Archives of this post will live on in 2016, and some parts will undoubtedly be laughable. Others, however, I'm willing to bet will be very accurate.

Here's the best part about this list: Every position player on it is home-grown. Every player on it will be under team control in 2016. In fact, with the exception of Joe Mauer's $23 million, there are few players on this list that would command more than a couple million dollars per season. In short, there's ample room to spend on free agents in an area of weakness. Otherwise stated, there's TONS of money on the table if the Twins want to add an extra power bat as a DH, a top-of-the-line shortstop, or an "ace pitcher" to lead our young rotation.

The other reason that I listed 2016 as the year to win the AL Central is because of the learning curve of major league baseball. If we can learn anything from watching Aaron Hicks this season, it's that there is a gigantic difference from the minors to the majors. Sano, Rosario, and even Meyer might all have tough rookie seasons. Picking 2016 gives these young guys a chance to make it through the league a couple times, learn from mistakes, and learn to succeed.

So you've heard it here first: Don't count on the Twins the next couple seasons, but by 2016 this is going to be a dominating team.

Rock Cats: Mid-Season Candidates for Promotion

Logan Darnell, New Britain's most consistent pitcher this season.
Image: Kevin Pataky, MiLB.com

It's been a fast 40 percent of the New Britain season. The team has played all right -- about what I expected, given difficulty of replacing guys like Aaron Hicks, Chris Herrmann, Oswaldo Arcia and Chris Colabello, who were the mainstays of the 2012 team, and who have all gone on to varying degrees of success in 2013 -- not only with the AAA Red Wings, but with the Twins. One of the most exciting things about following the Rock Cats is that I have realized how quick the path from central Connecticut to Minneapolis can be.

A comment about minor league baseball: it's not very helpful to focus on a minor league team's win-loss record. Sure, it's great to watch the Ft. Myers Miracle and the Cedar Rapids Kernels win most of their games (and it bodes well for the Twins' future), but those teams are temporarily fortunate to have clusters of great talent on the same roster. Rather, for me, Rock Cats baseball is mostly about following individual performances. With nearly half the season in the books, let's take a look at a few of the players that I think deserve a call-up from AA New Britain to AAA Rochester in the near future.

James Beresford. I'm not sure what else he needs to do. Beresford has played over 150 games for New Britain. His glove is great at both second base and shortstop -- that's never been an issue. He's third in the Eastern League in batting. Yes, there's little power. But so what? A middle infielder with a good glove that can hit .300 and reach base 40% of the time has value. Beresford deserves a long look in AAA to see how he can hit the pitching there. This is his second full season in New Britain, and I've seen enough. Also factoring into my recommendation to promote Beresford is Eddie Rosario. Unlike Miguel Sano, who undoubtedly will be promoted to the Rock Cats after the High-A All-Star Game, there's no immediate rush to promote Rosario, who is still learning second base, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Rosario come up to AA for the last month of 2013. Clearing Beresford's spot makes Rosario's path easier, and ensures that Rosario will get the reps he needs at second base.

Nate Hanson -- Great organizational guy. Plays all positions, but especially third base. Hanson has played over 180 games for the Rock Cats, and is hitting a solid .284 this season at AA.He had an abbreviated look at AAA Rochester last month, but needs a dedicated chance to succeed at that level. 64 at-bats -- what he received at Rochester -- is simply insufficient to judge any player. Reportedly, he hit the ball hard, but hit into some outs. If you only have 60 or so at-bats, a few hard outs, which could easily have been hits, makes a big difference. Additionally, Miguel Sano needs to move to New Britain the day after the High-A All-Star Game and play the remainder of 2013 at third base for the Rock Cats. Hanson to AAA makes sense all around.

Logan Darnell: Like Beresford, this is Darnell's second full season in AA, and he is showing improvement. In fact, he's been New Britain's most consistent starting pitcher. How consistent? 7 of his last 10 starts have met the definition of a quality start (not a great statistic, but worth something). Darnell has posted a 2.76 ERA, a 60/20 K/BB rate, and has allowed only 3 home runs in 75 innings pitched. I'm not sure what Darnell's future will be, but I am certain that the 24 year-old needs to pitch against more experienced hitters to so that the Twins' front office can get a better picture of what his ceiling is.

If you're a fan of the Twins' Top 10 organizational prospects, you might not like what I'm about to write now:

Alex Meyer isn't ready to be promoted. Yes, there are many, many more positives than negatives. One big positive is that he's second in the Eastern League in strikeouts, with 73. That's why we traded a good player, Denard Span, for him. But if I'm a member of the Twins' front office, I need to see more consistency from Meyer. By comparison to Darnell's 7 quality starts in his past 10, Meyer has 4. He also has yet to pitch into the 7th inning in any game he's started for the Rock Cats. Let that sink in for a second. If there's one thing the Twins need -- and expect -- it's that their best starters go deep into games. Meyer, who regularly throws over 100 pitches -- hasn't reached the 7th frame nearly halfway into his 2013 season. Meyer's season is somewhat similar to Kyle Gibson's in AAA -- a couple good starts followed by a clunker. Not that I expect 10 Ks and 1 earned run every single outing (which occurred in Meyer's most recent, and best, start), but in my opinion, there are composure and consistency issues that needs to be resolved -- or at least mitigated -- before I think it makes sense to send Meyer north to Rochester.

So in short, I'm ready to say goodbye to 3 mainstays. Beresford, Hanson and Darnell have put in their AA time. I don't like to think of "sink-or-swim" situations, but I think it's clear that each needs a solid couple months in Rochester to see how their games fare against better competition. But I'm not ready to let Meyer leave yet. There's no reason to rush him to AAA (especially considering how quickly the Twins are willing to pull "ready" players from Rochester after they arrive) before he is ready.

One final note: The Rock Cats host the Eastern League All-Star Game on July 10. I'm not sure how, if at all, personnel decisions may factor into this. On the one hand, it would be a nice reward for a guy like Beresford to be named to the All-Star Game held in his own park, but on the other hand, it would also be a nice reward to get bumped up to AAA before July 10.

The Rock Cats' June Swoon

Rocky the Rock Cat: Proud to be
an American

The New Britain Rock Cats find themselves in the middle of a tough stretch of baseball. They lost last night, 8-1, to the Altoona Curve, and only tallied 6 hits all evening -- 3 from Evan Bigley, which is good for him -- but that leaves much to be desired. Here's what I wrote for the TwinsDaily Tuesday Minor League Recap:

"NEW BRITAIN 1, ALTOONA 8
"The Rock Cats continued their slide in the Eastern League standings, getting hammered tonight. Logan Darnell was charged with the loss, throwing 5 innings, and allowing 4 earned runs (6 total) on 10 hits. He struck out 1. Daniel Sattler (recent St. Paul Saints signing) made his AA debut tonight. In 2 innings of work, he gave up 1 run on 3 hits, striking out 2. Blake Martin allowed 1 run in 1 inning of work, allowing no hits, but walking 3 and striking out 2.

"Like the [AAA Rochester] Red Wings, the Rock Cats only got 6 hits all evening. Top prospect Oswaldo Arcia had a debut he would probably like to forget. He was 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts. Oh well; he'll be back tomorrow and probably much better. Evan Bigley was the best offensive player tonight, going 3-for-3 with a double and an RBI. Bigley is likely to lose playing time to Arcia, so he is probably feeling motivated to play well when he gets the opportunity. Aaron Hicks returned to the lineup after being out about a week with an ankle sprain. He was 1-for-4. Deibinson Romero and James Beresford each singled for New Britain. Romero also had the only walk of the evening for the Rock Cats."

You can read the rest of the report here (if you are at all interested in the Twins minor league system, I highly recommend checking this report out each morning on TwinsDaily -- in just 2-3 minutes of time you can have a good overview of what's happening in the entire organization).
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Now, let's take a look more specifically at what has happened in June to New Britain. In 16 games this month, the Rock Cats are 4-12. Twice they have lost six games in a row, including the current streak they are riding. In these most recent six games, New Britain has scored 10 total runs (1.66 runs per game), while allowing 28 runs (4.66 runs per game). In the earlier stretch of 6 straight losses, the numbers were somewhat similar: 18 runs scored (3 per game), and 33 allowed (5.5 per game). It doesn't take a math genius to realize that it's tough to win when you are scoring, on average, about 3 runs less than you are allowing.
 
Additionally, in the most recent 6-game skid, the Rock Cats have achieved double digits in hits only once, and that was in a game that took 12 innings to decide. In this same stretch, they have hit only 1 home run (Nathan Hanson), 7 doubles, and 2 triples. When this team was winning in April and May, it never lived and died by the home run, but more power would be nice. Hopefully, with the return of Aaron Hicks to the lineup after being out one week with a sprained ankle, and with the recent promotion of top prospect Oswaldo Arcia to the team, the Rock Cats will be injected with some new life.

This appears to be a stretch where both the offense and the pitching is to blame -- it's not as if New Britain is scoring 10 runs a game and losing, or as if the pitching staff is tossing 2-hitters and simply is not getting any run support. The baseball season is so long that every team is bound to have these stretches of games where the guys simply aren't getting it done on both sides.

As of today, the Rock Cats are in third place -- 5 games out of first place -- and currently are two games above .500, at 35-33. The Trenton Thunder, at 40-28, are in first place, and they come to New Britain next week (Tuesday through Friday)  for a 4-game series that represents a good chance for the Rock Cats to make up some ground that they have lost in June.

The Rock Cats and Pitching

In each of his 4 starts since joining the Rock  Cats,
B.J. Hermsen has gone over  6 innings.

Yesterday, I reviewed some notable hitting prospects for the New Britain Rock Cats. The team is now 10 games over .500 and is in first place with a 1.5 game lead over the Reading Phillies. So although the offense has been scoring plenty of runs, the pitching has also kept this team in games.

Today I thought I would take a look at the Rock Cats' pitching. Keep in mind that Lucas French, Lester Oliveros and Deolis Guerra have all been promoted to AAA Rochester, so less than 2 months into the season, the Rock Cats have lost 3 of their most consistent arms. With that being said, let's see how a few of the pitchers are doing:

First, some starters:

Logan Darnell: 5-2, 4.53 ERA, 51 and 2/3 innings, 35K, 16 BB, 1.37 WHIP.

Steve Hirschfeld: 3-4, 3.14 ERA, 49 and 2/3 innings, 37K, 14 BB, 1.39 WHIP.

Andrew Albers: 1-1, 4.31 ERA, 48 innings, 37 K, 4 BB, 1.35 WHIP.

David Bromberg: 1-1, 3.94 ERA, 29 and 2/3 innings, 26 K, 12 BB, 1.31 WHIP.

B.J. Hermsen: 2-1, 2.57 ERA, 28 innings, 16 K, 2 BB, 0.86 WHIP.


And now some of the bullpen arms:

Daniel Turpen: 3-1, 5.56 ERA, 22 and 2/3 innings, 4 saves, 24 K, 4 BB, 1.19 WHIP.

Luis Perdomo: 3-2, 2.45 ERA, 22 innings, 1 save, 22 K, 9 BB, 1.23 WHIP.

Bobby Lanigan: 1-2, 2.49 ERA, 21 and 2/3 innings, 3 saves, 22K, 3 BB, 1.11 WHIP.

Caleb Thielbar: 1-0, 2.61 ERA, 10 and 1/3 innings, 1 save, 7 K, 3 BB, 1.45 WHIP.

There you have it. As a group, there are no major standout performers -- no guys with a 1-point-something ERA or massive strikeout totals. But if you look a little deeper, some of the stats are pretty impressive: BJ Hermsen has been very good so far, and you have to like his control. In fact, I would say that, as a team the Rock Cats have shown good command of the strike zone. Perdomo, Lanigan and Turpen all have been striking out close to 1 batter per inning while exhibiting good control. And new Rock Cat (and Minnesota's own) Caleb Thielbar has been solid out of the New Britain bullpen thus far.

Finally, I'm going to dig a little deeper on Daniel Turpen. In two rough performances this season (most recently on Monday night), he allowed 4 runs and 6 runs. In those outings he pitched a combined 4 and 1/3 innings. In his other 18 and 1/3 innings pitched, he has allowed only 4 total earned runs -- good for an ERA right around 2. Not to imply that you can simply "take away" bad outings, but when we're dealing with relatively small sample sizes, it's important to at least note a couple factors that are contributing to Turpen's interesting stat line.

The Rock Cats play a noon game today, and a 10:35 a.m. game Thursday, so be sure to check back for updates!

Rock Cats Split a Twin Billing

Target Field probably feels pretty far away
for the struggling Joe Benson

Last night, I wrote Wednesday's Minor League Recap for TwinDaily, wherein I gave a brief summary of every Twins minor league game that took place yesterday. Check it out here. The Rock Cats played an interesting doubleheader last night, comprised of two 7-inning games. Here's what I wrote about the Rock Cats in my recap of those games:

Game 1: New Britain 0, New Hampshire 3
The story of the first game of this day on which the Rock Cats and Fisher Cats played two 7-inning double headers is that hits came at a premium for Hardware City. Chris Herrmann, playing left field today, was 1-for-3 with a double, his 11th of the season, and new Rock Cat Matt Rizzotti, demoted from AAA, had a single in 3 at-bats. That was it. 2 hits all afternoon. Steve Hirschfeld took the loss, and is now 2-4 on the season. But he pitched pretty well -- 6 innings, 3 runs, 3 strikeouts and 2 walks. He did, however, allow 8 hits and 2 solo home runs, which is what did him on this day when the offense couldn't muster anything. Blake Martin pitched a scoreless final inning.

Game 2: New Britain 6, New Hampshire 3
The Rock Cats salvaged a split of the double header tonight. Logan Darnell was decent on the mound, going 6 innings, giving up 3 runs. Importantly, though, he walked 1 and struck out 8. He did allow 2 solo home runs. Daniel Turpen picked up the save, tossing a scoreless 7th, allowing no hits and walking 1. New Britain had only 5 hits in this night cap, and Estarlin De Los Santos did the most damage, with a 3 run home run and a double. Matt Rizzotti also had a double, and Nathan Hanson and James Berersford each had singles. Joe Benson was 0-for-3 with 2 strikeouts and a walk, and Aaron Hicks was 0-for-3 with three Ks.

You have to be worried about Benson at this point. He's 2-for-24 (.083) since joining the Rock Cats, with 7 strikeouts and only 2 walks. The move to AA was supposed to accomplish at least a couple things: to get Benson's swing back; and to restore his confidence. So far it's failed on both counts. Yes, it's only been 6 games, but Benson has been worse in New Britain than he was in Rochester. When I attended last Thursday's game, where Benson was 1-for-4 with a walk, I remarked that 2 of his 3 outs were hit very hard. I wanted to chalk up that performance to bad luck. But there's only so much bad luck you can have. It should be noted that Benson played right field in the second game, and sat the first game, so it's not as if he is taking away playing time from Hicks.

Benson, and the rest of the team, will get an opportunity for a series win this morning at 10:35 eastern time, when they face the Fisher Cats in the rubber match. The Rock Cats do a lot of "Baseball in Education" days, where school groups attend day games -- hence the early start. Righty David Bromberg starts for New Britain; hopefully he's having his morning coffee right about now.

The Rock Cats are 23-15 on the season, in a dead tie with the Reading Phillies for first place. The Trenton Thunder, at 19-17, are the only other team in the division that is above .500. Reading is off today, so a New Britain win would move them into sole possession of first place.

Anatomy of a Rock Cats Loss: Beyond the Box Score

The Rock Cats lost big last night, 10-3, against the Reading Phillies. You can read a good re-cap of the game by Seth Stohs here at TwinsDaily, and here at the Rock Cats' website, but I thought I'd try to provide you with a few things that won't show up in the box score, which you can check out here.

Wearing #30 for New Britain,
Joe Benson looked like a man
on a mission at the plate

Let's start with Joe Benson. He was just demoted a few days ago from AAA Rochester, and you can only imagine what a blow to his pride that was. Here's a guy that -- although he looked rough in his September call-up in 2011 -- was on most any short list for Twins outfield vacancies, and had fought for a position this Spring. Instead, he was placed in AAA and didn't hit at all. I was curious what his demeanor would be being relegated back to New Britain. I'll tell you, from everything that I witnessed, Benson seemed to be in good spirits. He was joking around with teammates and coaches just before the game started, and spoke to a few season ticket holders at the stadium that had developed a good relationship with him. The box score will tell you that Benson went 1-for-4 with a walk tonight. I'll tell you that 2 of his 3 outs were smashes to left field. 1/8 of an inch higher or lower on the bat, and we're looking at a rocket single that falls in front of the left fielder, or a double (or home run) to left field. Funny enough, his one hit to right field was probably his weakest contact of the night. That's just how baseball works, unfortunately. But from what I observed tonight, Benson put very, very good swings on the ball and, just as importantly, took good at-bats and appeared to be in a good place mentally.

Logan Darnell had a really tough night. After cruising through the first two innings, Darnell got in trouble in the third. A walk, followed by consecutive singles, loaded the bases for Darin Ruf, who looks like a prototypical power hitter. He hit a no-doubt grand slam, and it was suddenly 4-0. I wasn't sure if Darnell, like many young pitchers, would become rattled, or would be able to shake it off. His pitch sequence to the next batter, lefty Steve Susdorf, was his best of the night. Darnell started Susdorf off with a called strike, then threw a great curve that buckled the batter. And on 0-2, Darnell threw a perfect change-up that looked (from where I was sitting) low and away, and Susdorf flailed helplessly at it. Unfortunately, the positives for Darnell were few and far between last night. His fastball was pretty consistent at 89, although he did hit 92 a couple times when trying for a strikeout pitch.

Journeyman Chris Colabello
taking infield before the game

I also want to mention Chris Herrmann. I'm one of the people that believes he's just about ready for the next step in his progression. But to do that, he needs to get that average up, and he made a step in the right direction last night, going 3-for-5 with a double and a run. The double was actually pretty close to a home run to right-center field, and Herrmann was robbed of another double in his first at-bat: he smashed a line drive down the third base line, but Reading's defender made a fantastic play on the ball. You could see the frustration on Herrmann's face as he was walking back to the dugout. Luckily, the negative result in the first at-bat didn't get him down, and he put together a nice game.

Finally, there is a new Rock Cats player, Shawn Roof. I wouldn't have noticed it, but thanks to a couple friends at the ballpark, it was pointed out to me that a new and unfamiliar player was in uniform, wearing #5. After investigation, this person was revealed to be Roof. Here's a little more information on him. Roof can probably best be viewed as middle infield depth, which is something that New Britain needs right now after losing Pedro Florimon to Rochester.

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Sometimes on Fridays, I'll link to other great Twins blog posts from the week. This week, you'll find a few links, but to different material. I'm not sure if you have ever visited the UMPS Care Charity website, but it's pretty cool. In short, it's connected to MLB and was established by MLB umpires, and the proceeds from this charity provide sick or at-risk children with unique baseball experiences -- like on-the-field events and the opportunity to meet players.

Not only does this just sound like a good charity, but it is relevant to Twins minor league fans, because right now there are 3 Twins-related auctions taking place for ticket packages. The first is 4 GA tickets to a Snappers game of your choosing, and the opening bid is $11. That's right, $11 for all 4 tickets. There's already one bid, so the tickets will go for more than the minimum, but it's still worth checking out if you're in that area of the country.

If you're near Rochester, NY, then you're close to the AAA Red Wings. This auction is for 24 premium box seat tickets, and the opening bid is only $106. The tickets can be divided into groups of 4, so you could attend up to 6 games. I know Rochester is never great, but can you beat $4.42 for a baseball ticket? Also, Tsuyoshi Nishioka will strike out in front of you at least twice each game (it's in the fine print).

Finally, the organization's rookie level Appalachian League team, the Elizabethton Twins, have a great package up for auction. They haven't started play yet, but when they do, for $60 you can bid on a skybox pizza party for 12 people, which includes tickets, pizza, popcorn and drinks. That comes out to just $5 per person.

These auctions end Sunday, so if you have any interest, make sure you check out the links!

Monday's New Britain News



Newly promoted B.J. Hermsen will take the
mound tonight in his AA debut


The landscape for the New Britain Rock Cats is already starting to change only 23 games into the season. A couple days ago, reliever Deolis Guerra was promoted to AAA Rochester. Congratulations to him! He's now just one step away from joining the Twins. If he can do in Rochester what he did in late-inning situations for the Rock Cats, it won't be too long before we see Guerra making his Target Field debut. Also, Rock Cats starting pitcher Alex Wimmers is now rehabbing his elbow strain in Ft. Myers, so it sounds like it will be some time before he rejoins the team. Although Guerra was yanked from the Rock Cats, Ft. Myers Miracle pitchers BJ Hermsen (1-0 with a 0.78 ERA in 23 innings) and Caleb Thielbar (1-1 with 0 earned runs allowed in 12 and 1/3 innings, with 16 strikeouts and 2 walks) were promoted to New Britain. Good luck to them, especially Hermsen who will start tonight's game.

Over the weekend, the Rock Cats dropped 2 of 3 games against the Richmond Flying Squirrels, and are 14-9 on the season, 1.5 games back of the Reading Phillies. Yesterday, they won. As I wrote in TwinsDaily's Sundy Minor League Daily, Starter Logan Darnell picked up the win (3-0). He pitched 6 and 2/3 innings, gave up 7 hits and 2 runs, and struck out 8 while walking 1 along the way. His ERA stands at 4.56. He has been the recipient of some solid Rock Cats offense when he has pitched this season. Reliever Daniel Turpen pitched the rest of the game, 2 and 1/3 innings, and earned the save, his second of the season. He was very effective, giving up no hits and no walks, while striking out 2. This effort improved his ERA to 4.5.

On offense, the team had 9 hits. Every starter except for Estarlin De Los Santos and Evan Bigley tallied at least one hit. Chris Herrmann was 2-for-3 with a walk, and also reached base on an error in his other plate appearance. He scored 3 runs. Nathan Hanson also had a good game, going 2-for-4 with a double and accumulating 2 RBIs. Aaron Hicks was 1-for-4 with a single and a stolen base (his 3rd of the season), and is batting .265 on the season. Deibinson Romero hit a triple, and shortstop Pedro Florimon had a double.

On Saturday, New Britain lost 5-3 to the Squirrels. Start Steve Hirschfeld (6 innings, 10 hits, 3 earned runs, 5 strikeouts and 2 walks) picked up the loss, and the offense couldn't muster too much, only accumulating 7 hits all day. Brett Jacobson pitched 2 scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Notables on offense included Evan Bigley, with a double and 2 RBIs, Chris Herrmann with an RBI single, and Pedro Florimon, Aaron Hicks, Nathan Hanson, James Beresford and Danny Lehmann with singles. Bigley also stole 2 bases, giving him 3 on the season.

For a quick recap of Friday night's game, a 13-inning 5-4 loss (though Andrew Albers had a quality start), check out this earlier post from Saturday. So, after starting out hot, New Britain has cooled a little. Their record, 14-9, is still good, but they are 4-6 over their last 10. Tonight, they begin a 4-game series against the Harrisburg Senators, the AA affiliate of the Washington Nationals, who coincidentally are also 14-9.

Major Comeback in New Britain!



Chris Herrmann celebrates his
first inning home run.
Mauer's 2013 backup???



Unlike their parent club, the New Britain Rock Cats put up a fight after the odds were stacked against them Tuesday night and, thanks to a 5-run 7th inning, came back to defeat the Portland Sea Dogs 7-6.

The weather was not great last night, and neither were the Rock Cats for the first several innings. They were stymied by Portland starter Billy Buckner (no relation to Bill Buckner of Red Sox lore), who tossed an easy 6 innings, giving up only 3 hits while striking out 11 and walking 1. The one bright spot for the Rock Cats against Buckner was a Chris Herrmann solo home run in the 1st inning. Other than that, Buckner really challenged the New Britain hitters. In contrast, the Rock Cats did not get a good start from Logan Darnell, who lasted only 3 innings after giving up 6 earned runs on 8 hits and 4 walks. He had no strikeouts, and gave up 2 home runs. Notably, the wind seemed to be blowing out at a pretty good clip, so hard hit balls really sailed. Watching Darnell, the worst part of the night was that he simply didn't miss bats -- yes, there were some weak grounders and routine fly balls, but for the most part everything was hit hard. The Rock Cats were down 6-1 after the third inning, and things did not look optimistic.

You may recognize the gentleman
in the middle in the black jacket
as Hall of Fame member
Paul Molitor.

For the second consecutive night, however, the Rock Cats' bullpen kept them in the game. Actually, the bullpen -- called on for 6 innings tonight -- was pretty perfect. Lester Oliveros, Brett Jacobson and Deolis Guerra each tossed 2 scoreless innings. Oliveros walked and struck out 1; Jacobson walked 2 and struck out 3. And then there's Guerra, who walked 0 and struck out 5 in his 2 innings, picking up the win in relief. Guerra's ERA stands at 0.71. In 12 and 2/3 innings, he has only allowed 5 hits and 1 earned run, and has struck out 15 and walked 1 along the way.

Once Buckner left the game after the 6th inning, the tides changed. With two outs in the bottom of the 7th, New Britain completed a 5-run comeback to tie the game. 7 straight batters reached base, and here's how it played out: Pedro Florimon walk; Danny Lehmann single; James Beresford single; Aaron Hicks single to score Florimon; Chris Herrmann walk with bases loaded to score Lehmann; Evan Bigley infield single to score Beresford; Chris Colabello single to score Hicks and Herrmann. Nothing fancy -- some walks and some singles got the job done against the Sea Dogs' bullpen.

With the game tied in the bottom of the 9th, Herrmann opened things up with a single to left field. Thereafter, he was sacrificed to second by Bigley. Colabello was intentionally walked, and then Deibinson Romero popped out to catcher. But again with 2 outs, the Rock Cats came through. Nathan Hanson had the game-winning, walk-off hit to score Herrmann from second, and New Britain won!

It was quite a game. Here are just a few notes from what I observed (In full disclosure, I picked an awful time to leave -- right as the comeback, and a hard, cold and slanty rain, were both commencing):

Hicks batted leadoff tonight -- to my knowledge he had been batting 5th all season.

Chris Herrmann has some pop in his bat. His home run, though helped somewhat by the wind blowing out to right field, was smacked. He was playing left field in this game.

Paul Molitor is in town this week as a roving instructor. It was neat to see him interact with the young guys on the team. I'm sure they can learn a lot from a Hall of Famer with 3,319 big league hits.

All of New Britain's runs came with 2 outs tonight. Impressive, and great that they can score that way, but it would have been nice to see some earlier rallies.

Finally, the team is back in action at 10:35 this morning completing their homestand in a rubber match against Portland.

Tough Night in New Britain

The Twins of Tomorrow watch baseball on a
beautiful Spring evening in Connecticut

It was a beautiful evening for outdoor baseball in central Connecticut -- the kind of night where you might come wearing a t-shirt, but had better pack a hooded sweatshirt for when the sun disappears behind the bleachers. The Rock Cats began a homestand tonight, and it was "Anti-Diet Night" at New Britain Stadium. For $12, or $14 if you wanted the good tickets, you could get all-you-can eat hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos and popcorn. Also (as I have mentioned before), Thursdays are Sam Adams happy hours, with discounted beer. Can you beat these deals? I heard that the Twins are charging $10.75 for buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese. I spent about $20 tonight -- including my ticket right over the Rock Cats' dugout.

It was a tough defeat for the home team tonight. They lost 6-5, after coming from behind to tie the game up in the 8th inning. There were some good things, however, that bear mention. The Rock Cats did a lot of hitting tonight: Evan Bigley, Chris Colabello and Estarlin De Los Santos each contributed two hits. Aaron Hicks had a clutch 2-out RBI single to get the scoring going in the first inning -- a sharp line drive back up the middle. Chris Herrmann and Deibinson Romero each had doubles. Colabello continues to impress me. He was 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs and a walk tonight, and is batting an even .333 on the season. I'm not sure quite what to make of him -- 28 and in his first year of affiliated baseball -- but he is definitely not in over his head at AA. He's the kind of guy you want to root for; it's the kind of story that makes minor league baseball so great.

For me, the most interesting play of the night involved Hicks. With one out and Hicks on first, Romero hit a deep fly ball to deep left field. There was never much doubt that the ball would be caught, but it appeared to make it to the warning track. Hicks retreated to first, then proceeded to successfully tag up on the play. It was a gutsy, heads-up base-running play. A better left fielder might have made the play on Hicks, but not tonight. It was the first time I saw Hicks sprint out of necessity, and the guy was fast!! He didn't end up scoring that inning, but those are the types of plays that gamers make.

Logan Darnell warms up for New Britain

On the mound, Logan Darnell was adequate. He went six innings, gave up 4 runs, walked 3 while striking out 5. He never appeared to have complete control of his pitches, though. His fastball was hitting 93 most of the evening, and definitely had some pop. His offspeed stuff was about 83 and 79 (I'm guessing change-up and curve). He fooled several hitters. Darnell, unfortunately, was charged with 2 errors on pickoffs. On the error that I witnessed, the baserunner broke toward second, and all Darnell had to do was make a solid throw to first. Unfortunately, he threw wildly and the ball ended up in the right field corner. Hopefully that was a one-night problem for Darnell. Hicks also had a miscue, but it was ruled as a hit: he failed to see a fly ball of the bat (the sun was setting and it is apparently tough to pick up the baseball at that time of night), and it went for a double. So, although Darnell wasn't perfect tonight, there was room for improvement with the defense.

Lester Oliveros took the loss for the Rock Cats. After they had tied the game up on a clutch two-out two-run triple to center field by Evan Bigley, Oliveros couldn't keep the momentum going into the 9th inning. A walk, stolen base and single did him in. The good thing about baseball, though, is that you need a short memory. New Britain will be back in action this morning, in fact. I'll be going to Sunday's game, so keep an eye out for more pictures and a game summary.

New Britain Rock Cats 2012 Hot Stove Luncheon & Bill Smith

As I have mentioned before, living in Connecticut puts me just about 20 minutes or so from the home of the Twins' AA affiliate, the New Britain Rock Cats. One of my New Year's resolutions for this blog for 2012 was to provide more Rock Cats content. It makes sense, right? I'm no expert on the Twins' minor leaguers, but I do attend enough games to at least have some name recognition. I can only see the real Twins once or twice a year, so why not see tomorrow's stars today?

Yesterday I attended the Rock Cats' Hot Stove Luncheon, which was held at a hotel ballroom in central Connecticut. Apart from Rock Cat personnel, I would guess that there were probably around 300 people that attended. Many fans, and also some sponsors and members of the local New Britain community, comprised the crowd. I was most interested because former Twins' GM Bill Smith was the keynote speaker.

I wanted to provide you, my readers, with some quotes from Bill Smith regarding both the 2012 Rock Cats and Twins, as well as a couple interesting things that I picked up on. First off, Bill Smith was exactly the opposite of the gruff, sweaty, "no comment" personality that I had seen during some of his interviews when he was GM. He was affable, funny and extremely self-deprecating (he opened with a line to the effect of, when the team loses 99 games, someone has to be accountable -- and that person unfortunately was me). He mentioned that he never had any intention of leaving the Twins organization, and that he was happy in his new role, where he will actually be spending more time on player development. Now, onto the quotes:

On Miguel Sano: Has the "potential to be a Miguel Cabrera type player."

Joe Mauer: "100% healthy and intends to catch more than 120 games this season." He will also see time at first base and occasionally right field.

Justin Morneau: "We're confident he's going to be ready to go." Smith emphasized how detrimental concussions were, how teams are still learning more about them, and included Sidney Crosby as an example of how long-lasting and serious they can be.

Smith emphasised the Twins usage of the disabled list in 2011. I read it on another blog before, but the Twins lost 866 days to the disabled list. According to Smith, that translated into $28.8 million of salary. Pretty ridiculous.

On the Twins' performance last season: "Poor performance and lack of fundamental play" were the most frustrating aspects. This ties into later comments he made concerning player development at the AA level.

On AA call-ups Chris Parmelee and Joe Benson: They will get an opportunity to compete for a spot on the Twins opening day roster. Interestingly, Smith included Ben Revere with these two other players. Between what Terry Ryan has recently said about utilizing Trevor Pouffe in the outfield this season, and Smith's comments likening Revere to Parmelee and Benson, I'm starting to think that Revere may not be as likely to be starting in left field as I previously had thought, or, if he does, it may be in a platoon situation.

Rock Cats' manager Jeff Smith also spoke. He was a career minor leaguer, having played several seasons in New Britain. He said that his goal, aside from winning games, "is to have every player improve from game 1 to game 142." He suspected that, at some point in 2012, Rock Cats fans will see Aaron Hicks, and that Chris Herrmann and Logan Darnell would both be returning.

Jeff Smith's focus on player development was interesting for another reason. Bill Smith repeatedly said that, in the past several years, the Twins' best players all have come through New Britain (that makes sense, of course, as a matter of player progression). During his remarks, Bill Smith mentioned the instructional league, Class A Beloit, and AA Rock Cats as examples of organizations that prided themselves in player development. Not once during the 3 hour event was a single mention made of AAA Rochester. I'm reading between the lines a little here, but it makes some sense when you think about all the trouble the Twins have had with Rochester, and the fact that some of the guys coming up from AAA have not been fundamentally sound, or didn't seemed overly concerned with winning games. Bill Smith stated that call-ups from New Britain were prepared to play major league baseball. I think the negative implication from that statement, and the fact that Rochester was the only team never mentioned during the event, is that members of the organization do not believe that AAA is doing a good enough job developing players -- hence the house cleaning and promotion of Bruno to hitting coach.

In the end, this was a great event to attend. It was repeatedly emphasized that the Rock Cats and the Twins are both like families (for better or worse, I guess). And the event certainly had a family vibe to it. I'm still glad that Bill Smith got the axe as GM, but it's probably also fair to note that all the negative moves that fans criticized weren't done in a vacuum; Terry Ryan and the other staffers certainly had input. Hopefully he has more success in his new role.