On the minor league side, Part II

As lengthy as this morning's post was, it didn't exhaust the topic. (It merely exhausted me; I had to quit writing and go to bed.)

Here's some more ...

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When the Twins drafted a high school catcher named Brian Navarreto in the sixth round last June, I looked at the name and figured: Italian.

Nope. Black kid. Big (listed at 6-3, 220) and said by Baseball America to have the best power bat among the Twins draftees last summer — which isn't all that impressive, as the Twins spent most of their high picks on pitchers.

Still, Seth Stohs was telling me about a massive shot Navarreto hit that was ruled foul. Tom Kelly said, according to Seth, "That was too long anyway."

I watched Navarreto catch a couple of bullpen sessions. Presumably he's a bit raw behind the dish, but he seemed to move well.

He was working with the Cedar Rapids crew, but the catching assignments are particularly fluid; the most likely catchers in Triple A were still in the major league camp at that point, so there will be a downward flow of backstops as the Twins pare the numbers.

Navarreto spent last summer with the Twins GCL team, at the bottom of the ladder, and is probably more likely to be in Elizabethton than in CR this year.

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Tyler Grimes caught in CR last year. It was his third season in the Midwest League. But the first two were as a shortstop. Last year the Twins switched him to catcher, and he hit a little better overall than he had as an infielder.

He was drafted out of college, so it's not like he's got lots of time to dawdle in the low minors. I thought he looked pretty good behind the plate in the limited time I saw him last summer, and I rather expected him to be one of the extra catchers invited to major league camp this spring.

He wasn't.

Presumably he'll finally step up the ladder a notch to Fort Myers this year. By the end of last season, he was getting some infield time again, and I saw him playing third base in a game last week, so maybe he's ticketed for a multi-use role. Or maybe he's on his way out the door.

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One of the four non-roster catchers early in big league camp was Stuart Turner, the Twins' third-rounder last June. Turner draws raves for his defensive tools, but there's less certainty about his bat.

Turner spent last summer in Elizabethton, with one game in Double A (skipping two levels). I expect him to go to Cedar Rapids, where he figures to be handling a staff of great importance to the Twins future.

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The Twins drafted Dereck Rodriguez in the sixth round of the 2011 draft as an outfielder. The son of the catching great Pudge Rodriguez hasn't hit in three years of Rookie ball, so now he's converting to pitching. I didn't see him throw.

He's 21 now, and I wonder where they'll send him. Probably E-town again (where he played last year), but 21 is fairly old for the Appy League. But he's new to mound work, at least as a pro, and the Midwest League is probably too much of a reach for him.

A game in Cedar Rapids, Part II: The battery

Catcher Tyler Grimes listens as
pitching coach Gary Lucas shares
some wisdom Monday.
(Photo by Linda Vanderwerf)

There are 13 active pitchers on the Cedar Rapids roster. Four of the names are of particular interest to me: J.O. Berrios, the teenager who pitched for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic; Hudson Boyd, a high draft pick in 2011; and Tyler Duffey and Mason Melotakis, two of the college relief aces the Twins drafted last summer and are trying as starters.

As luck would have it, I saw none of those four Monday. Brett Lee, a lefty, started; he gave up six runs in five innings. He walked four, struck out five, hit a batter, committed a balk, gave up six singles and a double and got little help from his infield defense. Tim Atherton, a righty from Australia, gave the Kernels two strong innings of relief (only two fair balls hit off him) and earned the "W"; Steve Gruver, another southpaw, finished with a strong eighth and a shaky ninth for the save.

Nothing grabs me there for commentary.

The catcher was a another matter. Tyler Grimes was drafted in the fifth round in 2011 as a shortstop out of Wichita State. He signed immediately and was assigned to Beloit, an aggressive placement by Twins standards. He hasn't moved up; this is his third season in the Midwest League, and he has a career batting average of .209 in low A ball.. The first two years he was a shortstop; this year the Twins have moved him to catcher. He hasn't played an inning elsewhere.

He didn't look bad back there to me. He picked off a runner at first base to end the first inning. He handled a pair of popups without much difficulty.

And at the plate he smacked a pair of hits, a single and a double, in four at-bats.

I don't know if Grimes is going to make it as a catcher. It seems clear that he wasn't going to make it as a shortstop. A lot will depend on how well he hits, obviously, and while there is precedent for a player to hit better when playing a less demanding position, that's not what's happening here.

Midwest League journey: Beloit 7, Quad Cities 3

Eddie Rosario played second base and went hitless. Miguel Sano was 1-for-4, a single that rocketed past the shortstop before he could react, and also did some nice baserunning (taking second when the left fielder bobble the ball, then advancing to third on a foul popup to the first baseman).

But the Twins top prospects weren't the real factors in the Thursday game.

Matt Koch -- the catcher on Wednesday night, the DH on Thursday -- hit his second three-run homer in as many days. He also doubled and singled. (If he's at all superstitious, and if he had any idea I was there for both games, he'd be sorry we're leaving town today.)

Wang-Lei Lin, an outfielder out of Taiwan, led off the game with a homer. Beloit hit three homers on the day, the other coming from outfielder Jonathan Goncalves. I wouldn't have thought that I'd see five homers from the Snappers and none from Sano or Rosario.

A couple of high draft picks from 2011 did most of the mound work Thursday. Matt Summers (4th rounder), one of the handful of righties on the Snappers staff, started. He was mediocre for the first three innings, then found a nice groove. He retired the last 11 men he faced. He walked a guy in the first inning, then picked him off, and walked nobody after that.

Summers seems to throw hard -- an appearance doubtless helped by throwing motion that hides the ball very well. He seems to throw from behind his head. He's generally regarded as a bullpen prospect, but he's been a rotation fixture for Beloit, doubtless to get innings.

His successor was Corey Williams (3rd rounder), a lefty whose future is also in relief. He threw two innings, allowing three hits, one a solo homer. I wrote this about him at the time of the draft.

A few other comments:

*Tyler Grimes, a shortstop taken in the fifth round last summer, had a rough couple of games at the plate during my visit -- three strikeouts on Wednesday as the DH, 0-for-4 Thursday -- but turned in a high-quality play defensively. He went deep into the hole and threw out the Quad Cities leadoff man. Very nice.

*Grimes, as noted, spent one game at DH, the next at shortstop, hitting ninth both games. Adam Bryant played Wednesday at short, Thursday at first.

* I plan to write more about Sano and Rosario for the Monday print column.