Draft, Day three: And done

I wondered in the Wednesday post if the Twins had one more overslot draft pick in their plan. Miek Berardino of the Pioneer Press answered that quickly:

Suggestion from #mntwins scouting director Sean Johnson after Day 2 was board had been picked over. Day 3 mostly org guys. Money's spent.

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) June 14, 2017

"Org guys" being baseball lingo for "players signed so the real prospects have enough teammates to make up a team."

The next step is crucial: Getting all 11 of the players drafted in the first 10 rounds signed to the expected deals. It appears that at least six of the selections are expected to take underslot deals, but the Twins can't afford to have somebody renege on that, a la Kyle Cody. The Twins picked Cody in the second round in 2015, and he opted to return to the University of Kentucky for his senior season instead.

Losing out on Cody wasn't a disaster. Cody wound up going in the sixth round last year, so he probably cost himself a lot of money, and his minor league numbers in the Rangers system are underwhelming. Plus the Twins got the 74th pick in the 2016 draft (prep outfielder Akil Baddoo) to compensate. (Baddoo is apparently waiting for the Appy League season to begin.)

But failing to sign Cody meant the Twins had the slot value of that pick deleted from their draft pool. That was relatively unimportant under Terry Ryan, because the Twins weren't trying to game the bonus pool system. This year they are. So failing to sign a high pick, even one they expect to sign under slot, will damage their entire draft.

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The Twins had 41 picks in total and used 21 of them on pitchers., including 15 on the final day. Thirty-one of their picks were collegians. They won't sign a lot of them, of course. Failure to sign picks after Round 10 don't count against the pool.

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Some minor league roster stuff to update: The Twins retained Drew Rucinski and Nick Tepesch, the two right-handers they recently designated for assignment. But they released Kevin Chapman, the lefty reliever they got from Atlanta for Danny Santana.

And amid all the draft stuff I hadn't noted that Ryan Pressly is back on the major league team, with Alex Wimmers shipped back to Rochester. Dick-n-Bert see Pressly as key to this bullpen, and he does have more of a power reliever's profile than anybody else out there, but really: even last year, his supposed breakout season, he wasn't that good.

The Twins do need a reliable righty to pair with Taylor Rogers in late innings to bridge between the starter/Tyler Duffey and closer Brandon Kintzler. I'm far from convinced Pressly is, or ever was, or will be, that reliable righty.

Notes, quotes and comment

A brief break from the Prospect Handbook stuff ....

* Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press had this interesting (to me, at least) off-the-field item about Twins relief pitcher Casey Fien's involvement in the creation and business of a polling app called QVO. I know nothing about the app or the business beyond what's in the story, and that Carly Fiornia's campaign uses it doesn't appear to be much of an endorsement, but it seems fairly unique for a major leaguer to be so intimately involved in a high-tech endeavor.

* Baseball America's college preview issue included this story on Kyle Funkhouser of Louisville and Kyle Cody of Kentucky, two high-round draft picks who spurned the pro offers and returned to college for their senior seasons. Cody, you may recall, was selected by the Twins with the No. 73 overall pick. It didn't help their draft at all that he didn't sign.

* Jordan Schafer, the Twins opening day center fielder last year, will be in Dodgers camp this spring as a non-roster invitee. What's unusual is that he's apparently there as a combo pitcher-outfielder, with the emphasis on the pitching. There have been a few combo players in major league history, most recently Brooks Kieschnick, who spent two years with Brewers as a pitcher-outfielder. It's the kind of thing that's fun to think about -- two jobs with one roster spot! -- but really tough to pull off.

A lost high draft pick

Kyle Cody
went 4-4, 4.91
for Kentucky
this spring.

Friday was the deadline to sign 2015 draft picks, and the Twins missed on a prominent one, right-handed pitcher Kyle Cody of the University of Kentucky.

The Twins gave up their second round pick when they signed Ervin Santana as a free agent, and part of why they were willing to do that was the "competitive balance" pick they were awarded at the end of the second round in the annual lottery among smaller-market franchises. That pick, No. 73 overall, was the one they expended on Cody.

Cody's collegiate numbers aren't overwhelming, but he is said to be a power arm, and the Twins have in recent years been collecting (a) big fast balls and (b) pitchers from Kentucky. He had been seen entering the season as a possible first-round pick, and he was probably displeased by the lower bonus attached to a supplemental second round pick. So he's gambling that he can have a strong enough senior season to overcome the usual lack of leverage.

That this one slipped away doesn't overly dismay me. The Twins compared him to Mike Pelfrey upon drafting him, and that comp doesn't make me say wow. The Twins will get the 74th pick next June in compensation for losing this one, and I suspect next June's draft will be deeper than this one. 

Still, one hates to see a high pick go to waste, and it doesn't happen often. The Twins haven't failed to sign a top-three round draftee since 2002, when third-rounder Mark Sauls got away. (That was a miss that didn't haunt them.)

Feeling a draft: The Twins on Day One

Tyler Jay pitches for Illinois in the Big Ten tournament
last month in Target Field.

The Twins's selection of Tyler Jay with the sixth overall pick fits two recent patterns in their drafting style:

• He's a pitcher from a Big Ten school (in the past decade they popped Matt Bashore and Aaron Slegers of Indiana and Alex Wimmers of Ohio State; Bashore is out of baseball, Wimmers is in Double A and Slegers in High A).
• He was used in college primarily as a reliever but is viewed by the Twins as a potential starter.

Sixth overall is too high for a straight-up bullpen guy, but it appears that there was an industry consensus that Jay was the best lefty in the pool. Some mock drafts I saw had him going as high as third overall.

While Terry Ryan downplayed the notion during his appearance on the Twins game broadcast, there was a buzz about the possibility of Jay getting to the big club this year, a la Brandon Finnegan last season with Kansas City.

And Ryan did say that he expects to keep Jay in the bullpen this year in the minors and begin the process of making him a starter next year, This would fit the hurry-him-to-the-majors theory. And watching Aaron Thompson and Brian Duensing struggle of late does prompt thoughts that the Twins need some southpaw help in the bullpen.

That kind of ambitious timeline can only work if Jay cooperates -- sign quickly and dominate from the get-go. And it will also require that the Twins remain in contention. There's no point in putting him on the 40-man roster for a late-season callup if the team's out of the running; that would start his option clock early and, perhaps, impede the long-term goal of making him a starter.

There's an obvious reason Jay was expected to be an early pick. He's a left-handed power pitcher, and there aren't a lot of those guys around. The perceived drawback is that he hasn't been a starter, but there's a plus to that as well: He hasn't been burdened with high pitch counts and lots of innings.

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The Twins lost their second round pick by signing Ervin Santana, but they did get a "competitive balance lottery" pick at the end of the second round, 73rd overall. They used that pick on Kyle Cody, right handed pitcher from the University of Kentucky. Which is another school the Twins have dipped into for pitchers quite a bit. Cody's a big guy with velocity.

They've drafted a lot of power arms in recent years. They haven't -- yet -- seen fit to bring them up to the big club.