Twins' fans: You have a potential monster in your system

[pk500]

Minnesota Twins' fans: You have a potential monster in your farm system, and his name is Justin Morneau.

I went to see my hometown Syracuse SkyChiefs (AAA club of Toronto) play the Rochester Red Wings with my kids today. I noticed at his first at-bat that Rochester first baseman Morneau was hitting .407 with seven homers, and it's only May 2.

Anyways, Morneau doubled in his first at-bat. His second at-bat was VERY impressive even though it was an out. Morneau shattered his bat in three pieces yet hit the ball to the warning track, aided by a healthy wind. Still, nailing the ball to the track after destroying the bat, sending pieces scattered around the infield, is pretty impressive.

In his third at-bat, Morneau crushed an 0-2 pitch to the opposite field for a homer. The kid also homered Saturday against Syracuse.

He hits for average, still over .400, and power. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I was VERY impressed, as impressed as I've been with a player I've seen in Syracuse since Carlos Delgado played here. Delgado was one of a handful of players who cleared the center-field wall at Syracuse's old ballpark. It was 434 feet to dead center, at the time the second-deepest fence in professional baseball behind the 440-foot distance to center field in Tiger Stadium.

Take care,
PK

[Leebo33]

He's listed as a 4 1/2 star prospect in OOTP6 with a 10/10 talent rating for homerun power

[Millennium]

Yeah, he's good, but he's no Calvin Pickering...

[Dave]

PK, Justin made it to the bigs about 2/3 through last season. He started out on fire and managed to hit a couple monster blasts--one hit the scoreboard at Miller Park and I think is the longest ever hit there. However, pitchers soon found that he couldn't hit the curveball, so he was sent back down (a white, lefthanded Pedro Cerrano) to work on that.

But he does have a sweet swing and power that no one on the Twins can match...I believe they have the longest run of seasons without a 30+ homerun guy. I want to see him in the Dome again this year. I hear his defense is pretty crummy, though, did you catch any glaring errors or anything from him?

Dave

[pk500]

Dave:

No blunders at first that I could see between trips to the concession stand, toilet, soothing a tired 3-year-old ...

It was Dollar Day. All tickets, popcorn, hot dogs, drinks and Sno-Cones were $1 each. Many trips to the stand. Big fun with the kiddos.

Take care,
PK

[Steelerfan2k1]

Dollar baseball....that's a distant memory in a city that only has an MLB team. Although - there is now a minor league team about a half hour away - the Washington (PA) Wild Things. I think they are the lowest level of A ball though...

[RobVarak]

I've been holding that guy since last year in two separate fantasy leagues. I'm even burning one of my two bench spots in the DSL league on him.

The Twins have had an amazing run developing position players the last 5 years or so. The problem is that they are blocking guys like Moreneau, Cuddyer and Restovich with veteran hacks at way too many positions. They sign a stiff like Jose Offerman even though Morneua was clearly ready out of Spring Training.

[pk500]

Game story from the Syracuse paper on Sunday's game, with plenty of interesting tidbits on Morneau:

http://www.syracuse.com/skychiefs/posts ... 938112.xml

Take care,
PK

[Airdog]

And he's from Canada. Yay.

[Dave]

I'll now enter my semi-rant mode about the Twins

I agree with you, Rob about the current status of the Twins prospects, but the problem is that the only players developing consistently are corner outfielders. Cuddyer's probably my favorite Twin right now, but he's a jack of all trades, master of none guy. He can play 6 positions, but not very good at any of them. I don't understand bringing back Koskie for $3.5-4 mil this year because Cuddyer has more offense on a team that sorely needs it (despite what the early stats this year may say).

In the OF, there is Hunter, Stewart, and Jones. I thought they'd trade Jones for starting pitching, but picked up Rick Helling instead There goes Restovich, Ryan, Ford, or Cuddyer's starting role in the outfield. Ford's leading the league in hitting since being called up after Hunter's injury, but now he's back, so Ford is DH-ing. Don't need LeCroy now, who is hurt, or Offerman. But they'll put them back into the lineup.

Then there's Dougie Fresh manning first base, playing better D than anyone in the league and (so far) spraying doubles all over the field. Hard to move Morneau into that spot now.

We need Sir David of Brent to clear up some of these redundancies.

I'll go ahead and stop now, I could type way too much about this...

Thanks for the link PK!

Dave

[fletcher21]

lol you're one of the only ppl in mn i know who are excited about the twins or baseball in general

[Dave]

I was a huge baseball fan growing up--had the mini helmet standings that I updated every morning after looking at the paper and everything. Then, after the strike I stopped paying attention.

Moved up to MN about 2 years ago and the fire was re-lit. Probably went to over 50 games the last couple years. But I'm down this year since the cable companies and the team are in a spat over the new network created by the Twins. I feel disconnected from the team a bit, it's amazing how spoiled we are as sports fans these days, since I still listen to the games quite a bit while gaming.

They're a great small market team right now at a crossroads. They have good players, but not good enough to do anything besides win a crappy division, which is great for their payroll. Hopefully they don't do another dive inspired by Marty Cordova/Todd Walker-types.

[Sudz]

speaking of monster...

[dbdynsty25]

It's Jesus...not Harry & the Hendersons.

[RobVarak]

I'll now enter my semi-rant mode about the Twins

I agree with you, Rob about the current status of the Twins prospects, but the problem is that the only players developing consistently are corner outfielders. Cuddyer's probably my favorite Twin right now, but he's a jack of all trades, master of none guy. He can play 6 positions, but not very good at any of them. I don't understand bringing back Koskie for $3.5-4 mil this year because Cuddyer has more offense on a team that sorely needs it (despite what the early stats this year may say).

In the OF, there is Hunter, Stewart, and Jones. I thought they'd trade Jones for starting pitching, but picked up Rick Helling instead There goes Restovich, Ryan, Ford, or Cuddyer's starting role in the outfield. Ford's leading the league in hitting since being called up after Hunter's injury, but now he's back, so Ford is DH-ing. Don't need LeCroy now, who is hurt, or Offerman. But they'll put them back into the lineup.

Then there's Dougie Fresh manning first base, playing better D than anyone in the league and (so far) spraying doubles all over the field. Hard to move Morneau into that spot now.
Dave

Dave,

Mientkiewicz is a nice player, but SO overrated. He's a Mark Grace clone. Slick fielder, no pop nice, contact guy who never produces like a 1b should. Morneau would out-produce him in a month. The thing is that they should've moved him before signing him to that stupid contract, when he had a TON of value and was overrated by a lot of teams.

They also screwed up by re-signing Stewart, Koskie and Rivas with the depth they had coming up. I can forgive them for screwing up with Guzman, because he had some flashy numbers. But they were too loyal to the guys from the 2000-2001 teams. Ford/Restovich is a better option than Stewart..and cheaper. Cuddyer is a better option than Koskie...and cheaper. I also think Cuddyer's jack of all trades tag is unfair. Hard to be master of any position when they move you around like that. A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. You can have a nice Tony Phillips career, but it's rare (see e.g. Frank Catalanotto).

The Twins have benefitted from being in the AL Central, but at some point their decision-making at the big club is going to have to rise to the level of the talent evaluation and development people in the organization.

I'm really not a fan, but I hate to see all that good young talent entertaining the pk's of the world in Syracuse when they could be playing for the big guys in the Twin Cities.