On Wednesday, MLB.com Twins beat reporter Matthew Leach held an Ask Me Anything on Reddit with Twins fans at r/MinnesotaTwins. This mailbag features questions and answers from there. The full AMA can be read here.
Questions and responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Is the amount of injuries that the Twins have sustained this season (Royce Lewis, Willi Castro, Matt Wallner, Luke Keaschall, Pablo López for that bit) as abnormally high as it feels like?
As far as the sheer volume, it's hard to say. We were talking to Nick Paparesta, the head athletic trainer, on Monday, and he noted that it's really a tough combination of circumstances at this time of year. The weather is variable and often chilly after six weeks in Florida. The game times bounce around a lot more than at other times in the season. And as much as you build players up in Spring Training, you're never going to simulate playing five, six, even 10 days in a row.
With that said, I definitely think that the volume of SIGNIFICANT injuries is unusual, and maybe more specifically, the way they're concentrated. The Twins are playing without a really big chunk of their expected production on offense. And they've dealt with a string of injuries in one area, the infield, which I think magnifies it. Lewis and Brooks Lee in Spring Training, Jose Miranda, Castro and Keaschall in the past couple of weeks. I think it is more noticeable and harder to overcome when you have to dig so deep into your depth in one specific area.
Who do you think on the team or in the Minor League affiliates is the most underrated? Who should we be waking up on and watching much closer?
This is an interesting one. And despite my time at MLB Pipeline and MiLB.com, I'm still not as much of an expert on Twins prospects as I'd like to be. But one guy in the system that I have my eye on is Dasan Hill (the club’s No. 13 prospect). He was a Competitive Balance Round B pick last year who didn't pitch professionally after the Draft, but I know they're very intrigued by his potential. And he's absolutely dealing in limited opportunities so far this year -- 42 batters faced, 21 K’s.
On the active roster, it's a different question because I know you all watch really closely and so it's hard to say, "Hey, you're not noticing this guy." But I still think maybe I have two different answers.
One is Chris Paddack. I continue to get questions about when they are going to dump him, and he's really been pretty good since his first start. He's not a front-of-rotation ace type, but he's a perfectly solid big league starter, and I think the excitement over David Festa and Zebby Matthews maybe obscures that a lot of teams would be happy to have Paddack as their No. 4 or 5.
The other is Jonah Bride, who just simply can hit. He has a .297/.432/.509 career line at Triple-A and had an excellent year last year. He might have been a very nice find.
Why do they keep DaShawn Keirsey Jr. up over someone like Emmanuel Rodriguez (Twins’ No. 2 prospect) or Carson McCusker who have been more consistent, albeit in the Minors?
Quite a few reasons, so I'll address each of the three guys individually.
Regarding Keirsey: he's there to do a specific role, and he's very good at it. He brings speed and defense. And if you look at his Triple-A numbers, he's been very productive. If you're ruling him out based on 40 big league at-bats, I think that's a mistake.
Regarding Rodriguez, I said this on my video inbox last week, but he just hasn't forced the issue with his performance. He's also hurt at the moment (or was as of a day or two ago), but there's nothing in his Triple-A performance so far that is putting pressure on the team to consider calling him up.
Regarding McCusker, he's obviously been great so far, and I do think he's on the radar. But he's not on the 40-man roster, and they don't have any space on the 40.
But I think mostly I would push back on the notion that either of those guys has been a more consistent producer in the Minors than Keirsey was. He's hit in Triple-A, and he's on the roster for speed and defense.