Twin Cities opens up developmental program
With developmental labs becoming all the rage, the Twin Cities River Monsters followed league trends and opened their own academy today dubbed "The Monster Factory". We caught up with GM Alan Ehlers to find out who will be there and what they are working on.
"Well, for starters, we are taking a different approach than most teams. We are sending more established aka "older players" to the lab. This is not some strategy where we are trying to outsmart anyone. In fact, we probably will end up seeing lesser results. But the fact of the matter is that our farm system sucks and we are in the business of winning now. So if anyone is going to be a guinea pig for teaching old dogs new tricks, why not us?"
Ed Rooney
Strength and Conditioning
This was a no brainer, first thought that popped in my head with this lab. Ed Rooney is a 23 year old defensive wizard with a decent enough bat. He is capable of being a 4-5 win CF..... if healthy. That last part is the big catch. He is already fragile at a young age and has missed about 16 weeks of action over his first 3 full seasons. Keeping Rooney on the field is extremely important as he is a huge positive at a position where there aren't many options beyond the top 6-8 elite Cf'ers.
Kujapa Padmanabhan
Improve Control
With the injury to Yoshii Takuda, Twin Cities will be scuffling to find a starter to fill out the rotation in 2059. Pad's is the first of four slots that we are using in the lab that could create an internal solution to that problem. Using old Ratings, Pad's was 12/8/3 with 4 plus pitches. Traditionally that reeks of bullpen conversion. Now? Who knows. Maybe he can find the plate enough to be an effective backend starter.
Stan Lodge
Improve Defense
We could have went two different directions with Lodge. His eye is currently 5/8. So maybe we could push that a little to get him to the bigs sooner. But he is just 20, so no rush. Defensively he is 7/5/6/5 on the dirt and 6/4/5 on the grass. Which to our standards leaves him without a position besides 1B. Honestly, his gains probably won't help much. I have no clue what improve defense even means or where the best case scenario would leave him. So we are just going to roll the dice and hopefully a couple of passes through the lab and he can be a competent defender.
Bernie Stuart
Improve Secondary Pitch
Ok, this one is a bit ridiculous. How could the reigning Frick Nebraska winner possibly get better entering his age 35 season? Really, the only flaw Bernie has is a 6 rated 4th pitch. If he could bump that splitter up to 7 or 8, it would not only make a devastating 4th option. But it would also improve his groundball rate and potentially help his movement as well. So I think there is a pretty big upside to be had. Heck, maybe he can even improve enough to be an all star this year.
Peter Fuller
Add Pitch to Arsenal
Peter is a 9/7/7 pitcher with 8 stamina, a 10 rated fastball and a 9 changeup. If he were to pick up a third pitch, he could be a top of the rotation pitcher. So, this is a hail mary. Adding a pitch seems to be the hardest thing to do. And at age 32, that probably adds more adversity. I don't think it's likely to happen and even if it does, what will that pitch even be rated? 5? 6? That still doesn't make him a starter. So we'll see.
Luis Gonzales
Improve Secondary Pitch
This is probably the one slot that I am most optimistic about. Gonzo has two plus pitches and two meh pitches. One of which(Sinker) still has a 7 potential. That's really what I'm hoping for. I want that sinker to go from 5 to 7. If that happens, he is easily a number 3 starter, maybe even number 2. And like Stuart, improving the sinking pitch could have an effect on his movement also.
Sergio Herrera
Increase Endurance
For as big of a man crush that I have for Hawaii's Semih Gurânî, It's kind of baffling that I don't use Sergio Herrera in that role. The two pitchers have a lot of similarities. I think my reluctance is stamina. 3 is just too low for a starter. Bumping Herrera's Stamina up to 4 would match Gurânî and Steve Warren(before he lost a point recently) and possibly make him a useable mid rotation 5 inning pitcher. I could then replace Herrera's spot in the pen on the cheap with one of the 500 decent free agent RP still on the board in March.
Juan Serna
Improve Defense
Serna is sadly my best prospect. He is a jack of all trades, master of none. I decided to put the time into defense as his 5 error rating is not ideal.
Anurodha Nayar
Plate Discipline
I literally just changed this one to the fly. Not only did I add Nayar to the D-Lab, but I just reversed my decision to non tender him. Nayar has been a decent player. A ton of power, no defense, no contact, decent eye. He still has one point of contact and two eye of potential growth. I'm using eye here because of the upside. Last year he batted .236/.319/.523. If I can get that OBP up to .339 than I think he can be a plus DH.
Felix Ramos
Quality of Contact
Originally I had Ramos pegged to improve defense. But with my current depth at middle infield, I'm leaning more toward moving Ramos to a corner spot, where his defense is fine. What I really need him to do is get on base more. His 11 eye VS RHP is currently being spoiled by his declining batting average. So hopefully he can find some hole and raise his average up 10 to 20 points to get his OBP back up toward .400.
Randall Gray
Improve Defense
I found my first dislike in the lab. When improving defense, the game dictates what position to focus on. So while Randall Gray is set to improve defense at 2B, I really wish it was CF. His outfield rating of 8/7/8 for a cumulative 6 CF rating is not really passable in a non emergency situation. I would love, love, love to bump him to either 9/7/8 or even 8/8/8, which would make him a servicable backup for when Rooney goes on DL. None the less, Gray could see some improvement at 2B. He is currently 9/6/4/7 in the infield. An extra point of range, error or TDP would certainly add value to this already versatile player.
