Ft. Myers Notebook
Been a while, due to covid and other commitments. I have some notes on the Ft. Myers (Minnesota Twins) series with Tampa from (several) weeks ago with another for Palm Beach (St. Louis Cardinals). I was only able to see two games for Ft. Myers when they came around.
For Tampa, Ryan Harvey got the start for the first game I saw. He works out of the stretch with a real simple and clean delivery. His fastball bordered on 89–91mph for the entire night, with a breaking pitch around 75mph and a change-up at 81mph for most of the night. He was comfortable working backwards with his breaking pitches early in counts but he would lose the zone for stretches, at one point throwing 8 straight balls after an Isaac Pena homerun. Harvey landed on the injured list shortly about a week after this start.
Steven Fulgencio came on in relief and threw 21 sinkers of the 24 pitches he threw total. He can run it up to 95mph consistently but he has little control, and when it is in the zone, batters have no trouble barreling it. To illustrate, Fulgencio walked 2 batters and then gave up a screaming double, then walked another batter but managed to generate a double play to end the inning. It’s a super low slot and probably one of the lower effort 95mph deliveries you’ll see, but he needs more than one pitch to survive.
For Ft. Myers, Cory Lewis made a rehab start with little resistance from Tampa, with an extremely over the top delivery that has him falling towards first base as he strides towards the plate. At one point, it looked like he was guiding the ball to the catcher, which I came to learn was because he was throwing knuckle balls, which got a whiff and several foul balls.
Tanner Hall piggybacked off his start and gave up a lot of balls in play, before getting pulled in the sixth after allowing the first two runners on. His slider didn’t get many swings for how often he threw it and his change-up and sinker were put into play, sometimes extremely loudly. He threw out of a low 3/4 slot with the change-up and slider mirroring each other in terms of both vertical and horizontal movement. He made things difficult for himself as well by sailing two separate pick off attempts into the outfield.
In the second game I saw Charlee Soto start for the Mussels. He showed a fastball that was up to 97mph on the stadium gun, with a high 80s slider and high 80s change up. He only made it three innings, and struggled to get lefties out consistently. He gave up a homerun to Roderick Arias on a change-up. Visually his slider showed late downward movement and it performed well, as did his change-up other than the aforementioned homerun. He was comfortable throwing both pitches to righties and lefties. Otherwise, he struggled to hit the zone with any regularity. He did strike out four, while walking two. The fastball doesn’t miss too many bats despite the velocity. I think it’s more likely he becomes a reliever than starter, but he’s only 18 so there’s a lot of time for the Twins to work with him.
Ross Dunn relieved Soto and featured a very smooth and clean left handed delivery, but a soft four seam at 89mph. He still managed to get 5 whiffs on 10 swings against that fastball. He scattered four extra base hits with one run (a homerun) over four innings, but on the season he’s been much more effective against left handed hitters than right handers. Every time he gave up a double, he managed to work his way out of it.
Walker Jenkins was healthy and had just returned to Ft. Myers when I caught them in town. He played centerfield in the first game and DH in the second game. He didn’t have many swings during those two games, because he’s fairly confident in identifying balls and strikes and didn’t expand the zone much. He made a loud out in the first inning with a hard hit groundball to Roderick Arias, that he was able to beat out for a single. He moved well in the field, making a nice diving play on a sinking hard line drive but then misplayed a sort of in between line drive and turned it into a double. I will say that at this point in the summer, the sun is directly in the eyes of center fielders at Tampa’s field. It’s not an easy assignment that others have struggled with. I think based on his body type and movement while running that he’ll be better suited in a corner outfield position, with a bat that can handle the added pressure. His second game was less successful, where he struck out looking and then lost an appeal to the Automated Ball/Strike system. He added a walk and a fly out in his later plate appearances.
Payton Eeles is a Coastal Carolina graduate, who has moved on to High-A at this point. He had a standout two games, with loud contact and plus speed, all packed into a small but sturdy 5'7 frame. He ambushed a sinker from Luis Serna in the second game for a easy stand-up leadoff triple, which was the only run Serna would surrender in the game. Despite his size, he can elevate the ball and when he actively tries to pull the ball, it can lead to the 383 foot homerun he hit to right field. Being a 24 year old former college player, even if he was undrafted, I think it was a fair to expect him to handle Single-A and potentially High-A. I think he’s a second baseman and the power he showed is probably the absolute top end of his ability. I wouldn’t be surprised if he plays well enough to eventually get a shot with a major league team.
Brandon Winokur is an extremely tall and lean player, who has seen time in centerfield, third base and shortstop. I saw him at shortstop and only saw one play in game two, which he handled with no problem. I saw Winokur play against Tampa earlier in the season on MiLB.tv and noticed that Tampa had a very specific tactic against him:
Given how long Winokur’s arms are and his height, it makes sense to attack him this way. He didn’t get quite the same treatment against Serna, but he did see a healthy amount of breaking pitches, one of which was hung middle middle that he pulled off the wall in left field. He’s doing a much better limiting strikeouts, but there’s still considerable swing and miss against secondary pitches right now, which will only get worse at higher levels. He ran well down the line to cause a fielding error in another plate appearance. He’s also only 19 years old, so maybe check back in a year or two.
For Tampa, Willy Montero had a great two game run. With several extra base hits, including an electric inside the park home run that he hit at 106mph to dead center field, which bounced off. I was attempting to get a down the line time for him, and let the clock run to see what his home to home time was, but bungled the stop time. You’re going to have to take my word that he was home to home in ~16 seconds. Montero runs extremely well and has some power in his thin frame. Tampa was using him in centerfield early on, but he struggled with balls hit over his head, taking wonky routes but still managed to get his glove on the ball, just not enough to finish the play. He’s been in the corner recently and is much better. If he stays in the corner, he’ll need to tap into his power with greater regularity than he does right now. Not to spoil the Palm Beach series write up, but Montero has continued his torrid pace throughout June. There are holes to work on, he doesn’t walk much and that’s still important but there is a high ceiling outfielder potentially lurking here.
