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Minnesota Twins draft decisions looking good early on under Falvey and Levine

By Matt Smith

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JUNE 17: Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey of the Minnesota Twins holds up a jersey with number one overall draft pick Royce Lewis and agent Scott Boras at a press conference on June 17, 2017 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JUNE 17: Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey of the Minnesota Twins holds up a jersey with number one overall draft pick Royce Lewis and agent Scott Boras at a press conference on June 17, 2017 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
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Hunter Greene

It’s been a bit of a struggle for Greene. He only pitched 4.1 innings in 2017 across 3 games, and he gave up 6 runs. On the hitting side, he totaled 30 at bats and just 7 hits, including 2 doubles and a triple, no walks, and 8 strikeouts, good for a .233 batting average. Heading into the 2018 season, the Reds announced they would have him focus solely on pitching, rather than having him both pitch and hit. The good came with the bad for Greene. In 18 starts, he racked up a highly impressive 89 strikeouts to 23 walks in just 68.1 innings pitched, but he also gave up 34 earned runs, setting his ERA at 4.48 for the season.

Then, in early August it was revealed that Greene would be shut down for the season following a UCL strain. Surgery has not been recommended for Greene at this point, but the UCL is the ligament associated with every pitcher’s worst nightmare, Tommy John surgery. That alone suggest the Twins may have dodged a bullet. Greene currently ranks 18th overall on MLB Pipeline’s top prospect chart, and 45th on Baseball Prospectus’ list.

It’s also worth noting that while Lewis did have an expensive signing bonus, the Minnesota Twins were able to save roughly $500,000 compared to what Greene signed for. Not a massive difference, but not negligible either. That’s not to mention that the Reds avoided losing out on Greene entirely by a matter of minutes. Had the two sides not been able to come to an agreement even for just several minutes later than they did, the deadline to meet an agreement would have passed and the Reds would have come away with nothing from their 2nd overall pick. All in all, at this point it’s safe to say that picking Lewis over Greene is turning out to be a great choice so far.

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