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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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WASHINGTON, D.C. – JULY 15: Kyle Wright #23 pitches during the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game at Nationals Park on July 15, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /

Kyle Wright

Lastly, let’s look at Kyle Wright. Wright fell to #5 in the draft going to the Atlanta Braves. He progressed very quickly through the minors, and actually made his major league debut on September 4th. He only has 5 innings pitched in the bigs, though, so we’ll focus on his minor league stats to get a better idea of how he’s done. Wright, though not a hitter, has stats similar to McKay’s as a pitcher. In 2017 Wright pitched just 17 innings across rookie ball and A+, but then in 2018 jumped all the way to AA to start the year before earning promotions to AAA and then the MLB. In total in AA and AA this year, he pitched 138 innings to an ERA of 3.91. Like McKay, he’s shown great control over his pitches, racking up 133 strikeouts to 51 walks. Again, he’s only pitched 5 innings in the MLB, but so far, so good, giving up just 2 hits and 1 run.

Wright is a bit difficult to say how good he’s been given than his performance has varied at different levels (3.70 ERA with AA before being promoted to AAA and totaling a 2.51 ERA). It is impressive that he’s already reached the MLB, as not many draft picks do that in less than 2 full seasons of professional baseball. Circling back to the prospect rankings, MLB Pipeline ranks him 24th overall, whereas Baseball Prospectus has him 38th.

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In summary

Again, it’s still very early for all of these guys, and things could chance significantly in the years moving forward. But, for now, Lewis looks like the clear best player of the main guys being considered for the Minnesota Twins’ first overall pick in 2017. He put together a fantastic season this year and ranks higher than Greene, McKay, and Wright on most all top prospect risks. Falvey and Levine were under a lot of pressure to make the right choice with their #1 selection, and so far it appears they did just that.

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