The big day has finally arrived and no one has leaked who the Minnesota Twins will pick with the first pick in the 2017 June Amateur draft. Maybe the Twins don’t know that themselves as yet? But when that pick is announced we will finally get some insight into the Twins long-term plans that Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have been keeping under the covers.
There appears to be no consensus number one player to select but the top three seem to be Hunter Greene a RHP/SS from Notre Dame HS in Sherman Oaks, California, Kyle Wright a RHP from Vanderbilt and Brendan McKay a LHP/1B from Louisville. Naturally everyone has an opinion on what Minnesota should do and no matter who they pick, half the fans will say they are dead wrong and the other half will say they got the next coming of Babe Ruth.
So here is another opinion of what the Twins should do, it is out of the box thinking but I think this is a real opportunity for the Twins to get a step ahead of the rest of MLB and show that they are leaders and not followers. Both Hunter Greene and Brendan McKay are two-way players, pitchers and position players but they differ in the fact that Greene is coming out of high school and McKay is coming out of college. Most teams want Greene as a RHP and McKay as a 1B but no RHP out of high school has ever been selected number one and who wants to burn the first overall pick on a collegiate 1B? To my way of thinking picking a two-way player doubles your risk, not only might you pick the wrong player but you might also choose the wrong position for him.
I want the Twins to take a player that can help them sooner than later, I think the Twins should select RHP Kyle Wright from Vanderbilt and persuade him to sign for a bit less money so that the Twins can use those dollars for other picks in this draft. How do you convince Wright to take less? You tell him he will be the number one pick in the draft and that you will sign him to a big league contract, put him on the Twins 25 man roster, give him a Twins uniform and put him in the Twins bullpen.
You are talking about an experienced collegiate pitcher and a Twins bullpen that in a word, “stinks”. What have you got to lose by doing this? What better way to learn the ropes than by pitching out of a big league bullpen? The twins are not a playoff team anyway, let Wright learn but pitching out of the Twins bullpen and use him to help attract fans to the stands, everyone wants to see the top pick in the draft pitch, a guy that goes from college to the bigs.
Baseball could show other athletes that you don’t have to spend the next 3-5 years in the minors riding buses if you become a baseball player. These guys have been playing baseball their entire life, give them their due and give them a shot, if some make it right away so much the better, if they need more seasoning then so be it.
I know that some of you think I’m nuts and that service time should not be wasted, but is it really? You have a ton of money invested here, why not see if you can get a return on it right away? Let’s see what the Minnesota Twins are made of.