The AL Central-leading Twins could promote well-regarded pitching prospect Brusdar Graterol to the majors as early as this month, assistant general manager Rob Antony told SKOR North. The right-hander will likely work as a reliever this year if he does come up to the bigs, Antony suggested.
The 20-year-old Graterol has missed time this season with shoulder issues, but he’s back now and has turned in encouraging results when healthy. In his first Double-A action this year, Graterol has logged a 1.89 ERA/3.26 FIP with 8.69 K/9, 3.59 BB/9 and a 52.1 percent groundball rate across 47 2/3 innings. Moreover, Baseball America (No. 34), FanGraphs (52) and MLB.com (58) all rank Graterol among the best prospects in the game.
Capable of hitting triple digits on the radar gun, Graterol could be a serious late-season weapon (perhaps a multi-inning one, per Antony) for a Twins bullpen that hasn’t been great at preventing runs this year. The unit sits a middle-of-the-pack 14th in ERA (4.45), and it has undergone major changes of late. The Twins recently rid themselves of Blake Parker, Matt Magill, Mike Morin and Adalberto Mejia – who combined for upward of 100 innings from their bullpen – and then tried to upgrade their relief corps by adding Sergio Romo and Sam Dyson prior to the trade deadline.
Romo has thrown 4 1/3 scoreless innings of one-hit ball since Minnesota acquired him from Miami, but the Dyson pickup has surprisingly blown up in the Twins’ faces so far. After an impressive start to the season with the Giants, Dyson surrendered a total of six earned runs on six hits and two walks in 2/3 of an inning in his first two appearances as a Twin. Dyson then hit the injured list with right biceps tendinitis, which he alarmingly revealed has been bothering him since mid-July.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuude!
Bring him up! Tired of hearing about Twins prospects until their 25. Give em a shot in the bigs and see what you have!
This is the most overused antic from Twins fans. when have they ever waited on somebody noteworthy until they were 25???
Brian Dozier? Honestly, I get the frustration. The Twins have historically log-jammed their players in the minors in the never ending hunt for cheap mediocrity.
In this case, it seems very aggressive considering how little Graterol has only 100 innings over low-A ball and he’s been injured the majority of the season. The Twins are desperate for starters next year. It’d be nice of Graterol could be one of them.
Brian Dozier was 22 when he was drafted and never spent a full season at one minor league level before making the majors.
OOOOHHHHHH, I thought you wanted an example? My bad, you’re 100% right about everything on Earth and any proof your position is inaccurate or weak must be met with an impossible qualifier you can use to dismiss the facts.
Gotcha. At least there aren’t like 1,000 internet experts just like you around every forum, lol.
You do realize a different person replied to you, right, Martras? Because it doesn’t seem so considering your phrasing.
he wolnt be 25 for over 4 years now. think he’ll be up by then
Twins should just call up all their power arms like Alcala, Romero, and Colina.
Bullpen would be a mistake. Smeltzer would be a great bullpen addition, but Graterol needs the IP if you want him to be starting in 2020. He’s only at 50IP right now after approx 100 last season. Put him in Pineda’s spot until he comes off the IL then send one of the two to the bullpen depending on how it goes
Not sure why you would want to remove Smeltzer from the rotation
All the evaluations I’ve read on him are that he’s (1) not a three times through the order guy and (2) he’s going to struggle once teams have seen him. Because his fastball is lacking and he relies on his weird delivery.
Pretty weird to say a fastball is lacking when it sits 96-98 mph and has a lot of sinking action. But, since the Twins are still looking at limiting Pineda’s innings this year, maybe both Smeltzer and Graterol can be in the back of the rotation, and Big Mike and Perez can be the “long” relievers in the BP.
IP this season will have almost no bearing on how many innings he throws next season.
Of course it does – teams carefully manage how many IP a pitcher is allowed over the previous year. Why do you think young pitchers regularly get shut down or have starts skipped in September?
Or you can limit his innings this year to get the major league feel and let him compete for a rotation spot next year. I’m willing to bet that is exactly what they do.
Keep smeltzer in the rotation! He’s been a breath of fresh air!
How about Fernando Romero? He scuffled in April in May but I haven’t heard anything lately. I cant imagine he would be worse than Ryne Harper. Heck, I would rather see Brian Dozier pitch than Harper at this point.
Harper has easily been one of their best relievers.
Harper has definitely been a feel good story, but his value is tied to how he is used. He has done well in low leverage situations (of which there have been a lot, with one of the best offenses in baseball), but has allowed batters a .815 OPS in high leverage situations, and actually has a negative WPA (-.43). He is good in a limited role, but who in their heart of hearts wants him facing the Yankees in October? While he has been one of the Twins’ best relievers, I’d say that’s as much of an indictment of the FO offseason bullpen moves, as it is praise of Harper’s performance.
Harper has been quite decent.
Yeah Harper and his horrible 307 ERA, can’t believe how horrible that is. I mean really have you watched any Twins baseball? or know anything about Harper? This was just a horrible comment.
He’s scuffled a bit recently. People have super short memories. I imagine they could also be less willing to let a few bad outings slide because he doesn’t have super sexy Stuff™
If not Harper, then god only knows who else fans want. He’s been huge for the Twins,
Ryne Harper’s WHIP in the last 30 days is 1.00 which is superb.
i mean DFA Harper then. im sure every contender in the league would thank you for doing so.
Well, let’s see….Romero has dropped out of the Twins Top 30 prospects and is still struggling with control and coming out of the BP. I think he is still a year or so away from being a good contributor to the Twins BP.
Romero is a year away from being non-tendered and released. He’s out of options and has been very ineffective at the MLB level.
Unfortunately i see this being what ends up occurring
Graterol would be like the twins version of sale jumping up to the bigs (not as quick) and helping them compete immediately rather than waiting. And then converting him back when you’re sure his health can carry him through the year.