Minnesota Twins: Round One Reflections

The Twins had three first round picks: 14, and two comp picks for losing Torii Hunter—27 and 31.

At 14, the Twins took Aaron Hicks out of Woodrow Wilson HS in Southern California. More importantly, Hicks was one of the star players in MLB's Compton Baseball Academy.

This was a very solid pick for the Twins, getting good value at 14. Hicks would like to play CF, and by all accounts is a plus hitter with an outstanding arm, but he was also tabbed as a first round pick as a pitcher*. His fastball has been consistently clocked in the mid to high 90s, so if the bat doesn't come around, this pick won't go to waste.

The major downside to this pick is that if he does make it to the majors with the Twins in the next few years, we will have to suffer through ENDLESS rounds of Bert Blyleaven reminding us that the pitcher is the best athlete on the field. Clearly, Bert has never seen Joba Chamberlain.

At 27, the Twins took the consensus biggest surprise of the first round in Carlos Gutierrez, and that's not really a good thing. As an indication of how big a reach this was, MLB.com didn't have a scouting report ready for him in their DraftTracker.

He is coming off Tommy John Surgery in 2007, and despite having a good fastball, he doesn't really have a second plus pitch. Don't the Twins already have a guy for this? One pitch, coming off of major surgery, command issues? Sounds like Jesse Crain to me.

He does have a lot of polish, so his impact could be felt immediately, but the question is, will it be a positive or negative impact?

With their last pick in the first round (technically, the first pick of the compensation round) the Twins took Tulane righty Shooter Hunt. I'm a HUGE fan of this pick for one reason above all others: his name is Shooter!

Back to reality, Shooter already has two major league ready pitches, his fastball and a power curve. He could stand to work on his command issues, but that will come with time in the minors. If he develops a solid change, and improves his control, the Twins could have stolen a great pitcher at 31.

So far, I'm relatively pleased with what the Twins have done. Hicks is a high-risk/high-ceiling guy playing a position the Twins have depth at. If he pans out, excellent. If he doesn't, the Twins haven't killed themselves. This is also a lower risk pick than other unproven but toolsy guys, since he can also pitch.

Shooter Hunt will get plenty of time to develop in the Twins minor league system and will be surrounded by coaches who know how to improve young pitchers. His polish means that he'll rise through the Twins' system as quickly as the Twins will let him. I think Hunt will prove that the Twins made an excellent pick at 31.

The Gutierrez pick puzzles me. Right handed relievers aren't exactly a hot commodity and Gutierrez wasn't even the best of the bunch. I'm not excited about this pick, but perhaps the Twins know something that everyone else doesn't.

Maybe he's got 40 HR potential, but hasn't shown it since he's a pitcher. Maybe he knows where magical unicorns frolic freely.

I'm not sure what was going on with this pick, but I'm sure plenty of ink will be spilled about it from many a pundit.