Prospect Overview: Gibson and Meyer

The Twins have a handful of starting pitchers in the minors, but in this piece I decided to take a look at three of them. They will be Kyle Gibson, Alex Meyer. As you all know, Gibson is the only one who started out in the Twins farm system. Meyer was acquired in an off-season trade with the Washington Nationals.

Let's start off with former first round pick, Kyle Gibson.

Kyle Gibson has made four starts so far during the 2013 season. Two of those starts were solid, he prevented runs from scoring while racking up some strikeouts. During those two starts he's combined for 11 innings, 9 strikeouts, 2 walks, and only 3 ER.

During the not so great starts he totaled 9.1 innings, 10 strikeouts, 5 walks, and 8 ER. Everything taken into consideration, that equates to a 4.43 ERA, 22 K% and a 8% BB%. Minus the ERA, those numbers are actually fairly decent. One department where Gibson has struggled is in the left on-base percentage (LOB%) department. Gibson's only leaving 65% of base runners on base, which is a fairly low number. While he isn't in the majors yet, an average LOB% tends to be around 75%. If Gibson can start to strand runners at a better rate, he should see his overall stats improve.

Alex Meyer is also a former first round pick, and so far he's been very impressive in AA ball.

Meyer has always been known to strike batters out, and this year is no exception. Through 16 innings, Meyer has struck out nearly 30% of all batters that he's faced. Unfortunately walks have also been a big problem, and so far he's walked over 10% of batters.

One thing that has been a big key to his success is the number of home runs that Meyer has surrendered, or lack thereof. Meyer has given up exactly 0 home runs so far, and while that's a highly unlikely to continue going forward, it's still great to see. Unlike Gibson, Meyer is also doing a much better job at stranding guys on base. His 86% LOB% is not likely sustainable, but he has shown the ability to keep guys on base at a higher clip than expected.

Both Meyer and Gibson have only made 7 starts combined, but it's still nice to see that they have been pretty successful. Looking at these minor league stats is not exactly the best way to determine major league success, but that doesn't mean we still can't get information from them.