Twins 2017 AFL Week Two: Chris Paul wins Hitting Challenge

The seven Twins prospects participating in this year’s Arizona Fall League now have two weeks in the books. Their team, the Surprise Saguaros, are 5-6, which isn’t too great, but do we really care what some rando AFL team’s record is? No, we care about the prospects.

Let’s take a look at how each of the Twins prospects are doing two weeks in.

Chris Paul - 1B/3B

When it comes to Twins prospects, Chris Paul has been the talk of the town in week two. That’s because he won the fifth annual Arizona Fall League Hitting Challenge last weekend.

If you’re like me, you’re now wondering “WTF is the Arizona Fall League Hitting Challenge?” I looked into it and it’s basically the Home Run Derby for the Ben Reveres of the world. Players each get two minutes to in a batting-practice setting to hit various targets strewn about the field. Each target is worth some amount of points, and the batter who wracks up the most points wins. Paul won with 2,750 points; the runner-up had 2,600 points.

Here’s a video:

Cool.

As for the “actual” games, Paul has continued hitting there too. He’s now 9-for-29 (.310) and hit his first dinger of the fall on Monday.

Tyler Jay - LHP

Jay has only made one appearance since our week one update, pitching 0.2 innings on October 20th. It... didn’t go well. Jay gave up a ground-rule double to the first batter he faced, got a ground out, walked the next batter, gave up two singles, and hit a batter before getting a pop-up out and leaving the game. Somehow, all of that only turned into two earned runs, but it brought Jay’s ERA to 4.91 over his 3.2 total innings of work. His 1.91 WHIP isn’t super fantastic, either—but hey, small sample size!

LaMonte Wade - CF

LaMonte Wade has been doing so-so, now 7-for-29 (.241), but with a respectable .353 OBP. He also hit his first dinger of the fall on October 20th.

Sean Miller - SS

As in week one, Miller had continued to see little actual playing time. He’s 4-for-19 (.211) with one walk in the five games he’s appeared in.

Andrew Vasquez - LHP

Like Tyler Jay, Andrew Vasquez has only made one appearance since out week one update. Also like Tyler Jay, that outing didn’t go well—but it didn’t go quite so bad either. Vasquez was actually able to complete a whole inning in the game on October 19th, but he gave up a lead-off single, followed by a freakin’ balk, a double, and a wild pitch. Yikes. Luckily only one run scored, but it was enough to tie the game (the Saguaros eventually lost in extra innings).

So overall now this fall, Vasquez is sporting a 1.93 ERA over 4.2 innings. He hasn’t walked anyone yet, and has six strikeouts, so he’s doing fine.

Ryan Eades - RHP

Meet the only Twins pitcher who is still scoreless! Yep, Ryan Eades still has a 0.00 ERA over 4.1 totall innings of work. He’s only made one appearance in the past week, coming in to clean-up that mess Tyler Jay made on October 20th. He pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up only two hits.

Tom Hackimer - RHP

Tom Hackimer has actually improved since his rough first week, also making one outing since then, but it was a good one. After Vasquez gave up the tying run on October 19th, Hackimer came in and pitched 2.0 perfect innings. That brought his fall ERA down to 2.25 over 4.0 innings.