Alex Wells 2021

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

I apologize if this has been mentioned already, but does anyone know what happened to his twin brother? Was in Twins org and when we took Wells with the rule 5, initially thought it was his brother. Seems like he is back in Australia now?

[interloper]

16 hours ago, Philip said:

Aren’t you ready to see the last of Harvey?

Yes but I am a realist haha. 

[interloper]

16 hours ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

(I don't maybe, but I think you have to swap Akin out for someone else. Akin's ERA in July is 12.19)

Lol good reference there. Yeah I mean, I'm absolutely fine with Akin getting regular AAA starts instead. But if they are deadset against letting him sink or swim up here, I think they should just roll with a 6-man rotation. But I guess that probably leaves them vulnerable in the bullpen, having one less guy there. 

[Can_of_corn]

16 minutes ago, NelsonCruuuuuz said:

I apologize if this has been mentioned already, but does anyone know what happened to his twin brother? Was in Twins org and when we took Wells with the rule 5, initially thought it was his brother. Seems like he is back in Australia now?

Turns out baseball is hard.

Who knew?

Looking at his BB Ref page he's on the restricted list.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wells-000lac

[HowAboutThat]

3 hours ago, Frobby said:

Having watched Tampa’s Ryan Yarbrough earlier in this series, he’s not a bad comp for what I hope Wells can become.   Yarbrough’s fastball averages 86-87 mph (was 89 when he was a rookie), yet he gets the job done.  Wells’ repertoire is a little different but they are similar in relying on command and mixing pitches rather than velocity.

Any similarities between Wells and Watkins, who also seems to be accurate but not hard throwing? I loved watching his control.

[Gentile4]

6 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Turns out baseball is hard.

Who knew?

Looking at his BB Ref page he's on the restricted list.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wells-000lac

One of the Twins message boards implies he opted to stay in Australia because of Covid concerns.

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Gentile4 said:

One of the Twins message boards implies he opted to stay in Australia because of Covid concerns.

The Australian team pulled out of Olympic qualifiers over Covid concerns.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, NelsonCruuuuuz said:

I apologize if this has been mentioned already, but does anyone know what happened to his twin brother? Was in Twins org and when we took Wells with the rule 5, initially thought it was his brother. Seems like he is back in Australia now?

Not sure where you heard that story.  We did not take Alex Wells in the Rule 5.  He signed directly with us.   There was no confusion over who he was, as his brother Lachlan already was pitching in the Twins organization, having signed the year before Alex did.  
https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/19077987/alex-lachlan-wells-20-year-old-twin-pitching-prospects-making-progress-long-trip-australia-majors

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Not sure where you heard that story.  We did not take Alex Wells in the Rule 5.  He signed directly with us.   There was no confusion over who he was, as his brother Lachlan already was pitching in the Twins organization, having signed the year before Alex did.  
https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/19077987/alex-lachlan-wells-20-year-old-twin-pitching-prospects-making-progress-long-trip-australia-majors

Probably confusing him with Tyler Wells.

[Frobby]

57 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Probably confusing him with Tyler Wells.

Ah, now I understand.  Nelson’s saying that when we selected Tyler in the Rule 5, Nelson initially thought we had drafted Alex’s brother.   I thought he was saying we tried to draft Lachlan in the Rule 5 and got Alex instead.   Now this makes much more sense.   

Interesting that Lachlan made the decision to stay in Australia this year due to Covid while Alex did not.   But Alex was close to reaching the majors, while Lachlan is further away due to some injuries he suffered (TJ surgery in  2018).
 

[NelsonCruuuuuz]

2 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Probably confusing him with Tyler Wells.

Yes, I know it wasn’t him but when I originally heard the news when he was drafted I meant.

[Frobby]

Wells wasn’t sharp at all at the start of this game, going full count on the first three hitters before allowing a walk and two singles    He took 27 pitches to get through the inning.   He settled down pretty well after that, and got through another 4 innings allowing only 2 more innings.    I can’t say it was a good outing, but he avoided disaster.   

He’ll need to be sharper with his command to have success.  I don’t think having six days rest was helpful to him.   
 

 

 

[Il BuonO]

37 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Wells wasn’t sharp at all at the start of this game, going full count on the first three hitters before allowing a walk and two singles    He took 27 pitches to get through the inning.   He settled down pretty well after that, and got through another 4 innings allowing only 2 more innings.    I can’t say it was a good outing, but he avoided disaster.   

He’ll need to be sharper with his command to have success.  I don’t think having six days rest was helpful to him.   

Even when he’s “on” his stuff is underwhelming.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Il BuonO said:

Even when he’s “on” his stuff is underwhelming.

Yup, that’s the way it is.  He seems to live at the top of the strike zone with 88 mph fastballs and loopy looking breaking stuff.  Yet at times that seems to work.   I’m in favor of giving him the ball every fifth day for a while and seeing what happens.  Can’t say I’m expecting anything great, but he’s earned his shot so let him take it. 

[Il BuonO]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

Yup, that’s the way it is.  He seems to live at the top of the strike zone with 88 mph fastballs and loopy looking breaking stuff.  Yet at times that seems to work.   I’m in favor of giving him the ball every fifth day for a while and seeing what happens.  Can’t say I’m expecting anything great, but he’s earned his shot so let him take it. 

Sure, they’re aren’t a lot of options. So, why not? 

Watching him reminds me a little of Steve Johnson in the regard that he has to “nibble“. Known for pretty good command and yet, he’s going to full counts a lot and walking people. Because I think he knows, much like Johnson did, that his stuff is marginal at the highest level. To get guys out he has to be perfect.