Winter Wonderland: Arizona Fall League Wrapup

The Arizona Fall League completed its season Saturday, as our Surprise Saguaros fell to Mesa 6-1.  Here's a look at how our Twins players fared.

The best of the batters was clearly Nick Gordon.  Gordon batted .346/.418/.444 in 81 at-bats.  Not much power, which is consistent with his career so far, but if you can get on base at a .418 clip nobody's going to be too worried about your power.  He also stole five bases, although he was caught stealing four times.

Mitch Garver did not get on base much, but he showed good power.  He batted .229/.299/.457 in 70 at-bats, belting four homers and four doubles.  The four home runs were tied for second in the league.

Tanner English drew some walks, but did not do much else.  He batted .229/.333/.338 in 71 at-bats.

Mason Melotakis led the pitchers with a 1.64 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP, going 1-1.  He struck out eleven and walked only one in eleven innings.

John Curtiss also pitched well.  No decisions, but one save and an ERA of 2.84 with a 1.34 WHIP.  He struck out eighteen and walked four in 12.2 innings.

Randy Rosario went 1-0, 4.26, 1.82 WHIP.  He struck out eleven and walked five in 12.2 innings.

The biggest disappointment was clearly Stephen Gonsalves.  Coming off a fine year split between Fort Myers and Chattanooga, he went 0-2, 8.31, 1.62 WHIP.  He struck out seven and walked four in 8.2 innings.

I say this every year, but if you're asking "What does all this mean", the answer is probably "Not much".  I follow it because it's baseball and it's fun, but the whole league is a small sample size, really.  I don't know if anyone has studied how much correlation, if any, there is between success in the AFL and success in the major leagues.  There are some players who did well in the AFL and became stars.  On the other hand, Robbie Grossman tore up the AFL in 2011.  The main point of the AFL is to give some good prospects some experience against other good prospects, and that's really the way to look at it.