With the way the Twins have been playing so far this season, there have been a lot of players being promoted and demoted from Rochester. As I was watching the game last night, I was joking with my brother, “Do you think the Triple-A Rochester squad could beat the Twins?”. There is only one problem with that. 9 of the 25 players on the active roster started the season in Rochester. Now a few of those players have been up and down quite a bit as there has been at least one injury per week for the Twins.
However, there is one player that hasn’t been considered being called up. That player would be Kyle Gibson, a right handed pitcher that was drafted in the 1st round (22nd overall) in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft. He has quickly moved through the minor league system and is in line for a late season call up if the Twins are completely out of the division race. He had a very impressive 2010 Minor League campaign going 11-6 with a 2.96 earned run average and 126 strikeouts as he pitched in Single-A Ft. Myers, Double-a New Britain and Triple-A Rochester.
Gibson has the potential to be a very good #2 starter for the Twins in 2012. Gibson is like any other current Twins starter, he is a ground ball pitcher. That is something the Twins have coveted for quite a few years now. If you look back at the Twins pitchers that came up through their system, you rarely see a hard throwing, strike out pitcher. So Gibson fits the mold perfectly.
The most important thing about Gibson’s 2010 run through the minors was that he didn’t encounter any lingering side effects from a stress fracture that occurred during his junior year at the University of Missouri. There were some questions prior to the draft whether or not he would be able to fully recover and become the pitcher everyone knew him as while at Missouri. He quickly put the doubters in their spot.
His velocity ranges from the high-80s to the low-90s, so he definitely won’t be a fast throwing, strike out machine, but his fastball has good movement on it and his slider is a good second pitch that causes all those ground ball outs. He has been working on improving his change-up, which will be crucial to get that down to be successful at the major league level.
Look for Gibson to make his debut at the Major League level sometime in late August or early September. There is absolutely no reason to rush him considering the Twins appear out of the race early in the season. They need to let him build more and more confidence and really get his pitches down before they call him up, hopefully so he stays at the major league level and doesn’t bounce around between Triple-A and the majors. Twins fans should be very excited for this young pitcher, so everyone keep an eye on him.
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