Twins thrilled to get lefty Prielipp in 2nd round

MINNEAPOLIS -- At various points last year, Connor Prielipp was generating buzz as a potential No. 1 overall pick in this year's Draft before his collegiate career at the University of Alabama was put on hold by Tommy John surgery.

One year later, the Twins were able to bring Prielipp home to the Upper Midwest on Sunday by selecting the left-handed pitcher from Tomah, Wis., in the second round with the No. 48 pick. It's a riskier selection since Prielipp missed the entire 2022 collegiate season while rehabbing from the surgery, but the high-end upside is also undeniable.

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Factor in the Twins' thrill that top college bat Brooks Lee fell to them at No. 8 in the first round and their ability to snag Virginia Tech shortstop Tanner Schobel at No. 68 in Competitive Balance Round B, and scouting director Sean Johnson couldn't have been happier with how the first night of the Draft fell for the Twins.

"We were saying in the room, some years, it feels like you don’t get any bounces falling your way, and some years, you feel like some of them go," Johnson said. "You never feel like they all fall that way, but the three players we picked tonight felt like a really good night for our room.

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"We coveted all three players. We were hopeful that ones would make it to certain ranges on the board. The fact that they did, our room’s in a really good spot mentally going into day two and three."

Prielipp was ranked No. 25 in this Draft class by MLB Pipeline and showed evaluators at a bullpen session in Alabama in May and at the MLB Draft Combine in June that his stuff had recovered to the point that the Twins were comfortable dedicating their second-round pick to him, with the fastball touching 95-96 mph and the slider up to 90 mph, Johnson said.

Prielipp has a high-velocity slider with a unique grip that is described by MLB Pipeline as "one of the most devastating pitches in the college class," though he didn't have the chance to show it off too much, as the pandemic and his arm injury limited him to 39 innings across two seasons with the Crimson Tide.

The brief time he did spend on the mound was stellar, though, as he didn't allow a run in four non-conference starts as a freshman in 2020 before the season was cut short by COVID-19. He allowed three earned runs in seven innings as part of his injury-shortened '21 before he underwent the surgery in May.

"He doesn't have a lot of innings pitched if you look at the resume, but we've seen him a lot in the fall and been around him a lot and gotten to know who he is as a person and actually seen some really impactful pitches," Johnson said. "Our scouts loved Prielipp. We've been talking about him and this whole thing coming full circle with the Draft, being able to acquire him, and our scouting staff has absolutely loved the pitcher, loved the pitches."

They also got plenty of help from Alabama head coach Brad Bohannon, described as a "close friend to [the Twins]," who provided lots of assistance with providing the left-hander's Trackman data and helping them understand the makeup and the background that the Twins value highly in making their selections.

"Since you don't get to see him compete a lot, you have to fill in the holes," Johnson said. "A lot of pitchers taken today have these incomplete resumes, so you need to figure out who this person is off the field, and so Coach Bohannon really helped us there. We've gotten a lot of information from him."

The Twins feel that the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Schobel could stick in the middle of the diamond, possibly at second base, but wherever he lands, they hope that he can sustain the surprising pop he unlocked as a sophomore in '22 with 19 homers and a .362/.445/.689 slash line in 59 games, with what Johnson describes as "sneaky power" and an appealingly low strikeout rate, with the underlying numbers showing a strong ability to impact the ball.

"All the other things we could do with our analytics, the way we can measure exit velocity and all those things, there was a lot of good signals," Johnson said. "He’s not the most physical guy on the board, but he’s got surprising strength. He can jolt the ball farther than you would ever think he could. And his makeup is really, really good."