Twins quietly building a pitching staff nobody's talking about

The headline out of Minnesota's draft class is catcher Vahn Lackey and his nearly $9.5 million bonus, the third-largest in draft history. But teams don't win with one guy at the top of the class, and the Twins just quietly buttoned up a signing that could end up being the best value in the entire haul.

Jim Callis

@jimcallisMLB

4th-rder Tommy LaPour signs w/@Twins for $733,100 (full slot 107 value). @TCU_Baseball RHP, fastball up to 101 mph w/heavy sink, power mid-80s slider is his best offering. Potential top-2-rder before missing time with elbow soreness, came back at end of season. @MLBDraft

LaPour got $733,100, the exact slot number for the 107th overall pick, per Jim Callis. No hometown discount, no under-slot maneuvering to free up cash elsewhere in the class -- the Twins just paid what the pick was worth. That's notable on its own, because a fastball that touches 101 mph with heavy sink doesn't usually make it to Day 2, let alone Round 4.

The reason he slid is straightforward: elbow soreness cost him time this spring before he returned late in the season. Before that, LaPour was in the conversation as a potential top-two-round talent. He'd transferred to TCU after a season at Wichita State and worked over 90 innings in the Horned Frogs' rotation, pairing that mid-90s-to-triple-digit heater with a power slider in the mid-80s that scouts already view as his best pitch.

That's the profile teams gamble on every July -- swing-and-miss stuff attached to a medical flag, hoping the flag turns out to be nothing. Health risk is exactly why a fastball that lives up to 101 mph and a wipeout slider fell into the 4th round instead of getting scooped up on Day 1.

The Twins signed all 21 of their picks this class, and the class skewed heavily toward arms -- 13 of the 21 selections were pitchers. LaPour fits right into that plan: a high-ceiling righty who, health permitting, gives Minnesota's system a power arm it didn't really have stacked up behind Lackey and the rest of the position-player money at the top of the class.

Nobody's putting LaPour on a prospect list yet, and he shouldn't be -- he's a 4th-rounder who missed time with an arm issue in college. But full slot for a guy with a fastball that touches triple digits and a legitimate second pitch is the kind of pick that looks either irrelevant or like a steal in three years, and there's not much middle ground.