Mathew Kory is correct. Whatever it was the Twins have tried with Sano and Buxton, has not worked. I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just saying: try something different with Sano and Buxton. These two prospects were either over rated, injured, not trained properly, at fault themselves, or late bloomers. .Or maybe a combination of  some or all of these. We can't blame it on ourselves, as Twins' fans, for having expectations which were too lofty, because unbiased national talent guru's also expected much more from both Sano and Buxton. It is sad for the Twins...but even sadder  for two players named Sano and Buxton. "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been"".

While I am certainly not going to go all in supporting the front office, I must say that an important part of player development is PLAYER. if the player can't perform and refuses to follow instruction to get better, development lags. That seems like it may be a possibility in both cases here. And the success rate of players being promoted to the major leagues is very, very small anyway. And they don't all mature at the same rate. Look at Aaron Hicks.

Thanks for mentioning Hicks. A guy with all the talent in the world. He may still develop and have a really Big breakout year, or a moment. You never know. Just looking at Twins centerfielders of yore. Who we have played since Torii Hunter. Carlos Gomez was rushed, it seems (and shows what happens when you use up a lot of their service time in development) but did have a couple of monster years. Ben Revere actually showed consistency, but not the powerhouse play to be the top draft pick he was, and was recently released from play. Hicks? Buxton? 

But look, overall...you hope TOP draft picks make it big. So many don't that you question why millions are thrown their way in the first place. Also, the reality, how many of the 150 guys in a minor league system make it past year two in a system (remember, 30-40 totally new names are added every season and another dozen play musical chairs to fill out rosters). 

How many guys MAKE a major league roster each season - 3 or 5 (many get tryouts) that stick around for a second season. Then how many stay longer than that? Look at overall roster construction. How many players were developed by the team. How many signed out of other organizations. How many acquired in free agency or via trade. 

Yes, we may argue about players being pushed too fast (Carlos Gomez was one, perhaps Buxton is another) and those not fast enough (do we want to see Royce Lewis NOW...if a team IS rebuilding, shouldn't they be looking at internal pieces sooner rather than later, spending money on placeholders). I want to see Nick Gordon, Luke Raley, Brent Rooker all getting a shot NOW or sooner rather than later. i would rather see them striking out and missing balls that players who aren't in longterm plans.

I am glad the Twins are finding innings for Kohl Stewart, Gonsalves, Littell, De Jong. And considering so many of us were down on Stewart and still question his durability as a starter, he has shown more than the other "prospects." But NOT everyone enters a major league team ready t play extremely well and shine. Sometimes it takes a few months, maybe a season, maybe 1000 at bats, which is why rookies are threaded into rosters rather than starting a whole field of 20-23 year olds.

And then you have the players themselves. Look at Delmon Young. Lots and lots of natural talent. He can play decent ball by just showing up, and just think what he would've done if he had kept working and developing.

Hopefully with changes that happened this season in the Twins minors they have development totally under control. The success of the A+ and below teams shows that the regime is going in the right direction. Or so we hope.

Even if the Twins were to suddenly reach an Astros-like competence in player development by Tuesday, the front office's derailed build-from-the-draft strategy will take how many more seasons now? 

For at least two good reasons, the Twins should be doing everything possible to win in 2019 - not 2022. 1 - The AL Central is pure crap at the moment and the Twins get 76 games against it. 2-  If ticket sales drop any more, the Twins will start ripping out seats from the upper deck like Cleveland.