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Twins prospects that I was wrong on

Jack Griffin

Entry posted by Jack Griffin in MN Twins talk ·

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Since roughly 2009 the Twins have had some well... rough seasons. When a team is bad, they become sellers at the deadline, and at least me personally, stop caring as much about the active games, and switch to focusing on prospects and the future.

During those bad years I become pretty fixated on prospects, so lets go over some that I really thought were gonna be good.

1. RHP Dakota Chalmers

Woof. I was so high on this guy when we acquired him from Oakland for Fernando Rodney in 2018. I blame Garvin Alston, the Twins pitching coach at the time, for talking up Dakota from his time coaching in the A's minor league system. I can't quite remember what he said but I'm almost certain he called him a "potential system changing arm" and I was hooked. Chalmers had a myriad of injuries as well as off the field mental health stuff that lead to him not pitching a whole lot before coming to the Twins, but once he did he had success. In 2019 he even pitched in the AA playoffs, and everyone seemed to be talking about his stuff, I was so intrigued. He was added to the 40 man roster in 2021 and I envisioned all his success, and it was followed by struggles and a pretty quick DFA. I was devastated. Since then he has been on a few different teams with little success, and is currently in the Dodgers system.

2. RHP Fernando Romero

Most Twins fans will probably remember this one, and probably at some point felt the same I did. A top arm in the Twins system for years, what wasn't to like about him. A fastball that reached 100 mph (This was pre Graterol and Duran so the Twins just frankly never saw that) and a wipeout slider to boot. We all remember his electric 2018 rookie season, where he had immediate success. He did drop off slightly as the year went on but still, the sky was the limit. That was followed by a ton of control issues in 2019 and after the season, he was out of the MLB completely (Although he potentially had a chance to re establish himself in 2020, but it was stopped completely by Visa issues. Because well... there were some things going on in the world that made it tough to travel) He is currently pitching in Japan.

3. OF Adam Brett Walker

This one was more me just being young and naïve more than anything. ABW was a 3 true outcome guy before it was cool. High power, high strikeout, and not a whole lot else. I really had no reason to be high on him besides the fact he had some really exciting homeruns. Wow could he hit the ball when he connected. He really was never much of a true prospect and never even got added to the 40 man in a Twins uniform. His last year with the Twins was in 2016, he bounced around the league until 2018. He then moved to indy ball, and actually some some success as recent as 2021, but it never materialized into a second MLB chance. He's currently playing in Japan.

4. OF Oswaldo Arcia

Much like Romero, I feel like most fans will remember this name. Arcia was an international FA signed in 2008, who quickly worked his way up through the levels and had a TON of success at each level. He reached the majors in 2013 and had some initial success, but really couldn't put together any consistency year-to-year. from 2013-2016 he was basically on the Twins taxi squad going up and down multiple times a year. The Twins eventually gave up on waiting and traded him to the Rays, but that didn't last very long. Altogether he was on 4 total teams (TBR, SDP, MIA, MIN) in 2016 but really had no success with any of them. In 2017 he had somewhat of a renaissance in the DBacks system, but I don't think anything could've happened to get him up with the team. Arcia was pretty much the definition of a AAAA player. He is currently playing in an Independent league.

5. RHP Alex Wimmers

I don't really have an explanation on this one. He was a first round pick I suppose so that always makes you hope they work out. Wimmers had a 22 game cup of coffee from 2016-2017 and had very mediocre results. in 2018 he struggled at AAA and was released. He had a short stint that year with Miami but registered no official playing time. He is currently not playing baseball anywhere.

Some of these are more defensible than others, but I just wanted to talk about them.

Thanks.

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Seth Stohs
On 7/14/2022 at 3:42 PM, DocBauer said:

I was intrigued about Chalmers and thought he might turn in to a really nice bullpen option.

Was there anyone who didn't hold out great hopes for Romero? I mean, he was the real thing, right? (sigh)

Jay was a big one for me. I wasn't sure about the conversion to being a starter, but I thought at worst he was going to be a top, back of the bullpen arm. Just a huge disappointment.

Rich Becker is one of the biggest disappointments, "I was so wrong", player prospects for me.

And if I want to date myself, and drag my memories across hot asphalt covered in broken glass, there are about 10 pitching prospects around the mid-80's that were all seemingly can't miss starters or at worst, quality bullpen pieces. 

I'm not sure on Rich Becker. He had a couple of nice OBP seasons... His big issue was the strikeouts, so you wonder if he played today if teams would even care. He'd be an on-base machine with some power.  

As for Romero, he was a mid-to-upper 90s guy who had some really nice starts at the beginning of his career. Lots of weird stuff there. 

Agree on Jay too. Keith Law was big on him and thinks the Twins should have kept him starting longer, but as you said, at minimum, I thought he'd be a strong lefty out of the bullpen. The FB/SL combo was Perkins-like. But then he had lots of arm issues, like Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and such. 

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puckstopper1

This is going back a bit but for me it was Adam Johnson.  Second overall pick in 2000 draft.  I figured he would be a star since the Twins drafted him twice!  Big, strong looking power arm who had a 9+ K/9 in the minors.  The Twins pushed him quickly thru the system and he fell flat on his face once he reached The Show.

Lots of ifs, I know, but imagine what the back of the Twins bullpen would look like with Duran IF Romero had panned out, IF they would have kept Graterol.  Talk about bringing the heat.  Move over Cincinnati's Nasty Boys... ?

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tarheeltwinsfan
23 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

It is called Hope, simple as that, hope of the future is always brighter and more alluring than the present.

Imagine if at some point during the 21 season, somebody said dream if you will the Twins are 3.5 games up on second going into the all star break (With all stars Arraez and Buxton and the Twins went out and signed Carlos frickin Correa to a one year contract and traded for Sonny Gray) , should they go for it and trade some of their top prospects, I would guess most would say heck yea because the hopes and dreams of next year are bright, but when it actually happens some of those same people are like no we shouldn't make those type of trades because our futures is the future. and why? because it diminishes their hopes and dreams of a brighter future.

Humans are funny animals

 

Makes sense to me. Thanks for your thoughtful answer.

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ashbury
4 hours ago, The Mad King said:

Yup, we all had expectations for a guy named "Fernando."

Though we never thought that we could lose, there's no regret.  If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend,.

Fernando!

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tarheeltwinsfan
On 7/16/2022 at 2:24 PM, ashbury said:

Though we never thought that we could lose, there's no regret.  If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend,.

Fernando!

I missed that ABBA reference the first time I read this post. That was very clever. 

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Morneau for Gov
On 7/15/2022 at 12:55 PM, Jack Griffin said:

ooo that's a good idea. I know Griffin Jax is the first one that comes to mind. I was pretty low on Kepler after his first month or so too, but that's definitely something I'm gonna like in to.

Jax is the name that came to mind for me too. Saw him pitch a couple times in the minors and had a strong impression that he would never be a major league pitcher. 

Good thing I'm not a scout and great thing for the Twins that they have him in their pen this season!

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insagt1

Adam Brett Walker...man he hit some of the longest HR's in Red Wings history. They were Luke Easter-esque (for those old enough to remember the Rochester Icon) But he struck out so much its easy to see why Twins gave up on him. They have a history of players who strike out too much. Still when he connected, it was pretty exciting.

Arcia..another one who should have been better. In his last stint with Rochester, he completely fell apart. One prospect I thought should have made it was Michael Restovich. He had such a sweet swing and tons of potential...just never materialized. Toss in Terry Tiffee, Josh Rabe,Alexi Casilla, Danny Valencia and of course who can forget Boof Bonser!!

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ashbury
On 7/18/2022 at 6:02 AM, tarheeltwinsfan said:

I missed that ABBA reference the first time I read this post.

I suppose the lesson I take is to try to write more clearly, so that when I purposely post something opaque it will be more obvious on first sight. :)

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tarheeltwinsfan
2 hours ago, ashbury said:

I suppose the lesson I take is to try to write more clearly, so that when I purposely post something opaque it will be more obvious on first sight. :)

When you go to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair.  How's that for opaque? LOL

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jmlease1
23 hours ago, insagt1 said:

Arcia..another one who should have been better. In his last stint with Rochester, he completely fell apart. One prospect I thought should have made it was Michael Restovich. He had such a sweet swing and tons of potential...just never materialized. Toss in Terry Tiffee, Josh Rabe,Alexi Casilla, Danny Valencia and of course who can forget Boof Bonser!!

Don't be too hard on yourself for Valencia; he had a decent career including several very good seasons...just not in MN after that rookie campaign. He might not have become a star, but used properly he was a useful MLB player, and certainly not a bust.

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Whitey333

Just a great article!!  Congrats on admitting mistakes when it comes to analyzing prospects and potential prospects.  Too many expert writers on here think their opinion is gospel.  As we all know MOST prospects never make a significant impact. Any don't make any impact at all.  Teams sign college and high school players to millions in signing bonuses without them even playing one professional game.  I know that's the rules.  That's how it's done.  It's all based on over hyped and hope.  It also tells me that people who say don't trade prospects may need to rethink their position.  The Twins have a chance to win something this year.  They need improvements especially in pitching.  Must be prepared to trade some prospects.  That's part of what they are there for.  If the top prospects we have were so good they would be producing on the big club.  Yes no one wants to see a prospect goand see him become a superstar with some other team.  But for everyone of those there is probably at least a couple of dozen who they keep and will never make it.  If the FO can't make trading decisions involving potential prospects, they probably shouldn't be in the front office.

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