On 8/3/2022 at 9:52 PM, bean5302 said:

This year, the Twins have only drawn an average of 21k per game. That's only 5k per game better than last year when the Twins reported an operating income of $10MM with $44MM of reported gate revenue. If gate revenues remain the same per attendee, and other revenues remain the same, the Twins' operating income will be ($15MM) this year as payroll has risen by $25MM. All that problem goes away with a deep playoff run, though.

Have to agree lots depends on how the season plays out.

 

Following the 4 game Toronto series and Thursday's concert, they are now at 22,520.  Should they continue to be in a pennant race, that will likely go up.  

On 8/5/2022 at 1:57 PM, Dman said:

You forgot a few big names like Rodriguez and Jullien and they just traded Steer, CES and two good left handed pitchers which would have changed this list considerably.  To your point I don't think they have built a top 10 Farm since they have been here mainly because top picks like Rooker, Sabato and Cavaco didn't work out well and they missed on the international FA like Javier and others. 

I think the larger point to make is that they haven't really produced much for starting pitchers which is what they were brought in to do.  Cleveland has continued to be far more successful than Falvine on the pitching side but then again they have taken risks taking pitchers early and late in several drafts.  While the Twins drafts have been balanced they just haven't found enough viable arms.  Things looked like maybe they were going to turn this year and with Ryan, Ober Winder set to play key roles things were looking better for the FO but Ober doesn't look like he will ever make it a full season as a starter and given Winders shoulder it doesn't look good for him either.  Everyone else has pretty much imploded on the farm.  Things could change next year for Balazovich, Henriquez, Canterino, Sands, Enlow but it doesn't look good at this point.  Losing Povich and Hajjar leaves the only potential fast mover as Prielipp from this years draft and we don't really know how durable he will end up being either.

This team is going to be in a tough spot if they can't draft and develop more guys like Joe Ryan.  Constantly trading away your farm for 1.5 years of a pitcher is not a great strategy moving forward.  Not sure how they are going to get out of this mess but hopefully this years draft is a really good one and they need to replenish the pitching pipeline next year or there won't be much of one.

I still like this FO for the most part but if they want to keep their jobs long term I think they are going to have to do better than they have been.

IMO Dman is spot on. We didn't develop Joe Ryan but maybe you used him only as an example. Which further states the fact that this organization can't develop pitching which is the main reason why we hired them. There has been some bad drafts picks, evaluations and trades by present & previous FOs which has hurt  this club and farm system. 

But we have to look at what is a farm system for? It's not for winning MiLB championships although that's great. It's for developing valuable players core & continue to supply the MLB club w/ an influx of MiLB players to compliment the core. Any redundancy needs to be traded to fill hole in the MLB team. Although I've criticized this FO for not being proactive in trades, they have evolved into a pretty good trader which finally appeared this deadline. 

I've been very patient with this FO because they have had many bad mindsets but slowly they are evolving into a pretty good one. Pitching still needs a lot of work, they are still a long way from that "Ace Factory" that I had hoped. But as long as we can trade for some of them, I'm happy.

Every one talks about developing, what percentage to top line pitchers were created in a farm system verses being as good as they are because they were born with that talent?

That talent is what scouts used to see with juggling numbers.

If Bryan Medina in the low minors is rated as the number 9 prospect then he was not a throw in for the trade. If anything Pagan was as he had been mediocre for awhile. As to wether or not the system is down, after the trades a lot of the prospects are in the low minors yet the have decent FV from fangraphs which devalues them for being in the lower minors. Bleacher Report had the Twins as the seventh best system. Ratings, which are notoriously inaccurate, are subjective. Only time will tell. Look at the ups and downs of ratings with Gordon. Not a star, but a 115 WRC is a positive. 

1 hour ago, old nurse said:

If Bryan Medina in the low minors is rated as the number 9 prospect then he was not a throw in for the trade. If anything Pagan was as he had been mediocre for awhile. As to wether or not the system is down, after the trades a lot of the prospects are in the low minors yet the have decent FV from fangraphs which devalues them for being in the lower minors. Bleacher Report had the Twins as the seventh best system. Ratings, which are notoriously inaccurate, are subjective. Only time will tell. Look at the ups and downs of ratings with Gordon. Not a star, but a 115 WRC is a positive. 

It's not about where Medina is ranked for us, it's about where Medina would be ranked on a good farm system today. Fangraphs does not devalue for being in the low minors. They have Brooks Lee at #23 overall and he's in Rookie Ball. They've consistently ranked Royce Lewis as a top prospect from when he was in the low minors.

It's possible prospects pan out when they aren't expected to pan out, the same way a player who was once written off can have a massive rebound. I do mention the Twins farm system rankings I expect are based on the prospects doing exactly the same as they've done so far this year. Anything could change. Balazovic could re-emerge. Austin Martin could come back and go on an absolute tear. 

Brayan Medina has some potential, but he hasn't been able to fool hitters in Rookie Ball so far with a non-elite strikeout rate and a very poor walk rate. With a 4.48 FIP in Rookie Ball, that's just not going to get it done on a good farm system's top 10. I don't expect he's going to remain on the Twins' top 10, either.

SUSTAINABILITY is a very key word in all of this.

1] I think it's very easy to point to graduated player X and Y and say "but they were drafted by the previous FO". True. But the current FO has made developmental changes from the bottom up. So how can we not accept that "graduated" players from the previous FO haven't perhaps improved under the tutelage of said changes throughout the system?

2] Recent "graduation" of a large group of players, some absolutely the result of the current FO, despite maybe not yet finished products, will "weaken" any sort of prospect pool rankings.

3] There are a handful of players that have been highly ranked as draft choices or high ranking trade acquisitions, who have not yet raised their game, or suddenly regressed. Balazovic and Martin are great examples. If we don't want to give credit to Falvey and Levine for what they've built and promoting and developing "inherited" players, then we can't necessarily blame them for an acquired player who was perhaps rushed, played out of position, and will HOPEFULLY still turn put. Same with Ryan. We traded for him, and have been working with him and developing him. So as good as he might be, is that on TB or the Twins? And if Balazovic turns it around in 2023 and looks like the prospect everyone believes, where's the "mulligan" for rankings when he does?

I'm just saying these rankings are so very fluid not only from year to year, but even mid year to mid year

 Other teams sure thought enough of our prospects to trade some quality ML talent for milb prospects, some of them only in their 1st full seasons. So, they are young and weren't yet in our top 10 or someone's top 100, but they were good enough to trade ML talent for?

And isn't using your milb system part of building your parent club, no matter how your system might be "ranked"?

How much better might put system be ranked if we just kept everyone and didn't trade for quality ML talent? 

4] Where I DO have questions and worry is the pitching pipeline. I have no problem making trades to acquire talent, including good arms. But for a mid market team, you simply HAVE to produce a few good ones on your own, whether you draft them, sign them, or trade for them young. I am of the opinion a few of our arms were set back by covid, and we're not the only ones.

I understand the principle idea of the FO that elite hit talent drops off early but arms who have not yet developed might be available a little later. It makes sound sense. Bring in a solid arm with something good to work with and make it better and add.

The problem with that is too many Rooker and Sabato selections instead of a pitcher that may have more upside than a bat only player or "helium" flier like Cavaco. It's OK to take a risk once in a while on a "toolsy" player because if you hit, you might hit pretty big. But you can't fall in love with the bat philosophy so much that you draft too many too early vs arms

Canterino and Enlow and now Prielipp are examples of "early" arms. You can't deny Canterino's talent, even if he now turns in to a quality BP arm with major potential. Enlow was just starting to look like the exciting arm we all heard about when he went through TJ. Prielipp is too new to accurately comment on. They haven't "ignored" arms early all the time. But reflection of some of their drafts has to give at least some pause that maybe they glossed over an arm one too many times over a bat.

I haven't given up on a pipeline as of yet. There's still some good arms coming up, and a couple who have arrived in different capacities. And I'm not nearly as down about the system as the OP states for all the reasons I've just stated. But I think I would like to see a better balance of arms and batters in the top half of future drafts.

This post is an absolutely terrible take. The "top 10" listed ignore not only the draft picks of this year, but the multitude of players graduated this year from prospect status. This is cherry picking at its very worst. 

How about the development and graduation of players in the Twins' farm system? Kiriloff, Larnach, Miranda, Duran, Jax, Ober, Winder, Sands, Celestino, Gordon, Ryan. I'm probably missing some as well. How about Gray and Mahle, high quality arms acquired through trades off of the top of the prospect pool. 

The major league team today is significantly more talented than the team was when Falvey took over, and our prospect pool is probably pretty comparable. We have a mid-tier farm system, and it was a very strong farm system until we graduated Kiriloff, Miranda, Larnach, etc.

It is somewhat frustrating to read posts like this that complain about the farm system and the front office, and at the same time ignore the large number of high quality young players (rookie or sophmore) that are contributing significantly to the major league club. 

6 minutes ago, ChineseGandalf said:

This post is an absolutely terrible take. The "top 10" listed ignore not only the draft picks of this year, but the multitude of players graduated this year from prospect status. This is cherry picking at its very worst. 

How about the development and graduation of players in the Twins' farm system? Kiriloff, Larnach, Miranda, Duran, Jax, Ober, Winder, Sands, Celestino, Gordon, Ryan. I'm probably missing some as well. How about Gray and Mahle, high quality arms acquired through trades off of the top of the prospect pool. 

The major league team today is significantly more talented than the team was when Falvey took over, and our prospect pool is probably pretty comparable. We have a mid-tier farm system, and it was a very strong farm system until we graduated Kiriloff, Miranda, Larnach, etc.

It is somewhat frustrating to read posts like this that complain about the farm system and the front office, and at the same time ignore the large number of high quality young players (rookie or sophmore) that are contributing significantly to the major league club. 

It doesn't ignore the graduates and it doesn't ignore the trades. I talked about them. Guess you didn't read that far...

Let's take a quick look at what we have.

Ryan is a potential rookie of the year candidate.  We did acquire him in a trade and he didn't need to much development from us to be ready.

Winder and Ober have been solid when available to pitch.  both drafted and developed by team Falvine.  

Smeltzer seems to be a solid swingman for the rotation.  

We have a few in the pen we developed as well.  Duran, Thielbar, Jax, Sands, Moran, Stashak, and Alcala. (to be fair Thielbar was a refind by Falvine after a 5 year Odessey for Thielbar as he wandered to minors looking for another opportunity to come back home to his Twins team).  

So we are developing pitchers just not healthy ones. but pretty effective ones though.  

another way to look at it is the above developed pitchers have thrown 431.67 innings with 177 earned runs and a 3.69 ERA.

The acquired pitchers and pitchers no longer with the team have thrown 527.33 innings and given up 251 earned runs for an ERA of 4.28.

I know draft position doesn't count for as much in baseball as in football and basketball but it's gotta count for something.  From 2012 to 2015 we drafted 2, 4, 5 & 6.  We've got Buxton & Gordon to show for that and it took Gordon 7 years to reach the big leagues.  The only thing the current regime has to show for their first round picks are 136 games of an injured Larnach with 12 home runs and a .226 batting average and Sonny Gray.  They have developed some pitching but nothing of a high end nature.  Disappointing to say the least.

On 8/9/2022 at 5:09 PM, Brandon said:

Let's take a quick look at what we have.

Ryan is a potential rookie of the year candidate.  We did acquire him in a trade and he didn't need to much development from us to be ready.

Winder and Ober have been solid when available to pitch.  both drafted and developed by team Falvine.  

Smeltzer seems to be a solid swingman for the rotation.  

We have a few in the pen we developed as well.  Duran, Thielbar, Jax, Sands, Moran, Stashak, and Alcala. (to be fair Thielbar was a refind by Falvine after a 5 year Odessey for Thielbar as he wandered to minors looking for another opportunity to come back home to his Twins team).  

So we are developing pitchers just not healthy ones. but pretty effective ones though.  

another way to look at it is the above developed pitchers have thrown 431.67 innings with 177 earned runs and a 3.69 ERA.

The acquired pitchers and pitchers no longer with the team have thrown 527.33 innings and given up 251 earned runs for an ERA of 4.28.

 

What does Ryan, Ober, Winder, Smeltzer, Duran, Thielbar, Jax, Stashak, Alcala or Ryan have to do with the current state of the Twins' farm system? Is Thielbar going to be listed as a top prospect for Minnesota next year?

We're not developing reliable starters. That's the issue. A whole bunch of middle relievers and a guy who the front office watched for 1 month before calling him up after a trade does not equal a successful development system. The current front office has been no more successful (arguably significantly worse) at developing pitchers than the previous regimes.