Article: Prospects Parked

[tobi0040]

Let me clarify on the Tigers. It's not just the fact that maybe a couple players will be unproductive at the end of a contract. The main obstacle for them will be replacing those players, filling many holes at once, not one or two, at a time when their farm system is pretty barren and they still have a few huge contract obligations. 

 

The Tigers now find themselves caught between a rock and hard place. They don't have prospects to trade themselves out of a likely decline, or to bolster the roster.

 

I think a rock and hard place does not do them justice.

 

On another thread, someone said their best prospect is in the mold of Walker/Kepler. 

 

The 2018 Tigers have $75M committed to a 39 year old Victor Martinez, 36 year old Cabrera, and 35 year old Verlander.   That jumps to over $100M with a 34-35 year old Scherzer if they re-sign him.

[bird]

Isn't that the natural cycle you always post about? How could the Tigers have a good farm system if they are drafting late all the time lately? And, isn't your argument that is only sustainable for about 10 years or so doing it the Twins way? How many years will the Tigers be good/great, then bad, then good/great again? Isn't the cycle about the same?

Good set of questions. Let's take your favorite organization, the Cards, to exemplify how an organization can, with luck and skill and mistake avoidance, keep themselves from the deepest depths. It starts with having a mentality of constant rebuilding. A team can "rebuild" from mid-cycle better than with a completely depleted farm system. Some semblance of excellence can be sustained for longer than ten years IF the organization EXECUTES with an acceptable volume of those inevitable mistakes and the very occasional but inevitable bad draft. And yes, it's tenfold easier to have a good draft if you have a top ten pick. SO, in my view of the Card's world, they always have talent rising at a decent clip, they avoid becoming financially encumbered for years beyond the useful life of a player contract, they avoid the Garza-Ramos-Hardy stuff that sets a franchise back two years, and they avoid FA moves almost at all "costs", because they can, frankly, having avoided scraping bottom like our Twins have done.

 

To emulate the Card's model effectively, you have to first get back to roughly mid-cycle in terms of prospect depth, and you have to begin to accumulate a bit of surplus talent that can be traded to fill the remaining holes.

 

Entering their fourth (not third, my bad earlier) off-season of the rebuild, I'd say the Twins are in a position to begin a sustainable run of success. In contrast, even spending $170M or more, Detroit's run of success, if you call a wild card one-and-done a success, is past its apex.

[bird]

I just wish people weren't so unrealistically positive when "throwing out these five and six year numbers" when it comes to the Twins.

 

Your math is off.  We are now in the midst of the fourth off-season of the rebuild, not the third, 2011-2015, and the Twins have already sent signals about off-season moves and 2015 payroll projections that Year Five of non-competitiveness is all but assured.  And sadly, that is highly reflective of the Twins history since the 70s of the typical rebuild being of at least five bad years, followed by a number of bad/mediocre  years as they finally accept the need for more comprehensive roster turnover.

 

Here are the positive+++ and negative--- cycles for the Twins since '62.

 

 

 

 

+++ 1962-1970 Mostly strong years, two mediocre.  9 years.

---    1971-1986 Mediocre to bad  SIXTEEN YEARS

+++ 1987-1992 Mostly good years with one bad.  6 years

---    1993-2000  Bad, bad, bad  EIGHT YEARS

+++  2001-2010 Very competitive, one season under .500. 10 years

---    2011-2014 Thank God for the Stros.  FOUR YEARS & ???

 

 The Twins have a few rookies dipping their toes in the major league water, but the projected impact prospects still have quite a ways to go before this team will be worthy of regaining the title "perennial legit contender."  Hopefully, it can be before 2019.

You're right, my bad. We've only had three off-seasons of rebuilding so far, and the main visible benefits of those three years is a top 3 farm system and additions like Hughes, Vargas, Nolasco, Santana, Arcia, May, Pinto... 

 

I don't hear anyone calling us a "perennial legit contender", do you? You're absolutely right, though, that none of the five prospects we have ranked among the forty best in all of baseball have made an impact yet. I think even the most optimistic of us would be happy with a record of around .500 in 2015.

[tobi0040]

_{Good set of questions. Let's take your favorite organization, the Cards, to exemplify how an organization can, with luck and skill and mistake avoidance, keep themselves from the deepest depths. It starts with having a mentality of constant rebuilding. A team can "rebuild" from mid-cycle better than with a completely depleted farm system. Some semblance of excellence can be sustained for longer than ten years IF the organization EXECUTES with an acceptable volume of those inevitable mistakes and the very occasional but inevitable bad draft. And yes, it's tenfold easier to have a good draft if you have a top ten pick. SO, in my view of the Card's world, they always have talent rising at a decent clip, they avoid becoming financially encumbered for years beyond the useful life of a player contract, they avoid the Garza-Ramos-Hardy stuff that sets a franchise back two years, and they avoid FA moves almost at all "costs", because they can, frankly, having avoided scraping bottom like our Twins have done.}

 

_{To emulate the Card's model effectively, you have to first get back to roughly mid-cycle in terms of prospect depth, and you have to begin to accumulate a bit of surplus talent that can be traded to fill the remaining holes.}

 

_{Entering their fourth (not third, my bad earlier) off-season of the rebuild, I'd say the Twins are in a position to begin a sustainable run of success. In contrast, even spending $170M or more, Detroit's run of success, if you call a wild card one-and-done a success, is past its apex.}

 

_{The Cards have done a really good job building from within, drafting and developing.  That is without question.  I don't know if they have avoided free agency "at all costs" though.  They certainly have been willing to dole out the types of contracts that are doled out in free agency.  The types of contracts that get teams in trouble.  Whether that be in free agency or extending their own players is really not a big difference.}

 

_{For example:}

 

_{They had 10 years and $210M on the table for a 31 year old Albert Pujols.}

 

_{They then turned around and give a 30 year old Holiday 7 years and $120M.}

 

_{They extended Wainwright fives years for 97M, ages 32-37}

 

_{They signed Peralta on the FA market at age 31, 4 years and $53M after he was tied to PED's}

 

_{They certainly were lucky someone outbid them for Pujols.  They still owe Wainwright $80M over the next four years and he is 33.  This is a guy that had TJ in 2011 and then has pitched 666 innings in the following three years.}

 

 

Edited November 13, 2014 by tobi0040

[jokin]

You're right, my bad. We've only had three off-seasons of rebuilding so far, and the main visible benefits of those three years is a top 3 farm system and additions like Hughes, Vargas, Nolasco, Santana, Arcia, May, Pinto... 

 

I don't hear anyone calling us a "perennial legit contender", do you? You're absolutely right, though, that none of the five prospects we have ranked among the forty best in all of baseball have made an impact yet. I think even the most optimistic of us would be happy with a record of around .500 in 2015.

 

As things stand now, and the seeming unlikelihood that any major additions will be coming in from outside the organization,  I am one that would be absolutely thrilled if the Twins hit around the .500 mark in 2015.  It would mean that there would have had to be some combination of events:

 

more of the rookies were called up and had immediate impact,

sophs didn't regress,

the OF situation miraculously stabilized,

Mauer returned to career average,

Plouffe and Escobar prove that 2014 wasn't a fluke, 

Hughes stopped his pattern of even-year-on/odd-year-off,

Nolasco returned to career average. 

 

I'm not holding my breath that the majority of these items will have come about.  Assuming they basically stand pat on the extended roster, the most optimistic take would be that the earliest they could hope to be tabbed as fringe, not perennial, contenders would be 2016.  And then, going into 2017, either Hughes would have to be re-signed or another potential ace acquired, or the Twins have to draw to a perfect inside straight with May, Meyer and Berrios.  Still seems like at least SEVEN years in the dark forest.

Edited November 14, 2014 by jokin