Article: First-Round Flops or Unfinished Projects?

[The Wise One]

 

Taylor Motter hit .197 with a .646 OPS for Seattle's AAA team when the Twins HAD TO get him on our AAA team to hit .182 with a .636 OPS, which OBVIOUSLY was enough to deserve a call up to the major league team were "unexpectedly" he hit .053 with a .195 OPS.  His career MLB batting average is .191 with a career OPS of .575.  

 

At 28 years old, in the eyes of the Twins Front Office he was a great promotion and apparently was a solid prospect.  

 

Gordon is still a legitimate prospect, and if you want to compare Gordon has a much better performance in AA than Motter, and Motter's AAA is impacted by one and a partial seasons were he hit way above his expectations.  Sometimes when you are looking at things, you need to recognize flukes.  Motter's 2018 performance in AAA and with his stints on the big leagues are the reality.

Motter was a warm body when they had no other warm body. Featherstone fizzled , Pettit can hit the rare single. Name one other warm body in AA that they had as a middle infielder.   I really doubt if anyone in any organization thought Motter was more than a AAA emergency piece. 

Gordon is still a prospect. No argument there.  It is more than reasonable the FO signed a Motter, Pettit, or Featherstone  not as a replacement for Gordon but as a bridge until he was ready. 

 

Please name the source where anyone  had "At 28 years old, in the eyes of the Twins Front Office he was a great promotion and apparently was a solid prospect." as a take. 

[caninatl04]

The "risk" of losing Jay?  Are the Padres so desperate that they'd try to keep him on the MAJOR league roster for a year?

 

As for Kohl, I guess the inevitable question is against whom is he competing for that 40th man spot?

[Monkeypaws]

 

Expected doesn't mean correct. Those publications expected Jay to go to the Twins because they'd been talking to him a lot and they'd had a history of taking relief pitchers way too early.

 

Most of us expect Eddie Rosario to throw the ball ten feet over the cut-off man's head too.

That is a bit of an exaggeration there nick - they went overboard on relievers exactly once, the year before. Hardly a history. 

[mlhouse]

 

Motter was a warm body when they had no other warm body. Featherstone fizzled , Pettit can hit the rare single. Name one other warm body in AA that they had as a middle infielder.   I really doubt if anyone in any organization thought Motter was more than a AAA emergency piece. 

Gordon is still a prospect. No argument there.  It is more than reasonable the FO signed a Motter, Pettit, or Featherstone  not as a replacement for Gordon but as a bridge until he was ready. 

 

Please name the source where anyone  had "At 28 years old, in the eyes of the Twins Front Office he was a great promotion and apparently was a solid prospect." as a take. 

 

I think you are taking the ckaims I made about the front office too seriously and missing the point in the end.

 

But, since you missed it, I will encapsulate it for you:

 

We are a terrible team that has been rebuilding for 8 years, losing 90+ games 6 times including over 100 twice.  But, when it came to needing "warm bodies" all our front office could throw out there were duds like Taylor Motter and Bobby Wilson.

 

There were options.  Instead of Motter, why not Gordon.  He couldn't of hit any worse.  Instead of Wilson, why not Astudillio?   Instead of all of the waiver wire reject pitchers like Matt Belisle and many, many others,  why not get better and longer looks at Curtiss, Bard, Anderson, etc.

 

What is frustrating to me about this is that this was the exact course the previous front office would take, and it has led us to this point.  

[jokin]

 

The Jay pick was really awful. That’s not “unlucky.” That was a stretch, and not a good one.

 

And not their only "stretch". Whomever it was that sold the Twins on going after gaggles of college RPs set the Twins back on internally developing a competitive pitching staff by half a decade. One middle round RP flyer, maybe, but coming up with the concept of "converting" college RPs to SPs defied all common sense, logic, reason and historical reality.

 

Hopefully, he/they are no longer employed by the new FO.

[The Wise One]

 

I think you are taking the ckaims I made about the front office too seriously and missing the point in the end.

 

But, since you missed it, I will encapsulate it for you:

 

We are a terrible team that has been rebuilding for 8 years, losing 90+ games 6 times including over 100 twice.  But, when it came to needing "warm bodies" all our front office could throw out there were duds like Taylor Motter and Bobby Wilson.

 

There were options.  Instead of Motter, why not Gordon.  He couldn't of hit any worse.  Instead of Wilson, why not Astudillio?   Instead of all of the waiver wire reject pitchers like Matt Belisle and many, many others,  why not get better and longer looks at Curtiss, Bard, Anderson, etc.

 

What is frustrating to me about this is that this was the exact course the previous front office would take, and it has led us to this point.  

Gordon so far has failed at AAA. I fail to see how  in a player's development that a few months of failure at the major league level benefits a player. Gordon couldn't have done worse than Motter.  That is true. Where does failing for months benefit a  developing player? 

Relief pitchers. If Busenitz were a couple years older would you be calling for the Twins to release him? What makes him or Duffrey any different than having Belisle.?  Think they could have promoted Vasquez faster? Nick Anderson has been good in AAA. Stat scouting says he is good Radar gun likes him.  He still had very little time in AAA when Belisle was signed. Jake Reed still walks to many people. Let me make my position a little more simple for you. A bad old veteran is no different than having a bad young player playing. 

Edited October 1, 2018 by The Wise One

[gunnarthor]

 

First, the ages you refer are when they got late season call ups or quick looks.   So it is a bit misleading.

 

Second, compare how our prospects were moved through versus players on the Yankees or Red Sox:  Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Miguel Andujar, Luis Severino, Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Rafeal Devers, Xander Bogaerts, 

 

Even if you want to claim that "see the Twins moved their players up at the same pace", which I disagree with, there is a singular difference. The Red Sox and Yankees are competitive teams.  The Red Sox are going to win 107 or so games with a lineup that is essentially younger than the Twins.   We are a rebuilding team, yet we promote our prospects at the same level of contenders.  That is just plain stupid and we wonder why this organization is in such a mess.

I listed the age the guys made their significant ML appearance - I ignored Polanco's cup of coffee at 20, for instance. Buxton played in 46 games at 21. Sano came in third in ROY voting at 22. Rosario came in 6th at 23. Kepler played in 113 games at 23. Berrios made 14 starts at 22, etc. It's not misleading at all.

 

Second, Aaron Judge debuted at 25, Sanchez and Andujar at 23. Torres at 21. So that's not really different.

 

Lastly, yeah, the Yankees and Red Sox are better. Frankly, this argument has been boring for twenty plus years. Let the Twins spend a billion dollars on payroll over a five year period and see how that affects the team's ability to be competitive. It's ridiculous to say that because Servino signed for 225k, the Yankees and Twins were on the same level. The Yankees and Red Sox simply have more resources than the Twins and have used those resources smartly. For instance, the Red Sox got 2+ WAR from 10 players this year and they drafted/international signed only 4 of them (Betts, Bogarts, Bradley and Bennintendi). (Twins only had 6 such players but 5 were home grown. None had the season that Betts had although Berrios would have tied for second and Gibson tied for third). Having three former Cy Young starting pitchers on your roster and paying 100m to JD Martinez probably helps a team win 100 games. Give the Twins the resources that let the Red Sox do that - and they did that with massive payrolls over a period of years - and then the comparison works.

 

The Twins shouldn't be rebuilding. They were playoff competitive in two of the last four years but have had two "total system failures" in between. That's on the ML staff, not the development team. The FO has to figure out why the ML team is f'ing up but I think the pipeline people have done fine. They've had failures but they've had successes in all fields - pitchers/position players, early round/later round, big money signings/low value signings - and have pushed the guys multiple levels with regularity. Most of the problems are on Molitor and his staff. I don't know if they can fix it and would rather the FO found a new team to work on it. 

[bird]

 

I listed the age the guys made their significant ML appearance - I ignored Polanco's cup of coffee at 20, for instance. Buxton played in 46 games at 21. Sano came in third in ROY voting at 22. Rosario came in 6th at 23. Kepler played in 113 games at 23. Berrios made 14 starts at 22, etc. It's not misleading at all.

 

Second, Aaron Judge debuted at 25, Sanchez and Andujar at 23. Torres at 21. So that's not really different.

 

Lastly, yeah, the Yankees and Red Sox are better. Frankly, this argument has been boring for twenty plus years. Let the Twins spend a billion dollars on payroll over a five year period and see how that affects the team's ability to be competitive. It's ridiculous to say that because Servino signed for 225k, the Yankees and Twins were on the same level. The Yankees and Red Sox simply have more resources than the Twins and have used those resources smartly. For instance, the Red Sox got 2+ WAR from 10 players this year and they drafted/international signed only 4 of them (Betts, Bogarts, Bradley and Bennintendi). (Twins only had 6 such players but 5 were home grown. None had the season that Betts had although Berrios would have tied for second and Gibson tied for third). Having three former Cy Young starting pitchers on your roster and paying 100m to JD Martinez probably helps a team win 100 games. Give the Twins the resources that let the Red Sox do that - and they did that with massive payrolls over a period of years - and then the comparison works.

 

The Twins shouldn't be rebuilding. They were playoff competitive in two of the last four years but have had two "total system failures" in between. That's on the ML staff, not the development team. The FO has to figure out why the ML team is f'ing up but I think the pipeline people have done fine. They've had failures but they've had successes in all fields - pitchers/position players, early round/later round, big money signings/low value signings - and have pushed the guys multiple levels with regularity. Most of the problems are on Molitor and his staff. I don't know if they can fix it and would rather the FO found a new team to work on it. 

 

 

You provide a fact-filled rebuttal to a common and perpetual false narrative we see tirelessly promoted in these threads. It would be a breath of fresh air to see in-depth comparisons to other teams concerning complaints about either the judgment or the pace of advancement. Instead, we get familiar anecdotal arguments. And almost always, the examples involve the super-elite prospects.

 

Being more objective and fair doesn't excuse the occasional blunder. For example, selecting Jay instead of Benintendi. But when we put those blunders into context, we reach different conclusions about whether the talent evaluators, or even the development people, are a problem for this team or not.

 

Since Boston was mentioned: I looked at the selections the Twins and Boston made in the three years on either side of the Twin's colossal blunder of picking Jay and letting Boston have Benintendi in 2015.

 

In 2012, when after we selected Buxton, the Red Sox passed twice on Berrios and instead took Deven Marrero and Pat Light. Dumb dumb dumb.

 

Then in 2013, we screwed up and took Stewart, after which Boston screwed up worse and took Trey Ball. Both teams stupidly passed on Aaron Judge, Sean Manaea, Tim Anderson, Hunter Renfroe, Marco Gonzalez, and four others who so far have been more productive in MLB than either Stewart or Ball, who hasn't seen the MLB roster and may never see it. Dumb double dumb.

 

The points I'd make are that, first, talent and luck dictate the pace of advancement, not the quality of the development people so much. And second, while financial resources have historically been a source of massive friction for the Twins and a source of great benefit for the Yanks and Red Sox (take for example how cheating and blowing through the international spending cap gives the Yanks a talent pipeline almost unrivaled), those advantages are fewer.

 

I take heart in the fact that the organization has finally beefed up its baseball operations in a big way. The development people, and the talent evaluators, most of whom are holdovers, now have financial resources and technology and facilities and people they never had before.

 

No more excuses. They have financial muscle and are building up player assets. I feel hopeful we'll see evidence of this in Target Field sooner than a lot of people think, although the linchpins are still Sano and Buxton.

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by birdwatcher

[gunnarthor]

 

 

 

Being more objective and fair doesn't excuse the occasional blunder. For example, selecting Jay instead of Benintendi. But when we put those blunders into context, we reach different conclusions about whether the talent evaluators, or even the development people, are a problem for this team or not.

Yep. The Red Sox have actually had quite a few blunders themselves. If you look at mlbpipeline's list of top 100 guys, it included Allen Webster, Henry Owens, Barnes, Ranaudo, Cecchini, Ball, Swihart etc. Every single team misses. When you have additional resources - like $ - it helps cover those mistakes. Henry Owen and Allen Webster didn't turn into aces but they could go out and get Price and Sale instead so those mistakes don't hurt. Although the Red Sox do deserve credit for Betts, a 5th round pick, becoming Mike Trout. Wowza.

[Mike Sixel]

 

You provide a fact-filled rebuttal to a common and perpetual false narrative we see tirelessly promoted in these threads. It would be a breath of fresh air to see in-depth comparisons to other teams concerning complaints about either the judgment or the pace of advancement. Insrtead, we get these tiresome and all too familiar anecdotal arguments. 

 

Being more objective and fair doesn't excuse the occasional blunder. For example, selecting Jay instead of Benintendi. But when we put those blunders into context, we reach different conclusions about whether the talent evaluators, or even the development people, are a problem for this team or not.

 

Given the record over the last decade.....something isn't working. That seems pretty objective to me. In context, they've failed for some time. 

[gunnarthor]

 

Given the record over the last decade.....something isn't working. That seems pretty objective to me. In context, they've failed for some time. 

I think the failure is pretty clearly on the ML side of it though.

[ashbury]

Let me make my position a little more simple for you. A bad old veteran is no different than having a bad young player playing. 

Sure they are. That's why they have different words for it, "young" and "old". Let's leave out players with no actual hope - I don't support using them except as stopgaps (*cough*Motter*cough*). Players are always modifying their game, but the bad old veteran has very little room for actual improvement because his physical gifts are eroding, while the bad young player has a chance to work through the cause of the badness and maybe find that one last tweak that lets him be a productive contributor the next year. Also, (Moderator Note:) please leave out the condescending "for you" to the other poster.

[bird]

 

Given the record over the last decade.....something isn't working. That seems pretty objective to me. In context, they've failed for some time. 

 

 

True. They have failed at managing the assets, not at identifying and developing the assets through the minors so much. The previous regime was more of a "buy and hold" asset manager, was unaggressive (risk-averse?) and perhaps too sentimental even. We saw a lot of inaction, missed opportunities to move assets for decent returns, etc.

 

Let's give the new geniuses a chance to execute a more "traderly" philosophy and strategy when it comes to asset management. This winter may tell us a lot.

[Mike Sixel]

 

True. They have failed at managing the assets, not at identifying and developing the assets through the minors so much. The previous regime was more of a "buy and hold" asset manager, was unaggressive (risk-averse?) and perhaps too sentimental even. We saw a lot of inaction, missed opportunities to move assets for decent returns, etc.

 

Let's give the new geniuses a chance to execute a more "traderly" philosophy and strategy when it comes to asset management. This winter may tell us a lot.

 

Signing a 1b/dh only international FA, when they had the most (or third, can't recall) money.....bad decision. They had a run of :

 

Gordon, Jay, Stewart all in the top 10.....there is still hope for Gordon, and squinty hope for Stewart....I doubt Jay pitches one pitch for the Twins. Before Buxton, they had Levi Michael. That's 4 of 5 first round picks that are not so good yet......

 

But, they have to do better....much better. The last few drafts certainly look better than Jay or Stewart ever did....so that's good.

 

But I don't think it's true that they did a good job of identifying picks.....

[big dog]

 

bonus points for using the phrase "squinty hope" in a sentence!

[mlhouse]

 

You provide a fact-filled rebuttal to a common and perpetual false narrative we see tirelessly promoted in these threads. It would be a breath of fresh air to see in-depth comparisons to other teams concerning complaints about either the judgment or the pace of advancement. Instead, we get familiar anecdotal arguments. And almost always, the examples involve the super-elite prospects.

 

 

 

 

YOur opinion is fact-less.  The Twins have promoted their prospects in a much more conservative fashion than other organizations particularly when you consider what type of "mode" we are in (rebuilding v. competitive) and the quality of alternatives the Twins have as alternatives.  

 

Lets look at a player like Andrew Vasquez as an example.  He was a college draft pick in 2015 and started his draft year with the Rookie Gulf Coast Twins as a 21 year old.  This was, ERA wise, his worst season in the minors with a 2.92 ERA but a 16.1 K/9.   Then, as a 22 year old he started the season at Elizabethton, Adv Rookie, and finished at Cedar Rapids with a combined ERA of 1.41 and 12.0 K/9.

 

Since he was so successful, it really makes a lot of sense to the Twins managment to keep him at A ball for the 2017 season as a 23 year old.  Again, they moved him up to A+ in the second half, but again he had a combined ERA of 1.55 with 13.2 K/9.  

 

So, the Twins organization decides in 2018 that of course he has a career minor league ERA below 2 with more than 12 K/9, so we should keep the 24 year old prospect in A+ again.    They promoted him to AA and AAA within the season for a late season call up for the Twins.

 

While Vasquez is repeating levels despite significant success, the Twins gave innings to 38 year old Matt Belisle, 31 year old Oliver Drake in 2018 and in 2017 they used every waiver wire reject that major league baseball had to offer. 

 

This is the trend of the organization, fielding mediocre at best players who have no future with the team while they conservatively move their own prospects who should be getting the extended looks instead.  

[ashbury]

The Twins have promoted their prospects in a much more conservative fashion than other organizations particularly when you consider what type of "mode" we are in (rebuilding v. competitive) and the quality of alternatives the Twins have as alternatives. 

The rest of your post focused on Twins players. But what other organizations should the Twins be emulating? Because if you say we're much more conservative, it should be possible to point to several.

[mlhouse]

 

The rest of your post focused on Twins players. But what other organizations should the Twins be emulating? Because if you say we're much more conservative, it should be possible to point to several.

 

I am not sure that "emulating" another team is a necessary condition.  If I had to state something to emulate, and it will not be the first time, they should emulate the 1982 Twins.  You bring up Kent Hrbek, Tim Laudner, Gary Gaetti, Tom Brunansky, Lenny Faedo, Jim Eisenreich, Randy Johnson, Randy Bush, Frank Viola, and Brad Havens.   The ages of those players was 22, 24, 23, 21, 22, 23, 23, 23, 22, and 22.  You don't just bring them up until they strike out a couple of times or walk a couple of batters.  You hand them the ball and bats and let them play.  

Guess what, several of those players "weren't ready" to play major league baseball and several of them were also not good enough to play major league baseball. Your commitment to them isn't to keep them forever, but to totally evaluate them through an extensive period of "data collection".  And because of this, you are going to lose games. 

 

But, finding out who can play Hrbek, Gaetti, Brunanshy, Bush, Viola and who cannot Faedo, Johnson, Haven, and (unfortunately) Eisenreich means you can bring up alternatives like Greg Gagne and Kirby Puckett to replace them in an much more expedited manner.

 

In other words, if you move conservatively on Eisenreich or Faedo, Eisenreich promoted to MLB from A ball and Faedo from AA in 1982, and instead move them slower so they don't make the majors until 1983-1984 or even 1985, that means that the SUCCESSFUL prospects Greg Gagne or Kirby Puckett dont arrive until after that period. 

 

Then, after developing the core prospects of the team over a couple of years and seeing their competitiveness increase, you bring in veteran players like Roy Smalley, Dan Gladden, Bert Blyleven II, and Jeff Reardon to fill in the missing gaps. 

 

Our process seems like we are trying to fill in the gaps with players like Lance Lynn and Rodney before the core of the team has really fully developed.

 

So, to emulate the 1982 Twins, I bring up Kirillof, Gordon,  Lewis, Rooker, Romero, and Gonsalves along with guys like Wade mixed in with our younger players.  We lose 100 games, but we should see lots of progress from the players that will be part of the future and get information on the players that will not be part of the that future.

[yarnivek1972]

With an average age of 29.1, the Twins opening day roster was 8th oldest in MLB. In an era when other (GOOD) teams are getting younger.

[howieramone2]

 

The Jay pick was really awful. That’s not “unlucky.” That was a stretch, and not a good one.

It wasn't a stretch though. The week before the draft he was rated as high as 3rd. Any time you can find a lefty that throws 96-98 it's a no brainer to take him. It was unlucky he pitched less than 100 innings, in his first 3 seasons. 

[howieramone2]

 

The draft results are certainly underwhelming but i'm curious as to how that ranks with other organizations.  Are there rankings available based upon objective data as compared to some guy's subjective views? I'd be curious as to what we should expect and how far off of the norm the Twins have been. I suspect it's a long way, but I would be interested to know how far off the norm we are.

If two picks become contributors it is considered a successful draft. BA grades drafts.

[howieramone2]

 

With an average age of 29.1, the Twins opening day roster was 8th oldest in MLB. In an era when other (GOOD) teams are getting younger.

Early in the 2017 season, our Twins were the second youngest team in all of baseball, based on weighted playing time. It was posted right here.