A Look Back: The 2012 Draft

[Dance with Disco Dan]

I was convinced that Houston would take the local boy, Appel, and I recall really hoping that the Twins would take Correa if that happened. I'd recently read a really well done feature about Correa and his all-baseball-all-the-time life in P.R. and decided that: (1) he was more of a sure thing than Buxton (who had played comparatively little baseball and against inferior competition) and (2) he had a higher ceiling than the remaining pitchers.

 

When Houston's deal with Correa was announced, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of getting Appel. Then, almost immediately, there were reports that Appel wanted more than slot from the Twins. Given that he had Boras as his agent, the reports had to be taken seriously. So, I immediately jumped ship on Appel and climbed aboard the S.S. Buxton. Happily, T.R. picked him and I've been enjoying everything about the Buxton experience. I will say, however, if we had Correa in our system because Houston had taken Buxton, there'd still be a lot to be excited about.

[bird]

It seems to me that almost every year (except 2014!) is labeled as a "weak draft". Perhaps to deflect blame for a team for "drilling dry holes". Generally overlooked is how well a team developed their players. The metric isn't very good because we would never know what would have happened if a guy went to a different team.

 

Describing drafts as weak to deflect blame would make sense if the people decribing the draft as weak or strong were employed by the teams. Instead, the opinions that matter are coming from fairly objective sources.

[twinsfan34]

I wanted Buxton. Had read numerous articles on him, then the SI article. I was hooked. I thought Appel would go #1 - it didn't even seem (to me) like there was any other way to look at it. Correa was a surprise. So for me, I didn't have anyone outside of Appel and Buxton for the Twins pick. But I was worried about the sign-ability of Appel. I was just hoping for days prior the Twins would get Buxton, and they did.

 

Luis Giolito and Andrew Heaney were sorta interesting, but still was only hoping for Buxton.

 

I typically like HS pitchers to college pitchers. For me, college pitchers, you pretty much know what you're going to get. They're more likely to make the pros and be average. They'd have 3-4 more years of development (entire minor league career) and I don't see a whole lot of change coming from them. If the guy has struggled with command another 3+ years in college, why will rookie league and A-ball correct that? I just don't like losing those 3 years to college when I could have had them in my system.

 

For the 2014 MLB Draft: I'd take Rodon #1 this year....and I'd consider Aaron Nola at #5 for the Twins. Not a fan of Hoffman, he doesn't miss bats, but he sure misses the strike zone. Beede? Maybe.

 

The others I'd watch closely leading up to the June draft are: Tyler Koleck, Trea Turner, Sean Newcomb, Touki Toussaint, Kyle Schwarber, and Braxton Davidson.

[Kwak]

I was convinced that Houston would take the local boy, Appel, and I recall really hoping that the Twins would take Correa if that happened. I'd recently read a really well done feature about Correa and his all-baseball-all-the-time life in P.R. and decided that: (1) he was more of a sure thing than Buxton (who had played comparatively little baseball and against inferior competition) and (2) he had a higher ceiling than the remaining pitchers.

 

When Houston's deal with Correa was announced, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of getting Appel. Then, almost immediately, there were reports that Appel wanted more than slot from the Twins. Given that he had Boras as his agent, the reports had to be taken seriously. So, I immediately jumped ship on Appel and climbed aboard the S.S. Buxton. Happily, T.R. picked him and I've been enjoying everything about the Buxton experience. I will say, however, if we had Correa in our system because Houston had taken Buxton, there'd still be a lot to be excited about.

 

If the twins had selected Correa (hypothetically of course) we: would have been singig his praises just as loud as is done today with Buxton; not be woried at allwho plays SS this year; probably kept Ben Revere; and Hicks spending most of 2013 in Rochester.

[Thrylos]

To put that draft in perspective: At that point the Twins had Span as their established CF, Ben Revere a rookie in the majors and Arcia, Rosario, Hicks and Benson as their number 2-5 prospects (in various orders in various lists) behind Sano. Their real SP prospects were Gibson and Gibson alone. The last thing I wanted was another OF. I wanted pitching. On the other hand, the Twins got rid of 3 of those 6 OFs, trading 2 for SP and everything worked alright...

[oldguy10]

Thrylos, that is a huge assumption I think when you say everything worked alright....We need much more of an explanation than that I believe. Jury is still out on some of these moves as being decent or not.

[Thrylos]

Thrylos, that is a huge assumption I think when you say everything worked alright....We need much more of an explanation than that I believe. Jury is still out on some of these moves as being decent or not.

 

My comment was entirely on the prospect side. At the time of the draft, the Twins had 4 OFs as top 10 prospects and a young rookie OF. The only top 10 SP prospect was Gibson, and that is why I wanted them to go after pitching.

 

Fast forward a season, and with the trades (and the 2013 draft) now the Twins have a better balance of top prospect (or young MLB) talent between OF and SP. In that respect (which was the point I wanted to make) it worked alright...

[Brandon]

I figured we would get either Corriea or Buxton. I figured Appel would go 1rst to local team. I figured either one was fine for me. I did want Corriea though because he was a SS. I don't worry too much about pitching. I expected the Twins would deal with it soon enough and they did with their next pick in Berrios, trade for Meyer, May and Subulban and Gilmartin.., International league Thorpe, next draft Stewart.... and then major league free agent signings. we actually almost have an embarrassment of pitching riches. Our bullpen is overloaded with pitchers. You can never have too much pitching though as i'm sure we will continue to collect pitching prospects.

 

All said I was happy with the Buxton pick. I just didn't want to see the Twins draft a player that was rated 9th best across the board by scouts and writers and such to save money

[Jim Crikket]

It was hard, at the time, to look at all the OFs in the pipeline and the almost total lack of top-half of the rotation SPs and not be inclined to want to see some pitching help drafted.

 

Just for kicks, I went back and looked at a couple of the pre-draft threads and they were entertaining anyway.

 

I'm a "Best Player Available" proponent, but yes I think most of us wished the BPA in 2012 would have been a SP. I think a lot of people forget that Appel's stock dropped because he wasn't having a terrific junior season, yet Boras was making noise that he was going to demand over-slot money. It wouldn't have made any sense for the Twins to bite on that combination.

 

If nothing else, the 2012 draft and the trades that came later serve as a reminder that the draft, in and of itself, is not the only way to fill your organization's needs. The combination of the BPA draft of Buxton and the subsequent trades of OFs for Meyer and May brought balance to the Twins top prospect list. I don't think many would prefer to have Span, Revere and any of the pitchers available in the 2012 draft now over Meyer, May and Buxton.

[gunnarthor]

I was on the Buxton bandwagon. Goldstein at BP had a Q/A chat where someone asked him what the Twins should do and he responded "Hope the Astros pass on Buxton." The SI article was nice - I actually posted a link to it that led to some really intense discussions here. But I just thought that he was too good of a talent to pass on for (in my view) some questionable pitchers.

[30whales]

I really wanted Correa the most. I fell in love with him probably a week or two prior to the draft but never thought we would "reach" and pick him at #2. When the Astros ended up picking him I was shocked (as were most) and was then just hoping that they wouldn't draft a pitcher just because they needed one. I was fairly high on Buxton too so at that time I wanted the Twins to pick him but Correa was my top choice. I was scared off by Buxton only because of people talking about how he was old for his class and didn't have any competition. Once they drafted Buxton, I remember watching MLB Network interview him live and he seemed really disappointed to be drafted by the Twins so I was kind of scared off by that at that time too.

[InfraRen]

I was pulling HARD for Buxton and literally jumped off my couch when the Stros took Correa. Then, I was terrified that we were going to pass on him. I stood up and was 2 feet away from my TV when they announced the pick and fist pumped so hard I might have popped a vein or two when they announced BB as the pick.

 

As to why? I just had read far too many scouting reports talking about his ceiling and his speed and his overall projectability that I thought it was worth taking a shot on the guy with the potential to easily be the best in the draft. Teams have been bitten in the ace many times trying to take a "safe" pick, so why not swing for the fences on a guy with by far the most potential? So glad he's a Twin.

[tobi0040]

I was pulling HARD for Buxton and literally jumped off my couch when the Stros took Correa. Then, I was terrified that we were going to pass on him. I stood up and was 2 feet away from my TV when they announced the pick and fist pumped so hard I might have popped a vein or two when they announced BB as the pick.

 

As to why? I just had read far too many scouting reports talking about his ceiling and his speed and his overall projectability that I thought it was worth taking a shot on the guy with the potential to easily be the best in the draft. Teams have been bitten in the ace many times trying to take a "safe" pick, so why not swing for the fences on a guy with by far the most potential? So glad he's a Twin.

 

I think we would all take Buxton in a re-draft scenario right now. But I do think it is still early to say we for sure got the best player and those of us that wanted Appel were "wrong".

 

If Appel turns out to be an ace for 10 years, I think I would take that over Buxton, even if Buxton is a 30-30 guy in CF. I say that because we are always going to struggle to pay top tier free agent pichers to come here and you need pitching to win.

 

Look at some of the teams Texas had had in the past, 5+ all star caliber guys in their lineup and they could not sniff .500 with a poor pitching staff.