Twins 2020 Rule 5 Rewind

Fantastic article, Seth!  Cool addition to the player analysis to see your late fall rankings.  While you would have protected Baddoo, you would have still lost Wells (and maybe Ober?).  Interesting question is whether the loss of Baddoo hurts worse than what would have been lost with Ober.  Close, but I say no, as the Twins need pitching.  Of course, with 20/20 hindsight, the 40-man contained several players you wish would have been removed or left unprotected to make room for all three of these.  

At the time Wells was the one that had me shaking my head. Starting pitcher of the year, big fastball, really good stuff and a huge frame at 6'8". C'mon man!

Great article, Seth, thanks.

It appears the perception of losing Baddoo is magnified by his play against the Twins as opposed to the rest of the league.  Soooo happy they didn’t lose Miranda, who just may be a future star.

Gonna be lots of tough decisions this November with so many marginal guys on the current 40-man, plus being way over with all the 60-day guys.

Wells was a bad decision on management's part because of his size, potential, and experience. Baddoo was a tougher call because of his inexperience and injury but his athleticism was important to evaluate.

"Unfortunately, the Twins lost two players who have been impactful for their new organizations. They were lucky not to lose Jose Miranda or Jovani Moran too. However, they did well in recognizing the need to protect Bailey Ober."

Going 1-for-5 wouldn't typically keep a player in the majors, so not sure why it would keep an executive in a major league FO.

Good article, but it certainly dredges up some 2021 pain ... and highlights my deep skepticism over whether these guys should be making these evaluations for our Twins moving forward.

This article adds to the complete failure of an off-season by the front office.  You almost couldn’t have as bad of a year if you were trying to fail.  Rule 5, free agency complete whiffs that made the team actually worse, no impactful trade, inability to sign young stars.  It couldn’t possibly be worse and historically has to be among the worst of all time.  Their ability to evaluate talent was just flat wrong on every level.

Really curious what move the FO makes this year.   I have had the feeling that the FO values the players they find more than the players they inherited. 

Would like to ask one question of everyone bellyaching about losing either of these guys.  Who on the 40-man roster would you have taken off to protect either or both of these players?  And in doing so there is a good ch ance they would be gone.

Roger hit on a point I was wanting to make. Unfortunately, the 40 man is an evaluation and guessing process that once in a while you are going to make mistakes with. It's basic math, a 25 man projected roster and only 15 more additions to protect.  And EVERY team has a few of those 15 spots filled by lower level players that you don't necessarily expect to play for you that year, but simply have to protect. Celestino would be an example this year.

I would have liked to protect both Badoo AND Wells. We all would, and so would have the Twins. But realistically, they seemed "safe" to not protect. Wells hadn't seen the field for 2years and neither had Badoo, more or less. And both were also coming off surgery. I don't know about you, but I was a bit surprised when they were selected and basically shocked when they were kept. I really expected both to struggle as young, inexperienced players and be returned to the Twins.

And you can't use revisionist thinking now to see someone like Smeltzer, for example, who would end up hurt and miss almost the entire season. Smeltzer, again as an example, was seen as a useful depth piece for a team expected to contend, vs protecting someone not expected to contribute after missing 2yrs.

I am not the least bit happy we lost Badoo and/or Wells. And we can say the FO blew it by not protecting either or both. But honestly, when is the last time you saw TWO rule 5 picks from a single team make the ML roster of a team and stick? And how many of you actually thought/predicted these two were going to do what they've done?

I am NOT defending the FO here, mostly because I'm not sure they need to be defended for all the reasons I've stated previously. But in a year in which so much has gone wrong it's way too easy to point an extra finger of frustration at the rule 5 and sound off "See?!"

For the record, I wouldn't have protected Badoo, no matter how talented being an A level prospect coming off injury and a lkst 2yrs. But I probably would have protected the older Wells who had reached AA. I think I would have gambled on health and projection that he might have been ready to contribute late in 2021.

Roger asked a good question about who you would have dropped off the 40 man roster to add Baddoo and Wells. The Twins could have dropped Nick Gordon and Jake Cave, There are other possibilities. Who believes Cave was indispensable? Gordon has done well, particularly in being able to play the outfield in addition to infield positions. Wasn’t Blankenhorn also on the 40 man roster? Would you rather have Wells or Gorden or Blankenhorn? Would you rather have 4th outfielder Cave or prospect Baddoo?

I know I would not have minded keeping Baddoo and Wells at the start of the season rather than Cave and either Blankenhorn or Gorden. One more name for you: would you rather have Wells or Smeltzer?  Give me Wells  based on higher talent potential. I love Smeltzer’s ability to overcome personal adversity, but there has not been a lot of success in MLB games. 
 

Yah, there were plenty of other choices. I would have kept Wells and likely not protected Baddoo, but there were 5-6 players that has less potential than either Wells or Baddoo .... Smeltzer, Thorpe, Blankenhorn to start.

Is there a rule limiting the number of players a team can lose? I think there used to be one, anyway. That might create a little strategy about who you choose to leave available, though I would have to think a bit to see how it might work.

3 hours ago, Twinsoholic said:

Roger asked a good question about who you would have dropped off the 40 man roster to add Baddoo and Wells. The Twins could have dropped Nick Gordon and Jake Cave, There are other possibilities. Who believes Cave was indispensable? Gordon has done well, particularly in being able to play the outfield in addition to infield positions. Wasn’t Blankenhorn also on the 40 man roster? Would you rather have Wells or Gorden or Blankenhorn? Would you rather have 4th outfielder Cave or prospect Baddoo?

I know I would not have minded keeping Baddoo and Wells at the start of the season rather than Cave and either Blankenhorn or Gorden. One more name for you: would you rather have Wells or Smeltzer?  Give me Wells  based on higher talent potential. I love Smeltzer’s ability to overcome personal adversity, but there has not been a lot of success in MLB games. 
 

Exactly. The front office clearly doesn't believe in Gordon long-term, so why is he on the 40-man when Baddoo and Wells aren't? And I know it's impossible to predict who will turn out to be good, but if you are filling those fringe roster spots with veteran placeholders and low-upside prospects who are close to the majors in order to maximize your chances of winning, you shouldn't be getting any excuses if you aren't even able to compete.

The difference between fans and the front office when it comes to roster construction is night and day. The front office gets paid to retain talent as it's one of their most important jobs. The roster crunch was a function of the front office itself, and losing Baddoo and Wells has been a big failure. Both Baddoo and Wells look like MLB caliber players right now and both have a chance to take another major step forward.

I understand why Falvey decided to gamble by leaving both of those players off the 40 man, but I'm not the one getting paid big money to manage the roster. Having Wells and Baddoo perform well enough over the course of a lost year isn't good, but it's not the end of the world. The back breaker is if the players take major steps forward, and both players have certainly flashed the stuff to do it.

When I recently learned that Roberto Clemente was a rule 5 pick by the Pirates, I didn't feel quite so bad about losing Baddoo.

I think in evaluating the 40 man roster decisions last winter we have to bear in mind that the Twins were expecting to be contenders. Window was wide open as they say, until it turned out to be totally shut. Either way, last winter the Front Office seemed to prioritize players who would be able to contribute right away, like Devin Smeltzer, over the players they saw as being a couple of years away, like Tyler Wells and Baddoo. It’s the same reason we have so many AAAA players at Saint Paul, we were looking for guys who could come up for a few games and potentially contribute rather than guys to develop because we were in the contention window.

Well, that evaluation turned out to be wrong. Now, we have to make the same evaluation again. Is this team going to contend in 2022 we should be playing for the long haul? I think it goes without saying that we should be playing for the long-haul given the state of our pitching staff. To me, that means he made 40 man decisions based upon long-term prospects without considering the short term. Guys like Jake Cave, Astudillo, Lewis Thorpe, Devin Smeltzer, Luke Farrell, Nick Vincent, etc. are not protected so that you can keep the guys you consider to be the better long term prospects. Next year is more of a development year where who knows, maybe we get lucky and contend, not a year we expect to contend. Hopefully the Front Office sees it the same way and makes 40 man decisions accordingly.

First, the Twins thought they were going to be competitive, so they went after some minor league free agent bullpen arms as possible reclamation projects. Instead, they should've kept Wells, but in all likelihood felt he was going to start in the minors and that no team would open the season with him.

Same could be said for Baddoo. He was behind like six outfielders. Even Celestino was considered ahead of him for advancement to the majors and Celestino only made the jump beause of so many injuries. That the Twins ended up with Refsnyder and Garlick as replacements for Rosario for a good aprt of the year, because Larnach needed much more seasoning and Kirilloff went down. The Twins would've started Baddoo at AA ball.

The killer for the Twins is that they watched three pitchers: Colina, Balazovic and Duran. All three sit on the 40-man and out for part or all of the season. All considered possible contributors to 2021. Now we wonder if and when they will contribute in 2022. Doubt any of the three will open the season on the roster. 

The joys of baseball is that you have to make hard decisions. Yes, the Twins made some hard decisions, but, again, they were thinking of being in play in the division and could only allow x-amount of spots for unproven rookie talent.

If they knew they would lose, perhaps 90-games, they might've taken a different trak. Be interesting to see what this off-season brings.

Wells and Baddoo were both MIA the last 2 seasons.  I get why they were left off.  Between the 2 I would have protected Wells if he was throwing mid 90s before the decision had to be made.  but its not like these two players will end up being as good and  Shane Mack and Johan Santana.  The Twins have a history of doing well in the rule 5 draft.  It figures we would get hit sometime.