Twins Daily 2021 Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year: Louie Varland

Congrats, Louie!  Great to see this from one of Minnesota's own!

I have a feeling it won't be long until we see him on the big stage.

A year ago Jose Miranda wasn't added to the 40-man and exposed to the Rule 5 draft.  Earlier this week, he was named Minor League Hitter of the Year with many of us wondering why he isn't in a Twins uni tonight.  

A year ago Louie Varland had just completed his summer of doing nothing (I know he probably worked his tail off, but didn't play in a single game) and left wondering what his future would be.  Today he is named the Minor League Pitcher of the Year after an astonishing season.  Will he become the best player to ever have played for Lunch McKensie at Concordia?

Yes, I understand that Josh Winder's season was cut short by the line drive and shoulder problem.  But looking at his numbers, he is the only pitcher in this group of a dozen pitchers with a sub 1.00 WHIP...and he did it at AA/AAA.  Furthermore, his K:BB ratio of more than 6:1 is better than all of them, except Albers, and much better than most.  I know if I were voting on this honor, after seeing several of his games at Wichita and that first gem in St. Paul, he would be at the top of my list.

When next year's Players of the Year are announced will we also be surprised that they will have seemed to come out of nowhere?  

1. Varland
2. Sands
3. Winder
4. Balazovic
5. Canterino
6. Gipson-Long

41 minutes ago, Matt Braun said:

For transparency sake, I'll post my ballot and explain it here.

1. Louie Varland

Not much to say here. He was easily the best starting pitcher in the system by most  important metrics.

2. Sawyer Gipson-Long

I don't look at ERA at all these days. I don't care about what a guy has done, but rather what he is likely to do in the future. These are prospects after all. Gipson-Long had the second highest K-BB% in the system for a starter (25.6), and also threw 97 innings. That means a lot in my book, so he received my second place pick.

3. Ben Gross

Gross is quite similar to Gipson-Long. He also had a phenomenal K-BB% (21.8) while tossing 95 1/3 innings (if you couldn't tell, I greatly value how many innings a pitcher threw). His overall peripherals are not as good as Gipson-Long, but they were good enough to nab 3rd place for me.

4. Andrew Albers

Andrew Albers walked 2.7% of hitters in 2021. 2.7! That was too absurd to overlook. He was not one to strike out many, of course, but, again, he pitched 96 innings in the minors with a respectable WHIP. That kind of workload is sometimes difficult to find among minor league starters.

5. Jordan Balazovic

These last two spots were nearly impossible for me to choose and I actually almost left Balazovic off of the list. His peripherals were actually fairly mediocre for his standards (3.91 FIP, 4.28 xFIP), but those 97 innings stuck out to me; especially considering that he started the season on the IL. I'm not married to this placement and I could easily be argued into choosing Cole Sands or someone else for these spots, though.

6. Josh Winder

This was the one time I strayed from my love of innings. Winder "only" had 72 innings but was just so dominant in those innings (24.4 K-BB%), that I gave him the nod for the last spot. Is that hypocritical? Maybe. But I don't care. 

I need some help, Matt.  For the life of me, I don't understand how your K-BB% is calculated and what it means.  For example: Winder had 13BB and 80 K, which you state is a 24.4 K-BB%.  Gipson-Long had 27BB  and 137K, which you indicate was 25.6 K-BB%.  I guess I don't understand how this is calculated as they are almost identical, yet, Winder struck out 2 more than 6x as many as he walked with Gipson-Long striking out 2 more than 5x.  To my old 'California math', Winder would have a better strike out percentage, albeit in less innings.  And both were substantially better than both Sands and Balazovic.

28 minutes ago, Matt Braun said:

You're comparing solely strikeouts and walks to each other instead of considering all that a pitcher can allow.

Winder had 80 strikeouts and 13 walks, yes. But he allowed other things as well; singles, homers, groundouts, you name it. K-BB% includes all of this instead of just pitting strikeouts and walks against each other. Say a pitcher strikes out two batters in an inning, walks another, and in total, faces six hitters. If you calculated it by comparing the strikeouts to the walk, he would be at 66%. If you calculated by including all outcomes (the six batters faced), he would be at 16.7%. In a way, you can think of K-BB% as considering strikeouts along with a pitchers WHIP. Giving up more hits and walks takes away opportunities for strikeouts. 

Thanks Matt.  In your one inning example, the strikeouts were 33.3% and the walks 16.67%, with a difference of 16.67%.  So the percentage you referred to is the difference?  In the case of Winder, his strikeouts were 24.4% higher than the walks based on all hitters faced?

Well deserved! And probably an easy choice with how well he threw this year.

Just a few comments/observations:

1] Take a moment to look at the numbers for all 6 guys again like I did. Sure, a WHiP or two is a little higher than we'd like, Gipson-Long's ERA is a little high but was inflated by some early bad performances, but the overall numbers for each guy are quality, and the K's are definitely there!

2] Realize this impressive list doesn't even include Duran, Canterino or Enlow, filled with potential but injury plagued in 2021. Further, for various reasons, there is no Ober, Ryan or any other of the arms recently acquired with real talent. Kind of makes you excited for the next few years doesn't it?

3] The 2020 draft was what it was, short and no opportunity for anyone to play. Unless I'm mistaken, 5 of the 6 listed here were 2018-2019 draft choices. Despite limited milb experience, and a lost 2020, there is some aggressive promotion taking place here and, apparently, some good drafting taking place.

I am very excited about the arms in the system in a way I haven't been for YEARS!

Varland is a feel-good story to be sure. However, he was 1.1 years over average age in Florida, and only 0.3 below average age in Cedar Rapids. In fact he's almost a year older than Balazovic, who was competing in AA, at -2.7 years younger than average. JB is a full year younger than teammate Sands, nearly a year younger than Gipson-Long.

I suppose this award is a pure comparison of raw numbers, and so Varland is deserving. However more than holding your own against significantly older competition is as impressive to me, especially at AA.

Age is a factor but not the whole enchilada. There are so many variables. All you have to do is look at Nelson Cruz' career.

Heck of a year for Varland. When they drafted him I never saw him as a starter just strictly a reliever.  His numbers at Concordia didn't exactly jump off the page as dominant and his first taste of pro ball was short and nothing special.  He didn't let 2020 go to waste though and worked hard to refine his stuff and capture this award.  Have to say I didn't see him being even close to this dominant especially his first year in pro ball.

Happy the Twins found this guy and hope he continues to improve as he moves up. You just can't pitch much better than he did this year.  He has to be happy with his season.  Thanks Louie for being fun to watch every time out this year in a year where lot's of pitchers went down.  I hope your hard work leads to your dream of playing MLB.

9 hours ago, Monkeypaws said:

Varland is a feel-good story to be sure. However, he was 1.1 years over average age in Florida, and only 0.3 below average age in Cedar Rapids. In fact he's almost a year older than Balazovic, who was competing in AA, at -2.7 years younger than average. JB is a full year younger than teammate Sands, nearly a year younger than Gipson-Long.

I suppose this award is a pure comparison of raw numbers, and so Varland is deserving. However more than holding your own against significantly older competition is as impressive to me, especially at AA.

The award is not about best prospect, but about the best numbers overall.  The award is not saying Varland is the best pitching prospect but stating he put up the best pitching over the year.  The fact he is older than others does raise the fact he is not a top prospect, as prospect rankings take age and projection into account.  

Maybe Varland climbs system quickly next year, or maybe he just sits in the minors, only time will tell.  I do not think anyone is suggesting he should be number 1 pitching prospect for team, but he is a name that was not high on prospect list but may be rising now that he actually got a full season of pro ball.  

Surprised to not see Matt Canterino somewhere on the list. He was incredible before getting shut down. 

Varland is a fine choice, i think. He's had an excellent and healthy year, making him the rare Twins pitcher to hit that double. Sands was equally good at a higher level, but I think it's fair to ding him a little for the lack of innings pitched; Varland only got one more start but threw 20 more innings. That's a fair delineator, IMHO.

The winners of this award show it's not easy to translate minor league success into MLB prosperity, though. Stephen Gonsalves only made the majors this year because the BoSox had a huge run of injuries/covid problems; he didn't make it on merit. Hermsen was out of baseball 2 years after winning the award.

Didn't enjoy being reminded of Tyler Wells, though. Would rather see him pitching for the twins right now than Charlie Barnes, frankly. But I do understand why the Twins exposed him in the Rule 5: didn't pitch in 2019 at all and only had 6 games above A-ball when the O's took him...you'd hope someone would take a pass. But that's the reality on Rule 5: bad teams can grab a guy like that and throw him in the bullpen for a year and hope. twins are going to have several of those tough calls again this year.

Twins ending season with rotation of Pineda, Ryan, Gant, Jax, and Barnes. Can't say the pitchers on this list are blocked from advancing due to loaded rotation at MLB. Hope some of them get a chance next year.