Do the Twins Have a Self-Scouting Issue?

I said it at the time, and will say it again. The ability to make contact and get on base needs to become a higher priority for the Twins. Yes, it's nice to hit home runs like the big boys, but contact is the irreplaceable offensive skill

I don't think Baddoo and Wade are self-scouting errors; Baddoo did not seem like he would be taken in the Rule 5 draft due to his numbers in the minors and injury history, and there was only so much room on the 40 man. Wade was superfluous as yet another lefty who would be stretching it in CF, so with Kepler/Cave/Kirilloff/Larnach/Arraez on the team, trading him was logical, but they failed to fix the pitcher they got in return.

This FO does seem to have an issue with self-scouting their pitchers. While they could have tried out Nick Anderson, they were busy rummaging through DFA guys like Matt Belisle and  Oliver Drake. They too often try to get their older waiver wire relievers to become reliable options when they could be trying out arms in the minor league system. They also have not shown willingness to go out and acquire arms via trade very often, with Maeda as their only successful veteran acquisition via trade (Romo was more of a minor success). If we're going to go on a World Series run, we'll need a great bullpen, and that's not going to be built via scrap heap pickups. Sure, you'll find a gem every once in a while like Brandon Workman for the Red Sox, but most of the time they will need to spend in FA/trades and develop some minor league arms.

The Twins FO doesn't need me to defend them. And I won't. But hindsight 20/20 is very easy to blame.

The Twins spent a couple roster spots on "pitching help" for the 2021 season for a team that was supposed to contend and they wanted depth. Smart!

They left Badoo off the 40 man roster,young and coming off missed time. Who honestly expected him to be drafted and kept and actually perform well? Go buy a lottery ticket if you can say yes.

I liked Wade a lot. I wanted to keep him. I thought be brought some potential and skill set the Twins were lacking. But when I had to compare a more experienced LH OF with better numbers and more experience, I had to go with Cave when the trade was made, 

Anderson I have no comment on at this time, sorry, without digging in to the ML and milb rosters 2yrs ago.

I HATED losing a low level, talented prospect like Badoo. 

I'm OK losing a 4th OF prospect.

I'm OK losing a journeyman RP, except, young enough and stats enough to tell me the FO didn't look close enough and probably protected someone not as good.

Very few teams would have protected Baddoo, we just got screwed on that one. Period!

But with a serious 40 man crunch coming forward, they are going to have to make 5-7 really tough choices. Is that a bad thing? It means the Twins have enough young talent to allow for such tough choices. Let's hope we're smart enough to make the RIGHT choices!

The twins front office has made a number of mistakes on the edges of the 40 man roster (Zack Littell is another example), but I'm not sure they are worse than the majority of teams in the league. 

The mistakes that frustrate me the most are the trades of Luis Gil and Huscar Ynoa. Trading them for Jake Cave and 1 game of Jaime Garcia were blunders that are looking pretty bad today.

Tyler Wells is looking pretty solid for Baltimore this year as well...

5 hours ago, twins_89 said:

The twins front office has made a number of mistakes on the edges of the 40 man roster (Zack Littell is another example), but I'm not sure they are worse than the majority of teams in the league. 

The mistakes that frustrate me the most are the trades of Luis Gil and Huscar Ynoa. Trading them for Jake Cave and 1 game of Jaime Garcia were blunders that are looking pretty bad today.

6 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

Thoughts on Baddoo are above. I enjoy(ed) chatting with him and all knew his talent. Still no problem with taking that risk that he wouldn't stick. 

I really, really like Wade. I like his style of player, but with Buxton and Kepler there, and Kirilloff, Larnach and Rooker coming, I definitely understand trading from excess to add at a position of need. And then Jake Cave vs LaMonte Wade chat was again understandable. I liked Wade a little more, but I also think Cave was pretty good for two years as a fourth outfielder. He got overexposed earlier this year and obviously was playing hurt. 

Nick Anderson was absolutely a miss. I don't think any of us understood that move at that time. But... if we're being fair, we also would have added Jake Reed to the 40 man roster on several occasions. 

I didn't understand that Zack Littell decision as well. But we also didn't understand the decision not to bring back Matt Wisler. 

Luis Gil is exciting, but when you're in the process of trying to win, that's the type of deal that happens. You get a guy who helps you for 3-4 years in a role for a guy who, we knew threw upper-90s, but hadn't pitched above the DSL. Hard to get upset about that one. 

I have to disagree regarding Luis Gil. Cave wass DFA'D by the Yankees and the Twins decided to jump the waiver wire by offering Gil for Cave. While that would be defensible if Cave worked out I'm worried about his drop-off the past couple years and the seriousness of his recent injury. I remember reading at fangraphs they were surprised the Twins chose to trade something to acquire him.

Since it was skipped it is worth mentioning that Ynoa wasn't a great find by Atlanta but pure luck. They wanted J.T. Chargois but medical stopped it so they ended up with Ynoa as a last moment replacement. Nobody was banging the table for him for Atlanta. Still a whiff on our end. 

An alternative way of looking at the question is have the Twins gotten value for the glut of outfielders they have in their system.  The answer is clearly no. 

Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson could be added to this conversation as well although I don’t know if either would have resigned and Lynn had the worst season of his career with the Twins. 
 

The discussion on which players to protect has to be viewed in the context of whether or not a team is a contender. When not contending, Baddoo would have been kept over Cave.  Hindsight is a wonderful lens into the world. 
 

Was Baddoo available to be put on the alternative site in 2020.  That was their opportunity to evaluate Baddoo’s readiness. Aaron Whitefield was on the taxi squad. 

Celestino has been on 40 man roster for two years.  But he looks way overmatched.  What was the criteria for keeping Celestino over Baddoo.  Baddoo is a currently a slightly below average defender and maybe doesn’t profile as a true center fielder.   

They have an issue.

I think they have chosen to go with veterans than trusting their own prospects. Individually the moves can all be explained. 

Cave over Wade. The assessment had to be that Cave was the better backup CF (my eyes don’t see it but analytics support it).

Celestino over Baddoo. Keeping both on the 40 man is a challenge when the spots are so valuable on a team that believes the contending window is open. Center field won out here. 

Gil and Ynoa. I think it comes down to the same thought that they would need to be on the 40 long before they would trust them to help in the major leagues. I don’t think Gil had ever even made a Seth Stoh’s prospect handbook when he had been traded.

I get that the window looks to be opening in 2017 and certainly appeared wide open in 2019-2020. The window has closed. They need to make decisions betting on the long term futures of guys like Baddoo and Gil rather the short term need of a bullpen arm or bench bat.

10 hours ago, Danchat said:

I don't think Baddoo and Wade are self-scouting errors; Baddoo did not seem like he would be taken in the Rule 5 draft due to his numbers in the minors and injury history, and there was only so much room on the 40 man. Wade was superfluous as yet another lefty who would be stretching it in CF, so with Kepler/Cave/Kirilloff/Larnach/Arraez on the team, trading him was logical, but they failed to fix the pitcher they got in return.

This FO does seem to have an issue with self-scouting their pitchers. While they could have tried out Nick Anderson, they were busy rummaging through DFA guys like Matt Belisle and  Oliver Drake. They too often try to get their older waiver wire relievers to become reliable options when they could be trying out arms in the minor league system. They also have not shown willingness to go out and acquire arms via trade very often, with Maeda as their only successful veteran acquisition via trade (Romo was more of a minor success). If we're going to go on a World Series run, we'll need a great bullpen, and that's not going to be built via scrap heap pickups. Sure, you'll find a gem every once in a while like Brandon Workman for the Red Sox, but most of the time they will need to spend in FA/trades and develop some minor league arms.

You are correct, in my view, in all your assessments.

But regarding major FA trades --- I don't think it is simply characteristic of this current FO....I think it is characteristic of all the Twins FOs since Calvin Griffith. But -- We shouldn't just label only the Twins this way.....unless a mid-market team is making an obvious run at a World Series....they all do these things [no major FA trades, etc...].

Tampa Bay is the only clear exception at making it work as a cheapo. Love those guys. Oakland may be the other.

Baseball has to fix its team payroll imbalance issue. 

3 hours ago, Eris said:

An alternative way of looking at the question is have the Twins gotten value for the glut of outfielders they have in their system.  The answer is clearly no. 

Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson could be added to this conversation as well although I don’t know if either would have resigned and Lynn had the worst season of his career with the Twins. 
 

The discussion on which players to protect has to be viewed in the context of whether or not a team is a contender. When not contending, Baddoo would have been kept over Cave.  Hindsight is a wonderful lens into the world. 
 

Was Baddoo available to be put on the alternative site in 2020.  That was their opportunity to evaluate Baddoo’s readiness. Aaron Whitefield was on the taxi squad. 

Celestino has been on 40 man roster for two years.  But he looks way overmatched.  What was the criteria for keeping Celestino over Baddoo.  Baddoo is a currently a slightly below average defender and maybe doesn’t profile as a true center fielder.   

 

I think right now, as much as I still like Celestino’s future, that Whitefield’s speed and bat would better serve the Twins now. At least they should try it but have apparently decided not to.

I think we're suffering from some recency bias here, and also dismissing some of the circumstances that have amplified the departures of these players.

Baddoo was a Rule 5 gamble due to his injury history and the fact he had never played above High-A. The Twins most likely were never going to call him up to the majors this year unless he put together some dominant numbers on the farm, and even then, he was buried on the depth chart. 

Wade was the 5th or 6th outfielder on the 40-man roster, and his lefthanded bat was superfluous with Kepler, Cave, Larnach, and Kirilloff ahead of him or likely to pass him on the depth chart. His absence is being amplified because of injuries to the entire starting outfield this season. (Okay, maybe Buxton's was "predictable," but Kepler's and Cave's were less expected.) He'd absolutely be nice to have now, but he was easily an extraneous outfield piece when the trade first occurred. 

For what it's worth, I think it was Thad Levine that did admit after Anderson's rookie season that the Twins improperly evaluated him. I find that frustrating because he was so dominant in the minor leagues, yet they didn't give him a chance in the majors. 

Through Falvey's and Levine's tenure in the front office, I feel they've mainly jettisoned intriguing minor league relief pitchers (Burdi, Reed, Anderson, etc.) with varying results. I would say this is my biggest concern with their talent evaluation. 

No MLB front office is ever going to have a perfect record with these kinds of things.

I'm open to the idea that the Twins have more misses than most, but I haven't seen any actual evidence to that effect, three examples of misses doesn't prove anything. I'm open to the idea that these were mistakes when the Twins made them, but I don't see a lot of evidence of that either. Hindsight is 20/20, were people castigating the Twins for leaving Badoo unprotected at the time? For trading Wade? 

I've wondered if the constant train of 4A arms seemingly signed to 'see what they've got' shouldn't be better vetted by scouts.  Maybe our scouts are optimistic, maybe the organization is only playing the numbers game and hopes 10% can be coached up.  

Let's be honest, the Twins didn't outscout or trick anyone with the Maeda deal.  Maeda's contract is what had the FO salivating. $3M a year? For how many years? His ERA could have been 5+ and he would have still been on his way here.

Great article.  The obsession this FO has with Jake Cave is mind-boggling.   Protecting Cave over Wade was just one of the many errors that have surrounded the decision making process regarding playing time and protecting Cave.   It was clear that this was a poor decision on Day one regarding Wade.    The pitching errors are dreadful as well.   To continue to protect older AAAA relievers over younger prospects is borderline criminal.  

10 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

The Twins obstinately stick to their method.  If a player sticks out for being well or for being terrible, they stick with their method rather than make a change.

Imagine if Kent Hrbek or Bert Blyleven had been forced to spend the obligatory years in AAA.   Imagine if Viola had been forced to start in A (or lower) or Puckett had been forced to toil through AA.  Not all players are the same.

Look at how many years Kepler spent in the minors, in spite of dominating there.  The Twins did not call him up to the majors until they had no other option, all during years where the team was starving for outfield defense.  And once Kepler was up, the Twins dug their claws into him and gave him a long contract even though he is no superstar.  Kepler illustrates the Twins method perfectly.

Kepler came up from AA as a September call up. The next season he started in AAA in service time manipulation. He has been up ever since. That all happened under Antony and Ryan running the show. That has nothing to do with the current front office. His contract is generous, but fair for a solid player

Of the three players listed, I would say the only big miss was Anderson.  The other two we do not really know yet how bad it may have been.  Yes, Cave had terrible start on on 60-day, but you never make plans saying well this guy will get put on 60 day DL.  If they knew that of course they cut him and keep Wade.  Wade is doing pretty much as expected, it just turns out it was wrong call between the two, but not like at the time people were crying terrible decision. 

With Badoo I still say wait and see.  Many rookies are flashes in the pan, not sayin he will be, but he was several spots down the depth chart on OF, and it was not expected a team would take him in rule 5 this year because his low numbers.  Detroit said worth the risk and it may pay off for them.  Again, he was not listed as a top prospect by any place, so if we missed on him on self-scouting so did every national scouting group for years, and every team that passed on him in draft. 

You could even spin it to say we did such a good job of scouting that we took him and we had too many good people to choose from.  I am sure if it was a 45 man roster or maybe even a 42 Badoo would have made it.