How The Twins Drafts Stack Up

Vanimal46 · December 13, 2016

I'm glad the Twins are more active in the DR and Venezuela the last 5-6 years but that was at least a decade too late. Where were they in the late 80's and 90's when the league first started bursting with Latin talent? I'm also glad the Twins have signed some high upside international guys recently but we can't pretend that they are doing all that they can when half of the league was blowing past their draft allotment and made raids on the market. For a team that has been a bottom feeder the last half decade, they should have been doing everything they could to get prospects including going over budget, they absolutely did not do everything they could.

That's history now though, the team has new leadership and hopefully less restrictions. We don't need to dwell on past failures if they actively try to rectify them, it doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that these areas used to be past failures though.

Concur. It certainly would have helped restock the farm system if they played by the same rules as half the teams in the league and went over the bonus pool allotment.

Han Joelo · December 13, 2016

Interesting look. Thanks, Seth. Just one piece of the puzzle, of course, and there is just a lot of noise to wade through, which then leads to all sorts of ways to perceive this.

I don't really care how the Twins ultimately rate, at least I'm not going to parse whether they were "Average" or "Slightly Below Average." Way too much luck involved. I'd have to see the actual draft boards of all those teams to make a judgment -- I.e would the Mariners have taken Hultzen over Cole if the picks were flopped? Where did all of those teams that picked right after the Twins have Gordon on their boards? Like Seth points out, according to the revered Klaw, the Michael pick was a 15 pick steal.

I'd say about the only pick you could say "great choice" is the Correa over Buxton pick, and the jury is still out on that one.

Mike Sixel · December 13, 2016

Concur. It certainly would have helped restock the farm system if they played by the same rules as half the teams in the league and went over the bonus pool allotment.

And not all those teams were big market teams...

Seth Stohs · December 13, 2016

The later round unsigned picks are primarily the problem, Seth -- team don't necessarily have any real ability (or realistic intent) to sign such players. Teams shouldn't get credit for those picks. The round in which the Twins picked George Springer doesn't even exist anymore.

I'm not picking on the Twins for this, just pointing out that including these guys doesn't help the analysis.

I think that points been made clear a few times, thanks. The main point was just that there is more than just the first five picks.

Seth Stohs · December 13, 2016

Yet the bigger MLB markets have gone above and beyond in the international market.

Yoan Moncada was a $32 million player.

SP Yadiel Alvarez for the Dodgers was a $16 million player

SS Lucius Fox for the Giants $6 million.

I don't agree they have done enough to not warrant criticism.

As I said, Cuba is different.

Han Joelo · December 13, 2016

What I think about is how those picks affect the careers of not just the Scouting Directors, but the area scouts. I heard an interview with the scout who stuck his neck out to get Minaya or whomever to pick Daniel Murphy in the later rounds. He really believed in Murphy, despite a lack of measurables, and had to "pick his battle" in the war room. Imagine sitting there, Joe Dirtbag Scout, with your cigar and notebook (or your casual dress shirt and laptop) and pretty much putting your reputation and maybe livelihood on the line for some 17 year old kid. "You're SURE this kid is worth a fifth round pick, Joe? I've got a kid from Dartmouth mowing my lawn who showed me some fancy numbers that say I should take this other guy. You better be right."

Seth Stohs · December 13, 2016

I'm glad the Twins are more active in the DR and Venezuela the last 5-6 years but that was at least a decade too late. Where were they in the late 80's and 90's when the league first started bursting with Latin talent? I'm also glad the Twins have signed some high upside international guys recently but we can't pretend that they are doing all that they can when half of the league was blowing past their draft allotment and made raids on the market. For a team that has been a bottom feeder the last half decade, they should have been doing everything they could to get prospects including going over budget, they absolutely did not do everything they could.

That's history now though, the team has new leadership and hopefully less restrictions. We don't need to dwell on past failures if they actively try to rectify them, it doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that these areas used to be past failures though.

I don't care what they were doing in the 80s and 90s. Means nothing at this point.

Otto von Ballpark · December 13, 2016

I think that points been made clear a few times, thanks. The main point was just that there is more than just the first five picks.

Ah, I didn't realize until now that the other groups in your study were limited to the first 5 rounds, it wasn't really clear. That helps.

Seth Stohs · December 13, 2016

I'd say about the only pick you could say "great choice" is the Correa over Buxton pick, and the jury is still out on that one.

And there have been reports, though the team would never confirm it, that the Twins would have taken Correa if they had the first pick in the 2012 draft.

Han Joelo · December 13, 2016

One more thing: The Nationals just signed Jacob Turner to a minor league deal. 9th overall pick in 2009.

Check out the list from that year: http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=year_round&year_ID=2009&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg

I think the best thing about that list isn't about all the teams that passed on Trout, it is the fact that the Diamondbacks, (who seem to rate very highly on Seth's data) had two consecutive picks, and chose Bobby Borchering (???) ahead of A.J. Pollock. So if they hadn't of had that extra pick...

Throwing darts blindfolded.

Mike Sixel · December 13, 2016

One more thing: The Nationals just signed Jacob Turner to a minor league deal. 9th overall pick in 2009.

Check out the list from that year: http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=year_round&year_ID=2009&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg

I think the best thing about that list isn't about all the teams that passed on Trout, it is the fact that the Diamondbacks, (who seem to rate very highly on Seth's data) had two consecutive picks, and chose Bobby Borchering (???) ahead of A.J. Pollock. So if they hadn't of had that extra pick...

Throwing darts blindfolded.

It simply isn't true that it is throwing darts blindfolded, the first few picks definitely end up having more value as a group....and so on in groupings. There are, of course, outliers either way, but that doesn't mean that teams are randomly picking players, and that most 2nd rounders have as much value as first rounders.

markos · December 13, 2016

One more thing: The Nationals just signed Jacob Turner to a minor league deal. 9th overall pick in 2009.

I really liked the idea of the Twins bringing in Turner on a minor league deal.

prouster · December 13, 2016

Here are the 10 players picked after Gordon:

Jackson, Alex--bad, change of scenery trade already
Nola, Aaron--would be in the Twins rotation right now
Freeland, Kyle--projected 3/4 in the majors, pitched in AAA already
Hoffman, Jeff---2/3 starter, reached the majors, not great, but upside pitcher
Conforto, Michael---should be the starting RF for the Mets already, some hitting issues, but in the majorjs
Pentecost, Max---serious injury issues that were mis-diagnosed at first
Medeiros, Kodi---bad outcomes, but FIP was good in 15
Turner, Trea--could be an all star CF or SS, in the majors
Beede, Tyler=---4th starter, maybe number 3 if things break right, in AA
Newcomb, Sean---AA SP, with number 4/3 stuff

. . .

Of course we won't know for years.....but with what we do know, what would others do?

Honestly, given the benefit of hindsight, they only player I'd rather have than Gordon is Turner (maybe Conforto). Hoffman is definitely interesting, too. His MiLB track record is pretty good, but the peripherals come with a tinge of meh. The strikeouts have generally gone up as he's advanced, but so have the walks. A few of the arms strike me as topping out at Gibson on a good day, which is fine and certainly welcomed on a team deprived of quality pitching. However, college arms that are at AA two and a half years after being drafted don't scream upside to me. I'll take the 21 year old who can stick at short.

Han Joelo · December 13, 2016

It simply isn't true that it is throwing darts blindfolded, the first few picks definitely end up having more value as a group....and so on in groupings. There are, of course, outliers either way, but that doesn't mean that teams are randomly picking players, and that most 2nd rounders have as much value as first rounders.

Throwing darts blindfolded isn't random, at least in my analogy -- the direction of the dartboard is known. And I agree with you -- in each successive round, the dartboard gets smaller.

Thrylos · December 13, 2016

Is the Comp A pick protected? I would think it is not, but I am not sure. Does anyone know the answer to that?

Protected by losing it because of signing someone who had a QO. The Twins will lose their second round pick in that case.

However, like all Comp picks, it is tradeable

Edited December 13, 2016 by Thrylos

Otto von Ballpark · December 13, 2016

I think the best thing about that list isn't about all the teams that passed on Trout, it is the fact that the Diamondbacks, (who seem to rate very highly on Seth's data) had two consecutive picks, and chose Bobby Borchering (???) ahead of A.J. Pollock. So if they hadn't of had that extra pick...

To be fair, when a team has two consecutive picks, they don't necessarily pick the best one first. Actually they probably want to pick the better one second to justify a slightly lower bonus. (Trout was the second of two consecutive picks that year too.)

Seth Stohs · December 13, 2016

I really liked the idea of the Twins bringing in Turner on a minor league deal.

It would be nice to see if there is one team capable of making him a good MLB pitcher...

westvanson · December 13, 2016

This is total nonsense. You guys get an idea in your head (i.e. the Twins do a "good job" of drafting) and cherry-pick stats and divide by zero until you can agree with yourselves. That's not how stats work. Let me just go out on a limb and say that no team that loses 90 or more games in 5 out of 6 seasons should claim to do a "good job" of amateur scouting.

Mike Sixel · December 13, 2016

This is total nonsense. You guys get an idea in your head (i.e. the Twins do a "good job" of drafting) and cherry-pick stats and divide by zero until you can agree with yourselves. That's not how stats work. Let me just go out on a limb and say that no team that loses 90 or more games in 5 out of 6 seasons should claim to do a "good job" of amateur scouting.

I generally agree with your conclusion here.....it is hard to say you are good at bringing in talent if you lose this much....

edit:welcome to the site!

Edited December 13, 2016 by Mike Sixel

markos · December 13, 2016

It would be nice to see if there is one team capable of making him a good MLB pitcher...

Yeah. He averaged 95 out of the bullpen for the White Sox last year. It will be interesting to see what he can do if he focuses solely on the bullpen.

clutterheart · December 13, 2016

Wow. Great effort here. Thanks for putting this together, I agree with many of the others that it seems a bit odd to include guys who did not sign.

It really skews the data.

diehardtwinsfan · December 13, 2016

This is total nonsense. You guys get an idea in your head (i.e. the Twins do a "good job" of drafting) and cherry-pick stats and divide by zero until you can agree with yourselves. That's not how stats work. Let me just go out on a limb and say that no team that loses 90 or more games in 5 out of 6 seasons should claim to do a "good job" of amateur scouting.

Obviously, there's some truth to this, but I personally maintain that scouting and development are two completely different ideas. Both are necessary, and if you do one of them poorly, you're going to have bad results no matter how well you do the other one... An article of how we drafted in relation to other teams measures both metrics especially when WAR is the main component, and there really isn't a good way to separate the two.

That's a long winded way of saying that I don't think identifying talent is the problem in Minnesota personally, and on that most of the national pundits agreed (or else they wouldn't have rated the farm system so highly)... what they have failed at (and done so miserably in my opinion), is developing said talent.

d-mac · December 13, 2016

I think Seth's analysis shows that the Twins were average when compared to other teams over the the entirety of 10 year sample.

HOWEVER, most of their successful players were drafted in the '03-'05 years. The '06-'11 drafts were just horrendous as a whole and the argument could be made that is a major, if not the leading factor, in much of the Twins' recent run of futility.

Let's look at the notable players drafted AND signed by the Twins from '06-'11 (5+ bWAR or solid chance to reach 5 bWAR in career):

Danny Valencia ('06) 5.0 bWAR- only 0.8 was with the Twins.
Ben Revere ('07) 6.1 bWAR- had his best season as a Twin- 2.6 WAR
Kyle Gibson ('09) 5.0 bWAR
Brian Dozier ('09) 18.4 bWAR- only impact player over this period
Eddie Rosario ('10) 3.3 bWAR- pretty good chance he reaches 5 WAR for his career

In addition to this lack of success, it is entirely possible not a single player drafted and signed by the Twins will reach the majors from 2011. It's likely Jason Wheeler will reach the majors, but it's incredible that there is even the possibility of having not one cup of coffee from that draft at this point. Especially when considering that 60% of the first and supp. rounds, 50% of round 2, and 35% of round 3 from 2011 have already appeared in at least one major league game. That's 51.2% (62/121). The Twins had 5 picks in the first 3 rounds of that draft. A monkey could literally done a better job by pulling names from Baseball America's top 250 draft eligible players out of hat.

markos · December 13, 2016

I think Seth's analysis shows that the Twins were average when compared to other teams over the the entirety of 10 year sample.

HOWEVER, most of their successful players were drafted in the '03-'05 years. The '06-'11 drafts were just horrendous as a whole and the argument could be made that is a major, if not the leading factor, in much of the Twins' recent run of futility.

Let's look at the notable players drafted AND signed by the Twins from '06-'11 (5+ bWAR or solid chance to reach 5 bWAR in career):
Danny Valencia ('06) 5.0 bWAR- only 0.8 was with the Twins.
Ben Revere ('07) 6.1 bWAR- had his best season as a Twin- 2.6 WAR
Kyle Gibson ('09) 5.0 bWAR
Brian Dozier ('09) 18.4 bWAR- only impact player over this period
Eddie Rosario ('10) 3.3 bWAR- pretty good chance he reaches 5 WAR for his career
In addition to this lack of success, it is entirely possible not a single player drafted and signed by the Twins will reach the majors from 2011. It's likely Jason Wheeler will reach the majors, but it's incredible that there is even the possibility of having not one cup of coffee from that draft at this point. Especially when considering that 60% of the first and supp. rounds, 50% of round 2, and 35% of round 3 from 2011 have already appeared in at least one major league game. That's 51.2% (62/121). The Twins had 5 picks in the first 3 rounds of that draft. A monkey could literally done a better job by pulling names from Baseball America's top 250 draft eligible players out of hat.

To piggy-back on this, the run from 2001-2005 was pretty spectacular, especially when in the context of their draft position for most of those years.

goulik · December 13, 2016

First, let's examine the OP: this was an examination of scouting talent. Whether a guy is signed or not , developed properly, or coached right was not the question. We all know our analytics has been archaic in comparison. That's not the scouting departments fault. The FO and international spending was not the topic. Scouting.

Secondly let's look honestly at what Seth said... Average or Mediocre. That's not a ringing endorsement.

I would hope that a front office would keep track of grades given by scouts and then how those played out when THEY judge their own scouting departments because there is also a difference between what a scout says and who is drafted by the guru in charge. Without knowing those grades it is very difficult to judge the scouting department

goulik · December 13, 2016

And, btw, thank you Seth! Very enjoyable analysis

Monkeypaws · December 13, 2016

It seems to come an go with teams. Looking at the 87 champs, Hrbek, Puckett, Gaetti, Viola, Blyleven, Lombardozzi, Larkin, Bush, and probably others were all Twins picks, and only Gaetti and Puckett were 1st rounders.

Boston has the midas touch these days it seems to me: going back to 2002, Bucholz, Ellsbury, Bradley all supplemental 1sts, Pedroia, Lester, Masterson as 2nd rounders, Betts a 5th rounder, Benintendi and Swihart on the way as 1sts.

Those are 2 examples some good drafting and developing there.

They also show that draft position needn't be a hindrance either, which I hate to say given the premium picks the Twins have had of late.

Badsmerf · December 14, 2016

This is total nonsense. You guys get an idea in your head (i.e. the Twins do a "good job" of drafting) and cherry-pick stats and divide by zero until you can agree with yourselves. That's not how stats work. Let me just go out on a limb and say that no team that loses 90 or more games in 5 out of 6 seasons should claim to do a "good job" of amateur scouting.

So how do stats work? I thought taking a data set and doing some analysis on it would count as doing stats, but I only have a B.S. in Mathematics.

Plus, I thought we already established the stats don't show they did a good job. Rather, they were average at finding mlb talent and poor at finding impact players. Far from good.

USAFChief · December 14, 2016

A couple things I find interesting.

10 years, 30 teams, five rounds each. 1500 players, plus however many comp picks were added. But we'll just stick with 1500 draftees over 10 years.

299 of them have achieved 2 WAR. 20 percent.

167 have 6 or more WAR. 11 percent.

116 have 10 or more WAR. Less than 8 percent. Fewer than 4 per team since 2003.

My take: every team needs talent, but depending on drafting any significant portion of it is asking for failure. You need to bring in talent through other means. International FAs, major and minor league FAs, trades.

And of these, trading is the best bet. I would look to sell unproven minor league talent for proven big league talent at virtually every opportunity. If you think a Buxton is next to a lock to reach stardom, hold on to him. Anything less than that level, look to use it to acquire proven players. You can't sell everyone of course, but when offered proven talent, think hard about taking it. You'll win that bet more than you'll lose it.

And that's just the first five rounds. There were 9000 players drafted over those 20 years...the numbers don't support "draft and develop" as any kind of reasonable primary strategy.

The Wise One · December 14, 2016

A couple things I find interesting.

10 years, 30 teams, five rounds each. 1500 players, plus however many comp picks were added. But we'll just stick with 1500 draftees over 10 years.

299 of them have achieved 2 WAR. 20 percent.

167 have 6 or more WAR. 11 percent.

116 have 10 or more WAR. Less than 8 percent. Fewer than 4 per team since 2003.

My take: every team needs talent, but depending on drafting any significant portion of it is asking for failure. You need to bring in talent through other means. International FAs, major and minor league FAs, trades.

And of these, trading is the best bet. I would look to sell unproven minor league talent for proven big league talent at virtually every opportunity. If you think a Buxton is next to a lock to reach stardom, hold on to him. Anything less than that level, look to use it to acquire proven players. You can't sell everyone of course, but when offered proven talent, think hard about taking it. You'll win that bet more than you'll lose it.

And that's just the first five rounds. There were 9000 players drafted over those 20 years...the numbers don't support "draft and develop" as any kind of reasonable primary strategy.

the drafting players as a bad source of talent as you portray in your numbers would require an explanation of where the traded players, free agents and minor league free agents come from but the between 70-80% of players that were drafted players. you need to have consistent drafting

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