Twins Rookie Pitchers Were Well Prepared in 2019

Nice take.

I suspect that a lot of this has to do with the unusual health that the Twins benefitted from with their starting rotation last year, but a sense that I had with Rocco and Wes is that they were really good at putting guys into a position where they could succeed.

Commendable optimism.

The statement that sticks out for me is...."the Twins rookies as a whole pitched a slightly better than average rate in 2019."

I really don't get that excited about average. Rookie or veteran. I get the overall picture as positive, and it could be worse, and all............ but it could be a lot better, too. They don't get me excited at this point. In fact, I feel that to bank on Smeltzer, Stashak, and Dobnak as anything other than depth (and a couple good stories) would be misguided.

We better hope the rookies step up in 2020 - we are about to sign Pineda according to the TD article which gives us 3/5th of the same staff we had last year.  Where is the upside?  How did we get better - right now it is up to the rookies.

 If this keeps up, the Twins will certainly be in a great spot going forward and could potentially become a pitching factory for the first time in what feels like forever.

I do not remember any time in our history where I would call us a pitching factory. Our pitching success has been pretty hit and miss (mostly miss) as far back as I remember. If we became a pitching factory... Wow, that would be a complete overhaul of  our club!!

We better hope the rookies step up in 2020 - we are about to sign Pineda according to the TD article which gives us 3/5th of the same staff we had last year.  Where is the upside?  How did we get better - right now it is up to the rookies.

Right now we're in good shape with 3 months to go. The only role I see our fine group of rookies filling is the Pineda void.

I do not remember any time in our history where I would call us a pitching factory. Our pitching success has been pretty hit and miss (mostly miss) as far back as I remember. If we became a pitching factory... Wow, that would be a complete overhaul of  our club!!

At some point in time, pitching becomes a numbers games. In the bullpen, I think we won the numbers game. I like our numbers of young starters, but don't feel we will be in position to win until year end 2020. We're close.

I don’t really know how to judge this.

On one hand, you expect some rookie struggles. So, it’s a positive sign that there wasn’t a whole lot of that’s.

On the other, there wasn’t one rookie who saw a high number of appearances/innings, which could also explain some level of success (lack of familiarity from opposing clubs/hitters).

I do know that I don’t trust the guys from last year. Just because Smeltzer and Dobnak looked good in limited appearances, doesn’t mean they are going to be quality pieces going forward. I think that if either of those guys are rotation fixtures throughout 2020, we’re in trouble.

With a healthy Cleveland (Kluber, Ramirez, Lindor injuries were massively helpful to the Twins) and the White Sox looking ready to turn the corner, the status quo is going to land us in third place.

My point is, I put almost no stock into the accomplishments listed above. I’d rather go out and get good pitchers than cobble together a AAAA staff/bullpen and pray.

I think it's a bit early to draw conclusions and declare that the organization has built a special capacity with respect to pitching development. However, we might be seeing a few big picture hints about their beliefs, philosophy, and strategy. Some sort of random things:

1) They have continued the trend of aggressively adding coaches from the college ranks who have been groomed in the new sciences.

2) In the 2019 draft, they selected and signed 15+ college pitchers, virtually two-thirds of their choices. A plausible theory? A belief that development is more cerebral than we've traditionally thought it was, and they want good students learning, not just experiencing, and they want them taught by teachers, not just coaches. It's possible they have an even stronger conviction about the power of best practices in this area than we know.

3) The Twins have historically been, IMO, much better than average at identifying talent, but when it comes to pitching, not so hot at converting talent into skills. Lots of examples of later round talent, maybe at times despite not benefitting from the best development plan, that emerged anyway: Hildenberger, Rogers, Duffey, Stashak from the draft, Smeltzer, Harper, Dobnak, Littell from elsewhere.

4) And maybe now, Duffey, Rogers, Stashak, Dobnak, Littell, all of whom produced at high levels in 2019, represent the first hints that this organization really IS on the forefront. None of these guys was ever highly regarded. Rogers was the 340th player taken in his draft class. Dobnak was the only independent league acquisition who stepped on a postseason field. Not proof of anything, but a possible sign.

I hope Parker Hageman continues to share things as he has in the past.  I don't understand much of it, but it's still enlightening.

Caveat: it unnerves me a bit to read all the "Wes Johnson's magic" comments. These are billion dollar enterprises. Most are no longer run like hobbies. Most clubs won't fall very far behind on these new frontiers, IMO.

Commendable optimism.

 

The statement that sticks out for me is...."the Twins rookies as a whole pitched a slightly better than average rate in 2019."

 

I really don't get that excited about average. Rookie or veteran. I get the overall picture as positive, and it could be worse, and all............ but it could be a lot better, too. They don't get me excited at this point. In fact, I feel that to bank on Smeltzer, Stashak, and Dobnak as anything other than depth (and a couple good stories) would be misguided.

Having good quality depth is extremely important. Most years a pitching staff will have a lot more injuries than the Twins did in 2019. And having guys be able to come up and pitch at a average level is huge.

Commendable optimism.

 

The statement that sticks out for me is...."the Twins rookies as a whole pitched a slightly better than average rate in 2019."

 

I really don't get that excited about average. Rookie or veteran. I get the overall picture as positive, and it could be worse, and all............ but it could be a lot better, too. They don't get me excited at this point. In fact, I feel that to bank on Smeltzer, Stashak, and Dobnak as anything other than depth (and a couple good stories) would be misguided.

It had seemed like for years, rookie pitchers would come up and just look like garbage, having no idea what they're doing out there. Going from bottom-barrel to above average is a big step in the right direction. 

Some highlights include Smeltzer's first start against the Brewers, Thorpe standing up to the Yankees for 3 innings in the midseason matchup, and Littell going 30.2 innings in the bullpen giving up just 3 earned runs from June to September.