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This Twins have had a bit of a tortured history with analytics. In 2010 Rob Antony did an interview with TwinsDaily’s own Parker Hageman and revealed some interesting facts about the Twins and Sabermetrics. Antony stated this about their analytics department, “we're probably one of the last, if not the last, team to address it with a person dedicated solely to that.”. He went on further to fail to understand some fairly basic concepts about Sabermetrics. He thought FIP was “first strike in inning pitched” and was unable to guess about BABIP. He then revealed they had just hired their analytics guy and stated he would be “Gathering information and creating databases. This will be his first year. The guy that we brought in will start creating systems to build a foundation of our own that we can look at.” This is what I primarily want to get into as I have a background in IT.
 
In corporate America one of the techniques we use to understand what our competition is doing is to analyze their job postings. Have they posted an unusually large amount of Sales positions? Are they looking at specific geographic locations that have a concentration of talent? Are they asking for specific or unusual technical skills? These are all things we can look at to try to get an idea of intent and structure. I applied this technique to the Twins and their development job postings and found some interesting things.
 
2014 Posting
 
2015 Posting
 
One of the common details in both job postings is the fact that the Twins were looking for a developer who had experience doing front-end work (HTML, JavaScript), middle tier (.NET Framework, ASP.MVC), and the data layer (SQL Server). This implies a couple of things. The first is that the Twins are employing a standard three-tier architecture for their analytics.


It also implies that they only have “full stack” developers, which means they are required to know and to be able to develop in all 3 of their architecture tiers. This is problematic because is you are required to be able to code in everything that usually means you are unable to specialize or gain really in-depth knowledge on any single tier. For the Twins to take the next step in analytics I think they need to be hiring specialists in each of these areas.
 
Another thing I noticed is that the only data store they referred to is SQL Server. The reason that this is important is that the industry still values relational datamarts like SQL Server but they are also moving in the direction of unstructured Big Data repositories as well. Applications like Hadoop, HBASE, MongoDB, and many others allow unstructured data to be quickly stored and analyzed which allows for more experimentation by analysts when compared to a structured DB. I think the PITCH f/x and Trackman data has likely been analyzed enough but I think the next frontier is going into some less structured data. Putting medical records into a big data store and analyzing test results and notes to find patterns in identifying healthier players. Putting free text scouting reports into it and running natural language analytics on them using IBM Watson or some other AI service to identify key language or sentiments that indicate a player that is more likely to succeed. The addition of weather data and the analysis of its impact on specific players. I think there is a lot of room to grow here.
 
In short, I think it is likely this lack of specialization and not embracing the newer Big Data technologies led Thad Levine and Derek Falvey to go in a new direction this last fall with the analytics department. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hiring surge described in a recent article by Pat Reusse did not include hires to address these concerns. I am interested in your thoughts and feedback.

In the past baseball was a path out of the ghettos for Irish, Italians, Jewish, Germans...Today immigrants still need to learn baseball. In an era when we are wasting money on walls and deportations, one of the best ways to get into our nation is to be able to hit a baseball over the wall. In 2013 Fox News ran this story http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/04/03/over-28-percent-players-were-foreign-born-in-mlb-opening-day.html that 28% of the players in MLB were immigrants. The Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Japan, Columbia and Panama were the suppliers of those players – in that order.
Forbes tells us about 2016 – “During the 2016 season, Americans have watched a real World Series, with players born in at least 13 different countries. According to data made public by major league baseball, the leading country of origin for players on 2016 Opening Day rosters (and disabled lists) was the Dominican Republic (82 players), followed by Venezuela (63) Cuba (28), Mexico (12), Japan (8), South Korea (8), Canada (6), Panama (4), Colombia (3), Curacao (3), Brazil (2) and Taiwan (2). (Note: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens by birth.)
Today, approximately 26% of major league baseball players are foreign-born, a more than five-fold increase from the 1940s.” In that year the most popular immigrants were Jose Altuve (Venezuela) and David Ortiz (Dominican Republic).
 
The year that Blyleven went in to the HOF he was joined by Robbie Alomar Alomar was from Puerto Rico – Blyleven, as we know, was born in the Netherlands. In the HOF, Clemente, Marichal, Aparicio, Jenkins, Cepeda, Perez, and our Rod Carew were all foreign born. http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/throwback/201102/foreign-born-players-baseballs-hall-fame
 
I love this list – the first foreign born player from each country – not the only one and not necessarily the best one. and Bleacher report tries to name the 50 best foreign born - http://www.bleacherreport.com/articles/1006505-50-greatest-foreign-born-players-in-baseball-history
 
 
But this is not new. I remember stories from my Grandfather’s and father’s generations when immigrants were told that if they wanted to fit in they needed to learn baseball. Baseball was the American Sport and if you knew baseball you would fit in. The following article captures the Italian efforts in the early 1900’s to learn baseball – some like the DiMaggio’s learned quite well - “Lawrence Baldassaro explores the role Italian-Americans have played in America’s pastime. He offers a straightforward “chronological history of the evolution of Italian Americans in professional baseball” from Ed Abbaticchio, who made his debut in 1897, to such recent players as Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio.”
 
From the start the Minnesota Twins had an international connection. In the 1960’s before the recent surge in Foreign born players, the Twins had a Cuban connection that brought us Camilo Pascual, Tony Oliva, Zoilo Versalles, Sandy Valdespino, and Luis Tiant. And from Venezuela – Cesar Tovar who took us to the 1965 World Series. In their first years, when I was an usher, I always tried to get near the first base bag as the game moved on and the seats were full so I could watch my favorite player – Vic Power from Puerto Rico. I loved Pedro Ramos who complimented Pascual on the mound and does anyone remember Elmer Valo from Slovakia? Or Reno Bertoia from Italy who lived in Canada and is in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame? There were 9 foreign born players on our first Minnesota Twins team.
 
So what about the current team?
1. Ehire Adrianza – Venezuela
2. Miguel Sano – Dominican Republic
3. Jose Berrios – Puerto Rico
4. Adalberto Mejia – Dominican Republic
5. Fernando Rodney – Dominican Republic
6. Ervin Santana – Dominican Republic
7. Michael Pineda – Dominican Republic
8. Gabriel Moya – Venezuela
9. Lewis Thorpe – Australia
10. Eduardo Escobar – Venezuela
11. Jorge Polanco – Dominican Republic
12. Max Kepler – Germany
13. Eddie Rosario – Puerto Rico
14. Kennys Vargas – Puerto Rico
 
 
Maybe this is what make’s baseball the real American Game. It goes back to our roots and our roots spread around the world. Earlier I wrote a blog about American Indians that starred in baseball, beyond them everyone is an immigrant and our game is better because they are here.

The Twins made an unexpected addition to their burgeoning bullpen over the weekend, adding former Mets and Red Sox reliever Addison Reed on a two-year pact worth $16.75 million. The deal profiles well for the Twins on a number of fronts. At 29, Reed is at the younger end of a relief pitching market deep in high quality back end bullpen arms. Reed represents the first multi-year deal the Twins have ever signed with an outside reliever in free agency. In spite of this, the Twins locked Reed up on a short contract, at a price which they undoubtedly would have had to surpass had they signed him earlier in free agency.
 
Reed joins a Twins bullpen shaping up to be vastly different, and potentially much improved over its 2017 iteration. In addition to returning standout Trevor Hildenberger, the Twins have added Fernando Rodney, presumably filling the vacant ninth inning role, and Zach Duke, returning from an injury-plagued 2017 season. In the former trio, the Twins seemed to have established a penchant for the traits they are pursuing in improving their bullpen; inducing ground balls and a lot of strikeouts, hardly a pioneering recipe for success. In Reed however, they have added a pitcher who generates more fly balls, so what about Reed has made him such a consistent a reliable late inning reliever?
 
There’s no real intricacy in Reed’s pitch mix. He throws a four seem fastball around 66% of the time, a slider 33% of the time, and a changeup about as often as Byron Buxton gets caught stealing a base. Reed has excellent control, posting a walk rate of 1.51 BB/9 in 2016 and 1.78 BB/9 in 2017. Reed’s 2017 BB/9 was good for 11th among relievers who pitched at least 50 innings. This level of control was not always a staple of Reed’s pitching. In his first 3 seasons in MLB his BB/9 oscillated between 2.90 and 3.05. While this may seem like a trivial difference, this is a difference of around 10-11 walks over a 75 inning sample, a big deal when you’re constantly pitching in high leverage situations. So what is at the root of Reed’s improved control since the beginning of the 2016 season?
 
In 2016, Reed produced a dramatic improvement in his overall numbers. In addition to refining his control, Reed stranded around 5% more baserunners, increased his K/9 from 8.2 to 10.55 and dropped his xFIP from 4.04 to 2.09. Reed has never had elite velocity. While some have commented on a dip in velocity throughout the past two seasons, his average four seam fastball velocity has remained fairly consistent, dropping from 93.66 mph in April of 2015 to 92.72 mph in October of 2017. So if Reed isn’t blowing hitters away, how did his K/9 improve and stick above 9.0 in his last two seasons?
 
The number that jumps out in Reed’s improvement from 2015 to 2016 is his F-Strike% (percentage of the time Reed is throwing a first pitch strike). In 2015 Reed’s F-Strike% was around 56%. In 2016, it jumped to 70%. For the sake of comparison, old friend Pat Neshek had an F-Strike% of 71.1% in 2017 and had an incredible BB/9 of 0.87. This is a dramatic improvement from Reed which is even more impressive when visualized.
 
Here’s a look at Reed’s heat map from 2015. This charts the percentage a pitch falls within a sub-location of the strike zone. For all three of these searches I looked at heat maps representing the first pitch of a plate appearance, exclusively when Reed threw his four seem fastball. You’ll immediately notice a stark contrast between 2015 and 2016. Reed improved in two notable areas, pounding the strike zone with a greater level of consistency, and using a greater portion of the strike zone when throwing first pitch strikes. We see a similar performance in 2017 (although not quite as impressive). Interestingly, Reed’s obvious trend in locating his first pitch strikes higher in the zone in resulted in opposing batters OPS increasing from .587 in 2016, to .862 in 2017.
 






 
So where does Reed fit in the back end of a Twins bullpen which has been dramatically upgraded from a year ago? Initially, there was contention that adding Reed might create a closer controversy in Minnesota. The Twins had recently added Fernando Rodney to the pen on a one year deal. It seems as if the Twins will stick with Rodney as their primary ninth inning option. Since taking on his role with the Twins, Paul Molitor has been criticized in his bullpen management for traditionalism, a tendency to use each of his relievers in a pre-determined role. Intractably funneling Rodney into save situations may allow Molitor the luxury of using both Reed and Trevor Hildenberger as more flexible relievers, whose appearances are dictated by the leverage of a given situation, rather than the inning they are pitching in. In addition to providing Molitor with another quality arm, Reed may provide the impetus for Molitor to get more creative in facilitating the evolution of the Twins bullpen, maximizing the potential of a vastly upgraded group.

“How is that a hit?” Most baseball fans have said this after the scoreboard flashes the result on a sharp grounder or botched fly ball. The person in charge of making these hit/error determinations is the official scorer, often an anonymous recorder of stats until their judgment puts them in the spotlight. Recently I had a chance to shadow Stew Thornley, one of the Twins official scorers, to get firsthand insight into this sometimes misunderstood part of the game.
 
At Target Field, the official scorer sits in the first seat in the front row of the press box on the left as you’re looking at the field. When I picked up my media pass I noticed the person who signed in before me was from MBC Korea, one of the country’s three major broadcasting systems. Most of the time the press box was quiet, punctuated mainly by the sound of typing. For the official scorer, the tools of the trade include a laptop, binoculars, a scoresheet plus extra notepads to keep pertinent information close at hand and a TV monitor showing the FSN feed. I realized quickly how useful it was to have the monitor on a ten second delay, not just for the official scorer but also for the datacaster who sits next to the official scorer and is responsible for recording every game action for those following online.
 
There is no specific time the official scorer needs to get there before the game, Thornley said, but it’s his preference to arrive early and get into a routine (they’re not just for the men on the field). When I arrived at 5 p.m. for a 7:10 start he was already there, double checking information for that night’s game.
 
As many do, he began his lifelong relationship with the statistical side of the game by keeping score when attending games at Metropolitan Stadium as a kid. When he said that he had a knack for it, he paused and chuckled as he said, “Yeah, I know - why couldn’t I have gotten a knack for something useful, right?” He has previously worked as an official scorer for the Minneapolis Loons and St. Paul Saints and started with the Twins in 2007. He splits the duties with Gregg Wong, a former Pioneer Press sports reporter, and they also have a backup official scorer. (He also has a “day job” as Health Educator with the Minnesota Department of Health.)
 
Official scorers are paid $170 per game and are employees of Major League Baseball, not any specific team. Last year, Marie-Claude Marcotte-Pelland joined the few female official scorers in Major League Baseball history when she worked a Blue Jays-Marlins game in Toronto. In mentioning this, Thornley, a member of the local chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), also shared the story of Eliza Green Williams, who secretly served as the official scorer in the 1880’s for the Chicago White Stockings or Colts, the team that would be renamed the Cubs in the next century. She would submit her reports as “E.G. Green” so as to not identify herself as a woman.
 
There is a distinct element of “hurry up and wait” in the job as an official scorer, as we casually chatted about the baseball topic of the day until a sharp grounder caused all eyes to turn to the video monitor while the official scorer grabbed the microphone to announce his ruling on that specific play. As the game went along, there were also periodic announcements from Dustin Morse, the Twins Senior Director of Communications, for such things as pitching changes and home run distance announcements.
 
“I was nervous when I first started with the Twins,” Thornley admitted, while he explained the juxtaposition between wanting to get the call right and wanting to sound confident and announce the call right away. If players or teams strongly disagree with a call, they can submit it to Major League Baseball for review by the league office. He said he has gotten more complaints from the batting team if they don’t get a hit.
 
Being an umpire would be good practice for becoming an official scorer, he said, because you get really good at being decisive and “taking a lot of crap.” (I’ve also seen the job of an official scorer described as getting paid $5 for scoring the game and $165 for taking the grief that goes with it, but I guess you could say that about any job.) If you don’t like being questioned and having to defend yourself, he said, being an official scorer is not for you. But in comparison to the umpires, he noted that “They are the ones who make the calls that can determine who wins or loses…we do stats.”
 
The evolution of official scoring is an interesting aspect of the history of the game itself, and Thornley chairs a SABR committee that studies and interprets the changes throughout the years. As we looked upon a beautifully manicured grass infield, he reminisced about how everyone was told that the advent of artificial turf meant that you would never have to worry about a bad hop.
 
When the third baseman switched places with the shortstop, I asked him if the sometimes dramatic shifts employed by teams in recent years can get confusing for those recording stats. He professed his love for the teams who put player numbers on both the front and back of the jerseys and said you can often look for other distinguishing features – for example, in the game I attended, two of the Tigers infielders were sporting high socks.
 
“I know it’s easy to sit at home and think you could do it better,” he said. “I have friends who constantly pepper me with questions on why I called what I did who have never been an official scorer…and there’s also people who just don’t understand the rules of the game. It does give you respect for everyone in this game who gets second guessed.” In an effort to standardize scoring, Thornley has attended meetings in New York with other official scorers around the league, where they will review plays and discuss controversies. “It’s always a judgment call with a human element and the line will continue to be fuzzy not fine. It’s our hope to continue to reduce the level of fuzziness.”

How have the Minnesota Twins done in the MLB Draft in the past and recently?


The Minnesota Twins has to make the most out of every player they acquire through the draft. You can say that about every team in Major League Baseball but, some of those teams have the ability to make up for a bad draft every now and then. They can stretch the payroll to go get top tier free agents or make a big trade to acquire players who have already established themselves as great players.
 
Those teams are the exception, not the rule. That’s really the only way of going to get the sure thing, though. See a great player or an ace pitcher and go get them, either in free agency or in a trade. To be honest, though, none of those teams really want to do that. They would rather draft a player and develop them and have a farm system that consistently brings results then have to overspend. It’s hard to tell what a prospect will turn into as a major league player. His talent may be a lot better in the minor leagues but, as he works his way up the ladder, that gap closes a little at each level.
 
For the teams where free agency isn’t as much of an option, the MLB Draft is priority number 1 when it comes to acquiring players. It happens every year and they have to be prepared. They have to know what kind of players they want and what kind of players & pitchers they need and then go get those players. They can’t relax if the current team or the current prospects are doing very well at any time or any position. They can’t pick for need, either, or, at least, they can’t pick for the need of the Major League team. They can pick for an organizational need to strengthen some of the weaker positions in the organization but that’s something that should probably be done in the later rounds. Players acquired in the draft won’t help the major league team for years.
 
The old adage of pick the best player available is likely the best way to go, especially in the early rounds. That also means the best player available in their minds based on the reports from their scouts and from their own opinions as a group. It has nothing to do with the best-rated player available. They should Trust the Process, trust their philosophies and trust their draft board.
 
There should always be prospects coming who are close to ready for a chance to move into the lineup, rotation or bullpen as soon as possible to see what they can do, how they handle it and if they need more work to get there. They should be forcing the front office to promote them and pushing the veterans for their position and their spot in the lineup. That increases competition for each spot on the roster and makes everyone know they have to earn their spot. Competition brings the best out of everyone because every player knows they have to keep getting better to keep their spot.
 

Deep to Every Part of the Field


There’s always a possibility of having too many players for one position. If they are all ready to play at the major league level, then the front office can use the depth to make a trade to strengthen another position. A team can never have too much depth. They dream of having depth at every position. It’s a good problem to have if the organization has a difficult job figuring out who makes the team and who has to be sent down to the minors.
When teams are taking players in the draft, there is no way of knowing how long it will take them to develop into major leaguers. That’s if they even make it at all. Very few players go right into the big leagues. They all need a little seasoning in the minors nowadays. There’s no way to predict how any prospect will do no matter how good they were before turning pro.
 
Nobody knew Mike Trout would be Mike Trout or he wouldn’t have fallen to the 25th pick in the 2009 Draft. He would’ve been taken 1st*, yes, even ahead of the first pick by the Washington Nationals, RHP Stephen Strasburg. There are probably aren’t many drafts where the #1 overall pick ends up being the best overall player. The best player usually ends up being a player picked lower than #1. (Hmm….another post, another time.)
*The Twins took RHP Kyle Gibson with the 22nd pick in the first round, if you were wondering.
 

The Minnesota Twins Takes
"With their 1st pick, the Minnesota Twins take..."


You could probably guess the Minnesota Twins haven’t done very well in the draft, recently. If they had, they wouldn’t be where they are right now. They wouldn’t have over 90 losses in 5 out of the last 7 seasons. They wouldn’t have had to fire the GM. They wouldn’t have had to make some of the trades they made, hoping they would work out. They wouldn’t have had to force players into the lineup who may not have been ready. They wouldn’t have had to use 36 pitchers in one season to see what they can do and then risk losing them to waivers.
 
For a long time, the Minnesota Twins were known as a team that would draft well and always had a good farm system. It became known as the Twins Way and was part of the reason they won 6 division championships between 2002 & 2010. They knew how to develop players. In those same years between 2002 & 2010, they may have lost their way when it came to drafting well and developing players and most of all, pitchers. Here’s what they got from the drafts from 2002 to 2010:

2002: OF Denard Span, RP Jesse Crain, RP Pat Neshek
2003: SP Scott Baker
2004: 3B Trevor Plouffe, RP Glen Perkins, SP/RP Anthony Swarzak
2005: SP Matt Garza, SP Kevin Slowey, SP/RP Brian Duensing
2006: 1B/OF Chris Parmelee, 3B Danny Valencia, SP Jeff Manship
2007: OF Ben Revere
2008: OF Aaron Hicks, RP Michael Tonkin
2009: SP Kyle Gibson, C/1B/OF Chris Hermann, SS/2B Brian Dozier
2010: SP/RP Alex Wimmers, SP Pat Dean, SP Logan Darnell, OF Eddie Rosario 
So, in 9 years, all they produced for the rotation were Scott Baker, Matt Garza* and Kyle Gibson. Three middle of the rotation pitchers in 9 years. You could include Kevin Slowey, Anthony Swarzak, Brian Duensing and even Glen Perkins in there as well. They all began as starters and were then moved to the bullpen. They did alright with relievers Jesse Crain & Pat Neshek and also developed some pretty decent players in OF Denard Span, OF Ben Revere, OF Aaron Hicks, 2B Brian Dozier and OF Eddie Rosario.
*They traded possibly the best of them in Matt Garza to TB with SS Jason Bartlett for OF Delmon Young & SS Brendan Harris. Garza became a very good starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. He helped lead them to the 2008 World Series and won the ALCS MVP.
 

Brick by Brick


The draft is a foundation for building great teams. It’s not the only part teams need to do right to build a winner but it’s a great place to start building. It’s hard to say what kind of production any team expects to come out of every draft. It’s something like an average of 2 players out of every draft* making it to the major leagues. That’s just making it there, too. Not if they’re starters or All-Stars, it’s any player who makes it to the major leagues. It could be an All-Star player, a #1 pitcher or a utility player or middle reliever.
*I couldn’t find anything concrete on this. I’ve heard that before, though.
 
It’s done slowly, building the foundation and adding to that foundation until they’ve built a champion. If you look at most championship teams, they have players who’ve been there for a long time who were acquired through the draft. Then they’ve continually added pieces from year to year to finally build a team that has everything they need to win a championship. They have depth at every position so they can survive any injuries or other challenges that come up during the season.
 
If you look at the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins, they slowly built that team. They drafted 1B Kent Hrbek in 1978 and he was one of the first pieces for that team. Then from 1979 to 1984, they kept adding more pieces.
 

1978: Kent Hrbek
1979: Randy Bush, Gary Gaetti (June-2nd Phase), Tim Laudner
1980: Jeff Reed (Traded for Jeff Reardon)
1981: Frank Viola, Steve Lombardozzi
1982: Alan Anderson, Mark Davidson, Kirby Puckett (January Draft)
1984: Jay Bell (traded for Bert Blyleven), Gene Larkin 
So the 1987 Twins drafted starters at 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Catcher and Center Field along with #1 starter Frank Viola and bench players Randy Bush, Mark Davidson & Gene Larkin and relief pitcher Alan Anderson. They also used draft picks to acquire a majority of the other pieces from that championship team.
 
Most people probably never think about that when it comes to the draft. In almost every trade a player who was acquired through the draft is involved. There are some trades that are just players signed through free agency or who were acquired through another trade. Also, the majority of those drafted players included in those trades never make it to the big leagues. They end up being throw-ins to get the trade done. The teams obviously believed they’d be more than that or they wouldn’t have asked for those players but, it still points to how important the draft is for building a team into a champion.
 
Are they building another champion with pieces drafted since 2009?:
 

2009: SP Kyle Gibson, 2B Brian Dozier
2010: OF Eddie Rosario
2012: SP Jose Berrios, RP Tyler Duffey, RP J.T. Chargois?, RP Taylor Rogers, CF Byron Buxton SP Luke Bard? RP Mason Melotakis
2013: SP Stephen Gonsalves, C Mitch Garver, OF Zack Granite
2014: RP John Curtiss, RP Trevor Hildenberger, SS Nick Gordon
2015: RP Tyler Jay?
2016: OF Alex Kiriloff
2017: SS Royce Lewis, OF Brent Rooker 
There are some pretty nice pieces on this list. They have starters at 2nd base, left field, center field, a few pitchers for the starting rotation & some good arms for the bullpen as well. It’s definitely a good start.
 

The 5th Rule of Drafting


The Rule 5 Draft was put into place so teams couldn’t stockpile talent on their minor league rosters. It forces teams to commit to keeping players who have been in their organization for 4 or 5 years depending on the age they were signed, 5 years if they were signed before they turned 19 and 4 years if they were signed after they turned 19. Players not protected by being placed on a team’s 40-man roster are available to be picked by other teams who have spots open on their 40-man roster.
 
The drafted players cost the drafting team $100K and must stay on the active 25-man roster for the entire next season or be offered back to the original team for $50K. Most of these players are not yet ready for the jump to the Major League so it’s a bit of a risk. It’s also another way for teams to find players who’ve already been in the minors for 4-5 years so they have a pretty good track record for teams to judge them on.
 
Rule 5 picks rarely make a big impact but sometimes it can work out quite nicely. Roberto Clemente is probably the biggest example of success but there are others, too. Twins fans surely remember LHP Johan Santana, who wasn’t actually picked by the Twins. They traded their 1st pick, Jared Camp, to the Florida Marlins in the 1999 Rule 5 Draft, who selected Johan from the Houston Astros. Other good examples for the Twins are OF Shane Mack in 1989 and C Mark Salas in 1984 (he was traded straight up for P Joe Niekro (with a nail file) in 1987. LHP Scott Diamond looked like a pretty good pick from 2010. He pitched well for a while but fizzled out and was released in 2014.
 
Recent examples of successful Rule 5 picks from the rest of the league are OF Joey Rickard for the Baltimore Orioles and 1B Justin Bour for the Miami Marlins. We view success as adding a piece to your major league roster that either helps you win or helps you acquire another piece that helps you win.
 

The Last Pick


That’s all for the history of who the Minnesota Twins have taken in the MLB Draft. They had a bad run there for awhile but they may have made up for it in more recent drafts. It helped to have higher picks because of the losing seasons. A philosophy change on what kind of pitchers to target from Terry Ryan may help the new regime get to the promised land, too.
 
In the next article, we’ll delve into how the Twins have done with International Signings. The BIG one that stands out is Miguel Sano but that’s because he’s the most recent success. We’ll see how they’ve done and if they’ve improved in this area throughout their history.
 
Thanks for reading our TwinsTakes on the Draft History of the Minnesota Twins! We’d love to hear your ‘Takes on the subject! Please comment below or the posts of this article on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google+!
 
After all, it is...

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TwinsTakes.com!

It's too early for this.
 
It's too early to be looking at which of the hundreds of minor leaguers currently a part of the Minnesota Twins organization might take the field at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids this summer.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LewisWatkins17-600x400.jpg
Tommy Watkins is moving up to AA Chattanooga to manage in 2018, but Royce Lewis could be back in Cedar Rapids to start the new season (Photo: SD Buhr)
 
It's definitely too early to get excited about the possibility of seeing the most promising group of prospects in Cedar Rapids since, perhaps, the class of 2013 (which included Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Berrios and more) in the first year of the Kernels/Twins affiliation era.
 
Still, since it's been minus-10 degrees or so all day and I've had nothing else to do but watch a bunch of bowl games I generally don't care about at all, I'm going to share my excitement here anyway.
 
Even as the 2017 was winding down, I found myself taking mental inventory of which members of the playoff-bound Kernels might be starting 2018 in Cedar Rapids, as well. Then I started looking at the talent that was on the field for Elizabethton's Appalachian League champion club and projecting a few that were likely to get their first exposure to full-season minor league ball with the Kernels in 2018
 
All of that informal mental note-making left me feeling pretty optimistic that the Twins would send a pretty competitive group to Cedar Rapids this spring.
 
The Kernels have qualified for the Midwest League postseason in each of the five seasons that Cedar Rapids has been affiliated with the Twins and it was fine to feel pretty good about that streak continuing in 2018.
 
But then it happened.
 
A box arrived in the mail over this past weekend and inside was the 2018 Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook.(Click here to get your copy.)
 
I should have just glanced through it to make sure my name was spelled correctly everywhere I was given a photo credit, then set it aside for a few weeks until we were at least getting closer to the date when pitchers and catchers report for spring training in Florida (which is the date I unofficially consider the baseball season to begin each year).
 
But knowing how much work the authors - Seth Stohs, Cody Christie and Tom Froemming - put into writing the Handbook and how packed with great content about every Twins minor league affiliate and literally every minor league player currently under contract to the Twins, well, just giving the book a glance through was something I couldn't limit myself to.
 
So I started reading. The authors have some great articles in there, reflecting not only their knowledge of the Twins organization, but their writing skills, as well. I probably should have just read those feature articles and, perhaps, about their selections for Twins Minor League Hitter, Starting Pitcher and Relief Pitcher of the Year Awards. (All three are Kernels alums, by the way.)
 
But that wasn't enough. Not when we're in the middle of a several-day stretch of sub-zero temperatures.
 
I give myself some credit, though. I didn't read EVERY one of the player features in their entirety. It's far too early in the year to do that.
 
No, I only read the features of those players that the authors suggested have some chance of playing ball for the Kernels in 2018.
 
I think there were about 60 of them. That may seem like a lot, given teams are limited to a 25-man roster, but it's really only a little bit more than the 50 or so that you might typically see come through any MWL roster in any given season.
 
Still, not all of them will wear Kernels uniforms this season. They mentioned 28, I think, that have played for the Kernels already that may return. That would be unusual. Some of those will start the season with a promotion to Ft. Myers, some could be injured or traded during spring training and some, unfortunately, could be released by the Twins before the season starts. That's just the harsh reality of professional baseball.
 
But many of the players who WILL be coming to Cedar Rapids, either to start the season or as replacements during the course of the summer, have some very impressive backgrounds and credentials.
 
The Kernels could feature not one, but two first-round draft choices.
 
Shortstop Royce Lewis, who was the first overall pick of the 2017 MLB amateur draft, spent most of the last month of the 2017 season with the Kernels and likely will start the 2018 season in Cedar Rapids as well. He could well be joined by the Twins' 2016 first round pick, outfielder Alex Kirilloff, who had been expected to spend time with the Kernels last year, but missed the entire 2017 season following elbow surgery.
 
Of course, both Lewis and Kirilloff got big signing bonuses as top draft picks, but they aren't likely to be the only million+ dollar bonus babies to put on Kernels uniforms in 2018.
 
While Lewis is likely to see a mid-season promotion if his play develops as we'd expect it to, the Twins have another millionaire shortstop ready to step into his shoes - and position - with the Kernels. Wander Javier got $4 million to sign as an International Free Agent in 2015.
 
A couple of teenaged pitchers could eventually find their ways to Cedar Rapids, though are perhaps less likely to start the season there. The Twins' 2017 second and third round draft picks, Blayne Enlow and Landon Leach, each got bonuses in excess of a million dollars to sign with the Twins, rather than play college ball.
 
While he didn't get it from the Twins, catcher David Banuelos also got a million dollars to sign with the Mariners as their 2017 third round pick. He was acquired by the Twins in December.
 
If Banuelos is assigned to Cedar Rapids, the Kernels could potentially have quite an impressive 1-2 punch behind the plate, since it would not be surprising to see Ben Rortvedt (who signed for $900,000 as the Twins' 2nd round pick in 2016) also return to start the season.
 
In addition to Rortvedt, seven additional likely (or at least potential) 2018 Kernels pulled down signing bonuses of between $400,000 and $900,000, Those include some pretty heralded prospects such as outfielder Akil Baddoo and infielder Jose Miranda, both of which were "Compensation B" round (between 2nd and 3rd rounds) selections by the Twins in 2016.
 
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Rortvedt2017d-600x400.jpg
Twins 2nd round draft pick in 2016 Ben Rortvedt could well begin 2018 behind the plate for Cedar Rapids. (Photo: SD Buhr)
 
Of course, signing bonuses aren't what matter the most once these guys get on the field. No matter what you got paid, what matters is what you do between the lines when you get a chance. Still, when you're looking at young players with limited professional experience to base judgements on, bonus money and draft position are simple means of projecting the level of talent any particular roster might consist of.
 
In addition to those already listed, the 2018 Kernels roster could include, at some point:
Two 4th round picks (pitcher Charlie Barnes - 2017, and third baseman/outfielder Trey Cabbage - 2015, both of whom spent time with the Kernels in 2017) and a 5th rounder (third baseman Andrew Bechtold).
Six-figure International Free Agent signees like pitcher Jose Martinez ($340K in 2013) and catcher Robert Molina ($300K in 2013)
Nine additional players drafted by the Twins in the top 10 rounds of drafts between 2014 and 2017,

That is a lot of potential. And it doesn't even include Edwar Colina, who was the Appalachian League Pitcher of the Year last season.
 
Are you beginning to see why I'm getting excited for the season to start already? I mean, if you're Toby Gardenhire, the recently announced new manager for the Kernels, you have to feel pretty good about the talent level that you're going to have to work with in your first year as a manager in professional baseball, don't you?
 
Of course, the fun thing is that, even with all of these "prospects" on their way to Cedar Rapids, we know that there will be several guys not found on anyone's "prospect lists" that will grab hold of their opportunity to play baseball for a few dollars and show everyone they can play the game every bit as well as the guys getting all the attention... and money.
 
It happens every season and it will happen this year, too.
 
Cedar Rapids hasn't won a Midwest League title since Bengie Molina caught 45 games for the 1994 Kernels. No, that's not as long as the drought the Twins have endured since their 1991 World Series championship, but it's long enough.
 
So pardon me if I get spend a few of these cold January days daring to get excited about Kernels baseball in 2018.
 
If that's wrong, just blame Seth, Cody and Tom. That's what I usually do.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.)