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The Twins Need a Different Strategy for Developing Players

Paved Paradise

Entry posted by Paved Paradise in Player Development ·

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The success of the coming season will be determined by how well the Twins develop their young players. As soon as I first wrote that sentence it was followed by the thought, “We’re doomed. The only development we seem to have done in the last few years has been to get hitters to swing wildly at pitches outside of the strike zone when they’ve got two strikes.”

But is that really the case? I’m defining development as how well we turn promising minor league prospects into major league players. That includes more than hitters. Pitchers also need to develop.

Let’s take a look at pitchers first. What’s indicative of a pitcher who’s been successfully developed? I came up with two criteria. First if another team wanted them enough to trade for them at the deadline when the Twins were holding their fire sale. And since we didn’t really trade away our starters, if they started 10 games or more last season. That gives us 12 pitchers: Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods-Richardson, Zebbie Matthews, David Festa, Chris Paddock, Jhoan Duran, Danny Columbe, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Louis Varland. Looking at the histories of these players, only four of them have played for an MLB team other than the Twins in their careers (Lopez, Paddock, Columbe, and Stewart). That leaves eight pitchers developed by the Twins. You could argue that Matthews and Festa are still works in progress, but overall I’d say it looks like the Twins can develop pitchers into MLB quality players.

Now, let’s look at hitters. It feels like all of the young players we were so excited about just a couple of years ago (Julien, Larnach, Lee, Lewis, Martin, Miranda, Wallner) are having prolonged sophomore slumps. Seven promising young players and every single one is struggling. What’s the problem? And why is this so different from the pitchers?

There’s a clue in an article about Austin Martin from September in the Star Tribune talking about the hot streak he was having. Martin says, “you’re being taught launch angles and stuff, and you want to use what you’ve learned…. I just didn’t feel athletic in the box anymore. I was too concentrated on being mechanical. I’d be in the box thinking about how … to be more of a power hitter. I was trying to be something that I’m not. I tried to do what I was told, and it didn’t work for me….” From this quote it feels like the Twins are so focused on the analytics that they are trying to turn everybody into home run power hitters while ignoring what got these players into the majors in the first place.

I’m going to do a little case study here about a time in the Twins past when they tried to get a young player to hit the team way. “Don’t swing for the fences, try to hit it the opposite way,” he was told. The Twins released him when his projected arbitration salary looked to be too expensive. He was signed by another team and played 14 years with them, being named an all-star 10 times and after retirement he was elected to the Hall of Fame. Of course, I’m talking about David Ortiz. Tom Kelly was a brilliant manager, but he wasn’t the manager to bring out the best in David Ortiz.

The Twins should be working on building up the strengths of young hitters, not trying to remake them all into home run hitters who hit at the optimal launch angle with the correct bat speed. One of the reasons that the Twins are better at developing pitchers vs. hitters is that pitchers work on multiple pitches. Imagine if the analytics gurus said that a fastball is the number one strikeout pitch. How would it work out if they told a pitcher to only throw fastballs?

If these young players try to work on areas that are not strengths they’re just going to move from weakness to mediocrity. At this stage in their careers our young players should be focused on their strengths, which is what got them to the major leagues in the first place. Later, as they become more complete players, they can refine their game and work on their weaknesses. Even David Ortiz figured out how to hit home runs by going the other way.

The Twins need to change how they have been trying to develop young hitters or we’re in for a long disappointing season.

7 Comments

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TJSweens

TJSweens 513

Posted

Drafting and development futility is a hallmark of the Pohlad ownership. They just don't hire good baseball people. 

In 24 years in Minnesota, that north end of a southbound brontosaurus, Calvin Griffith, produced six Hall of Famers...Killebrew, Carew, Oliva, Kaat, Blyleven, Puckett. In the following 42 years, the Pohlad ownership has produced Joe Mauer.

old nurse

old nurse 4,497

Posted

4 hours ago, TJSweens said:

Drafting and development futility is a hallmark of the Pohlad ownership. They just don't hire good baseball people. 

In 24 years in Minnesota, that north end of a southbound brontosaurus, Calvin Griffith, produced six Hall of Famers...Killebrew, Carew, Oliva, Kaat, Blyleven, Puckett. In the following 42 years, the Pohlad ownership has produced Joe Mauer.

Morneau, Santana, and even Buxton had HOF careers altered by injuries. Nathan should be in as a reliever, Ortiz was developed by the twins.  HOF as a measure of drafting and developing is a very limiting way to determine how good a development team is.  Considering that a HOF career is usually of the 12-15 year variety and it takes a few years of development on the front side plus 6-16 on the backside of a career to get in. 42 years is a small window. 

TJSweens

TJSweens 513

Posted

3 hours ago, old nurse said:

Morneau, Santana, and even Buxton had HOF careers altered by injuries. Nathan should be in as a reliever, Ortiz was developed by the twins.  HOF as a measure of drafting and developing is a very limiting way to determine how good a development team is.  Considering that a HOF career is usually of the 12-15 year variety and it takes a few years of development on the front side plus 6-16 on the backside of a career to get in. 42 years is a small window. 

Santana didn't come out of the Twins system. 

You want to throw in the Hall of Pretty good? How about Hrbek, Gaetti, Viola, Bob Allison, Gagne, Versailles, Earl Battey, Graig Nettles, Lymon Bostock, Pascual, Dave Boswell, Dave Goltz, Mincher. Many of these guys were at the core of 3 World Series teams and a few near misses. By any objective measure, the Griffith organization produced a higher quantity of quality major leaguers in less time than the Pohlad ownership. 

old nurse

old nurse 4,497

Posted

1 hour ago, TJSweens said:

Santana didn't come out of the Twins system. 

You want to throw in the Hall of Pretty good? How about Hrbek, Gaetti, Viola, Bob Allison, Gagne, Versailles, Earl Battey, Graig Nettles, Lymon Bostock, Pascual, Dave Boswell, Dave Goltz, Mincher. Many of these guys were at the core of 3 World Series teams and a few near misses. By any objective measure, the Griffith organization produced a higher quantity of quality major leaguers in less time than the Pohlad ownership. 

So if you are including the players signed by Clark Griffith, players developed by the White Sox, that is fine. If you want to include players with 5 year careers that is fine. Under 11 war is hall of pretty good. Pohlad Gets Knoblach, Koskie, Hunter, Jones AJ, Radke, Scott Erickson, Scott Baker, LaTroy Hawkins, Span, Cuddyer. Heck, even Kyle Loshe and and Matt Garza had better careers than Boswell. 

stringer bell

stringer bell 25,873

Posted

Finding power works for some. Brian Dozier comes to mind. Changing approach sometimes is something that needs to be done. It obviously didn’t work for Austin Martin but it might help for other guys. Some might think Buxton should change his approach—he strikes out a lot and pulls almost everything, but it seems his approach works for him. One size doesn’t fit all and insisting on one plan seems certain to stop development for a number of players. 

TJSweens

TJSweens 513

Posted

1 hour ago, old nurse said:

So if you are including the players signed by Clark Griffith, players developed by the White Sox, that is fine. If you want to include players with 5 year careers that is fine. Under 11 war is hall of pretty good. Pohlad Gets Knoblach, Koskie, Hunter, Jones AJ, Radke, Scott Erickson, Scott Baker, LaTroy Hawkins, Span, Cuddyer. Heck, even Kyle Loshe and and Matt Garza had better careers than Boswell. 

Matt Garza and Kyle Lohse had longer careers than Boswell, not better. Boswell had his career cut short when his shoulder exploded in the 69 playoffs, pitching his 10th inning. Lohse and Garza never had a stretch anywhere close to what Boswell did in those first 6 years.

Keep in mind Griffith produced his players in half the time the time of the Pohlads. 

old nurse

old nurse 4,497

Posted

47 minutes ago, TJSweens said:

Matt Garza and Kyle Lohse had longer careers than Boswell, not better. Boswell had his career cut short when his shoulder exploded in the 69 playoffs, pitching his 10th inning. Lohse and Garza never had a stretch anywhere close to what Boswell did in those first 6 years.

Keep in mind Griffith produced his players in half the time the time of the Pohlads. 

An 88 mph fastball used to be considered a high velocity fastball. Times change, the game changes, some people never notice 

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