Article: Troubled Youth

[Mike Sixel]

 

I don't think you have to give a guy a shot by completely decimating the 40 roster of guys that play the same position.  This is the second time we rolled with a very young CF and had virtually nothing in line to help should he struggle.

 

And no real proven corner OF either......for a generally risk averse organization, it was an odd decision. 

[TheLeviathan]

 

And no real proven corner OF either......for a generally risk averse organization, it was an odd decision. 

 

Right, you could argue we didn't have a single known quantity in the OF on our 40 man roster going into the season.  Not one single player you could reliably count on as both a solid defender and offensive contributor.  Or, if they had shown those qualities the previous year there were still huge red flags attached.

 

But then, some of us have been crowing about the outfield disaster waiting to happen for about 6 months now.

[REPETE]

 

Brian stated it more simply and eloquently, but this just isn't true.

 

Almost everyone advocated signing a veteran outfielder in the 2014-2015 offseason -- no one wanted Hicks penciled in as the opening day CF again.  The general disagreement was with signing a corner OF on his last legs in Hunter, which meant the only alternative to Hicks as opening day CF was Schafer, which wasn't really a move for the present or the future.

 

And once Buxton struggled in MLB last year and Hicks was traded, there were a lot of sensible arguments this past winter for similarly signing a veteran outfielder so we'd have an alternative to Buxton/Santana/Rosario as opening day CF.

 

The rest of your examples are similarly distorted.  Folks may have wanted Buxton up to get a look last year, but that doesn't mean they wanted him to be the opening day CF this year after he struggled last year, etc.

All very valid points, and I apologize for making blanket statements.  My frustration in reading TD lately in this disaster of a season is the rash of rants pointing to one specific reason.  My point is, there isn't one specific reason, or one simple answer.  

 

I understand differing views, but in this debacle of a lost season, they've had absolutely NOTHING go right, and I don't believe anyone foresaw a collapse of this proportion.  Some stated they saw a frustrating season, but I don't believe anyone could have honestly predicted THIS..   

[Mike Sixel]

Well, no one predicted a 41 win pace......that's true.

 

But, all of what is happening is all of the bad things predicted (other than Park) pretty much all coming true at once, and to an extreme.....

 

No true OF on the roster

Mediocre veterans with little upside and serious downside risk

No leadership

Bad bullpen

Rookies that might, probably, will regress

Buxton looking over matched last year, will that continue

Leaving your best SP from last year in AAA to start the year

No backups in AAA if things go badly for the OF

Trading for a backup catcher, instead of trying to go big (or even average)

Moving Sano to the OF

Rosario likely to regress offensively

etc......

 

Every decision but Park has seemingly turned out badly.

[luckylager]

The problem starts at the very top, the Pohlads.  It starts with Jim Pohlad saying that Terry Ryan's GM position is his "as long as he wants it" (regardless of the product on the field).  Describing the current status of the team as a "total system failure" then doing absolutely nothing to address that failure. I really wonder if any of the current generation of Pohlads actually have any real knowledge or interest in running a baseball club? Maybe the family's baseball passion disapeared when Eloise passed away. 

 

More to the point of the topic (sorry), most of the teams young prospects were/are highly rated on a national level. There must be an issue in their development through the Twins system that is causing the issues when they reach the big league club. Are the young Latin players able to communicate effectively with the coaching staff and their teamates (and vice versa)? Where is the on field leadership? Is Molitor an effective manager, communicator, motivator? He was hired with no history of showing that he could do these things. How about the veteran precence on the team? Torii proved to be a great uniter and seemily lit a fire under the team last season. We look for leadership from Mauer, Plouffe, Dozier yet these guys dont seem to be willing/able to carry that torch. These young players need to have leadership. I don't see any.

Edited May 20, 2016 by luckylager

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I agree. Industry-wide people view the Twins system favorably, so either everyone is wrong, or the Twins just don't know what do with our how to use the talent they have.

 

Or perhaps we at TD have a bit of tunnel vision with respect to how difficult it is to both identify and develop talent

 

Honestly, it's probably a bit of all 3.  The Twins aren't perfect as an org, neither is everyone MLB wide, and quite frankly, we do put some pretty unreasonable expectations on our front office as well. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

Or perhaps we at TD have a bit of tunnel vision with respect to how difficult it is to both identify and develop talent

 

Honestly, it's probably a bit of all 3.  The Twins aren't perfect as an org, neither is everyone MLB wide, and quite frankly, we do put some pretty unreasonable expectations on our front office as well. 

 

Not being a 90 loss team year after year is unreasonable? I don't agree.

[tobi0040]

 

Not being a 90 loss team year after year is unreasonable? I don't agree.

 

Yeah, we are losing more than our fair share of games.  I don't know why talent and development is easier for most other teams.

[Shane Wahl]

 

At one point skipping AAA was a semi-regular occurrence. Most of the top prospects are in AA and AAA is for AAAA players and 37 year old journeymen trying to hang on.

 

So?

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

All very valid points, and I apologize for making blanket statements.  My frustration in reading TD lately in this disaster of a season is the rash of rants pointing to one specific reason.  My point is, there isn't one specific reason, or one simple answer.  

 

I understand differing views, but in this debacle of a lost season, they've had absolutely NOTHING go right, and I don't believe anyone foresaw a collapse of this proportion.  Some stated they saw a frustrating season, but I don't believe anyone could have honestly predicted THIS..   

 

I won't argue that there are some on this board that will criticize no matter what, but we did all have different opinions of what should be done.  I'd have rolled with Sweeney or signed a stop gap CF on a 1 year contract.  I'd have also traded Milone.  I probably would have kept Plouffe based on what Todd Frasier netted in his trade, and as such, Sano would have been in RF.   

 

I agree that no one saw this collapse, and that makes me wonder if they will regress a bit positively, but I think my bigger concern right now is the decision to go young when your manager refuses to play young talent.  Something has to give there.  I was pretty happy with Molitor last season, but if Molitor has Gardy level distaste for young talent, then quite frankly this was an awful hire.  I could care less about shifts and stats (OK, maybe not), but truthfully, the most important aspect of Gardy's replacement was the ability to develop talent.  I'd think that could be flushed out pretty easily in an interview. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Not being a 90 loss team year after year is unreasonable? I don't agree.

No, not unreasonable.  I'm more referring to some of our own suggestions of what we would do.  I'm pretty convinced that if the collective here ran the Twins, we'd have nothing but 90 loss season in our future too.  We get tunnel vision b/c we don't really pay attention to how other orgs are run and hold the Twins to a standard that no MLB team could reasonably reach.  I don't have a problem complaining when they things wrong (the chief of which was not having a good CF backup plan, and lesser issues was not addressing the SP log jam by trading Milone this offseason when he might have netted a scratch off ticket).

 

I'm not sure the average fan has a good understanding of baseball economics much less what it actually takes to develop and acquire talent (and I'm not claiming that I do either).  Lots of folks on the board seem to think that struggles are nothing more than a player getting unlucky and that free agents can be picked up and discarded in the same manner that they are in the NFL.   Others would trade away the farm for vets on the wrong side of 30 (see Shields, James whose name comes up here frequently or even better, go look up all the threads saying we should get Nolasco/Santana prior to them being a Twin) while others would waste service time calling up guys who have no business playing in the majors with the idea that they should just be able to succeed.  Others expect results after a dozen games and if they aren't there simply write the guy off as a bust.

 

I realize that these are all different people with all different manners of view, but I suspect that just about everyone of us would end up unemployed in a short manner if we got to move from armchair GM to real GM.  I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize the front office because quite frankly, they deserve it at some times, but I am saying that we should probably approach it with just a little bit of humility, because I think we all suffer from that tunnel vision in one way or another. 

[Han Joelo]

 

All very valid points, and I apologize for making blanket statements.  My frustration in reading TD lately in this disaster of a season is the rash of rants pointing to one specific reason.  My point is, there isn't one specific reason, or one simple answer.  

 

I understand differing views, but in this debacle of a lost season, they've had absolutely NOTHING go right, and I don't believe anyone foresaw a collapse of this proportion.  Some stated they saw a frustrating season, but I don't believe anyone could have honestly predicted THIS..   

Thanks for posting.  I appreciate ALL perspectives on this site.  TD is well moderated and full of astute observations and opinions, and I am always learning something new and often changing my own opinions based on the well-reasoned and written comments.

 

Still, having said that, I too am a little weary of the volume of "I told you so's."  I mean gosh, mea culpa already.  It's like the scene in "Aliens" where Hudson keeps saying "game over man."  And then Hicks (too bad we traded/released him...maybe they should call up D.J.) calmly agrees with Ripley, "Let's take off and nuke the whole thing from orbit."  Yes, Lt. Gorman is incompetent and that guy from "Mad About You" is a slimy corporate snake, but dwelling on it doesn't help me.  Nuke it, I say.  But, others may disagree, which is what it is.

[bird]

 

I am starting to think that there is a specific player development problem in the Twins organization. I need some more time to flesh out this idea fully, so it may be incomplete and/or incorrect, but hear me out:

 

There has been a disturbing pattern on the position player side, and it has to do with discipline and approach. In particular, many of the young guys brought up in the past 3 seasons have had the same general profile: aggressive free-swingers who don't make enough contact, and therefore don't walk enough and strikeout too much. Rosario, Santana, Vargas, Arcia, and Buxton to a varying extents all have this profile. Hicks and Sano aren't free-swingers, but they both have contact issues. I don't know if this approach is specific developed in the minors, or if it is just how these players play. But it has a few major drawbacks:

1) It works in the minors. Pitchers have worse stuff, and much worse control/command, so it is easier to have success with a free-swinging, aggressive approach. Similarly, they can get walks just by being passive.

2) It might work in the majors for a while. Rosario, Santana, Vargas and Arcia have all had stretches of really good hitting. But as big league pitchers adjust to them (or their luck changes), it is hard to maintain success without a solid plate-discipline foundation.

 

So you end up with young hitters that are achieving "success" in the minors, but aren't able to translate their skills into (sustainable) success in the majors. I think there is a disconnect there, and I think it might even point to a fundamental issue with the Twins player development. 

 

This is the most plausible theory that's been suggested on here IMO. Not sure how guys like Polanco or Kepler seem to avoid this, if in fact they have. Without looking, I'm going to guess that the team K rates for our four full-season minor league teams is  worse than league average. The question that surfaces for me is, has there been a concerted effort to draft/sign power position players similarly to the conscious effort to accumulate high-velo pitchers? And does this help explain a pattern? I think of guys like Diaz and Minier, and think maybe they rightly or wrongly have had a focus on power guys. However, I still don't rule out the remote possibility that Arcia, Vargas, Rosario, and Danny Santana are "flukes".

 

I have come to the conclusion, however, that their scouts haven't had a very good eye when it comes to projecting on these power guys. Too many misses, or at least what appear to be misses at this juncture.

[Mike Sixel]

Of course we don't have the information the FO does. Of course if we just started running the team with the collective it wouldn't work. I'm not sure how that is relevant, though.

 

They have the information. They are paid to put a good/great team on the field. They have largely failed at that for some time now. 

 

Comparing their performance to how anyone on this board would do doesn't make sense. Outside of a few teams, most teams have had good years over the last 15, including the Twins. 

 

The question is, what is success? To me, it is more than 1 playoff win and more than 1-2 seasons with 90+ wins over a 15-20 year period..........

[deanlambrecht]

 

Anytime a team struggles, or completely falls apart so early, like this one, people are scrambling for reasons, and you end up with rants.  People saying "the young guys were mismanaged and need time in AAA" is 180 degrees opposite of last year's "Don't sign veterans, let the young kids come up".  

 

"We needed a veteran OFin the offseason" this year was written last year with gnashing of teeth  "Why did the team sign Hunter?  Terry Ryan must go!!!"  

 

"We've mismanaged the young kids by not letting them play through their struggles", yet we allowed Rosario to fumble through 1/4 of the season before his long awaited demotion.  

 

Last year, the call was "Bring up Buxton now!".  This year, the call is "Why didn't they sign a veteran OF?  They should've known Buxton wasn't ready!"  

 

Let's face it, this season is a disaster of major proportions, which I don't think ANY of us saw coming.  Some regression?  Sure.  Potential 120 losses?  No way!  Even if the roster had some regression, there is/was still enough talent on the roster to win 70 games.  

 

The simple fact here is, in hindsight, better roster moves certainly could've been made;  Rookies & 2nd year guys should be playing better.  Handling of the young prospects could certainly be different.  However, NOBODY saw this collapse of epic proportion, so perhaps we need to step back and take a deep breath.  2 weeks ago, the season was too young to just throw in the towel.  If there's no change in the play by June, perhaps the roster will be handled differently. 

 

Blaming the FO/Manager for 10 wins takes a lot of focus away from the fact the kids we've all wanted to see playing, are simply not performing.  The veterans aren't performing.  Nothing is clicking at the same time.  Why?  I don't think there is a rational answer, just circular hand wringing arguments.    

 

Agree 100%.  In particular your pointing out the flip-flopping recommendations from us in the TD peanut gallery. 

 

For me, perhaps the only thing more aggravating than the Twins performance thus far is the hyperventilating about it here at TD.  Your recommendation to "step back and take a deep breath" is exactly right.

[bird]

 

Agree 100%.  In particular your pointing out the flip-flopping recommendations from us in the TD peanut gallery. 

 

For me, perhaps the only thing more aggravating than the Twins performance thus far is the hyperventilating about it here at TD.  Your recommendation to "step back and take a deep breath" is exactly right.

 

 

I'm a guy with a reputation for pushing back fairly hard when I think the criticism is overly harsh and when the comments get irrational, personal, stupid, or stupidly redundant.

 

But I disagree with your point of view here. I'm a daily reader here because a lot of my pals here make very astute and reasoned arguments when they disagree with something the team isn't doing or has done. I may disagree with or question the opinion, but It's offensive to characterize 99% of us as hyperventilating and as members of a peanut gallery.

[d-mac]

 

At one point skipping AAA was a semi-regular occurrence. Most of the top prospects are in AA and AAA is for AAAA players and 37 year old journeymen trying to hang on.

 

Not anymore. Only the elite of elite hitting prospects (with plus contact skills) skip or breeze through AAA. It's more common for pitchers, since the learning curve from AA to MLB is less steep.

 

Let's examine some of the top hitters in baseball last year and how many plate appearances in AAA they had before they became established, ordered by fWAR:

 

1. Harper 84 (Elite of the Elite had only 147 PAs in AA, probably best hitting prospect of all time)

2. Trout 93 (Elite of the Elite, 412 PA in AA)

3. Donaldson 1,085 (two stints in AAA)

4. Goldschmidt - no AAA (Elite contact/plus power tools as prospect after a full season 1.000+ OPS in AA and almost a 1:1 BB/K rate)

5. Votto- 580 

6.  Machado- no AAA (Solid BB/K rate during a FULL season in AA, then took 3 years to establish in MLB)

7. Cespedes- N/A Cuba

8. A.J. Pollock- 478

9. Lorenzo Cain- 672 (Several stints, appeared to have injury issues early on)

10. Kris Bryant- 330 (Half season at AA- OPS'd 1.160 in AA and 1.038 in AAA)

11. Jason Heyward- None- (First player on the list handled in a way the Twins have handled their youth- start season at A+- end at AA, start next year with ML club. But in a little more than a third of a season Heyward OPS'd 1.057 with a 1.47 BB/K rate.)

12. McCutchen- 785

13. Buster Posey- 359 (interestingly skipped AA, but had a nearly 1:1 K:BB ratio and an OPS in the mid .900 combined in A+ and AAA)

14. Chris Davis- 975 (only 202 PA in AA, 127 in AAA before initial call-up. Then it took three more full seasons of back and forth between MLB and AAA and another organization before he established himself). 

15. Kevin Kiermaier- 309 (after a full season at AA).

 

Based on my observations most players had significant playing time in AAA (some even spent a full season or more in AAA! Although many had a "cup of coffee" in sandwiched in their AAA time). The ones that breezed through or skipped AAA had FULL seasons in AA (solid April through Sept for one year), with OPS's .950+ and BB/K of at least .80. Exceptions were of course Trout, Harper (duh!), Cain (injuries), Heyward (hit and had elite BB/K rates), and Chris Davis (struggled to establish himself).

 

Contrast that to the Twins' top hitting prospects:

1. Sano- no AAA (two half seasons in AA w/ OPS in low .900's, BB/K ~0.50)

2. Buxton- 59 (Half season at AA with OPS .849, poor BB/K rates in both AA and AAA)

3. Rosario- 100 (Two half stints at AA because of suspension. OPS of .742, .672 in AA; .659 in AAA- poor BB/K rates at all stops)

4. Arcia- 155 (Half season in AA. Had OPS of .955 in AA, 1.020 in AAA, ~0.5 BB/K at both stops)

5. Vargas- No AAA- (3/4 season in AA with .832 OPS and 0.63 BB/K)

6. Santana- 105 (full season at AA, then an OPS .692, 0.21 BB/K rate at AAA)

7. Kepler- 110 (full season at AA)

8. Polanco- 148 (3/4 season at AA, two disjointed stints in AAA)

 

It appears the Twins' handling of their hitting prospects run counter to what most other teams have done with developing talent, even the elite hitting prospects. Many did not have a full season in AA, then had only a token appearance in AAA. While only Arcia and Kepler have shown any dominance of AA with an OPS in the mid .900's or higher. And only Kepler had a BB/K over .80. Most of the hitters have had poor BB/K rates in AA and AAA.

 

The Twins have rushed their hitters through the upper minors and not put them in a position to succeed. Even Mike Trout had more AA and AAA plate appearances than Buxton had before he was up full time, and Trout had a much better developed hit tool at the same stage. 

[d-mac]

 

I am starting to think that there is a specific player development problem in the Twins organization. I need some more time to flesh out this idea fully, so it may be incomplete and/or incorrect, but hear me out:

 

There has been a disturbing pattern on the position player side, and it has to do with discipline and approach. In particular, many of the young guys brought up in the past 3 seasons have had the same general profile: aggressive free-swingers who don't make enough contact, and therefore don't walk enough and strikeout too much. Rosario, Santana, Vargas, Arcia, and Buxton to a varying extents all have this profile. Hicks and Sano aren't free-swingers, but they both have contact issues. I don't know if this approach is specific developed in the minors, or if it is just how these players play. But it has a few major drawbacks:

1) It works in the minors. Pitchers have worse stuff, and much worse control/command, so it is easier to have success with a free-swinging, aggressive approach. Similarly, they can get walks just by being passive.

2) It might work in the majors for a while. Rosario, Santana, Vargas and Arcia have all had stretches of really good hitting. But as big league pitchers adjust to them (or their luck changes), it is hard to maintain success without a solid plate-discipline foundation.

 

So you end up with young hitters that are achieving "success" in the minors, but aren't able to translate their skills into (sustainable) success in the majors. I think there is a disconnect there, and I think it might even point to a fundamental issue with the Twins player development. 

 

In my lengthy research post above, I came to a similar conclusion, the Twins hitters were rushed through AA and AAA without dominating and/or showing solid plate discipline. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

Not anymore. Only the elite of elite hitting prospects (with plus contact skills) skip or breeze through AAA. It's more common for pitchers, since the learning curve from AA to MLB is less steep.

snip

 

The Twins have rushed their hitters through the upper minors and not put them in a position to succeed. Even Mike Trout had more AA and AAA plate appearances than Buxton had before he was up full time, and Trout had a much better developed hit tool at the same stage. 

 

 

Wow. Good stuff. Would not have been my belief.....thanks. I have to re-think some things.

[troyhobbs]

I don't think folks are flip flopping so much as recalculating their POV's after things shake out one way or the other. Sure no one is right 100% of the time but I didn't see a single media entity (outside of MN anyway) that had the Twins ranked above the bottom 3rd of the league. So baseball people outside of TD were also quite skeptical of the roster and no one has said that they themselves are more capable than TR, Molly, etc. so much as that there has to be better options if ownership would actually consider looking for them, which of course they won't.

[d-mac]

I won't argue that there are some on this board that will criticize no matter what, but we did all have different opinions of what should be done.  I'd have rolled with Sweeney or signed a stop gap CF on a 1 year contract.  I'd have also traded Milone.  I probably would have kept Plouffe based on what Todd Frasier netted in his trade, and as such, Sano would have been in RF.   

 

I agree that no one saw this collapse, and that makes me wonder if they will regress a bit positively, but I think my bigger concern right now is the decision to go young when your manager refuses to play young talent.  Something has to give there.  I was pretty happy with Molitor last season, but if Molitor has Gardy level distaste for young talent, then quite frankly this was an awful hire.  I could care less about shifts and stats (OK, maybe not), but truthfully, the most important aspect of Gardy's replacement was the ability to develop talent.  I'd think that could be flushed out pretty easily in an interview.

 

I can't disagree with any of this. I would have stuck Plouffe in RF and kept Sano at 3rd. But your analysis of Molitor is spot on. All of the issues I had with Gardy and doubts about him leading the youth movement Molitor has and even to a more extreme extent.

[Blake]

 

Not anymore. Only the elite of elite hitting prospects (with plus contact skills) skip or breeze through AAA. It's more common for pitchers, since the learning curve from AA to MLB is less steep.

 

Let's examine some of the top hitters in baseball last year and how many plate appearances in AAA they had before they became established, ordered by fWAR:

 

1. Harper 84 (Elite of the Elite had only 147 PAs in AA, probably best hitting prospect of all time)

2. Trout 93 (Elite of the Elite, 412 PA in AA)

3. Donaldson 1,085 (two stints in AAA)

4. Goldschmidt - no AAA (Elite contact/plus power tools as prospect after a full season 1.000+ OPS in AA and almost a 1:1 BB/K rate)

5. Votto- 580 

6.  Machado- no AAA (Solid BB/K rate during a FULL season in AA, then took 3 years to establish in MLB)

7. Cespedes- N/A Cuba

8. A.J. Pollock- 478

9. Lorenzo Cain- 672 (Several stints, appeared to have injury issues early on)

10. Kris Bryant- 330 (Half season at AA- OPS'd 1.160 in AA and 1.038 in AAA)

11. Jason Heyward- None- (First player on the list handled in a way the Twins have handled their youth- start season at A+- end at AA, start next year with ML club. But in a little more than a third of a season Heyward OPS'd 1.057 with a 1.47 BB/K rate.)

12. McCutchen- 785

13. Buster Posey- 359 (interestingly skipped AA, but had a nearly 1:1 K:BB ratio and an OPS in the mid .900 combined in A+ and AAA)

14. Chris Davis- 975 (only 202 PA in AA, 127 in AAA before initial call-up. Then it took three more full seasons of back and forth between MLB and AAA and another organization before he established himself). 

15. Kevin Kiermaier- 309 (after a full season at AA).

 

Based on my observations most players had significant playing time in AAA (some even spent a full season or more in AAA! Although many had a "cup of coffee" in sandwiched in their AAA time). The ones that breezed through or skipped AAA had FULL seasons in AA (solid April through Sept for one year), with OPS's .950+ and BB/K of at least .80. Exceptions were of course Trout, Harper (duh!), Cain (injuries), Heyward (hit and had elite BB/K rates), and Chris Davis (struggled to establish himself).

 

Contrast that to the Twins' top hitting prospects:

1. Sano- no AAA (two half seasons in AA w/ OPS in low .900's, BB/K ~0.50)

2. Buxton- 59 (Half season at AA with OPS .849, poor BB/K rates in both AA and AAA)

3. Rosario- 100 (Two half stints at AA because of suspension. OPS of .742, .672 in AA; .659 in AAA- poor BB/K rates at all stops)

4. Arcia- 155 (Half season in AA. Had OPS of .955 in AA, 1.020 in AAA, ~0.5 BB/K at both stops)

5. Vargas- No AAA- (3/4 season in AA with .832 OPS and 0.63 BB/K)

6. Santana- 105 (full season at AA, then an OPS .692, 0.21 BB/K rate at AAA)

7. Kepler- 110 (full season at AA)

8. Polanco- 148 (3/4 season at AA, two disjointed stints in AAA)

 

It appears the Twins' handling of their hitting prospects run counter to what most other teams have done with developing talent, even the elite hitting prospects. Many did not have a full season in AA, then had only a token appearance in AAA. While only Arcia and Kepler have shown any dominance of AA with an OPS in the mid .900's or higher. And only Kepler had a BB/K over .80. Most of the hitters have had poor BB/K rates in AA and AAA.

 

The Twins have rushed their hitters through the upper minors and not put them in a position to succeed. Even Mike Trout had more AA and AAA plate appearances than Buxton had before he was up full time, and Trout had a much better developed hit tool at the same stage. 

Do you suppose the Twins rushed these prospects for monetary reasons, incompetence or because the FO couldn't take another bad season with MLB filler?

 

If you're able to run these numbers then the FO certainly has access to the same information. It's quite incredible to think the FO kept trying the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

 

Also, how does rushing prospects affect options? For instance, Arcia is on the MLB team because he's out of options.

[ShouldaCouldaWoulda]

 

Nick, right on the money.  This was so well written I had to look to see who wrote it.

 

I think the bottom line is, Terry Ryan and his cohorts are TERRIBLE evaluators of talent.....which of course means, as long as he stays, there is no hope for improvement

I am less worried about the talent, but think there is definitely a problem with player development as to "what" works at the "next level" and seem like they're content to believe in minor league number regardless of process. These guys have all come up very talented and athletic, but very raw and undisciplined. I don't know what they are focussing on at the plate with these guys to get them ready for the "next level," but I personally feel they are not doing nearly enough or they're doing it wrong.

[d-mac]

 

Wow. Good stuff. Would not have been my belief.....thanks. I have to re-think some things.

 

Yeah I was surprised, too, with some of what I found. The common refrain from many of the traditional prospect guys tends to be that AAA just isn't important for the development of prospects and is just a repository for replacement level players. Just based on the research I've done for fantasy baseball and following prospects the past few years is that this hasn't been how teams have treated AAA for 10 years now. Teams are very deliberate with the amount of time hitters spend in AA and AAA and will make the prospect prove they can control the strike zone while putting up a high OPS.

 

Conversely, this is more from anecdotal evidence (I'm not going to research this -it'll take just way too long), but most teams tend to move their prospects fairly quickly through rookie and A ball, especially players drafted out of college. This makes since, because each step between rookie and A+ is fairly small. A+-AA, then AAA-MLB are extremely huge jumps. The Twins force full season stops at Rookie ball, A ball, and A+ (even for college hitters that dominate inferior competition), while pushing hitters fairly quickly from A+ to the majors. 

 

I hope I'm wrong here, but after doing this research I'm fairly worried that many of the Twins young players are on the Chris Davis path. Sure, Davis turned into an elite power hitter, but only after several seasons of getting shuffled between AAA and MLB and changing orgs. And he still has strikeout issues. The last Twins position player to come up that had significant playing time in AAA was Trevor Plouffe and before that Denard Span. Yeah, Ben Revere and Dozier with little time at AAA came up and hit fairly quickly, but Revere also had elite contact ability (probably too good for his lack of power) and Dozier is likely a product of Target Field. 

[ShouldaCouldaWoulda]

 

I am starting to think that there is a specific player development problem in the Twins organization. I need some more time to flesh out this idea fully, so it may be incomplete and/or incorrect, but hear me out:

 

There has been a disturbing pattern on the position player side, and it has to do with discipline and approach. In particular, many of the young guys brought up in the past 3 seasons have had the same general profile: aggressive free-swingers who don't make enough contact, and therefore don't walk enough and strikeout too much. Rosario, Santana, Vargas, Arcia, and Buxton to a varying extents all have this profile. Hicks and Sano aren't free-swingers, but they both have contact issues. I don't know if this approach is specific developed in the minors, or if it is just how these players play. But it has a few major drawbacks:

1) It works in the minors. Pitchers have worse stuff, and much worse control/command, so it is easier to have success with a free-swinging, aggressive approach. Similarly, they can get walks just by being passive.

2) It might work in the majors for a while. Rosario, Santana, Vargas and Arcia have all had stretches of really good hitting. But as big league pitchers adjust to them (or their luck changes), it is hard to maintain success without a solid plate-discipline foundation.

 

So you end up with young hitters that are achieving "success" in the minors, but aren't able to translate their skills into (sustainable) success in the majors. I think there is a disconnect there, and I think it might even point to a fundamental issue with the Twins player development. 

This. I wrote this, but you did it much much better. Get out of my head.

[ShouldaCouldaWoulda]

 

 

 

It's impossible to express Twins Daily as a United Voice. 

"Sigghhhhhhh." There, I disagree- I kid.

[markos]

 

Yeah, Ben Revere and Dozier with little time at AAA came up and hit fairly quickly, but Revere also had elite contact ability (probably too good for his lack of power) and Dozier is likely a product of Target Field. 

Dozier wasn't quite at Revere's elite contact level in the minors, but he was still very good: K% of only 11.4% with a walk rate of 9.5%. That gave him plenty of room to sacrifice contact for power and still be productive.

[Riverbrian]

 

Not anymore. Only the elite of elite hitting prospects (with plus contact skills) skip or breeze through AAA. It's more common for pitchers, since the learning curve from AA to MLB is less steep.

 

Let's examine some of the top hitters in baseball last year and how many plate appearances in AAA they had before they became established, ordered by fWAR:

 

1. Harper 84 (Elite of the Elite had only 147 PAs in AA, probably best hitting prospect of all time)

2. Trout 93 (Elite of the Elite, 412 PA in AA)

3. Donaldson 1,085 (two stints in AAA)

4. Goldschmidt - no AAA (Elite contact/plus power tools as prospect after a full season 1.000+ OPS in AA and almost a 1:1 BB/K rate)

5. Votto- 580 

6.  Machado- no AAA (Solid BB/K rate during a FULL season in AA, then took 3 years to establish in MLB)

7. Cespedes- N/A Cuba

8. A.J. Pollock- 478

9. Lorenzo Cain- 672 (Several stints, appeared to have injury issues early on)

10. Kris Bryant- 330 (Half season at AA- OPS'd 1.160 in AA and 1.038 in AAA)

11. Jason Heyward- None- (First player on the list handled in a way the Twins have handled their youth- start season at A+- end at AA, start next year with ML club. But in a little more than a third of a season Heyward OPS'd 1.057 with a 1.47 BB/K rate.)

12. McCutchen- 785

13. Buster Posey- 359 (interestingly skipped AA, but had a nearly 1:1 K:BB ratio and an OPS in the mid .900 combined in A+ and AAA)

14. Chris Davis- 975 (only 202 PA in AA, 127 in AAA before initial call-up. Then it took three more full seasons of back and forth between MLB and AAA and another organization before he established himself). 

15. Kevin Kiermaier- 309 (after a full season at AA).

 

Based on my observations most players had significant playing time in AAA (some even spent a full season or more in AAA! Although many had a "cup of coffee" in sandwiched in their AAA time). The ones that breezed through or skipped AAA had FULL seasons in AA (solid April through Sept for one year), with OPS's .950+ and BB/K of at least .80. Exceptions were of course Trout, Harper (duh!), Cain (injuries), Heyward (hit and had elite BB/K rates), and Chris Davis (struggled to establish himself).

 

Contrast that to the Twins' top hitting prospects:

1. Sano- no AAA (two half seasons in AA w/ OPS in low .900's, BB/K ~0.50)

2. Buxton- 59 (Half season at AA with OPS .849, poor BB/K rates in both AA and AAA)

3. Rosario- 100 (Two half stints at AA because of suspension. OPS of .742, .672 in AA; .659 in AAA- poor BB/K rates at all stops)

4. Arcia- 155 (Half season in AA. Had OPS of .955 in AA, 1.020 in AAA, ~0.5 BB/K at both stops)

5. Vargas- No AAA- (3/4 season in AA with .832 OPS and 0.63 BB/K)

6. Santana- 105 (full season at AA, then an OPS .692, 0.21 BB/K rate at AAA)

7. Kepler- 110 (full season at AA)

8. Polanco- 148 (3/4 season at AA, two disjointed stints in AAA)

 

It appears the Twins' handling of their hitting prospects run counter to what most other teams have done with developing talent, even the elite hitting prospects. Many did not have a full season in AA, then had only a token appearance in AAA. While only Arcia and Kepler have shown any dominance of AA with an OPS in the mid .900's or higher. And only Kepler had a BB/K over .80. Most of the hitters have had poor BB/K rates in AA and AAA.

 

The Twins have rushed their hitters through the upper minors and not put them in a position to succeed. Even Mike Trout had more AA and AAA plate appearances than Buxton had before he was up full time, and Trout had a much better developed hit tool at the same stage. 

 

Thank You... You deserve a badge or something. 

 

I'm willing to bet if you kept going this information that you provided would start to replicate ten fold. 

 

As a long time fantasy baseball player... I've waited for many of these prospects for excruciating periods of time. 

 

There is a yearning for Berrios but an obliviousness to what is happening with Glasnow, Taillon, Snell and others of similar situation. 

 

The Twins are in the unique position of having rushed prospects and have them over fill the 40 man at the same time.

 

We got a lot of them and they are mostly not fully cooked... so something will have to give. 

 

 

[d-mac]

 

Do you suppose the Twins rushed these prospects for monetary reasons, incompetence or because the FO couldn't take another bad season with MLB filler?

 

If you're able to run these numbers then the FO certainly has access to the same information. It's quite incredible to think the FO kept trying the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

 

Also, how does rushing prospects affect options? For instance, Arcia is on the MLB team because he's out of options.

 

I doubt it's for monetary reasons, generally, the more major league time a player has the more expensive he is- they enter arbitration and free agency sooner. So, bringing up players before they are ready and starting their service clocks early is going to make it very hard to hang on to these players if they end up having success. 

 

It's more plausible that they are trying to save face with the public (with the stadium sized elephant in the room) by rushing the kids up here. And that's never good because they'll bust at a higher rate or stunt their upside. Their actions give some credence to this theory- they never committed to a full rebuild after the 2011 season. This is despite TR declaring in the media that "they aren't going to take any shortcuts."

 

You're right, anybody with access to the internet can look up what I did through fangraphs or bbref. So, either the FO are overly confident in their ability to identify and develop talent or they are so insular they haven't realized that player development has changed. it's probably a little of column A, little of column B. 

 

As far as options go, when a player is added to the 40 man, any time they are removed from the 25-man roster (sent down for non-injury reasons) they use an option year. The player can go up and down as many times as needed in that year. But there are, I believe, 3 option years. Once those years are used up, a player must be put on waivers to be removed from the 25 man roster. So rushing a player up early, only to bounce back and forth (like Arcia) between MLB and AAA uses up those options and limits roster flexibility. However, a player can only be in an org's minor league system for x number of years before they must be placed on the 40-man or be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft. 

[d-mac]

 

Thank You... You deserve a badge or something. 

 

I'm willing to bet if you kept going this information that you provided would start to replicate ten fold. 

 

As a long time fantasy baseball player... I've waited for many of these prospects for excruciating periods of time. 

 

There is a yearning for Berrios but an obliviousness to what is happening with Glasnow, Taillon, Snell and others of similar situation. 

 

The Twins are in the unique position of having rushed prospects and have them over fill the 40 man at the same time.

 

We got a lot of them and they are mostly not fully cooked... so something will have to give. 

 

Indeed. At some point you have to s*** or get off the pot. And it's not the prospects fault by any stretch of the imagination. The FO clearly lacked a plan with how the roster was going to take shape several years down the road. Now the ones that should be here are blocked and/or moved out of position (Sano, Polanco, May, etc.) and the ones that aren't ready are forced into action because they misjudged their preparedness and didn't have a backup plan (pick an outfielder).