About that farm system..

[bird]

 

Seems to me a lot of people skipped over markos' post where he actually analyzed the job in drafting compared to expected outcomes looking at long periods of data.....

 

Either way, it's not where most of us want it. And, here's hoping the new FO does a better job of using all manner of ways to add talent. So far, they've demonstrated a desire to add castoffs that were never all that good from other teams (see pitchers added this year) and identifying a gaping hole (catcher) and trying to fill it in FA. But, this team lives and breathes, imo, by how it drafts, signs IFAs, and develops those two.

 

 

If it's the one I'm thinking about, I didn't ignore it and found it interesting. But I have a huge problem with looking past the first round and saying a good selection was due to a team's superior judgment. Here's an example:

 

Kevin Youkilis was selected as the 243rd pick in the 2001 draft. That meant every team in baseball passed him up 8 times. Eight times, each team scanned his stat sheet and set it back down, thinking they had a better idea. This guy generated more WAR (32.7) during his career than any Twin not named Mauer (50.1) since 2001. Span is the closest at 25.1. So, if we want to credit Boston for being so much better at this drafting thing, we have to believe that they somehow calculated that none of the other 29 teams would catch on to what they knew. In which case they could simply wait to snatch him up with their 8th pick of the draft. But not their 9th, because someone else, by their calculations, had Youkilis in their sites as a value as a 9th round pick.  So why not wait to nab a guy you know is going to be a stud? After all, after picking Kelly Shoppach with your first selection, it was important to pass on Youkilis 6 more times so you could pick guys named Chico, Devries, Baille, West, James, and Viera, none of whom made the majors.

 

Maybe Boston wasn't just lucky to make that selection and accumulate more WAR than Dozier and Neshek combined. But frankly, I can't give the Twins or Red Sox credit for good scouting for these picks other than in a vacuum. I can grasp the argument someone might make, which is that results, in this case measured by WAR, tell you enough about who's any good at finding talent and who's not. I don't buy that. If the Twins projected that Dozier was going to give them 19.1 WAR by now and that Gibson might be finished after giving them 3.9 WAR, they would have passed on Gibson and seven others and snapped up Dozier instead of waiting until the 6th round. Sorry, I'm going to call the Dozier and Youkilis picks luck.

[bird]

If anyone refutes the argument that the bad record is primarily a function of poor scouting, drafting, and development, or attempts to add factual context to the draft history, they're just making excuses?

 

 

[drivlikejehu]

 

If anyone refutes the argument that the bad record is primarily a function of poor scouting, drafting, and development, or attempts to add factual context to the draft history, they're just making excuses?

 

Your logic is flawed. A better-drafting team has improved odds to hit with each pick, but prospects are still high-risk individually. Most fail. The cumulative drafting results are nonetheless a reflection of an organization's ability to identify and develop players.

 

It's sort of like poker - for one hand, luck players a large role, but over time the role of skill is increasingly predominant.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Your logic is flawed. A better-drafting team has improved odds to hit with each pick, but prospects are still high-risk individually. Most fail. The cumulative drafting results are nonetheless a reflection of an organization's ability to identify and develop players.

 

It's sort of like poker - for one hand, luck players a large role, but over time the role of skill is increasingly predominant.

This is where I struggle to come up with an answer that isn't "we needed a new front office".

 

Where you see the need for a better-drafting team, I might see the need for a better-developmental team. Or maybe both. Hell, maybe neither. Maybe the old front office did just fine with their picks and development, they just happened to run into a spat of terrible luck in their highest profile picks.

 

But at what percentage did drafting/development need repair? 20/80? 50/50? 80/20?

 

We can all agree the Twins have likely gone wrong somewhere in the drafting and/or development process. My problem mostly stems from us laymen stating with any kind of certainty where they went wrong and in what capacity.

 

Hell, just today Seth posted an interview with Law where he said the Twins have picked pretty well overall, it just hasn't worked out as well as we'd like.

[gunnarthor]

 

 

We can all agree the Twins have likely gone wrong somewhere in the drafting and/or development process. My problem mostly stems from us laymen stating with any kind of certainty where they went wrong and in what capacity.

 

Hell, just today Seth posted an interview with Law where he said the Twins have picked pretty well overall, it just hasn't worked out as well as we'd like.

Yeah, I think our biggest drafting problems were the 08-11 period. Not a lot out of those drafts and it makes sense. You had a new GM and a new draft guru and they were picking toward the back of the first round in those years. That's a tough assignment. Those drafts are hard to defend. The Stewart draft and Jay drafts (to me) look pretty solid even if the results aren't where we want them. I actually think the Gordon draft (followed by Burdi and relievers) made the least sense but might work out the best.

 

But I very much believe that Brad Steil, who took over as farm director in 2012, has done a wonderful job pushing prospects up the ladder faster than before and getting more out of later round picks. 

[TheLeviathan]

 

I think the nitty gritty is the analysis and conclusions of guys like Law, Callis, and Sickles, not the personal opinions of you or me. And while the analyses and conclusions these guys reach might be subject some variance in interpretation, one would be hard-pressed to interpret Sickle's grades, or even Law's rankings, to mean they regard the Twin's pitching situation as among the worst in baseball.

 

Honestly, I don't put a ton of stock into the "experts" either.  Sickles has probably seen Gonsalves once or twice and his basing his expert opinions on the definition of a small sample.  I'll watch numbers like they do, but I'm not convinced their insights are all that important.

 

I largely think their entire field (nation wide analyst of prospects) is overstated.  They really aren't that different than your average person sitting at home looking at stats.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Honestly, I don't put a ton of stock into the "experts" either.  Sickles has probably seen Gonsalves once or twice and his basing his expert opinions on the definition of a small sample.  I'll watch numbers like they do, but I'm not convinced their insights are all that important.

 

I largely think their entire field (nation wide analyst of prospects) is overstated.  They really aren't that different than your average person sitting at home looking at stats.

 

and yet, that isn't true. KLAW and Longenhagen travel the nation and talk to scouts that watch these guys every single day, for example. I assume others do that also. Some are former scouts or FO people, with experience in the field. Some get hired by front offices every year.

 

Also, the correlation between rankings and WAR is quite high. 

 

so, we'll just 100% completely disagree on your comments that these guys don't know anything about what they do for a living.

[TheLeviathan]

 

and yet, that isn't true. KLAW and Longenhagen travel the nation and talk to scouts that watch these guys every single day, for example. I assume others do that also. Some are former scouts or FO people, with experience in the field. Some get hired by front offices every year.

 

Also, the correlation between rankings and WAR is quite high. 

 

so, we'll just 100% completely disagree on your comments that these guys don't know anything about what they do for a living.

 

It's not that they don't know what they're talking about at some level, it's that the stock put into what they're talking about is overblown.  

 

You made a ton of assumptions in that first paragraph.  Just consider for example the scope of what you say they are doing.  They are literally cataloging thousands of players.  There aren't enough hours in the day to have more than a small sample of experience with each player.

 

What I would grant is that Law or Sickles might know a horde of good scouts that they collect information from and have found a way to simplify and disseminate that information.  Otherwise, what we seem to think these gurus do is physically impossible.

 

If I'm a regional manager of a chain of hundreds of stores, I can call each manager for a report on their store and I can talk competently about them based on that brief conversation and some data I have...but how well do I know each store?  Is that even possible?  I can have expertise in the business and if you put me in charge of 6 of them I'd be really good at it.  But to know hundreds intimately?  

 

But yet, that's how we treat prospect lists and prospect gurus.

[TheLeviathan]

To put it in teaching terms - we treat these guys like they know everyone a mile deep and an inch wide, when instead they've done it a mile wide and an inch deep.

[drjim]

 

To put it in teaching terms - we treat these guys like they know everyone a mile deep and an inch wide, when instead they've done it a mile wide and an inch deep.

 

I think this is a valid critique, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Probably wise to show some humility and not treat a list as perfectly ordered gospel, but treat it more as a general guide to show relative placement of a variety of players playing over a variety levels. It will always be more art than science.

 

Being an aggregator of information from a variety of sources, blending that with skills, playing hunches, putting yourself out there. These are all skills.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Well, I'd guess their first step is to winnow out the guys that no one thinks is a likely top 200-300 player. That gets you to a more reasonable number.

 

I think I did say they talk to scouts. That's part of the process. Not one of them claims to have seen every player.

 

I find it ironic this argument is being made, when people say that they can eyeball defense just by watching a few Twins' games...

 

We could test the hypothesis. I can send you a list of 100 player's minor league stats w/o names, and you rank them, does that work?

 

But you're assuming how much they talk to scouts.  Knowing just 30 players on each team is 900 players.  And these guys often rank them in groups of 20-30.

 

And that says nothing of amatuer players.  Or current players.

 

I'm merely suggesting the scope of what we think they do is pretty damn impossible.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I think this is a valid critique, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be. Probably wise to show some humility and not treat a list as perfectly ordered gospel, but treat it more as a general guide to show relative placement of a variety of players playing over a variety levels. It will always be more art than science.

 

Being an aggregator of information from a variety of sources, blending that with skills, playing hunches, putting yourself out there. These are all skills.

 

There is no alternative, there is nothing wrong with what they do.  I'm talking about our perceptions of it.  We treat them as experts, when they are really just aggregators.  And there is a difference.

[drjim]

There is no alternative, there is nothing wrong with what they do. I'm talking about our perceptions of it. We treat them as experts, when they are really just aggregators. And there is a difference.

They're absolutely experts, among the most knowledgeable people on this topic in the entire world.

 

If they aren't experts, then experts in this field don't exist.

[DaveW]

and yet, that isn't true. KLAW and Longenhagen travel the nation and talk to scouts that watch these guys every single day, for example. I assume others do that also. Some are former scouts or FO people, with experience in the field. Some get hired by front offices every year.

 

Also, the correlation between rankings and WAR is quite high.

 

so, we'll just 100% completely disagree on your comments that these guys don't know anything about what they do for a living.

Yeah Sickels is paid full time to be an expert in the minor leagues, he likely has a massive network of eyes and ears as well. Ditto with KLaw, nobody is saying to take their words as gospel, but they have a ton of credibility IMO much more so then the orgs themselves (who will always hype up their own)

[DaveW]

Keep in mind, it's very likely Sickels and KLaw could go work for whatever org they would want to. They are as "expert" as it gets IMO.

[DaveW]

If there is interest I could try to set up an extended interview with a Sickels where we can ask him all of these questions about the twins etc and just general scouting/prospect/process questions as a whole.

[TheLeviathan]

 

They're absolutely experts, among the most knowledgeable people on this topic in the entire world.

If they aren't experts, then experts in this field don't exist.

 

I'm not sure I agree.  They are expert aggregators, but the real experts are the ones they are aggregating.  

 

You could say they are the best sources, but experts implies they have personal knowledge and I'm not so sure that's true.  At least, not as widely as we seem to believe.

 

And, in saying that I'm not saying they can't be experts if they became scouts or had a more narrowed field of study.  I'm saying that given what they are doing, it's next to impossible for them to be experts on any given prospect.

[howieramone2]

 

Seems to me a lot of people skipped over markos' post where he actually analyzed the job in drafting compared to expected outcomes looking at long periods of data.....

 

Either way, it's not where most of us want it. And, here's hoping the new FO does a better job of using all manner of ways to add talent. So far, they've demonstrated a desire to add castoffs that were never all that good from other teams (see pitchers added this year) and identifying a gaping hole (catcher) and trying to fill it in FA. But, this team lives and breathes, imo, by how it drafts, signs IFAs, and develops those two.

As I posted before, 2006-2011 is ancient history. The world has changed.

[bird]

 

Your logic is flawed. A better-drafting team has improved odds to hit with each pick, but prospects are still high-risk individually. Most fail. The cumulative drafting results are nonetheless a reflection of an organization's ability to identify and develop players.

 

It's sort of like poker - for one hand, luck players a large role, but over time the role of skill is increasingly predominant.

 

 

If you were to gain a full understanding of what has transpired year over year, your conclusion would be different. I believe it's your analysis that is flawed, and therefore so is your conclusion.

[bird]

 

There is no alternative, there is nothing wrong with what they do.  I'm talking about our perceptions of it.  We treat them as experts, when they are really just aggregators.  And there is a difference.

  I get this Levi, but please answer this question. If you were going to place a bet on a prospect based on the opinion of me versus the opinion of Law, Sickles, Callis, and two other experts, who you gonna call?

 

So, when you and I are trying to reconcile our differences in perception about the talent quality in the system, and Sickles, Law, Callis, and two others have a higher opinion about the talent than you do, I'm siding with them, even though, like you, I know they are probably as wrong about a lot of these guys as the GMs and scouting directors. I have to go with the belief that they're going to be more right than you and me.

[bird]

 

 

 

It's sort of like poker - for one hand, luck players a large role, but over time the role of skill is increasingly predominant.

 

 

Let's play ten hypothetical hands of poker. Hypothetically, the dealer deals me better cards than the cards he deals you seven out of the ten times. We play each hand, and at the end, you've "only" won four times while I've won six times.

 

Aren't you very likely the better poker player? Or maybe I played one hand poorly and you benefitted, who really knows. But when all we look at is the results, you lost. Bad record. Crappy poker player. You're out of chips, so you must be crappy at poker. Don't tell me what the dealer dealt you. Those are just excuses, not explanations. And if you played one hand poorly, that's unforgivable. Crappy crappy crappy.

 

This thread started with a sort of invitation to explore the questions. Unlike with our poker game, where there is a clear winner, there's room to ponder (and argue) whether we lost a round despite having a superior hand or won despite a poorer hand. In my opinion, while the criticism of my playing from hand to hand may very well be valid, too many people are simplistically looking at the final record as all that should be considered and are summarily concluding falsely that the record is much more a function of lousy card playing than it is. Maybe we should sometimes concede that we just got beat by someone with a superior hand. Perhaps acknowledge that, when we make up a list of first round picks that became aces, that we're not looking at a list of two that we passed on. And we can perhaps acknowledge our four wins. Explanations. Not excuses.

 

For the ten-year period from 2001-2010, every single team was dealt a slightly different hand. I have deep admiration for the Red Sox and their performance over the first half of that time frame, because they took lousy draft slots and converted them into Lester, Pedroia, and Ellsbury, but I know they have fans lamenting that they soiled the bed from 2006-2010 with five picks that generated a total of-2.0 WAR.

We have to view things in context.

[drivlikejehu]

 

For the ten-year period from 2001-2010, every single team was dealt a slightly different hand. I have deep admiration for the Red Sox and their performance over the first half of that time frame, because they took lousy draft slots and converted them into Lester, Pedroia, and Ellsbury, but I know they have fans lamenting that they soiled the bed from 2006-2010 with five picks that generated a total of-2.0 WAR.

We have to view things in context.

 

You're understating the sample size by a huge margin. Each draft includes a large number of picks, each year includes a large number of international free agents (considered both individually and also collectively in terms of resource allocation), and every team is part of trades that include minor league players. The clubs have more control over all three of those areas than poker players do over the cards they receive - the analogy was only in terms of the relationship between outcome variance and time frame.

 

Over a ten year period, a ton of decision points occur for each club - thousands of them. Now, in some extreme circumstance you maybe could argue that a particular organization was lucky or unlucky, but there would need to be really unusual circumstances. The Twins don't have anything like that to point to . . . they simply failed to acquire & develop talent at an acceptable rate. 

 

You can point to one particular area or one particular time period and make excuses, but the cumulative results are legitimate measures of front office competency.

 

 

[old nurse]

Kyle freeland was listed on the updated BA prospect list at 76.  He has pitched at the mlb level all this year for the Rockies amassing 1.6 bwar, 0.9 fwar ,good for 26th best mlb pitcher and as of this moments listing, more than all but 55 position players.  Not how WAR is meant to be used but is he really that low of a prospect? If not then why is Gonsalves, a similar pitcher in velocity and repertoire by what I read, not ranked in the updated numbers.  Rankings are but a snapshot of the moment. Similar players will be ranked differently by their  of competition. Every player in Cedar Rapids and extended spring training could al be under 20 years old and have a great potential. That likely will not show up on top 100 lists, but does show up

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/katohs-farm-system-rankings/

 

Sorry I do not know how to do the here thing. To whoever might be irritated that this was already posted, I wasn't goin back to look, sorry

[TheLeviathan]

 

  I get this Levi, but please answer this question. If you were going to place a bet on a prospect based on the opinion of me versus the opinion of Law, Sickles, Callis, and two other experts, who you gonna call?

 

So, when you and I are trying to reconcile our differences in perception about the talent quality in the system, and Sickles, Law, Callis, and two others have a higher opinion about the talent than you do, I'm siding with them, even though, like you, I know they are probably as wrong about a lot of these guys as the GMs and scouting directors. I have to go with the belief that they're going to be more right than you and me.

 

Yeah, they are more right than you and me, I don't disagree with that.  I just try to keep perspective on how much it's possible for them to know and the heavy grain of salt their analysis should be taken with.

 

It's no insult to them, it's just an acknowledgement of how utterly impossible it is for them to be what we seem to think they are.  It's also why I don't hold it against them when they are so frequently (and profoundly) wrong about players.  It's an impossible pedestal we've given them.

[bird]

 

You're understating the sample size by a huge margin. Each draft includes a large number of picks, each year includes a large number of international free agents (considered both individually and also collectively in terms of resource allocation), and every team is part of trades that include minor league players. The clubs have more control over all three of those areas than poker players do over the cards they receive - the analogy was only in terms of the relationship between outcome variance and time frame.

 

Over a ten year period, a ton of decision points occur for each club - thousands of them. Now, in some extreme circumstance you maybe could argue that a particular organization was lucky or unlucky, but there would need to be really unusual circumstances. The Twins don't have anything like that to point to . . . they simply failed to acquire & develop talent at an acceptable rate. 

 

You can point to one particular area or one particular time period and make excuses, but the cumulative results are legitimate measures of front office competency.

 

We're discussing the draft. 

 

If you've followed this thread and others, you will note that many of us, myself included, have talked about the organizational mistakes and possible weaknesses in other very important areas, especially trading, international free agency, prospect development, sell discipline (buy low sell high), processes and technology, facilities, ownership, Ryan, budget, etc.

 

I have consistently pushed back on one argument: that the poor record is a function of poor talent acquisition, and especially the "mistakes" people perceive to exist in the first round of the draft. I've studied the draft history of the Twins and compared it to the other teams. My conclusion is that the real culprits of their lousy record are these other things, some much more than others. Not talent evaluation.

 

Help me out with a conundrum please. Earlier in this thread, I used Kevin Youkilis as an example of one player whose selection dramatically alters the perception people have of a teams drafting expertise, having generated 30+ WAR as a late 8th round pick. What caused 29 teams to pass on a clear first round talent 8 times, and why did Boston opt to pass on him 7 times, with all but their first selection (Shoppach, 8 WAR) giving them zero WAR? I'd be happy to attribute this selection to skill. I don't know how, with Youkilis or Puckett, or Trout or Dozier...I can sort of buy an argument that if a team is "lucky" enough to do this more consistently than the competition, maybe there's some skill involved. But I'm much more inclined to think development played a bigger role. That seems more logical. 

 

This is why I find any debate about talent-finding skills using examples outside of the first round to be useless. The Twins did not calculate that every team would pass on a first round talent like Dozier five times. They thought he was a 6th round talent.

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

This is why I find any debate about talent-finding skills using examples outside of the first round to be useless. The Twins did not calculate that every team would pass on a first round talent like Dozier five times. They thought he was a 6th round talent.

Even so, can some teams hit more on those late rounders?

[Mike Sixel]

I like how this thread has been (mostly) civil, even if we don't agree...

[whydidnt]

 

 

Help me out with a conundrum please. Earlier in this thread, I used Kevin Youkilis as an example of one player whose selection dramatically alters the perception people have of a teams drafting expertise, having generated 30+ WAR as a late 8th round pick. What caused 29 teams to pass on a clear first round talent 8 times, and why did Boston opt to pass on him 7 times, with all but their first selection (Shoppach, 8 WAR) giving them zero WAR? I'd be happy to attribute this selection to skill. I don't know how, with Youkilis or Puckett, or Trout or Dozier...I can sort of buy an argument that if a team is "lucky" enough to do this more consistently than the competition, maybe there's some skill involved. But I'm much more inclined to think development played a bigger role. That seems more logical. 

 

When drafting, teams don't always take the guy they have ranked highest. There are often players that a team thinks they have more highly rated than everyone else. In that situation they will hold off picking the player until a later round. They assume some risk that they are wrong about other teams rankings, needs, etc., but find the potential to land multiple higher ranked players worth that risk. 

For example, Boston could have had Youkilis as their 50th guy on the board. But they also saw that nobody else had heavily scouted him, so he was unlikely to be picked early in the draft. They used their early slots to grab guys they "knew" would be gone by their picks and eventually felt like they couldn't wait any longer and grabbed him in the 8th round.  - Note I have no first hand knowledge if this is true for Youkilis, but this is certainly something teams will do to try and maximize value. You never pick a guy that is available that you really want until you have a good feeling someone else will get him before you pick again. 

 

[bird]

 

When drafting, teams don't always take the guy they have ranked highest. There are often players that a team thinks they have more highly rated than everyone else. In that situation they will hold off picking the player until a later round. They assume some risk that they are wrong about other teams rankings, needs, etc., but find the potential to land multiple higher ranked players worth that risk. 

For example, Boston could have had Youkilis as their 50th guy on the board. But they also saw that nobody else had heavily scouted him, so he was unlikely to be picked early in the draft. They used their early slots to grab guys they "knew" would be gone by their picks and eventually felt like they couldn't wait any longer and grabbed him in the 8th round.  - Note I have no first hand knowledge if this is true for Youkilis, but this is certainly something teams will do to try and maximize value. You never pick a guy that is available that you really want until you have a good feeling someone else will get him before you pick again. 

 

 

Wait. So you're telling me that there's a chance that Boston decided to take a chance 193 straight times that no one else, not a single one of 29 teams, had this guy projected as something better than the 243rd best pick? That's not remotely believable.

 

And you're going to hypothetically give them credit for "knowing" that Youkilis was one of the best 50 prospects. So, if they were skilled enough to know that, then why were they not skilled enough to "know" that not one of the six prospects taken ahead of Youkilis would even make it to the pros? Or that their first round pick would be a disappointment?

[drivlikejehu]

 

Help me out with a conundrum please. Earlier in this thread, I used Kevin Youkilis as an example of one player whose selection dramatically alters the perception people have of a teams drafting expertise, having generated 30+ WAR as a late 8th round pick. What caused 29 teams to pass on a clear first round talent 8 times, and why did Boston opt to pass on him 7 times, with all but their first selection (Shoppach, 8 WAR) giving them zero WAR? I'd be happy to attribute this selection to skill. I don't know how, with Youkilis or Puckett, or Trout or Dozier...I can sort of buy an argument that if a team is "lucky" enough to do this more consistently than the competition, maybe there's some skill involved. But I'm much more inclined to think development played a bigger role. That seems more logical. 

 

This is why I find any debate about talent-finding skills using examples outside of the first round to be useless. The Twins did not calculate that every team would pass on a first round talent like Dozier five times. They thought he was a 6th round talent.

 

Of course the Youkilis selection was skill. The Red Sox rated him higher than the other clubs, that's why they got him.

 

For another poker analogy - you always want to go all-in if the other player is giving you odds (e.g., you know that you're a 60% favorite in the hand). 40% of the time you lose, but from an expected value standpoint, it was a win - and over time it results in significant gains.

 

The Red Sox implicitly valued Youkilis at some level, call it 0.5 WAR or something, but maybe the Twins had him at 0.3 WAR. For that one pick, the shift in draft production was apparently huge. But you are ignoring hundreds of other picks where clubs gave themselves a better chance than the Twins did, even if it was 2% instead of 1%.

 

You aren't thinking about the probabilities and therefore are treating successes and failures as some kind of fluke, which plainly is not the case.