Why the Twins should stick to the 4/48 bin in free agency

[mazeville]

 

I don't think it's that out of the ordinary to have 1 great player, 1 good-could be great player, and a couple of misses over a 4 year period of drafting. I was trying to find teams that had a similar draft position to the Twins and see their progress. An example is the Marlins:

2011 - Jose Fernandez (14th overall) - was a star before his tragic death

2012- Andrew Heaney (9th overall) - traded 2 years later for immediate MLB help - TJS in 2016 - if you squint, he's a #3/#4 

2013 - Colin Moran (6th overall) - oft-injured player that was traded to Houston 1.5 years after he was drafted. Got a cup of coffee in the MLB so far. 

2014 - Tyler Kolek (2nd overall) - massive bust. Out for the last 2 seasons due to injuries.

2015 - Josh Naylor (12th overall) - traded to the Padres 1 year after he was drafted. Touted as a power hitter, but hasn't shown the ability. Currently in AA. 

2016 - Braxton Garrett (7th overall) - Currently in A ball. 

 

 

Baseball drafts are always a crapshoot. The Twins are better than some at drafting, and probably worse than others. 

 

Marlins' average draft position over that period: 8

Twins' average draft position: 4

 

I get that the draft is a massive crapshoot. But it drives me nuts that people keep arguing that TR had good drafts. He didn't. He had one good draft during a year he had the No. 2 draft pick and then a bunch of bad-to-mediocre drafts. Worse, in each case he could have had players that would have contributed to the major league team this year. 

 

The Twins didn't sign free agents under TR. They didn't go aggressively after international players under TR.

 

They made a few trades for prospects, but not enough. And they didn't trade what prospects they did have for players who could make a good team better that one year the team had a shot at the Wild Card. 

 

All of which made the draft that much more important. And TR didn't do a good enough job drafting. 

[Vanimal46]

 

Marlins' average draft position over that period: 8

Twins' average draft position: 4

 

Did another team have a higher average draft position than the Twins in that time period? I'm legitimately curious. At first I thought the Reds, but they were pretty scattered. The Cubs and Astros had high picks but that ended quickly. The only reason I chose the Marlins was because they were around top 10 for every one of those drafts between 2012-2016. 

[old nurse]

 

No. It's a moot point, anyway.

 

The Twins drafted 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th during that four-year run of futility. For that we had one potentially great player in Byron Buxton. One good prospect in Nick Gordon whose strength is more in his high floor than his high ceiling. And two misses -- Tyler Jay and Kohl Stewart. 

 

I thought the Buxton pick was a no brainer, and fully defensible no matter who was drafted afterwards. Let's give the Twins the benefit of the doubt on Nick Gordon. But boy, Aaron Nola would look good in the Twins' pitching rotation right now. Or, I don't know, Trea Turner. 

 

Tyler Jay was a horrible pick. He was a reliever. The Twins wanted to convert him into a starter. The Twins instead could have had Andrew Benintendi. Among others.

 

Kohl Stewart was a flat-out miss. 

 

I get that the MLB draft is more of a crapshoot than other drafts. But when a team drafts that high, that often, it has to hit more than once. 

Yup, there were a lot of good outfielders the Twins could have had. Package the excess outfielders together in a trade and you would have  a mediocre starter to complain about.

[gunnarthor]

 

Marlins' average draft position over that period: 8

Twins' average draft position: 4

 

I get that the draft is a massive crapshoot. But it drives me nuts that people keep arguing that TR had good drafts. He didn't. He had one good draft during a year he had the No. 2 draft pick and then a bunch of bad-to-mediocre drafts. Worse, in each case he could have had players that would have contributed to the major league team this year. 

 

The Twins didn't sign free agents under TR. They didn't go aggressively after international players under TR.

 

They made a few trades for prospects, but not enough. And they didn't trade what prospects they did have for players who could make a good team better that one year the team had a shot at the Wild Card. 

 

All of which made the draft that much more important. And TR didn't do a good enough job drafting. 

Some of what you are saying is just opinion. The 2012-2016 drafts are going to turn out to be pretty good in the long run, in my opinion. The 2012 draft is more or less done and I think the 2016 draft might end up giving us more MLers than that draft did. It's just too early to judge those drafts. Gordon is a top 40 prospect, Jay is a relief pitcher now (which sucks) but the reports on him from the AFL have been outstanding. He might turn into our version of Andrew Miller. Stewart, despite his lack of strike outs, was still on Klaw's top 100 last year and he is very young for his level. He'll make the majors. Guys like Garver, Wade, Granite, Gonsalves will help fill out a team and we still have some high ceiling guys like Miranda, Kiriloff and Baddoo down in the lower minors. Unsurprisingly, the best drafts have been the ones when the team has a number of early picks and our worst draft - 2015 - we only had one pick in the top 80 who signed. 

 

Some of the stuff you are saying is just wrong - Ryan did sign FA. Santana was our best pitcher this year and we don't make the playoffs without him. And we spent our pool in international spending every year. Some years we went quantity over quality and other years it was the opposite. But we are a long way from judging how those guys pan out but it's wrong to say we didn't spend because we did.

 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Marlins' average draft position over that period: 8

Twins' average draft position: 4

 

I get that the draft is a massive crapshoot. But it drives me nuts that people keep arguing that TR had good drafts. He didn't. He had one good draft during a year he had the No. 2 draft pick and then a bunch of bad-to-mediocre drafts. Worse, in each case he could have had players that would have contributed to the major league team this year. 

 

The Twins didn't sign free agents under TR. They didn't go aggressively after international players under TR.

 

They made a few trades for prospects, but not enough. And they didn't trade what prospects they did have for players who could make a good team better that one year the team had a shot at the Wild Card. 

 

All of which made the draft that much more important. And TR didn't do a good enough job drafting. 

 

What drives me nuts is that you are judging the entire drafts by the 1st round pick. I get that it is the most important pick, but it's not the only pick. Even 1st rounders have a high bust rate.

[spinowner]

 

Not for Cleveland. Not for Houston.

How about the other 27 teams?

[nicksaviking]

What drives me nuts is that you are judging the entire drafts by the 1st round pick. I get that it is the most important pick, but it's not the only pick. Even 1st rounders have a high bust rate.

Drafts are broad and open to many areas of evaluation also. Through his tenure(s) I think TR drafts did fairly well finding bats.

 

Pitching? Oh, boy. It seems next to impossible for an organization to go 40 years without drafting and developing an ace. You'd think you'd at least get lucky two or three times in that regards (sorry in advance to the Radke-was-an-ace debaters!)

 

Seems like TR probably should have been constantly searching for outside expertise to address that issue long ago. Water under the bridge though.

[nicksaviking]

How about the other 27 teams?

If the Twins want a WS trophy, they need to get past Cleveland and Houston. I don't much care how Baltimore is farting about with their rotation these days.

[mazeville]

 

Some of what you are saying is just opinion. The 2012-2016 drafts are going to turn out to be pretty good in the long run, in my opinion. The 2012 draft is more or less done and I think the 2016 draft might end up giving us more MLers than that draft did. It's just too early to judge those drafts. Gordon is a top 40 prospect, Jay is a relief pitcher now (which sucks) but the reports on him from the AFL have been outstanding. He might turn into our version of Andrew Miller. Stewart, despite his lack of strike outs, was still on Klaw's top 100 last year and he is very young for his level. He'll make the majors. Guys like Garver, Wade, Granite, Gonsalves will help fill out a team and we still have some high ceiling guys like Miranda, Kiriloff and Baddoo down in the lower minors. Unsurprisingly, the best drafts have been the ones when the team has a number of early picks and our worst draft - 2015 - we only had one pick in the top 80 who signed. 

 

Some of the stuff you are saying is just wrong - Ryan did sign FA. Santana was our best pitcher this year and we don't make the playoffs without him. And we spent our pool in international spending every year. Some years we went quantity over quality and other years it was the opposite. But we are a long way from judging how those guys pan out but it's wrong to say we didn't spend because we did.

 

Sure he signed free agent pitchers ... out of necessity. The Twins' pitching was awful and the team had almost no pitching prospects at the time they signed Santana, Hughes and Nolasco during those offseasons. But come on. These are the Twins. They have never in my lifetime built a team off of free agency. It's not wrong whatsoever.

[mazeville]

 

What drives me nuts is that you are judging the entire drafts by the 1st round pick. I get that it is the most important pick, but it's not the only pick. Even 1st rounders have a high bust rate.

 

One of the Twins' top 10 prospects was a sub-first round pick (Gonsalves, an excellent pick). 

 

Two of the Twins' top 15 prospects was a sub-first rounder (Blankenhorn). 

 

There are some good prospects found in lower levels like Lamont Wade and John Curtiss who are ranked from 15 to 20, per MLB. 

 

So yeah, I do consider what is done below the first round. The point is that those higher choices need to hit. TR missed with too many of them, which made the rebuilding more problematic. 

[mazeville]

 

Yup, there were a lot of good outfielders the Twins could have had. Package the excess outfielders together in a trade and you would have  a mediocre starter to complain about.

 

So you're saying that the Twins would have only received a "mediocre starter" for a package of Andrew Benintendi and Clint Frazier? Because the Twins could have had those players rather than Tyler Jay and Kohl Stewart. 

[old nurse]

 

So you're saying that the Twins would have only received a "mediocre starter" for a package of Andrew Benintendi and Clint Frazier? Because the Twins could have had those players rather than Tyler Jay and Kohl Stewart. 

Are Kepler and Rosario better than them?  I said excess.

Keep in mind that It took Frazier and a top 100 pitching prospect still in A+ ball and 2 95-100 mph relievers to get Miller.

[gunnarthor]

 

One of the Twins' top 10 prospects was a sub-first round pick (Gonsalves, an excellent pick). 

 

Two of the Twins' top 15 prospects was a sub-first rounder (Blankenhorn). 

 

There are some good prospects found in lower levels like Lamont Wade and John Curtiss who are ranked from 15 to 20, per MLB. 

 

So yeah, I do consider what is done below the first round. The point is that those higher choices need to hit. TR missed with too many of them, which made the rebuilding more problematic. 

Well, let's look quick at the second round picks from 13-16. We had Eades, a safer college pitcher who hasn't really made it. Going to the bullpen now. The next year we nabbed Burdi, who was ranked a top 100 prospect before he got on the injury train. Hard to knock that one. In 2015, we didn't have a second round pick b/c of the Santana signing and our other second round pick - Kyle Cody - didn't sign with us. And in 2016 we had three second rounders who look like really good picks. Baddoo, Miranda and Rortvedt. Baddoo will make a few top 100 lists this offseason and has a lot of helium in prospect circles. 

 

Basically, it looks like it's too early to judge those guys.  And that's the main problem with your critiques. The Twins tend to draft HS players over college players which means a much longer development arc. And the end of the day, the 2012 draft has given us 5 ML players. Stewart, Gonsalves, Garver and Granite will make it from the 2013 draft although it's too early to say how they'll do. Granite seems like a useful 4th OF/pinch runner type. The pitchers could be solid back of rotation guys. Garver doesn't seem to have much trust from Molly. No stars there but several potential useful pieces.  2014 gave us two bullpen arms already and Gordon and Burdi could absolutely save that draft (it was my least favorite draft). It seems like Tyler Jay is on the cusp of debuting in the pen this year and Wade is a good onbase sleeper type. And the 2016 draft is loaded with young talent on both the mound and in the field. It's just too early to determine how these drafts will ultimately play out.

[notoriousgod71]

4/48 in 2017 is not the same as 4/48 in 2013 and it won't be the same in 2020.

[Major League Ready]

 

4/48 in 2017 is not the same as 4/48 in 2013 and it won't be the same in 2020.

yep, I think 4/60 is the new 4/48.

[beckmt]

 

Can we even get Cobb with 4/48??

Not a chance in my opinion.

[kab21]

 

I think this is an interesting "eye of the beholder" thing. Darvish has had one season where he was above 4 WAR and that was four years ago. He's had one season where he topped 200ip. He's missed significant parts of three seasons with injuries.  And he's been roughed up in the postseason (SSS warning).  He'll be 31 next year. Sure, in any game, he can be as good as anyone but that's true of many pitchers. I tend to think of elite pitchers as being a touch more durable and a bit more dominating. 

He has had one major injury that allow you to cherrypick his durability with this 200IP target (only 15 pitchers did this last year).

 

He has pitched 3 full seasons and 3 partial (or none) seasons due to TJ. In his full seasons he has pitched 191 - 209 - 186 innings. The concern here is solely his TJ history.

He has averaged 4.35 WAR per 30 GS. There are issues (post TJ) but he certainly fits the definition of ace.

[gil4]

 

As far as Alex Cobb specifically, here is an article that is sure to confuse and delight the reader:

https://www.draysbay.com/2017/10/3/16411606/alex-cobb-qualifying-offer-tampa-bay-rays

One interesting thing about this is it looks like $50M is the magic number - if a player declines a QO and then signs for less than $50M in total guaranteed, no picks are awarded.  I'd say 4/48 plus $12M in fairly easy incentives is more likely than 4/$60

[gunnarthor]

 

He has had one major injury that allow you to cherrypick his durability with this 200IP target (only 15 pitchers did this last year).

 

He has pitched 3 full seasons and 3 partial (or none) seasons due to TJ. In his full seasons he has pitched 191 - 209 - 186 innings. The concern here is solely his TJ history.

He has averaged 4.35 WAR per 30 GS. There are issues (post TJ) but he certainly fits the definition of ace.

I'm not very comfortable ignoring half of his career, especially as he gets older.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

He has averaged 4.35 WAR per 30 GS. There are issues (post TJ) but he certainly fits the definition of ace.

Fair enough. Somehow I missed that Darvish pitched only 100 innings one season and didn't adjust his stats to reflect those limited appearances.

[kab21]

 

I'm not very comfortable ignoring half of his career, especially as he gets older.

Who brought his Japanese career up?

So you are focusing on a single injury while setting criteria for the other seasons that he just misses your cut?

I totally agree that age (31) and one TJ surgery are big issues but these are pretty big concerns for any pitcher. And the question here is the level of pitcher that he is. No doubt ACE.

[gunnarthor]

 

Who brought his Japanese career up?
 

He's played 6 years in the majors. Three have been interrupted by injuries. I don't think he's an ace. 

[ashbury]

TR didn't do a good enough job drafting. 

Mod note: This tangent has gone on for far too long in this thread about free agent possibilities, and further responses will be removed. Start a new thread, if need be.

[kab21]

 

He's played 6 years in the majors. Three have been interrupted by injuries. I don't think he's an ace. 

It is one injury. He went the rest and rehab route and then later had TJ. One injury.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Can we even get Cobb with 4/48??

because QO I bet he doesn’t break 50 mil.

[Mr. Brooks]

because QO I bet he doesn’t break 50 mil.

I don't think anyone with serious interest is going to walk away from the table over a 3rd round pick.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I don't think anyone with serious interest is going to walk away from the table over a 3rd round pick.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/259650658/mlb-qualifying-offer-rules-explained/

 

Not third round pick. Their Third overall pick if they received revenue sharing. If they exceeded the luxury tax threshold, signing team would lose second and 5th pick.

 

So first pick is protected but first round comp pick could be the second pick, and the second round pick might be forfeited.

 

A team that fell in between loses second overall pick and 500k in international draft pool.

 

The penalty is less severe than previous, but not trivial. For players around that 50 mil contract range with a QO at 17.4 mil, it might serve to suppress Cobb or Lynn’s value a bit.

 

I’d be supportive of Falvine signing Cobb, or Lynn, or both. Being a recipient of revenue sharing it will impact the Twins less if they do exceed 50 mil and the second signing would forfeit their third best pick after their previous third best is forfeited. Or maybe they can sign one or both for 4 years 49 mil or less, maybe one would sign 3 years 40 mil.

 

Cobb and Lynn are both 30, 3 years would leave them 33 when they go after their next contracts. 3 years of Gold Glover Buxton begins them and still having career horizon in front of them could be enticing. Pipe dream maybe.... but maybe not

[prouster]

It is one injury. He went the rest and rehab route and then later had TJ. One injury.

One pretty big injury.

[Major League Ready]

 

I’d be supportive of Falvine signing Cobb, or Lynn, or both. Being a recipient of revenue sharing it will impact the Twins less if they do exceed 50 mil and the second signing would forfeit their third best pick after their previous third best is forfeited. Or maybe they can sign one or both for 4 years 49 mil or less, maybe one would sign 3 years 40 mil.

Cobb and Lynn are both 30, 3 years would leave them 33 when they go after their next contracts. 3 years of Gold Glover Buxton begins them and still having career horizon in front of them could be enticing. Pipe dream maybe.... but maybe not

 

These new rules will encourage creative offers.  For example, we could offer 3/48 and a team option on a 4th year for 12M or 4 years 49.9M + 4M bonus in any year they exceed 120 innings.

 

[kab21]

 

One pretty big injury.

Of course TJ is a pretty big injury. Has anyone said that it isn't? 

The important part that should be looked at is that he has pitched nearly 300 IP of 11+ K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 baseball since the injury. Being injured for 3 seasons is a meaningless criticism since that is what happens if someone goes the rest and rehab route and then gets TJ the next spring. And we are at a point where TJ isn't an unusual thing to recover from (not 100%) but we have a pretty good 300 IP sample that says he has recovered.

I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment that he is a risk to sign but I do disagree with your analysis since you have put up some conveniently placed goalposts that he just misses. His performance level is certainly at an ace level. He just happened to have TJ that wiped out 1 full season and 2 partial seasons.