Home-grown vs. acquired players

[PDX Twin]

Posting without comment, though there is an obvious conclusion..

OPS by mode of acquisition:

Players coming up through Twins organization

Julien, .872
Lewis, .870
Wallner, .864
Jeffers, .862
Kirilloff, .799
Kepler, .774
Polanco, .755
Buxton, .732
Larnach, .715
Miranda, .566
Gordon, .504

Players acquired through trades or FA signings:

Solano, .773
Gallo, .765
Correa, .717
Castro, .693
Taylor, .677
Farmer, .659
Vazquez, .579

[NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin]

Most of the good pitchers (besides Ober, Jax, and Thielbar) were acquired via trade. I think this FO is good at developing hitters and acquiring pitching while generally not being good at the reverse. 

[Doctor Wu]

On 8/21/2023 at 11:25 AM, NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin said:

Most of the good pitchers (besides Ober, Jax, and Thielbar) were acquired via trade. I think this FO is good at developing hitters and acquiring pitching while generally not being good at the reverse. 

I agree, We seem to have a very poor track record for finding and "developing" high quality starting pitchers. Guys like Berrios and Gibson were good, but never the elite sort of starter that the team needs to go deep in the playoffs. 

[nicksaviking]

Yeah, I was all gung ho about developing our own pitches when this front office took over before realizing that wasn't actually what Cleveland was doing.

And it makes complete sense if one's of the mind that pitching is more volatile and unpredictable. Acquiring pitchers that are already or near MLB ready is obviously the safest bet to build a rotation. 

As far as the hitters go, sure, we can give the front office some credit, but homegrown hitters carrying the load is pretty much how all of this organizations best teams were built. Over-reliance on other team's former hitters is almost always a poor decision, even going back through the Terry Ryan era.

[Major League Ready]

Most successful teams will have a very similar distribution, especially if players like Duran and Ryan that were acquired before becoming established major league players are put in the 1st category.   The percentage of impact players is not quite as high among the highest revenue teams who obviously can afford premium free agents.  

[Nine of twelve]

It’s well known that drafting good players is much more difficult in baseball than in other sports. I’m starting to think that the best way to acquire players is to trade for them after a couple years of minor league play. At that stage it’s much easier to evaluate a player and, with the exception of the highest-rated prospects, players can be acquired for less than the cost of getting a regular major leaguer. Of course, good scouting is the key.

[Cris E]

Meh, go back a few years and take another look. It's not as clear as you're drawing it.  A bunch of those acquired hitters were never signed to be starters, most of those awesome hitters are still well under 500 ABs for their careers. and a bunch of our good hitters and bad pitchers were acquired over the past five years too.  It's muddled.  As said above, how long does a guy have to be in our minors for us to get to claim him? Or this: we traded for Nelson Cruz and drafted Ober and Jax. It's fun to play with obvious conclusions, but this one isn't very good.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Nine of twelve said:

It’s well known that drafting good players is much more difficult in baseball than in other sports. I’m starting to think that the best way to acquire players is to trade for them after a couple years of minor league play. At that stage it’s much easier to evaluate a player and, with the exception of the highest-rated prospects, players can be acquired for less than the cost of getting a regular major leaguer. Of course, good scouting is the key.

Good call!  That's been an important part of how Cleveland / Tampa and Oakland have had far more 90+ win seasons than the other teams in the bottom half of revenue.  There are lots of examples.  Those teams have done a great job of trading for AA/AAA players and even guys that have made it to the ML level but were not yet established.

[Road trip]

Twins have acquired a few good veteran hitters over the years (Cruz, Thome, Shannon Stewart, Willingham, etc), but for the most part competitive small and mid-market teams have to grow their own.  The Dodgers/Yanks/Red Sox can sign whomever they want, and dump them just as quickly if they don't work out.  Most teams don't have the deep pockets to do that.  Of the many veteran signings the Twins have made over the years, many would be chalked up as expensive mistakes (Donaldson, Simons, etc), or minor cheap victories (Solano being a good example of a pleasant surprise, as little was expected). 

I think this is why Twins fans, esp on this site, are so focused on all the shiny new prospects in the minors.  We know that a certain percentage of them need to succeed.

[Doctor Wu]

Not sure if this is the best thread to post this comment, but here we go! I was just reading about the struggles of Carlos Rodon this year, and recalling how so many of us wanted us to snap him up as a free agent last year.  Man, that just goes to show you how hit and miss this game of baseball can be. Lucky for us that we didn't take the "opportunity" of signing such a potentially game-changing  pitcher.