The Minnesota Twins' Costly Draft Picks: Ranking Their Worst Selections Since 2017

[Rod Carews Birthday]

This is a silly clickbait article.  If you are going to slam every pick that doesn’t work out then you have to credit every pick that does.  The Twins drafting overall has been excellent, with good finds at the top and later in the drafts.  Every single team has lots of drafted players that never pan out.  The Twins are no different.  Suggesting that they are somehow underachieving because of a few picks that don’t make it is disingenuous at best. 

[Guest]

14 hours ago, ashbury said:

Rooker is tied for the AL lead in strikeouts.  The readership here would be going nuts if he were still on the team.

Granted, and I'm one of those who would criticize Rooker's plate discipline.  However, for 2024 Rooker's WAR is 1.3.  That would be tied with Kep for fifth on this year's team and well exceeds all other LF options but Castro.   

Pointing to Rooker illustrates the FO's tendency, in my view, to cut bait on prospects quickly.   Granted, trading is a calculated risk.  

[MinnInPa]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:03 PM, ashbury said:

Rooker is tied for the AL lead in strikeouts.  The readership here would be going nuts if he were still on the team.

nope..  just another K King... Twins need more guys that K less than 20% of the time not 30%+.. 

[bean5302]

Two of the most important jobs for a front office is to draft and develop talent. Drafting is no different than trading for players. In essence, the Twins trade their draft pick slot back to MLB for a player.

Critical evaluation of the drafting and development success for Falvey is warranted. It would be totally stunning if ownership didn't look at draft successes and failures. In that regard, Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee may ultimately save Falvey's job because up until Lewis' shocking turnaround in 2022, things looked awfully grim for Falvey in the draft success rate on high rounders.

Criticism of Prielipp as a choice is 100% warranted. Canterino was a workhorse in college so seeing him fall apart physically has been surprising. However, Prielipp was actively rehabbing a major surgery, and didn't pitch at all in 2022, with just 7 innings in 2021. The Twins had very limited ability to see Prielipp's stuff on display, similar to Cavaco. Prielipp may yet turn into something, but I don't consider him a prospect anymore.

Top 3 round potential bust picks: Leach, Enlow, Cavaco, Canterino, Sabato, Soularie, Miller, Hajjar, Prielipp, Considering Falvey traded away or lost 4 CBB/3rd round picks in trades or signings 2018-2020, the misses on high round picks is more concentrated. Even more so because of the number of prospects with potential or success at the MLB level Falvey has traded away after drafting.

Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner looked like probable busts until 2022 so turnarounds happen, and the last couple of years of drafting have produced some potentially great players, but it's fair to look at the previous results.

[specialiststeve]

Negative Nelly... what's the point? We all know that EVERY team has stinkers... part of the deal. 

No story here unless you are negative type person and wants to be critical. 

[old nurse]

Lucas the PT will have to help Cody in his writing. I heard PT can help lameness. It is admirable that Cody had to stretch to second round picks as they rarely pan out. That would mean there wasn’t many bad first round picks to choose from. Cavacao was a bad bust. The coulda/woulda/shoulda choices are too numerous. 

[old nurse]

On 6/19/2024 at 9:48 AM, Minderbinder said:

Granted, and I'm one of those who would criticize Rooker's plate discipline.  However, for 2024 Rooker's WAR is 1.3.  That would be tied with Kep for fifth on this year's team and well exceeds all other LF options but Castro.   

Pointing to Rooker illustrates the FO's tendency, in my view, to cut bait on prospects quickly.   Granted, trading is a calculated risk.  

Rooker has only played 100 innings in the outfield. There is probably a very good reason why he is mostly a DH 

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, MinnInPa said:

nope..  just another K King... Twins need more guys that K less than 20% of the time not 30%+.. 

There are 150 players who have enough PA this season to qualify for a batting title.  Only 10 of them have 30%+ strikeouts.  None of them are Twins.

Too selective?  There are 543 players who have 1 or more PA this season.  112 of them have 30%+ strikeouts.  The three Twins in that group are Julien, Wallner, and Camargo.  All three have been demoted to St. Paul.

Across the majors, hitters strike out 22.2% of the time. Twins batters strike out 21.8%

Old tropes just won't die.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

4 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Old tropes just won't die.

And they are immediately followed by posts with “yeah but” statements explaining how if you look at it in some bizarre way, the person citing them is still right!  Argh!  

[FlyingFinn]

13 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

And they are immediately followed by posts with “yeah but” statements explaining how if you look at it in some bizarre way, the person citing them is still right!  Argh!  

And it usually ends with @USAFChief explaining the rule of holes!

[nicksaviking]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:36 AM, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

Sabato was a weird pick. Kind of a throw back player. I imagine his comparable would be Steve Balboni.

As a similar Twins pick, Chris Parmelee is who always came to my mind. 

[nicksaviking]

24 minutes ago, ashbury said:

There are 150 players who have enough PA this season to qualify for a batting title.  Only 10 of them have 30%+ strikeouts.  None of them are Twins.

Too selective?  There are 543 players who have 1 or more PA this season.  112 of them have 30%+ strikeouts.  The three Twins in that group are Julien, Wallner, and Camargo.  All three have been demoted to St. Paul.

Across the majors, hitters strike out 22.2% of the time. Twins batters strike out 21.8%

Old tropes just won't die.

Probably 'old' is as in last year.

But I agree, the team hasn't gotten enough credit for significantly addressing a big problem area from last season. My only complaint would be that Wallner or Julien perhaps could have been put to better use in a high profile trade in the offseason instead of struggling, getting demoted and losing value.

[twinstalker]

Cavaco worst.  But Noah Miller close.  Guys that got injured or were expected to be back from injuries aren't the worst picks.  It's the guys you should be able to tell won't have a chance.  Cavaco never had a chance.  Miller's upside is Jace Peterson.  You never take someone in the first round (supp) whose upside is Jace Peterson.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, old nurse said:

Rooker has only played 100 innings in the outfield. There is probably a very good reason why he is mostly a DH 

This year Rooker has played 102 innings in the outfield with a -1 def runs saved.  Kiriloff is 190 and -2 defensive runs saved.  Larnach is 115 innings and 0 def runs saved.  Wallner is 68 and 0 (granted, Wallner has a +arm).  Seems like there's not much to lose defensively by putting Rooker in LF.

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Minderbinder said:

This year Rooker has played 102 innings in the outfield with a -1 def runs saved.  Kiriloff is 190 and -2 defensive runs saved.  Larnach is 115 innings and 0 def runs saved.  Wallner is 68 and 0 (granted, Wallner has a +arm).  Seems like there's not much to lose defensively by putting Rooker in LF.

Rooker has played 72 innings and has made 9 put outs. I would say that stat should tell you he is hasn’t had many chances to make a mistake.  You want to use one defensive metric to justify your claim. Look at UZR 150 and that will show a marked fall off from the Twins fielders. There is a reason they don’t put him out there 

[BsuNemo]

On 6/18/2024 at 9:46 AM, nova_twins said:

The draft results take so long to ultimately play out that it's not easy to evaluate.

One wrong way of doing it is cherry picking, like this article. What if someone got in a car accident, would that make it a bad pick in retrospect? The Sabato pick was under unusual circumstances. Pitchers get hurt. Etc.

The relevant question for analysis is how the Twins are drafting compared to other teams. 

ESPN has their farm system 9th, USA today had them 16th so I think we can say they've drafted as well or better than others the last 3 to 5 years. 

[Roaddog]

Never liked the Sabato pick, and wasn't thrilled with the Cavaco pick either