The Rollercoaster Development Reality of Most Top Prospects

[Seth Stohs]

A prospect arrives in the big leagues to fan excitement. Maybe they have success for a little while, but for most players, it requires a trip or three to Triple-A and back. Sometimes it is expected. Other times, it can be semi-shocking. And sometimes, Willi Castro turns into an All-Star.

Image courtesy of Danny Medley (Left), Nick Wosika (Right) - USA Today

Prospect and Player Development are not Linear!
Prospect and Player Development are not Linear!
Prospect and Player Development are not Linear!

It certainly is obvious. Every baseball prospect has his own story, and they all develop on their own timeline, at their own pace. While Royce Lewis has been incredible since joining the Twins two years ago, he has battled injuries, and even had to overcome some struggles early in his minor-league career.

It has been nearly a month since the Twins announced that Alex Kirilloff had been optioned. Of course, since then, he acknowledged back pain and has had his option rescinded, and he is now on the Injured List. His first full professional season was lost due to Tommy John surgery. In 2018, he returned and became a top-10 prospect in baseball. He debuted in the 2020 playoffs after spending that crazy season at the Twins' alternate site in St. Paul. He has fought wrist injuries and ups and downs over the past four seasons. He has shown flashes of the capacity to be a great hitter. He has experienced great moments, and gone through slumps offensively and defensively. One of the most pure hitters coming up, he now has a ton of swing-and-miss in his game. 

Sound familiar? As Twins fans, we have seen so many similar situations. Trevor Larnach came up and was on fire for six weeks. Then, he struggled mightily. That was in 2021. In 2022, he struggled with injuries. Ditto in 2023. In 2024, after recovering from a minor spring injury, he returned to the Twins and has been good again, often hitting in the top three in the lineup. 

How about Edouard Julien? His background and story are interesting and complicated, including a season lost to Tommy John surgery (although Covid would have cost him that season, anyway). Once he returned to the lineup in the minors in 2021, he dominated every level for the next two seasons. He was incredibly impressive in his debut last year, showing power and patience at the plate like few others.

He and Matt Wallner were part of one of the organization's best rookie classes, maybe even more potent than the 1982 Twins rookie class. Wallner showed power and patience in his time with the Twins. He never really got it going this spring, and three weeks into the season, he was optioned. Julien was optioned in very early June. Both struggled early in their returns to Triple-A, and it took several weeks for them to start performing. Wallner was the International League Player of the Year in June, crushing baseballs all over the field and often over the fence. He is now back with the Twins, hoping this is the time he sticks.

Brooks Lee was on his way to an incredibly fast MLB debut. The eighth-overall pick in 2022 out of Cal Poly signed quickly after the draft, got some time in Cedar Rapids, and even ended the season with Double-A Wichita during their playoff run. That’s where he began the 2023 season. He spent about half of the season with the Wind Surge and led the league in doubles before being promoted to Triple-A St. Paul. He slowed a bit there, but was on a trajectory to debut early this season. He was one of the last players to be sent to minor-league camp in spring training.

Unfortunately, and probably just because we’re from Minnesota and can’t have nice things, he spent the first two months of the season rehabbing before rejoining the Saints in mid-June. He spent about two weeks in St. Paul before getting that big-league call-up. Even top college players rarely debut less than two years after being drafted. Lee did that even with two missed months. 

One more? José Miranda was a second-round pick in 2016, but while he put up some decent numbers in his early minor-league years, he did not become a real impact-hitting prospect until 2021. Previous to that, he could not figure out the strike zone. He was a very free swinger. He has such excellent contact skills that he would often get himself out by swinging at pitcher's pitches.

Suddenly, in 2021, he had a little better idea of the zone. He better understood not only which pitches he could hit, but also against which pitches (in which locations) he could do damage. He put up some fantastic numbers. He debuted in 2022 and played well. Unfortunately, in 2023, he had a shoulder injury that clearly altered his approach and his swing. He didn’t look like the same hitter, seemingly returning to the overly free-swinging days. He had shoulder surgery in the offseason, and after a slow start this spring, he came up, and Rocco Baldelli has not been able to (or wanted to!) take him out of the lineup too often. Last week, he tied a modern-day record, notching a hit in 12 straight at-bats.

Prospect and Player Development are not Linear! 

Remember Torii Hunter? Of course you do. He’s a Twins Hall of Famer. He was up and down several times before sticking in the big leagues. He made his infamous first All-Star game and was optioned later.

Justin Morneau went up and down several times and wasn't a "given" until his one-on-one discussion with Ron Gardenhire in 2004 in Seattle. 

Michael Cuddyer. Trevor Plouffe. Byron Buxton. Jason Kubel.

This list goes on and on. So, are we left to believe that the Twins are just cursed, that all top prospects will experience some significant injury (or injuries) or move up and down from the big leagues to the minor leagues? These were all top-100 global prospects who took a long time to wend their way to success, and didn't just get to the big leagues and stick. 

Another example? Rochester native Michael Restovich was a Top-100 prospect four times between 1999 and 2003. He got a few promotions to the big leagues over a couple of seasons, but there just wasn't a spot, so he went and played for a couple of other big-league clubs for a couple of years.

Garrett Jones couldn't have done more in the Twins' upper minors to earn opportunities. But when he was ready to come up to the Twins, they had Morneau at first base, Delmon Young in left field, and Jason Kubel as an OF/DH. A month before he turned 26, Jones debuted with the Twins and hit just over .200 with minimal power in 31 games. Then, in 2008, he signed with the Pirates. He got called up fairly early in the season, got regular playing time, and hit 139 doubles and 100 home runs in five seasons. 

How about Brent Rooker? He got some at-bats in the big leagues. He struck out a bunch. He didn’t have a defensive position. But there should never have been any question about whether or not he would wind up crushing baseballs. He just needed a few trips up and down and an opportunity to hit on a regular basis. 

The focus here has been on hitters, but pitching can be even more non-linear. Injuries play a significant role in that. Kyle Gibson had Tommy John surgery before being added to the Twins 40-man roster. Otherwise, he would have been a quick riser. Matt Canterino has some of the most amazing stuff that I’ve seen from a Twins pitching prospect in the two decades I’ve paid attention to such things, but he can’t get on the mound and stay healthy. 

That could be another entire article, just talking about pitchers and the up-and-down cycle that the majority of them go through until they stick as starters, stick as relievers, become Quadruple-A players, or whatever the outcome. And there is always the most likely outcome for most draft picks: their career ends before they are able to wear an MLB uniform in a regular-season game. 

The important thing to remember is that this isn’t a Twins thing. This is true with every organization; it always has been, and always will be.

Sure, as a fan, it can be frustrating as it is happening, but I think (or I’d hope) we all realize that Major League Baseball is really, really hard. Maybe what it should do is help us appreciate just how great those players who make it and stick as regulars really are.

Prospect and Player Development are not Linear!
Prospect and Player Development are not Linear! 

And that's, OK.

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[PDX Twin]

Great article!

[Doctor Gast]

That's OK because we picked up Castro because of it. Much like Castro, Celestino was rushed up to the MLB before he was emotionally ready & was given up by their development team. IMO Celestino's potential isn't as high as Castro but has the talent to still impact a team once he gets straightened out. 

Once hitting the MLB, pure hitters like Lewis, Kiriloff & Lee hit the ground running but they are held back due to injuries. Miranda & Martin only need some MLB seasoning (Miranda also an injury). Larnach, Wallner & Julien are held back due to approach change. They are on their way back. 

8 young quality talent there & Castro only turned 27 in April all have great potential & deserve to start games for the Twins right now.

[Riverbrian]

Experienced baseball players are also rollercoasters. 

Look no further than Correa last year. Buxton has been rather up and down.

They have down years, average years and great years in no particular order. 

The difference is that the prospects get sent down and we blame it on development or inexperience. 

There doesn't seem to be a blanket assessment like development or inexperience when it happens to Randy Arozarena or George Springer.  

[bean5302]

For the Twins, certainly, player performance and development is all over the place in the minors and MLB. It happens elsewhere, too. Acuna, Rodriguez, Manoah, Keith,  That said, derailment of development timetables for injury is one thing. To have players struggle on a repeat of the same level and then go on to be studs at the MLB level doesn't feel very common to me.

In any case, it's okay for a prospect not to work out. They usually don't. Explanations like "it's not linear" should be pretty well taken care of by the time they hit MLB, but it still occasionally happens that a player needs a reset in the minors to work on something. That's a big reason why options exist. That said, the Berrios' of the world aren't incredibly common. Guys who stink at the MLB level, then go down and come back up to dominate. There are tons of "sophomore slumps" which are actually just opponents figuring a guy's weakness out.

Looking at the top 20 fWAR position players in MLB right now (not named Ohtani): Harper, Lindor, Marte, Duran, Devers, all had what I'd call a hiccup in their development. That's about a 25% chance. At least a couple of those guys were in the big show at age 20-21.

Lewis is probably the most glaring example of non-linear development on the Twins right now. Nothing in his MiLB career really pointed to him being good at the plate. He looked rough in AA before he lost a couple years, but when he came back, he was a totally different player. An MVP caliber guy. Wallner changed his approach at AA a couple years ago when he learned he wasn't on the path to ever being a big leaguer because he was Eddie Rosario out there, hacking away at bad pitches. I don't think it's a coincidence those adjustments were made pre-AAA.

75% of the time, when you see a hiccup, it's not a hiccup. It's a talent ceiling being reached.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

Absolutely true!  Unfortunately, we as fans like to project that fast start that a prospect has into MVP's and All Star appearances, so undoubtedly we end up disappointed.  Even great players have those moments where they get a "good talking to" by managers/coaches and many go back down to the minors to figure it out.  Sometimes it's nobody's fault.  It's just a part of the (admittedly very long) process.  Patience is definitely the name of the game.

 

[JD-TWINS]

Don’t doubt the progress but are there any recent examples or numbers that illustrate Julien is coming around? I’d like his potential promotion be another “good problem”! Please comment.

[Dman]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

75% of the time, when you see a hiccup, it's not a hiccup. It's a talent ceiling being reached.

I mean I think only 5% to 10% of drafted players make it all the way to MLB and even fewer become star players.  So yeah most of the time (90% of teh time) they are going to stall out at a level permanently.  I think the main message of this article is simply not to give up too early.

As we have recently seen with Castro and Rooker and others.  Given time players can sometimes work through those struggles and be important players for a team even if it takes longer than expected..  

[Linus]

4 minutes ago, Dman said:

I mean I think only 5% to 10% of drafted players make it all the way to MLB and even fewer become star players.  So yeah most of the time (90% of teh time) they are going to stall out at a level permanently.  I think the main message of this article is simply not to give up too early.

As we have recently seen with Castro and Rooker and others.  Given time players can sometimes work through those struggles and be important players for a team.  

This is an important point. I believe the number is 6-8% of players that enter pro baseball make the majors. Obviously Jenkins has a better chance than most but for most prospects the likely outcome is they never make it. I confess to snarkiness when posting about prospects. Posters list off 8 guys in AA and wonder what are going to do with all this talent?  We have a logjam!  Reality is one of those 8 will make it maybe two if we are lucky. I do think age is overrated when it comes to prospects. I believe it was Larry Hisle that didn’t make the bigs until he was 28 and led the AL in RBIs or maybe it was Gary Ward. If they are improving keep running them out there until they aren’t regardless of age. Meanwhile I will keep patiently waiting for the next logjam 😀

[Brandon]

This article applies to more than just baseball.  

[arby58]

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

8 young quality talent there & Castro only turned 27 in April all have great potential & deserve to start games for the Twins right now.

You deserve it when you prove it at the MLB level. The Twins are in the play-offs hunt, and this isn't the time or place for on-the-job training. That is what AAA is for.   Miranda and Lee are playing because they are contributing, not because they have 'great potential.' We can hope that Wallner figured it out while at AAA, and Julien will also be ready. They were stinking up the joint for the Twins - it's notable that the offense picked up considerably when proven veterans like Correa, Buxton, Santana, and Kepler started picking it up.

[Unwinder]

3 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Don’t doubt the progress but are there any recent examples or numbers that illustrate Julien is coming around? I’d like his potential promotion be another “good problem”! Please comment.

He nearly hit for the cycle the other day, and homered the game before that. Could be coming around.

[CCHOF5yearstoolate]

3 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

Don’t doubt the progress but are there any recent examples or numbers that illustrate Julien is coming around? I’d like his potential promotion be another “good problem”! Please comment.

Since June 20th he's got nearly as many BB as K & a .908 OPS

[Mike Sixel]

38 minutes ago, arby58 said:

You deserve it when you prove it at the MLB level. The Twins are in the play-offs hunt, and this isn't the time or place for on-the-job training. That is what AAA is for.   Miranda and Lee are playing because they are contributing, not because they have 'great potential.' We can hope that Wallner figured it out while at AAA, and Julien will also be ready. They were stinking up the joint for the Twins - it's notable that the offense picked up considerably when proven veterans like Correa, Buxton, Santana, and Kepler started picking it up.

No prospect is a finished product, and they will 100% learn on the job at the MLB level. 

It's kind of a weird thing to say that the offense picked up when the offense picked up....that seems like a tautology to me. 

[Parfigliano]

3 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Experienced baseball players are also rollercoasters. 

Look no further than Correa last year. Buxton has been rather up and down.

They have down years, average years and great years in no particular order. 

The difference is that the prospects get sent down and we blame it on development or inexperience. 

There doesn't seem to be a blanket assessment like development or inexperience when it happens to Randy Arozarena or George Springer.  

This is what I pay for.

[Fatbat]

The Twins definitely are not cursed. Ballball can be brutal on an athletes’ body and mind.  The best batters fail 69.7% of the time. Most fail 70.4% of the time. Most wash out if they can’t keep their BA over .240. Its a fine line.

I like to look at what Brooks Lee is doing this season after what he has went thru with his back injury.  Many had pegged Colson Montgomery in the white sox org as a better/ higher rated SS prospect than Lee.  Colson is having a somewhat tough year in AAA.  He probably won’t see MLB in 2024.  We have Lee tho. Probably until he needs a reset or quite possibly until he retires.  That is not a fine line.  Anything can happen! But its a great show to watch!!

[Parfigliano]

Lee. I think they might have caught lightning.

 

 

[chpettit19]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

For the Twins, certainly, player performance and development is all over the place in the minors and MLB. It happens elsewhere, too. Acuna, Rodriguez, Manoah, Keith,  That said, derailment of development timetables for injury is one thing. To have players struggle on a repeat of the same level and then go on to be studs at the MLB level doesn't feel very common to me.

In any case, it's okay for a prospect not to work out. They usually don't. Explanations like "it's not linear" should be pretty well taken care of by the time they hit MLB, but it still occasionally happens that a player needs a reset in the minors to work on something. That's a big reason why options exist. That said, the Berrios' of the world aren't incredibly common. Guys who stink at the MLB level, then go down and come back up to dominate. There are tons of "sophomore slumps" which are actually just opponents figuring a guy's weakness out.

Looking at the top 20 fWAR position players in MLB right now (not named Ohtani): Harper, Lindor, Marte, Duran, Devers, all had what I'd call a hiccup in their development. That's about a 25% chance. At least a couple of those guys were in the big show at age 20-21.

Lewis is probably the most glaring example of non-linear development on the Twins right now. Nothing in his MiLB career really pointed to him being good at the plate. He looked rough in AA before he lost a couple years, but when he came back, he was a totally different player. An MVP caliber guy. Wallner changed his approach at AA a couple years ago when he learned he wasn't on the path to ever being a big leaguer because he was Eddie Rosario out there, hacking away at bad pitches. I don't think it's a coincidence those adjustments were made pre-AAA.

75% of the time, when you see a hiccup, it's not a hiccup. It's a talent ceiling being reached.

If 25% of the 20 best players on the planet had "hiccups" I'd say it should be pretty well expected that the average MLB regular has a "hiccup" or 2 along the way.

[arby58]

4 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

No prospect is a finished product, and they will 100% learn on the job at the MLB level. 

On the contrary, the Twins decided that Wallner and Julien had to learn their way back to MLB at AAA.  Complete agreement on that - the poster I responded to believes you should play the young players 'because they have potential.' That is what teams out of the play-off race do. 

[mikelink45]

The development of prospects is one of the most enjoyable parts of following baseball over the years. When I was young and the Milwaukee braves were my team. I remember Bob Hazel coming up and absolutely lighting this league on fire hitting over 400 and leading the braves. Then he basically dropped out a baseball. I know he hung on a little while but never performed again. Baseball can be frustrating. Exciting and always unpredictable

[TwinsDr2021]

On 7/12/2024 at 12:16 PM, Linus said:

This is an important point. I believe the number is 6-8% of players that enter pro baseball make the majors. Obviously Jenkins has a better chance than most but for most prospects the likely outcome is they never make it. I confess to snarkiness when posting about prospects. Posters list off 8 guys in AA and wonder what are going to do with all this talent?  We have a logjam!  Reality is one of those 8 will make it maybe two if we are lucky. I do think age is overrated when it comes to prospects. I believe it was Larry Hisle that didn’t make the bigs until he was 28 and led the AL in RBIs or maybe it was Gary Ward. If they are improving keep running them out there until they aren’t regardless of age. Meanwhile I will keep patiently waiting for the next logjam 😀

Larry Hisle debuted in the majors at age 21 with the phillies, and was 4th in the ROY at age 22. He did lead the league in RBI as a 30 year old.

Ward debuted at age 25, but didn't become a part time player until 27 and full time at age 28, never lead the league in RBI but was a two time all star.

The thing with age is that at some point they have to be put on the 40 man, and generally decent or better teams are not putting a 26 year old guy on the 40 man

[arby58]

1 hour ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

The thing with age is that at some point they have to be put on the 40 man, and generally decent or better teams are not putting a 26 year old guy on the 40 man

There are still the Brock Stewarts and Caleb Thielbars of the world that are notable exceptions - and at ages far in advance of 26.

[RpR]

Overly simplistic article.

[jimmyc]

The mythology around Torri and Morneau makes for a good story but the reality is different.  Neither one bounced up and down several times.  They each had one decently long stretch stretch in MLB, was sent down once for a stretch and was then back up for good.  You can actually look it up.

[Doctor Wu]

Good article, Definitely lots of hits and misses, and no real formula for "properly" developing prospects. But I do worry that we still can't seem to draft and develop starting pitchers. Sure, there are some exceptions over the years, plus some good looking prospects we have in the minors now, but looking at our current starting rotation, guys like Lopez, Ryan, Woods-Richardson, and Paddack were all drafted by other teams and only ended up with the Twins via trades. Hopefully, we change that equation if guys like Festa, Zebby, Lewis and Soto end up being the real thing. 

[Major League Ready]

On 7/12/2024 at 2:14 PM, arby58 said:

You deserve it when you prove it at the MLB level. The Twins are in the play-offs hunt, and this isn't the time or place for on-the-job training. That is what AAA is for.   Miranda and Lee are playing because they are contributing, not because they have 'great potential.' We can hope that Wallner figured it out while at AAA, and Julien will also be ready. They were stinking up the joint for the Twins - it's notable that the offense picked up considerably when proven veterans like Correa, Buxton, Santana, and Kepler started picking it up.

How would Lee and Miranda have been able to "prove it" if they never got a chance because we are in the play-off hunt?   How do you prove it's not just potential if you don't get a chance.  Did you notice that Garcia played a major role in a world-series run and he did not even make his debut until September.  Good thing Texas did not think you should hold players down if you are a playoff team.   

[Major League Ready]

Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran could have been included.  Jorge Alcala has had his ups and downs and while we don't know if SWR is going to have a bumpy road at the ML level but his Milb experience was up and down.    

[arby58]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

How would Lee and Miranda have "prove it" if they never got a chance because we are in the play-off hunt?   How do you prove it's not just potential if you don't get a chane.  Did you notice that Garcia played a major role in a world-series run and he did not even make his debut until September.  Good thing Texas did not think you should hold players down if you are a playoff team.   

Both Lee and Miranda got their chance because of injuries - not because they're young players with potential who 'deserve' a chance to start. It's also why both Wallner and Julien were sent back down - they didn't 'deserve' to play, based on their MLB performance. Wallner performed very well at AAA, and now he's back and has another shot. Julien has his AAA OPS up to .789, and if they need another infielder, he might get a shot yet this year. That said, he won't get that shot just because of potential. The goal is to make the play-offs, and those who have already proven it are going to play - as it should be.

I have no idea what you are talking about regarding Texas' Garcia. Ardolis Garcia debuted with Texas in 2021 and played 149 games for them that year, then 156 in 2022 and last year, when you say he did not make his debut until December, he played in 148 games - how the heck do you do that in September? 

[arby58]

19 hours ago, jimmyc said:

The mythology around Torri and Morneau makes for a good story but the reality is different.  Neither one bounced up and down several times.  They each had one decently long stretch stretch in MLB, was sent down once for a stretch and was then back up for good.  You can actually look it up.

That is correct, but in Torri's case, he played 135 games with the Twins in 1999 and was sent down for 55 games in 2000 - in that respect, it reminds me of Wallner and Julien, who both spent/are spending a significant amount of time back in AAA. In Morneau's case, he had only played 40 games with the Twins in 2003, so it's not as surprising that he basically spent half his time the next year between AAA and the AL. 

[bean5302]

On 7/12/2024 at 12:04 PM, Dman said:

I mean I think only 5% to 10% of drafted players make it all the way to MLB and even fewer become star players.  So yeah most of the time (90% of teh time) they are going to stall out at a level permanently.  I think the main message of this article is simply not to give up too early.

As we have recently seen with Castro and Rooker and others.  Given time players can sometimes work through those struggles and be important players for a team even if it takes longer than expected..  

The article talked about top prospects, though it's hard to delineate there what that means. About 80% of 1st round picks make the big show. About 20% become starter caliber or better MLB players.