Free Agency, Trades, Prospects: How the 2024 Minnesota Twins Were Built

[Matthew Lenz]

As the postseason was set to get underway, MLB.com released a graphic and article showing how the playoff teams were built breaking down the players into one of three groups: free agent, trade/waiver, or homegrown. Let's see how our Minnesota Twins compare.

Image courtesy of © Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

The graphic below from MLB.com makes for an interesting exercise, as it didn't focus on payroll but rather the production each player provided (bWAR) and how each team acquired that player. We see that free agency played a relatively large role in constructing the NL playoff teams, whereas AL teams are generally more likely to be internally developed.

That said, based on the size of each section within each teams bar chart you can pretty easily decipher the big market teams with seemingly an endless amount of payroll (Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies) versus the smaller market clubs that rely more heavily on homegrown talent (Brewers, Tigers, Royals). Like it or not, the Twins fit the latter group which places an added emphasis on their ability to identify and develop talented players via the draft or international free agency.

So, how were the 2024 Minnesota Twins built?

As noted above, the data collected is a player bWAR based on projected postseason rosters. I included the following players for the Twins calculations:

Position Players (13): Christian Vázquez, Ryan Jeffers, Carlos Santana, Jose Miranda, Brooks Lee, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, Manuel Margot, Kyle Farmer, and Austin Martin

Pitchers (13): Pablo López, Bailey Ober, David Festa, Jhoan Durán, Griffin Jax, Cole Sands, Caleb Thielbar, Justin Topa, Louie Varland, Ronny Henriquez, Michael Tonkin, Jorge Alcalá, and Zebby Matthews

Grouping the players was mostly straightforward, but I did divide Durán, Alcalá, and Martin’s bWARs evenly between trade/waiver and homegrown since each spent multiple years in the Twins Minor League system. You could argue that Simeon Woods Richardson should have made the roster but he was pretty bad down the stretch and just seemed out of gas so I opted for an actual reliever. Additionally, while Larnach, Miranda, and Wallner didn't play in the last series of the year and were each placed on the 10-day IL, I still wanted to include them in this exercise to have a more realistic picture of how the 2024 Minnesota Twins were built.

Unsurprisingly, the largest section of the Twins bar chart comes from homegrown talent and, more specifically, the draft. Due to Max Kepler’s injury, none of the 63.64% homegrown bWAR came via International Free Agency. The next biggest section is the Free Agent group (26.52%) of Correa, Santana, Castro, Vázquez, and Thielbar followed by the “Trade/Waiver” group (9.85%).

The Twins have always been an organization who has relied on a strong farm system to keep them competitive and relevant. One way or another, the players in the farm system help contribute to the major-league roster through their actual production once they reach the Bigs, or through their perceived value on the trade market if a team looks to bolster their MLB roster.

And sometimes they do both, as is the case with former Twins utility Luis Arraez. The Twins signed Arraez via International Free Agency, helped him develop into the first Twins batting champion since Joe Mauer, and then flipped him for Pablo López. While López isn’t a homegrown talent by definition, it was the Twins ability to identify and develop homegrown talent that eventually brought him to the Twins.

This breakdown just further demonstrates the importance of being able to identify and develop talent to create a sustainable product at the big league level. Yes, making splashy trades and signing big name free agents is fun and is a route to success for some, we have to be realistic and remember that's not how the Twins have nor will find success.

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[Major League Ready]

There is one problem in how they broke out the data.  In terms of roster construction strategy, trading for an established player is the antitheses of trading for prospects or a player that has reached the major leagues but not established themselves. Therefore, it does not make sense to consider all trades as if they are the same in terms of roster construction. 

The debates about trading prospects and the emphasis here on free agency made me curious enough to collect this data on every 90+ win team (in the bottom half of revenue) over the past 20 years.  I also collected the data for the free agents that contributed to these teams.  The idea was to determine what types of free agents (years and total money) and how much the teams paid per WAR.   I will post the data this winter after updating the summary charts to include 2024.

[LambchoP]

I sure hope at least a few of these so called prospects pan out. With no real money to sign free agents, it's going to be up to our minor league guys to fill the holes in our roster. I will say, it's hard not to be at least a little excited about some of these guys that are close to making their debuts. Eeles, Mccusker, Rodriguez, Keaschal, Keirsey and Severino. Maybe we get lucky, but most prospects aren't going to be stars, and relying almost solely on our young guys is a risky strategy. We'll see how 25 plays out. I'm guessing we see a lot of player debuts.

[old nurse]

4 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

There is one problem in how they broke out the data.  In terms of roster construction strategy, trading for an established player is the antitheses of trading for prospects or a player that has reached the major leagues but not established themselves. Therefore, it does not make sense to consider all trades as if they are the same in terms of roster construction. 

The debates about trading prospects and the emphasis here on free agency made me curious enough to collect this data on every 90+ win team (in the bottom half of revenue) over the past 20 years.  I also collected the data for the free agents that contributed to these teams.  The idea was to determine what types of free agents (years and total money) and how much the teams paid per WAR.   I will post the data this winter after updating the summary charts to include 2024.

As his scale shows very little in terms of by trade. Lopez, Alcala, Ryan, and Woods Richardson all had a larger total than what was listed despite Farmer, Margo, Carmago, and Duran’s negative numbers

[Doctor Gast]

5 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

There is one problem in how they broke out the data.  In terms of roster construction strategy, trading for an established player is the antitheses of trading for prospects or a player that has reached the major leagues but not established themselves. Therefore, it does not make sense to consider all trades as if they are the same in terms of roster construction. 

The debates about trading prospects and the emphasis here on free agency made me curious enough to collect this data on every 90+ win team (in the bottom half of revenue) over the past 20 years.  I also collected the data for the free agents that contributed to these teams.  The idea was to determine what types of free agents (years and total money) and how much the teams paid per WAR.   I will post the data this winter after updating the summary charts to include 2024.

I'd be looking forward to that. Looks like the Twins had only 1 team that qualified for as long as I can remember off hand. How many did qualified? And who was the last before '19?

Player evaluations are super important for helping to find players via draft, international signings, trades & even FA. Developing in-house players are the best way to have them on the roster but having quality young players to trade are also important to fill necessary holes. Trading for high-quality players to fill our holes this season was sorely missing to improve our team. IMO this was why we failed miserably & fell way short of our appointed goal.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Doctor Gast said:

I'd be looking forward to that. Looks like the Twins had only 1 team that qualified for as long as I can remember off hand. How many did qualified? And who was the last before '19?

Player evaluations are super important for helping to find players via draft, international signings, trades & even FA. Developing in-house players are the best way to have them on the roster but having quality young players to trade are also important to fill necessary holes. Trading for high-quality players to fill our holes this season was sorely missing to improve our team. IMO this was why we failed miserably & fell way short of our appointed goal.

The data is from 2000 forward but has not been updated to include 2024.  The twins have had six 90+ win teams which ranks 12th among all MLB teams.  However, it should be noted that they have only had one 90+ win season since 2010.  

1	Yankees	16
2	Dodgers	13
3	Red Sox	13
4	Cardinals	13
5	Braves	12
7	Cleveland	11
6	Oakland	10
8	Tampa	9
9	Astros	8
10	Angels	7
11	Giants	7
12	TWINS	6
13	Mariners	6
14	Rangers	6
15	Cubs	5
16	Brewers	5
17	Dbacks	5
18	Phillies	5
19	Nationals	5
20	Mets	4
21	Tigers	4
22	White Sox	4
23	Orioles	3
24	Blue Jays	3
25	Reds	3
26	Rockies	3
27	Pirates	2
30	Padres	2
28	Royals	1
29	Marlins	1

[bean5302]

Why perform this comparison exercise if you're not going to follow the format of the original?

The Twins have 31.2 bWAR this year, yet only 26.4 are in your image which is a loss of about 16% of data. Also, the method you used to supercharge the credit the front office gets for developing players doesn't appear to be used in the original design so the models aren't comparable.
https://www.mlb.com/news/how-the-2024-mlb-playoff-teams-were-built

Using 85% of the Twins value all on their own with a unique formula is sorta neat, but not relevant to any discussion of the team.