The Twins’ Biggest Organizational Weakness Might Be Scouting

[Cody Christie]

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays are preparing to meet in the World Series, and much of the conversation surrounding their success has focused on analytics. Both organizations have earned reputations for using data to find undervalued players, improve performance, and build competitive rosters without spending like baseball's wealthiest teams.

There is plenty Minnesota can learn from that approach. However, focusing exclusively on analytics misses a significant part of the equation. The Brewers and Rays have invested heavily in scouting, too, combining modern technology with experienced evaluators who identify talent across baseball.

That distinction is important for the Twins. The organization already has ground to make up in analytics staffing, and its scouting department is even further behind the rest of the league. If the Twins want to build a sustainable contender, improving their roster construction process requires more than adding another analyst or finding an extra bargain in free agency. It also requires investing in the people who identify the players worth pursuing in the first place.

The Twins Are Below Average in Analytics

As discussed previously, Minnesota employs 27 people in its analytics department, ranking 17th among MLB teams. That total falls below the league average of 28.5 employees. The Brewers employ 46 analytics staff members, the second most in baseball behind the Philadelphia Phillies at 51. The Rays have 39 employees in their department, while the Cleveland Guardians have 30. Those numbers helped bring attention to the analytics resources available to the teams competing deep into October.

Analytics departments involve much more than statistical analysis. Research and development personnel, systems engineers, department leadership, embedded analysts, and quantitative sports scientists all contribute to an organization's ability to turn information into actionable decisions.

More employees do not automatically translate into more wins. The quality of the staff, communication between departments, and willingness to implement recommendations are all important. Still, Minnesota should examine whether its current staffing level gives its baseball operations department enough capacity to compete with organizations that invest more heavily in those resources.

The analytics gap is worth addressing, particularly for an organization that needs to maximize its spending. Better information can help Minnesota identify undervalued players, evaluate potential trades, refine player development, and make smarter decisions about its major league roster.

However, the latest discussion about the Brewers and Rays provides another important lesson. These organizations are not successful because they have chosen analytics over traditional scouting. They have combined both approaches.

Minnesota Has Baseball's Smallest Scouting Staff

The Twins have the smallest scouting department in Major League Baseball, with just 39 total scouts across professional, amateur, and international scouting. The league average is 68 scouts. Minnesota is therefore 29 employees below the average, a significant gap for an organization that needs to identify inexpensive talent and develop its next wave of major league contributors.

The five largest scouting departments belong to the Yankees with 109 scouts, the Dodgers with 91, the Phillies with 89, the Diamondbacks with 85, and the Rays with 84. The Royals employ 81 scouts, giving them a much larger scouting operation than their division rivals in Minnesota. The Guardians have 53 scouts, while the White Sox have 45. Comparable data was not available for Detroit.

The Twins are not merely below average in this category. They are operating with the smallest scouting staff in the sport. That matters because scouting responsibilities stretch across several areas. Amateur scouts evaluate players ahead of the MLB Draft, international scouts help identify talent in markets around the world, and professional scouts evaluate players who could become trade targets or free agent acquisitions. Each group can help an organization identify opportunities that other teams overlook.

A smaller department does not mean Minnesota cannot find talented players. It does, however, raise questions about the organization's ability to maintain coverage across the professional, amateur, and international landscapes. 

The World Series matchup offers an especially useful comparison. The Rays entered the season with 84 scouts, while the Brewers had 78. Both organizations have maintained substantial scouting operations alongside their analytics departments. Baseball America recently highlighted how both teams continue to value experienced scouts and broad coverage, including professional scouting, as part of their roster building approach.

Their success is not the product of a secret formula that can be replicated by hiring a few data analysts. It comes from bringing together people with different skills who can identify talent, evaluate opportunities, and help the organization make better decisions.

Minnesota needs to consider whether 39 scouts provide enough coverage to accomplish those goals. A team trying to find value in trades and free agency should want as many reliable evaluations as possible, particularly when it cannot afford to make repeated mistakes on expensive acquisitions. The Twins do not necessarily need to reach 84 or 78 scouts immediately. But being nearly 30 employees below the league average is a substantial gap that deserves attention.

A Salary Cap and Floor Won't Level the Playing Field

The discussion comes at an important time for baseball. MLB owners have proposed a salary cap and floor as part of the next collective bargaining agreement, arguing that restricting the highest payrolls while establishing minimum spending requirements would improve competitive balance. The league's initial proposal set a $245.3 million cap and a $171.2 million floor.

A salary cap and floor could change how teams allocate their major league payrolls. A floor would require teams spending below the threshold to increase their spending, while a cap would limit how much the highest spending clubs could spend on player payroll. Neither measure, however, would make every organization equally capable of identifying and developing talent.

A salary cap does not automatically create better scouting departments, more effective player development systems, stronger coaching staffs, or better front office decision makers. A salary floor does not guarantee that a team will spend its money wisely. Teams can meet payroll requirements and still struggle to identify players who fit their needs.

The Brewers and Rays are reminders that roster construction involves more than the amount spent on major league salaries. Both clubs have built extensive scouting operations and analytics departments that work together to find talent and maximize the value of their players.

A cap would not necessarily stop Minnesota from investing more heavily in those departments. Those resources serve a different purpose than major league player salaries, even though both require ownership to commit money to baseball operations.

That should matter to the Twins. If the organization spends less than its competitors in certain areas of baseball operations, limiting another team's player payroll does not automatically eliminate the resulting disadvantage. The issue is not simply how much money a club spends. It is how effectively that club uses its resources.

Minnesota can benefit from a more restrictive payroll environment, but that cannot replace the need to improve its own infrastructure. If the Twins continue to operate with the smallest scouting staff in baseball, a salary cap will not suddenly make their scouts more productive or give them the same coverage as an organization with twice as many evaluators.

There is also a broader concern for smaller market teams. The Brewers and Rays have demonstrated that a team can compete without matching the biggest payrolls, but their approach requires consistent work across scouting, analytics, player development, and roster construction. Those investments help create a pipeline of talent that can sustain a competitive roster even when individual players leave through free agency or trades.

A salary cap may restrict spending disparities on the field. It cannot equalize every organizational advantage that contributes to winning.

The Twins Need to Invest in Their Infrastructure

The Twins have several areas to address heading into 2027. The major league roster needs talent, and the organization must determine how much it can spend after several seasons of payroll reductions. However, Minnesota also needs to examine the infrastructure responsible for finding and developing that talent.

The Twins’ analytics staff is below the league average, and their scouting department is the smallest in baseball. Rather than hiring more people without a plan, Minnesota should identify its biggest coverage gaps and prioritize additions that improve decision-making.

Professional scouting deserves particular attention. More experienced evaluators could help the Twins identify potential trade targets, waiver claims, and free agents who fit the roster. Amateur and international scouting are equally important, giving the organization more opportunities to discover talent before players reach the major leagues.

The Brewers and Rays demonstrate that success requires more than analytics. Their extensive scouting operations work alongside analytics, player development, and smart roster construction to create sustainable advantages.

A salary cap and floor will not erase every organizational disadvantage, just as expanding the analytics department alone will not solve Minnesota’s problems. The Twins need to invest in the people who evaluate talent as well as those who analyze it. With baseball’s smallest scouting staff, that is an obvious place to start.

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Do the Twins need to invest more in their scouting staff? Leave a comment and start the discussion.

 

Image courtesy of © David Berding-Imagn Images

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[friedbrycenbeans]

If the latest crop of young talent fails, they need a complete organizational overhaul. 

[MeleMouth]

Great article with good suggestions, but the headline is wrong: the Twins' biggest organizational weakness is decision-making. Analytics and scouting will not overcome delusions, mis-set goals, or bad decisions, such as (1) making plans based on ambiguous statements that show that reaffirming an exalted self-image interferes with accurate judgment, like "go big or go home" braggadocio; (2) thinking the 2026 team had a real chance to make the playoffs; (3) defining the goal in the first place as being good enough to make the playoffs; (4) not trading veteran pitchers like Lopez and Ryan and players approaching free agency like Jeffers in order to refresh the talent pipeline, in complete contrast to teams like Milwaukee and Tampa that have sustained winning on a higher level; (5) falling in love with your analytic decisions, like always seeking the platoon advantage because some computer said that wRC+ tends to be higher for the average plate appearance, while ignoring team-building and player development needs as well as real world evidence that the algorithm isn't working; (6) when deciding to trade, trading away every good player in one function, instead of making strategic trades*; (7) thinking you're so awesome that you can easily replace the entire function you just ripped out wholesale; and (8) tending to hire people with whom you're familiar and who will tell you you're awesome. This list of organizational obtuseness is not complete.

*Better scouting would probably improve the quality and health assessment of the players received in trades, which the Twins seem to lose from 2/3 to 3/4 of the time.

[farmerguychris]

Another example about how the Twins keep telling the fans they want to win, but the off the field talent (such as scouting and analytics) required to allow them to win, are not invested in.   

[old nurse]

The teams with the largest staffs have some of the fewest prospects come through their system. 

[MackMan]

43 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The teams with the largest staffs have some of the fewest prospects come through their system. 

While this may be true, they are better at finding the prospects that they need and work from there. For example, there is a reason the Padres and Dodgers are able to trade from their prospects and gain a largish haul on the trade market. They trust their scouting teams to be able to find players who will benefit them in the future, whether it be from trading or internal improvements. 

Also, those same teams are able to take those scouts and have them watch other organizations that might have prospects or looked over players where they can take that player and mold them to be what is best for a new organization. Now I know as a small-mid market team, we cannot rely on the FA scene to be able to contend yearly, so that is where we need the scouting team to be able to reliably find us the best players for what we need. If that means we need a slick, gloved SS who may hit .250 in the Majors, then that is what we need. If it means we are chasing a catcher that is great on defense, but a liability at the plate, then that is what is needed. 

For years we have been told and heard that our Farm System is one to be proud of because of all the higher end prospects we have. Our farm system really has nothing to live up to at this point. But it is also a 2 fold system. Its a combination of our scouting department and our development system. The Twins have been in this rut of everyone needs to develop into a power hitter or bust. So have gotten players and tried to make them into something they're not (Austin Martin). I am okay if we draft a player is not a power hitter but reliably reaches base thru walks, HBP, or hits. Then when that player is at the height of his value, we need to ship him off and replace with new, younger internal options while bolstering our Farm System again. This is how teams like the Rays, Cleveland, and Milwaukee have been able to stay relevant when it comes to baseball against these much larger spending teams. 

[nicksaviking]

What, corporate 'streamlining' isn't good for productivity, it's only good for the bottom line? I'm sure those scouts are redundant, why do you need to send scouts to watch every SEC, ACC, Pac 10 and Big 10 games when you can hire a guy to stream the highlights on youtube?

[Glorybound]

You don’t say. I really wonder just what were the actual assessments on Louis Varland? I will add that if you can’t asses what you see every day you likely can’t make good decisions on personnel on other teams. 

[bean5302]

Scouts look for the talent the front office wants. The Falvey built front office has been arrogant and felt they were smarter than everybody else. Starts will valuing the proper skill sets.

[HerbieFan]

I find it interesting that under Terry Ryan the Twins were scout-heavy since that was his background.  Falvey came in and we were led to believe the organization was so far behind modern baseball...analytics.  The pendulum has swung completely the opposite direction where under Falvey they were almost completely reliant on analytics and they kept downsizing the scouting department.  Now the Rays and Brewers have fully laid bare the flaw in Falvey's thinking....imagine that, you actually can benefit from scouting players and not just reading computer printouts.  Who knew?  Maybe now they'll finally find a middle ground that works.

[LastOnePicked]

2 hours ago, friedbrycenbeans said:

If the latest crop of young talent fails, they need a complete organizational overhaul. 

They needed that overhaul last year. Better scouting helps give the team useful information, as well as targeting waiver claims and assessing trade candidates. Instead, new young players are graduating into one of the least intelligent, least prepared organizations in all of MLB.

They do have to make changes now, but they're going to be trying to do this all on the fly - assessing their scouting and developmental gaps - while trying to win now. It's not likely to work.

[LastOnePicked]

Just another reminder that this has been a completely unserious baseball organization since 2023. And they weren't great before that, either.

Happy for the Brewers fans, though. Intelligence and resilience find a way to pay off over time.

[HarmonK03]

24 minutes ago, HerbieFan said:

Maybe now they'll finally find a middle ground that works.

I have little hope of Zoll leading this effort.  This shows why there is a need for an experienced baseball executive that knows how to use all the tools at their disposal.  This is where I want Tom P. to make the first meaningful investment, otherwise it will just be more of the same.

[Vanimal46]

The organization's biggest weakness is leadership - and that starts at ownership. There is no clear vision and path to success. I don't believe Tom Pohlad even knows what to look for when it comes to evaluating the highest level positions in the FO. 

Development of talent is a close 2nd place. The Twins aren't having issues getting their 1st round picks/top prospects up to the majors... The problems arise once they get to that level and burn out quickly. 

[Mike Sixel]

This is a good article!

Cheap owners get bad results. Who knew?

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

The organization's biggest weakness is leadership - and that starts at ownership. There is no clear vision and path to success. I don't believe Tom Pohlad even knows what to look for when it comes to evaluating the highest level positions in the FO. 

Development of talent is a close 2nd place. The Twins aren't having issues getting their 1st round picks/top prospects up to the majors... The problems arise once they get to that level and burn out quickly. 

The Brewers have gotten a lot of credit for the teaching ability of their major league staff.....I agree this is an issue. But I think the biggest was bad picks. These seems to have been fixed, but I'm not certain..

 

[Woof Bronzer]

I'll believe Tommy Pohlad is actually committed to investing in this team and sustainable winning when he actually starts investing in the front office, scouting staff, and other off the field areas.  

During his tenure the only "investment" Tommy has made is 1) firing the POBO, and replacing him with no one 2) firing several scouts, and replacing them with no one.  

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

I'll believe Tommy Pohlad is actually committed to investing in this team and sustainable winning when he actually starts investing in the front office, scouting staff, and other off the field areas.  

During his tenure the only "investment" Tommy has made is 1) firing the POBO, and replacing him with no one 2) firing several scouts, and replacing them with no one.  

Truth. And cut salary of players. It's almost like a pattern.....

[nicksaviking]

2 hours ago, HerbieFan said:

I find it interesting that under Terry Ryan the Twins were scout-heavy since that was his background.  Falvey came in and we were led to believe the organization was so far behind modern baseball...analytics.  The pendulum has swung completely the opposite direction where under Falvey they were almost completely reliant on analytics and they kept downsizing the scouting department.  Now the Rays and Brewers have fully laid bare the flaw in Falvey's thinking....imagine that, you actually can benefit from scouting players and not just reading computer printouts.  Who knew?  Maybe now they'll finally find a middle ground that works.

No, they downsized the analytics too. This was the Pohlad's downsizing and consolidating to lower costs to make the team more attractive to potential new owners. Which they failed at because the liabilities those (presumably smarter) businessmen cared about was the 500M in real estate and auto dealership debt the Pohlad's tied on to their baseball team.

[Woof Bronzer]

22 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

No, they downsized the analytics too. This was the Pohlad's downsizing and consolidating to lower costs to make the team more attractive to potential new owners. 

And/or to pay back the "minority partner" loans sooner to clear the debt from the books for a sale.  Regardless everything they've done since Tommy was officially announced points to cost cutting as their top priority.  

[HarmonK03]

2 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

I'll believe Tommy Pohlad is actually committed to investing in this team and sustainable winning when he actually starts investing in the front office, scouting staff, and other off the field areas.  

During his tenure the only "investment" Tommy has made is 1) firing the POBO, and replacing him with no one 2) firing several scouts, and replacing them with no one.  

Falvey left on his own, and he was the one who started to downsize the scouting staff over the last few years.  

[HarmonK03]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

No, they downsized the analytics too. This was the Pohlad's downsizing and consolidating to lower costs to make the team more attractive to potential new owners. Which they failed at because the liabilities those (presumably smarter) businessmen cared about was the 500M in real estate and auto dealership debt the Pohlad's tied on to their baseball team.

When was the analytics department downsized, we have heard about the scouts but I don't recall hearing anything about the analytics department.

[Teflon]

A.I. is shortly going to make staffing an analytics department irrelevant. At my place of work it is already digesting massive data sets, identifying patterns and making meaningful analysis and recommendations. One purposely-directed AI agent managed by a Decision Scientist / Data Scientist should already be able to replace most of a current MLB analytics department.

[UpstateNewYorker]

5 hours ago, HerbieFan said:

I find it interesting that under Terry Ryan the Twins were scout-heavy since that was his background.  Falvey came in and we were led to believe the organization was so far behind modern baseball...analytics.  The pendulum has swung completely the opposite direction where under Falvey they were almost completely reliant on analytics and they kept downsizing the scouting department.  Now the Rays and Brewers have fully laid bare the flaw in Falvey's thinking....imagine that, you actually can benefit from scouting players and not just reading computer printouts.  Who knew?  Maybe now they'll finally find a middle ground that works.

Below is a really good article about how the Brewers have achieved their success.  One line that stood out to me is this: 

"The top five teams in MLB at hitting the ball in the air to the pull side did not win a playoff game this year: the Cubs, Twins, Astros, Diamondbacks and Rockies."

Some of the analytics that worked briefly in 2019 are already outdated.  

https://www.si.com/mlb/2026-world-series-brewers-turning-back-the-clock-moving-baseball-forward

[old nurse]

6 hours ago, MackMan said:

While this may be true, they are better at finding the prospects that they need and work from there. For example, there is a reason the Padres and Dodgers are able to trade from their prospects and gain a largish haul on the trade market. They trust their scouting teams to be able to find players who will benefit them in the future, whether it be from trading or internal improvements. 

Also, those same teams are able to take those scouts and have them watch other organizations that might have prospects or looked over players where they can take that player and mold them to be what is best for a new organization. Now I know as a small-mid market team, we cannot rely on the FA scene to be able to contend yearly, so that is where we need the scouting team to be able to reliably find us the best players for what we need. If that means we need a slick, gloved SS who may hit .250 in the Majors, then that is what we need. If it means we are chasing a catcher that is great on defense, but a liability at the plate, then that is what is needed. 

For years we have been told and heard that our Farm System is one to be proud of because of all the higher end prospects we have. Our farm system really has nothing to live up to at this point. But it is also a 2 fold system. Its a combination of our scouting department and our development system. The Twins have been in this rut of everyone needs to develop into a power hitter or bust. So have gotten players and tried to make them into something they're not (Austin Martin). I am okay if we draft a player is not a power hitter but reliably reaches base thru walks, HBP, or hits. Then when that player is at the height of his value, we need to ship him off and replace with new, younger internal options while bolstering our Farm System again. This is how teams like the Rays, Cleveland, and Milwaukee have been able to stay relevant when it comes to baseball against these much larger spending teams. 

So when you go back and look at what the Dodgers gave up in trades have been fringe players the Padres gave up Gore and Abram’s for a couple of years of Soto. The pitcher they gave up for Hader is showing potential, otherwise not much success out of the prospects they gave up. People remember lots of prospects being given up. They don’t remember the outcomes 

[Andy MacPhail]

Scouting is good for gathering intangible information. International scouting is where the Twins are proportionally the weakest. Twins' philosophy have little scouting, just get a bunch of prospects & throw them against the wall & see who sticks. Scouting is only as good as the decision makers,

[Vanimal46]

4 hours ago, Teflon said:

A.I. is shortly going to make staffing an analytics department irrelevant. At my place of work it is already digesting massive data sets, identifying patterns and making meaningful analysis and recommendations. One purposely-directed AI agent managed by a Decision Scientist / Data Scientist should already be able to replace most of a current MLB analytics department.

A baseball analytics department will be no different than a department in corporate America. Every day buying some land and homesteading it sounds better and better. Good luck to any recent grads finding entry level jobs. 

[TheLeviathan]

This is good information and not surprising.  A lack of scouts is going to show up in a multitude of ways beyond just the draft.  This team rarely seems to mine out gold out of their trades.  So many key members of the Rays were scouted out as low level trade acquisitions early in their careers.  So many of these team's players were internationally scouted.  

Teams like the Twins need to win at the margins.  This is a relatively low-cost, margin play.  And they have purposely gone cheap on it.  Inexcusable.

[Teflon]

2 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

A baseball analytics department will be no different than a department in corporate America. Every day buying some land and homesteading it sounds better and better. Good luck to any recent grads finding entry level jobs. 

Here's the beginning, my friend.

 

[bean5302]

14 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

Falvey left on his own, and he was the one who started to downsize the scouting staff over the last few years.  

He got his *** fired. Falvey was under contract, he didn't walk away from millions, dude. Falvey got fired in the most obvious corporate way possible. Where the executive gets fired and the message was there was a mutual parting of ways. 

Quote

"Over the past several weeks, Derek and I had thoughtful and candid conversations about leadership, structure, and the future of the club," Pohlad wrote in the team's press release. "We reached a shared understanding that the needs of the organization are evolving and that a leadership transition is the best way to move forward."

Translation. Pohlad fired Falvey for performance and a conflict in vision or management philosophy. This is how corporate firings always look.

Is "mutual agreement to part ways" nothing more than corporate speak for firing?

 

From google Gemini.

Quote

Yes, in the vast majority of cases, a "mutual agreement to part ways" is corporate code for a firing or a forced resignation.

While it sounds like a joint, amicable decision, it is usually used by organizations and executives to soften the blow publicly.

Here is what "parting ways" typically means behind the scenes:

• An Ultimatum was Given: Usually, the employer initiates the conversation. The executive is told they are being replaced, but they are offered the chance to resign gracefully rather than being publicly terminated.
• The Severance Package: In corporate and sports management, executives often have complex contracts. A "mutual separation" usually means both sides agreed on a financial exit package (severance) and a non-disparagement clause, meaning neither side will publicly badmouth the other.
• Preserving Reputations: It allows the team or company to signal a change in direction without looking overly chaotic, and it allows the executive to save face while looking for their next job.