Scott Baker

Over the last two seasons, Bailey Ober has established himself as one of the American League’s best starting pitchers. The Twins have seen few pitchers of Ober’s caliber come through the system over the last two decades.

Simeon Woods Richardson, Josh Winder, Louie Varland, and Cole Sands all made their first starts in the big leagues in 2022 with a wide range of results. But do first starts predict future success at all? Let's take a look at recent Twins history.

Sometimes narratives, baseball or other, get into circulation, and once they do, it seems that they are hard to get rid of. I have probably (unfortunately) started some, and I am sure that I have passed along some without doing any research. Of course, I think we all agree that a little data to either support or disprove any narrative should help. Today I am going to address one of those narratives and let you decide.

Teams are always looking for the one pitcher who can be their rock. The pitcher who always ends a team's losing streak. The pitcher who will pitch late into a game. The pitcher who lets the bullpen take the night off. The pitcher who is in contention for the Cy Young Award.

The Ace...

Unfortunately, there aren't exactly a plethora of aces lying around for teams to scoop up. It's been many years since the Twins have been able to call someone their ace. Johan Santana comes to mind but he hasn't put on a Twins jersey in close to a decade. In fact since Santana left, only two pitchers have led the Twins in WAR, Scott Baker and Kyle Gibson.

A spirited debate was circling Twitter over the weekend. Should Ervin Santana be considered an ace? He's off to a tremendous start but does he fit the criteria for being an ace.

Last week, the Minnesota Twins announced two promotions in their Scouting Department. Long-time scouting director Deron Johnson was promoted to Senior Advisor of the Scouting Department. Sean Johnson, who had been West Coast Supervisor, is now taking over the reins as Director of Scouting. His job, according to the team’s press release, will be responsibility for “the strategic preparation of the Amateur Draft, and he will be charged with developing the 27-man amateur scouting staff.”

The move created some discussion in our forums and even on the radio. I was listening to Phil Mackey and Judd Zulgad on 1500 ESPN early last week following the announcement, and Phil mentioned how few impact players the Twins had drafted between 2003 and 2012. Specifically, he looked at the first five rounds of those drafts to see how many players the Twins drafted that had some impact. He noted that he didn’t know how that compared to other organizations, so immediately, I had the thought that I was going to find out. It’s something I’ve been curious about, so why not find out what the data tells us.