3 Current Twins That Were Late-Blooming Prospects

Garver worked hard on his defense and the power came.  I think many thought he would have to move off C and the bat doesn’t translate.

Rogers is one who succeeded moving from starter to reliever adding mph and ditching the change. Also sticking with the fourseamer and pitching philosophy. 
 

also to consider would be Duffey, many called for him to be cut this time last year.  Now people consider him one of our top set up men.  Ditching the big curve and command of the fastball.  
how about Adrianza, he didn’t come up in our organization, was seen as a solid glove but never hit.  Comes to the Twins bat develops and is a guy who can hit when he doesn’t play everyday.  Something valuable that many good hitters can’t do.

Adrianza is an excellent player and his ability to come off the bench has been a noteworthy part of the Twins success recently.

This is exactly why I don't pay much attention to prospect ratings. I have especially ignored the Wander Javier hype.

 

I pick Nick Gordon as this years late bloomer. 24 already. 2 years until prime age, according to some recents articles on TD. Late at 24? Yup, especially since he has been in the org since, what, 18? and he was a #1 pick. 5 overall. I hope he doesn't join Kole Stewart and Levi Michael as a total first round bust.

I could have just liked this post if you didn’t have those first 2 sentences. I like prospect rankings and following Wander Javier. On the other hand, your paragraph on Nick Gordon is spot on and exactly who I was thinking of as our next late bloomer.

Patience is the key, and sometimes an organization is more than happy to have a player tread in the minors and age, rather than become a hot young prospect. The question is: do most players have 1-3 very very good years in the scheme of things, maybe 3-5 years of okay ballplay?

I always like Trevor May and looks like he may be a possible closer for the Twins. Can he get mean and just throw first pitch (and second pitch) strikes?

Regarding Garver, I remember when the discusion was between him and Stu Turner on who would contribute to the Twins first. Kinda like the discussion around Rortvedt and Jeffers now.

Taylor Rogers needs to stay in setup, or called in to close sparringly. He is good and would be nice to get that goodness in more games for holding a lead.

I think almost all our prospects since Mauer have been late bloomers ( Berrios might be exception).  Many great prospects were let go or traded for nothing because they lost patience in them ( Aaron Hicks) or they didn`t fit in their philosophy ( David Ortiz ) . Now present philosophy & technology I believe will help bring up prospect & evaluate them faster, cutting down on mistakes. I think Gordon will improve this season but I see him having difficulty to adjust to the big league & he`ll never be more than average. Hope I`m proven wrong

Would you say that Kepler bloomed? He came up a year before Garver and the same year as Rodgers. I'm not sure that at this same time last year that I would say Kepler has bloomed.

Or is this considered an overall age thing versus a time spent in the majors?

It looks to me like overall age combined with relative lack of prospect status.

Just my opinion. Since both Rodgers and Garver were drafted as 4 year college seniors that made them older to start their professional careers. Obviously there is a certain amount of training and learning going on with college ball. Still that 4 year age difference places them at an older "bloom" stage. I would be more apt to agree with the late bloom label if they were drafted as 18 year old high school seniors and "made it" as 28-29 year olds.

In Mays case he was injured for 1 1/2 years. Hardly unusual for pitchers these days. Still it places him that much older to the point when he is considered to have succeeded.. Maybe we could set some ground rules to determine what makes a player a late bloomer.

Even with the injuries and college I still think calling May a late bloomer is fair.

When you draft a college player, it's reasonable to expect them to develop faster.

I can agree with Garver though, catcher is a different animal altogether.

This is a reflection of how baseball is different from the other 3 major team sports (OK, 4, I suppose, if you include soccer). It takes much longer on average for players to develop their skills to the point where they succeed at the sport's highest level. It's extremely rare for a player in one of the other sports to make his debut at or after age 25 but that happens a lot in baseball.