Comparing The Rays, the Brewers, and the Twins, Part 1 (The Draft)

Interesting article and I must admit I have played around with these things as well as a person who likes to follow the minor leagues. There are two areas where the Twins fall down. They are mostly risk averse in both free agent signings and trades and importantly their failure to recognize the importance of defense has hobbled their pitching staffs. It seems like the club is slowly turning the corner on defense. Will they take some risks this November?

These teams have one thing in common - talent identification. They draft, trade, sign international players, sign FA better than the Twins

Drafting HS hopefuls and low floor college sluggers that suck at defense in the first rd that wash out can set back a franchise for years. The Twins excel at that talent evaluation. The rest of the draft has hits and misses like everyone. 

The Twins are not far behind in run scoring / hitting. Here is the catch: the Brewers and the Rays create more runs with speed, good defense and athleticism. I don’t think there is any magic formula. It comes down to accurate player evaluation and good decision making. The Twins just aren’t “right” often enough, at least in the Falvey era. 

2 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

How good have Game 1 and Game 2 of the World Series been? Two teams in the bottom half of payroll competing against each other. Two teams who have to compete against teams with significantly higher payrolls all season but had the best record in their respective leagues.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays tied for the major-league lead with a .258 team batting average. The Brewers had baseball's best on-base percentage (.341) while the Rays led the AL in OBP at .326. Brewers had 1,422 hits to lead baseball while the Rays were #2. The Brewers scored the second most runs in baseball (832) while the Rays ranked fourth in the American League (736 runs). 

Meanwhile, the Rays ranked 11th in the American League with 169 homers. The Brewers 154 homers was just two more than the Blue Jays who had the lowest long-ball total. The teams put the ball in play. The Rays had the fewest strikeouts in baseball, and the Brewers had the fourth fewest. Tampa had 164 stolen bases, most in the AL and second in MLB. The Brewers stole 162 bases.  (See the Addendum at the bottom of this article to see where the Twins ranked in these categories.)

Add in dominant bullpens and starters who throw strikes with good stuff. As important, they are helped by generally very good defense. Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang are finalists for 2026 Rawlings Gold Gloves. Turang won the platinum winner just a couple of years ago. Garrett Mitchell is very good in centerfield, and Sal Frelick has previously won Gold Gloves. The Rays have a Gold Glove finalist at shortstop (Taylor Walls) and in left field (Chandler Simpson). This week, Sports Info Solutions announced their 2026 Fielding Bible Awards. Brice Turang and Taylor Walls were winners at second base and shortstop, respectively. 

But to the main point of this article. Beyond the statistics, what do the two World Series team do as an organization, and how do they compare to the Twins? The first topic is the MLB Draft. 

One of the fun things going back to when we added Brewer Fanatic to the DiamondCentric family has been following how the Brewers do things. I have developed several thoughts on how the Twins draft based on paying attention to it for 30 years. My time following the Brewers draft goes back about five years. And, frankly, I had to research the Rays draft the last week or so, preparing for this article. Here are thoughts on how the three organizations have drafted in the last decade or so. 

Milwaukee: Mix and Match to Maximize Draft Board

The Brewers like to draft high school players with upside. While many teams go safe after the first three or four rounds by selecting mostly college players. The Brewers are one of just a few organizations that you will find taking high school picks often in the final 10-15 rounds of the draft. It takes creativity with the draft's bonus pool. 

In 2022, they took infielder Eric Brown Jr with the 27th pick out of Coastal Carolina and signed him for about $650,000 under slot value. Then in the second round, they drafted Jacob Misiorowski out of junior college and doubled the $1.13 million slot value. They drafted several college players and signed them for $100-150,000 under slot to give to The Miz. That's worked out quite well. 

In 2023, they drafted college hitters Brock Wilken and Mike Boeve which gave them almost $2.5 million in slot space. That allowed them to sign prep stars Cooper Pratt (6th round), Bishop Letson (11th round) and Josh Adamczewski (15th round). 

That strategy certainly comes with risks. A high school player may have a higher ceiling, but they also have much lower floors. Milwaukee drafted 10 high school players among their 21 picks in 2024. In 2024 and 205, they picked 12 high school players to 10 college guys.  

Tampa Takes Toolsy Teens with Top Picks

When the Rays used the second overall pick in the 2026 draft to take high school shortstop Grady Emerson, it marked the sixth time in the last seven drafts that they took a high school player. And frankly, aside from a few big-time college players (Evan Longoria, David Price, Dewon Brazelton, and Brendan McKay), the Rays have drafted a lot of high school athletes with their top picks over their three decades of existence. And they've generally done a very good job. You remember the names like Josh Hamilton, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, and Delmon Young, Tim Beckham certainly fits that category. He was the top overall pick in the 2008 draft. 

The biggest difference appears to be how willing to use their draft picks in trades. Of the 26-man World Series roster, just three were drafted, signed and developed by the Rays. Certainly, a different story from their first World Series run in 2008. 

It's a strategy that relies upon patience and player development. It takes time for a 17-year-old to fully develop as a player, as a person. A 21- or 22-year-old college draft pick is nearly full developed. But the Rays take the tools a player already has and goes to work with them.

Simpson was the Rays' second-round pick out of Georgia Tech from 2022. He's got a good eye, bat-to-ball skills, and incredible speed. His development plan didn't include a check box for "Hit more homers." No, they let him develop into a guy who hit .306 in 2026, his second MLB season, and led the league with 46 stolen bases. He won't be walk much. He won't have much power, so he won't have a great OPS., However, Kevin Cash is one of the smartest managers in baseball and he's had him batting third in the World Series.

Twins Take Tools Early, Then Go to College 

When drafting near the very top of the MLB Draft, the Twins are not afraid of taking the player with the most upside. Obviously in most cases, that is a high school pick (Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis, Walker Jenkins), but many believe that Vahn Lackey, the team's 2026 top pick from Georgia Tech, might just be scratching the surface of his talent. As the first round moves to its second half and into the competitive balance picks, the Twins history is to take college bats, mashers like Matt Wallner, Brent Rooker, Aaron Sabato, or even college middle infielders who hit well in college with a couple of strong tools, like Luke Keaschall, Kaelen Culpepper and Levi Michael. 

While there are plenty of examples of taking pitchers in various spots of the draft, they seem to like taking pitchers with "Ace" upside, but they have missed time with injury. Connor Prielipp and Riley Quick fit into that category. 

It seems once the team gets past about pick 100, they have really focused their attention almost solely on college players. In 2026, the Twins made 21 draft picks. 20 of them were college players. They drafted right-handed prep pitcher Ethan Wachsmann was the team's third-round pick (#79 overall). Rounds 4-10 were all pitchers. Most recent years, rounds 11-20 for the Twins have been 8-10 pitchers. In 2026, they selected more infielders. 

The Twins scouts and pitcher development deserve credit for finding arms that provide the team with more organizational depth. 

SUMMARY

At season's end, 22 out of 46 players on the Twins 40-man roster (six on 60-Day IL) had been drafted by the team. The Brewers have eight players on their World Series roster that they drafted. The Rays have just three players on the World Series roster that they drafted. 

Of course, that's not the only measure of draft success. It's not even the best. And there is no way to truly grade a draft.  

Personally, I like the Brewers method the most as a draft and development fan. Consider it's important to be strong up the middle. Pratt and Turang are the keystone combo. Frelick and Mitchell are Brewers in center and right field. Misiorowski and Henderson are their top two starters, and Aaron Ashby has starred out of the bullpen this offseason.

The Rays draft doesn't have a strong presence on their playoff roster, but that's because they are big on trades. Consider their deadline deal with the Marlins involving Liam Hicks. They gave up two former high school first-round picks and a Twins 2023 draft pick for him. 

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Addendum

The Twins hit .245 (4th in AL), .317 OBP (5th in AL), .403 SLG (4th in AL) and a .720 OPS (4th in AL). They scored 739 runs which tied with the Yankees for second in the AL. They ranked fifth in the league with 1,337 hits. Their 256 doubles ranked fifth. They were second with 26 triples, and their 187 homers ranked sixth in the AL. On the other side, the Twins had the second fewest walks and fifth fewest in strikeouts (7th fewest in MLB). They had 91 steals (9th in the AL). And to summarize the pitching, the Twins finished in the bottom third of most pitching stats in the AL. And while the Twins don't commit many errors, we know that their defense leaves a lot to be desired. 

 

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

 

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Thank you Seth! I look forward to other parts to follow. 

In regards to the draft. The average draft position in the past decade has been:

Twins: 14.2

Tampa: 19.6 (Ranked 7th Highest ADP) 

Milwaukee: 20.0 (Ranked 6th Highest ADP)

Throwing in Cleveland for the hell of it: 20.2 (Ranked 5th highest ADP)  

Drafts are won through development. 

I think if the talent was equal for all teams, the Rays and Brewers especially would still win more games. Why? Situational hitting. Both the Rays and again especially the Brewers work hard and take pride in their effort and ability to size up the pitches they are seeing, put the bat on the ball, get on base and move runners along. And it doesn't hurt that both teams are very good at managing a pitching staff.

The first 2 games of the WS have been excellent to watch; great baseball.

Choosing how to roster a club must be a difficult area for any front office. One can look back to Kirilloff, Garver, Julien, Miranda, and others or list Jeffers, Bell, Caratini, Keaschall, Lewis, Lee, Larnach, Wallner, and Martin. I have wondered how those players and lineups could produce a winning team that might realistically compete to win 90 plus games. Naturally, injuries are problematic but even at full health I saw the past rosters as deeply flawed. The 2023 team won 87 games but their Pythagorean total suggested a 93 win team. Something obvious was missing.

Looking forward from today, one wonders how deeply tied the front office will be with past player choices/rosters/decisions. People can change. Sometimes there is resistance to change. Will Zoll, Tom Pohlad, and those responsible for putting together the 2027 roster lean into change?

The Twins have 3 times more draft picks on their roster then the Brewers and 4+ times more than the Rays.  The biggest difference I see is the Twins were forced into trading their pen and pairing down costs from budget mismanagement.  And because they for some reason moved away from top tier defense to positional flexibility as the team value.  The Twins scored 3 runs more than Tampa.  If Lopez fronted the rotation and had 2025 bullpen, we likely would be in the playoffs as well.  Here is the main reason we aren't in the playoffs.  It mostly comes down o a group of pitchers who failed miserably, Topa, Woods-Richardson, Sands, Lawrence, Garcia, Woo-Suk Go, Voth.  There was something like 125 innings with 120 earned runs given up that would change things up dramatically if we got league average from them.  

The Twins won't be close to anything until the club completes a transition to a "Defense Matters" mantra. Without gloves behind them (or a decent catcher) the pitchers are rendered virtually helpless. Striking out 15 batters per game as an average isn't a thing. Count for yourselves the number of plays made in any game in this World Series that could not be made by the Twins Opening Day 2026 lineup. 

36 minutes ago, MeleMouth said:

 

A strategy of taking players who are good at defense and helping them improve their hitting may also be more certain of producing at least some value than a strategy of drafting mashers and trying to make their defense better. Maybe it's a coincidence, but maybe it's not, that Tristan Peters, the ChiSox's rookie surprise this year, who had very good defense and decent offense, was drafted by Milwaukee and played AAA last year with Durham.

I've said this before, probably for 2-3 years now, the 2019 Twins Bomba squad really hurt the team and set it back. Yes it was a fun season no doubt.  The FO became convinced that hitting the HR was the road to glory. So they used the 2019 squad as the blueprint and refused to consider otherwise. But hitting HR's for records couldn't be sustained. Actual hitting and defense became forgotten. Sadly the 2019 strategy is still in the system today. 

2 hours ago, palmspringstwinsfan said:

Both teams, as well as the Guardians, have cultures of “ruthless renewal.” They’ll trade players and picks sooner rather than hold on to them till the bitter end like the Twins do-see Larnach, Kepler, etc. Players like Lewis and Martin already would be gone in Tampa or Milwaukee. From what I’ve read, Tampa tells players up front that they’ll be well treated while they’re in the team but don’t expect a long tenure. And when they do make trades they’re just better at it than the Twins, probably because they make so many. While the Twins tout how many homegrown players they have, Rays and Brewers don’t seem to care. Winning is the priority. 

What really jumps out to me is that 30 of the 52 players from their rosters were acquired via trade.  It's not like these teams are drafting that much better than the Twins although they are drafting better athletes that can play defense and run the bases.

Your point about the "ruthless renewal" is where Milwaukee, Tampa, and Cleveland have gained a big advantage over the Twins.  These team occasionally will trade for an established player but the vast majority of the trades are for unestablished players. 

Tampa does not have players that were productive this year that were acquired as establish players.  Milwaukee has Contreras although he was not all that established having had one 2 war season before being acquired.  Yehlich is replacement level player at this point so it's not as if that trade was impactful in building this WS team.  He has averaged 2 WAR over the last 7 years.   These team's were built by trading for prospects and many of these trades are exactly what fans rail against.  If we had acquired Trevor Megill instead of having traded him away, many would have called it dumpster diving. 

They traded away a Cy young pitcher and had the best record in the league the next year.  We kept Ryan and Jeffers when we were a below 500 team.   

1 hour ago, Parfigliano said:

Zoll has had a part in putting TC rosters together for years.

It's time for new voices ASAP.

I don't know the inner workings so while I have been not satisfied by the end products of the Falvey Era I can't lump everyone who worked within the system together or make disparaging remarks about DK. I have not liked how it has turned out.

The Rays being as good as they are with only three drafted and developed players shows how important it is to remember that acquiring young talent can happen in a multitude of ways.  The Rays churn the trade market and aren't afraid to move players when the timing calls for it.

I appreciate this article though, one of the best on TD in quite some time.  Looking forward to the next one!

I've often remarked on TD that as fun as the 2019 season was for the Twins it totally messed up their philosophy going forward and certainly damaged Rocco as a manager from the end of that season onward.  How else can you explain Rocco being completely unwilling to steal a base, even after the rules were changed to improve the success of base stealing?

The Twins in the post Andy McPhail era have never demonstrated an off season or trade deadline "plan."  They never seemed to identify a specific need and strategy to fill that need, whether it be a FA or a trade.  Nelson Cruz was a late spring training addition.  He wasn't somebody the Twins identified early, prioritized, and then went out and got.  

Can anyone name the best trade deadline deal the Twins made in the Mauer-Morneau-Santana-Nathan-Hunter era?  A trade for an impact player to help the Twins win a playoff series?  Remember, that star-studded team never even won a single playoff game.  The ability of the Brewers, Rays and Cleveland to trade established, star level players for prospects and develop those prospects (rinse and repeat) is what has really separated them from the Twins.

The example of Ryan Jeffers and Joe Ryan not being traded at the most advantageous time is as good as it gets for a comparison.  I had mentioned in a previous post a couple days ago that the value in "trading" is that you get to identify and acquire a specific player or players that fill obvious weaknesses on your ball club.  When you draft, it's all about projectability.  When you trade, projectability is part of the equation, but the strengths a player has that you've identified your team needing have manifested themselves more clearly.

I don't see Jeremy Zoll as any kind of improvement in what the Twins have had for the last 20-25 years.  Until the Pohlad family finally sells and new owners re-hire a completely different front office I don't trust the Twins to make the right kind of trades to reconfigure this roster into a contender.  I think with future talent like Jenkins, Lackey, Houston. Culpepper, and current guys like Keaschall and Lee there is a chance they could be good.  Bradley, Abel, Prielipp, Zebby and others need to stay healthy and take big steps forward as well.  But teams like the Brewers, Rays and Cleveland are just better at trading than the Twins are at this time.  

2 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

I've often remarked on TD that as fun as the 2019 season was for the Twins it totally messed up their philosophy going forward and certainly damaged Rocco as a manager from the end of that season onward.  How else can you explain Rocco being completely unwilling to steal a base, even after the rules were changed to improve the success of base stealing?

Because the Twins MLB squad was made up with slow guys who weren't good baserunners, except for Buxton? The idea that Rocco didn't want to run and be aggressive on the bases is really just made up. The weren't drafting/developing speed. Who were the guys that were on the roster in 2020-2024 that you wanted trying to steal more? Nelson Cruz, Josh Donaldson, and Miguel Sano? Ryan Jeffers and Luis Arraez's bad knees? Correa & Urshela? Solano, Polanco, and the corpse of Joey Gallo? Fat Manny Margot (let's be happy with the 4 bags Carlos Santana swiped)?

Unsurprisingly, they ran more in 2025 when it was healthy Buxton, Austin Martin, Luke Keaschall, healthy Royce, Harrison Bader, and Kiersey on the roster. But if you expected Rocco to be sending Wallner, Larnach, and Jeffers all the time...I don't know what to tell you, other than please never manage a baseball game.

Notably, Shelton had the Twins with fewer stolen bases in his first season than Rocco did in his last. But much like Rocco, Shelton was happy to send the guys who could run (Buxton when healthy, Royce when healthy, Keaschall, even Clemens). But he wasn't sending Bell, Larnach, or Lee and who can blame him?

Team should be better defensively if they have Culpepper at SS, Lee at 3B, Keaschall not in the infield, and Rodriguez & Jenkins in the OF and they should be able to run more with Jenkins and Rodriguez, and especially if Buxton's hip is good. The roster is turning over and they're clearly developing more guys with speed in the minors. But I don't expect Shelty to run any more than Rocco did when he doesn't have good runners.