Report From The Fort: Berrios Gone, Duffey v. Mejia

I think it would help if the Twins had truly elite pitching prospects so that fans weren't so invested in Berrios and could see how true aces actually dominate in the minors and beat major leaguers.  You'd have thought we'd have learned from Alex Meyer and Gibson experiences.  Legit middle rotation starters put up ace-like numbers in AAA.  It doesn't make them MLB aces.  I have no doubt Berrios will be an effective major leaguer.  But there is a reason that despite his quick success in the minors, he was still projected as a middle rotation piece or possibly a good to great relief pitcher.  

Dominating AAA doesn't prove MLB readiness by itself. They aren't sending him back there to make him dominate AAA some more. They're sending him back there to work on the root cause of his severe struggles he encountered trying to pitch to actual MLB hitting. He's proven that he can't hang with MLB hitters right now.

 

Where do you draw the line on a young pitcher with regards to letting them work through struggles or sending them back to the minors with things to work on? 7.00+ ERA? 10.00 ERA+? You have to draw a line somewhere. He's already north of 8.00 in MLB and didn't show any improvement in camp or the WBC. Why would you run him out there again before having confidence that he's made an effective adjustment?

 

The guy is young and he's an extremely hard worker. He'll get there but you have to have patience. It's perfectly okay to give him a controlled environment to get comfortable with his mechanical adjustments before throwing him out there against the best competition in the world again. Trying to do that at the MLB level while getting utterly hammered and knocked out of the game after 3 innings isn't going to be very productive.

Totally disagree.  Development CAN take place on the major league level and for rebuildign teams it must.  Frank Viola was hammered in his first two seasons in MLB, posting ERAs of 5.21 and 5.49.  But the rebuilding Twins handed him the ball for 126 innings in his first stint and 210 in his first full year in the majors and never once sent him back to the minors even though his H/9 > 10.  And Viola was a 22 year old pitcher with just 155 minor league innings.  IF Viola was a current Twins prospect he would have pitched spent 1981, his draft year at Elizabethton with perhaps a late season callup to Cedar Rapids.  1982, as a 22 year old he would have pitched most of the season in A-, again with maybe a callup to A+ Ft. Myers.  Likewise, 23 year old AA and maybe a call up if the team was doing terrible but since the Twins standard is that a prospect needs to come up and dominate MLB hitters, with his 5+ ERA they had some old mediocrity to pitch instead and would have bounced him back and forth between AAA and the majors.  He would not have been established with the current Twins process until he was 25 years old (see Kyle Gibson).  But by the time Frank Viola was 25 he had already pitched back to back 18 win seasons. 

One of the problems with the Twins approach is that you need to give your prospects an opportunity to fail.  If Berrios continues to demonstrate that he cannot get major league hitters out, then he is not a prospect, and the only way he can demonstrate this fact is at the major league level.  So, even if he has plus 5.00 ERA you continue to hand him the ball and pitch.  Eventually, the failure would become apparent and you do something that is very important to a rebuilding team, YOU MOVE ON FROM THE PROSPECT.  This is incredibly important because if you do not do this you will not EVER develop a team from your rebuild. You will just flux back and forth between these prospects and replacement level players without ever getting the answers.

Again, the 1982 Twins rebuild is the perfect demonstration.  The original Twins CF was Jim Eisenreich. The highest level Eisenreich played in the Twins minor league system was A-, he had 298 PAs in Rookie ball (still was Elizabethton in 1980) and a full season at A- in 1981, 603 PAs total including 18 in a late season move to A- in 1980.  But in 1982 he was the Twins starting centerfielder.   To put this in persective, this would be like starting Zach Granite as our starting CF this season for the Twins and Granite would have actually had significanty more minor league playing tiem and would be more than a year older than Eisenreich/

Unfortunately for Jim his career with the Twins did not work out for health reasons, but within two years the Twins called up another CF that was pretty good.  If the Twins would have done the methodical process of (poorly) developing their minor league prospects, Eisenreich would not ahve reached the Twins for at least another or two, and the prospect that DID PAN OUT, would have been delayed even longer.   Think about where Kirby Puckett would be if he was a current Twins draft choice?  In 1982 he was our first round pick and played in Rk.  In 1983 he was moved to A+ as a 23 year old.  In 1984 he started the season in AAA, but was only hitting .264 with a .619 OPS when he was called up.  Do you think the current Twins management has him skipping from Rookie to A+ and then to AAA, and then CALLS HIM UP WITH A .619 OPS?  And as great as his debut was, Kriby only had a .655 OPS for the Twins in 1984. Again, he would have moved one station at a time, and would have been available for the Twins debut around 1986-87.

Again, rebuilding is simple.  GET YOUR PROSPECTS UP.  REALIZE YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE.  FIND A MANGEMENT TEAM THAT IS PATIENT WITH YOUNG PLAYERS (like Billy Gardner from the 1982 Twins).  KEEP PLAYING THEM UNTIL THEY PROVE THEY CANNOT PLAY.  When Lenny Faedo, the 1982 starting Twins SS proved he wasn't good enough, they had another prospect in Greg Gagne available.  IF THEY CANNOT PLAY, FIND SOMEONE ELSE.

For a team liek the Twins, the only way to get into contention is to rebuild and that means losing lots of ball games.  Unfortunately, our management decided to lose ball games without developing the players so even after 6 years we are still looking at more rebuilding to come.

I was told the decision would be made before they got on the bus this afternoon.  I didn't hear it.  But Mejia walked off the field without a glove and went into the locker room early, and Duffy came in later, but still before most of the other pitchers.  Also the busiest day of the spring today as the players cars were loaded on the two transports and left town. I was tempted to ask Duffy if his was on but knew better, lol. 

That's what everyone said last year, and here we are, and he's back in AAA. At some point, it actually does become a trend .... that some teams just refuse to go young and rebuild, and think staying mediocre is more important. 

I get it. Over the years I have become apathetic with this team. I was just trying to make a rusty, valueless coin look shiny, new, and valuable.

I lie to myself and trick myself to cope and make it through the days. I am my own personal David Copperfield.

Comparing player development in 1982 to player development in 2017 is like comparing player development in 1982 to player development in 1947...

 

Long long time passed since then and it is a different game, esp. as far as development and availability of talent goes.

BS.  About the only aspect of player development that has changed is financial and that doesn't impact player development much.  How the teams draft, how they assign teams to minor leagues, the minor league structure are have all remained consistent for decades with the minor tweak that teams have added some structure to the very low minors and pathways to bring in very, very young Hispanic players from Central America into professional baseball. 

Another difference is that the talent today is obviusuly better, but that is all relative.  

 It is virtually impossible to argue with someone who simply makes a statement with a stupid analogy and no supporting evidence.  But the process of rebuilding a "small market" team is the same today as it was in 1982.  You get your prospects up and develop them at the major league level.  How else can your fully evaluate them?    The prospects that fail, you move on from (Jim Eisenriech, Lenny Faedo, Brad Havens, Dave Engle, Randy Johnson) , and you bring up the next prospect (Kirby Puckett, Greg Gagne, Randy Bush).  

Eventually your form a core of players that has the potential to be a succesful team over the long run (Hrbek, Gaetti, Brunansky, Puckett, Viola, Gagne, Bush).  You might not be able to fill all of the gaps, but if your scouting and development is good enough you only need to bring in a few players to plug these holes (Roy Smalley, Bert Blyleven, Jeff Reardon, Al Newman, Juan Berrenger).

But these steps must be made bravely and competently.  The Twins have not done this and their record of futility speaks for this fact.

No two situations are ever exactly alike.    2011 and 2012 Twins promoted a whole lot of guys that were as bad or worse statistically than Puckett's minor league numbers.     Also, I wonder if we had two full seasons of Viola with worse than a 5.21 ERA few on here without the benefit of hindsight would be saying "hey, lets make him the opening day starter."      I have noticed fans on here do not have a whole lot of patience and those on the Trib board a lot less so.    I think we have a decent mix of veteran and young guys in the rotation with more young guys nearly ready.  Would  have been much better with May.    I do get the points above though and have often wondered how long it would take for Bert Blyleven to make it to the majors nowadays given that he had a great rookie season at age 19.  

Development CAN take place on the major league level and for rebuildign teams it must.

This is like saying privileged kids should all start in the 2nd grade. Sure they'll be behind, but they'll figure out it. First grade is for the kids who have lower ceilings!

Rebuilding teams tend to have a lack of depth. I think you may have witnessed rebuilding teams putting players in the majors who are not ready yet. They do this out of necessity. This is not strategy, it is desperation. The Twins of the past 5 years have proven this to be the wrong plan. Pitchers like Berrios who have not yet learned control need to be in the minors.

Berrios has already had many "failures" in the majors and won't learn by having more of them. There is nothing to be gained by Berrios playing in the majors and continuing his MLB ERA of 8.00 or whatever godawful number it is. I think we all agree that Berrios is not an 8.00 ERA guy.

The Twins saw enough of Berrios to know if he is ready or not. If they say he isn't ready, I believe them.

Regarding Viola, your comparison is unfair on a few levels:

1) As others have said, that was a different era.

2) Viola flashed brilliance right out of the gate, His problem at the beginning was his tendency to give up home runs at the wrong time. Berrios has control problems, a completely different problem to tackle.

3) Frank Viola's ERA over his first two seasons would have made him the 2nd best pitcher on the 2017 team. Berrios is nowhere near where Viola was as a rookie.

4) Viola pitched in college and high school.

Look, we all know Berrios is going to be pitching for the Twins this year. There is zero reason to worry about that. It is completely inconsequential to the Twins playoff hopes if he stretches out in the minors first. Give the kid a chance to succeed!

If you have this "sink of swim" mentality sometimes you run across some very competent people who sink because they're simply not ready yet. Think of the future, not what you want right now. Didn't you watch Willy Wonka as a kid?

Joe Maddon, who knows more than any of us, says that development has to continue at the MLB level, and that you shouldn't wait for perfection for pulling guys up. I'll go with him, on this.

 

And no, it's not like your analogy at all. 

Perfection and competence are two completely different things though!

it's almost like you missed the point on purpose.....people here keep typing that prospects don't develop in the majors, that's what the minors are for. Maddon disagrees. 

I don't think I missed the point.  I would hope players would continue to improve once they hit the majors, but if they are completely over-matched, that doesn't seem like the best way to improve.

This is like saying privileged kids should all start in the 2nd grade. Sure they'll be behind, but they'll figure out it. First grade is for the kids who have lower ceilings!

 

Rebuilding teams tend to have a lack of depth. I think you may have witnessed rebuilding teams putting players in the majors who are not ready yet. They do this out of necessity. This is not strategy, it is desperation. The Twins of the past 5 years have proven this to be the wrong plan. Pitchers like Berrios who have not yet learned control need to be in the minors.

 

Berrios has already had many "failures" in the majors and won't learn by having more of them. There is nothing to be gained by Berrios playing in the majors and continuing his MLB ERA of 8.00 or whatever godawful number it is. I think we all agree that Berrios is not an 8.00 ERA guy.

The Twins saw enough of Berrios to know if he is ready or not. If they say he isn't ready, I believe them.

Regarding Viola, your comparison is unfair on a few levels:

 

1) As others have said, that was a different era.

2) Viola flashed brilliance right out of the gate, His problem at the beginning was his tendency to give up home runs at the wrong time. Berrios has control problems, a completely different problem to tackle.

3) Frank Viola's ERA over his first two seasons would have made him the 2nd best pitcher on the 2017 team. Berrios is nowhere near where Viola was as a rookie.

4) Viola pitched in college and high school.

Look, we all know Berrios is going to be pitching for the Twins this year. There is zero reason to worry about that. It is completely inconsequential to the Twins playoff hopes if he stretches out in the minors first. Give the kid a chance to succeed!

If you have this "sink of swim" mentality sometimes you run across some very competent people who sink because they're simply not ready yet. Think of the future, not what you want right now. Didn't you watch Willy Wonka as a kid?

1.  A rebuilding team (that knows what htey are doing) doesn't put their prospects in the majors out of desperation, they put them there to develop and evaluate them.  They realize that it is far better for your future competitiveness to take your lumps right now, rather than play replacement level baseball players and take them anyways.  Let Kent Hrbek and Gary Gaetti make the mistakes in the year that you are going to lose 102 ball games rather than have them make those same mistakes later.  

2.  In other words, the lack of depth isn't the problem, it is how you attempt to solve the depth problems.  Why the Twins prefer to play guys like Shane Robinson and Logan Schaffer over their own prospects is a true answer for why this rebuilding is going so badly.  One case in point I bring up is Adam Brett Walker. I doubt that Walker was ever going to be a player that made it at the major league level.  He had huge problems in making contact that almost certainly would get worse at the MLB level.  But the Twins never gave him a chance.  Not a single PA with the major league team despite the fact that teh kid hit 25+ home runs at every level of our minor league system and had a career minor league OPS of .796.  We found PA for Logan Schafer, a 29 year old journey man's journey man with a career .611 OPS and 32 total minor league home runsin 2500 minor league PAs. We found room in 2015 for Jordan Schafer, a career major league .615 OPS and 40 minor league home runs in 2200 minor league PAs and lest we forget Shane Robinson, a 30 year old guy with a career .595 MLB OPS and 24 minor league home runs in 2048 career minor league PA (if you are totalling their home run count, in over 6000 minor league PAs these guys dont combined do not have many minor league home runs as Walker).  Maybe Walker would have swung and missed badly at every pitch he saw, but we never gave him a chance.

3.  Of course Berrios wasn't ready. Frank VIola wasnt ready either.  The difference is that in 1982 the Twins management REALIZED that being ready wasn't today wasn't what was important, and they had the patience and understanding to work with the young player until HE WAS READY.  They gave a "not ready" Viola 340 innings at the major league level before he became Frank Viola.  

4.  Speaking specifically at your comparison of Berrios and Viola, what really should be the most troubling aspect is your last comment. It really is an indictment of the Twins minor league development. Sure, Viola was a college pitcher when the Twins drafted him versus a high schooler from Puerto Rico,  but he made his MLB debut at the age of 22 just as Berrios did.  But Viola only pitched 97 innings in AA during the 1981 (his draft year) and 58 innings in AAA in 1982 before he was called up for the Twins forever.  Berrios on the other hand has spent the bulk of 5 years in the Twins minor league program that you are basically saying is incompetent compared to a college program in developing major league pitching.  I agree with this because internally developed minor league prospects arrive after years of methodical movement through the minor leagues with a severe lack of readiness for playing in the major leagues. 

5.  A player who unexpectedly proves this is Brian Dozier.  Our modern day Dozier is nothing like the college infielder we drafted in the 8th round.  Looking at his minor league statistics, the guy only hit 16 minor league home runs in 4 years (1.1% of ABs).  But then, he only struck out 184 times (13.1%).  If Dozier would have continued the minor league version of Brian Dozier he would have been a .600 OPS guy that washed out a long time ago.  Instead, he compeletely changed his approach to the plate and became pull hitting threat and has hit home runs in 4.3% of his ABs (almost 4 times higher than his minor league level) while striking out significantly more (21.8%).  

Dozier is a significant player because he is going to be about the only player to make his pro debut between 2011 and 2015 that will have any impact going forward for the Twins.  When you consider that  except for the fluke of 2015, the Twins have lost more than 90 games in every season since 2011, that is sad, sad tale of organizational inadequacy.  (Maybe Gibson is on that list?????).

6.  And a significant amount of the problems the Twins have had in developing players is the lack of patience.  Aaron Hicks makes a mistake....damn it Shane Robinson is my starting CF.  It was as if they just simply could not put up with the youth, that they did not want to risk using young players, and almost had a comfort level of playing rejects like Robinson and Clete Thomas on the field so that whatever issues there was with their drafted/minor league developed players would not be in the spotlight.

7.  As I stated before, one of the main reasons to rapidly move your players in a rebuilding organization is to be able to quickly evaluate them and find the keepers and the goners.  But, that doesn't mean that all the failed players will never make it.  One of my favorite players Jim Eisenreich eventually made it back to the major leagues after he conquered his issues.  I also think that there are a handful of players that in special circumstances should take a slower route to the majors.  I would have moved Stephen Gonsleves through the minor leagues to the majors by now, but I would have moved Kohl Stewart slower to work on his secondary pitches and get more baseball experience.  

8.  The record and these arguments more than demonstrate that the approach that the Twins management  attempted has failed.  And that is why Terry Ryan was fired this past season, although the current management seems to be following in with the same approach at the margin I think they need time to develop their own system throughout the organization.