Will Twins Prospects Continue to Step up and Shine in 2020?

Two things stood out from the prospects today:

1. Brent Rooker's double off the wall...not the sight of it, but the sound. BANG, like a firecracker. That's the sound of a focused kinetic chain transferring max energy to that poor little baseball. That last bit of uncoiling wrist action is how Eddie Rosario gets his shocking power from an easy swing. Rooker is going to be a good power hitter in the majors. 

2. Edwar Colina's 100 mph fastball. Not the speed, but the smooth motion. Like Rooker's swing, Colina's heater is the result of a focused kinetic chain, in this case throwing a baseball with demon speed, yet not apparently a herculean effort. Colina's command was not as impressive, but he's certainly got the arm talent to cause some trouble for hitters. 

I don't understand the ZIPS projections.  Kirilloff has better numbers than Jeffers at every category, yet Jeffers shows a 1.0 WAR and Kirilloff only a 0.3 WAR?

If any of these kids become 2020's version of Luis Arraez, it will be in part due to injuries and need at a specific position.  Impossible for us to even speculate when/where that will be.

Based on the little I have seen of spring training on tv, sure looks like Kirilloff is taking great at bats.  Should there be a need at DH, 1B or the corner outfield, can see either Rooker or Kirilloff getting the call.  Who may depend on when with Rooker getting the call should the need be early in the season.  Kirilloff may get the call as the season moves into late spring/summer.  Got a feeling that both are going to become very good major league players, with Kirilloff potentially being special.

I don't understand the ZIPS projections.  Kirilloff has better numbers than Jeffers at every category, yet Jeffers shows a 1.0 WAR and Kirilloff only a 0.3 WAR?

 

If any of these kids become 2020's version of Luis Arraez, it will be in part due to injuries and need at a specific position.  Impossible for us to even speculate when/where that will be.

 

Based on the little I have seen of spring training on tv, sure looks like Kirilloff is taking great at bats.  Should there be a need at DH, 1B or the corner outfield, can see either Rooker or Kirilloff getting the call.  Who may depend on when with Rooker getting the call should the need be early in the season.  Kirilloff may get the call as the season moves into late spring/summer.  Got a feeling that both are going to become very good major league players, with Kirilloff potentially being special.

I'd assume it would be due to positional difference.

So let me understand WAR.  If Kirilloff hits a home run with one guy on base, his team scores 2 runs.  If Jeffers hits a home run with one guy on base, his team gets what, 3 runs?  

Offensive performance is the same when at the plate, no matter where you play in the field...or not.  This type of manipulating data drives this old guy nuts.  

You name pretty much who`s on my radar. Kiriloff & Larnach are MLB ready but lacks slots even w/ injury. My hope is on Lewis, Celestino & Jeffers. Only one you didn`t name is Colina, he has an arm on him

My guess is that good hitting catchers that play solid defense are more difficult to replace than a good hitting outfielder/1B.

So let me understand WAR. If Kirilloff hits a home run with one guy on base, his team scores 2 runs. If Jeffers hits a home run with one guy on base, his team gets what, 3 runs?

 

Offensive performance is the same when at the plate, no matter where you play in the field...or not. This type of manipulating data drives this old guy nuts.

But WAR doesn't only measure offensive production.

If you are looking to compare offensive numbers to offensive numbers with no other context, then just look at those numbers only and don't look at WAR.

I think we should go back to using wins and rbi's. The new arithmetic is fine for entertainment value, but it never tells you what you want to know.

So let me understand WAR.  If Kirilloff hits a home run with one guy on base, his team scores 2 runs.  If Jeffers hits a home run with one guy on base, his team gets what, 3 runs?  

 

Offensive performance is the same when at the plate, no matter where you play in the field...or not.  This type of manipulating data drives this old guy nuts.  

The difference comes from the expected performance of a generic replacement level player at that position. Lets say a generic replacement catcher hits a weak grounder to second which turns into an inning ending double play, while a generic replacement corner outfielder hits a single up the middle which doesn't score the runner but doesn't cause any outs either. So even though Kirilloff and Jeffers did the same thing, hit a 2 run homerun, the difference between what they did and what the generic replacement level player would do is greater, therefore Jeffers has the higher WAR.

I think we should go back to using wins and rbi's. The new arithmetic is fine for entertainment value, but it never tells you what you want to know.

*internal screaming*

I think we should go back to using wins and rbi's. The new arithmetic is fine for entertainment value, but it never tells you what you want to know.

I just noticed they actually still keep track of wins and RBIs, so that's good news.

Man, this Twins organization could have the bestest kind of problem, a logjam of star-level talent. Could be a frustrating year for some of these guys, who on weaker teams would be starters right out of spring training. You could do a lot worse than having an outfield of Larnach, Rooker and Lewis, with Kirilloff at 1B, swapping with Rooker, and Celestino your 4th OF. All those guys can launch rockets, except maybe Celestino... don't know him, but he's fast.

Almost the same deal with pitchers, tho not quite as dense a jam. Great arms coming up, but a little further back. I wanna see Durhan Durhan, and I've got my eye on Ober. Meanwhile, you could stash Colina in the pen right now, get him joking with the vets, insert in low-leverage, ease him into tougher spots... ah, spring!

Honestly, I don’t know why people keep reacting to ZIPS projections for minor leaguers.  Everyone is flabbergasted about how they project our best guys to, basically, suck if they make it to the majors this year.....when literally ZIPS says this every year!

Everyone know that’s ZIPS is just a statistical tool, right?  Basically put, statistics assume that everyone will regress to their mean; which is is why every guy who has a breakout is expected to regress the next year....and every guy who had an off year (unless he’s old enough for the statistics to suggest natural age-related regression) will bounce back the next year.  I don’t know ZIPS’ algorithms, but I know stats.

Also stats doesn’t work well when there isn’t a lot of data (it generally can’t be trusted until there is a bit of history to play off), so the ZIPS folks must be using another method to “water down the numbers” from a guy’s minor league results to estimate how they will do upon reaching the majors.  I’m sure that they’ve compared the records of a ton of guys to do this.

The problem is that stats don’t know what to do when a guy like Arraez comes in right away and starts raking....so 2019 “came out of the blue”, despite his established hitting and OBP tools.  It just made assumptions that had been established for young guys with similar minor league numbers.  The same thing goes with the other young guys; the stats are just cookie-cutting them into the algorithm.  They will only be trusted once they have a few years in the majors to guide the stats.

The bottom line is that ZIPS, and other tools, are they are just a predictor; don’t panic and either throw out the numbers......or put too much stock in them.