Risk and Reward: Twins Seeing Positive Returns on High School Arms

Look at the trajectory of Ober. They higher out a way to increase the workload while still developing the pitcher at the major league level. The pitchers are no longer finished products when they hit the major leagues. Look at the paths of. Ryan, Oer and Skubal 

Soto is promising. Wait a couple more levels before hyping.  In 2011 there was a hs pitcher taken 4th overall. A top 10 prospect in 2012. By 2022 he was the scourge of many fans here. He wasn’t the first nor the last hyped hs pitcher that was hyped and fizzled 

Definitely two to watch. I would add Dasan Hill to the list as well.

Twins had for a long time steered far away from drafting high on pitchers, especially HS. Let others develop pitchers & we'd trade bats for pitchers. But now MN seems confident in their development of their young pitchers. Wisely focus on taking them slowly, keeping them healthy & on the field so they maintain their development. Now drafting higher will revolutionize their pitching & off the old unathletic, big bat focus. Now they need to focus on drafting college catchers higher.

Early on they went with a lot of college arms but since the start of the decade that has changed. 

2020 - Raya

2021 - Petty (traded for Sonny Gray- 2 years 7.8 WAR of performance and Kyle Debarge as a comp pick)  

2022- None  (took Priellip as the high upside pick) 

2023 - Soto and Questad

2024 - Dasan Hill   

In my opinion, the Twins have done incredibly well with their high school pitchers.  The Petty trade was phenomenal.  Even still Petty is a high upside pitcher (#8 in the Reds deep system).  Soto has the highest ceiling, and showed dramatic improvement throughout the year.  Soto is still primarily projection, but what he was showing at the end of the year was impressive.  It all depends when they are willing to let Raya let it fly and go deeper into innings.   Questad struggled in FCL, but they may have been working on things.  he was really a lottery pick in the 5th round for 500k.  Hill has as high as upside as anyone,  6'4" lanky frame,  velocity jumped last year to mid 90's.  Lots of spin but need some work and refinement on the secondary pitches.  

With our rotation set for the next three seasons and 4 seasons from now we could still have SWR, Festa and possibly Matthews as developed starters that would give us almost 2 more years of likely rotation stability.  It makes sense to take a group of high school pitchers now to develop over time and soon college pitchers so that a large number of pitchers are ready when we start having holes in the rotation again. 

Draft the best player available.

Trade to fill perceived holes.

Just a small bone to pick with the title. There are no positive returns until they get to the majors with good results.

I too would have added  chase petty into the conversation  even though he was traded , he was a twins high school draftee for a short time and is progressing up the system nicely with Cincinnati's minor league system  ...

I would like to see another year out of Soto but it would appear that his ceiling is potentially pretty high. As with any under 20 year old pitcher, the floor is also pretty low. What we can expect from Soto probably ranges from a solid number 2 on the high end to he never touches a ball on an MLB team on the low end.

With Raya, I think the big concern is workload and durability. He probably has a lower ceiling as a result of this. I would think somewhere between MLB depth piece (a 4 or 5 guy in the rotation) to spot starter. His floor is considerably higher because I think his stuff will play at the major league level. A solid MLB reliever is probably his floor.

I'll put my money on Soto and against Raya.

15 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Draft the best player available.

Trade to fill perceived holes.

That has been their slogan. But unless their 1st round picks have been no-brainers like Lewis, Lee & Jenkins, their best player evaluations have been unathletic big college bats. Thus plugging the system with 1B/ DH types. Twins tend not to trade their prospects which does not fill the holes to qualify this statement. Many of these draft selections have not worked out so instead of having a high surplus at 1B/DH to trade from we now have a hole.

16 hours ago, Brandon said:

With our rotation set for the next three seasons and 4 seasons from now we could still have SWR, Festa and possibly Matthews as developed starters that would give us almost 2 more years of likely rotation stability.  It makes sense to take a group of high school pitchers now to develop over time and soon college pitchers so that a large number of pitchers are ready when we start having holes in the rotation again. 

There’s no such thing as having a rotation set for 3-4 years. Guys get hurt, fall apart, or fail to develop at a pretty high rate. 

42 minutes ago, Taildragger8791 said:

There’s no such thing as having a rotation set for 3-4 years. Guys get hurt, fall apart, or fail to develop at a pretty high rate. 

I would add there should be no way they allow the big three to just leave after 3 years, I am against extending them, so they might be slowly trading each one of them?

16 hours ago, Ricky Vaughn said:

Just a small bone to pick with the title. There are no positive returns until they get to the majors with good results.

Unless you trade one for 1 of the best pitchers in baseball-  get 7.8 WAR plus a compensation pick in the 2024 draft.  The Petty for Gray trade utilizing a high school pitcher created an extreme positive return for the organization.  

8 hours ago, Taildragger8791 said:

There’s no such thing as having a rotation set for 3-4 years. Guys get hurt, fall apart, or fail to develop at a pretty high rate. 

We have Ober, Ryan and Lopez under contract for the next three years.  SWR for 5 or 6 and Festa and Matthews for 6.  That is some  rotation stability for the next three seasons.  Yes someone can get hurt but we have people almost ready to step in their place.

2 hours ago, gman said:

I hope we extend pitchers. Not for 6-8 years, but 3 or possibly 4, but no more.

There isn't much need need to extend pitchers on the wrong side of 30, IMO

3 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

There isn't much need need to extend pitchers on the wrong side of 30, IMO

New ownership may have a different view on contract extensions but I would expect that the POBO and/or GM would have some expertise or guidance for an owner on that front. Even Cohen (NYM) has not gone nuts with contracts and extensions and he certainly has the do-re-mi to do whatever he wants to with his money.

32 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

1st round picks under Falvey:

'17: Lewis, CB-A: Rooker
'18: Larnach
'19: Cavaco, CB-A: Wallner
'20: Sabato
'21: Petty, CB-A: Miller
'22: Lee
'23: Jenkins, CB-A: Soto
'24: Culpepper, Debarge

Sabato is the only "unathletic 1B/DH" pick they've made in the first or competitive balance A rounds. Rooker is not unathletic, but he's bad defensively, so I guess you can call it 2 out of 13 picks. They've drafted 6 shortstops, 3 OFers, and 2 pitchers. Your assessment of their top draft picks is wildly off.

32 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

1st round picks under Falvey:

'17: Lewis, CB-A: Rooker
'18: Larnach
'19: Cavaco, CB-A: Wallner
'20: Sabato
'21: Petty, CB-A: Miller
'22: Lee
'23: Jenkins, CB-A: Soto
'24: Culpepper, Debarge

Sabato is the only "unathletic 1B/DH" pick they've made in the first or competitive balance A rounds. Rooker is not unathletic, but he's bad defensively, so I guess you can call it 2 out of 13 picks. They've drafted 6 shortstops, 3 OFers, and 2 pitchers. Your assessment of their top draft picks is wildly off.

You left out my exclusion of no-brainers: Lewis, Lee & Jenkins. Let me rephrase that to bat 1st players. That'd include Rooker, Larnach, Cavaco, Wallner & Sabato, that's not including 2nd round or foreign draft. Where they were drafted doesn't mean that's where they'll stick. Sano was drafted as a SS.

7 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Of course where they were drafted doesn't mean that's where they'll stick, but your argument was that they drafted "unathletic 1B/DH" types. Short stops are not "unathletic 1B/DH" types. Almost every round 1 pick is bat driven. Bat is the priority that early in the draft because if you can't hit you won't make it to the majors. And Cavaco wasn't a bat 1st pick. He was an "athlete" pick. Literally the opposite of what you're claiming. 

Cavaco is a good example, he ended up at 1B & was later released. 

I admit that they have started to veer away from the bat & no-glove type the last couple of years. But that's no reason to excuse them from ignoring catchers in the draft & failing to use prospects to trade for them, which is the main point of my text, even though I didn't mention catching specifically.

12 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

New ownership may have a different view on contract extensions but I would expect that the POBO and/or GM would have some expertise or guidance for an owner on that front. Even Cohen (NYM) has not gone nuts with contracts and extensions and he certainly has the do-re-mi to do whatever he wants to with his money.

Not sure what ownership has to do with this, are there a bunch of players, let alone starting pitchers getting contract extensions or buying out the last year or two of players the teams already controls beyond age 30?