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To say that the Twins have been inactive this offseason would not be accurate. In fact, Jim Bowden of The Athletic recently gave the Twins a B- for their offseason moves thus far. No other team in the AL Central received higher than a C. While their moves have filled some of the gaps they have, I have been frustrated by the lack of a big move. Falvey and Levine clearly did not read my 2019 Blueprint.
 
After much thought, I am starting to warm up to the Twins offseason decisions. They have added players with the potential to improve the Twins run-producing ability in CJ Cron and Jonathon Schoop. Each player fills a need on the team, both have 30 HR potential and neither limits future moves from a financial perspective. Schoop clearly had a down season last year, but I would happily take an average of his previous three. The reason for my shift in opinion is tied to WAR.
 
In looking at last year's results, it appears that a team needs to be in the 40+ range for team WAR to be a contender for the playoffs. The moves made by the Twins front office thus far are inching the needle closer all the time. Looking at previous seasons and using predicted WAR for 2019 on Fangraphs, I made what I believe to be reasonable estimates for the Twins in 2019. This comes with the assumption that the Twins will add two more arms to the bullpen. For this exercise I have chosen Joakim Soria and Kelvin Herrera, which seems about right for the Twins.
 
Hitters:
Castro/Garver - combined they should be able to produce 2.0
Cron 1.5
Austin 1.0
Schoop 2.5
Polanco 2.6
Adrianza 0.5
Sano 2.5
Rosario 3.2
Buxton 2.4
Kepler 2.5
Cave 1.5
Hitters' Total: 22.2
 
Pitchers:
Berrios 3.2
Gibson 2.7
Odorizzi 2.3
Pineda 1.5
Romero 1.0
Soria 1.2
Herera 0.6
Rogers 1.3
May 0.8
Reed 0.5
Mejia 0.5
Hildenberger 0.4
13th man 0
Pitchers' Total: 16.0
Overall WAR: 38.2
 
While this doesn't get them above 40, they are within striking range. A few surprises could give them the nudge above 40. The biggest question marks in my estimates belong to Buxton and Sano. This is a big season for both players and the Twins are counting on them being productive players in their lineup. Those two, along with perhaps Berrios, provide the Twins with the most potential star power on the team. I believe that the front office is hedging their bets to see what Buxton and Sano can deliver. If they fail to deliver, I suspect Falvey and Levine sell off pieces (Gibson, Odorizzi, Schoop, relievers) in order to retool for 2020/2021 when Kirilloff, Lewis and Graterol are expected to arrive. If Buxton and Sano are up to the task, the Twins will have the ability to take on salary and add a piece or two to push them towards the playoffs. It may not be the path I would have chosen, but I can at least see some reason in the choices they have made.

The Twins have ridden the roller coaster during the Paul Molitor era. Up in 2015, way down in 2016, a peek at the playoffs in 2017 and now way down in 2018. The roller coaster claimed a front-office victim in longtime GM Terry Ryan two years ago and now there has to be some heat on field manager Molitor after this season's extreme disappointment.
 
The complaints about the old regime included being too "old school", including pitch-to-contact staffs, not using advanced metrics, cookie cutter approaches to hitting, and of course, not spending enough to bring in and keep talent. Fair complaints all, I think. However, in the Levine/Falvey era, we see little real progress and a real lack of talent in the upper minors. This year's crop of September call-ups is among the most uninspiring in recent memory.
 
I believe there are two keys to being competitive and sustaining that competitiveness for a number of years. The first is pitching. Levine and Falvey are supposed to be pitching guys. They have acquired pitching, but with mixed results at best. Their best talent at the top levels of the farm system doesn't have many, if any, outstanding talents. Addison Reed, Zach Duke, Lance Lynn, Jake Odorizzi didn't move the needle much for the big club this year. Perhaps they have suffered from some bad luck and just need to add quality until it sticks and stays. All I can say is this, the Twins rank in the bottom third of almost every meaningful pitching stat. You don't win year after year with far below average pitching.
 
The other component which is missing in my opinion is defense. For the last two years, the Twins have gone with a primary shortstop who is well below average defensively, couple that with a revolving door in center field this year, the trading of the regular second baseman and the season-ending injury to primary catcher Jason Castro, and you have a toxic mess turning outs into outs. Further, and if there is one complaint about Molitor that sticks, it is this. The team has been woeful at executing fundamental baseball. I'm talking about throwing to the proper base, making needless throws, failing to hit cutoff men and the like. Add in that opposing baserunners are taking extra bases like free gifts and this is tough to watch.
 
I think the front office needs to commit to pitching and defense in a big way this offseason. That would include making every effort to keep their most gifted defender (Byron Buxton) in Minnesota and on the field as much as possible. Secondly, I think the Twins need a defensive-minded shortstop, with the idea that Jorge Polanco can move to what I think is his natural position, second base. On the pitching front, more and better arms to augment the so-so rotation (I think Gibson/Berrios/Odorizzi is fine for #2-4) and a questionable bullpen. I like May/Hildenberger/Rogers, but more is needed included a closer.
 
The Twins have been in the baseball wilderness long enough. They need to have a solid plan for improvement, stick with it and stay relevant not for an occasional year, but consistently. I think the long suffering fan base deserves it.

Everyone knows that pitchers have much more difficulty the third time through the lineup. Right? Isn't this established baseball knowledge?
 
Data does back it up. Anecdotally we hear stats on almost every baseball broadcast about how much poorer a pitcher performs his third time through the order. League wide there is data to support this claim. According to OPS+ here is how starting pitchers have performed the first, second and third time through the order this season.
 
PA#1: 91 OPS+
PA#2: 101 OPS+
PA#3: 117 OPS+
 
Wow! There is a huge difference between a 91 OPS+ batter and a 117 OPS+ batter.
 
We can see it in the ERA also.
 
PA#1: 4.08
PA#2: 4.20
PA#3: 4.57
 
Teams may be making significant decisions based on this data.
 
I am skeptical. I think the data is very skewed by the group. A pitcher facing a team the third time through is guaranteed to face the better hitters on the team and unlikely to face the weaker hitters on a team the third time through. We can see it in the data.
 
PAs 1st time through: 37803
PAs 3rd time through: 22470
 
The majority of those missing 15333 plate appearances come from players who would have been batting at or near the bottom of the order. The top 6 position is the batting order have an OPS+ of 110. The bottom 3 (excluding pitchers) have an OPS+ of 87. I don't have data including pitchers for the group but the 9th place hitters have an OPS+ of 56 with pitchers so that 87 would certainly be lower.
 
That OPS+ range of 23 between the early part of the order and the bottom of the order nearly matches the OPS+ range of 26 between the first time through the order and the third time through the order.
 
Maybe this shouldn't be established baseball knowledge. Maybe a pitcher's performance really hasn't dropped significantly the third time through. Maybe it is the statistical illusion created by the group. The majority of the hitters in the third time through group are simply the better hitters.
 
I wondered if there might be a different angle to attack the question of whether a pitcher's skill level really drops the third time he sees a hitter.
 
I used baseball reference play index and looked at the group of batters instead. Using the season 2015-2017 and selecting a minimum of 570 plate appearances in those seasons I created a group of 294 batting seasons. I wondered if those batters as a group performed significantly better the third time they saw a pitcher.
 
Here is the median OPS+ of the group according to time through the order.
 
PA#1: 101 OPS+
PA#2: 102 OPS+
PA#3: 105.5 OPS+
 
The third plate appearance was better the third time through. The range as we often hear when reported in terms of pitchers is not nearly as vast. In fact it might not be worthy of comment on a broadcast.
 
Of the 294 seasons for a batter in 2015-2017, 113 of those seasons the batter had their best OPS in their third at bat.
 
PA#1 - Best OPS 31% of batters
PA#2 - Best OPS 31% of batters
PA#3 - Best OPS 38% of batters
 
More batters had their best OPS+ the third time they saw a pitcher. I wouldn't describe it as many more though. I am not sure that a pitcher's ability drops that significantly the third time through the order. I think much of the reported difference is simply the group of batters who they happen to see the third time through.
 
Batters do seem to perform slightly better the third time they see a pitcher over the last three seasons. Is that difference enough to drive decisions about a pitching staff? Is the opener a solution to this problem? Does a real problem exist? Those better hitters at the top of the order are likely to get an extra at bat against someone every game. If the solution is using an opener, that opener is going to have to be a really good pitcher to get through a team's best hitters.
 
Note: Baseball Reference Play Index was used to gather the data.

As we near the two week mark before pitchers and catchers report in Fort Myers, we're starting to see signs that this painfully frigid free agent market may be finally thawing. The Brewers staked their claim on a crowded NL Central with two big outfield acquisitions last week, and rumors abound that Yu Darvish is closing in on a decision that might open the free agent starter floodgates.
 
While we wait to hear whether Darvish picks the Twins or sends the front office scrambling for Plan B, let's take a look at how the top four free agent starters – Darvish, Jake Arrieta, Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb – stack up against the existing Twins rotation candidates by the numbers. Today we'll start with rate stats, and I'll follow up with a "Part II" that takes a deeper look at the major WAR and projection models.
 

 


 
I imagine every Twins Daily reader is familiar with the drawbacks of both ERA and FIP. ERA holds the pitcher completely responsible for every ball in play, ignoring defense, ballpark factors and dumb luck. FIP clears the pitcher of any responsibility on balls in play that don't leave the ballpark, ignoring quality of contact on those balls in play.
 
Enter this author's new favorite pitching stat: Statcast's new xwOBA metric. You can find a detailed description at the previous link, but you could say that xwOBA takes FIP to the next level: maintaining the pitcher's responsibility for strikeouts and walks while also giving pitchers due credit (or penalty) for their quality of contact beyond just home runs.
 
Ervin Santana is a great case study here. Erv's 2017 ERA was stellar, but his FIP suggests that it was helped out quite a bit by some combination of defense, ballpark factors and luck. xwOBA helps us cut through the noise here by showing that Santana's overall production (.292 vs. .320 lg avg) was more in line with his ERA (3.28 vs 4.49) than his FIP (roughly lg avg).
 
Yu Darvish's numbers, especially in the second half, tell a similar story. xwOBA suggests that he was far and away the best of the available free agent starters in spite of his inflated ERA, and that his second half was terrific despite some of the traditional results suggesting he faded. Perhaps this, and his strong early starts in the playoffs, suggest that his World Series collapse was in fact the result of pitch tipping rather than an overall fade in production.
 
Arrieta's second half may be even more interesting. His ERA drops substantially in the second half, and while his FIP suggests that it may have been more luck than production, his xwOBA reinforces that he was indeed generating significantly better quality of contact to go with his continued strong strikeout and control rates.
 
With Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb we can say with some certainty that either would have slotted well ahead of any Twins pitchers not named Santana or Berrios in 2017, but let's take a closer look at the numbers. Nick recently applauded Lynn on Twitter for his consistency and the numbers back him up here, particularly looking at xwOBA which suggests that an inflated 2017 FIP may not be that concerning. With Cobb, many have pointed to his hot second half as a positive, but his FIP remained essentially the same and his xwOBA actually regressed in the second half, suggesting his second half surge may have had a fair amount of luck attached to it.
 
What else jumps out at you in these numbers? Mejia's second half? May's strong 2015 xwOBA as a starter?

2017 was the season Twins fans have been waiting for. Although 2015 did offer a bit of a respite from several dreary seasons, it didn't feel as sustainable as last year's performance did. There are many reasons to think that the Twins may be on the road to a prolonged run at the playoffs. Our regular lineup has an excellent mix of productive veterans as well as young players establishing themselves, ranking right up there with the productive teams of the early 2000's. With this year's free agent signings, the bullpen has significant depth. This should allow them to bring up youngsters when they are ready rather than forcing them in due to need as we saw at times last year. The rotation has the potential to be solid, with the caveat that the Twins sign or trade for someone at least of the Alex Cobb or Lance Lynn ilk. There is great reason for hope in Twins Territory.
 
With that in mind, I want to take a stab at something I attempted prior to the 2013 season. 2012 saw the Twins finish 66-96 and there was going to be plenty of opportunity for players to come up from the minors in 2013. I made an attempt to predict which players were most likely to come up the the big leagues that season. It was my spin on a Top 10 Prospect list, but focused on who could most help in 2013.
 
http://twinsdaily.com/blog/324/entry-2284-prospects-for-2013/
 
Jump ahead to 2018 and this becomes a much more challenging task. The 2018 Twins have significantly fewer holes that the 2013 squad. It was a challenge to come up with ten players who have a chance to debut and rank them according to their potential to help this year's team. All players on this list would be making their big league debut.
 
#10) DJ Baxendale - RP - Not a sexy pick to contribute to a deep bullpen, but posted sub-3.00 ERA seasons the past two years. I could see the Twins bringing him up as a long reliever during a stretch where the bullpen is overworked. The Twins used 21 pitchers as only relievers last year.
 
#9) Mason Melotakis - RP - Could this be the year he finally breaks through? Melotakis will be 27 this year and while he continues to have relatively high K rates he needs to step up soon or he will be passed up. He is already well down the list of LH options.
 
#8) Zack Littell - SP - Littell makes the list only because the Twins used 15 different starters last year. If it happens again, Littell likely makes his debut. He doesn't have the ceiling that some other prospects in the organization may have, but he has shown continued improvement as he's worked his way through the minors. In 2017 he went 19-1, stuck out 142 in 157 IP and had a 2.12 ERA. He only reached AA for the second half on the season, so a debut would most likely occur after the All-Star Break.
 
#7) LaMonte Wade - OF - Wade is the first non-pitcher on the list, mainly because of the youth and strength of the Twins lineup. I just don't anticipate much opportunity for players to move up this year. If the Twins were to need an OF, Wade would likely be the first option among players who would be making their MLB debut. I could see it happening in the second half of the season. Wade appears to be a similar player to Zach Granite, albeit with more upside.
 
6) Tyler Kinley - RP - This comes with the assumption that the Twins either decide to keep him on the 25 man roster (doubtful) or are able to work out a trade to keep him. He assumes the position Josh Bard may have had if still with the Twins. I still don't quite get exposing Bard when it is believed Kinley has similar velocity but with less command.
 
5) Tyler Jay - RP - Jay would most likely be higher on this list, but health has limited his progression through the system. Jay is the first person on this list that I think is likely to get a callup this year.
 
4) Jake Reed - RP - Reed is my highest rated reliever on the list. He posted a 2.13 ERA in 37 IP between AA and AAA last year. Given the current makeup of the bullpen, I think he would be next in line after Busenitz, Curtis and Chargois (all have already debuted) to get a promotion to the Twins in 2018. Given Chargois' health history, he may only be behind Busenitz and Curtis.
 
3) Nick Gordon - Infield - Gordon is the only other non-pitcher on the list and would likely fill any needs for an infielder at Target Field. The only other option I could see making a debut this season is Levi Michael and I think we all know what the chances of that are. Gordon has not lit the world on fire thus far in the minors, nor has he been terrible. He just continues to climb up the ranks, spending his entire age-21 season at AA posting a .749 OPS.
 
2) Fernando Romero - SP - Romero has possibly the highest upside of starters in AA and AAA in the organization. He went 11-9 with a 3.53 ERA and 120 K in 125 IP this past year at Chattanooga. Health seems to be the only thing holding him back. He could use some seasoning a AAA before his debut sometime this season.
 
1) Stephen Gonsalves - SP - Gonsalves has the most experience of all the prospect starting pitchers and arguably the best production. He has a career ERA of 2.39 and has maintained high K rates throughout the his ascent through the minors. He got a taste of AAA this past season and will likely start there in 2018. He could be the first option for a callup, but might have to wait in line behind Trevor May, Aaron Slegers or Felix Jorge before debuting sometime after June 1. He is also the most likely player on this list to open the season with the Twins if they don't sign another starting pitcher.

On Monday, Rhett Bollinger of MLB wrote that the Minnesota Twins are still more likely to upgrade their pitching rotation for 2018 through free agency than by trade.
 
And on Tuesday, MLB Trade Rumors reported off of a 1500 ESPN tweet that pitchers’ agents were getting the sense that the Twins (i.e., Derek Falvey and Thad Levine) were putting off talks until Yu Darvish announces his decision to sign.
 
Reading between the lines, one can interpret these reports to mean that the Twins have not been in much communication with free agent pitchers waiting to sign contracts this offseason.
 
But does an absence of communication mean that the Twins are failing to communicate?
 
A story Thursday in the New York Times (h/t dougd) suggests that Levine is one of the more skilled baseball executives in using alternative means to communicate (such as text messaging) with players, agents, or other major league personnel.

"...today, we negotiate hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts and make massive trades without ever picking up the phone and speaking directly with one another, let alone meeting face to face,” Levine said. “You kind of learn the personalities of guys—who needs a phone call, who can do it on text, who prefers emails, who likes to be lighthearted.
 
"The art of the negotiation has almost been trumped by the art of communication."  
This makes the news that the Twins have not met in person with Darvish much easier to take.
 
Meanwhile, back in December, the Twins were reportedly offered Gerrit Cole in exchange for prospects Nick Gordon, Zack Granite, and Tyler Jay, according to the news site Pirates Breakdown.
 
https://twitter.com/pbcbreakdown/status/940390540998250497
 
Many Twins fans, including myself, liked this trade idea. (See here, here, here, or here —and the proposals offered by Twins fans in these threads were actually not far off the mark in terms of value.)
 
The stat we know as WAR is not how we evaluate pitchers during the season, but it can be a good, broad gauge of general value.
 
In terms of fWAR, the two sides of a Cole/Gordon/Granite trade match up well. Fangraphs projects Cole to provide 3.8 fWAR in 2018; let's add 3.8 fWAR more for 2019. That makes 7.6 fWAR for the final two team-controlled seasons of Cole coming from Pittsburgh. How much fWAR will the Twins prospects provide? The 2017 midseason KATOH+ projections estimate that Granite will contribute 6.8 fWAR through his six team-controlled MLB seasons, while Gordon will accumulate 6.3 worth of fWAR across his six seasons. Throw in a generous 2.0 fWAR for Jay as a relief pitcher, and the total contribution of the prospects coming from the Twins is 15.1 fWAR.
 
In such a Gerrit Cole trade as proposed above, the Twins would trade away a future 15.1 fWAR in exchange for Cole’s 7.6 fWAR as a starter for the next two seasons.
 
That looks unequal, but posters on the Dozier trade discussion threads last winter found that MLB-for-prospect trades often lean heavily to one side in this way. A risk premium on the speculative nature of unpredictable prospects, perhaps.
 
In any case, the barstool argument in favor of the trade may be more effective than the mathematical or financial analysis. Gordon and Granite are good players, but their production can be replaced. The Twins have Jermaine Palacios and Royce Lewis playing shortstop in the minors behind Nick Gordon, and have Jorge Polanco and other capable shortstops on the Major League team already. As for Granite, I would not count on him getting enough playing time to contribute much fWAR anyway, the maturing young Twins outfield being what it is. And the bottom line is the Twins badly need starting pitching in 2018.
 
Now compare Cole to Darvish. Fangraphs projects Cole for 3.8 fWAR in 2018, while Darvish is projected only for 3.6 fWAR in 2018. Consider that Darvish’s contract will fetch more than $20 million per season for each of the next five or six seasons; Cole will not earn $20 million over the next two seasons together. Moreover, Cole might be motivated to pitch his best in order to increase his value in free agency following 2019.
 
Through the quiet offseason to this point, and assuming Pittsburgh is still interested in a trade, Cole has looked like a solid alternative to Yu Darvish, maybe even better. Cole is younger and will not tie up salary beyond 2019, and might even present a July trade opportunity for the Twins if the 2019 season goes sideways.
 
Beyond 2018 and 2019, the success of the Twins will depend on their ability to develop their own starting pitching. Darvish might help win some games in future seasons, but those wins will cost a lot of money, and possibly at the expense of extending one or two of the Twins young outfielders.
 
Levine’s "negotiation" with Darvish this winter has put me at ease somewhat. Levine's knowledge of Darvish from their days in Texas suggests to me that the Twins are not concerned about Darvish’s health, nor his motivation to pitch after he signs this nine-figure deal. And a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow; figure on that annual salary at the end of Darvish’s contract to not look so bad as it does now, once those latter years finally arrive.
 
I still prefer a trade for Cole, combined perhaps with a signing of Alex Cobb. But if the Twins really do sign Darvish — and my gut gives them a better than 50/50 chance at it — I imagine I will be amazed, thrilled, and fired up for the 2018 season. Such a signing will instantly put Minnesota almost on par with most other teams in the American League, and will give them a dependable arm for the next several seasons.
 
But it's Darvish’s decision to make. If Levine has misjudged Darvish and Darvish chooses to sign with another team, and other subsequent options fail to break for the Twins, the Twins would find themselves going into 2018 without the addition of a single starting pitcher. For a young, talented team that made a strong run in 2017, this would be quite a blow. To borrow a great metaphor from another TwinsDaily poster in another thread, the Twins are playing a game of musical chairs, and if Darvish signs with another team, the Twins might find themselves without a chair when the music stops.
 
Let's hope the personal relationship and commitment Thad Levine and Yu Darvish have together is real. My gut tells me it is.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days reading about a relatively new statistic called "quality of pitch" (QOP), which assigns a numerical value to each pitch a pitcher throws. The values can then averaged together to come up with a pitchers average quality of pitch (QOPA) or you can look at a quality of pitch set of values (QOPV) as another tool to measure the performance of a pitcher. The purpose of this post is to provide a simple overview of this data as it may be referenced in future articles.
 
Background
QOP was first publicly introduced in March 2015 by Jason Wilson and Wayne Greiner. Since then it has been written in various publications such as "Baseball America", the "Fangraphs", and by Yahoo Sports! columnist Jeff Passan among others. Meanwhile, Wilson and Greiner have presented their findings at the 2015 SABR Analytics Conference. In short, this statistic was introduced and quickly regarded as a good tool to measures a pitchers performance in a way the baseball community has not previously done before.
 
Computation
QOP is computed by integrating velocity (MPH), pitch location, and pitch movement. Pitch movement is defined as the vertical break, horizontal break, breaking distance, and/or rise. These variables are put together and assigned a number 0 - 10, where 0 is a very poor pitch and 10 is an excellent pitch. The MLB average QOP is 4.5 and median is 5.

 
Here is an example of QOP being used.

Validation
Wilson and Greiner have measured QOP against ERA, FIP, and SIERA which all produced a strong, negative correlation. That is, the better the QOP the lower the ERA/FIP/SIERA.

Furthermore, a search of the top 10 2017 QOPA leaders for pitchers who threw 1,000 or more pitches provides you with a list of some of the more effective pitchers in baseball.

 
Limitations
As with all stats, QOP has its limitations. From a mathematical perspective anytime we are averaging numbers together the data can be skewed by outliers, and QOP is no exception to this rule. To help minimize the effect of outliers Wilson and Greiner have created a guide to determine the margin of error depending on the sample size.
 
From a baseball perspective, QOP doesn't take into account of a pitcher who misses his spots. That is, if the catcher calls for a fastball high and inside but the pitcher throws it low and outside he could still get a high QOP score despite completely missing his spot. If technology exists for the location and break of each ball to be tracked, then I would like to see something developed that also accounts for the movement of the catcher's glove.
 
Author's Conclusion
Again, this post was solely meant to introduce you to this stat without diving into specifics on Twins pitchers. Personally, I look forward to using this stat and wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing it more and more in future posts by me or any other Twins Daily writer. Despite its limitations, I think it provides fans with a different, more insightful perspective than the traditional pitching stats (W/L, ERA, WHIP, etc.), especially when coupled with other SABR pitching stats.
 
I also wonder how well this stat can be used to predict future outcomes. I look at the list above and a couple names surprised me, but specifically Joe Biagini who was also a top 10 QOPA guy in 2016 under the same criteria. A quick look at his fangraphs page shows that he hasn't been great in 162.0 big league innings. Is this the sign of a good pitcher who has just had some bad luck early in his career? Or is he the poster child for how finding the average QOP can, at times, be a misleading statistic?
 
What do you guys think about this stat? Is this something you would look forward to seeing in future articles? What are your thoughts in the curious case of Joe Biagini?

First, the results. Then, how in the heck I got them. We’ll use Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to assess how well the Twins have drafted in the first round from 2003 to 2011 compared to the rest of the league.
 
From 2003-2011, the Twins’ first-round picks were:
23rd in expected WAR per pick. This is an indication of their consistently low draft position due to successful teams and supplemental round picks.
15th in total expected WAR. The Twins make up ground here due to the additional picks they gained in the supplemental round as compensation for losing free agents.
19th in actual WAR generated. The Twins draft picks from 2003-2011 have produced WAR at a lower rate than the league average.
19th in pick efficiency. This most directly ties to “how well they drafted” after accounting for both draft position and total number of picks. I’m defining pick efficiency as the ratio of actual WAR to expected WAR.
 
This has certainly had an impact on the poor results we’ve seen out of the team from 2011-2014. Many other avenues of talent acquisition exist, but for teams like the Twins and many others, the acquisition of amateurs plays a large role. The draft goes much deeper than the first round, but failing to get significant production there can be quite the challenge to overcome.
 
It’s amazing how a Mike Trout or a Clayton Kershaw can make your team look good at first round draft picks, as seen by the Angels and Dodgers. The Red Sox did poorly from 2006 going forward as shown in Parker’s recent analysis, but they get credit for Jacoby Ellsbury and a few others here. The Diamondbacks did well, but traded away Scherzer, J. Upton and Stephen Drew – their top 3 performing picks. You might also notice a pretty strong correlation between the teams at the bottom of the list and the teams that have stunk in recent years. Sure would hate to be a Phillies fan – that organization has managed to get negative WAR out of their first rounds picks – yow-ouuch.
 
The Twins didn’t hit any homers with their first round picks in this timeframe. However, expectations needed to be tempered in the first place. They’ve underperformed even to that lowered standard, but this analysis doesn’t show them to be among the very worst either.
 
Smack-dab middle of the pack in total expected WAR + below average pick efficiency + trading away the draft pick that represented over a third of the actual WAR generated (Garza) for a terrible left fielder = very little visible MLB production for the Twins out of the 2003-2011 first round picks.
 


 
*****************
 
Now, for those so inclined, the approach.
 
Over the last decade, a number of extremely smart statistical researchers have explored the value of draft picks. I am not one of them. For simplicity, I decided to use the figures created by Andrew Ball (which are quite similar to others out there):
Tier 1 – Pick #1 Expected WAR = 11.83
Tier 2 – Pick #2 Expected WAR = 10.09
Tier 3 – Pick #3-7 Expected WAR = 5.37
Tier 4 – Pick #8-15 Expected WAR = 5.21
Tier 5 – Pick #16-30 Expected WAR = 2.65
Tier 6 – Pick #31-60 Expected WAR = 1.41
 
It is important to note that the expected WAR figures represent only the first 6 years of a player’s career. This is done with the expectation that teams are paying market rates for players that have reached free agency and their draft value has been expended. Data on first round draft picks and the WAR they have generated was collected from Baseball Reference.
 
I wanted the results here to reflect on the struggles from 2011-2014, so I intentionally didn’t go any further back than 2003 because those players had largely used up their first six years early in that period or before it. An argument could be made to include the 2002 class since most of the big names wouldn't have reached free agency until the 2013 season (Greinke, Hamels, Cain, BJ Upton), but I’ve excluded them. Note that this leaves out Denard Span from 2002 and Joe Mauer from 2001, both resounding successes of first-round picks.
 
With our time frame selected and the expected values defined, I tried to account for the fact that the more recent draft years are unlikely to have utilized all of their pre-free agency years by discounting the expected WAR for those more recent draft classes. The expected WAR in the first 6 years for the 2007-2011 draft classes were reduced by the following factors:
2011 = 1/6
2010 = 2/6
2009 = 3/6
2008 = 4/6
2007 = 5/6
This factoring isn’t perfect, as players come up at different rates, but the ratios of actual to expected WAR within the draft class stay reasonably steady at these rates. This discounting is actually a benefit for teams that have already gotten MLB production from these recent draft classes, which seems fine to me with our goal of assessing impact on the 2011-2014 seasons. We also might get some WAR from the older draft classes beyond their first 6 years. To adjust for this, I looked at the individual players in the 2003-2005 classes with more than 5 career WAR, looked up their stats on BRef and reduced their WAR by any amounts earned beyond 6 years (this sounds like a lot of work, but it was really only like 20 guys).
 
In looking through the data, I’m satisfied that we’re at least close enough to get a good gauge of team drafting performance. If you’ve made it this far, I’d be happy to share the Excel file with anyone interested (send me a PM with your email). I’ve also done some analysis specific to the Twins’ picks and whether or not they made it to MLB in relation to league averages, so I might follow up with that.
 
I hope the info here provides some help in assessing the Twins’ recent first round draft performance. Thanks in advance for your comments, insights and feedback.
 
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