Otto von Ballpark

You also have to remember the Mets were no higher than 3rd on our preferred trade partner list at the time. Twins fans wanted Hughes, Melky, Ellsbury, Lester, Lowrie, etc. from the Yankees and Red Sox. Or even Jones and Tillman from Seattle, who were eventually dealt for Bedard. And of course the pipe dreams of Kemp, Loney, or Kershaw from the Dodgers (add Cano and Jose Reyes to the pipe dream list too). Given that, I still doubt many Twins fans were ever fixated on Lastings Milledge in a Santana trade, despite the two hindsight Mets blog posts you linked.

Well, yeah, if you assume that Gordon is going to be the best of that group in average, power, and approach, he's probably the best. Polanco at age 19 in Cedar Rapids had a .308 AVG .144 ISO, 8.0 BB%, and 11.3 K%. Gordon at age 19 in Cedar Rapids was obviously worse across the board, even giving him the benefit of the doubt and looking only at his stats from June onward: .304 AVG, .102 ISO, 6.6 BB%, 15.1 K%. Polanco has bested those numbers at pretty much every level, and in his career minor league numbers. Gordon's a couple inches taller, but I have a hard time projecting him higher than Polanco's demonstrated average, power, and approach skills right now.

Yes, very much speculation. And exaggeration. I think Plouffe's ceiling is low enough that an extension isn't really necessary to commit to him at 3B over Sano. Give him his arb salary this year and next year, and when he hits FA, his market may not be all that different than David Freese this winter (no qualifying offer, yet still unsigned in March).

At the same time, there is some evidence that the Twins never wanted him to be much more than what he was that first season with us. A plus defender speedster who tries to put the ball on the ground. If that's your goal for him, sending him down for more development doesn't necessarily help (unless the minor league coaches coach him otherwise). The really frustrating thing is that Denard Span came on like gangbusters that year. Even after we made him our opening day CF, we had an ideal excuse to send Gomez down later that year and into 2009, and perhaps aim higher for his future expectations.

A couple guys were cut from the 40-man to make room for Bartlett and Kubel. I have a feeling that Terry Ryan had input on all of those moves during his absence, even if he wasn't the primary advocate for either player's inclusion. TR did, however, give them their contracts, which had late March opt outs and $1-2 million salaries if they made the MLB roster. We also had a rumored late 3 year offer to Ervin Santana in March. At least, I'd like to think TR had a hand in those decisions, because the alternative explanation -- that he really left the keys to Antony, Gardy, and company during a critical part of the year -- is a far greater indictment of his judgement.

It's kind of a chicken-or-the-egg thing, though. His draft slot and scouting reports aren't produced in a vacuum, they are just as prone to be influenced directly or indirectly by his bloodlines and opportunity. No doubt he's a solid prospect regardless, but I think it's fair to question things, especially when "Barry Larkin" starts getting thrown around as a ceiling. Although maybe I'm wrong and Gordon really has that power potential and is a victim of his brother's low power profile.

Well, he had a league average bat in the Midwest League. Not quite sure he can be "at least" a league average bat in MLB, that's 4 levels away. It's quite possible he *can* do it, of course, but I wouldn't put the "at least" qualifier on it, not quite yet, until he's league average closer to MLB and/or starts flashing an above league-average bat for an extended period in the minors.

Good bloodlines actually worry me a little bit in the modern era. Growing up, Gordon had access to the best amateur baseball instruction and opportunities the world has to offer, not to mention exercise and nutrition. And unlike his brother Dee, Nick was focused on following his dad into baseball at a pretty young age, so he was able to take full advantage. The baseline expectation for a guy like that is to show a solid glove and hold his own at the plate, which is pretty much all we've seen from Gordon so far. I think more than other prospects, you really want to see an elite skill demonstrated early in "bloodlines" players if you want to be confident about their future. For Dee, that was a .300 AVG and basestealing. Nick posted a .300 AVG from June onward last year, so hopefully that is a harbinger of a hitting skill. As we seem to say with every prospect, the next year is very important for him.

Agreed, although it would be good to define exactly what "floor" means here. For example, it appears that the floors for Buxton and Gordon are roughly equal overall ("plus defensive outfielder" is probably pretty close to "solid average MLB regular"). Maybe Gordon's floor is fair if you are comparing him to other 2014 draftees in A-ball, but it doesn't seem quite right comparing it to a player of Buxton's experience. I like to think of floor as what the player should achieve if they stay healthy, but don't have a breakout and lose a little effectiveness at each new level as they advance. I think all 3 of these guys should reach MLB, but only Buxton is probably guaranteed a long leash as a regular.

Smith also rushed Gomez to MLB and refused to demote him, so I think he was just as culpable in any stunted development as Gardenhire. Also, it might be more accurate to compare them only for the period they were under contract/control at the time. Gomez only had 16.2 bWAR through 2013. Santana produced 7.1 WAR for 2008. Of course, Gomez's value was spread out, and most concentrated on the years 2012-2013 when he would have probably been of little help to the Twins, as things turned out. Santana's value was concentrated on 2008 when we missed the playoffs by 1 game, in what turned out to be the Yankees only season of missing the playoffs between 1995 and 2012 (and also wound up as arguably the healthiest seasons ever for Mauer and Morneau). Also, had we let Johan walk after that, we would have collected 2 more draft picks in 2009 (one possibly at #24 assuming the Mets signed him) who could have possibly been ready to contribute by 2013 (even if we didn't have the good fortune to select Mike Trout). If we had extended a qualifying offer, Gomez would have returned only 1 pick in the 2014 draft, no higher than #27 or #28, depending on whether his signing team had a protected first round pick or not. Of course, we could have traded Gomez instead. I still wish we would have kept Johan for another run in 2008. I'm guessing that's what TR would have done.

Sorry, but I think that site is confused too. It says about Milledge: "His stock would go down to the point where he could only fetch Brian Schneider and Ryan Church. That’s a far cry from Barry Zito and Johan Santana." Problem is, like I said, the Milledge for Schneider/Church trade, which represented his drop in value, happened BEFORE the Johan Santana deal. Basically at the same time TR stepped down and Bill Smith took over, which is when the public move to trade Johan began. Unless the blog "Mets Daddy" is privy to some new revelations about TR's secret efforts to trade Johan earlier, like in 2006 which seems unlikely given our own finish in the standings that year, I am going to chalk that up to blogger error. Perhaps the author is confusing Fernando Martinez with Carlos Gomez. Martinez was still a well rated prospect at the time who the Mets were notably loath to part with. And he later busted worse than Milledge (although he was never rated as highly as Milledge in this article).

Agreed! Although when people here say the White Sox should be selling their stars and rebuilding, I point to things like this and say, maybe they just aren't being aggressive enough. (Or they need to be smarter about their aggression, i.e. Samardzija.)

I like to say our series victory over Oakland, and Oakland's series victory over us, cancel each other out, and both franchises should be considered without a playoff series win in the 21st century. Not unlike Braves vs. Indians in 1995, or a hypothetical Cubs vs Red Sox series in 2003 would have been. Although in addition to sweeping us, at least Oakland took all of their other first round losses to the full 5 games. After we beat Oakland 3-2, our next 3 series (LAA, NYY, NYY) followed the same format: we won the first game, then got swept in the rest. Our next 3 series after that (OAK, NYY, NYY), we just got swept, period (despite twice having the first two games at home). Admittedly still a small sample, but I'm willing to believe there's something to it more than just chance or a Yankees curse.

No, this prospect list was a couple years before the Johan deal. Milledge had already been traded to Washington by that time. Fernando Martinez was the hyped outfield prospect for the Mets by then, although he never climbed higher than #20 on BA's top 100 list.

Shouldn't the White Sox have picked him up around this price? Chicago's first round pick is protected, so they would have only given up a second rounder. Even if Tyler Saladino emerges, there's no guarantee you won't need help at 2B (Lawrie) or in the outfield. And Jimmy Rollins? Eek.

Interesting. Two guys (Wood and Milledge) who never did much in MLB, and two more (Delmon and Hermida) who hung around for awhile but ultimately didn't provide much positive value in MLB. The other 6 were/are pretty good.

Just doing a very quick comparison of BA's top 250 draft prospect rankings from May 17, 2013, and the first 8 rounds of the actual draft (256 picks), I found 166 name matches, of which 29 had a greater difference in rank and actual pick than Gonsalves' difference referenced in the article (83 spots behind his preseason rank). And those ranks were published only 3 weeks before the draft, you can imagine the differences from a preseason list. MLB.com, which apparently ranked him 27th preseason, gave him a final rank of #98 before the draft, and did not reference the suspension at all in its write-up: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2013/#list=draft

Now, I'm sure Gonsalves personally thinks it had a big effect on his draft position, because high-level athletes are conditioned to believe that they would have proven themselves, erased all doubts, etc., with just X more opportunities (in this case, Gonsalves' ~3 missed starts). But in reality, evidence suggests the suspension had little effect.

Again, the reasoning isn't that cloudy if you read the reporting on the issue. It was a violation of strict team rules, not an eligibility issue. He did miss about a month, but high school schedules are pretty sparse. He probably only missed ~3 starts in that time. MLB scouts are looking for every edge they can find in the draft, it's highly unlikely that they dropped Gonsalves as much as was suggested in the article (from a #27 preseason ranking to #110 selection) based primarily on this odd incident. Preseason, BA actually had Gonsalves ranked #17, and Stewart #18. Guys rise and fall. Prospect lists differ. By the time this comparison of top 30 draft prospects was compiled in March, well before Gonsalves' suspension, he was already not mentioned: http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2013-mlb-draft/2013/3/18/4119330/2013-mlb-draft-top-prospects-rankings-espn-mark-appel-clint-frazier-astros If someone here has a Baseball America subscription, it would be interesting to see if and where they ranked him on this list from April 4, 2013, just before Gonsalves suspension: http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/midseason-update-2013-mlb-draft-top-50/

Technically, 16 of Jay's 28 relief appearances for Illinois last year fell short of 2 innings. He did average almost 2 innings per relief appearance (55.1 relief), although that was largely impacted by a single 6 inning relief appearance in extra innings versus conference bottom dweller Penn State. And a 2 inning appearance still means only 1 time through the batting order. Still, his college usage was definitely more liberal than a guy like Nick Burdi's. Fairly close to Tyler Duffey's, which might bode well for his starter conversion, although there are still questions about Duffey's effectiveness the second time through the order as a pro too.

It would be unusual for a coach to publicly criticize the ability of one of his players, regardless of what the coach honestly thought. (Thinking of the Twins moving Sano to RF right now...) And I'm not sure keeping Jay in the pen was a good decision for Illinois at all. They had a good season historically, but it quite likely could have ended better for them. They were ranked as high as #2 in the nation, and no lower than #5, in all the major polls entering the NCAA tournament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_NCAA_Division_I_baseball_rankings Yet they were swept out of the double-elimination super regional (NCAA final 16), despite home field advantage. Every poll had them ranked ahead of their super regional opponent (although to be fair, that opponent was the preseason #1 Vanderbilt). They also failed to advance any further in the Big Ten tournament than they did in 2014. I previously broke down their tournament usage of Jay here, and it looks like Jay barely mattered (in fact, they turned to a well-rested Jay as a desperation starter facing elimination after their "trusted" starting pitchers put their backs against the wall): http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18552-article-twins-select-tyler-jay-sixth-overall/?p=351940 On last year's midseason top prospects article, I offered this opinion on Jay's college usage: "Personally, I think the team and player got comfortable with the situation early in his college career, and the team didn't really have time to try to develop him as a starter (imagine if the Twins were guaranteed to lose him to another league in another year or two, they probably don't mess with his role either)." In short, it's hard to conclude much about his college stats or usage right now. Will be very interesting to watch him develop this year and going forward.

To be fair, you're the one who brought it up to lead off your article. I don't care one bit about the suspension now, but if you really want to drop the topic, I suggest not using it to drive the Gonsalves narrative anymore either.

Is that really what dropped him in the draft, though? It wasn't just Gonsalves who got suspended, it was at least 5 guys. http://www.baseballamerica.com/high-school/suspensions-waylay-cathedral-catholic/ And even the San Diego newspaper at the time reported it was a team rules violation, not an eligibility issue, and it was largely due to the school's own self-imposed zero tolerance policy, meaning the players would have faced only 1 game suspensions at many other schools: http://hs.utpreps.com/news_article/show/249040 I have a hard time believing that MLB scouts were terribly swayed by the incident by draft time in June. Looks like Gonsalves had a drop in K rate and an uptick in BB rate his senior year too. I'd guess that and further scouting observation is what caused his draft stock to drop a bit, it's not exactly unheard of. Amateur scouting is more art than science. http://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/stephen-gonsalves/V10dvPTpEeKZ5AAmVebBJg/gendersport/baseball-stats.htm Even BA had Gonsalves (#106) ahead of Stuart Turner (#109) in their May 17 ranking of 2013 draft prospects, yet the Twins chose Turner instead of Gonsalves at #78 overall. If it was just the suspension driving Gonsalves's fall, wouldn't the Twins have been thrilled to land him at #78 instead? http://www.baseballamerica.com/college/2013-top-250-draft-prospects-may-17-jonathan-gray-takes-top-spot/

Interesting thought experiment on Park vs Colabello. 3 years into Park's deal, if he has Colabello's current 109 career MLB OPS+, I wonder if we would consider the Park deal a success? That would be less than Willingham's career here (121 OPS+), a little more than Doumit's (104), a hair more than Mauer's 2014 (107).

To be fair, a counting stat isn't the ideal comparison. Garza could have been shut down earlier last year if the Brewers were playing meaningful games.