Otto von Ballpark

Thanks for the tip. Hopefully they can put these in a sortable tabular format too, like their stats, to give them more context (comparing players and teams).

I think Berrios has almost zero chance of being up before September because he had a below league average 6.2 K/9 in AA last year and is almost certain to open there again in 2015. I suspect his AAA cameo is misleading people -- I don't think he's quite as far along as that suggested. I think his absolute best case 2015 is basically Francisco Liriano's 2005 -- a strong half season at AA, an even better second half at AAA, topped by his MLB debut in September.

Last year at this time, the first part of this post could have read: "Hicks had a unlucky .241 BABIP in his rookie year. Nobody doubts he has some power (8 HR, .146 ISO)." Well, the BABIP corrected itself to league average, but Hicks' AVG barely moved, and the power almost completely vanished while he added a bunch of walks. Pretty sure nothing in the last two years point to positive sustainable trend for Hicks yet.

Not sure if you understood my point -- even though Hunter was below average his first two years in MLB, he held his own. Same basic AVG/OBP/SLG/BB%/K% that he posted in the minors and would go on to produce in the majors. It was a foundation from which he could take the next step, which was adding power in AAA at age 24 and carrying it over in his return to MLB at age 25. Hicks is about two years and two levels removed from his last performance which could be considered a foundation for a lasting career. Obviously it is still possible for him to improve, but he's a few steps behind Hunter at the same age.

Although Hunter was a basically a finished product those early years, in terms of AVG/OBP and BB% and K%. His age 25 "breakthrough" was adding power.

Gordon was an average MLB starter his first two years (ages 23-24). Scuffled over the next two, got demoted but absolutely destroyed AAA, then became a force (defensively perhaps as much as offensively) in his 5th season. After that, his past 3 seasons have not been materially different, offensively, from his age-24 season. Again, I get that players develop, but most of these positive examples showed a lot more promise and performance than Hicks so far.

Bad example. He had two rough years at the start, but Viola was #17 in MLB in pitcher WAR in his 3rd season. Got us within 3 games of a division title. And he was almost exactly league average in his 4th and 5th seasons, but that has value, especially when you are top 15 in MLB in innings pitched. I can't imagine an alternate promotion schedule that makes Viola that good before 1984, or that much better from 1984-1986.

They did just get David Price midseason without giving up prospects. They've also been pretty good about knowing what prospects to deal (i.e. Jacob Turner for Anibal Sanchez a few years ago). Sickels said it well:

Escobar didn't suddenly become a good hitter out of nowhere in 2014. He actually hit VERY well at AAA in 2013, showed a much-improved MLB bat in September that year, and also an improved bat in winter league. And his chief improvement (power) was rather consistent through all of those stops. To my knowledge, Hicks has yet to really show any significant incremental improvement like that. Doesn't mean he can't improve in 2015, just that at this point, I feel the odds of it are somewhat lower than Escobar's 2014 improvement. Also, since you bring up minor league records, I think it's important to note that Escobar's core stats (BB%, K%, ISO) didn't change much even when he was struggling in his early MLB days. Hicks on the other hand has seen his K% explode and his ISO plummet. Again, not that he can't recover from it, but it suggests that he needs to make significant adjustments to improve his numbers, as opposed to Escobar who perhaps just needed time more than anything else.

I'm no fan of Robbie Ross, but he is over 6 years younger than Duensing. Even with a few MLB seasons under his belt, he's still younger now than when Duensing made his MLB debut back in 2009. And Ross isn't even arb eligible until next season -- he's making league minimum now, with at least 4 full years of team control, versus Duensing's $2.7 mil for one season then free agency. Ross also has two option years remaining if they want to demote him while he gets healthy or they explore starting more, etc. Ross also had a 163 ERA+ over his two full relief seasons, better than any single Duensing season (and much better than his exclusive relief seasons). I'm not sure if Milone is necessarily a desired sweetener, either. Especially to a team trading a starter like Ranaudo. Milone is making $2.8 mil this season too -- a team taking on both pitchers would be adding $5 mil in 2015 payroll alone. This was pretty clearly a prospect/young player challenge trade. Duensing doesn't really fit the parameters (arguably never did). Milone might barely, for the right team.

Don't know if it is crazy, at this point. Meyer is older, but his career K/9 is higher than Berrios' best. And Meyer has actually improved that rate at both AA and AAA. Still plenty of time for Berrios to rocket up the list, of course. Francisco Liriano didn't make BA's top 100 after 2004, but was #6 the next year after he dominated AA and AAA (and debuted in MLB).

Last update to the home page seems to have been on August 4th (and was actually about recently graduated prospects), which explains why Baez, Walker, Betts, Vargas, etc. have not yet been removed. Danny Santana's description says "undefined" and his player page says "Graduated Prospect" so at least they know he was graduated as of August 2014, they just haven't removed him from the list. Still not sure about Benson...

From their site: Doesn't sound like this has been fully updated for 2015 then, contrary to what it says on the list. (In addition to the problem of tracking and removing past prospects who never reached rookie status, like Benson.) It would be interesting to see how many total prospects are even rank-able.

I think there are some problems with it, probably due to its full automation. Taijuan Walker at #6 has 53 MLB IP already. Baez at #10 had 229 MLB PA last year. Which is a shame, because the concept sounds good to me (prospect rank/grade aggregator).

Ah yes, those halcyon days of Kevin Slowey pitching out of the bullpen. That 2011 rotation proved so solid, the only tweak it needed for 2012 was Jason Marquis!

I tend to agree, but I thought this was interesting. First 21 MLB games: Parmelee: 88 PA, .355/.443/.592, 1.035 OPS, 183 OPS+ Vargas: 93 PA, .329/.366/.553, .919 OPS, ~154 OPS+ Next 141 MLB PA: Parmelee: .234/.305/.398, .703 OPS, ~97 OPS+ Vargas: .238/.284/.392, .676 OPS, ~90 OPS+ It's going to be important for Vargas to come out strong in 2015.

Good point. Prior to Sano (or 2007, if you want to include Arcia etc.), the Twins by their own admission were really under-utilizing Latin America. So when they have a few bad drafts in the 2006-2011 window, it follows that there weren't international prospects ready to pick up the slack, not really until the last year or so. The same combination of busted first rounders and little significant international activity probably stalled the late 1990s rebuild an extra year or two too.

Also, let's not forget that last year at this time, Alex Presley had a statistically very similar brief Twins audition to Jordan Schafer, and a better MLB track record to boot (league average bat over 821 PA!).

Not sure if you are aware, but Schafer had over 1000 AB in Atlanta and Houston before coming to Minnesota. And the vast majority of it was not as a bench player -- he didn't hit the bench until he was 26 and in his 4th MLB season, about 900 PA into his career. And he batted .221 with a 66 OPS+ during that time. Actually, his best extended MLB hitting performance was not with the Twins, but rather over the first 3 months of 2013 when the Braves made him a bench player -- he batted .312 during that time, in about the same number of PA that he got with the Twins last year. Which shows how much stats can fluctuate in samples that small. Not suggesting cutting him or anything, but penciling him in as an everyday player would be foolish at this point.

I think the high OBP and the low AVG/SLG are probably related. His approach lends itself to working a few walks at the expense of good contact. I think we're going to see that OBP drop, either by virtue of Hicks changing his approach or by pitchers increasingly exploiting that contact weakness. I hope its the former, and he recovers enough AVG/SLG to make it worthwhile.

Agreed on Lawrie, but just noting that Andrew Cashner has come on strong the last two years.

The Twins had some pretty disappointing first rounds from 1998-2000 too.

Not sure if that's all luck, though. Deron Johnson: "We were probably one of the last few teams that didn't really rely a lot on medical. We've gotten burned over the years."" Link: http://m.1500espn.com/pages/sportswire.php?sID=7534

Mild correction: the Twins did sign one Cuban defector, Dennis Suarez in 2011 (when Bill Smith was still at the helm). He washed out pretty quickly, and given how little it was reported, it must have been one of the more low-level Cuban signings. (Would be curious to hear more about him and how he came to the Twins.) I still stand by my conclusion that the Twins have not been particularly active or effective in Cuba. I am normally very receptive to the "we'll just never know" argument, but not in this context -- the sample of years and players is just too large, and the cost relative to the Twins MLB payroll has been low since 2003. And the Twins themselves have admitted that before 2008 or so, they weren't particularly effective in any part of Latin America -- it logically follows that they would be least active/effective in by far the most closed country in the region (and that problem could persist as long as the country remained closed). They also weren't active/effective procuring any outside FA talent (including domestic MLB FAs) until the last few years -- and Cuban defectors are probably the most "outside FA" you can get. From my cursory research, it seems that only the Rockies have done less in terms of procuring Cuban talent over the last 12 years. The Twins are probably bottom 5 in this regard. It's not a diss on Oliva's Cuban ties either. He's a great guy and an asset to the organization in many ways, but I wouldn't expect any 1960's ballplayer to have much notable recruiting power/ability in his home region in the 21st century. Especially when the player wasn't notable when he left his home region, and that region has been famously closed off from the US since, and the player's return visits to that region have been extremely limited (every three years?) or barred altogether for the last 50 years.

I think you are over-estimating the actual salary most of these guys got. Basically all of the big signings ($20+ mil) have been worth it so far (yes, even Cespedes, averaging 3.2 WAR a season, is worth 4/36), pending the most recent ones. Leonys Martin only got 5/15 and he's been an above league average CF. Alexei Ramirez got 4/4.75 and he's been an above league average SS. Yunel Escobar defected, was a 2nd round draft pick, and was an above-league average SS for peanuts for awhile. Kendrys Morales signed for 4/6.5, and this was when he was actually good. Yuniesky Betancourt was an average-ish SS for a few seasons after signing for less than $3 mil. Seems like if the Twins had any real modern "Cuban ties" they would have taken a shot on some player at these modest prices.