bird

Should we pitch in and buy the good doctor a windbreaker as a parting gift? Stick around, Doc. You're a treat.

That's why this is an article about something other than results. This is fascinating stuff. Many of us are hopeful even optimistic that this dramatically different approach to the whole skill development process will lead to more wins. This stuff matters, we think.

"Hey. We're only down 7-2 and it's only the 3rd. Hope Ryne Harper can keep it close."

These numbers don't do much for me, but I have this nagging feeling that if BOTH Sano and Buxton fail to give us the 4-5 WAR production their obscene talent tells us we should expect, then we're not going to like the team numbers very much at all.

Use it or lose the right to use it.

Good point. You're right, the Twins received the rights to make that additional expenditure.

Concur. It's important to consider that they have relationships in place in the D.R., and fully staffed year-round facilities. We may never know if they had plans in advance for this cash, and we never find out how they invested it, but it's inconceivable to me that they don't have an option or two on the table.

Granite has the best production of any player signed from that 14th round in 2013. Only three others even got a cup of coffee and Granite has logged twice as many games than any of those three. Now he fetches a big number, giving the Twins a 12% boost in international dollars for the 2018-2019 signing window. Feather in the cap to the scouts who recommended Granite, and feather in the cap to the FO for getting surprising value for a surplus player.

Seth, I appreciate this article, and I think his hiring does something to inform us as to the new culture, whether one is comforted by it or not.

I don't think he'll be used like Escobar, in large part because Escobar, by necessity, and because we lacked alternatives, became the injury replacement player you didn't have to book a flight for. I don't see Marwin filling in for any one player for a 30 day stint. We have people now. I think he'll be used more traditionally as a breather guy, just at more positions. That said, I can't imagine them hesitating about throwing him at 3B once in awhile. I got a hunch we've seen worse.

I think we have to presume that this is the purpose of the move. It's at best a Meh decision if it was meant to be needle-moving, but as a roster solidifier, this feels like a pretty nice benefit. For the life of me, I just can't understand why anyone gives a rat's booty about the size of the guy's paycheck. This coming from someone who tends to be more understanding than most when it comes to managing contract risk.

It would be great if Gordon was ready for that call. If not, Torreyes can catch the flight and be okay for a stint.

Love this idea! In a way... Just to add to the thrill, do it in late September when clinging to a half game lead in the division. You know, for fun.

I would bet the Twins use a similar projection system as a baseline exercise. But their projections regarding the players incorporates intuitive thinking. Every great company on the planet relies on the solid intuition of its people to take the planning beyond the projection models. The Twins are probably THINKING that Kepler, for example, will deliver results a half WAR better than the model based on some of the subtler things they saw last year (confirmed by some of the data). Wouldn't it be fascinating to hear a rundown, player by player, of how their own projections deviate from ZIPS, and from their own baseline model as well? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they don't have or aren't developing an analytic process to identify roster players they think are about to underperform the model and as a result represent a "sell high" possibility. As for planning, the hardest part of it is assigning a probability to the outcome, assessing the risks associated with failure, and finding the resources in a finite world to incorporate contingencies. The industry trend toward avoidance of some of these long-term FA contracts is probably an indication that organizations are paying closer attention to these things now that the financial stakes are so astronomical.

There is no way the Twins aren't planning on each of these guys getting past their injuries and starting in 140 games or so. If they thought the past is a prelude, they wouldn't be taking the bet they are taking.

Although we DO have to keep in mind that thinking and hoping are not mutually exclusive. I'm positive that the Twins THINK Sano will rebound. A lot of the harshest criticism on TD comes from people who chastise them for this as being nothing more than hope. They have a disdain for hope because of their own preference for non-existent certainty.

I'm so with ya! I want to see my 4th WS with this team, against the Dodgers. I hate Koufax's guts.

Your skepticism is warranted. But mine is tempered because I feel better about the probabilities of at least two or three starters with question marks coming through. It could be that they ALL suck, but the odds don't favor this. We need to get first division contributions out of the 3-4-5 spots to compete, that's a given, and it's a given IMO that if Berrios or Gibson falter, the odds for this team get much much longer in 2019. But let's count the ways we could possibly get that 3-4-5 production in 2019, and this is in order of the probability I would ignorantly assign to the candidates: Pineda, Stewart, Perez, Odorizzi, De Jong, Mejia, Gonsalves, Thorpe, Littell. And lastly, trade deadline acquisition. That's ten options and we need three success stories, maybe more. So here's my hot take: the Twins unload Odorizzi at the deadline to make room in the rotation for an en fuego Kohl Stewart. Mejia fumes at being passed over despite his 19 2/3 consecutive shutout innings as the first arm out of the pen every third day.

Seth, you've done a lot of good interviews, and this ranks among your best IMO. Well done with an impressive interviewee. How do you not feel good about THIS guy? Catching camp. strength camp, individualized workout and nutrition goals... Seth, how much of what's going on with instructs and with these specialized position-base camps and trainer-run camps is new to the player development process since the boy geniuses took over? Do you have a more detailed description of all of these changes in the off-season process ? Obviously, we haven't seen anything in the way of tangible results trickle up to the big club yet, but this stuff anecdotally adds some fuel to my optimism that the changes are potentially transformative long-term.

Excellent post!

That's especially true when you consider that some team employee has been following that random sixteen year old and his full time trainer around since that rando was twelve.

Let's keep in mind that Lewis and Kirilloff are not Sano and Buxton for starters. Also, it's mostly ourselves and a few pundits that we hear talking about how great they were, and we're talking the same way about Lewis and Kirilloff now. I don't think the uniques misfortunes that Buxton and Sano encountered in the past couple of years have an ounce of relevance here. There's no pattern to be found. Why would one bet that Lewis is going to be more like Buxton than Mauer? Not that Buxton's a bust. It was advisable to avoid thinking of Sano and Buxton as the next Miggy and Trout, and it's equally advisable to avoid thinking of Lewis and Kirriloff as the next Jeter and Yelich as well, but we still have reason to be very very excited about these two. Here's some optimistic information: of the top ten prospects on TD lists looking back 3 to 5 years, 8 of 10 are having an impact (I'm generously including both Sano and Buxton and expect to be vindicated in 2019). The exceptions have been injury-prone fireballers: Meyer, Burdi, and Jay. You also might feel better if you click on the link to the 2017 TD Top 20 and compare it to this year's. I may be wrong, but I think the current list looks measurably better. Based on the grades others attach to prospects, I think the experts would agree with this, and the rankings suggest it too.

Yeah, I'm with you there. We need to see several concrete examples of improved performance to fully validate my optimism, which is entirely based on the build-out of the people and technology infrastructure and the commitment to a markedly larger annual operating budget dedicated to player development.

I don't have much of an opinion on the aggressive-conservative thing as a rule. I just know that, as a fan, I'd prefer them to be more "aggressive". But I'm also of the believe that there's almost always more than one way to go about solving an exceedingly challenging and complex problem. This FO has the challenge of solving the problem of baseball mediocrity in an environment where the competition is vast and competent. While they have resources, they also have an environment where finding ways to construct defensible beachheads aren't really there, other than cash, and just maybe a miniscule advantage in the DR or something. And I think that's why Falvey is taking the approach he's taking, much to ours and Kimbrell's chagrin. Build up value, keep it liquid, and follow the best practices of Houston and others. Personally Spy, I think they will be more aggressive once they believe the talent value has increased more, both with the core in MLB and with the prospect pipeline, and they plan to avoid ever running out of available cash in the event of an opportunity. But that's just my opinion, and I could be all wet.

I should have not used the phrase "envy of". I was really wondering (not opining) if the Twins aren't, at the current time, already in as good or better shape with respect to having the pieces in place to operate competitively in a changed environment. I cited the combined strength of the minor and major league talent, because aside from cash, it's the fuel that the FO needs. I could maybe simplify the point I was making. In doing so, I think we'll see a slightly narrower gap in our perspectives. And it will be a reflection of my propensity to be optimistic and your admirable trait of intelligent skepticism. Bonnes is describing a couple of strategic things that are trending among baseball teams. Things like making smart decisions about locking up non-elite core players, avoiding specific risks, and building and using the prospect pipeline. I think we can see that, to operate this way and be competitive, a number of component capabilities have to be top notch. Scouting is one. There are several ways the talent evaluation process works, as you know. Which is why they have five dozen employees, some very specialized. They have to be good with the numbers (analytics), with scouting professionals, scouting amateurs, scouting international players, having a presence and relationships in the DR where a fifth of the talent comes from, and with a complex process allowing their input to be utilized well. I don't follow your double counting notion. Other component capabilities, such as the adoption of state of the art technology, a competent, well-staffed coaching contingent, good training and rehab facilities-- all kinds of other things--they ALL have an influence, over time, on the value of the minor league talent. The FO really doesn't have much to show for "improved development" at the MLB level yet. But this hardly means saying the team has improved greatly in this are is very speculative. I suppose I should be more skeptical than I am, but I'm just seeing too many small examples that give me greater optimism than you have right now. And maybe I'm wrong about how they compare with respect to all these component capabilities, I can't be sure. I'd be more worried about that if I was touting their use, for example, of Rapsodo 2.0 as a sign of them being at an advantage, and I'm certainly not. I clearly have a greater believe in this new FO than many. I very much believe that they're operating with a strategic plan in their binder, that they know what they're doing, that they know enough to surround themselves with talented people, and that they are fairly early in the process. But as you said, there are some elite, well-run organizations out there, most of whom have the extra advantage of obscenely higher revenues and profits. Other than some luck thrown their way, how do overcome that. They aren't going to consistently outsmart the other well-managed teams.