bird

See? The Cards are crummy drafters. They passed on Gibson and Trout.

You keep talking about the roster. Make the connection specifically to drafting and developing for me please. Which pitcher would you have taken instead of whom the Twins selected in any draft dating back to 2007? I recall you were in favor of Gausman over Buxton, and maybe you were right about that. I think we agree that solving the rotation problem via the draft alone is ill-advised, right? All I'm suggesting is that the draft isn't the problem. In fact, it's produced far better results than is commonly thought here on TD. Of course, now watch, someone will construe that statement as a boast of superior scouting capability and as blind praise of Ryan.

You're making a bogus case here. Unless you're attempting to fortify what I've been arguing. Wainwright and Leake were not available for the Twins to draft, nor was Drew. And are you going to tell us you would have advised the Twins to select Wacha over Buxton in 2012? Preposterous on every level. After the Twins took Gordon in 2014, a selection largely applauded by the experts, a dozen other pitchers were taken before Luke Weaver was selected by the Cards with the 27th pick. The jury's out, but it's conceivable that Gordon is the better pick over every one of them, we don't know, so suggesting Weaver is an example of superior scouting is baseless. Lynn? Every single team in baseball passed over him in that draft, including the Cardinals. A third of the teams rejected him twice. And you want to contend that the Cards passed him by because they were so sure no other team had good enough scouting to nab him before they did with the 39th pick. Right. The Cards passed on Garcia 21 times. Every team passed on Garcia 21 times. Do you want to argue that selecting Garcia was a product of superior scouting? Nonsense. Which pitching prospect would you have chosen instead of Gibson in the first round of the 2009 draft? How about Wimmers in 2010? Or even Michael in 2011? Remember, my only argument has been that the reasons the Twins have fielded a crappy rotation has absolutely nothing do do with lousy talent evaluation or even bad development capabilities, at least any time in the last 8-10 years.

Maybe Jim Pohlad will ask Paul Molitor to interview him.

A couple of things: I believe signing international pitching talent was very much a problem for a long time, and maybe a half-dozen years ago, this problem began to slowly shrink because the Twins BEGAN to develop a presence and an infrastructure in Latin America. The reason I believe this is because of a long conversation I once had about it with Andy MacPhail, in which he described in painstaking detail the effort he and others, including very notably Billy Smith and Jim Pohlad, expended to convince Carl to make the budgetary comittment. He described it as a 10-year process just to get to the level of being competitive because of the need to build relationships and credibility with the influencers. We still haven't seen any fruits from that initiative, but Randy Rosario, Huascar Ynoa, Felix Jorge, and a number of others might change that. We got unlucky with Lewis Thorpe too. To be nuanced, we should recognize that identification is only part of the formula internationally, and the more critical barrirs have been money and infrastucture. The new Dominican facility should step their game up another few notches. I don't think draft order alone explains away the problem. But looking at draft history and comparing the selections to others, draft by draft, illuminates a stark truth about how limited the opportunities are in reality. You just don't decide to draft an ace and bingo. Every team struggles, because there are usually only 3-4 future aces that all teams identify as such. As for success in later rounds? Maybe someone has a formula, but I doubt it. I mean, if you identified a guy as a future ace, why on earth would you subject yourself to the risk of banking on you being the only one to have identified it? No team would wait until a later round, right So, my thinking is there's a lot of luck involved, but maybe some orgs have a successful later-round strategy that I'm not aware of and that can be emulated. I agree, the facts you throw out there are hugely incriminating, and yet I still have my doubts, particularly regarding whether there is a problem in existence today, as opposed to an old problem for which we continue to see the effects.

I don't want to disappoint jimmer. The lesson I think the organization never learned under Ryan is how dicey and slow the process is when you rely almost exclusively on building from within, and how devastating poor decisions in trades and FA transactions can be. You know, decisions like Nolasco and Capps that can set you back a full year in a rebuild. At the time BA pronounced the Twins to have "the best" system in 2013, they also put together a ranking of teams with the best "near-term value" , meaning close to MLB-ready talent of consequence. This ranking may have been prior to the injuries to Sano and Buxton, I don't recall. In any case the Twins ranked #7. Tied for #5 were the Royals, the Cards were #8. When I glance at the Royal's Top 10 from 2013, I think I see 3 guys on there who have established themselves in MLB in any way shape or form: Ventura, Mondesi, and Cuthbert. I don't know what this author would write about the Royals, or about the Cards, where I see maybe 4-5 of their prospects who have made it, similar to the Twin's numbers I suppose. Would he write that the Royals, or the Cards have a systemic problem with developing talent? What am I missing? So, to be hyper-critical, I'll say the author is being simplistic, analytically shallow, and a bit lazy with his research, and therefore wrong to a large degree with his conclusion.

If I'm running the Twins, I care a lot about the Cardinals, because my organization will study best practices in the industry and emulate them. One of the things the Cardinals will probably NOT be able to shed light on is how to draft elite starters with my first-round selection because they've stunk at it like most teams have. And if we don't have a formula for drafting an elite pitcher in the first round on occasion other than by the luck of the draft order, then we have to figure out another way to skin the cat. That's my point, jimmer. Got any good ideas about what the Cardinals or any other team are doing to develop rotations? I mean, besides having the good fortune of a great order in the draft when the Verlanders and Kershaws are available?

This is all very frustrating and true, markos. There is something amiss. However, the conclusion people come to is alarmingly simplistic and actually inaccurate. We can't identify pitching talent. We're clueless when it comes to developing pitching talent. I'm thinking you're right in illustrating the lack of MLB success, because to me, there's more evident to support MLB managing and coaching as a problem area as opposed to scouting and minor league field staffs. Supposedly, if a team has 3-4 prospects from any given draft that even smell the popcorn in MLB, they're doing average work. I haven't heard anyone claim that the Twins are better than average at identifying and drafting pitching talent. Baker, Garza, Slowey, Perkins, Duffey, Duensing, Berrios, Chargois, Dean, Wimmers, O'Rourke, Rogers, Tonkin, Darnell...names I can come up with off the top of my head, and ignoring the position players altogether, which is clearly the more impressive list of prospects drafted, developed, and eventually successful at making it to MLB. And several current prospects who are possibly BA Top 100 candidates in Gonsalves, Jay, Rosario, Stewart, Jorge. Is this maybe an indication that, IF drafting and/or development were in fact a problem, that it's a past problem rather than a present one?

Funny thing is, when the Cardinal fans review the team's last, oh, 40 first-round picks or so, someone will inevitably say that it's sad that they can point to Wacha as the only first round selection in two decades that would be regarded as a #1-2 starter.

No strong pushback from me about Meyer. My guess is his failure to establish himself with the Twins is probably due to a combination of factors: injuries, misuse by the manager and pitching coach, Meyer's own skill limitations, poor advice, Meyer's own head. I just don't know how anyone could be certain enough about what caused the problems to pin it on one thing. Same thing with concluding that Berrios would have adjusted had he pitched from the MLB bullpen last fall. Not a bad thought at all however.

1. Historically, the Twins have opted to avoid FA opportunities to acquire top-end pitching because the GM regarded it as a bad idea. 2. Historically, ownership put a budget in place that pretty much put the elite guys beyond the budget as FA acquisitions. 3. Historically, the Twins have lacked a "sell discipline" regarding player assets. This has resulted in lost opportunities to sell high on individual players and build assets via trade. 4. Terry Ryan was far too risk-averse in general, closing avenues for acquiring elite pitching, especially via trade. 5. The team has blown a couple of opportunities to retain key pitchers, most notably Santana. 6. Poor trades have occasionally set them back by reducing available trading assets, notably resulting in the loss of valuable assets like Garza, Ramos, etc. 7. Ryan, due to his nature, refused to trade prospects for elite pitching. 8. In order to get something, you have to give up something, and the organization has not a surplus of talent to exchange for elite pitching. 9. Even IF Ryan and Pohlad had been willing to pay up, I'd guess that MOST elite FA pitchers would have chosen a team other than the Twins unless the offer was crazy good. 10. Because of the draft order over the years, where in many years an ace-type prospect was not available to them (2009, 2010, for instance), or where another obvious "better option" made selecting an elite pitcher unwise (Buxton, Mauer for example), they simply haven't had opportunities to draft a marquee name. Time will tell about Berrios, Stewart, and Jay. When doing so will reveal something, I'll review that particular draft similarly to how I've reviewed other drafts to see if they had a chance to draft anyone in the first round who eventually became a front-line starter. Which is what I did to see which teams in a similar order in the draft in a given year have done. BTW, I've reviewed the 40 prospects taken with one of the next five picks after whomever the Twins selected (for example, the next five selections after Gibson) for an eight-year period dating back to 2007. These prospects should be representative of the players the Twins SHOULD have selected were they as competent at talent evaluation and drafting as the teams who immediately drafted the RIGHT guys that the Twins missed, right? There are only three prospects among those 40 that would actually have been better selections than who the Twins selected. So, for those who insist that the Twins are worse at drafting talent than the other teams, how do you reconcile this? I could expand this list of reasons the Twins have failed to put a decent starting rotation together. But even if I doubled it, it would not cite a comparative deficiency at identifying talented pitching prospects, or developing them, as one of the causes. There is no credible evidence to support this argument in my opinion.

There is a general consensus here as to what constitutes a quality starting pitcher. There is consensus as well that the Twins have failed to draft or develop them. If you chose to dispute the comparative facts included in my comment #91 above, then maybe we could have an interesting conversation. Maybe I'm not comparing the Twin's record at talent evaluation credibly and you can provide some comparative evidence of your own? Otherwise, your comment here is a perfect example of how easy it is to offer an opinion or comment void of real context. I can think of ten reasons the Twins don't have an ace, so like you, I find fault with the organization, particularly with the FO. None of the reasons I suggest have to do with them being incapable of identifying pitching talent or developing aces. That particular criticism is the most commonly offered as the reason we lack elite starting pitchers. I've attempted to shoot holes in it based on comparing their failure with that of the rest of the league. I think there are other reasons behind why we don't have an ace. I'd love it if someone would even try to change my mind about this instead of simply offering another tired and empty comment about all the failures.

This must happen on my days off.

Yeah, I agree 100% with jimmer and with this. We need three starting OFs who play smarter than Rosario does right now. Smarter overall play, better fundamentally, specially defensively, more disciplined at the plate. We can maybe count on some improvement from Rosario, but probably just enough to make him an excellent 4th OF. Not sure they have anyone in the minors who will fit that "better than Rosario" bill within the next year or so.

Yeah, I totally buy into the argument you've made about this. I remember being disappointed in the Wimmers pick. And I'm happy we started seeing indications of a concerted effort to seize opportunities to acquire higher-risk and higher-ceiling prospects such as Berrios and Stewart. I often wonder if there wasn't some desperation involved in the selection of a few of the early-round fireballers who had either injury or control red flags, guys like Bard and Cedaroth. Hammering them for avoiding greater risk in favor of a lower-risk lower ceiling prospect like Wimmers (who like all pitching prospects still carries massive risk) is one thing. The experts , IIRC, characterized it as a safe pick, not a bad pick, right? This is not a defense, but criticism should be tempered by the fact that all 30 teams passed on the 6 HS prospects you mentioned at least once during the draft. But still, I agree with you that you have to shoot for the highest possible upside with that first pick and take your chances. Lots of commenters, however, confuse the issue and inaccurately and simplistically portray the Twins as being exceptionally bad at evaluating and acquiring talent and at developing talent, without an ounce of objective, low-noise comparative data to support their argument. Nor do they offer examples of the successes for consideration.

Also of note when it comes to this same old argument: Gibson was the 15th pitcher selected in his draft class. He's been better than 10 of those selected ahead of him. The exceptions are Strasburg, Wheeler, Leake, and arguably Storen. No pitcher taken after Gibson, in either the 1st or 2nd round, has come even close to Gibson. Wimmers was the 13th selection in 2010. Half the pitchers selected ahead of him have flamed out, and no one drafted after Wimmers in the 1st round has contributed to a MLB team. Too bad the Hunt, Guttierrez, and Boyd supplemental selections weren't part of the excellent 2010 draft class, when evry team passed once on Aaron Sanchez and Syndergaard before anybody had the sense to nab them a second time around. I think the argument that any of the notable failures invariably mentioned are proof of a development deficiency is utter nonsense. This opinion is based on a review of comparative information. We don't know the full story regarding Meyers. His ineptitude with us may be due to coaching, to mismanagement, to injury, to bad advice from an agent, to Meyers' own issues. In all likelihood, it was a combination of things. Stuff happens.

Count me among the others who disagree. I find it funny and wonderfully ironic to hear any argument that the Twins, of all organizations frankly, have exhibited a lack of patience. I mean, for years, haven't we been frustrated by their abundance of patience? As for the shuffling of prospects back and forth, that's another matter. Maybe it's been misguided at times, or unfair, and maybe at other times it's been the best prescription. Those things are complicated and involve other considerations in addition to a guy's slash line. I think we have to separate the idea of patience in the way the Red Sox were being praised for it and for which the Twins could very well be praised for in any number of individual cases dating back to Torii Hunter for example, from the idea of how a player gets treated and used once he's up, or what might be best when a player is initially overwhelmed. Berrios, Duffey, Rosario, Vargas, Buxton, DanSan, Tonkin, Sano, and several others could all be described as being over-matched to some extent and for some period of time. And just like the Red Sox are demonstrating patience with Bogaarts, Bradley, and others, the Twins are demonstrating as much and maybe even more patience with every one of the players I mentioned. Unless I'm missing something, I'm not sure how anyone could make a good argument that there's some meaningful difference in approach, and frankly even in results when you consider pedigrees, between the two organizations. I suppose one could argue that the Twins prospects would be developing faster and/or more completely if they were brought up and kept up in MLB, but how does one build that case?

So then there's hope for Hughes?

Maybe Josh Donaldson will reach out to Brian Dozier and convince him to ditch his stupid toe tap.

You guys, there must be nights when it's your turn to crank out the report that you just aren't feeling like expending the considerable effort it requires. I admire and greatly appreciate the fact that you all step up to the plate on those occasions. I hope you're all well aware of the fact that for me and probably lots of others, going without it on a given morning would kind of be like going without coffee. You just want your fix. So thank you!

And he's quite loveable.

I guess I missed all the evidence that the Twins had a deliberate plan in place to turn him into Willie Wilson. Was Willie Wilson a crappy bunter?

E-Town faces long odds with their young players against that veteran group the Cardinals have put together at Johnson City. You see, most of the players, as you'd guess, have birth years of 1994 and 1995. For example. the Cards have 9 '94 guys and 8 '95 guys, including their 10th rounder from Minnesota who was born early in '95. The Twins also have 17 guys here. The Cards have twice as many older players, guys born before '94 (10) than the Twins (5). On the young side, the Cards have 3 '96 guys, the Twins 6, and the Cards have 2 '97 guys while the Twins have 3.

Good thing Kepler finally got in his ear to tell him how to overcome the total mismanagement per fangraphs.

Geez, I hope not. Can't have him blocking Park.