gunnarthor

Beside what Snepp said, there is also a battle for stats between a lot of the websites out there so everyone wants to use their own stats to market their site. Baseball reference and fangraphs have their own versions of WAR, baseball prospectus has VORP, I believe.

You're probably right. But the Twins picked Bard at #42 who didn't pitch after March with a torn lat muscle (I believe). His slot signing was 1.22 which is what he took. Whitson wants more $ but he had a bad sophomore season and now has had a big injury. Maybe he'd sign. I think the Twins draft strategy is to, more or less, play it level so they probably wouldn't be able to draft someone in round 11 and offer him a huge signing bonus. I thought there was a thread on this but I couldn't find it.

Good write up, Jeremy. It'll be interesting to follow college baseball this year. I guess I'm really hoping Appel falls to the Twins. I'd also like to see the Twins take a chance with their second pick on someone like Florida pitcher Karstan (I think is his name) who got hurt but had top 10 stuff. He didn't take 2m as a high schooler. Now with an injury and falling draft stock, maybe he'll want to start his pro career and get some money.

I think Michael is a good dark horse bet right now. Keep in mind that, while he was a college guy, he was still over a year younger than the league avg age last year. He got better as the year wore on and his walk rate was pretty solid for a low power guy. I'm not very optimistic about any of the three pitchers but I wouldn't be surprised if Boer made a nice transition to the pen eventually. Wimmers and Salcedo are probably in the wait until they prove something camp. Too early to knock Goodrum. The Twins are patient as hell with toolsy prospects. Fangraphs quoted a scout that said he was a nice prospect but needed 2000 AB in the minors.

1) I think rankings are relevant but fans probably over value ranking lists. Jeremy's article with the scout touches on that slightly. (Twins Daily - Scouting with Sean Johnson). I think it's natural that we overrate rankings since those are one of the few things we as fans get to see about the inside work of developing baseball players. But baseball teams have different rankings and access to more information on those players so, as good as BA, it still misses things on players. One current case in point, according to Mike Newman of fangraphs, the Nationals right now consider Goodwin their best prospect, ahead of Rendon. Nearly every ranking cite would have Rendon #1. I suspect that the Twins, who tend to be pretty patient, might have different views of a player like Koskie, for instance, than BA does. 2) I think the Twins showed that they were pretty good at MiLB development. Maybe they aren't the best but they were able to rebuild a playoff caliber team from one nucleus (Koskie, Dougie, Jones, Hunter) to another (M&Ms) without much of a slip up. 3) I don't think BA misses on many "top players." Santana was a rule V pick who used up his rookie status b/c we had to hide him. But he also spent all of the 2000 and 2001 seasons with the ML club. He started 02 in the minors to get stretched out and only threw 48 innings there before he came up and started 14 games that summer for us. He did a lot of his developing in the ML bullpen. When BA misses on guys like Koskie or Youkliss I think it's b/c he was considered too old for his level (good news for Plouffe and Parmelee?). Sometimes certain tools take longer to develop. Span didn't show his patience until the end of his MiLB career. AJ made it to AAA at 21 but wasn't much of a hitter. And some guys - Baker - are probably straight misses. Baker's stuff might have been better than scouted or his control made it play up. Radke too, for that matter. (Good news for Hermsen?) But I would suspect that, however you want to measure the top players in baseball, BA probably hit on a vast majority of them. Some might have been too low (Utley peaked at 81) but they'll be on the list. 4) Free agency, as the main building block, doesn't really work. And it's working less so now that teams are getting extensions out to younger players. Yankees were able to buy a few great teams but that was the rarity. Longterm big contracts usually hurt in the longrun but can be helpful in the short run. If the Twins were one pitcher away this year, it might have made sense to pay Sanchez nearly 100m.

I did the same check for the Tigers. 29 players since 1996. C - Inge (67) - Inge had a nice career. 1B - Munson (23), Clark (86) - Clark had a real nice, long career. 3 30hr seasons. Munson, meh at best. 2B - none 3B - Castellanos (45) - He'll be rated a lot higher in the next BA listing SS - Infante (95), Santiago (95) - both debuted in 02 and played last year in Det. Both are pretty much replacement level for career but considering their ranking, I think you'd call them both successes. OF - Maybin (6), Encarnacion (15), Kapler (34), Granderson (57), Jackson (76), Clevlen (98) - Clevlen is the only real bust. Maybin is still young and was part of the Cabrera trade. Granderson is the real prize but the others have been solid. P - Verlander (8), Miller (10), Bonderman (20), Porcello (21), Turner (21), Anderson (24), Drumright (35), Zumaya (35), Sleeth (36), Cordero (41), German (42), Crosby (47), Weaver (51), Cornejo (55), Greisnger (55), Baugh (79), Oliver (87). Some real successes here, especially with Verlander. Bonderman and Porcello had some good times but considering their ranking, probably a little disappointing. German made the majors, got hurt, no real impact. Nate Cornejo went 6-17 w/ 2.1 K/9!!! in his best year (1.3 WAR year). I guess he's a 'meh'? Baugh never made the majors. Successes - (42%) Inge, Clark, Infante, Santiago, Encarnacion, Kapler, Granderson, Jackson, Verlander, Cordero solid for a bit/great but hurt - (21%) Miller, Bonderman, Porcello, Zumaya, Weaver meh - (13%) Munson, German, Cornejo busts - (26%) Clevlen, Anderson, Drumright,Sleeth, Greisinger, Baugh jury's still out - Castellanos, Maybin, Turner, Crosby, Oliver So a few thoughts. Twins aren't only team that has injuries or a lot of #3 or later pitching prospects. Tigers did two things the Twins don't do much of - they traded a lot of these prospects - Maybin, Miller, Kapler, Cordero, Weaver, Turner. Not all those trades worked. They also went over slot to get guys in the draft like Porcello. MI are tough to find and be ranked. The Tigers, since 96, have had 9 picks in the top 10. Verlander and Maybin are really the only two successes. Twins had some misses in that period, too, but not quite as many or as bad.

What, no votes for IE?

Decent low risk signing. More depth to our bullpen.

Karsten Whitson injured his shoulder (2013 MLB Draft: Florida's Karsten Whitson Out With Shoulder Trouble - Minor League Ball) He could have been a top 10 pick but now I wonder how much he might slide. Probably not to 42 but it would be nice if the Twins could get another solid pick with their second choice.

Really like the new signing date that allowed him to get some time in last season instead of waiting a year like Bubba Starling did.

I can't seem to find it. Does anyone know which picks the Twins have after #4? I don't think we have any supp picks and I know they are adding some picks for small market teams after the 1st round but we don't have those either. What # is our second pick?

I was actually thinking the opposite although I don't think about prospects as future HOFers. If you consider the 10 BA prospects that have been ranked or likely will be - Sano, Buxton, Hicks, Arcia, Gibson, Meyer, Parmelee, Benson, Guerra and maybe Rosario, two will bust (just guessing - Guerra and Benson), two be disappointing replacement level pros (Parmelee and Arcia), two will be good regulars for a bit who might be injured later (Meyer and Rosario) and four would be successes (Sano, Buxton, Gibson and Hicks). Of course that just assumes the % stay the same and that the ranking I gave them was right. GG made a solid point about Gomez and Walker. But I thought it was an interesting way to look at our prospect history. We seem to be weak at developing MI but we've had some nice successes behind the plate (AJ and Morales weren't included) and in the OF (guys like Mohr, Keilty and Ford all had solid seasons too), which bodes well for Hicks, Arcia, Buxton and Sano (who I think ends up in RF).

Revere and Ramos were the tricky ones. On one hand, both are ML regulars now. On the other hand, both have really only had one solid season. Both of them peaked in the late 50s on the list. So I split the difference and put one in the success group and the other in the one below it so it didn't look like I was calling too many guys successes. Hawkins/Kubel was the other split considering their high rankings. Hawkins was a very good relief pitcher but it took him so long to get there. And Kubel came back from the really bad injury to be a pretty solid bat. But you could argue that Kubel has been overrated b/c he's really just a DH.

Since 1996, the Twins have had 35 different players on BA's top 100. I thought it would be interesting to see how well they did since we now have another crop of big prospects coming up. Also interesting is that guys like Span, Santana, Baker, Koskie and Radke were never ranked. Boof was ranked with the Giants but not the Twins. Highest ranking in parenthesis, by position. C - Mauer (1), LeCroy (44), Ramos (58), Valentin (58) - Not too bad, really. Valentin and LeCroy had long careers. Mauer's on a HOF path and Ramos is one of the better young catchers in baseball right now. 1B - Morneau (14), Ortiz (84), Parmelee (94) - again, not bad. Morneau and Ortiz have both had a number of great seasons. Parmelee still has a chance. 2B - Rivas (55) - not quite a bust but never really developed. 3B - Walker (7), Sano (18), Moses (75) - Sano probably moves to the OF. Walker moved to 2B. Moses busted. SS - Guzman (68) - Nice solid career. OF - Kubel (17), Cuddyer (17), Hicks (19), Restovich (26), Gomez (52), Revere (59), Hunter (79), Garbe (79), Benson (99) - Solid group with Hunter and Cuddyer both becoming all stars and Revere and Kubel being solid players. Restovich never quite made it but was a big time prospect, struck out too much but had real power. I think he played in Japan. P - Liriano (6), Garza (21), Milton (25), Hawkins (30), Gibson (34), Guerra (35), Johnson (41), Blackburn (56), Crain (63), Perkins (66), Durbin (66), Slowey (71), Serafini (76), Swarzak (100) - Some successes here as Liriano and Milton were all stars, Garza, Blackburn, Slowey all had some good seasons and Crain, Hawkins, Perkins and Swarzak have been good bullpen arms. Liriano is the big what if guy. But it's also fair to say that Liriano and Garza were the only two that could be a true #1 or #2 type pitcher. Gibson (and Meyer) might move into that group but most of our ranked starting pitching prospects were 3s or lower. That's probably pretty common actually. Successes* (38%) - Mauer, Morneau, Ortiz, Cuddyer, Kubel, Revere, Hunter, Garza, Milton, Crain, Perkins Nice seasons/good before injury (21%) - Ramos, Guzman, Liriano, Hawkins, Blackburn, Slowey Meh - (24%) Valentin, LeCroy, Rivas, Walker, Gomez, Serafini, Swarzak Busts (17%) - Moses, Restovich, Garbe, Johnson, Durbin Jury's still out - Parmelee, Sano, Hicks, Benson, Gibson, Guerra (being kind) * compared to ranking Of the busts, Moses, Garbe and Johnson were all ranked high after they were drafted but fell off. Durbin and Restovich both actually made it to the majors but didn't do much.

According to Cot's baseball contracts, the Twins opening day salary was just over 100m last year - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dEdsdFRfTmw1ZlZZQndaX3E0ZnhQQXc&output=html

They didn't always skip the first 3 rounds but Carl Pohlad had the team adhere to (or remain below) draft slots all the time.

Depends on how you view upgrading. Under Ryan we went from Dougie Baseball to Morneau, AJ to Mauer, Punto to Castillo, Blanco to Redmond, Reed to Silva, Rogers to Santana, Keilty to Stewart. In fairness to Ryan, he has revamped a lot of rosters - we went from a playoff team with a nucleus of Hunter, Koskie, Dougie B to a playoff team with a nucleus of Mauer, Morneau, Santana. I'm not trying to make excuses for the payroll. I think the Pohlad's are cheap and are screwing the fans over. We've heard before that the Pohlad's won't spend in down years just to spend but we haven't really seen a commitment to spend in up years. That said, I also think Ryan is capable of building a contending team again, even with the Pohlad payroll BS. I think the Twins could have added 20m to payroll this year and have created a team that could push for the central if the Tigers stumble but that would have required hitting correctly on a lot of free agents and needing the young arms - Hendriks and Gibson - to be ready. If Ryan had signed Baker, Marcum and Drew, each to the one year deals they signed, that's close to 100m payroll but still a pretty weak team. I think what the Twins are doing is probably the right way to go. It's obvious they're rebuilding. They'll most likely move Morneau and Willingham during the season. They'll add a pitcher in the draft to go with a future of Worley, Gibson, May, Berrios and Meyer. Hicks, Gibson and Arcia will all break in this year. But if Plouffe and Parmelee show that they are actually capable of being MLers (not a sure thing at all), then all of a sudden the Twins have a real outfield and a real third baseman and would be surprisingly competitive, Ryan could add salary.

I wonder how much money Mauer would have got if he left as a FA after 2010. That same offseason saw Werth and Crawford get their big 20m/per contracts. Mauer was younger than both, played the harder position, was the better player and the Tigers, Red Sox and Yankees all needed a catcher. 8/200 seems likely.

Fun read, great work!

Guess I wasn't quite as literal as my words

You might be right. BA had him in there top four as early as Aug 2011. (BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Chat: Jim Callis Chat: Aug. 31) A bleacher report had him a bit lower. 2012 MLB Draft: Deven Marrero, Kevin Gausman and 25 Names You Need To Know | Bleacher Report (Buxton being a top 15 pick isn't out of the realm of possibility) Anyhow, the point was that the draft will change a lot over the next few months as some players skyrocket and others slip.

A lost pick is pretty costly. Even if we get the #5 pick next year, the team loses a year of player development waiting for that pick. Plus, if we don't sign the #4 pick, we lose that money in our draft slot, so the Twins would spend 4.8m (or so) less this year which could affect later picks. Buxton signed for 200,000 under slot and I believe the Twins spread that around for later picks. There would be no guarantee that the Pohlad's would spend all of a draft pool that included two top 5 picks (and could be over 15m). I also think it's very unlikely that the Twins get a pick out of Morneau. I think it's far more likely that he gets traded at the deadline. If we end up holding on to him and he has a good season, I could see us offering him arbitration but I think he'd probably take it. Not a lot of teams would want to pony up that kind of deal with his injury history and lose a pick. Or, with our luck, the Yanks would sign him and another type A free agent and we'd get stuck with their 2nd round pick instead. Additionally, it is way too early to worry about the depth of this (or next years) draft class. We'll draft high in both. At this time last year, Buxton was considered a top 20 pick but not the best talent. Zimmer really improved his draft stock as did guys like Correia and Berrios in Puerto Rico. Max Fried kept climbing til draft day. And one of the consensus top picks was Devon Marrero who dropped to the Red Sox at #24 (and struggled a bit in low A).

It's pretty early but I agree with your opinion on Appel. I would be very happy if he fell to us at #4.

Badsmerf, I don't think it's insulting to suggest that Arcia is similar to Kubel but that Kubel was the better prospect. I think that's true. Arcia might become the better prospect and you might argue that Arcia is the better 21 year old prospect. Arcia has never reached Kubel's highest BA ranking but is still young. But Kubel, even before his power developed, walked about as often as he struck out. That's a harder skill than power. When his power showed up in 04, he rocketed up the prospect ladder. Arcia has Kubel power but hasn't shown that plate discipline yet. Additionally, Klaw had Arcia 5, BP has him 4, Mayo has him 5, BA has him 3, Sickels has him 2. Those 5 professionals avg Arcia as our #4 prospect right now. Hard to see how he's better than Sano, as you would suggest.

Nice post, thanks. I think May has a shot to be up too. He's already in AA so if he can control his walks, I think he'd be one of the first call ups, actually. I know that "control his walks" is a big 'if' but I'm hoping he can pull it off.