Jamie Cameron

For sure agree on two big points you make: 1) We'll never know how that extra revenue is appropriated, so I guess we can't make a useful judgement call. 2) I definitely think this was the hold up with Jenkins. My assertion would be that Boras was pushing them to dig into their 5%, which, for whatever reason, seems like an organizational line in the sand. Definitely will be monitoring if they dip into overage moving forwards. I'll just close with this: keeping company with the Rockies is not generally where I want to be.

The Twins are one of two MLB organizations to never spend a dollar over their draft bonus pool. What are the rules of spending more than your allotted pool? Who does this? What is the potential positive impact? Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp Since the beginning of the Derek Falvey era in Minnesota, the stated goal has been to build a sustainable winner. The extent to which the Twins infrastructure, front office staff, and player development has expanded is easily glossed over or even forgotten. A rotation once known for a lack of velocity and strikeouts is now one of the best in baseball. That’s one clear, tangible example of the development of the organization since 2017. It’s also notable how impressive a job the Twins have done in drafting and player development in recent seasons. Limiting ourselves to a 2021 and 2022 draft retrospective, the Twins added Chase Petty, Cade Povich, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, David Festa Brooks Lee, Tanner Schobel, and a stable of young, rapidly improving college pitchers who now make up the entire Cedar Rapids rotation to the mix. The Twins signed Walker Jenkins on Monday after protracted negotiations to a deal $5,000 above the $7,139,700 slot number for the fifth overall pick. In doing so, the Twins spent their entire bonus pool of $14,345,600 to cap an exciting draft class. But are the Twins leaving a draft efficiency on the table? Is there a way they could better maximize the talent entering the farm system? Why Your Bonus Pool Isn’t Actually Your Bonus Pool The Twins had the fourth-most money to spend in the 2023 draft, $14,345,600. The rules of the draft dictate that a team can spend between 0-5% in addition to their bonus pool with a tax penalty of 75% on any overage used. For the Twins, that would have created an additional $717,280 in bonus pool money. If you add the tax, the total additional spend would be $1,255,240, of which the team would be responsible for $537,960 in tax. The draft is the second cheapest way to get team controlled talent into your organization (after international signings). To cherry pick some examples, the Twins drafted and signed Bailey Ober and Louie Varland for a combined $240,000. Not bad. In the bonus pool era, only two teams have never spent over their bonus pool. The Twins are the first. The other? The Rockies. Who Does This? What are the Implications? You might be wondering if this is a common practice for MLB organizations? This isn’t some quirk that only a few teams take advantage of. Since the beginning of the bonus pool era (11 seasons), teams have outspent their bonus pools a whopping 195 times going into the 2023 draft. So how did this year look? Three teams, including the Twins, spend their exact bonus pool allotment. Five teams spend under their total allotment. 22 teams spent into their bonus pool overage, including every other AL Central team. Cleveland, arguably the smartest of the bunch, spent closest to their 5% overage. So, what is the possible impact of spending an additional 5% on top of your bonus pool? This, of course, depends on the year and the bonus pool. This year, the Twins could have had an outsized impact from an overspend given their large bonus pool and an incredibly deep draft class. To put the additional $717,280 into perspective, that’s about the equivalent of the 94th overall pick. Obviously, the calculus is not that simple and hopefully, the Twins won’t always have such a large bonus pool. It’s also, of course, not a foregone conclusion that paying overage on a bonus pool can be easily or accurately allocated (as the protracted nature of the negotiations with Walker Jenkins served to remind us). With players’ bonus demands usually well known, what is likely is if the Twins choose to start overspending, they can likely add a prep player with some upside between rounds 10-20, where bonuses are standardized at $150,000 and any overage dips into your bonus pool. The Brewers are a great example of this practice, nabbing Bishop Letson, a prep pitcher, in the 11th round (332nd pick), the 179th ranked overall player and paying him $482,000 to forgo college. So Why Not Overspend if it's Advantageous? If overspending is so advantageous, why not do it? Well, there is a tangible benefit of not overspending for revenue sharing teams, of which the Twins are one. Small market teams equally split the bonus pool tax of teams who overspent in a given year in the draft. This year, that equates to a net gain of around $882,000 for the Twins. While that obviously attractive to owners and the organization, without any transparency around where that revenue goes, it's likely to frustrate fans, particularly if draftable talent is being left on the table. It seems likely that not spending over the bonus pool is an organizational directive for the Twins. It still feels like a missed opportunity to add more impactful talent to the organization, leveraging one of the cheapest avenues available to teams to do so. What do you think of the idea of the Twins spending over their bonus pool? Add your thoughts in the comments. View full article

Great point. With the new class, guessing the Twins will be somewhere 15-20 on most farm lists. That's impressive after all the departures.

The Prielipp injury is such a bummer. I still like the pick as a second rounder at the time though, hope he can recover follows. Thanks for all the draft engagement and fun you all. Jeremy and I will have a fun content announcement in the next few weeks for folks who are interested in carrying on the draft content train

Think this narrative will stick, because, to be fair, no one with a national focus gets to the same level of nerdiness we all do with the Twins specifically lol

The 2023 MLB Draft is in the books. Players and teams are in the thick of agreeing to terms on signing bonuses. As we bring our Draft coverage to a close for the 2023 cycle, it’s a good time to reflect on what this latest crop of players taught us about the Twins tendencies and preferences. Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp Before we dig into some reflections on the Twins 2023 draft class, I wanted to provide a few notes on the second annual Consensus Draft Board. I ranked 311 players using nine industry boards and added 115 player write ups in what I believe to be the first and only board of its type available for the MLB Draft. Through six rounds of the draft (around 200 picks), 90% of players drafted were on the Consensus Board. By the end of the draft, only six college players I listed weren't drafted. I'm working on a more robust look at where prospects were drafted in relation to their consensus position compared to their ranking on others boards, but that's a work in progress. Thank you to everyone who used and engaged in it. The Twins ‘Preferring College Players’ is a Myth Busted For multiple years now, we’ve heard the refrain ‘Twins prefer college bats’ from draft analysts and in draft content (including here at Twins Daily, and including me). It’s time to put that narrative to bed. The Twins drafted prep players at 5 (Jenkins), 34 (Soto), 82 (Winokur), and 150 (Questad). High school players comprised four of the Twins first six picks. Indeed, looking at the past 25 years of MLB Drafts, the Twins have taken college players on average 61.6% of the time, the fourth smallest percentage in MLB. By contrast, the Twins have taken high school players on average 38.1% of the time, the fourth highest percentage in MLB over that same span. The transferable takeaway, then, is that trying to simplify the Twins preferences to a particular demographic is a far too reductionist approach. In a pre-draft interview with Darren Wolfson, Twins VP of Amateur Scouting Sean Johnson stated that the organization's goal is always to ‘lean into the strength of the draft’. That's a much more useful principle to center when considering Twins draft picks in future cycles. The Twins Leaned into What They Excel at, Developing Arms In addition to leaning into the strength of the Draft, MLB organizations with excellent talent recognition also lean into their player development strengths. The Marlins took Noble Meyer and Thomas White with their first two picks, for example. In the case of the Twins, it’s developing pitching and adding velocity to arms. Another misapplied principle in Twins organizational parlance is the idea of ‘Falvey’s pitching pipeline’, as we tend to fixate on arms who have contributed to the major league team, and in an even more hyper-focused fashion, on starting pitching. The Twins organization is flush with pitching in a variety of roles that has been exceptionally developed since the beginning of the Falvey regime. At the major league level up to 40% of the Twins rotation this season has at times been pitchers the Twins drafted and developed in or after the 12th round (Bailey Ober and Louie Varland). Other pitchers at least partially developed in house that have contributed include Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran, Jordan Balazovic, Brent Headrick, Griffin Jax, Jovani Moran, Brock Stewart, and Caleb Thielbar. Look through other levels of the minor leagues and you’ll find many more promising arms at various stages of the development continuum from David Festa and Marco Raya, to Cory Lewis and C.J. Culpepper. The Twins know how to develop arms. In the 2023 draft, The Twins went on a college pitching run, selecting college pitchers in 12 consecutive picks between rounds seven and 18. Many of those pitchers are from smaller schools and colleges and have a pitch, a feature, or a quirk the Twins feel like they can meaningfully develop. To inspire confidence in this approach, we only need look back at the Twins 2022 draft, and the performance to date of arms drafted in similar rounds: Zebby Matthews, RHP, 8th round (234th overall pick) 70.1 IP, 3.71 ERA, 77 K, 7 BB (A and A+ combined) Cory Lewis, RHP, 9th round (264th overall pick) 63 IP, 2.29 ERA, 81 K, 21 BB (A and A+ combined) C.J. Culpepper, RHP, 13th round (384th overall pick) 57.1 IP, 1.88 ERA, 61 K, 16 BB (A and A+ combined) All three of these pitchers were drafted outside the top 200 picks, but have added velocity, have already been promoted to A+ Cedar Rapids in their first full professional seasons, and have excellent production. An extremely promising start to their careers with the organization. While it's easy to look at an outlets pre-draft rankings and struggle to see why the Twins may not take a player ‘still on the board’, this is both the nature of the later rounds of the MLB draft and an excellent example of the Twins leveraging their strengths. After the outstanding early returns on 2022’s college pitching class, the Twins talent identification and player development should have the full confidence of fans in their ability to develop useful arms to contribute or trade for other assets. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for an announcement from Jeremy Nygaard and me about how we’ll be expanding our coverage of the draft for the 2024 cycle. Thanks for reading and engaging since February. The Draft community at Twins Daily is the best. Do you have any reflections or trends to share from the 2023 draft cycle? join the discussion with a comment below. View full article

Yah the Comp pick is something I'm trying to clarify as I thought it was alternated, have also thought it was performance based, but doesn't seem to fit those patterns: 2019 - Comp A, 2020 (5 round draft so discounting), 2021 - Comp A, 2022 - Comp B, 2023 - Comp A, so they've had Comp A three of the last four times they've had a Comp pick. I'll work on getting a better answer to that. Don't see any reason they wouldn't qualify due to a status change though, so at worst, a roughly $1.1 million boost to pool based on this years' slots.

The Twins benefited greatly from the inaugural MLB Draft Lottery, jumping from 13th to the fifth overall pick and adding $2.7 million to pursue prospects. What does their Draft Pool look like in 2024? What are the factors that could add or detract from it? Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp Now that the dust has (sort of) settled on the Minnesota Twins 2023 Draft, we anxiously await news of new Minnesota Twins signing. While it’s far too early to look at the 2024 class (headline, it’s not as good), we can chart some paths of what the Twins bonus pool situation might look like in 2024. Famously, the Twins were the beneficiaries of the inaugural MLB Draft Lottery, moving from the 13th pick to the fifth, gaining about $2.7 in bonus pool money. In doing so, they secured a likely top 30 consensus global prospect in Walker Jenkins. Additionally, their bloated bonus pool allowed them the luxury of leaning into an incredibly strong prep class, nabbing Brandon Winokur in the third round and Dylan Questad in the fifth. Surely the Twins won’t have such a rosy financial outlook in 2024? No, but it’s more interesting than you might think. Here are three factors that will significantly impact the Minnesota Twins 2024 bonus pool. Do They Make the Playoffs? The Twins persistent mediocrity has been incredibly frustrating to watch in the first half of the season. Remarkably, despite playing in the AL Central, they currently sit outside the playoffs. If they don’t win the Central, the Twins will be eligible for the Draft Lottery for a second consecutive year. The chances of the Twins moving up for their mid-league record will again be incredibly small, but it remains a factor for consideration, hopefully one we don’t have to think about come September. It’s noteworthy that as a mid-market (revenue sharing) team, the Twins are prohibited from moving up in the draft in three consecutive years. Competitive Balance Pick The Twins will be eligible for a Comp pick in 2024. Comp picks are awarded to the ten lowest revenue teams and the 10 smallest market teams. As some franchises fit both criteria, there are less than 20 of these picks awarded every year. Picks in Comp A and Comp B are awarded via lottery which determines which round a team is picking and in what order. This makes a substantial difference to teams with Comp A pick slots ranging from $2.2 - $2.7 million and Comp B slots ranging from $1.1 - $1.2 million using 2023 slot values. Sonny Gray The Twins had a few players who might have been eligible for a Qualifying Offer (QO) at the end of 2023. Sonny Gray is the last man standing from these candidates. Recent comments indicated he might choose to retire from baseball at the end of this season. For the purposes of this thought exercise, we’re going to make a quartet of assumptions: Sonny Gray continues playing The Twins give Sonny Gray a QO Sonny Gray rejects the QO to test free agency Sonny Gray signs elsewhere as a free agent While this may seem like a narrow path (it is at the moment), in this scenario, the Twins gain a compensatory pick for losing a player who rejected a QO. In this instance, the size of Sonny Gray’s contract becomes significant for the Twins: If a player signs for over $50 million: The team is awarded a pick after round one, before Comp Round A (approximately $2.8 million slot value in 2023). If a player signs for under $50 million: The team is awarded a pick after Comp Round B (approximately $1.1 million slot value in 2023). Here are three scenarios that demonstrate how much variation there could be in the Twins 2024 bonus pool. For this thought exercise, we’ll use 2023 slots as a proxy for next year. Scenario 1: Largest Budget The Twins miss the playoffs and move up in the Draft Lottery from 12th to 6th: +$1.6 million The Twins are awarded a Comp A pick: +$2.4 million Sonny Gray rejects a QO and signs with another team for over $50 million: +$2.8 million Total added to bonus pool: +$6.8 million Scenario 2: Smallest Budget The Twins make the playoffs (first rounds exit, not eligible for lottery) Twins have 19th overall pick (slot $3.8 million) Twins are awarded a Comp B pick towards the back of the round: +$1.1 million Sonny Gray accepts the Twins QO: No impact Total added to bonus pool: +$1.1 million Scenario 3: A More Likely Middle Ground The Twins make the playoffs (first round exit, not eligible for lottery) Twins have 19th overall pick (slot $3.8 million) Twins are awarded a Comp B pick towards the back of the round: +$1.1 million Sonny Gray rejects a QO and signs with another team for over $50 million: +$2.8 million Total added to bonus pool: +$3.9 million Do you think the Twins offer Sonny Gray the qualifying offer? Do you think he would accept? Join the discussion in the comments? View full article

With the 49th overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, the Minnesota Twins selected Luke Keaschall, a shortstop out of Arizona State University. Keaschall is ranked 61st overall on the Twins Daily Consensus Board. Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp Luke Keaschall is a shortstop out of Arizona State University. He is ranked at 61st overall on the Twins Daily Consensus Board. Across nine boards we track, he had a high ranking of 44th and a low ranking of 90th (MLB Pipeline). Keaschall had outstanding seasons as a freshman and sophomore at San Francisco before transferring to Arizona State for his junior season. In 55 games he put together a .353/.443/.725 line with 18 home runs and 18 stolen bases. Keaschall has a hit over power approach at the plate, even with a power breakout in 2023. At the plate, he has strong contact rates, despite expanding the strike zone sometimes in his at bats. Most of his power came to the pull side in 2023. Keaschall's batted ball data is not outstanding, and despite hitting 18 home runs in 2023, he will likely have fringy power as a professional. Still, there's an excellent line drive swing with an approach that leads to few strikeouts (13 K% in 2023), and few walks (10 BB% in 2023). Defensively, Keaschall should be able to stay on the dirt, but it's more of a second base over shortstop profile as a professional. He has a fringy/average arm and average defense, with solid defensive actions. He can run a bit and should be a threat on the base paths with an aggressive approach when he gets on. Keaschall is a little in the mold of Tanner Schobel in that he's a prospect coming off the back of a breakout in 2023, with strong wooden bat production on the Cape to back up his college performance at ASU. A pick of this archetype was likely after Walker Jenkins and Charlee Soto kicked off the night for the Twins. What do you think of the Luke Keaschall pick at 49 for the Twins? Join the discussion in the comments below. View full article

With the 34th overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, the Minnesota Twins selected Charlee Soto, a right-handed pitcher out of Reborn Academy, Florida. Soto is the 36th ranked player on the Twins Daily Consensus Board. Image courtesy of Thieres Rabelo Charlee Soto is a 17 year old pitcher out of Reborn Academy, Florida. He is ranked 36th overall on the Twins Daily Consensus Board with rankings between 28 and 55 in the boards I use at inputs. On the mound, Soto is a physical, impressive presence at 6'5, 210 pounds. Soto converted to pitching full time relatively recently, after playing as a shortstop for most of his early baseball career. On the mound, Soto's arsenal is headlined by a lively fastball, that sits between 94-96 mph but can grab 97-98 mph with regularity with good life at the top of the zone. He has a little noise in his operation on the mound, but that's hardly surprising for a player relatively new to pitching. Soto has a pair of exciting secondaries. He features a sharp biting slider that sits in the mid 80s with plenty of bite and good spin rates (2300-2500 rpm). Additionally, he has a feel for a split change with a ton of good tumble and fade. Soto has just average control currently, hardly surprising for a pitching prospect so young. He has one of the quickest arms in the entire draft class, and the Twins have shown a proclivity for adding velocity to their pitchers. Soto has the size, projectability, and emerging arsenal to be a force on the mound. The Twins will likely bring him along slowly (think Marco Raya). The clay is there to mold. The ingredients are incredibly exciting. What do you think of the Charlee Soto pick? Join the conversation in the comments below. View full article

Really appreciate all the engagement man.

There are major boards that still have him 6 or 7. We're conflating him being a boring pick with him being a bad player.

Really appreciate it!

Day 1 of the 2023 MLB Draft is drawing near. I’m excited to share the final version of the Consensus Draft Board. You can access the Consensus Draft Board directly by clicking the link in the main article. Image courtesy of Brock Beauchamp TD.BF.NSBB 2023 Consensus MLB Draft Board V3 Final In the google sheet, you’ll find players ranked 1 through 311. For each prospect, you’ll find basic information; position, age, rank, school, height, weight, B/T and space where I’ll add where they were selected. In the final ‘writeup’ column, you’ll find notes on each of the first 100 or so prospects highlighting tools, strengths, opportunities, and recent performance. In the top 50 of the Consensus Board, you’ll find the following color coding (there was too much variance beyond the top 50 to make continuing to track movements up and down worthwhile): Light green - player moved up 5-9 spots since last Consensus Board Dark green - player moved up 10+ spots since last Consensus Board Light red - player moved down 5-9 spots since last Consensus Board Dark red - player moved down 10+ spots since last Consensus Board Following the draft, I’ll do some postmortem on how useful this tool was compared to other boards. For now, I hope people find it a useful resource to find notes and valuable insights into players drafted, starting Sunday. Lastly, I’ll say that if you appreciate this resource, I’d be really grateful if people share it, link it, tweet it out etc. This is year two of this project and after a promising 2022 version, the 2023 version started in February. It started as a top 30 in winter, and has grown to what I believe to be the first Consensus Board for the MLB Draft. It’s the sum of months of work and over 30,000 words, so anything folks can do to share it is greatly appreciated. Happy Draft weekend, y’all. View full article

Day 1 of the Draft is around the corner. Today, we continue our profiles of players the Twins may target with the number five overall pick. Today, we focus on talented outfielder Walker Jenkins out of North Carolina. Image courtesy of Ken Blevins, USA Today Sports We are in the home stretch. Day one of the 2023 MLB Draft is a few days away. In a recent interview with Darren Wolfson, the Twins VP of Amateur Scouting, Sean Johnson, shared his thoughts on the consensus top five prospects heading into Sunday. Recently, there has been some Draft analysts who have suggested the Twins are out on Jenkins. Johnson's comments underline that the team is keeping an open minded approach ahead of pick five. So who is Walker Jenkins? What might he offer the Twins? Who is He? Jenkins is a physical left-handed hitting prep outfielder from North Carolina, currently committed to the University of North Carolina. Jenkins currently sits at number four overall on the Consensus Board and is ranked in the 3-5 range on every board that’s an input for it. Why the Twins Will Draft Him Much has been made of the Twins ‘preference’ to draft college bats. I tend to think that’s a conflation of a few things, including folks feeling shy after Keoni Cavaco not working out, and a tendency to overlook the fact that the Twins are rarely picking as high as five overall. Jenkins and Clark are legitimate star caliber upside prospects. Jenkins swing is compact and rhythmic, staying on plane and timed up well with great bat speed. He has a good chance to end up with a plus hit and plus power combo, already turning well on pitches inside, although he can hit for power the opposite way, too. Jenkins likely won’t be a plus runner. At 6’3, 215, he’ll continue to fill out and might slow a little, although his speed is above average. He has a plus arm though and is above average defensively. Jenkins will likely start his pro career in center field to see how he handles it, although he may shift to right field long term. In 2017 when the Twins drafted Royce Lewis, one plus in his profile cited by the front office was that he was a high character player and person, that same can be said for Jenkins, who earns rave reviews for his work ethic and humbleness. Why the Twins Won’t Draft Him It’s possible that Jenkins is gone by the time the Twins pick. The Rangers in particular and the Tigers have been heavily in on Jenkins this spring. It’s also possible that the Twins manipulate their bonus pool by signing a player under slot so they can spend on a deep prep class at 34 and/or 49. As far as tools, character, and ceiling, there shouldn’t be reasons the Twins don’t take Jenkins, he’s another incredibly exciting 2023 talent. What do you think of Walker Jenkins as a prospect? How would you feel about the Twins taking him fifth overall in the Draft? Join the discussion in the comments. Previous Draft Articles and Profiles Max Clark Noble Meyer Rhett Lowder Jacob Gonzalez Jacob Wilson Wyatt Langford Kyle Teel Chase Dollander Nygaard Mock Draft v.2 Consensus Big Board Profiles: 26-50 Consensus Big Board Profiles: 1-25 View full article

Over the next two weeks, we're going to be providing you with profiles of 10 players the Twins could take with the fifth pick in the 2023 MLB Draft. Today we discuss a five-tool prep hitter that fits the mold of Twins draft choices of the past. Image courtesy of Joe Rondone/The Republic We are only a few days from the beginning of the 2023 MLB Draft. After an overly long runway, we're going to see who the Twins pick fifth overall. Now that we're so proximal to the Draft, rumors are flying. In June, a rumor surfaced that the Pirates would be interested in Clark at number one overall, to save money for later picks. That steam seems to have disappeared. What remains is that Clark is part of a group of consensus top five players, is one of the most likely to be on the board when the Twins pick. So who is he? What does he offer the Minnesota Twins? Who is He? Max Clark is a prep outfielder from Franklin, Indiana who was recently awarded the Gatorade High School Player of the Year Award. Clark has been one of two consensus top prep prospects (along with Walker Jenkins) for the entirety of the pre-draft process and has been a consensus top five prospect since the new year. Clark currently sits at number five overall on the Consensus Board and is ranked fourth or fifth overall on every Draft board used as an input. Why the Twins Will Draft Him The drop off after the top five prospects in industry pre-draft rankings is stark this year. Clark, the number five prospect on the Consensus Board, has an average ranking of 4.8. Chase Dollander , the current number six prospect, has an average ranking of 10.2. There’s a strong case to be made that if the Twins select Clark, they are taking the best player remaining on their Draft board. Clark is an electric talent with four tools that already grade as an easy plus. Clark has a direct, short, balanced swing that stays through the zone. He generates line drive, hard contact to all fields. Prior to the 2023 high school season, Clark worked on adding loft to his swing, with impressive results as he went on to put up gaudy numbers in his final season. Why the Twins Won’t Draft Him There isn't a good reason the Twins would pass on Clark if he’s available at number five unless another prospect they have higher on their Draft board is still available, which seems unlikely. It has been pointed out (fairly) that the Twins prefer college bats to prep ones, and some fans might be shy of a prep bat in the first round after Keoni Cavaco in 2019. This is a completely different scenario. Cavaco was a helium prospect who rose late on Draft boards. Clark is a viable candidate to be drafted first overall by the Pirates. If the Twins land him at five, they are getting an exceptional talent. What do you think of Max Clark as a prospect? How would you feel about him being the Twins pick at #5 overall? Join the discussion in the comments. Previous Draft Articles and Profiles Noble Meyer Rhett Lowder Jacob Gonzalez Jacob Wilson Wyatt Langford Kyle Teel Chase Dollander Nygaard Mock Draft v.2 Consensus Big Board Profiles: 26-50 Consensus Big Board Profiles: 1-25 View full article

There’s a part one that has 50-26. Also final consensus board (out Thursday if I can get my life together) will be to 250 or so. I think there will be some consensus really great talent around at 34.