d-mac

I don't like that we had to sign Schick for well over slot and Jax for exactly slot. Jax especially makes very little sense- he seemed like for sure someone that could save some bonus money. And sure Schick is a junior, but his I don't think he'd improve his position as a senior- not sure what leverage he has.

I meant Appy League here, whoops. lol

You have LaMonte Wade criminally underrated.

Not what Sporting News actually said: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/list/baseball-gm-rankings-front-office-2016-best-worst-cubs-epstein-yankees-cashman-angels/oxjvydv7a1zs1tmadzrlq2l9t/slide/3

I think 28th is a bit generous, actually. Quite honestly, it's hard to rank the Reds and Angels lower than the Twins. At least they have a vision, however poorly executed. The Twins seemingly fail to understand the basics of the 40 man roster- and every move seems knee-jerk reactionary. They are the least process oriented team in baseball.

The article never mentioned Sano. It did however mention that the Twins misguidedly based their team on last years record and not their underlying stats, planing on Santana, Nolasco, and Hughes was a mistake, and that the Twins' vaunted farm system has yet to produce any results.

If that's the case, that's great news!

An interesting exercise would be to look at college draftees' stats in college and compare them to their APPY league stats. LaMonte Wade is a great example. He played college ball for Maryland, which had the fun distinction of moving from the ACC to the Big Ten while he was playing there. We know that the ACC is one of the top 3 baseball conferences in the NCAA. The B1G is a power conference, but probably a third tier major conference. http://thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?P=lamonte-wade If we look at Wade's stats we see had an OPS of .762 and .693 as a freshman and sophomore, respectively, while in the ACC. He had a K/BB 0.85 and 1.03 as a freshman and sophomore, respectively, and an ISO of .115, .088, and a BABIP of .304 and .283 for both years. During his junior year Maryland moved to the B1G, so we know Wade faced lesser competition. He OPS'd .921 as a junior, with a K/BB of 0.67, ISO .133, and a BABIP of .366. Now if we look at his APPY League stats (remember he is transitioning to wooden bats), he OPS'd .934 with a K/BB of 0.74, ISO of .195, with a BABIP of .330. To me this tells me that the level of competition in the ACC is greater than the competition in the ACC and the competition in the B1G is only slightly less than that of the B1G.

I think it would have to affect the way promotions are handled. More teams mean more roster space to promote or demote players without having to release them from the org. Take Wade. or Gonsalves, or even Tyler Jay. The only logical reason (at least to me as an outsider) why they have not been promoted yet is due to having no space in the AA rotation, or A+ outfield right now. Having an additional team would allow additional roster flexibility to send people up and down more easily without releasing a player you don't want to.

I really, really hope they can get Balazovic and Benninghoff signed.

Also forgot to mention that there are only 5 teams to have a similar structure to their minor leagues as the Twins (7 teams, 1 foreign rookie team, 2 rookie teams, no Short Season A teams)- the Braves, White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, and Brewers.

Most Twins' non-first round college players start at E-town (some of the late round picks even start at the GCL facing high school and foreign players!) and then move one-level a year until AA. Look at LaMonte Wade- Any other org he'd be at High-A now. Mitch Garver spent a full season in A ball in 2014, despite being a college draftee, and he had an OPS of .880 and a BB/K of .94 in 504 PA. It should be about getting college players to AA as quickly as possible, they really don't need a full year at A-ball. I have no idea if this has any affect on development, but the Twins are one of 13 teams with the minimum 7 minor league affiliates. 17 teams have 8 or more. The Yankees have the most with 10 affiliates. The Twins are one of just 8 teams without a Short-Season A team (KC has 3 rookie level teams so they don't really count). Now some teams have one rookie level team (GCL or AZL) and SS A level team and two DSL teams. The model I do like- with two rookie teams (GCL/AZL and Appy/Pioneer League), and a SS-A team (NY-Penn Lg or Northwest League). 8 teams have that set up- D'backs, Astros (Astros have 2 DSL teams), Mets (Mets have 2 DSL teams), Yankees (Yankees have two GCL and DSL teams), Pirates, Cardinals, Rays (Rays have a Venezuelan SL team in addition to their DSL team), and the Blue Jays. As far as the 8-team set up goes, the GCL/AZL teams are for most high-school and first year (in the states) foreign players; the APPY/Pioneer level teams are for low-level college players that come from poor levels of competition, advanced first-year high school draftees, and 2nd year rookie players that haven't shown enough to go straight to A ball. The Short Season A teams then are exclusively for first year college draftees to get their feet wet after signing. Many of the top college draftees then (if the show enough in SS-A) then jump straight to High-A for for either a full or half year, then a full year at AA, then at least a half season at AAA. The rest of the college draftees get a half year in A ball, then go to High-A. High schoolers, since they take longer, would take a more individualised approach. The goal would be to get them through the rookie levels to A-ball and then only send them to High-A once they've mastered low-A- whether its a half-season, a full season, or two full seasons.

I think the Twins did a pretty good job developing players at the turn of the century- but the game is different now, especially when it comes to the quality of pitching. It appears to me that the Twins can't develop (or know how to handle) pitchers with swing stuff nor do they know how to prepare their young hitters to face the quality of pitching in the game during the past decade, really.

Because he signed so quickly, before Kirilloff, and for an unpublished amount, I would imagine he signed for under slot.

I think this a really insightful... insight. It perfectly describes their handling of all the young players for years.

I think at one point the way Twins developed (and still develop) players worked. But baseball is different now. And what they are doing clearly isn't working anymore.

When I did my research regarding the top 15 position players in fWAR I found something very similar. Most spent significant time in AA and/or AAA. The ones that were fast-tracked were top prospects that dominated (900+ OPS) with strong BB/K ratios (.80+). The players that fell into neither category took a long time to establish themselves at the major league level requiring multiple stints in AAA.

You're welcome.

That's an awfully cold team! I hope somebody got Arcia some mittens.

I see what you did there!

For those interested, Alex Lopez's Miami Hurricanes are playing Boston College on the super regionals on ESPN U right now. Lopez just followed up a Zack Collins HR with a hard hit single to right-center and then later scored.

I wonder if they can sign Benninghoff. Also, the two college pitcher selected one is 6'7, the other is 6'8.

Doesn't look like he walked much for someone with power at a JC. Oh well, at this point it's find players with a tool and see if it will carry them.

Whaaa? http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/satireknight/images/d/dc/Mind_blown.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141106205443

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2014/12/20141204-slow-roasted-bolognese-01.jpg