Keith Law: Twins Pitching Prospects "Not Above The Median"

5 hours ago, Dman said:

I generally like what Law has to say and I think he generally knows what's, what when it comes to prospects but when it comes to pitchers I don't trust him and analysts in general that much.

Since he is going to nitpick I am going to nitpick some.  I don't have Keith's old prospect lists but in 2018 MLB.com had Tristen McKenzie rated as their Guardians number 2 prospect, Bieber at 8 and Civale at 10.  Bieber was rated as maybe a number 4 pitcher in a rotation, Civale they felt was a bullpen arm.  McKenzie was supposed to be a number 2 or 3 starter.  No one had Bieber in their top 100 not Fangraphs, not mlb.com and most likely not Keith Law and yet he is the one who won the Cy Yong award in 2020.  He is the dominant pitcher of those 3.  Even Civale who was tenth best in the system has done better at least to this point than the highly rated McKenzie. What does this mean? Analysts have a really hard time identifying what impact pitchers will have once they reach the majors.

This is just one extreme example and we have to remember what prospect lists are.  They are not ultimate projection systems, they are based on the potential seen in players and projected out to their highest perceived potential.  Just because they are ranked higher doesn't mean they will reach all the potential ascribed to them.  Just because guys are ranked lower or not at all doesn't mean they cannot become impact players at the MLB level looking at you Luis Arraez who pretty much all analyst's left in the dust.

Keith Law never liked Berrios until very late and IMO doesn't have the greatest pulse on pitching prospects.  So I guess I take what he says with a grain of salt.  Cleveland's Bieber who had good control and was ranked at number 8 turned out OK. Maybe a guy like Josh Winder with good control can do something similar?  When it comes to pitching prospects I am not one to trust an industry prediction because they are just plain wrong too often IMO.

I had to re-post this because a "like" can't display how much I want to "double like" or "love" this post. And it's NOT about Law, and I will comment further, but this post is just spot on with content/opinion. More to follow.

Keith Law, and just about any paid observer/scribe/former FO employee has forgotten more about baseball and prospect evaluation than I will ever know. Period.

And who am I? Just a fairly smart person of 56yo who has been watching baseball most of his life and eating up everything from Baseball Digest to the Sporting News and Baseball America, to just about every baseball website you can imagine since the internet became a real "thing" 20yrs ago. I've seen Gooden and King Felix be the best pitchers ever before burning out. I've seen Clemmons being a STUD from pretty much day one. I've seen Randy Johnson being the best prospect in baseball struggle, be OK, and then suddenly dominate. Ive seen Stieb and Key being OK prospects and pitchers turn in to ACES and dominate when they weren't expected to. Yada, Yada, etc, etc. I've also witnessed countless TOP pitching prospects who never made it. Going back in time a bit, the 90's A's had 4 young pitchers that were supposed to maintain their window, lead by Todd Van Poppel, the second coming of Nolan Ryan. None of that happened. Conversely, ugly as it is to remember, it was just shy of this time the Twins had a collection of pitching talent that was supposed to lead them to a WS. None of them contributed to '87 or '91.

Law would destroy me in a debate, as would others about prospects or the history of. But I could care less based on history..

What I DO KNOW is that projecting SP  is an almost hopeless exercise. History has proven that to be true.. But the more arms you have, the better your chances to find quality pitching. According to the OP, didn't Law put Balazovic in his top 100 before anyone else? Well, he was awesome and then was shut down to protect him. That's not abnormal for any team post 2020, or the injury factor. Strotman was ranked higher in the Ray's system than Ryan before TJ. Where is Law on this? SWR was a top 100-150 prospect almost since drafted. But young for AA and a mediocre season at best, how does he "stink" now? Ober put up video game numbers as a less than high selection but had injury concerns. Suddenly he finds a repeatable delivery that keeps him healthy, AND makes adjustments during his rookie season to get better. But coming in to 2021 he was what, a late 20 or early 30th ranked prospect?

A year ago, did most fans/writers know who Winder and Varland were? 

A lot of things can change in ONE YEAR in regard to prospects.

A year ago, Miranda was a high draft prospect with a decent bat that could be very good. Now he's a top prospect in all of baseball.

Keith Law says the Twins pitching prospects are not above the medium? Despite the fact he's ranked Twins prospects high previously? Sucks, he could be right. But, come on, there's just too much stuff and too many good arms here. And history has shown you really don't know what the hell you have until they actually pitch.

Numbers and talent say we have a couple quality arms that will be part of our 2022-2023 and beyond. History states a couple will be very good, a couple solid, a couple will find a role in the BP. But nobody will surpass the medium? It may take time, but I call BS. At least a couple will match Berrios or better. Just too many arms and too much arm talent .

3 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

I am not defending Law, way back when he was free on ESPN I read all of his stuff. I think it was in one chat where he said something a long the lines of younger pitchers are hard to project, so you take size, arm motion and stuff and project what they could be, thus why you see pitchers like Kohl Stewart so high on lists, but the older they get the closer they are to what they will be than would they could be. And besides SWR none of the Twins prospects are all that young. Shane Bieber was getting his feet wet with 20 games as a 23 year old, got better at 24, awesome at 25. 

I remember a debate about the NY Mets maybe assembling one of the best pitching staffs in history. Thor, Harvey, De Grom, Martz (and maybe wheeler, don't remember all of them) around 2014 and it was pointed out most them were already in their mid 20's and weren't likely to get much better than they already were and shouldn't be mentioned in conversation, because they hadn't really accomplished anything at that point, 7 years later to this point besides De Grom and Wheeler (in Philly) as a group they didn't get any better.

I don't really think the Twins need their top prospects to get better (except SWR) than they are they just need to continue what they have been doing in the minors in the big leagues. So we can hope one of them magically becomes amazing in the majors or  just be happy that 5 or 6 of them will be solid and maybe a bit better for a few years in the majors.

 

Great post. I think the age debate has some merit. It could also be debated/shown how many quality pitchers matured late and went on to great careers, as well as hiw many debuted early and flamed out. 

What I think we have to remember is all of these kids are a year younger "prospect wise" than their physical ages.