Manager Paul Molitor Fired by the Minnesota Twins

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Robb
Paul Molitor fired as manager of the Minnesota Twins

Paul Molitor out as the Manager of the Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins have relieved manager Paul Molitor of his duties with 2 years left on his contract. An interesting offseason with a lot of questions just added a few more.

After a 78-84 season which was marred by injuries, a suspension and young players taking steps back rather than forward, the Front Office has decided they want to go in a different direction. That record makes the season not look as bad as it was as does ending the season with a 6-game winning streak but it was bad and very ugly at times. Unfortunately, Paul Molitor is taking the hit for it.

Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey on the Molitor removal:
“I would like to thank Paul for his tremendous dedication to the Minnesota Twins over his last four years as manager of this club, Paul’s roots here run deep and his commitment to the organization, his staff, and the players is special. I have every hope and desire that he remains a part of this club for many years to come.”

Paul Molitor’s statement:
“I was informed today that the Twins will seek a new manager for the 2019 season and I fully respect that decision. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity they gave me to serve in the role as manager for these past four years. I’m going to consider their genuine offer to serve in a different capacity to positively impact the Twins from a different role. Special thanks to my coaches and players I have had a chance to manage and I certainly appreciate the tremendous support I received from all of Twins Territory.”

The team has offered Paul Molitor another position within the organization and he will consider the offer, the statement said.

The Minnesota Twins will begin a search for a new manager immediately, looking both internally and externally. A new manager will likely have to be well-versed in the analytics and all of the new aspects of the game.

The team had a press conference to further address the situation.

Our TwinsTake on this is the front office sees a chance to bring in their own guy because of this disappointing season and they’re taking it. Our money is the new manager will be hired from outside the organization because their last few hires have been just that with hitting coach James Rowson, pitching coach Garvin Alston and, most recently, bench coach Derek Shelton.

Interim manager Derek Shelton (right) talks with #MNTwins officials Derek Falvey and Thad Levine (center) before Saturday’s game at Fenway Park.How interesting is it that Derek Shelton was the acting manager when Paul Molitor went to Cooperstown for Jack Morris’ HOF Induction? Hmmm…

If you forgot, owner Jim Pohlad said Molitor would be the manager for the 2017 season no matter who he hired to replace Terry Ryan at the end of 2016. Was that a mistake? It definitely looks like it now. Where would this team be now had the new regime been allowed to go get a manager they wanted rather than a manager they were forced to keep?

This is a sad day because there’s nothing Paul Molitor can do about the injuries to Ervin Santana, Brian Dozier & Jason Castro, the suspension of Jorge Polanco and the slow starts of Lance Lynn & Logan Morrison. Add to that the seasons from Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton and even Max Kepler and it was really difficult to succeed this season.

The good thing about this move is the Twins will have a lot of money to spend in Free Agency. The prize of Free Agency is SS/3B Manny Machado, depending on who opts out of their deals to become free agents. The biggest name for the rotation is RHP Patrick Corbin.

Other than that, free agency really doesn’t look that great this season. It doesn’t make much sense to sign players 30 years old or older to big contracts but, the Twins might need to go get somebody as they will need a 2nd baseman (Forsythe, move Polanco over, Escobar, Adrianza?) and possibly a 1st baseman (Mauer, Austin, Garver, other?) for starters.

Can they get those top-tier free agents? That remains to be seen. They went after Shohei Ohtani & Yu Darvish hard last season to no avail but, they ended up spending a lot of money to try to set this team up for a good season and it went sideways really fast.

We’ll be sure to keep you updated with all the happenings in the offseason.

Hey! THANKS for reading! Tell us your ‘Takes in the comments. We want to know what you think, TwinsTakers! You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+!

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TwinsTakes on No September Recall for Byron Buxton

Posted on September 2, 2018 by Robb
Minnesota Twins - TIHWBB

Byron Buxton has had a nightmare season and it will end without a return to the majors.

The Minnesota Twins have had a strange season in 2018. Unfortunately, that doesn’t compare to the nightmare season their center fielder, Byron Buxton, has gone through so far. A myriad of injuries and struggles at the plate have made the Twins front office of CBO Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine decide to not have Buxton be a part of their September call-ups so his season will end tomorrow when the AAA Rochester Red Wings season ends.

The GM gave us three reasons why they made this decision:

  1. A wrist injury that is “still lingering”
  2. On-field performance that goes beyond his raw statistics in the minors
  3. A lack of playing time for him in the majors.

You can probably add a 4th reason, which is that Byron Buxton is only 13 days away from accruing his 3rd year of Major League service. This means the Twins would gain another year of service and Buxton wouldn’t hit Free Agency until the year 2022.

Everyone is up in arms about this because Buxton is supposed to be the Twins center fielder for the next 5-10 years and the reasoning behind it is somewhat questionable. If Byron’s wrist injury is still lingering, why is he playing at AAA and if he’s playing with it at AAA, why couldn’t he play with it with the Twins, too? His on-field performance might have been affected by the injuries he’s had through the season. A lack of playing time? So, they’d rather give at-bats to Jake Cave, Robbie Grossman (Jake & the Gross Man?) & Johnny Field? Jake Cave is understandable because I’m sure they’d like to see if he can be a part of their future although Eddie Rosario & Max Kepler are already in the outfield and it’s hard to believe they want to replace either of them. Robbie Grossman & Johnny Field, on the other hand, are two players that you would assume Buxton would easily get at-bats before.

Byron Buxton needs at-bats at the major league level to get better with the bat and, hopefully, reach the high potential that has been put on him. It looks like he’s figured out AAA:

Byron Buxton's Stats at AAA

Those are pretty good stats over his career and this season’s aren’t terrible except for the strikeouts. The strikeouts stick out especially for a guy who can steal 2nd with relative ease if he can reach first base. Now, with only 100 games played in AAA over 4 seasons and 49 games being the high mark for most AAA games played in one season, it is kind of difficult to say he’s mastered that level but he also has a very good stretch of production in the majors on his resume from the 2nd half of 2017.

All of this being said, maybe we should evaluate this decision like we should evaluate trades, give it some time and see if it’s the right call or not in a few years.

We’ve focused on the fans perspective of the front office making a mistake with this decision. Let’s look at it from their point of view, now. Last week, Derek Falvey said the Twins will be “taking the long-term view about our players…Any player we bring up, we’re thinking about what’s the benefit to the September experience — whether it’s hitting, pitching, defense or an opportunity that’s here in terms of at-bats and playing time. … Our focus should exclusively be what we think is the best for Byron long term, and that’s where it’s going to be.”

Byron Buxton has had a nightmare season. Look at everything he’s gone through so far this season:
Byron Buxton's 2018 Season at a glanceWOW! Now, look at all of that and put yourself in the shoes of the person in charge. Do you shut him down and end Byron’s season so nothing else happens to him this season? Do you think, “If we shut him down now, we get another season from him in 2022 and we can consider 2018 almost a throwaway/redshirt type of season?”

 

It’s easy for fans and bloggers to look at the stats since Byron was activated on August 14th and say it looks like he’s finally turning things around with the bat but we’re just looking at the stats. We’re not seeing those at-bats. The front office is getting reports from the AAA Coaching Staff on how those at-bats are going? Is Byron taking good at-bats? Are they worried about how he’s dealing with everything that’s happened this season? Is he trying too hard to be productive?

We’ll leave you with this. This decision wasn’t made on a whim. The front office knows what kind of talent Byron Buxton possesses both defensively and offensively. In the end, they think this is what’s best for Byron Buxton. Yes, that might also help the big club because they get another year of control out of it but, if Byron Buxton turns his career around in the next 1-3 seasons, is that extra year of control going to matter? Or, will the front office give him an extension and buy out those free agent years?

THANKS for reading Our ‘Takes!!! We’d love to hear Your Takes on social media and/or in the comments. That’s why we say….TwinsTakes.com - Tell us what You think about the Minnesota Twins

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Derek Falvey Interview from Opening Day in Baltimore

Posted on March 30, 2018 by Robb

Derek Falvey was in the booth with Dick & Bert in the top of the 4th inning of yesterday’s Opening Day Minnesota Twins game.

When anyone talks to or with Derek Falvey, Chief Baseball Officer (CBO) of the Minnesota Twins, I’m always interested in hearing what he has to say. I love finding out how the franchise runs from top to bottom and, of course, seeing if I agree with everything they are doing. I also love learning about any new ways the Twins are using to improve the team whether that’s from analytics or coaching or development. Maybe that’s because in Minnesota, we haven’t seen many of these modern improvements for evaluating & developing players & prospects.

Most of all, though, it’s a positive time for this franchise since they are now moving in the right direction and appear headed for greatness.

The audio is 7 minutes & 26 seconds long but there are a lot of quoteworthy moments. Just in case the audio needs to be removed, I have transcribed the entire interview below. I’ll comment about it after the transcription. Enjoy.

The conversation is Derek Falvey with Twins play-by-play announcer, Dick Bremer, & color analyst or still “Circle Me Bert” guy, Bert Blyleven.

Dick Bremer
“Dick Bremer along with Bert Blyleven joined by Derek Falvey, the Chief Baseball Office for the Minnesota Twins. How relieved are you to get out of Florida and get this season started?”

Derek Falvey
“Yeah…it’s time, but I think, as we all know, you get to Opening Day and there’s a hurry-up-and-wait feeling but it’s exciting to get started.

Dick Bremer
“….I talked with Dan Duquette today, your counterpart with the Baltimore Orioles and they kind of benefitted, as you did, from the market that kind of came back after Spring Training started. It’s rare to see teams like you & Baltimore improve the way you did after camp opens up.”

Derek Falvey
“It’s a…it was a unique year, certainly, from a free agent standpoint but, we stayed flexible and nimble down the stretch and Jim Pohlad and our ownership group gave us opportunities and we found opportunities and brought them to him…uhh…he supported those and it’s exciting to be able to put the team we have on the field right now.”

Bert Blyleven
“How’s the new job…coming for you? Are you pretty excited about it?”

Derek Falvey
“No question. I…I think, you know, you think back to last year and what this team went through and the steps forward it had taken from our coaching staff and the players…all across the board. We’ve been very fortunate.”

1:23 – 1:34 – Eddie Rosario comes to the plate for his 2nd at-bat.

Dick Bremer
“Getting back to the market with free agency that was so furious this year. Do you think that will be the norm or was this a one-time only offseason?”

Derek Falvey
“ No. I think it’s..each offseason and each free agent season has its own pace, certainly. Uhh…I’m not sure I would expect to be the same pace in future years or in subsequent seasons but I do think that we have an opportunity to stay nimble and flexible throughout each..each offseason and find opportunities to help this club.”

Bert Blyleven
“Not only getting the free agents that have some experience but you see a lot of clubs that are relying on their minor league system..you know..and you saw what happened in Kansas City…the Cubs…you know Houston…letting these guys develop and go through the bad times but then all of a sudden you saw where Houston is now, now they added a couple of guys to make ‘em even better.”

Derek Falvey
“No question. I think you have to let young players develop and sometimes that’s not perfectly linear. Sometimes that doesn’t happen as cleanly as you’d hope but I think like you saw with some of our guys last year, guys like Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario & Max Kepler and others who really took steps forward, Jose Berrios being a great example of that, throughout the course of the year, getting better. We view the core of a championship team has to be built from within. You have to scout and develop. We have great staff members in those two areas. Their gonna help us. We’ll supplement through free agency. We have support around that so we’re building a team that we think is going to contend not just this year but in future seasons.”

Bert Blyleven
“Boy…you know…I was with you guys or with the Twins the first week and you look at all the arms and you think of, in Rochester and, my goodness, the guys that were sent from 40-man roster down and also some of the invitees that are …like a Bobby Wilson….and all his experience…what he’s gonna bring to that AAA level.”

Derek Falvey
“No question. We’re trying to blend all of that…I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

Dick Bremer
“No. I just…you show up and Eddie Rosario drew a walk.”

Derek Falvey
“Well…I’ll…I’ll take it. Anyway we can get runs here. He got robbed there in his first at bat but he’s somebody who continues to progress but, to your point, Bert. We need waves of talent. We need waves of players to be ready. Last year, we tested our depth. A lot of guys stepped up. We feel we’re in a better position with that second & third wave of young players who can impact this club not only this year but in future seasons. We had a great spring training for that and we’ll continue to build.”

Bert Blyleven
“Well, you guys did a great job of adding two starters in Lynn & Odorizzi but the bullpen, too, in today’s game…such a big part…you guys added Addison Reed and also..uhh..Rodney.”

Derek Falvey
“And Zach Duke, as well. All guys who have experience and we set out this offseason to impact our pitching. We said that from the get go and we said pitching in general for a good reason. We thought both in the bullpen and in the rotation there could be opportunity. I think when we got Fernando and then followed by Addison Reed and Zach Duke we felt like we got impact and experience in the back end. That allows some of the younger guys to grow into roles over time so I’m excited to see that group and then in…in Lance & Jake you have two guys that have pitched meaningful games in big spots & that have been really reliable starters and we feel they’ll fit in nicely with our group and will help elevate what we have here moving forward.”

Bert Blyleven
“Nice to have the personalities of Addison Reed and also Fernando Rodney, what they mean to say some of the younger kids in that bullpen.”

Derek Falvey
“…Bert. You know you have to blend the experience with the young kids coming up and it can’t just be one wave of just experienced players and it can’t just be all youth you know when you’re trying to compete. You have to have some guys who can teach the younger players about how to go about..about the game. In our bullpen now with Eddie Guardado as the bullpen coach and those guys who are experienced veterans in the bullpen. We feel like they’re going to help show the Trevor Hildenbergers & Gabriel Moyas & Taylor Rogers and others how to grow and how to get a good routine and impact this team.”

Bert Blyleven
“Yeah…how to take the good with the bad.”

5:40 to 6:43 – Rosie steals 2nd base & there’s discussion about challenging the call.

Dick Bremer
“You know, a lot of people..uhh..remark, Derek, about how you did what you did in terms of improving the roster and wondering how you did it but, I think….you can almost turn the question around to how you didn’t do it because you didn’t give up any parts of this wave or waves that you’ve talked about. You were able to improve the big league club without…you know, having to give up a Rosario or a Kepler or any of the high-level minor leaguers you’ve got.”

Derek Falvey
“The challenge in my job is always to balance the present and the future. I think we did that nicely this offseason.”

I actually wasn’t able to listen to the live interview because I was on the phone with a friend but, once I saw they had Derek Falvey in the booth, I checked the time and went back to the interview after the game.

I pretty much loved everything he said and it kind of echoed a lot of the things we’ve been saying in our Trusting the Process of Building a Winning Organization. There are actually 4 parts to it. Part 2 is about Acquiring Players, Part 3 is about Player Development and Part 4 is about Team Development.

THANKS for reading our ‘Takes. Now, please share your ‘Takes in the comments section, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Google+. That’s why we call it…Our ‘Takes, Your ‘Takes…

Our 'Takes, Your 'Takes, TwinsTakes.com!

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The Twins Takes – The Minnesota Twins MLB Draft History

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Robb
Read about the History of the Minnesota Twins & the MLB Draft

How have the Minnesota Twins done in the MLB Draft in the past and recently?

The Minnesota Twins has to make the most out of every player they acquire through the draft. You can say that about every team in Major League Baseball but, some of those teams have the ability to make up for a bad draft every now and then. They can stretch the payroll to go get top tier free agents or make a big trade to acquire players who have already established themselves as great players.

Those teams are the exception, not the rule. That’s really the only way of going to get the sure thing, though. See a great player or an ace pitcher and go get them, either in free agency or in a trade. To be honest, though, none of those teams really want to do that. They would rather draft a player and develop them and have a farm system that consistently brings results then have to overspend. It’s hard to tell what a prospect will turn into as a major league player. His talent may be a lot better in the minor leagues but, as he works his way up the ladder, that gap closes a little at each level.

For the teams where free agency isn’t  as much of an option, the MLB Draft is priority number 1 when it comes to acquiring players. It happens every year and they have to be prepared. They have to know what kind of players they want and what kind of players & pitchers they need and then go get those players. They can’t relax if the current team or the current prospects are doing very well at any time or any position. They can’t pick for need, either, or, at least, they can’t pick for the need of the Major League team. They can pick for an organizational need to strengthen some of the weaker positions in the organization but that’s something that should probably be done in the later rounds. Players acquired in the draft won’t help the major league team for years.

The old adage of pick the best player available is likely the best way to go, especially in the early rounds. That also means the best player available in their minds based on the reports from their scouts and from their own opinions as a group. It has nothing to do with the best-rated player available. They should Trust the Process, trust their philosophies and trust their draft board.

There should always be prospects coming who are close to ready for a chance to move into the lineup, rotation or bullpen as soon as possible to see what they can do, how they handle it and if they need more work to get there. They should be forcing the front office to promote them and pushing the veterans for their position and their spot in the lineup. That increases competition for each spot on the roster and makes everyone know they have to earn their spot. Competition brings the best out of everyone because every player knows they have to keep getting better to keep their spot.

Deep to Every Part of the Field

There’s always a possibility of having too many players for one position. If they are all ready to play at the major league level, then the front office can use the depth to make a trade to strengthen another position. A team can never have too much depth. They dream of having depth at every position. It’s a good problem to have if the organization has a difficult job figuring out who makes the team and who has to be sent down to the minors.

When teams are taking players in the draft, there is no way of knowing how long it will take them to develop into major leaguers. That’s if they even make it at all. Very few players go right into the big leagues. They all need a little seasoning in the minors nowadays. There’s no way to predict how any prospect will do no matter how good they were before turning pro.

Nobody knew Mike Trout would be Mike Trout or he wouldn’t have fallen to the 25th pick in the 2009 Draft. He would’ve been taken 1st*, yes, even ahead of the first pick by the Washington Nationals, RHP Stephen Strasburg. There are probably aren’t many drafts where the #1 overall pick ends up being the best overall player. The best player usually ends up being a player picked lower than #1. (Hmm….another post, another time.)
*The Twins took RHP Kyle Gibson with the 22nd pick in the first round, if you were wondering.

The Minnesota Twins Takes
“With their 1st pick, the Minnesota Twins take…”

You could probably guess the Minnesota Twins haven’t done very well in the draft, recently. If they had, they wouldn’t be where they are right now. They wouldn’t have over 90 losses in 5 out of the last 7 seasons. They wouldn’t have had to fire the GM. They wouldn’t have had to make some of the trades they made, hoping they would work out. They wouldn’t have had to force players into the lineup who may not have been ready. They wouldn’t have had to use 36 pitchers in one season to see what they can do and then risk losing them to waivers.

For a long time, the Minnesota Twins were known as a team that would draft well and always had a good farm system. It became known as the Twins Way and was part of the reason they won 6 division championships between 2002 & 2010. They knew how to develop players. In those same years between 2002 & 2010, they may have lost their way when it came to drafting well and developing players and most of all, pitchers. Here’s what they got from the drafts from 2002 to 2010:

2002: OF Denard Span, RP Jesse Crain, RP Pat Neshek
2003: SP Scott Baker
2004: 3B Trevor Plouffe, RP Glen Perkins, SP/RP Anthony Swarzak
2005: SP Matt Garza, SP Kevin Slowey, SP/RP Brian Duensing
2006: 1B/OF Chris Parmelee, 3B Danny Valencia, SP Jeff Manship
2007: OF Ben Revere
2008: OF Aaron Hicks, RP Michael Tonkin
2009: SP Kyle Gibson, C/1B/OF Chris Hermann, SS/2B Brian Dozier
2010: SP/RP Alex Wimmers, SP Pat Dean, SP Logan Darnell, OF Eddie Rosario

So, in 9 years, all they produced for the rotation were Scott Baker, Matt Garza* and Kyle Gibson. Three middle of the rotation pitchers in 9 years. You could include Kevin Slowey, Anthony Swarzak, Brian Duensing and even Glen Perkins in there as well. They all began as starters and were then moved to the bullpen. They did alright with relievers Jesse Crain & Pat Neshek and also developed some pretty decent players in OF Denard Span, OF Ben Revere, OF Aaron Hicks, 2B Brian Dozier and OF Eddie Rosario.
*They traded possibly the best of them in Matt Garza to TB with SS Jason Bartlett for OF Delmon Young & SS Brendan Harris. Garza became a very good starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. He helped lead them to the 2008 World Series and won the ALCS MVP.

Brick by Brick

The draft is a foundation for building great teams. It’s not the only part teams need to do right to build a winner but it’s a great place to start building. It’s hard to say what kind of production any team expects to come out of every draft. It’s something like an average of 2 players out of every draft* making it to the major leagues. That’s just making it there, too. Not if they’re starters or All-Stars, it’s any player who makes it to the major leagues. It could be an All-Star player, a #1 pitcher or a utility player or middle reliever.
*I couldn’t find anything concrete on this. I’ve heard that before, though.

It’s done slowly, building the foundation and adding to that foundation until they’ve built a champion. If you look at most championship teams, they have players who’ve been there for a long time who were acquired through the draft. Then they’ve continually added pieces from year to year to finally build a team that has everything they need to win a championship. They have depth at every position so they can survive any injuries or other challenges that come up during the season.

If you look at the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins, they slowly built that team. They drafted 1B Kent Hrbek in 1978 and he was one of the first pieces for that team. Then from 1979 to 1984, they kept adding more pieces to that team.

1978: Kent Hrbek
1979: Randy Bush, Gary Gaetti (June-2nd Phase), Tim Laudner
1980: Jeff Reed (Traded for Jeff Reardon)
1981: Frank Viola, Steve Lombardozzi
1982: Alan Anderson, Mark Davidson, Kirby Puckett (January Draft)
1984: Jay Bell (traded for Bert Blyleven), Gene Larkin

So the 1987 Twins drafted starters at 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Catcher and Center Field along with #1 starter Frank Viola and bench players Randy Bush, Mark Davidson & Gene Larkin and relief pitcher Alan Anderson. They also used draft picks to acquire a majority of the other pieces from that championship team.

Most people probably never think about that when it comes to the draft. In almost every trade a player who was acquired through the draft is involved. There are some trades that are just players signed through free agency or who were acquired through another trade. Also, the majority of those drafted players included in those trades never make it to the big leagues. They end up being throw-ins to get the trade done. The teams obviously believed they’d be more than that or they wouldn’t have asked for those players but, it still points to how important the draft is for building a team into a champion.

Are they building another champion with pieces drafted since 2009?:

2009: SP Kyle Gibson, 2B Brian Dozier
2010: OF Eddie Rosario
2012: SP Jose Berrios, RP Tyler Duffey, RP J.T. Chargois?, RP Taylor Rogers, CF Byron Buxton SP Luke Bard? RP Mason Melotakis
2013: SP Stephen Gonsalves, C Mitch Garver, OF Zack Granite
2014: RP John Curtiss, RP Trevor Hildenberger, SS Nick Gordon
2015: RP Tyler Jay?
2016: OF Alex Kiriloff
2017: SS Royce Lewis, OF Brent Rooker

There are some pretty nice pieces on this list. They have starters at 2nd base, left field, center field, a few pitchers for the starting rotation & some good arms for the bullpen as well. It’s definitely a good start.

The 5th Rule of Drafting

The Rule 5 Draft was put into place so teams couldn’t stockpile talent on their minor league rosters. It forces teams to commit to keeping players who have been in their organization for 4 or 5 years depending on the age they were signed, 5 years if they were signed before they turned 19 and 4 years if they were signed after they turned 19. Players not protected by being placed on a team’s 40-man roster are available to be picked by other teams who have spots open on their 40-man roster.

The drafted players cost the drafting team $100K and must stay on the active 25-man roster for the entire next season or be offered back to the original team for $50K. Most of these players are not yet ready for the jump to the Major League so it’s a bit of a risk. It’s also another way for teams to find players who’ve already been in the minors for 4-5 years so they have a pretty good track record for teams to judge them on.

Rule 5 picks rarely make a big impact but sometimes it can work out quite nicely. Roberto Clemente is probably the biggest example of success but there are others, too. Twins fans surely remember LHP Johan Santana, who wasn’t actually picked by the Twins. They traded their 1st pick, Jared Camp, to the Florida Marlins in the 1999 Rule 5 Draft, who selected Johan from the Houston Astros. Other good examples for the Twins are OF Shane Mack in 1989 and C Mark Salas in 1984 (he was traded straight up for P Joe Niekro (with a nail file) in 1987. LHP Scott Diamond looked like a pretty good pick from 2010. He pitched well for a while but fizzled out and was released in 2014.

Recent examples of successful Rule 5 picks from the rest of the league are OF Joey Rickard for the Baltimore Orioles and 1B Justin Bour for the Miami Marlins. We view success as adding a piece to your major league roster that either helps you win or helps you acquire another piece that helps you win.

The Last Pick

That’s all for the history of who the Minnesota Twins have taken in the MLB Draft. They had a bad run there for awhile but they may have made up for it in more recent drafts. It helped to have higher picks because of the losing seasons. A philosophy change on what kind of pitchers to target from Terry Ryan may help the new regime get to the promised land, too.

In the next article, we’ll delve into how the Twins have done with International Signings. The BIG one that stands out is Miguel Sano but that’s because he’s the most recent success. We’ll see how they’ve done and if they’ve improved in this area throughout their history.

Thanks for reading our TwinsTakes on the Draft History of the Minnesota Twins!  We’d love to hear your ‘Takes on the subject! Please comment below, on TwinsDaily.com or the posts of this article on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and/or Google+!

After all, it is…

TwinsTakes.com - Tell us what You think about the Minnesota Twins

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TwinsTakes on Team Development – TTP Part 4

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Robb
TwinsTakes on Trusting the Process -of Team Development

Team development is the final step to building a winning team.

Team Development is similar to player development but from a team aspect. A winning team doesn’t come from simply putting the best players on the field together. Talent, while a huge part of winning, isn’t the only trait needed to field a winning team. It might not even be the best trait of a winning team. A winning team has to have every piece of a winning team and those pieces have to fit together and have great chemistry in order to succeed consistently.

Team development is building your team so they have no weaknesses on or off the field but it’s also building them into a team that knows how to win and also has the confidence that they can win. A team will struggle if they don’t believe they can compete against any team they come up against and when they start to believe they can beat any opponent anywhere, that’s when they’ll start becoming a team to beat.

This is part 4 of our Trusting the Process series. Please check out part one, simply called Trusting the Process, about how the Twins Front Office and CBO Derek Falvey & GM Thad Levine helped or let the 2017 Minnesota Twins compete this season and why what they did, or didn’t do, at the trade deadline was actually showing how they were trusting the process.

Part 2 is Trusting the Process of Acquiring Players, about what tools are available to every team for acquiring players and how they should use them. Part 3 is about Trusting the Process of Player Development so your team always has players coming up to help your team or to help acquire the pieces needed to get to the ultimate goal of winning championships.

Philosophy Alignment

Every winning organization should have a philosophy of everything that goes into winning and that philosophy should align throughout the organization, from the top to the bottom, from the Major Leagues to the Rookie Leagues. There will be an on the field philosophy (for pitching, offense & defense), an off the field philosophy (for developing individual skills) and a development philosophy for promotion & advancement.

On the field, every player will know very well how the organization wants to play the game & win in every possible situation. They will either learn those situations before they get on the field or as a result of what happens on the field. There will be a philosophy for how they want to pitch, how they want to play offense and how they want to play defense. Teams would definitely go into a lot more depth in each of these areas.

Off the field, they will learn what it takes to develop & advance to the next level. They will learn about other off the field skills that go into being a professional baseball player, learning from failing, learning from teammates & opponents (how they play, how they prepare, how they work on their games physically and mentally), using all the tools available to them from video to analytics to working out the right way, and doing any off the field team events, promotions and interviews that come along and how to handle all of it together without allowing one area to mess with another.

Developing, A Plan

A Development Philosophy of how quickly a player will be moved to another level since there is no one way to develop a prospect into a major leaguer should be handled on a player-by-player basis. Each player is different and will have different weaknesses and different strengths. For some of the more gifted players, developing and advancing might be easier while for others, there could be many ups & downs along the way. The key will be knowing how to treat each player’s development.

Some players can be pushed harder than others due to their combination of talent and makeup. Knowing when to leave them at a level when they are struggling rather than demoting them right away can go either way. A player doing really well at one level could very easily struggle after being promoted, doing a number on their confidence. Confidence is a game-changer.

A player without confidence in their game will continue to struggle and start to question if they are good enough to play at a higher level. It has been shown to destroy some players or, at least, set them back. There’s a really fine line between getting a player right back out there the next day to keep at it, sitting them down for a game or two and demoting them to a level where they’ve already been successful. The knowledge of how to handle players in these situations will go a long ways to getting the best out of every player.

Also, they may have to do this, at most, 6 times before having success in the majors with some players starting in the rookie leagues and working there way up through the system. That’s not counting fall or winter leagues, either. It will also take anywhere from 1 to 6 or more years to make it happen. This is why rebuilding a team takes so long and probably why a lot of teams try to tweak their roster by going after some free agents or making some trades to see if they can hang on and still be competitive while their top prospects work their way up. Most of the time it doesn’t work and they would’ve been better off trusting the process but it’s hard to admit your team has to go the way of a rebuild.

A Lot Of Patience

It takes years for an organization to build and develop a consistent winner. If they are rebuilding for whatever reason, a lot of patience will be needed and they will have to stay the course, resisting the urge to take shortcuts along the way. There are not many, if any, shortcuts to rebuilding a team back into a winner. Every aspect of the organization will have to exercise patience. Trying to take any kind of shortcut no matter how small it may appear to be could set the rebuild back weeks, months or even years.

Depending on the reason for a rebuild, an organization will have to take what they already have on their team, figure out where there are weaknesses and strengths and then figure out how to develop the weaknesses into strengths or, at least, to a level where they are no longer a weakness. They will likely have some pieces already in place but, if they’ve been going through hard times, they may have traded their best players for prospects and/or fired the management who may have put them in this situation to begin with. If that’s the case, the rebuilding endeavor may take longer as new management assesses what they currently have to build around and gradually implements a new philosophy.

Every team would love to have a rebuild take as little time as possible but it’s just not that easy. Some of the pieces needed will take a long time to mature into the players they are meant to be. It’s not a guarantee they will ever even get there or be as good as management thought when or if they do reach the major leagues. It doesn’t mean they have to start over as teams should have some prospect depth at each position. It just might take longer.

Building Your Core

Core players are the strength of any organization. They are the team’s leaders and they will show the younger players how to be valuable big league players, making them part of that core group. Having core players is probably the biggest and hardest job of building a championship-caliber team. They aren’t easy to find but might be the biggest key to success as they will be there for the long haul and be a huge part of the team’s success for a long time.

MLBTradeRumors.com does a great job reporting MLB news and rumors but they also have articles that explain the rules of transactions, drafts, free agency and pretty much anything that comes to your mind about baseball. Recently, they published a “How They Were Acquired” series for every 2017 MLB playoff team. These articles show how long it has taken some of these teams to reach the playoffs. They also, obviously, show how each player was acquired. It’s pretty cool to look at the more successful teams and see how they’ve built their teams into playoff contenders.

As we said in our Acquiring Players article, teams have to use every tool available to them to acquire the players they’ll need to win a championship. Those tools are the MLB Drafts, International Signings, Trades and Free Agency. Waiver Claims can be included but are not really a major tool of player acquisition. So, the “How They Were Acquired” series of posts on each playoff team are broken down into those categories although they have combined the Draft and International Signings into one category called Homegrown Players.

We broke down each group by team to show how many players were acquired in each category. If you’d like to check that out, just click here for the spreadsheet of the results or click the pic below:

How the 2017 MLB Playoff Teams Acquired Their Players

If this is too difficult to read, clicking the picture will send you to the original document allowing you to print it and/or save it as a PDF. Each category is a separate sheet on the bottom.

The results were: Homegrown-88, Trades-96, Free Agency-57, Waivers-8; Core Players/Starters – Homegrown-53, Trades-53, FA-30, Waivers-2. For the core pieces, we just went through each team’s list and picked who we believed were the core pieces or the starters for each team.

A belief across a majority of baseball is that building through the draft is the best way to build a team. The results did show that for the most part but we were a little surprised how many players were acquired from trades at 96 with 53 of those players being starters/core players. In a lot of ways, though, some of those players could end up being homegrown since they were acquired as prospects and grew up on their current team’s farm…uhh …system.

Joe Mauer, from the 2001 Draft, is the oldest homegrown acquisition, Andre Ethier is the oldest trade with a trade from December of 2005 and C.C. Sabathia (2008) & Jayson Werth (2010) are the oldest free agent signings. All of those players are key parts and big reasons why their teams made it to the postseason.

The biggest thing a playoff team has is depth. Every roster spot is taken by a player who will play a big part in that team winning. They will know their role, except it and do it to the best of their ability. There will usually be veterans available at every position or that can at least fill in at every position. If they were rookies at the beginning of the season and they made to the postseason, they are no longer rookies. They were a huge part of their team making it to the dance party and doing some dancing.

Eat Your Wheaties!
The breakfast of champions! Have a bowl…or two.

Winning isn’t easy. There’s no book or class that can show you how to do it. You have to learn how to win from the experience of playing the game. Teams can develop into winners. Mike Zimmer, Head Coach of the Minnesota Vikings, has said multiple times (and we’ve shared this before, too) that there are 4 stages, or learns, to winning. He said:

“There are four learns in football.
First you Learn How to Compete.
Then you Learn How to Win.
Then you Learn How to Handle Winning.
Then you Learn How To Be A Champion.”

Obviously, he’s talking about football but it’s not hard to see those stages, levels or learns of winning being used across all sports and working from an individual and/or a team concept. With the right players together, a team can learn together how to win and gradually grow into being a playoff contender then, hopefully, become a championship contender.

This Series is Over!

That’s our series on Trusting the Process. We hope you’ve enjoyed it. We’ll now get into how the Minnesota Twins have done in all areas of Trusting the Process. There has to be a reason why they had such a terrible run from 2010 through 2016. We’ll see where they went wrong and if the new regime will or has improved in that area.

Thanks for reading our TwinsTakes on Trusting the Process of Team Development! We’d love to hear your ‘Takes on the subject! Please comment below, on TwinsDaily.com or on the posts of this article on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Google+!

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