Minor League Bonanza
Rochester Red Wings
.327/.387/.584 -- Darnell McDonald, 2008, 101 AB
Congrats to McDonald for having one of the best stretches of his professional career, but he's been kicking around AAA so long that he was playing for the Red Wings when they were an Orioles affiliate 7 years ago. At age 30, his early season success is not an indication that he's turned any kind of corner and doesn't figure to help the Twins win any games. It's nice that he's been able to help Rochester out, though.
.290/.347/.452 -- Brian Buscher, 2008, 93 AB
That's a decent enough line for a first full season at AAA, but I'm not seeing much power. For a guy without much in the way of defensive skills, I'm pretty unimpressed.
.219/.350/.250 -- Alexi Casilla, 2008, 96 AB
That's kind of a funny trick, with an OBP 100 points higher than his SLG and all, but really, what reason do major league pitchers have to pitch carefully to him? I don't see how he's going to walk much in the majors unless he starts hitting for average again. Plus, he's been error-prone and the one set of minor league fielding stats I've looked at (SAFE runs--created for BP by Dan Fox, who just got hired by the Pirates' new front office) have him as below average overall, so I have serious doubts about how good his range is going to be. I won't blame Gardy if he uses Casilla almost exclusively as a pinch runner and defensive replacement.
.175/.228/.307 -- Garrett Jones, 2008, 114 AB
Just like Jones wasn't as good as his fluky singles rate last year made him seen, he's also not this bad. Still, I really don't want Jones anywhere near the major league roster.
.247/.296/.349 -- Jason Pridie, 2008, 146 AB
Pridie's a career .277/.324/.427 hitter in the minors, so I think he can do better than this, but probably not a whole lot better. He still looks like a guy with a 4th OF ceiling.
.304/.415/.348 -- Denard Span, 2008, 69 AB
I like to see the walks, but Span has to start at least hitting some doubles if he's going to keep up that walk rate in the majors. He's a career .283 hitter in the minors, so I kind of doubt his potential to hit for average in the majors. With no power and a mediocre average, his best case scenario is to become TynyOF, Jr. (Except that Delmon already beat him to the punch.)
.248/.276/.327 -- Jose Morales, 2008, 101 AB
Morales got some people excited with his .311 average last year in Rochester, but he's a career .277/.323/.367 with little chance of being anything more than an emergency catcher in the majors, unless his defensive skills are a lot better than the Twins are touting them to be. (And he only has 9 CS with 22 SB against so far this year.)
38.0 IP, 36 K, 15 BB, 5 HR -- Kevin Mulvey, 2008
His ERA is ~4.00 now, but I'm still pretty happy with how Mulvey has thrown so far. Lots of strikeouts and a fairly reasonable walk rate. Right now, his numbers are eerily similar to Bonser's first year (at age 23 no less) in Rochester:
154.0 IP, 8.5 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 3.99 ERA -- Boof Bonser, 2005, age 23
38.0 IP, 8.5 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, 4.03 ERA -- Kevin Mulvey, 2008, age 23
Combined with Mulvey's fairly solid track record going into this year, he seems like he can be a decent pitcher for the Twins in the future.
34.0 IP, 21 K, 16 BB, 2 HR -- Philip Humber, 2008
Meh. Needs more control. Positive: hasn't gotten re-injured.
33.1 IP, 27 K, 17 BB, 2 HR -- Glen Perkins, 2008
Meh. Needs more control. Positive: hasn't gotten re-injured.
19.1 IP, 15 K, 14 BB, 1 HR -- Francisco Liriano, 2008
Meh. Needs more control. Positive: hasn't gotten re-injured.
New Britain Rock Cats
.322/.386/.461 -- Dustin Martin, 2008, 115 AB
That's an alright line if he's got good defensive skills, but still, not a whole lot of power to speak of. His career minor league line is .302/.376/.439. There's a certain school of thought that good hitters can develop into power hitters but that power hitters have trouble developing into good hitters. It seems possible that Martin could fall into former category, but the Twins don't exactly have a stellar track record of developing hitters with power. Overall, his future outlook seems to be that of a major league backup. (Which, honestly, isn't so much different than the sort of value you get on average with a late 1st round draft pick.)
.290/.338/.427 -- Trevor Plouffe, 2008, 124 AB
Not too awful for a SS if he's got the defensive abilities that the Twins think he has.
.388/.448/.682 -- Luke Hughes, 2008, 129 AB
Hughes is a career .274/.331/.408 hitter. His strikeouts and walks look about the same as last year. I'd call this a fluke performance, and if we're really optimistic about Hughes his combined line at AA last year and this year is .313/.382/.509. He looks like the next Matt Tolbert to me. I guess there are worse fates in prospectdom.
.248/.310/.376 -- Matt Moses, 2008, 133 AB
Not a prospect.
.192/.286/.218 -- Drew Butera, 2008, 78 AB
The only position where you can put up with offensive "production" like that is pitcher.
36.0 IP, 23 K, 6 BB, 4 HR -- Yohan Pino, 2008
Scouts thought that the strikeouts would vanish as he started facing better hitters, and so far they have. Maybe a bullpen option some day?
23.1 IP, 21 K, 12 BB, 0 HR, 0 GS, 0.23 ERA -- Zach Ward, 2008
The bullpen has treated Ward alright so far. Control has been a bit of a problem, but his career walk rate suggests that should improve some. Probably won't be a shut-down reliever, but might be a useful middle innings option some day.
44.1 IP, 25 K, 19 BB, 3 HR -- Ryan Mullins, 2008
Meh. It's pretty early, but his strikeout rate has dipped and his walk rate has increased. At 24, isn't exactly young for AA. He could still be useful in some role, but I don't see much to get excited about here.
Ft. Myers Miracle
.323/.403/.492 -- Daniel Valencia, 2008
At 23, he's kind of old for High A, so I'd like to see what he could do in AA, but Hughes is currently blocking him there. So far, so good with the bat, though.
.225/.293/.369 -- Wilson Ramos, 2008
Ramos had a solid year in Beloit last year, and got ranked highly on Baseball America's Twins prospect list last year, but he's struggled so far this year. Fortunately, the walks and most of the power are still there.
.219/.402/.411 -- Whitney Robbins, 2008
Robbins has had a lot of trouble hitting for average in high A--both this year and last--but this year his walk rate is crazy and a nearly .200 ISO in the FSL is actually pretty good. What's almost even more baffling is that he doesn't have a ton of strikeouts like you might expect with a low-average, high-power guy. He probably doesn't have much of a future, but might be worth keeping an eye on as a potential future DH.
39.0 IP, 37 K, 13 BB, 0 HR -- Jeff Manship, 2008
Control could maybe be better, but at 23 I'm not really sure what he's still doing in Florida.
36.1 IP, 36 K, 16 BB, 1 HR -- Tyler Robertson, 2008
Also, control could maybe be better, but he's looking good. At age 20, this seems like the right level for him so far.
33.1 IP, 21 K, 12 BB, 2 HR -- Deolis Guerra, 2008
He's young for the FSL, but I'm still not terribly impressed. Still a long ways off.
Beloit Snappers
.392/.436/.529 -- Ben Revere, 2008, 51 AB
Not much in the way of walks, but when we're dealing with small sample sizes and you're hitting .392, I can live with a certain amount of aggression. Revere's a career .339/.398/.475 hitter so far and has started his career a lot better than Denard Span did, at least.
.226/.312/.363 -- Joe Benson, 2008, 124 AB
Walk rate's okay, power's okay for a CF in the MWL. The low average is a concern, even adjusting for the rigors of the MWL. I guess I can see where people see the potential, but I can't say I'm much of a fan until he shows he can hit at least .270 or so.
.233/.377/.485 -- Chris Parmelee, 2008, 103 AB
Our very own Rob Deer? Or perhaps Jack Cust? He's been getting on base and hitting for power, but his batting average is a concern for now.
Overall
I don't see any sure-thing star regulars in the farm system at the moment, but there are a few players that should help the Twins fill out the odds and ends of their roster for cheap in the future.
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meat
and you said you lost your doom and gloom.
ubelmann
It's not my fault that outside of Chris Parmelee there's no power in the system, and seemingly half of the promising pitchers are walking a hitter every other inning. (Okay, the last part is a bit of an exaggeration, but I really think that good control is a big deal for minor league pitchers.)
zooomx
no wonder TRyan vacated the position he so long held. It is going to be a challenging 3-4 years with these guys on the horizon.
ubelmann
I'll say this much: drafting in the second half (as opposed to the first half) of the [edit: first round] is a pretty big handicap when it comes to finding everyday players or ace pitchers. The talent in the first half of the first round is typically really excellent, while a typical player in the second half of the draft isn't all that different from Jason Tyner or Emil Brown. There's a lot of variance around that mean, but it's not all that easy drafting with lower picks.
brianS
by "second half" of the draft you mean...? After Round X? Or after the 15th pick of the first round?
Just for funsies, I looked at the origins of the leaderboard members in SLG for 2007.
Of the 20 players (10 each league), 7 were drafted in the first round, 7 were originally signed as free agents (including Alfonso Soriano, who came from Japan) -- mostly Latin players, and the balance were selected in rounds 3-24 (one in the 3rd, one in the 5th, one in the 7th, two in the 13th and one in the 24th).
I guess one way to read this small sample is that the expected number of top-shelf performers via the draft are about equal from the first-round as from all of the other rounds combined.
ubelmann
Or after the 15th pick of the first round?
That one. I think I made my edit sometime while you were writing your comment, after I'd realized that was not exactly what I wanted to write.
I guess one way to read this small sample is that the expected number of top-shelf performers via the draft are about equal from the first-round as from all of the other rounds combined.
IIRC, that turns out also to be true if you look at more players and use VORP for determining who the best are. I'm continually amazed at just how well teams can scout given that HS players (and even a lot of college players) are so far away from being finished products. Sure, there are exceptions (Pujols, Piazza, etc.) but by and large they do a pretty darned good job.
brianS
it also suggests a pretty sharp talent gradient with a long tail. It's hard to believe that there are only ~15-20 future major league regulars (i.e., destined to be significantly above replacement level) being produced per year in a population of ~300 million, but there it is.
Screwing up a top-15 pick is really bad news (or really bad luck). Whereas getting significant contributors out of the rest of the draft is more like just good luck.
ubelmann
Whereas getting significant contributors out of the rest of the draft is more like just good luck.
I think this statement needs more justification. It might be true that it's mostly good luck if you look at an individual pick, but when you start to look over the hundreds of picks you get over a decade of drafts, the luck should start to wash out.
brianS
It might be true that it's mostly good luck if you look at an individual pick, but when you start to look over the hundreds of picks you get over a decade of drafts, the luck should start to wash out.
what I mean is that individual success stories aren't really predictable in these later rounds. you know that a handful will eventually make it to the bigs, but not which ones.
Pujols was a 13th-round pick; Jim Thome, 13th; Jorge Posada, 24th. Because baseball casts such a wide net, a few surprises are bound to pop up every now and then. But you really can't credit the scouts or the GMs for Pujols, Thome or Posada. Dumb luck.
ubelmann
I'm arguing that you can credit them if you look at what average value is for all of their picks and compare it to the value they got from the picks. If they do better than average, overall, in rounds 2-50 than other teams, then they draft well. But a good drafting crew is going to be more likely to turn up a Pujols or Thome even if those chances are still slim.
So the Cardinals aren't geniuses for picking Pujols, but if they consistently get higher than average value, maybe they are. Pujols is a data point in that story and it's just as silly to toss him out as "dumb luck" as it would be to make your entire case based on Pujols alone.
brianS
My response would be "what's the probability distribution?"
Of course, some years will be better than others, due to dumb luck. If you can demonstrate that an organization is consistently better (or worse) than others, then you've got something.
I can certainly believe that to be true (some organizations are better/worse than average, consistently). But I'd guess that to be a hard standard to meet. Particularly since so much of the weight of draft "success" or "failure" seems to fall on round one, with a big chunk of the residual falling on round two and/or sandwich picks.
brianS
I'm arguing that you can credit them if you look at what average value is for all of their picks and compare it to the value they got from the picks.
I should have added here: if they so smart, why did they wait until the 13th round to take Pujols or Thome? I think that's the main evidence in favor of the "luck" interpretation.
If an organization really is getting better information, wouldn't you expect a fairly smooth decline in career VORP by draft position for that organization's draft history? That is, they consistently pick higher-success players earlier.
so that's what we need: a franchise-by-franchise plot of career VORP/WARP/choose your counting stat against draft position. Regress your counting stat on a polynomial of draft position. If the best-fitting curve is monotonically declining, then we have evidence that the organization knows what it is doing. If, on the other hand, it's non-monotonic, prolly not. Eh?
ubelmann
Probably something like that. I mean, if you don't want to give, say, the Cardinals a ton of credit for Pujols being a superstar, you could do something a bit more reserved like capping the max value that we can credit to an organization in a certain round. If you're in the 13th round, you can only get credit for 10 lifetime WARP3 or something like that. That way they still get some credit while acknowledging that they certainly didn't know exactly what they had on their hands.
brianS
I'm not a BP subscriber, so I can't read Rany Jazayerli's series on the draft, but this piece is pretty interesting.
(that's WARP accumulated in the player's first 6 years of Majors experience -- if accumulated during first 10 years of pro experience)
E-6
Screwing up a top-15 pick is really bad news (or really bad luck.)
How about screwing up the #2 pick? Ladies and germs, a big round of yawns for Adam Johnson.
StatFreak101
Dustin Martin = Dustin Mohr?
ubelmann
Martin looks better so far, I would say, but it's not too far off. Looking at their SB%, I wouldn't be surprised if Martin is faster, which probably gives him a bit of an edge on defense, too, and it's a bit tough to judge Martin with fewer than 1000 professional PA, but he seems to be a better hitter for average.
brianS
Dustin Martin = Dustin Mohr?
Mohr or Less.
sheesh. Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here??
E-6
Capital PUNishment?
davidwatts
For what its worth, Denard Span has homered in 3 straight games