Twins Draft Philosophy - TSN

[Lip Man 1]

The Sporting News print edition this week has an interesting feature story on the Twins and their draft philosophy.

I guess you can subtitle it, 'how a small market club can somehow find a way to keep winning...'

The story outlines three ares of the philosophy and discusses them...patience, stability and flexibility.

I found this comment in the patience section revealing especially compared to the way the Sox do things. (and I've often wondered why the Sox do things the way they do!)

"With the exception of Joe Mauer most of the Twins have endured more then there share of long bus rides in the minors. Corey Koskie, Doug Mientkiewicz and Matt LeCroy all of whom played college ball, piled up more then 1,700 at bats in the minors, a healthy number for a player drafted out of high school .

Tori Hunter,who was a high school pick, toiled in the farm system for most of his first seven years in pro ball, getting more then 2,000 at bats.

Twins pitchers are also given plenty of innings in the minors, serving apprenticeships that often are interrupted by brief call up's to the big club."

Submitted for discussion.

Lip

[pearso66]

maybe letting people toil away in the minors, they will come up right away and ahve 2-3 good years But then of course they are so old their careers are over

[ShoelessFred]

how many at bats has Joe Crede had in the minors? Hasn't helped him.

[Lip Man 1]

Pears:

I'm confused by your reply. Are you saying that if a player comes up at 25 or 26 he's done by the time he's 30? With the training procedures today and with advancements in medicine most players perform well into their late 30's and some perform well into their 40's.

Let's turn the question around. How much harm did the Sox do to pitchers like Garland and Wright (to name two off the top of my head) by rushing them to the majors when they didn't have a feel for what to do and how to succeed?

Considering the lack of success overall (as has been discussed often here at WSI) by the young Sox pitchers en masse over the past ten years maybe it's time the Sox change their philosopy and try somethine different with them. After all you have six years before a minor league player can become a free agent if he hasn't made the big leagues.

Shoeless: I can't explain Crede except maybe he's not the 'next Robin Ventura.' I'm particularly talking about pitchers as opposed to position players. The Sox have had some success with everyday players up from the minors.

Lip

[34 Inch Stick]

The reason they don't fly through the minor leagues is that few of their players has real star potential. Koskie, Mientkewich and even Torii Hunter are all good but not great players. You would expect these types to not reach the majors until their mid 20's.

The players with star potential like Mauer and Santana were up here as early as any other teams potential stars.