Emulating Success: The Royals, Twins and the Small-Market Formula

I'll start off with a house-keeping item...I'd like to officially welcome Bryan Chapman as a writer to this blog. Bryan grew up in Kansas City and has been a Royals fan throughout his life. He'll be writing about mostly Royals and Cubs-related things (he’s a Cubs season-ticket holder) as well as other general baseball topics as we try to get this blog rolling again. We might have a 3rd writer coming on soon (another Twins fan) but Bryan and I are still in the process of applying peer-pressure so we'll let you know what happens.

Since this blog is now a Twins/Royals blog, I thought I would start by comparing the two teams and seeing if my beloved Twins might share some things in common with the Royals. Major League Baseball is very much a league of copycats and I think, in many ways, the Twins are following a very similar path to success that the Royals have just completed. The Royals and Dayton Moore, it can be argued, were simply following a formula for small-market MLB success that was pioneered by the Marlins and Rays (and the Twins, to an extent).

In 1993 the Florida Marlins were created as part of an expansion move by Major League Baseball. Their first 4 seasons were all losing seasons and then suddenly, in 1997, the Marlins broke through and won it all. After winning the 1997 World Series, they immediately dismantled the team, lost 108 games in 1998 and started building again. All told, they had 5 straight losing seasons before winning it all again in 2003. They never spent a lot of money and created a model based on building from within and then adding key free agent pieces when the homegrown talent started to appear at the Major League level. The Tampa Bay Rays have a very similar story - they were an expansion franchise in 1998, and lost 90+ games for 10 straight seasons before breaking through and making it to the World Series in 2007 (which they lost). The Marlins and the Rays were the modern blueprint of building via the Draft and then making small free agency splashes when the time was right.

The Royals are a much more storied franchise than either the Marlins or the Rays - they were an expansion team in 1969 and had a stretch from the mid-70s to the mid-80s where they were perennial contenders. From 1975 to 1985, they finished either 1st or 2nd in their division in 10 out of 11 seasons. The rest of the story has been repeated ad nauseam over the past 6 weeks as the Royals finally broke a 29-year stretch of non-playoff baseball, went on a somewhat miraculous run through the playoffs, and made it all the way to the World Series. The story, however, starts with a change at the GM position in 2006 - when the Royals brought Dayton Moore in to help turn the franchise around.

Dayton Moore cut his teeth as a scout for the Atlanta Braves and eventually worked his way up to Director of Player Personnel Development before leaving the Braves for the GM post with the Royals. Since 2006, Moore has become been quite a controversial figure among Royals fans and is seen as a middle-of-the-road GM around the rest of baseball. He doesn't command the respect of a Billy Beane or Theo Epstein as many of his moves over the past several years have been questioned, but he's also put together a fairly young and very exciting team that could be a contender for several years. He's done it using the blueprint that the Marlins and Rays forged in the late-90s and early 2000s. The primary difference between him and his predecessor in Kansas City, Allard Baird, has been in their approach to player development. I wasn't a rabid baseball fan in the early-2000s when Baird was around, but in looking at the moves he made, it appears he viewed young talent as trading pieces to land bigger groups of young-ish talent, most notably trading away budding stars like Damon and Beltran in multi-team, multi-player deals.

Moore inherited a team that had some decent pieces in the farm system including Alex Gordon and Billy Butler and they had a mentally-shaky Zack Greinke who was just getting started in the Majors. Moore immediately set about stocking the shelves of the farm system and within 3 years he had a farm system full of players that are now on the Major League roster: Greg Holland (2007), Danny Duffy (2007), Mike Moustakas (2007), Eric Hosmer (2008), Yordano Ventura (International Signing 2008), Salvador Perez (International signing 2006), Jarrod Dyson (2006) and Wil Myers (2009). In 2009, he traded away Greinke and received Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, and Jake Odorizzi. As some of that talent started to reach the Majors, Moore started to add free agents here and there without losing many of the pieces that the Royals had developed. He traded away Myers and Odorizzi to land James "Big Game" Shields and Wade Davis (both integral cogs of the 2014 team) and also added Norichika Aoki, Jeremy Guthrie and Omar Infante. He followed the recipe perfectly – building from within and then adding the missing pieces via trades and free-agency when the window started to open.

So where do the Twins fit into all of this and, if they are indeed following the same formula, where are they in the process?

I mentioned in my opening that the Twins were one of those teams that, along with the Marlins and Rays, helped to blaze a path to winning baseball for small-market teams. All of us remember 2002-2010 and how great it was to see the Twins become a year-in, year-out contender. That success, however, was built on a pile of losing seasons which allowed the Twins to gather some blue-chip prospects like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, and Michael Cuddyer. The Twins brass ended up being more lucky than skilled as all of those aforementioned players arrived in the Majors at about the same time, setting the stage for several years of winning baseball in Minnesota.

Since 2010, this team has been one of the worst in baseball – there are no two ways about it. The losing, however, hasn’t been without its benefits as the Twins have been able to build a fairly powerhouse farm system that features some of the best prospects in baseball. Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano are at the top of the class, but the Twins have a bevy of talent in the middle rungs of the organization depth chart that could be sniffing the Majors within 1-3 years. The Twins had five of Baseball America’s Midseason Top 50 Prospects and have the top ranked farm system in the Majors according to Baseball Prospectus. The Twins are essentially in the same position the Royals were about 5 years ago…a stable full of talent that they are waiting for.

It seems obvious that the Twins are at least attempting to follow the template for success that has been utilized by other similar small market teams. In fact, it could be argued that if you, as a small-market team owner, are not willing to spend a lot of money on payroll, your only real chance to compete is using the model that was pioneered by the Marlins and Rays. The Twins have taken advantage of their losing ways by filling their Minor League talent pipeline. Over the last few seasons, they have also cut their payroll down quite a bit, from $113MM in 2011 to $85.5MM in 2014 (and even less in 2015), which should give them some room to dabble in free-agency once some of these prospects start to burst onto the scene. It remains to be seen whether the Twins will actually open up the pocket book when the time comes, but that’s another blog post altogether.

The question for the Twins, and that the Royals had even as recently as earlier this year is, “will this all pan out?” Sano missed most of this past season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Buxton hasn’t been able to stay healthy at all and had recent surgery that ended his Arizona Fall League season. Some of the talent that we have started to see with the Major League club, most notably Trevor May, has struggled mightily. Other unexpected call-ups have been quite impressive (Danny Santana, Kennys Vargas). There are some young arms in the system that seem to hold a lot of promise but that are still in Single-A and Double-A (Jose Berrios and Kohl Stewart). There are some Triple-A arms that have lost some of the luster as time has passed (the aforementioned May and his former battery-mate Alex Meyer). In summary, there are a lot of question marks and no quick answers. This team, at a minimum, is still at least two years away from being competitive and probably at least 3-4 years away from being a playoff contender. That seems like a long time but when this is the model you’re following, patience (and some luck) is necessary.

One thing that will be interesting to watch with the Royals going forward is seeing how they handle the free agency of their own players. Many of their core players (Hosmer, Moustakas, Cain, Holland) are still under team control for a few years, but James Shields and Billy Butler are free agents this off-season and Alex Gordon will be a free-agent next season. Will the Royals try and re-sign either Butler or Shields? Will they pony-up to keep some of these other core players on the team, or will they try and trade them away to see what they can get to keep their farm system stocked? It’s the ultimate dilemma in the small-market success formula. Spend to try and keep the winning window open awhile longer, or trade away valuable pieces for more young talent and another chance to catch lightening in a bottle…

Twins Should Rest Mauer, Morneau, Span, etc...

It's over. It's been over for awhile now - and as of today it looks like Detroit might run away with the division. I suppose that's ok, seems like every 3 years or so they ride Justin Verlander/Miguel Cabrera to a division crown. The Twins can't win the division every year, right? Now that everyone's on the same page about "it" being over, the Twins should be shifting their attention to the off-season and, ultimately, to next season. There isn't much they can do right now to change up their personnel besides throwing people on waivers and hoping that someone bites. That said, they can take steps right now to make next year's team better and I think that starts with giving banged up guys like Mauer, Morneau and Co. some major rest during the last painful month of the regular season.

After spending 2 months on the DL to start the season, Joe Mauer hasn't looked his old self this season and coming into tonight, Mauer has a .287/.347/.349 hitting line through 285 PAs with only 14 of his 74 total hits going for extra bases (13 doubles, 1HR). One possible reason for his poor hitting could be that he has been playing a couple of different field positions than he's used to - but that's unlikely to account for much of it - especially for a guy who came into this year with a career .888 OPS. The more likely culprit for Mauer's poor season at the plate is that he isn't fully healed yet and though Mauer has made a valiant effort up until now to "grind it out" (his words), there isn't much point to it now so why not give the guy an extra month to heal up.

As for Justin Morneau, call it rust if you must but he's looked pretty terrible as well since coming back from the DL on August 12th. In the 9 games since then, he has only 5 hits in 37 PAs and he's walked 2 times against 7 strikeouts. Morneau has been belabored by injuries for well over a year now, why make the guy grind it out during a lost season when you can give him ample time off down the stretch and have him back next year closer to 100%.

It hardly stops with Mauer and Morneau. Just having both of those guys back near 100% would make a huge difference next year, no doubt about it. If I'm the Twins front office, I think about shutting down Denard Span and Scott Baker (and Blackburn) for the rest of the season as well. There is simply no point in trying to get these guys back because at this point, it is more beneficial for this team to lose games than it is for them to win games...

I'm not suggesting that this team purposely tank games, but why rush your star players back just so you can win a couple more games than you otherwise would have? I'm suggesting that the Twins should rest their ailing stars, maybe this team loses a bunch of games, but hey, they get a better draft pick next season. If that player ends up being important to this ballclub down the line, wouldn't it have been worth it? It's a convoluted way of looking at things I know, but it's a reality the Twins might as well embrace. At this point, there is no benefit to having Mauer, Morneau, D-Span, or Bake out on the field. Obviously the Twins aren't going to come out and say, "hey, we're gonna give the M&M boys 2-3 days off per week in September", but if they just did it, I would understand and even be in support of it. I want this team to be a contender in 2012 and I don't think I'm alone there and I think resting these semi-injured players gives them the best shot at that.

Fence Sitters

Thanks to great performances by Ervin Santana, John Danks and Brian Duensing yesterday, the Twins find themselves 6 games behind 1st place with only 4 days remaining till the trade deadline...what is Bill Smith gonna do? So far I've heard rumors involving Denard Span and Michael Cuddyer, hopefully they are just that because the type of rumors I've heard (Span for Drew Storen/Ian Desmond) do not sound favorable for the Twins. As for me, I honestly do not care whether the Twins are sellers or not in the next few days. My only hope is that if they do move a few pieces, they get good value in return.

I think this past week has highlighted just how tall a task it is to gain ground in a division when there are three teams ahead of you. With the White Sox, Tigers and Indians all seemingly playing one another, there have been more than a few nights where at least one of those teams is guaranteed to win which puts pressure on the the Twins to win or fall even further behind. Fortunately the White Sox have put away division-leading Detroit the past couple of nights, but if they (the White Sox) get into the mix at the top, that will only further complicate the Twins struggle to get to the top.

We've been seeing some really positive things from Joe Mauer these past couple of days. Two nights ago Mauer hit a pinch-hit double in a come-from-behind Twins victory. Last night Mauer went 2-for-4 with his first homerun of the year and, not only that, his single was to the opposite field, a good sign that he is seeing the ball well. My dream scenario would be Mauer finding his power stroke while continuing to hit for average - and then Morneau returns in mid-August and immediately starts hitting...ok, maybe it's far-fetched, but if it happens it could make September pretty interesting.

Focusing the microscope a little on the Twins pitching staff...after going 17-9 with a 3.08/1.26 ERA/WHIP in June, the pitching staff as a whole has come back to earth in July, going 15-10 with a 4.47/1.36 ERA/WHIP. I'd love to try and spin this by saying something like, "but their xFIP this month is 2.50" but that is sadly untrue. The 4.47 ERA looks a lot more like April (4.88) and May's (4.87) than it does June which suggests to me that June was probably a little flukey. The Twins starters, in particular, are going to need to be a lot more consistent if they have any hope of reaching the playoffs. Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing have been the most inconsistent over the past few weeks, to the point where it almost impossible to predict how any one of the aforementioned pitchers is going to fare in any given start. To highlight that a bit, Twins starters had a 3.00 ERA in June and so far in July they have a 4.44 ERA...that's not going to cut it when you're chasing down 3 teams in your own division.

I guess I feel a little silly saying things like "if the Twins have any hope of winning the division". Realistically, they don't stand much of a chance. Baseball Prospectus publishes a playoff odds report every day and it is based off statistics that they run through simulator 1,000,000 times and today they have the Twins playoff chances at 5.0%. By comparison, the Tigers have a 62.4% chance and the White Sox have a 23.8% chance of making the playoff. So, like I said, unlikely...but hey, this season has been all about trying to keep the hope alive, so why stop now right?

Random Twins Stuff

Well, I made it. My wife and I bought our first house and closed at the end of April and then spent every evening of the next three weeks sanding, taping, painting, and moving. It was exhausting, but now it's all done and I can get back to the things I love to do, like writing about the Twins. I was able to very passively follow the Twins while this was all going on and I was just as happy to have the distraction since the team was playing so poorly. Happily as I've transitioned back in normal life, the Twins have started playing better. Thank you for bearing with this blog and thanks to Matt for picking up some of the slack. In news unrelated to the Twins, our very own Matt Larson was recently on Jeopardy! and not only was he on Jeopardy!, he managed to win his first round by $1. Congratulations Matt!

I'm not one to even bother reporting "site news" normally, but this is a little different. TheBatShatters recently joined the Baseball Bloggers Alliance which is a grouping of 298 (currently) baseball blogs. It's a pretty cool group, and you can expect to see a post or two now and again related to the BBA. If you want to check out their webpage, you can find it here. Well-known Twins blogger Seth Stohs (SethSpeaks) is the president of the Twins chapter of the BBA.

Odd and kinda scary news out of Twins camp this afternoon. It appears that Denard Span is suffering from some sort of vertigo or something that will keep him from playing for at least the next few days. ESPN1500 is reporting that D-Span is headed back to the Twin Cities to meet with doctors to try to figure out what is going on. What's odd is that it's likely not a concussion as D-Span was checked out for that recently following a collision at home plate during the series with KC. Unfortunately it's just another in a long line of injuries for the Twins who will now have to figure out a way of getting around the loss of their lead-off man for at least a couple of games.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka has begun a rehab assignment with the Fort Myers Miracle this week and it's been reported that he has been doing a lot of work with Paul Molitor on avoiding collisions at 2nd base. I wish I could find it, but I saw a pretty cool video on how they're trying to teach Nishioka the art of the jump throw. Basically they're tossing a beach ball at him while he makes throws to first, pretty clever idea if you ask me. Teammate and Twins superstar Joe Mauer has also started a rehab assignment of sorts with the Miracle and while he's not eligible to come off the DL until June 12th, it looks like things are headed in a positive direction (finally!) for Joe and I would expect to see him back with the Major League ballclub within a couple of weeks.

After the final two games of the series with the Indians, the Twins will start a 10-game homestand against the Rangers, White Sox and Padres and, in fact, 19 out of their next 25 games following the Indians series will be at Target Field. For a road-weary team this has got to be good news and it is giving me hope that maybe this team can go on a little run. Coming into play they are 11.5 games out, but with a couple of more wins tonight and tomorrow night they could cut that lead down to 9.5 and then you consider that there are still about 100 games left of the season and well...ok, let's not get carried away. Go Twins!

Start of Something Better?

Though his velocity is still not quite where it was last year, Francisco Liriano took a major step forward last night against the Mariners, striking out 9 batters while only walking one. Granted, yes, it was the Mariners, whose offense is pretty much triple-A level, but the major takeaway I'm seeing is that Liriano's control was improved, which really is the key to his success. Here are a few other highlights:

- 65% of his pitches were strikes (72/110)
- He threw first pitch strikes to 17 out of 26 batters-faced
- He tallied 18 swinging strikes (16.3%) which is a vast improvement over the 10.9 swinging strike percentage he has averaged so far this year
- Induced 7 groundball outs vs. 5 flyball outs which means he was keeping his pitches down

Over his last three starts, Liriano has a no-hitter, a 3-hitter (last night) and one dud game in which he was pulled early due to illness. His ERA over 19 innings so far in May is 2.37 compared to an April ERA of 9.13. I'll need to see a couple more quality starts to say for sure, but it looks like Liriano is slowly settling in and I think his start last night could be the start of a good run for him.

In other news, Joe Mauer is headed to Ft. Meyers for extended spring training which is a positive sign. Though no timetable has been set for his return, the fact that he is moving his rehab there suggests that he is getting much closer to playing in some minor league games. Jim Thome and Tsuyoshi Nishioka are also down at Ft. Meyers and by all accounts, both of them are progressing well...it would be a boon to the Twins offense to have all three of them return...hopefully they will all be back soon.

Michael Cuddyer is having himself a pretty good May so far. In 49 May at-bats, he is hitting .327/.400/.408 with a healthy 8:6 K:BB ratio. Meanwhile Danny Valencia's "season of regression" continues. After hitting just .217/.294/.315 in April, he has followed that up with an equally poor May (so far), hitting .220/.304/.340. Despite an excellent 18:16 K:BB ratio, Valencia simply isn't getting as "lucky" this year, watching his BABIP drop from .345 last year to .231 so far this season. Basically, for as lucky as he was last year, he has been equally unlucky so far this year...

This stretch in the Twins schedule might be a good place to turn things around. Tonight they start a two-game series at Oakland, then it's off to play 3 with the Arizona Diamondback (18-23), before coming home to play 3 more against the Mariners and Angels. After that the Twins have a slew of division games against Detroit, Cleveland and KC. Here's to hoping anyway...

How One Small Trade Could be the Un-Doing of the Mauer Deal

I have Joe Mauer on my fantasy baseball team. My fantasy baseball team was recently named "All Hail Joe Mauer" until I recently changed it to "Bilateral Leg Weakness". I have reached in each of the last two fantasy baseball drafts to assure that I would get Mauer. I DVRed his Head & Shoulders commercials...ok, that last one is made up. Needless to say I like the guy, as a player and as a person, so you can imagine the angst that his injury has caused me, especially with the continuing mystery as to when we might see him back on the field. I was reading around the Twins blogs yesterday and came across this piece by Nick Nelson. It's a very honest look at the Joe Mauer situation...but it's hard to read because of the truths it contains.

Nick's piece got me thinking...how could the Twins have gotten themselves into this situation when less than a year ago, they had an effing logjam at catcher that every team would have been envious of. For those of you who've forgotten: 

Jose Morales - C - Age 28
The Twins drafted Morales in the 3rd round of the 2001 draft and his arbitration eligibility would have started in 2012; he would not have been a free-agent until 2016. The Twins decided to trade him for a minor league pitcher, Paul Bargas, in December of last year. Morales has been a back-up for the Rockies this year and hasn't exactly lit the world on fire, but his .630 OPS, as paltry as that is, is still 280 points better than the Twins best option so far this season. Meanwhile Paul Bargas, the guy the Twin traded Morales for, has tragically been diagnosed with brain cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. My point here is that the Twins could have kept Morales, passed on the rather average young lefty and been a lot better off right now. 

Wilson Ramos - C - Age 23
The Twins signed young Wilson Ramos as a free-agent in 2004 at the age of 16. Ramos went on to develop nicely in the minors, posting a .285/.332/.431 triple-slash in ~1,600 career MiL plate-appearances. Last year, in the midst of a playoff run, Bill Smith and the Twins front office decided to use the organization's most valuable trade piece to acquire closer Matt Capps from the Washington Nationals. Ramos didn't play much for the Nationals last season (54 total PAs) but this year he has had regular playing time and is hitting .319/.377/.493 so far in 77 PAs with 2HRs and 7 RBI. Like Morales, Ramos won't be a free-agent until 2016. Ramos has accumulated 0.9 WAR (wins above replacement) so far this season while Capps, in his entire time with the Twins to this point, has accumulated about 1.0 WAR.

So, just to make my point glaringly obvious...The Twins had two offensively capable catchers, both of whom would have been under team control through 2015, and traded them FOR RELIEVERS.

More to the point of my overall piece, I believe the Ramos for Capps trade has the potential to ruin the Mauer contract. I have to imagine that the Twins were at least aware that the likelihood of Mauer finishing out his contract as a catcher were slim to none. At age 28, Mauer simply doesn't have many years left behind the plate if he a) wants to remain healthy and b) wants to remain productive. So, knowing that, why did the Twins feel that Ramos was an expendable piece? Wouldn't you plan for the worst-case scenario, especially when it virtually costs you NOTHING to have that insurance in your back pocket? As things stand now, the Twins have no one in the farm system who could play an offensively-competent everyday catcher role and to me, that's a travesty.

During this past off-season, which saw the Twins budget-strapped under the weight of several large contracts, many pointed towards next season when the expiring contracts of Joe Nathan and Michael Cuddyer will free up some extra-cash. Ostensibly the Twins would have used that money to fill some holes in the bullpen and perhaps in the middle-infield as well. Now they need to strongly consider getting a competent back-up catcher as well, a need they would most likely not have had if they had simply held on to Ramos...or even to Morales.

I've been vocal in my criticism of the post-Terry Ryan front-office and my criticism continues. Aside from the moves to bring Orlando Hudson and JJ Hardy on-board following the 2009 season, Bill Smith has made stupid ill-advised move after ill-advised move and now we are seeing the results of that on the field. A team obviously can't anticipate having as many injuries as the Twins have had, but when your depth at key infield positions (2B, SS, C) is as shallow as the Twins have had this season, the blame falls on directly on the General Manager, there is simply no way around that. By trading a valuable organizational asset for an also-ran reliever, Bill Smith has put the future of this team in jeopardy. Time after time he has shown zero foresight and folks, that is major reason why this team is 12-21 coming into their game tonight. Short of a miraculously good run later this year, the Twins will likely finish 3rd or worse in the division this year when they were thought to be a contender for the division crown when the season started.