Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 331: Jason Parks on the Best Farm System in Baseball

Episode Date: November 18, 2013

Ben and Sam talk to Jason Parks about why he thinks the Minnesota Twins have the best minor-league talent in baseball.

hey hey also hey hey also Good morning and welcome to episode 331 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. It's hard to believe this is still happening. If you've been reading the site for the last couple weeks, you've seen that Jason Parks has been doing his team top tens. He's only seven teams in, but on monday his seventh team um was minnesota twins and he revealed that they are in his opinion the best farm system in baseball so we have him on to talk about that to talk about the twins to talk about how they become a best farm system in baseball and whatever else so hi jason hi thanks for having me on. Thanks for producing 331 podcasts. You've listened to every one. Every single one. Every single morning. Some of them twice.

All of them twice. I can't get enough. I can't get enough of baseball perspective. I feel the same way. I can't get enough of baseball perspective. I feel the same way. There's nothing better about a podcast than talking about itself. It's always the best part of a podcast when you talk about it being a podcast. Yeah, I've been there. All right.

So the Twins – well, the question I always have with a top farm system is, did they do something to earn this? Did they do something to get there that any other team wouldn't have done with the same personnel? Is this a situation where they have the best farm system because it's just sort of a collection of talent that coalesced as these things happened cyclically? Or is this an organization that deserves a lot of credit for acquiring and developing the players that they have to the point that they're at right now? This organization deserves a lot of credit. And if you just go down the list of the top ten in the system, it's not all a function of being the worst team in baseball. You know, yeah, maybe they got a little lucky that the best player in the draft fell for them in Buxton, but I think that you can make a case that Correa is no slouch. So I don't think that the Astros are losers there, but the Twins are in a good position

because they weren't a very good team, and they got to pick early, and a guy like Buxton fell for them. So no, as a product of the Latin American market before the cap. They simply just outworked the competition. Sano was probably the most sought-after Latin American prospect in recent memory, at least on the positional side. And every team in baseball wanted a chunk of him. And they were the team that was able to pull it off,

despite, you know, Rene Gaio being in the mix. And Gaio can usually get what he wants. I mean, he's been in that market a long time. And so getting Sano was a big, big deal. The third-ranked prospect, Alex Meyer, is a guy that they flipped in a trade. You know, that's a guy that's a 6'9 right-hander that, you know, at that level where he was at the time, that's a guy you can get rid of, but it's high risk, high reward, and I think the Twins had good scouting on that.

Cole Stewart is a guy that they got early on in the draft, but he wasn't 1-1, although he could have been 1-1. A lot of people certainly thought he had that talent. But look at guys like, you knowite Pinto or Eddie Rosario. These are guys that weren't one-one type of picks. These weren't seven-figure Latin American signings. Keep going down the list. You have Australian guys on there.

You have Puerto Rican guys on there. You have Dominican guys on there. You have Puerto Rican guys on there. You have Dominican guys on there. This is an organization that knows how to acquire in just about every market, you know, the North American amateur market, the Latin American markets, the trade markets. This is a really good organization and this is a very, very deep system. So is that very uncommon for a farm system to be built this way, where it's just talent coming from everywhere? Or do most teams have a specialty where they're really good at drafting or they're really good at signing players from one particular country,

and then they don't really have the all-around acquisition skills that Minnesota seems to? Well, I mean, I think that luck is involved here because once you get a player in the developmental system, you know, it's going to take its own course. I mean, obviously, you're going to put your hands on him and you're going to hope that he develops the way that you see fit, but it's also got to exist inside the player. So you can get lucky with, you know, a couple amateur players from the North American market really blowing up.

And then all of a sudden, you look like a team that knows how to develop that talent or knows how to acquire it, and maybe partially that's true. But I think that some teams, it depends on the cycle, but some teams are just better at acquiring Latin American talent, or they're better at acquiring college players, or they're better at acquiring high school players. They're a better track record here. or they're better at acquiring high school players.

They have a better track record here. This twin system, I mean, it's not the most North American system in baseball. I mean, you look at the top ten, Sano, Pinto, Berrios, Rosario, Thorpe, Felix Jose, Jorge Polanco. These are guys that were either Puerto Rican or Dominican or from Australia. Their international scouting system is very, very good. And some of these guys have ridiculous ceilings. This is a system that's not just boom or bust.

They have depth at every level. They have impact guys at every level. And some of these guys have some pretty safe feelings for being so-called boomer bust Latin American guys. I mean, you look at the Felix Jorge's or the Rosario's or the Berrios's. These guys are not like flame out and low A type of guys. I mean, they're impact guys even if they don't hit their ceiling i mean i just love this system the deeper i went the more talent i found i could have ranked 20 guys and been happy with it yes i was gonna ask and i don't know how big the gap is between number one and and whatever you think the number two system is but i was gonna ask what

separates this system whether it was the high ceiling talent or the depth of talent. And it, it sounds like it's just both of those things. Well, I mean, what's interesting about it and, um, the number two system in baseball for me, and I've, of course, I haven't really gone through and ranked the systems yet, but the cursory look, I think that it's going to be Chicago, the Cubs. And, um, I actually think that the twins are kind of a perfect marriage between the Cubs high impact, limited depth, and the Houston Astros big time depth, not a ton of impact.

Because the twins have, it got the quality genes from both. It has the impact and it has the depth. So it has the depth of the Astros system and it has the impact of the Cubs system. Everybody talks about the big four, the Cubs. Maybe you add in T.J. Edwards as an arm if you're really that high on him, which I'm not. You still have those four guys, Solaire, Bryant, Baez, and Amor

in the Cubs system that are probably top 30 guys. Four of the top 30 prospects in baseball. Look at the top of the 20s list. I mean, you have Buxton. He's the best prospect in baseball. He's one of the best prospects I've ever seen. Then you have Miguel Sano.

He's a top 10 guy. You have Alex Meyer, who's a top 25, top 30 guy. Cole Stewart could have been 1-1 in this draft. You know, he's a top 50 guy. You have to know Pinto is a guy that he's really under the prospect radar because, you know, he's an older guy. He's a six-year free agent type. And the bats started to come along.

But this is a guy who plays at a premium position. You know, he's not an over 300 hitter like he showed at the major league level this year. But he can swing a bat. He can swing for power. He has good catch and throw skills, and he's a good receiver. That's a hell of a prospect. power. He has good catch and throw skills and he's a good receiver. That's a hell of a prospect. So how much does the balance impact the ranking for you? Because you mentioned the Cubs at number two and the four top guys that you like the most are all position players. Whereas in the Minnesota

system, you've got five pitchers, five position players in the top 10. Does that impact your ranking of them at all? It doesn't, not one bit. I look at the talent as just talent. If you showed me a system that had 10 badass position players but not a single good pitcher, well, you know what? They still have 10 badass prospects. And I'm going to judge it by that because they're all commodities.

You know, the Cubs can flip Baez for just about anybody they wanted at this point. You know, you want to go out and get an arm and compete? Well, you could flip Baez and trust me, you could get somebody to listen. Same with the Twins. I mean, you think if they dangled Buxton, they could get any pitcher they wanted? You know, it's all currency now. And so I don't really care. I just, I look at the talent. I mean, look, from an organizational standpoint, you want to see depth just because you can promote from within. You don't have to use it as trades.

Trades are risky because you're not, you're trading for talent that you haven't been around, that you didn't procure in the first place and that you can't speak on the makeup of. You know, but you can still make that trade. Now, would an organization prefer to have balance? Absolutely. Is it a necessity? For me, it doesn't even register. So as far as developing these guys, I mean, that's a huge part of it. And I always want to ask this, and I't know if if there is an answer but i always want to

ask if there's any sort of organizational philosophy that's you know unique to this club or you know if not unique at least kind of sets them apart from you know the other 29 is there much variety between the the um uh the different organizations or are they all pretty much uh you know trying to do the same thing with players and some just do it a little bit better here and there and maybe have a better coach here and there and maybe get a little lucky here and there? Or can you distinguish?

I can distinguish them. I'm not sure that I can explain how I distinguish them, if that makes any sense. I think that ultimately it comes down to talent, and I'm not going to take credit away from developmental systems because they work their ass off. It's multi-tiered. It's very complicated.

But ultimately it comes down to the talent. The teams that acquire the best talent tend to develop the best talent. And so I think it starts with acquisition, and then it goes into a developmental program. Yeah, teams are different. I think it starts with acquisition, and then it goes into a developmental program. Yeah, teams are different. I think the Twins are pretty good when it comes to pitchers. They're pretty slow. They work on their mechanics.

They can take guys with stiff mechanics and add some fluidity to them. You know, and then you take an organization that everybody talks about being the best in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, well, these are people that from an acquisition standpoint, they look for latent velocity. They look for hitters that can square velocity. It's a fastball league, and they definitely go after guys who can produce with fastballs and can hit fastballs.

They get into the developmental system, and players are developed to be who they can be, not something that they cannot be. I think that there are developmental systems in baseball that try to develop players into something that they cannot possibly be to fit an organizational model. I think that that can be inherently flawed. I think that the Cardinals recognize that better than any team in baseball

and develop players with a specific program tailored to who they can be and what they can do and not the opposite. And it's no wonder that they've excelled. So the thing I'm wondering about is that it seems like there's maybe less turnover in the Twins front office than in most front offices. It's like a lifetime appointment if you get a job. Yeah, it's a Supreme Court. Right, exactly.

So is it that the guys who've been around forever have learned some new tricks? Or, I mean, if you have guys who are just really good at finding talent, then why does the team ever go through a fallow period like they have lately? Have they just not had as much luck? Did they get away from whatever principles they followed in the past when they had good farm systems and then now again have good farm systems? I mean, how does that work, do you think? Do you see that happening?

I mean, that's a really good question, and I really wish I could answer that, because if I could, I'd write a series of baseball perspectives, and every team in baseball would love to read it. I think that, you know, I don't want to speak for the Twins, because I can't get inside their head, and I'm not in that front office, but, you know, priorities change, things shift, and sometimes winning at the major league level takes precedent, and, you know, before you know it, you're signing free agents, change, things shift. And sometimes winning at the major league level takes precedent. And,

you know, before you know it, you're signing free agents and you're losing your first round draft mix, or, you know, the allocation of funds is more geared towards procurement at the major league level instead of the minor league level. And so when you go through periods of rebuilding that the ownership supports, then maybe you can put a little bit more time and resource into amateur procurement. You can start building up the farm that way by looking to acquire high-feeling guys for like a, you know, you're getting rid of an outfielder that you don't need, you target a guy like Alex Meyer. A contending team may not do that kind of stuff.

A contending team may not allocate the resources that way. So I think it's more typical, but I also think that it's dependent on the climate at the major league level. So I wanted to ask you about Lewis Thorpe specifically, who I hadn't heard of before this. He's 17 years old. He's the

Australian you mentioned. He's a lefty. He seems like he has a really high ceiling. You gave him an overall future potential of a number two starter and I actually don't have any idea what the Australian market is like um are there are I mean it seems like it would be really hard to hide there because there aren't a lot of guys playing at a signable level it doesn't seem to be and yet the ones that make it over here tended somewhat almost maybe outperform their numbers so what is it like trying to get a guy like thorpe are all 30 teams in on him just like they would be if he were dominican is it a is it a limited number of

teams that are really investing there how do they how do they find that guy who's he even playing against all those questions well i mean he had been playing in under-18 tournaments. So people were aware of who he was in the industry. Now, whether you wanted to devote resource to really find that out is another story. I mean, every team was aware of his talent. Not every team was willing to invest in the process of evaluating that talent and then making a run at finding that talent. Not every team is willing to invest in the process of evaluating that talent and then making a run at finding that talent.

The market is unpredictable. They're not playing at the same level of baseball. It's going to be a slower developmental process. Teams have to know that going in. When it comes to a guy like like Thorpe he really he really

jumped up recently he wasn't a guy that was 91 to 93 with a hammer and a changeup that he could turn over when he was you know 16 years old because if he – I mean, it doesn't matter if you're in Australia or you're in Nigeria or you're in India. If you're a lefty who's 91 to 93 with a hammer and a changeup, people will find you. It doesn't matter who you're playing against. In his case, he's still got a lot of room to grow, but his velocity spiked, He's still got a lot of room to grow, but his velocity spiked. He really jumped up from a mid-80s type of guy to a guy who was 86 to 88 at most to a guy who was 89, 93, touching higher.

Then you look at his body and you're like, man, this guy's going to add more, isn't he? Then it starts to look like a much more attractive package. You throw in the fact that he can throw strikes with all three pitches. He actually has a slider, too, so he actually has four pitches, but the curveball's better. But the reports out of the Gulf Coast League, this kid's a monster. This kid is a precocious talent. He's advanced.

He has good feel. He's a smart kid. And the Twins have had some moderate success with players He's advanced. He has good feel. He's a smart kid. And the Twins have had some moderate success with players that come from untraditional markets, with Max Kepler coming from Germany. He came stateside, went to the high school near the complex. They focused on getting his high school education taken care of and then easing him into

pro ball i mean he's not a high ceiling talent but i mean he's certainly an interesting talent and i love the way that they've gone about being slow with his development i mean if max kepler in the rangers system he'd probably be in triple a by now yeah i wanted to ask you about him right because you he was ranked like eighth last year on last year's list, and then in your blurb on him, you wrote he'll move to full season ball and the biggest test of his career, and that happened, I guess. So he's not ranked this year. Did he fail that test? Did he get an incomplete on that test? Well, he didn't fail that test. I think that what happened, as far as when you're just looking at this system, you have guys like Felix Jorge and Jorge Polanco and Louis Thorpe and Yosemite Pinto who have taken really, really big steps forward.

And now Kapler, here's the problem with, like, here's one of the problems with scouting is that you see a kid when he's a teenager and it's all hope and it's all, here's one of the problems with scouting, is that you see a kid when he's a teenager, and it's all hope, and it's all rosy, and then they start getting some warts, and you start to see that, oh man, this first division guy is maybe a second division guy, and as he keeps going up the ladder, you're like, oh, maybe he's a fourth outfielder, or maybe he's a platoon first baseman, and some of these realities started to come about with Kepler. I mean, his body, he's a big kid, and he's an athletic kid, but he's not a middle-of-the-diamond type of guy, and his body is such that he may end up being just a better fit for first base long term,

and that puts a lot of pressure on a bat that's not really a power bat like that. It's a bat that looks really sexy in center but doesn't look quite as sexy and left and doesn't look sexy at all at first. So I think that as a player goes through the developmental process, you know, it just starts to chip away at the magic of them. You know, it's like going on a blind date and the girl's just smoking hot and you love everything about her. And then you meet her parents and you start going through the whole process of dating it's terrible and then you just start to realize oh man this girl's a three mortwood for the three or mortwood for the three on it um are are we gonna start seeing a new type of twins pitcher soon in the major leagues? Because we've seen the, you know, the Brad Radke model of Twins pitcher forever. And now I guess Ricky Nolasco is the latest guy that they're interested

in. At what point? I mean, because it seems like they've started drafting and trading for guys who don't fit that mold, guys who throw hard and miss bats. So, but it seems like at the major league level, they're still sort of pursuing the the kevin correa types i don't know where that that disconnect comes in but at what point are we going to start seeing these people play for the twins that's a good question and it's funny um you know i don't even know how to answer like why they do at the major league level maybe they can't acquire the guys who can miss that. Maybe they found a market inefficiency here,

and they go after guys who have really average at best K-9 ratios. I don't know. But looking at this system, Alex Meyer, there's some who think he can stick in the rotation. There's some who do not. I don't really have a horse in the race, but, I mean, he's a 6'9 guy, and just the truth of the matter is it's kind of a paradox. This is what I wrote in the scouting report.

He's got length for days, you know. He's got a really long extension. You know, he's releasing the ball closer to the plate than the average person. But he's also got that body to control. And so it can actually end up being more of a hindrance than a bonus for him. I think that, you know, I don't know if he ends up in a rotation or if he ends up as a closer, but either way, he's going to miss bats and a ton of them. Guy like Jose Barrios, now he's not your prototypical top of the rotation type of guy.

I mean, he's about 5'11", maybe 6'. You know, he's a strong guy, but, I mean, he's still 5'11 or 6'. And, you know, he's got a small margin for error because if he works up, you know, he flat planes and he starts to lose some of the magic in his fastball. So he's a fastball, curveball, changeup guy, and he's going to have to be able to hit the mark on all those to be able to move to the major league level. And even if he does, I don't see a ton of bat-missing stuff there

at the major league level, just a good pitcher. Move down the list a little bit, you get into a guy like Felix Jorge. He has got the bat-missing stuff that could pitch. But, I mean, that's also the type of guy, the type of profile, that that guy ends up in the bullpen. So the honest answer is that help may not be on the way in that regard. I know that they have guys at the minor league level like Cole Stewart. But, man, we don't know what Cole Stewart's going to look like in three years.

Cole Stewart may look like a pitch-to-contact, average strikeout guy when he reaches the major league level. Now, I wouldn't project that. You don't know what's going to happen on a developmental journey. So I can look at all these live arms in the minor league system and say, yeah, these guys are bat missers. They're going to be bat missers. But just because they're bat missers now doesn't mean they're going to be

bat missers. Look at a lot of the guys at the major league level now who don't miss a ton of bats. You know, I bet you at some point in their developmental process, they actually did. You know, until they got to that level where they couldn't, where their stuff wasn't as sneaky, where hitters were a little smarter, where you couldn't set them up quite as well. I mean, major league hitters are good. And what's Trevor May's story? I've seen him pitch a bunch, and he frustrates the hell out of me.

There's this guy who's like 6'5", built like a horse, and like all the good ways. You know, big butt, big thighs, things that you want to see in a power pitcher. I think that there might be some feel issues there. I mean, obviously there's a command issue, but he's one of those guys that really frustrates me because he's 6'5 and he drops and drives, and it bothers the hell out of me because he loses his height advantage and he loses a lot of playing on his fastball.

And I've seen him through 93 and a guy who's never going to get out a double-A tattoo. And that shouldn't happen. And it's because he serves it on a flat playing plate. He's got a good changeup. He's got two breaking balls that he can throw. The problem is he just doesn't have a ton of feel for pitching. He's just got a ton of stuff. At the end of the day, he's probably a back-of-the-rotation horse

or maybe a 7th, 8th inning guy. But, I mean, feel is one of those things that I just, you kind of have it or you don't, and maybe you can refine it a little bit. If you don't have feel now at this stage of the game, you think he's just going to get it? It seems unlikely to me. stage of the game, you think he's just going to get it?

It seems unlikely to me. So it seems like there's sort of two waves of talent on the top ten for the Twins. There's guys who are just about ready, like we might see them next season, and then there's kind of a second wave, 2016-2017.

But if you're a Twins fan sort of looking ahead to what's probably not going to be an incredibly successful season as far as wins and losses go still seems like there are quite a few reasons here just to watch the twins next year you have you have uh i mean pinto got there last year you'll you'll see more of him this year and then you have bu Buxton and Sano and Meyer and Rosario all with 2014 or late 2014 ETAs. So this isn't one of those cases where it's all projection and way far on the horizon. We're going to start seeing these guys as soon as next year.

Yeah. And you're going to see them struggle, especially the position guys. I mean, not Pinto. I think he's going to come back down to earth, but he's going to be able to hold his own at the major league level. I think that after the summer, and the Twins are probably going to be out of it, and the fan base is probably going to be angry. Well, the good news at that point is that you get to watch Miguel Sano

at the major league level. You get to watch Alex Meyer at the major league level. You might even get to see Rosario at the major league level, You get to watch Alex Meyer at the major league level. You might even get to see Rosario at the major league level. Maybe towards September. Who knows? Maybe if he explodes, maybe you get to see Buston at the major league level. Wow. I mean, that's cool. I don't care

if you're a Twins fan or not. I mean, people are going to tune in to watch Buston because unless you get to see him at the minor league level, you get to see him in the Futures game or lucky enough to see him before he left the AFL, I mean, you're not going to get to see this kid. And he's really an electric talent. I know he gets compared to Trout.

I think that that's apt, and I also think that that's hyperbole at the same time. I think from a tool-based level, he could be more gifted physically than Mike Trout, as far as his fast twitch athleticism. That doesn't mean he has the same kind of baseball aptitude or the same kind of transition of tool to skill that Trout did, because Trout is obviously a generational player. I don't want to suggest that Buxton is.

But he's electric, man, and it's special. And he doesn't even know what he's doing yet. And that's the coolest thing is that this guy, you know, crushed in low A and went to high A and more than held his own. And you have to think about it for a second that he's not even close to what he's going to be yet. This guy doesn't know how to hit for power yet. You know, this guy can hit.

I don't know if you ever saw that video, one of the perfect game guys caught in Iowa, 98-mile-an-hour fastball and Buston hit a grand slam to win the game. Buston doesn't know how to do that on a regular basis yet. That's just kind of a natural reaction. He just kind of did that. Like that's something that people just do. That's a normal action.

You can just hit a 98-mile-an-hour fastball, you know, 450 feet for a grand slam. He can do those sort of things. He's an 80-grade runner. He could be a 7-plus, maybe an 8, center fielder. I mean, unlike Trout, he is a monster all-around 5-tool guy. I mean, he's got a plus arm. He may not have the hit tool that Trout does.

The raw power may be there, though. I had one scout, and I put this in the report, and put his floor as Torrey Hunter. Like, that's bad. I mean, that's a floor? I mean, Torrey Hunter is a monster player. I mean, look what he's produced over, he's like a 50-war player in his career. The scout followed that up with something that I didn't put in the report because it's not fair,

but I was like, okay, what's the ceiling? And he was like, hell, I don't put in the report because it's not fair, but I was like, okay, what's the ceiling? And he was like, hell, I don't know, Willie Mays? Who the hell knows? It's not going to be normal. So yeah, the twins have that in the system. And that's funny, I'm counting like Miguel Sano, who, you know, Rene Dio, the scouting director for the Pirates, is a good friend of mine. He told me that he's the finest player that he's ever scouted in Latin America in his 20 years, 20-plus years scouting. He's the best all-around talent to come out of Latin America, and that's a huge fucking plateau to get that from Rene Gaio.

And, man, Sano could hit Rene Gaio. And then, so now it could be, so now it could hit 40 home runs at the major league level. It doesn't matter if he hits 250. So who's your guy then in this system? If you have a guy that we haven't talked about, or maybe even someone that you didn't rank just because there were so many guys ahead of him,

but is there, is there anyone you, you had special feelings for that we haven't covered? Well, I mean, Gonsalves is a guy that I put on the rise. He was a fourth-round pick in 2013. He was a 6'4", 6'5", lefty. He fell to the fourth round because he had a pretty poor spring and because he had a very minor

marijuana situation and like yeah um and some teams man they just they really soured on him i think a lot of it had to do with the stuff obviously ticking down not not a Not a lot of people seeing the projections, an over-the-top type of guy, so a lot of people didn't see the velocity coming. And so they wrote him off. You add the marijuana thing to it, and you start to make up and the lack of stuff. This is not somebody who's worthy of a first-round gamble. Well, he's ticked up, and the body's starting to look a lot better. The twins believe that they can get his mechanics in order.

They've really done good work with Meyer as far as a long-limb type of guy, getting him under control. I think that they feel they could do the same with this kid. He's already been back up into the 90s, touching higher. He has a good change changeup for his age. I mean, the breaking ball isn't consistent. It's going to take some time. From that higher slot, it's definitely probably better for a curveball.

It creates some steep playing tumble. But he's a guy that I think could be in the top ten next year. I think that he's going to take a big step forward, and I think people are going to reevaluate what they were looking at when he was an amateur. Okay, my last question, I guess, is about your expectations for a top system in baseball. What do you expect, you know, not even necessarily out of this system, but just out of a number one system. What should a fan of that team expect as far as how good the major league team is going to be down the road? Because I feel like some people maybe were almost disappointed by the Royals not immediately becoming the best team in baseball

when we heard all the rave reviews of their farm system a few years ago. And I know you still think it's very strong, but the fact that some of those guys have had difficulty adjusting and some of them have gotten injured and, you know, it wasn't just like flip the light switch and all these guys get there at the same time and the Royals are just immediately amazing. So what do you, I don't know, like this is often, I guess, a team with the best farm system, unless it's St. Louis, probably isn't

really successful in the majors at the same time, because that's really hard to do. So what is your expectation for, I don't know, how many wins a team that has the best farm system is going to get out of those prospects down the road? I don't look at it in terms of wins, but when I see a top 10, I'd like to think, well, if they can get one impact player out of that and three or four major league contributors, it's a huge win. It's a huge, huge win, and they can pat themselves on the back. Any year that you can look at a guy or look at a list and say we can get one impact talent and you know two or three or maybe even four major league contributors out of that you'll take that all day long you know and you know looking back at that royal system that i that i still think was the best system i'd ever seen you know they graduated a lot of those players to the majors

one of them just became the rookie of the year and they used him to acquire a near top of the rotation arm. In addition to one of their other pitchers, he was a part of that class, or two of the other pitchers that were part of that class, in Odorizzi and Montgomery. You know, I still believe in Hosmer a great deal. He started to show us this year a little bit more in the tank, a little bit more effort. great deal. He started to show us this year a little bit more in the tank,

a little bit more effort. I think that that's been kind of a deal with some of those guys on that team, with Moustakas and Hosner. There's not the... Some of the locker room things have carried over. It's not

written about a lot, but a lot of those guys had more of a focus issue than anything else. The talent is there. It just took maybe a crack of the whip and they got back into the feel of it, the focus of baseball and a little bit more on the field, a little bit less off the field. A lot of those guys in that Royal System, they became contributors to the Major League squad. Now, you can argue that Myers became the a lot of those guys in that royal system and they became contributors to the major league squad now

you can argue that myers became the impact guy and they were able to acquire impact talent as a result so if you look at it just on my very broad you know grading system i think that it's been a huge success so most of the focus of this team you as people are reading this, is going to be on the top two or it's going to be on the top ten. But like you say, it goes deep. So my last question is, I'm just curious, if their farm system started at 11 and their top ten was their 11th through 20th, would that be the number 30 organization in baseball or are they even better? They would still be better than some teams' farm systems if you took away their top 10. If you ranked, and I didn't, but if I were to rank prospects 11 through 20, the Minnesota Twins,

that farm system, if that were their 1 to 10, would be better than the Angels system. It would be, in all likelihood, better than the Angels system. It would be in all likelihood better than the Tigers system. There's a possibility they would be better than, you know, maybe the athletic system. Now, what you're not getting there is, like, with the Athletics and with the Tigers, you have at least one impact guy there. And 11 to 20 in the Twins, you may not have an impact guy. What you may have is more like three or four major league contributors.

That said, I'm looking at that Angels list, and I don't know if they're going to get three or four, you know, quality major league contributors, non-reliever division. You know, I don't foresee that happening. It's a really poor system. The Twins system is so deep that if... I mean, I didn't even rank a guy like Adam Brett Walker, who is all tools

and rig, and who knows if he's ever going to put it together, but if he does, he could be a first division type of guy. It's a long shot, but he could be a first division guy. I didn't rank Max Kepler. I didn't rank... I mean, they're on the rise guys. I could have gone six

or seven deep. I had a long list of on the rise guys that I wanted to include with the Twins. Their system is nice. It's really, really good. I would take their 11 through 20 over three or four farm systems in baseball.

No question. Alright, well sounds good. Maybe we'll have you on when they win their first World Series with this core, and you can pat yourself on the back. Thanks very much. And, of course, the series goes for, you know, most of the offseason. And they're, yeah, they're amazing.

You're, I imagine, exhausted. You're going, you're actually publishing at a better than 50% faster rate this year than you did last offseason? Yeah, that's probably going to slow a bit as we get to the holiday season because it tends to trip things up. But, I mean, I've been wanting to keep a three-team-per-week pace when applicable, and I think I'm going to be able to do that.

I have a good system in place. I'm working ahead of time, and I'm not sleeping. That always helps, I find. That's how we do these things every day. All right, so you can go to Baseball Perspectives right now if you're listening on Monday and read the Twins Top Ten. Check back the rest of the week for more systems and follow Jason at Professor Parks on Twitter. His new avatar is extremely wet.

You just got out of the shower, I think. And your podcast is coming back next month, right? Mike Farron, if you're listening and want to know how to contact Jason, you can email me and I'll give you his contact info. We can make that happen. Good. I need somebody to work in between me and Mike. All right. We'll be back tomorrow. All right. Thanks, guys. It's hard to believe this is still happening.

That should be the title of the archive when you put it up.