Written By Tom Schreier (ColdOmaha.com)
The MLB Draft is tomorrow, and Minnesota Twins general manager Terry Ryan is excited. “I’ve been in there all day reading up. Of course tomorrow’s the big day,” he said, with palpable excitement in his voice. “I’ve stated this many times: I think it’s probably the most important day for baseball organizations tomorrow. Just because the top round obviously is huge. You can change the history of your franchise in one of those drafts.”
Ryan has a scouting background, so he naturally would enjoy this time of year. Still, even at age 62, after serving as the team’s GM from 1994 to 2007, and then taking the post again in 2011, he hasn’t tired of this.
He has found some notable gems over the years, including Denny Hocking (52nd round, 1989), Corey Koskie (26th, 1990) and Brad Radke (8th, 1991).
“Koskie was a challenge. He was hurt a lot, and he was raw and crude, and he developed into a major league guy that was a pretty darn good player,” he said.
“I think anybody in this organization oughta take pride in developing Corey Koskie. He had all that makeup that we’re talking about, that wanted it badly. And he worked at it to become a guy.”
Twins area scout Larry Corrigan was the guy that found Hocking, who came out of El Camino College in Southern California. Corrigan returned for a second stint with the Twins in 2013 and was recently hospitalized after a stroke.
“A guy like Hocking was a 52nd round guy. Corrigan did a hell of a job on him, I should add,” said Ryan.
“There’s success stories, and then there are some that aren’t so successful that you guys like to bring to my attention a little more often than some of the others, but it’s deserved. That’s the way it is.”
Nature vs. nurture
The MLB draft differs from its NFL and NBA brethren in that the players are often drafted out of high school or after their junior year of college (or second year of junior college) and do not reach the major leagues for years after they are selected.
This means that while teams are always looking for the most talented player available, they also have to have minor league infrastructure in place in order to ferry the players they selected from the low minors to the majors.
The Twins make a concerted effort to draft players that have good character, in addition to being coachable and talented.
“I think character and coach-ability and being a good citizen — all that stuff is huge. We take a lot of stock in making sure that we get people that are on board, want to listen,” said Ryan.
“It’s a difficult game in it’s own right, but if you got a guy that doesn’t want to get on board with some of the things that you’re trying to teach, it’s even more difficult.”
As far as judging character, the Twins go beyond just talking to the coach and observing the player while he’s on the diamond. They speak to teachers, friends, acquaintances and people they play against.
“We do a lot of work on character, background and makeup and trying to end up doing the right thing. That’s all we ask, we don’t ask them to be anything they’re not,” he said.
“That’s important for a lot of us here, because we believe in good makeup, and we believe in good citizenship and all that stuff.”
This means that area scouts are asked to do more than just evaluate talent. They must embed themselves in the community and find out what’s going on with the player behind the scenes.
“If the scout’s doing his job, he’s gonna be able to detect makeup,” he said. “If you do your work, you can get a pretty good idea.”
Gardenhire’s role
Former manager Ron Gardenhire, who is now a special assistant to Ryan, is in town after visiting each minor league location, scouting players and passing on his knowledge of the game.
“[Ryan] wanted to me see the Major League club after seeing all the other ones,” Gardenhire said. “It’s been fun being in the dugout watching the games with all the different managers we have. Just seeing what they’re doing. Doing the things I missed the most, like going out on the field with the players and doing drills and answering questions from the staff.”
Ryan says Gardenhire is welcome in the war room, but that he is unlikely to do so.
“Unless you see players, and know a little bit about what’s going on with where they’ve been, and what they do, it’s almost … I don’t know if it’s worthwhile,” he said.
“The top round tomorrow, which is most of the guys that get the most ink in Baseball America and all that stuff, if you’re around that a little bit, it’s an exciting event — for me, especially. But I’m not sure that it would be for Gardy or some of the people that are in the major league scene. Not so much, maybe.”
Still, Ryan says that Gardenhire’s evaluations carry weight in the organization.
“Quite a bit, because he’s down in there in that dugout with them, and he certainly knows what it takes to be a player here,” he said. “I take that seriously. It’s pretty good, because he’s looking for things that maybe somebody, like myself, is not maybe” — he pauses for a second — “the same.
“He’s looking for guys that know how to play the game, and how they react and pressure and so forth,” he added. “And he’s right down there in that dugout in uniform — I’m not. I’m looking maybe at different things, like running speed and angles and outs and jumps and so forth, and certainly arm strength.”
There are some that criticize the Twins organization for being too insular, but Ryan sees it as an asset that he has his past two managers — Gardenhire and Tom Kelly — at his disposal.
“That’s a good tradeoff between a guy like him and Tom Kelly versus the people that are professional evaluators,” he said. “The good thing is if you get a guy that knows how to evaluate, who knows how to teach.”
Draft philosophy
Beyond just trying to find character players, the Twins will be looking for certain things at No. 15 overall in the draft. While Minnesota will take the best player on the board, Deron Johnson, the team’s scouting director, places a special emphasis on power pitching.
“Everybody wants power pitching, but the key to the thing is throwing the ball over the plate. You can find good arms, but if they don’t throw it over the plate, it’s counter-productive,” said Ryan. “But he’s been an advocate of that power pitching, and we’ve taken quite a few guys that can throw it up there pretty good. Some of them have surfaced, and we’ve got a few that are close.”
The Twins may end up picking whoever ends up falling, however, regardless of where they play. They want the best player available, and somebody usually falls out of the Top 10 picks even if they were highly-touted entering the draft.
“If that’s the case, we better do our due diligence. We’re not afraid. We’ll do something like that as long as we’ve done our homework,” he said. “As they always do, there’s always gonna be one or two guys that, for whatever reason, slide.”
Ben Revere was an example he brought up. Drafted No. 28 overall in 2007 out of Lexington (Ky.) Catholic High School, Revere was relatively unknown by ESPN, Baseball America and other scouting media. “When we took Revere, everybody was questioning our credibility. Who?” he said. “We felt good about it. We took him, and he’s gonna play 10 years up in the big leagues it looks like.”
Current starter Kyle Gibson, drafted No. 22 overall out of Missouri in 2009, slid because of elbow injuries. He progressed rapidly through the minor leagues, but underwent Tommy John surgery in November of 2011 and didn’t make his debut until 2013. He has battled injuries since, but has been an effective starter when healthy.
“Gibson slid because of the elbow. And we took him. And we felt right about taking him,” said Ryan. “Now, we took him the same year that Trout was out there. We took Gibson.”
Ryan and his scouts will take a long look at a pitcher’s history before using a pick on him. As Yahoo writer Jeff Passan outlined in his recent book The Arm, young pitchers can be overused or overthrow in a culture that demands high readings on radar guns from teenage players, and college coaches will sometimes overuse a starter in order to win crucial games. As a result, teams have to be careful with who they choose to invest their pick, and life-changing money, in.
“Usage and whether or not they’ve had a Tommy John already. Whether or not they’re attached — labrum tear or a slight ulnar-collateral problem. Yeah, you better know all that stuff,” said Ryan. “But there’s very few that come out of the draft that are pristine. Very few.
“You’d find somebody that doesn’t have something that’s an oddity. A position player, pitcher, either way it doesn’t matter.”
The cleanest arm he can remember? Brad Radke, who pitched for the Twins from 1995-2006. “High school kid, he didn’t use many breaking balls. He had a ideal delivery. He didn’t even look like he broke a sweat after 100 pitches,” he said. “Stuff like that, and we weren’t as deep back then, that was back in ’91.
“I don’t remember any problems with him. We took him in the 8th round because our area scout did a heck of a job.”