Stacey King
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Breaking down Twins first-rounders during the Terry Ryan era
Twins general manager Terry Ryan didn’t feel up to doing any in-person scouting of amateur players in advance of Thursday’s annual draft, but he’s still providing a valuable resource in the final hours before the club must decide what to do with the fifth overall pick.
“As much as anything, it’s listening,” Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony said. “Sometimes you can listen to all the discussion in that draft room, and he’s smart enough to pick up and be able to ask questions and try and fill in the blanks.”
Since joining the Twins organization in January 1986 as scouting director, Ryan has either directly run or had a strong influence over the past 28 drafts.
In that period, the Twins have called 31 different names in the first round, from California prep right-hander Derek Parks (1986) to Texas prep righty Kohl Stewart (2013).
Deron Johnson has been the Twins scouting director since September 2007, which makes this the seventh draft he has overseen. Before Johnson, Mike Radcliff ran the Twins draft room from 1993 until his promotion in 2007 to vice president of player personnel.
Recommended slot value for the fifth overall pick this year is $3.851 million.
The Twins have held a top-10 selection 12 times over those years, with eight of those coming in the top five.
“Sometimes, when you haven’t seen the players, you don’t have any stake in it,” said Antony, who regularly scouted the amateur ranks from 1995-2007 while working in baseball operations. “It’s harder when you see a player you really like. That’s who you want. You’re pulling for him. You personally saw him.”
Which can cause emotions to rise.
“So now you get (scouts) in that room and they’ve seen guys,” Antony said. “Sometimes it’s good having that voice from the outside. Terry will provide that.”
Since 1986, the Twins have gone the high school route 17 times in the opening round. College players have earned their nod 14 times.
They have taken a pitcher 14 times: 10 right-handers and four lefties.
For right-handers it’s been an even breakdown between high school and college. Three of the four first-round lefties the Twins have taken have come for the college level.
Of the 17 first-round position players the Twins have taken in the Ryan era, eight have been infielders (five college), seven were outfielders (all high school) and two were catchers (Joe Mauer in 2001 and Georgia Tech’s Jason Varitek, who did not sign in 1993).
Seventeen different states have been represented in those Ryan-era picks. California leads the way with nine Twins first-rounders, followed by Texas (three) and four states with two apiece (Georgia, Florida, Virginia and Minnesota).
Eleven other states have accounted for one Twins first-rounder apiece in this period: North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Jersey.
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