Twins celebrate one of 'very best' Draft results

MINNEAPOLIS -- In no way was this a normal MLB Draft, and the Twins were even further restricted by having only four selections in the five rounds, but Twins scouting director Sean Johnson and his staff were determined to have as normal an approach as possible, only with fewer players ultimately ranked on their Draft board.

That approach yielded four players the Twins would have been just as thrilled to get in any other year: North Carolina first baseman Aaron Sabato, Tennessee outfielder Alerick Soularie, Texas high school right-hander Marco Raya and Hawaii high school outfielder Kala'i Rosario. Johnson described the Twins' Draft haul as "one of the very best outcomes" that the team could have foreseen entering the process.

• Twins Draft Tracker: Every 2020 pick

"I think, picking in the back of the rounds, we had four picks with a smaller [bonus] pool, which really usually limits you in the ability to sign high school players at times," Johnson said. "But luckily, we feel good about signing Raya and Rosario and getting them in the spot that we got them, so we feel fortunate that the board fell that way."

With that said, the relative sense of normalcy ends here as Johnson and Twins leadership prepare for an unprecedented group of non-drafted free agents that could not only choose to postpone their professional journey by a year, but will also need to be talked into selecting Minnesota over 29 other organizations in a process that will officially begin on Sunday. As that process looms, let's do a quick wrap of the Twins' two-day Draft and examine where the club goes from here in the coming days.

Now what? The next step is for the Twins to formally sign their four Draft selections, which is not expected to be an issue, according to Johnson. The club's allocated pool for signing bonuses was $4,528,600, the fourth lowest among clubs.

Each of the Twins' selections came with assigned financial values: $2,570,100 for the No. 27 pick, $1,185,500 for the No. 59 pick, $442,900 for the No. 128 pick and $330,100 for the No. 158 pick. In the cases of some high-upside prep players like Raya and Rosario, clubs will sign other selections for below slot value in order to up their offers to younger players as an incentive to forgo their college commitments. Raya is committed to Texas Tech and Rosario has an agreement with California Baptist University.

A good example of this came back in the 2017 Draft, when the Twins went more than $1 million under slot with No. 1 overall selection Royce Lewis and allocated much of that money -- and more -- to Louisiana high school right-hander Blayne Enlow, who was a strong commit to LSU but is now the No. 9 prospect in the Twins' organization, per MLB Pipeline.

The signing deadline this year is Aug. 1.

If a club exceeds its assigned pool, it faces a penalty. Teams that outspend their allotment by 0-5 percent pay a 75 percent tax on the overage. At higher thresholds, clubs lose future picks: a first-rounder and a 75 percent tax for surpassing their pool by more than 5 and up to 10 percent; a first- and a second-rounder and a 100 percent tax for more than 10 and up to 15 percent; and two first-rounders and a 100 percent tax for more than 15 percent.

In eight years with these rules, teams have exceeded their allotments a total of 149 times but never by more than 5 percent. Twenty-one of the 30 teams outspent their pools last year.

Trend wrap: The Twins firmly believe in not drafting for need and instead sticking with their most highly evaluated players, and that was again clear in this Draft, when they took three hitters with their four picks despite having six bats in the organization's top 10, including each of the top three (Lewis, Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach).

In the past, the Twins' evaluations and the compositions of Draft classes have led them to select high-upside high school talent toward the top of Drafts (Lewis at No. 1 in 2017 and Keoni Cavaco at No. 13 in '19), while leaning more toward college talent with their picks in subsequent rounds. But that has been highly responsive to the makeups of individual classes, and the Twins felt that this class was built differently, leading them to instead select a pair of high school players with their two final picks.

"I always say the Draft offers different things every year," Johnson said. "They're not always stacked the same in each demographic. The college pitching and the bats were kind of the headliners of this Draft. It doesn't mean you have to take one of them, but it means you should probably be opportunistic there if you can. Did we know going into the day we'd get Raya or Rosario? We didn't. That's just how the board fell."

One commonality among the Twins' four selections was youth. Both high school players selected by the Twins are young at age 17, while Sabato, a Draft-eligible sophomore, turned 21 last week and Soularie won't turn 21 until next month.

First-round fact: Sabato's exit velocities are great. His plate approach and command of the strike zone are advanced. His swing mechanics are clean. Physically, he's everything the Twins wanted in a hitter. But just as significant was the fact that Twins Minor League hitting coordinator Donegal Fergus thought that the big first baseman was also a thoughtful and intellectual fit for the Twins' hitting development operation when the pair connected via Zoom during the pre-Draft process.

"He's really articulate in a way that makes you feel like he's giving you the answer that he's genuinely come to, versus just being able to spell out the cliches or the coachspeak," Fergus said. "He's a smart kid. Obviously, he goes to a great school. It's easy for him to probably come up with an answer that will sound good and will make a good sound bite on a scouting call. But they weren't like that. It was genuine thoughts. It was clear that he'd put a lot of time and effort into his process."

The Twins have put a great deal of thought and effort into rebuilding and restructuring their player development operation since the regime of chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and general manager Thad Levine took over, and that requires buy-in from the players, too. With Sabato, that shouldn't be a problem.

"I've got to work with this kid, and I've got to have our staff work with this kid," Fergus said. "Does he think the way that is going to fit in with our style and our philosophies? He's a perfect fit. He's perfect for what we are trying to do. The only way he's better is if he's a 6.4 runner and he plays shortstop and he throws 95 mph across the diamond. He fits with our organizational values so well."

Day 2 name to watch: Raya's clean mechanics in particular are held in high regard by the Twins' organization, which should give the 17-year-old right-hander a head start in adding strength to his frame and continuing to refine his pitch usage without having to tinker too aggressively with his delivery or make any significant adjustments to the work that got him to this point in his career. The Twins have already seen his high-spin fastball up to 94 mph, and Draft evaluators have also spoken highly of both his curveball and slider that also complement a changeup in his four-pitch arsenal.

NDFA strategy: Johnson said that the Twins have tracked several players that they would like to add as part of the non-drafted free agent process that begins Sunday, but they will first need to wait and see how many of those players will actually want to subject themselves to the free agent process, in which their signing bonus will be capped at $20,000, and how many will opt to try again in the 2021 Draft. High school prospects could choose to attend a junior college for a year, for example, while juniors from four-year colleges could return to school.

Those players that do choose to enter the professional ranks in this cycle will essentially be able to pick between all 30 clubs. In that sense, the Twins feel they have a leg up with both the reputation of their player development operation and the player-centric pitches they hope to make to potential additions.

Recall, for example, that the Twins approached free agent Martín Pérez with a plan in mind to improve and develop his skills before the 2019 season. That could come into play again here -- as could success stories of talent maximization from last season like Cody Stashak (a 13th-round pick), Sean Poppen (a 19th-round pick) and Randy Dobnak (an independent league signee).

"We feel like our player development is at the top of the industry from a staffing perspective, from a technology perspective, facilities," Johnson said. "Our academy is unmatched. It's an incredible place for players to be there. We have players that want to be there all year round. We think that's a huge separator for us from a facilities standpoint. We're hoping that ends up getting us a few wins in that column."

Another factor that could play into the Twins' favor is that they were one of the first clubs, alongside the Royals, to commit to paying their Minor League players in full throughout the 2020 season without making any cuts in the organization.

The last word: "Usually, when you’re picking at the top of the rounds like we did in 2017, you feel like you don’t get picked off as much by other teams because you’re kind of the first to get to that player in that range of the Draft. So we feel great about how the board shook out. We put plans A, B, C. We talked about all those different scenarios going into [Thursday], and we felt like this was one of the very best outcomes that we could have had. These are all players that we targeted that were high on our board, and we’re extremely excited about the guys we drafted." -- Johnson