Fire Gardy

There’s an interview with Howard Norsetter, the Twins’ International Scouting coordinator, available right now, and I recommend that everyone read it. There are some really interesting things in there, though you’ll have to take what Norsetter says with a grain of salt — clearly he’s more on the “scouting” side than the “analysis” side of the game, which isn’t a problem in and of itself. The thing I’d be wary about is that he seems extremely optimistic about every player he’s asked about. Still, it’s a good read.

But beyond individual players, the things that stood out for me were his ideas on the international version of the business of baseball, and the Twins’ approach to it.

There is also another dynamic at work; the teams that spend the most get the most attention from the agents. I know a few teams that spent a lot of money in Latin America the last couple of years essentially just to broadcast to Buscones that they are in the market and will spend money like the big boys. The hope is that the Buscones start delivering the better prospects to team’s doorstep.

It seems to me that those teams run the risk of sending a different signal: “we’re willing to spend money, and it doesn’t have to be the best players.” So sure, the buscones will bring you someone, but they’re still bringing their best players to the big teams who’ve shown they’re at least trying to only spend money on talent. They’re bringing middling guys to you and calling them good so you’ll waste your money.

There are agents in Asia who feel like the Twins aren’t worthy of their attention because we haven’t signed the most expensive players. They don’t even bother trying to sell their players to us. Which is a bit short sighted because we have shown that if we think a player is worth the money, we will spend the money to get the player. Sometimes an agent will get offended if you don’t think a player is worth the money they are looking for. If they know that you are willing to spend money in general, they don’t get as offended-they will still come back to you with their next guy. If they don’t think you are ever going to be a player in the market, they won’t waste their time.

Stories like this one are another big reason the system seems so broken. The buscones and amateur agents hold too much power over the young players and over the teams. I’m against an international draft, but something needs to change. Maybe there should be an open combine where all the players can show what they’ve got, followed by an auction where all the teams bid on all the players. In order to level the playing field, perhaps each team is allowed to spend only a certain amount of money in total,* so if you sign a Strasburg-level talent you won’t be able to afford much else that year, or something.

* I don’t know if I really like that, but at least it would protect the new system from the inevitable cries of “well the Yankees would just overbid us and buy all the good players!” which, of course, is what’s happening with the current system. Wait, no, the opposite of that. Not happening.

After trying to defend the Twins from an accusation that they haven’t shown interest in Cuban players (and getting the interviewer to admit that by “interest” he actually meant “successfully signing Cuban amateurs to mega-deals”), Norsetter explains the Twins’ fundamental interest in European players:

You mentioned earlier that you thought that the Twins didn’t have much interest in Cuba: If there were to be pitcher throwing 94-96 with an 87 slider who defects from the Cuban team, we would not be able to sign him. That is why we are in the developing markets like Europe. You hope that you can get a player like Loek [Van Mil] when there isn’t much interest in him, and develop him into somebody who demands a lot of interest.

As you could probably guess, I think that’s brilliant. There are, at the base of things, a few ways to compete on the international markets:

1. Have enough money to sign the players you think are the best, after letting everyone agree on who’s the best
2. Work harder than everyone else to find the best players in known markets, and hope to sign them before the bigger teams learn of them
3. Work even harder than that, to find bargain players that you think will be good but that the big-money teams wouldn’t be interested in
4. Find an entirely new market where nobody else is scouting, and take the top talent without competition

Option #4 takes a lot of guts (what if there aren’t any good players in Europe or Australia this year?), and you’ll only have a temporary advantage in each region. If Loek Van Mil and Max Kepler quickly become good players, other teams are going to flood Europe with scouts and essentially drive the Twins out. Which presumably means they’re going to have to find another untapped source of talent without competition, which will again be a gutsy move (who knows how good the baseball players are in Africa, or Iraq?). But it very well may be the right move.

The current major league roster offers plenty of reason to hope for 2010, but more and more, it seems like the Twins are setting themselves up with a strong pipeline of high-octane talent for the future. The development of a strong international scouting and development program is instrumental, and right now the Twins are the biggest players in under-developed markets like Europe and Australia.