The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Golden Days Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to this year’s ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Jim Kaat

A southpaw renowned for working quickly and keeping hitters off balance, Jim Kaat spent 25 years in the majors (1959-83), more than all but two pitchers, and won 283 games. The ace of some excellent mid-1960s Twins teams, he squared off against Sandy Koufax three times in the 1965 World Series, including Game 7, which he lost, and he was foiled again by the Dodgers’ lefty in his best shot at a Cy Young award the following year. After spending parts of 15 seasons with the Twins, he enjoyed a renaissance with the White Sox and then bounced around for another eight seasons, a testament to the adage that if you’re left-handed and can throw strikes, you can pitch forever.

Kaat was born on November 7, 1938, in Zeeland, Michigan, a town of about 3,000 at the time in the western part of the state. An effective but undersized pitcher through high school (5-feet-10, 170 pounds), he enrolled at Hope College in Holland, Michigan after failing to secure an athletic scholarship. Thanks to a growth spurt, he grew to 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, and attracted the attention of scouts. In June 1957, he signed with the Washington Senators for a bonus of $4,000, bypassing a $25,000 offer from the White Sox, which would have made him a “bonus baby,” requiring him to remain in the majors for two full seasons, possibly interfering with his development. Read the rest of this entry »

Edouard Julien has a unique profile, and potentially a bright future. A native of Quebec City who attended Auburn University, the 22-year-old Minnesota Twins prospect is coming off a season where he drew 110 free passes, the most of any player in the minors. Moreover, he augmented his patient approach with power and speed. In 514 plate appearances split between Low-A Fort Myers and High-A Cedar Rapids, Julien went deep 18 times and swiped 34 bases in 39 tries. His slash line was an OBP-heavy .266/.434/.480.

His English-language skills were on the light side when he began taking classes at Auburn. An International Business major, Julien was regularly referring to a French-English dictionary throughout his first semester. By and large, he learned English as a college freshman.

“Where I’m from, we only speak French,” explained Julien, whose hometown is more than 150 miles (and 250 kilometers) northeast of Montreal. “I knew a little bit of English — we took classes — but it’s like people in the United States who take Spanish classes; they learn, but then they forget because they don’t practice it. I played for [travel ball] teams in Georgia, and for the Junior National team where it’s only English, so I knew some, but I wasn’t very good. I’ll say that.”

Julien now speaks three languages — French, English, and Spanish — and contrary to what was once said about the legendary Moe Berg, he can hit in all of them. That he did so less-impressively than usual in his sophomore season impacted his appeal to MLB scouts. Julien backslid statistically after a stellar freshman year, and as a result fell to the 18th round of the 2019 draft.

The fact that he was draft-eligible is another story. Read the rest of this entry »

After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrapup. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below!

Chicago White Sox (93–69)

The Big Question
Did the White Sox miss out by not acquiring another bat? I wouldn’t say they had a lackadaisical offseason, considering they made two massive upgrades to their pitching staff in Lance Lynn and Liam Hendriks. But they didn’t show a similar vigor in adding to the offense. Chicago didn’t struggle to score in 2020, finishing second in the AL in runs scored, but right field and designated hitter were notorious weak spots. And while there was talk about swiping Nelson Cruz out from under the Twins’ noses, the White Sox settled for signing wayward son Adam Eaton to a one-year deal and counting on top prospect Andrew Vaughn to be ready for the majors. Both were considerable risks: Eaton was coming off the worst season of his career, and Vaughn had yet to play above A-ball, where a lot of his value came from walks.

How It Went
That part of the plan didn’t quite work out. Vaughn did a respectable job picking up the outfield on the fly and even briefly cosplayed as a second baseman and a third baseman. But while he showed a solid eye at the plate, as in A-ball, not a lot of power came out of it; he struggled to a .613 OPS in the second half, and righties dominated him with breaking stuff all season. In the end, Vaughn would have been better served at Triple-A, which already would have been a big leap; the White Sox didn’t get anything from him they couldn’t have gotten from any other random fourth outfielder on a one-year deal. Eaton, meanwhile, was terrible, saw his playing time diminish, and was released midseason.

In the end, though, it didn’t actually matter! Neither Cleveland nor Minnesota proved up to the task of contention, and the White Sox were blessed with Yermín Mercedes having the best two months of his life in April and May, giving the team a surprise reinforcement at a time when the division was still in doubt. Even injuries to Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert couldn’t completely stop the team in its tracks. By the time Chicago acquired Craig Kimbrel at the deadline, the AL Central race was long over for all intents and purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, this posting contains four positions.

Position: Fellow, Player Development

Department: Baseball Operations

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Support the Player Development Department in all areas, including technology set up and data collection, data entry, various administrative tasks, airport transportation, filing, and other assigned projects.
• Administrative support is expected throughout the fellowship, however, there is ample opportunity for areas of personal interest/development through self-determined projects and access to Player Development personnel, information, and systems

Read the rest of this entry »

Ralph Garza Jr.’s MLB debut was both forgettable and impossible to forget. The 27-year-old right-hander took the mound for the Houston Astros in a May 29 home game against the San Diego Padres, and the circumstances were anything but ordinary. Rookies rarely get their feet wet with games hanging in the balance, and Garza entered in the 12th inning with the score knotted at eight runs apiece. Moreover, the Friars — their eventual free fall still far in the future — had won 14 of their last 16 games. A hornet’s nest awaited.

“It wasn’t your stereotypical debut,” acknowledged Garza, who two months later was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Twins. “But it’s funny, because as a reliever you’re told to always prepare for the worst. And it was something, especially against that lineup at that time. They were hot. Basically, I was being thrown into the fire. It was extras, last guy available, ‘There you go.’”

When the bullpen phone rang, he knew that his debut was nigh. It was a moment where Garza needed to remind himself to “stay calm and remember what you do, and how to do it.” Easier said than done. As the Edinburg, Texas native aptly put it, keeping one’s emotions in check when climbing a big-league bump for the first time is “like trying to tell water not to be wet.”

Garza entered with a ghost runner on second and promptly issued an intentional walk to Fernando Tatis Jr. A harmless fly-ball out followed, but soon things went south. A few pitches later, Wil Myers launched a mis-located heater into the cheap seats, turning a coming-out party into a nightmare. Garza knew it right away. Read the rest of this entry »

High-performing under-the-radar prospects have been featured frequently in this space over recent months, and Brandon Phaadt fits that description to a T. Unranked coming into the season, the 22-year-old right-hander in the Arizona Diamondbacks system posted a 3.21 ERA while fanning 160 batters in 131-and-two-thirds innings. Moreover, he did so while pitching at three levels —Pfaadt’s last six starts came with Double-A Amarillo — as a 2020 fifth-round pick out of a DII school.

The Bellarmine University product pushed back slightly when I suggested that his auspicious performance came out of the blue.

“I guess it did in some people’s eyes,” said Pfaadt. “But I knew I had it all along. I had a long offseason to train, and I also think it was really important that I was able to work with three different pitching coaches this year. I got feedback from all three, and was able to take bits and pieces from each of them.”

Asked for examples, Pfaadt told me that Barry Enright (Low-A Visalia) was more mechanics-based and worked with him on the consistency of his delivery, while Shane Loux (High-A Hillsboro) was more about pitchability. At Amarillo, Doug Drabek provided an effective combination of old-school and new-school acumen. As Pfaadt put it, Drabek “knows what worked back then, and what works now.”

Pitch design didn’t play a role. Read the rest of this entry »

Louie Varland has been one of the best pitchers in the Minnesota Twins system this season. In 20 appearances — 10 with Low-A Fort Myers and 10 with High-A Cedar Rapids — the 23-year-old right-hander is 10-4 with a 2.10 ERA and a 2.81 FIP. Moreover, he has 142 strikeouts to go with just 30 walks in 103 innings.

In some respects, Varland has come out of nowhere. A 15th-round pick in 2019 who took the mound at a Division II school, he entered the current campaign well under the radar. His name was nowhere to be found on top-prospect rankings.

The relative obscurity doesn’t include the Twin Cities’ baseball community. The St. Paul native played close to home at Concordia University, as did his older brother, Gus Varland, who was drafted by the Oakland A’s in 2018.

The emerging Twins prospect has upped both his velocity and his pitching acumen since he toed the slab with the Golden Bears. Low-90s as a collegian, he’s now sitting 94 and topping out at 98. Varland shared that his four-seam fastball spins between 2,300 and 2,500 RPM and gets 17 inches of rise. Calling the pitch his “greatest gift right now,” he added that its effectiveness is due in part to “vertical approach angle, the riding illusion that hitters see.” Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Donaldson has a 138 wRC+ since becoming a full-time player in 2013, and power has been a big part of that equation. Not counting last year’s pandemic-shortened season, and an injury-marred 2018, the 35-year-old third baseman has averaged 31 home runs annually. Now in his second year with the Minnesota Twins, Donaldson is a three-time All-Star who has been awarded a pair of Silver Sluggers.

He’s also an analytics-savvy hitting nerd who spends a lot of time thinking about his craft, and he doesn’t always do so in a predictable way. When Donaldson sat down for this interview in late August — the Twins were playing in Boston — he didn’t wait for a question; he asked a rhetorical one of his own.

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Josh Donaldson: “Are barrels overrated? In 2019, my OPS was good. Last year, I didn’t really have enough at-bats to log. This year, my OPS isn’t good — not for my standards — but if you go look at the charts, all of my [quality of contact] categories are red. They’re well into the 90s for percentiles.

“I looked at guys around the league who are having really good years. I looked at Marcus Semien, who is having a great year. I looked at a guy like Nolan Arenado, who has been a really good hitter for awhile. You go throughout the league and look at guys’ hard-hit percentages, and it’s like, ‘Is that good?’ That’s one thing I’ve been kind of tinkering with.

“Obviously, you want to be able to hit the ball hard — you want to drive balls — but I think there’s also something to… say, for instance, someone like Tony Gwynn. Are you able to control the barrel with where it’s pitched? Maybe it’s an inside pitch and you’re able to stay inside it and fight it off the other way to get a hit. That’s versus… I mean, I’ve gotten pitches in, or I’ve gotten pitches middle, and I’ve smoked them on the ground, or I’ve hit a line drive where the defense is playing.

“Freddie Freeman. You look at his Baseball Savant page, and it’s really good. He’s in the 99th percentile in a lot of categories, but I know that his thought-process is to hit a line drive to where the shortstop is. He’s always focused on doing that, yet has the ability to turn on some balls as well. So I think there’s an argument to be made… or at least it’s something that I’m kind of digging into a little bit more. Is hitting the ball hard good, or is it bad?” Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned this summer after being on a year-long hiatus due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features a pair of right-handers, Joe Barlow and Bailey Ober, and a southpaw, Alex Young, on one of their breaking balls.

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Joe Barlow, Texas Rangers

“I was a fastball-curveball guy until last year. The pandemic happened, then I went to Driveline to see if there was an opening for a better pitch… not even a better pitch, just any pitch in general to add to the repertoire. That way, if my curveball wasn’t on, I wouldn’t just be throwing fastballs.

“I played with changeups, two-seamers, sliders, and cutters. The pitch that I could seemingly best repeat was the slider. Even though it wasn’t good, it seemed like there was an opportunity to grow on that and get it to be a pitch that I could use. So, I went into the offseason and started throwing it. It was meant to be a third pitch — behind the curveball, behind the fastball — but I ended up getting a good feel for it and now it’s almost 50-50 with the fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Director, Baseball Research

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Position Overview

As Director, Baseball Research, you will serve as a key leader in the Twins organization, overseeing the development of analytical solutions that improve the Club’s baseball performance. You will set the overall vision for Baseball Research and manage the team leads for Core Research, Sports Science, International Amateur Scouting, and Domestic Amateur Scouting (“Baseball Research Subgroups”). You will partner closely with the Director, Baseball Systems to shape the Twins’ internal baseball system. You will communicate findings with coaches, scouts, and front office executives. Read the rest of this entry »