GCL Twins

2007 GCL Twins News

If Radcliff's staff gets it right, the Twins benefit

By Ken Lipshez
New Britain Herald Press

NEW BRITAIN - The Minnesota Twins do not lavish their resources on the pursuit of high-priced free agents.

Neither do they dispense $50 million checks to negotiate with foreign prospects. Yet from 2001-06, the Minnesota Twins won the American League's Central Division four times.

General manager Terry Ryan has reaped the accolades and rewards of that accomplishment, and rightfully so. With loyalty and unity coursing through the organization as a byproduct of his leadership, Ryan is quick to praise such trusted colleagues as minor league director Jim Rantz, assistant general manager Bill Smith and director of baseball operations Rob Antony.

But Ryan reiterates, and most of baseball corroborates, that the game's longest tenured scouting director, Mike Radcliff, has as big a hand in the Twins' success as anybody. Radcliff supervises a 43-person staff that scours the world for amateur talent.

"Success for a scouting director or a scouting department - that's a difficult thing to assess," Radcliff said during his recent visit to New Britain. "We miss way more than we hit, you have to realize that right from the start. The thing about the scouting department is you have to be at least as good and acquire as many good players for your organization as anyone else - as good or better."

Like Ryan, Rantz and other Twins administrators who include New Britain as a semiannual destination, Radcliff humbly cites fidelity as the key to the Twins' track record.

"If we have had any success as a scouting department, it's a reflection of our longevity together," Radcliff said. "Terry started our scouting staff and (special assistant) Larry Corrigan came in. They each (brought) their philosophies, their base foundations. I've really been just a caretaker.

"We've had to hire very few people. We've had to let go very few people. We've all been together a long time. We're on the same page. I think that's a big, big attribute that we have, that we know each other, we know how to operate the system we have."

The large-market teams like the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets have obvious advantages. First-round misses and poor free-agent decisions can be remedied readily because of their seemingly endless flow of cash and willingness to spend it. Radcliff dismisses the Twins' inability or unwillingness to play that game as a roadblock to success.

"We and other teams like us - small-market teams, if you will - we have less margin for error, no doubt," he said. "(Large-market teams) can be more frivolous, have more mistakes and can make up for it with just resources - cash, money. We understand that and it's never been an excuse for Terry and our organization. We just buckle up, have to work harder and in the end acquire good players."

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman stressed several times during his New Britain visit that the Twins set a player-development example that his club is trying to follow.

"We want to have the best developmental farm system and we're trying to play catch-up to teams like the Minnesota Twins who have done it so well for a lot longer," Cashman said.

Radcliff said that the large-market teams even have an advantage in the June draft. Amateur players who align themselves with agents like Scott Boras generally price themselves out of the Twins' range. The Twins often make their draft choices with keen consideration for a player's "signability."

"Signability does cause teams like us to eliminate some players from our possibility list. It's a fact of life," Radcliff said. "We have to do that, but there's plenty of other players and we won't use that as an excuse. We can be productive in the draft and I think we have been and we plan to be. It is a factor and we have to put it in the equation."

The Twins, for example, selected speedy center fielder Ben Revere with the 28th overall choice in the June draft, a selection that surprised most draft pundits. Revere, who some people apparently dismissed because of his 5-foot-9, 170-pound stature, was ranked 42nd among high school players by Baseball America. The $750,000 bonus he received - well below the norm - indicates his degree of signability.

"Ben was a little bit out of the box for us and for the industry in general as far as taking him in the first round," Radcliff said.

"We're really excited about it. I know we got a little bit of attention on that selection. He was a little under the radar in regards to the other organizations as far as being picked that high. Ben would have been picked second or third by somebody but we (have conviction) that this guy has the ability to be an offensive force. He has a chance to be a run-scoring, top-of-the-lineup, catalyst."

Since the Rock Cats' relationship with Minnesota began in 1995, Radcliff and company have had terrific first-round hits and some devastating misses. The hits: Michael Cuddyer (1997), Joe Mauer (2001), Matt Garza (2005). The misses: left-handed pitcher Ryan Mills (1998), outfielder B.J. Garbe (1999), right-hander Adam Johnson (2000).

Among the wait-and-sees are current Rock Cats shortstop Trevor Plouffe (2004, 20th overall), who has shown local fans the dash to be a big-leaguer after two sub-par seasons in Class A. An anonymous scout was recently quoted in Baseball America as saying that Plouffe's best chance to make the majors is as a pitcher.

"He is in an interesting guy because as an amateur, he was thought just as highly of as a pitcher as he was as a player by almost every organization," Radcliff said. "Everybody else had very similar evaluations on him as a pitcher so you had to make a decision which would be better off for him to go through the minor leagues.

Success and failure cannot be judged solely on first-round analysis. Rock Cats power-hitting first baseman Brock Peterson is an interesting example.

"Brock Peterson was a (49th) round pick. I'm not sure any other organization even saw him," Radcliff said. "Our scout (Bill Lohr) happens to live in the same town and knew him since he was a little boy. He watched him grow up and we took a shot. ... We signed him right before school started because (Lohr) really believed that this guy had the ability to be an impact offensive guy. He's progressed nicely."

While the Rock Cats have been up and down over the years, the success of the Twins substantiates Radcliff's triumphs. Just ask Brian Cashman.