There have been many afternoons this summer when a major league ballpark has been turned into a classroom for Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and his staff.
As the losses have mounted, the coaching staff has had to go over fundamentals again and again with players the organization still considers prospects. Even before the September call-ups arrived, Gardenhire had young players on the field at 2 p.m. some afternoons, working on relays and other fundamentals that should have been mastered in the minors.
The Twins looked to their farm system for help this summer, and the system has let them down.
John Manuel, editor-in-chief of Baseball America, wrote in an e-mail that he probably would rank the Twins farm system between 16th and 20th among the 30 major league clubs.
"It's definitely thinner in impact talent at the top [minor league teams],'' he wrote.
The Twins pride themselves on having a strong farm system, so the dip in production is a sensitive issue for them. The so-called "Twins Way'' of sound, fundamental baseball has given way to a summer of mental and physical miscues that needs to be addressed. Sometime next week, the Twins are expected to announce some changes to their minor league staffs in an attempt to address some of the problems with developing their prospects.
"Little things,'' Gardenhire said. "Balls put in play, hit-and-runs, all the little things that have been Twins baseball. Catching the ball, throwing to the right base. All are things we need to continue to get better at.
"It's just coming up the ladder, and it is about paying more attention to it, all of us. We have to start paying attention to the little details of the game and doing a better job to make these players a little more ready for this thing.''
Glaring shortcomings
The Twins feel that Danny Valencia, a 19th-round pick in 2006, can be a good third baseman, but he's not a finished product. Valencia at times struggles on balls hit to his left and has been slow to react to other balls because his first move is to rise up, rather than move toward the ball.
Trevor Plouffe, a first-round draft pick in 2004, has a strong arm and should be able to play shortstop in the majors. But Gardenhire has had to show Plouffe how to throw to first without having the ball sail on him.
Luke Hughes, a free agent signing out of Australia, has struggled to hit breaking balls and hasn't mastered a position.
Who's at fault for them reaching the majors without addressing these issues?
"Some of it is the individual and some of it is on us,'' said Rob Antony, the Twins' assistant general manager. "There is no easy way to answer any of this.
"It has been very encouraging the way Trevor Plouffe has been going this year. We need some offense in our lineup, and I think he can be an offensive contributor, and he's going to need to work on his defense whether he's at second, short or third, or first base or the outfield. It's probably our fault he hasn't moved around more to play other positions.''
Most of the Twins call-ups have been from Class AAA Rochester, which is coming off of a historic two-year run of futility. Rochester was 49-95 last season. The Twins decided to sign nine veteran minor leaguers in an attempt to help the Red Wings win more games. That way, their prospects at the Class AA level wouldn't have to be rushed.
This year's Red Wings went 53-91, becoming the first International League team to lose 90 games in two consecutive years since 1961-62.
With the Twins using the disabled list 24 times this year, they had to tap Rochester for help more than they wanted. That certainly affected the talent level there. But the lack of fundamentals displayed by some of the call-ups raises the question of whether talent is the only problem.
When Twins first baseman Justin Morneau spent a week at Rochester on a rehab assignment, several persons close to him said the former MVP was surprised that players weren't taking early batting practice. There were several people in the Twins clubhouse who said they had heard concerns about the Red Wings' work ethic.
"I don't know who would say something like that, that we don't work hard enough,'' said ex-Twin Tom Nieto, who has managed Rochester the past two seasons. "As far as doing our pregame work, we didn't change anything we did last year to this year. We did our early work, early infield work, early hitting."
When asked about it, Morneau said that time and availability of the hitting cage there might have been factors and that he knew players there wanted to work. But when Morneau was asked about how much work he put in, he indicated help was available if players wanted it.
"It depends on how bad you want it, I guess,'' Morneau said. "If I wanted to hit and couldn't find someone to throw, I think I would have found a way to do it.''