Lost in the Twins' late-season turnaround, dramatic Game 163 victory, and quick playoff exit is that they made a significant international signing, handing a $3.15 million bonus to a 16-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic named Miguel Angel Sano. Considered by many to be the best international prospect available this year and one of the most advanced bats to come out of the Dominican Republic in a long time, Sano saw multiple teams end their pursuit once MLB was unable to confirm his age.

Instead of signing along with the rest of this season's top international prospects in July he waited until late September, choosing the Twins over the Pirates and several other teams. While he ended up with less money than initially expected, the $3.15 million bonus is the second-highest ever given to a Latin American prospect and by far the most the Twins have ever spent on the international market. And his signing is just part of the Twins' increased aggression on the prospect front this year.

In addition to giving Sano a record bonus the Twins signed 16-year-old German outfielder Max Kepler for $775,000 and 16-year-old Dominican shortstop Jorge Polanco for $750,000 while investing more than the MLB-recommend slot price for first-round pick Kyle Gibson. In all they've dropped around $12 million on prospects this year, which is a huge amount for a team with a $65 million MLB payroll and a welcomed change from their past frugality in this area.

Baseball draft picks are amazingly unpredictable, particularly compared to other sports, and teenagers from the Dominican Republic or Germany are even bigger risks. However, snatching up top talents that drop in the draft because of bonus demands is a tactic that big-payroll teams have long exploited and a big percentage of MLB's superstars were signed internationally as teenagers. Investing in high-upside risks makes a lot more sense than spending $12 million on the next washed-up veteran free agent.

In other words the money paid to Sano may be massive in the context of prospect signing bonuses, but $3.15 million is still less than Nick Punto made this season (and will make next year). If one of Sano, Gibson, Kepler, or Polanco turns into a starting-caliber MLB player the $12 million investment will prove to be a bargain and if a star emerges from that group the Twins will have elevated the team's long-term outlook for about as much as they wasted on Livan Hernandez, Ramon Ortiz, and Craig Monroe.

Sano's contract was contingent upon his receiving a work visa, which the government officially issued him yesterday, but even if everything goes smoothly on and off the field he's obviously a long way from the majors. That risk and a delayed payoff is why investing in international prospects requires a team with some gamble in them, but the consensus is that Sano has almost limitless upside offensively, so much so that no one seems to care that he has little shot of sticking at shortstop (or even third base).

Sano is already 6-foot-3 and 200 pounds, which obviously led to the doubts about his age, but even if he's actually 18 or 19 the signing is something that Twins fans should be absolutely thrilled about. Had he been eligible for the draft Sano almost surely would've been a first-round pick and perhaps a top-10 selection, and Gibson was widely considered a top-10 talent before a since-healed injury dropped him into the Twins' laps at No. 22 overall.

There's a decent chance that neither player ends up making a big impact for the Twins, because that's just how baseball prospects work, but in terms of increasing their likelihood of developing star-caliber players and building championship-caliber teams the Sano and Gibson signings are big steps in the right direction for a franchise that has generally been risk-averse and far too willing to drop millions on veteran mediocrity. Throwing money into the player-development machine is a much better approach.

DAVID WILSON BOSWELL | SP | 1964-1970 | CAREER STATS
 
  G      GS      IP      W      L      ERA     ERA+    WARP     WS
187     150    1036     67     54     3.49     101     16.8     61

After winning the 1963 bidding war for 18-year-old right-hander Dave Boswell, the Twins handed him a then-large $15,000 bonus to sign straight out of high school. His minor-league career lasted under two seasons and Boswell made his big-league debut on September 18, 1964, lasting just three innings in a no-decision against the Red Sox around four months before his 20th birthday. He ended up making four September starts, going 2-0 with a 4.24 ERA.

Boswell made the team as a long man out of spring training in 1965, and after seven shutout innings in relief of Dick Stigman on May 11 was given a chance in the rotation. He pitched well, going 5-3 with a 3.53 ERA over 12 starts, but was shifted back to the bullpen in the second half after reportedly coming down with mononucleosis. He made just one appearance in the World Series defeat to the Dodgers, throwing 2.2 innings of relief when Jim Kaat was knocked around early in Game 5.

A full-fledged member of the rotation in 1966, Boswell was 12-5 with a 3.14 ERA in 169 innings and led the league with a .706 winning percentage while ranking second with 9.2 strikeouts per nine innings. At just 21 the future looked bright, and sure enough over the next three seasons Boswell was among the most durable pitchers in the league. He went 44-37 with a 3.27 ERA in 669 innings of work from 1967-1969, striking out 537 batters while allowing just 525 hits.

He was at his best in 1969, teaming with Jim Perry to give the Twins two 20-game winners on the way to a division title. Boswell ranked among the league leaders in wins (20), innings (256), and strikeouts (190), but along with his overpowering stuff also had some trouble with his control. He handed out 99 walks, plunked another eight batters, and uncorked 10 wild pitches to rank among the AL's top 10 in each category.

Boswell stepped up in the playoffs as the Twins faced a 109-win Baltimore team that led the AL in runs allowed and ranked second to the Twins in runs scored. He somehow managed to keep a lineup led by Frank Robinson and Boog Powell (who finished second and third to Harmon Killebrew in the MVP balloting) off the board for 10.2 innings in Game 2, all while 20-game winner Dave McNally blanked the Twins for 11 frames.

Unfortunately, the tie was broken in the bottom of the 11th. With two runners on and two outs, manager Billy Martin yanked Boswell in favor of closer Ron Perranoski, who had saved an AL-high 31 games with a 2.11 ERA. O's skipper Earl Weaver responded by pinch-hitting Curt Motton for Ellrod Hendricks and Motton delivered a walk-off single to right field. Not only was Boswell's amazing game wasted, he was tagged with the loss despite recording 32 outs without actually allowing a run to score.

He didn't get another chance against the Orioles, as Baltimore finished off the three-game sweep with a blowout win in Game 3 before eventually losing to the "Miracle Mets" in the World Series. And while no one knew it at the time, that extra-inning loss to the Orioles in the ALCS essentially marked the end of Boswell's days as an effective major-league pitcher despite the fact that he didn't turn 25 years old until a few months later.

Boswell went 3-7 with a ghastly 6.42 ERA over 68.2 innings in 1970 and didn't make an appearance in the Twins' second straight three-game ALCS sweep at the hands of the Orioles. He was released by the Twins before throwing a single inning in 1971 and immediately signed with the Tigers, who cut him loose after three poor relief outings. Boswell then latched on with the Orioles and finished his career by going 1-2 with a 4.38 ERA in 24.2 innings as a mop-up man.

And just like that, a career that began at 19 and peaked at 24 was over by 27. It's hard to pin Boswell's early decline on that 10.2-inning ALCS start alone, because pitching past the ninth inning was fairly routine in 1969. In fact, that start wasn't even Boswell's longest of the season--he lasted 12 innings in a win over the White Sox in mid-July--and across baseball there were 67 other starts of more than nine innings in 1969.

However, he likely threw over 150 pitches in both the July win and ALCS loss, and that type of workload for a 24-year-old is certainly difficult to ignore given how his career fizzled. Would he have lasted past his 27th birthday had he not logged nearly a thousand innings, completed 37 games, and had several marathon starts through the age of 24? Perhaps, but while his workload would be considered obscene by today's standards it wasn't particularly out of the ordinary back then.

Interestingly, the Twins fired Martin as manager after one division-winning year not because he worked Boswell so hard on the mound, but because he reportedly knocked Boswell out during a bar fight that August. While his Twins career was disappointing considering the promise that he showed at such a young age, Boswell's early numbers actually look a lot more impressive than they were. In putting up a 3.49 ERA with the Twins he was aided by one of the most pitcher-friendly eras in the sport's history.

To add some context to the extreme environment that he pitched in consider that Boswell's seemingly fantastic 3.32 ERA in 1968 was actually worse than the league average of 3.10. For his entire time in Minnesota the league ERA was an incredibly low 3.48, which is why despite a much lower raw ERA he stacks up pretty equally with the two pitchers who preceded him on this list, Eric Milton (987 innings, 101 ERA+) and Scott Erickson (979 innings, 103 ERA+). Boswell threw 1,036 innings of a 101 ERA+.

The fact that Milton's adjusted ERA+ is actually identical to Boswell's despite Boswell's raw ERA being nearly 30 percent lower shows just how important is it to look beyond raw numbers when comparing players across eras. Of course, while his 3.49 ERA with the Twins is hardly as impressive as it seems by today's standards, it still would have been nice to see what Boswell could do had he not flamed out in his mid-20s.

TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
 
Complete Games      37      7th
Strikeouts         865      9th
Innings         1036.1     10th
Wins                67     10th
Quality Starts      76     11th
Shutouts             6     12th
Starts             150     13th
ERA               3.49     17th