What does AI predict for the Twins in 2024

Just for fun I asked AI Microsoft Copilot powered by GPT-4 to tell me how the Minnesota Twins will do in 2024. Here is what it had to say:

The Minnesota Twins are gearing up for the 2024 MLB season, and there are several intriguing story-lines to watch. Let’s dive into some predictions:

  1. Royce Lewis Makes All-Star Team, Earns MVP Consideration:
  2. Joe Ryan Bounces Back with an All-Star Season:
  3. Twins Projected to Win AL Central Again:

In summary, keep an eye on Royce Lewis, Joe Ryan, and the Twins as they aim to defend their division title and make a deeper playoff run in 2024! ??

Top 10 offensive seasons by a Twins position player

It is always interesting to look back over the years and try to determine who has had the best offensive season for your favorite team. In the case of the Minnesota Twins I think that is a pretty easy answer, Rod Carew in 1977 and his run at hitting .400. I was lucky that I was able to witness that season as I was able to get out to Met Stadium and see a number of his games in person. Here is a short 3 minute video (don’t forget to turn on the sound) for you to watch about Rod. An interesting point is that none have taken place at Target Field.

But the Twins have had many great offensive seasons by their players and today we going to provide a list of the top 10 (actually 11) for you. All the players on this list have a WAR of 7.0 or above. As you go down the list you can picture the player in your mind or if you weren’t around or didn’t follow the Twins back then this website will hopefully learn more about that player and his contribution to Minnesota Twins history. As always we are going to use Baseball-Reference.com and their nifty tool “Stathead” to help us identify the players for this list by rating them using WAR.

Twins top 10 offensive seasons by a Twins player

Over the years, there have been 141 players with a WAR of 9.0 or more in a season, here is the list. Any surprises? Feel free to leave your comments.

List of 141 MLB players with WAR of 9.0 or higher

The best bookies for betting on the MLB

Sports betting has taken America by storm over the last half-decade, but it has ramped up significantly over the last 18 months. More gambling companies have opened up to serve millions of new American bettors. Primarily, this is thanks to a combination of relaxed legislation and improved accessibility. As more sports fans seek out a greater range of markets, we’ve taken a look at the platforms that are best for baseball fans who are looking to bet on Major League games, and some of the components to keep an eye out for so that you can choose the betting platform that best suits your needs.

Accessing MLB betting welcome bonuses and promotions

No matter which sport you enjoy betting on, searching for welcome bonuses and promotions can often pay dividends. Ultimately, the whole purpose of a promotion is to give you free credits you can bet with so that you don’t have to dig too deep into your pocket. As the multibillion-dollar industry heats up in America, the most popular sports, such as MLB, become a key battleground for platforms seeking your patronage.

Although many sports betting companies have been trying to dominate individual sports betting markets for over a decade, household names like BetRivers Sportsbook have used their considerable size and capital to get ahead of everybody else. Betting on MLB might not involve the same sort of volume that the NFL or even the NBA attracts, but it’s still worth billions of dollars annually in the US.

Former Twins outfielder Brant Alyea dies at 83

Brant Alyea was born in Passiac, New Jersey on December 8, 1940 and passed away at the age of 83 in his Pennsylvania home on February 4, 2024. Alyea was a very athletic student lettering in three sports at Rutherford High School, playing quarterback for the Bulldogs and starring in basketball and baseball. 

According to his SABR Bio, after graduating from high school Alyea accepted a scholarship to Hofstra College in Hempstead, New York, a seemingly perfect fit as the small Long Island institution was established on a campus bequeathed by a Dutch lumber magnate, William Hofstra, in the 1930s, and their athletic teams were known as the Flying Dutchmen. More significantly, Hofstra would give Alyea the opportunity to play basketball as well as baseball. The basketball team was then coached by another Dutchman originally from New Jersey, Butch van Breda Kolff. Alyea and the Dutchmen enjoyed significant basketball success in the NCAA College Division. In the 1959-60 season, they finished 23-1, losing only to Wagner College of Staten Island by two points in January, but that loss cost them the conference title and they were not selected for postseason play. The next year, Alyea led the Dutchmen in scoring and rebounding, and Hofstra was selected for the small-college tournament, in which the team was eliminated by Albright College.

But it was Alyea’s baseball skills, particularly his power that attracted baseball scouts and eventually led to his signing with the Cincinnati Reds in the Spring of 1962. The Reds assigned their 6’5″ prospect to Geneva (New York) of the Class D New York-Penn League, and he clubbed 32 home runs while hitting .319 in just 105 games. Those healthy numbers made Alyea a prime target in the Rule 5 draft, which at that time covered all first-year players who had not been placed on the 40-man roster, and Alyea was snatched up by the Washington Senators.

Most games played in Senators/Twins franchise history

The Minnesota Twins were known as the Washington Senators before they moved to Minnesota and became the Twins after the 1960 MLB season ended. Let’s take a look at the players that played in over 1,000 games for the Senators and Twins between 1901-2023. Some of the players on this list you will be familiar with and others you will not.

Twins trade Polanco to Mariners

Just before bed time here in Florida on Monday night I saw the news that the Minnesota Twins were in the process of finalizing their trade of Jorge Polanco the switch-hitting second baseman who has been a regular part of the Twins infield since 2016 to the Seattle Mariners for four players, two experienced major league players and two minor league players and cash. The will get right-handed starter Anthony DeSclafani and reliever Justin Topa, and two minor leaguers, outfielder Gabriel Gonzalez and pitcher Darren Bowen. The Mariners will also send cash (rumored to be $8 million) to the Twins, the teams announced.

The Twins second second base job has multiple suitors and the soon to be 31 year-old Polanco was slated to make $10.5 million this season. Polanco was liked by his teammates and his fans alike and will be missed in Minnesota. But I have the feeling that we have not seen the last of the franchise leader in home runs by a switch-hitter and longest-tenured Twins player.

Polanco was signed by scout Fred Guerrero for the Minnesota Twins in 2009. On March 18, 2018, he received an 80-game suspension for testing positive for the banned old-school steroid, Stanozolol. Polanco claimed that he had consumed the steroid inadvertently, as he thought he was taking a simple vitamin supplement in his native Dominican Republic. In 2019, “Chulo” was the first player to hit for the cycle that season. This marked the start of an outstanding first half in which he was the Twins’ best offensive player while they were the best team in the American League. He was in turn elected as the starting shortstop in the 2019 All-Star Game.

The MLB HOF class of 2024

Three of the most accomplished hitters of their generation received baseball’s highest honor today.  Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., where they will join former manager Jim Leyland — elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee — on the induction stage on July 21. Beltré and Mauer reached the Hall in their first appearance on the ballot, and Helton in his sixth.

Mauer received 76.1 percent of the vote after a 15-year career spent entirely with his hometown Minnesota Twins, who drafted him first overall from a St. Paul high school in 2001. Mauer, 40, is the only catcher to win three batting titles and the only member of this new Hall of Fame class to be a Most Valuable Player; he won the American League honor in 2009, one of four seasons in which he led the Twins to the postseason.

Congratulations to all on a well deserved honor.

A look at the Twins postseason success

Maybe the title of this post should be “A look at the Twins postseason success or lack there of” versus what I have chosen to use. The Minnesota Twins have played in 76 postseason games since 1961 and their record in those games is 28-48 for a .368 winning percentage. They have advanced to the World Series on three occasions and have won two of them, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 1987 and the Atlanta Braves in 1991 and coming out on the short end of the stick against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1965.

Most starts by a Twins SP

I get a number of emails each day and one of them pointed out the following about my favorite pitcher all-time, Warren Spahn.

“Today’s definition of a durable pitcher is more lenient than the guidelines in place between 1942 and 1965, when Warren Spahn totaled 382 complete games for the Braves, Mets, and Giants.

Managers are happy these days if a starter can work six innings, maybe seven. Complete games are very rare, indeed. Just 35 CG’s were registered in the American and National Leagues last season — and only 379 were posted over the past eight years combined. That latter total, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, was three fewer than the number of complete games that Spahn recorded himself.”

Only two Twins starters have over 100 complete games, Bert Blyleven with 141 and Jim Kaat with 133 and the nearest to them for CG’s in Minnesota is Dave Goltz with 80. By the way, the most starts by a Twins starter stands at 42 by Jim Kaat in 1965.

I have attached a B-R Stathead search link for Minnesota Twins pitchers that have had 100 or more starts. The list is relatively short since only 26 pitchers from 1961-2023 have started that many games wearing the Twins uniform. The nice thing about it is you can re-sort the list in any way you want to see who had the most strikeouts, wins, etc. Check it out, I’m sure you will find some things that will surprise you.

For combined seasons, from 1961 to 2023, At least 60% games started, Playing for MIN, in the regular season, requiring Games Started >= 100, sorted by descending Games Started.

Twins player, coach & manager Billy Gardner passes away at 96

Billy Gardner passed away peacefully January 3, 2024, at the age of 96 at home surrounded by family. He was born July 19, 1927, in New London, CT to father Leslie Garder and mother Eva Maynard. He married the love of his life, Barbara Carnaroli, in 1952. They were married 71 years.

Gardner was signed at the age of 17 by the New York Giants in 1944 after graduating from Chapman Technical High School. After spending one year in the minors Gardner was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1946. He returned to baseball in 1947. He worked his way up to the big leagues and debuted with the NY Giants on April 22, 1954 in Forbes Field against the Pittsburgh Pirates and singled in his first big league at bat. Gardner played in the majors for 10 years between 1954-1963 with the Giants, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Senators, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Gardner was a part of two World Series teams, the 1954 Giants and the 1961 Yankees. Gardner’s nickname was “Slick” because he “could turn a double play in a phone booth”.

Gardner was traded from the Orioles to the Senators on April 3, 1960 for Clint Courtney and Ron Samford and then became one of the original Minnesota Twins when the Senators moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season. Gardner was the Twins starting second baseman in the first game the Twins ever played going 1 for 3 with a sacrifice in the Twins 6-0 win over the Yankees at Yankee Stadium I. On June 14, 1961 after playing in Minnesota in just 45 games he was traded to the New York Yankees for pitcher Danny McDevitt.

After his playing years, he spent more than 30 years scouting, coaching and managing in the Minors and Majors including managing the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals.

Billy Gardner

Calvin Griffith was looking for a third-base coach in 1981, an opening created when Gene Mauch abruptly resigned in August 1980 and Johnny Goryl moved from third base to the manager’s job. Gardner was hired to coach third but he didn’t keep that job for long as he was promoted to the Twins manager position on May 23, 1981 after Jonny Goryl was let go. He had a 268-353 record with the Twins, including a 60-102 mark in 1982, when many of the core players to the 1987 World Series championship team first came up to the major leagues. The Minnesota Twins, losers of 20 of their last 25 games in 1985, fired Manager Billy Gardner named pitching coach Ray Miller of the Baltimore Orioles to succeed him.

Gardner is survived by his wife Barbara: and four children, Thomas Gardner, Gwen (Bob) Lakowsky, Shelly (Rick) Kraetz and Billy Gardner Jr. (Kristie). He enjoyed spending time with his children, ten grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

We at Twinstrivia.com would like to pass on our condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Billy Gardner. Thank you for the memories Billy Gardner.

Slick

Billy Gardner Obituary