Month: April 2014

This Day in Twins History – April 12

April 12, 1965 – In Minnesota, the Yankees drop their second straight 11 inning opener, as the Twins win 5-4. Twins starter Jim Kaat, stranded because of the ice and snow, is brought to Metropolitan Stadium by helicopter. Kaat is matched by Jim Bouton, who goes five innings, giving up two earned runs. Bob Allison‘s wind-blown fly ball in the 11th drops untouched for a three-base error by Hector Lopez, one of eight errors the two teams committed on this day. Cesar Tovar‘s 2-out single scores the winner off ex-Twins hurler Pedro Ramos. I did a piece about this opening day back in 2008 that you can view at http://wp.me/p1YQUj-tT

.April 12, 1990 – The Twins and Rangers hook up on a deal and the Twins get 2B Fred Manrique and the Rangers receive pitcher Jeff Satzinger.

April 12, 2002 – In their first sellout since winning the World Series in 1991, the Twins beat the Tigers in their home opener, 4-2, in front of 48,244 loud and enthusiastic fans at the Metrodome. The Minnesota franchise had been considered for elimination due to MLB’s contraction plan proposed during the off-season.

April 12, 2005 – The Twins beat the Tigers 5-4 when Shannon Stewart singles off Troy Percival in the bottom of the 9th and breaks a streak in which Percival had not allowed the Twins to score an earned run over 40 innings since 1995.

April 12, 2010 – In the first regular season game at Target Field the Twins beat the Boston Red Sox 5-2 with starter Carl Pavano getting the win and Red Sox starter Jon Lester took the loss. Closer Jon Rauch recorded the first save at Target Field. The first hit was a single by Red Sox leadoff hitter Marco Scutaro who was later thrown out trying to steal 2B. The first Twins hit was a single by Orlando Hudson. The first homerun at Target Field was a 391 foot shot to right off the bat of Jason Kubel in the 7th inning. Game time temperature was 68 degrees with partly sunny skies. Attendance was 39,715, slightly over the capacity figure of 39,504. Paid attendance was 38,145. The game lasted 2:59.

April 12, 2013 – The New York Mets thumped the Twins 16-5 at Target Field. The temperature at game time was 34 degrees and snow flurries were evident throughout the game. Twins fans came layered in ski gear, hunting clothes and whatever else they could find to keep warm. The Twins provided free coffee and hot chocolate to the Twins fans at the gate as they entered the ballpark. But the fact that the Mets batted around in each of the first 2 innings putting up 10 runs did little to warm Twins fans. The announced attendance was 23,735, but that’s tickets sold and not the actual number of people inside Target Field.

According to Elias

The A’s beat the Twins, 6-1, Thursday afternoon. Oakland has scored at least six runs in each of its last nine games against the Twins. That’s the longest such streak by one major league team against another since the Tigers scored at least six runs in 14 consecutive games against the Royals during the 2006 season. The last time the A’s had a streak like this was in 1949 when the Philadelphia A’s had an 11-game streak against the Washington Senators.

Where do Twins rank in MLB ticket prices?

MoneyI have been keeping track of Minnesota Twins ticket prices for some time and you can see my work on the Twins Ticket Price History page. Based on how I calculate Twins ticket price averages I have the Twins with an average ticket price of $30.68. TMR (Team Marketing Report) publishes their MLB FCI (Fan Cost index) each year and this year according to their formula they have the Minnesota Twins with an average ticket price of $32.59. Why the difference in our average ticket prices? It could be many different things but as long as we each approach our data in a consistent format each year the numbers will remain valid. My goal is to track Twins ticket prices from year to year and I don’t do any comparisons to the other MLB teams. TMR on the other hand is interested in comparing where each team stands in their FCI of which average ticket price is an important piece.

The other day TMR put out this chart showing 2014 MLB average ticket prices.

MLB2014Tickets

Click on the chart twice to make it larger and easier to read.
Click on the chart twice to make it larger and easier to read.

MLB2014Tickets

In  2014 the Boston Red Sox have the highest average ticket price at $52.32 and the San Diego Padres have the lowest average ticket price at $16.37. The Red Sox have had the highest average priced MLB ticket since 2011 when they took over the crown from the Chicago Cubs. As I mentioned earlier, the average MLB ticket price is $27.93. The Twins average ticket price of $32.59 ranks them with the seventh highest average ticket price moving up one spot from last year. Eleven teams have rank above the MLB average ticket price and 19 teams rank below the average. Of the 10 teams that appeared in postseason play in 2013, seven of them had ticket prices that fell below the MLB average ticket price.

So back to the Minnesota Twins and where their ticket prices have ranked according to TMR since 2006.

2013 at Target Field – Team record was 66-96. MLB average ticket price was $27.73. Twins average ticket price was $32.59 ranking them with 8th highest average ticket price.

2012 at Target Field – Team record was 66-96. MLB average ticket price was $26.98. Twins average ticket price was $33.04 ranking them with 5th highest average ticket price.

2011 at Target Field – Team record was 63-99. MLB average ticket price was $26.91. Twins average ticket price was $33.04 ranking them with 6th highest average ticket price.

2010 at Target Field – Team record was 94-68 and in postseason. MLB average ticket price was $26.74. Twins average ticket price was $31.47 ranking them with 7th highest average ticket price.

2009 in Metrodome – Team record was 87-76 and in postseason. MLB average ticket price was $26.64. Twins average ticket price was $21.70 ranking them with 17th highest average ticket price.

2008 in Metrodome – Team record was 88-75. MLB average ticket price was $25.43. Twins average ticket price was $20.68 ranking them with 19th highest average ticket price.

2007 in Metrodome – Team record was 79-83. MLB average ticket price was $22.77. Twins average ticket price was $19.27 ranking them with 20th highest average ticket price.

2006 in Metrodome – Team record was 96-66 and in postseason. MLB average ticket price was $22.21. Twins average ticket price was $17.26 ranking them with 21st highest average ticket price.

So what does all this prove? I am not sure but the Twins organization is fond of saying that the Minnesota Twins should not be compared to organizations like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cardinals etc. because the revenue numbers are very different. While that is true, how can the Twins justify such high average ticket prices when their payroll is nowhere near the top and their record on the field is one of the worst each of the last three years but yet they have asked their fans to pay ticket prices that are 7th, 8th, 5th, and 7th highest in all of major league baseball. In the National League the Cubs have put a bad product on the field and been gouging their fans for years and it looks like the Twins have become the Chicago Cubs of the American League both in play and in average ticket prices. Owner Jim Pohlad and everyone in the Twins organization should be pretty embarrassed by these numbers.

According to Elias

Phil Hughes
Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes recorded his first out of the game (a strikeout of John Jaso) on his 40th pitch of the afternoon yesterday after he had already allowed four first-inning runs to the Athletics. The Twins took Hughes “off the hook” by tying the game in the ninth inning before Derek Norris hit a decisive three-run homer in the 11th inning in the A’s 7-4 victory at Minnesota. But let’s get back to Hughes, who became the first starting pitcher who needed as many as 40 pitches to register his first out of a game since the Dodgers’ Derek Lowe finally retired a batter on his 43rd pitch of a loss at Colorado on May 4, 2008.

A couple of notes about our site. Make sure you check out our new “Down on the Farm” news on the right hand side of the page that will allow you stay up-to-date on current events with the Twins minor league teams. We also added an electronic version  of the 2014 Twins Media guide for your reference needs. In case you have not checked out the link to MLB Game Notes also on the right hand side of the page you should do so. There is a lot of interesting information that each team publishes in their notes every game day, check it out.

According to Elias

Chris Colabello
Chris Colabello

Chris Colabello drove in four runs in Minnesota’s win in Cleveland yesterday, increasing his total this season to 11 RBIs. That’s the most RBIs any Twins player has had in the team’s first six games of a season since Bobby Darwin had the same total at the same point in 1972.

The Twins won 7-3 at Cleveland on Saturday, giving manager Ron Gardenhire his 1,000th win as a major-league manager, all for Minnesota. Gardenhire is third skipper in Senators/Twins franchise history to reach 1,000 wins, joining Bucky Harris (1336 wins for the original Washington Senators) and Tom Kelly (1,140 wins for Minnesota). The only other franchises that have had three different managers each lead them to 1,000 or more wins are the Yankees (four: Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Joe Torre) and Dodgers (Wilbert Robinson, Walter Alston and Tom Lasorda).

Ron Gardenhire
Ron Gardenhire

Gardy became just the second manager in club history to reach 1,000 victories, the other being Tom Kelly who went 1,140-1,244 from 1986-2001. Kelly earned his 1,000th win on May 7, 2000 with a 4-0 victory over Detroit in his 2,093rd career game as a Manager, Saturday marked Gardy’s 1,950th career game.

Gardy becomes the 60th manager to win 1,000 games, 24 of these managers have won 1,000 games with one team but only 10 have won 1,000 games while managing only one team and both Ron Gardenhire and Tom Kelly belong to this exclusive club.

 

Did you know?

 

Aaron Hicks
Aaron Hicks

The Twins finished spring training with a record of 9-16-3, their fewest spring wins since 1995 when they went 8-6. Aaron Hicks led the club in hits (17) for the second straight spring. The Twins drew 107,806 in attendance in 16 home dates surpassing the 100,000 mark for the 13th consecutive year. Two additional home dates were rained out. The team averaged 6,738 fans per game as compared to 6,697 fans per game in 2013.

The Twins have opened the season on March 31st twice before, once against the Tigers in 2003 and once against the Angels in 2008 and the Twins won both games. Yesterday’s 5-3 loss in Chicago to the mighty whities makes the team 2-1 on March 31. The team has never played a regular season game in March in Minnesota.

Paul Konerko didn’t play for the White Sox as Chicago began its season by beating the Twins 5-3 yesterday. Konerko had started his team’s season opener in each of the past 16 years (1998 through 2013); he and Todd Helton were the only major-league players to do that. With Konerko on the bench and Helton retired, the longest streak of consecutive opening-day starts now belongs to Torii Hunter, who extended his streak to 16 consecutive seasons (1999 through 2014) in the Tigers’ victory over the Royals.

Ron Gardenhire
Ron Gardenhire

Ron Gardenhire is just two wins away from becoming the fifth active manager to reach 1,000 victories and 60th all-time. The other four active managers with more wins are Bruce Bochy (1,530), Mike Scioscia (1,233), Buck Showalter (1,163) and Terry Francona with (1,121).