Month: May 2016

Should the Twins President, GM and Manager keep their jobs?

When the Minnesota Twins hired Hall of Famer Paul Molitor to manage the Twins starting with the 2015 season they had to know that they were swimming up-stream and that the baseball gods were against them. The list of “modern” MLB Hall of Fame players that tried their luck as managers is relatively short and none of them have turned out to be Hall of Fame managers.

Frank Robinson

Robinson, Frank ExposFrank Robinson may have been the best of the skippers that had Hall of Fame on his resume. Robinson managed four different teams (Indians, Giants, Orioles, Expos/Nationals) over 16 seasons from 1975-2006. Robinson took over the Orioles manager duties in 1988 after they had an 0-6 record and he managed them to 15 more consecutive losses before they won their first game of the season after an 0-21 start. The next season (1989) Frank Robinson was selected as the AL Manager of the year after leading his team to a second place finish and a 87-75 record. Although he may have been the best manager of the Hall of Fame group, he finished his managing career with zero playoff appearances. His career mark as a manager was 1,065-1,176 (.475).

Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra managed for all or parts of five season with two New York clubs, the Yankees and the Mets. Although his career managing record was 484-444, he did take both the Mets and Yankees to a pennant.

Bob Lemon

Bob Lemon managed for all or parts of eight seasons between 1970-1982 and had a lifetime managing record of 430 and 403 with the Royals, White Sox  and Yankees. He does have two pennants and a World Series championship on his resume but in both of these cases he took over the job during the season and never managed a team to a pennant from start to finish.

Ted Williams

Ted Williams managed the Washington Senators from 1969 through 1972 when he called it quits. He led the Senators to a 86-76 record in his first season (1969) as the Senators skipper but in 1970 his team was 70-92, in 1971 the team was 63-96, and in 1972 he was 54-100. Do you see a trend here? His career mark as a manager was 273-364 (.429) and zero play-off appearances.

Ryne Sandberg

Ryne Sandberg took over as skipper of the Phillies 44 games into the 2013 season and left after a 26-48 start to the 2015 season. Sandberg had a 119-159 mark as a skipper during his Phillies tenure.

Paul Molitor

Paul Molitor
Paul Molitor

Paul Molitor was hired to be the Twins manager prior to the 2015 season and todate his record as a manager stands at 94-113 (.454). Molitor took over a team that had not won more games than it lost since 2010 and in 2015 he led them to a 83-79 record. At first glance does not seem that bad over all, but, there is always that but.  In May of 2015 the Twins were 20-7, if you subtract that month Molitor managed the team to a 63-72 record. This year Molitor’s record is 15-35, the team is playing at a lousy .300 winning percentage but even that starts to look good when you look at their road record of 7-20 (.259). You want to see more? The Twins are 0-6 against the White Sox, 0-6 against the Tigers, and 1-5 against the Royals but on the positive side they are 4-2 against the Indians. A record of 5-19 in your own division does not cut it, it is totally unacceptable even if you are playing just for fun and the Twins are certainly not playing for the fun of it.

Continue reading Should the Twins President, GM and Manager keep their jobs?

According to ELIAS

Sano homers in fourth straight game

Miguel Sano
Miguel Sano

Miguel Sano cracked a fourth-inning round-tripper that extended his home-run streak to four consecutive games in the Twins’ 5-4 win at Seattle. Eighteen days after his 23rd birthday, Sano is the second-youngest player to fashion a four-game home-run streak for the Senators/Twins franchise. Kent Hrbek homered in four straight games for Minnesota at age 22 in 1982.

Twins pitching coach Neil Allen charged with DWI and suspended

Twins pitching coach Neil Allen (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images)
Twins pitching coach Neil Allen (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images)

The Twins announced yesterday afternoon that pitching coach Neil Allen has been suspended indefinitely with pay after being arrested Thursday and charged with driving while impaired.

According to the incident report, three officers for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office stopped Allen for visually impaired driving at 1:59 a.m. Thursday. The stop took place in downtown Minneapolis at 6th Street South and Park Avenue.

Eric Rasmussen
Eric Rasmussen

Allen refused a field sobriety test after being stopped in his 2009 Infiniti QX56 and was arrested for third-degree driving while impaired. He was taken into custody at 3:48 a.m. Thursday and released without bail at 10:32 a.m., pending a complaint.

Eric Rasmussen, in his eighth season as minor league pitching coordinator for the Twins, was named interim pitching coach.

 

 

STATEMENT REGARDING PITCHING COACH NEIL ALLEN

 

Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN – The Minnesota Twins issued the following statement on today’s arrest of Pitching Coach Neil Allen:

“The Minnesota Twins are aware of the pending DWI charge against Pitching Coach Neil Allen. Mr. Allen has been suspended, with pay, indefinitely and the matter will be handled in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Minnesota Twins Baseball Club.”

In addition, Twins have named Eric Rasmussen interim Pitching Coach.  Rasmussen has spent the last eight-plus seasons as the Twins Minor League Pitching Coordinator.

There will be no further comment at this time.

UPDATE: Neil Allen was reinstated as the Twins pitching coach on Thursday July 7th as the Twins prepared to open a series in Texas against the Rangers. According to Allen, the Twins “probably saved my life” because the team rather than firing him signed him up for a six-week outpatient treatment program at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Allen said that before May 26th he had not had a drink in 22 years. Legal charges against Allen are still pending.

This Day in Twins History – May 27

May 27 has not always been kind to the Twins over the years.

Jimmie Hall5/27/1964 – In the first game of a doubleheader at Dodger Stadium against the Los Angeles Angels, Twins center fielder Jimmie Hall is beaned by Angel lefty Bo Belinsky as Hall leads off the top of the fifth inning. The Twins end up losing the game 4-1 but come back to win the second game 4-3. Hall ends up with a concussion and tries to come back on May 31st as a pinch-hitter but ends up striking out. Hall sits out several more games and gets back in the line-up on June 4th. Hall hit 33 home runs as a rookie in 1963 but is never really the same player after this beaning.  Star Tribune write-up 

Rick Lysander5/27/1983 – Twins reliever Rick Lysander becomes the first Twins pitcher to lose both games of a double-header at the Tigers beat the Twins 7-4 and 2-1 at Tiger Stadium. Box score Game 1, Game 2

Scott Baker
Scott Baker

5/27/2011 – Twins starter Scott Baker threw seven scoreless innings and left with a 5-0 lead at Target Field, but the Los Angeles Angels scored five in the eighth and one in the ninth against the bullpen and defeated the Twins, 6-5. Baker became the first major-league starter in 13 years to fashion a scoreless outing of at least seven innings and leave with a lead of at least five runs, only to see his team lose. As badly as things have gone for the Twins this season, who are now 16-33 and 14.5 games out of first, the loss set a new low. It was the only the second time since the team came to Minnesota in 1961 – and the first time in nearly 40 years – that the Twins have lost a game in which they led by five-or-more runs going into the eighth inning. Since their only previous such loss – 11-9 to the Yankees on July 30, 1971 – the Twins had gone 755-0 in games in which they took a lead of five-or-more runs into the eighth inning! That was the longest winning streak in major league history in games of that type. Box score

According to ELIAS

Nunez and Dozier go back to back in the first inning

Lenny Green
Lenny Green
Vic Power
Vic Power

Eduardo Nunez led off the bottom of the first with a home run and Brian Dozier followed with a home run of his own staking the Twins to a 2-0 lead en route to the team’s 7-5 win over the Royals yesterday afternoon. It marked the fifth time that the first two hitters in the Twins’ lineup hit consecutive home runs in the first inning since the franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961. That also happened on May 10, 1962 (Lenny Green and Vic Power), July 18, 1986 (Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti), August 19, 2002 (Jacque Jones and Cristian Guzman) and June 9, 2014 (Danny Santana and Dozier).

Twins Minor League Player of the Week – Kennys Vargas

Kennys Vargas 2016Rochester Red Wings (AAA) first baseman Kennys Vargas is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Vargas played in five games for the Red Wings hitting .440 (11-for-25) with two doubles, four home runs, 10 RBI, six runs scored and one walk. Vargas has played in 42 games for the Red Wings this season, hitting .252 (37-for-147) with six doubles, six home runs and 25 RBI. Kennys Vargas was signed by the Minnesota Twins as a non-drafted free agent on Feb. 25, 2009. Vargas has spent parts of 2014 and 2015 with the Twins but there does not appear to be a spot for him now which I think is kind of a shame.

 

Other news from the Twins minor league organization

Walker, Adam Brett 2016For the second time this week, Triple-A Rochester had a player accomplish something that hadn’t been done since 1990. Saturday night in Durham, Adam Walker became the first Red Wing to hit three home runs in a game since Leo Gomez did so on April 9, 1990 at Pawtucket. Walker set a career-high with the three homers, becoming just the second Rochester player (Gomez) to accomplish the feat in the last 40 years. Earlier this week, Kennys Vargas homered in four consecutive games, the first Red Wing to do so since Sam Horn in June, 1990.

Adam Brett Walker’s three home runs propel Wings to 12-2 win

There are some good stories at the end of the attached Twins minor league report PDF including an interesting look at Tommy John types of injuries.

Twins Minor League Report May 22, 2016

According to ELIAS

dont-give-up-the-beginning-is-always-the-hardest-quote-1Two teams start the season with 30 losses in their first 40 games.

The Minnesota Twins fell to 10-30 this season with their extra-inning loss to the Blue Jays, after the Atlanta Braves record dropped to 10-30 with their loss at Pittsburgh earlier on Thursday night. This is only the second season since 1900 in which two major-league teams each lost at least 30 of their first 40 decisions. That had not happened since 1904, when the Philadelphia Phillies started 9-31 and the Washington Senators (who would become the Minnesota Twins) began with a 7-33 mark.

Not to scare you but the 1904 Washington Senators finished the season with a 38-113 record while scoring 437 runs and giving up 743 runs.

According to ELIAS

Zimmermann’s unusual performance a first since Grove

Jordan Zimmermann allowed eight runs over seven innings but still managed to earn the win over the Minnesota Twins last night. It’s been just over two years since a pitcher got the win in a game in which he allowed at least eight runs; the Phillies’Cliff Lee surrendered eight runs over five innings on March 31, 2014 against the Rangers in a 14-10 win.

What was even more unusual was that Zimmermann struck out nine batters in Monday’s matchup. The last pitcher to earn the win while allowing at least eight runs and recording nine or more strikeouts was the Athletics’ Lefty Grove on May 30, 1927 against the Yankees (9 IP, 8 R, 11 SO in a 9-8 victory); those Yankees went on to finish the season 110-44 and swept the Pirates in the World Series. Babe Ruth went 2-for-5 with an RBI and Lou Gehrig was 1-for-4 with two runs batted in off Grove that day.

Zimmermann (6-2, 2.45 ERA) is the first pitcher to win at least six of his first eight starts for Detroit with an ERA under 3.00 since Doyle Alexander in 1987 (7-0, 1.61 ERA). The Tigers traded John Smoltz to acquire Alexander that season.

Twins Minor League Player of the Week – A. J. Murray

A. J. Murray 2016Cedar Rapids Kernels (Low A) catcher A.J. Murray is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. The 23-year-old Murray played in five games for the Kernels, hitting .565 (13-for-23) with three doubles, two home runs, eight RBI, eight runs scored, two walks and a .600 on-base percentage. On Friday, Murray, a right-handed batter went 5-for-5 at Wisconsin, hitting two home runs with five RBI, five runs scored and a walk.

Murray was originally drafted in 48th round of 2012 draft by Houston Astros but chose to attend Georgia Tech instead. A.J. was the team captain and third-team all-Atlantic Coast Conference last year as a senior. Murray’s late father, Michael, played minor-league ball in the Chicago White Sox system in 1984 as a 1B/3B. Murray was drafted by the Twins in the 14th round of the 2015 First-Year Player Draft out of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. The Twins took Murray as a catcher, which is interesting because he didn’t catch a lot in college, mainly rotation between right field, first base, designated hitter and catcher.

Twins Minor League Report May 15, 2016

According to ELIAS

Centeno homers off Kluber

Juan Centeno 2016Juan Centeno‘s first career home run, a two-run shot in the fifth inning off Corey Kluber, gave the Twins a lead they never relinquished in their win over the Indians yesterday. Centeno is the third player this season whose first career home run in the majors came off a former Cy Young Award winner. Colorado’s Trevor Story hit his first off Zack Greinke and Arizona’s Socrates Brito hit his off Jake Arrieta.

Centeno is the ninth player in Minnesota Twins history whose first career homer came off a former Cy Young Award winner. Some of the names on that list include Butch Wynegar, Lyman Bostock, John Castino and Steve Lombardozzi.