Month: June 2017

Twins minor league player of the week – Zach Granite

Zach Granite

Rochester Red Wings (AAA) outfielder Zach Granite has been named has been named Twins minor league Player of the Week. Granite, 24,  appeared in five games for the Red Wings, hitting .526 (10-for-19) with five doubles, three RBI, five runs scored and six walks. Additionally, the left-handed hitting Zach Granite has hit in 16 straight games, batting .508 (33-for-65) with nine doubles, three triples, five RBI, 16 runs scored and seven stolen bases since June 1 while collecting multiple hits in 13 of the last 15 games. Granite now qualifies for league leaderboard, pacing the International League in batting average (.348) and on-base percentage (.401). Since June 2, he leads all minor leaguers in batting average (.525), hits (32) and OBP (.586). He also leads the league in runs scored (15), extra-base hits (11), total bases (46), stolen bases (7) and OPS (1.340) over that same period.

Zach Granite was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 14th round of the 2013 MLB June Amateur Draft from Seton Hall University. The Twins organization selected Zach Granite as the 2016 Minor League Player of the Year. Here is what manager Paul Molitor has to say about Granite:

“He’s aggressive, got a little moxie,” Molitor said of the Sherry Robertson Award winner. “Likes to get dirty, run the bases. Almost every day, the (reports) are fairly complimentary on how he gets after it. He’s finding a way to use what he can do in a game to make an impact. I know we don’t like facing those kind of guys.”

Mining the Minors: Is Zack Granite ready for a call-up to the Twins?

Twins Minor League Report 06172017

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Yohan Pino

Only the one player made his major league debut in a Twins uniform on June 19th.

Yohan Pino

Yohan Pino (P) – June 19, 2014 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on December 12, 2013. Debut was a nice 7 inning start in a Twins 4-2 win over the White Sox allowing only 2 runs on 5 hits and a walk while striking out 7.

 

To see other Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins

Twins sign first round pick Royce Lewis

Royce Lewis

The Minnesota Twins announced today the signing of their first overall selection, shortstop Royce Lewis from JSerra Catholic High School, whom they selected with the first overall pick in the 2017 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on June 12.

The Twins organization as normal did not release the amount that they spent to sign Lewis. According to Jon Heyman via MLBTradeRumors the Twins were able to get Lewis to sign for $6.725 million. MLBTradeRumors also said that:

Blayne Enlow

The first overall pick had a pool value of $7,770,700 this year, so it appears that when Lewis’ signing is complete, the Twins will save around $1M against their total draft pool of $14,156,800. Notably, they’ve already struck a deal with third-rounder Blayne Enlow for $2MM, a little over $1.2MM more than the value of the No. 76 pick. The Lewis and Enlow deals, then, will essentially balance one another out.

 

Twins sign 2017 first overall pick Royce Lewis.PDF

MLB Pension Injustice – Jeff Holly and many others

I wonder how many long-time baseball fans are aware that there are 500 or so former MLB players, being hosed out of pensions by the league and the players’ association.

San Pedro, California native Jeff Holly is among these men.  A former Minnesota Twins pitcher who spent his entire career with the team, the 64-year-old Holly played for them during parts of the 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons. He appeared in 39 games, six of which were starts, hurled 90 innings and recorded three lifetime wins. A resident of Tustin, California, Mr. Holly attended Aviation High School in Redondo Beach, CA.
 
Mr. Holly doesn’t receive a traditional pension because the rules for receiving MLB pensions changed in 1980. Holly and the other men do not get pensions because they didn’t accrue four years of service credit. That was what ballplayers who played between 1947 – 1979  needed to be eligible for the pension plan. 

Instead, they all receive nonqualified retirement payments based on a complicated formula that had to have been calculated by an actuary. In brief, for every quarter of service a man had accrued, he’d get $625. Four quarters (one year) totaled $2,500. Sixteen quarters (four years) amounts to the maximum, $10,000. And that payment is before taxes were taken out.
 
By contrast, the maximum allowable pension a retired MLB player who is vested can make is $210,000.

The union doesn’t have to be the legal advocates for these men, the league doesn’t have to negotiate about this matter and the alumni association is too busy putting on golf outings.

Neither the league nor the union want to retroactively restore these men into pension coverage; instead, taxes are taken out of the non-qualified annuity payment, which cannot be passed on to a surviving spouse or designated beneficiary. They are also not eligible to be covered under the league’s umbrella health insurance plan.

Former pitcher Steve Rogers is a special assistant to Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. He is the players’ pension liaison; his email address is stever@mlbpa.org and his telephone number is 646-430-2112.

If you believe that these former big league ballplayers are being treated unfairly please give Steve Rogers a call or send him an e-mail and let him know that this is totally unfair. 

This article was submitted by Doug Gladstone, Author
“A Bitter Cup of Coffee; How MLB & The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve”

Major League debuts as Minnesota Twins – Guerrier, Wiley and Whitby

Three major league debuts as Minnesota Twins on June 17 ranging from 1964 to 2004.

 

Twins reliever Matt Guerrier pitches during the seventh inning during Friday’s interleague game against the Houston Astros at the Metrodome in Minneapolis on June 20, 2009. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

Matt Guerrier (P) – June 17, 2004 – Selected off waivers by the Minnesota Twins from the Pittsburgh Pirates on November 20, 2003. Guerrier’s debut was as the Twins starter at Olympique Park at Montreal in a Twins win but Guerrier received a ND for his efforts that day. Turns out that starting was not Guerrier’s forte.

 

Mark Wiley

 

Mark Wiley (P) – June 17, 1975 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 2nd round of the 1970 amateur draft. Wiley’s debut took place in the middle of an eight run outburst by the Oakland A’s at the Met.

 

Bill Whitby

Bill Whitby (P) – June 17, 1964 – Signed as an amateur free agent in 1961 and debuted in relief in a 5-0 loss at Cleveland Stadium pitching 1.1 innings and allowing 2 hits and 1 run (a home run by Pedro Ramos).

 

To see other Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Jackson & Rollins

Two players made their major league debuts as Twins on June 16, both a few years ago.

Darrell Jackson (P) – June 16, 1978 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 9th round of the 1977 amateur draft. Jackson was originally drafted by Minnesota as a sixth round selection in 1973 out of high school but chose to go to Arizona State University where he had the opportunity to play in three College World Series while he attended school there. Jackson debuted in pro ball with the Orlando Twins in 1978 and in his first professional game pitched nine innings of no-hit ball against the Jacksonville Suns. Unfortunately, the game was tied after nine innings, and Jackson was relieved by fellow future Twin Jeff Holly. Orlando won the game, 1–0, in 12 innings. After just 10 starts in the minors, Jackson was called up to the Twins. 

Rich Rollins – Twins 3B from 1961 – 1968

Rich Rollins (3B) – June 16, 1961 – Signed as amateur free agent in 1960. Rollins was the sixth player to make his major league debut as a Minnesota Twin. Rollins debuted against the White Sox going 1 for 4 off pitchers Don Larsen and Early Wynn. In his first full season with Minnesota in 1962 he was selected to both All-Star games and finished 8th in MVP voting behind winner Mickey Mantle.

To see other Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins

According to ELIAS – Jose Berrios

Berrios setting records after a late debut

 

Jose Berrios

Jose Berrios improved to 6–1 this season, allowing two runs in eight innings in Minnesota’s 6–2 win over Seattle yesterday. Berrios is only the second Twins pitcher since 1980 to win at least six of his first seven appearances in one season. The other was Brad Radke in 2001. Berrios, who didn’t make his season debut until May 13, is the first pitcher in franchise history to win six games this early in the calendar year after not pitching in the majors in April. (That includes the Washington Senators from 1901 through 1960.)

The 1967 AL Pennant Race – Part 14 – Tigers score 10 in the sixth, Carew and Boswell

AL Standings after play on June 15, 1967

Between June 1 and June 15 the Twins fired (Sam Mele) and hired a manager (Cal Ermer) and went 10-6 playing all but one of the games at the friendly confines of Met Stadium. The team managed to pick-up 2.5 games in the standings but they still find themselves trailing the Chicago White Sox by four games.

June 13 wasn’t a great day in spite of the fact that the Twins scored in double-figures for the third day in a row and found themselves on the losing end of a 15-10 game. The Twins and Dean Chance were up 5-1 going into the sixth inning against the Detroit Tigers at the Met when the “S%#@” hit the fan, Chance gave up four singles and walked two before skipper Cal Ermer had seen enough and brought in reliever Jim Ollom who promptly gave up a single and a walk and he too found himself headed for the shower as Mudcat Grant came in to stop the bleeding. Three singles later Grant was gone and Jim Roland took the mound and promptly threw a wild pitch to allow another run, a passed ball followed which led to a sac fly, another Twins error kept the nightmare inning alive before Roland finally got the third out of the inning. When the smoke cleared the Tigers had put a 10 spot on the Twins and led the game 11 to 5. That would be 10 runs on 8 singles, three walks, two Twins errors, a wild pitch and a passed ball and a partridge in a pear tree. OMG! What we had here was the first time in Twins history that an opponent had scored 10 or more runs against the Twins in a single inning. The Twins bounced back with 5 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning to make it an 11-10 game but the Tigers scored 3 in the seventh and another in the eighth inning and the final score was 15-10 for the Tigers.

Here a couple of clippings out of the June 14, 1967 Minneapolis Tribune Sports section describing the action.

Trib 06141967 P1

Trib 06141967 P25

Trib 06141967 P28

The June 10, 1967 Sporting News has a nice piece about Rod Carew and his base running problems and this time pitching coach Early Wynn puts Dave Boswell through his “wringer” method of fixing a pitchers problems.

Sporting News 06101967 P3

Sporting News 06101967 P6

The rest of the stories that I have done on the 1967 AL pennant race can be found here.

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Byron Buxton

The only player to make his major league debut in a Twins uniform did so just two years ago today.

Byron Buxton

Byron Buxton (OF ) – June 14, 2015 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1st round (2nd) of the 2012 MLB June Amateur Draft. This high school draftee made his Twins debut just two years after being drafted second overall in 2013.

To see other Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins

According to ELIAS – Eddie Rosario

Rosario and the Twins put up the big numbers

Eddie Rosario

The Twins scored 20 runs on a franchise record 28 hits in a blowout win over the Mariners at Target Field last night. Leading the way was the batter hitting ninth, Eddie Rosario, who had three home runs and five RBIs. Since runs batted in were first tracked in the 1920 season, only two other players had that many home runs and RBIs starting out of the ninth slot in the order: Dale Sveum of the Brewers in 1987 versus the Angels (3 HR/6 RBIs), and Trot Nixon of the Red Sox in 1999 at Detroit (3/5). Rosario is the seventh Twins hitter to hit 3 home runs in a single game.