TWINS TRIVIA is hopefully a fun and informative site that will help you to better enjoy the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful history. “History never looks like history when you are living through it” – John Gardner, former Secretary of Health
The Minnesota Twins had a pretty good team back in 1970, good enough to win 98 games and finish first in the AL West under skipper Bill Rigney. The team was either in first or second place all year long and was never more than a game out of the lead. The Twins were beaten (pretty badly) three games to none in the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles for the second year in a row.
L-R We have Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Jim Kaat and Luis Tiant posing for a photo during spring training 1970 in Orlando. Bert Blyleven was part of that starting rotation but for some reason is not in the picture. Credit: Getty Images – Bruce Bennett
The Twins top pitcher was Jim Perry who led the league with 40 starts completing 13 of them and won a league leading 24 games which earned him the American League Cy Young award after the season ended. In addition to the above pitchers, only two other Twins pitchers started games that season, Bill Zepp and Tommy Hall. The Twins pitching ranked second in 1970.
I have run a Fantasy baseball League under Yahoo for the past 10 years and this year the “League of 10,000 Lakes” has several openings. The players in this league have played together for many years and it is serious and stiff competition. We are looking for a few serious competitive players to join us in this free auto-pick draft league. If you want to join us, drop me a line at jjswol@twinstrivia.com and I will put the names in a hat and draw two or possible three names to join our league.
Spring Training exhibition games start today with the Twins taking on the Minnesota Gophers in Ft. Myers and the Minnesota Twins made single-game tickets available for sale February 17 for all their home games. Tickets for Opening Day had been available for some time. I haven’t seen much chatter about Minnesota Twins ticket prices for 2018 so that can only mean one thing, it appears that Twins ticket prices have gone up once again. I bet that comes as a real shocker to most of you. When the team gets better the ticket prices go up but when the team goes in the tank prices normally stay the same from the previous year.
The Twins had five tiers of tickets in 2017 called extra value, value, select, premium and elite and that has stayed the same in 2018 but the number of games in each tier has changed slightly. This year there will be only 79 home games in Target Field as the two games that the Twins will play in Puerto Rico are officially Twins home games. The elite tier has only two games and the extra value tier has just four games (two in April and two in September). The middle of the road or select tier has 39 games, the premium tier has 18 games and the value tier has 15 games.
The Twins continue to use demand-based ticket pricing that they implemented in 2012 and that means that ticket prices constantly go up or down to a floor price based on demand for tickets for that game. Some people call this variable or dynamic ticket pricing and is used by a number of teams but what ever you call it, it means digging deeper in your pocket for a ticket. Some folks look at it as scalping your own tickets. The floor price is based on the price of a season ticket for the same seat.
The Twins made a very nice addition to their starting rotation when they acquired pitcher Jake Odorizzi from the Tampa Rays for minor league shortstop Jermaine Palacios yesterday. Odorizzi, 27, has a career 3.83 ERA in 129 appearances (126 starts) since 2012 and he has struck out 643, walked 232 and allowed 101 homers in 705 1/3 innings. The 21-year-old Palacios played shortstop for A ball Cedar Rapids and High A Ft. Myers in 2017. Most of the experts had Palacios ranked somewhere between the 20th and 30th best Twins prospect. Palacios is known more for his hitting than he is his fielding
Jermaine Palacios
This will be the fourth big league organization for Odorizzi who was a first round pick by the Brewers in 2008 but was traded to the Royals in 2010. The Royals traded Odorizzi to the Rays in 2012. Odorizzi will make $6.3 million this year and can become a free agent in 2020.
I love baseball and I love gardening. There is nothing in this world that tastes better than a freshly picked tomato off the vine on a warm summer day. There was a lot of fun at Met Stadium back in the early 60’s and some of it was not on the diamond. In today’s world we take too many things too seriously and neglect to stop and smell the roses tomato’s. We forget sometimes that baseball was meant to be a game but over the years it became a business. We don’t have the “characters” in baseball anymore like we once had and players work at the game year-around. I miss the game of baseball the way it used to be but baseball is still a great game no matter what. Here is a fun column by Dick Cullum about the Metropolitan Stadium tomato growing contest. Maybe they should come up with something similar now that the Twins are playing outdoors again. Sounds like a great marketing gimmick to me.
This clipping is from the June 24, 1964 Star Tribune.
Here is what Amanda Fiegl wrote on Smithsonian.com back in March of 2008 in her article called “Tomatoes in the Bullpen”. Obviously she never heard of what went on at Met Stadium.
Greenest Bullpen Shea Stadium, Queens, NY: Home of the Mets
Shea is a place of many firsts. When it opened in 1964, it was the first stadium capable of hosting both baseball and football events. The Jets stopped using it in 1984, and soon the Mets will too, with the new Citi Field set to open next year.
Shea was the site of the longest extra-inning doubleheader in baseball history (10 hours and 32 innings, against the San Francisco Giants) in May 1964, and hosted the Beatles’ first U.S. outdoor stadium show a year later. It also hosts some uninvited guests–The New York Times reported in 2007 that a colony of several dozen feral cats lives at the stadium, sometimes making surprise appearances on camera. In the one YouTube-celebrated instance last season, a startled kitten popped out of a tarp being unfurled by and even more startled groundskeeper.
But Shea has another unique claim to fame as well–the majors’ first bullpen vegetable garden. The tradition is said to have started with a few tomatoes planted by bullpen coach Joe Pignatano in 1969, which groundskeepers turned into a full-fledged garden in later years. By 1997, the corn and sunflowers in the Mets’ bullpen grew so high that the visiting Phillies actually complained that the greenery obstructed their view of warm-ups. Now, teams including the Red Sox, Braves and Detroit Tigers also have bullpen gardens.
Over the years 69 players have played 10 or more games at third base for the Minnesota Twins. Gary Gaetti has far and away played the hot corner more frequently and any other Minnesota Twin. To qualify for this list you must have played at least 51% of your games at third base. The most obvious name that you would think of that belongs on this list is Harmon Killebrew but he does not qualify because he played 1,939 games in a Minnesota Twins uniform but only 517 of them were at third base. My silly rule but it is what it is. My biggest surprise looking at the list is to see Eric Soderholm so high on the list.
I went out to the CenturyLink Sports Complex on Friday to see who was out there before the pitchers and catchers report early next week. I got there about 8:45 am and there wasn’t a player in site and the fields were all empty, as a matter of fact I was the only fan out there for about 15 or 20 minutes. About 9AM or so the players started drifting out to the field with the big grassy knoll, I would guess there were about 25 or so and they did some stretching and running before moving on. Fans started arriving about 9:30 or so.
It was fairly quiet at the complex, pretty much what I expected at this time of the year. I was hoping to see Miguel Sano but I didn’t spot him at all. I took a few pictures that are posted under “2018 Spring Training” on the right-hand side of the page. It is hard for me anyway, to identify the players, particularly the minor leaguers’ without names on their uniforms.
I see that the Twins missed out on Yu Darvish when he agreed to a deal to become a Chicago Cub. I know that the Twins are in desperate need of starters but I am happy they didn’t spend $126 million on Darvish over the next 5 years, there are other and I think better options out there that will be a better fit. I applaud the Twins decision not to give in to a player and give him an opt-out in his contract. An opt-out is a one-way benefit for the player and is a dumb idea for baseball teams and those that fall for that agent trick deserve what they get.
Baseball is just around the corner and I can’t wait to see the pitchers and catchers in action next week.
I am not one to usually comment about trade rumors but this one peaked my interests because it involves one of the Twins starting outfielders, Max Kepler. Rumor has it that the Tampa Rays have stated they are interested in Kepler in any trades for Rays pitchers like Chris Archer or Jake Odorizzi, both right-handed.
I have been a Kepler fan since the Twins signed him back in 2009. Kepler made his big league debut as a September call-up in 2015 and appeared in just three games but became a regular in 2016. Kepler, who will turn 25 in a few days has appeared in 263 games, mostly in right field and hit 36 home runs and posted a .239 average but has sometimes struggled against lefties. Defensively Kepler is above average and plays in center now and then. I am a bit baffled so far by Kepler’s average because this guy should be hitting closer to .300 but he has changed his swing working to get more elevation, I am not sure this is the right approach for Kepler who has a great level swing and will hit around 20 home runs just because he is that strong. Kepler has a history of needing a bit of time to adapt to new leagues and he could have a break-out year in 2018, then again he might not and his value will tank.
The Twins tasted the playoffs in 2018, maybe a little earlier than they should have and now everyone thinks they are well on their way but the Twins have serious starting pitching deficiencies and so far have done nothing to fix that problem and just yesterday they announced that Ervin Santana had surgery on his pitching hand and will be out 10-12 weeks. That means that by the time he comes back and gets in pitching shape the season will be 1/3 over.
Odorizzi
So what do you do? Possibly mortgage the future by trading Kepler for Chris Archer or Jake Odorizzi? Odorizzi who will turn 28 in late March has pitched in the big leagues for the last six seasons and was originally a Brewers first round selection in 2008 but was traded to the Royals in the Zack Greinke trade and then traded to Tampa in the Wil Myers trade. Odorizzi made $4,1 million last year and will not be a free agent until 2020. Odorizzi strikes out 8.2 batters per nine innings and would be a great fit in the Twins rotation.
Archer
Archer is 29 and also has pitched in the big leagues for six seasons, all for Tampa and his history is similar to Odorizzi but he was a fifth round pick by the Indians and traded to the Cubs who then traded him to Tampa in the Matt Garza deal in 2011. Archer is a two-time All-Star who strikes out batter at a clip of 9.7 per nine innings. He is signed through 2020 for about $14 million with team options for 2021 and 2022 for $20 million.
If I am going to trade for one of these guys and I have a choice, I take Chris Archer but I would love to see either one of these guys in the Twins rotation and as much as I like Kepler I would trade him for either one of these pitchers straight up. Why? Because the Twins have a history of finding and developing hitters, pitchers not so much. It is about time the Twins pushed some of their chips to the middle of the table and take some calculated risks. You have a known weakness, you at least have to try to fix it. Sitting back and waiting is not the answer. It is time for Derek Falvey and Thad Levine to show us their hand.
The Super Bowl is in the rear view mirror and baseball is just around the corner. I know this is true because just yesterday the Minnesota Twins announced that their starting pitcher Ervin Santana will be out for 10-12 weeks due to surgery to a finger on his pitching hand. Geez, pitchers and catchers haven’t even reported yet. Injuries to Twins pitchers are a sure sign of Spring. We should drop Groundhogs Day and when the first Twins pitcher goes down we all know that Spring is just about here.
I ran across the following short video on Facebook and just could not resist borrowing it for all of you to enjoy.
