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
This is a general blogging category.
We all know that strikeout rates are up all across baseball for the last few years but today we will look at Minnesota Twins batters and their strikeout rates going back to 1961. We used B-R’s amazing Play Index to find what we were looking for.
The top two all time Twins leader in strikeouts are Harmon Killebrew with 1,314 and Joe Mauer with 1,034. Mauer? What the heck? Longevity can do strange things to numbers and the devil is in the details.
Leonard Charles Green (born January 6, 1933, in Detroit) was the middle of three sons born to Eugene and Anna Green and passed away on his 86th birthday on January 6, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan.
After graduating from Pershing High School, Lenny Green was signed as an amateur free agent by the St. Louis Browns late in 1952 to play for York of the Class B Inter-State League. But before he ever put on a York uniform or a Browns uniform for that matter the Army called and he spent 1953-1954 in the service of his country during the Korean War. Green was stationed stateside and ended up playing on a baseball team with and against players like Willie Mays, Don Newcombe, Billy Martin and Zach Monroe. After being discharged from the Army as a corporal, Green was free to resume his pro baseball career but thing had changed and Green experienced his first MLB franchise shift as the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles.
As we start a new year in 2019 I wanted to share a list of former Minnesota Twins players that passed away in 2018. We lost some great ones.
RIP gentlemen and thank you for the great memories, you are a part of Minnesota Twins history forever.
A complete list of deceased former Minnesota Twins players can be found on our “Deceased Twins” page.
Regardless if you believe in Quality Starts (QS) or not, the term is used now days in MLB. A QS is defined as pitching six innings or more while allowing three or fewer earned runs. I would be happier if a QS was seven innings and two or fewer earned runs but that is just my age showing. The new “opener” strategy could put a kink in QS but I don’t think the opener strategy is a fit for most teams and will not be a big deal down the line.
Today we are taking a look at consecutive QS for Minnesota Twins starters and we have one pitcher that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Twins pitchers in QS and that is Johan Santana who had 21 QS in a row in 2004. Impressive or not? You bet your bippy it is, no American League pitcher between 1961-2018 has thrown that many QS in a row. In the National league only four pitchers have thrown that many QS in a row since 1961, Bob Gibson leads with 26 in 1967, Jacob deGrom (2018) and Jake Arrieta (2015) have 24 and Chris Carpenter has 22 in 2005.
The closest to Santana’s streak of 21 in Minnesota is Bert Blyleven who had 12 in 1972 and Jim Merritt who also had 12 in 1967. The biggest surprise on this list to me is Rick Aguilera with 10 QS in 1989. I certainly remember Aggie starting for Minnesota when they first traded for him but I don’t remember him as pitching that well, maybe it was the fact that his record was only 3-4 during the streak.
| Rk | Name | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | ER | BB | SO | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johan Santana | 2004-06-09 | 2004-09-24 | 21 | 18 | 2 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 154.1 | 77 | 23 | 30 | 199 | 1.34 |
| 2 | Bert Blyleven | 1972-08-19 | 1973-04-06 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 99.0 | 82 | 19 | 24 | 87 | 1.73 |
| 3 | Jim Merritt | 1967-06-25 | 1967-08-18 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 101.1 | 77 | 18 | 8 | 64 | 1.60 |
| 4 | Frank Viola | 1987-06-26 | 1987-08-16 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 87.0 | 69 | 19 | 21 | 70 | 1.97 |
| 5 | Dick Woodson | 1972-07-11 | 1972-08-28 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 90.1 | 61 | 14 | 26 | 43 | 1.39 |
| 6 | Eric Milton | 2000-09-23 | 2001-05-13 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 68.1 | 67 | 20 | 16 | 45 | 2.63 |
| 7 | Scott Erickson | 1990-09-23 | 1991-05-17 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 77.1 | 53 | 10 | 28 | 36 | 1.16 |
| 8 | Rick Aguilera | 1989-08-08 | 1989-09-26 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 71.2 | 61 | 22 | 16 | 55 | 2.76 |
| 9 | Roger Erickson | 1980-08-01 | 1980-09-17 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 80.0 | 71 | 18 | 16 | 42 | 2.03 |
| 10 | Lee Stange | 1963-08-06 | 1963-09-15 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 83.0 | 65 | 16 | 19 | 55 | 1.73 |
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The Minnesota Twins longest streak of QS as a team is 13 QS in a row in 1969. The pitchers in that streak were Dean Chance, Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Dick Woodson, Tommy Hall and Jim Kaat.
The Minnesota Twins opened the decade in a new ballpark over at Target Field in 2010 and everyone was excited about Twins baseball. Why not? The Twins had won 87 games in 2009, drawn 2.4 million fans in their last season calling the Metrodome as home and advanced to the playoffs and now the team would finally play outside for the first time since the 1981 season at Met Stadium allowing fans to get to enjoy the sunshine and oh yes, the rain, snow and cold too.
Putting the ball in play is important but it seems like it is less important in today’s version of baseball than it was in the past. As I watched Twins batters flail away the last few years I realized how much I valued players that could put wood on the ball versus those that struck out a high percentage of the time. A home run is nice now and then but for me there is a lot more to baseball than just the home run.
The other day I ran across a tweet that stated that Micheal Brantley saw 1,008 pitched and swung and missed 92 times. So naturally that got me to think about the how Twins hitters did. It this case I looked at Twins hitters that saw at least 100 pitches during the 2018 season and here are the results from Statcast Search. Any surprises here?
The Tampa Bay Rays were the first team to experiment with an Opener during the 2018 season when they had reliever Sergio Romo start the game on May 19. Romo pitched in the role again on May 20, 25 and 27. In those four “Opener roles” he pitched a total of 3.1 innings going 1 inning, 1.1 innings, .2 innings and .1 innings giving up no runs in starts one and two and one run in his third start and 3 runs in his final start. Seven of the 10 outs he recorded were by strikeouts. During his time as an opener Romo did not pitch in any other games between May 19 and May 27.
The Dodgers, Twins, Athletics, and Rangers also used the opener strategy at different points during the 2018 season.
I know this won’t be popular but I will say it anyway, Bryce Harper is not worth $350 to $400 million and any team that signs him for that amount will pay dearly and not only from a financial perspective.
I grant you that Harper is just 26 years old and baseball wisdom says that his best years are ahead of him. However; you would be a fool to ignore history, Harper has played for Washington for seven seasons and he has averaged 132 games a year, (81% of the schedule) he has exceeded 150 games twice. His 2015 MVP season was his one great season and Harper has hit 30+ home runs just twice, has 100 RBI once and he has a .279 career average. If you look at 2015 as an outlier season in which his WAR was 10.0, his other six seasons average out to a WAR of 2.9.
Harper is an above average player but he has not shown that he is the super-star that the experts predicted so why pay him like he is a player like no one before him? Harper’s work ethic has also been questioned in the past. Harper is player that plays for Harper and the team is secondary, the Washington Nationals will be a better team without him and they won’t be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to boot. A win-win situation for the Nationals and their fans.
Scott Boras will find a way to make Bryce Harper a richer man, he always does, because there is a sucker born every minute, but this might be the best hustle ever by today’s version of P.T. Barnum.
Willians Astudillo is knocking the cover off the ball with Caribes de Anzoátegui of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. The 27-year-old Astudillo has appeared in 38 games, mostly as a catcher and is hitting .350 with four home runs and 30 RBI in 143 AB’s and has a .898 OPS. But it is the strikeouts isn’t it? You want to know how many times he has struck out. The answer is ONCE! I can’t wait to watch him up close and personal in spring training.
The man has less than a 100 big league at bats but is already a legend in Twins Territory.
Check out all the offseason stats for Minnesota Twins organization players in the blue box on the right hand-side of the page called “Offseason Leagues stats”.
The Minnesota Twins started play in 1961 after moving from Washington D.C. where they were known as the Washington Senators. In their final year as the Senators in 1960 the team had a 73-81 record. Between 1946 and 1960 they had one, just one, winning season and that was in 1952 when they barely made it over the .500 mark with a 78-76 record.
Nevertheless the baseball fans of Minnesota were excited about getting a major league team (some might disagree with that description) to move to their state. Team owner Calvin Griffith felt he had some good young players that were just starting to make their mark.
The 1961 team was managed by Cookie Lavagetto until he was fired by Griffith after a 23-36 start and replaced by coach Sam Mele. The team went on to finish seventh in the ten team American League with a 70-90 mark and 38 games out of first place. The team won 91 games in both 1962 and 1963 but in 1964 they fell back to a 79-83 record and fans were calling for manager Mele to hit the road. However; Griffith stuck with his man and in 1965 Mele’s Twins won 102 games and found themselves in the World Series playing the Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale led Los Angeles Dodgers. The Twins came out on the short end of that Series losing four games to three but baseball was exciting in Minnesota.
The 1966 Twins were not able to defend their 1965 pennant and finished with a 89 win season but they were nine games behind the Baltimore Orioles. The 1967 season saw the American League with a pennant race like none before it with the Red Sox, Twins, Tigers, White Sox and Angels battling down to the very end of the season. The Twins started the season at just 25-25 and that was not what the Twins owner was expecting so he fired Mele and brought Cal Ermer to lead his team. The team responded to Ermer and had a one game lead with two games to play with the Red Sox at Fenway Park and they lost both games allowing the Red Sox to win the 1967 AL pennant by one game over Minnesota and Detroit, three games over the White Sox and 7.5 games over the Angels.
The Twins started the 1968 season with six straight wins, five of them on the road but that was their high-water mark for the season and when the season ended so did the managing career of Cal Ermer. Less than two weeks later Calvin Griffith hired Billy Martin as his new manager.
1969 saw the AL break in two divisions with the Twins being part of the six team AL West along with the Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, California Angels, Seattle Pilots, and the Kansas City Royals. 1969 was also the first season that had a best of five ALCS. In this case the West Division winning Twins played the East Division winning Baltimore Orioles and the Twins lost all three games. They lost the first game in Baltimore in 12 innings 4 to 3, the lost game two again in Baltimore in 11 innings 1 to 0 and their third and final game was a blowout 11-2 loss at the Met when Billy Martin went on a hunch and started Bob Miller, a part-time starter/reliever and he lasted just 1.2 innings. Martin’s decision to start Miller turned out to be one of the key reasons he would be fired by Griffith after just one season.
The Twins played winning baseball (.542) in the 60’s and had a record of 789-666. So who were the key Twins hitters and pitchers in the Twins first decade of baseball in the Minnesota? It is difficult to determine the value that a player brings to the team without being arbitrary so the best way that I know of to measure a players worth is WAR. I know of lot of you either don’t like it and don’t know how it is calculated exactly (either do I), but if we apply the same measurement to everyone it will serve our purpose here. The position player with the highest WAR for the period of 1961-1969 probably is no surprise to anyone, it is Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew and the pitcher for that same time period is Jim Kaat.