Category: General Blogging

This is a general blogging category.

Twins Hall of Fame voting now open

Fan voting for the Twins Hall of Fame class of 2012 is now open and will remain open through midnight on January 4, 2012. The 2012 ballot has 18 former players. After the voting deadline has passed, votes will be counted and the top vote-getter with at least 50% of the ballot will be elected and honored during the 2012 season. If a second candidate receives 75% of the vote, there will be two candidates who will receive membership in the Twins Hall of Fame. Started back in 2000, the Twins Hall of Fame currently has 23 inductees that you can see on the “Twins Hall of Fame” page on this site. I would urge you to stop over at http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/min/fan_forum/hof_ballot.jsp and vote for the player or players that you think are worthy to admission into the Twins Hall of Fame.

I am lucky enough to have seen all of these players play in a Twins uniforms and that makes it a bit easier I think for me to vote than for some of the younger voters who can only go by statistics and what they have heard and read about the player(s) in question. Voting is conducted by a 54-member committee, which includes local and national baseball writers, Twins broadcasters, Twins Hall of Fame members, local TV and Radio members, select Twins front office personnel and the fans so I am not sure exactly how much say the fans really have in this vote. Sure it is a popularity thing, much like the All-Star game voting in that respect but still it is fun for the fans to vote and have their say in who deserves the honor of being a Twins Hall of Fame member.

I vote every year and this year my votes go to:

1. Camilo “Little Potato” Pascual a right-handed pitcher who pitched for the Senators/Twins franchise from 1954-1966. Pascual was known for having the best curveball in his era and in his 13 seasons with the franchise he posted a 145-141 record for a team that was often closer to the cellar than the penthouse.  Camilo finished what he started and he led the AL in complete games in 1959, 1962 and 1963. He led the AL in strikeout for three consecutive seasons from 1961 to 1963 and he won 20 or more games in both 1962 and 1963. Camilo Pascual who I think has been a forgotten man by the Twins to this point is 77 now and no one deserves to be in the Twins Hall of Fame more than he does. It is a disgrace that this great pitcher has been left out of the Twins Hall of Fame for so long.

2. Allan “Red” Worthington was a right-handed reliever for the Twins from 1964-1969 and a strong case can be made that Al Worthington was the Twins first great closer. The man put up amazing numbers back when closers role did not really exist and relief pitchers pitched several innings at a crack. Look at these numbers and tell me how we would look at a closer today that put up numbers like this. In Worthington’s 6 seasons in Minnesota he was 37-31 with an ERA of 2.62 and a WHIP of 1.19 while having a 7.6  SO/9 ratio. Al Worthington, now 82, deserves your vote.

3. Cesar “Pepe” Tovar passed away at the age of 54 in 1994 and is no longer with us but memories of this wonderful little player are still with me. Tovar played for the Twins in a number of roles for 8 seasons from 1965-1972 after being acquired in a trade from Cincinnati. Pepe could play anywhere, as a matter of fact he played all nine positions in a game for the Twins back on September 22, 1968 and Tovar remains the only Twins position player to start a game on the pitcher’s mound. The 5’9″ 155 pound right-handed hitting Tovar spent most of his time in the outfield but he also played 3B, 2B, and Shortstop. 1970 was probably his best year and that year he played in 161 games, had 726 plate appearances, scored 120 runs, led the league in doubles (36) and triples (13), while hitting 10 home runs and knocking in 54 more to go with his .300 batting average. That doesn’t even count his 30 stolen bases.

One player I will probably never vote for the Twins Hall of Fame is former 2B and 1991 AL Rookie of the Year Chuck Knoblauch. Don’t get me wrong, Knoblauch was a great player but his attitude stunk, his me first thinking, and his relationship with the fans left a lot to be desired so Knobby will not be getting a vote for the Twins Hall of Fame in the near future.

So PLEASE, get out there and vote!

GM Ryan busy, Twins sign Ryan Doumit

Ryan Doumit being checked out by Pirates trainer

Holy Cow, GM Terry Ryan has been busy, on the job less than two weeks and he has signed Jamey Carroll and now today the Twins announced they have signed C/1B/OF Ryan Doumit to a $3 million one year deal pending a physical.  The deal apparently has some incentives and that is a good thing because the switch-hitting Ryan Doumit comes to Minnesota with some baggage. Injury type of baggage, in the form of a concussion history and that is not a good thing for a catcher.

Doumit was drafted in the 2nd round of the 1999 June free agent draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a catcher and has been in the Pirates organization ever since. Doumit made his major league debut in June of 2005. Although not rated as a strong catcher defensively, in his 7 big league seasons Doumit has played in 521 games but he has caught in 426 games, played the OF in 60 and played 1B in 35 games. Injuries have limited Doumit’s time in the line-up and he has never had more than 465 plate appearances in any of his 7 big league seasons.

OK, Ryan Doumit has an injury history but he is still a very nice pick-up and worth the gamble as I see it. Doumit has suffered injuries such as a broken thumb, broken wrist, and a fractured ankle not to mention the concussion issues I brought up earlier. He can play three positions and is a switch-hitter and will be 31 when the season starts in April. He has a little pop in his bat as his 67 home runs in 611 games attest and he has a .271 career average although he did hit only .250 in 2009, and .251 in 2010 but he hit .303 in 77 games last year.

I like the signing but if you think this will send Drew Butera packing you need to think again. Doumit is weak defensively and his strength is offense so there is no way that Gardy keeps him on the bench strictly as a back-up catcher day in and day out. Doumit will be in the line-up some where most of the time so Gardy still needs to have a back-up catcher available and that man will probably be Butera or another catcher with some defensive skills. If Doumit is the DH, Gardy will not want to risk losing his DH if he would suddenly need Doumit to catch. Even if Butera fails to make the team, I see no way the Twins do not carry three catchers next year. In spite of needing to carry three catchers, I like this signing and I give GM Ryan a big thumbs up. Keep working those phones Mr. Ryan, a starting pitcher would be nice and the outfield is still a big question mark.

Jason Bulger

The Twins also announced they have signed yet another relief pitcher to a minor league deal, this time it is former Angel Jason Bulger. Jason is a right hander and stands 6’4″ and goes about 210 and will be 33 in a couple of weeks. Bulger has been in the big leagues off and on with the D-Backs and the Angels since 2005 but has only appeared in 125 games with a 7-2 record. Bulger is another of those relief pitchers with control issues as his career mark of 5.1 BB/9 will tell you.

Finally, the Twins also announced that they plan to add another bronze statue of a former player outside Target Field next year but as yet the player has yet to be publicly identified. He would join statues of Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva and the late Twins owner Carl Pohlad and his wife Eloise. Who is it going to be? My guess would be Bert Blyleven and my dark horse choice would be Kent Hrbek. We will find out soon enough.

UPDATE November 23 – The Twins announced that they have officially signed free-agent catcher Ryan Doumit to a one-year deal worth $3 million.

Former Twins pitcher Charlie Lea dead at 54

Charlie Lea

Former Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins  pitcher Charlie Lea who was born to military parents in Orleans, France on December 25, 1956 was found dead yesterday of an apparent heart attack at his home at the age of 54. Lea was drafted by the Montreal Expos in 1978 and made his major league debut with the Expos on June 12, 1980. Lea was a mainstay in the Expos starting rotation between 1980 and 1984 before an arm injury derailed his career. Lea pitched a 4-0 no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants on May 10, 1981 at Stade Olympique Stadium in the second game of a double-header and in the process became the first French born pitcher to pitch a major league no-hitter. Lea was an All-Star in 1984 and was the starting and winning pitcher for the National league. Lea had to sit out the 1985 and 1986 season due to injuries and came back with the Expos in 1987 with little success. Lea signed a free agent contract with Minnesota in February of 1988 and was in the 1988 starting rotation all season, finishing with a 7-7 mark with a 4.85 ERA in 23 starts. Charlie Lea retired from baseball after the 1988 season.

In recent years Charlie Lea served as a radio broadcaster for his home town Triple-A Memphis Redbirds. Broadcast partner Steve Selby remembered Lea’s “easy-going style”. 

“It was like you were sitting in a rocking chair on the porch,” Selby said. ”And he was so unassuming. You would have never known he had played major league baseball unless you asked him. So many analysts are quick to tell you ‘When I played major league baseball . . .’ Charlie never did that.

“It’s obvious he had inside knowledge of the game and wanted to tell you what he knew. A lot of players distance themselves from the game because their careers may not have ended the way they wanted. Charlie was positive about everything. We became good friends. There’s a huge hole in my life right there.”

Charlie Lea pitched in the big leagues for seven seasons and finished with a 62-48 record with a 3.54 ERA in 152 games with 144 starts.

GM Bill Smith out and Terry Ryan back at the helm

GM Bill Smith

The Twins announced today that GM Bill Smith has been fired effective immediately and that former GM Terry Ryan has taken back the GM role on an interim basis that he had previously served in from 1994 to 2007 . Smith had taken over as the Twins general manager back in 2007 when Terry Ryan had resigned. Since Ryan resigned the GM role in 2007 he has been a special assistant in the Twins executive offices serving primarily in a scouting capacity. Ryan who has been with the Twins for over 28 years has always been in the middle of the action so he should be able to take back the GM role without skipping a beat.

During Smith’s four years as the general manager, the Twins have finished second once, first twice, losing in the first round of the playoffs each time and then came the horrendous last place finish this past season when the wheels came totally off. During Smith’s tenure, the Twins had a 332-318 record and played .511 baseball. According to reports, Bill Smith has been offered another position with the Twins organization but Smith has decided to take some time to think through his situation.

Terry Ryan (courtesy of SI.com)

I first heard the news about the Bill Smith firing this afternoon when I started out on my daily walk and I have to admit, I was shocked and my one hour walk gave me time to think and I have more questions than answers. I don’t see the Twins as an organization that makes knee jerk reactions and the wheels of change turn slowly in Twins Territory while second chances are a way of life here in Minnesota. I know that the Twins were just plain terrible this season and they did lose 99 games but still, I did not expect this from the Twins. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Bill Smith should not have been fired, I am just saying that this has not been how the Twins have operated under the Pohlad flag to this point.

So why is Smith out and Ryan back in? I heard some reports that indicated that the Twins have been working on this change for the last week or so. The Twins I believe stated philosophical differences caused them to make a change. Boy, I would have loved to been a fly on that wall listening to what went on during those meetings.

Now that the Twins aren’t considered small market any longer does Twins ownership have higher expectations? With their 99 losses this season the Twins were just a game away from being only the second team in history to lose 100 games with a $100 million payroll. I think I heard that Twins season ticket renewals are running about 85%, does that play a roll? Or is it simply the fact that the Twins brain trust did not believe in Bill Smith’s long term plans for the team. I heard GM Smith say many times that injuries were the cause of the Twins poor play and maybe Smith was thinking that the only changes the Twins needed to make were minor tweaks and that a healthy 2012 team could once again compete in the AL Central? Or was he going in the other direction thinking that a complete rebuilding process was needed and the rest of the organization didn’t see things his way.

Bill Smith was never able to become the GM that Twins fans had hoped for. Who knows why, he got off to a quick start with his trade with Tampa for Delmon Young but that trade and numerous others just have not panned out in the long run and his handling of potential Twins free agents has been questioned on numerous fronts. Last year he lost most of his bullpen and his handeling of the Joe Mauer injury fiasco this year did not put the Twins in a good light.

I think the Bill Smith firing was not about a single event but a cumulative number of decisions that have finally caused Twins ownership and senior management to say enough is enough and that a change was needed before things really got out of hand. I also believe that this is a “shot across the bow” for manager Gardenhire, his coaching staff and any Twins players that are thinking that they can just sit back and enjoy their past successes. The Twins are a business and if they want to continue to pack Target Field they need to put a winning team on the field, or at least send out a team that shows the fans that they care about winning, something that was often not the case this past season. Here it is only November 7, it looks to me like it will be an exciting off-season in Twinsville this winter.

 

Welcome to the new site!

Welcome everyone to the new Twinstrivia.com web site. I have worked hard for the last five months to get this site launched. I have all kinds of ideas on things I would like to add in the future but everything takes time and to this point I have had all I can do just to get the basics out here that I had on my old site at Microsoft Office Live. 

This site will continue to be primarily a Minnesota Twins historical web site but will continue to have current Twins info as well. My goal is for this site to be the “go to”  Twins historical web site that everyone can use to find out what they need to know about the Minnesota Twins and their wonderful past. Now and then you will also see posts about the 1901-1960 Washington Senators so you can learn more about the Twins franchise history that goes back to 1901.

I have had Twinstrivia.com up as a site since November 2007 and I transferred as many of my old posts/blogs as I could and you can find most of them in the October archive but a few posts from 2011 can be found in the November archive as well.

I don’t know if you can tell but I am really excited about this WordPress site and I am looking forward to what the future will bring. If you have some ideas on what I can do to make the site better, please let me know. In the mean time, enjoy the site.

AL Division Series appearances

September 3, 2011 – Since the Division Series format started in 1995, only two AL teams have not participated, the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays. The number of appearances for the rest of the AL teams are listed below.

Team Division Series appearances
Yankees 15
Red Sox 9
Indians 7
Twins 6
Angels 6
A’s 5
Mariners 4
Rangers 4
White Sox 3
Orioles 2
Rays 2
Tigers 1

 

How Twins compare to rest of baseball

  Stat Ranking
Runs 516 26th
Average .247 21st
On base % .306 28th
Slugging % .360 27th
ERA 4.53 28th
Quality starts 68 21st
WHIP 1.42 27th
Batting average allowed .277 29th

And that ladies and gentlemen explains why the Twins have one of the worst records in baseball going into September in 2011.

Arizona Fall League 2011

August 31, 2011 – The league begins its 20th season on Tuesday, October 4. The six-team league plays six days per week (Monday-Saturday) in six Cactus League stadiums in the Phoenix area. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick has been added as the new home of the Rafters in 2011, joining Mesa Hohokam Stadium (Solar Sox), Peoria Sports Complex (Javelinas), Phoenix Municipal Stadium (Desert Dogs), Scottsdale Stadium (Scorpi­ons) and Surprise Stadium (Saguaros) as the league venues. Twins players joining the Mesa Solar Sox this year will be: pitchers Cole DeVries, Scott Diamond, Bruce Pugh and Brett Jacobson; Catcher: Chris Herrmann; Infielder: Brian Dozier; Outfielder: Aaron Hicks.

Blackburn’s 127 pitches

Nick Blackburn

May 26, 2011 – Nick Blackburn threw 127 pitches in a complete-game win against the Mariners on Tuesday, May 24. That’s the third-most pitches thrown in one game for Minnesota since Ron Gardenhire became their manager in 2002. Eric Milton threw 131 in 2002 and Kenny Rogers matched that total a year later. Source: Elias

Did you know?

May 22, 2011 – Since the Twins came into existence in 1961, the Twins have an all-time extra-inning record of 365-333-2. Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire has a career-record of 88-60, a .595 winning percentage, in extra-innings.