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
According to ESPNBoston.com, Boston Red Sox hitting coach Greg Colbrunn who is just 44 was diagnosed with bleeding in the brain, a potentially life-threatening condition, after being taken to the Cleveland Clinic before Wednesday’s game with the Cleveland Indians. You can read the rest of the story here.
Greg Colbrunn
Greg Colbrunn, just 44, played in the majors for 13 years between 1992-2004. Colbrunn played for the Expos, Marlins, Twins, Braves, Rockies, Mariners and Diamondbacks. Colbrunn signed with the Twins as a free agent in january 1997 and appeared in 70 games for Minnesota in 1997 hitting .281 with 5 home runs and 26 RBI before the Twins traded him to the Atlanta Braves on August 14, 1997 for a PTBNL who turned out to be outfielder Marc Lewis. Lewis spent two years in the Twins minor league system but never reached the major leagues.
We at Twins Trivia hope that Greg Colbrunn gets well soon and has a quick and complete recovery.
Oswaldo Arcia hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth inning and singled in Josh Willingham in the bottom of the seventh for his four RBIs in the Twins 6-4 win over the Brewers on Wednesday night. Arcia entered the game hitting just .120 (3-for-25) with men on base this season, which was the fourth lowest such batting average for any major-league player entering Wednesday’s action (minimum: 25 at bats), ahead of only Pedro Florimon (.040), Jose Molina (.054) and J.P. Arencibia (.074).
Joe Mauer
To be fair, Arcia only has 60 total at bats in 2014 due to all the time he spent on the DL this year. Joe Mauer on the other hand has 207 at bats and his batting average with runners in scoring position is .159 this season which means that 240 major league players have a higher batting average with runners in scoring position this season then Joe does. OUCH!
MLB announced that Major League Baseball, the Minnesota Twins and Peanuts Worldwide, as part of a new collaboration between the organizations, unveiled 10 life-size statues of the iconic Peanuts Gang, including Charlie Brown and Snoopy, dressed in full Twins baseball uniforms at St. Paul’s Rice Park on May 28th.
These statues are set to welcome St. Paul residents and visitors alike to the city’s downtown area for the next three weeks in advance of MLB All-Star Week. On hand for the unveiling were Twins Owner and Chief Executive Officer Jim Pohlad, Team President Dave St. Peter, City of St. Paul Director of Marketing and Convention Planning Jake Spano as well as a starting lineup of St. Paul natives, including Twins first baseman and All-Star Ambassador Joe Mauer, Twins Bench Coach and All-Star Ambassador Paul Molitor and Snoopy, the World’s Most Famous Beagle and Official Peanuts All-Star Ambassador. The statue unveiling marked the start of a new multi-year marketing relationship between the league and the legendary comic strip brand that also forms a special retail program. This retail component consists of replica statuettes modeled after the life-size statues in Rice Park, as well as other related merchandise including apparel, novelties and collectibles.
The 10 life-size statues are decorated with full baseball gear to go along with their uniforms, including mitts, cleats, bats and in Schroeder’s case, catcher’s equipment. Standing between five and six feet tall and weighing between 200-300 pounds, these Twins-themed All-Star statues will reside in St. Paul’s Rice Park until June 16th at which point they will move to the Minneapolis Convention Center for MLB All-Star festivities through July 15th. This special line of commemorative statues and their replica statuettes, commissioned in conjunction with Forever Collectibles, depicts the Peanuts gang as Twins players, dressed in uniforms adjusted for each character’s style.
2014 All-Star Game Snoopy Figurine (Target Field Exclusive – June 6 game – 10,000 available)
The statuettes, which stand between five and seven inches, will be available through MLB.com and at the Majestic Twins Clubhouse Store beginning June 2nd. Photos of all 10 life-size statues and the replica variations are available at MLB.com. The Twins will also host Peanuts Day at Target Field on June 6th when the first 10,000 fans will receive a limited-edition Snoopy figure. Only fans in attendance at this Twins versus Houston Astros game will be able to complete the entire limited-edition collection. In addition to the replica statuettes, in the coming months fans can obtain a wide variety of memorabilia featuring the Peanuts Gang characters, representing all 30 MLB clubs. Items will include apparel, headwear, novelties and collectibles, among other items and will be available nationwide.
MLB All-Star Week at Target Field includes the 85th MLB All-Star Game (July 15th), Gatorade All-Star Workout Day (July 14th) featuring the Home Run Derby, Taco Bell All-Star Sunday (July 13th), including the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game and the Taco Bell All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game, and T-Mobile All-Star FanFest at the Minneapolis Convention Center (July 11th-15th).
Click on the figurine to see the slideshow and place your cursor on the figurine during the slide show to view the description.
Officially ending his Hall of Fame career about six months after MLB owners did it for him, Rod Carew announced his retirement. A victim of collusion after the 1985 season, Carew failed to get any suitable offers for what would have been his age-40 campaign. Nine years later, he’d be awarded $782,000 in damages for his lost wages. Carew finished his career with the Angels in 1985 hitting .280 in 127 games. It was the only one of his 19 seasons in which he wasn’t named to the AL All-Star team.
Carew who signed with Minnesota on June 24, 1964 as an amateur free agent ended his career with 3,053 hits. Carew hit .328 with 92 homers and 1,015 RBI in 12 seasons with the Twins and seven with the Angels. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1967 and its MVP in 1977, when he hit .388 and drove in 100 runs for the only time in his career. He ended up winning seven batting titles and finishing first in the AL in the OBP four times. Both the Twins and the Angels retired his number 29.
Carew was born to a Panamanian mother on a train in the town of Gatún, which, at that time, was in the Panama Canal Zone. The train was racially segregated; white passengers were given the better forward cars, while non-whites, like Carew’s mother, were forced to ride in the rearward cars. When she went into labor, a physician traveling on the train, Dr. Rodney Cline, delivered the baby. In appreciation for this, Mrs. Carew named the boy Rodney Cline Carew.
During the 1960s, Carew served a six-year commitment in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a combat engineer. Carew later said that his military experience helped him in his baseball career, explaining that “When I joined the Marine Corps, it was a life-changing event for me because I learned about discipline. When I first came up to the big leagues in 1967, I was a little bit of a hot-head. But after two weeks of war games every summer, I realized that baseball was not do-or-die. That kind of discipline made me the player I became.”
Frustrated by the Twins’ inability to keep young talent, some racist comments by owner Calvin Griffith, and the Twins’ overall penny-pinching negotiating style, Carew announced his intention to leave the Twins. On February 3, 1979 the Twins traded Carew to the California Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, catcher/1B Dave Engle, RHP Paul Hartzell, and LHP Brad Havens. Rumors circulated that the Twins completed this trade with the Angels only after a potentially better deal with the New York Yankees in January in which Carew would have moved to the Yankees in exchange for Chris Chambliss, Juan Beniquez, Damaso Garcia, and Dave Righetti fell through at the last-minute. I wonder how baseball history in Minnesota and New York might have changed had that deal gone down?
Ft. Myers (High A – Florida St. League) pitcher Matt Tomshaw is the Twins Minor League Player of the Week. The 6’2″ left-handed Tomshaw made one start (at Clearwater), tossing 8 shutout innings with three hits allowed, two walks and three strikeouts and earned the win. Tomshaw, born in Kingston, New York has gone 4-1, 1.88 ERA (38.1 IP, 8 ER) with six walks and 21 strikeouts in eight games (5 starts) for the Miracle this season, winning each of his last four starts. The 25-year-old was drafted by the Twins in the 42nd round of the 2011 First-Year Player Draft out of Jacksonville University.
Tomshaw has been used both as a starter and a reliver since he started play in the Twins minor league system in 2011. In 295+ career minor league innings pitched he has a 17-11 record with 197 KO’s and a 3.23 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP but todate Tomshaw has not advanced past High-A Ft. Myers
Ricky Nolasco, after 222 previous major-league starts, finally got to pitch against the Yankees for the first time in his career, the most starts among active pitchers who had never played a game against the Yankees. And it was worth the wait. While Nolasco allowed seven hits, four walks and two stolen bases over six innings, the Bombers scored just one run, and Nolasco earned credit for the Twins’ 6-1 victory.
Oswaldo Arcia
Minnesota right fielder Oswaldo Arcia homered and threw out two Yankees runners at the plate as they tried to score on singles. It’s been nearly 25 years since a Twins outfielder hit a homer and threw out two runners at the plate in the same game; that last to do that was Dan Gladden in a 9-4 victory at Toronto on Sept. 3, 1989.
The Twins are 9-4 against AL East opponents in 2014, winning five of their last six and seven of their last nine. In those last six, the Twins have averaged 5.5 runs-per-game (33 runs) and averaged 11.2 hits-per-game while pitchers have posted a 3.11 ERA (55.0 IP, 19 ER). The Twins averaged just 11.5 wins against that division from 2010-13, posting a .324 winning percentage (46-96) in that span.
The Twins are 7-6 in their last 13 games in New York, dating back to May 16, 2010. The Twins have out-scored the Yankees 63-52 in that span. In the last nine games in Yankee Stadium, the Twins are hitting .276 (92-for-333) with 24 doubles, 14 home runs and 46 runs scored. The Twins current three-game winning streak in New York is their longest since May 2 – July 6, 1992 (also 3). Their last four-game winning streak in the Big Apple was June 6-August 9-11, 1968. (Source – Twins Notes)
The other day SABR member Clem Comly who also follows basketball wondered who the “triple doubles” leader might be in baseball history. His search defined a “baseball triple double” as a player that had 2 or more runs, 2 or more hits, and 2 or more RBI in a single game. His used Retrosheet (1913-2014) in his calculations and determined that the all-time baseball leader in triple doubles was Babe Ruth with 247. Lou Gehrig was second with 204, Willie Mays and Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez were tied for third with 191 and Hank Aaron was fifth with 188.
I though it might be fun to run a similar search for all of baseball during the time period of 1961 through 2014 since 1961 is the year the Minnesota Twins came into existence. I cut the list off at 100 meaning that you had to have at least 100 “triple double” games to make the list. It turns out to be a Whose Who of baseball hitting. You can almost use this list to see who might deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, assuming of course you excluded things like position played, fielding and the whole steroid situation.
I am surprised to see Jacques Jones on this list. Larry Hisle only played in Minnesota for five seasons but he put up some nice numbers during his stay here and a lot of Twins fans have no idea who he is.
The 2014 season is almost one-third over and the Twins are hanging around the .500 mark give or take a few games. You could argue that the Twins are playing better than expected and that might be true but the roster still has several players that do not belong on a good major league team. Today I want to talk about just one of them, outfielder Jason Kubel.
Jason Kubel
The 32-year-old left-handed hitting outfielder has no business being on this team. I am not even going to waste your time and mine by asking why the Twins organization spent $2 million to sign this guy in the first place after he hit .216 with five home runs and 92 strikeouts in 259 at bats for the Diamondbacks and Indians in 2013. As it turned out, both corner outfielders Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia went down with hand injuries right out of the starting gate and having Kubel on the team helped to solve that dilema at least on a short term basis.
Now with Willingham and Arcia back in the line-up, why is Kubel still with this team? Pay the man the money you owe him, thank him for his service and send him on his way, you will be doing a service to both Kubel and the team.
Kubel has been dreadful this season. Kubel was signed to provide power and knock in some runs, todate he has hit one home run and plated 13 base runners. In 144 at bats he has struck out a team leading 51 times, that 35.42% of his at bats. Outside of Aaron Hicks and Willingham who has only appeared in 9 games, no one on the team has a lower slugging percentage than Kubel. Kubel’s play in the field is barely adequate.
Kubel is taking up valuable roster space on a team that is struggling to score runs. Going into the series final today again the Texas Rangers the Twins record in their last 9 games is 3 wins with 6 losses and they have scored more than 2 runs (four runs in one game and five in another) just twice. If you take those two games out of the equation the team has scored a total of 10 runs in 7 games which comes out to 1.43 runs per game. In 50 games this season the Twins have scored 3 runs or less 20 times. The Twins record stands at 24-26 but when you score 3 runs or less 40% of the time you either have to have amazing pitching or been just plain lucky, I think I will put the Twins in the lucky category.
Kennys Vargas
The Twins need to find a way to score more runs. How about if the Twins either release Kubel or send him to Rochester and bring up 1B Kennys Vargas from New Britain? The 23-year-old switch hitter might be a perfect fit for the Twins DH slot. Last season Vargas hit .267 with 19 home runs and 93 RBI in Ft. Myers. This season in New Britain, Vargas is hitting ..320 with 8 home runs and 34 RBI’s. With Gardy fretting about using back-up catcher Josmil Pinto as his DH, who knows, the 6’5″ 275 pound Vargas might be the next Big Papi in the making. What have they got to lose?
UPDATE AS OF MAY 29 – Did I forget to mention that including todays game against Texas, Kubel is 0 for his last 22 plate appearances and has not had an RBI since May 1st?
Ben Revere hit his first major-league home run in his 1466th at-bat in the Phillies’ home loss to the Rockies. That was the longest start-of-career homer-less streak by any player since the Pirates’ Frank Taveras connected for an inside-the park grand slam at Cincinnati on August 5, 1977 in his 1594th at-bat.
Twins batters with 100 or more at bats and zero home runs
I have been a Ron Gardenhire fan for a long time but I have to admit even I am more than a bit confused and irritated with his recent infatuation for having his players play multiple positions. I understand that a team needs to have utility players that can play multiple positions but there is no need to have each player on the 25 man roster be able to play multiple positions. I think you are doing a disservice to the player and the team when you have your players playing out of position. A professional player is best at one particular position no matter how many positions he might be able to play. A player becomes more skillful at his position by playing his position day after day and helps the team because everyone knows how that player will react day in and day out. An everyday player does not become more valuable by playing more positions, he becomes more valuable by becoming a better player in his assigned position. Players are not paid more because they can play more positions, they get paid more when they excel in a particular position.
I believe that Gardy is making a huge blunder by playing Danny Santana out in center field. Santana has been groomed to be a shortstop since the team signed him back in 2007 and now you bring him up to the big leagues for the first time and what do you do but send him out to play center field about 30% of the games he has played in Minnesota. What the hell? Gardy was unhappy with Pedro Florimon because he couldn’t hit and so Santana gets called up because he might be your shortstop of the future. So what does Gardy do? He turns his utility man Eduardo Escobar into the teams starting shortstop and sits Santana on the bench. Santana is still learning to play shortstop and you are playing him in center field one-third of the time? I know you have a hole in center but why send Santana out to the outfield to learn to play center field in the major leagues? Just because Santana has speed does not mean he is a center fielder, he might be, but why have him learn how to play center in the big leagues, that is what the minor leagues are for. Then in a week or two you will complain that Santana is not hitting and you send him down to the minors where he will play shortstop once again. You bring up a guy to the big leagues for the first time in his career and you play him out of position? That is just plain stupid. You hurt Santana’s development at shortstop and you hurt the Twins team while Santana learns to play center. Why in the world do you want Santana to learn to play center anyway? Byron Buxton is your center fielder of the future and is probably just a year or so away and you waste your time and Danny Santana‘s future by playing him out of position? What are you thinking? Look at the big picture Gardy, this is just plain silly.
There is nothing wrong with playing someone out of position in an emergency but to do it on purpose time and time again is just plain wrong. Santana is not the only example, look at Chris Herrmann. The 26-year-old Herrmann is supposedly a catcher and he has been in the big leagues for a total of 81 games and he has played the corner outfield more than he has been behind the plate. Today I read that he going to the minors and you want him to learn how to play center field there, why? Yikes! Dan Gladden would do better in center field now than Herrmann will ever do and Gladden is 56 years old and hasn’t played in the big leagues since 1993. Eduardo Nunez is still another example, why send this infielder out to patrol left field? Nunez played for the Yankees for 281 in four years and the Yankees had him in the outfield 8 times. Nunez has appeared in 11 Twins games, he has played in the Twins infield exactly once, at 3B. Nunez is an infielder, not an outfielder, DH or a PH.
This is not the National League Gardy with double switches and all that goes with that, manage like you want to win some games here in Minnesota. If you want to help develop players then give up your current job and take a job in the minors where you can help them develop all you want. One day you say you want to come to the ballpark everyday and throw out the same line-up day in and day out and the next day you play players in positions they are not familiar with. The majority of the blame for the Twins playing players out of position falls on Gardy’s shoulders because Terry Ryan and Rob Antony let Gardy manage as he wishes for the most part and that is the way it should be. But, I think that Gardy has crossed the line here and Ryan and Antony need to step up and put a stop to this foolishness ASAP.
Bottom line it is the managers responsibility to play his players where they have the best chance to succeed both in the field and in the batting order and to help the home team to win games, I don’t think that Gardy is doing that with this team in 2014.
