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
Double AA Wichita infielder Jose Miranda and Double AA Wichita right-handed pitcher Josh Winder (WINE-der) have been named Twins minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week. About time that Wichita posted some new roster pictures on their web site.
Week eight has AA-Wichita Wind Surge infielder Jose Miranda as the Twins minor league position player of the week for the third time this season. He previously won the award in weeks one and five. Miranda was drafted by the Twins in the 2nd round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from Leadership Christian Academy (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico).
Minnesota Twins fans and the team itself had such high expectations going into 2021 and yet as we approach the midway point in the season we find the team floundering badly at 31-42. The season opened on April 1 and the team reached their high-water mark for the season on April 8 when they were three games over .500 with a 5-2 record. Since then it has been one step forward and two steps back.
Derek Falvey
So how do you explain this? How does a team that everyone expected to be a serious contender and pretty much a playoff lock in 2021 play such terrible baseball that it is basically unwatchable? Where do you start? Like in most businesses you have to start at the top.
Week seven brings us AAA – St. Paul Saints catcher/first baseman Tomás Telis as the Twins position player of the week. Telis was originally signed as a FA by the Texas Rangers in 2007. The 30-year-old Telis has 122 games of big league experience, 24 with Texas and 98 with Miami. Telis signed with the Twins as a FA in January of 2019 and has been in the Twins system since then. You can’t really consider Telis a prospect but he is a back-up should the Twins need one. Telis is a catcher but has expanded his repertoire to include first base and has even played a couple of games at second and third base. Telis has played in over 1,000 minor league games, a handy man to have around.
Telis played in six games for the Saints this week, hitting .391 (9-for-23) with one double, three home runs, five RBI, three walks and a 1.288 OPS. The 30-year-old has played in 39 games for the Saints this season, hitting .271 (42-for-155) with four doubles, one triple, six home runs and 21 RBI.
This week week we have another Jordan as the Twins pitcher of the week and this time it is Jordan Balazovic. Balazovic was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 5th round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from St. Martin SS (Mississauga, ON) . The 22-year-old right-hander is currently rated as the third best prospect in the Twins minor league system by MLB.
In the past 10 years, there have been five pitchers drafted and signed in the top five rounds of the Draft out of Canada. Only one, the Braves’ Mike Soroka, has made it to the big leagues. Balazovic, signed as a thin, projectable high school right-hander as a fifth rounder in 2016, has the chance to be the next.
MLB Pipeline
This past week Balazovic made his last start for the AA – Wichita Wind Surge on Tuesday vs. Springfield, pitching 4.1 scoreless innings with two hits allowed, one walk and eight strikeouts. Balazovic has only made four starts this season and pitched a total of 14 innings. It would be nice to see Balazovic get some innings under his belt as he has under 250 total innings in pro ball since 2016 with none in 2020 due to COVID.
Jim “Mudcat” Grant was born on August 13, 1935 in Lacoochee, Florida, a small town of about 500 people in central Florida. According to the Cleveland Indians, Mudcat Grant died peacefully in Los Angeles, California on June 11, 2021. Jim Grant was 85 years old.
Week six finds another repeater (week two) as the Twins minor league position player of the week with infielder Spencer Steer. Steer who was born in Long Beach, California was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft from University of Oregon (Eugene, OR). The 5’11” Steer had previously been drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 29th round in 2016 but did not sign with them. Steer is primarily playing second base for the High A Cedar Rapids Kernels this year but he has also played shortstop and third base.
Steer who was on fire this past week played in six games for the Kernels, hitting .333 (9-for-27) with one double, six home runs, 11 RBI, four walks and a 1.456 OPS, including two two-homer games, one on Sunday at Fort Wayne and one on Wednesday at Beloit. MLB Pipeline recently added Spencer Steer to the Minnesota Twins 2021 top 30 prospect list. You can follow Steer on twitter at @spenc__er .
In week five the Minnesota Twins minor league players of the week are AA Wichita infielder Jose Miranda and Low A Fort Myers left-handed pitcher Sawyer Gipson-Long. Congrats to Jose and Sawyer.
Mike Marshall #28 of the Minnesota Twins looks on during an Major League Baseball game circa 1979. Marshall played for the Twins from 1978-80. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Mike Marshall, one of the most durable relievers in baseball history and the first reliever to win a Cy Young award has died at the age of 78 on May 31, 2021 exactly 54 years to day of when he made his MLB debut. Marshall passed away in his Zephyrhills, Florida home where he had been in hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease. Michael Grant Marshall was born in Adrian, Michigan on January 15, 1943.
Marshall began his professional baseball career when he was signed as an infielder by the Philadelphia Phillies on September 13, 1960. Marshall made his MLB debut pitching for the Detroit Tigers at the age of 24 with an inning of relief in 9-0 blow-out loss to the Cleveland Indians.
Week four has AA Wichita Wind Surge infielder Jermaine Palacios as the Twins player of the week. The 24-year old Palacios is primarily a shortstop but also has played second and third base. The Twins signed Palacios out of Venezuela in September 2013 and then in February of 2018 traded him to Tampa Bay for pitcher Jake Odorizzi only to resign him as a minor league free agent this past February.
This week Palacios, 24, played six games for the Wind Surge, hitting .435 (10-for-23) with one double, one home run, four RBI, four runs scored, four walks and a 1.127 OPS. Palacios is having a good season so far hitting .311 with 4 home runs and 12 RBI in 23 games. How much of a prospect he is now is questionable at his age and the fact that he has never reached the AAA level.
The Twins pitcher of the week is Griffin Jax from the AAA St. Paul Saints. The 6’2″ right-hander is 26 years old. Jax was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 12th round of the 2013 MLB June Amateur Draft but did not sign. The Minnesota Twins then selected him in the 3rd round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, CO).
Jax, 26, started two games for the Saints, going 2-0, 0.75 ERA (12.0 IP, 1 ER) with three walks and 18 strikeouts, including a career-high 10-strikeout performance on Friday at Iowa. Used primarily as a starter, Jax does not have a high strikeout rate but he has good control. It would be fun to see someone from a military academy wear the Minnesota Twins uniform in a MLB game.
Pioneer Press East Metro baseball player of the year, Matt Wallner of Forest Lake is photographed Monday, June 13, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Jace Fredrick)
In week three the Twins minor league position player of the week is outfielder Matt Wallner. Wallner a Minnesota native born in Forest Lake was first drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 32nd round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from Forest Lake HS (Forest Lake, MN) but chose not to sign. The 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, Wallner was the Pioneer Press’ 2016 East Metro Player of the Year. The Minnesota Twins upped the ante and drafted him again, this time in the 1st round (39th) of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft from University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, MS). Wallner, a left-handed batter grew up a Twins fans and did some pitching in college but always wanted to be on the hitting side of the ball. The Twins took Wallner with a pick in Competitive Balance Round A by virtue of being in either one of the 10 smallest markets or 10 smallest revenue pools, which thereby gave them an additional pick at the end of the first round. According to MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis, Wallner received a signing bonus of $1.8 million just under the $1.9 million slot value.
In his first season in pro ball Wallner played at rookie league Elizabethton and briefly at Low A ball with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. With no MiLB in 2020, Wallner started 2021 with Cedar Rapids again but this time as a High-A ball Kernel. This past week Wallner played in six games hitting .400 (10-for-25) with one double, one triple, two home runs and four RBI, including a four-hit game on Thursday versus Beloit. Wallner is off to a nice start hitting .333 with four home runs and 14 RBI over 17 games this season.
The Twins minor league pitcher of the week is Texas native right-handed pitcher Matt Canterino. Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 2nd round of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft from Rice University (Houston, TX). Canterino started his pro career with the rookie Twins Gulf team in 2019 before jumping up to the Low-A Cedar Rapids Kernels. 2021 finds him with the High-A Cedar Raids team.
Canterino, 23, made two starts for Cedar Rapids this past week, going 1-0, 1.64 ERA (11.0 IP, 2 ER) with one walk and 19 strikeouts, including a 10-strikeout game on Friday versus Beloit.
It seems like everyday the Minnesota Twins find a new way to lose a baseball game. Sure this team has some injuries but what team doesn’t once the marathon baseball season begins. If you have watched this team since April 1 you can see that this team has gotten worse and not better as the season has gone on. The Twins are spiraling out of control and are in a free-fall and the Twins FO is just sitting by watching and waiting. I am not exactly sure what they are waiting for but more action needs to be taken other than shuffling pitchers between Target Field and the CHS Field.
Baseball is a strange and funny game and I have seen teams over the years that have over-performed and I have seen teams that have under-performed. The same goes for players, tell me you haven’t seen a good player have a bad season and bounce back the following year. It happens, we all get into these ruts sometimes when we feel that everyone and everything is against us and no matter what we do it just doesn’t seems to get any better.
The 2019 Minnesota Twins had an amazing season, everyone hit home runs, and as time goes by we will look back at that team and say that most of the players on that team had career years. So why is the reverse not possible and when we look back at 2021 and say that most of the players on this team all had their worst seasons at the same time.
