A look at the top closers in franchise history

December 16, 2009 – A successful team needs to have a top notch closer, a pitcher that can come in and slam the door on the opposition game after game. In the past, closers were expected to pitch more than one inning but in today’s game most closers pitch only in the ninth inning. The Twins have been blessed over the years with some very good closers and a strong case could be made that their current closer Joe Nathan, is the best of the bunch. Assuming nothing bad happens to Nathan, he should be expected to break the Twins all time saves record now held by Rick Aguilera early in 2010.

Update – Turns out that something did happen and Joe Nathan had TJ surgery and missed all of 2010 and came back in 2011 to take over the Twins career saves lead before leaving as a free agent after the 2011 season. Table has been updated to show the updated numbers.

Just as an interesting tidbit, In looking at the Twins top ten closers in terms of saves, only two were left-handed, the same hold true for the Washington Senators/Nationals who also had only two southpaws in their top 11 save leaders.

Twins Saves Leaders

Joe Nathan
Joe Nathan
Name R/L Years pitched Saves K/BB
1 Joe Nathan R 2004-2011 260 4.19
2 Rick Aguilera R 1989-1999 254 3.27
3 Eddie Guardado L 1993-2003, 2008 116 2.26
4 Ron Davis R 1982-1986 108 1.89
5 Jeff Reardon R 1987-1989 104 3.36
6 Al Worthington R 1964-1969 88 2.15
7 Ron Perranoski L 1968-1971 76 1.27
8 Mike Marshall R 1978-1980 54 1.55
9 Bill Campbell R 1973-1976 51 1.76
10 LaTroy Hawkins R 1995-2003 44 1.83

Senators Saves Leaders

Firpo Marberry
Firpo Marberry
Name R/L Years pitched Saves K/BB
1 Firpo Marberry R 1923-1932, 1936 96 n/a
2 Walter Johnson R 1907-1927 34 n/a
3 Tex Clevenger R 1957-1960 29 1.29
4 Garland Braxton L 1927-1930 28 n/a
5 Jack Russell R 1933-1936 26 n/a
6 Dick Hyde R 1955-1960 23 1.04
7 Tom Ferrick R 1947-1948, 1951-1952 22 n/a
8 Mickey Harris L 1949-1952 19 n/a
9 Allan Russell R 1923-1925 19 n/a
10 Pete Appleton R 1936-1939, 1945 17 n/a
11 Jim Shaw R 1913-1921 17 n/a

The slick fielding Vic Power

December 5, 2009 – Victor “Vic” Pellot Power, one of the most colorful and controversial players of the 1950’s, was born on November 1, 1927 and passed away from cancer on November 29, 2005. Power was the second black Puerto Rican to play in the majors and the first Puerto Rican to play in the American League. He used the name Vic Power during his 12-year major league career, but played as Victor Pellot when he played winter baseball in Puerto Rico.

Power had a 12 year major league career playing for the Philadelphia Athletics (1954), the Kansas City Athletics (1955 – 1958), the Cleveland Indians (1958 – 1961), the Minnesota Twins (1962 – 1964), the Los Angeles Angels (1964), the Philadelphia Phillies (1964), and he finished his career in 1965 with the California Angels. One of the flashiest, best fielding, and most colorful first sackers in baseball history, Power was a free swinger who seldom walked or struck out, averaging just one strikeout every 24.5 at bats, and finished his career with a highly respectable lifetime batting average of .284. Although Power was best known for his fielding, Vic was no slouch at the plate where in his 6,046 at bats he hit 126 home runs, knocked in 658, and scored 765 runs while hitting .284 in 1,627 games. Although not blessed with blazing speed, Power led the AL in triples in 1958 was able to steal 45 bases during his career and once stole home twice in one game. Power was good enough to be selected to the All-Star teams in 1955, 1956, 1959 and 1960. Vic Power won seven Gold Gloves between 1958 and 1964 and had a career fielding average of .994 in 11,285 chances. Although best known as the slick fielding first sacker, Power also played all three outfield positions (115 games), second base (139 games), third base (89 games), and Power even played 8 games at Shortstop. Vic was smart enough not to don the tools of ignorance.

Check out this article I found on the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society site about Power by clicking here.

First annual Twins Turkey of the Year Winner is

Glen Perkins

November 26, 2009 – Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Just for fun I think I will start an annual “Twins Turkey of the Year” award that will be awarded to the Twins player and/or Twins staff member that in my opinion showed his/her true colors during the past baseball season. The initial award winner is none other than pitcher Glen Perkins who I think was a run-away winner this year. The Twins had a great season in their final year under the Teflon roof but Perkins stood out as the “fly in the ointment. It seems that annually Perkins takes some vacation time on the DL and this year was no different.” When he pitches well, he has no complaints but when he has a bad outing then all of a sudden his arm or elbow hurts. Then he supposedly files a grievance stating that Twins management intentionally kept him in the minors to keep him from accumulating time in the big leagues. I don’t know if the Twins were sending Perkins a message or not when they kept him in the minors but it was well deserved. Twins management now states that the team and Perkins have buried the hatchet and that Perkins is ready to pitch for the Twins again this spring. I will believe that when I see it, as I see it, Perkins will be pitching for somebody other than the Twins in 2010. Stick a fork in him, he is done.

Turkey Cartoon

Forty Years Ago

November 18, 2009 – The 1968 Minnesota Twins finished with a 79-83 record under manager Cal Ermer and finished a disappointing seventh in the ten team American League, a full 24 games behind the first place Detroit Tigers and owner Calvin Griffith decided he had seen enough even though stars like Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, and Jim Kaat had suffered injuries that caused them to miss numerous games. On October 11th he fired manager Cal Ermer and hired the brash Billy Martin who had been managing the Twins AAA team in Denver to skipper the 1969 Minnesota Twins. 1969 would be an exciting season for Minnesota, they had a young new manager and would begin play in the newly formed Western Division of the American League along with the Oakland A’s, the California Angels, the Kansas City Royals, the Chicago White Sox, and the Seattle Pilots. 1969 brought two new teams to the American League, the Kansas City Royals who were replacing the A’s who had packed their bags and moved to Oakland under owner Charlie Finley and the Seattle Pilots who it turns out would only stay in Seattle for one season before moving to Milwaukee and becoming the Brewers.

The Twins 1969 season got off to a rough start for Billy’s boys when they lost their first two games of the season on the road to the expansion Royals, both losses coming in extra innings. They moved on to California and lost their next two games by scores of 5-3 and 4-3 and found themselves in the basement of the Western Division. But Martin got his team on the straight and narrow and the team ripped off 7 wins in a row and took over 1st place. They finished the month of April 13-7 and were sitting on top of the division. From April 26th through July 3rd the team was either first or second in the standings. Oakland came to town on the 4th of July week-end and the Twins whipped Charlie Finley’s boys 3 straight and outscored the A’s 30 to 11 and took over first place, a spot they would keep for the rest of the season. The Twins finished the season with a 97-65 record, 9 games ahead of the second place Oakland A’s. Although Martin had the team running (4th in stolen bases), the team finished first in the league in hits, runs, doubles, total bases, and batting average. The Twins pitching wasn’t too shabby either as Jim Perry and Dave Boswell each finished with 20 wins and threw 250+ innings and Ron Perranoski was great out of the bullpen pitching 119+ innings in 75 games finishing 52 of them and getting credit for 31 saves.

The Twins would go on to lose their first league championship series to the Baltimore Orioles in a 3 game sweep but that is a whole different story that we will talk about in the future. Just a week after losing the final game of the championship series, Billy Martin is fired by owner Calvin Griffith and Bill Rigney was named the Twins new manager. Roy Blount Jr. of Sports Illustrated did a nice story on Billy Martin and the Twins in the July 21, 1969 issue and you can read that story by clicking on the SI magazine cover.

Intentional Strikeout

November 13, 2009 – Deceased former Twins manager, Cal Ermer speaking: “We have a play now that we used to use in Chattanooga in 1952, with two strikes, we begin to walk a batter intentionally. After three balls, the catcher is at the side again to catch a wild pitch, but on a signal, the pitcher fires it over the middle. We got big Frank Howard on this. He chased our catcher with a bat. Bob Oldis was a wizard at this play. We pulled it some in 1952.”

Bob Montag, who was listening to Ermer and played for Atlanta that year, spoke up, grinning, with, “Yeah, he pulled it on me.” — Wirt Gammon in the Chattanooga Times.

Jack Dean “Jackie” Collum passes away

November 11, 2009 – Jackie Collum was small in stature (5’7” and 163 pounds) but he had a big heart and a devastating screwball that he turned that into a 9 year major league career. Jackie was born on June 21, 1927 in Victor, Iowa and died at the age of 82 on August 29, 2009 in Grinnell, Iowa. Collum pitched for the Cardinals, Reds, Cubs, Dodgers (in Brooklyn and LA), Twins and the Indians. Collum also spent numerous years in the minors including a couple years with the St. Paul Saints in 1959 and 1960.

Jackie Collum’s stint with the Twins was brief, he pitched for Minnesota in 1962 appearing in just 8 games and had a 0-2 record and an ERA of 11.15 but that was at the tail end of Collum’s big league career. The Twins traded Collum and a player to be named later (Georges Maranda) to the Cleveland Indians in August of 1962 for Ruben Gomez. Collum only pitched in 1 game for the Indians before his major league career ended at the age of 35.

Although Jackie Collum’s time in Minnesota was short, he had a very interesting career and is a baseball legend in Iowa and by clicking here you can read a very interesting story written about Jackie Collum by William L. Sherman for the Field of Dreams chapter (Iowa) of SABR.

GO GO is gone

November 6, 2009 – The Twins announced today that they have traded outfielder Carlos Gomez to the Milwaukee Brewers for shortstop JJ Hardy. Carlos Gomez was the center piece in the Johan Santana trade with the New York Mets several years ago and came to Minnesota along with Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra. Gomez is the second player of that group that has now been traded as Mulvey was sent to Arizona in the trade for reliever Jon Rauch earlier this year. Humber and Guerra remain in the Twins minor league system. The fleet footed Gomez never hit enough to win the center field job outright and often looked like he had no clue with the bat but the Twins will miss his speed, his ability to play center field and his unique character.

The Twins outfield was crowded in 2009 with Cuddyer, Span, Young, Kubel, and Gomez all fighting for playing time and almost always Gomez turned out to be the one sitting on the bench. Now it appears that GM Bill Smith and the Twins are finally admitting that they had too many outfielders which I have been saying for over a year on this site. These guys need to come to the ballpark knowing where they will be playing and where they will be hitting and only Cuddyer knew that he would be in right field game in and game out, at least until Justin Morneau got hurt.

James Jerry Hardy better known as JJ is 27 years old, about 6’2” and 180 pounds and has been with the Brewers since 2005 but he sat out most of 2006 with an injury. Hardy was drafted by the Brewers in the second round of the 2001 draft and won the starting shortstop job with the Brew Crew in 2005. Hardy has been inconsistent during his career and late in 2009 appeared to have lost his starting shortstop job to Alcides Escobar and was actually sent to the minors by the Brewers this past season for 18 games. The 2007 season was arguably Hardy’s best season when he made the NL All-Star team and hit .277 with 26 home runs and 80 RBI’s. Although Hardy has a .262 career average, he has bounced around hitting .247, .242, .277, .283 and .229 last year. His rate of strikeouts has also increased the last 3 years and in 2009 he struck out once every 4.87 at bats. Hardy is not a base stealing threat as his career numbers are 5 steals in 11 attempts, maybe Gardy can get him running. Hardy has a career .323 OBP and yet most of his Brewer at bats have been in the number 2 spot in the batting order. Actually Hardy’s OBP compares very favorably to Orlando Cabrera and Nick Punto who have an OBP of .322. Nothing to jump up and down about there but Hardy does have some pop as he has shown in 2007 when he hit 26 out of the park and 24 in 2008 but in 2009 he fell to 11 home runs. In the field, Hardy is about average from a fielding percentage perspective.

On the salary front, Hardy made 4.65 million in 2009 and will be under team control in 2010 and 2011. It will be interesting to see what number will be assigned to Hardy as the Twins number 7 is currently being used by someone who I think will not be parting with it in the near future. When I first heard about the trade I was really excited and now that I have had the time to look at the numbers that Hardy has put up, I am still excited but I have to admit I am a bit apprehensive about his average and lack of speed.

Bottom line though, I go down on the positive side of this trade and think it is a very good move because the Twins have plugged a hole at short and traded an outfielder so now the line-up can be more consistent and each player knows his role in the line-up. If Hardy can play up to his ability, then I can live with Punto at 2B if need be but acquiring a 2B would still be nice. Mr. Smith still has work to do, but this is a nice start to the off season.

Did you know?

October 29, 2009 – That the Minnesota Twins were the first team in history to start measuring the distance of home runs? The practice started at Met Stadium in 1963.

or that

Harmon Killbrew hit his first major league home run in a Washington Senator uniform off Detroit Tiger pitcher Billy Hoeft at Griffith Stadium on June 24, 1955 in front of 4,188 fans and hit his last home run off Minnesota Twins pitcher Eddie Bane in a Kansas City Royal uniform at Met Stadium on September 18, 1975 in front on only 3,201 fans.

or that

Harmon Killebrew hit more home runs off former Red Sox and Tigers pitcher Earl Wilson than any other pitcher? The Killer hit 9 out of the park against against Wilson.

or that

Harmon hit 4 walk-off home runs in his career and that 3 of them were against the New York Yankees?

or that

Harmon blasted more home runs (393) in the 1960’s than any other player. He led the American League in home runs 5 times during the decade, and almost certainly would have been the 4th player in major league history to hit 400 or more home runs in a single decade had an injury not cost him more than 50 games in 1968. (The 3 players who have hit 400 home runs in a decade are Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and Mark McGwire.) Killebrew ranked second in RBIs for the decade (1,013) and fifth in slugging percentage (.546).

Twins Home Run Leaders by Position

 

October 21, 2009 – I thought that it would be fun to take a look back over the Twins history just to see who the Twins leaders are in home runs at each position. Some of the numbers that I found from the Twins 49 seasons in Minnesota were really a surprise to me and I have followed the Twins since their inception in 1961.

POSITION PLAYER HOME RUNS AT BATS PER HOME RUN
Catcher Tim Laudner 77 26.46
1B Kent Hrbek 293 21.13
2B Rod Carew 46 96.74
SS Zoilo Versalles 86 48.23
3B Gary Gaetti 201 24.82
OF Kirby Puckett 207 35.00
DH Matt LeCroy 53 21.40
P Jim Kaat 14 71.00

You have to be thinking, this can’t be right, where is Twins all-time home run slugger Harmon Killebrew? But when you look at the numbers you will see that Harmon played 14 seasons with the Twins but he split his time playing four positions, he played 881 games at 1B, 481 games at 3B, 455 games in the OF, and 122 games as a DH. Killebrew smashed 191 home runs as a first baseman, 142 as an outfielder, 129 while playing the hot corner, and 13 more when he was the DH. The Twins currently have some players on the roster like Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, and Joe Mauer that could be slugging their way on to this list very soon.

When you look at the Washington Sentaors/Nationals numbers from 1901 to 1960 to get a franchise perspective you see how much different baseball is today from its earlier years. I think the one interesting number that jumped out at me here was Roy Sievers and the fact that he hit a home run in every 16.95 at bats when he played the outfield.It is always fun to look at historical numbers and to do comparisons.

POSITION PLAYER HOME RUNS AT BATS PER HOME RUN
Catcher Jake Early 29 68.76
1B Mickey Vernon 121 57.27
2B Buddy Myer 34 162.94
SS Joe Cronin 51 70.24
3B Eddie Yost 101 59.51
OF Roy Sievers 159 16.95
DH – – –
P Walter Johnson 24 96.83
 
 

Twins walk off with the Central Division title

October 6, 2009 – Alexi Casilla became the unlikely hero for the Twins when he delivered a walk-off RBI single in the 12th inning off Tiger closer Fernando Rodney to lift the Twins to a 6-5 victory that gave the club its fifth division title this decade and earned Minnesota a trip to New York to face the Yankees in the AL Division Series which starts on Wednesday afternoon.

The game went back and forth and was an exciting a baseball game as I have ever seen. I wasn’t one of the lucky 54,088 or so fans that witnessed the game in person at the Metrodome but watching the game at home was just as stressful. It turns out that the Homer Hanky waving crowd was the largest regular season crowd ever in Metrodome history and it took place on the final regular season game to ever be played at the Metrodome.

The Tigers jumped out to a 3-0 lead off starter Scott Baker before the Twins chipped away and finally took a 4-3 lead on a homerun by Orlando Cabrera in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Tigers tied the game in the next inning on a Magglio Ordonez long ball. The teams traded runs in the 10th inning before Casilla came up with the game winner in the 12th. Earlier in the game Miguel Cabrera homered for Detroit and Jason Kubel hit one out for the Twins. Five Tigers pitchers threw 193 pitches and eight Twins pitchers threw 198 pitches in the 12 inning affair.

The Twins celebration will have to be a short one as they need to fly to New York and take on those hated New York Yankees starting tomorrow afternoon. But for now, all you can say is WOW! What a ballgame!

According to Elias, Alexi Casilla, who drove in the winning run for the Twins with a single that scored Carlos Gomez from second base, was an unlikely hero. When he came to the plate, Casilla was one of only two players in the majors with at least 200 at-bats and a sub-.200 batting average this season. Casilla’s game-winner raised his average to .202 from .198 and left San Diego’s Brian Giles (.191) with the unfortunate distinction of being the only player with 200-plus at-bats to finish this year with a batting average “on the interstate.”