Twins Minor League POW are Spencer Steer & Josh Winder

In week two the Twins minor league position player of the week is 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.

In 2019 Steer spent 20 games with Elizabethton and then moved up to the Low-A Cedar Rapids Kernels where he appeared in 44 games. The right-handed hitting Steer is playing in Cedar Rapids again this year but this time it is with a High-A Cedar Rapids Kernels team. In five games this past week he hit .333 (4-for-12) with one home run, two RBI, five walks and had a .500 on-base percentage playing primarily second base but he has also played shortstop and third base. Steer has committed three errors in 9 games played this season. You can learn more about Spencer Steer by watching Seth Stoh’s Twins Spotlight on YouTube.

This weeks Twins minor league pitcher of the week is Josh Winder. The 6’5″ Winder was a Minnesota Twins 7th round selection in the 2018 MLB June Amateur Draft from Virginia Military Institute (Lexington, VA).

Josh Winder credit MLB Pipeline

Winder, a big right-hander was 3-1 with a 3.72 ERA at Elizabethton in 2018 and in 2019 was 7-2 with the Low-A Cedar Rapids Kernels and led the Midwest League in ERA and WHIP during his first full season in pro ball. According to MLB.com “Winder worked hard during the 2020 shutdown to add strength to his 6-foot-5 frame, and it showed. After sitting in the low 90s throughout the 2019 season, he was up to 98 mph consistently during instructional, albeit in a smaller sample size, throwing it with good riding life. He added velocity to his curve as well. If the velocity and stuff gains are for real, Winder could be one of the biggest starting pitcher sleeper prospects in the game.” MLB has Winder at the 14th best Twins prospect going into 2021. Winder, 24, made his first start of the season the start on Friday for the AA Wichita Wind Surge vs. Amarillo, pitching 5.2 shutout innings with three hits allowed, one walk and eight strikeouts, earning the win for the Wind Surge.

Former manager Ray Miller dead at 76

Ray Miller

Raymond Roger Miller was born on April 30, 1945 in Takoma Park, Maryland and passed away on May 5, 2021 in Weirton, West Virginia.

Ray Miller attended Suitland High School where he played baseball, basketball and soccer earning All-State honors in basketball. MLB.com shows that Ray Miller served with the US Army’s First Armored Division after graduating from Suitland High School in 1963. According to Miller, he signed a professional contract with the San Francisco Giants in 1962 but he did not pitch professionally until 1964. Miller toiled in the minor leagues for ten season (1864-1974) but never got a chance to show his stuff as a major league pitcher and he retired as an active player at the relatively young age of 28. Why did he retire so young? Check out “Obituary: Ray Miller (1945-2021)” on the RIP Baseball site, a wonderful write-up you should not miss about a man that seemed to avoid publicity.

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Twins Minor League POW are Jose Miranda & Brent Headrick

With no MiLB played in 2020 due to COVID we have not had any Minnesota Twins players of the week since September 2019. It is nice to get things a little more back to normal. The MiLB season started about a month later than normal and the Appalachian League has been discontinued. The Twins discontinued their AAA relationship with the Rochester Red Wings and their new AAA St. Paul Saints team is just across the Mississippi River. What a wonderful deal for the Minnesota Twins and fans of minor league baseball. The Twins new AA team is the Wichita Wind Surge of the Double-A Central League Northern Division. The Cedar Rapids Kernels are now the High-A team and the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels are the Low-A team.

The Rookie League Gulf Coast league Twins and the Dominican Summer League Twins will begin play later this year.

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How things have changed since the sixties

All of you that stop by twinstrivia.com from time to time know that I have followed baseball for a long time. Back then when I had some extra money I would spend it on baseball cards and some of it went towards a subscription to the Sporting News, the best place to get baseball news back then. Oh, but how things have changed since the sixties.

Hard copy newspapers and magazines, radios and even televisions are on the way out and the Internet is in. Everyone gets their baseball news by reading about it via the internet on newspaper sites, magazine sites, baseball team sites, baseball blogs and even baseball books via their phones, tablets or computers.

Recently I was using my computer and the internet to do some research about the Minnesota Twins in the 1966 Sporting News and ran across this article in the April 16 edition on page 56 that “caught my eye” and I could not resist making a copy of it to share.

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What the heck ails the Twins

Where is the win?

What the heck ails the Minnesota Twins? Are the Twins as bad as they have shown so far? After almost three weeks of play the Twins are tied for last place in the AL Central with the Detroit Tigers and no team in the AL has a worse record and only the Colorado Rockies over in the other league have won fewer games.

Then again the entire American League seems to be is disarray with the Boston Red Sox leading in the East with a 12-6 record and they are five games ahead of the last place New York Yankees (dang it feels good to say that) and the Toronto Blue Jays are just a half game better at 7-10. In the West the the high-flying Oakland A’s are 11-7 and on a ten game winning streak prior to todays game. The Seattle Mariners are also at 11-7 and the last place Houston Astros are just 7-9. In the Central which the Twins call home the leaders are the Kansas City Royals at 9-7. Has the entire AL gone nuts? I know only about ten percent of the games have been played so it is a small sample size but things are kind of crazy.

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Chuck Schilling dead at 83

Chuck Schilling was born on October 25, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York and passed away on March 30, 2021 in West Chester, Pa. After graduating from high school Schilling attended Manhattan College, majoring in electrical engineering but then switched over to mechanical engineering. While still in college in 1958 Schilling signed a $25,000 bonus contract with the Boston Red Sox, eschewing the New York Yankees, a team he disliked even though they had actually started scouting him first.

Schilling played second base and started his pro career in 1959 playing in Class D ball and after 95 games was bumped up to class B and after just 15 game there was called up by the AAA Minneapolis Millers (managed by Gene Mauch and who also played in 8 games) to see if he could help them in the playoffs. He didn’t make that playoff roster but the next season he played for the Eddie Popowski managed 1960 Minneapolis Millers. Both of these Millers teams are full of names that played in the big leagues at one time or another.

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Ten strikeouts and no walks is a good days work

Johan Santana – Credit Craig Jones at Getty Images

It isn’t often that a MLB pitcher gets ten or more strikeouts and issues no bases on balls in a game. The way things are headed in baseball nowadays it will probably be even an even rarer event in the future. The other day New York Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom struck out 14 with no walks over eight innings and all he got for his efforts was a “L” after he gave up a home run to the Miami Marlins Jazz Chisholm in in the second inning and his team ended up losing 3-0.

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Three or more innings saves

Earlier this week on April 5 the Twins beat the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park by a score of 15-6. Matt Shoemaker started his first game in a Twins uniform and went six innings throwing 92 pitches and allowing three hits and one run before manager Rocco Baldelli said that was enough. The Twins had a 15-1 lead at that point and Shoemaker was in line for the win.

Randy Dobnak

Baldelli brought in his long man Randy Dobnak to finish things off and Dobnak did just that going the final three innings. The first two innings were uneventful but the third and final inning was interesting. The ninth inning started as you would like to see with Dobnak retiring the first two batters. But the next hitter Victor Reyes took Dobnak deep. Then he gave up a single, then a double and then a walk to load the bases for former Twins minor league outfielder and Tigers Rule 5 pick-up Akil Baddoo who crushed a Dobnak pitch for a grand slam home run and all of a sudden it was a 15-6 ballgame. No worries, Dobnak retired JaCoby Jones on a groundout and the game was over and the Twins had the 15-6 win.

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Opening Day Complete Games

Bert Blyleven

As you watch the 2021 MLB Opening Day games tomorrow one of the things that you are unlikely to see is a complete game win by a starting pitcher. Back in the day, it was normal to see starting pitchers throw complete games in their final one or two spring training exhibition starts and complete games on OD were a normal occurrence. Not so in todays baseball.

Last year Chicago Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks pitched a complete game throwing 103 pitches as he shutout the Milwaukee Brewers 3-0 on July 24. It was the first complete game on OD (not counting a five inning effort by Gerrit Cole in 2020) since April 1, 2013 when Clayton Kershaw shutout the San Francisco Giants 4-0. The last complete game on OD in the American League goes back even farther, back to April 1, 2011 when Felix Hernandez got a CG 6-2 win against the Oakland A’s. The last pitcher to pitch a complete game against the Twins was Rick Rhoden when he was pitching for the New York Yankees on April 5, 1988 after the Minnesota Twins won the 1987 World Series.

The Minnesota Twins OD complete games are documented below.

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What’s in store behind the 2021 door

I will jump right in and say that I am very optimistic about the 2021 Minnesota Twins winning the American League Central title even though with the exception of the Cleveland Indians I see the rest of the Central Division teams improving.

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