1969 MLB Spring Training Dates and Sites
Twins minor league pitcher Alex Schick suspended 50 games
The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball announced yesterday that three Minor League players have been suspended following their violations of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.
One of the three was Minnesota Twins Minor League pitcher Alex Schick, who is currently on the roster of the Single-A Cedar Rapids Kernels of the Midwest League, has received a 50-game suspension without pay after testing positive for Amphetamine, a stimulant in violation of the Program.
Schick is a 24-year-old RHP drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 6th round of the 2016 June amateur free agent draft and signed for a reported $400,000. Schick last pitched in 2017 for Cedar Rapids and spent 2018 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Joe Nathan and Jerry Bell to be inducted in Twins Hall of Fame
The Minnesota Twins announced today that closer Joe Nathan and former Twins Executive Jerry Bell will be inducted in the Twins Hall of Fame on August 3-4.
I would like to see the Minnesota Twins be more transparent about the voting process and the voting results. It would be nice to see who received how many votes and where they ended up when the voting was completed.
It is no secret that I think Cesar Tovar belongs in the Twins Hall of Fame and I did my best this year to try to get him in and so did a number of others. But I have no idea where he ended up in the voting or what the total voting process entails. Seems to me that the fans should be more in the know here. Just saying……
2019 Twins single game tickets on sale
The Minnesota Twins took a few steps backward in 2018 and won seven fewer games (78) than they did in 2017 and their attendance reflected their play. Attendance dropped to the lowest it has been since 2004. The Twins have put a winning team on the field just twice in the last eight years. So let’s take a look at Minnesota Twins single game ticket prices for 2019.
For a number of years the Twins have had five tiers of tickets called extra value, value, select, premium and elite but in 2019 they have dropped the extra value (the lowest priced games) and elite (highest priced games) tiers and will go with just three ticket tiers (value, select, and premium). This year there will again be 81 home games in Target Field, 49 of the 81 games have been designated as “select” or middle of the road games while the “value” and “premium” tiers will each have 16 games.
The Twins continue to use demand-based ticket pricing that they implemented in 2012 and that means that ticket prices constantly go up or down to a floor price based on demand for tickets for that game. Some people call this variable or dynamic ticket pricing and is used by a number of teams but whatever you call it, it means digging deeper in your pocket for a ticket. Some folks look at it as scalping your own tickets. The floor price is based on the price of a season ticket for the same seat.
What have the last ten years of Twins drafts produced
In the last ten years the Twins have had four winning seasons and made the playoffs three times but in those seven play-off games their record is 0-7. So why the dry spell after the Twins had winning teams in 7 of 9 years before that?
If you look at the Twins drafts from 2009 thru current you might find your answer. The way baseball works you can’t expect your draft choices to produce in the big leagues for three or four years and it has been that way since who knows when. That baffles me because the NFL takes it players straight out of college, some after just three seasons and the next year they are professionals in the NFL. The NBA does it the same way but takes the cream of the crop college players after just one collegiate season and moves them to the pros. Baseball on the other hand is convinced that players out of high school or college can’t play in the big leagues. Oh, a handful of them have but for the most part you have to spend a few years in the minors and work you way up the ladder.
Twins hitters best seasons by position
Although WAR is not always the best answer on how good a player is/was, I find it useful in doing player comparisons. The B-R tool regards a WAR of 2+ as a starter, 5+ an All-Star and 8+ as MVP worthy. Remember too what I am doing here covers position players only, we will leave the pitchers for another day.
First Base – Having watched the Minnesota Twins for many a year I was pretty sure what Twins player had the best season in team history and when I put Play Index to work, sure enough it verified for me that Hall of Famer Rod Carew and his 1977 season in which he made a run at hitting .400 at the age of 31 stood at the top. If you missed seeing Carew play ball in Minnesota I feel bad for you because you missed out on seeing one of the best baseball players ever. There have been eleven seasons by Twins players when someone had a WAR of 7.0 or greater, Carew had four of them.
Twins laying the groundwork for what’s to come
A lot of Minnesota Twins fans are frustrated that the Twins front office isn’t doing more to improve the Twins team. With Joe Mauer retired and his $23 million salary no longer on the books many fans figured the Twins would spend some money, and they have, but not much of it. If the 2019 season started tomorrow, the Twins payroll would sit at about $98 million after spending around $131 million in 2018.
But Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have told us they are busy laying ground work for rebuilding the Minnesota Twins organization from the ground up and it will take some time.
It wasn’t until I stopped by the CenturyLink Sports Complex this afternoon that I fully understood what they meant. At the rate it is going it will take some time, here is what I found when I got there.
I didn’t get close enough to tell for sure but I think that is Falvey in the red shirt and Levine with the green shirt.
Here I think we have Mr. Pohlad himself on the Bobcat leveling the playing field.
And he goes down swinging!
We all know that strikeout rates are up all across baseball for the last few years but today we will look at Minnesota Twins batters and their strikeout rates going back to 1961. We used B-R’s amazing Play Index to find what we were looking for.
The top two all time Twins leader in strikeouts are Harmon Killebrew with 1,314 and Joe Mauer with 1,034. Mauer? What the heck? Longevity can do strange things to numbers and the devil is in the details.
Minnesota Twins Top 10 Right Fielders
Between 1961-2018 there have been 70 players that have played at least 10 games in left field for our Minnesota Twins. However, to qualify for this list which ranks them in Baseball-Reference WAR order the player must have played left field in at least 51% of their games while wearing a Twins uniform. This eliminates players like Kirby Puckett, Bob Allison, Torii Hunter and Cesar Tovar who played right field at different points in their careers. Tony O is the Twins all-time leader in games played in right field.
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | G | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | BA | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Oliva | 43.1 | 1676 | 6301 | 870 | 1917 | 220 | 947 | .304 | .830 |
| 2 | Tom Brunansky | 16.1 | 916 | 3313 | 450 | 829 | 163 | 469 | .250 | .782 |
| 3 | Michael Cuddyer | 12.8 | 1139 | 4072 | 606 | 1106 | 141 | 580 | .272 | .794 |
| 4 | Matt Lawton | 11.3 | 771 | 2672 | 423 | 739 | 72 | 384 | .277 | .808 |
| 5 | Max Kepler | 6.9 | 419 | 1446 | 199 | 337 | 56 | 190 | .233 | .730 |
| 6 | Bobby Darwin | 5.3 | 490 | 1817 | 210 | 467 | 70 | 282 | .257 | .735 |
| 7 | Dustan Mohr | 2.5 | 261 | 782 | 111 | 202 | 22 | 85 | .258 | .726 |
| 8 | Bombo Rivera | 2.5 | 257 | 627 | 85 | 167 | 8 | 64 | .266 | .699 |
| 9 | Hosken Powell | 2.3 | 442 | 1468 | 192 | 383 | 13 | 127 | .261 | .671 |
| 10 | Roberto Kelly | 1.8 | 173 | 569 | 80 | 175 | 11 | 84 | .308 | .808 |
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The Minnesota Twins first center fielder – Lenny Green passes away on his birthday
Leonard Charles Green (born January 6, 1933, in Detroit) was the middle of three sons born to Eugene and Anna Green and passed away on his 86th birthday on January 6, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan.
After graduating from Pershing High School, Lenny Green was signed as an amateur free agent by the St. Louis Browns late in 1952 to play for York of the Class B Inter-State League. But before he ever put on a York uniform or a Browns uniform for that matter the Army called and he spent 1953-1954 in the service of his country during the Korean War. Green was stationed stateside and ended up playing on a baseball team with and against players like Willie Mays, Don Newcombe, Billy Martin and Zach Monroe. After being discharged from the Army as a corporal, Green was free to resume his pro baseball career but thing had changed and Green experienced his first MLB franchise shift as the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles.