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
As we start a new year in 2019 I wanted to share a list of former Minnesota Twins players that passed away in 2018. We lost some great ones.
RIP gentlemen and thank you for the great memories, you are a part of Minnesota Twins history forever.
A complete list of deceased former Minnesota Twins players can be found on our “Deceased Twins” page.
Regardless if you believe in Quality Starts (QS) or not, the term is used now days in MLB. A QS is defined as pitching six innings or more while allowing three or fewer earned runs. I would be happier if a QS was seven innings and two or fewer earned runs but that is just my age showing. The new “opener” strategy could put a kink in QS but I don’t think the opener strategy is a fit for most teams and will not be a big deal down the line.
Today we are taking a look at consecutive QS for Minnesota Twins starters and we have one pitcher that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Twins pitchers in QS and that is Johan Santana who had 21 QS in a row in 2004. Impressive or not? You bet your bippy it is, no American League pitcher between 1961-2018 has thrown that many QS in a row. In the National league only four pitchers have thrown that many QS in a row since 1961, Bob Gibson leads with 26 in 1967, Jacob deGrom (2018) and Jake Arrieta (2015) have 24 and Chris Carpenter has 22 in 2005.
The closest to Santana’s streak of 21 in Minnesota is Bert Blyleven who had 12 in 1972 and Jim Merritt who also had 12 in 1967. The biggest surprise on this list to me is Rick Aguilera with 10 QS in 1989. I certainly remember Aggie starting for Minnesota when they first traded for him but I don’t remember him as pitching that well, maybe it was the fact that his record was only 3-4 during the streak.
| Rk | Name | Strk Start | End | Games | W | L | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | ER | BB | SO | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johan Santana | 2004-06-09 | 2004-09-24 | 21 | 18 | 2 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 154.1 | 77 | 23 | 30 | 199 | 1.34 |
| 2 | Bert Blyleven | 1972-08-19 | 1973-04-06 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 99.0 | 82 | 19 | 24 | 87 | 1.73 |
| 3 | Jim Merritt | 1967-06-25 | 1967-08-18 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 101.1 | 77 | 18 | 8 | 64 | 1.60 |
| 4 | Frank Viola | 1987-06-26 | 1987-08-16 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 87.0 | 69 | 19 | 21 | 70 | 1.97 |
| 5 | Dick Woodson | 1972-07-11 | 1972-08-28 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 90.1 | 61 | 14 | 26 | 43 | 1.39 |
| 6 | Eric Milton | 2000-09-23 | 2001-05-13 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 68.1 | 67 | 20 | 16 | 45 | 2.63 |
| 7 | Scott Erickson | 1990-09-23 | 1991-05-17 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 2 | 77.1 | 53 | 10 | 28 | 36 | 1.16 |
| 8 | Rick Aguilera | 1989-08-08 | 1989-09-26 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 71.2 | 61 | 22 | 16 | 55 | 2.76 |
| 9 | Roger Erickson | 1980-08-01 | 1980-09-17 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 80.0 | 71 | 18 | 16 | 42 | 2.03 |
| 10 | Lee Stange | 1963-08-06 | 1963-09-15 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 83.0 | 65 | 16 | 19 | 55 | 1.73 |
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The Minnesota Twins longest streak of QS as a team is 13 QS in a row in 1969. The pitchers in that streak were Dean Chance, Dave Boswell, Jim Perry, Dick Woodson, Tommy Hall and Jim Kaat.
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 Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Tony Oliva, Gary Gaetti, Torii Hunter and Cesar Tovar who played left field at different points in their careers. Dan Gladden is the Twins all-time leader in games played in left field.
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | From | To | G | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | BA | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shane Mack | 19.6 | 1990 | 1994 | 633 | 2161 | 351 | 668 | 67 | 315 | .309 | .854 |
| 2 | Larry Hisle | 17.2 | 1973 | 1977 | 662 | 2437 | 369 | 697 | 87 | 409 | .286 | .811 |
| 3 | Gary Ward | 10.6 | 1979 | 1983 | 417 | 1543 | 216 | 439 | 51 | 219 | .285 | .794 |
| 4 | Eddie Rosario | 8.8 | 2015 | 2018 | 503 | 1889 | 278 | 529 | 74 | 237 | .280 | .784 |
| 5 | Marty Cordova | 5.8 | 1995 | 1999 | 628 | 2322 | 336 | 643 | 79 | 385 | .277 | .799 |
| 6 | Dan Gladden | 5.7 | 1987 | 1991 | 644 | 2470 | 358 | 661 | 38 | 238 | .268 | .700 |
| 7 | Shannon Stewart | 4.9 | 2003 | 2006 | 333 | 1373 | 179 | 404 | 29 | 162 | .294 | .772 |
| 8 | Josh Willingham | 4.8 | 2012 | 2014 | 324 | 1132 | 161 | 263 | 61 | 192 | .232 | .799 |
| 9 | Delmon Young | 1.0 | 2008 | 2011 | 497 | 1845 | 233 | 530 | 47 | 273 | .287 | .753 |
| 10 | Brant Alyea | 0.5 | 1970 | 1971 | 173 | 416 | 47 | 103 | 18 | 76 | .248 | .753 |
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The Minnesota Twins opened the decade in a new ballpark over at Target Field in 2010 and everyone was excited about Twins baseball. Why not? The Twins had won 87 games in 2009, drawn 2.4 million fans in their last season calling the Metrodome as home and advanced to the playoffs and now the team would finally play outside for the first time since the 1981 season at Met Stadium allowing fans to get to enjoy the sunshine and oh yes, the rain, snow and cold too.
Putting the ball in play is important but it seems like it is less important in today’s version of baseball than it was in the past. As I watched Twins batters flail away the last few years I realized how much I valued players that could put wood on the ball versus those that struck out a high percentage of the time. A home run is nice now and then but for me there is a lot more to baseball than just the home run.
The other day I ran across a tweet that stated that Micheal Brantley saw 1,008 pitched and swung and missed 92 times. So naturally that got me to think about the how Twins hitters did. It this case I looked at Twins hitters that saw at least 100 pitches during the 2018 season and here are the results from Statcast Search. Any surprises here?
If I had a MLB Hall of Fame vote (which I don’t) I would vote for the following players this year. The players are listed in no particular order.
Good Luck guys, you were all certainly fun to watch and in my opinion worthy of a plaque in Cooperstown.
The Tampa Bay Rays were the first team to experiment with an Opener during the 2018 season when they had reliever Sergio Romo start the game on May 19. Romo pitched in the role again on May 20, 25 and 27. In those four “Opener roles” he pitched a total of 3.1 innings going 1 inning, 1.1 innings, .2 innings and .1 innings giving up no runs in starts one and two and one run in his third start and 3 runs in his final start. Seven of the 10 outs he recorded were by strikeouts. During his time as an opener Romo did not pitch in any other games between May 19 and May 27.
The Dodgers, Twins, Athletics, and Rangers also used the opener strategy at different points during the 2018 season.
I know this won’t be popular but I will say it anyway, Bryce Harper is not worth $350 to $400 million and any team that signs him for that amount will pay dearly and not only from a financial perspective.
I grant you that Harper is just 26 years old and baseball wisdom says that his best years are ahead of him. However; you would be a fool to ignore history, Harper has played for Washington for seven seasons and he has averaged 132 games a year, (81% of the schedule) he has exceeded 150 games twice. His 2015 MVP season was his one great season and Harper has hit 30+ home runs just twice, has 100 RBI once and he has a .279 career average. If you look at 2015 as an outlier season in which his WAR was 10.0, his other six seasons average out to a WAR of 2.9.
Harper is an above average player but he has not shown that he is the super-star that the experts predicted so why pay him like he is a player like no one before him? Harper’s work ethic has also been questioned in the past. Harper is player that plays for Harper and the team is secondary, the Washington Nationals will be a better team without him and they won’t be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to boot. A win-win situation for the Nationals and their fans.
Scott Boras will find a way to make Bryce Harper a richer man, he always does, because there is a sucker born every minute, but this might be the best hustle ever by today’s version of P.T. Barnum.