Baseball Cards

I started collecting baseball cards back in the late 1950’s. I didn’t collect cards because I thought they would be worth some money some day, I collected them because I loved baseball and we had no TV so the only way I had to see what these players looked like was through baseball cards or a picture in the paper now and then. I also collected baseball cards because they showed all the stats that a player had accumulated as he worked his way up from the “D” leagues to the big leagues. Today’s cards don’t have that, a damn shame I say.

On top of all that, if you happened to get a star player you had bragging rights with your friends. A favorite card could be anyone, it could be a star player, a player from your favorite team, or in some cases a player became a favorite of mine just because I liked how he looked on his baseball card. Oh the trades, we used to trade baseball cards every day during baseball season. Today fans follow MLB Rumors on the internet to hear about a big signing or a big trade, we made our own big trades day after day. I remember how tough it was to trade a favorite card even if it was for a card you really wanted. There was a life lesson to be learned when we traded those cards, you never get something for nothing.  If you want something bad enough you have to be willing to give up something valuable to get it. Later on in life I learned it was called “opportunity cost”, any time you want something or want to do something there is an opportunity cost, you have to give up something to get something else. A valuable life lesson learned by trading baseball cards.

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Know your Minnesota Twins closers

The folks at Baseball-Reference.com describe a save as follows: 

A save (abbreviated SV or S) is a statistic awarded to a relief pitcher, often called a closer, who enters the game under certain conditions and maintains his team’s lead until the end of the game. The save rule was first adopted for the 1969 season and amended for the 1974 and 1975 seasons. Baseball researchers have worked through the official statistics retroactively to calculate saves for all major league seasons prior to 1969.

The first save credited to a Minnesota Twins pitcher occurred on April 16, 1961 long before the save rule was actually in existence in 1969.

Continue reading Know your Minnesota Twins closers

Another bad move at the U of M – Tracy Claeys fired

Minnesota acting head coach Tracy Claeys calls out to players during the fourth quarter against Nebraska in Minneapolis Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

I have to rant this morning and it has nothing to do about baseball or the Minnesota Twins. It has to do with the Minnesota Gophers football team that I have followed since I was a kid living on a farm in the 1950’s. Back then we lived in a small farm-house and our only source of heat was the wood stove that sat in our living room. If you wanted to get up to warm house (we considered low 60’s warm) in the morning you had better get up during the night and put more wood on the fire. It takes a lot of wood to last through those long cold winters in Taylors Falls, Minnesota.

Which takes me back to my rant, I used to spend many a Fall Saturday afternoon listening to Minnesota Gopher football games as I chopped, split and piled the wood in the shed for the long winter ahead. I chopped a lot of wood growing up and listened to the Gophers win a lot of football games. I still remember how disappointed I was when the Gophers lost 17-7 to Washington in the Rose Bowl after the 1960 season. My biggest Gopher disappointment was probably their 14-9 loss to those hated Badgers and QB Ron VanderKelen in 1962 due to some questionable calls by the ref’s.

I have followed Minnesota golden Gopher football ever since….. now we have AD Mark Coyle firing coach Tracy Claeys. I have seen all that has gone with the program this year and the challenges that the team and coaching staff have endured on their way to a nine win season.

For the life of me I don’t see how Tracy Claeys can be blamed and fired after this season. Claeys is a good man who ran a good program and yet the University and Coyle see fit to fire him. On of the stated reasons was low season ticket sales and low attendance at the games, maybe the U of M should look at their own Marketing department for some answers. I guess I didn’t know that the head football coach was also responsible for attendance numbers. You think you saw low attendance numbers this past year? Wait and see what you get in 2017.

This firing is totally unfair and unjust to Tracy Claeys and his staff and the University of Minnesota leadership should be embarrassed to have something like this happen on their watch. I am not a Gopher season ticket holder but the U of M leadership team has chased off yet another Minnesota Gopher football fan.

How have teams fared with their first round picks in the June Amateur Draft

The 2017 MLB June Amateur  Draft is still a long ways off but since my home town Minnesota Twins have the first overall pick in the draft it got me to thinking. I spent some time recently researching how MLB teams have fared with their first round picks in the June Amateur draft that first started in 1965. The very first pick in the very first draft was made by the Kansas City Athletics and they chose Arizona State University outfielder Rick Monday who went on to a nice 19 year career with three teams with two All-Star selection and a career WAR of 33.1 but he was not HOF worthy. Drafting back in 1965 was an inexact science just like it is today, HOF pitcher Nolan Ryan was drafted in round 12 and ended up with a career war of 81.8 and HOF catcher Johnny Bench who ended up with a 75.0 WAR was selected in round two. Other first round picks that year that you might remember were RHP Joe Coleman, catcher Ray Fosse and third baseman Bernie Carbo.

The question becomes how to rank the teams and I decided to rank them in order of career WAR as determined by Baseball-Reference. I looked at how many players were drafted and signed by each team and then totaled the career WAR numbers and then determined an average WAR for each drafted/signed player.

It was a fun exercise looking at the list of players that were drafted and signed as first round picks. Did they deliver on the promise you thought they had when your team announced that they had drafted and signed them? In baseball there are no guarantees that a first round pick from high school or college will make it to the big leagues and wear your teams colors.

The thing to remember here is that I only looked at first round picks. There are many great players drafted in later rounds but the round one picks get all the ink, most of the money and they wear that “first round pick” label for ever. 

Continue reading How have teams fared with their first round picks in the June Amateur Draft

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all. We thank you very much for stopping by our site regardless if you are a first time visitor or a regular at Twinstrivia.com. We hope that 2017 will be the best year of your life and that the Minnesota Twins can put things back together again and show us some winning baseball.

The beginning of a new year is always a fresh start and filled with hopes and dreams. The sun is shining on the white snow today with the temperature pushing the 30 degree mark, it is one of those Minnesota “Top Ten Weather Days as those weather forecasters like to say. But I still can’t help thinking about the green grass, the home-plate umpire yelling “play ball”, the ball hitting the catchers glove, and the crack of the bat when it meets the baseball and sends it flying out towards the scoreboard in deep center.

Maybe the Minnesota Twins can turn things around give us a reason to cheer for the “winning” Twins. Baseball Opening Day is just 93 days away folks!

I wonder why the Twins are doing nothing

Christmas 2016 has come and gone and Minnesota Twins fans found nothing under the Christmas tree but a Jason Castro and a wheelbarrow full of coal. 

As I sit here in the Plymouth, Minnesota with the ground covered with snow in spite of all the recent rain on Christmas Day I wonder why the team with the worst record in baseball in 2016 is doing nothing. It would be fun to write something positive about the home town ball club that I have followed for 56 years but how can you do that with a straight face?

Since the World Series ended when the Chicago Cubs finally won it all, the Twins organization has hired Derek Falvey to be there Chief of Baseball Operations and he in turn hired Thad Levine to be the team’s new GM. The team did sign free agent catcher Jason Castro on November 30 but other than that signing they have done nothing but sign minor league free agents that will not and should not play at Target Field in 2017. Oh yes, they did hire three new coaches to replace two that they fired.

I wonder what strategy the team is trying to employ to sell season tickets? Maybe the strategy is to keep mum and hope the fans forget about 2016 and have their season tickets on auto-renewal?  There seem to be no promotions, no marketing, no nothing. Every now and then a rumor pops up that the team “is in” on some free agent but that player signs somewhere else and nothing changes.

It makes me think that the Twins haven’t changed a bit, they remain bottom feeders waiting to scoop up what ever drops down to the bottom that no one else wants. It’s not like the team doesn’t have holes to fill, make some deals, sign a free agent even if you have to over pay the guy to have him come to play at Target Field. Show some sign of life over there at 1 Twins Way. I don’t buy that Falvey and Levine are still in learning mode, those gentlemen aren’t stupid, they have watched the Twins for years.

It makes me wonder if the Twins approach is to try to not upset the fans even more than they already are. The hottest rumor surrounding the Twins is trading second baseman Brian Dozier. Dozier is the face of the Twins and the team leader and Dozier might not ever again hit 42 home runs like he did last year and he might be at the peak of his value but do you trade him for more prospects? Let’s be honest here, the Twins have sucked since 2011, we shouldn’t have to start the rebuild process again and wait until the 20’s to field a competitive team. If you trade Dozier you had better get some players in return that can play in the major leagues now, not in a few years. If you trade him for prospects you might as well put up a sign at Target Field like this:

Twins ownership and the organization need to realize they have a serious issue here, the Twins are not the lovable losing Chicago Cubs. That game won’t play here, we need to see some positive changes coming out of 1 Twins Way. If you think I’m getting inpatient then you are correct, times have changed, teams can show dramatic improvement from year to year just like they can tank from year to year. Patience isn’t a virtue if you own and or run a baseball team, you either put a winning team on the field or you better start to hire more workers to dust off those empty seats at Target Field.

Here are some reminders for you, the Minnesota Twins last appeared in the World Series over 26 years ago, they haven’t even won a playoff game in 13 years, enough already.

Show us something, at least throw us a bone!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

We hope you are all able to spend this wonderful holiday with your family and friends and that you all find peace, health and happiness. Don’t forget those service men and women who are protecting you in all corners of this world and can’t be home to spend time with their family and friends.

The Twins trials and tribulations with finding starting pitching

The Minnesota Twins have a long history of problems developing starting pitching. Using 100 starts as a barometer, since 1961 the Twins have signed and developed just 11 pitchers in their system that have gone on to get 100 or more starts in a Twins uniform. The only first round pick in the bunch is Pete Redfern, three round tw0 picks, two round three picks, one fourth round pick, one fifth round pick, Brad Radke was an eighth round pick, one 29th round pick and an amateur free agent (Dave Boswell).

Since the June amateur free agent draft started in 1965 the Twins have drafted 31 pitchers in round 1 or as round 1 supplementary/compensation picks. Actually part of the Twins issues with starting pitching relates to spending money or the lack there of. The first two right-handed pitchers drafted by the Twins in round 1 were Dick Ruthven in 1972 and Tim Belcher (first overall pick) in 1983 who both refused to sign with Minnesota and went on to have long careers in MLB. The first left-handed pitcher drafted in round 1 to start any games was Eddie Bane and his Twins career lasted 25 starts. As I mentioned earlier, the draft started in 1965 but the Twins only drafted starting pitching in round 1 twice (Ruthven in 1972 and Bane in 1973) between 1965-1981. The first RHP that they drafted in round 1 that actually started a number of games (45 in Twins career) was Willie Banks who the team drafted in 1987. Since 2000 they have drafted a pitcher in round 1 a total of 17 times.

Starting pitching signed and developed by the Twins since 1961

Brad Radke
Rk Player GS From To Age G W L IP ERA
1. Brad Radke 377 1995 2006 22-33 378 148 139 2451.0 4.22
2. Bert Blyleven 345 1970 1988 19-37 348 149 138 2566.2 3.28
3. Frank Viola 259 1982 1989 22-29 260 112 93 1772.2 3.86
4. Dave Goltz 215 1972 1979 23-30 247 96 79 1638.0 3.48
5. Scott Baker 159 2005 2011 23-29 163 63 48 958.0 4.15
6. Scott Erickson 153 1990 1995 22-27 155 61 60 979.1 4.22
7. Dave Boswell 150 1964 1970 19-25 187 67 54 1036.1 3.49
8. Nick Blackburn 137 2007 2012 25-30 145 43 55 818.2 4.85
9. Allan Anderson 128 1986 1991 22-27 148 49 54 818.2 4.11
10. Pete Redfern 111 1976 1982 21-27 170 42 48 714.0 4.54
11. Roger Erickson 106 1978 1982 21-25 114 31 47 712.0 4.10
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/20/2016.

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If you can’t find, sign, and develop your starting pitching, you only have a few options at your disposal, you could make a trade, you can sign a free agent, or you can find one on the waiver wire (ha, ha, ha). 

The option I want to write about here is the Twins attempts to trade for starting pitching since the turn of the century, a total of 17 years. Trading for starters hasn’t exactly gone as planned either.

Continue reading The Twins trials and tribulations with finding starting pitching

Twins sign J.B. Shuck to minor league deal

Are you serious? The Twins coming off a a 59-103 season sign free agent J.B. Shuck to a minor league deal? Why? The guy is 29 years old and has played all or parts of five season with the Astros, Angels, Indians and White Sox. Shuck has eight career home runs, a .251 career average with a .299 OBP. He is weak defensively but he can play all three outfield positions……

The Twins already have Eddie Rosario, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, Danny Santana, and Robbie Grossman on the major league club with Daniel Palka and Zach Granite also on the 40-man roster.

I know he won’t make the trip to Minnesota in April but why burn a roster spot and any time Shuck plays some younger player with a chance to get better will not. Just seems silly to me.