Glimpse of the future?

Oswaldo Arcia
Oswaldo Arcia

With Twins outfielder Wilkin Ramirez out on paternity leave for  several days the ballclub needed to make a move and the move they made was to bring up one of their top prospects, outfielder Oswaldo Arcia. Arcia  played in New Britain last season and has just 9 games of AAA experience under his belt but so far he is pounding AAA pitching to the tune of a .414 batting average in 34 plate appearances with 8 runs scored, 3 home runs and 8 RBI’s. Hopefully the Twins did not bring Arcia up to warm the bench for a couple of days so I think it will be fun to watch this young man get his first shot at the big leagues. Arcia is more of a corner outfielder but he has played centerfield in the minors so I would not be shocked if Gardy had him playing in center for at least one game. He can’t play Arcia in center much more than that because you can’t have Hicks sitting on the bench either, they both need to play. I heard Gardy on his Sunday morning radio show state that it might be time to move Hicks out of the leadoff spot and I couldn’t agree more. It is not good to see your lead-off hitter strike out as much as Hicks does but what bothers me about Hicks striking out is that he takes so many called third strikes. At least take a hack at the ball, who knows, you might hit it. It is easy to be down on Hicks now with him hitting .047 and leading the league in whiffs and he may have to be sent down for a while to regain his confidence but the man is going to be a solid big league player, just give him a little time.

The poor start by Hicks has taken the spotlight off 2B Brian Dozier to a large degree but Dozier needs to turn it around and turn it around soon. Dozier is playing a decent 2B but hitting .161 will not cut it, particularly when you have young Eduardo Escobar scratching at Gardy’s door for more playing time. I think you are going to start seeing Gardy start to make some changes in his line-up and batting order soon, he can’t afford to sit back and watch this team flail away and say that good pitching stops good hitting, not every pitcher the Twins faced this year is an all-star. It would be nice to see what the Twins might look like playing in some decent weather for a change but if you look at the Twins schedule it might not happen for some time.

Twins post first “W” of the season

What a nice win! The Twins posted their first “W” of the season this afternoon in a come from behind walk-off double by Eduardo Escobar that scored Jamey Carroll and Brian Dozier with two out in the ninth at Target Field. I know that the Tigers outfielders probably should have caught that ball for the third out but the fact is they did not. Kevin Correia started and pitched 7 innings allowing two runs on seven hits and a walk while striking out two. Correia did a great job against the Tigers and kept his team in the game. I know it is only one game but maybe this will help quiet all those Correia critics out there. I have to mention Wilkin Ramirez too and give him his props for the pinch-hit double that plated the Twins first run in the seventh inning. On the not so good side, the Twins had 8 more LOB today making 20 in their first two games, they have to do better than that if they want to win games. The Twins still have not started a single inning this season with a lead. I wonder what the Twins are going to do when they have to add Scott Diamond to the roster in a few days, there is no obvious candidate to ship out to Rochester at this point.

Torii Hunter as TigerFormer Twins and current Tiger outfielder Torii Hunter started the game with 1,988 hits and had a single in the top of the third inning and singled again in the top of the fifth for hit number 1,990 but was thrown out at third base by Chris Parmelee on Miguel Cabrera’s single that scored Omar Infante as Hunter tried to advance from first to third.

Thirteen years ago today the Twins introduced TC Bear as their mascot and last May he marked his consecutive 1,000 game. That bear is out there day in and day out, he never misses a game, he just grins and bears it I guess. You can read a nice piece about TC by going here.

Twins Trivia 2013 predictions

crystal ballThe 2013 season is just around the corner so it is time to make my annual predictions on who will finish where and who the 2013 World Series champion will be.

AL East
 
Toronto Blue Jays
Tampa Bay Rays (wild card)
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
 
AL Central
 
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Royals (wild card)
Cleveland Indians
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
 
AL West
 
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland A’s
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
 
NL East
 
Washington Nationals
Atlanta Braves (wild card)
Philadelphia Phillies
New York Mets
Miami Marlins
 
NL Central
 
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates (wild card)
St. Louis Cardinals
Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago Cubs
 
NL West
 
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
San Diego Padres

 

The Detroit Tigers and the Washington Nationals play in the World Series with the Washington Nationals winning it all in 6 games.

 ……………………………………

The Minnesota Twins 2013 season opener at Target Field against the Detroit Tigers is just over a week away so after watching and listening to Twins in spring training and consulting with some of the worlds foremost baseball experts, here is what I see happening in 2013.

Einstein 2013

 

  1. Josh Willingham will be traded and Oswaldo Arcia will be called up to take over a starting outfield position. Arcia will fill the role nicely.
  2. Trevor Plouffe will not be able to hang on to the starting job due to injuries and inconsistent hitting and fielding and third base will be a black hole all season with Jamey Carroll, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Sobolewski all getting a shot to win the job and none of these guys turns out to be the answer. The Twins will make a deal to fill the 3B hole but it will just be a stop-gap as they wait for Miguel Sano to finally fill the hole late in 2014.
  3. Anthony Swarzak and Tyler Robertson will lose their bullpen jobs and will be replaced by PJ Walters and Ryan Pressly.
  4. Jeff Clement will win a roster spot and be the Twins third catcher leaving Drew Butera out in the cold but not for long because the Twins will do him right by trading him to a team that will give him the back-up catching job.
  5. Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier give the Twins their first decent infield combo in some time playing well in the field and hitting better than expected.
  6. The Twins will open the season with a starting staff of Vance Worley, Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Cole De Vries, with Scott Diamond joining the staff in early April. Kyle Gibson will be called up by June 1 and will replace….. Mike Pelfrey in the rotation.
  7. Manager Ron Gardenhire not only makes it through the season but gets a new two-year deal.
  8. Justin Morneau will be resigned to a multi-year deal before the All-Star game and will continue to call Minnesota home.
  9. Tickets to watch the Twins will be easy to get as attendance at Target Field plummets by about 20% and the Twins will be lucky to hit 2.2 million in attendance with attendance dropping by over a half million.

Twins forgotten man?

 

Eduardo Escobar
Eduardo Escobar

The Twins plan for an infield consisting of Justin Morneau, Brian Dozier, Pedro Florimon and Trevor Plouffe may not yet be set in concrete but the forms are in place and the Cemstone truck is coming up the street. Jamey Carroll has a tight grip on one of the utility spots and now Gardy is making noise that he wants more power on his bench then he had last year and that would not bode well for Drew Butera as a third catcher. But I have my doubts that Gardy will make his wish a reality because he is just too concerned about getting a catcher hurt and losing his DH for the rest of the game. I just don’t understand his hang-up about that, if he lost his DH for the rest of a particular game who cares, it is just one game, big deal.

Most of the media and blog buzz is about the Twins starting pitching or who will play centerfield and almost everyone on the 40 man roster seems to have been put through the shredder, analyzed and re-analyzed except for one guy, nobody ever talks about Eduardo Escobar. I think Escobar is an interesting player and I have not seen him play very much but he can play 2B, short, and 3B and I keep seeing reports that he can also play the outfield but all I have found is that he played the outfield once in his seven minor league seasons and once with the White Sox last season before being traded to Minnesota as part of the Francisco Liriano trade. Escobar is still only 24 but he has over 600 minor league games and 59 big league games on his resume. Hitting is not Escobar’s strength as his career average in the minors is .267, it is his glove and his flexibility that will make him a valuable tool in Gardy’s arsenal. Escobar can steal some bases, can hit it out of the park a couple of times a year and the man is a switch-hitter. Everything I heard and saw after the trade to Minnesota last year indicated that he was a popular presence in the White Sox clubhouse and all the players hated to see him go. I am not saying that Escobar should be a starter, I am just saying that we should not over look him, I think he can fit a role on this team. I have always liked the under-dog and Eduardo Escobar seems to fit that role for me. Getting a couple of hits in his first spring game today was nice to see.

It has been a long winter and it was good to be able to listen to a Twins baseball game again today. I will say however; that it didn’t take long for Dan Gladden to get on my nerves. the man is there to broadcast a baseball game and not to tell me about his personal life and where he likes to stop and have a cold drink and feed his face. Describe the baseball action Gladden and try to act like a professional announcer you are paid to be.

Happy New Year! Really?

2013-new-yearHappy New Year! The temperature here in Minneapolis got down to a minus 8 degrees early this morning but as the calendar turns to a new month and a new year I know that spring training is not that far away. I wish I could be more optimistic about the upcoming Minnesota Twins 2013 season but I find it very hard to do so with the moves or the lack of moves the club has made so far.

The starting pitching is not much to crow about even after the Twins have traded for starters Vance Worley and signed  free agent starters Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, and Rich Harden. I don’t think Harden will start more than a handful of games and will pitch primarily out of the bullpen when he happens to be healthy, which his history indicates will be rare. I have very little faith in Pelfrey being much of an improvement over what Nick Blackburn has shown us the last few years plus I am not sure he will even be ready when the season opens. I actually like Correia in the back-end of the rotation and he won’t always be pretty to watch but he has shown that he can win some games having won 10 or more games each of the last 4 years pitching for the San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates. Worley is an unknown to me but he could turn into the best pitcher on the staff if he is healthy. I was disappointed to hear that Scott Diamond has under gone clean-up elbow surgery and I was really frustrated that the Twins did not resign Scott Baker.

I expect Justin Morneau who is still only 31 to have a very good year, not a MVP type season but back to the numbers that he is capable of putting up and showing a lot of Twins fans that he belongs in Minnesota. The rest of the infield is shaky at best, I am hoping that Brian Dozier can take over and play second base day in and day out. At third base Trevor Plouffe is not the answer either as he has shown he can neither field the position nor can he hit on a consistent basis although he does have some pop in his bat. Todate Plouffe has a career minor league batting average of .257 and with the Twins he is hitting .231 so there is not too much hope there. At shortstop I know that Pedro Florimon has not shown much with his bat but he has a good glove and I think the Twins can live with his stick if they are going to play Plouffe and Dozier in the same infield. The outfield is interesting with no center fielder and I would be surprised if Joe Benson himself coming off a very forgettable 2012 season is not the Twins center fielder when the season opens. Willingham is dismal in left field but the Twins need his power and will be forced to keep him in the line-up. I sure wish they could have traded Willingham coming off his career year but that did not happen. Chris Parmelee will take over right and he is young with a good bat and I think he can become at least an average right fielder. Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia are hopefully going to be pounding on the outfield door as the season moves along to keep everyone on their toes and that gives me some hope. Doumit is perfect for the DH role although I know that makes Gardy nervous when he has his back-up catcher at DH but realistically, how often will that really be an issue? The Twins might carry a third catcher anyway. You have Joe Mauer catching and your main utility guys are Jamey Carroll, Darin Mastroianni and probably Eduardo Escobar. I am big on experience and when you look at the Twins you don’t see a lot here, only Mauer catching, Morneau at 1B, Willingham in left and Doumit at DH and that usually makes for bad baseball.

I guess that the core of the 2013 Twins is in place and spring training will have a few battles for the open positions but I just find it hard to get really enthused about this bunch of players. To me it seems like the Twins are afraid to pick a side, either go young or get some better experienced players and try to field a competitive team. I feel bad that Ron Gardenhire finds himself in the position he does but life is not always fair and this team could easily end Gardy’s reign as a Twins manager and I think that will be a bad thing for both the team and the fans. There has been speculation that Paul Molitor is waiting in the wings to take over as the Twins new skipper but I for one hope that does not happen. Molitor has no managerial experience and does not seem to be the least bit interested in earning a manager’s job by working his way up the minor league chain but instead appears to send a message that his hall of fame playing career qualifies him to be the Twins next manager. I don’t see Molitor as a great communicator or even a great teacher for that matter. What has Molitor done over the years to qualify for the job? Nothing and I think hiring Molitor to manage the Twins would set this franchise back for years to come.

In spite of their new ballpark and the 2014 All-Star game on the horizon the Twins are dropping like a rock in the eyes of many Minnesota fans with the basketball Timbewolves moving up, the Vikings making the playoffs, and maybe even the NHL players and owners will agree to a new deal soon and the Wild will once again be relevant. There are only so many entertainment dollars to go around and if the Minnesota Twins don’t put a decent product on the field they will be left in the dust. Todays Twins fans are not the Twins fans of the past and will not tolerate the bad play of past Twins teams, they will simply find another place to spend their money and it will not be fun to watch the Twins play to a meager fan base with a lot of empty seats in Target Field. Twins management seems to have forgotten the old business axiom that it is easier to keep your existing customers than it is to get new customers.

Even their August 2012 announced move to the Pohlad owned FM station KTWN 96.3 station in 2013 seems like a slap in the face to Twins fans. Many baseball fans listen to Twins games on the radio and now even that access may be harder to find. In July of 2012 KTWN did not even make the Twins Cities top 20 radio stations with a measly 1.4%  share of the listening public. Both of the previous stations that carried the Twins games since the team moved to Minnesota back in 1961 WCCO from 1961-2007 and KSTP from 2007-2012 had an AM transmitter power rating of 50,ooo watts and while the Twins new home at KTWN is an FM signal, its transmitter power is a paltry 19,000 watts. The WCCO signal was rated to extend about 90 miles, the KSTP signal was rated for 60 miles during the day and 30 miles at night and the Twins new home at KTWN is rated for 20 miles.

KTWN FM signal coverageI know all this sounds depressing but that is the sad and sorry state of the Twins as they prepare for the 2013 season. The team has done nothing that I can see to get the fan base excited about the up-coming baseball season and that disappoints me. I will follow the Twins in 2013 but sadly, many former Twins fans will not. Hard as I try, I don’t see the Twins finishing anywhere except in the AL Central division basement once again this coming season.

Twins option Dozier and call up Florimon

Pedro Florimon & Brian Dozier

The Twins announced after today’s 8-4 loss to the Tigers at Target Field that they have optioned shortstop Brian Dozier to Rochester and called up Pedro Florimon. Surprised? I am, I know that Dozier is struggling but the team is going nowhere so what do the Twins have to lose by allowing Dozier to learn the game in the big leagues versus in AAA Rochester. Manager Gardenhire sat Dozier for the second straight game after a questionable fielding play the other day when he threw to first instead of throwing home for a force play or trying for a double play and the mistake allowed what amounted to the winning run scoring in a game against the Tampa Rays. I also thought that Dozier made a mistake there but sitting him for 2 days and then sending him down does not seem like the right message to me. I know that Terry Ryan is sending Dozier a message here but with the Twins playing like they are and it is mid-August, why bother? The Twins are going to call Dozier back up on September 1st anyway. It just seems to me that the Twins are “rubbing Dozier’s nose in it” and I don’t like it.

The Twins picked the switch-hitting Pedro Florimon off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles in December of 2011. The 25 year-old Florimon is known for his slick fielding but his hitting has always been his Achilles heel. Florimon was 1 for 8 in 4 games for the Orioles in 2011. This season Florimon started in New Britain where he played just 30 games before being bumped up to Rochester. In Rochester, Florimon is hitting .251 in 341 plate appearances with 16 doubles, 2 triples and 3 home runs with 21 RBI’s and 6 stolen bases in 13 attempts. I know the Twins want to see what Florimon can do in the big leagues but why do it now versus waiting a couple of weeks for September 1 to come along?

Some miscellaneous Twins thoughts

Ryan Doumit

Yesterday the Twins announced that they had signed a $7 million two-year extension with 31-year old switch-hitting catcher/DH/OF/1B Ryan Doumit. In 60 games Doumit is hitting .272 (.290 as a LHB and .230 as a RHB) with 7 home runs and 33 RBI’s while catching in 28 games, DHing in 23 games and playing in the outfield in 6 games and at first base in 1 game. Doumit who is making $3 million this year will get $3.5 million per season over the next two years. I have no real issues with this extension as Doumit gives Gardy and the Twins someone that can catch when Joe Mauer is not and he does have some pop in his bat. We should keep in mind however; that Doumit is primarily a back-up catcher and DH and though he has appeared in the outfield on 6 occasions, his lack of speed makes the Twins outfield very poor defensively when you have Doumit patrolling right and Willingham in left regardless if you have Span or Revere playing in center field. I read this signing as an insurance policy and the Twins brain trust saying that Joe Mauer will be behind the plate less and less as they years go by.

Brian Dozier

I find it tougher and tougher to watch Brian Dozier day in and day out as the Twins shortstop. I understand that the Dozier is the Twins shortstop of the future and I know that he has to play in order to improve but I am getting frustrated both with his hitting and his play in the field. Dozier is never going to be a power hitter but yet too often it seems like he is trying to hit one out of the park. We don’t need power from Dozier, we just need him to get on base and not be the automatic out that we are seeing now. In the field Dozier seems to be lackadaisical at times and he needs to learn to make the routine play time after time and to know when to just hold the ball and not make a stupid off-balance throw to first.  Dozier has only played shortstop for the Twins in 47 games but sometimes I think his body language comes across as someone who has been in the “bigs” for a long time and that he has earned the starting shortstop job due to his great play. Well, in my eyes Brian, you are just a rookie trying to prove that you belong in the majors and you may think you have arrived but you are just starting to earn your stripes. I have no issues with mistakes if you learn from them but when you don’t, it might take a trip back to Rochester to refresh your memory on what it takes to be a big leaguer.

As I write this, the Twins record stands at 30-45 and they have the worst record in the American League. It is the end of June with the All-Star game just around the corner and it is time for GM Terry Ryan to start implementing his plan to improve the Twins. I think we all agree, with the possible exception of Dick Bremer, that the Twins are going no where this year. I had predicted the Twins would finish 78-84 this season but the home town boys will need to go 48-39 the rest of the way to make that come true. So what do the Twins do? The Twins need to start making some trades, but who do you trade and what are you looking for in return?

The fact that there are two wild card teams in each league this year for the first time will have a definite impact on the trade market. If you look at the AL East you see that all five teams are less than eight games out of the division lead and no team is more than 3 1/2 games out of a wild card spot so it is unlikely any of these teams will throw up the white flag very soon and start putting players on the market. More than likely they will be looking for help in their quest for the playoffs. In the AL West the Texas Rangers have the best record in the AL but the Angels are coming on strong and are only 5 1/2 games back and tied for a wild card spot. Oakland and Seattle are realistically out of the playoff race and could make players available soon. In our own AL Central you can make a strong case that the White Sox, Tigers and Indians are all in the hunt for a division title since they are all within either 6 games of the division lead or a wild card spot. Even the perennially bad Kansas City Royals with young and up and coming position players albeit matched with poor pitching are 6 games or less out of the division lead and/or a wild card spot. Only the Twins are hopelessly out of the running for the playoffs. That means that in the AL, 3 or 4 teams are looking to unload players while looking to the future while 10 or 11 teams are looking for immediate help. In the NL, you have a similar scenario with only five clubs, the Cubs, Padres, Rockies, Astros, and Brewers probably out of the playoff hunt. So no matter how you slice it there are probably only 8 or 9 teams that are looking to move players and 21 or 22 teams looking for help so I would think this will make for a sellers market this year. You couple that with injuries to key players and you should have teams fighting tooth and nail for the few players that might be made available.

I heard Terry Ryan state in an interview a few days ago that he sees no Twins players as untouchable and I could not agree more. Sure, Joe Mauer has a no trade clause and other players may also have limited no trade clauses in their contracts but as Ryan stated, you always listen, you always want to find a way to get better. You should always be looking to improve your team and maybe that is where the Twins have gone astray over the last decade when the team has made the playoffs six times between 2002 and 2010. It is easy to get comfortable and stick with what got you to the playoffs in the first place. Change is difficult for everyone but it is necessary because without change you are stagnant and believe me, only one team is on top of the heap each season and all the others are looking, plotting, and trying to find a way to get to be the very best. We fans and bloggers fall into the same trap, we fall in love with certain players and hate to see them go because they

Terry Ryan (courtesy of SI.com)

have given us pleasure over the years. Someone in baseball once said that they would much rather trade a player a year or two too early rather than trade them a year too late, but it is hard to do. Ryan has a tough job on his hands but I think he is up to the task and it will be interesting to watch him and the rest of this organization as they rebuild a ballclub that fell over the edge very quickly in 20111. In my opinion, the Twins should listen to offers on everyone on the roster but they must trade Francisco Liriano for as much as they can get. Moving Liriano is a risk, but a risk worth taking because both teams involved in this trade are taking a risk and both Liriano and the Twins need a change. Liriano will never be a consistent pitcher long-term but he can get hot in streaks and that might be just enough for another team that needs some short-term help. That is the thing about the playoffs, it is so difficult to get there that when you have an opportunity to make the playoffs you have to take that shot and sometimes that means that you make a trade that you know is not good for your team long-term but it might be just enough to take you over the top now. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the Twins need to have a fire sale and send everyone packing, I am just saying that the Twins have some players that other teams find valuable and if the Twins can improve their team long-term by making a deal, they need to get it done. There is an old saying that “it is always the darkest before the dawn” and hopefully the Twins new beginning is just around the corner.

Chris Parmelee

I am a Chris Parmelee fan and I think that the Twins need to do something with him very soon. I just don’t understand how the Twins organization can have the 24-year old Parmelee with just 15 games of AAA experience just sitting and rotting away on the bench. Either play him or send him back to Rochester but don’t just sit him and send him up to bat 16 time between June 8-27. It is a disgrace that the Twins treat a prospect like this.

Dozier and Liriano

Brian Dozier

Shortstop James Brian Dozier was called up from Rochester yesterday and made his major league debut against the Angels going 1 for 4 with a run scored. The soon to be 25 year-old (May 15) was drafted by the Twins in the 8th round of the June 2009 amateur draft and Dozier has a .305 batting average in 4 minor league seasons (345 games) and has not hit below .274 while playing 2B, SS, and 3B. It will be interesting to see if Dozier who only has 28 games of AAA experience can hold on to the shortstop role at Target Field. Dozier had a great spring and many fans thought that Dozier earned the Twins starting shortstop job in Fort Myers but GM Terry Ryan felt that Dozier needed some AAA seasoning. Although Jamey Carroll, 38 has played a decent shortstop so far this season, he is only hitting .212 and the team is off to a terrible start at 7-21 and some changes need to be made to see if anything can be done to salvage the season before the Twins go into a full sell mode and turn to a total rebuilding effort. Dozier is not going to turn the Twins around on his own but hopefully he can play a small role in getting the Twins moving.

Francisco Liriano

The Twins lost again last night and are now 7-21 for the season and 10 games behind the division leading Cleveland Indians. I sure didn’t think I would be saying “division leading Cleveland Indians” this season but the Detroit Tigers are struggling as they come out of the starting gate and they are playing just .500 ball but I think they will warm up soon and put the Indians and all the other AL Central teams in their rear view mirror. The Tigers have their share of pitching miseries but not like the cellar dwelling Twins do. The Twins sent Francisco Liriano out to the mound again last night and once again Liriano let the team and himself down. Liraino threw 90 pitches in 5 innings while giving up 5 hits, 3 walks and 4 earned runs and even with this line he actually lowered his seasonal ERA to 9.45. Liraino had one decent inning last night and other than that looked like the same old Liriano. I just don’t know how the Twins can continue to send Liriano out there every fifth day when he is pitching as bad as he is. Liriano brings down the entire team everytime he walks out to the mound. Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson have tried everything including skipping a start with Francisco but to no avail. After last nights game Gardy was quoted as saying, “what can we do, we just need to send him out there”. I for one have seen enough of Liraino this season in a starting role, it is time to move Liriano to the bullpen where he can have some chance of success albeit in a relief role. You have to do something, you can’t pay Liriano the kind of money he is getting and have him under perform as badly as he has todate. The team is 7-21 for pete’s sake, what have you got to lose? Send Liraiano to the bullpen now and move Brian Duensing back into the starting rotation. Duensing is no Warren Spahn but he has to be better than Liriano and you still have that lefty in the bullpen that you want. Maybe this is not the way to build Liriano’s confidence but you have 24 other players on the team that shouldn’t be punished every fifth day when you send Liriano out to the mound.

Twins Minor League Player of the Week

Brian Dozier

This week (April 5-13)  the Twins Minor League Player of the Week is none other than Rochester infielder Brian Dozier. Dozier,  24, appeared in six games hitting .391 (9-for-23) with three doubles, a home run, four RBI’s and three walks. Dozier, who was drafted by the Twins in the eighth round of the 2009 amateur draft.  The right-handed swinging Dozier hit .277 (13-for-47) with three home runs and nine RBI’s in 22 spring training games. Dozier was drafted out of the University of Southern Mississippi and signed by scout Earl Winn.

How is Brian Dozier doing you ask

Brian Dozier

I have had a couple of people ask me recently how shortstop Brian Dozier is doing at Rochester and my response would be that he is doing OK, he is hanging in there. In this case OK means that Dozier has played in 6 games (5 at short and 1 at 2B) through April 11 and here are his stats.

AVG = .524
AB = 21
R = 3
HITS = 11
2B = 3
3B = 0
HR = 1
RBI = 4
TB = 17
BB = 3
IBB = 1
SO = 2
SB = 0/1
OBP = .583
SLG = .810
OPS = 1.393
Errors = 1
 

Not bad for the first week in AAA right? No way Dozier can keep up this pace but some interesting numbers never the less. Do you think some Twins infielders are getting nervous?