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
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.
I was watching the KARE 11 News the other day (November 9) when they announced the breaking news that Joe Mauer had announced his retirement. It caught me by surprise but yet I wasn’t surprised at all, it was still kind of shocking. Joe Mauer has been in the sports news in Minnesota since I first heard of him in the late 90’s when he played and starred in three sports at Cretin-Derham Hall High School.
Then Mauer was drafted number 1 overall by the Minnesota Twins in the 2001 June amateur free agent draft. He spent 2001 playing for Elizabethton in the Rookie League, in 2002 he was in Low A ball with Quad Cities in the Midwest League, and in 2003 he started the season with High A Ft. Myers before being bumped up to AA New Britain.
In 2004 the Baseball America number 1 overall rated prospect Joe Mauer made the Twins team in spring training bypassing AAA ball and was the Twins Opening Day catcher on April 5 at the Metrodome in front of 49,584 Twins fans as a 21 year-old. Mauer hit eighth in the line-up that day getting a walk, a strikeout, a walk, and then two singles in his five plate appearances against the Cleveland Indians. Indians starter CC Sabathia was sharp that night and limited the Twins to just two hits over seven innings and was pulled with a 4-0 lead after throwing 104 pitches. The Twins however came back with four runs in the bottom of the eighth sending the game into extra-innings. In the bottom of the eleventh inning Jacque Jones struck out, Matt LeCroy walked, Joe Mauer walked, Cristian Guzman struck out before Shannon Stewart hit a walk-off three-run home run off Chad Durbin for a Twins 7-4 win over the Indians. Joe’s big league career was underway.
Mauer’s second big league game was not on local TV thanks to Victory Sports and it ongoing negotiations with cable and satellite providers, what a game to miss. The Twins won 7-6 in the 15th inning on a bases loaded two out walk-off single by Jose Offerman off Indians reliever Jake Westbrook after five hours of baseball was played. Joe Mauer was the starting catcher and singled in the third inning but was pinch-run for at that point by Henry Blanco. Earlier in the inning Mauer had raced back for a foul ball pop-up and slid in front of the wall on the rubber warning track behind home plate and heard a “pop” in his left knee. By the time the game ended the home-town Twins had lost Mauer, Johan Santana, and Torii Hunter due to injuries. After the game it was thought that Mauer’s injury was just a mild sprain. However; the next day Mauer went on the DL, the first of ten times he will see his name on the DL during his 15 year big league career. A few days later, April 8th, Joe ends up having surgery to repair a medial meniscus tear in his left knee. Mauer returns to the line-up on June 2 but continues to have trouble off and on with the knee swelling and he plays in his final 2004 game on July 15 and his first season as a Twin ends after just 35 games but in that short period he showed all of us what kind of bat he had as he hit .308 in 107 at bats.
Mauer went on to become a six-time All-Star, win three batting titles, win 5 Silver Slugger awards, win three Gold Gloves, and won the 2009 AL MVP award. Mauer start playing first base periodically starting in 2011 and became a regular at first base in 2014 after concussion problems forced him to give up his catchers gear after the 2013 season. Joe made one more appearance as a catcher in a Twins uniform in his final game in 2018 albeit for just one pitch. Many wondered if it was his last game for the Minnesota Twins but Mauer stuck to his guns and said he would decide soon, on November 9 he did just that with a letter to the fans.
Joe Mauer is one of those players that comes along once in a generation but yet took more than his share of abuse from home-town fans in spite of his baseball skills primarily for two reasons, his $184 million eight-year deal he signed in 2010 and the fact that he didn’t play every day. Catchers don’t play every day but fans thought that if you make $23 million a year you best have your butt on the field day in and day out. To his credit Joe never complained.
As is true with may players, their star shines more brightly after they have retired. I remember Harmon Killebrew being criticised for striking out too often, being slow, and poor in the field. Rod Carew was said to be a terrible baserunner and had a surly attitude. We are talking Hall of Fame players here.
That brings up a good point, is Joe Mauer going into the MLB Hall of Fame? He is borderline and the fact that he had to leave his natural position as a catcher due to injury and become a light-hitting first baseman does not work in his favor. That said, his numbers, skills, and longevity are a plus. If I had to bet I would say that yes, Joe Mauer will be a Hall of Famer and here is why. It can be argued that Mauer was the best catcher in baseball when he was forced to change positions due to concussion issues. Concussions are a big deal in sports today and will be looked upon as valid issues in the future. Another reason and maybe even more important is Joe Mauer’s personality. Everybody loves the wholesome All-American boy who pushed milk in ads and that all of baseball respected. Heck, he was never even ejected from any of his 1,858 big league games. Mauer was alway Mr. Clean on and off the field, if he ever did anything bad, only he knows.
Good luck Joe Mauer as you move to another phase of your life, I sure hope we will be seeing a lot of you around Hammond Stadium and Target Field in the future.
In the past 57 seasons the Minnesota Twins have walked off their opponents 403 times. Kirby Puckett leads the Minnesota Twins in career walk-off’s wins by delivering the winning run in some manner 11 times, it might have been on a hit, walk, HBP, error or a sacrifice. Second on the list is Harmon Killebrew. I guess that is why these guys are Hall of Fame players.
Major league debuts as Minnesota Twins on September 15th.
Danny Mota (P) – September 15, 2000 – Traded by the New York Yankees with Brian Buchanan, Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton and cash to the Minnesota Twins for Chuck Knoblauch on February 6, 1998. Mota’s debut was at the Dome in a 16-5 loss to the Anaheim Angels. Mota pitched 2.2 innings of relief throwing 51 pitches and faced 16 batters allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and a walk while striking out one.
J.C. Romero (P) – September 15, 1999 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 21st round of the 1997 amateur draft. Debuted in a 8-3 Rangers win at the Dome pitching 1.1 scoreless innings and allowing one hit.
Bernardo Brito (OF) – September 15, 1992 – Signed as a Free Agent with the Minnesota Twins on March 31, 1988. Debuted as a PH at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and struck out. Brito was one of three consecutive pinch-hitter TK sent up to the plate in the 8th inning against Ron Darling and Darling retired all of them in a twins 2-1 loss to the Oakland A’s.
George Mitterwald (C) – September 15, 1966 – Signed by the Minnesota Twins as an amateur free agent in April 1965. The Twins were trailing the Tigers 8-5 when Mitterwald replaced Earl Battey as the catcher but had no PA’s in this game. Only 4,337 fans were at Tiger Stadium that day to witness Mitterwald’s debut.
Jim Snyder (2B) – September 15, 1961 – Purchased by the Minnesota Twins from Indianapolis (American Association) in 1961. This future Seattle Mariners skipper made his big league debut in Cleveland Stadium in the Twins 3-2 win over the Indians as the starting second baseman hitting eighth but he was 0 for 3 in the game.
I got a little busy with some other activities yesterday and didn’t get the August 2 debuts out here so today we will do August 2 & 3.
Danny Ardoin (C) – August 2, 2000 – Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the Minnesota Twins for Mario Valdez on July 31, 2000. Debut was at Camden Yards in a Twins 10-6 win over the Orioles and Ardoin was 0 for 2 but scored a run and walked three times.
Bob Gebhard (P) – August 2, 1971 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 44th round of the 1965 amateur draft. Debuted at White Sox Park in a 7-5 loss to the White Sox. He pitched 2 innings of scoreless, hit-less relief and allowed just the single walk.
Jim Merritt (P) – August 2, 1965 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1961 first-year draft. Debuted as a starter against the Orioles at the Met and had a 5-2 lead after 8 innings but in the ninth inning he retired Brooks Robinson on a ground ball, gave up a single to Bob Johnson, induced Carl Warwick to pop-up before giving up another single to Jerry Adair and that brought up catcher Dick Brown who proceeded to hit a 3 run home run, his only home run of the season and tied the score at 5-5. Johnny Klippstein was brought in and struck out Jim Palmer to end the threat. In the bottom of the ninth inning the first Twins batter was Klippstein and Jimmie Hall pinch-hit a walk-off home run for him off Palmer and Twins fans went home happy, Merritt probably was not in such a merry mood as he did the heavy lifting and Klippstein earned the “W”.
Jason Bartlett (SS) – August 3, 2004 – Traded by the San Diego Padres to the Minnesota Twins for Brian Buchanan on July 12, 2002. Debuted as a sub for Cristian Guzman at the Dome and struck out in his only plate appearance but at least he got to shake hands on the field after the Twins 10-0 shellacking of the Angels.
Jim Strickland (P) – May 19, 1971 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1970 minor league draft. Starter Jim Perry didn’t have it in his start against the California Angels at Anaheim Stadium so manager Mele called on Jim Strickland to show what he could do to stop the bleeding with the Twins down 5-4 and Angels runners at first and second with two out in the bottom of the third. Strickland retired Sandy Alomar on a grounder to third and he was out of the inning. In the fourth inning he struck out the side (Alex Johnson, Tony Conigliaro, and John Stephenson) and in the top of the fifth the Twins scored three runs and went ahead 7-6. Strickland stayed in the game and retired the Angels on one hit and no runs. Mele brought in Tom Hall and he earned the save by pitching four perfect innings with six strikeouts and the Twins won the game 12-6 and Jim Strickland notched his first big league win in his major league debut.
With a few exceptions the Minnesota Twins appear to have gone belly up and are just walking through the motions as they continue their march to 100 or more losses. There isn’t much good news coming out of Target Field lately so we have to search for some to watch and cheer for and one of those items is Brian Dozier‘s hitting streak which has now hit 22 games. The Twins have a dozen games left to play in 2016, the first six are at home against the Tigers and the Mariners and the next six are on the road at Kansas City and in Chicago against the the White Sox.
If Dozier plays in every game and his hitting streak continues he could tie the Twins hitting streak record of 31 in Kansas City and then go for the record in Chicago. That would be pretty awesome since we plan to be in Chicago that final baseball week-end of the season catching a few Twins games at US Cellular Field which is a field I have never been at, but I have watched a game at White Sox Park back in 1965.
Keep it up Brian Dozier, we need something exciting to watch and the 2016 season winds down for us Twins fans.
UPDATE: September 21, 2016 – Dozier’s hit streak now stands at 23.
UPDATE: September 23, 2016 – Dozier’s hit streak comes to an end at 24 games in game 2 of a DH against the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander on 9/22/2016. Nice run by Mr. Dozier.
Pitcher Brian Duensing was a 2005 Minnesota Twins third round compensation selection for the Twins losing free agent shortstop Cristian Guzman to the Washington Nationals. Duensing signed with Minnesota for a reported bonus of $400,000 and began his ascent to the big leagues with the Elizabethton Twins and debuted in relief with the Twins on April 10th, 2009 in a 12-5 Twins victory at US Cellular Field. Originally a starting pitcher, the Twins used him as a spot starter and reliever from 2009-2012 before moving him to the bullpen full-time late in 2012.
After appearing in 354 Twins games from 2009-2015 and posting a 41-37 record with 2 saves and a 4.13 ERA it became time for the Twins and the 32 year-old left-handed Duensing to part ways. I recently ran across a Q&A that Duensing did with FanGraphs discussing the opt out and how he used it during his free agency which was a first for him in his baseball career. It shows how baseball isn’t always a bowl of cherries for everyone.
One of the more frequent questions I get pertains to switch-hitters that played for the Minnesota Twins so I thought I would put together the entire list of Twins players both position players and pitchers that swung from both sides of the plate. In this case I ranked then in order of home runs hit. The list includes Twins pitchers as well as position players.
You can make a strong case that Mickey Mantle was the best switch-hitter in the AL as he hit .300 (with 500 or more PA’s) or more nine time and Victor Martinez who remains active today has hit. 300 eight times as has Bernie Williams. Roberto Alomar did it seven times.
The Twins have not had as much luck with their switch-hitters, the only Twin to hit .300 (.302) or better with at least 500 plate appearances was Cristian Guzman in 2001. It kind of makes you wonder if switch hitting is worth the effort. From 1901 to 1960 the Washington Senators never had a switch-hitter that hit .300 or better with at least 500 PA’s.