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
Hector Santiago improved to 4-1 with a 2.76 earned-run average after another solid outing in the Twins’ win over the White Sox. Teammate Ervin Santana is 5-1 with a 1.72 ERA in seven starts this season. The last pair of Twins teammates to both start 4-1 or better with an ERA under 3.00 in their first seven start of a season were Jim Kaat (6-1, 1.11 ERA) and Bert Blyleven (4-1, 2.63) in 1972.
Holy Cow! How sad is that? That is 45 years ago!
Twins beat-writer Phil Miller wrote in past Sunday’s edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the Minnesota Twins could have as many as 12 different pitchers fighting for the five spots in the Twins 2017 starting rotation. Keep that number 12 in the back of your mind as you read this. Here are the pitchers Miller listed as possible starters in 2017.
TWINS STARTING ROTATION CANDIDATESErvin Santana (R), 34: 7-11 last season, but his 3.38 ERA was 10th-best in the American League.
Phil Hughes (R), 30: Missed most of last season because of thoracic outlet syndrome. Gave up league-high 29 home runs in 2015.
Kyle Gibson (R), 29: Fourth year in rotation (98 starts), but ERA rocketed to 5.07 in 2016.
Hector Santiago (L), 29: Acquired from Angels last season. Another starter who gives up lots of home runs.
Jose Berrios (R), 22: Team’s top young pitching prospect has been bombed in majors (8.02 ERA).
Tyler Duffey (R), 26: In 26 starts last season his 6.43 ERA was worst among pitchers with more than 130 innings.
Trevor May (R), 27: Back injury hampered him last season, when he was a reliever. He wants to start.
Adalberto Mejia (R), 23: Picked up from Giants in Eduardo Nunez trade last season. In 566 minor league innings he has 487 K’s.
Nick Tepesch (R), 28: Had 39 starts for Texas in 2013-14. He missed 2015 because of shoulder issues; he’s on a minor league deal.
Ryan Vogelsong (R), 39: Grizzled veteran has 179 starts in 12 seasons; 3-7, 4.81 ERA for Giants last year.
Justin Haley (R), 25: Proven starter in Class AAA was picked up in the Rule 5 draft, meaning he’s likely to make the team.
Stephen Gonsalves (L), 22: Twins minor league pitcher of the year in 2016; was dominant at Class AA Chattanooga.
It would be nice to have quality over quantity but one has to play with the cards they are dealt or the starters they might have. In 2016 the American League teams used 157 different starters an average of 10.47 starters per team. The Toronto Blue Jays used only seven starters in 2016 while the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim sent 15 different starters to the mound. The Twins marched out 11 different pitchers to start their games in 2016.
The National League teams used 176 different starters in their quest for wins and that comes out to an average of 11.73 starters. The St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants only required eight starters each while the Atlanta Braves had double that, they needed 16 starters to get through the season.
The Twins have used as many as 13 different starters in 1962 and 1995 and as few as six starters in 1972 but they only played 154 games that year. If you look at the Twins average number of starters used over the years per season you end up with 9.68 so even though the battle for the starting rotation will take place this spring and there will probably be five winners by Opening Day, there is no assurance they will be starting games at Target Field come September. Starting pitchers will be lost due to injury, performance, trades, and personal reasons so the more pitchers the Twins have ready to start big league games the better. The message to the pitchers who won’t be Twins starters on Opening Day is to hang in there because your turn is coming, be ready.
Yesterday I checked out the Twins second full workout of the spring as Paul Molitor ran his boys through their paces. I saw nothing really unusual but I thought it was kind of interesting that I saw no pitchers throwing in the bullpen at all the entire time I was there. The outfielders went through their drills on the Hammond Stadium field while the rest of the team appeared to be split into three groups with a mixture of infielders and pitchers in each group going through pitching and infield drills on three separate fields.
As I watched the drills I couldn’t help but miss Tom Kelly putting the guys through the drills and hearing his banter and seeing him pull guys aside to give them some tips on playing the game better. The drill without TK this spring was noticeably quieter. TK has a long history with the Twins and belongs out here in spring training and I am not convinced that he is back in Minnesota by his own volition.
The one incident that stands out in my mind were pitcher drills where the pitchers practiced the pick-off at second base. In this case starter Hector Santiago wheeled around and threw “a pea” wildly over shortstop Niko Goodrum‘s. To me two things stood out about that play, how quick and hard Santiago’s throw was and the fact that shortstop Niko Goodrum barely jogged to get the loose ball. It is only the second full day of drills, a little more effort from Goodrum would seem appropriate.
Hopefully the Twins will get a lot of work in today and rain is predicted for Wednesday. As always, I took a number of pictures and you can check them out on the 2017 spring training pictures link on the right hand side of the main page.
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.
| Rk | Player | GS | From | To | Age | G | W | L | IP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
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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.
Now that the 2016 regular season is over it is time to take a look at the American League starting staffs and see how the teams acquired their starting pitchers. In this case I am only going to look at pitchers that started 10 or more games for their teams. Several of the pitchers appear on more than one team.
This past season there were 95 pitchers in the American League that started 10 games or more games for their teams. The wild card winning Baltimore Orioles and the worst team in baseball Minnesota Twins each had eight pitchers with at least 10 starts, on the other end of the spectrum the wild card winning Toronto Blue Jays and the 69 win Oakland A’s each had only five starters with 10 or more starts.