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
The only player to make his major league debut as a Minnesota Twin on May 12 was Twins utility infielder Jeff Reboulet.
Jeff Reboulet (2B/SS/3B) – May 12, 1992 – Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 10th round of the 1986 amateur draft. Reboulet struck out as a pinch-hitter (for Randy Bush) in his big league debut against Boston Red Sox pitcher Tom Bolton at the Metrodome but reached first base on the wild pitch.
In their 56 seasons of baseball in Minnesota the Twins have had 71 different players don the tools of ignorance and squat down behind the plate to catch a major league pitcher. Two those 71 players only caught in one inning of one game. Cesar Tovar did it when owner Calvin Griffith had him play every position in a game in 1968 as a gimmick and manager Tom Kelly had Jeff Reboulet catch the ninth inning in a 1995 game against the Royals in the Metrodome. It wasn’t an easy inning for Reboulet either, as he caught two different pitchers as the Royals sent 12 men to the plate and scored 6 runs on 6 hits not to mention 2 walks and a wild pitch.
With the Minnesota 2017 TwinsFest going on I thought it would be a good time to rank the Twins catchers. The Twins have been looking for an everyday catcher ever since Joe Mauer hung up his catcher’s mitt after the 1993 season due to a variety of injuries the most serious of which were his concussion problems. Kurt Suzuki filled in since then but he too has moved on. The Twins Top 10 Catchers list ranks the catchers by B-R WAR statistics. Player must have appeared in at least 51% of his games as a catcher to qualify for this list.
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | G | From | To | Age | AB | H | HR | RBI | SB | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Mauer | 50.0 | 1590 | 2004 | 2016 | 21-33 | 5919 | 1826 | 130 | 804 | 50 | .308 | .837 |
| 2 | Butch Wynegar | 15.2 | 794 | 1976 | 1982 | 20-26 | 2746 | 697 | 37 | 325 | 8 | .254 | .682 |
| 3 | Earl Battey | 14.3 | 853 | 1961 | 1967 | 26-32 | 2762 | 768 | 76 | 350 | 8 | .278 | .765 |
| 4 | Brian Harper | 13.4 | 730 | 1988 | 1993 | 28-33 | 2503 | 767 | 48 | 346 | 7 | .306 | .773 |
| 5 | A.J. Pierzynski | 9.4 | 430 | 1998 | 2003 | 21-26 | 1428 | 430 | 26 | 193 | 6 | .301 | .788 |
| 6 | George Mitterwald | 6.0 | 514 | 1966 | 1973 | 21-28 | 1578 | 377 | 50 | 176 | 9 | .239 | .676 |
| 7 | Glenn Borgmann | 5.0 | 442 | 1972 | 1979 | 22-29 | 1207 | 277 | 14 | 137 | 4 | .229 | .630 |
| 8 | Tim Laudner | 3.2 | 734 | 1981 | 1989 | 23-31 | 2038 | 458 | 77 | 263 | 3 | .225 | .682 |
| 9 | Terry Steinbach | 3.1 | 347 | 1997 | 1999 | 35-37 | 1207 | 309 | 30 | 150 | 8 | .256 | .719 |
| 10 | Kurt Suzuki | 3.0 | 368 | 2014 | 2016 | 30-32 | 1230 | 323 | 16 | 160 | 0 | .263 | .680 |
Anybody on this list surprise you?
The 2016 MLB will take place June 9, 2016 in Secacus, New Jersey and the Minnesota Twins will have the 17th selection this year. There are already numerous mock drafts being published but as normal they are all over the board, so what else is new. Here is a list (with pictures) on MLB.com of their proposed top 100 2016 prospects.
Baseball draft are so different from all the other sports in many ways but the two main differences that stand out is that baseball drafts are more international than other sports and if you get drafted in baseball you can look forward to spend a number of years in the minor leagues before you have the experience and necessary skill sets to play in the major leagues. Sure there have been some players that went directly to the major leagues but they are rare and the last player to do so I believe is RHP Mike Leake who was drafted eighth overall in 2010 by the Cincinnati Reds from Arizona State and now pitches for the Cardinals. The last Twins player to be drafted and go straight to a big league mound was LHP Eddie Bane who also was from Arizona State.
The June amateur draft is exciting for the fans but it is serious business for the MLB teams that have spent lots of time and money watching these young prospects as they try to determine who is the best player available when it comes time to make their selection. Mistakes in a draft can and do haunt teams for many years. There are many ways to mess up a draft choice, the player may not turn out to be as good as you thought, you might have bypassed a star player, you might not be able to sign the player, the player and/or his agent may state they don’t want to play for you, and of course an injury may cut his career short. If everything goes your way you have yourself a baseball player but the odds are stacked against you.