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 Twins pitching this season has been dismal and as I took a look at the Twins pitching stats during last nights 11-2 drubbing at the hands of the Boston Red Sox I have to wonder what Terry Ryan, Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson can do to fix the problem. Before the Twins had even played one game that counted this season they had already lost reliever Joel Zumaya and starter Scott Baker to Tommy John surgery. Losing Baker who I thought was the Twins top starting pitcher was a serious blow to a team that already had pitching woes. The 29 year-old Baker had started 159 games with a 63-48 record over the last 7 seasons with a 4.15 ERA and could be counted on to keep the Twins in the game when he was on the mound. With Baker out for the season the Twins went in to the 2012 season with a starting five composed of Francisco Liriano, Carl Pavano, Jason Marquis, Nick Blackburn and either Anthony Swarzak or Liam Hendriks. Liriano who was dubbed “the Franchise” back in 2006 when he went 12-3 has been a colossal disappointment this season and now is out of the rotation to clear his head after four terrible starts when he has gone 0-4 with a 11.02 ERA and 2.36 WHIP in 16.1 innings and giving up a league leading 20 earned runs. A 2.36 WHIP, that is incredible, 2.36 runners every inning. The Twins seem to be perplexed with what to do with Liriano and plan to have him skip a start and work on the side. Personally, I think the best thing they can do with Liriano at this point is send him back to the minors and have him pitch until he proves he can get big league hitters out. Everyone keeps saying that Liriano has “great stuff” and maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t but the bottom line is that right now he is not a major league pitcher and he has no business being in the big leagues. I would rather see the Twins call up some one from the minors and have them learn how to pitch in the majors than send Liriano out start after start with little to no hope of improvement. It is not all about physical ability, you have to understand how to pitch in the big leagues and I’m afraid that Francisco Liriano may never attain that stature. Pavano and Marquis are both veterans and you get what you see with these two, journeymen at best that are filling out a starting rotation. The sinker-balling Nick Blackburn is no star but can fill the back-end of a starting rotation. I am not sure what Liam Hendriks can do in the majors but I am willing to send him out every fifth day and see what he has to offer. Swarzak is probably best suited for the role he is in right now, the long man in the pen. The 25 year-old lefty Scott Diamond who was a Rule 5 pick-up from the Atlanta Braves in December of 2010 is tearing it up in Rochester with a 4-0 mark and a 1.07 ERA in four starts is worth calling up for a big league shot. What have you got to lose?
The Twins have to do something, but what? They are 5-13 and 5.5 games out and we are still in April. How much improvement can Gardy and Ryan expect from a pitching staff that is putting up these kinds of numbers?
When the Twins play a team not too far from Fort Myers their minor league teams also play that same organizations teams at their level, usually the AA and AAA teams play at one of the host cities and the two A ball teams play at the other city. Yesterday the Twins were playing the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota so the Rochester team played Norfolk and the New Britain played Bowie in Sarasota while Fort Myers played Frederick and Beloit played Delmarva at Hammond Stadium. I stopped off at Hammond Stadium about 12:30 PM expecting to be a little early for the Fort Myers and Beloit games but when I parked my car I could see that the games were already underway, had I read my schedule correctly I would have seen that the games today started at Noon versus 1 PM. Oh well no biggie. I wandered over to the first field and saw Beloit taking on Delmarva and on another field I saw the extended group of players playing an inner squad game but Fort Myers and Frederick were nowhere to be seen. After watching the Beloit game for a while I asked what happened to Fort Myers and Frederick and I was told they were playing in the main stadium today.
Marty Popham
I entered the stadium and the game was underway and there were so few fans there that the players that were not in playing in the game that day outnumbered the fans as they sat in the stands and watched their teammates play. I didn’t recognize many of the players but I sat down next to a pitcher that was keeping the pitching chart and manning the radar gun for the game. After introducing myself I found out that the player was RHP Marty Popham, a 24-year-old AAA Rule 5 draft pick from the Cleveland Indians this past off-season. Marty said that the minor league Rule 5 draft is a bit different from the major league Rule 5 draft in that the Twins keep him regardless of the team he may be assigned to play for. The 6’6″ Popham was a 20th round pick for the Indians in 2008 and last season he pitched A ball in Kinston, AA ball in Akron and AAA ball in Columbus going 6-3 with a 4.58 ERA, a 1.27 WHIP with 106 strikeouts in 112 innings. He is pleased to be with the Minnesota organization and hopes to make his mark with the Twins. Marty throws a 4 seam and 2 seam fastball, curve, slider and periodically mixes in a knuckleball. Marty lives in Louisville, Kentucky where he and his fiancée just bought their first home this past off-season. I also ended up talking briefly with reliever Caleb Thielbar, 25, a Northfield, Minnesota native who was with the Brewers organization for a while and then was released and played for the St. Paul Saints last year before the Twins signed him for their Fort Myers ballclub. Both Thielbar and Popham mentioned that they were surprised how many players there were with the Twins organization with roots going back to the North Star state.
I really don’t know what the final score of the game was and there is no score being kept that I could see but I think that Fort Myers did win. The only home run of the game that I saw was a 3-run shot over the left field fence next to the foul pole by 2B Andy Leer. That ball left the park in a hurry. I almost forgot to mention that Carl Pavano pitched a couple of innings in the game and Ryan Doumit caught Pavano for Fort Myers. Pavano looked sharp but then again he was pitching against the A ball Frederick Keys. I ended up taking some pictures that I have uploaded to my 2012 spring training pictures site and then I called it a day. How often do yu get a chance to sit in the stands and talk with the players as you watch a game, only in spring training baby, only in spring training. You can’t beat it, but it is quickly coming to and end, only a week or so to go and I think I will stop by on Monday and watch Rochester takes on New Britain, Beloit take on Fort Myers and the GCL extended team will play an inner squad game. It is an early start on Monday, 10AM local time as the boys of summer need to wrap things up and break camp the next day. I will be “breaking camp” and heading home to Minnesota myself just a few days later so I can be sure to be home by the time the Easter bunny shows up because who knows, he might bring me something good.
This morning I read that the Twins gave Joel Zumaya, 27, his release, baseball has been a “tough row to hoe” for the fire-balling reliever as he has suffered injury after injury. I would have enjoyed watching Zumaya in a Twins uniform.
When you get cut by the big league club you almost always get to report to one of the minor league teams but when you get caught by a minor league club all you get is “an opportunity to look for a job” and for many of the guys the Twins cut today, it could be a job in the real world. Baseball is tough and your career can be over at any point in time. Good luck to pitchers Matt Bashore, Ben Tootle, Jason Bulger, and Deinys Suarez, infielders Chris Cates, Steve Pearce, and Roy Larson, along with outfielders Dustin Martin and Tyler Koelling.
A new day, a new month and another trip to the ballpark and another great day in Southwest Florida. I parked my car on Kelly avenue today and walked over to the nearest field and I saw Gardy conducting a drill where the pitcher runs off the mound and takes a throw to make a tag play at the plate. I watched that for a bit and then I saw GM Terry Ryan and I wanted to say hello but he was talking with some other Twins execs so I kept moving. I walked to one of the back fields and came across coach Tom Kelly on a field with another unidentified coach and a third baseman that was taking some ground balls and practicing his back-hand and then the footwork necessary to get a good throw over to first. Unfortunately, I don’t know who the third baseman or the coach were because I had forgotten my roster numbers at home and I didn’t want to buy another one.
I then wandered over to a field where a handful of the minor league regulars were going through their daily drills and I wanted to say hello to Max Kepler and get a picture but Max was in the outfield shagging fly balls out of my camera range and I waited for a while but apparently it was not time for him to come in to take BP. You have to give credit to these guys, they are out there day after day going through the same drills, rain or shine with coach Tommy Watkins and they were doing this when I got here on February 1st and the minor league players don’t report I think for another week or 10 days. These guys should get a gold star next to their names for putting in the work necessary to make themselves better ball players.
Toru Suzuki
Then I slipped over to another field and here I saw Tsuyoshi Nishioka with another group of Twins going through some infield drills with runners on the bases. Next to the field I saw Nishioka’s personal trainer and his agent Toru Suzuki. I introduced myself to Mr. Suzuki, gave him my card and asked him if he had time for a couple of questions. He didn’t say no so I asked him why Twins fans should have any hope for Nishioka playing better in 2012 than he did in 2011. Mr. Suzuki looked at me and said he (Nishioka) will be better because he was hurt last year and never really recovered and it was after all, his first year in the United States. I then asked him why Nishioka seemed to prefer working out on his own versus working with his teammates and he told me that Nishioka is working out with his teammates right now and he had a point there. By this time, we were walking away from the field back to the big league clubhouse and I had the feeling that my interview was over but being as pushy as I am, I had to ask one more question. I asked Mr. Suzuki if he felt that Tsuyoshi Nishioka had a chance to win a starting infield job with the Twins and without any hesitation he replied, “yes, I think he can, he is working hard”. Then he and the trainer started walking away from me so I took the hint and let them walk.
Later on I got a chance to spend about 15 or 20 enjoyable minutes alone with GM Terry Ryan watching some BP and talking Twins baseball. We talked about Jamey Carroll, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Justin Morneau, JR Towles, Steve Pearce, and the bullpen. I asked about Joel Zumaya but he has not heard from Zumaya at this point on what his plans are. It was fun chat, we in Minnesota are very lucky to have a GM that is willing to talk baseball with Twins fans. The thing I think I enjoy most about Terry Ryan is that he listens to what you have to say and then he tells you what he thinks, he doesn’t beat around the bush. He always makes you defend your position with facts. But when a 9-year-old boy walked up to Terry when we were talking Twins baseball and asked him what it would take to be a Twins ball boy, Ryan took the time to explain to the young man that the bat boys were chosen by the Twins and that you had to be 16 years of age. “You are not 16 are you”?, Terry asked the boy, but by then the young man was already running back to his Dad. Later in the day I had a chance to talk with the young mans Dad and he said that his son had tears in his eyes because Terry Ryan had told him he had to be 16 years old to be a Twins ball boy. Baseball is like that, it can break your heart.
After all this fun you would think my day would be over wouldn’t you? You would be wrong, I still had a Twins “B” game to watch. It was kind of interesting because there was no admission charge for the game that was played in Hammond Stadium and there was free parking. The game was fairly well publicized in the local press but yet I don’t think there couldn’t have been 1,000 people at the game. The scoreboard was not used and there was no one to announce the players. So as Twins fan in the second deck behind home plate took it upon himself to scream out the Twins players name and position as they stepped up to the plate. The game was actually delayed and did not start on time because, drum roll please, the umpires had not arrived. A few minutes later managers Gardenhire and Valentine met behind home plate and Twins coach Steve Liddle donned a mask and became the home plate umpire still wearing his number 9 Twins uniform. There was also someone in civ’s acting as the base umpire but I do not know who he was or which team he belonged to. The Twins and home plate umpire Liddle built up a 2-1 lead before the real umpires showed up for the top of the third inning.
The game started with Sox shortstop Jose Iglesias hit Twins starter Scott Baker’s first pitch for a hard single up the middle and it just missed hitting Baker. Iglesias was eliminated on a double play but catcher Ryan Lavarnway pulled a Baker pitch over the fence down the left field line for a 1-0 lead. In the bottom half of the first, Revere singled, Tosoni doubled and Revere scored on a ground out by Joe Benson. Blackburn was unscored on in the second inning and catcher JR Towles threw out a Sox runner at second base and in the bottom half of the same inning, Towles knocked in Brian Dozier who had doubled down the LF line and the Twins were up 2-1. Jeff Manship pitched a scoreless third and Liam Hendriks did the same in the top of the fourth. In the home half of the fourth the Twins scored on a two run homer to straight away centerfield off the bat of 1B Aaron Bates after Brian Dinkelman had singled off of lefty Red Sox pitcher Jesse Carlson who has a distinctive little hop after each delivery. So after 4 innings the Twins were up 4-1 and at that point I had to leave the game for another engagement. It was a fun day, catching the Twins first game of 2012, albeit a “B” game on a beautiful day in Fort Myers. It is to bad that so few people were there to enjoy it. And yes, I was able to get some pictures that I have uploaded for your viewing pleasure, check out how few people there were in the stands and how Steve Liddle looks as the home plate umpire.
What exactly is the Twins plan going forward? In the past, the Twins have always stressed pitching and fielding. The Twins went into 2011 saying that they wanted to improve their defense and their speed. This past off-season the Twins signed Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit and Jamey Carroll and none of these players can be seen even remotely as defensive stars or speed demons. On the pitching side they resigned Matt Capps to be their closer and signed Jason Marquis as another “innings eater” starter to replace Brian Duensing whom they want to move to the bullpen. For middle relief they went after quantity versus quality hoping to catch “lightning in a bottle” by claiming or signing relievers such as Jason Bulger, Jared Burton, Samuel Deduno, Matt Maloney, Aaron Thompson, Daryl Thompson, Casey Fien, PJ Walters, Brendan Wise and Joel Zumaya. GM Terry Ryan also signed players with big league experience such as 3B Sean Burroughs, 1B Steve Pearce, OF Wilkin Ramirez, and catcher JR Towles.
In the past, Twins management has stated that they didn’t want to start camp too early because the players just got bored and burnt out waiting for the real games to begin. The Twins have historically been one of the last teams to report to and start training camp, this year they are one of the first teams to report and start work-outs.
This year the Twins will have at least 25 non-roster spring training invites this year, there will be more players out there than you can shake a stick at. In the past the Twins position has been not to invite too many players in spring camp because there was just not enough playing time and they wanted to give everyone a chance to showcase their talents.
Ron Gardenhire
This year the Twins seem to be desperate, picking up some veteran hitting help even though their defense and speed will suffer, they picked up a slew of relievers hoping that one or maybe two can find their way north to Minnesota. Speed? Gardy felt a need for speed going into 2011 but I have not heard him mention speed once this off-season. When you sign a 38 year old Jamey Carroll who has never had a full-time starting role to be your regular shortstop you are indeed close to a panic situation. Yep, these are desperate and trying times in Twinsville as the team tries to regroup from a horrendous 63-99 2011 season and the team is taking desperate steps to right a ship that is on the shoals of a major rebuilding effort. The problem they have is that Joe Mauer is making a ton of money and they haven’t a clue as to what will happen with 1B Justin Morneau who is coming off his seventh career concussion. Without big comebacks from both of these Twins stars the team has no chance at even finishing near the .500 mark. Ron Gardenhire will have to do his best managing act ever to get this team to win half of their games.
So it will be an interesting spring in Ft. Myers this year and I would expect to see a number of intrasquad and “B” squad games taking place on the back fields of Hammond Stadium. I will be there to watch the action and it should be fun. The beauty of this time of the year is that we all have hope and no one has lost a game as yet. It just seems to me that the Minnesota Twins are changing gears this year and things are going to be a lot different going forward into 2012 and beyond. So make sure you buy a scorecard when you attend your first Twins game this year.
According to several reports, the Twins have reached agreement, pending a physical of course, with former Detroit Tigers reliever Joel Zumaya on a deal that will give Zumaya anywhere between $800 and $1.7 million depending on him reaching certain incentives. Zumaya worked out for about 20 teams in December and a Twins official told Phil Mackey of 1500espn.com that they had clocked Zumaya throwing 92-94 during the work-out session. Zumaya drew interest from several teams but according to at least one report I saw Zumaya took the Twins offer because it was a major league contract, was guaranteed money and had an invite to spring training. Other reports indicate that the money is not guaranteed so we will see as the details become available. Although the money is not a huge sum, the Twins did not get a “steal” here as Zumaya made $915,000 in 2010 and $1.4 million in 2011 although he sat out the entire season due to injury. With his huge injury risk, I sure would not guarantee $800K.
Guaranteed money or not, this is an interesting signing by the Twins. The injury risk is certainly there but the upside reward if Zumaya can stay healthy is very tantalizing. We need to keep in mind that Zumaya is very injury prone even though several of his injuries are not baseball related and we should not set our expectations too high. I have already hear some comments that Zumaya can slide into the Twins closer role. I would say the chances of that are slim to none and I would be very happy to just get 60 innings out of Zumaya in 2012 and if Zumaya is pitching well and the Twins are not going anywhere come July, I would have no issue sending Zumaya to a contender for a good young prospect.
UPDATE JANUARY19 – The Twins announced today that the Zumaya deal is official. There are reports floating around the internet that $400K of Zumaya $850K base are guaranteed and if Zumaya makes the 25 man roster out of spring training, he gets the entire $850K. Then there are still incentives Zumaya can reach to get up to $1.7 million based on innings pitched.
