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 are in agreement with outfielder Joey Gallo on a one-year deal that will pay him $11MM. The two-time All-Star is represented by the Boras Corporation. Apparently when one of Boras’s players is having a tough time getting signed, they turn to the Minnesota Twins for some reason. Either Boras has something on the Twins FO dynamic duo that they don’t want the public to know or they are just easy to convince that the player will be good and might sign a long term deal with them.
Twins fans were disgusted with Miguel Sano and his strikeouts and they couldn’t wait for him to be run out of town. The Twins FO obliged and didn’t tender Sano. But if Twins fans didn’t like Sano, they are really in for a treat in their new outfielder Joey Gallo. Sanó has the second-highest career strikeout rate in MLB history at 36.4 percent. The only player to whiff more often is Gallo, who sits atop the all-time career list at 37.3 percent, including 39.8 percent last season for the Yankees and Dodgers.
Once again it is that time of the year, time to name the 2022 Twins Turkey of the Year, but first, I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. We all have a lot to be thankful for even if the Minnesota Twins play in 2022 is not one of them. As you might imagine, there were plenty of candidates for this years honor after the team crashed and burned playing .357 baseball in September and finished the second half with a 28-40 record. Hopes were sky high when the Twins spent over $35 million to sign shortstop Carlos Correa but as the season wore on, the Twins wore down even if manager Rocco Baldelli rested his players for the big Fall push.
According to the Minnesota Twins Game Notes, Jose Miranda has been voted the American League Rookie of the Month for July. He earned his first career monthly award and is Minnesota’s first Rookie of the Month winner since his All-Star teammate Miguel Sano in August 2015. The 24-year-old posted a slash line of .353/.405/.603 with 13 runs scored, 24 hits, two doubles, five home runs and 19 RBI over 20 games played. He recorded three hits in three consecutive games from July 24-27, becoming the first Twins rookie to post such a streak since Danny Valencia logged four consecutive three-hit games in July 2010. He hit .426 with 20 hits during a 13-game span from July 5-27, scoring 10 runs with six extra-base hits and 15 RBI during the stretch. Congratulations to Jose Miranda.
Less than two days ago the Minnesota Twins and New York Yankees agreed on a blockbuster trade but Twins and Yankee fans are in a quandary about what to think of the deal. Social sites for both teams seem to be up in arms about the deal with both sides thinking they got the short end of the stick.
The trade in question calls for the New Yorker’s sending 29-year old catcher Gary Sanchez and 30-year old third baseman Gio Urshela to Minnesota for 36 year-old third baseman Josh Donaldson, 27-year old shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa and 24-year old catcher Ben Rortvedt.
It appears that there were multiple reasons to make the trade. The Twins seem to be looking to get out from under the $50 million the team owes Donaldson over the next two seasons and the Yankees have wanted to move Sanchez for some time. It is one of those situations where you swap my problems for your problems. The Yankees were in desperate need of a shortstop and the Twins had just acquired Kiner-Falefa from Texas earlier in the day. So in order for the Yankees to take Donaldson and pay him what he is owed the Yankees needed to get Kiner-Falefa in the deal and they wanted Rortvedt to replace Sanchez. Getting Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa made Urshela expendable and he was on his way to Minnesota.
It didn’t take long for the Minnesota Twins to make their first post lockout deal when they traded 31-year old catcher Mitch Garver to the Texas Rangers for soon to be 27-year old shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa and minor league right-handed pitcher Ronny Henriquez who pitched in AA ball after starting at High A.
Mitch Garver – Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY
Garver was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 9th round of the 2013 amateur draft and for all practical purposes was the best player the Twins selected in that draft. In addition, Garver was the best catcher drafted that year if you rank them by WAR and they got him for a measly $40K signing bonus.
Garver made his big league debut on August 19, 2017 at Target Field against the Arizona Diamondbacks as a pinch-hitter for Miguel Sano and struck out in his lone appearance in that game. Garver had a breakout season in 2019 as part of the Bomba Squad when he hit 31 home runs and was awarded the Silver Slugger award as the best hitting AL catcher. 2020 and 2021 were seasons that Garver would just as soon forget as injuries limited him to 23 and 68 games respectively.
Time seems to have gotten away from me and it was only in the last few days that I realized it was that time again, time to pick another Twins Turkey of the Year. This years winner will be number 13. So far we have only had one repeat winner and that was President and CEO Dave St. Peter who took the honors in 2013 and again in 2019.
With the 2021 Minnesota Twins expected to do well and go deep in the playoffs by their fans and the so called baseball experts and then to see the team finish 73-89 and in last place in the American League Central Division you would have to think that there were more turkeys then you could shake a stick at. You would be right.
Minnesota Twins fans and the team itself had such high expectations going into 2021 and yet as we approach the midway point in the season we find the team floundering badly at 31-42. The season opened on April 1 and the team reached their high-water mark for the season on April 8 when they were three games over .500 with a 5-2 record. Since then it has been one step forward and two steps back.
Derek Falvey
So how do you explain this? How does a team that everyone expected to be a serious contender and pretty much a playoff lock in 2021 play such terrible baseball that it is basically unwatchable? Where do you start? Like in most businesses you have to start at the top.
Today’s baseball is so different than the baseball I grew up watching over the years. In the old days you had better be a big time slugger if you were strikeout prone or you would find yourself looking for work in the real world. Today’s baseball seems to have no issue with players with high strikeout rates.
In the short 60-game season in 2020 the Minnesota Twins were tenth in runs scored in the American League but thanks to their good pitching (ranked second in the league) they were able to win the division title on the last day when the Chicago White Sox choked coughing up a three game lead with just eight to play by losing seven out of their last eight games.
Josh Donaldson while with the Atlanta Braves in 2019. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
I was watching the MLB channel last night when they interrupted their programming with breaking news that the Boston Red Sox and manager Alex Cora had mutually agreed to part ways after the previous days bombshell of the “caught stealing” penalties dropped on the Houston Astros by MLB. Then just a few minutes into that, they had more breaking news, this time the report was that a source (turned out to be MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand) had reported that third baseman Josh Donaldson had agreed to accept a four-year deal with Minnesota for $92 million guaranteed, including an $8 million buyout of a $16 million club option for a fifth year.
Baseball is a fun and interesting game and 2019 was no exception. Jayson Stark wrote a cool article in The Athletic today called “Strange But True Feats of the Year, 2019 Edition” and the Twins were mentioned a couple of times. If you don’t subscribe to The Athletic (and you really should), you won’t be able to read it but I will steal his Twins mentions and put them here for you to see the kind of writing you are missing by not subscribing.
Twins pinch hitter Miguel Sano (22) celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk off home run in the ninth inning against the Atlanta Braves at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Ben Ludeman-USA TODAY Sports
On August 5 at Target Field, Miguel Sano did something very cool. He didn’t just hit a walk-off homer. He hit the Twins’ first walk-off homer against the Braves since the Kirby Puckett Game 6 We’ll See You Tomorrow Night shot that set up the epic Jack Morris–John Smoltz Game 7 in the 1991 World Series. But then … guess what Ronald Acuña Jr. did on the first pitch of their next game? Yessir. Hit a leadoff homer. It’s the only time in any of the past 13 seasons when one game ended on a last-pitch homer and the next game started with a first-pitch homer.
The Twins’ Ryne Harper had a July 7 outing in which he faced four hitters, struck out all four of them and still managed to record a total of … five outs — thanks to a little miracle we like to call the old strike-’em-out-throw-’em-out inherited-runner double play.
Four Orioles did manage to hit two homers in a game at Camden Yards. Which sounds encouraging until you remember that four Twins did that in one day (April 20). All right, so they played a doubleheader that day. But still …
The Yankees blew away the all-time record for home runs in one season — but didn’t even lead their league, because the Twins hit 307 of them. Five different Twins hit at least 30 home runs in 2019. Which was kind of notable because only five different Twins had had a 30-homer season in the previous 30 seasons put together!
