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
I have followed baseball for a long time and it seems like the New York Yankees are always beating the Minnesota Twins. Truth or myth? I decided to check it out with an assist from baseball-reference.com .
It turns that the Yankees are indeed the toughest team to beat for our home town nine. Since 1961 they have played the Yankees 600 times and won just 252 of those match-ups for a .421 winning percentage. Actually I am surprised that the winning percentage is as high as it is because it seems like the Twins always lose to the Yankees.
Who do the Twins beat up on most frequently? That would be the Senators/Rangers franchise whom the Twins have played 696 times and whipped them on 366 occasions for a .527 winning percentage. I have left the Houston Astros off the list since their time in the American League just started last season and I have included the Brewers/Pilots franchise since the Twins play them every year even though they have been in the National League for many of these years.
Here is how the Minnesota Twins stack up against the rest of the American League since 1961.
For many years now the Minnesota Twins organization has always looked unfavorably at pitchers that issue too many bases on balls. If you eliminate 2011 and 2012 the Twins have been in the top three teams in the American League in fewest walks allowed since 1996. During that same time frame the Twins have led the American League in strikeouts just once and that was in 2006.
But today we are going to look at the other end of the spectrum, we are going to see what Twins pitchers wouldn’t exactly be considered control artists. The pitchers that would be regulars in former Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson‘s doghouse. It is surprising to me to see how many “good” pitchers there are on this list of most walks allowed in a single season by a Twins pitcher. Check out the records of some of these pitchers, two pitchers on this list won 20 games while issuing 90 or more walks during the season. Two pitchers on this list had more walks then they had strikeouts. Three pitchers made this list twice.
I can’t help but be amazed by the season that Rich Robertson had in 1996. But first let’s take a look at that team, the first year after Kirby Puckett‘s career came to an abrupt end. Tom Kelly‘s 1996 team finished fourth with a 78-84 record. The starting staff that season under pitching coach Dick Such was made up of Brad Radke, Frankie Rodriguez, Rich Robertson, Scott Aldred, and Rick Aguilera. Current Twins skipper Paul Molitor should remember that season, he was the teams DH that year and he hit .341 and had 113 RBI.
Robertson who the Twins picked up on waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates in November 1994 was a left-hander who pitched for Minnesota from 1995-1997 and won a job in the Twins starting rotation in 1996 after having started a total of four games in his brief big league career. In 1996 at the age of 27 he started 31 games for the Twins and posted a 7-17 record with a 5.12 ERA. In his 186+ innings pitched he struck out 114 batters and walked 116 and yet he had three shutouts which tied him for the American league lead. He is the only Twins pitcher to ever lead the American League in walks allowed in a single season.
Twins pitchers with 90 or more walks allowed in a single season
This past season California native and former New York Yankee first round pick (2004) Phil Hughes, 28, pitching for a team that finished 70-92 had a 16-10 record and an amazing and record-breaking 11.63 SO/W ratio. That comes out to 16 bases on balls issues in 209.1 innings with 186 KO’s. Another Hughes who was also from California, Jim, pitched for Minnesota from 1974-1977 and in 1975 at the age of 25 he had a 16-14 record with a 3.82 ERA for a 76-83 team. Jim, a Twins 33rd round pick in 1969 walked 127 and struck out 130 batters for a 1.02 SO/W ratio in 249.2 innings.
Jim Hughes
Strangely enough both of these right-handed pitchers won 16 games for their sub .500 teams. Phil had record-breaking control and finished the 2014 season with one complete game and Jim with not so much control had 12 complete games in 1975. Jim won a total of 25 games in his brief four-year big league career and Phil has 72 wins and counting on his resume.
Bottom line? I guess a pitcher can win at the big league level no matter what his SO/W ratio is and once again it just goes to show that it isn’t all about the numbers. But it is interesting never the less.
As 2014 is coming to an end it is a good time to look back on another Twins season, their fourth in a row without post season play. But you have to be a winner to make post season play and the Twins have been anything but a winner the last few years. It has been a toss-up when you try to determine who has been more inept, the Twins players on the field or the ownership and Twins executives that sit behind their desks and make the decisions that determine the experience that Twins fans will have to live with during the up-coming season.
The Twins have had many losing seasons over the years and the real core Twins fans complained but they accepted the team they had and they looked forward to the next season with renewed hope for more wins “next year”. But it is seems different now, I am not sure why, maybe the fans are more passionate, maybe it is social media that allows Twins fans to better express their frustrations but today’s Twins fans are just plain mad and disgusted with the caliber of play their home team has displayed since the 2010 ended. Hopefully the Minnesota Twins organization feels some of the passion that Twins fans have and will start to look at the product from the fans perspective and see what they can do to make the fans experience a little more fun and and not so tough on the wallet.
Since the Washington Senators moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season and became the Minnesota Twins the team has played 8,617 regular season games, winning 4,274, losing 4,335 and playing to a tie on eight occasions in 54 seasons of play. Boy, how time flies by, I still remember that 1961 season.
Looking back at Twins history they have two World Series winners and a third World Series appearance in which they lost game seven to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In addition to the 8,617 regular season games the team has played a total of 64 post season games winning 25 and losing 39. Their last post season appearance was in 2010 and that brief playoff run lasted just three games when they were swept by the New York Yankees 3 games to zip. The teams last post season win was back in 2004 (if I am not mistaken that is about 10 years ago, YIKES!) when they beat the Yankees in game 1 of the ALDS series before losing the next three games.
So let’s take a look at the hitting and pitching statistics of the Minnesota Twins in post season play. Let’s see who stood out under the bright lights of post season play and who couldn’t or didn’t deliver when the pressure was on. The names you will see below will bring back many memories, some good, some bad, some sad and in some cases you will say “who in the hell is so and so, I don’t remember him”. But it is fun looking back.
Since the Twins started play in 1961 through the 2014 season a total of 751 players have put on a Minnesota Twins uniform and appeared in a game either as a hitter or a pitcher. Only 162 of them or 21.57% have appeared in a Twins post season game over the 54 seasons the Twins have called Minnesota home.
I do not profess to be some baseball expert by any means but I have followed major league baseball since the mid 50’s and I started becoming a serious follower of major league baseball when the Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Yankees in the 1957 World Series in 7 games. To me, baseball is interesting because of its history, its characters and last and certainly not least the fact that on any given day at any given game that you might be lucky enough to attend, that you will see something that you have never seen before. I have been to a lot of games at numerous baseball parks but I still have never seen a no-hitter or a batter hit for the cycle at a game I attended but I have seen many other interesting and historic baseball feats over the years.
Baseball is a unique game for a whole bevy of reasons such as the fact that there is no clock in baseball, each playing field has its own peculiarities, there are 162 games to be played and that does not count playoffs or spring training, some extremely interesting characters both from the player’s side and the ownership/front-office side, cheating by players has been tolerated even encouraged unless it becomes too blatant, owners have no payroll limitations, free agency has given players the right to work/play where ever they wish for the most part and various other reasons that I haven’t listed here.
MLB players, its owners and baseball fans everywhere actually benefit from free agency. When the last out of the World Series is made and the off-season begins you would think that baseball would go on hiatus as far as the fans are concerned but that is not the case in modern-day baseball. When the playing season ends the free agency season begins and hot stove league baseball remains a hot topic of discussion for true baseball fans even if football, hockey, and basketball seasons are underway and the ballparks are covered with ice and snow. Fantasy baseball is almost a year round event now as its players follow the free agency moves and make their draft plans accordingly. Heck, there are already drafts going on for the 2015 season.
But I am getting side-tracked here, my intent was to do a short piece on “why are these things happening”? Real head scratcher as far as I am concerned. As I said earlier, I am no expert but some of the moves or more accurately stated “proposed moves and /or rumors” by our local Twins team or other MLB teams make me really wonder what the heck these people in baseball are thinking? First off, the average person has no concept of the dollars in play and that it is easy to spend someone else’s money, I realize that. No one really know for instance what the Twins revenue really is and the few people who do surely aren’t going to divulge those secrets. How often do you hear someone say or write “it’s only $5 million, we should do it”. Or what idiotic owner first brought options into baseball contracts where as they can sign a player for $10 million dollars or they can choose to pay him $1 million to walk away, what is up with that? What bozo pays someone a million dollars not to work for them? MLB does.
So here are a couple of real head scratcher’s for me –
Michael Cuddyer
Why would former Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer who will turn 36 before the 2015 season begins turn down a $15.3 million qualifying offer from the Colorado Rockies to sign a two-year deal with the New York Mets for $21 million. Cuddyer missed all but 49 games for the Rockies this season due to injury. Maybe I don’t understand this qualifying offer business as well as I thought I did. As I understand it this process has been in place for three years and 34 qualifying offers have been made and zero have been accepted. Hard for me to fathom turning down $12-$15 million for one year’s work.
Torii Hunter
Numerous stories are being written about the Twins pursuing outfielder Torii Hunter who played for Minnesota from 1997-2007 before leaving via free agency. Hunter will be 40 years old this coming July and he just put $14 million in the bank thanks to the Detroit Tigers in 2014. No argument here the Twins outfield is a mess with no center fielder, no left fielder, and Oswaldo Arcia in right is not exactly a gold glover. Still, having said that I don’t understand why the Twins would pay Hunter around $10 million to play for them in 2015. We are talking 15 home runs and 80 RBI and a .280 average but is that worth $10 million or so even now for a team that has little to no chance of achieving the .500 mark? I know that fans still love Torii and he was a good player here for many years but let it go for God’s sake. The man can’t play like he did back in his 20’s. Why do the Twins and their fans always want their former stars to come back home? Haven’t you folks heard the old saying “you can never go home again?”
Wily Mo Pena
Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press tweets that there is interest between Wily Mo Pena and the Minnesota Twins. The soon to be 33-year-old Of/DH goes about 260 and has played in Japan for the last three season. Pena last appeared in the majors in 2011 with the Seattle Mariners and has never played in more than 110 games in the majors at any point in his career. I could care less that he hit 32 home runs in Japan in 2014, the last thing the Twins need to spend money on is a DH. Rumor or fact, this is just plain STUPID! If the Twins look they will find other positions that need more help then at DH.
Let’s move on from the Twins for a bit and see what else is going on in the AL Central. Last year the Chicago White Sox signed first baseman Jose Abreu from Cuba to a $68 million six-year deal and in 2014 the 27-year-old Abreu rewarded them with the American League Rookie of the Year award. Now the Sox go out and sign free agent 1B Adam LaRoche to a two-year deal for $25 million. I hate to repeat myself but what the heck are they thinking? They have numerous holes to fill and they chose to sign another first baseman. I sure hope the Sox know something we don’t because as first glance this is another dumb Sox move.
Raul Ibanez
Joe Maddon opted out of his manager gig in Tampa a couple of weeks ago because things were heading south in Tampa and the Chicago Cubs seem to have a future. That created an opening for a new Rays manager and the three finalist are Kevin Cash, Don Wakamatsu, and Raul Ibanez. RAUL IBANEZ? Where did he come from? Why is he qualified to manage a big league team? The last time I saw him he was playing for the Kansas City Royals in 2014 and now he is a finalist for the Tampa Rays manager job, how do things like this happen? Like I said, a real head scratcher for me.
You can’t make this stuff up but yet it happens in baseball day in and day out.
Phil Hughes allowed one run over eight innings and earned the victory in Minnesota’s 2-1 win over Arizona on Wednesday. Hughes is 16-10 in his first season with the Twins after going just 4-14 with the Yankees last season. He is the fourth pitcher in major-league history to follow a season with four-or-fewer wins with 16-plus wins the following season, having at least 25 starts in each campaign. The others to do that were Frank Mountain in 1883 (26-33 after going 4-21 in 1882), Jerry Koosman in 1979 (20-13 after going 3-15 in 1978) and Matt Keough in 1980 (16-13 after going 2-17 in 1979). Koosman did it under similar circumstances to Hughes: his three win season in 1978 came in New York (with the Mets) and then after being traded to the Twins in the offseason, he went on to win 20 games in his first season in Minnesota in 1979.
If Wednesday was Hughes’ final appearance of the season, he will have finished the year with 16 wins and only 16 walks allowed. Only three pitchers in the modern era registered as many or more wins as walks while winning at least 15 games: Christy Mathewson did it twice (25 wins, 21 walks in 1913 and 24 wins, 23 walks in 1914) and Slim Sallee (21 wins, 20 walks in 1919).
Because of the rain delay in yesterday’s game, Hughes came up a third of an inning short of notching 210 innings that would have triggered a $500K bonus. I can’t believe there is any way that the Twins would be so stupid as to not give Hughes this bonus anyway when they have him signed to a multi-year deal. Back in the day, Twins owner Calvin Griffith who was considered as cheap an owner as there was in baseball was not averse to giving a player a bonus after a particularly outstanding season. The sad sack Twins should not let a good publicity opportunity slip through the cracks. Free agents that the Twins might be interested in signing in the future are watching so don’t screw this up Minnesota Twins front office!
UPDATE – It turns out that the Twins did not screw things up here and came to a fair understanding with Phil Hughes. The team offered Phil Hughes the opportunity to pitch in relief this coming week-end in Detroit so that he could meet the 210 inning limit to collect a $500K bonus and Hughes decided to pass on the offer. I also read in the Star Tribune that according to the baseball collective bargaining agreement that the Twins can not call it “close enough” and pay Hughes the bonus. Good to see there are no hard feeling on either side.
The Angels won their season series against the Twins, seven-games-to-none. The Halos have swept only one other season series of seven or more games in their history (seven games versus the Royals in 2004) but it’s the fourth time that the Twins have been swept in a season series of at least seven games (12 games versus the Rangers in 1999, seven games against the Yankees in both 2003 and 2009).
Sixty years ago today, in 1954 the Washington Senators played a black ballplayer for the first time. His name was Carlos Paula and he was from Havana, Cuba. The 26 year-old Paula started in left field for the Senators seven years after Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut. Paula went 2 for 5 with a double and knocked in 2 runs in a 8-1 win in game 1 of a DH against the Philadelphia A’s. The Senators lost game 2 by a 3-2 score at Griffith Stadium. Only the Yankees in 1955, the Phillies in 1957, the Tigers in 1958 and the Red Sox in 1959 broke the color-line later than did the Senators/Twins franchise. Paula died on April 25, 1983 in Miami, Florida.
In yesterday’s Minnesota Twins 6-5 loss to the New York Yankees at Target Field Yankee second baseman Brian Roberts went four for five with four extra base (three doubles and a triple) hits.
You don’t see that too often so it was time for me to see how often this feat has been done by a Twins player in a 9 inning game. Come to find out it has been done only six times by the Twins and the only player to do it twice was the late great Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.
The most XBH in a regulation nine inning game since 1961 stands at five. The players that accomplished this were Josh Hamilton (TEX) with four HR and a 2B in 2012, Shawn Green (LAD) with four HR and a 2B in 2002, Steve Garvey (LAD) with three 2B and 2 HR in 1977 and Willie Stargell (PIT) with three 2B and 2 HR in 1970. Catcher Kelly Shoppach (CLE) also had three doubles and a 2 HR in 2008 but it was in a 13 extra-inning game. As far as I can tell, no player has ever had more than five XBH in a game going back to 1914.
Zelous Wheeler, called up from the minors by the Yankees on Thursday when slumping Yangervis Solarte was sent down, made a big splash in his major-league debut when he hit a home run in the fifth inning against the Twins’ Phil Hughes. Wheeler is the eighth player to hit a home run for the Yankees is his first major-league game and the first since Marcus Thames in 2002. The most notable player to homer for the Yankees in his big-league debut is Yogi Berra, who did so against the Philadelphia A’s in the first game of a doubleheader in the Bronx on Sept. 22, 1946.
So how many Minnesota Twins players have hit a home run in their first game?
Ricky Nolasco, after 222 previous major-league starts, finally got to pitch against the Yankees for the first time in his career, the most starts among active pitchers who had never played a game against the Yankees. And it was worth the wait. While Nolasco allowed seven hits, four walks and two stolen bases over six innings, the Bombers scored just one run, and Nolasco earned credit for the Twins’ 6-1 victory.
Oswaldo Arcia
Minnesota right fielder Oswaldo Arcia homered and threw out two Yankees runners at the plate as they tried to score on singles. It’s been nearly 25 years since a Twins outfielder hit a homer and threw out two runners at the plate in the same game; that last to do that was Dan Gladden in a 9-4 victory at Toronto on Sept. 3, 1989.
The Twins are 9-4 against AL East opponents in 2014, winning five of their last six and seven of their last nine. In those last six, the Twins have averaged 5.5 runs-per-game (33 runs) and averaged 11.2 hits-per-game while pitchers have posted a 3.11 ERA (55.0 IP, 19 ER). The Twins averaged just 11.5 wins against that division from 2010-13, posting a .324 winning percentage (46-96) in that span.
The Twins are 7-6 in their last 13 games in New York, dating back to May 16, 2010. The Twins have out-scored the Yankees 63-52 in that span. In the last nine games in Yankee Stadium, the Twins are hitting .276 (92-for-333) with 24 doubles, 14 home runs and 46 runs scored. The Twins current three-game winning streak in New York is their longest since May 2 – July 6, 1992 (also 3). Their last four-game winning streak in the Big Apple was June 6-August 9-11, 1968. (Source – Twins Notes)
