Tag: Oswaldo Arcia

Glimpse of the future?

Oswaldo Arcia
Oswaldo Arcia

With Twins outfielder Wilkin Ramirez out on paternity leave for  several days the ballclub needed to make a move and the move they made was to bring up one of their top prospects, outfielder Oswaldo Arcia. Arcia  played in New Britain last season and has just 9 games of AAA experience under his belt but so far he is pounding AAA pitching to the tune of a .414 batting average in 34 plate appearances with 8 runs scored, 3 home runs and 8 RBI’s. Hopefully the Twins did not bring Arcia up to warm the bench for a couple of days so I think it will be fun to watch this young man get his first shot at the big leagues. Arcia is more of a corner outfielder but he has played centerfield in the minors so I would not be shocked if Gardy had him playing in center for at least one game. He can’t play Arcia in center much more than that because you can’t have Hicks sitting on the bench either, they both need to play. I heard Gardy on his Sunday morning radio show state that it might be time to move Hicks out of the leadoff spot and I couldn’t agree more. It is not good to see your lead-off hitter strike out as much as Hicks does but what bothers me about Hicks striking out is that he takes so many called third strikes. At least take a hack at the ball, who knows, you might hit it. It is easy to be down on Hicks now with him hitting .047 and leading the league in whiffs and he may have to be sent down for a while to regain his confidence but the man is going to be a solid big league player, just give him a little time.

The poor start by Hicks has taken the spotlight off 2B Brian Dozier to a large degree but Dozier needs to turn it around and turn it around soon. Dozier is playing a decent 2B but hitting .161 will not cut it, particularly when you have young Eduardo Escobar scratching at Gardy’s door for more playing time. I think you are going to start seeing Gardy start to make some changes in his line-up and batting order soon, he can’t afford to sit back and watch this team flail away and say that good pitching stops good hitting, not every pitcher the Twins faced this year is an all-star. It would be nice to see what the Twins might look like playing in some decent weather for a change but if you look at the Twins schedule it might not happen for some time.

Twins Trivia 2013 predictions

crystal ballThe 2013 season is just around the corner so it is time to make my annual predictions on who will finish where and who the 2013 World Series champion will be.

AL East
 
Toronto Blue Jays
Tampa Bay Rays (wild card)
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
 
AL Central
 
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Royals (wild card)
Cleveland Indians
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
 
AL West
 
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland A’s
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
 
NL East
 
Washington Nationals
Atlanta Braves (wild card)
Philadelphia Phillies
New York Mets
Miami Marlins
 
NL Central
 
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates (wild card)
St. Louis Cardinals
Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago Cubs
 
NL West
 
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
San Diego Padres

 

The Detroit Tigers and the Washington Nationals play in the World Series with the Washington Nationals winning it all in 6 games.

 ……………………………………

The Minnesota Twins 2013 season opener at Target Field against the Detroit Tigers is just over a week away so after watching and listening to Twins in spring training and consulting with some of the worlds foremost baseball experts, here is what I see happening in 2013.

Einstein 2013

 

  1. Josh Willingham will be traded and Oswaldo Arcia will be called up to take over a starting outfield position. Arcia will fill the role nicely.
  2. Trevor Plouffe will not be able to hang on to the starting job due to injuries and inconsistent hitting and fielding and third base will be a black hole all season with Jamey Carroll, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Sobolewski all getting a shot to win the job and none of these guys turns out to be the answer. The Twins will make a deal to fill the 3B hole but it will just be a stop-gap as they wait for Miguel Sano to finally fill the hole late in 2014.
  3. Anthony Swarzak and Tyler Robertson will lose their bullpen jobs and will be replaced by PJ Walters and Ryan Pressly.
  4. Jeff Clement will win a roster spot and be the Twins third catcher leaving Drew Butera out in the cold but not for long because the Twins will do him right by trading him to a team that will give him the back-up catching job.
  5. Pedro Florimon and Brian Dozier give the Twins their first decent infield combo in some time playing well in the field and hitting better than expected.
  6. The Twins will open the season with a starting staff of Vance Worley, Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Cole De Vries, with Scott Diamond joining the staff in early April. Kyle Gibson will be called up by June 1 and will replace….. Mike Pelfrey in the rotation.
  7. Manager Ron Gardenhire not only makes it through the season but gets a new two-year deal.
  8. Justin Morneau will be resigned to a multi-year deal before the All-Star game and will continue to call Minnesota home.
  9. Tickets to watch the Twins will be easy to get as attendance at Target Field plummets by about 20% and the Twins will be lucky to hit 2.2 million in attendance with attendance dropping by over a half million.

Happy New Year! Really?

2013-new-yearHappy New Year! The temperature here in Minneapolis got down to a minus 8 degrees early this morning but as the calendar turns to a new month and a new year I know that spring training is not that far away. I wish I could be more optimistic about the upcoming Minnesota Twins 2013 season but I find it very hard to do so with the moves or the lack of moves the club has made so far.

The starting pitching is not much to crow about even after the Twins have traded for starters Vance Worley and signed  free agent starters Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, and Rich Harden. I don’t think Harden will start more than a handful of games and will pitch primarily out of the bullpen when he happens to be healthy, which his history indicates will be rare. I have very little faith in Pelfrey being much of an improvement over what Nick Blackburn has shown us the last few years plus I am not sure he will even be ready when the season opens. I actually like Correia in the back-end of the rotation and he won’t always be pretty to watch but he has shown that he can win some games having won 10 or more games each of the last 4 years pitching for the San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates. Worley is an unknown to me but he could turn into the best pitcher on the staff if he is healthy. I was disappointed to hear that Scott Diamond has under gone clean-up elbow surgery and I was really frustrated that the Twins did not resign Scott Baker.

I expect Justin Morneau who is still only 31 to have a very good year, not a MVP type season but back to the numbers that he is capable of putting up and showing a lot of Twins fans that he belongs in Minnesota. The rest of the infield is shaky at best, I am hoping that Brian Dozier can take over and play second base day in and day out. At third base Trevor Plouffe is not the answer either as he has shown he can neither field the position nor can he hit on a consistent basis although he does have some pop in his bat. Todate Plouffe has a career minor league batting average of .257 and with the Twins he is hitting .231 so there is not too much hope there. At shortstop I know that Pedro Florimon has not shown much with his bat but he has a good glove and I think the Twins can live with his stick if they are going to play Plouffe and Dozier in the same infield. The outfield is interesting with no center fielder and I would be surprised if Joe Benson himself coming off a very forgettable 2012 season is not the Twins center fielder when the season opens. Willingham is dismal in left field but the Twins need his power and will be forced to keep him in the line-up. I sure wish they could have traded Willingham coming off his career year but that did not happen. Chris Parmelee will take over right and he is young with a good bat and I think he can become at least an average right fielder. Aaron Hicks and Oswaldo Arcia are hopefully going to be pounding on the outfield door as the season moves along to keep everyone on their toes and that gives me some hope. Doumit is perfect for the DH role although I know that makes Gardy nervous when he has his back-up catcher at DH but realistically, how often will that really be an issue? The Twins might carry a third catcher anyway. You have Joe Mauer catching and your main utility guys are Jamey Carroll, Darin Mastroianni and probably Eduardo Escobar. I am big on experience and when you look at the Twins you don’t see a lot here, only Mauer catching, Morneau at 1B, Willingham in left and Doumit at DH and that usually makes for bad baseball.

I guess that the core of the 2013 Twins is in place and spring training will have a few battles for the open positions but I just find it hard to get really enthused about this bunch of players. To me it seems like the Twins are afraid to pick a side, either go young or get some better experienced players and try to field a competitive team. I feel bad that Ron Gardenhire finds himself in the position he does but life is not always fair and this team could easily end Gardy’s reign as a Twins manager and I think that will be a bad thing for both the team and the fans. There has been speculation that Paul Molitor is waiting in the wings to take over as the Twins new skipper but I for one hope that does not happen. Molitor has no managerial experience and does not seem to be the least bit interested in earning a manager’s job by working his way up the minor league chain but instead appears to send a message that his hall of fame playing career qualifies him to be the Twins next manager. I don’t see Molitor as a great communicator or even a great teacher for that matter. What has Molitor done over the years to qualify for the job? Nothing and I think hiring Molitor to manage the Twins would set this franchise back for years to come.

In spite of their new ballpark and the 2014 All-Star game on the horizon the Twins are dropping like a rock in the eyes of many Minnesota fans with the basketball Timbewolves moving up, the Vikings making the playoffs, and maybe even the NHL players and owners will agree to a new deal soon and the Wild will once again be relevant. There are only so many entertainment dollars to go around and if the Minnesota Twins don’t put a decent product on the field they will be left in the dust. Todays Twins fans are not the Twins fans of the past and will not tolerate the bad play of past Twins teams, they will simply find another place to spend their money and it will not be fun to watch the Twins play to a meager fan base with a lot of empty seats in Target Field. Twins management seems to have forgotten the old business axiom that it is easier to keep your existing customers than it is to get new customers.

Even their August 2012 announced move to the Pohlad owned FM station KTWN 96.3 station in 2013 seems like a slap in the face to Twins fans. Many baseball fans listen to Twins games on the radio and now even that access may be harder to find. In July of 2012 KTWN did not even make the Twins Cities top 20 radio stations with a measly 1.4%  share of the listening public. Both of the previous stations that carried the Twins games since the team moved to Minnesota back in 1961 WCCO from 1961-2007 and KSTP from 2007-2012 had an AM transmitter power rating of 50,ooo watts and while the Twins new home at KTWN is an FM signal, its transmitter power is a paltry 19,000 watts. The WCCO signal was rated to extend about 90 miles, the KSTP signal was rated for 60 miles during the day and 30 miles at night and the Twins new home at KTWN is rated for 20 miles.

KTWN FM signal coverageI know all this sounds depressing but that is the sad and sorry state of the Twins as they prepare for the 2013 season. The team has done nothing that I can see to get the fan base excited about the up-coming baseball season and that disappoints me. I will follow the Twins in 2013 but sadly, many former Twins fans will not. Hard as I try, I don’t see the Twins finishing anywhere except in the AL Central division basement once again this coming season.

Twins announce 2012 minor league annual award winners

The Minnesota Twins have named Oswaldo Arcia their 2012 Sherry Robertson Award winner as the Twins’ Minor League Player of the Year and right-handed pitcher B.J. Hermsen as their 2012 Jim Rantz Award winner as the Twins’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year.

outfielder Oswaldo Arcia

Oswaldo Arcia, 21, began the season at Single-A Ft. Myers and batted .309 (64-for-207) with 16 doubles, three triples, seven home runs, 31 RBI and 22 runs scored in 55 games with the Miracle. He was promoted to Double-A New Britain in mid-June and batted .328 (86-for-262) with 20 doubles, five triples, 10 home runs, 67 RBI and 54 runs scored in 69 games with the Rock Cats. He combined to hit .320 (150-for-469) with 36 doubles, eight triples, 17 home runs and 98 RBI in 124 games this season. The 6-foot, 210-pounder was the Twins Minor League Player of the Month for May, batting .358 (39-for-109) with 10 doubles, four home runs and 18 RBI in 27 games with Ft. Myers. Arcia has played primarily RF but he has played several games in CF.

Arcia, a left-handed hitter who throws tight-handed was signed as a free agent, July 4, 2007 out of Venezuela at the age of 16 by scout Jose Leon. Arcia becomes the 43rd winner of this award. In 2010 Arcia had a breakout season in Elizabethton leading the league in numerous hitting categories and was named to the All-Star team and was named the league player of the year. Arcia played for the World team in the 2012 Futures game and was 1 for 2 with a double after entering the game in the 8th inning.

pitcher BJ Hermsen

B.J. (Brett Joseph) Hermsen, 22, began the season at Single-A Ft. Myers and went 1-0, 0.78 ERA (23.0 IP, 2 ER), allowing 16 hits with five walks and 12 strikeouts in four starts. He was promoted to Double-A New Britain at the end of April and went 11-6, 3.22 ERA (139.2 IP, 50 ER), allowing 145 hits with 25 walks and 75 strikeouts in 22 starts for the Rock Cats. The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder was the Twins Minor League Pitcher of the Month for April, going 1-0, 0.78 ERA (23.0 IP, 2 ER) with five walks and 12 strikeouts. The right-handed Hermsen was drafted by the Twins in the sixth round of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft out of West Delaware High School in Manchester, Iowa. In four minor league seasons Hermsen has pitched 477+ innings and has a 37-24 record with a 3.21 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP. Hermsen becomes the 11th winner of this award.

Both Arcia and Hermsen, along with the Twins other 2012 award winners, will be recognized at the Eighth Annual Diamond Awards dinner, which will be held on Thursday, January 24, 2013 at Target Field.

By the way, if you were not aware, the 2013 World Baseball Classic qualifying rounds are already underway in Jupiter, Florida and Regensburg, Germany and you can keep up with the action and actually watch the games by clicking on the 2013 WBC icon on the right hand side of our home page. Max Kepler and former Twins minor leaguer Toby Gardenhire are playing for the team from Germany former Twins player Rene Tosoni is playing for Canada. I am sure other Twins will be playing for one of the 28 teams in the tournament.