Tag: Pat Meares

And he goes down swinging!

Harmon Killebrew

We all know that strikeout rates are up all across baseball for the last few years but today we will look at Minnesota Twins batters and their strikeout rates going back to 1961. We used B-R’s amazing Play Index to find what we were looking for.

The top two all time Twins leader in strikeouts are Harmon Killebrew with 1,314 and Joe Mauer with 1,034. Mauer? What the heck? Longevity can do strange things to numbers and the devil is in the details.

Continue reading And he goes down swinging!

Best players drafted by Minnesota Twins by round

I went through the history of the Minnesota Twins June Amateur draft choices to see who the best players were that the club drafted, signed and the player debuted with Minnesota across his chest. The player may or may not have played his entire career with the Twins but the WAR numbers are for their entire careers. Why are they ranked by WAR you may ask? Simple, I know of no other way to rank them, so right or wrong, I have chosen B-R WAR.

Twenty five of the 61 rounds shown have no players that qualified meaning that no one ever drafted in that round has made it to the majors with Minnesota. So if the Twins draft you in one of those rounds in the future, the odds are very much against you. Unless you have followed the Twins since day one, you might not recognize or remember some of these players.

Continue reading Best players drafted by Minnesota Twins by round

Twins inside-the-park home runs are a rarity

From the time the Twins started play in 1961 through yesterday June 14 (2016) the Minnesota Twins have hit 7,462 home runs, 3,746 have been hit on the road and 3,716 have been hit at home. The Twins hit 1,872 home runs at the Metrodome, 1,424 at Met Stadium and 420 at Target Field. The most home runs the Twins have hit on the road have been at the Angels home park where they have hit 257.

Eduardo Nunez 2016Of the Twins 7,462 round-trippers only 50 of them have been inside-the-park home runs. Inside-the-park home runs are relatively rare so I am a bit surprised that when Eduardo Nunez hit the latest one back on June 2 that no one mentioned that it was number 50 in Minnesota Twins history. How rare are they? Only .0067% of Twins home runs are of the inside-the-park variety. So what Twins have hit IPHR’s? We have put together a complete list here for you with the help of Baseball-Reference.

 

Twins inside-the-park home runs from 1961-June 2, 2016

Date Batter Opp Pitcher Play Description
1961-07-04 (2) Harmon Killebrew CHW Cal McLish Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1962-04-27 Zoilo Versalles @CLE Dick Donovan Home Run
1963-09-22 Jimmie Hall @BOS Bob Heffner Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1963-09-28 Vic Power @NYY Whitey Ford Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1964-07-04 (1) Tony Oliva @NYY Jim Bouton Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1964-08-04 Rich Rollins BOS Bill Monbouquette Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1964-09-04 Tony Oliva BOS Dave Gray Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1965-04-22 Zoilo Versalles @NYY Pedro Ramos Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1965-06-04 Jimmie Hall WSA Howie Koplitz Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1965-06-18 Rich Rollins @NYY Bill Stafford Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1966-06-04 Tony Oliva CLE Tom Kelley Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1967-05-08 Ted Uhlaender WSA Phil Ortega Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1969-05-13 Rod Carew BAL Mike Cuellar Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1971-07-22 Jim Nettles @NYY Fritz Peterson Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1972-10-04 Eric Soderholm CHW Ken Frailing Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1974-06-24 Danny Thompson @TEX David Clyde Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1975-06-17 (1) Dan Ford OAK Vida Blue Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1975-09-07 Steve Brye @CHW Claude Osteen Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1979-05-08 Ken Landreaux TOR Balor Moore Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1979-05-15 John Castino TEX Sparky Lyle Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1980-07-11 Rick Sofield @SEA Glenn Abbott Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1980-08-20 Mike Cubbage TOR Jackson Todd Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1982-05-28 Tom Brunansky NYY Ron Guidry Home Run
1982-07-19 Tom Brunansky MIL Jerry Augustine Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1982-09-10 Gary Ward @KCR Larry Gura Home Run
1982-09-30 Kent Hrbek @TOR Luis Leal Home Run
1983-09-25 Tom Brunansky @KCR Keith Creel Inside-the-park Home Run
1984-06-23 Randy Bush CHW Tom Seaver Home Run
1984-06-24 Tim Teufel CHW Richard Dotson *WALK-OFF*:*ENDED GAME*:Home Run
1984-09-11 Kent Hrbek KCR Charlie Leibrandt Home Run
1985-07-03 Dave Engle CLE Neal Heaton Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1986-07-03 Ron Washington BAL Mike Boddicker Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1986-10-04 Greg Gagne CHW Floyd Bannister Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1986-10-04 Greg Gagne CHW Floyd Bannister Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1987-05-31 (1) Gary Gaetti @DET Jeff Robinson Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1987-09-24 Greg Gagne TEX Charlie Hough Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1988-07-08 Steve Lombardozzi MIL Bill Wegman Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1988-09-28 Steve Lombardozzi OAK Todd Burns Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1990-05-26 Gene Larkin BOS Mike Boddicker Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1991-05-19 Mike Pagliarulo @DET Dan Petry Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
1994-05-17 Shane Mack NYY Jimmy Key Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
1997-04-26 Rich Becker TEX Bobby Witt Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1997-05-25 Pat Meares OAK Ariel Prieto Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1997-08-08 Roberto Kelly NYY Dwight Gooden Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
1999-09-05 Todd Walker @TBD Ryan Rupe Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
2000-07-29 Chad Moeller NYY Ramiro Mendoza Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
2001-07-26 Torii Hunter @OAK Mark Guthrie Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
2007-07-21 Joe Mauer LAA Scot Shields Inside-the-park Home Run to LF
2014-05-20 Kurt Suzuki @SDP Nick Vincent Inside-the-park Home Run to CF
2016-06-02 Eduardo Nunez TBR Matt Moore Inside-the-park Home Run to RF
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 6/14/2016.

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A month to remember for Chris Colabello

Chris Colabello
Chris Colabello

Minnesota Twins 1B and outfielder Chris Colabello had a month to remember in April and now he ranks at the top of the list of some pretty good players that knew how to knock in runs for the Minnesota Twins. Some interesting names on this list of Twins that had 20 or more RBI in the first month of the season.

Rk Player Split Year G RBI PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB BB SO BA OBP OPS
1 Chris Colabello April/March 2014 24 27 102 95 11 28 9 0 3 0 6 26 .295 .343 .827
2 Kirby Puckett April/March 1994 25 26 116 112 14 39 11 0 2 0 2 10 .348 .371 .871
3 Ron Coomer April/March 2000 22 23 92 83 14 22 4 0 5 0 7 9 .265 .326 .820
4 Brant Alyea April/March 1970 17 23 60 53 7 22 4 0 5 1 7 7 .415 .483 1.257
5 Justin Morneau April/March 2008 27 22 110 97 12 26 4 0 6 0 11 16 .268 .345 .840
6 Kent Hrbek April/March 1982 22 22 100 86 18 27 5 2 8 0 13 15 .314 .404 1.102
7 Dave Hollins April/March 1996 25 22 103 82 19 24 4 0 7 1 19 18 .293 .437 1.034
8 Matt Lawton April/March 2000 26 22 118 102 18 38 9 0 3 5 14 12 .373 .449 .998
9 Paul Molitor April/March 1996 25 21 114 101 24 39 7 1 2 5 11 10 .386 .439 .973
10 Pat Meares April/March 1996 24 21 95 84 16 27 4 3 3 3 6 19 .321 .372 .920
11 Doug Mientkiewicz April/March 2001 23 21 87 79 14 30 6 1 6 0 6 14 .380 .425 1.134
12 Harmon Killebrew April/March 1971 21 21 91 81 7 26 6 0 3 2 10 16 .321 .396 .902
13 Torii Hunter April/March 2002 27 20 115 105 23 39 5 0 9 5 8 21 .371 .409 1.085
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/2/2014.

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It will be interesting to see how many RBI Colabello will end up with in 2014. Harmon Killebrew wih 119 and Kirby Puckett with 112 ended up leading the league in RBI’s in the season they had 20 or more RBI’s in April. Dave Hollins on the other hand had 22 RBI in April and finished the season with 53. Strangely enough Dave Hollins, Paul Molitor, and Pat Meares all had 20 or more RBI in April of 1996 and yet the team finished the season at 78-84 with Paul Molitor and Marty Cordova ending up with over 100 RBI.

A nice record to have for Chris Colabello but it is a long season so it will be fun to watch to see if Colabello can maintain his RBI pace or if this past month is just an anomaly.

You can check out a nice article written about Colabello and his history by Dan Cook of WCCO Radio here.