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 went out to the CenturyLink Sports complex yesterday to check out the pitchers and catchers and to see new Twins acquisition Kenta Maeda in his Twins spring training workout debut. I didn’t see anything extraordinary out there but no question there were more Japanese photographers out there then I have seen since Tsuyoshi Nishioka made his grand appearance back in 2011. I am expecting better results from Maeda then we got from Nishioka.
A lot of writers have written that they are surprised by the Minnesota Twins move yesterday to fire Paul Molitor as manager and offer him another position in the organization. To me this seemed obvious and surely would have happened at the end of the 2017 season had the Twins not been handed a wild card spot.
I am not a fan of Paul Molitor the manager but am a fan of Paul Molitor the player, two completely different things. This move was inevitable, you knew it was coming, just like you know the Sun will rise in the East every day. The only question was when and we got our answer yesterday.
No Head of Baseball Operations wants an inherited manager under his watch, his job depends on that manager. Baseball is like any other business, if the people under you fail then you will fail too. Derek Falvey like most everyone else in his position has a large ego and they want to be surrounded by people who agree with their style and their way of thinking. Falvey seems to have a very hands on managing style and working with a Hall of Famer probably made that more difficult and uncomfortable. Having a coaching staff that was split between loyalty to Molitor and himself compounded the problem. If you can solve that problem for a little over $3 million why not jump on it? Falvey can now feel comfortable being in the position knowing that if he fails now, he has only himself to blame.
I think Falvey and the new manager whomever they select will be in a good place with a young team that will bounce back next season and have a legitimate shot at contention in the weak AL Central Division. They desperately need Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton to succeed if they want to get better quicker. Having said that, remember that neither one of these players was brought into the organization by Falvey. He finds himself in a good spot with these two players because he can reap the rewards if they turn out to be the players that they are expected to be and if things don’t turn out well, he can always say I had no part in bringing them in. Life isn’t fair, get used to it.
It is going to be an interesting next few months for Twins fans. From here on in the ball is in Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s court, I can’t wait to see if they are up to the challenge. The Twins have built a huge front-office under the Falvey regime and they have more analysts and bean-counters than they can count but in baseball when all is said and done all that really counts is wins, and you need good players on the field to get wins. It is not a game played on the computer with the team with the best analysts winning.
The Twins also let the following people go:
The Twins had a miserable season in 2011 and many blame the Twins slide into the AL central basement on the number of injuries that the Twins endured. But looking at the numbers, injuries alone do not explain the Twins dismal play. The Twins came out of spring training in excellent health but it didn’t take long before players started dropping. It was like a contagious disease all season long, one injury after another. How do you explain it? No one can I think, just a matter of bad luck, sometimes, maybe it was brought on by not knowing how to play your position properly as in the case of Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Later in the season, after the Twins were beaten down and out of the race it seemed like some players just gave up and found it easier to sit on the bench than to get out on the field. The Joe Mauer mystery still remains unanswered. It appears to me that the Twins have several players that do not want to go to the gate unless they are feeling 100%, hell, no one feels 100% everyday. In the real world there are people going to work day in and day out regardless of how they feel for a whole slew of reasons. These players need to understand that they are letting their teammates, fans, and themselves down when they let a minor injury keep them from taking the field. I felt bad for Gardy because he had to make excuses for these malingerers. I wonder what it will take to get some of these guys to “suck it up” and play some baseball? But you think the 2011 Twins had injury problems, check out some of these sad but apparently true injuries that occurred to the boys of summer in a piece that was published back in September of 1992. You may find some former Twins on the list.
So what is the MLB DL and how does it work? In simple terms it works like this. A player may be placed on either the 15-day or the 60-day disabled list, usually depending on the severity or the expected recovery time of the injury. A player may be shifted from the 15-day to the 60-day DL at any time, but not vice-versa. The player may not rejoin the team until 15 or 60 days has elapsed; however, a player’s time on the DL may exceed the specified number of days. Something the Twins know very well. In addition, if a player is sent to the 60-day DL after August 1, he may not return to the active roster for the rest of that season.
The 15-day DL does not count the player on the active roster (comprising the 25-man roster until September 1), whereas the 60-day DL does not require the player to be counted on either the team’s active roster or its 40-man roster; however, a team’s 40-man roster must be full in order for the option of a placement on the 60-day disabled list to be available.
In 2011 MLB instituted a change to the DL policy where as a new 7 day DL was put in place specifically for concussions and brain damage. MLB also put in place a paternity leave policy this season where a team can replace a player who is an expectant father on the roster for 1-3 days in order for them to attend the birth of their child.
Until the late 1980s, there were 10-day and 21-day disabled lists. The number of players who could be placed on each list was limited, and there was much less flexibility about when they could return to action. Back then, players with major league contracts were not allowed to go to the minor leagues for rehabilitation.
But getting back to the Twins situation, I took a look at the Twins injuries for the last 10 seasons 2002-2011 and here is what I found.
| Year | Record | Finish | DL Moves | DL Days | Out for the season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 94-67 | 1st | 14 | 700 | Duvall (P) |
| 2003 | 90-72 | 1st | 10 | 430 | none |
| 2004 | 92-70 | 1st | 14 | 593 | Mays (P) |
| 2005 | 83-79 | 3rd | 11 | 578 | Kubel (OF), Balfour (P) |
| 2006 | 96-66 | 1st | 10 | 403 | none |
| 2007 | 79-83 | 3rd | 15 | 995* | Liriano (P), Machado (P) |
| 2008 | 88-75 | 2nd | 11 | 487 | none |
| 2009 | 87-76 | 1st | 12 | 551 | Bonser (P), Neshek (P) |
| 2010 | 94-68 | 1st | 18 | 760 | Condrey (P), Nathan (P) |
| 2011 | 63-99 | 5th | 27 | 785 | none |
* = In addition to Liriano and Machado being out for the season, Perkins, Crain, White, and Rabe all spent 95 or more days on the DL
The table above seems to indicate that the Twins usually average between 10-15 DL moves in a season but the last two seasons have seen a jump in the number of DL moves to 18 and 27 respectively.
From a trainers perspective, like the rest of the Twins organization, changes are few and far between. Up until 2011, the Twins had a head trainer, an assistant trainer and a strength and conditioning coach but in 2011 they added a second assistant trainer.
2002 – Jim Kahmann (HT), Rick Mcwane (AT), Randy Popple (SCC) 2003 – Jim Kahmann (HT), Rick Mcwane (AT), Randy Popple (SCC) 2004 – Jim Kahmann (HT), Rick Mcwane (AT), Randy Popple (SCC) 2005 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Randy Popple (SCC) 2006 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Randy Popple (SCC) 2007 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Perry Castellano (SCC) 2008 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Perry Castellano (SCC) 2009 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Perry Castellano (SCC) 2010 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Perry Castellano (SCC) 2011 – Rick Mcwane (HT), Dave Pruemer (AT), Tony Leo (AT), Perry Castellano (SCC)
Popple and Castellano each have served as strength and conditioning coach for 5 years. When Popple was the SCC, the Twins averaged 541 DL days per season, during the last 5 years under Castellano, the Twins have averaged 716 DL days. coincidence? Maybe. Of course you can’t compare apples to apples here because the players change but still, 175 DL days difference.
We all have an opinion on what Twins we think are always hurt and always on the DL but the table below will show you over the last 10 years who has been on the DL most frequently. The table covers the years of 2002 through 2011 and players that have two or fewer DL trips are not listed.
| Player | DL appearances | Season with the Twins |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Punto | 9 | 7 |
| Joe Mauer | 6 | 8 |
| Francisco Liriano | 5 | 7 |
| Kevin Slowey | 5 | 5 |
| Scott Baker | 4 | 7 |
| Alexi Casilla | 4 | 6 |
| Michael Cuddyer | 4 | 11 |
| Justin Morneau | 4 | 9 |
| Glenn Perkins | 4 | 6 |
| Grant Balfour | 3 | 4 |
| Lew Ford | 3 | 5 |
| Torii Hunter | 3 | 11 |
| Corey Koskie | 3 | 7 |
| Jose Mijares | 3 | 4 |
| Pat Neshek | 3 | 5 |
| Luis Rivas | 3 | 6 |
| Shannon Stewart | 3 | 4 |
| Rondell White | 3 | 2 |