Tag: Phil Hughes

21st Century Twins pitching starts

Kyle Gibson in 2018 (credit Patrick Gorski)

The 21st century started on 1/1/2001 so the first quarter century has passed at the end of 2025. So lets take a look at what Minnesota Twins starters have started the most games for the Twins in that time period. I’m not going to look at their wins or losses, just how many times they have been able to take the bump to start the game. I will also try identify which pitchers were drafted by the Twins and which were not.

It turns out the leader of the pack is Kyle Gibson who pitched for the Twins between 2013-2019 and had a record of 67-68 with 845 strikeouts in 1,087 innings with a 4.33 ERA. A Twins 1st round pick (22nd overall) in 2009 and debuted on 6/29/2013.

D means he was drafted by the Twins and the number after it indicated the round. Trade means he was acquired in a trade, FA means signs as a free agent, Rule 5 means the Twins drafted him in a Rule 5 draft, and amateur FA means Twins signed him as an amateur free agent.

Keep in mind that some pitchers career’s started in the previous century so their number may look a bit strange.

RkPlayerFromToCountInd. Games Link
1 (D-1)Kyle Gibson20132019188Games List
2 (D-8)Brad Radke20012006180Games List
3 (Trade)Johan Santana20012007170Games List
4 (D-2)Scott Baker20052011159Games List
5 (Trade)Kyle Lohse20012006152Games List
6 (D-29)Nick Blackburn20082012137Games List
7 (D-1)José Berríos20162021135Games List
8 (Trade)Francisco Liriano20052012130Games List
9 (Trade)Carlos Silva20042007124Games List
10 (D-12)Bailey Ober20212025115Games List
11 (Trade)Joe Ryan20212025114Games List
12 (Trade)Joe Mays2001200598Games List
13 (D-2)Kevin Slowey2007201190Games List
14 (Trade)Carl Pavano2009201288Games List
15 (Trade)Ervin Santana2015201885Games List
16 (Trade)Phil Hughes2014201879Games List
17 (Trade)Pablo López2023202578Games List
18 (Trade)Eric Milton2001200366Games List
19 (Trade)Jake Odorizzi2018202066Games List
20 (Trade)Rick Reed2001200365Games List
21 (Trade)Mike Pelfrey2013201564Games List
22 (D-3)Brian Duensing2009201261Games List
23 (Trade)Boof Bonser2006200860Games List
24 (Rule 5)Scott Diamond2011201358Games List
25 (FA)Ricky Nolasco2014201656Games List
26 (Trade)Sonny Gray2022202356Games List
27 (FA)Kevin Correia2013201454Games List
28 (FA)Michael Pineda2019202152Games List
29 (Trade)Kenta Maeda2020202352Games List
30 (Trade)Simeon Woods Richardson2022202551Games List
31 (D-1)Glen Perkins2008201044Games List
32 (Trade)Chris Paddack2022202543Games List
33 (FA)Sam Deduno2012201441Games List
34 (Trade)Tommy Milone2014201640Games List
35 (D-5)Tyler Duffey2015201837Games List
36 (D-2)Anthony Swarzak2009201432Games List
37 (FA)Kenny Rogers2003200331Games List
38 (FA)Martín Pérez2019201929Games List
39 (FA)Dylan Bundy2022202229Games List
40 (amateur FA)Liam Hendriks2011201328Games List
41 (Trade)Trevor May2014201826Games List
42 (Trade)Adalberto Mejía2017201825Games List
43 (Trade)Héctor Santiago2016201725Games List
44 (FA)Chris Archer2022202225Games List
45 (D-8)Zebby Matthews2024202525Games List

Provided by Stathead: Found with Stathead. See Full Results.
Generated 7/25/2026.

Twins best players in Target Field era

Target Field has been open since been open since 2010 and the Minnesota Twins have played 13 seasons of baseball there and complied a .475 won/lost percentage since they started call TF as their home. The team has lost 100 more games than it has won in the Target Field era and made the playoffs four times although they were always eliminated in the first round.

I just wanted to take a look at the Twins best players over the 13 years and give you a chance to reflect on some of your memories from those players both good and bad. To do this I am using the WAR numbers from Baseball-Reference and I am looking for the best position player and best pitcher from each particular season.

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Best Twins players by position from 2010-2019

Joe Mauer

When the Minnesota Twins take on the Oakland A’s on March 26 in the 2020 season opener it will be the beginning of a new decade, their third this century. From 2000-2009 the Twins posted a record 863-758 for a winning percentage of .532 as they played out their final years in-doors at the HHH Metrodome.

In the current decade from 2010-2019 the Twins have played outdoors in their new digs at Target Field but their play has not matched their new outdoor surroundings as they have played at a winning percentage of .472 as they won 765 games and lost 855.

In spite of the Twins mediocre play in a decade in which they managed just four winning seasons they still averaged 2,438,495 fans per year but most of that can probably be attributed to the new ballpark they opened in 2010. So who were the best Twins players that fans got to see over the last ten seasons? Let’s take a look at who I have as the best player at each position with a strong assist from the WAR numbers from https://www.baseball-reference.com/ .

Continue reading Best Twins players by position from 2010-2019

2018 Twins Turkey of the Year is:

The 2018 baseball season is in the books, free agents everywhere are sitting back and waiting for the offers to pour in, a number of teams (including our Twins) have hired new managers. The temperature is 31 degrees outside and there is a slight coating of snow on the ground here in Plymouth so we know it is time to start sorting our candidates for the 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year.

The Twins finished in second place again this season behind the Cleveland  Indians. This past season the Twins were 78-84 as compared to 85-77 in 2017 and this year they were just 13 games back as compared to 17 games behind the year previous. Yet the 2018 Twins were looked on as failures as compared to the 2017 team that was a Wild Card participant albeit for just the one game against the New York Yankees. Manager Paul Molitor was the American League Manager of the Year in 2017 and after the 2018 season ended he found himself unemployed along with most of his coaching staff after signing a new three-year contract just a year earlier. Twins fans were unhappy and attendance dropped to its lowest point since 2004 at the Metrodome. Meanwhile the Twins Front Office added to staff and continued the “new ways of fielding a winning team” such as increasing the number of shifts, playing four outfielders here and there and jumping on the new “opener” strategy employed by teams such as Tampa Bay and Oakland.  

Continue reading 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year is:

The 2017 Twins Turkey of the Year

It was a good year for the Minnesota Twins, an amazing 26 game improvement from their 103 loss season in 2016 and they even made an abbreviated one game trek to the playoffs, their first taste of postseason action since 2010. The much improved play of the players on the field made the team fun to watch again and the attendance increased from the previous season for the first time since the team started calling Target Field home in 2010.

All those good things happening over in Twins Territory makes it difficult to come up with a Twins Turkey of the Year but the job must get done. Just as sure as there is snow and cold in Minnesota we need to have a Twins Turkey of the Year.

The number of possible candidates for the 2017 award are few, sure we have some of the usual suspects like starter Kyle Gibson who first debuted as a Twin back in 2013 but found himself pitching in AAA Rochester after a horrible start. He finished the season with a 12-10 record but his 5.07 ERA for the second year in a row is more than disappointing.

Pitcher Phil Hughes earned $13.2 million this year and pitched less than 54 innings and had a 6.37 ERA. However; Hughes spent most of his time on the DL in 2017 visiting that list twice for a total of 105 days.

Pitcher Glen Perkins spent 117 days on the Twins DL in 2017 while recovering from shoulder surgery back in 2016. Perkins has pitched 7.2 innings in two years and banked $12.8 million.

Utility player Danny Santana appeared in just 13 games and hit .200 before the Twins traded him to the Atlanta Braves for a minor league pitcher named Kevin Chapman. Santana has appeared in 69 games and hit .203 for the Braves. 

When I have to list Danny Santana on my Twins Turkey of the Year candidate list I am really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Heck, even Joe Mauer bounced back in 2017 and had a decent year at the plate, certainly not a $23 million a year player but what is done is done. One of my favorite TTOY candidates the last few years, hitting coach Tom Brunansky was fired after 2016.

So you can see it has been a lean year for turkeys in Twins territory this season, but, since the role has to be filled I have selected not one but two Twins organization members for the award this year, for the first time ever we have a two-headed Twins Turkey of the year. 

Both of these gentlemen have been on the job for just over one year and their team made the playoffs in their first season at the helm after the team had finished with 103 losses in 2016, the worst record in baseball. It seems like we should be giving them Executive of the Year awards and not the TTOY award. Yes, they did sign Jason Castro, Chris Gimenez, Bartolo Colon (seems strange to put him on the plus side of the ledger), but they also signed a bunch of pitching stiffs and thought they could construct a bullpen while bottom-feeding. 

With the Twins in need of starting help these two guys went out on July 24 and they made a deal with Atlanta and acquired Jaime Garcia and Anthony Recker for Huascar Ynoa. Garcia started and beat the Oakland A’s on July 28 and Twins fans were delighted, that is until these two guys turned around and flipped the 31 year-old Jaime Garcia to the Yankees for pitchers Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns just two days later. Then on July 31 they traded their closer Brandon Kintzler to the Washington Nationals for pitcher Tyler Watson and cash. 

On July 31 the Twins had a 50-53 record and seven teams in the AL had better records than the Twins did. It was obvious that the Twins organization felt that the Twins had run out of steam so they started trading off pieces in hopes of landing some young pitching prospects. But who was to know that the Twins would go 35-20 during the rest of the season and score 346 runs in that stretch, more than any team in MLB while out-scoring their opposition by almost 100 runs. Only the Indians had a better record (45-13) and they had that crazy 22 game winning streak from mid-August to mid-September. When the season ended the Twins were one of the AL wild card playoff participants, who would have guessed that would happen? 

No one in their right mind, right? After all, no MLB team has ever lost 103 one season and taken part in post-season action the next. I didn’t see it coming, but I am not making a ton of money leading the Twins baseball operation either. These guys are supposed to be experts in their field and yet at the end of July they raised the white flag and not only didn’t improve the team for the stretch run but they made it weaker by trading Jaime Garcia and Brandon Kintzler. The way I see it, these two committed the cardinal sin, they gave up on their team. 

That is why the winners of the Twins Trivia 2017 Turkey of the Year award are Twins Head of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey and General Manager Thad Levine. I wish I had a picture of these two sitting in the backyard with their wine glasses in their hand pondering “what just happened?” Let’s hope that Falvey and Levine show their worth this off-season, maybe they are just slow starters. 

Previous Twins Turkey of Year award winners

2016 – The entire 2016 Minnesota Twins team

2015 – Pitcher Ricky Nolasco

2014 – Outfielder Aaron Hicks

2013 – President Dave St. Peter

2012 – Owner Jim Pohlad

2011 – Catcher Joe Mauer

2010 – 3B Brendan Harris

2009 – Pitcher Glen Perkins

 

Should Phil Hughes be part of the Twins pitching staff in 2018?

Phil Hughes delivers to the Chicago White Sox Sunday, June 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

Phil Hughes will start his fifth year in Minnesota in 2018 and he makes about $13.2 million a season, the third highest on the team as it stands today behind Joe Mauer and his $23 million deal and Ervin Santana and his $13.5 million contract. The Twins signed Hughes as a free agent starter in December 2013 and then gave him an extension through 2019 after a very good 2014 season. 

After his extension, Hughes went on to have a mediocre 2015 season and then had physical ailments in 2016-2017 that limited him to just 26 starts and ERA’s of 5.95 and 5.87. The last two season have seen him pitch just 112.2 combined innings while giving up 148  hits and 23 home runs. Hughes had two trips to the Disabled List this past season for 104 days and in 2015 his trip to the DL cost him 100 days. Even back in 2014 he visited the DL once for 32 days. 

So the Twins are on the hook for the next two seasons for $26+ million, not exactly a lot of money for a good starter but Hughes has not proven to be a reliable starter by any means. As the old hunter that coached the Minnesota Vikings once said, ability is great but without durability, it is wasted.

There are a lot of teams out there looking for pitching and his salary is not prohibitive so I would try to trade Phil Hughes in a deal where both teams take a calculated risk while trading pitchers that have under performed for what ever reason. After the 2018 season Hughes becomes a 10/5 guy and that limits team options and puts Hughes in the driver’s seat.

Failing to find a new home for Phil Hughes I would make him a reliever, a task that is not entirely new to Hughes and one that he had done OK in over the years but his trip to the pen in 2017 was not one of his better ones. If the Twins don’t land a closer in some other fashion I would even throw his hat in that ring even though Hughes gives up a lot of hits.

If the Twins can’t trade Hughes and the bullpen role doesn’t work out, then I would trade him for whatever I can get at the 2018 trading deadline, why pay him another $13 million in 2019? Phil Hughes has done basically nothing for the Twins in 2016 or 2017 and if his performance in 2018 is substandard then he should be jettisoned because the Twins won’t miss someone who has not contributed in the last few years. The Minnesota Twins have moved their play to another level, one that does not afford them the luxury of carrying dead weight and anything they get from Phil Hughes or for Phil Hughes is just gravy.

According to ELIAS – Ervin Santana & Jorge Polanco

Santana and Polanco deliver the goods

Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana earned his 14th win of the season and teammate Jorge Polanco homered from each side of the plate in the Twins’ 6-4 triumph over the White Sox. Santana has a 14-win season with three different teams (three such seasons with the Angels, one with the Braves, and now one with the Twins). Two other active pitchers have had at least one season of 14-or-more wins with three different teams: Bartolo Colon (five different teams) and Zack Greinke (four teams). The last pitcher to win at least 14 games for the Twins was Phil Hughes who won 16 games in 2014.

Jorge Polanco

Polanco is the third player to homer from each side of the plate as a shortstop in a game this season, joining Francisco Lindor (April 5) and Freddy Galvis (June 4). Polanco joins a select group of Minnesota Twins (Roy Smalley, Chili Davis, Ryan Doumit, and Kennys Vargas) to hit a home run from each side of the plate in a single game.

According to ELIAS – Ervin Santana

Two-hit shutout for Santana

Ervin Santana

Ervin Santana threw a two-hit shutout for the Twins against the Orioles last night, improving to 7-2 with a 1.80 ERA in ten starts this season. Since the franchise moved to Minnesota in 1961, only two Twins pitchers had an ERA that low through their first ten starts of a season: Francisco Liriano was 9-1 with a 1.36 ERA in his first ten starts in 2006 and Scott Erickson was 7-2 with a 1.63 ERA in his first ten starts in 1991.

Santana also improved to 4-0 in four road starts this season. His teammate Phil Hughes has also won his first four road starts this year. It’s just the third time in Twins franchise history that two pitchers each won their first four road starts of a season. It happened in 1913 with Walter Johnson (won first five road starts) and Joe Boehling (four), and in 1979 with Jerry Koosman (five) and Geoff Zahn (five).

According to ELIAS

Twins peak of AL Central

Phil Hughes

Phil Hughes stifled the White Sox over six innings to keep the Twins undefeated and atop the AL Central standings. Minnesota, who improved to 4–0 on Friday, finished last season with the worst record in baseball at 59–103. The 2017 Twins are the sixth team in major-league history to open a season with a four-game winning streak after losing 100 or more games in the previous season. The other five squads to do so were the 1899 Cardinals, who started 7–0 after a season with 111 losses, 1906 Braves (4–0 after 103 losses), 1952 Browns (4–0 after 102 losses), 2003 Royals (9–0 after 100 losses), and 2004 Tigers (4–0 after 119 losses).

Minnesota partying like it’s 1987

After adding three more scoreless innings on Friday, the Twins bullpen has been unscored upon in their first 13 innings of the 2017 season. That’s Minnesota’s longest streak to start a season without allowing a run in relief since 1987 – the Twins began that season with 13? scoreless innings from their bullpen. That 1987 season, which culminated in a World Series title for Minnesota, was also the last time the Twins started a season 4–0 before this year.

How many starters does a MLB team really use?

Twins beat-writer Phil Miller wrote in past Sunday’s edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the Minnesota Twins could have as many as 12 different pitchers fighting for the five spots in the Twins 2017 starting rotation. Keep that number 12 in the back of your mind as you read this. Here are the pitchers Miller listed as possible starters in 2017.

TWINS STARTING ROTATION CANDIDATES

Ervin Santana (R), 34: 7-11 last season, but his 3.38 ERA was 10th-best in the American League.

Phil Hughes (R), 30: Missed most of last season because of thoracic outlet syndrome. Gave up league-high 29 home runs in 2015.

Kyle Gibson (R), 29: Fourth year in rotation (98 starts), but ERA rocketed to 5.07 in 2016.

Hector Santiago (L), 29: Acquired from Angels last season. Another starter who gives up lots of home runs.

Jose Berrios (R), 22: Team’s top young pitching prospect has been bombed in majors (8.02 ERA).

Tyler Duffey (R), 26: In 26 starts last season his 6.43 ERA was worst among pitchers with more than 130 innings.

Trevor May (R), 27: Back injury hampered him last season, when he was a reliever. He wants to start.

Adalberto Mejia (R), 23: Picked up from Giants in Eduardo Nunez trade last season. In 566 minor league innings he has 487 K’s.

Nick Tepesch (R), 28: Had 39 starts for Texas in 2013-14. He missed 2015 because of shoulder issues; he’s on a minor league deal.

Ryan Vogelsong (R), 39: Grizzled veteran has 179 starts in 12 seasons; 3-7, 4.81 ERA for Giants last year.

Justin Haley (R), 25: Proven starter in Class AAA was picked up in the Rule 5 draft, meaning he’s likely to make the team.

Stephen Gonsalves (L), 22: Twins minor league pitcher of the year in 2016; was dominant at Class AA Chattanooga.

It would be nice to have quality over quantity but one has to play with the cards they are dealt or the starters they might have. In 2016 the American League teams used 157 different starters an average of 10.47 starters per team. The Toronto Blue Jays used only seven starters in 2016 while the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim sent 15 different starters to the mound. The Twins marched out 11 different pitchers to start their games in 2016.

The National League teams used 176 different starters in their quest for wins and that comes out to an average of 11.73 starters. The St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants only required eight starters each while the Atlanta Braves had double that, they needed 16 starters to get through the season. 

The Twins have used as many as 13 different starters in 1962 and 1995 and as few as six starters in 1972 but they only played 154 games that year. If you look at the Twins average number of starters used over the years per season you end up with 9.68 so even though the battle for the starting rotation will take place this spring and there will probably be five winners by Opening Day, there is no assurance they will be starting games at Target Field come September. Starting pitchers will be lost due to injury, performance, trades, and personal reasons so the more pitchers the Twins have ready to start big league games the better. The message to the pitchers who won’t be Twins starters on Opening Day is to hang in there because your turn is coming, be ready.

Continue reading How many starters does a MLB team really use?