Tag: Rick Burleson

Major League Debuts as Minnesota Twins – Blyleven, Havens, & Gagne

A big day for major league debuts as Minnesota Twins, one was drafted and went on to be a hall of famer and two were acquired in trades.

Greg Gagne

Greg Gagne (SS) – June 5, 1983 – Traded by the New York Yankees with Paul Boris and Ron Davis to the Minnesota Twins for Roy Smalley on April 10, 1982. Gagne struck out in his first two at bats before doubling in the sixth and then scoring. Gagne ended up 1 for 4 in a Twins 10-4 win over the Red Sox at the Dome.

Brad Havens

Brad Havens (P) – June 5, 1981 – Traded by the California Angels to the Minnesota Twins in February 1979. In his big league debut Havens faced off against Jack Morris at Tiger Stadium and pitched 6 innings allowing just 2 hits, a single and a home run by Alan Trammell and left the game down 1 to nothing. Unfortunately, Morris pitched a complete game 3-hit shutout and the Twins and Havens lost 2-0 in a 2 hour game.

Bert Blyleven

Bert Blyleven (P) – June 5, 1970 –  Drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 1969 amateur draft and became the 69th player to make his big league debut as a Twins player. As Blyleven has stated on many occasions, he did indeed give up a home run to the first Senators batter he faced in his debut at RFK Stadium and that batter was Lee Maye and that tied the score at one apiece. Blyleven gave up another single in the first but then held Washington to 3 hits the rest of the way and was pulled after seven innings after having allowed the one run on 5 hits and a walk while striking out seven and the future hall of fame right-hander was on his way. The Twins selected OF Paul Powell in round 1 that year and he played 30 big league games, 20 with Minny. In round 2 they selected Ron McDonald a high school 3B but he never got above AA ball. They selected shortstop Rick Burleson in round 7 but couldn’t sign him…The Red Sox did after taking him in the January secondary draft.

To see other Major League Debut’s as Minnesota Twins

The MLB June amateur draft is far from a science

2016 DraftThe 2016 MLB will take place June 9, 2016 in Secacus, New Jersey and the Minnesota Twins will have the 17th selection this year. There are already numerous mock drafts being published but as normal they are all over the board, so what else is new. Here is a list (with pictures) on MLB.com of their proposed top 100 2016 prospects.

Baseball draft are so different from all the other sports in many ways but the two main differences that stand out is that baseball drafts are more international than other sports and if you get drafted in baseball you can look forward to spend a number of years in the minor leagues before you have the experience and necessary skill sets to play in the major leagues. Sure there have been some players that went directly to the major leagues but they are rare and the last player to do so I believe is RHP Mike Leake who was drafted eighth overall in 2010 by the Cincinnati Reds from Arizona State and now pitches for the Cardinals. The last Twins player to be drafted and go straight to a big league mound was LHP Eddie Bane who also was from Arizona State.

The June amateur draft is exciting for the fans but it is serious business for the MLB teams that have spent lots of time and money watching these young prospects as they try to determine who is the best player available when it comes time to make their selection. Mistakes in a draft can and do haunt teams for many years. There are many ways to mess up a draft choice, the player may not turn out to be as good as you thought, you might have bypassed a star player, you might not be able to sign the player, the player and/or his agent may state they don’t want to play for you, and of course an injury may cut his career short. If everything goes your way you have yourself a baseball player but the odds are stacked against you.

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