Tag: Scott Erickson

How important are 30 or more starts in a season from each starting pitcher?

The Twins and Terry Ryan have put in a lot of time this off-season to try to round up some pitchers that they can put in the starting rotation so that manager Gardenhire can hopefully call on each of them to start 30-35 games each. That will be no easy task as last season the team leader in pitching starts was Scott Diamond with 27 and he didn’t even join the starting rotation until May 8th.

If you look back through franchise history you will find that the great Hall of Fame pitcher Walter (The Big Train) Johnson pitched for the Wasinhton Senators for 21 seasons from 1907-1927 and he started 666 games, that is an average of 31.71 starts each year for 21 years. He set the the franchise games started in a season record with 42 in 1910. Twins lefty Jim Kaat equalled that mark of 42 starts in the Twins 1965 AL Championship season and followed that up with 41 starts in 1966 making him the only pitcher in franchise history to have back-to-back 40+ starts seasons.

I thought it would be interesting to review the Gardenhire era from 2002 through 2012 to see how many pitchers he has had that have started 30 or more games in a season for the Twins.

2002 – Rick Reed and Kyle Lohse

2003 – Brad Radke, Kyle Lohse, Kenny Rogers, Joe Mays (and Rick Reed chipped in 27 starts)

2004 – Johan Santana, Carlos Silva, Brad Radke, and Kyle Lohse

2005 – Johan Santana and Brad Radke

2006 – Johan Santana and Carlos Silva

2007 – Johan Santana, Carlos Silva, and Boof Bonser

2008 – Nick Blackburn

2009 – Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker

2010 – Carl Pavano and Francisco Liriano

2011 – Carl Pavano

2012 – None, Scott Diamond led the pack with 27

In this 11 year time frame the Twins have had 12 different pitchers provide 30 or more starts in a single season and only three of them were actually drafted by the Twins, the rest were acquired in another manner. Radke was an 8th round pick in 1991, Blackburn was a 29th round pick in 2001, and Scott Baker was a 2nd round pick in 2003.

Chart showing numbers of pitchers with 30 or more starts

(Central Division champs marked with an *)
YEAR Twins Tigers Indians WSox Royals Totals
2002 2* 2 1 3 2 10
2003 4* 2 1 4 1 12
2004 4* 4 3 2 1 14
2005 2 3 5 4* 2 16
2006 2* 4 3 5 0 14
2007 3 2 3* 4 1 13
2008 1 2 1 4* 3 11
2009 2* 3 0 3 1 9
2010 2* 2 1 3 2 10
2011 1 4* 2 2 2 11
2012 0 3* 2 1 2 8
Totals 23 31 22 35 17 128

How big a deal is it to get 30 or more starts out of your starting pitchers? I will let you be the judge of that but the chart seems to indicate that the numbers of pitchers you have starting on a consistent basis will determine where you finish in the standings. The Twins seem to buck the trend a bit as they are the only team to win the Central Division title with fewer than 3 starters taking the mound 30 or more times and they did it 3 times with just 2 starters taking the mound 30 or more times.

LHP Jim Kaat
LHP Jim Kaat

All this research made me curious as to who the Twins pitchers were over the years with the most starts in a Minnesota Twins uniform and here is what I dug up. There have only been 14 Twins pitchers that have toed the pitching rubber in the first inning in a Twins uniform 150 or more times. Some of these pitchers may have started a number of games in different uniforms including the Washington Senators prior to becoming the Twins but I am only looking for starts while wearing “Minnesota” on their chest. Of these 14 pitchers, only six (Blyleven, Viola, Goltz, Baker, Erickson, and Boswell) were actually drafted by the Minnesota Twins. The only pitcher on the list to spend his entire career as a Minnesota Twin? Brad Radke.

Pitcher # of starts Years Pitched Avg. # of starts per season
1. Jim Kaat 422 1961-1973 32.46
2. Brad Radke 377 1995-2006 31.42
3. Bert Blyleven 345 1970-1976 & 1985-1988 31.36
4. Frank Viola 259 1982-1989 32.38
5. Jim Perry 249 1963-1972 24.90
6. Dave Goltz 215 1972-1979 26.88
7. Kevin Tapani 180 1989-1995 25.71
8. Camilo Pascual 179 1961-1966 29.83
9. Johan Santana 175 2000-2007 21.88
10. Eric Milton 165 1998-2003 27.50
11. Scot Baker 159 2005-2011 22.71
12. Scott Erickson 153 1990-1995 25.50
13. Kyle Lohse 152 2001-2006 25.33
14. Dave Boswell 150 1964-1970 21.43

According to Elias

The Twins blanked the Boston Red Sox, 5-0 last night while holding Boston to only two hits. It was only the second time in the last 75 seasons that the Twins/Senators franchise shut out the Red Sox at Fenway Park and allowed two or fewer hits. The other instance was on July 24, 1992, when Scott Erickson threw a one-hitter in a head-to-head matchup against Roger Clemens in a first game of a doubleheader. The Twins won the first game 5-0 but lost the second game by a 5-4 score.  Source: Elias

A chat with former catcher Matt Walbeck

 

catcher Matt Walbeck (courtesy of the Minnesota Twins)

Matthew Lovick Walbeck was born on October 2, 1969 in Sacramento, California and grew up playing a variety of sports but baseball was his passion. Walbeck was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 8th round of the 1987 amateur free agent draft out of Sacramento High School as a catcher and signed his first pro contract just a few days later fulfilling a lifetime dream to play professional baseball. Matt worked his way up the Cubs minor league ladder playing and ended up making the Cubs big league club out of spring training in 1993 as the teams 3rd catcher. Walbeck stayed with the Cubs for about a month before being sent down to AAA Iowa where he spent most of 1993 before being called up to the big club again in September.

In November of 1993 Walbeck was traded by the Cubs to the Minnesota Twins along with pitcher Dave Stevens for the Twins 1987 first round pick (3rd overall) pitcher Willie Banks. Walbeck was the Twins primary catcher in the Twins strike shortened 1994 season but the highlight of Matt’s big league career occurred on April 27th at the Metrodome when Matt caught Scott Erickson’s no-hitter, a 6-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. In 1995 Walbeck played in a career high of 115 games and hit for a .257 average. In spring training of 1996 Matt had a sore wrist and a couple of days before the season started, Walbeck was diagnosed with a broken Hamate bone and had to undergo surgery. The recovery from the surgery was slower than expected and Walbeck did not play his first game in 1996 until June 18th. Former Oakland A’s catcher and Minnesota native Terry Steinbach signed with the Twins as a free agent in December of 1996 and just a few days later Walbeck was traded to the Detroit Tigers for minor league pitcher Brian Stentz. Stentz as it turned out never appeared in a big league ball game. Walbeck ended his Twins career having played in Minnesota for 3 years. During his time in Minnesota, Walbeck better known for his catching skills then his bat, caught in 275 games and had 1,008 plate appearances in which he hit 8 home runs, knocked in 103, stole 7 bases and posted a .230 batting average.

Walbeck played for the Detroit Tigers in 1997 before being traded to the Anaheim Angels where he played from 1998-2000. Walbeck then played in the minors for the Reds and the Phillies getting only one big league at bat with the Phillies in 2001 before finishing his career in Detroit in 2002-2003 at the age of 33 and 11 years of big league baseball.

Immediately after ending his playing career, Matt move into a manager role in the Tigers system in 2004 and managed their A ball team to two championships between 2004 and 2006. Walbeck then moved up to manage in AA ball where he again took the team to the playoffs and was rewarded by getting the 3rd base coaching job for the Texas Rangers and manager Ron Washington in 2008. Walbeck was let go after one season and returned to managing in the Pirates system in 2009 and by 2010 he had led his team to yet another championship season and was named manager of the year in the Eastern League but was let go by the Pirates. In 2011 Walbeck took over as manager for the A ball Rome Braves in the Atlanta organization but the team played poorly and Walbeck was fired mid season for philosophical differences.

Matt Walbeck today

Since then, Matt has started the Walbeck Baseball Academy in Sacramento, California where he gets to work with youngsters and their parents teaching some life skills and baseball while spending time at home with his wife and 3 children. I think that Matt is enjoying his life at home right now but who knows what the future may hold for this former catcher and proven minor league winning manager if another big league opportunity should present itself. In his free time, Matt enjoys coaching his son’s baseball team, exercising and doing some fly fishing.

Want to know how and why Matt became a switch-hitter? You can listen to Matt tell you by clicking here. Be sure to check out our other interviews with former Twins players by going to the Interview Archives page, there are 36 different interviews you can check out.

Do you know your Twins pitching history?

baseball pitcher

January 22, 2011 – The 2006 Twins pitching staff holds the team record for strikeouts in a single season with 1,164. Johan Santana led the staff with 245 KO’s. On the other hand, the 1994 Twins pitching staff only struck out 602 opponents and the only pitcher on the Twins staff with over 100 KO’s was Scott Erickson and he had 104. The 1981 Twins pitchers only had 500 strikeouts but then again they only played 109 games that season.

The 2005 Twins pitching staff only walked 348 batters while the Twins 1982 staff allowed 634 batters to get a free base.

The 1996 pitching staff allowed 233 home runs led by Brad Radke’s 40 round trippers. The 1976 staff kept the ball in the ball park the best by only allowing 89 home runs. The 1981 team only allowed 79 home runs but as stated earlier, they only played 109 games that season.

The 1963 and 1967 Twins staffs tied for the most complete games in a single season with 58 and the team with the fewest complete games was the 2006 Twins who ended up with one complete game all season. Who was it you ask? Johan Santana lost 2-0 in Detroit that day so it was only an 8 inning complete game.

The 1972 Twins finished with a 77-77 record but the pitching staff put up an all-time team best seasonal ERA of 2.84. The 1995 team finished with a 56-88 record and posted an ERA of 5.76 and gave up an average of 6.17 runs per game.

In the Minnesota Twins first 50 years they have only had a 20 game winner on 15 occasions and only once have they had more than one pitcher on their staff win 20 or more games in the same season. Camilo Pascual did it in 1962 and 1963, Jim Grant in 1965, Jim Kaat in 1966, Dean Chance in 1967, Dave Boswell and Jim Perry in 1969, Jim Perry again in 1970, Bert Blyleven in 1973, Dave Goltz in 1977, Jerry Koosman in 1979, Frank Viola in 1988, Scott Erickson in 1991, Brad Radke in 1997, and Johan Santana in 2004.

Did you know?

November 26, 2010 – That in the 1989 Amateur draft the Minnesota Twins drafted two AL Rookie of Year winners in Chuck Knoblauch (first round) and Marty Cordova (tenth round) as well as two 20-game winners in Denny Neagle, albeit not with Minnesota (third round) and Scott Erickson (fourth round). And then, in round 52 they drafted Denny Hocking as a catcher and he went on to become one of the lowest-drafted players to ever reach the majors. Hocking had a 13 year big league career and was a Minnesota Twin between 1993-2003. In 1997 Hocking played games at 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, RF, CF, LF and DH. Though he was drafted as a catcher, Denny never donned the “tools of ignorance” in a big league game.

 

Keep’em Dancing

Jim Kaat

To be a good pitcher they say, you need to keep the hitters off-balance and you can’t let the hitters get comfortable at the plate. If you look at the Twins pitching history, you will see that some of the Twins top pitchers were not afraid to plunk a hitter now and then. I can’t tell you for sure if these pitchers threw at batters on purpose or if they just felt that they owned the plate and they were not afraid to pitch inside, but either way, the pitchers on this list hit their share of batters and a number of these pitchers pitched in the days when they themselves had to step up to the plate to hit. Jim Kaat hit the most batters when he pitched for the Twins, hitting 89 batters (plus 7 more as a Washington Senator before he became a Minnesota Twin) but he also pitched just under 3,000 innings and he averaged a hit batter once every 33.25 innings. Mike Smithson, who certainly was not afraid to pitch inside hit 46 batters in his time with the Twins and he did this in just 816 innings so he hit a batter every 17.74 innings, far and away the most hit batters per innings pitched. Let’s take a look at the Twins top ten.

  Name Batters hit Innings Innings per hit batter
1 Jim Kaat 89 2,959 33.25
2 Bert Blyleven 80 2,566 32.08
3 Brad Radke 62 2,451 39.53
4 Jim Perry 50 1,883 37.66
5 Mike Smithson 46 816 17.74
6 Kyle Lohse 44 908 20.64
7 Scott Erickson 42 979 23.31
8 Dave Boswell 34 1,036 30.47
9 Frank Viola 29 1,772 61.10
10 Johan Santana 27 1,308 48.44

Now let’s take a look at the Twins current starters and see how they compare.

  Name Batters hit Innings Innings per hit batter
1 Scott Baker 25 915 36.60
2 Francisco Liriano 20 617 30.85
3 Nick Blackburn 17 668 39.29
4 Carl Pavano 12 397 33.08
5 Brian Duensing 6 289 48.17