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
The Minnesota Twins have selected AA-Wichita Wind Surge outfielder BJ Boyd and AAA-St. Paul Saints pitcher Joe Ryan as their minor league players of the week for week 16.
BJ Boyd was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 4th round of the 2012 MLB June Amateur Draft from Palo Alto HS (Palo Alto, CA). On May 27, 2021 the Twins signed him as a free agent to a minor league deal and assigned him to Wichita. Boyd who turned 28 in July last played pro ball in 2018 at the AAA level in the A’s system.
This past week Boyd, a left-handed hitting outfielder appeared in 7 games and slashed .343/.343/.771 with 5 home runs, 12 RBI and 9 runs scored in 35 AB’s. For the season so far Boyd is hitting .313 with 15 home runs, 60 RBI and 8 steals in 256 AB.
In week 14 the Twins have named AA – Wichita infielder Jermaine Palacios and AAA – St. Paul left-handed pitcher Jovani Moran as the club’s minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week. Both are repeat winners of the award this year.
Week 11 has the Minnesota Twins naming AAA St. Paul outfielder Brent Rooker and AA Wichita right-handed pitcher Jordan Balazovic as their minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week.
In week 9, the Minnesota Twins have named AAA St. Paul infielder Jose Miranda and Low-A Fort Myers right-handed pitcher Sawyer Gipson-Long as the Twins minor league Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week — both repeat winners. This starting to be a habit for Miranda.
Miranda
Jose Miranda split the week between the AAA St. Paul Saints and AA Wichita Wind Surge, earning the promotion to St. Paul on Monday. In his Triple-A debut on Tuesday vs. Omaha, he went 5-for-6 with one double, three home runs and six RBI. He combined to hit .407 (11-for-27) with two doubles, four home runs and 11 RBI in six games. The Manatí, Puerto Rico native was selected by the Twins in the second round (73rd overall) out of Leadership Christian Academy in Guaynabo, PR. This is actually the fourth time that Miranda has been the Twins Player of the week in 2021. MLB now has Miranda listed as the 16th best Twins prospect in their MLB Pipeline. For those of you that have not heard, Yes, Twins prospect Jose Miranda is the cousin of Lin-Manuel Miranda — the famous actor and playwright. No, Jose Miranda hasn’t seen his cousin’s best-known work, “Hamilton.”
Week seven brings us AAA – St. Paul Saints catcher/first baseman Tomás Telis as the Twins position player of the week. Telis was originally signed as a FA by the Texas Rangers in 2007. The 30-year-old Telis has 122 games of big league experience, 24 with Texas and 98 with Miami. Telis signed with the Twins as a FA in January of 2019 and has been in the Twins system since then. You can’t really consider Telis a prospect but he is a back-up should the Twins need one. Telis is a catcher but has expanded his repertoire to include first base and has even played a couple of games at second and third base. Telis has played in over 1,000 minor league games, a handy man to have around.
Telis played in six games for the Saints this week, hitting .391 (9-for-23) with one double, three home runs, five RBI, three walks and a 1.288 OPS. The 30-year-old has played in 39 games for the Saints this season, hitting .271 (42-for-155) with four doubles, one triple, six home runs and 21 RBI.
This week week we have another Jordan as the Twins pitcher of the week and this time it is Jordan Balazovic. Balazovic was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 5th round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from St. Martin SS (Mississauga, ON) . The 22-year-old right-hander is currently rated as the third best prospect in the Twins minor league system by MLB.
In the past 10 years, there have been five pitchers drafted and signed in the top five rounds of the Draft out of Canada. Only one, the Braves’ Mike Soroka, has made it to the big leagues. Balazovic, signed as a thin, projectable high school right-hander as a fifth rounder in 2016, has the chance to be the next.
MLB Pipeline
This past week Balazovic made his last start for the AA – Wichita Wind Surge on Tuesday vs. Springfield, pitching 4.1 scoreless innings with two hits allowed, one walk and eight strikeouts. Balazovic has only made four starts this season and pitched a total of 14 innings. It would be nice to see Balazovic get some innings under his belt as he has under 250 total innings in pro ball since 2016 with none in 2020 due to COVID.
Week four has AA Wichita Wind Surge infielder Jermaine Palacios as the Twins player of the week. The 24-year old Palacios is primarily a shortstop but also has played second and third base. The Twins signed Palacios out of Venezuela in September 2013 and then in February of 2018 traded him to Tampa Bay for pitcher Jake Odorizzi only to resign him as a minor league free agent this past February.
This week Palacios, 24, played six games for the Wind Surge, hitting .435 (10-for-23) with one double, one home run, four RBI, four runs scored, four walks and a 1.127 OPS. Palacios is having a good season so far hitting .311 with 4 home runs and 12 RBI in 23 games. How much of a prospect he is now is questionable at his age and the fact that he has never reached the AAA level.
The Twins pitcher of the week is Griffin Jax from the AAA St. Paul Saints. The 6’2″ right-hander is 26 years old. Jax was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 12th round of the 2013 MLB June Amateur Draft but did not sign. The Minnesota Twins then selected him in the 3rd round of the 2016 MLB June Amateur Draft from United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, CO).
Jax, 26, started two games for the Saints, going 2-0, 0.75 ERA (12.0 IP, 1 ER) with three walks and 18 strikeouts, including a career-high 10-strikeout performance on Friday at Iowa. Used primarily as a starter, Jax does not have a high strikeout rate but he has good control. It would be fun to see someone from a military academy wear the Minnesota Twins uniform in a MLB game.
Stan Wilson Williams was born in Enfield, New Hampshire on September 14, 1936 and passed away at the age of 84 on February 20, 2021 at his Laughlin, Nevada home. Williams had been hospitalized on February 11 and in hospice care due to the effects of cardio-pulmonary illness.
In 1954 the Brooklyn Dodgers signed the big fire-balling right-hander straight out of high school at the age of 17 and sent him to Shawnee of the Class-D Sooner State League and gave him an invite to spring training, primarily because he could throw over 90 miles per hour, but as you might expect was a bit on the wild side. In 1955 he pitched in class B Newport News where he posted an 18-7 record striking out 301 batters and walking 158 in 242 innings. On the fast track to the big leagues, in 1956 he split his time between AA Ft. Worth and for the AAA St. Paul Saints. In 1957 he spent the entire season with the AAA St. Paul Saints going 19-7 with a 3.04 ERA but he still walked over five batters a game.
Jackie Hernandez (Jacinto Hernández Zulueta) was born on September 11, 1940 in Central Tinguaro, Cuba and passed away on October 12, 2019 in Miami, Florida after a short battle with lung cancer. His given name (Hyacinth in English) was difficult for many people in the U.S. to pronounce, leading to his Anglicized nickname; he was also called simply “Jack or Jackie.”
Hernandez played pro ball from 1961 through 1974 and then spent some time playing ball in Mexico from 1975-1976 before retiring as an active player.
The new Minnesota Twins and the American Association finally agree on a $500,000 indemnity payment to the minor league for the Minneapolis/St. Paul territory, ending 2 months of negotiations.
The 1960 American Association was made up of eight AAA teams which included the Minneapolis Millers (Boston Red Sox), St. Paul Saints (LA Dodgers), Denver Bears (Detroit Tigers), Louisville Colonels (Milwaukee Braves), Houston Buffs (Chicago Cubs), Charleston Senators (Washington Senators), Indianapolis Indians (Philadelphia Phillies), and the Dallas-Ft.Worth Rangers (Kansas City Athletics). In 1961 the American Association was down to six teams with Charleston being replaced by Omaha and Minneapolis and St. Paul obviously gone.
Here is the article that Halsey Hall wrote for the January 18, 1961 Sporting News. The same Sporting News page has a nice article about the Twins first ever barnstorming trip by Twins publicist Herb Heft that had him traveling 1,312 miles over a four days to sell the upper Midwest on Minnesota Twins professional baseball. I guess you could call this beginning of the Twins Winter caravans that are still taking place 54 years later.
On one hand the Minnesota Twins front office keep saying that they have no idea on how long the process will take to hire a new Twins manager but they have to make sure that they pick the right person for the job. Apparently GM Terry Ryan isn’t keeping the organization appraised of progress because in today’s edition of the Star Tribune Phil Miller has a quote from Ryan where he states ” I wouldn’t pretend to tell you that we’re done” with the search for the new manager, said Terry Ryan. “We still have a ways to go yet before we get there. But I would say we’re right on schedule.” According to various reports the Twins have interviewed internal candidates Paul Molitor, Doug Mientkiewicz, Gene Glynn, and Terry Steinbach. They have also reportedly talked with Torey Lovullo, Sandy Alomar Jr., Joe McEwing, Chip Hale (who just took the Arizona managers job), and maybe looking to talk with DeMarlo Hale.
Twins president Dave St. Peter
The Twins payroll for 2015 has been getting some play in various Twins blogs and news reports. According to Twins prez Dave St. Peter “We haven’t finalized a 2015 budget, but I can assure you, we don’t see it going down significantly.” Going down? Why should it go down? The Twins have stated numerous times that they try to keep player payroll at about 50% of revenue. With the Twins having terrible seasons on the field from 2011-2014, fan attendance at Target Field has fallen each season so everyone assumes that revenue is down. Why is everyone making that assumption and playing right into the Twins hands? According to Forbes Magazine who publishes annual MLB team valuations the Twins revenue in 2010 was $162 million, in 2011 and 2012 it was $213 million, in 2013 it was $214 million, in 2014 it was $221 million. Why doesn’t anyone call the Twins on this? What am I missing here?
Jake Reed
Twins pitching prospect Jake Reed who was drafted out of Oregon in round five this past summer is making the pick look really good. Reed pitched for Elizabethton and Cedar Rapids this summer and the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Reed was 3-0 with a 0.29 ERA in a combined 20 games, had eight saves and 39 strikeouts and only three walks in 31 innings. Now in his first week of Arizona Fall League play he has earned AFL Pitcher of the Week honors.
Curious how your favorite Twins and Twins minor leaguers are doing as they play in off-season leagues? You can see their stats here.
Last but certainly not least we have the following announcement. What is the world coming to? YIKES! Starting with the 2015 season, the American Association (the league that St. Paul Saints play in) has announced the adoption of extra-inning tiebreaker rules to be used in all regular-season games, based upon existing International Baseball Federation and Can-Am League rules.
Beginning in the 11th inning, the player in the batting order immediately preceding that inning’s leadoff hitter will be placed on second base. The inning will otherwise proceed as usual, with each team getting a turn at bat.
Should the player starting the inning on second base eventually score, it will count in statistics as a run for the player and an RBI for the batter who drove him in (if applicable), but it will not count towards the pitcher’s earned-run average.
American Association commissioner Miles Wolff commented, “This rule was very well-received in the Can-Am League last year, and we’re looking forward to using this innovation in the American Association.” Similar rules are also in effect for most international competitions, including during the World Baseball Classic and the IBAF World Championships.
I am looking forward to a good World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants. Go Blue!
