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 Twins have named Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts outfielder Brent Rooker and Single-A Cedar Rapids right-handed pitcher Brusdar Graterol Twins minor league Player and Pitcher of the Week.
Rooker
In seven games, the 23-year-old Rooker hit .290 going 9 for 31 with two doubles, two home runs, eight RBI, six runs scored and a .303 on-base percentage. It appears that the Twins are turning the right-handed hitting/throwing Rooker into a first baseman/DH after drafting him as an outfielder. In 39 games this season for Chattanooga he has played 21 games at first, 12 games as a DH and just 6 games if left field. We might just be looking at the Twins next first baseman. Rooker, who Baseball America has rated as the Twins seventh best prospect is off to a slow start at Chattanooga this season just hitting .235 with a .270 OBP with just 4 home runs in 163 PA’s. The former Mississippi State outfielder was selected 35th overall in last year’s draft in Compensation Round A.
Graterol
Graterol made one start this week for the low-A Kernels, pitching 5.2 shutout innings with two hits allowed, one walk and 10 strikeouts versus Quad Cities earning his first win of the season. Graterol threw 76 pitches, 55 for strikes. In 14.1 innings this year he has allowed just 8 hits, one walk and struck out 21 batters and has a 0.63 ERA. WOW! The right-hander is just 19 and was signed by the Twins for $150,000 on August 29, 2014 from Calabozo, Venezuela as part if their 2014 International signing group.
Graterol pitched in just four games in 2015 before tearing his UCL and under-going Tommy John surgery causing his to miss almost two seasons of baseball. Prior to this season Graterol has pitched just 51 innings of pro ball. Entering this season, Baseball America named Graterol the fourth best prospect in the Twins system.
Rochester Red Wings (AAA) first baseman Kennys Vargas is the Twins minor league Player of the Week. Vargas played in five games for the Red Wings hitting .440 (11-for-25) with two doubles, four home runs, 10 RBI, six runs scored and one walk. Vargas has played in 42 games for the Red Wings this season, hitting .252 (37-for-147) with six doubles, six home runs and 25 RBI. Kennys Vargas was signed by the Minnesota Twins as a non-drafted free agent on Feb. 25, 2009. Vargas has spent parts of 2014 and 2015 with the Twins but there does not appear to be a spot for him now which I think is kind of a shame.
Other news from the Twins minor league organization
For the second time this week, Triple-A Rochester had a player accomplish something that hadn’t been done since 1990. Saturday night in Durham, Adam Walker became the first Red Wing to hit three home runs in a game since Leo Gomez did so on April 9, 1990 at Pawtucket. Walker set a career-high with the three homers, becoming just the second Rochester player (Gomez) to accomplish the feat in the last 40 years. Earlier this week, Kennys Vargas homered in four consecutive games, the first Red Wing to do so since Sam Horn in June, 1990.
The Twins have a reputation now days of bringing their young players, particularly their young pitchers along very slowly but that has not always been the case. In today’s game pitches are counted and innings are watched from year to year to make sure that pitchers do not have a huge jump in innings pitched from one year to the next. We fans sometimes complain about how long it takes a player to reach the majors but think what its like for the team itself. They draft the guy and then they have to pay him as he develops his skills, they get no return on their investment unless the player reaches the major leagues and becomes a successful player. The temptation must be huge to push the guy along to get a quick return on the money spent, but if you push him too quickly all kinds of bad things can happen.
Let’s take a look at the case of RHP Roger Erickson who the Twins drafted in round 3 of the 1977 June amateur draft. Erickson signed and was sent to “AA” Orlando where he pitched 109 innings in 16 games (14 starts) with 10 complete games. This is all after he pitched in college that spring. I was not able to locate any of Erickson’s college stats. The next year Erickson gets a spring training invite and makes the 1978 Twins starting rotation. The 21-year-old rookie makes his major league debut when he starts the second game of the season for the Twins and beats the Seattle Mariners 5-4 at the Kingdome. Erickson goes on to start a club leading 37 games for the Twins with 14 complete games and an amazing 265.2 innings pitched. Erickson finished the 1878 season with a 14-13 record with a 3.96 ERA , a WHIP of 1.306 and 121 strikeouts. Erickson was not a strikeout pitcher but more in the mold of a Brad Radke type of pitcher. In 1979 Erickson went 3-10 with a 5.63 ERA in 21 starts (zero complete games) and 123 innings, in 1980 his record was 7-13 with a 3.25 ERA in 191.1 innings and in 1981 Erickson went 3-8 with a 3.84 ERA in 91.1 innings. In May of 1982 after a 4-3 start the Twins had seen enough and traded Erickson and catcher Butch Wynegar to the New York Yankees for pitchers Pete Filson and John Pacella and infielder Larry Milbourne and a suitcase full of cash. Roger Erickson pitched in a total of 21 games for the Yankees in 1982 and 1983 and at the age of 27 his big league playing days were behind him. Erickson tried to come back in 1984, again in 1987 and still again in 1989 in the minors with the Tigers and the Cardinals but he never again put on a big league uniform.
This is one of baseball classic cases of pitcher abuse, a situation where Twins manager Gene Mauch and pitching coach Camilo Pascual could not see the forest for the trees and killed a promising career before it really had a chance to get started. Erickson’s career ended prematurely at the age of 27 primarily because he pitched too many innings at too young an age. When he last pitched in the big leagues he was just 27 but he had already been in the majors for 6 seasons and he had already logged almost 800 innings with 265 of those in his first season. In the end the Twins lost a promising pitcher and Roger Erickson was robbed of his career. A loss-loss for both sides. Just a sad story all around.
Almost every day you hear about another big league pitcher having forearm or elbow tightness and the next thing you know they are off to see Dr. Andrews or someone like him to get a second opinion before undergoing “Tommy John” surgery. Are there more problems of this type now even with all the attention given to limiting innings and pitch counts. What are today’s pitchers doing differently that is causing these problems? Is it all about the fact that the pitchers today seem to throw harder than the pitchers of the past did? Are pitchers just not getting enough rest between seasons end and the start of the next season? Or maybe it is just the opposite, maybe the pitchers are not throwing enough? Is specialization of the athletes at much younger ages adding to the pitching arm woes? Or have these problems always been there and we just called it elbow tendonitis or a sore arm in the past and prescribed rest and/or retirement?
Roger Erickson
Here is a list of Twins pitchers who have thrown at least 100 innings in their rookie seasons. *
* = From 1947 through 1956, each BBWAA voter used discretion as to who qualified as a rookie. In 1957, the term was first defined as someone with fewer than 75 at bats or 45 innings pitched in any previous Major League season. This guideline was later amended to 90 at bats, 45 innings pitched, or 45 days on a Major League roster before September 1 of the previous year. The current standard of 130 at bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days on the active roster of a Major League club (excluding time in military service or on the disabled list) before September 1 was adopted in 1971.
I know I have not written much lately but sometimes I just don’t feel like rehashing all the same stuff that all the other Twins blogs and writers are writing about day in and day out. It is still too early in spring training for me to get a good feel for what this years Twins team will be like but there is certainly more to like this year then what I have seen in the past. I am out at the ballpark about twice a week but I have not actually seen a Twins spring training game as yet. We went to Thursday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Hammond Stadium in spite of rains that had been forecast for darn near a week and who would have guessed that the weather guesser’s would be right this time. Shortly after we arrived at the ballpark it started sprinkling and before long the rain came down and the winds started to howl. There isn’t much cover at Hammond Stadium when the wind is blowing the rain sideways and after almost two hours the game was postponed. Normally a long rain delay like this would not be much fun but in this case it was just the opposite because my wife and I got to spend the entire rain delay chatting with Max Kepler‘s mother Kathy. What a charming and gracious lady she is and Jackie and I had a wonderful time waiting out the rain with her even if we didn’t get to watch a baseball game. Max must enjoy his mothers cooking because in his first spring training with the big club he is 6 for 12 with 4 runs scored and 2 RBI. Max will get sent down soon but he is leaving a nice memory with Rob Antony, Ron Gardenhire and the rest of the Twins coaching staff. The day after the postponement I noticed in the local paper that I can even get my $10 parking pass refunded if I mail it back in to the Twins. That is kind of nice surprise because back at Target Field that does not happen.
Click on the image to make it larger
During one of my visits to Hammond Stadium I ran across this sign in front of the Twins ticket offices. Before the rains started this past Thursday I saw this same sign on the field next to the batting cage although I did not see any actual fans taking batting practice. I am not sure how many swings you get or anything else about this promotion but I think it is kind of a cool idea. I know that $40 is kind of steep for the average person but the money does go to the Boys and Girls clubs of Lee County. I will have to check back with the Twins to see how this promotion is being received. They should take this promotion back to Target Field and give away a Twins season ticket to each fan that can hit a home run in his first swing. I think there is at least one big league team with a promotion something like this.
Dr. Frank Jobe, a pioneering orthopedic surgeon who was the first to perform an elbow procedure that became known as Tommy John surgery and saved the careers of countless major league pitchers, died this past Thursday at the age of 88.
Tommy John and Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974
Jobe performed groundbreaking elbow surgery on Tommy John, a Dodgers pitcher who had a ruptured medial collateral ligament in his left elbow. The injury previously had no solution until Jobe removed a tendon from John’s forearm and repaired his elbow. John went on to pitch 14 years after the operation on Sept. 25, 1974, compiling 164 more victories without ever missing a start because of an elbow problem.
‘‘When he did come back, I thought maybe we could do it on somebody else,’’ Jobe told The Associated Press in 2010. ‘‘I waited two years to try it on somebody else, but we had no idea we could do it again.’’ Jobe initially estimated John’s chances of returning to the majors at less than 5 percent. He later said 92 to 95 percent of patients return as good, if not better, than before the surgery. The surgery has since become common practice for pitchers and players at every level of baseball. I wonder how many career’s this man saved?
It is already March 9th and the Twins play their first game that counts on March 31st, that is not very far away and no one has a clue as to what the Twins outfield will look like. The fifth spot in the starting rotation is still up for grabs and the entire bench is in the TBD category. Cuts will begin shortly and the position battles will heat up, it will be fun to see who can stand the heat and who folds under the pressure. Even if Gardy tells you that you are going north, you should not get too comfortable, I have a hunch that flights between New Britain, Rochester and Minneapolis this year are going to be pretty busy.
It is a warm and sunny day here in Fort Myers with the temperatures in the mid 80’s and as I check out the Minnesota weather forecast I find it says that the area could get a foot or more of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. A foot of snow? It is darn near time for baseball, oh well, better there than here.
I made another trip out to the ballpark this morning and I arrived about 10:15 AM and everyone was hard at work. The first field I stopped to check out had a group working on situational plays in the infield. A couple of runners were on the base paths and the fielders were given situations to either get a runner out on via a run down play or maybe to get the batter at first and hold the runner at 3B or any number of similar plays. We all watch the game of baseball but very few of us really understand all the inner workings of what really takes place on the field. I think we can blame TV for a lot of that because the TV cameras focus on the pitcher, the hitter and the fielder that is going to get the ball. But there is so much else going on that you don’t see on TV, like what the other runners are doing and most importantly what each of the other fielders are doing depending on the situation. It is only at the ball game itself that you get to see all the action that is taking place like the catcher backing up first base, or the pitcher backing up 3B or home plate, or the cut-off infielders manning their positions. It is like a choreographed ballet what so many different things going on around the field that it is hard to grasp all of what is taking place. Some people will tell you that baseball is really a simple game, pitch the ball, hit the ball and field the ball but the devil is really in the details in what we all call America’s pastime. As we watched the Twins do run down after run down, you could hear the fans commenting among themselves saying things like “Mauer (playing 1B) needs to throw the ball to the middle infielders quicker versus chasing him all the way to 2B”. Another fan “hoped all this practice would allow them to better execute run downs then they did last season”, I for one could not agree more, they seemed to have no clue last year. On one play, closer Capps tried to field a bunt halfway between the mound and home and slipped and landed pretty hard on his butt as a man of Capps size is prone to do and you heard a groan go through the crowd. Another injury? Nope, not this time as Capps got up laughing and a few of the Twins laughed as their gloves covered their faces. Coaches Gardenhire, Kelly and others looked on the action and periodically wandered over to one of the players and explained what they might do to improve their play and their chances of making the team. The Twins are spending a lot of time on fundamentals down here this spring and hopefully it will payoff once the season begins.
One thing that struck me today as I was out at the ballpark today was how few fans there were watching the Twins go through their paces. There could not have been more than a couple of hundred people here today. If you counted the players, photographers, and the journalists, they probably out-numbered the fans. Normally at this time of the year I find the area between the fields being clogged with fans going to and fro from field to field and if you wanted to get next to the fences, you would have to fight through the fans 6 or 8 deep but that was not the case today or any day this year that I have been out to the ballpark. Last years 63-99 record appears to have caused many Twins fans to pursue other interests and if this attitude continues into the regular season, you are going to see lots of empty seats at Target Field. If the news out of Fort Myers continues to be negative due to injuries or a bad Grapefruit league record, it could be a long summer for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins need some good news or a hot start to get Minnesotan’s and other Midwesterners talking Twins baseball and heading out for Target field.
I saw Like Hughes take a few rounds in BP this morning after getting a cortisone shot last week. He looked a little tentative but he did get ahold of a couple of nice drives. GM Terry Ryan was sitting on the bench of one of the back fields watching his troops being put through their paces. Later coaches Rick Stelmaszek, Tom Kelly, and Ron Gardenhire joined him and they chatted about the days activities. TK brought up the fact the Chris Parmelee was not having a great day in the field and that he would have a chat with him. A little while later Parmelee rotated to the field that TK was on and TK casually mentioned to Parmelee that he wanted to “see him in his office when Chris had a minute”. A minute later Chris joined TK on the bench and TK explained to Parmelee what he saw on the field this morning was not what he expected of him and that he wanted to know why Chris did what he did. Chris explained his side of the story and then TK explained to him what he thought should have happened. No yelling, no screaming, just a man to man conversation that hopefully provided a “now I understand” moment for the young Parmelee. As Chris walked away deep in thought, TK mumbled, “he knows better, I know he does”.
Joel Zumaya
I need to touch on the Joel Zumaya situation, I met Joel for the first time a couple of days ago and I was surprised at how friendly he was as we chatted as he walked back towards the main clubhouse from one of the back fields. He talked about how anxious he was to pitch for the Minnesota Twins and how he was really looking forward to this spring. Now, less than a week later after tearing his ulnar collateral ligament on Saturday and facing Tommy John surgery, the season is over for Joel Zumaya before he even had a chance to put on a Minnesota Twins uniform in a regular season game and more than that, his career may also be over. How often can a man get back up after getting knocked down? The TJ surgery would make what, his sixth surgery and the man is just 27 years of age. You have to feel terrible for Zumaya and his family. We as baseball fans see how a player performs and we either like him as a player or we think the guy stinks and we hope he gets benched, cut, sent to the minors, or traded for a bucket ball and a couple of bats. What we forget sometimes is that these ball players are real people with real feelings and real families that love them no matter what happens at the local ballpark. I know the players make a lot of money but it is not just the money, these guys want to play baseball. They grew up with the goal of being a professional baseball player and have worked hard to get where they are and when injuries keep them from achieving what they think they are possible of, it is a hard pill to swallow. What do you do with the rest of your life when you know you are good enough to compete in the big leagues but your health won’t allow it and you have to walk away from the game at 27 years of age? Baseball can be a cruel game, some would give up their right arm to have the ability to play, some have the ability but choose not to pursue it, some have the ability but choose to let it slip through their fingers because of drugs or alcohol, some have the ability but health issues prevent them from achieving their goal and a few are blessed with the ability and health to have long and fruitful baseball careers. In this case you have that very rare pitcher with the unique ability to throw a baseball over a 100 MPH and yet his career may be over before it really left the starting gate. They say there is no crying in baseball but it is things like this that make you wonder why things happen the way they do. We at Twins Trivia send our best wishes to Joel Zumaya no matter what he chooses to do.
As always, I managed to get a few pictures at the ballpark today and you can check them out on the right hand side of the page under 2012 Spring training pictures.
UPDATE MARCH4 – The agent for Joel Zumaya notified the Twins yesterday this his client has decided to have Tommy John elbow ligament surgery and will attempt yet another comeback. Zumaya tore the ligament while throwing batting practice on February 25th. The TJ surgery will be the sixth surgery for Zumaya, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since June of 2010. The surgery will take place at the end of the month and be preformed by noted specialist Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama. It is still not determined if the rehab will be under the Twins auspices or if Zumaya will do it on his own. Either way, the Twins will pick up the cost and pay Zumaya $400K during 2012.
UPDATEMARCH 28th – The Twins released RHP Joel Zumaya on March 28, a day before the reliever was scheduled to have season-ending Tommy John surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament. Zumaya, 27, tore the ligament during his first session throwing to batters on March 4
