Bob Sacamento

With camp officially starting in just a couple of days, more and more players are arriving (Milone, Rosario, Benson just to name a few) thus more and more is going on in the backfields. Infielders/Pitchers could be seen fielding grounders on the half field while pitchers were throwing under Hammond Stadium, this day however I was not pulling myself away from the Sano and Arcia outfield drills and workouts on Field Four. It was a definitely a sight to see, defensive outfield drills followed by batting practice, a little over three hours condensed into less than 20 minutes of videos. The two slugging outfielders, Arcia and Sano, took to the field around 9am and started off with just some simple long tossing. From 120 feet out Miggy shows off a strong accurate arm but as Arcia keeps backing up and increasing their distance, Sano starts to break out the crow hop early to get the ball to Arcia. Afterwards, Coach Lepel started rolling balls to the outfielders and having them throw it back to the cutoff man at second. It’s one of the more basic fundamentals that all outfielders know how to do to prevent a hitter from taking an extrabase. From the get go Sano was having obvious difficulties especially when compared to Arcia. Miggy was repeatedly charging and throwing as if he was a third baseman. It got to the point where Coach Lepel called the outfielders in to talk to Sano about his technique and even Arcia gave some advice. They returned to the field, where it was solely Sano working over and over again on the technique until he started showing improvement. The next drill up was a little more challenging in a roller to the glove side then spin and throw to hit the cutoff man. In this task Miguel performed better which I take as he has done it before as an infielder. Next up flyball over the shoulder, spin and throw. Then Lepel started throwing flyballs straight on with the two throwing to the cutoff man. Once again a basic fundamental that outfielders know how to do: position yourself with forward motion on a catch. Again Sano had issues often catching the ball behind him. Lastly, Sano, Arcia, and Jorge Fernandez took flyballs from a jugs machine in rightfield with the wind blowing in and gusts of 30 mph. In Leftfield, Eddie Rosario, Adam Brett Walker, and Travis Harrison. In Centerfield, Joe Benson, Tyree Davis, Darin Mastroianni. Other Sano notes: there were numerous times Sano could be see massaging and stretching his throwing arm and was asked a few times by Lepel if he was okay. Sano likes to hit, I counted three times in the hour plus of defensive drills where he asked Lepel when are we hitting. Smartly, Lepel used it as a carrot with Baki (sp?) telling him after this drill, nope after this drill. As anyone can see Sano has ALOT to still LEARN to be ready for the outfield on Opening Day. So this puts to rest that Miguel has been practicing his outfield drills this offseason. Finally, it was Sano’s favorite time, hitting in the cage where he did not disappoint. Lifting a few balls but never clearing the fences with the strong wind. Sano likes to hit so much, he jumped Rosario in the batting order. Talk about a murder’s row of a batting practice lineup: Arcia, Sano, Park, Rosario followed by AB Walker, Harrsion, Buck Britton, Mastroianni. Even with all those power bats, Byung Ho Park was the only one to lift a ball through the 30mph gusts blowing in from RF to take it out of the park. Notes on Arcia, he looked good in the field and if I hadn’t seen him prior I’d think it was more due to fielding with the extremely raw Sano but Oswaldo has worked hard on his defensive game. Namely that first step and working on his reads. On of my favorite things to watch is while he shags in BP, he’s actually putting forth effort runnings routes. In one instance, a flyball off Britton’s bat, Arcia blazed past Sano and caught the would be gapper.

Something a team has little control over is pretty much luck, thus the Twins were one of the luckiest teams in 2015 (The third behind the Missouri teams of Kansas City and St Louis). Teams need luck to win, you just can't count on it. Hence the Royals won the WS and the Cards got outperformed by the Cubs.

Nice page and yes the Twins stringed together alot of hits together, I was just listening to a Baseball Prospectus podcast and this was brought up. The Twins had a lot times where they had say 9 hits in a game but say 6 of them came in one inning which would account for more runs then what would normally be pegged to happen if they had spaced out those 9 hits throughout the game. The BP joke was "what Molly can't teach that in Spring Training" Biggest thing I got out of the cluster luck page was that the Tigers and Indians were very unlucky in 2015 and have added to their clubs... Oh that and the Cubs were unlucky all around and still put up a great season.

Thank you GMinT, after looking at his pics, yes it was!

It's that time of year again, where the players start to slowly shuffle in for the beginning of spring training and where all the offseason workouts start to show fruition. Even though I didn't arrive to the backfields til 9:30 am, the action was just getting started with my main concentration on the hitters. As I pulled up, Byung Ho Park was walking back from Hammond Stadium to the backfields, unlike last weekend he had his Korean translator with him. Despite the language gap, Park speaks enough English to get by with small talk himself and even with Venezuelan Arcia. Byung Ho said his wrist felt better from last week where he irritated it from swinging the bat and he said NO bat flips of any kind this year. After Park came over to the backfields, he joined the group of infielders who were covering first base from throws from the mound. While this was going on, the adjacent field had the outfielders undergoing fielding drills with the likes of Adam Brett Walker in LF, Joe Benson and Lamonte Wade in CF, and Travis Harrison and Oswaldo Arcia in RF. . After the defensive drills, the hitters took their turn in the cage with the first group of Oswaldo Arcia, Byung Ho Park and Travis Harrison; the second group of Adam Brett Walker, Lamonte Wade, and Joe Benson; the third group Trey Cabbage and Buck Britton (3B w/ Dodgers MiLB in 2015). He hit one that went over the two protective fences the Twins and bounced into the road and landed in the High School (South Fort Myers) where Twins uberprospect Max Kepler attended once moving to the states at 16yo. Oswaldo looked loose in the cage and was obviously having fun. After his BP session, Ozzy went to RF to shag flyballs and was treating BP as game situation: running down balls, taking routes, proper catching technique, etcetra. Ozzy was extremely talkative and gracious to the 20-30 fans in attendance, I caught up with Arcia later and talked about how he's more prepared then he has been for any season. He's put in a ton of work this offseason not only conditioning but also working on his outfield play and it showed. Arcia stated that he WANTS to play RF this year and is going to try and force the Twin s hand come Opening Day roster. Which is different then another Twins' prospect who has been MIA for nearly two weeks which isn't really convenient when he's trying to learn a brand new position. After Arcia's turn, it was the newly acquired Korean slugger Byung Ho Park, who did not disappoint either. Park parked only one over the fence but he's got a nice fluid stroke but after watching the video one can see his mechanics that leads to extrabase hits yet also strikeouts. It's easy to envision 25-30 homeruns with ease. If you have never seen Adam Brett Walker take batting practice then you are missing a show! Walker pounds the ball, hard, very hard. The sound the ball makes off his bat when he hits one square is one of beauty. When Walker is able to extend his arms, he's able to punish balls to all fields. Adam Brett hit the furtherest homer of the day a pulled ball down the left alley way which landed ~420 ft. You can hear Coach Tommy Watkins screaming like a hyena at one point because AB just destroyed the pitch. The left handed hitting Cabbage has a beautiful stroke to go with his strong work ethic and athleticism. He'll be interesting to watch this year in his first full professional season; his placement in the organizational ladder should also be of note. As the Twins also drafted a 3B in Travis Blankenhorn who made it to Short A E-town last year. I'll be back next Friday when even more of the players will be in town. You can follow me on twitter @tturbo420, flickr, and YouTube