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mikelink45

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  1. mikelink45

    sixty

    By mikelink45,

    Somehow I am trying to get my head around sixty games - and I keep coming up with the number 60 must have some significance or the curmudgeons that rule baseball might have taken the players options like 104 games. And of course 60 is the magic number - It is Babe Ruth.
     
    Sorry but 73 is a number I have to look up to remember Mr Bonds, maybe I need steroids to improve my memory. And Mark McGwire your 70 was really fun because you and Sammy smiled every day, but it was like a fantasy game and we never really believed in you. And of course 61 made a great movie, but all Maris got was clumps of hair falling out. 60 is still celebrated. It is still the holy grail. Sammy Sosa had 3 seasons with more than 60 HRs, McGwire had 2, Ruth, Bonds, and Maris had one each.
     
    And then there is the sixty yard dash. It is a test for baseball - I do not know if anyone else cares. The Baseball Training website says - "And for a good reason, we need this type of speed to steal bases, beat out a drag bunt, and get under the ball if we’re far away and in the outfield. Speed training for these reasons (and many others) is incredibly important for baseball performance." And this is quite funny since the space between bases is 90 feet so be as fast as you want for 60 - you better be able to go that last 30. And we have Byron Buxton who is so fast that he almost doesn't notice second base as he flies around the field.
     
    What happened in 1960 - the Yankees lost to the Pirates. Bill Mazeroski hit the winning home run and is the HOF because of it. Our team had not traveled west yet so they were in DC and finished 10th of 16 (71 - 63). Harmon hit 31 HRs, Bob Lemon hit 38. Lenny Green led in BA with 294, Harmon Killebrew was second on the club with 276. In OPS+ Killebrew had 142, Lemon 129. Pascual and Ramos were the pitching leaders. This was the final season of 154 games.
     
    In sixty games the 2018 Yankees and Red Sox were 41 - 19. Wow.
     
    In 2011 Jose Bautista had a 1.226 OPS.
     
    In 2008 Chipper Jones hit 408
     
    In 1999 Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez struck out 143 batters - think what could happen in this K happy season.
     
    In 1998 Juan Gonzalez drove in 76 runs!
     
    https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-players-first-60-games-big-performances
     
    In 1936 Charlie Gehringer hit 60 doubles! The problem was - Earl Webb hit 67 in 1931 and Paul Waner, Hank Greenberg, Joe Medwick and George Burns hit 62 - 64 doubles in the thirties too (Burnes was 1926).
     
    In Triples there is the Pythagorean triple which I cannot understand https://mathworld.wolfram.com/PythagoreanTriple.html, but no one in MLB had 60 triples in a season. In Australia you can sign up for Triples - "The draw for the Men’s Over 60’s Triples is now available. Fifty two teams will battle it out to be crowned the 2019 champions. In a change from recent years sectional play and the alignment round will be played Monday 25th November at Como and Osborne Park Bowling Clubs with the finals all held on Tuesday 26th November at Osborne Park Bowling Club, meaning the competition will conclude in only two days instead of the usual three."
     
    Of the 162 Major League Baseball players who have hit 100 or more triples, 69 are members of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
     
    Who ranks number sixty in the career stats? Dale Murphy with 398 HRs, Roberto Alomar is number 60 in doubles with 504, Tony Perez is number 60 in hits with 2732 (yes he does belong in the HOF), Willie Keeler and Harry Davis are tied for number 59 which means they are also tied for 60th in career triples with 145. Chick Hafey is number 60 with a 317 batting average.
     
    Old Hoss Radbourne won 59 games in 1884, but wait a minute. "The classic MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, as well as other sources credit Radbourn with 60 wins (against 12 losses), other sources place his win total as high as 62." Bert Blyleven fell short of the record only giving up 50 HRs in one season (and he is HOF?)
     
    Number 60 is filled with two names who are also tied for number 59 in wins all time - Mordecai Brown and David Wells with 239. Jay Bruce is number 60 in striking out with 1535, Eddie Plank is the pitcher ranked number 60 with 2246 Ks and in those days batters did not want to strike out like today.
     
    Since there are 15, 213 people who have played in MLB since 1871 according to SABR, ranking number 60 is pretty good.
     
    Also according to USA Today Dallas Kuechel is the best player to wear number 60.
     
    According to Baseball Reference 1860 is when baseball was born - I know they played in the civil war and Tom Custer (George Armstrong Custer's brother) was a good pitcher. Baseball Reference has Sam Thompson as the best of the players from that time with a 44 WAR and in the HOF. John Ward with 34 WAR is second and also in the HOF.
     
    Does that justify the 60 games? No - I doubt if MLB is even aware of these connections.
  2. mikelink45
    The Covid sickness that hit coach Tommy Hottovy created a memorable video https://www.espn.com/mlb/ as he discussed his case - it is good to watch since so many act like the Covid-19 is just another flu. As the TD contributor Doctor Gast states - the video is mostly about the pain of separation. Should you want to know more about the survival from this virus you might want to read this San Francisco report - https://www.sfgate.com/news/editorspicks/article/What-they-don-t-tell-you-about-surviving-15347792.php or this description of the Brain Fog that comes after the virus by the American Psychological Association https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/09/aftermath-covid-19. The choices of Ian Desmond, Ryan Zimmerman and Jo Ross not to play should be applauded for their courage just as the Twins decision to protect their oldest coaches was wise and prudent. As much as I want to see and read about baseball I do not want to read about tragedies.
     
    When we are young we all make poor decisions based on our own sense of mortality. I made climbs, ran rapids, and pushed the envelop thinking that nothing could happen to me. My son, at age 21 did the same thing, and he died as a result. Age does not protect us. Nor does physical fitness. This is a serious time and now we learn that there is a new swine flu that might follow Covid. It is frightening. And maybe time to remember how we can be chopped down by microscopic organisms in the prime of our life.
     
    Baseball players are constantly facing injury - concussions, thoracic injuries, Tommy John surgery, broken bones. The good thing about them is that they heal. Bad backs ruined careers and freak accidents like the gas that Christy Mathewson was exposed to during training. His respiratory system was weakened and resulted in contracting tuberculosis, from which he died in Saranac Lake, New York in 1925. He was only 45. Tuberculosis also took seven other players who are mostly lost to memory because their careers were too short and too long ago.
     
    We watched drugs ruin careers like Doc Gooden and Daryl Strawberry, two more who had a HOF path ahead of them. And Sandy Koufax had his amazing career stopped at its peak because of arthritis. Like so many elderly people I can only relate too well to the pain that he suffered from this debilitating disease.
     
    I remember when J R Richards suffered a stroke and had to leave the field. This great Astros pitcher seemed like a sure HOF player, a person who would hold all the Astros records - he averaged 16 wins per season his first five years. In 1980 he was 10 - 4 with a 1.90 era and he was in magnificent physical condition. In two years he was homeless and sleeping under a bridge. He went on to the ministry and preached to those same homeless individuals. It was a big fall from the top.
     
    Jimmy Piersall suffered from mental illness and a potentially great career was ruined by bipolar disorder and still he was so good he managed 17 years.
     
    When it comes to disease what baseball fan does not know of Lou Gehrig and ALS - now called Lou Gehrig Disease. The Iron Horse was toppled and dead at age 38. He seemed invincible but disease does not avoid the strong and healthy.
     
    Ross Youngs died at age 30 of Brights Disease (a kidney disease). He played 10 years with a 322 BA.
     
    Dave Parker, former Pirate and one of my favorite players lives with Parkinson's disease a serious and long term disease that impacts so many aspects of your body functions. Kirk Gibson lives with Parkinsons and Dee Gordon plays baseball with it. But this is serious and life changing.
     
    HOF pitcher Addie Joss from Wisconsin attended St. Mary's College (later part of Wyalusing Academy) in Prairie du Chien and the University of Wisconsin. "In April 1911, Joss became ill and he died the same month due to tuberculous meningitis. He finished his career with 160 wins, 234 complete games, 45 shutouts and 920 strikeouts."
     
    Wikipedia provided this list of type 1 diabetes sufferers from MLB
    Ron Santo, Chicago Cubs (1960–1973) and Chicago White Sox (1974) infielder, type 1, deceased (2010 at age 70).
    Sam Fuld, Chicago Cubs (2007–2010), Tampa Bay Rays (2011–2013), and Oakland Athletics (2014–) outfielder, type 1.[13]
    Mark Lowe, Seattle Mariners (2006–2010, 2015), Texas Rangers (2010–2012), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2013), Cleveland Indians (2014), Toronto Blue Jays (2015), and Detroit Tigers (2016–) pitcher, type 1.[14]
    Brandon Morrow, Seattle Mariners (2007–2009) and Toronto Blue Jays (2010–2014) pitcher, type 1.[14]
    Dustin McGowan, Toronto Blue Jays (2005–2008, 2011, 2013–2014), Philadelphia Phillies (2015), and Miami Marlins (2016–) pitcher, type 1.
    Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn Dodgers (1947–1956), type 2, deceased (1972 at age 53).
    Bill Gullickson, Montreal Expos (1979–1994), type 1[15]
    Adam Duvall, Cincinnati Reds (2015–), Type 1
    James "Catfish" Hunter, Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (1965-1974) and New York Yankees (1975-1979) pitcher, type 1, deceased (1999 at age 53 of ALS)

    There are more stories of Alzheimer's that may have come from concussions, cancers, and other, but finally, we should look to the Spanish Flu - "the flu took: Cy Swain, a minor leaguer from 1904 to 1914 who slugged 39 home runs in 1913; Larry Chappell, a big league outfielder for the White Sox, Indians and Boston Braves between 1913 and 1917; catcher Leo McGraw, a minor leaguer between 1910 and 1916; catcher Harry Glenn, a minor leaguer from 1910 to 1918 who spent time with the 1915 Cardinals; minor league pitcher Dave Roth, who played between 1912 and 1916; and minor league pitcher Harry Acton, who played in 1917." https://baseballhall.org/discover/1918-flu-pandemic-didnt-spare-baseball
     
    The Twins have their own tragic stories too - Danny Thompson, a promising shortstop was diagnosed with Leukemia when he was 26, in 1973. He played four more seasons and died ten weeks after his final game. Walter Bond - died of Leukemia in the closing weeks of the 1967 baseball season — a year during which he had made the Twins' roster coming out of spring training. Wikipedia entry says this about the end - "Bond made the team and batted .313 in part-time duty during the season's first month. But the Twins released him on May 15, and although Bond caught on with the Jacksonville Suns, his declining health forced him to the sidelines after only three games.[2] He entered a Houston hospital for treatment, but died there at age 29. Said his physician, Dr. Hatch Cummings: "He showed the strength of character and will that only champions possess. It was an exhibition of courage, and in the best tradition of baseball."
     
    We want baseball, but we can live without it if it comes down to a threat to players health and lives.
  3. mikelink45
    Covid at the Bat
     
     
    The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
    The score stood four proposals down, with one idea more how to play ,
    And then when Clark died with the first, and Manfred did the same,
    A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
     
    A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
    Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
    They thought, "If only Manfred could but get a whack at that—
    We'd put up even money now, with owners and union both at bat."
     
    But Clark preceded Manfred, as did also Buster Olney’s take,
    And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
    So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
    For there seemed but little chance Covid would let us bat.
     
    But Players let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
    And Manfred, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
    And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
    There were players taking practice safe at parks and a-hugging third.
     
    Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
    It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
    It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
    For Covid, mighty Covid, was grabbing at the bat.
     
    There was ease in Covid’s manner as he stopped them in their place;
    There was pride in Covid's bearing and a smile lit Covid's face.
    And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
    No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Covid at the bat.
     
    Ten thousand eyes were on it as players rubbed their hands with dirt;
    Five thousand tongues were silence when they rubbed it on their shirt;
    Then while the writhing pitcher wiped the virus that hung upon his hip,
    Defiance flashed in Covid's eye, a sneer curled Covid's lip.
     
    And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
    And Covid stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
    Close by the sturdy virus the ball unheeded sped—
    "That ain't my style," said Covid. "He tested positive!" the doctor said.
     
    From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
    Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
    "Kill him! Kill the doctor!" shouted someone on the stand;
    And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Covid raised his hand
     
    .
    With a smile of unChristian charity great Covid's visage shone;
    It stilled the rising tumult; the game would not go on;
    It signaled to the Phillies, and once more the Blue Jays flew;
    But Covid still ignored it and the doctor said, "that’s two!"
     
    "Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
    But one scornful look from Covid and the audience was awed.
    They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
    And they knew that Covid wouldn't let us play ball again.
     
    The sneer is gone from player’s lips, their teeth are clenched in hate,
    He pounds with cruel violence his infection upon the plate;
    And now the owners hold the ball, and now they all let go,
    And now the air is shattered by the force of Covid’s blow.
     
    Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
    But there is no joy in baseball —mighty Covid has struck them out.
     
    AND HERE IS THE ORIGINAL - MY APOLOGIES TO MR THAYER
     
    Casey at the Bat
    Ernest Lawrence Thayer - 1863-1940
     
    The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
    The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,
    And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
    A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
     
    A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
    Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
    They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that—
    We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."
     
    But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
    And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;
    So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
    For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.
     
    But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
    And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;
    And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
    There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
     
    Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
    It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
    It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
    For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
     
    There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
    There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
    And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
    No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
     
    Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
    Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt;
    Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
    Defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
     
    And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
    And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
    Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—
    "That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one!" the umpire said.
     
    From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
    Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
    "Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
    And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
     
    With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
    He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
    He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
    But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two!"
     
    "Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
    But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
    They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
    And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
     
    The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
    He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
    And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
    And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
     
    Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
    But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
    This poem is in the public domain.
  4. mikelink45
    After reading the 2005 season summary that is part of an excellent series on TD I was forced to think about second base where 2005 demonstrated the difficulty we had for many years.
     
    Here is a summary of our highs and lows:
     
    Billy Martin was our 2B in the first year in Minnesota and would last one year before becoming a coach and manager and then going to the Yankees again and again and again. If only he would stop hitting marshmallow salesmen.
    Bernie Allen had five years of average play (239 BA). In 1960, Allen led the Boilermakers to a record of 4-4-1 (2-4 Big Ten) and wins over #12 Notre Dame, Ohio State and #1 Minnesota
    Jerry Kindall was there for the championship with a career 213 batting average. His fame came in Arizona as their coach winning 860 games and three College World Series championships over 24 seasons (1973–1996).
    Then came ROD CAREW and he might have had a full career with us if Calvin Griffith had kept his racist mouth shut. Here is a summary from Wikipedia - "The greatest contact hitter in Twins history, he won the 1977 AL Most Valuable Player Award, setting a Twins record with a .388 batting average.Carew appeared in 18 straight All-Star Games and led the AL in hits three times, with his 239 hits in 1977 being twelfth most at the time. He won seven AL batting titles, the second most AL batting titles in history behind Ty Cobb, and on July 12, 2016 the AL batting title was renamed to the Rod Carew American League batting title." To make matters more painful he got his 3000th hit against Frank Viola! And what was it that Calvin said --"I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ballgames, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here."
    Danny Thompson - An All-American at Oklahoma State he was diagnosed with leukemia at age 26. He said, “You don’t have time to get down,” he said. “You’ve got to keep your head up and go right at it.” After and excellent rookie season he slid over to SS and Carew went back to 2B. He died in 1976.
    Bob Randall - A lifetime 257 hitter who came to the Twins from the Dodgers and played all his major league games with the Twins (460) and took over 2B as Carew was again moved to 1B. He was with us five years and went on to be a college coach.
    Rob Wilfong - His claim to fame is that he lead the American League in sacrifice hits in 1979. He hit 262 in six years with the Twins and was traded to the Angels. Currently he is a scout for the Detroit Tigers (I hope he is finding some better players for them now).
    John Castino - he was moved to 2B in 1982. He led the league in fielding percentage at 2B in 1982, but if the switch to 2B was supposed to protect his back it did not work. He was out in 1984 when back fusion ended his career - as a person with back fusion I can sympathize.
    Tim Teufel - known for the Teufel shuffle at bat - a wiggle of the butt His best years would be with the Mets when he was at 2B for the World Series. He is currently their goodwill ambassador and minor league coach. He hit 265 in his six years with the Twins. He was traded for Billy Beane and two others. If only we had moved Beane into the front office and off the field!
    Steve Lombardozzi - he played in the 1987 World Series and hit .412 with a home run in Game 5. He hit 233 in five seasons with the Twins. In 1986 he led second basemen in fielding percentage.
    Wally Backman and Tommy Herr - Backman was traded for from the Mets where he was platooned with Tim Teufel. He hit 231 for us. "The Mets sent him and Mike Santiago to the Minnesota Twins for Jeff Bumgarner, Steve Gasser and Toby Nivens, none of whom emerged as a major leaguer.The Mets sent him and Mike Santiago to the Minnesota Twins for Jeff Bumgarner, Steve Gasser and Toby Nivens, none of whom emerged as a major leaguer." That year we also traded for Tommy Herr from the Cardinals, Herr announced that he didn’t really want to be in Minnesota. Backman was brought in to replace Herr and Backman announced that he was thrilled to be with the Twins and bought a house on Lake Minnetonka. Kent Hrbek said, “Tommy Herr never wanted to play here, so he didn’t fit in with the rest of us." Then he added, “Backman does fit in. You can see the difference just in the fact that Wally wants to have fun. Already, Backman and (Dan) Gladden are pulling pranks on each other.” Backman is a minor league manager with an excellent resume.
    Al Newman - 231 Twins average, he went on to be a coach with the team. He was acquired in a trade where we gave up pitcher Mike Schade (who?). He was allowed to leave as a free agent after 1991 and eventually ended up coaching the St Cloud Rox.
    Chuck Knoblauch - if we ignore some statements and actions and personality he might be the next greatest second baseman for the Twins after Rod Carew. Rookie of the year, part of the 1991 World Series team. Wiki says, "During the 1994–96 seasons, Knoblauch batted .312, .333, and .341, respectively, won the AL Gold Glove Award at second base in 1997, and stole over 40 bases in three consecutive seasons." Twins fans became irate when he requested that he be traded. When he returned he was booed, bottles and hot dogs were thrown at him. With the Yankees he developed the yips - he could not throw and that was the beginning of the end. He played 12 years, seven with the Twins where he had a 304 career average. His post baseball career in marred by his physical abuse of his former wife which came as he was about to be named to the Twins HOF. He was also named in the Mitchell report for HGH.
    Todd Walker - a member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame was a first round draft pick who never prospered in MN and I blame Tom Kelly who seemed to resent the college degree and accomplishments of Walker. Walker his 285 for the Twins in five seasons and his career did better after he left us. He is now on the New England sports network and I was shocked to hear him when I tuned in on a game when I was working in Maine. He was acquired from the Twins in Theo Epstein's first trade. A quiet, studious and serious player "He really took baseball serious," Matt Lawton said. "Everything he did, he's always talking about hitting. He'd play a video game and he'd compare that video game to anything about hitting. He'd bring up something about hitting fastballs, hitting breaking balls." "Some of his former teammates in Minnesota said Walker's glove wasn't the only reason he was in Kelly's doghouse. Their stormy relationship led to him being traded to Colorado in July 2000.
    Lawton said Kelly wasn't particularly fond of first-round picks. Walker, who had an outstanding collegiate career at LSU, was the eighth overall pick in 1994. Lawton said it didn't take much for a first-round pick to rub Kelly the wrong way, citing pitcher Todd Ritchie and first baseman David McCarty as examples." https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2003-03-30-0303300603-story.html "You'd have to ask him all about that, but it certainly seemed that way," Walker said. "I certainly didn't do anything to warrant the way I was treated by him on and off the field. He had his good moments, and he certainly had his bad moments."
    Jay Canizaro - I have to admit this is the first of the second basemen I do not remember. In two years he hit 255 and went back to the minors.
    Luis Rivas - Venezuelan - a free swinger who was supposed to take over the base and become the man of the future pairing with Guzman at SS. But think of the free swinging of Rosario with no power and less contact! Six seasons with 262 average and 307 OBP and 383 slugging.
    Nick Punto - a Gardy favorite - the opposite of Walker this was a guy who hustled, got dirty, wanted to play, had a smile and attitude that made him a lovable piranha. But would you trade Walker for Punto - no way. He played for us for seven years and hit 248, 323 OBP, 324 Slugging.
    Luis Castillo - Dominican Republic - had a 299 BA for two years with the Twins. 720 OPS. He was with the Marlins for both their World Series. In 2007 he set a major league record for consecutive games at 2B without an error - 143. In August 2019, Castillo was cited on charges related to a drug trafficking and money laundering operation - he was not convicted.
    Alexi Casilla - Dominican - His biggest contribution was giving up his number so Jim Thome could have it. In seven years he hit 250 for the Twins with a 639 OPS.
    Orlando Hudson - Hudson hit .268 with a career-low .710 OPS. Hudson founded the C.A.T.C.H. Foundation, a 501c3 organization that seeks to provide resources and a support system for youth coping with autism.
    Brian Dozier - our third best second baseman in Twins history (my judgment). A member of the Southern Mississippi college team that played in the 2009 college world series. He started as a SS as so many players do and found a home at second. He was a Twin for seven years - hit 248/325/447 - which would be much better if we took his last five years - his HR totals per year are - 6,18,23, 28,42,34. I was say we got rid of him at the right time. He had peaked for us and although he continues to play his top HR since being traded is 20. Notorious for great half years paired with lousy halves it took patience to get the best from him. He became the first second baseman to hit 40 home runs.
    Jonathan Schoop - we hardly knew you although your 256/304/473 slash line fits many of our historic 2B men. Good luck in Detroit and say hi to Gardy.
    Luis Arraez - we hope he is the future. His 334 BA certainly makes us think of another great - Rod Carew. Let's hope flash-in-the-pan is something you never hear. I am very excited by him and his potential.
  5. mikelink45
    According to historian Jim Leeke, author of “From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball During the Great War,” approximately 38 percent of active Major League players went on to serve, and eight current or former players were either killed in action or died of illness during the war. - library of Congress blog
     
    Teams played short handed, players paid a price for their heroism. The great Christy Mathewson did not get to action on the front - the war ended - but he was exposed to mustard gas in training and it was the cause of his early death.
     
    In WWII the leagues were short of players and scrambled for players to fill the rosters regardless of talent. 500 served, two died, and the record book was changed in many ways https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/sports/baseball/remembering-the-major-leaguers-who-died-in-world-war-ii.html
     
    Yogi Berra was at Omaha Beach, Wilhelm and Spahn at the Battle of the Bulge, and Bob Feller lost four prime years. Put those years on their resume and they become even more immortal in the baseball world.
     
    In Korea Whitey Ford, Willie Mays, and Don Newcombe served and Ted Williams flew 39 combat missions - how many hits and home runs is that worth?
     
    Players served in Vietnam War and have been part of every conflict. We do not have a baseball game to attend this year, but lets remember these men along with out relatives and neighbors on memorial day.
  6. mikelink45

    Total Bases

    By mikelink45,

    Baseball records used to have so much more meaning for me, but now I realize the external and societal influences and they have taken on less meaning. 60 and 61 were magical - 70 and 73 on steroids - blah. 714 and 755 HR totals were meaningful, but they were steroided too and then along came the juiced ball and 300 + team HRs means less too.
     
    Doubles, triples, stolen bases are all dynamic and I love them, but ball park configurations, saber rattlers, and new strategies have removed a lot of the really exciting base movements. HR hitters drive cadillacs according to the old cliche. What do double hits drive?
     
    Hank Aaron had 6856 total bases in his career. He was most proud of that record. Total bases were the ultimate goal in his mind and I agree. The next highest total was 6134 (Stan Musial) - over 700 difference. Under rated Dave Winfield has 5221 and is 16 overall, while Molitor had 4854 and is #27. Harmon Killebrew is number #79 with 4143. 3998 is Carew's total - #92. Albert Pujols is the leading active player with 5863.
     
    The Twins/Senators record book has Harmon Killebrew 4026, Sam Rice 3833, Kirby Puckett 3453, Joe Judge 3239, Joe Mauer 3040 and Tony Oliva 3002. Remember that these are total bases with the Twins only so Killebrew and Carew will have different totals for the MLB record book.
     
    In a single season the Total Base records for the Twins has Tony Oliva with 374, Puckett 358 and 365, Rod Carew 351,and Brian Dozier 336. The Single season record for MLB is Babe Ruth 457, Rogers Hornsby 450, Lou Gehrig 447, Chuck Klein 445, Jimmy Foxx 438, Stan Musial 429, Sammy Sosa 425. Among active players Pujols has the 37th best season with 394. Tony Oliva's season rank 89th. Hank Aaron had fifteen seasons where he collected more than three-hundred total bases — the most seasons by any player and Lou Gehrig had five seasons of over 400.
     
    https://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hitotb1.shtml
  7. mikelink45
    Once upon a time I had the first copy of SI with Eddie Mathews on the cover - my third favorite player after Aaron and Spahn, but my mother did what hundreds of mothers did - cleaned house and threw it away. But for decades SI was the go to source like TD is today.
     
    Going through my old collection of magazine covers I was struck with the fun stories and insights that these covers give. I have posted this series of covers because it captures our 1987 World Series victory and Toronto which featured who would win in 1993 with a number of Minnesotans who would switch over to the Twins - Morris and Molitor. Winfield was there the year before.
     
    These were great days and there were lots of stories to explore. Look at the cover of the Champs - the sheer pleasure of this championship for a team that had no real expectations. In the first cover for the series it is gladden that gets the position of honor. And in the playoffs it is Greg Gagne.
     
    These covers hit HOF Trammell and not quite HOF Strawberry and Mattingly. All three were dominant and colorful. And then there is Seaver coming back to NY like Aaron returned to Milwaukee and Mays returned to NY.
     
    Keep going in this collection and you will find that the favored team was the Indians! Something just don't change. Of course there one cover that stands out - the salaries. Look at those players and their salaries. Somethings have really changed since 1987 and it is not a small change.
     
    If you click on the individual images they will enlarge. I invite you to enjoy these stories and images like I did.
  8. mikelink45
    I just went through the roster of everyone who ever played for the Senators/Twins franchise. Only with Coronavirus would I do that. Well it was kind of fun and I put together a 26 man roster of the best names - from my perspective. These were last names only and it was hard to ignore the nicknames. Vic Power led off at first for the Twins since Power is our calling card and Early Wynn (perfect names) is our starting pitcher. Some are a little more obscure - actually I never heard of many of them. But here it is. Have at it - add and subtract as you like.
     
    1B Vic Power
    2B Jimmy Bloodworth
    3B Rocky Bridges
    SS Sam Crane
    C Earl Battey
    OF Steve Braun
    OF Eric Bullock
    OF Goose Goslin
    P Early Wynn
    P Red Bird
    P Boof Bonser
    P John Butcher
    P Matt Capps
    P Jim Constable
    P Skipper Friday
    P Eric Hacker
    P Jim Hoey
    P Jim Kaat
    P Joe Klink
    P Spencer Pumpelly
     
    Bench
    B Brian Dinkelman – 2B
    B Jake Early – C
    B Butch Huskey – OF
    B Clyde Kluttz – C
    B Elmer Klumpp – C
    B Bob Unglaub - U
     
    I also played with individual letters. This meant letters with a lot of names like "S". The weakness in this is apparent right away - the players were not Senator/Twins for their entire career so their numbers are inflated. For my exercise it is as if they were potentially on our teams their entire career and if they were this is how they stacked up.
    1B George Sisler HOF 56.4
    2b Germany Schaefer 8.9
    3b Miquel Sano 7.8
    Ss Roy Smalley 27.9
    C Terry Steinbach 28
    Of Tris Speaker HOF 134.2
    Of Al Simmons HOF 68
    Of Roy Sievers 25.5
    P Jack Sandford 18.6
    P Johann Santana 51.7
    P Ervin Santana 26.6
    P Bill Singer 18.7
    p Lee Stange 9.2
    464.5 total WAR
     
    The R team does not have a total WAR because you will see that the list does not have enough potential to be beat the S team.
     
    1B Rich Rollins
    2b Luis Rivas
    3b Rich Reese
    Ss Pete Runnels
    C Phil Roof
    Of Ben Revere
    Of Sam Rice HOF
    Of Eddie Rosario
    P Brad Radtke
    P Pedro Ramos
    P Jeff Reardon
    P Kenny Rogers
    p Dutch Reuther
     
    The P team had 302.9 WAR but lacked the total star power.
    1B Vic Power 15.3
    2b Trevor Plouffe 7.2
    3b Mike Pagliarulo 10.6
    Ss Roger Peckinpaugh 44.9
    C A J Pierzynski 23.8
    Of Wally Post 18.2
    Of Kirby Puckett 51.1
    Of Albie Pearson 13.1
    P Jim Perry 41.6
    P Camilo Pascual 40.9
    P Carl Pavano 16.4
    P Mike Pineda 10.9
    p Glen Perkins 8.9
    302.9
     
    The M's make a big push with 378.8 WAR
    1B Justin Morneau 27
    2b Buddy Myer 47.8
    3b David McKay 0.1
    Ss Pat Meares 4.8
    C Joe Mauer 55.3
    Of Paul Molitor HOF 75.7
    Of Heinie Manush HOF 47.2
    Of Shane Mack 21.6
    P Firpo Marberry 30.3
    P Tippy Martinez 8.6
    P Joe Mays 9.4
    P Eric Milton 16.5
    p Jack Morris HOF 43.5
    378.8
     
    1B Ron Coomer 1.4
    2b Rod Carew HOF 81.3
    3b John Castino 15.2
    Ss Joe Cronin 64.1
    C Juan Castro -5.4
    Of Ben Chapman 41.9
    Of Marty Cordova 7.7
    Of Michael Cuddyer 17.8
    P Steve Carlton HOF 90.2
    P Stan Coveleski HOF 61.4
    P Dean Chance 29.9
    P Al Cicotte 0.3
    p Bartolo Colon 45.8
    451.6 comes in second thanks to the HOF players
     
     
    Those were the letters I chose. K has Killebrew and Kaat, but not enough supporting cast. B has a lot of players but only Blyleven is HOF. D has only Ed Delehanty. W does not have as many players, but Walter Johnson has 164 WAR by himself.
     
    I cannot continue - my boredom has been replaced by being tired.
  9. mikelink45
    One of the most interesting thing I have found in researching the virus and the Spanish Flu is this article on the affect of social distancing? https://qz.com/1816060/a-chart-of-the-1918-spanish-flu-shows-why-social-distancing-works/
     
    For baseball fans who like to look at charts and graphs this is a really good study of St Louis and Philadelphia during the 1918 epidemic.
     
    "The extreme measures—now known as social distancing, which is being called for by global health agencies to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus—kept per capita flu-related deaths in St. Louis to less than half of those in Philadelphia, according to a 2007 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
     
    “I think the critical lesson from both the modeling and the historical work is that the benefits of multiple interventions are greatest if they are introduced early (before 1% of the population is infected) and maintained,” wrote Hatchett, who has also directed medical preparedness in the Obama White House."
     
    The history channel describes a very similar tactic to what the states are trying to do now, "The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march."
     
    Should we think 2 weeks or a month is going to take care of us, here is another quote from the History.com, "The first wave of the 1918 pandemic occurred in the spring and was generally mild. The sick, who experienced such typical flu symptoms as chills, fever and fatigue, usually recovered after several days, and the number of reported deaths was low.
     
    "However, a second, highly contagious wave of influenza appeared with a vengeance in the fall of that same year. Victims died within hours or days of developing symptoms, their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with fluid that caused them to suffocate. In just one year, 1918, the average life expectancy in America plummeted by a dozen years."
     
    Why was it called Spanish Flu? "By 11 March 1918, the virus had reached Queens, New York. ... The Allies of World War I came to call it the Spanish flu, primarily because the pandemic received greater press attention after it moved from France to Spain in November 1918. Spain was not involved in the war and had not imposed wartime censorship."
     
    So do we assume that once the summer comes and the seasons change that we are done? No. "The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much deadlier than the first. The first wave had resembled typical flu epidemics; those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily. By August, when the second wave began in France, Sierra Leone, and the United States,[93] the virus had mutated to a much deadlier form. October 1918 was the deadliest month of the whole pandemic."
     
    Sports Illustrated described - "There’s a face mask on the hitter, the bench and the crowd. Underneath their standard equipment, the umpire and catcher have them, too.
     
    "This is how the Pasadena Merchants and Standard-Murphys played a game in the Southern California Winter League on January 26, 1919."
     
    "The 2016 Marlins-Pirates series in Puerto Rico, which was moved to Miami due to Zika virus."
     
    In 1909 " as typhoid fever spread in California, the San Francisco Examiner ran the front-page headline “Epidemic Threatens to Ruin Ball Team” as the Pacific Coast League saw several players fall sick at once. The illness-related charity games have evolved with the times, too: The St. Louis Cardinals had an annual “Tuberculosis Day” game for more than two decades, and years later, President Eisenhower declared “Baseball Polio Day,” when MLB games were used to raise money for the disease on July 4, 1957."
     
    We think of our athletes as men of good health and conditioning, but we have the following list of players who died during their career - only two from flu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_players_who_died_during_their_careers
     
    And finally for Twins fans there is this February 20 LA Times article that tells about Brusdar Graterol overcoming the flu - https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2020-02-20/dodgers-brusdar-graterol-over-flu-100-mph-fastball
  10. mikelink45
    I just read the ESPN prospect ratings by Kiley McDaniels and is was an interesting look from a new perspective. Riley came over from FanGraphs and he has a different style than Law and others I have read. What interests me is the Twins prospects ratings, of course, and he challenged some ideas. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/28820713/kiley-mcdaniel-top-100-prospects-2020
     
    First of all he has Royce Lewis rated the highest at number 15 - a surprisingly high rating in my mind, but he also lists him as a CF. "His hitting mechanics still need a little work in terms of timing and quieting his hand movement, but scouts rave about his makeup, and the raw power and speed are still elite. I'm betting on Lewis figuring things out and becoming an above-average everyday player with some chance to become a star, possibly in the infield"
     
    Jhoan Duran was #54 - "The maturity and command look to be in place for a ground-ball-focused rotation workhorse with swing-and-miss stuff." This is really nice to see, I expected Balazovic to be above him.
     
    #58 Trevor Larnach, "He's a slightly better bet in my book than Alex Kirilloff to be an above-average everyday player, but they're in roughly the same area." So the argument about who is number one - Kiriloff or Lewis has a new twist.
     
    #63 is Alex Kiriloff, "Kirilloff's pitch selection leaves a bit to be desired, while he's moving down the defensive spectrum to first base and his wrist has been giving him trouble."
     
    #93 Jordan Balazovic, "He also doesn't have a bunch of plus pitches that he's learning to harness, rather a number of above-average offerings that he already has a good feel for mixing."
     
    It appears on all the lists that the top five prospects is the same (Graterol by the way is #92 "his command might be enough to start, but it's legit closer stuff").
     
    Of course the question remains - who is the not on any list prospect who will be the next Arraez and throw the rankings out of the window. The second question - is it better to suddenly appear on the list and shoot to the top or to start your career with high expectations and high rating and then slowly slide down the list?
  11. mikelink45

    Commissioner IQ test

    By mikelink45,

    Sunday, Manfred described the Commissioner’s Trophy, the statue awarded to each season’s champion, as a “piece of metal.” Could this errant statement put him in line to be another victim of the scandal?
     
    We have had some good ones like A. Bartlett Giamatti, Fay Vincent, and Peter Ueberroth and we have a mix of mediocre and bad. Here is a summary going to the first commissioner - Landis.
     
     
    Which brought to mind a question I have long had about sports commissioners - what IQ test do they have to pass?
     
     
    The World Series trophy is the Commissioners Trophy with a flag for each city in the league. It is like the Lombardi Trophy ( a classier name) and the Stanley Cup. Players careers are focused on winning this trophy but Bleacher Report gave us this insight as he joins Crane, Hinch, and a host of others with foot in their mouth disease, ""In an effort to make a rhetorical point, I referred to the World Series trophy in a disrespectful way," he said. "... It was a mistake to say what I said."
     
     
    "In an interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech earlier this week, Manfred called the Commissioner's Trophy a "piece of metal" when talking about the possibility of stripping the Houston Astros of their 2017 World Series title amid the ongoing fallout from their sign-stealing scandal."
     
     
    He is supposed to be above that - right? Bowie Kuhn has been the MLB lawyer before becoming the commissioner and was named defendant in the Flood vs Kuhn antitrust lawsuit. He barred Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for appearing at a Casino event - even though they did not gamble. Kuhn refused Atlanta's desire to sit Aaron for a three game series so he could break the record at home - Kuhn was not in attendance when Aaron did hit 715. He is in the HOF.
     
     
    Bud Selig hated to get booed so after the tie all star game where he made the right decision he immediately made the wrong one and said the winner of the All Star Game would be the league that got home field advantage in the World Series. He also worked with Mr Pohlad on something called contraction! You might remember his uneven handling of PEDs, yet he is in the HOF and the players are not.
     
     
    Lieutenant General Eckert was the fourth commissioner of baseball - he had not seen a baseball game in ten years when he was chosen. He refused to call games when JFK and MLK were assassinated and he was fired because the owners did not think he would handle a possible strike. Writers called him the unknown soldier.
     
     
    Ford Frick was the third commissioner and had been a sportswriter. "Writer Jerome Holtzman described Frick's term as commissioner by saying that he "sailed a smooth course and seldom descended from his throne. When asked why he absented himself from the many battles below, he often said, 'It's a league matter.'... In retrospect, he understood his role. He was a caretaker, not a czar."" He was named to the HOF (which he helped found) and is the name on the annual writers award.
     
     
    Happy Chandler, working to avoid a strike and to maintain the reserve clause worked with the Pirates - Chandler worked with Pirates officials. Part of Chandler's intervention included organizing a team of replacement players as a contingency plan; the team would have included Honus Wagner, then 72.
     
     
    The defections to the Mexican league and the threat of a strike by the Pirates prompted owners to form an advisory committee, chaired by Larry MacPhail, to suggest needed changes that would calm the discontent among the players. The commissioner then stripped the language that said racial bias was the only reason for segregation in the game. He is in the HOF
     
     
    Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis oversaw the Black Socks scandal, ""Regardless of the verdict of juries," the commissioner said in a statement, "no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever again play professional baseball." Overall his reputation is on the Mt Rushmore of commissioners, but he could have risen even higher if he had led the way to integration since his father was a union fighter at Kenesaw Mountain. Yes - he is in the HOF.
  12. mikelink45

    Cheating

    By mikelink45,

    As we enjoy the new free agents and trades and speculate about the new season we have to also know that the new season comes with one overwhelming story - the Astros and their sign stealing. I cannot solve or resolve this issue although this does give the Twins some hope that this really good team might stumble and present one less obstacle to our own World Series hopes.
     
    I do have to admit that going from video and computer to banging a garbage can presents a really hilarious combination. Should the Astros relinquish their title? If it were the tour de France they would - ask Lance Armstrong. If it were the Olympics they might take back the records - ask Jim Thorpe (if you have psychic powers). If it is the NCAA you can ask Louisville (2013) about its basketball record, the UCLA women's softball team (1995), USC football (2004), Marion Jones Olympics (2000), Ben Johnson Olympics (1988), or Mohammed Ali boxing championship (1967).
     
    Baseball has a huge rule book and almost everything has been violated. While Jim Perry put up great records for the Twins and he has made our team hall of fame, his brother Gaylord made the MLB HOF despite his admittance and jokes about spitballs.
     
    McGuire, Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens have been judged by HOF voters to not make it - yet, but their records still stand? Why. If they cheated their records should not stand either. But they will - lets see Rose has the most hits, but is not eligible for the HOF, Bonds has the most HRs but is not in the HOF. We have some funny standards in MLB.
     
    Only the Black Sox have had their title removed - so why not the Astros? Will Beltran still get HOF votes - Jackson, Cicotte and others from his team did not? We now know that the HR heard around the world - the most famous playoff HR was actually tainted by having someone tip off Thomson and Ralph Branca has had to wear the goat crown ever since (not the new G.O.A.T). In an interview after we learned about this infraction this was a pertinent.
     

     
    AMOS: So they cheated?
    Mr. PRAGER: Yes, they did. Baseball has a sort of strange relationship with the stealing of signs. When you're standing on second base and you're peering in and stealing the sign with the naked eye, baseball not only allows that, it applauds that. But when, on the other hand, you use a telescope, they don't feel that that's appropriate.
    The full interview can be found here - it is very appropriate for this season.
    https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6186829
     
    Of course this is not a full measure of cheating, stealing signs, cutting up or doctoring the ball and the Twins have not been immune - check out Joe Niekro
    Of course Joe was a former ASTRO!
  13. mikelink45
    Forget the teams - who knows who wins or loses until after the year, or longer. Did the Twins win the Kurt Suzuki trade? The Aaron Hicks Trade? The John Ryan Murphy trade? The Wilson Ramos trade? The first year is not enough to judge (although potentially the Betts trade is for a one year player). Injuries, slumps, high expectations all play into the team win or loss, but the players factors are not the same as the team.
     
    As I look at benefits to individual players I see a different pattern of potential winners and losers.
     
    Mookie Betts - he wins. He would have won if the trade had not happened because he is going to get a Trout like contract and now he has a west coast audition to go with his East Coast play. Yet, the teams have not figured out that one great player does not elevate the team - this is not the NBA - and Mike Trout has never been in a WS. Trout, Harper, Betts - all far over paid, so yes, he wins, but the Dodgers will win the west (they won without him last year and the year before and would have won without him this year). Will the Dodgers win the World Series - they will if their pitchers lead them or if Mookie Betts has a crazy year like Bobby Richardson of the Yankees, or Dusty Rhodes of the Giants, or Scott Podsednik of the White Sox, or Jim Leyritz of the Yankees, or Kurt Bevacqua of the Padres, or Brian Doyle of the Yankees? Those are not memorable names or players yet they were the biggest reason for their teams success. Notice it is not Mantle or other big names on this list and history is filled with even more obscure names. So will Mookie win them a world series? No, but he might be on the team that does win and if he does that big contract is waiting.
     
    Graterol - he wins - the Dodgers Bullpen is aging and Jansen is not as good as he once was so Graterol jumps into a great position if he stays in the pen. The Dodgers have lots of successful arms and seem to know how to use them. If he moves to SP he will succeed there too with good fielding and good hitting all around him. Much better than Red Sox - no green monster, a deteriorating team, and a questionable staff.
     
    Kenta Maeda wins - with the Dodgers he is in the bullpen after they got Price and they have so many ready arms he is expendable. With the Twins he is expected to win the World Series! Yes he is now our #3 pitcher until Pineda returns and then he is number four and after free agency calls Odorizzi he will rise again next year.
     
    Luke Raley loses - if he thinks he was blocked by the Twins prospects and starters he is now back in the Dodger prospect factory and will lose more until he is traded again.
     
     
    Connor Wong - wins - they say that the Red Sox need catchers - he will find a place on the catcher bench.
     
    Jair Carmargo - loses - the Twins have Garver, Rortvedt, Jeffers - young and versatile. But hey every team needs a catcher in the minors. His only hope is another trade.
     
    Jeter Downs - not sure - probably a win. He has a good name for a shortstop. Bogaerts will eventually move from SS and probably not that far in the future and Jonathan Arauz does not have dazzling Milb stats so Downs moves into the number two position. With the Dodgers his window was not open.
     
     
    Alex Verdugo - wins - he has shown that he has talent. Expectations in Boston are not that he will replace Betts, but he will start and he could like the monster. And now he does not have Luke Raley looking over his shoulder! I think he will thrive.
     
    David Price - wins - yes he is a salary dump, but he now moves into the Dodger rotation replacing Ryu and Maeda. He is with Walker and Kershaw - not bad and his expectations are less. There are no DHs, there is good fielding. What is lacking is a great pen, but hey, they got Graterol out there now. I think he might become a star again if health allows.
  14. mikelink45
    I was curious about great 3B players so I went to check on a few to see how they aged and whether the four year contract for Josh Donaldson was really a good deal for both team and player. What are the potentials for regret? I cannot predict injuries or aging, but this list makes me feel better and optimistic.
     
    Mike Schmidt ages 34 - 37 hit HRs to almost match his age 36,33,37,35 and then he was really done dropping off to 12 and 6. His WAR was 7,.5, 6.2, 6.1,and then 1.8, -0.4
     
    Another great 3B and my favorite was Eddie Mathews. A wonderful HOF player. He hit 32 at age 33 and then dropped to 16, 32, 3. His career was over by age 38.
     
    Ken Boyer, a near HOF peaked at age 32 and never had another power year.
     
    Scott Rolen, being debated for HOF and getting lots of credit as a 3B candidate hit 22, 20, 5 and 8 and then was done at 38
     
    George Brett was not a HR hitter, but in his age 34 - 37 seasons his WAR was 2.7, 4.1 and then he finished out his last three years with WARS of less that 0,5.
     
    Baseball Reference in it list of comparable players at age 33 listed only one 3B - Dave Hollins who dropped out at age 33 with BA, HR and all other stats. Not a good one there, although he had been good.
     
    Those are my best comparable players. The biggest thing I saw in this exercise really demonstrated that the Twins might have grabbed the best four years and would be wise not to extend it further.
  15. mikelink45

    Prospects

    By mikelink45,

    I am always curious where the national rankings put the Twins Prospects. It helps give me perspective as I look at the rankings from TD. Today Jim Bowden had his top fifty prospects in the Athletic https://theathletic.com/1523975/2020/01/17/jim-bowdens-top-50-prospects-for-2020/?source=dailyemail and our top three were all there.
     
    Kiriloff has now passed Royce Lewis and is ranked number 12 over all which is great. This is a quote from the article describing Alex "Kirilloff has one of the best swings in baseball, one that reminds me of former MVP Christian Yelich at around the same stage." We would take a Yelich performance. It is also why Kiriloff should not be traded no matter what is dangled in front of us.
     
    Lewis is now 18. I remember when he was consistently in the top five. He is sighted for his versatility but the key sentence in his write up is "How quickly he adjusts as a hitter will determine when he’s ready for the majors, but he does have some work to do at the plate if he’s going to reach his high ceiling."
     
    Finally Graterol comes in at #48 and I love this sentence in the scouting report, "When Graterol pitches, you better make sure your radar gun does well with the triple digits because he’ll be there often."
     
    Nice to have them in the top fifty, now let's get Kiriloff and Graterol to the big show. It will probably take a trade of Rosario or another injury to Buxton, but when we need someone I would prefer the rookie over Cave. Time to unlock the potential. Graterol should be designated to take the rotation spot of Pineda until he comes off the suspension and maybe he will be so good that he forces one of the others off the rotation and that would be great.
  16. mikelink45

    We blew that

    By mikelink45,

    We talk about all the stats and analytics like we are working with computers and not human beings. But that is not the case and thus we can look at players who have been mishandled by the team and wonder what would have happened if the club had been a little more intelligent in the personal needs department.
     
    Oswaldo Arcia is one person who really jumps out at me his minor league slash was 296/368/530 then he came to the Twins and his world and his potential fell flat. What happened. I know he failed with others, but once the slide starts it seldom rights itself.
     
    Miguel Sano was 269/385/530 as a rookie 3B and the major league brains said - put him in RF. He hit 236/319/462. Thankfully he has recovered from this wise decision.
     
    Now I look at Fernando Romero who was 3 - 3 with a 4.69 ERA as a major league starter. 45/19 k/BB as a starter. So lets make him a reliever. 0 - 1 7.07 ERA, 18/11 K/BB. WHIP went from 1.41 to 2.14. Sometimes changing a players role is good - other times it stinks. I remember the great notes about Romero coming up - nothing like that is written now.
     
    Did we out smart ourselves?
  17. mikelink45

    Play the rookies

    By mikelink45,

    So we whiffed in FA and now we have the feeling that we never really had a chance and no one wants to come here! Boo hoo! People say trade the prospects. Wait a minute - they have to come here. They have no choice. For six years they are ours. So lets play them. Cleveland where our FO was trained moved their prospects up to their team and have had a good winning record for a few years now.
     
    Forget where they were in the minors - many teams are now running players out at a much younger age - see Acuna (22), Soto (19), Tatis 20, Jimenez (23), Lindor (22), Corey Seager (21), Corea (21), Gleyber Torres (22)... Forget the lets play keep them in the minors for years and push them forward. Noah Syndergaard is one of our targets and he is 26 and came in to the league at 22.
     
    Many players have started young and succeeded:
    Vada Pinson, RF: 19 years, 247 days in 1958 (Reds) ...
    Sibby Sisti, 2B: 19 years, 265 days in 1940 (Bees) ...
    Brooks Robinson, 3B: 19 years, 332 days in 1957 (Orioles) ...
    Rogers Hornsby, SS: 19 years, 351 days in 1916 (Cardinals) ...
    Adrian Beltre, 3B: 19 years, 363 days in 1999 (Dodgers)
     
    Lewis is still our number one rated player - put him at 3B if you want to put Sano at 1B. If he is not ready put Kiriloff, Rooker, or Raley at 1B.
     
    If Wade or Kiriloff is better than Cave then replace cave. Put Kiriloff or Larnach in LF since people complain about Eddie Rosario.
     
    If Lewis is going to take Marwin's place give him time at all the positions.
     
    Then package Gonzales, Rosario, and Cave and instead of trading prospects trade these players for Boyd or some other starter.
     
    I want to see the team start to push the envelop and get away from scraping up the crumbs at the end of FA.
    In other words, what is the plan?
  18. mikelink45
    Don Larsen, age 90, passed away and with him goes the honor of being the only man to toss a no-hit perfect game in a World Series (1956). Pitching to Yogi Berra in that classic Larsen rose to heights that exceed his career 81 - 91 record. His last out was a strikeout of Dale Mitchell. In Casey Stengel's unorthodox method of random pitcher selection, Don was shocked that he was called on after a poor game two. “I must admit I was shocked,” Larsen wrote in his autobiography. “I knew I had to do better than the last time, keep the game close and somehow give our team a chance to win. Casey was betting on me, and I was determined not to let him down this time.”
     
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/obituaries/don-larsen-dead.html
     
    In today's game he would not have pitched nine innings. Only an old school pitcher like Dustin Verlander this year will insist on having a complete game. Mike Fiers had the other complete game no-hitter in 2019 and two were multiple pitcher games which lacks the same sense of anticipation to me.
     
    There were three no-hitters in 2018, two complete games, There was one in 2017 and one in 2016.
     
    There were seven no-hitters in 2015!
     
    Roy Halladay had two in 2010.
     
    Nolan Ryan threw SEVEN no-hitters. Sandy Koufax had four, Cy Young, Larry Corcoran, Justin Verlander and Bob Feller had three each!
     
    There have been 260 no-hitters since 1901 so those six had almost 10% of the no-hitters over 120 years.
     
    Like Don Larsen, Johnny Vander Meer was an obscure pitcher who reached no hit immortality as the only pitcher to throw two in a row. Others to have two in one season include Ryan, Virgil Trucks, Allie Reynolds, Roy Halladay, and Max Scherzer.
     
    Max and Justin are old school pitchers that I love to watch work a game who will take their place; will others be allowed to take their place? In 1954 there were 840 complete games - 34%. In 2019 there were 45 complete games - 0.9%. No wonder RP are burning out.
  19. mikelink45
    Well the White Socks are looking like they have completed their laundry list and the Twins might want to look over their shoulders. Here is there roster http://m.whitesox.mlb.com/roster/ and this is before adding Kuechel for three years and $55m. Yes they began with a catcher and added a pitcher (and then Gonzales too) with Kopech and Giolito on their starting rotations too.
     
    The Chicago Tribune wrote, "The Sox re-signed Jose Abreu, signed switch-hitting catcher Yasmani Grandal, acquired a front-line starter in Keuchel and brought in two smaller and somewhat riskier acquisitions in Gonzalez and Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara, whom they acquired for prospect Steele Walker."
     
    And the paper adds - "The Sox lineup already was solid with defending AL batting champion Tim Anderson, Abreu, Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jimenez at the top. It figures only to get better with Grandal and the the call-ups of center fielder Luis Robert and second baseman Nick Madrigal, both of whom should be on the roster before May, if not sooner."
     
    And then there is this quote, "Believe it or not, the Sox will be considered an American League Central contender in a division with three rebuilds, a slow-motion teardown in Cleveland and the always unpredictable Twins."
     
    And, by the way, the Detroit Tigers signed C. J Cron and Schoop - adding some familiar bats to their flimsy lineup.
     
    Every time players are signed by another team I see posts that list the next ones on the list. But guess what, those players are on the bottom of the list for a reason.
  20. mikelink45
    Hubert Humphrey coined the term "cold Omaha" when he said that the Twin Cities would be a Cold Omaha without professional sports. I believe the Blue Jays must have thought they did not want to be a Canadian Minnesota if they did not sign some players and make the club interesting.
     
    Well the Twins are interesting and last year they were winning. Now we do not have Schoop and we hope (and I expect) that Arraez will not regress. We do not have CJ Cron and we hope we have someone to replace his bat and glove and we do not have Juan Castro so we write about how Avila is actually better than Castro (are we dreaming?).
     
    Our pitching got us to the playoffs, but could not win a game in the playoffs. We did pull Berrios too soon, the bats did go quiet, and we had no one beyond Odorizzi to stop the bleeding except Mr Dobnak. So we have signed our top three pitchers (actually we have not given Berrios the extension he needs) and we let go the last two pitchers, but we have not signed anyone to take their place meaning that we expect our rookie/young guys to step in and fill the positions. Fine.
     
    The Blue Jays had two down years and they told their fans that the are going to do something about that. So they signed Ryu - a pitcher we were told would not want to leave the warm west coast. Does he know that Toronto is south only if you live in Canada? (Disclaimer - I know they are south of Minneapolis - https://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/who-s-the-north-portland-minneapolis-teams-question-raptors-claim-1.2168407)
     
    They also signed Travis Shaw (his name has appeared on some Twins posts too). They signed Tanner Roark, they traded for Chase Anderson (pitcher), they are taking a chance on Matt Shoemaker making a comeback and they signed Japanese pitcher Shun Namaguchi too. And they still have Ken Giles (forget about the Twins trade for him - it is not going to happen).
     
    And by the way, they have that young nucleaus - Bichette, Gurerro, and Biggio too (and I do not mean their fathers). I believe we have also talked about our window being now because of our young nucleus.
     
    What next? Oh, they are talking to the Red Sox about acquiring David Price who once pitched for the Jays.
  21. mikelink45
    As I read our reactions to each missed free agent and the excitement of the winter meetings I have come to the conclusion that the FO really is concerned about readership and postings on TD. I mean we have had a "why we should sign him" article about every FA that has been signed so far. Just to be clear - not signed by us. We went from everyone with an arm that has not fallen off to all the hitters who can add to Bomba mania.
     
    We debate, we anguish, and we hope. Well at least we read and post.
     
     
    So imagine if we made the first big signing of the off season. Over - done, nothing to talk about. So we wait.
     
     
    Then we get four articles about the winter meetings which actually turned into reports about other teams signings.
     
     
    So we write about how Dobnak is better than we think (how do you know what we think?). Maybe the Twins would sign another level of pitcher - no. Maybe the next level. How perfect an opportunity for our favorite site. If the Twins had not passed on all the players we have heard from we would not be writing about all the FA that we have never heard of. They are FAs? Wow, who cares? Well we do.
     
     
    Gleeman and the Geek get a chance to really dig deep into the pool of possible. We get to anguish and almost forgot we had 101 wins with this same group of players - sorry we did lose Cron, Perez, and Gibson. But now we can talk about the wisdom of Wisler and trading Eddie Rosario - the player we say was not as good as people think he is but we can trade him to the dumb teams who do not know he is as bad as TD writers think he is.
     
     
    So thank you Mr Falvey and Mr Levine.
  22. mikelink45

    Rule V mania

    By mikelink45,

    Yup, we could lose a lot. Our guys are really good. The rest of the MLB teams are salivating to get the Twins prospects!
     
    Rule V happened today - Wander Javier did not happen today. None of the players we had available went anywhere until the second round of AAA Rule V when 24. The Tigers took 2B Brian Schales (Twins).
     
    So, yawn, another big Rule V day went by and the overall impact was zilch. There were a number of pitchers taken by poor clubs with nothing too lose. Good luck to them and their picks.
     
    Oh, by the way, the 26th roster spot did not make a difference.
  23. mikelink45
    In one of the discussion entries I saw the question - what will happen to catchers when the Robo ump is put in place and the quick hands ability to steal (frame) a strike is no longer a vital skill. This got me thinking about what are the other attributes of a good catcher.
     
    My first thought is the ability to call a good game, to put the pitcher in a better position to fool the batter. Of course the Houston Astronauts are pushing for a change there too. Maybe we will have head phones on the catcher and pitcher and the pitching coach will become the defensive coordinator calling all the pitches. If so my criteria will change again. However, for now I will take the intellectual impact of the catcher and say that this was the most important and least appreciated of Joe Mauer's skills.
     
    The ability of Joe and others to call a game is not easy to judge. For example; if you have Scherzer, Paxton, and Strasburg does their success make you a great game caller? Or if you have Nolasco, Hughes, and Milone are you a bad catcher? I guess we have to ask (world champion) Kurt Suzuki.
     
    If you call for a pitch and the pitcher cannot deliver it as a quality offering it does not matter if it was the right pitch or not?
     
    How do we decide on this skill? I do not know, but pitchers should have some idea - I wonder if that is why some pitchers have designated catchers who are not the regular catcher. Of maybe those catchers call what the pitcher wants rather than what should be called. I do not know how to decide.
     
    So with the current conversations possibly eliminating those two qualities we get to the hockey goalie attributes - who lets the most baseballs get by for Wild Pitches and Passed balls? Here is a list of the most passed balls - https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/stats?season=2019&category=FIELDING+II&group=1&sort=7&time=0&pos=0&qual=1&sortOrder=0&splitType=0&page=1&statID=0
    16 by Flowers in 83 games is atrocious - 226 innings - 0.07 pct . Grandal had 9 in 412 innings - 0.02. pct. Garver had 8 in 225 innings - 0.035 and Castro had 7 in 210 innings - 0.033. Former Twin minor leaguer John Hicks with Detroit had 3 in 244 innings 0.012. Former Twin Suzuki had 6 in 209 innings 0.0028. Former Twins minor leaguer Wilson Ramos had 10 in 338 - 0.029. According to Baseball Almanac Astudillo has zero passed balls in 37 games as catcher.
     
    I could not find out who allowed the most Wild Pitches. But the Angels - 98, Boston 81, Baltimore 75, Seattle 75, and Oakland 74 - were the top five teams in Wild Pitches for the 2019 season. Minnesota was number 8 with 70. Those catchers were - Angels - LuCruy ,Boston -Vasquez, Baltimore - Severino, Seattle - Narvaez, Oakland - Phegley. Was it their fault or bad pitchers?
     
     
    Then there are errors - I am not sure how everything is figured. I assume bad throws to the bags, but is a PB an error? (not according to MLB.com - A passed ball is not recorded as an error, but when a run scores as the result of a passed ball, it does not count as an earned run against a pitcher) and that makes no sense to me, so other errors would come from fielding bunts and taking throws on runners trying to score and catching the strikeout pitch (?). When I went to see the errors the first thing I saw was fielding pct and it made me laugh - these are 1000 fielding catchers in 2019 - Willians Astudillo, John Hicks, John Ryan Murphy, Drew Butera, When I look at the serious list of full time catchers the thing that stood out is Realmuto's 9 errors! How did he get them. I am still confused by catcher errors. Juan Castro had 1. Mitch Garver had 6 and Grandal 8!
     
    The catcher's most striking attribute in the past was his arm, but in this day of no stolen bases that positive element seems like it has been removed by the current metrics. I hope it comes back strong - give me Ricky, Coleman, Wills, Brock, Aparicicio and the other speedsters! If we look at current stats Mitch Garver tops the league with a .162 caught stealing rate - followed by Wilson Ramos .153. Not much to look at because there were so few attempts.
     
    Fangraphs WAR has Realmuto with 5.7, Grandal 5.2, Gaver 3.9, Vasquez 3.5. Tom Murphy 3.2. I hate to say it by I did not even know who Tom Murphy was. In case you do not know him either - he is a Seattle Mariner.
     
    Garver gets his WAR points from offense. Fangraphs has points for Offense and Defense before calculating WAR. Realmuto, Hedges (Padres), Vazquez(Red Sox), Grandal, and Perez (Indians) rate the top five in Defense by fangraph measures. Mitch Garver is 22nd. and Castro is 17th. Suzuki is 33rd out of 37 catchers rated with 250 ABs minimum. Astudillo in 52nd out of 68 when I drop the ABs to 100. Garver is first by a wide margin when rating catchers with 250 ABs in offense with Contreras second and Grandal 3rd. Castro is 14. Astudillo is number 41 of 68 when I drop the ABs to 100 and look at offensive ratings.
     
     
     
    So what is the future catcher's requirements:
    Stamina
    Quick reflexes
    Good arm
    Good bat
    Able to handle a runner coming in from third

     
    Sounds like Garver will fit the future and I like Jeffers coming in to back him up.
  24. mikelink45

    What good are records

    By mikelink45,

    When the Twins Bombas broke the MLB record for HRs there was elation - and rightfully so. It is fun to see records fall and even to have some marks like 56 straight game hitting streaks seem to be impossible to break. When I was young (1950s) I got hooked on baseball and my little transistor radio would sneak under my pillow at night so I could follow the Milwaukee Braves.
     
    I loved the way baseball connected me with my dad and Grandpa, the way it related to the old town teams my relatives played on and the symmetry of the game. It just seemed to be one of the constants in a buzzing world of change. BUT...........
     
    There is the juiced ball which periodically makes an appearance when baseball seems to need a boost or the juiced players like Sosa and McGwire who also came at a time when baseball needed a boost. Of course they cheated, just like the league itself and I would not put them in the HOF except in an exhibit - the Flawed Savoirs of Baseball.
     
    So does the Bombas record mean as much as the HR record because of the ball? Or the record of 131 triples by the 1894 Phillies when the ball was bruised, cut, stained, softened? The record of 191 triples by Paul Waner hasn't been challenged since Musial retired with 177 in 1963 and no one remembers that amazing number by Stan as much as his hits 3630 and Home-runs 475.
     
    Doubles are still important, but we seldom talk about - Stan Musial was also third all time with 725 doubles! Why is he so often forgotten in talks about the greats? Tris Speaker had 792 and Pete (tarnished) Rose had the second most - 746. Earl Webb is hardly a name that gets much air time, but he has the single season record of 67. The closest for a modern player is (HOF ballet) Todd Helton with 59 in 2000.
     
    I loved the symmetry of 60, but I have no relationship to 73. I guess Mark McGwire caught my fancy with 70 because of the number, not the player. 61 had the same blah position as 73, but the year and the story are so compelling - Maris losing his hair versus Bond growing a bigger head. Then there was the fair-haired boy Mantle who everyone rooted for and the brooding boy from the plains that nobody in NY could understand - and he won.
     
    I can hardly get started on pitching. My hero was Warren Spahn - despite missing multiple years in the military he still won 20+ games 13 times (don't even start on the wins don't mean anything) and he won 363 games in the era when Maris went for 60 and Mantle did multiple 50 HRs. He also finished his games - what a concept. The pitchers ahead of him played in the deadball era - Johnson, Matthewson, Young, Gavin or the emerging modern era - Alexander.
     
    I know we cannot compare Radbourne's 48 and 59 win back to back seasons. They had 2 man rotations back then, but then we had four man rotations when Spahn pitched, then 5 man rotations and now we have bullpen games! So how do the records compare? Spitballs, batters asking for high or low pitches in 1867 - 1887, scuffed balls, cut balls - of course Perry belongs in the hall, he should be in the spitter wing - it was legal until 1920. The pitchers had to throw underhand until 1883 - and, no this was not softball.
     
    So how do we measure our 5 inning starters, or the (yuck) openers?
     
    Batters cork their bats - sometimes with hilarious results
    , and for the seasons from 1885 - 1893 batters were allowed to flatten one side of their bats. 
    In 1887 11 players hit 400! Of course that was the only year that walks counted as hits. With the OPS emphasis maybe we should go back to that.
     
    Up to 1864 balls caught on one bounce were outs and until 1883 foul balls caught on one bounce were outs.
    Want a walk-off, you get a single, or double. It depends on how many bases you needed to score the winning run until 1920. No walk-off home runs. Of course you could make up the difference with a ground rule double that counted as a HR until 1930 - MLB was still chasing HR records. Then Babe Ruth showed them he did not need them, he had no ground rules in his 60.
     
    So this long winded rant is because I have now lost faith in baseball records. All the changes that I list pale in comparison to the long history of excluding black players. Take out Brock and Gibson and what were the Cardinals in 1967? Remove Aaron from the Braves, Clemente from the Pirates, Mays from the Giants.
     
    We have added teams and diluted the talent, we have added 8 games to the season and not accounted for it in the record book. We think we are so statistically smart that we no longer need SBs, but what would the Dodgers have done with Wills on the bases, of the Yankees and A's without the disruption of Rickey?
     
    By the way, the unwritten rules are not part of this discussion, because I find them so stupid.
     
    There have been greenies, alcohol, and PEDs and the records go on and on. We have added a short season of playoff games and continue to compare the current records with the past for post season statistics. Imagine what Yogi Berra would have had in his ten World Series years if he could have added at least 7 more games to each seasons end.
     
    We lament the loss of a large percentage of young fans and I keep thinking that two things moved many of us - the minor leagues (which are now contracting) and baseball cards with what seemed like simple and biblical numbers. It is also the ability to recognize the player - NFL has an issue because they could swap numbers on the players and from the stands no one will know. It is like watching knights joust - without unique armor they were just riding robots. This is the appeal of soccer - same number of players and you can see their faces! Hockey has the same problem as NFL, compounded with the fact that we cannot see that little puck and they change lines so often no one who is not a fanatic really knows who is in the game.
     
    The NBA has stolen the face recognition - fewer players, lots of close ups, an emphasis on personalities. This is what the MLB had, but they missed the connection and let it slip.
     
    So I will keep watching and thinking about the game because I am too old to switch now so I will quit - I am sure I tweaked many of your ideas so take a shot at educating a 74 year old fan.
  25. mikelink45
    I am not advocating trading him, but I have read so many trade Rosario scenarios I began to wonder what would happen if we took another of our players and put them out there. Admittedly Betts is the FA RF that will dominate all discussions, but what would Kepler bring us?
     
    Here are his basic stats for the MLB career and a comparison with his MIB stats.
     
    The first note is that he had not matched his MILB stats in the first three years, but he did last year - OBP/S/OPS. Is this his next platform from which he will continue to get better? His third year was a drop from his first and second so it has not been a steady rise.
     
    The columns are BA, games, AB, R, H, 2B, 3B,HR,RBI, BB, K, SB, CS, OBP, S, OPS
     
    2016 23 Minnesota AL MAJ .235 113 396 52 93 20 2 17 63 42 93 6 2 2 .309 .424 .734
    2017 24 Minnesota AL MAJ .243 147 511 67 124 32 2 19 69 47 114 6 1 5 .312 .425 .737
    2018 25 Minnesota AL MAJ .224 156 532 80 119 30 4 20 58 71 96 4 5 8 .319 .408 .727
    2019 26 Minnesota AL MAJ .255 135 529 103 135 34 0 37 92 61 100 2 4 5 .339 .529 .868
    Minor League Totals .281 457 1704 268 479 102 37 35 273 206 301 42 9 21 .363 .446 .809
    Major League Totals .239 554 1975 302 472 116 8 93 282 221 406 18 12 20 .320 .447 .767
     
    This is from https://www.baseballamerica.com/players/93013/max-kepler/
     
    Despite his injuries at the end of the season he was second to Polanco in PA - Rosario was third on the Twins. Cruz was fourth.
     
    In Runs scored - Polanco was first 107, Kepler second 98, Rosario was third 91 - I guess he did get on base, and Cruz was fourth with 81.
     
    In hits it was Polanco, Rosario, Cruz and Kepler was fourth.
     
    In HR with 36 he was second to Cruz and followed by Sano and Rosario.
     
    IN RBIs he was third behind Rosario and Cruz.
     
    In strikeouts he was sixth which is good - Sano despite missing part of the season was still number one, followed by Cruz, Polanco and Schoop. Rosario was 10th in the team.
     
    BA he was 9th (Rosario was 4th) behind Arraez and Cruz at the top.
     
    He was number 6 on the team in OBP while Rosario is 10th.
     
    Slugging he was 4th on the Twins at 519 and Rosario was 5th at 500
    In total bases it is Polanco, Cruz, Kepler, Rosario.
     
    There is the batting comparisons. In WAR, Kepler is 4 and Rosario is 13 - there are pitchers in the WAR list. So Eddie is hurt by fielding comparisons.
     
    Rotographs https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/2019-outfield-rankings/ has Rosario ranked number 29 among all MLB outfielders. Kepler is 48. And Buxton is 44.
     
    New Arena ranked the Twins OF - number 14 out of all the MLB clubs - coming in to last season they wrote, "Combined ’18 WAR: 6.1 https://newarena.com/mlb/ranked-every-mlb-teams-outfield-trio-from-worst-to-best/
    If you don’t follow the Minnesota Twins or one of their rivals in the American League Central, you are probably unaware of the talent roaming the outfield at Target Field. Eddie Rosario has been a very good player the past two years for the Twins — posting a two-year average of 26 HR, 78 RBI, .289/.326/.493. As a regular in left, Rosario saved six defensive runs last year. Byron Buxton, the most talented of the bunch, is set to return to the starting lineup after appearing in just 28 games a season ago. Buxton is a five-tool player with the potential to be one of baseball’s best players when he puts it all together. He possesses top-notch speed, a great hit tool, and superior defensive ability. Still only 25 years old, Buxton has time to hit his stride. Occupying the other corner outfield position is Max Kepler. Kepler is good for around 20 homers per year, but also 100 strikeouts. Kepler had a great year in the field in ’18, saving 10 defensive runs."
     
    Now that I have put together the information I can find (I am not an advanced stat head - sorry, you can fill that in) you have seen in various TD articles trades with Rosario in the deal. Now put Kepler in and what do we get? Does he have the same perceived value to others that he does with the Twins?
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