dave_dw

Please please please keep writing the Twins, Matthew. Love your work! It's an absolute delight to hear your take about my favorite team.

Sound the alarm! The Twins pitchers currently lead the league in team strikeout percentage! I know, I know, we’re talking about three games in March. This sample size hopes one day it will grow up to become a “small sample size.” That said, Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi each struck out 10+ batters in the Twins first two games, something that only Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling have ever done before. As an encore, Michael Pineda and Martin Perez teamed up for 11 strikeouts in 7.2 IP in game three. There’s a legitimate chance that this is the best starting rotation to ever reside on Target Field’s mound. It would not surprise the reader to know that the Twins have been really bad at getting strikeouts. For five straight seasons, from 2011 through 2015, they finished dead last in team K% in all of baseball. In the 35 years since the Pohlad family took over as the Twins’ owners, their 15.9 K% is the second to worst in the MLB, just 0.1% better than the last-place Tigers. So ya, leading the league in strikeout percentage is very unusual, even if it is only three games into the year. But the question is: are the Twins pitchers really this good or are the Indians hitters really bad? Should we commence construction of Wes Johnson's statue? Or should we point and laugh at the Cleveland’s crappy lineup? A point in the favor of Twins pitchers is that their stuff has been better. Odorizzi’s velocity is up nearly a mile per hour over where it was a year ago, and his swinging strike rate was up 140% over his career mark. Berrios had a similar increase in his swinging strike rate (156% increase over his career mark). Pineda also got more whiffs and was insanely efficient in blanking Cleveland through his four innings. Perez maintained his spring velocity bump with a fastball that maxed out at 97 mph while producing a swinging strike rate at nearly double his career mark. Here’s the problem though: if the Indians hitters really do suck, then these improvements in swinging strike rates are exactly what we’d expect to see. Bad hitting teams make opposing pitchers look good. It’s the pitching equivalent of a Snapchat filter that removes your blemishes and makes your eyes look like Alita (you know, the freaking Battle Angel). With proven major-league hitters Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis on the injured list, the Indians gave 18% of their team’s plate appearances to a putrid combination of Eric Stamets, Max Moroff, and Brad Miller. Hanley Ramirez was batting fifth despite not having played a major-league game since last May. Their leadoff hitter Leonys Martin has never produced an above-average DRC+ in his career. These guys are … not great. It’s Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana, and the cast of The Expendables up there hacking. To see if having a bad lineup explains the Twins’ pitching dominance, I looked at the PECOTA projections for each Cleveland hitter and weighted them based on the number of plate appearances they actually had in this series. This gave me with a PECOTA-projected K% for the Indians when Jose Ramirez gets 12 plate appearances and Jake Bauers gets 9 and Jordan Luplow gets 4 … you get the picture. I did the same with Twins pitchers, weighting them by batters face for each pitcher and adding them all together. INDIANS HITTERS PROJECTED K% 21.7% TWINS PITCHERS PROJECTED K% 21.2% ACTUAL K% FOR BOTH 38.6% Had the Indian’s projected strikeout percentage been worse, I would’ve been tempted to chalk this up to terrible Indians hitting. Similarly, had the Twins projected strikeout percentage been higher, I'd talk myself into thinking the Twins pitchers are great. As it is, we’ve probably got a little from Column A and a little from Column B, but even that is uncertain in our tiny sample. We can’t glean anything conclusive from three games, we knew that coming in, but these are interesting data points that trend in an exciting direction. As we collect more and more data points over the coming weeks and months, the picture will continue loading until it eventually becomes clear. In the meantime, we can stare these particular data points and admire their beauty. Twins pitchers are striking people out and it’s amazing.

With the announcement that Marwin Gonzalez signed with the Minnesota Twins, there was optimism in the Twin Cities. Optimism that he could be the missing piece. Hope that he would fill in the gaps on the roster. But he failed. No, I’m not talking his fielding or his hitting. I’m not talking about a need to improve the pitching staff. Heck, I’m not talking about baseball performance at all. I am talking about numbers. No one is wearing the number 4. Gonzalez selected to wear the #9 that he has worn his whole career, bumping bench coach Derek Shelton into a numberless purgatory according to the team's official roster online. In the MLB, #4 is prime real estate. Not counting Jackie Robinson's #42, only two numbers have been retired more often than #4 which has been retired by eight different teams. The #20 has been retired 11 times (thanks largely to Frank Robinson being honored by three different teams), and the #14 has been retired nine times. So the #4 has plenty of legitimate baseball history attached to it in the form of Lou Gehrig, Luke Appling, Duke Snider, Mel Ott, Earl Weaver, and—likely the reason why the number is vacant—Paul Molitor. Molitor reclaimed his old number during his four years as Twins manager which came to an end last October. He also wore #4 throughout his three-year stint with Minnesota as a player from 1996 until his retirement in 1998. In the 20 years since 1998, the #4 has only been worn by one Twins player. Augie Ojeda, a glove-first utility infielder, donned #4 in 2004 during his 30-game stint with the club. He was often a defensive replacement or pinch hitter/runner, but he hit for a Molitorian .339 batting average with a .429 on-base percentage as he amassed an unfathomable 1.2 WAR over just 72 plate appearance for Minnesota. Not too shabby for a career .234 hitter in his age-29 season. But that was it. Before Molitor took the number in 1996, a Twins player had worn it in every of the previous 15 seasons. It was first worn in Minnesota by Bob Allison in 1961 after the team relocated from Washington, D.C. It is said that Allison was the motivation for Molitor (who grew up the Twin Cities) to take #4 in the first place since he emulated Allison in his youth. After Allison, the #4 was worn by Steve Braun (1971-1975), Steve Lombardozzi (1985-1988), Chip Hale (1990-1995) and four others before Molitor bumped Hale to #12 when he joined the club. Surely there was some decorum following Molitor’s retirement in 1998, similar to what we're seeing with Freddy Galvis and Jose Bautista's #19, and we’re probably seeing the same thing with Molitor now following his managerial stint. That said, the man played just three season for the Twins and managed for four uneventful years. If someone were to, say, write a book about the 50 most important men and moments in Twins history, Molitor may not even make the list (you'll have to buy it to find out)! Surely Molitor’s #4 won't be placed in the prestigious position below the Budweiser Roof Deck in the future. Who should take this number? Let's start with everyone who's wearing a terrible number. Jake Cave is wearing #60. Lay your claim to #4, young man! Tyler Austin, you’re not on the Yankees anymore, there are single-digit numbers in Minnesota that aren't retired yet! Willians Astudillo you can … actually #64 is a perfect number for you, keep on doing what you’re doing. And while it’s very unusual for pitchers to wear single-digit numbers—admittedly it looks a little weird—Matt Magill (#68) or Trevor May (#65), as well as any other reliever, should absolutely take the plunge. Think about how badass it would look for Rocco Baldelli to go to the mound, pat the pitcher on the keister, and hold up four fingers to the bullpen to call in his reliever (as long as they don’t get confused and walk the next batter). Perhaps as this season gives way to the inevitable cycle of major leaguers through the clubhouse, someone will squat on this valuable piece of numerical property. Or maybe a year-long, Molitor-honoring grace period will leave the number vacant for 2019. Either way, by this time next year, someone better be wearing #4 for the Minnesota Twins again.

Johan Santana is the only unanimous Cy Young Award winner in history to be benched on Opening Day. In 2004, Johan Santana won the AL Cy Young Award for the Minnesota Twins. He received a perfect 28 of 28 first place votes, breezing by Curt Schilling and Mariano Rivera. His 228 innings pitched was second most in the American League while his 2.61 ERA lead the AL among qualified starters. He struck out 30.1% of the batters he faced. Pedro Martinez, the next closest in the American League starter, had struck out 25.1%. Santana was amazing. And yet... On Opening Day 2005, Johan was on the bench. The Twins opted to start Brad Radke instead. Radke had been the club’s Opening Day starter for six straight seasons entering the year and had started eight of the previous nine season openers. He signed a two-year $18 million deal with Minnesota in the ’04-’05 offseason to keep him from taking his talents to Boston or Anaheim who were rumored to have offered more. He had been looking for a three-year/$33 million deal from the Twins, but opted instead to take a discount to stay. The Twins paid him back by giving him the Opening Day start. According to a Chicago Tribune article from April 2005, manager Ron Gardenhire said he made the decision to start Radke over Santana on Opening Day almost immediately after Radke re-signed with the club. "There wasn't a conversation about it," Gardenhire said. "Radke's here, he's starting Opening Day. It's not about slighting anybody. It's about the respect that the guy's earned since he's been here." The article continues saying that Radke didn’t expect to start Opening Day, and that Santana had no problem with it given Radke’s tenure with the team. But there is a problem with it—it had never happened before and hasn’t happened since. Santana is the only unanimous Cy Young Award winner in history to be benched on Opening Day. There have been 22 other unanimous Cy Young Award winners and only two others failed to start the Opening Day game in the following season. Sandy Koufax in 1967 because he retired, and Orel Hershiser’s first start of 1989 was pushed back due to flu symptoms. If we widen the net to all Cy Young Award winners, there have been 104 starting pitchers who won the award since it was established in 1956 and played in the following season—so not counting Koufax’s retirement season or the two 2018 Cy Young Award winners since this year’s Opening Day hasn’t happened yet. There were also nine relievers, but they didn’t start because, you know, they didn’t start games. Of those 104 starters, three were unavailable on Opening Day due to injury, three were holding out at the start of the season because of contract disputes, and one was mired in a league investigation into gambling. Zooming in a little closer, three more of the remaining pitchers started in game two because they were behind Hall of Fame teammates in their team’s rotation. Mike McCormick started behind Juan Marichal in 1968, Mike Flanagan started behind Jim Palmer in 1980, and John Denny started behind Steve Carlton in 1984. None of this was the case with Santana. He was healthy, not in a contract dispute, and—while I like Radke as much as the next guy—he was not stuck behind a future Hall of Fame pitcher. Which means our list of comparable Cy Young Award winners has been pared down to 94 pitchers. Of those 94, only 11 failed to start Opening Day the following season, this includes Santana in 2005. This means that 88% of Cy Young Award-winning starters meeting our criteria took the mound on Opening Day in the following season. [table] Cy Young Award Year Pitcher Following Season's Opening Day Starter with Reason 2013 Max Scherzer Justin Verlander - he was very good (although 2014 was a rough season) 2004 Johan Santana Brad Radke - of course 2004 Roger Clemens Roy Oswalt - he had a longer tenure with Houston & finished 3rd in the 2004 Cy Young Award voting 2002 Barry Zito Tim Hudson - he was roughly as good as Zito throughout their stretch in Oakland 1990 Bob Welch Dave Stewart - he finished in the top 4 of Cy Young Award voting in the four previous seasons 1985 Bret Saberhagen Bud Black - Saberhagen's youth? I don't know, this one is similar to Santana 1981 Fernando Valenzuela Jerry Reuss - this too seems to be youth and is similar to Santana 1974 Catfish Hunter Doc Medich - Hunter joined the Yankees in the offseason thanks to a fluke that let him out of his contract with Oakland, it’s possible team or league politics played a role 1969 Mike Cuellar Dave McNally - he finished 4th in the Cy Young Award voting in 1969, so they were similarly skilled 1964 Dean Chance Fred Newman - like Radke, Newman was clearly worse than Chance, I couldn't find a real reason 1960 Vern Law Bob Friend - he & Law were comparable pitchers, but this is similar to Santana’s snub [/table] There you have it. And remember, of those players on this list, Santana was the only unanimous Cy Young Award winner prior to his Opening Day snub. Will it ever happen again? Certainly it will in the infinite monkey theory of baseball, so I will say “yes” because unless the sport ends entirely, no one can say I am wrong.

UPDATE (March 4): Jose Berrios has been named the Twins 2019 Opening Day starter The “Opening Day starter” distinction means more than it matters. It is an honor given to a team’s best or longest-tenured starting pitcher, and it is treated by players and managers as just that: an honor. Whether a pitcher starts on Opening Day or in the second game of the season doesn't matter much when it comes to the team's record over a 162-game season, and yet we see a barrage of press releases and quotes during spring training announcing who will take the mound first for each team. At this point, the Twins haven’t announced their Opening Day starter for 2019, but the proclamation will likely come in the next few weeks. That said, there seems to be two front-runners for the job: Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson. While Jake Odorizzi was the Opening Day starter in 2018, he only pitched 164 1/3 innings and posted a 4.49 ERA on the season. Berrios and Gibson, on the other hand (or "on same hand" since they're all righties), both threw 190+ innings and had an ERA in the 3.00s. Of the two, Gibson had the better ERA at 3.62, threw a few more innings, and is projected by Steamer to lead the team in ERA again in 2019. He is the longest-tenured player on the Twins roster as he enters his seventh season pitching for Minnesota, and was also ahead of Berrios in the rotation last year, pitching in second game of the season after Odorizzi’s opening start. Berrios had the edge in the peripheral stats with mores strikeouts and fewer walks than Gibson. His 3.84 ERA was not far behind his teammate, and he was the only Twins player selected to the All-Star game last year. He is projected by PECOTA to be the best pitcher on the Twins’ staff in 2019 and has the edge in “stuff” and future upside. If there's a true ace on this staff, it will likely be him. Michael Pineda and Martin Perez round out the rotation. They have yet to throw a pitch for the Twins and have been either hurt or bad in recent years. They don’t expect to be in the conversation for Opening Day starter. Adding a wrinkle into the discussion is Rocco Baldelli and the Twins late-season experiment using an Opener in 2018. The decision to implement this strategy last September was agreed upon by the front office and former manager Paul Molitor. However, with Molitor’s depature and the addition of Baldelli—who hails from the Tampa Bay Rays organization which introduced and heavily used the Opener last year—there are reasons to believe that the Twins will more aggressive with this strategy in 2019. That said, the Twins continued to allow Berrios, Gibson, and Odorizzi to start without being preceded by an Opener last fall. Likewise, the Rays allowed their better starter pitchers Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow to start their games without an opening act. Beginning the season with an Opener seems unlikely unless this coaching staff really wants to make a splash right out of the gate. Time (and probably the Twins in the next weeks) will tell who will be taking the mound at Target Field on March 28 to face the Cleveland Indians, and their name will be jotted down in Twins history. Even if it doesn’t really matter who gets the start, it certainly means something. Here are some tidbits about Opening Day starters in Minnesota Twins’ history: Since officially becoming the Minnesota Twins in 1961 (after moving from the District of Columbia), there have been 58 Opening Days. A total of 31 different pitchers made Opening Day starts for the Twins. --- Brad Radke leads the pack with nine Opening Day starts followed by Bert Blyleven’s six starts and four for Frank Viola. Dave Goltz tallied three starts on Opening Day while nine other pitchers had two starts apiece. --- The best Twins Opening Day start, using Bill James’ Game Score, was Dean Chance. He threw a complete game shutout in 1968 against the Washington Senators (the team that filled in the void after the Twins moved to Minnesota). Chance struck out eight batters, walked none, and allowed four hits in the contest. --- The worst performance by the same metric came in Brad Havens’ lone Opening Day start for the Twins which took place in the Metrodome in 1983. Havens was ousted after recording just four outs. He gave up eight runs, all earned, against an impressive Detroit Tigers team that went on to win 92 games that season. His brutal outing began: single, single, home run, walk, wild pitch, walk. The Tigers went on to score six runs in the first inning. --- Kevin Tapani, however, proved to be the worst Opening Day starter in the aggregate, as he posted a 19.29 ERA over two starts in 1993 and 1994. In the two games, he totaled seven innings, recorded just three strikeouts, and gave up a massive 15 earned runs on 18 hits. Those starts were the second- and third-worst Opening Day starts in Twins history by Game Score. --- There were only five Opening Days hosted at Metropolitan Stadium. Mudcat Grant had the best start of the bunch allowing one run in a complete game against the Kansas City Athletics. The worst Opening Day performance at the Met belongs to Jim Perry in which he allowed three earned runs in 4 2/3 innings of work in his 1971 start. --- Radke started five of the 15 Opening Day games played in the Metrodome and had the best start under the inflated roof by Game Score. In 1996, Radke struck out eight Detroit Tigers in six innings while allowing just one earned run as the Twins (with newly-signed Paul Molitor) beat the Tigers 8-6. --- Target Field has hosted just two Opening Days since it’s inaugural season. In 2013, Vance Worley braved the 35º weather and limited the then-very-good Tigers to three runs over six innings. He held Miguel Cabrera hitless, but took the loss as the Twins fell 4-2. In 2017, the Twins defeated the Royals behind seven strong innings of one-run ball from Ervin Santana. The Twins will host their third ever Opening Day at Target Field as they take on the Cleveland Indians on March 28th.

Everyday Eddie Guardado has spent a lot of days in the Twins bullpen. Twelve of Guardado's 17 major-league seasons were spent playing for the Twins, and he added an extra four years as their bullpen coach under Paul Molitor's regime until he was let go this past fall. At some point during his first 11 season with the Twins, he picked up the nickname "Everyday Eddie". A quick search shows that the oldest online reference to "Everyday Eddie" is from a March 2001 Peter Gammons article in which he says, mockingly: At the time, the Twins were coming off of four straight 90-loss seasons, so it's hard to fault Gammons for thinking an above-.500 season was laughable. The Twins finished 85-77 that year, proving Gammons wrong, however—despite a very good year from Guardado—the Twins bullpen finished the year with the 5th-worst bullpen ERA. We know that at some point before 2001, "Everday Eddie" took hold as a nickname, and now, nearly a decade removed from his final major-league pitch, we can look back and decide: was that really a fitting nickname? Obviously Guardado didn't literally pitch everyday, it was hyperbole, but the nickname implies a couple of things: 1) he pitched in a lot of games, to the point where it might seem like he has pitched in every game, and 2) he pitched on zero days rest regularly, giving the impression that he was available everyday. But were either of those things true? Let's start with games played. In 1996, Guardado's first full season as a reliever, he appeared in 83 games which was tied for the league-lead with Tigers' reliever and international man of mystery Mike Myers. From 1996 through 2000 (remember, this nickname was established sometime before March of 2001), Guardado appeared in a total of 364 games, the 4th most among pitchers in that span behind Robb Nen, Buddy Groom, and Mike "Voice of Shrek" Myers. That's a lot of appearances. Not the most, but a lot. Considering he played for the same team during during that span, unlike the players ahead of him, and that his "Everyday Eddie" is alliterative, it's reasonable that he'd get this nickname by playing in a bunch of games. And keep in mind, the Twins were abysmal during this stretch, so the fans were likely desperate to latch on to anything. Now let's look at the second possibility: did Everyday Eddie pitch a lot with zero days rest? A quick play index shows that in all of baseball history, Guardado had the 11th most games played on zero days rest among all pitchers. He sits behind three Hall of Famers (Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, and Trevor Hoffman), some memorable good relievers with long careers (Jesse Orosco, Jose Mesa, and Francisco Rodriguez), and of course Mike "He Keeps Showing Up Like That Killer in the Halloween Movies" Myers. Both are true: Guardado pitched in a lot of games and frequently pitch on zero days rest—he truly earned his "Everyday" nickname (and of course the alliteration really helps). However, I think that it is only fair that he henceforth shall share the nickname with Mike Myers. "Everyday Mike" may not have the same ring to it as "Everyday Eddie", but if anyone complains, they can just zip it.

Duke came back from Tommy John last year and didn't throw his first pitch until late-July. Entering today's game, righties have a .236 AVG and .328 OBP against him in his career as a reliever. His ERA against RHH as a RP in 2016 was 2.94 and it was 2.78 in 2014. Although, I'm not totally sold on ERA vs handed batter as a useful stat because if a lefty gets on and a right hits him in, I don't understand how that counts as an earned run against either LHH or RHH without counting against the other.

Somewhere in Detroit, Rick Anderson is vomiting into a waste bucket.

He faced 31 total righties last year (as many as batters Berrios faced yesterday alone). Duke has solid numbers against righties in his career as a reliever, I don't think he should buy a house in LOOGY-town just yet.

Real nice to see a not-strikeout by Buxton there. Reeeaaalll nice.

Joey Gallo last year with 80 RBI (with 41 HR)

I'm loving all these takes on Buntgate! We play the Orioles again in early July. I'll be very disappointed if we drill Sisco in his first at bat. However, given Dozier and the team's post-game comments, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.

You do you, but "moving on" is taking a position that nothing happened

I would add "...with an eyebrow raised." As you said, we don't know what did or didn't happen, but that works both ways. Sano might be the victim here, but he might be a total creep & an assailant, we don't know and we may never know. I will look at him a little differently from now on. Maybe that's unfair if he did nothing wrong, but it's certainly not fair enough if he did what he was accused of.

Everybody loves a good record chase. Whether it's Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's asterisk-fueled home run battle of 1998 or the very non-asterisk-fueled Kansas City Royals challenging the record for most consecutive innings without scoring a run last season—a record chase is compelling. There's a fine line, though, between fun facts and records. Fun facts get mocked (rightfully) for having more qualifiers than valuable information. “He has the most infield singles on Tuesday night home games before the All-Star break,” you'll hear someone say in a dopey voice that doesn't actually exist in nature. Those are fun facts and in most cases they are not fun at all. But somewhere between real records and those not-so-fun fun facts are some interesting statistics, if you're into that kind of thing. I am very much into this kind of thing. If you look hard enough, you could find a record-breaking event in nearly every MLB game. If you look a little less hard (look softer?) you come up with a handful of records that are on the verge of being broken in 2018. That’s what I did with the Twins. I looked softer (that doesn’t sound right) and came up with four Twins-specific records that could be broken this year. If you want to watch history in the making this season, you just need to know where to look. Here is your guide to weird Twins records to keep an eye on in 2018. Career Hits against Lefties As Joe Mauer enters his 15th season with the Twins, he is starting to approach some accumulation records. While he’s still 900+ hits away from that franchise record, he is within striking distance of the franchise record of hits against left-handed pitchers. Mauer needs to collect 54 hits against lefties this year to pass Carew’s record mark. While he's had just 40 such hits last year, he’s had 5 seasons in his career with 54+ against southpaws. Unfortunately, the most recent of those seasons came 6 years ago in 2012. Adding to the degree of difficulty, the starting rotations of AL Central opponents expects to be very righty-heavy this year, which could suppress his number of plate appearance against lefties. If Mauer breaks this record in 2018, it will come at the very end of the year, so file this one away for a few months. Target Field Strikeouts If you're looking for a record that could be broken early in the year, then look no further (but please do look further, I still have 2 more after this one). Francisco Liriano is the current record-holder for strikeouts at Target Field. His lead, however, is so narrow that he will certainly be passed by at least one Twins pitcher this year, even though he could add to his total by pitching at Target Field when his Detroit Tigers visit Minnesota. Even if it turns out that Kyle Gibson didn't turn a corner late last year, it won't take much for him to pass up Liriano, as he only needs 4 Ks to do it. If Gibson did turn a corner, then he'll likely take the lead after one start. Ervin Santana is poised to pass Liriano as well assuming he can remain healthy after he returns from his finger injury. As for Santana catching up to Gibson, it would require Gibson to miss most of the year or get traded. Phil Hughes could also pass Liriano with a good season, but surpassing Gibson and Santana would necessitate a BOGO sale at the Springfield Mystery Spot. Kennys Vargas’ Elite Immobility All Kennys Vargas has to do to set a franchise record is just stand there. Currently, he is the active MLB leader in games played without a stolen base attempt among non-pitchers. The only player in Twins history with more games played without an attempted steal is former-backup-catcher turned manager turned former-manager Mike Redmond. I included the rest of the top 5 because having the Butera Boyz™ together is fun, and any leaderboard that includes Mike Redmond and Hall of Famer Jim Thome together is fantastic. Vargas is just 22 stationary games away from owning this franchise record outright. Unfortunately for him, the addition of Logan Morrison puts his playing time—and roster spot—into question. It does, however, make pinch-hit appearances even more likely if he stays on the team, which would count as games played but would limit his stolen base opportunities. If he remains on the team as a bench bat, expect this record to be his by June, assuming he doesn't screw it up by trying to steal. If he gets designated for assignment or traded, Redmond can light up a cigar in celebration. Total Bases at Target Field Target Field-specific records are kind of lame, but total bases, like strikeouts, is a fairly informative stat. Total bases can be used as crude short-hand for “who was good for the longest time”. If you asked the average Twins fan who was good for the longest time since Target Field opened in 2010, they would probably say either Joe Mauer or Brian Dozier, and that’s exactly who sits at the top of this leaderboard. Dozier needs to net 13 total bases this year to wrest the record away from Mauer. Considering that Dozier had 55 more total bases at home than Mauer last year (during Mauer’s best offensive season in four years), it’s likely that Dozier climbs to the top of this leaderboard by May and doesn’t look back for the rest of 2018. Where these guys fit into the Twins plans going forward will likely dictate who finishes their career with this record on their mantle. Which record are you most excited to watch for in 2018? Or is there another record that isn't listed here that you'll be keeping an eye on?