Steven Buhr

Going in to this weekend’s series against the Milwaukee Brewers, our Minnesota Twins are 11 games over .500, sitting atop the American League Central Division (barely) with a 32-21 record.
 
Naturally, after the four year run of futility Twins fans have endured coming in to the current season, the main topic of conversation in the Twins community revolves around, “is this for real or are they going to crash and burn?”
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Trevor May (photo: SD Buhr)

Being more than ten games over the break-even point a couple of months in to the season is rarified air for the Twins this decade. In fact, it’s relatively rare for any team to work their way more than ten games above .500 by June 4 in any recent year.
 
When you look at the results for other teams that have managed to win ten more games than they’ve lost as of this date, you can find some cause for optimism – but you can also find a cautionary tale or two, as well.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.)
 
A year ago, four teams found themselves on June 4 with records showing at least ten more wins than losses. Those teams were the Giants, Athletics, Brewers and Blue Jays.
 
That’s not exactly encouraging news for Twins fans. Two of those teams, the Giants and A’s, hung on to claim wild card spots. The other two failed to make the postseason at all.
 
In 2013, seven teams streaked out to early success in the first two months of the season. Boston, Texas, Oakland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh all sat at least ten games over the .500 mark as of June 4.
 
Four of those teams would ultimately claim Division championship banners, three scraped in to a wild card spot and one, the Rangers, failed to make the postseason (and even they did play a "game 163"). That’s obviously a more encouraging precedent for Twins fans to focus on than the 2014 season.
 
Only the Dodgers had at least ten more wins than losses on June 4, 2012, and they fell short of postseason qualification.
 
In 2011, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cleveland were ten games over .500 on June 4. The Phillies won their division, the Cards were a wild card team and the Tribe were left on the outside looking in at playoff time.
 
In 2010, the Rays, Yankees and Padres all were at least ten games above the .500 mark on this date. Tampa Bay won their division, the Evil Empire claimed the wild card and the Padres were left out. In fairness, however, if today’s two-wild card format had been in effect in 2010, San Diego would have qualified for the second National League wild card spot.
 
(The Twins, in their final "good" season before the sucking years, were nine games over .500 on June 4, 2010.)
Add all of that up and you get a pretty interesting – and even – mix of results for teams that were, on this date, in a situation similar to where the Twins find themselves today.
 
Six of 18 teams won their division. Six of 18 claimed wild card spots. Six of 18 were left out in the cold.
 
Of the six teams who failed to make the postseason after their early-season success, two of them did go on to win at least 90 games. The 2010 Padres won 90 and, as mentioned, would have claimed a second wild card spot had the format been the same as what’s in place today. The 2013 Rangers won 91 games and lost a “play-in” game to the Rays.
 
The other four non-qualifiers ended up with 86 (2012 Dodgers), 83 (2014 Blue Jays), 82 (2014 Brewers) and 80 (2011 Indians) games.
 
We all want to believe in the Twins success. We look at the potential to add a front line pitcher to the rotation in Ervin Santana and see possibilities of additional help from young players on the verge of making their big league debuts. We hope to see some guys improve to counter what’s likely to be some regression to the mean among other players.
 
But, after four years of frustration, it’s hard for some of us to allow ourselves to become wholly emotionally invested in the Twins again, despite the surprisingly hot start.
 
That said, coming in to the season most of us would have been more than pleased with an 81-81 Twins record at the end of 2015. Considering that only one of 18 teams in the past five years that accomplished what the Twins have accomplished so far failed to finish with at least 81 wins, it’s hard for me not to start getting pretty excited.
 
Maybe – just maybe – that’s okay.

It may not be what casual baseball fans want to see, but in most cases and at most levels of professional baseball, the teams with the best pitching win the most games. Sometimes, it really is that simple.
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(L-R) Zack Larson, Stephen Gonsalves, Zach Granite and CK Irby sign autographs on the field after a Kernels game on April 26

It arguably has been exactly that simple for the Cedar Rapids Kernels over the course of the first three weeks of their season.
 
The Kernels are 11-7 on the year and sitting in a second place tie behind the Quad Cities River Bandits in the Midwest League’s Western Division standings. They open their first series with the Bandits on Tuesday in Davenport.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
 
Cedar Rapids’ offense has been, at best, a bit streaky. They sit at or near the middle of the MWL pack in most hitting categories, though they have managed to score the fourth-most runs in the league.
 
But, through the weekend's games, Kernels pitchers lead the MWL in team ERA (2.27), strikeouts (187) and WHIP (1.09).
 
When you see team numbers like those, obviously it’s not just one or two guys carrying the load.
 
The Kernels are consistently getting quality work out of their starting rotation and their bullpen has been locking things down in the late innings.
 
Manager Jake Mauer and pitching coach Henry Bonilla have primarily used six pitchers in their rotation, so far. Stephen Gonsalves, Mat Batts, Felix Jorge, Michael Cederoth, John Curtiss and Jared Wilson have accounted for all but two of Cedar Rapids’ starts this year.
 
Zack Tillery has one spot start and Twins pitcher Ricky Nolasco started Sunday's game on a rehabilitation assignment.
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Michael Theofanopoulos

Gonsalves, Batts and Jorge each have ERAs at 1.50 or better, with Gonsalves leading the team at 0.90.
 
The success of Gonsalves and Batts is impressive, but not entirely unexpected. The two pitchers combined to make 13 starts for the Kernels last season and both were being counted on from the season's onset to make strong contributions again in 2015.
 
Jorge’s success was far from a sure thing, however, at least in the minds of fans who only saw his work on the mound for Cedar Rapids early last year. In 2014, he put up a 2-5 record in 12 appearances (including eight starts) and amassed a 9.00 ERA before being sent back to Extended Spring Training by the Twins.
 
Jorge turned his year around with a solid season at rookie-level Elizabethton, but nobody was quite certain what to expect from the 21-year-old righthander during his second shot in the Midwest League.
“This was the Jorge we thought we were getting last year,” Mauer said recently. “It's a lot of things. Here it was freezing cold, he probably didn't get comfortable right away.
 
"He's got a different look to him (this year). He's way more confident. He's worked really hard with Henry as far as his timing, when his hands break. he seems to be way more in rhythm than he was last year. If you can be way more in rhythm, you're going to throw a lot more strikes.”
 
Bonilla, who was also Jorge's pitching coach in Elizabethton last year, is happy to see the improved version of the pitcher this season.
 
“It's good to see him get some good games under him early, especially with the cold," Bonilla said over the weekend, of Jorge. "I think the cold kind of had him a little bit last year. But he's kind of taken responsibility for that and he's gone forward.
 
"Ultimately, at the end of the year, you can hopefully start seeing his (velocity) get back to where it was when he was a young kid and his delivery get down in the zone a little bit. His breaking balls are coming along pretty good."
 
Bonilla thinks Jorge was primarily throwing an 88-89 mph fastball a year ago, which is not what the Twins were expecting when they gave the then-17-year-old Domincan a $250,000 signing bonus in early 2011.
 
"That's not really what he is. I think he's kind of getting back to it. We're doing some stuff mechanically. Hopefully, by the end of the season, we're talking more plan and location, instead of delivery, with him."
 
Of course, the downside for Kernels fans to having pitchers get off to hot starts is that the fans may not get many more opportunities to watch those players in Cedar Rapids. They are all just a phone call away from a promotion to the class high-A Fort Myers Miracle.
 
Batts, at 23 years old, might be a guy the Twins want to push up a level as soon as he appears ready and, between the end of last season and his start to the current campaign, the Twins could be getting close to wanting to see what he can do against more mature hitters.
 
It may be likely that the parent club would want to see Jorge demonstrate more extended success in the Midwest League, given his false start at this level a year ago.
 
Gonsalves doesn’t turn 21 until July, but his manager feels the Twins’ fourth round pick in 2013 has already shown just about enough to move up a level.
 
“He’s getting close,” Mauer said recently, when asked if he thought Gonsalves might be ready for a promotion. “I’d like to see a little more shape on his breaking ball, but he's dominated the teams that he's thrown against. If he gets a breaking ball, he's going to be really dangerous. Really, really dangerous.”
 
Gonsalves' velocity on his fastball has ticked upward this season but his manager doesn't think he's topped out yet.
 
"I think it's going to even get better. As he keeps maturing, I think he's going to be a 94-95 (mph) guy. I really do. When he gets his 'man-muscles,' as they say. I think he's really going to bring it.
 
"He's thrown some better this year. Some breaking balls have had some shape, compared to last year. He gets bigger and stronger, that ball will have even more shape. He's got a good change up. But I think he's going to run it up there pretty good."
 
The bullpen could be ripe for plucking by the Miracle, as well, if the need arises.
 
It's a bullpen that even their manager had expressed some nervousness about at the onset of the season.
 
“We didn't know who was going to step up," Mauer recalled over the weekend, ”and they've been outstanding. Really, really good.”
 
The nine pitchers who have made relief appearances for the Kernels have put up a combined 1.92 ERA out of the pen.
 
Relievers Cameron Booser (1.13), Trevor Hildenberger (1.00) and Michael Theofanopoulos (1.74) are each sporting sub-2.00 ERAs for the Kernels.
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Zack Tillery

This crew has brought some heat in April.
 
The only full-time reliever who hasn’t averaged a strikeout per inning is newcomer Miles Nordgren, who has made just two appearances since joining the Kernels as the replacement for Curtiss, who went on the disabled list with a concussion. And, while Nordgren hasn’t been a strikeout machine in those two appearances, he also hasn’t given up a run.
 
In that regard, he joins Tillery and Wilson, neither of which have surrendered an earned run in their relief appearances.
 
Bonilla is glad to see his staff get off to a good start, before the hitters start to catch up to them.
 
“They're taking advantage of the cold and that's a good thing," the pitching coach explained, "because once it gets warm, the bats get hot, too. Those guys want to swing the lumber. It's good numbers-wise. It's a confidence boost a little bit."
 
But Bonilla believes the hot start for his pitching corps is important for reasons that go beyond the obvious results on the field. He believes that early success also aids individual development.
 
"There's some things each guy is working on - his own individual plan and the goals we have for him," he explained. "It's good to get off to a fast start because it builds confidence in the season and they're more open to do things that maybe they werent - that they're reluctant to do when they're struggling.
 
"When you're struggling, you want to get back to what you're comfortable with. So we can maybe add a few things like maybe sink the ball a little bit more to certain guys - working on breaking balls. They're a lot more open, when you're having success, to do things. When you're struggling, you're just grinding away.”
 
If the Kernels can keep most of this pitching staff intact and the bats in the lineup can heat up as the weather warms up, Cedar Rapids could be a serious Midwest League contender in 2015.

It’s pretty hard to imagine this baseball season getting off to a better start, isn’t it? I mean, even the most optimistic of us probably wouldn’t have predicted a .789 winning percentage through the first week of games! This looks like it could be a fun summer of baseball!
 
What’s that? You say the Twins are languishing with a 1-6 record? Who cares? I’m talking about their full-season minor league affiliates! That’s where the action (and literally ALL of the fun) is!
 
The AAA Rochester Red Wings are 3-1.
 
The newest Twins affiliate, the AA-level Chattanooga Lookouts (with arguably one of the most loaded rosters in all of minor league baseball) are sitting at 4-1.
 
The Class A Advanced Fort Myers Miracle are 3-2 (pending the outcome of their Tuesday game – what’s up with these morning start times, anyway?).
 
And last, but certainly not least, the Class A Cedar Rapids Kernels are still on pace to be a perfect 140-0 at the end of the year after winning their first five games of the season.
 
That means that the four minor league affiliates, combined, are 15-4 through Monday night and have lost two fewer games than the Twins have managed to drop all by themselves.
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Does this represent the Twins' pitching woes or their farm clubs' hitting prowess? Take your pick.

Of course, it’s early. You don’t want to read too much in to the small sample size of a week’s worth of games. After all, will even the Twins continue losing at their current pace to finish the year with a 27-135 record? Of course they won’t. Well – probably not, anyway.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.)
 
But while those of you who insist on following only the big leaguers continue to wonder why you’re paying big league prices to watch what even Torii Hunter has admitted to essentially being “Bad News Bears” baseball, here’s a small sample of what you’ve been missing on the farm:
The Red Wings have three guys, all deemed by Twins management to be unworthy of a spot with the Twins, with an OPS over 1.000. Two of them, Danny Ortiz and Aaron Hicks, would likely improve the Twins’ outfield defense if they weren’t wearing Rochester uniforms. The third, Josmil Pinto, probably deserves an entire post dedicated to discussing why he should or shouldn’t be in Minnesota.
The consensus top two Twins prospects, Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, both are in the Lookouts’ everyday lineup, so it’s not surprising that Chattanooga also has three guys with above-1.000 OPS numbers. Then again, none of those three guys are named Buxton or Sano. Stephen Wickens, DJ Hicks and Travis Harrison are bringing the lumber, so far, for the Lookouts. They aren’t the only productive hitters, however. That lineup is stacked, as expected. Their TEAM OPS is .829. Oh, and their pitchers are striking out almost 1.3 batters per inning, too.
Niko Goodrum is a .400 hitter, going in to Tuesday’s game, for the Miracle, who also had two starting pitchers, Aaron Slegers and Ryan Eades, who each tossed six shutout innings in their initial starts of the season.
No less than five Kernels hitters have put up 1.000+ OPS numbers through the first five games. As a TEAM, the Kernels have put up a .316/.380/.471 (.851 OPS) slash line. That Midwest League-leading team batting average is a full 47 points over the next highest team in the league. Not to be outdone, the pitching staff has put up a 1.80 ERA, so far, and have struck out 57 batters in a combined 45 innings of work.

Conversely, the Twins have put up a team OPS of .530 on the season, which is the worst in Major League Baseball. Their team ERA is 6.52, which is also dead last among the 30 big league teams. Not coincidentally, their 35 staff strikeouts is also good for dead last.
 
All of this might be more understandable if the Twins had made clear that, for the good of the franchise, they were going to punt on 2015 - that the plan would be to plug journeymen “replacement level” players in to fill every perceived gap in their big league roster, in order to give their much-heralded minor league prospects more time to become adequately seasoned on the farm.
 
But that’s not what they did. Every public comment from everyone in the organization from the end of 2014’s fourth consecutive 90+ loss season through the final days of spring training expressed the company line that they were expecting significant improvement this season.
 
That's not really surprising. Twins fans generally hear that refrain every offseason.
 
The truth is that the Twins have been hoping that fans would be patient, because there really is a ton of young talent approaching the Major League team's doorstep. From the sounds coming from Target Field on Monday, it seems that 'patient' is not exactly what much of the fan base is feeling.
 
I don't think it had to be this way.
 
Back in early October, I wrote that I thought it was time for the Twins to adjust their model, when it comes to promoting their prospects. I suggested that, despite both guys losing virtually their entire seasons a year ago to injury, the Twins should consider simply promoting Buxton and Sano and letting them learn their craft on the big stage.
 
I argued that, yes they would struggle, but they’re likely to struggle a while whenever they are finally promoted and both young men have demonstrated that they learn, adapt and, ultimately, dominate, very quickly as each new challenge is presented.
 
I also argued for either signing one of the top free agent starting pitchers or simply getting Alex Meyer and Trevor May in to the rotation from the start and setting up Jose Berrios for a debut not too deep in to the season.
 
I didn’t discuss the bullpen, at the time, but if I’d known what the Opening Day bullpen was going to look like, I’d have argued pretty forcefully for an immediate youth movement there, too.
 
Instead, the Twins have assembled a cast at the big league level that deflated and discouraged its fan base (warm welcome-home ovation for Torii Hunter, notwithstanding) virtually before the Home Opener was finished.
 
The future does look bright. There is an embarrassment of riches in terms of baseball talent in the Twins organization.
 
Unfortunately, the Twins have decided that you won’t see a lot of it at Target Field for a while.
 
That’s bad news for fans in Minnesota, but Twins fans in New York, Florida, Tennessee and Iowa look to be in for a lot of fun this summer.

With Thursday night's announcement that Chris Herrmann would be heading north with the Minnesota Twins, their opening day roster appears to be set. The back up catcher spot was the final unresolved question of the spring.
 
A lot is made of the make up of the Twins' roster as they open the 2015 season, but it really is of just mild interest to me, personally.
 
Yes, I like to see a guy like Herrmann rewarded for his hard work and persistence and JR Graham's story as a Rule 5 pick up earning a spot in the bullpen is compelling.
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Chris Herrmann (photo: SD Buhr)

But I'm a lot more curious, already, as to what the Twins roster will look like come mid to late July than I am concerning what it looks like when they travel to Detroit to open the season. And I suspect there will be at least a 33% turnover in the roster by the end of July.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
 
That would be eight or nine spots on the 25-man roster that would be held down by someone not making the trip north out of spring training with the Twins - and I think that sounds about right. In fact, I could see the turnover being more than that.
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JR Graham (photo: SD Buhr)

I'm not making that prediction based purely on an expectation that the Twins will be clearly en route to a fifth straight 90+ loss season and find themselves in sell-off mode. In fact, I'm probably more optimistic about the Twins' chances of remaining competitive beyond the All-Star break than I've been in a couple of years.
 
I think that, if they stay healthy, this line up will score plenty of runs and I think a lot of people are underestimating how improved the starting rotation may be with the addition of Ervin Santana and a healthier Ricky Nolasco.
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Trevor May (photo: SD Buhr)

My belief in the likelihood of significant turnover comes not so much from a lack of confidence in the team as initially constituted (though I do worry about that bullpen), but from a sense that there are simply so many talented young players at the higher levels of the organization minor leagues that are almost certain to force their way on to the Twins roster by mid-season.
 
To start with, if Josmil Pinto is healthy and still in the Twins organization, I have little doubt he'll be wearing a Twins uniform by July.
 
Beyond that, does anyone not believe that Alex Meyer, Trevor May, Nick Burdi and Jake Reed will be pitching for the Twins by mid-year if they come out of the gate strong in their respective minor league assignments? Those are four pitchers that you could make an argument for putting on the roster right now. You might even be tempted to put Jose Berrios on that list, though I suspect he may be held down on the farm at least until later in the season.
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Jose Berrios and Tony Oliva (photo: SD Buhr)

Even if any/all of those arms fail to impress during the season's first half, that doesn't mean that all of the arms that are making up the Twins' opening day pitching staff are likely to have performed well enough to keep their jobs. This pitching staff (especially among the relief corps), as initially constituted, is simply not strong enough to avoid the need for a significant make-over, whether via promotions or trades (or, perhaps most likely, some combination thereof).
 
And we haven't even mentioned the organization's consensus top pair of prospects, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton. If they manage to shake off the rust that resulted from lost seasons a summer ago (and which clearly still existed during spring training), I expect they will both be Minnesota Twins by mid season. They could easily be joined by Eddie Rosario and, of course, nobody would be at all surprised to see Aaron Hicks rejoin the big league club.
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Miguel Sano (photo: SD Buhr)

In addition to the prospects that have become familiar to much of the Twins' fan base, the AA Chattanooga Lookouts' everyday line up is going to be literally full of players that are only a hot start and the ability to play a defensive position of need away from being called up.
 
What it all means is that the Twins roster in July, August and September should include far more players that are likely to be part of the next generation of Twins capable of contending for future postseasons than the roster we are discussing in April.
 
It's not easy being patient, but most of these young players will benefit from getting a little more minor league seasoning. The good news is that we are no longer talking about it being several years before we see these promising prospects at Target Field, but, hopefully, merely several weeks.

With Thursday night's announcement that Chris Herrmann would be heading north with the Minnesota Twins, their opening day roster appears to be set. The back up catcher spot was the final unresolved question of the spring.
 
A lot is made of the make up of the Twins' roster as they open the 2015 season, but it really is of just mild interest to me, personally.
 
Yes, I like to see a guy like Herrmann rewarded for his hard work and persistence and JR Graham's story as a Rule 5 pick up earning a spot in the bullpen is compelling.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/HerrmannST15-600x400.jpg
Chris Herrmann (photo: SD Buhr)

But I'm a lot more curious, already, as to what the Twins roster will look like come mid to late July than I am concerning what it looks like when they travel to Detroit to open the season. And I suspect there will be at least a 33% turnover in the roster by the end of July.
 
(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
 
That would be eight or nine spots on the 25-man roster that would be held down by someone not making the trip north out of spring training with the Twins - and I think that sounds about right. In fact, I could see the turnover being more than that.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/GrahamST15-600x400.jpg
JR Graham (photo: SD Buhr)

I'm not making that prediction based purely on an expectation that the Twins will be clearly en route to a fifth straight 90+ loss season and find themselves in sell-off mode. In fact, I'm probably more optimistic about the Twins' chances of remaining competitive beyond the All-Star break than I've been in a couple of years.
 
I think that, if they stay healthy, this line up will score plenty of runs and I think a lot of people are underestimating how improved the starting rotation may be with the addition of Ervin Santana and a healthier Ricky Nolasco.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/MayST15a-600x400.jpg
Trevor May (photo: SD Buhr)

My belief in the likelihood of significant turnover comes not so much from a lack of confidence in the team as initially constituted (though I do worry about that bullpen), but from a sense that there are simply so many talented young players at the higher levels of the organization minor leagues that are almost certain to force their way on to the Twins roster by mid-season.
 
To start with, if Josmil Pinto is healthy and still in the Twins organization, I have little doubt he'll be wearing a Twins uniform by July.
 
Beyond that, does anyone not believe that Alex Meyer, Trevor May, Nick Burdi and Jake Reed will be pitching for the Twins by mid-year if they come out of the gate strong in their respective minor league assignments? Those are four pitchers that you could make an argument for putting on the roster right now. You might even be tempted to put Jose Berrios on that list, though I suspect he may be held down on the farm at least until later in the season.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BerriosOliva-600x400.jpg
Jose Berrios and Tony Oliva (photo: SD Buhr)

Even if any/all of those arms fail to impress during the season's first half, that doesn't mean that all of the arms that are making up the Twins' opening day pitching staff are likely to have performed well enough to keep their jobs. This pitching staff (especially among the relief corps), as initially constituted, is simply not strong enough to avoid the need for a significant make-over, whether via promotions or trades (or, perhaps most likely, some combination thereof).
 
And we haven't even mentioned the organization's consensus top pair of prospects, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton. If they manage to shake off the rust that resulted from lost seasons a summer ago (and which clearly still existed during spring training), I expect they will both be Minnesota Twins by mid season. They could easily be joined by Eddie Rosario and, of course, nobody would be at all surprised to see Aaron Hicks rejoin the big league club.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SanoST15-600x400.jpg
Miguel Sano (photo: SD Buhr)

In addition to the prospects that have become familiar to much of the Twins' fan base, the AA Chattanooga Lookouts' everyday line up is going to be literally full of players that are only a hot start and the ability to play a defensive position of need away from being called up.
 
What it all means is that the Twins roster in July, August and September should include far more players that are likely to be part of the next generation of Twins capable of contending for future postseasons than the roster we are discussing in April.
 
It's not easy being patient, but most of these young players will benefit from getting a little more minor league seasoning. The good news is that we are no longer talking about it being several years before we see these promising prospects at Target Field, but, hopefully, merely several weeks.

I’ve been down here in Fort Myers, Florida, for several days now and I’ve been very slow about posting anything here. My bad.
 
The newly remodeled stadium at the Twins’ complex (now named “Century Link Field”) is very nice. Much wider concourses and a lot of variety of seating options. I’ve seen parts of a couple games at the new place, as well as a game against the Phillies at their Clearwater home. I plan to also see the Twins take on the Orioles up in Sarasota on Sunday.
 
But I’ve spent the lion’s share of my time over on the back fields watching the minor leaguers, in particular the two Class A groups. One of them made up of guys who were Cedar Rapids Kernels last year and are likely to play for the Fort Myers Miracle this season, the other made up of players likely ticketed to start this season in Cedar Rapids.
 
I’ve taken quite a few pictures and maybe I’ll work at getting them downloaded and posted at Knuckleballsblog.com once I get back to Cedar Rapids next week.
 
For now, I’m going to share three separate articles I wrote for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Since I don’t have space concerns here, I’m just going to combine them all in this one blog post. Enjoy.
 
Gonsalves Will Have a New Pitch When He Returns to Cedar Rapids
 
Ask Minnesota Twins pitching prospect Stephen Gonsalves about his offseason and the first thing he may mention is his vacation to Australia with fellow Twins pitching prospects Lewis Thorpe and Sam Gibbons.
 
“It was Sam’s 21st birthday so we made a little vacation out of it,” Gonsalves explained on Friday, while watching his Cedar Rapids Kernels teammates take on a group of Tampa Bay Rays Class A prospects.
 
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Stephen Gonsalves
 
But hanging out with Aussies Thorpe and Gibbons down-under for a couple of weeks was just one small part of Gonsalves’ winter.
 
The 20-year-old lefty starting pitcher played a crucial role in the playoff drive the Kernels put together during the second half of the 2014 season. He notched a 3.19 Earned Run Average while striking out 44 batters in just 36.2 innings of work over eight starts with Cedar Rapids.
 
Some young pitchers might have felt satisfied with those numbers and focused their offseason workouts on simply adding some muscle or improving their conditioning, but not Gonsalves.
 
The young Californian combined a 90 mph fastball with an effective slow curve and an equally effective change up to solidify his ranking as a consensus top 20 prospect within the Twins’ organization heading in to 2015.
 
Rather than being satisfied with that, Gonsalves went home after participating in fall instructional league and went to work on broadening his arsenal of pitching weapons.
 
“Right after instructs, I went home and started working out that next week,” Gonsalves said.
 
“Home” for Gonsalves is San Diego, California, and he wasn’t working out alone there. He worked out with a couple of other well-credentialed pitchers with San Diego ties.
 
“I was able to work out with Stephen Strasburg this whole offseason, got to pick his brain a lot,” Gonsalves recalled. “James Shields was there, also. So I got to mix in a lot with those guys and kind of pick their brains the entire offseason. Helped me out a little mechanically on the hill, also.”
 
Strasburg and Shields were both rotation leaders for Major League postseason participants last year, Strasburg with the Washington Nationals and Shields with the Kansas City Royals. Shields inked a new deal as a free agent this offseason with the San Diego Padres.
 
“I was working on a slider,” said Gonsalves. “That’s what Shields is known for, his slider, so I got to work with him for about a month just specifically on that pitch for a while. It’s coming along nicely. The Twins are starting to like it.”
 
So far this spring, the results seem to be positive. He’s been in Ft. Myers since March 1, well before the minor leaguers began playing games. He’s made three solid appearances, building up his pitch count and getting ready to head north to Cedar Rapids when camp breaks the first full week of April.
 
Gonsalves acknowledged that he’s likely to be one of just a small number of 2014 Kernels returning to open the new campaign in Cedar Rapids, but he’s looking forward to opening the year with the new crew of Kernels.
 
“We’re going to have a whole new team, pretty much, (but) we’re going to have a good little squad together. It’s going to be fun. We’re going to be a little scrappy team.”
 
Chad Christensen Hoping His Time Playing Before Hometown Fans is Over
 
Almost a year ago, Cedar Rapids Washington grad Chad Christensen got the word he would be making his full-season pro baseball debut with his hometown club, the Cedar Rapids Kernels. This spring, the Minnesota Twins farm hand is hoping to avoid a return trip to Cedar Rapids.
 
You can’t blame a guy for preferring a promotion up the Twins’ minor league ladder over another summer living at home.
 
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Chad Christensen & Jason Kanzler going through early morning stretching exercises
 
In fact, hitting .272 for the Kernels last season,Christensen left Cedar Rapids, just like his Kernels teammates.
 
“I went back to Lincoln and lived there,” Christensen explained. “A lot of guys that are in pro ball are back there so we kind ofwork out together and use the (University of Nebraska) facilities andeverything. That’s where I was doing my workouts.
 
“I came home (to Cedar Rapids) for a couple of weeks before I came here (Fort Myers). I got down here a little early, February 23rd, to get outside, get out of the cold and get back to baseball.”
 
With about two weeks of spring training left, his ultimate assignment is primarily just speculation, at this point, but every player in camp is hoping for a promotion and, for Christensen, that would mean a spot on the roster of the Twins’ class high-A affiliate, the Fort Myers Miracle.
 
“I’m not positive,” Christensen said, when asked about whether he’d heard anything about where he would open the 2015 season. “I would think probably down here (in Fort Myers). But I’m just playing, it’s not up tome. I’m just trying to play every day and stay healthy and get back in the swing of things.”
 
For Christensen, playing every day last summer meant spending time playing all around the diamond defensively for the Kernels. Christensen played all over the outfield, but also logged 90 games at firstbase. He also played 27 games at third base for Elizabethton in 2013.
 
Versatility is a benefit for players trying to get noticed in a professional baseball organization and Christensen will be continuing to demonstrate his willingness and ability to move around the field. During spring training, however, it’s clear the Twins are wanting to see him in the outfield as much as possible.
 
“I’ve been playing all outfield – all three outfield spots,”said Christensen. “Obviously, if I’m needed to go in to the infield again, Ican go in the infield, but I’ve been in the outfield down here, so far.”
 
An assignment with the Miracle would keep Christensen with alot of last summer’s Kernels. Of the thirty or so players currently listed onthe Miracle’s spring training roster, over 25 spent time in Cedar Rapids last season. Christensen likes the idea of sticking with that group.
 
“Yeah, we have a good group. Guys come ready to go every day, that’s what makes it fun,” said Christensen. “We’re looking forward to getting the season going.”
 
Christensen isn’t the only one ready to get the season rolling. Kernels hitting coach Tommy Watkins indicated he is more than ready to head to Cedar Rapids. “This is like Groundhog Day,” Watkins said, alluding to the day-after-day repetitive nature of the spring training routine.
 
Christensen indicated the players are starting to feel the same way.
 
“Yeah, we’re starting to get kind of anxious this time of year.”
 
Jake Mauer Hopes to Have His Roster Set Soon
 
In less than two weeks, Cedar Rapids Kernels manager Jake Mauer will be bringing a fresh crop of 25 ballplayers north from their spring training home in Fort Myers, Florida. The exact constitution of that roster, however, is still somewhat of work in progress.
 
Mauer said he’d like to get things finalized soon, however.
 
“Ideally we’d like to have who we’re going to take to Cedar Rapids that last week of spring training,” Mauer explained on Thursday, just before his squad took on a Class A group of Boston Red Sox prospects.
 
“You can do different things and put in different signs, things we’re going to use throughout the year. Make sure we get all the kinks out before we start up there at Kane County (where the Kernels open their season on April 9).”
 
Mauer will be entering his third season as manager of the Kernels. In fact, among all of the Twins organization’s full-season teams, he’s the only manager assigned to the same club he led a year ago.
 
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Jake Mauer and Tommy Watkins with early morning instructions 
The Twins hired Hall of Famer Paul Molitor to manage the big league team this season and former Chicago Cubs manager Mike Quade is taking over the AAA Rochester Red Wings. Jeff Smith and Doug Mientkiewicz swapped their assignments this year, with Mientkiewicz managing AA Chattanooga and Smith taking over high-A Fort Myers.
 
Mauer indicated, though, that he wasn’t surprised to be assigned to Cedar Rapids again.
 
“No, I wouldn’t say surprised,” he said. “Obviously, Cedar Rapids is a pretty good fit for me on a personal level, family-wise. Professional-wise, baseball is baseball, wherever you’re at and at the level I’m at, I really enjoy being around the young guys and teaching every day.”
 
Kernels fans may recognize the team’s manager this season, but they are going to want to pick up a program early on their first trip to the ballpark and study it closely, because they aren’t likely to see many familiar names or faces among the 2015 Kernels players
 
Starting pitchers Stephen Gonsalves and Mat Batts are looking likely to return to start their new season with the Kernels and both have been, “throwing it well,” according to their manager.
 
John Curtiss, who joined the Kernels to make a start during their playoff run a year ago, is also likely to start his summer with the Kernels.
 
“As far as those starters, folks in CR have seen those guys a little bit, but our bullpen is going to be pretty much all new guys from what it looks like,” Mauer said.
 
“As far as position players, I don’t think we’ll have too many guys that were there last year. Maybe a few guys that were there for a portion of the year, we may get back,” he added.
 
Outfielders Zack Larson and Max Murphy are the only position players with time in a Kernels uniform who have been assigned to the most recent Kernels spring training working group.
 
Mauer was quick to point out that the roster is not set, however.
 
“It will depend with, obviously Molitor running the big league club, who he likes, who he wants to keep.”
 
The parent Twins are still about 10 players over their opening day roster limit, so as the big club makes further cuts, there could be additions and/or subtractions from the current group of prospective Kernels.
 
Once the season gets underway, Mauer indicated he felt the team may be relying on their starting pitching early on.
 
“I think we’ll have some starting pitchers with a little bit of experience that I think we’ll lean on, especially early in the year. They’ll need to go out there and set the tone.”
 
Offensively, the Kernels are going to be relying on a lot of players with little or no experience above rookie-level short season ball at Elizabethton last season.
 
“We’re still trying to kind of get to know these guys a little bit,” Mauer said, of his position players. “As far as team speed, I don’t know if we’re going to have a lot of it. We’re going to have some guys that put up decent numbers in E’Town. Obviously, we all know it’s different going in to the Midwest League, facing a little different caliber of pitching.”
 
A number of players are having strong springs, but Mauer was philosophical about his expectations for the Kernels once they leave the mid-80 degree temperatures of Fort Myers behind and head north.
 
“We may go through some growing pains, but hopefully it’ll all shake out. We’ll see how we react when it’s thirty degrees out.”

Almost exactly 11 months ago, Mitch Garver arrived in Cedar Rapids to get started on his first full season of professional baseball in the Minnesota Twins organization. This spring, he’s a big league catcher – for now, anyway.
 
Garver, the Twins’ ninth round draft choice in 2013 out of New Mexico, spent all of last season with the Cedar Rapids Kernels, not only playing a leadership role behind the plate but at the plate, as well. He hit .298, led Cedar Rapids with 79 RBI and was voted the Midwest League’s post-season all-star catcher.
 
Garver reported to the Twins’ spring training facility in Fort Myers, Florida, with the other Twins major league pitchers and catchers in February and he’s been putting on a big league uniform every day since.
 
(This article was originally published at Knuckelballsblog.com.)
 
Major League teams invite a limited number of their minor league catchers to big league camp every spring in order to have enough catchers to handle catching duties for all of the pitchers that need to work out their kinks during the first four weeks or so of spring training and Garver got one of those coveted invitations to big league camp this year. (Tyler Grimes, who caught for the 2013 Kernels, also is getting a taste of big league life with the Twins this spring.)
 
On Friday, Garver talked about his experience this spring in the Minnesota Twins’ major league camp.
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Mitch Garver (photo: Minnesota Twins)

After Garver and the Kernels wrapped up their 2014 season back in September, he spent a little time in Minnesota and Florida getting checked out physically, including a CT scan due to late season concussion issues.
 
“No issues there, everything came back clean,” Garver assured. “It was just an experience for me to make sure everything was OK. I got to see Target Field and everything around there. They wanted to make sure I was healthy enough to go back to Albuquerque to work out, so I was in (fall instructional league in Fort Myers) for a month to kind of iron some things out.”
 
Garver split the next couple of months between time with his fiancé in Corvallis, Oregon, and with his family in New Mexico.
 
It was while in New Mexico that he woke up one morning, about a week before Christmas, to find he had a missed call on his phone.
 
“It was at like eight or nine in the morning and I didn’t know what the number was,” Garver recalled. “So I called it back.”
 
It was a good decision. The call turned out to have been from Twins General Manager Terry Ryan.
 
“He asked me how my health was and made sure everything was good with my hips and with my brain and everything. I told him I was doing great, having a great offseason. Then he invited me to spring training.” That’s major league spring training, with the big league Twins.
 
“It was really exciting. Very cool,” added Garver.
 
Garver has been in camp since February 20 and, as you might expect, walking in to a big league clubhouse as a player for the first time was special.
 
“It’s very different because you walk in and you find your locker and you turn around and there’s five clubhouse guys behind you. Five clubbies, asking you if there’s anything you need, anything they can do for you at that moment in time. You’re just being bombarded with love, it seems like. It’s a cool experience. It’s just fun to be here.”
 
He’s not just there for the cool experience, of course. Garver is there to work. He’s rooming with fellow Twins catching prospect Stuart Turner at the new baseball academy that the Twins have built on-site at their complex in Fort Myers.and, according to Garver, their days get off to a pretty early start.
 
“I wake up at 6:30, we leave the academy about 6:40 and get over to the field. I like to get there a little bit early. They have breakfast for us over there in the new, renovated locker room and kitchen. And the weight room is right there as well. Sometimes you work out in the morning, sometimes you go hit in the morning or you do both.
 
“And then team meetings around 9:00. After that, we head out to different fields and do PFPs (pitchers’ fielding practice), bullpens, live batting practice, baserunning, bunt defense. There’s a defensive station every day. So either we’re catching bullpens or we’re doing something catching-related. For that particular day, it could be blocking or the next day it could be catching pop flies or anything like that. But most of the time, it’s bullpens and we get all of our work in during the bullpens.
 
“When it’s all said and done, it’s probably around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon and you go have lunch and then you call it a day.”
 
The time Garver and other young players get on the field with major league players and coaching staff is valuable, of course, but it’s not the only aspect his first big league spring training that Garver is taking advantage of.
 
“It’s nice to get to know these guys (the major leaguers). You kind of want to get associated with them and learn what kind of people they are off the field, because you already know what they can do on the field. It’s fun to talk with them and converse about different things, finding out where people are from and all of these different stories they have, baseball related or not.
 
“Torii Hunter has some really different stories about everything. It’s fun to listen to him talk. It’s just a good experience overall.”
 
The experience also has made Garver even more aware of just how close he could be to realizing his dreams of being a major league ballplayer.
 
“It’s surreal. You’re playing with superstars and if you put it in perspective, you’re not that far off,” Garver observed. “Just a hop, skip and a jump away from being in the big leagues, whatever level you’re at.”
 
Garver got his first taste of big league game experience on Thursday night, as a pinch hitter, in the Twins first spring training game. It was memorable on multiple levels for Garver.
 
“I was sitting in the dugout (Thursday) night and we were playing the Boston Red Sox. People that I’ve only ever seen on TV, or only ever imagined playing against are in the other dugout,” he recounted.
 
“And in the other dugout is one of my best friends from Albuquerque, Blake Swihart. He’s one of the best catching prospects in the game and it’s just surreal seeing him over there. Then he’s catching when I’m batting and I’m facing a big leaguer (Boston reliever Matt Barnes). It’s kind of weird to think about it, but it’s right there in front of me. I’ve just gotta go get it.”
 
As exciting as the experience has been and continues to be, Garver is realistic and knows his time in the major league clubhouse is going to come to an end (for this season, anyway) shortly.
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Mitch Garver as a Kernel

Minor leaguers begin reporting to spring training in a few days and eventually Garver will be joining them at the minor league complex across the parking lot from the Twins’ big league facility.
 
Garver is OK with that.
 
“Yeah, it’s coming. I know it is. Everybody knows it is. I think the 15th will be our last day and the 16th is the day we’re sent back.
 
“But you know what, that’s fine with me,” said Garver, in a tone of voice that certainly sounded genuine.
 
“I’ve come, I’ve seen, I’ve learned a lot of things thus far. And I think being sent down to the minor leagues is going to be a good thing because I’ll get to play every day. I can prepare myself for the season, as opposed to helping major leaguers prepare for their season, because I’m just kind of helping out right now.”
 
Asked whether he’d like to add a couple of points to his batting average in 2015, to get it up to the magic .300 mark, Garver laughed and said that was, indeed, one his goals. But then that’s not new.
 
“I want to hit .300, I want to make the All-Star team and I want to have the most RBIs on the team. There you go. Those are my goals. The same as last year and the year before.”

Immediately after the Minnesota Twins’ 2014 season ended, General Manager Terry Ryan announced that longtime manager Ron Gardenhire would not be returning to his job in 2015.
 
That was three and a half weeks ago and we still don’t know who will be guiding the Twins on the field next season.
 
But we’re getting closer.
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Torey Lovullo (AP Photo)

(This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
 
After considering, by my count, at least seven or eight candidates during the first two weeks of the offseason, Ryan set aside the managerial search while he holed up in Fort Myers with his staff for their annual week of postseason organizational meetings (though reports are that he did find time for a second interview with Doug Mientkiewicz while in Fort Myers).
 
Coming out of those meetings, media reports indicate that several candidates have been informed they are no longer being considered and, while the Twins are characteristically tight-lipped on the subject, it appears that the list of potential skippers has been whittled down to three: Paul Molitor, Doug Mientkiewicz and Torey Lovullo.
 
Looking at them, it would appear that there isn’t a lot of difference. All three are white, middle-aged men. Mientkiewicz is the youngest, at 40; Molitor the oldest at 58. Lovullo splits the difference at 49.
 
There's not a lot of “diversity” readily apparent by looking at them, so if Ryan is going to make good on his pledge to add more of a Latin presence on the staff, it will need to come from among the coaches that he and the eventual manager hire.
 
But when you dig deeper, you see that there are plenty of differences between these three gentlemen and if you’re the Twins, you have an opportunity to make a statement with this hire concerning what traits are most important to you, as an organization. The question is, what kind of statement are you looking to make?
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Paul Molitor (Photo: SD Buhr)

If you’re looking to say, “We have a youth movement brewing and we are going to do what we did when we hired Tom Kelly – hire a manager that has already spent time watching, evaluating and coaching the young players who will form the core of the next generation of Twins players,” then your first choice is Mientkiewicz. He has had two successful seasons in Fort Myers while managing Miguel Sano, Byron Buxton, Jose Berrios and the rest of a very talented “class” of minor leaguers currently rising up through the ranks.
 
Paul Molitor gets a few points in this category, too, however. He spent time as a roving minor league instructor prior to his one season on the Twins’ major league bench, so he also has a lot of familiarity with these rising stars.
 
If the statement the Twins want to make is, "We want the most qualified man for the job of managing a Major League baseball team," the decision becomes a bit murkier.
 
Molitor does not have a single day of experience as a manager at any level of professional baseball. If managing only involved the work required between the time you fill out a line-up card and the final pitch of the game, I don’t think experience would be an issue for Molitor. It’s hard to imagine any circumstance arising that he has not prepared for during his Hall of Fame playing career and his time on coaching staffs at various levels. Anyone who has had even a short conversation with him about baseball will likely tell you that his baseball IQ level is off the charts. Also (and this is important), he apparently understands that he can always learn more and is open to doing so.
 
But game management is not all a manager has to do. There’s media relations and public relations and front office communication and clubhouse relations… and… and…
 
It’s a big job and while I don’t think it’s impossible for someone who has never managed at any level before to be successful, I do think that having some amount of experience in a managerial position is helpful. Without it, Molitor would very much be “learning on the job” when it comes to off-the-field aspects of the position for a year or two.
 
For whatever reasons, family or otherwise, Molitor has chosen not to take opportunities to get that experience by managing at the minor league levels. Should that disqualify him from consideration? Absolutely not. Should he get a free pass on this factor if other qualified candidates have emerged who HAVE that experience? No. He made the decision not to take that route and if that turns out to be a determining factor in him not getting the job this time, so be it.
 
If the Twins had narrowed their choices down to Mientkiewicz and Molitor, I would not consider the former’s two years in the Fort Myers dugout to be much, if any, of an advantage. Other managers in the Twins organization, such as Gene Glynn (AAA), Jeff Smith (AA), Jake Mauer (low A) and Ray Smith (rookie) all have far more minor league managerial experience than Mientkiewicz.
 
Yes, Mientkiewicz has had successful teams both years in Fort Myers, but take a look at his rosters those two years. If you can’t win a few games with those guys, you really are in the wrong line of work.
 
Personality-wise, you have very different men. Molitor seems to bring a cerebral intensity to the game, while Mientkiewicz is all about the fire and he doesn’t even pretend to contain it.
 
Both would bring a familiarity with the Twins organization to the job, without the baggage of being one of “Gardy’s boys.” There are various reports and rumors out there concerning how well (or not well) these guys got along with the Twins’ former manager, but it’s probably safe to say neither would be prone to adopting any approach to managing simply because that was the way Ron Gardenhire would have done it.
 
So, depending on what he decides is the most important quality in a manager, Terry Ryan has an acceptable internal choice in either Molitor or Mientkiewicz.
 
Want someone who will get in the face of players and umpires? Doug’s your guy.
 
Want a brilliant baseball mind? I doubt you could do better than Molitor.
 
Want someone open to utilizing more advanced analytics? Molitor appears so inclined, though there are indications Mientkiewicz is more of a “gut feel” kind of guy (though, to be fair, the amount of detailed analytics available to minor league managers is limited and their job is more to develop talent than to win games).
 
Want someone who has the credentials as a player to garner respect among the troups? Molitor’s a Hall of Famer and Mientkiewicz has a World Series ring and sufficient MLB experience to give him plenty of credibility.
 
If you want someone familiar with the players who are moving up through the organization and are preparing to arrive at Target Field over the next two or three years, both men have that familiarity, though in somewhat different amounts.
 
The only thing neither man has would be the, “fresh set of eyes,” that some would consider helpful, if not critical, to this organization.
 
Which brings us to the third finalist for the Twins managerial job, Torey Lovullo.
 
Lovullo has nine years of experience managing in the minor leagues, including time at both the AA and AAA levels, which neither internal candidate can say. There is little doubt that, of the three, he would be the most prepared to handle all aspects of the job on the first day he’s in the position.
 
Lovullo has experience as a “second-in-command” bench coach at the big league level. Molitor was part of Tom Kelly’s bench staff for a time and was a hitting coach for the Mariners for one year. All of that experience is at least a decade old, however. He was on Gardenhire’s bench this past season. Mientkiewicz has not held a field manager/coach job above Class A.
 
From all accounts, Lovullo has a baseball mind and eye for detail that may not be quite on par with Molitor’s, but isn’t all that far behind it.
 
He not only is “open” to new ideas, he has a history of actively seeking them out.
 
Based strictly on a managerial/coaching résumé, there doesn’t appear to be much doubt that Lovullo is more qualified, right now, to be a big league manager.
 
But we all know this choice doesn’t just come down to that factor. We knew it when Terry Ryan told the media that he would be looking at both internal and external candidates, that what was important was finding the “right” person, but that, “ideally,” that choice would come from inside the organization. We’ve known it all along.
 
Here is what Lovullo does not have:
Experience as a Major League manager
Significant successful Major League playing experience (Lovullo was, in today’s parlance, a “replacement level player,” who saw big league time as a utility infielder in eight seasons, but played in over 100 games just once, putting up a .224 career batting average)
Direct experience within the Twins organization

The first two points are really not factors at all. None of this group of finalists has big league manager experience and I think history has pretty much borne out that experience as a player in the majors is not predictive of success as a manager. He successfully climbed the ladder and reached “the Show.” That should be all the credibility he needs with a group of young players who have been doing the exact same thing.
 
But then there is the final bullet point.
 
And really, that’s what we knew it would come down to all along, isn’t it?
 
An objective look at the qualifications of these three guys (albeit an outsider’s look, given that we aren’t privy to information in background checks or reference checks, etc.) would seem to tell us Torey Lovullo is the most qualified of the group to manage in the Major Leagues.
 
But will Terry Ryan and the rest of the Twins’ leadership really be comfortable turning over the manager’s office to an outsider – someone who they have absolutely zero experience dealing with outside of a job interview that reportedly went extremely well?
 
If Mientkiewicz doesn’t get the job, he’ll almost certainly remain in the organization, either back in Fort Myers or in Chattanooga, most likely.
 
But if Molitor doesn’t get the gig, there is probably some serious doubt as to whether he would remain in the Twins organization at all. Make no mistake, he has been a valuable resource in the roles he’s played with the Twins, whether as a roving minor league instructor or a coach with the Twins. Passing him over may cost the organization that resource, altogether.
 
Given the competition he’s up against, I don’t see Mientkiewicz getting this job. I think it’s down to Molitor and Lovullo.
 
When it comes right down to making that decision, I don’t think Ryan and Jim Pohlad will give the position to even a highly qualified outsider. I think we’ll be seeing Paul Molitor named the manager within the next week or so.
 
If that’s the case, I’m fine with it. I like Molitor and I think he could be successful in the role, given the right coaching staff and resources (both in terms of players and technology) to compete.
 
Choosing Lovullo, on the other hand, would not only surprise me, but give me a little extra optimism that things at One Twins Way are actually changing and while I already have considerable respect for Terry Ryan, making this sort of choice will significantly raise that level of respect.
 
It would be an uncharacteristic choice. It would be a bold choice.
 
It also, I am coming around to believing, would be the right choice.

This is Part 2 of 2, concerning the work to be done this week by the Minnesota Twins staff at their "organizational meetings" in Fort Myers this week.
 
Reports have estimated that as many as 100 members of the Twins staff may participate in the meetings this week. That's a lot of people, but then it's a big job.
 
In Part 1, we covered the manager and coaching staffing issues. In Part 2, we look at roster matters at the Major League and minor league levels.
 
As indicated in Part 1, over the coming days, weeks and months, the Twins need to
Hire a new manager for the first time in over a decade.
Work with said new manager to assemble a seven-person big league level coaching staff.
Assign manager and coaching duties to every level of minor league affiliate.
Determine which, if any, of their minor league free agents to attempt to retain.
Determine at which minor league level to place a significant number of their top young prospects to start 2015.
Determine whether to offer arbitration to a few members of their current big league roster.
Identify potential MLB level free agents and/or trade targets to pursue once the World Series is completed.

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Some of the items on that to-do list are not common tasks for this organization, but even for some of those that are on the list every postseason, the stakes this year have risen significantly.
 
Concurrently with their efforts to identify and put in place big league and farm system managers and coaches, the Twins also have some work to do on the player front.
 
Filling out the roster(s)
 
When the subject of filling out the 2015 roster comes up among most Twins fans, the discussion generally focuses on which of the current Twins will/should be back with the club and who potential acquisitions might be that Terry Ryan should seek in the free agent and/or trade market.
 
Granted, those are important considerations.
 
But, given that 2015 is looking more like a bridge to the next era of competitive baseball at Target Field than it is a destination itself, the make-up of the organization’s minor league rosters may be equally important to that of the big league roster, if not more so.
 
For the past couple of years, as the farm system has been being restocked, even the most optimistic fans of the organization have conceded that most of the Twins’ most promising prospects have been in the low minors, multiple years away from being of any help to the parent club.
 
Sure, it was fun to watch Byron Buxton put on a show for the Fox Sports North audience in 2013 when the cable network televised one of Buxton’s Cedar Rapids Kernels games. But while the distance between Cedar Rapids and Target Field can be traversed in less than five hours, the time it takes for a prospect to progress from the Class A Kernels to the Twins is much longer – frustratingly so, in some cases.
 
The 2012 Elizabethton Twins won the Appalachian League championship. In 2013, many of those same players made up a Cedar Rapids Kernels playoff team that went 88-50. This past season, largely the same crop of prospects contributed to Fort Myers’ Florida State League championship team.
 
In 2015, that group should largely fill out the roster for the first season of the Twins’ new AA affiliation with the Chattanooga Lookouts.
 
No problem, right? Move them up there. Challenge them. A player who masters Class AA is generally considered a candidate to skip AAA and move up to the Big Club if a need for someone at his position presents itself and that player is deemed to be a more promising solution than whoever fills that position in Rochester.
 
The thing is, you don’t have to stretch your imagination far to find 30 or more players who, arguably, should be starting their season at AA. That’s a problem when you’re only allowed 25 players on the Lookouts’ roster.
 
Jeremy Nygaard maintains an excellent database at Twins Daily that includes a variety of important information concerning every player in the Twins organization. For example, did you know that the Twins also have 23 minor leaguers in their system eligible for free agency this offseason - or that 21 of them are already at Class AA or higher?
 
They also have a similar number of players eligible to be selected by another organization in the Rule 5 draft if they aren’t added to the Twins’ 40-man MLB roster by December.
 
Granted, few of those potential free agents would be viewed as potential lynchpins on future Twins teams and even fewer of the Rule 5 eligibles are likely to be lost in that draft, but with the promising class set to move up to Chattanooga, the front office does have its work cut out for it this week when they sit down to fill out preliminary rosters for their AAA and AA clubs.
 
Finally, there’s the minor little project to assemble a Major League roster.
 
And, by “Major League roster,” I mean a roster of players who have either demonstrated that they possess a talent level worthy of being on a Major League roster or, at least, have shown potential to be elite big leaguers in the not-so-distant future.
 
Of course, this topic can (and certainly will) warrant entire articles devoted to it all on its own. For purposes of brevity here, suffice to say that the Twins need to identify big league talent to fill the following positions:
A starting pitcher worthy of being a #1 or #2 starter for a competitive big league team.
Multiple bullpen spots.
A Major League center fielder.
A Major League left fielder.
Any other position that may open up due to trades.

That’s a pretty substantial shopping list. Some of these needs may be filled from within the organization, some via trade and some via free agency. What they all have in common is that, at the end of 2014, they did not have an incumbent that you would definitively declare to be a legitimate everyday Major League talent.
 
When you consider all the work to be accomplished this week – paring down the manager options, looking at coaching candidates for both big league and minor league positions, and assembling rosters at multiple organizational levels, not the least of which is for the Twins team itself, I’m not sure 100 people in Fort Myers is going to be enough.
 
Of course, I have some vacation time coming if Terry Ryan would like me to come down and offer some ideas. I’m just a phone call, email or Tweet away.

The Minnesota Twins' front office is going to be faced with making some difficult decisions this offseason - decisions they are woefully ill-prepared to make.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/GardenhireBrunansky2012.jpg
Ron Gardenhire and Tom Brunansky (photo: Knuckleballs)

Many professional sports organizations change their on-field management at least as often as they change accounting firms. It's just part of the way they do business. When you lose more games than you win for a couple years in a row, you change managers/head coaches and even front office leadership.
 
It just becomes second nature. Much the way swimming becomes second nature to anyone who has spent much time in the water.
 
But the very idea of changing field management/coaching staff must, for the Twins ownership and front office, seem as incomprehensible as diving off a cliff in to a river would be to someone who doesn't know how to swim.
 

 
For those of you who don't know how that scene of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid turned out, both outlaws survived their jump and their trip down river just fine and lived happily ever after (at least until they decided to move to Bolivia).
 
The most famous quote from that movie scene is, "the fall will probably kill you." But, for the Twins' purposes, I'd focus on Butch's earlier point. "We've got to, otherwise we're dead."
 
I think the same is true of the Twins if they foolishly decide to keep the status quo regarding their field management.
 
I know that changing managers and coaching staff just is not something the people who run the Twins are comfortable with.
 
They know the guys they have. They may not be winning much, but they HAVE won in the past, so they MIGHT win again, no matter how hopelessly unlikely that may seem to be at the moment.
 
If the people who run the Twins decide to (shudder) make changes, there is no guarantee that the new guys will be any better. After all, how many people in the Twins front office have actually gone swimming in the deep waters that go along with the process of interviewing candidates for a Major League manager?
 
Figuratively, they don't know how to swim!
 
At some point, though, they're going to have to realize that NOT taking that leap means the organization is almost certain to continuing their current death spiral. Once you consider that the worst thing that can happen when you take that big jump off a cliff is the same thing that's going to happen if you don't, it's really not that hard to just holler, "Ohhhhh (expletive)," and make the leap.
 
Once you've taken the leap and decided you will not simply go on doing business the same way you have for the past three decades, you can get down to the business of figuring out who is best suited to turn the next group of raw-but-talented young ballplayers in to a contending Major League team.
 
Maybe it's someone on the Twins' current big league bench, such as Paul Molitor or Tom Brunansky. Maybe it's one of the organization's excellent full-season minor league managers (all four of which guided their respective team to a winning record in 2014, by the way). Maybe it's someone from outside the Twins organization altogether.
 
But first things first.
 
If they haven't already, the Twins' decision makers need to conclude that there is literally nothing that can happen that would be any worse than continuing to fight it out with the status quo.
 
To do so would send a terrible message to a fan base who simply will not tolerate another do-nothing offseason and continue to buy tickets for a 2015 season that does not come with the benefit of All-Star Game tickets.
There is a lot of talent set to arrive at Target Field in the next couple years. Names, both familiar and unfamiliar to Twins fans, like Buxton, Sano, Meyer, Berrios, Polanco, Gordon, Burdi, Kepler, Harrison, Kanzler, Stewart, Thorpe, Gonsalves, Turner, Garver, Walker and many more, could well become cornerstones of the next great Minnesota Twins team.
 
The class of Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Baker, et al, has been wasted. We could discuss "why" this class failed to bring a championship to Minnesota, but that's pointless.
 
What matters now is making sure that the upcoming class is not similarly wasted and that process begins with asking ourselves who would be the best choices as manager and field coaches to get the most of their talent.
 
I'm not sure who that person is, though I certainly have some favorites among the likely possibilities.
 
What I think has become abundantly clear, however, is that manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson are not the right choices.
 
The decision to dismiss them is not easy for a front office like that of the Twins.
 
I respect that, actually. Letting go of loyal and, at times, effective employees should not be easy - certainly not as easy as it seems to be for many owners and General Managers in professional sports.
 
But sometimes, it's absolutely necessary.
 
Even the most devoted fans of Gardy and Andy in the front office must, by now, be having a hard time envisioning that duo effectively leading the upcoming group of 20-year-olds to championships.
 
With fresh talent, fresh eyes and fresh approaches are necessary. It's possible (and perhaps even quite likely) that Gardenhire and Anderson could provide that fresh approach to another organization. I hope they can (as long as it's not in the AL Central), because I think they're good men who know something about baseball.
 
But just as a young Tom Kelly was the perfect fit for a young group of Twins in the mid-late 1980s, it's time to find new management to work with the next wave of young Twins.
 
There's no reason to wait another year, prolonging the inevitable.
 
It's time for the Twins' front office and ownership to take the leap off that cliff and live to fight another day.
 
(Just don't move the team to Bolivia. That would not end well.)

The Minnesota Twins' front office is going to be faced with making some difficult decisions this offseason - decisions they are woefully ill-prepared to make.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/GardenhireBrunansky2012.jpg
Ron Gardenhire and Tom Brunansky (photo: Knuckleballs)

Many professional sports organizations change their on-field management at least as often as they change accounting firms. It's just part of the way they do business. When you lose more games than you win for a couple years in a row, you change managers/head coaches and even front office leadership.
 
It just becomes second nature. Much the way swimming becomes second nature to anyone who has spent much time in the water.
 
But the very idea of changing field management/coaching staff must, for the Twins ownership and front office, seem as incomprehensible as diving off a cliff in to a river would be to someone who doesn't know how to swim.
 

 
For those of you who don't know how that scene of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid turned out, both outlaws survived their jump and their trip down river just fine and lived happily ever after (at least until they decided to move to Bolivia).
 
The most famous quote from that movie scene is, "the fall will probably kill you." But, for the Twins' purposes, I'd focus on Butch's earlier point. "We've got to, otherwise we're dead."
 
I think the same is true of the Twins if they foolishly decide to keep the status quo regarding their field management.
 
I know that changing managers and coaching staff just is not something the people who run the Twins are comfortable with.
 
They know the guys they have. They may not be winning much, but they HAVE won in the past, so they MIGHT win again, no matter how hopelessly unlikely that may seem to be at the moment.
 
If the people who run the Twins decide to (shudder) make changes, there is no guarantee that the new guys will be any better. After all, how many people in the Twins front office have actually gone swimming in the deep waters that go along with the process of interviewing candidates for a Major League manager?
 
Figuratively, they don't know how to swim!
 
At some point, though, they're going to have to realize that NOT taking that leap means the organization is almost certain to continuing their current death spiral. Once you consider that the worst thing that can happen when you take that big jump off a cliff is the same thing that's going to happen if you don't, it's really not that hard to just holler, "Ohhhhh (expletive)," and make the leap.
 
Once you've taken the leap and decided you will not simply go on doing business the same way you have for the past three decades, you can get down to the business of figuring out who is best suited to turn the next group of raw-but-talented young ballplayers in to a contending Major League team.
 
Maybe it's someone on the Twins' current big league bench, such as Paul Molitor or Tom Brunansky. Maybe it's one of the organization's excellent full-season minor league managers (all four of which guided their respective team to a winning record in 2014, by the way). Maybe it's someone from outside the Twins organization altogether.
 
But first things first.
 
If they haven't already, the Twins' decision makers need to conclude that there is literally nothing that can happen that would be any worse than continuing to fight it out with the status quo.
 
To do so would send a terrible message to a fan base who simply will not tolerate another do-nothing offseason and continue to buy tickets for a 2015 season that does not come with the benefit of All-Star Game tickets.
There is a lot of talent set to arrive at Target Field in the next couple years. Names, both familiar and unfamiliar to Twins fans, like Buxton, Sano, Meyer, Berrios, Polanco, Gordon, Burdi, Kepler, Harrison, Kanzler, Stewart, Thorpe, Gonsalves, Turner, Garver, Walker and many more, could well become cornerstones of the next great Minnesota Twins team.
 
The class of Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Baker, et al, has been wasted. We could discuss "why" this class failed to bring a championship to Minnesota, but that's pointless.
 
What matters now is making sure that the upcoming class is not similarly wasted and that process begins with asking ourselves who would be the best choices as manager and field coaches to get the most of their talent.
 
I'm not sure who that person is, though I certainly have some favorites among the likely possibilities.
 
What I think has become abundantly clear, however, is that manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson are not the right choices.
 
The decision to dismiss them is not easy for a front office like that of the Twins.
 
I respect that, actually. Letting go of loyal and, at times, effective employees should not be easy - certainly not as easy as it seems to be for many owners and General Managers in professional sports.
 
But sometimes, it's absolutely necessary.
 
Even the most devoted fans of Gardy and Andy in the front office must, by now, be having a hard time envisioning that duo effectively leading the upcoming group of 20-year-olds to championships.
 
With fresh talent, fresh eyes and fresh approaches are necessary. It's possible (and perhaps even quite likely) that Gardenhire and Anderson could provide that fresh approach to another organization. I hope they can (as long as it's not in the AL Central), because I think they're good men who know something about baseball.
 
But just as a young Tom Kelly was the perfect fit for a young group of Twins in the mid-late 1980s, it's time to find new management to work with the next wave of young Twins.
 
There's no reason to wait another year, prolonging the inevitable.
 
It's time for the Twins' front office and ownership to take the leap off that cliff and live to fight another day.
 
(Just don't move the team to Bolivia. That would not end well.)

Tuesday night's Cedar Rapids Kernels come-from-behind win over the Quad Cities River Bandits was bittersweet.
 
On the one hand, they tallied three runs in the home half of the eighth inning and put away the Bandits for their eighth straight win. They swept three games in Beloit last week, three more from Peoria in Cedar Rapids over the weekend, and now the first two games of their series with the Bandits. The team also played to near-capacity home crowds on Friday and Saturday night.
 
On the other hand, Kohl Stewart, the Twins' first round draft pick in 2013 and a key member of the Kernels' rotation all season long, left the game during the second inning with an as-yet-undetermined ailment. Regardless of the ultimate cause, it's a pretty safe bet Stewart has thrown his last pitch for this Cedar Rapids club in 2014.
 
Stewart was one of the few bright spots for the Kernels during a challenging first half of the season. He notched a 2.44 ERA over the course of a dozen starts prior to the Midwest League's All-Star break in mid June.
 
The Kernels finished sixth among the MWL Western Division's eight teams in the first half race with a 31-39 record, 14 games behind the first half West champion Kane County Cougars and 7.6 games behind second-place Burlington.
 
The Midwest League breaks their schedule in to two halves, with the top two teams in each division, in each half of the season, qualifying for the postseason.
 
The Kernels have certainly taken advantage of the split season arrangement by turning their season around 180 degrees in the second half.
 
With 13 games to play following Tuesday night's win, the Kernels sit one game behind Kane County in the MWL West's second-half standings.
 
Since the Cougars clinched their playoff spot in the first half, however, it doesn't matter how the Kernels fare with them. What matters is that they finish among the top two teams in their Division who have not already qualified in the first half.
 
Going in to Wednesday's series finale with Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids holds a six game lead over third place Wisconsin and a nine game lead over fourth place Peoria. That means their "magic number" for qualifying for the playoffs sits at 5.
 
How did this happen? How did a team go from a 31-39 first-half record to a 36-21 record, so far, in the second half? Certainly, not many fans gave the Kernels much chance of making the playoffs two months ago.
 
Their manager, Jake Mauer, and coaches Tommy Watkins and Ivan Arteaga, gave their thoughts on the subject on Sunday, which was three Kernels wins (and three Peoria losses) ago.
 
"Pitching is probably number 1," said Mauer. "We’ve shaved a whole run off our (team) ERA. Obviously we’re a little different at the back end of the bullpen than we were early on."
 
It hasn't all been improved pitching, however. Mauer also was quick to mention some newcomers to the offense that have contributed.
 
"Some of the additions, obviously Logan Wade and (Alex) Swim have been huge. Max Murphy’s been a good addition," added the manager.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/P8170025-2-600x443.jpg
Max Murphy

The Kernels have lost some very good players, as well, of course. Several pitchers and position players have earned promotions to high-A Fort Myers, which is what led to the new players arriving in Cedar Rapids.
Players coming and going is just part of minor league life.
 
Mauer pointed out another pretty major difference between his club's first and second half fortunes.
"We’re keeping guys healthy, like (Mitch) Garver and (Engelb) Vielma and guys like that," observed Mauer. "I think that really is the reason why we’re where we’re at.
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Engelb Vielma (1)

"We went through a tough stretch there early. It seemed like somebody was going down every week. We’re still missing three of our top arms in our organization who are still down with surgery. Obviously, it gave a good opportunity to get up here to (Mat) Batts and (Chih-Wei) Hu and (Stephen) Gonsalves and (Lewis) Thorpe. They’ve really been holding down the majority of the big innings for us."
 
Watkins, the Kernels hitting coach, echoes many of Mauer's thoughts.
 
"I think we’ve stayed healthy, for the most part. It seemed like every other day we were losing somebody in the first half. But for the most part, outside of some minor bumps and bruises, we’ve been pretty healthy the second half."
Watkins also sensed a change in the consistency of the team's performance.
 
"In the beginning, we didn’t click on both sides. One day we would hit, we didn’t pitch. One day we would pitch, we didn’t hit," Watkins added. "Now it seems like we’re getting timely hitting, pitching. The defense is making some plays.
 
"All the pitchers are doing well but we’ve got a few guys at the back end of that bullpen that have been pretty lights-out for us. We give those guys some leads and they’ve been pretty good lately."
 
Watkins has seen a change in the clubhouse, as well as on the field.
 
"I just think the overall confidence right now, the guys are a lot better. The guys are loose, they’re having fun with each other. We came in here the other day, they were doing Kangaroo Court with each other. They’re just having fun right now. They’re winning baseball games, so it’s been a lot of fun."
 
There's little doubt that the biggest change in the Kernels' fortunes in the second half has come on the pitcher's mound. That being the case, it stands to reason that Arteaga, the Kernels pitching coach, would have a great deal of insight in to how those fortunes changed for the better in the season's second half.
 
He summed up the reasons for the improvement in the club's pitching in two words, "Experience and chemistry."
 
"They go hand in hand," he explained. "Early, we went through some growing pains, pitching wise."
 
Arteaga noted that the team lost three highly rated young pitchers in the first half that the organization had been counting on to play big roles for the Kernels. Felix Jorge struggled and was sent back to extended spring training and, ultimately, to Elizabethton. Randy Rosario and Yorman Landa got hurt, ending their seasons.
 
Pitchers that remained in Cedar Rapids also went through some rough patches early.
 
"(Aaron) Slegers had a rough go for about a month," added the coach. "He was working on some stuff. (Ryan) Eades was learning a lot of things about the league and about himself. Our relievers went through some growing pains. We had Hudson Boyd - early, he was very good. He had a rough go for about three or four outings.
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Ryan Eades

"So everybody’s learning. Like I said when I first got here, it is a process. They get to learn the league. They get to learn the hitters. They get to learn themselves. Work on a different pitch, work on the delivery. Work on some stuff.
 
"It’s growing pains. Kids like Eades, you know, second round pick, he learned a lot this year. And you get a guy like Stewart - first round pick. He learned a lot this year. In the first half, you have a lot of learning to do. A lot of growing pains.
 
"And we didn’t do that bad. Not what we wanted to, but we weren’t that bad."
 
In the second half, though, the pitching went from, "not bad," to very, very good.
 
"Then we got the new boys. We got Thorpe, we got Hu, we had Gonsalves, Batts, Burdi, Reed, Gallant. They brought a different mindset and obviously we’ve been doing very well."
 
Arteaga also agrees with Watkins' observation that the success is reflected off the field as much as on.
 
"I think that the learning, gaining some experience and at the same time, we’re winning. You see a different atmosphere in there ( the clubhouse). It’s a different environment. It’s chemistry. They like each other. They talk to each other. When you get that, which is chemistry, it shows on the field.
 
"They come here every day with effort, with a purpose they have in mind. They know, they can feel the possibility of being in the playoffs - how great that’s going to be for the players to experience that. Some of them in their first year of full season. I hope that they actually embrace the possibility."
 
If the players are excited about postseason possibilities, they aren't alone. Arteaga is right there with them.
"Personally, I’m very excited by it because I went through a lot of things this year with these guys. To try to teach the pitchers the fundamentals of baseball, the fundamentals of pitching, pitch sequence, just the growing pains. And just the things you see, to me, it’s very rewarding.
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Stephen Gonsalves

"I guarantee you that there’s not a better feeling than seeing these guys playing every day and understanding the moment. And going out and playing the way they played Peoria and the way they played on the road (in Beloit)."
 
Of course, winning championships is great. But is winning really important for minor league affiliates?
It's important, of course, to the local fans who want to see a winner. But some fans of the Major League affiliate see minor league games as little more than exhibition games, attaching little, if any, value to won-loss record.
 
Arteaga clearly feels winning is important, but not necessarily the most important thing.
 
"We (the Twins organization) have a philosophy. Basically, we want to develop winners. And the only way you can develop winners is by teaching the process, by teaching the fundamentals of baseball.
 
"Now, we are very careful with the amount of innings, the activities that we do. Teaching the game the right way, the Twins way.
 
"But one thing that we don’t do, is to go the extra mile to try to win. We want these guys to win, but I won’t pitch my guys two days in a row. I won’t pitch my guy 125 pitches because I want to win one game. We won’t do that. We have a program. That program works. It’s good. We stick to it. It is our job as coaches to teach these guys how to win. To motivate these guys every day."
 
Make no mistake, though, talking about a playoff run brings a smile to the coach's face.
 
"When you go to the postseason, there’s a difference," Arteaga concluded. "That’s what we want these guys to experience. When it’s only you. There’s nobody else playing, just you playing. (Others) going home. They’re going on American Airlines somewhere. You’re not. You’re still playing. That’s the beauty of postseason. You’re sending somebody else home and you’re playing. So that’s good."

I got a bit video crazy Thursday night and if you'd like to see a bit of the result, click here to head over to Knuckleballsblog.com for a look.
 
Video of Jake Reed's work on the mound in the 9th.
 
Mitch Garver's leadoff double in the 11th.
 
Bryan Haar's game winner, driving in pinch runner Jon Murphy to beat Kane County 4-3.

In mid-June, after a brutal first half to their Midwest League season, the Cedar Rapids Kernels limped in to the MWL’s All-Star break with a 31-39 record, not only 14 games behind Western Division leader Kane County, but also 7.5 games behind the Burlington Bees.
 
The latter is important because, in the world of Class A minor league baseball, seasons are split in to two halves, with the first and second place teams in each division, each half-season, earning berths in the postseason playoff series.
 
Kane County and Burlington snatched the MWL West spots in the first half, leaving Cedar Rapids, Quad Cities, Clinton, Beloit, Peoria and Wisconsin to slug it out in the second half for two more spots, with each team starting with fresh 0-0 records on June 19.
 
With Peoria, Wisconsin and Quad Cities all assembling winning records in the first half, it was logical to assume that those three teams would contend for the Western Division’s two second-half playoff spots – and they have been doing just that.
 
Entering Wednesday, Peoria and Quad Cities were tied for second place in the Division’s second-half standings, trailing Kane County by just one game, and Wisconsin is two games back.
 
Clinton and Beloit have repeated their first-half fortunes, each at least 11 games under .500 and filling the final two spots in the standings, as they did in the first half.
 
And then there’s the Cedar Rapids Kernels.
 
Rather stealthily, manager Jake Mauer’s Kernels have turned around what, as recently as three weeks ago, looked likely to become a lost season.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ArteagaMauer11.jpg
- There weren’t a lot of reasons for Kernels pitching coach Ivan Arteaga and manager Jake Mauer to smile in the season’s first half, but that’s changing.
 
The Kernels lost four of their first five series to begin the second-half schedule and had compiled just a 6-11 second-half record through July 6.
 
They haven’t lost a series since.
 
Cedar Rapids has taken six consecutive series, against six different clubs, while putting together a 15-5 record in that time and launching themselves in to a second place tie with Peoria and Quad Cities, just one game behind Division leader Kane County in the MWL’s Western Division standings.
 
Since the Cougars and the Burlington Bees locked in their postseason spots in the first half, it doesn’t matter where they finish in the second-half standings so, from a practical standpoint, Cedar Rapids was tied entering Wednesday, with Quad Cities and Clinton, for the top available playoff spot, with Wisconsin trailing that group by one game.
 
The Kernels will face those three rivals 12 times in August and nine of those games will be on Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids, where the Kernels have accumulated an 11-5 home record in the season’s second half.
 
How have the Kernels propelled themselves in to a four-team dogfight for playoff spots entering the final month of the regular season? And can they keep it up?
 
The answer to the first question is pretty clear when you look at the numbers and there is no way to know the answer to the second.
 
In the first three series of their current six series winning streak, Cedar Rapids essentially bludgeoned the opposition. In those ten games, they scored 6.7 runs per game. It’s a good thing, too, because their pitching was allowing 4.2 runs per game.
 
The offense stepped up in those series, but since then, things have taken a pretty dramatic turn.
 
In the nine games covering the last three series of this stretch, the results have come from pitching. While Kernels hitters were averaging just 3.9 runs per game, themselves, the pitching was giving up only two runs per game.
 
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Quesada2014d.jpg
- Michael Quesada
 
Digging deeper, it’s tough to find much in the offensive statistics that indicate a significant turnaround.
About half the club’s current position players hit a bit better in July than they had been hitting and about half had fallen off a notch, perhaps.
 
Catcher/DH Michael Quesada appears to have found his stroke and is hitting .270 in July, with a pair of home runs, after a dreadful June in which he managed just .150 with no extra-base hits.
Fellow catcher (turned primary right fielder) Alex Swim is hitting .364 in July after posting a .267 mark in June.
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Swim2014g.jpg
- Alex Swim
 
But a number of their teammates, including Mitch Garver and Chad Christensen, who have been among the team’s offensive leaders all season, have seen some of their numbers fade slightly in July, too, so it’s hard to credit this turnaround strictly to the offense.
 
Perhaps the most important contribution the offense has made has been its consistency.
 
Before Tuesday’s game with the Burlington Bees, Mauer emphasized the importance of that consistency.
 
“Knock on wood, we’ve had a steady core group,” Mauer said. “Obviously, (Jason) Kanzler was (promoted), but we’ve had that set core group for about four weeks.
 
“Position player wise, we haven’t really changed much. It’s pretty much the same group of guys other than Swim and Wade playing a bigger part. Christensen, Garver, Haar, 3-4-5, have been that way since about May.”
 
The pitching side of the ledger tells a slightly different story, however.
 
As the Kernels’ manager observed, “The starting pitching’s been good, bullpen’s been outstanding.”
 
Indeed.
 
Of the ten pitchers currently on the Kernels roster who made appearances in June and July for Cedar Rapids, nine dropped his ERA in July, as compared to June.
 
The tenth, reliever Dallas Gallant, couldn’t cut his. He had a 0.00 ERA in his three June appearances and has exactly the same 0.00 ERA through eight trips to the mound in July.
 
Fellow bullpen arm Jake Reed also has a perfect 0.00 ERA in his six appearances in July after posting a 4.50 mark in June.
 
Chris Mazza hasn’t been that perfect in relief. His July ERA is 0.69. It was 2.25 in June.
 
Jared Wilson has slashed his ERA from 4.60 in June to 1.84 in July.
 
Hudson Boyd did the same. He had a 10.00 in June and a 1.13 in July. (Boyd, however, was suspended on Tuesday for an unspecified period of time for violating team rules.)
 
The sharpest drop, however, has to be Nick Burdi, the Twins’ second round draft pick in June of this year. How can you beat a drop from infinity to 2.25?
 
Burdi made one infamous appearance upon joining the Kernels at the end of June in which he walked all four batters he faced and all four came around to score. In July, he has allowed just a pair of earned runs. He has also struck out 16 batters in his eight July innings, while walking just three.
 
The rotation arms are getting in to the act, as well.
 
Aaron Slegers, who leads the Kernels with 113.1 innings pitched this season, struggled in June to a 7.97 ERA in four starts. It sits at 1.96 through six starts in July.
 
http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Slegers2014a-600x449.jpg
- Aaron Slegers
 
18 year old Lewis Thorpe posted a 6.50 ERA in his four June starts, but he’s cut that to 3.51 in his six starts this month.
 
Kohl Stewart, Minnesota’s top draft pick in 2013, had an ERA of 2.16 in June. That’s pretty good. In fact, it was better than Stewart posted in April or May. But he’s bettered that in July, posting at 1.32.
 
Stewart, unfortunately, finds himself on the 7-day Disabled List at the moment, with a sore shoulder.
 
His replacement in the rotation is Stephen Gonsalves, freshly arrived from the Twins’ Appalachian League affiliate in Elizabethton.
 
Gonsalves has made just one appearance for the Kernels since arriving, but the lefty threw six shutout innings against Dayton on Sunday.
 
Chih-Wei Hu, the 20 year old from Taiwan, wasn’t with the Kernels in June, but he’s posted a 1.50 ERA in four July starts for Cedar Rapids.
 
Earned Run Average is not the only important pitching statistic. Arguably, it’s not even the most important, especially among relief pitchers.
 
But when your entire pitching staff is slashing their ERA from one month to the next, that’s a sign that good things are happening for your team.
 
The Kernels have put themselves in to contention for postseason play, but they’re going to need to overcome some challenges over the final month to earn one of those final MWL playoff spots.
They may need Stewart to come back from his DL stint healthy and effective.
 
They lost their center fielder, Jason Kanzler, who was contributing with his bat and his glove, to promotion this week. He has been replaced by Max Murphy, who was tearing up the Appy League to the tune of a .371 batting average and nine home runs.
 
Murphy, however, got off to an inauspicious start, going 0-4 with three strikeouts and a walk in his Kernels debut on Tuesday.
 
The Twins’ high-A affiliate in Fort Myers is already postseason-bound, having clinched a spot in the first half of their Florida State League season. There’s certainly no assurance the Twins won’t tab more Kernels for promotion to aide the Miracle’s own playoff preparations. In fact, with the way some of the players in Cedar Rapids are performing this month, you can probably count on it.
 
However, right at this moment, the Kernels are in serious contention for the postseason and that’s not something many fans would have envisioned just three weeks ago.