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August has been an exciting month for the Minnesota Twins. While they have continued to command the second American League Wild Card spot, they've also watched Byron Buxton continue an incredible breakout. Despite all of the praise he's garnering, there's another youngster commanding your attention. Enter 24 year-old, Jorge Polanco. On June 7, the Twins placed Polanco on the bereavement list. His grandfather had passed away, and the Minnesota shortstop was set to return home to be with family.
The Minnesota Twins are certainly still in the thick of things in the Wild Card race, but it’s never too early to look to the offseason to get a feel for what the team might do to improve. In fact, there could be a lot of moves as the team looks to reframe itself in the images of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, as we’ve already seen a personnel purge in the scouting and analytics departments with more to come.
That could even include at the top, with manager Paul Molitor working on the la
Coming off a 103 loss campaign a season ago, there was plenty of room for tempered expectations in 2017. While many feared another lackluster season, the expectation always should have been a generous step forward. Given the uncertainty of youth, a three year span with a boom, buster, and normalization felt appropriate to surmise. As we go down the stretch in 2017 however, the Twins have become much more. Going into 2017, I felt pretty confident that something in the upper 70's seemed like a r
Following Tuesday night’s 4-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins designated right-handed pitcher Tim Melville for assignment. That opened up a spot on the 40-man roster, and it sure sounds like right-handed reliever John Curtiss will be getting the call, as MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger first reported which was shortly followed by a report from Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
The Twins have yet to confirm the move, though Curtiss is expected to join the
On May 13, 2017 Byron Buxton was near rock bottom. 30 games into his season for the Minnesota Twins, he looked lost at the plate, was batting just .168, and owned a paltry .500 OPS. After an exciting September 2016, his new season had gotten off to a terrible start. Fast forward to today and things have changed, but it's the "how" and "why" that tell the story. Despite continuing to play otherworldly defense, Buxton was once again scuffling at the big league level. Despite raking at every stop
On Sept. 1 in MLB, rosters expand. For the entire month, teams can bring up and use any player on the 40-man roster. The usage of this is varied, as some teams will empty out their minors and stock their clubhouse and dugout. Others will simply bring up some pinch-runner types and an extra bullpen arm or two. It all depends on the team’s goals for the season and the construction of their rosters -- both 25- and 40-man. Some teams have more MLB-ready players on their 40’s than others, while oth
It's been a while since I've done a Twins mailbag here at Off The Baggy, and with the Twins playing some really fun and exciting baseball, it seemed like a good time. Soliciting questions from readers on Twitter, there was a handful of solid submissions. As the summer draws to a close, we'll get more concrete answers to some of these. Before letting the Twins play out the rest of their 2017 season, it seemed like a good time to take a look at some lingering questions about the year that has be
The Twins were in a festive mood on Friday night. They honored Rod Carew by showing heart after being down 3-0 just two innings into the game. They also honored his offensive pedigree by pounding out 17 hits. The offense also provided some in-game fireworks prior to the customary postgame ones that happen every Friday at Target Field. What it all added up to was 10 unanswered runs — including seven over the final three innings — in a 10-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Target Field on Fr
It’s warm and overcast as the Minnesota Twins prepare to open a three-game interleague series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’ll be righty Zack Godley (2.95 ERA, 3.17 FIP in 106.2 innings) going for the Diamondbacks, with Ervin Santana (3.28 ERA, 4.71 FIP in 156.1 innings) taking the ball for the Twins. More on that in a bit. This will be the first regular-season meeting between the Twins and Diamondbacks since Sept. 22-24, 2014 — also at Target Field. The Twins the last two games of th
Robbie Grossman’s swinging strikeout against Nick Goody to end the first game of Thursday's doubleheader was the icing on a very frustrating cake for the Minnesota Twins. Not only did it cap a 9-3 loss to push the Twins back to .500, but also sealed a dubious team record as the 19th time a Twin had struck out against Indians pitching. In fact, most of the game was emblematic of the Twins’ recent pursuit of the Indians in the standings. The Indians didn’t play particularly well all day, and let
It looks as though Twins fans may finally get their wish, as Mitch Garver is headed to the big leagues according to Ray Birmingham. https://twitter.com/BirminghamRay/status/898395795552063488 Birmingham is the head coach of the University of New Mexico Lobos baseball team, where Garver played from 2010-13 before the Minnesota Twins took him in the ninth round of the 2013 draft. UPDATE: Garver's mother has also retweeted the original tweet. UPDATE II: Gail also tweeted that they'll be in Mi
After suffering a severe shoulder injury that required his labrum be reattached over the offseason, Glen Perkins is nearing a return to the big leagues. I was skeptical this day would ever come, but the Twins former closer has worked his tail off to be where he is today. The question remains, can this version of Perkins be an asset in relief for Paul Molitor's squad? Perkins last appeared on a big league mound on April 10, 2016. It marked two innings of ineffective pitching a year ago. You'd h
For three innings Tuesday night at Target Field, Bartolo Colon was a veritable Harry Houdini. The 44-year-old righty worked in and out of danger, and was staked to a 1-0 lead before allowing three solo home runs over a two-inning span on the way to an 8-1 loss to Danny Salazar and the Cleveland Indians in front of nearly 30,000 fans at Target Field. The loss sent the Twins to a stunning 0-8 against the Indians at home this season. The Twins are 5-1 against Cleveland at Progressive Field this
It’s overcast and warm as the Minnesota Twins prepare to take on the Cleveland Indians in the first of three games to start a six-game homestand. It’ll be a pair of righties tangling on the mound, as the Indians will send Danny Salazar (4.15 ERA, 3.72 FIP in 80.1 innings) out while the Twins will counter with Bartolo Colon (6.77 ERA, 4.73 FIP in 94.1 innings). More on that in a bit. The Twins come into the series 59-57 -- five games behind first-place Cleveland and in search of their first w
223. That's the number of strikeouts that Arizona Diamondbacks infielder Mark Reynolds put up in 2009. It's a major league record, and has stood for the past seven seasons. In 2017 however, it's almost certain to fall, and both Miguel Sano and Aaron Judge are chasing it. The question is, are all strikeouts the same? There's an association with the strikeout that it is representative of negativity. In a certain context, that's a fair principle. At it's core, the strikeout is a non-productive at
We’ve established the rules for post-July 31 trades. Now we should take a look at who the Twins might target, right? It’s pretty easy to isolate three areas where the Twins can use some help: Starting pitching Relief pitching Batters who can hit left-handed pitching The pitching woes are hard to miss. Only the Rangers (6.4) have gotten fewer strikeouts per nine innings from starting pitchers than the Twins (6.9), and just four teams have posted higher ERA from their rotations than the T
One exercise that is fun, and in the interest of full disclosure gets a lot of people reading and talking, is ranking things in order as a “power ranking.” No seriously, if you call something a “power ranking” you’re guaranteed to see traffic go through the roof. I’m thinking of calling my podcast “power ranking.” OK, I’m kidding. But it’s a fun exercise to apply to a team’s 25-man roster. My general theory — and this can be altered if viewers think there is a better way — is to base a playe
The 2017 Major League Baseball season has been one that's proven incredibly tough to read for the Minnesota Twins. After pacing the division for much of the first half, there's been multiple times in which the club looks to have lost all hope. As the summer draws to a close however, they've hung around, and it's been in large part to a handful of key pieces getting hot. Coming off a franchise worst 103 losses, there should have been a massive expectation that this Twins would rebound. While th
Looks like the Yankees got us again. Unless the AA guy has something to offer. If Enns can be sucessful in the Majors then I am coming out of Retirement! We have at least 5 pitchers in the minors that are better than him right now.
Kennys Vargas spent one day with the Minnesota Twins in his latest stint, as the club announced Thursday morning that the first baseman/designated hitter has been sent back to Triple-A Rochester following the previous night’s game. Vargas appeared in Wednesday night’s game to pinch-hit for starter Bartolo Colon, popping out in foul territory in the eighth inning. Vargas, who was granted a fourth-year option by MLB, has been promoted by the Twins four times this season, but has failed to capita
The 2017 Minnesota Twins have been among the luckiest teams in baseball. No matter how you define luck, arguably the most indicative stat in the game is run differential. Despite being incredibly lopsided in that category, Minnesota finds themselves sitting at .500 on August 10. While it creates somewhat of a mirage for the current season, it highlights the excitement that 2018 should bring with it. Coming into 2017, Minnesota was looking to turn the page on a season that resulted in a franchi
In late August, teams around MLB will wear uniforms with nicknames on the back as the first-ever “Players Weekend.” It’ll be spanning Aug. 25-27, and the jerseys will have unusual designs to inject some more personality in the game. You can find the full actual list of nicknames the Twins will wear here:
But if we were in charge, what would we put on the jerseys? Here’s our list -- and it’s all in good fun: Jason Castro - Michaels Chris Gimenez - The Janitor Joe Mauer - Joseph Patr
As the Minnesota Twins are faced with another roster shuffle, it appears Kennys Vargas is in fact on his way back to the big leagues. After Adalberto Mejia went down, Paul Molitor was faced with an open roster spot. Needing another starter in the coming days, the Twins could turn to already rostered Dillon Gee. With an opportunity to bring up another bat, it's Vargas who gets his seventh transaction, and fourth recall, of the year. While there's plenty of reason to be excited about a player th
On Saturday, Tait went 2-for-4 with a walk and his 17th double. The 19-year-old is hitting .219 with 17 doubles and 15 home runs at High-A Cedar Rapids.
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