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After our second year of watching and gambling on Twins baseball, we Peanuts from Heaven had our annual pay-off dinner/drinking fest at the St. Paul Grill, aligning perfectly with Game One of the World Series. And while Stinky bemoaned Alcides Escobar's lousy pitch selection (seriously, three pitches up by his eyes? I mean...who does he think he is, Delmon Young?), we also made time to talk about the team we actually care about. In the midst of the third...or maybe fifth...scotch, I started to
Near the end of last week, the Rawlings Gold Glove finalists were announced for both the American League and the National League. It's hard to take these nominations too seriously when Derek Jeter has multiple Gold Gloves on his mantle and Rafael Palmeiro won one as a DH. Rawlings has been moving in the right direction as they have started to use SABR's Defensive Index to help decide the winners. Three former members of the Twins organization (JJ Hardy, Justin Morneau, and Denard Span) were a
The end of the third week in the Arizona Fall League marks the halfway point of the season, and at this juncture the Salt River Rafters, for whom the Twins prospects play, have clearly been the class of the League. They lead the East Division with a 12-4-1 record and are the only team with double-digit wins. In week 3, Taylor Rogers was again the only Twins representative who didn’t see action. Did Eddie Rosario continue to hit? Did Byron Buxton turn it around? Did Zack Jones and Jake Re
The last two years, the Twins' bullpen has been incredibly stable. They've also been regarded as quite effective, especially when compared to the starting rotation. During the last leg of the season, the bullpen wasn't effective or efficient. I'm going to discuss the players who were on the club for much or most of the season. Six pitchers spent all season with the Twins and most of their innings in the bullpen: Swarzak, Burton, Fien, Duensing, Thielbar and Perkins. They all threw between 47 a
You can download the new Talk to Contact (@TalkToContact) episode via iTunes or by clicking here, and if you want to add the show to your non-iTunes podcast player, this is the RSS Feed. The Royals and the Giants are playing for baseball's biggest prize and we're all sitting around talking about Paul Molitor, Torey Lovullo and Doug Mientkiewicz and how to build a coaching staff when your new manager has never been the skipper in the big leagues. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JcIauocHqno/VEo12aLm
The Minnesota Twins are in the midst of the search for their next manager. As an organization, they are looking hard at candidates that are already inside the organization like Paul Molitor and Doug Mientkiewicz. They are also considering some other men from outside the organization and that's where I come in. I would like to throw my name in the hat as a candidate for the next manager of the Minnesota Twins. I might not have the pedigree of a Hall-of-Famer or a World Series ring on my finger
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. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Lovullo-600x420.jpg Torey Lovullo (AP Photo) (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) After co
I was watching the excellent ESPN 30-for-30 feature on the Earthquake Series of 1989 and in recalling various players on that Oakland A’s team, was again struck by how far off the charts Terry Steinbach’s 1996 was from any other season in his career at the advanced-for-baseball age of 34. Steinbach slugged 35 homeruns that season after never hitting more than 16 before or after. His 34 homeruns as a catcher (the other was as a pinch hitter) was the highest total for a catcher at that time in the
A year ago I offered an alternative statistic for measuring player worth--not in wins/losses, but in the far more useful field of entertaining the fan base: Amusement Above Replacement Player (AARP) for short. The statistic is measured in five key categories on a scale of -2 to +2, Play Nickname: Physical Traits: Personality/Demeanor: Oddities: When added up, these statistics gives us a total AARP somewhere between -10 and +10. Last year, the AARP statistic revealed that while the T
Dear Mr. Ryan Let's start out on some common ground. The last four years have been very disappointing. We've heard these numbers in one form or another for years now, so I won't drag it out, but I want to highlight just a couple of the most disappointing statistics. 383 losses in 4 seasons. A pitching staff who's ERA ranked 29th, 28th, 29th and 29th out of 30 from 2011-2014. A starting rotation that ranked last in the league in ERA from 2011-2014. And all of this coming as we moved into the pu
Ricky Nolasco signed easily the largest free agent contract for the Twins last year. While not every Twins fan was happy, the consensus was that the Twins had opened their wallets wide to get a guy that would guarantee them innings and competitive starts. In other words, while Nolasco's ceiling wasn't thought to be that high, his floor was thought to be competence or better than that. For one season, at least, the Twins were totally wrong. They didn't get middle-of-the-rotation production from
A year ago I offered an alternative statistic for measuring player worth--not in wins/losses, but in the far more useful field of entertaining the fan base: Amusement Above Replacement Player (AARP) for short. The statistic is measured in five key categories on a scale of -2 to +2, Play: Nickname: Physical Traits: Personality/Demeanor: Oddities: When added up, these statistics gives us a total AARP somewhere between -10 and +10. Last year, even by the totally made up AARP statistic, t
Did anyone read Ruesse's article about the Twins season ticket holders? Here are the cliffs notes: -Twins had 17,000 season ticket holders last year. He expects that to drop to 12,000 this year -If you drop 5K a game from this years total, you have 1.85M. The lowest since 2001 in the Dome. -The Twins response is the same as always. Terry quoting that money will be no obstacle and Pohlad saying we will stick to 50%. -Also brought up the competition within the market. Wild are a better
The second week of the Arizona Fall League season included a tie for the Salt River Rafters as their game on Friday went 11 innings, and the teams ran out of scheduled pitchers. Overall on the week, the Rafters were 3-2-1, and Eddie Rosario continued to rake and run. Let’s see how all of the Twins prospects fared in week two of the Arizona Fall League. Byron Buxton – 4 games, 3-18 (.167), 2B, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 3 K’s. Batting .229 overall. Buxton again played in four games, playing cente
It may mean a bunch of losses in 2015, but the Twins need to use their next season to evaluate what they have. Next off-season, they can look at the trade and free agent market and search for a way to supplement their 25-man roster, but for now, they need to commit to the youth movement. I'll take a look at the players who deserve an extended look in each area of the Twins roster. Starting Rotation: Obviously, Hughes and Nolasco are not going anywhere. I think Gibson is a breakout candidate
This will close out my postseason reviews of position players. Parmelee and Nuñez spent a majority of the season with the Twins. Absent significant injuries, they didn't start many games. Schafer was claimed from the Braves and played regularly. All three players had their moments, but most likely won't seriously compete for a starting spot in 2015. There is a significant possibility that one or more of these players will be cut loose in the offseason. Parmelee: Chris Parmelee had chance
http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/19/ad/da/paulpleiss/1400x1400_10022097.jpgDarren Wolfson returns to Talk to Contact to update us on the Twins' managerial search, and he shares with us some insight on Paul Molitor and more. Just Paul and Eric on the podcast this week, a throwback to the days before Cody and Jay joined the team, and the brothers spent time talking about the Twins payroll, their indifference to the winter free agency period, and of course, beer, baseball, and the news. Thanks fo
Barring injury, Phil Hughes will be the Opening Day starting pitcher for the Twins in 2015. He was the Twins best and most reliable starting pitcher last year by far. Hughes was signed to a three-year $24M contract coming off a 4-14 season with the New York Yankees, a team that won 85 games. Hughes had allowed 24 homers in 145+ innings for the Yanks and the thought was that a new location and less pressure would allow for improvement. Hughes pitched in 2014 as a 28-year old, so he was one of
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 co
The Minnesota Twins are holding their annual “organizational meetings” in Fort Myers this week. As newsworthy baseball stories go, that bit of information ranks quite a bit below the MLB postseason games and their seemingly nightly extra-inning games and walk-off finishes. What exactly are the organizational meetings? Well, in Hollywood’s version of Moneyball, you may remember seeing Brad Pitt as Oakland General Manager Billy Beane gathering a few guys around a table in a room and tossing out
The Arizona Fall League season started last week on Tuesday, and Minnesota Twins Minor Leaguers Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Max Kepler, Taylor Rogers, Jason Adam, Zack Jones, and Jake Reed all helped the Salt River Rafters compile a 4-1 record to open play. So let’s check out what each of those players did in the season’s first week! Byron Buxton – 4 games, 5-17, 4 R’s, 2 RBI, 2 BB’s, 4 K’s, 1 SB, 2 Errors. Buxton batted leadoff and played centerfield in all four games on the week, gett
September complaints about Twins lineups centered on two players--Danny Santana and Josmil Pinto. The fans remaining at Twins Daily wanted Santana to get reps at shortstop (and opportunities for Aaron Hicks) and they wanted to see the state of Josmil Pinto's catching ability. The fans were mostly disappointed. Santana mostly stayed in center field and Pinto only started eight games at catcher and left one of them before he either hit or caught. We will wait for answers (or at least more defi
I saw Danny Santana play in a lot of games in Spring Training of 2014. I was impressed with his swing and his speed, but thought that he was a long way from helping the Twins in 2014. Santana showed the baseball world that he was ready when he was recalled in early May. He hit early and continued to hit throughout the season. Danny finished with a .319 batting average and an OPS of .824, both of which would have led the team easily if he had enough plate appearances. Danny made the All-Rook
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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