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The Twins away game idea emerged as a "rooting for laundry" dream. Roster moves over the past month have started to imply that something more might be underfoot for our 2023 squad. All of a sudden, I have new names to learn and new expectations to decipher. A trip to re-introduce myself to this nation that I call home now is beginning to reek of fanboy angst...
Are the Twins for real in 2023 all of a sudden?
I wasn't anticipating a need to feel nervous at these ball games. I was just g
2023 marks a distinct revolution in MLB scheduling. For the first time, the Minnesota Twins will play every MLB team during the regular season.
In the ever evolving nature of sport, some changes can fly under the radar. This scheduling change will impact the entire league in both extreme and subtle ways, and I'm not sure the Twins will be on the winning end of any of them. Here are a few of the main changes that I'm noticing as I plan the All 81 trip.
1. In-Division games are reduc
You can tell that I’ve been spending too much time planning travel itineraries for this “all 81” away game trip. I drove by a nativity scene downtown and realized how thankful I was that I don’t have to worry about a “donkey” column on my navigational spreadsheet.
I had never once thought about what Twins players encountered on their annual pilgrimage across the North American landscape in their efforts to entertain and infuriate me throughout a baseball season until I started try
The second road trip of the 2023 Twins season contains perhaps the biggest potential for “issues,” both natural and Twins-made. It also represents the most exciting and most difficult stretch of games in the first few months. Yankee Stadium. Fenway Park. Let’s begin…
April 13-16 - @ New York Yankees (4 games)
Yankee Stadium – capacity 47,309 - 2022 attendance was 3,136,207 (ranked 1st out of 15 AL teams)
Yankee Stadium screams “we own you” to Twins fans. Last year w
The summer of 2002 found me on the verge of a major move. I had accepted the invitation to seminary training at Garrett-Evangelical in Evanston, Illinois. And as nice as “Evanston” sounds, any look at a map worth its weight would tell you that I was moving to Chicago. In mid-August I packed the Buick LeSabre with a Laz-y-Boy, a Trinitron TV, all of my clothes, and embarked on my first solo road trip. I hadn’t driven in Chicago before, so I thought that packing the car to the point where I cou
The "All 81" away game journey begins in 109 days. That seems like a long time away. Until you enter it into a spreadsheet and realize that its only one mouse scroll from tomorrow...
Here's my plan of attack for keeping everyone in the loop during planning season:
1. Monday blogs will focus on the 16 trips involved in the 2023 Twins season. I'm going to be focusing on stadium highlights, attributes, Twins history, and community amenities. Potential pitfalls and road blocks get con
All crazy ideas start out with smaller, somewhat less crazy ideas. In Twins Territory, staring out at a foot of sanded/graying snow usually factors in as well.
Going to every Twins away game in 2023 started out similarly. It began to sprout one February evening, while I celebrated an annual bro event with some of my closest friends JP and Steve Hain. JP and I had been picking Oscar winners and then competing against one another "live" on Oscar night since we were in Jr. High. I think we
Counting the costs.
I spent most of the weekend drumming up the potential ramifications of my "all 81 away games" dream in an excel spreadsheet. This led to some quality angst and vulnerability hangover, for both I and spouse :)
Upon entering mileage and dates, a few things are apparent:
1. MLB was not considering my potential dream trip when they were organizing the Twins road schedule this year. Beyond utilizing the LA trip as a back to back with the Dodgers and Angels in May
Hello everyone, allow me to introduce myself.
Steve Trefz, 42 yrs old, Twins fan by virtue of birthplace (farm in rural NorthCentral South Dakota), of influence (Herb and John every summer evening for 3.5 hrs), and of circumstance (first World Series that I remember watching was 1987, which was also the year of the first Metrodome trip and Twins game of my life).
I have more to share when it comes to "Why the Twins?," but for now I just want to introduce where this blog is headed...lit
MLB is announcing the top rated prospects. I am pleased to see that the Twins have the 10th rated SS with Brooks Lee, who was rated as the top hitting SS prospect. Royce Lewis was not in the top 10, but was mentioned in the article as being on the fringe of the top 10 at SS. Julian is #7 at 2B and is rated as the 2B prospect who has made the most improvements in the shortest amount of time and who has risen the farthest. MLB mentioned that Jose Miranda had graduated off of last year's top 10 rankings at 3B. When we add Carlos Correa and all his superlatives to the equation at SS and a former all star SS, Polanco, currently at 2B...that is impressive. 1B will hopefully be manned by Kirilloff, who is still very young (remember he was drafted out of HS) and very promising as a fielder at a relatively new position, where his play looks smooth, and if his wrist is fixed, he can be a very promising hitter, with some power. The Twins' OF is current loaded with award winning defensive outfielders, but probably not any highly ranked OF prospects. I feel Larnach is the most likely to become an impressive young OF'er or possibly Wallner or Martin , who has underperformed in pro ball so far, based on his draft position. Catching is by far the Twins weakest group of prospects. The Twins should attempt to trade for Henry Davis of the Pirates, who have 2 catchers ranked in the top 10 prospects. Davis is rated as having the best catching arm among the prospects. The Mets also have 2 catchers in the top ten list of prospects and both will probably be good hitters in the majors. In fact the Mets' prospect catcher, Alvarez, is rated as being the best hitting prospect of all prospects, and ranked #1 among all prospects. So I expect he will be the first choice to catch for the Mets. Possibly that will free up the other top prospect catcher on the Mets, Parada, to be traded to the Twins. Now about those pitching prospects....