Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account
  • entries
    21
  • comments
    196
  • views
    15,810

About this blog

How Things Used To Be

Entries in this blog

History 101

Don't Blame the Pohlad's (or Rocco)!

The majority of Twins fans are treating the ownership as the bogeyman for the team’s demise, I’m here to pass the blame to the person who is most deserving of that title. The Twins signed Carlos Correa to a “pillow” contract in March 2022 for $105,300,00 over 3 years which paid him $35,100,000 for 2022. In the 4 years prior to free agency Correa had a 2.9 WAR in 110 games, 3.8 WAR for 75 games, 1.6 WAR for 58 games and 7.3 WAR for 148 games. No question that he had a career year at the perf
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

10
History 101

Baseball Card Collecting Before It Was A Business

Card Collecting in the Early 1900’s Card collecting in the early 1900’s was before my time and my dad’s, but not my grandfather’s. He arrived in Ellis Island in 1907 but did not acquire a taste for baseball or card collecting in his lifetime. If he had it would have been great because the T206 cards (1909-1911) common cards are worth at least $50 each in the 520 card set. Unlike later baseball cards the T206 cards came in packs of cigarettes, issued by the American Tobacco Company. And
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

1
History 101

A Surprising Spring Stat

First let me preface this by saying that I realize that Spring Training results and stats are practically meaningless. But with this in mind here are some raw data from the spring along with a ranking of the 30 organizations.   OPS – Twins 20th with a .739 OBP OBP – Twins 19th with a .336 OBP SLG – Twins 18th with a .403 SLG Batg. Avg. – Twins 20th with .250 HR’s – Twins 12th with 19 2B’s – Twins 24th wit
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

1
History 101

Who Is Mickey Gasper – Major League Contributor or Minor League Depth?

Mickey Gasper is a recent addition to the Twins 40-man roster. He came over from the Red Sox in a trade for Jovani Moran. If you recall, Moran was designated for assignment by the Twins and went unclaimed. He also went unclaimed through the Rule 5 draft at the beginning of December. But on Christmas Eve he was traded to the Red Sox for Mickey Gasper. The first question I would ask is why didn’t the Red Sox claim him when he went on waivers? And why didn’t they take him in the Rule 5 dr
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

13
History 101

A Bad Precedent Is Being Set?

Those of us who are baby boomers vividly remember Popeye’s friend and lover of hamburgers, J. Wellington Wimpy, commonly referred to as Wimpy saying “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”. It has been reported that Wimpy would never come around on Tuesdays. The LA Dodgers, in this offseason, have started negotiating with available free agents by offering larger contracts with a decent amount of the money deferred. By deferred we mean that when a player's career is over, large p
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

28
History 101

Twins Amateur Drafts 1975-1984 The Griffith Years - Part II

Twins Amateur Draft Choices – The Griffith Years – Part II (1975 to 1984)   A month ago I posted an article on the results of the first 10 years of the amateur draft which would have been lead by team owner Clark Griffith.   I did an analysis of the first 5 rounds from 1965 to 1974 and found that: 11 of the 51 total picks played at least one game for the Twins 6 of the 51 picks never signed a contract with the Twins and were available in later draft
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

4
History 101

Twins Amateur Drafts 1965-1974 - The Griffith Years Part I

With the implementation of the MLB Amateur Draft in 1965, a team's ability to build a farm system and stock a major league team is largely affected by it success in drafting future talent. In analyzing the results of the Calvin Griffith years of the draft (1965 - 1984), I looked at players drafted in rounds 1-5. For the first 10 years, 51 players were drafted 1 through 5. Of those 51 players 6 did not sign with the Twins. This group included Eddie Leon (Round 1, 1965 draft), Del Unser
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

2
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Bonus Babies Out, Amateur Draft In

“Bonus Baby” Rule Eliminated, Amateur Draft Implemented in 1965   If you read my recent blog article “Players Who Went Right To The Major Leagues” you will know that from 1947 to 1965 any player who signed with an organization for $4,000 or more was considered a “Bonus Baby” and had to spend their first year of professional baseball on a major league roster. This meant little playing time and very little opportunity to develop into a better player. There were 71 players in this categor
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Players Who Went Right To The Major Leagues

In baseball there is a chance for something special to happen in every game. One of the rarer events is for a player to make his major league debut and never had spent any time in the minors. Since the advent of the American and National League in the early 1900’s, only 102 players can make this claim. There are 4 subsets of players who have achieved this rarity. 1) Prior to World War II – Thirteen players are in this group. Almost half of these players have been inducted into the
History 101

Is The Twins Salary Budget Reasonable?

Let’s Talk Salaries The Padres traded their “once in a lifetime” superstar to the Yankees for payroll relief. This in spite of drawing over 3.2M fans in 2023 (2nd in NL). The Padres 2023 payroll was $259M (per sportrac.com) and they didn’t make the playoffs. In looking forward, the Padres are currently paying Manny Machado $17M per year until 2025 and then it becomes $25M in 2026 and then $39M for the next 7 years. Fernando Tatis will make $11.7M in 2024, $20.7M in 2025 and 2026, $25.7M in
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

5
History 101

Budgeting in Baseball

I read today that a lot of fans are annoyed at the Twins ownership because they are unwilling to take on additional salaries in order to increase their chances of winning a World Series. As a retired CFO of a $14M business with 150 employees, I can vouch for the sanctity of an annual budget. Preparing a budget takes great knowledge of your business. You need individuals who can anticipate what the businesses expenses for the next year will be. That includes taking into consideration wh
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

5
History 101

History 101 - The Spitball

History 101 - The Spitball The spitball originated at the end of the 19th century. There are a couple of possible origins and a couple of possible inventors, but at this point the title has not been assigned to anyone and may actually have a number of players who may have contributed to the creation of the pitch. The two most widely credited inventors were Elmer Stricklett (1876-1964) and Frank Corridan (1880-1941). The most successful spit ball pitchers were Hall of Famers, Ed Walsh a
Paul D

Paul D in History 101

3
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

What Does It Take To Be A Major League Manager?

What Does It Take To Be A Major League Manager? Sitting on my couch in the middle of a New England winter, trying to pick a topic to write about for my weekly blog, my attention turned to X (I’m not going to say formerly Twitter). Staring at me was a posting by Dan Hayes of The Athletic from TwinsFest with manager Rocco Baldelli in the photo. There are only 30 managers in Major League Baseball, so the odds of getting a managerial position are far smaller than the odds of being a major
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Can There Be More Than One Unicorn?

The airwaves have been flooded with all the hysteria of the otherworldly accomplishments of Shohei Ohtani, and rightly so. He is indeed a “unicorn”, a unique baseball player who has taken MLB by storm since coming from Japan to the US. To be able to hit and pitch with such excellence is almost unequal to any other baseball player ever, especially when you take into account that he is in the upper echelon of both pitchers and hitters at the same time. But is Ohtani not really unique and is h
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

A Man of Many Gloves

One of the most underrated players for the Twins may have been Cesar Tovar. His professional career became reality largely because of his close friend Gus Gil. On New Year’s morning in 1959 Cincinnati Reds General Manager Gabe Paul would sign Gil and at the urging of Gil, Cesar Tovar. Gil received a $2,000 signing bonus, Tovar got nothing. Tovar’s first professional season was with Geneva of the NY-Penn League (Class D). He batted .252 in 87 games with 3 HR’s and 41 RBI’s. His 2nd summ
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Was Zoilo Versalles A "One Hit Wonder"

Was Zoilo Versalles a One-Hit Wonder? When the Washington Senators relocated to Minneapolis/St. Paul for the 1961 season they brought a team that had finished 7th, 8th, 8th, 8th, and 5th the previous 5 years. After the move the team finished 7th in 1961, then 2nd, 3rd and 6th in the 10 team American League. The 6th place 1964 team had a starting lineup of Earl Battey-catching, Bob Allison, Bernie Allen, Zoilo Versalles, and Rich Rollins in the infield, and had an outfield of Harmon Kil
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Nicknames in Baseball - A Very Interesting Project

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque. Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbag
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Minneapolis/St. Paul Was Supposed to be an Expansion Team!

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

What It Was Like Growing Up in the 1950's/1960's

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty
×
×
  • Create New...