Greatest Twins Teams of All Time: 1970

[Matt Braun]

Join us in argument as we count down the greatest Twins teams in history, as voted on by the Twins Daily writers. Today: the seventh-ranked team. 

Image courtesy of Thiéres Rabelo

Overview

The 1970 Twins—the reason why we can’t broadly declare the decade to be pitiful and fruitless. That, and Rod Carew. And Bert Blyleven.

The great mechanisms that built the Twins of the 1960s were still at play in 1970. Franchise icons like Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat, and César Tovar were still reasonably in their primes (Killebrew less so, at age 34, but still fresh off an MVP season). Billy Martin’s flash-in-the-pan success and immediate firing could have pushed them off course, but these Twins were sturdy. They simply replaced the eccentric Martin with another Billy—this one preferred to drop the “y”—and lurched forward with their leviathan of talent.

No one knew it then, but this would be Minnesota’s final foray into playoff baseball until the 1987 team miraculously won it all. The rest of the '70s weren’t bad, really. Rather, the Twins fell into the kind of lull that causes franchises to atrophy, as mediocre talent begat more mediocre talent, with the whole thing crashing down in a disgusting 1982 campaign. They weren’t bad, but they were something worse than that: forgettable.

That’s for the future, though. For now, we’ll enjoy and celebrate the final adventure of a legendary group of players.

Lineup
Killebrew, Oliva, and Tovar were the three stars at the top of Minnesota’s lineup. The man nicknamed “Killer” was still the leader of the bunch. He bashed 40 homers for the eighth time in his career, en route to a gorgeous .271/.411/.546 slash line, good enough to nab him a third-place finish in the AL MVP race. The man who finished second? His teammate, Oliva, who cracked a league-leading 36 doubles and 204 total hits, marking another tremendous season in a run of excellence that would (unfortunately) soon end.

Tovar only finished 18th in voting, but his contributions were critical. Since Jimmie Hall’s shocking decline in the mid-1960s, center field had been in flux. Ted Uhlaender was a respectable replacement, with the height of his play coming in 1968, but the Baylor product wowed few—and his defense lagged behind expectations for such a critical position.

Enter Tovar. The Venezuela native had played every position on the field, after brief looks at first base, catcher, and pitcher in 1968 during a promotional stunt in which he played all nine spots on the diamond in a meaningless game. He even struck out Reggie Jackson while on the mound. Why not make him the everyday center fielder? The fit was perfect. Tovar knocked 36 doubles and 13 triples, while playing good defense (if Total Zone is to be believed). 

The rest of the lineup was… well, there’s a reason three men garnered the lion’s share of focus. Longtime fixture Bob Allison barely played due to his failing knees; the young, brilliant Carew was limited to 51 games after an injured leg caused him to miss most of the season; and 1969 breakout star Rich Reese dimmed in 1970, losing nearly .200 points of OPS. 

Still, the team scored the seventh-most runs in MLB and played excellent defense to offset their hitting woes.

Pitching
This team could pitch. They’d beat you with their starting rotation, and then they’d beat you with their bullpen. Staff ace Jim Perry had served as a reliable swingman since the team acquired him from Cleveland in 1963, but he was never among the group who earned regular starting nods from managers. There was always more talent, more veteran options. Once those choices evaporated, Perry became a full-time starter in 1969, and reached new heights in 1970. He won 24 of his 40 starts, covering 278 ⅔ frames, turning in a 3.04 ERA in a season that earned him the AL Cy Young Award nod over solid challengers in Dave McNally, Sam McDowell, and Mike Cuellar.

Filling in behind him was a 19-year-old Bert Blyleven, in his first taste of major-league ball, Kaat’s typical, steady effectiveness, and Luis Tiant—the one and only—in his often-forgotten stopover between Cleveland and Boston.

But, because a 19-year-old and a legend with only 92 ⅔ innings in him isn’t a strong back-end, Dave Boswell, Bill Zepp, and Tom Hall stepped in to supply frames. Boswell—still recovering from his altercation with manager Martin the previous season—barely pitched, and didn’t get outs when he did. Zepp filled innings well, covering more than 150 of them before the season ended, but the story was focused solely on a man nicknamed “The Blade.” 

Hall had been around since 1968, earning the Twins quality outs whenever the team called upon him. His slim appearance—Baseball Reference lists him at 150 pounds—reminded those who tried to hit off him of the edge one might find on a knife. That terror was too much in 1970; Hall eviscerated batters, striking out 184 over just 155 ⅓ innings. He had a 2.55 ERA. Whether starting or relieving, Bill Rigney knew he could rely on his svelte lefty.

In fact, relief pitching is really what defined this team: Ron Perranoski, Hall, and Stan Williams were terrors out of the bullpen. Perranoski’s greatness had been well-known since his time with the Dodgers—and his performance would earn him a seventh-place finish in the Cy Young vote—but Williams’s play was especially eye-opening. 

Once a Dodger bullpen arm himself, Williams bounced to New York before settling in as an ancillary arm with Cleveland. Losing 14 games in 1969 earned him the boot out. Now a Twin, Williams pitched in 68 games, crushed hitters with his 1.99 ERA, and gave the team crucial innings unable to be pitched by their starting rotation.

Playoffs
The previous season concluded with a 3-0 sweep at the hands of the Earl Weaver-led Orioles and 1970 ended with… a 3-0 sweep at the hands of the Earl Weaver-led Orioles. No game was particularly close; Minnesota came the closest in the opening contest, losing 10-6. Baltimore jumped on Perry. The rest of the series doesn’t deserve a mention.

Concluding Thoughts
I’m glad our writers knew their history on this one. It’s easy to write off or misremember what happened when the Martin era ended before it could really begin, but this was a genuinely fun, cool team that was maybe pretty modern. What do you do when you have two-and-a-half trustworthy starting pitchers? Rely on your bullpen. Of course, having career years from Hall and Williams doesn’t hurt.

I think if Carew had stayed healthy and Tiant had made more of an impact, this team would stand out more in our collective memory. Carew was obviously a dynamo. Perhaps a Tiant start in Game Two evens the series and gives the team a fighting chance against the Orioles. We’ll never know.

In any case, this was a deeply memorable team. They were Minnesota’s last breath of fresh air, before injuries and old age sapped what remained of the 1960s run, marking the start of a 16-year postseason drought. They had award winners and breakout relief arms. If Killebrew wasn’t bashing homers, Tovar was probably hitting a triple. Carew may have played in just 51 games, but Blyleven started his legendary MLB career pitching impressively well for any rookie—much less a 19-year-old. But there was a team better than them waiting in the playoffs.

So it goes.

"This team probably should be higher by as many as 4-5 spots. They actually won 98 games but are a bit overlooked because it was so similar to the 1969 season, just not with Billy..." -Seth Stohs

"Peak Cesar Tovar, Carew, Killebrew. Perry, Kaat, baby Blyleven, and Luis freaking Tiant." -Hans Birkeland

What do you think of the 1970 Twins? Were they ranked too high or too low? Do you have any special memories of them? Leave a comment below and start the discussion.

Previous Entries:
#10 - 2010
#9 - 2023
#8 - 2002
Honorable Mentions

View full article

[strumdatjag]

That was a fun but frustrating season.  It could have been so much better.   The Seventies were a mediocrity because Gene Mauch squeezed his limited-talent teams for as many wins as he could get.    Those years could have been so much worse. 

[tony&rodney]

The 1977 Twins would argue that the 1970s were a loss. That was one of the most exciting teams to watch, but oh my, the pitching.

[sweetmusicviola16]

I was only 5 y/o that season. Can someone tell me what was wrong with Tiant that season to throw only 92.2 IP? He was good for 250 or more many different seasons.

[sweetmusicviola16]

1 hour ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

I loved this team as well as the '69 team.  I am maybe biased as I was only 15 years old and recently had fallen in love with baseball.  I feel bad because both of these teams were overshadowed by that absolutely fantastic Baltimore team which always had our number.

The Blade was fun to watch as was this kid named Bert throwing 12-6 and 2-8 curves that seemed to break 2 feet or more.  I remember Sir Rodney blowing out his knee and that pretty much killed our chances that year.  Tony-O was firing line drives everywhere and Ron P was a for sure stopper out of the pen,  Fun team to watch!

I fell in love with the Twins in that awful 1982 season. Lost 102. But they were so fun to watch in 1984 when Kirby came on board and were the foundation of 1987.

[East Coast Twin]

3 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

I was only 5 y/o that season. Can someone tell me what was wrong with Tiant that season to throw only 92.2 IP? He was good for 250 or more many different seasons.

According to his wikipedia page, he fractured his shoulder blade that season.

[h2oface]

Really enjoying this series and countdown. Not for the ratings, but for the trips down memory lane. My only suggestion would be to include the team's record and the playoff record (if there was one) as you list which team it is, or as part of the overview at the top of the story. Sure, I can look it up, and did, because how many games they won was never mentioned once in the article, only at the very end with a Seth quote, and then still involved math to figure out the 98-64 record (the playoffs got their own short paragraph toward the end, that was nice, but maybe fits best in the overview? with the final record?). (I see this might be on purpose, too, as reviewing the other 3 teams articles, it is never mentioned until the very end of the article in any of them. Suspense? We will read them, anyway, you know.....)

Remembering the 0-3 sweep in the playoffs two years in a row to the same team sure seems like practice for the 0-18 stretch we just endured. Ouch.

[Craig Arko]

Probably my favorite edition of the team.

[Blyleven2011]

Any mention of Tovar and Carew  and some of my favorite memories come back ...

Tovar and carew in 1969 especially  , the pair stole 5 bases that day between them  , Tovar on second,  carew on first , they pulled a double steal  , Tovar to third , carew to second,  but what was remarkable was that Tovar stole home next  and carew  stayed at second  , few pitches later carew stole third , 

On third base carew steals home  ...

All these steals were in the third inning of a game against Detroit  , early part of the season at met stadium  ...

We lost that day but we had players to be proud of   , fun to watch pepe and sir rodney  ...

Another fond memory was pepe playing all nine positions  ...

The 60's and 70's had some great games to watch  , win or lose there was some exciting baseball ...

The last exciting play on offense that i remember is Ben Revere's somersault triple , he was fun to watch  ....

You don't have to hit homeruns to have an exciting game ...

 

[TopGunn#22]

East Coast twin is correct.  Tiant fractured his shoulder blade and wasn't available to pitch in the post season.  He was turning 30 for the 1971 season and the Twins did not have the patience to wait for him to get healthy.  He struggled with the Red Sox in 1971, going 1-7 but the Red Sox (unlike the Twins) knew they had something if they could get him healthy.  

Tiant was back to his brilliant self in 1972 winning 15 games, losing just 6, with an ERA of 1.91. 

1970 was the LAST great season for Killebrew.  It was the 2nd to last great season for Oliva (he won the batting title in 1971) and it wasn't long to the end of Perry, Boswell, Perranoski, and Tovar.  Prior to the 1972 season, the Twins traded Perry and Perronoski to the Tigers, Tommy Hall was shipped to the Reds for Wayne Granger, and the team would start looking very different in 1973 & 1974.

I've always kind of looked at the 1969-1970 Twins as a great combination of back to back seasons.  And I loved their pinstriped uniforms with the Blue Twins trimmed in Red and Blue numbers on the back.  Best uni's they've ever had.  1977 was the last gasp of fun until about 1984.  

[stringer bell]

Hall-of-Famers Blyleven, Kaat, Carew, Killebrew and Oliva were all part of the ‘70 team, with Bert a teenage rookie and Carew missing more than half the season. Baltimore was better, unfortunately. 

[big dog]

Two quick anecdotes: the first from 1972 but that team isn't going to make the list. I was in the backyard playing and listening to a day game broadcast (they were mostly day games). Harmon hit the home run that passed Jimmie Foxx on the all-time list. Herb made the call joyously, and then said "Halsey, did you ever think Harmon would pass Jimmie Foxx?" There were a couple of beats and a surprisingly (for him) low-key Halsey Hall said "I didn't think anyone was going to pass Jimmie Foxx."  He sounded a little shocked. Foxx was second all-time when he retired, and I think it was only Ruth, Mays, and Mantle (who the Killer passed a few days later) who were ahead of Foxx at the time, though Frank Robinson was catching up fast. What company.

For those of you who didn't ever get to hear Halsey Hall, he was a legend. He started covering Minnesota sports and baseball in general for the newspaper in 1927 and doing radio broadcasts in 1934.

Second, and this one is from 1970, I was a young lad getting some eyeglasses at the optician and this guy in deep red bellbottoms, long sideburns, and a long leather jacket was sitting, waiting his turn. When I went to pick my glasses, the guy helping me said "That's Rich Reese. The Twins are having him get glasses to see if that's the problem with his hitting." I don't think it helped, unfortunately. He was one of my favorite players, probably in part because as a nine-year-old I was drawn to alliterative names.

 

[jjswol]

The 1970 Twins were one of the four best Twins teams. People under estimate them because they were swept by the Orioles in the playoffs for the second year in a row.

[JD-TWINS]

41 minutes ago, jjswol said:

The 1970 Twins were one of the four best Twins teams. People under estimate them because they were swept by the Orioles in the playoffs for the second year in a row.

I agree……to my knowledge, the best Twins Team other than the 3 World Series clubs. The Orioles were solid & deep everywhere. This team’s 98 wins without Carew for 100 plus games shows how good they were. Carew, when in the line-up for 51 games, hit .366 with an OPS+ over 150. If he’s available, Baltimore may have been on more of an even level?

[TopGunn#22]

Those Oriole teams were epic.  1969: 109 wins.  1970: 108 wins.  1971: 101 wins (with FOUR  20-game winners).  

One other thing I would like to mention as we review and reminisce about past great Twins teams is how blessed we've been through the years with the broadcasters.  From the inception of the Twins in 1961 and the talent laden and entertaining team of Herb Carneal, Ray Scott, Merele Harmon and Halsey Hall, to Ted Robinson, John Gordon, Dick Bremer and Cory Provus we've had some really solid play-by-play people.  There are some not so good, like Dan Gladden but very few teams can boast a lineup like the Twins have had.

We've been lucky for Vikings football, with guys Ray Scott and Joe McConnell (while now being burdened with PA).  Wolves basketball has had Kevin Harlan and Kevin McHale and a whole host of other solid voices including the current team and North Stars/Wild Hockey has always been top shelf.  

The New Year is a time to count blessings.  Here's to the voices that have called the games of our favorite Minnesota teams through the years !!  

[jmlease1]

The 1970 squad was very good, but just not deep enough to overcome a few key injuries/under-performance. (Plus running into the Balto juggernaut; unbelievable that they only used 4 pitchers in taking out the Twins in the ALCS)

The drop-off from Rod Carew to Danny Thompson was pretty massive at the plate and they just didn't have enough hitters. Pitching staff was pretty great, though. (another "wow, the game has changed!" moment: 1970 Twins only used 13 pitchers the whole season. Now, they start the season with 13 pitchers!)

Would Billy Martin have made a difference? Or had he already worn out his welcome even without the fistfight with one of his own players? (amusingly: Martin was only actually tossed 48 times in 16 season; Rigney was thrown 64 times in 19, despite Martin having the reputation as the biggest hothead this side of Durocher) Martin was a lunatic who destroyed himself by his inability to control his demons, but Rigney was just another guy as a manager, really. Martin finished first or second in 8 out of his 10 full-seasons with a team (i'm counting the '81 season as full, since he was the manager for every game there was). Not sure anyone would have beaten those damn O's teams, though.

[stringer bell]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

 

Would Billy Martin have made a difference? Or had he already worn out his welcome even without the fistfight with one of his own players? (amusingly: Martin was only actually tossed 48 times in 16 season; Rigney was thrown 64 times in 19, despite Martin having the reputation as the biggest hothead this side of Durocher) Martin was a lunatic who destroyed himself by his inability to control his demons, but Rigney was just another guy as a manager, really. Martin finished first or second in 8 out of his 10 full-seasons with a team (i'm counting the '81 season as full, since he was the manager for every game there was). Not sure anyone would have beaten those damn O's teams, though.

To judge Martin’s “hotheadedness” by the number of ejections is just wrong. He fought with his players and his general managers and owners and never lasted anywhere over a season or two. He might draw performance out of potential for some players (he was widely credited for Zoilo’s MVP year), but he would inevitably “lose” players. Too flawed to ever last. 

[ohiotwinsfan]

The Orioles had an amazing pitching staff in that same era. In 1970, they had three 20 game winners and in 1971 they had 4. Imagine 4 20 game winners, that's 80+ wins with those pitchers alone. In 1970, Jim Perry was the only Twin to win 20 games. The Orioles won 108 games that year. The Twins "only" won 98. That's a buzzsaw kind of team.

Jim Perry was one of my favorite Twins players. I saw him hit a homerun in Yankee stadium in 1968. It was right down the third base line and landed about 1 row deep right where the wall abruptly angles towards homeplate. I think the sign there said it was 197 feet right down the line. They wound up winning the game and Mickey Mantle had an o-fer if I remember right. Perry also threw a 4 hit, complete game shutout in that game. It was a great game to see.

[David HK]

My very first live Twins game- actually 2- Aug. 9th double header.  My family journeyed from Bismarck to visit our old neighbors in the Cities, and they treated us to the double-dip!

Swept by the Swingin' A's that day, to dip to a mere 29 games above .500.  😅  Pat Dobson outdueled 19-yr-old Bert in game 1, and ex-Twin Don Mincher cracked a couple of taters off Kaat to win the second.  I don't know, that program might still be in a storage box somewhere.  I remember keeping score, and going over the whole thing again and again in those younger days.  It was a beautiful summer afternoon, with evening shadows starting to lengthen in the old Met as the game wound down.  Just a magical day at the ballpark.

That truly was an outstanding, powerful team, one for the ages.  I do think it was maybe the best Twinks team ever.  I also remember how much it burned to get swept by the hated O's AGAIN, and how every Orioles baseball card my friends and I had wound up between the spokes of our bikes.

Thanks for posting this!  It was a great jog down memory lane!

[twinstalker]

'65, '67, '69, '87 (sort of), '88, '91, '92, '02, '06, '19

I was starting out to write there weren't six Twins teams better than 1970, but when started to list them, well, you get it.  1970 was the first year I remember watching them, and I wasn't the best judge of talent.  I do know, though, that the schedule was unbalanced (IIRC), and the rest of the west was pretty bad.  Angels meh, Royals bad, White Sox bad, Pilots/Brewers horrible,  The A's were decent and would win the division the next five years.  The division lost 54 more games than it won, and that's with the East having Washington and Cleveland.

The '87 team probably wasn't better, but it's hard to argue with a WS.  The lineup was certainly better, and the pitching wasn't far off, except that Tom Hall was something the 1987 team didn't have.

The '02 team was probably the next closest.  The Twins were sooooo good in 1988 until Gaetti got hurt and they just couldn't keep pace with the monster A's team.  The '92 team was also better.  Until the last two months, the '92 team might have been the best Twins team ever.

I can't personally argue for '65 and '69, but it seems pretty obvious they were better.  The '67 team was supposedly one of the best teams ever, but they faltered at the end and only won 91.  Still, they finished one game out, whereas the 1970 team finished 10 wins less than the Orioles while in a weaker division. (Although that Orioles team was one of the best ever).

Best Twins team ever?  I think regular season it's the 2006 team very slightly over 1991, and I think the 1991 team was really, really good.  Add winning mentality into the equation, and the 1991 team is superior and showed it.

[jmlease1]

19 hours ago, stringer bell said:

To judge Martin’s “hotheadedness” by the number of ejections is just wrong. He fought with his players and his general managers and owners and never lasted anywhere over a season or two. He might draw performance out of potential for some players (he was widely credited for Zoilo’s MVP year), but he would inevitably “lose” players. Too flawed to ever last. 

Oh, I don't disagree. I just thought it was interesting that Martin wasn't someone who got tossed from games by the umpire at a particularly high rate. I find Martin to be a fascinating character in baseball history: the ultimate turnaround artist, a shockingly self-destructive persona, a brilliant baseball mind, and a real SOB.