The Minnesota Twins Players Project: Willians Astudillo, Jose Miranda, & Lew Ford

[Brock Beauchamp]

One week into this ambitious project and we already have some great contributions to share.

Six days ago we launched the Minnesota Twins Players Project. Since that time, we've seen about 50 people contribute to the project, adding players, editing biographies, and finding cool links to share about their favorite players.

What is the Players Project? It's a community-driven, wiki-style project that focuses on Twins players of all stripes. It's open to all Twins Daily users and we've had contributions for current players, past players, and players who never even made the major leagues but played in the Twins farm system. Let's look at some of the most popular entries of the first week:

1. Willians Astudillo
Is anyone even a little bit surprised that the most-read entry is of The Turtle? A fan favorite across baseball, Astudillo is just... fun. Everything about him is a little bit odd, a little bit silly and we love him for all of it. The highlight of the entry has to be this:

"In a relief appearance, Astudillo threw 7 pitches too slow to be read by the normal radar gun."

2. José Miranda
Miranda was once a jewel of the Twins farm system but he now finds himself on the outside, looking in. With the injury to Royce Lewis on Opening Day, many thought that Miranda would receive the call-up and take Lewis's spot in Minnesota. Instead, Austin Martin received the call and Miranda is still a prospect without a position. It makes sense why he has been a popular search recently and received the second-most reads in the project.

3. Lew Ford
LEWWWWWWWWWWW. Did you know that Ford's first name is Jon? I didn't until @Cody Christie created this page and wrote a brief biography on the old fan favorite. Ford is still in baseball at the ripe old age of 47, having recently transitioned to become the manager of the Long Island Ducks.

Several thousand players have played for the Minnesota Twins over the past 60 years. The Players Project only has pages for about 40 of them.

The Twins have seven Hall of Fame players and not a single one of them has a page. Out of the 26 players currently on the Twins roster, only Griffin Jax has his own page.

Want to get involved with the Players Project? If you have a Twins Daily account, that's all you need to get started. Kirby Puckett needs a page, folks! Or maybe Carlos Correa. Or maybe...

Create Your Favorite Player's Page Today

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[VivaBomboRivera!]

Astudillo was signed by Softbank as a backup catcher last season. Did not watch many of their games, but did not see him make an appearance even on the bench. He then played winter ball in Venezuela.  It does not appear that the Hawks renewed him, or that he got any other offers in Japan or elsewhere for the 2024 season.  ☹️

[TonkaDrew]

"Several thousand players have played for the Minnesota Twins over the past 60 years."

If my count from Baseball-Reference is correct, there have now been 967 different players appear for the Twins since 1961, including six new additions to the list so far in 2024.

[Brock Beauchamp]

13 hours ago, TonkaDrew said:

"Several thousand players have played for the Minnesota Twins over the past 60 years."

If my count from Baseball-Reference is correct, there have now been 967 different players appear for the Twins since 1961, including six new additions to the list so far in 2024.

I was including minor leaguers, who also qualify for this project (but obviously, will not be as popular to create).