Twins Video
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.
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#10 - 2010
#9 - 2023
#8 - 2002
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