Greglw3

Dave Goltz was a #1 type pitcher for the Twins for several years before leaving as a free agent after the 1979 season (one of Calvin Griffith's ignominious stable of star players that he let go after the advent of free agency. Calvin made the Pohlads look like George Steinbrenner, the free spending owner of the Yankees. Notably Goltz carried the pitching staff of the 1977 Twins, who arguably only had 2 decent starters. That seems to be one reason that a team with a poor pitching staff went 84-78, allowing Rod Carew to win the MVP award on a 4th place team in a 7 team division, the AL West. The other was the very hard hitting offense. For the year, Goltz threw 303 innings. allowing only 284 hits, and registering a 3.36 ERA with a 20-11 record. [Baseball Reference] 1977 was the 2nd straight year that Goltz turned in a 3.36 ERA! He broke that streak in a big way in 1978 (Carew’s last year as a Twin and the year my brother and I travelled from Toledo to the Twin Cities for a series). In 1978, Dave Goltz went 15-10 with a 2.49 ERA. That was the year when the Twins were a shell of the 1977 team as Calvin let several players walk, not the least, both Lyman Bostock and Larry Hisle. So, the Twins put out pretty much a AAAA team that year with newcomers Bombo Rivera, Hosken Powell and Willie Norwood. With my MacBook Air calculator and Baseball Reference, I determined that Goltz had a cumulative 3.48 ERA for his Twins years. His out pitch was the knuckle-curve as Herb Carneal reminded me thousands of times! Since Goltz had an over 4 ERA in his last year with the Twins and in his seasons with the Dodgers and finishing with the Angels, obviously his stuff declined but I wonder if that knuckle curve stopped knuckling and curving as much as before. Greg Allen View full player

I agree wholly with you. Clevinger had a 3.7x ERA last year, 1 more year removed from injury and now sans Thielbar and Duran, Varland would be perfect and proven at up to 100 MPH and effective in late innings. That’s what they should do. Sign Clevinger to a 1 year deal w team option tonight!

I’ve been writing that on Twins twitter for a while now. He pitched well last year and is 1 more year removed from injury. I’d sign him tonight!!!

Julien is set at 2B and through extraordinary work has become at least average defensively, if not plus.

Jim Holt played for the Twins from 1968-1974 and was a personal favorite of mine as a good hitter. This was my memory and I discovered from looking at Baseball Reference that impression was very likely formed from the fact that 1973 was the season that I discovered, very much surprisingly while scanning the AM dial (hoping I could find the Twins), that I could get the Twins games on my stereo system tuner from WHO in Des Moines Iowa, with Herb Carneal announcing. That just happened to be 1B/OF Jim Holt's best season as a Twin when he slashed .297/.341/.442. He had an (non-existent back then) OPS+ of 116. He also had 25 doubles, 3 triples and 11 homers with 58 RBIs in 1973. It was his biggest output in his Twins career and, indeed, in his career overall, with 476 plate appearances and 441 at bats. It's my recollection that Holt was mostly a platoon guy in his other years with the Twins as a left handed hitter. He had two other seasons of 340 and 309 at bats, respectively. Jim Holt was traded in 1974 to the Oakland A’s for Pat Bourque, a trade I didn’t like or even understand. Bourque was a really fringe player, posting very low batting averages in his career and was hitting only .229 for the A’s at the time of the trade. In researching this article, I realized that Jim Holt played on a World Series winner, the 1974 Oakland A’s. [RIP Baseball, ripbaseball.com] And maybe, pure speculation on my part, Calvin Griffith was trying to do a favor to Jim Holt by trading him to the A’s. From the A’s perspective, Holt had that .297 season with the Twins in his recent background. Jim Holt finished his career with Oakland as a minor role player in 1977. He played for 9 seasons and finished with a career .265 batting average. He was not a power hitter so OPS+ is going to underestimate his value compared to those with even moderate power. This was a time before the massive power booms to come so line drive hitting was of more value than today in 2024. The league leaders in home runs were usually in the 30s, with some exceptions. Jim passed away in 2019 at the age of 74. Greg Allen aka/ Greglw3 View full player

Eddie Bane made his major league debut for the Twins on July 4, 1973 after a spectacular career at Arizona State, recording a 40-4 record for the Sun Devils.with a 1.64 ERA and a perfect game from 1971-73. In an article by Steve Smith on a SABR oriented site, he tells of how Calvin Griffith, the owner and GM of the Twins observed the massive attendance achieved by the Texas Rangers when they brought David Clyde directly from the draft to the major leagues after his high school career and drew over 35,000 fans for the game. Calvin then announced that Eddie Bane, the Twins prized draft pick would also go straight to the major leagues with no minor league experience experience. Bane debuted at age 21. Bane went 0-5 in 23 games in 1973 [Wikipedia]. He started 6 games and relieved in the other 17. He sported a 4.92 ERA in his rookie 1973 season, [Minor and MLB stats per Baseball Reference] He pitched far fewer innings in 1975 for the Twins at 28.1 but turned in a 2.86 ERA. He spent most of the 1974 and 1975 seasons in Tacoma pitching creditably with a 25-19 record and an ERA a bit over 4. In 1976 he threw for a 3.69 ERA for AAA Tacoma and then a not so good 5.11 ERA for the Twins. His final year with the Twins was 1977 at AAA, ironically the Twins monster offensive season. He spent the 1978 season in AAA for the White Sox, pitching to a pretty good 3.85 ERA in 14 starts and 26 relief appearances. Bane did not play at all in 1979 and finished his career with minor league affiliates of the Cubs and Royals. Eddie Bane who dominated college ball on two runner up teams in the CWS, never pitched below AAA in professional ball. He was elected to the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. [Wikipedia], Bane was the 11th pick in the 1973 draft, the same draft where David Clyde was picked #1. View full player

Lyman Bostock was one of the most talented hitters in Twins history. Unfortunately, at the advent of free agency, Calvin Griffith determined he couldn’t keep him, and he left as a free agent to join the then California Angels. I can’t prove it but I think both Carew and Bostock would have had stronger overall careers had they stayed with the Twins as they both dropped off (still both were very good) on joining the Angels. One noteworthy thing about Bostock is that he finished 2nd in the AL in batting in 1977, a full 52 points behind the great Rod Carew. Still, Bostock's basic stats for 1977 were stunning! He had 660 plate appearances and 593 at bats with 199 hits for a .336 average. [Stats: Baseball Reference] Now get this! He had 36 doubles, 12 triples and 14 HR with 90 RBIs. .336/.389/.508! Primarily a left fielder alongside Larry Hisle in CF in that magical 1977 season, he did play some CF. He hit .323 for the Twins in 1976 and .296 with the Angels in 1978. I remember that Bostock got off to a particularly slow start in his debut season with the Angels and offered to return some of his salary!!! A few personal recollections. I think it was Tiger Stadium (I was born and raised in Toledo) when I first saw Bostock hit and he opened my eyes big time by scorching a base hit between the 3rd baseman and the bag, even as a left handed hitter! Bostock made $20,000 with the Twins in 1977 before signing a $2.3 million, 6 year deal with the Angels. [Wikipedia] I also remember in a brief exchange I had with Roy Smalley on Twitter, Roy saying something like, "it really would have been fun to keep that team together [1977 Twins] to see what we could have done." Lyman was tragically killed in a shooting, in September, 1978 while visiting home in Gary, Indiana after a game vs. the White Sox. He was a passenger in the rear seats with a woman who was estranged from her husband. Bostock was not involved with the woman, it was pure bad luck. Allegedly, the woman had several affairs and her husband pulled up to the car Bostock was in and fired point blank into the rear seats, intending to kill his wife. Tragically Lyman was shot around 10:40 p.m. and died in the hospital 2 hours later. [Wikipedia] Bostock finished with a career .311 average. He remains one of my most beloved Twins to this day and provided, in concert with his 1977 teammates, many thrills for this lifelong Twins fan (since ’64 or ’65). Greg Allen View full player

I hardly think the Twins would sign a gold glove caliber 1st baseman, who has 301 HR and 9-11 seasons with 90-110 BBs and had 86 RBIs last season, to platoon with Kirilloff. Carlos Santana is one of the great players of his generation. Kirilloff unproven

My guess is with 2 LH regulars in the OF and the general weakness of the Twins vs lefties the last few years, they’re interested in his career .801 OPS vs L as a corner OF fill in and possibly 2B at times (see 2nd graphic). I like Martin a lot but maybe they can use both of them. Kinda like you can never have too much pitching. Baseball Reference

We don’t need a rh outfielder who has racked up .800 + OPS vs lefties often in his career. I’d argue we do need him and there will also be plenty of room for Martin.

His OPS vs. lefties has often been above .800 (and I think I’m understating it). That’s the fit. He was injured last year.

Absolutely Nothing!

I’d sign J.D.Martinez. and look for a role for Martin. I believe in him.

For me, on team that was seriously offensively challenged for much of the season, a .220 hitter won’t cut it. AN overabundance of low average hitters was what was killing the Twins before the rookies took over.

He needed during the season and had eye surgery. That’s the reason for the drop-off. Even what he did last year is much better than the Trevor Larnach, Jake Cave, Joey Gallo, etc. parade of ineffective hitters in LF since. I was a very dumb move to release a player who hit 32 HR with 109 RBI. When I look at his OPs I see 5 seasons of .792 or above.

Mike Clevinger 60-39 career ~ 3.45 career ERA and an ERA close to Pablo Lopez’s last year. Possible #2 starter for playoffs. Reasonable price.

In need of eye surgery for a significant portion of that year and then having eye surgery.

For me, this is an easy pick. Calvin Griffith traded Rod Carew away after he had hit .350, .359, .364, .388 and won an MVP award along with 7 batting titles, 239 hits in 1977, stole in the 40s in bases at least twice. If you thought the Pohlads were cheap! Who, in their right mind, even in their wrong mind would trade a 7 time batting titlest. The return was inconsequential.

I can’t help myself, I’m a big Eddie Rosario fan and don’t think they should have let him go evidence the hole in LF since. I love his fire and passion also. And he led a team to a World Series title.

J.D. Martinez or Adam Duvall and C.J. Cron or Joey Votto who I think will bounce back if healthy, which he appears to be and I think Austin Martin could be ready for CF. There’s also an outfielder who hit 21 HR with 74 RBIs last year who is available and proven effective in the AL Central.

That would be an ill-advised trade. Julien is worth 5 times one year of Burnes, maybe 10 or 20 times.