mikelink45

Nice research, That was fun, I will look forward to others that people remember in the posts. I am sure there will be some good memories and some player disappointment. In our inaugural year Fred Bruckbauer from New Ulm Minnesota came in for one game, faced 4 batters and gave up 3 runs. He gave up three hits and a walk. He had been a star pitcher for the Gophers before going pro. He passed away in 2007. Depending on his future, Edwar Colina had his one game debut and holds an era of 81.00

I will never lose my enthusiasm for the game - but I have lost my enthusiasm for the structure and leaders who are supposed to preserve the game. Manfred is not the leader that is needed, but I do not know who is the right person to lead the players either. I know there are owners, commissioner and staff, team front offices, coaches, players and prospects and agents. Who has the real power, ultimately the owners, but in many ways the fans and the audiences on TV and radio. We have no voice at the table, no one representing us. Look at 1995 - a shortened season with 144 games. And it was the first season with extra - Division Series - post season games!!! Their best asset was the Cal Ripken streak. Baseball always needs something that a player does to get fan interest which was low until Sosa - McGwire put Baseball interest back beyond the pre-strike levels. "1993 attendance for Major League Baseball was 70,257,938 (Grabiner 1998). In 1995, the year aRer the strike, attendance dropped to 50,464,275 (Grabiner 1998)" I am reading a graduate research paper which includes this very interesting paragraph - "Some comments people had, were very interesting. One person who has been following baseball for fifty years and answered that another strike would lead him to stop spending completely commented that they should "dissolve the leagues and start over." Another comments "F'rior to the strikes of the past few years I used to go to a lot more games ... I have lost my enthusiasm for MLB, I now follow college and minor league baseball." A comment that I could relate to read "I was disappointed with the greed of the players during the strike. It is unfortunate that our society has come to this point.. ." A survey that 1 found very interesting came from a person who goes to 3-6 games a year. This persons answers indicated that the 1994 Major League Baseball Strike had no effect on their spending. This person did however say that another strike would lead them to stop spending on the sport completely." Another part of his conclusions (please read the whole report): "Not one person answered that the strike increased their loyalty to the game. This shows that the consumers do not find anything positive about the strike. It also shows that Major League Baseball should expect absolutely no positive outcomes from a strike concerning their customers. Only negative actions should be expected from consumers."

Ball parks in the 'old days" were also filled with quirks. Mel Ott got his 511 HRs using a ridiculous short porch, but give him credit he made his swing do what he wanted it to (unlike our shift stifled lefthanders today). There was the green monster in Boston, Here is great look at ballpark history. The fact that there is no standard stadium has always meant that teams had to orient their lineup to meet the stadium opportunities and yet the pitchers maneuvered through all the venues.

I think that changing balls so often is ridiculous - but the eras of Spahn and Radtke were not like the old Cy Young and Hoss Radburne days where a ball was used all nine innings. I do know there were rabbit ball years during Spahn's 21 years of pitching as well, but the Bomba year demonstrated how the ball can change the game.

I have never seen a sport that shoots itself in the foot so regularly unless I look at the demise of professional boxing which at the time of Ali/Fraser/Foreman might have been the most popular sport. Then there were so many different men crowned champions by so many different bodies that nobody cared anymore - kind of like adding more teams to the playoffs so that the regular season does not count. So my conclusion is that there is one more trial by fire and that is the game itself. Can they find a way to climb back in relevance? Or do they need to pass out the steroids and have another game saving Sosa and McGwire HR chase? Now that I think about it those two should be in the HOF just for getting the interest back in the game after the 1994 strike. The league added interleague play in 1997, moved the Milwaukee Brewers to the AL and still the game was not back to where it wanted to be until the McGwire and Sosa excitement. To this I will add that the team and team leadership of the Twins is also at a crucial place and the players you chose are excellent examples. We can add - will Kepler finally learn what he needs to be productive, can Buxton give us a full MVP season, where do we play all our 2B and is there a SS?

Does the emphasis on strike outs also commit the teams to the ridiculous 4 – 5 inning starter and a dozen or more relief pitchers per year? Are we straining the arms by demanding near 100 mph heaters and lots of curves and sliders? I went to Brad Radtke’s baseball reference page. He pitched 12 years for us and is one of the best pitchers in Twins history. 148 – 139 4.22 era is not HOF worthy, and he cannot be called a great pitcher, but he was a competent competitor for teams that needed him like today’s Twins. What I wanted to see was his innings pitched – 2451 – an average of 221 per year with a peak of 261. He struck out 1467 and walked 445. His WHIP was not great – 1.26, but acceptable. His complete games – 37 is only 10% of his starts. His average start was 6.5 innings per start. Now comes my crazy comparison – a potential Hall of Famer – Clayton Kershaw – has pitched 14 years, 2454 inning – only three more than Radtke. 2670 strike outs and 606 walks. 25 complete games – 12 less than Radtke and he has started 379 games – 2 more than Radtke. Of course, his 185 – 84 makes him elite, but as you probably are well aware of, for many years he was worn out as the Dodgers got to post season and in the last few has been injured. He is no longer the pitcher that he was and not even the Dodger Ace anymore. Obviously still a great pitcher, but that is not the issue. The pitcher throws on average 62 – 65 % strikes. If I extrapolate - no I am not a statistician - that means the pitcher is going to throw a minimum of 5 pitches per K and 6 per BB. I think that is the difference between the Radtke and Kershaw stats. More Ks and more BBs mean more pitches thrown - not even considering the arm stress of the faster pitches or the curve. I know Terry Ryan and pitch to contact are out, but I did want to look at some of the realities in todays baseball. Finally, I had to look at Warren Spahn, my all time favorite pitcher who lasted 21 years, pitched 5046 innings, started 635 games and relieved in 79 others and he completed 382 games. He struck out 2493 - just .5 per inning and averaged 8+ innings per start so this 363 win pitcher does not fit the current profile, but he does rank number 6 in wins all time despite serving in WWII missing three full seasons and serving at the Battle of the Bulge along with Yogi Berra, Ralph Houk, Cecil Travis, Hoyt Wilhelm and 21 other players from MLB. The war has nothing to do with this topic except that it robbed some years from each. Pitchers of Spahn's era had different expectations, I understand that. Today with the HOF talk still in our minds Roger Clemens is often referred to in modern terms as the greatest pitcher (not by me) and he pitched 24 seasons - with the war years similar to what Spahn would have had. He had 709 starts and completed 118. With almost as many Ks as innings pitched he was the beginning of the current era and Spahn was the end of the previous era. Clemens averaged 6.9 innings per start.

Nice speculation. I am watching Winder and Balazovic (or I would if ST were happening).

Not long enough - there has to be some credit given to years with the Twins. I would give Kaat the nod over Santana for that reason.

And stole 1406 bases and scored 1115 runs.

I know the phrase "Power wins games" is popular in this thread, but I believe Rickey Henderson knew how to win without power. And so did a number of teams in the past.

I had hope for Sano, but no he has not lived up to my expectations, but then I am not of the opinion that Ks don't matter.

What will be the shift in strategy once baseball gets tired of the "three true outcomes" - a phrase I have grown to hate. Will some wildcat team put the Go-go White Sox, the 1976 Oakland A's, the Herzog Cardinals, or even the KC championship tean approach together and because of the fact that teams are not used to it - if they succeed copy cats will start. I do hope and dream that happens. ""Whether you steal or not, you're changing the rhythm of the game." - Hall of Famer Joe Morgan" By the way - Minnesota ranked 27 in stolen base attempts per game in 2021. Which was up from 2020. And these were up from 2018 when we ranked last in MLB. Why? In 2021 we weren't the Bomba squad anymore and we were losing. Maybe a change would have been warranted.

That was an excellent report. Thank you.

My speculation is that 2B has become the bottom of the fielding positions and Arraez is not really good there. His bat plays, but where to play him is the issue. What are the teams that need a 2B? And what is the real return. This discussion is difficult because I have been a real fan of Luis. I like a bat that is under control and I do not need 9 HR hitters in the lineup at the same time. Now I see that we want to make sure we get more power from Martin and I remember how they were going to fix Buxton's swing for the first three years he was with us. There are many aspects to Arraez and his tenure with us, but I also worry about his knees.

I am a big fan of Arraez, but recent posts have caused me to question his trade value.

I raised this question in another post - what value do 2B have now? I think that it is the lowest ranked position in defense. I am afraid that Arraez does not have much value to anyone but the Twins.

One problem that this summary points out is that 2B does not seem very hard to fill. We have Polanco, Arraez, Miranda, Gordon already on the potential roster for next year and more in the minors. Does every team have this kind of situation? If so that makes 2B the least valuable position in terms of trades. Maybe Arraez, for example, is not as valuable a trade chip as we have talked about in the off season.

I totally agree with your take. I continually struggle to understand how the pitcher we have is worth less to us because he has only two years left, than someone else's pitcher who has just two years left. I want to know if our young arms have more than potential before we start maneuvering.

More for us to hope for as we watch MLB fritter away it's season and spring training.

Projections are always fun because they cause conversations like this. Do they project any bad seasons? Are they optimists or pessimists? Thanks for sharing this. Without spring training it is still good to have something to hope and wish about.

As I posted with Lewis - this is where the massive amounts of coaches that we have now hired need to earn their money. Take an Athlete with speed and agility and create the SS that we need. I see Miranda as heir apparent at 3B, Buxton is a fixture at CF and Celestino could be the OF that fills in when needed. He seems like a healthier clone of Arraez which could help the FO decide that Arraez is tradable - package Arraez and Donaldson and something good should return. It will be interesting to see if he deserves all this national attention. He has taken Royce Lewis place among the raters.

I enjoy the history of baseball and that is why in the past I have written about Tom Custer and Wild Bill Hickok playing baseball. Another story that is among the lesser known baseball games was played in Skagway during the height of the Gold Rush. The game was played on Independence day in 1901 and unlike the rest of the baseball world it was a team of black Buffalo Soldiers and White Railroad workers. The soldiers were assigned to this remote Alaskan wilderness to bring law and order where there was no law and certainly no order. A man known as Corporal Green was the captain of the Company L Soldier nine and a man by the name of Phelps led the railroad workers. It was about bragging rights and a prize of $50 for first place and $25 for second. Played near the Moore's sawmill there was beer from the Skagway Brewing Company and vendor of ice cream, lemonade, and milk. In the stands were miners, railroad workers, prostitutes, gamblers, and soldiers. It was a lively crowd and the game was a three hour affair (so much for short games) with umps from the townspeople who may or may not have known the rules. The White Pass RR men wore blue trousers, black shirts and caps while the soldiers had numbered shirts, knickers, and striped socks. In the end the RR men (umpires decisions or not) won the game 14 - 10 and the crowd was ecstatic. That was baseball in the Klondike.

He was one of my favorites. I remember the evenings at the old stadium with a slight breeze and the shiny grass and glare of the lights and then there would be this pitcher on the mound who seemed to be in total control He seemed relaxed and ready for anything. We got him at his peak and 1965 was a magic year. After he left the Twins his career crept along and he got in lots of years, but the accolades and accomplishments were behind him.

How great - baseball - live in 2022! Thanks for the update. Seth this is a perfect place for you to be.

With the speed and athleticism, I am puzzled why we cannot coach him to remain a SS. That is where his value is and he is the only one in the minors with the chance to fill our greatest need.