John Bonnes

We're running a 20-part series in which we look back at each Minnesota Twins season of the 2000s. A rotation of different writers will highlight key moments, unearth forgotten details, and share nostalgic tales from the past two decades leading up to the present. This installment covers the 2002 season. Team Record: 94-67 Finish: 1st Place in AL Central All-Stars: Torii Hunter (OF), Eddie Guardado (RP), A.J. Pierzynski © Awards: Torii Hunter (Gold Glove, CF) Playoffs: Lost to ANA 4-1 in ALCS Season Overview The big story was contraction, an attempt by MLB and the Pohlad family to eliminate the Twins franchise, or at least create leverage versus local governments and the players union in various negotiations. In November of 2001, MLB announced that the owners had voted 28 to 2 to contract – essentially purchase and shutter – two of their 30 teams. The teams were not specified, but Twins and Expos were expected to be the contraction victims. It may have all been a bluff. The Twins had been trying for several years to get state funding for a new stadium, claiming they would not remain viable if they had to continue to play in the Metrodome. Fueling the contraction speculation freed them from needing to find a viable city to move to. In addition, MLB was negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the MLB Players Association (MLBPA) and the potential elimination of 50 jobs provided them some chips in that negotiation. But if it was a bluff, it was a bluff that had consequences in government, in the courts, in the offseason and in a coach search. A week after the announcement, legislation was introduced by Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone to strip MLB of its antitrust exemption. A few days later, Judge Harry Crump ruled that the Twins should be forced to play out the 2002 season in the Metrodome, as it was the last year of the their 30-year lease. The ruling was challenged, but was upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court in February, essentially providing a stay of execution contraction for one last year. Meanwhile the Twins followed a promising season with an offseason in which their management’s hands were essentially tied. Only the most desperate free agents wanted to consider a team which might be eliminated a year later. Ditto for coaches, which was a significant issue considering longtime fixture Tom Kelly retired shortly after the 2001 season. Not surprisingly, the three main candidates to replace him were all internal – Ron Gardenhire, Paul Molitor and Scott Ullger. After waiting months to make sure the Twins would actually be playing, Terry Ryan announced in January that Gardenhire would skipper the 2002 season. (And maybe only the 2002 season.) Somehow, with every possible reason to be distracted, a youth movement that had never fired on all cylinders suddenly broke through. But that breakthrough was not keyed by a few select superstars. The Twins were a team of contributors, with a different hero every game. No player had 30 home runs, but six reached double-digits. No player had 100 RBIs, but nine had at least 45. Only one full-time pitcher had an ERA under 4 – but seven had at least eight wins. The Twins had seen a similar breakthrough the year before, but it had been doomed by a bullpen that melted down over the second half of the season. LaTroy Hawkins’ stint in the closer role had been especially painful in the midst of a division race. Hawkins blew five saves and lost one additional game after August 1st. Coincidentally, the Twins finished behind the Indians by six games. An offseason spent in contraction-induced handcuffs meant no obvious improvements could be expected in 2002. Yet somehow the bullpen became the cornerstone of the team. Advanced metrics don’t support my contention that Eddie Guardado was the team’s MVP, but for Twins fans that lived through the darkness of 2001, “Everyday” was a sunrise. He had four saves in the first week helping the team to a 5-1 start. He allowed Hawkins to be dominant in a setup role. He posted a career-high, league-leading, and franchise record 45 saves with a 2.93 ERA while living up to his nickname appearing in 68 games. He was named Twins pitcher of the year. He even received AL MVP votes. The Twins' solid start got the state (and baseball fans rooting for the “Contraction Kids”) excited but the division race ended up being a little anticlimactic. Cleveland’s dynasty faded with a whimper; they finished in third place in the division, fourteen games under .500. The fashionable new pick, the White Sox, finished 13 1/2 games behind the 94-win Twins, who were the only team in the AL Central with a winning record. No team got within 10 games of the Twins after mid-July, right after a two-game sweep of Cleveland. Which meant that the postseason was long-anticipated ... and started out disastrously. The Twins looked exactly like a team that hadn’t played in the playoffs for a decade, committing three errors in the first two innings of the ALDS – and that doesn’t include the infield pop fly that fell in between four infielders. But the Twins rebounded to win that game, and outlasted the A’s in the five-game set, advancing to face the Angels in the ALCS. Unfortunately, the Metrodome’s magic failed them. The Twins won the first game at home, but Rick Reed couldn’t hold serve in Game 2. That sent the series to Anaheim for three games – and it never came back to the Metrodome. Minnesota's workmanlike bullpen finally wore down, while the Angels – bolstered by a recently promoted 20-year-old fireballer nicknamed K-Rod – consistently held the Twins rally bats in check. Oh, well, Coughlin’s Law of Ends and all that. Twins fans weren’t going to let Adam Kennedy and some stupid rally monkey ruin that remarkable season. The franchise was saved from death’s cold dark hand. The team made its deepest playoff run in the last 28 years. And the decade got better and better, with six more postseason appearances in the next eight years. While 1987 and 1991 have their flags at the top of Target Field, we should probably figure out a better way that future generations can commemorate the 2002 season, the most pivotal season in Minnesota Twins history. Team MVP: Eddie Guardado (RP) Other Contenders: Torii Hunter (CF), Jacque Jones (LF), Rick Reed (SP), J.C. Romero (RP) The team took turns rotating through heroes, so there are no shortage of worthy candidates. But Guardado was the one piece that had to work, and he produced a career season, and he lived up to his “Everyday Eddie” nickname. But a sentence or two on several other players is necessary. Hunter won a Gold Glove in center field, batted cleanup, had the highest OPS on the team, was an All-Star and finished fifth in AL MVP voting. He became a superstar this season. He was voted the MVP by the local BBWAA writers, and I have no problem if you want him over Eddie. Jones led off, hit .300 and had 27 home runs. He led all hitters in both bWAR and WPA, and played fantastic defense in left. (Third baseman Corey Koskie, by the way, finished second in both categories, led the team in fWAR, and was robbed of a Gold Glove, so he may belong in this spot too.) And who led the pitching staff in both bWAR and WPA? You can win some (super geeky) bar bets knowing that J.C. Romero led the staff in both. He threw 81 high-leverage innings and posted a 1.89 ERA. He’s easily the most underrated player from the 2002 squad. Finally, Reed led the starters in innings (188) and was the only full-season starter with an ERA under four (3.78). The only other option would be Johan Santana, whose ERA was 3.24 as a starter, but wasn’t promoted to the team until late May and was only a starter through August, after which he was sent to the bullpen. 3 Most Pivotal Games April 1st: Won @ Kansas City Royals, 8-6 Remember, there was no guarantee a few months earlier that the Royals would have an opponent in this game. Jones announced that the 2002 Twins weren’t going to sleepwalk through the season with a lead-off home run. Brad Radke relinquished an early lead, but Jones’ second home run of the game gave the Twins back the lead in the seventh inning. Finally, Guardado had his first save chance and converted it in Guardado-like fashion: he got two outs, walked two guys while refusing to give in to them, and got the third out on a short fly ball to Hunter. April 19th: Won vs. Cleveland Indians, 12-3 The Twins eventually cruised to the AL Central title, but the first couple of weeks looked sadly familiar. Cleveland began the season 11-1, including a sweep of the Twins at Jacobs Field. The Tribe was then swept by the White Sox, but had CC Sabathia on the mound to start their three-game set versus their preferred perennial punching bag, the Minnesota Twins. But the punching bag produced a player who punched back: Tom Prince? The Twins scored 10 runs in the fourth and fifth innings (eight were charged to Sabathia) capped by a three-run home run by the backup catcher Prince. Minnesota swept the series, and the Indians lost 11 of their next 13 games. By May 4th, the Indians were 5 1/2 games back of the division-leading Twins. They would never get closer than 3 1/2 games of the AL Central lead the rest of the season. October 1st: Won vs. Oakland Athletics, 7-5 Can Game 1 of a playoff series be pivotal? In a five-game ALDS playoff series, this is the game that should’ve gone the other way, but somehow didn’t. Radke game up five runs in the first two innings, with only one earned as the infield completely melted down around him. But the veteran Radke held things together for five innings, after which Gardenhire threw three southpaws at the A’s – Santana, Romero and Guardado – who held Oakland scoreless. Meanwhile, the Twins deep lineup kept picking at Tim Hudson and the A’s pitching staff from all angles. The three infielders who made errors – Cristian Guzmán, A.J. Pierzynski and Koskie – had a home run, triple and three RBIs, respectively. The Twins won a game in which they had every reason to throw in the towel early, a microcosm of their season. Unforgettable Highlights Starting with a Bang There was an extra feeling of vindication and defiance in the air when Jones opened the season with a lead-off home run in Kansas City on April 1st. With all the contraction drama, it was like waving a middle finger to the world. "We're not going anywhere." And they weren't. Jones' 11 lead-off home runs in 2002 are good for second in American League history, trailing only Baltimore's Brady Anderson (12) in 1996. The Blowout of All Blowouts On June 4th, the Twins set their (still standing) all-time record for biggest margin of victory in a 23-2 laugher against Cleveland. When Minnesota's starting pitcher Reed was lifted after seven innings, he had a 21-run lead. Four different Minnesota players had four hits, including Luis Rivas who scored five runs. He joins Molitor (1996), Tim Tuefel (1983) and Rod Carew (1977) as the only Twins to accomplish the latter feat. Torii Takes One Away from Bonds Hunter made his first All-Star Game in 2002, and celebrated the occasion with a highlight for the ages. When Barry Bonds launched a drive to deep right-center in the first, everyone in Miller Park was positive it was headed out. Hunter had other ideas. He sprinted a country mile, gathered himself at the warning track, and leapt with perfect timing to retrieve Bonds' would-be dinger and pull it back. As Hunter robbed a homer from the reigning NL MVP, the reigning AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki stood one foot away, looking up in awe. Hunter, on his way to the second of nine straight Gold Gloves, had officially arrived as a bona fide MLB star. A.J. Stuns the A's in ALDS In a decisive Game 5, the Twins were nursing a 2-1 lead in the ninth, as fans sweated a nerve-racking save opportunity on the way for Guardado against the heart of Oakland's lineup, on the road. Following Dustan Mohr's walk to open the top of the ninth, Pieryznski came through with a game-breaking two-run homer off Billy Koch. The All-Star catcher took a moment to admire his work from the batter's box. Minnesota would add another run on David Ortiz's RBI double, and the insurance proved crucial: Mark Ellis hit a two-run homer off Guardado in the bottom of the ninth, and the Twins won by a single run to take the series. One Detail You Probably Forgot Beyond the pennant race and contraction, Twins fans had another big concern in their miracle year: a work stoppage. MLB and the players had a drop-dead date of August 31st to come to terms on a collective bargaining agreement and with 1994’s work stoppage fresh in fans’ minds, there was plenty of concern that a postseason could again be cancelled. Fortunately, the two sides also remembered just how much of a disaster that was and made steady progress at the negotiating table over the second half of the season. By August, it was fairly clear that the two sides were going to work something out. Even better, the new agreement dictated that contraction of teams was no longer allowed. Crump’s ruling had only protected the Twins for the 2002 season. Fun Fact This is the season detailed in the book (and movie) Moneyball. And it was the Twins that ended a remarkable run for the A’s in the ALDS. Seeds of the coming sabermetric revolution were planted locally, too. Two influential baseball blogs that analyzed the Twins with an analytical slant started up in 2002, independent of each other: John Bonnes’ TwinsGeek.com and Aaron Gleeman’s AaronGleeman.com. ~~~ Previous Installments: The 2000 Season The 2001 Season

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This is not a negotiation between the MLB and MLBPA. They’re mostly aligned over trying to find their path to an enormous pot of money. Both will need to give up something dear to them. The owners will need to give up stadium revenues, because these games can’t be played in front of crowds. The players are going to need to give up their freedom, essentially being quarantined with their teammates and support staff for the duration of whatever constitutes spring training, the regular season and the postseason. That’s an enormous ask, but the quarantine is to protect the players. The owners have no dog in that fight; they’re not the ones who are going to get sick. That concern is between health officials and the union, or maybe more accurately is an MLBPA internal matter between players who want a paycheck and those willing to walk away for a year. Grandiose anti-plan media quotes don’t mean much in that context. One would get the same quotes if players were asked the flip side of the question: “So how do you feel about not getting paid?” Considering the minimum wage for a ballplayer is close to $3500 per game – and it obviously can be 50 times that for premier players – there is going to be a fair amount of appetite in accepting some separation from families. Plus, if that price is too high for some players to pay, there will undoubtedly be a provision for players to opt out. We don’t know where the season is going to take place yet, but we know the more important part – it’s going to be localized so travel is minimized. That’s likely why Phoenix was the initial suggestion – all those spring training complexes are in one metro area. Everybody can sleep in their own heavily-controlled room each night. Expanding half of the league to play in Florida is trickier. Florida’s Grapefruit League is more spread out. If the Fort-Myers-based Twins travel to the Clearwater-based Phillies (a three-hour drive) for a three-game set, the option is to travel six hours each day or find a quarantine-level secure place to stay in Clearwater. With the CDC concerned about the virus spreading from county to county, that may be too much for them to approve. If that problem seems to be too much to overcome, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There are 20 problems like that. For instance, there is the support staff for the players: from coaches and trainers to bus drivers and cleaning staff. Won’t they need to be quarantined, too? To handle all of those challenges and logistics requires a lot of resources– but there MLB and the MLBPA are in luck. Ten billion dollars are at stake, and roughly half of that goes to each side. The human mind has trouble imagining how much money that is, so engage in this quick mind exercise: Imagine you’re standing at one end of a football field. And along the sideline of that field is a bucket at every yard marker. 100 buckets. Now turn 90 degrees sideways, and there is another football field. Along its sideline are another 100 buckets. Now, extend those yardlines from both fields so they form a grid and put a bucket wherever they meet, so you have 100 buckets by 100 buckets or 10,000 buckets. Now look into one of those buckets. There is a million dollars. And that is the case for all 10,000 of those buckets. That’s $10 billion. Need to pay $40,000 apiece to a hundred quarantined support people for each team for those four months? That’s 120 buckets gone. Still leaves 9880 buckets. Need to buy 100,000 coronavirus tests for $200 apiece? That’s twenty more buckets. Still have 9860 left. Sure, there is a point where those buckets run out, but – well, that’s a lot of buckets. Plus, there is another reason to start spending those buckets to restart the season: for each game that is cancelled, for every day that passes that cannot be made up, sixty of those buckets disappear anyway. That’s why both sides are looking at just how soon games can start, but now we get to the areas where the team has limited control or options. The one mentioned in the original story was how quickly fast-result coronavirus tests will be so ubiquitous that there can be enough for thousands of MLB participants to take them a daily basis. For issues like this, MLB must work on what they can control and trust that American (or world) industry, or health officials’ increasing understanding of the virus, will get over existing barriers. MLB and the players can influence the timeline, but not control it. But does it matter to fans whether the games start on June 1st, July 1st or August 1st? Sooner would be better than later, but having a season is the important part. While it would be nice if it was 162 games and in front of crowds and played in traditional divisions and included 100% of the players – we’ll work with what we have. Baseball was played during World War II. The St. Louis Cardinals still celebrate that 1942 World Championship. A 2020 season is not inevitable, but it’s on the right path. Stakeholders are aligned, budgets determined, logistics worked, and contingencies planned. The obstacles are many, but the resources are plentiful and motivations are clear. Announcing a date and a place are not the first step; they’re the last step in the process. And yeah, I’m really encouraged by it, which calls into question my objectivity. So subjectively I’ll say: you’re going to get to watch baseball this year. And you’re going to love it, all the more because of what was done to get there.

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“The crowd was crazy,” said 2019 starting pitcher Jake Odorizzi. “I played in Tampa Bay, so this was pretty much the polar opposite of that. Not that it bothered me. What bothered me was Herbie. You have to tip your hat to him.” Hrbek had plenty of opportunities to tip his own hat to the 55,426 full-throated fans, most notably after a third inning grand slam put the 1991 Twins up 8-0. “Right place, right time,” laughed Hrbek. Getting Hrbek into the right place at the right time involved juggling the lineup. With Dan Gladden out tonight with an undisclosed leg injury, Kelly shifted some players around – and raised some eyebrows. Kent Hrbek batting second instead of his traditional cleanup spot? What is this? 2020? “We might know a few things in 1991,” smirked Kelly. Like maybe he wanted his best left-handed hitter getting to face the right-handed Odorizzi a few extra times? “Maybe that,” deadpanned Kelly. “Herbie can swing the bat. He can hit anywhere in the lineup.” Last night it could not have worked better. By the time the third inning had ended, Hrbek had three hits, two home runs, six RBI and had scored three runs. He had the first hit of the game - a single - in the first inning and came around to score on a Chili Davis single. In the second inning he blasted a line drive over the left field wall that also brought home Mike Pagliarulo and stretched the lead to 4-0. The big blow came in the third inning. Odorizzi, who struggled with his control the entire night, started the inning by walking Brian Harper and Gene Larkin. After striking out Greg Gagne, he also walked Pagliarulo, loading the bases. That ended his night. Still, the 2019 Twins nearly escaped. Ryne Harper was brought in to face the top of the order and struck out Chuck Knoblauch on three pitches. That brought up the second spot in the order….and Hrbek? “No, I don’t remember ever hitting second, or at least not starting a game there,” Hrbek said when asked about his spot in the order. “Maybe as a pinch-hitter?” But he was there last night, with the bases loaded, two outs, and a chance to turn this first game of the series into a laugher. Turn he did, on a 1-1 pitch, lifting a majestic fly ball over the baggy in right-center field. The party in the Metrodome stands began. It was a little different in the 2019 Twins dugout. “I have never heard sound like that in my life,” said Odorizzi. While he said the crowd noise didn’t bother him, Odorizzi never did get on track. He didn’t give up the backbreaking second home run, but he kept setting the table with walks while falling behind in the count. He lasted just 2 1/3 innings and walked six. He also gave up five hits while striking out two. The first seven runs of the game were charged to him. The early fireworks paved the way for, and overshadowed, a gem by 1991 starting pitcher Keven Tapani. Tapani nearly pitched a complete-game shutout. After striking out the first two batters in the ninth inning, a ground ball to second base should’ve ended his night. But Hrbek dropped a throw from Knoblauch, allowing Jorge Polanco to reach. Luis Arraez followed that with a double, bringing Tapani to 101 pitches and ending his night before the final out. "We'll need to turn to him again soon," said Kelly. David West came in and got the final out, but only after giving up a three-run bomb to Nelson Cruz that provided a little balm to an otherwise shell-shocked 2019 Twins squad. They’ll attempt to rebound tomorrow night with their ace Jose Berrios on the mound. But the 1991 Twins will have their own ace, Jack Morris, attempt to put them up 2-0 before they travel across downtown to Target Field for Game 3. You can find the boxscore and pitch-by-pitch results for Game One attached below. If you would like to learn more about Out of the Park 21, please click on this link. If you would like to try it, you can also download it for 10% off the regular price using the code TWINSDAILY. MLB Box Score, Minnesota 2019 Twins at Minnesota 1991 Twins Game 1.pdf Minnesota 2019 Twins @ Minnesota 1991 Twins Game Log Game 1.pdf