Steven Buhr

Wednesday, May 8, was supposed to be a big night for fans that follow the top minor league prospects in professional baseball. Quad Cities shortstop Carlos Correa, selected with the No. 1 pick overall by the Astros in last June’s amateur draft, was set to go head-to-head against Cedar Rapids Kernels’ center fielder Byron Buxton, chosen as the No. 2 pick overall in the same draft by the Twins. According to MiLB.com, it was the first time two position players of high school age were drafted in the first two spots in over 20 years. As a result, it is almost inevitable that Correa and Buxton will be compared closely to one another throughout their careers. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Buxton1.jpg Byron Buxton (Photo: SD Buhr) But thanks to a pitch that hit Correa in the hand a week ago, their first match up on the same field will have to wait. The question is, for how long? Correa was placed on the Bandits’ 7-day Disabled List on Friday, May 3, which would make him eligible to be reactivated for this Friday’s series finale with the Kernels. However, there’s been no indication from the team that they intend to do so. After this series, the Kernels and River Bandits are scheduled to face one another next on June 5 in Cedar Rapids. Then again, if Buxton continues to perform at current levels, there is legitimate reason to question whether he will still be wearing a Kernels uniform at that point. If Correa and Buxton don’t face one another this season, it’s unlikely they’ll match up again in a regular season game until they wear Big League uniforms for the Astros and Twins. The two organizations have no high-A, AA or AAA affiliates playing in the same league. How rare would an early meeting of No. 1 and No. 2 picks from the same draft be? Only three times have the top two picks in the draft made their full-season debuts in the same league in the same season. It hasn’t happened in the Midwest League since the No. 1 pick in the 1983 draft, Tim Belcher*, opened the following season with the Madison Muskies and No. 2 pick Kurt Stillwell was in a Cedar Rapids Reds uniform. It’s not difficult to understand, then, why many fans have looked forward to seeing Correa and Buxton on the same field this season. Though we may not see Buxton and Correa share a ball field this week, we can take a look at how their first years of full-season professional baseball have compared so far. There’s no doubt that Buxton is off to the better start. While there is already considerable speculation concerning how soon the Kernels’ center fielder might be promoted to the next level in the Twins’ minor league organization, there has been little, if any, such speculation where Correa is concerned. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Buxton31.jpg Byron Buxton (Photo: SD Buhr) Five weeks in to the season, Buxton has played in all but one of the Kernels’ 29 games and has the second highest batting average in the Midwest League at .373. Correa was having some trouble staying on the field for the River Bandits even before his current stint on the Disabled List. He has already missed 11 of Quad Cities’ 29 games and is hitting just .221 on the year. Buxton leads the MWL with a .488 on-base percentage and also leads the league with a .647 slugging percentage. Combined, that puts his OPS (on-base plus slugging) at a league-high 1.135. Of Buxton’s 38 hits, 15 (or almost 40 per cent) have been for extra bases. He has seven doubles, three triples and five home runs. Buxton has walked more times (24) than he has struck out (21) and has stolen 13 bases in 17 attempts. Correa has reached base at a .384 clip and is slugging just .397, for a .781 OPS. He has three doubles and three home runs. Correa has drawn 15 walks while striking out 23 times. He has one stolen base and has been caught stealing once. Five very early weeks in the professional careers of these two prospects mean very little, of course, in terms of predicting their ultimate success or failure as Major League ballplayers. If both men stay with their current organizations long term, fans should eventually have plenty of opportunities for side by side comparisons at the Major League level, now that Correa’s Astros are in the American League. Regardless of whether Correa is activated in time to face Buxton and the Kernels this week, fans in Cedar Rapids should get their first opportunity to see the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft on June 5 when the River Bandits make their first appearance of the season at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Whether Byron Buxton will still be around to greet him remains to be seen. -SDB *As long time Twins fans know, Tim Belcher had been selected No. 1 by Minnesota in the 1983 draft and did not sign. He then was drafted No. 1 by the Yankees in the subsequent January 1984 Secondary Draft and ended up with the Athletics organization as a Free Agent Compensation selection a month later. SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Click here to view the article

The people who pay attention to such things during professional baseball’s offseason were pretty much in agreement in their expectations for this team coming out of spring training in Fort Myers. The starting pitching should be quite improved, perhaps the best it has been in a few years. The bullpen should once again be sound. But when the topic turned to the offense, one question was nearly universal, “Where will the runs come from?” Now, roughly two weeks in to the 2014 season, there have been a couple of surprises. First, the supposed much improved rotation was a little slow getting out of the gate, but now we’re seeing results that look much closer to what we had hoped we would see from some of the starting pitchers. But the offense is not what was expected. Instead of struggling to score runs consistently, we’re seeing an offense that sits at or near the top of several offensive statistics. Granted, the season is still young, but the rate at which the team is scoring runs is certainly encouraging. All of which begs the question, “Who are these guys?” Coincidental or not, that question could be answered in either of two ways and both would be accurate. We could certainly be talking about the Minnesota Twins, who came through the past weekend’s series sweep of their American League Central Division rival Kansas City Royals averaging 5.6 runs per game, good for a third place tie in all of Major League Baseball. All three of their starting pitchers in the Royals series chalked up quality starts (at least six innings, giving up three runs or less). But we could equally be describing the Twins’ Class A Midwest League affiliate, the Cedar Rapids Kernels. The Kernels are expected to have one of the top rotations in minor league baseball this season, staffed with several of the organization’s top prospects, including the Twins’ first and second round draft picks a year ago, Kohl Stewart and Ryan Eades, among others. The Kernels’ pitching certainly has been showing glimpses of their talent and arguably have done a better job of living up to their pre-season expectations than their counterparts with the parent Twins. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Boyd1.jpg Hudson Boyd Through Tuesday’s games, relievers Brandon Bixler, Josue Montanez, Brandon Peterson and Hudson Boyd have each averaged at least a strikeout per inning pitched and have given up just four earned runs combined, among the four of them. After struggling a little bit during the season’s chilly opening series at home, the rotation started to find their groove during last week’s eastern road trip, as well. Aaron Slegers has just a 1-0 record to show for his efforts, but he’s racked up 14 strikeouts in just 16 innings of work, while walking only a single batter. Kernels pitching coach Ivan Arteaga indicated Monday night that he was pleased with the work his starting pitching corps did during their recent 5-1 road trip. “This early in the season, you hope they give a good effort every night, which they did,” Arteaga said of his rotation arms. “They pretty much took us where we wanted them to take us.” Arteaga added, “We have a pitch limit, everybody knows that. It’s a team effort. The relievers are giving us a chance every night, we can’t ask for more than that. The bullpen’s doing a great job.” That swing out east last week also seemed to wake up some of the Kernels’ bats, a fact not lost on hitting coach Tommy Watkins who, while praising catcher Mitch Garver for an outstanding road trip, also saw progress from others. “It was different guys every night,” said Watkins. “The hitters did a good job having quality at-bats. The main thing is they had a pretty decent approach and they stuck to it.” That approach is showing up in the offensive statistics. After Tuesday’s game, the Kernels were second in the MWL in runs scored (60) and at the top of the league in both slugging percentage (.442) and OPS (.777). Cedar Rapids hitters have notched 11 home runs, tying them for the MWL lead with Lake County and Wisconsin. They also rank fourth in the league in doubles (23) and sit atop the MWL list in triples (8). The power surge wasn’t something that Kernels manager Jake Mauer expected to see at this point. “That (the home runs) has been a surprise,” Mauer said Monday night. “We know Garver and (Bryan) Haar have some pop, without a doubt, but I’d say the frequency that they’ve hit them, to this point, has been surprising. But they’ve also had some pretty good at-bats with runners in scoring position and we’ve been able to keep that carousel moving. We were a little concerned early that we’d only be able to score one run (at a time), but we’ve found a way to score multiple runs and that’s encouraging.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Garver.jpg Mitch Garver Garver, the Twins’ 9th round draft pick a year ago, has accounted for nine of the team’s extra-base hits. He has three doubles, a triple and is leading the MWL in home runs with five. The combination has lifted his slugging percentage to a league leading .825 and his OPS to 1.254, good enough for second highest in the league. Garver and Haar also lead the Kernels with 10 RBI each. As Watkins pointed out, however, the offensive contributions haven’t been limited to just a couple of guys. Outfielder Zach Larson’s six doubles have him tied for the MWL lead in that category and, while seeing action in just seven of the Kernels’ 12 games, through Tuesday, infielder Tanner Vavra has made the most of his opportunities to get to the plate and leads the club with a .360 batting average, a single point above Haar’s .359. After Monday’s come-from-behind win over South Bend, Mauer summarized his team’s efforts thus far. “The pitching has been really good, really good. The defense, for the most part, has been pretty good. We’ve gotten some big hits. We’re proud of the boys. They really don’t give up.” Mauer credits the work the hitters have been doing with their hitting coach for their offensive progress early in the year. “I think that’s what Tommy Watkins has been doing with these guys, just learning how to trust their hands and try see the ball a little bit. He’s got a pretty good plan that I think the boys are starting to buy in to. Overall, the quality of the at-bats has been much better,” Mauer said on Monday. The season is young and less than 10% of the Kernels’ regular season games are behind them, but if early hitting trends can be maintained and their pitching turns out to be as improved as it was expected to be, this Cedar Rapids club could turn out to be quite competitive. Of course, you could perhaps say something similar about the Minnesota Twins. Click here to view the article

Cedar Rapids Kernels middle infielder Niko Goodrum was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the second round of the 2010 First Year Player Draft and spent the past two years playing for the Twins short season rookie league team in Elizabethton. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Goodrum1.jpg The 21 year old switch-hitter from Georgia got off to a good start with the Kernels, most often batting second in Manager Jake Mauer’s batting order, behind lead off hitter Byron Buxton. He was named to the Midwest League’s Western Division All-Star team.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] On June 2, Goodrum collided with Kane County catcher Willson Contreras and came away with a concussion that sidelined him on the team’s Disabled List right up until the final day of the first half of the Midwest League season on June 16. His activation that day allowed him to participate in the MWL All-Star Game on June 18. A few days ago, Goodrum talked about his season, so far, his injury and a number of other topics. SD Buhr: You’ve now played in about the same number of games you played in an entire year of rookie league ball. Have you been able to tell a difference in the full season of a Midwest League season, compared to the short season rookie leagues? Niko Goodrum: You’ve got more games and if you’re in a slump, there’s no way to stretch it out (in short season). So that’s better. Body wise, there’s more on your body in a full season, but I don’t really feel a big difference between the rookie ball and the full season. They say it’s a big jump, but my body’s holding up well. SDB: You got of to a pretty good start to this season and then you had the issue over in Kane County. Exactly what happened there? Goodrum: I was on first base and stole second base. Jorge Polanco was up and hit a line drive to left field. Jake (Manager Jake Mauer) rounded me around third base so I’m headed home. But then the catcher was up the line so it was either just stop or, if I try to slide, he’d probably end up dogging me or something. My first reaction was try to run him over. He kind of punched me in my chin. I don’t remember contact at all. I didn’t feel anything. I was down. I woke up and I was just strapped on to a cart. SDB: How long after that did it take before you felt like you could be playing? Goodrum: I had headaches for probably three days after I had the concussion. But after that, when I started back to activities, I felt like “I’m ready to play,” but it was just a long process they had to do with concussions. Sending paperwork up to Minnesota and MLB so they can clear it, so it was a long process but I felt like I could play after the headaches went away. I felt ready to go. SDB: I recall you were hoping to get cleared a day or two earlier than it actually happened. Goodrum: They told me I was going to be cleared on Saturday so we were just waiting for Saturday to come and then they told me they didn’t hear anything back from them. Then once the game finally started, that’s when they ended up telling them I’m cleared to play. So I ended up getting cleared for Sunday. SDB: The team struggled a bit while you were out of the line up. That had to be kind of tough to sit and watch while the lead in the standings dropped from five games, four games and so on. And there was nothing you could do about it. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Goodrum2.jpg Niko Goodrum Goodrum: Yeah, it was. It was tough watching and knowing I can’t do anything to help them. Not even a chance I could get in to maybe play defense or pinch hit or run or something. There was nothing. So it was tough watching and seeing my team go down like that. SDB: Tell me about the All-Star Game experience. That must have been a good time. Goodrum: It was fun. Being around guys from other teams. The atmosphere. The home run derby was fun, watching that. Playing in front of ten thousand people was fun. Just the atmosphere. It was just great, a great time, I had a good time, yeah. SDB: With Byron Buxton’s promotion, your role has changed perhaps a little bit. You’ve had some opportunities to bat lead off. Do you take a different approach when you lead off or do you just try to get on base? Goodrum: Yeah, just get on base. That’s all I’m worried about is trying to get on base. SDB: I know your father was in Cedar Rapids early in April. Has your family been back up to see you play? How do they follow how you’re doing with the Kernels? Goodrum: Most of my family does it online, they look at the game play-by-play online. All my family came up to the All-Star Game to see me play. My dad hasn’t been back up yet, but my mom and my brother and my girlfriend, they came up to CR to see me play. They’ve been up here a couple times. SDB: Tell me about your hobbies and interests off the field. What do you like to do away from the ballpark? http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Goodrum11.jpg Niko Goodrum Goodrum: Sometimes I play video games, go to movies. Chill. I’m pretty much at Tyler Grimes’ house, me and JD (Williams) are pretty much over there hanging out. But we don’t really do too much. SDB: You’ve been in Cedar Rapids for over three months now. What’s been the best part of the Cedar Rapids experience so far? Goodrum: New city, it’s always fun playing in front of new fans. It’s a great field, great stadium. A great coaching staff, so it’s always good.Overall, it’s a big jump from Elizabethton, city-wise, so all around, it’s good. SDB: Have you set any specific personal or team goals for the rest of the year? Goodrum: Try to win a championship. Click here to view the article

Cedar Rapids Kernels hitting coach Tommy Watkins knows his way around a minor league field, having spent parts of 11 seasons as a player in the Minnesota Twins minor league system. Toward the end of the 2007 season, he got to live the dream of every player who ever put on a minor league uniform when he was called up to the Big Leagues by the Twins. Since 2009, Watkins has been coaching in the Twins minor league organization and this season is his fourth as the hitting coach for the Twins’ Class A affiliate in the Midwest League (the first three coming with the Twins’ then-affiliate, the Beloit Snappers). Watkins recently sat down and talked about his role with the Kernels and more. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/WatkinsHarrison.jpg Tommy Watkins hitting ground balls to third baseman Travis Harrison (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) SD Buhr: This is the first year in Cedar Rapids for you and the team after spending a few years in Beloit. How do you feel things are going here? Tommy Watkins: Things are going great here. The people are amazing, just like the people in Beloit were pretty amazing. But things have jumped off here pretty well. The facility is one of the best in the league, especially in our division. In the other division, you’ve got a lot of the newer parks, but we’ve got one of the best parks in our division and we get a lot of Twins fans, which is fun. For me, the (batting) cage is right outside the clubhouse so if the guys want to get some extra work, we can go right out and get right to it. It’s been fun. SDB: Describe the work you do as the hitting coach. I’ve been told the organization puts a plan together for all the players in the minor leagues. How do you go about implementing that plan with the hitters? Watkins: Everybody’s different. We have a hit plan that we stick to throughout the organization, but each guy is different with the drills they like to do or things they need to work on. So, like I said, we’ve got a hit plan over the whole minor leagues. Bill Springman (Twins Minor League Hitting Coordinator) put that together for everybody. And then we go through and we get individual hit plans for each guy. SDB: That sounds like a lot of work. Watkins: It’s a lot of work, but I’m only dealing with twelve or thirteen guys at a time, so it’s not too bad. SDB: I understand the Twins have implemented some kind of “balance” program for the players in Cedar Rapids and Fort Myers. A program Jim Dwyer (the hitting coach for the Fort Myers Miracle, the next level up the Twins organizational chain) recommended. How’s that going? Watkins: I think it’s good. The guys all take it pretty serious. I just think it’s training your brain. Just like we go out and take BP every day, they get on that balance board to train their brain. It helps with a lot of things, concentration being one of them I think, for me. I’ve even heard a couple guys talk about getting on it to help their golf game to focus and train your brain. Jimmy (Dwyer), he got in to it big time last year. Just to see the guys do those exercises, he saw a change in their on-field stuff. It’s just like anything, you’ve got to train your body and you’ve got to use your brain to play and I think it helps you focus more. We’ve even had guys in the dugout doing it during Batting Practice. SDB: I’ve heard that you sometimes serve as a translator for some of the guys from Latin America. I’d think it must be tough as a coach to communicate with players that don’t speak English. Are you bilingual? http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Watkins1a.jpgKernels Hitting Coach Tommy Watkins Watkins: I like to call it Spanglish. It’s not really Spanish. It’s English mixed with Spanish. All of our guys speak (English) enough. The Twins do a good job of giving the guys classes during spring training and instructional league. I went down to the Dominican and we had an English teacher down there. So, the Twins do a really good job of trying to help these guys learn English. I think it’s a big part of development and making it to the Big Leagues is learning how to speak the language. The Twins gave me Rosetta Stone in Spanish. I’ll use it on the bus. It’s pretty good. But I think you learn a lot more by actually dealing with people and talking to people. SDB: During a game, fans can see you motioning to players in the field, moving them around some. Do you have particular in-game responsibilities? Watkins: I think me and Jake (manager Jake Mauer), we work together on moving the defense around, depending on the batter, depending on the pitcher. We keep a book on what they (opponents) do, so it kind of helps us plan for how we play them defensively. That’s one of the things I do with defense. When it’s late in a game, we’ll play a guy back in “no doubles,” I’ll let them know that. Or throwing the ball to the cutoff man or whatnot. Just those kind of details. Hitting wise, I just try to watch their at-bats and see if I can help them out with anything. With approach or maybe a swing they took. A lot of times just trying to see what they were thinking and just get some feedback from them. The guys are good to work with, all of them. We just talk a lot about approach. I ask them what they see and tell them what I see and try to fix whatever it may be. SDB: Do you get video of your hitters’ at-bats to review with them? Watkins: We get video of a couple guys every night. Maybe we’ve got a lefty pitching (against us) and we’ll get all the right handed hitters that day. We’ll put it on the video and guys can go back there and take a look at it, analyze it. I have my iPad and sometimes I like to get video on that. They’ve got the video any time they need it. I think they also send it out within the organization so they can see it, too. SDB: You made it to the Major Leagues for a bit as a player with the Twins. Now you’re in your next career as a coach. Is it your goal to work your way back up to that level? Watkins: I love the coaching part of it and coaching in the Big Leagues is a goal of mine. That’s what I want to shoot for, whether it be managing, coaching third base, first base, whatever it may be. I would love to have a chance to get up there and coach in the Big Leagues. SDB: Just as an observer, the guys seem to really like working with you. It’s got to be easier to coach a guy that you have some sort of rapport with. Watkins: Yeah it is. We’ve got a bunch of good guys on the team and they get along with each other just as well as they get along with the staff. SDB: They see how you turned Byron Buxton from a nobody in to a prospect like that. It really gives you instant credibility, right? (question posed with a smile and tongue firmly in cheek) Watkins: (Laughing) Yeah, yeah, right. SDB: That has to give your resume a pretty good shot. “I was Byron Buxton’s hitting coach.” Watkins: I thank him. He might be able to help me out a lot! No, but Buxton’s got tremendous talent, as everyone can see. You know, I just tried not to mess him up. When he left, I was like “alright, good.” I was joking with Jim, “hey, Dwyer, don’t mess him up.” He was a fun guy to watch, man. Easy to coach. You’d suggest something to him, he’d listen and try to work on it. What was good about him was that he could apply it. A couple times, he’d go 0 for 2 and he’d say, “what am I doing?” I’d say, “you’re alright, you’re OK.” Then the next two he’d hit right up the middle by the pitcher. I just try to keep all the guys happy and just try to make them feel comfortable. I think that’s the biggest thing. Being comfortable, confident and just trusting in your ability. SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

It occurs to me that since I’ve been a little preoccupied with writing about the Cedar Rapids Kernels the past five months, I have written very little about the Minnesota Twins. Now that the Kernels’ season has come to a close, I’m going to try to remedy that situation and I’m going to begin by posing a question to the Twns’ front office: Why the heck have you not announced that you are shutting Joe Mauer down for the season? I mean it. Shut Joe Mauer down and do it right frigging now![PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) I know he wants to play. I know he wants to put on the gear and get behind the plate again this season. I know he doesn’t like sitting and watching his teammates play (and frankly, many days, the rest of us aren’t enjoying it much either). I don’t care. He is not (or at least he shouldn’t be) the one calling the shots. Check out these quotes that Star-Tribune beat reporter LaVelle E. Neal III attributed to Mauer in Neal’s blog post Thursday: “I start feeling symptoms when I start to get my heart rate up,” Mauer said between workouts at Target Field on Thursday. Mauer is determined to return to the Twins lineup before the end of the regular season – but he has to wait until the symptoms go away for good. “This process has been a little longer than I hoped,” Mauer said. Tell me that doesn’t sound like something we might have heard Justin Morneau say during the summer of 2010. That summer, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com authored a piece on the concussions of Morneau and Jason Bay, and quoted another former member of the Twins, Corey Koskie, extensively. This quote from Koskie should resound with Twins fans who think Mauer should return to the field for any part of what’s left of this third straight lost season: Koskie doesn’t profess to know everything about concussions, but he’s compiled a list of “do’s” and “don’ts.” He advises any athlete with concussion symptoms to consult a doctor with no vested interest in the player’s return to the field. His blood pressure also spikes when he reads a news story that Player X suffered a “mild” concussion in the line of duty. “That’s a pet peeve of mine,” Koskie said. “The brain is the most important organ in the body. You’d never hear somebody say, ‘This guy just had a minor heart attack. He should be able to play in two days.’ ” When Morneau caught a knee to the helmet in Toronto three years ago, he was hitting .345 and had an OPS of 1.055. Last week he was traded for two guys 99% of us had never heard of. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/MauerST11h.jpg Joe Mauer Look, I’ve got plans to attend a Twins game a week from Saturday (assuming I survive the #GrandDrunkRailroad pregame festivities) and I’d like to see Mauer play. I don’t care if he doesn’t hit home runs, I appreciate what he does with a bat and he’s almost certainly going to be enshrined in Cooperstown someday. I want to see him play any chance I can get. But Justin Morneau’s career path was just as promising as Joe Mauer’s three seasons ago and a concussion that was originally thought to be minor robbed Twins fans of getting to see him at his best in his prime… not to mention robbing us of the opportunity to see what difference he might have made in a couple of Twins’ postseason appearances in 2010 and 2011. I want to see the Twins improve in 2014 and I want to see them return to contention in 2015 and beyond. The Twins organization has a number of very good prospects who will be arriving by then. But if prospects like Miguel Sano or Byron Buxton had been concussed with three or four weeks left in their seasons, is there any way the Twins WOULDN’T just shut them down immediately rather than try to get them back on the field for a couple weeks at the end of the season, even if it might involve minor league postseason games? There is no way they would take that kind of risk with such critical assets. After all, the chances of the Minnesota Twins returning to relevancy in the next few years depend on a healthy Miguel Sano and a healthy Byron Buxton. They also depend on a healthy Joe Mauer. And the remaining games on the Twins’ schedule are every bit as meaningless as minor league games are, at this point. They simply do not matter at all, except for the purpose of evaluating players with an eye toward what, if any, roles they should play on a future Twins roster. The Twins need to find out if Josmil Pinto and Chris Herrmann can handle catching at the Major League level. They need to find out if Chris Colabello and Chris Parmelee can hit Major League pitching well enough to take over at first base. There may be a legitimate question as to what position Joe Mauer should play in the future, but there is absolutely no question concerning whether he’ll have a role somewhere – unless he tries to return too soon from his concussion and spends an offseason dealing with symptoms the way Morneau did leading up to 2011. If the Twins’ brass ask Mauer if he wants to continue to work toward getting back on the field this season, of course he’s going to say, “yes.” He’s a competitor and you would expect no other answer. That’s why the question shouldn’t even be asked. The Twins should simply tell Mauer his season is over and he should focus on being ready to take the field when pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February. Doing otherwise is illogical and perhaps even irresponsible. SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

Minnesota Twins super-prospect Byron Buxton led the Cedar Rapids Kernels through a pretty amazing first half of their Midwest League season. They led the league’s West Division almost from wire to wire. Almost. But on Sunday, June 16, the Kernels gave up a late lead to the Peoria Chiefs and sealed their fate as the Division Runner-Up. That was the last day that Buxton wore his Kernels home whites on Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Download attachment: PelfreyMedia.jpg Mike Pelfrey interviewed by Cedar Rapids media after his rehab start (Photo: Morgan Hawk/CR Kernels) After returning from the MWL All-Star Game, Buxton boarded the team bus for the trip to Wisconsin. There, the team swept a four-game series with the Timber Rattlers and did so under the watchful eye of Twins General Manager Terry Ryan. On that same bus, during the trip home to Cedar Rapids, Kernels Manager Jake Mauer got a phone call from the Twins front office and then told Byron Buxton he was being promoted to the Fort Myers Miracle. You could understand if the Kernels, without the statistical leader of their offense, had needed to take a step back and regroup. Nobody would have been surprised if they had lost a few games as they searched for a new leadoff hitter and a new center fielder. After all, you can’t just replace a guy who many consider perhaps the top minor league prospect in baseball. What the Kernels have done instead, however, is continue winning. Since Buxton’s promotion, the Kernels have swept a four-game series with the Burlington Bees and a three-game series over the Peoria Chiefs. Heading in to Tuesday night’s game at Beloit, the Kernels are 11-0 in the second half of their MWL season. Yes, it has been an eventful couple of weeks since that gut-wrenching meltdown during the final series of the season’s first half. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Kepler1.jpg Max Kepler gets a secondary lead off first base It certainly didn’t hurt that the Kernels finally welcomed outfielder Max Kepler to the roster to start the second half of the season. Kepler, another of the Twins’ top prospects, had been slated to open the season with the Kernels but an elbow strain in March kept him in Fort Myers for extended spring training. Kepler has only four singles in his 44 at-bats since joining the team. Then again, he also has five doubles, a triple and three home runs. That’s good enough for a .659 slugging percentage over an admittedly limited sample size. The German native has also helped fill Buxton’s shoes defensively. He’s not likely to make the jaw-dropping defensive plays that Buxton seemed to make almost every other game in the outfield, but Kepler has the speed to cover plenty of outfield grass. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Williams11.jpg JD Williams Niko Goodrum and JD Williams have both spent time filling Buxton’s shoes at the top of the Kernels’ batting order. Goodrum’s sporting a second-half on-base percentage (OBP) of .362, which isn’t bad, but check out Williams’ second half slash line: .462 BA/ .517 OBP/ .731 SLG/ 1.248 OPS. Goodrum’s primary middle infield partner, Jorge Polanco, has hit .375 and put up an OPS of .969 since the All-Star break. Dalton Hicks hasn’t homered yet in the second half, but he’s hitting .306 with five doubles. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Harrison1.jpg Travis Harrison leads off third base Travis Harrison has a pair of home runs and six doubles since his All-Star Game appearance. He’s hitting .371 and has a 1.214 OPS. Adam Brett Walker has a pair of home runs, as well, to go with his .303 batting average. The second half success hasn’t been limited to the hitters, either. The next earned run that Tyler Jones or Steve Gruver give up will be the first an opponent has put up against the two bullpen arms. In fact, opponents have a grand total of one hit off the two pitchers, combined, since the All-Star break. Jose Berrios has made just one start since the break, but he went seven innings in that start and struck out nine hitters without a single walk, while giving up just five hits. Brett Lee has struck out 12 over the 13 innings that have comprised his two starts this half. Christian Powell is sporting a 2-0 record and a 0.69 ERA over the 13 innings he’s thrown during his first two starts of the second half. And just in case the Kernels players needed a reminder of what it is they’re putting in all this work for, they got a visit this week from Twins starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey, who drove down from the Twin Cities with his family to make a rehab start for the Kernels on Monday night. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Pelfrey1.jpg Mike Pelfrey warms up in the bullpen before his rehab start in CR The plan was for Pelfrey to work five innings or throw 75 pitches, whichever came first. But after throwing just 54 pitches through five innings, Pelfrey went back to the mound for the sixth. “We got there in the fourth and the fifth and they said, ‘hey you’re done.’ I said, ‘hey I want to go back out for one more.’ I was just starting to get the command of my fastball back, which is very important to have to succeed, obviously, at the Big League level.” As Pelfrey freely admitted in an interview before the game, his season didn’t get off to the kind of start he and the Twins hoped it would. But, as Kernels pitching coach said after the game, "It was fun to watch him. Man, what a pro. What a good pro he is," said Lucas. "To see how he handled himself and how he interacted with the guys on the bench. Pretty cool." It was a pretty cool night for the Kernels organization and their fans, as well. According to Kernels General Manager Doug Nelson, a typical Monday crowd at this point in the season is about 1,500 fans. The Kernels drew 2,246 to see Pelfrey pitch, with a sizable portion of that total coming from “walk up” ticket sales. That extra 746 fans may not seem like a lot to those accustomed to seeing Major League attendance totals, but that’s several thousand dollars of extra revenue that the Kernels wouldn’t have had if the Twins hadn’t sent Pelfrey to Cedar Rapids for his rehab start. Nelson indicated before the game that the topic of rehabilitation assignments had come up last September when the Twins and Kernels were discussing a possible affiliation agreement. While the Twins made no specific promises, they did tell the Kernels that they were comfortable with the facility in Cedar Rapids from a player-safety standpoint and that rehab assignments here would be simply a matter of schedules and timing working out. With Pelfrey’s appearance, the Twins have now equaled the total number of rehab assignments that the prior Kernels affiliate, the Angels, sent to Cedar Rapids during the entire 20-year relationship between that organization and the Kernels. Angels pitcher Ken Hill joined the Kernels for a rehab stint in 1998. The Kernels ballboy and the home plate umpire might have had the toughest challenge getting through Pelfrey’s appearance. http://knuckleballsb.../BallSwitch.jpg Plate umpire and Kernels ballboy switch out MLB balls for MWL balls between innings Pelfrey brought a supply of Major League baseballs with him to use in Cedar Rapids, which meant every half inning, the ballboy and plate umpire had to completely switch out the umpire’s supply of baseballs to allow Pelfrey to use Major League balls and the Peoria pitchers to use the Midwest League versions they are familiar with. By winning their tenth straight game this past Sunday, the Kernels earned a free dinner from the team’s Board of Directors. By tradition, the Board treats the team to dinner at the Ox Yoke in the Amana Colonies whenever they reel off 10 straight wins. No date has been set yet, but it’s something the Kernels players are looking forward to. That’s especially true of Kepler, the German native. The restaurant specializes in traditional German food, something Kepler said he hasn’t had in awhile. While the team will have to wait for an evening they can fit a trip to the Amana Colonies in to their busy schedule to collect on that meal, they tasted the benefits of Pelfrey’s appearance immediately after the game. According to Nelson, Pelfrey treated his temporary Kernels teammates to prime rib for their postgame meal in the clubhouse. SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids, while alter-ego Jim Crikket opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com Click here to view the article

A number of this year's Cedar Rapids Kernels have had to make an adjustment to wearing a Kernels uniform this summer after playing last season for the Beloit Snappers, who were the Minnesota Twins Midwest League affiliate during the eight prior years. It no doubt felt a little odd to some of them. But to Tyler Grimes, who was the Snappers primary shortstop much of last season, the change in geographic location was far from the most drastic of the adjustments he's had to make.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/GrimesGoodrum2.jpg Tyler Grimes (9) shares a light moment in the on deck circle with Kernels team mate Niko Goodrum A couple of weeks before the Snappers' season ended, Grimes was informed by the Twins minor league field coordinator, Joel Lepel, that the organization intended to convert him to catcher during the fall instructional league. Grimes said he hadn't caught since Little League. “At first, I didn’t know how to take it,” Grimes said during an interview on Saturday. “There was a lot of things going through my head. I just didn’t know how I was going to approach it when I got down there, at first. “I got down there and everything started working out and I started to like it more and more. But it was tough, don’t get me wrong.” And now, how does Grimes feel after spending dozens of games behind the plate in the catchers' gear that ballplayers have long dubbed, 'the tools if ignorance?' “It’s been a tough transition, but here in July I can honestly say I enjoy going out there each night that I catch and I’m having fun with it. It’s like a new love for the game. I’ve got a new challenge and I’m always up for a challenge.” That challenge has had some down sides, of course. “My body, I’ve got to take care of it differently. I wasn’t used to taking ice baths, but I’ve been in the ice bath a lot,” Grimes said with a bit of a smile. As a shortstop, Grimes had some responsibility for communicating with his fellow infielders, but he's learned those responsibilities pale in comparison to what he's had to take on as a catcher. Being the team's “quarterback” behind the plate hasn't always come naturally to him. “Yeah, it was a little mind-boggling for me at first,” Grimes admitted. “(Lepel) is always on me, 'hey you need to be more talkative and let those guys know.' I wasn’t used to that. I’m not really like that. I’m not too loud out there on the field. I kind of let my game play itself and keep my mouth shut.” But Grimes feels that part of his game is progressing. “That’s coming more in to everything now, I think. At first, it was position for blocking and other mechanics. Now I’m getting used to that more and more. I’ve still got a lot to work on and I do every day. But the talking side of it, and getting to know your pitchers, is starting to come more and more.” Grimes literally takes a very professional approach to his new responsibilities. “It’s a tough thing when (pitchers) aren’t hitting their locations or not hitting the vicinity that you think it’s going to be. You’re trying to call a curve ball and those guys are trying to throw it for a strike and it’s in the dirt. "It’s your job to block the ball. At these levels, now, you need to block the ball. We’re not in college or high school, this is our job, this is what we’re paid to do. So I take a lot of pride in blocking now. Even if it looks bad or weird, I’m going to do whatever I can to throw my body at it.” His manager, Jake Mauer, likes the progress Grimes has made this season. "He's progressing pretty good, starting to receive the ball better, throws great," said the manager. "His game-calling has gotten better. If we can get him to receive a little bit better on the low pitch, which a lot of catchers have trouble with." "He's come a long ways," added Mauer. "He wants to catch, which is a good thing. He wants to be good at it, which is better." http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Grimes9.jpg Tyler Grimes One aspect of the game that Grimes has had considerable success at this season is controlling the running game of the Kernels' opponents. He has thrown out about 44 percent of opposing baserunners that have attempted to steal a base against him. That's a percentage most Major League catchers would love to have. “It always feels good when you throw somebody out,” admitted Grimes. “You can block a ball and everything like that, but once you throw somebody out, it’s kind of like, ‘ok, I’m starting to like this more and more,’ you know?” Still, it takes a certain kind of fearlessness for a player to willingly adjust from playing a position that's a relatively safe 100 feet or more away from the hitter to being the guy setting up right behind the hitter. As it turns out, Grimes comes by that trait naturally. He played hockey until a series of concussions forced him to give up that game and focus on baseball. That's a fact he may regret letting Joel Lepel in on. “(Lepel) likes to get on me, which is fine, because I can take it,” Grimes said, smiling. “Ever since then, he has been like, 'we’re going to be on you about it because if you’re a hockey player, you’re not scared of nothing.' “But it is my mentality, catching is my mentality. I just had to get used to it and, like I said, I’m loving it now.” He may be loving catching now, but there's little question about which sport was Grimes' favorite growing up – and it wasn't baseball. “We traveled in hockey from Houston to Canada,” Grimes related, concerning his time as a teenage hockey player. “Every spring break we’d go to Calgary and Toronto. Being from Kansas, a lot of people wouldn’t expect that. We actually had a good group of guys and we traveled all over and had fun with it. “I tell you what, if I didn’t have the concussions that I have, then I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, to this day,” Grimes admitted. Shortly after arriving in Cedar Rapids, Grimes had an opportunity to attend a Cedar Rapids RoughRiders United States Hockey League game. Did watching the RoughRiders make him feel like grabbing a stick? “Oh man,” Grimes responded with a head shake. “I called my dad and said, ‘I’m going to have to leave.’ I ended up leaving because I can’t watch it. I haven’t put on a pair of skates since I was 17 years old.” The teenage Grimes “retired” from hockey after a championship game. “My friend actually passed away this past year and they had a little get-together skate and I couldn’t even go to that,” recalled Grimes. “I showed up to the funeral but I couldn’t go to (the skate) because I can’t put on another pair of skates or I’ll be done with baseball and that’s no lie.” Grimes' demeanor turns serious when asked about his family and how they keep up with how he's doing during the season. “I’m a big family guy. My dad’s my best friend. I’ve got four little sisters and my mom, so it’s a big deal to me,” said Grimes. “I’m really tight with my little sisters. I went to Wichita State and played there and the reason I why I chose there was because I wanted to watch my sisters grow up. Not only do I play for myself, but I play for them and I play for our last name. I take a lot of pride in that.” Obviously, the Grimes are a tight-knit family. “I can sit here and tell you everything about my family and tell you how tight we are, but there’s really no words to describe how me and my family are,” Grimes explained. “It’s about being real and that’s how my personality is. I think that’s why I like catching, because if a pitcher needs to hear something or a pitcher needs to tell me something, I’m not going to be afraid to say anything and that’s how I look at it. But yeah, my family is my everything.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Grimes12-437x600.jpg Tyler Grimes Grimes also is enjoying the time he's spending with his Kernels baseball family this season, but he's also quite philosophical about the life of a minor league ballplayer that he's leading. “Now that I’m here, you’ve got to enjoy these guys, got to enjoy the clubhouse, because you never know when your last day is going to be,” said Grimes. “Two of my friends just got released last week. It just happens that quick. “All these fans that come out and support us would do anything to be in our position. You know what, sometimes as players, we get away from how we have it. Minor league baseball is a grind, but at the same time, if it pays off and you get (to the Major Leagues), you’re going to be accepting a pretty good check every two weeks.” Whether he achieves his goal of playing Big League ball or not, Grimes feels his time in the minor leagues is preparing him for life after baseball. “You meet guys in the clubhouse that you don’t like or you dislike or you love, you have to find a way to get along with everybody,” Grimes went on to explain, “because that’s what’s going to take our team to a winning team or a losing team or a mediocre team. You just never know.” Grimes believes the Twins organization does a very good job of finding players with character. “I don’t know how deep (the Twins) go in to background checks, but everybody in our organization is a classy guy. Everybody gets along,” said Grimes. “The friendships that you build, it’s not just towards baseball. You never know if JD Williams is going to own a business or if Joel Licon’s going to be the owner of a hotel and you get put on with him and you guys just keep in touch. It’s just good because it’s more than baseball. “As much time as we spend together and as much as we get on each others’ nerves, you can’t explain the minor league life to the outsiders. It’s just impossible.” One thing Grimes could explain, however, was his feelings about playing baseball in Cedar Rapids this season. “I called my dad after about the first two weeks, and said, ‘I don’t know what the Big Leagues feels like, but this feels like the Big Leagues to me,” Grimes recalled, adding that the host family program was another aspect he appreciates about his Cedar Rapids experience. Talking about the fan turnout for Kernels games, compared to other places he's played, Grimes was effusive in his praise for the local support the Kernels fans have shown the team. “To be able to play in front of an atmosphere like we go out in front of every night, it makes us enjoy what we’re doing,” said Grimes. “I actually feel like a professional baseball player here.” SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

There is no shortage of great story lines through the first three weeks of the Cedar Rapids Kernels' inaugural season as the Minnesota Twins Class A affiliate in the Midwest League. To begin with, the Kernels (12-5) sit atop the MWL Western Division standings, with a one-game lead over the Quad City River Bandits (Astros). Cedar Rapids has had success both at home (5-2) and on the road (7-3). The biggest story of the first three weeks of the MWL season has undoubtedly been the weather. The Kernels have played only 17 games at this point and that's more than 10 of the other 15 MWL teams have played. Today (Wednesday, April 24) was supposed to be the first scheduled off-day of the Kernels' season. With all of the weather-related postponements and cancellations, it will instead be the seventh day Kernels players will have not played baseball since Opening Day. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Buxton21.jpg Byron Buxton Understandably, attention on the field has focused on center fielder Byron Buxton, the Twins' #1 draft pick a year ago. Buxton got off to an amazing start with the bat, but it was inevitable that he would cool off. He has just three hits in his last 15 at-bats in the most recent four games. That's dropped his batting average all the way down to... .404. He's reached base at a .514 rate and has two doubles, two triples and two home runs producing a 1.128 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS). He also has seven stolen bases. If this is the worst "slump" Buxton has to go through, he's going to have a fun season. But Buxton isn't the only Kernels hitter putting up impressive numbers. First baseman Dalton Hicks has put together a pretty good start of his own, as well. His .310 batting average is backed up by seven doubles and a team-leading three home runs, yielding an OPS of .971. Drew Leachman went hitless in five at-bats on opening night and spent the next couple of weeks on the disabledl list after banging up his shoulder in that game. Leachman has nine hits in 21 at-bats for a .429 average since being activated, with a double, a triple and four RBI in five games. In addition to Buxton, Hicks and Leachman, there are five additional Kernels hitting .270 or better: Niko Goodrum is hitting at a .288 clip with five doubles and a .383 On-Base Percentage (OBP). Jorge Polanco has four doubles and a home run, along with 11 RBI, to go with his .281 Batting Average. Adam Walker also has a .281 average and 11 RBI to go with his two doubles, one triple and two home runs. Travis Harrison shares the team lead in doubles with Hicks at seven and has a pair of home runs, as well. He's hitting .271 on the season. J. D. Williams is hitting .270, but he's parlayed three doubles and a pair of home runs, along with 11 walks, in to a .429 OBP and an OPS of .942. That's some pretty good work, particularly coming from the guy who's held down the #9 spot in the batting order for most of this young season. Perhaps the biggest Kernels news this week was the debut of Jose Berrios, one of the top starting pitching prospects in the Twins organization. Berrios threw five innings on Monday night against the Burlington Bees. He struck out five Bees hitters while giving up seven hits and and two walks. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Berrios2.jpg Jose Berrios If Berrios, who will still be 18 years old for another month, was a bit over-excited for his first start, it would be understandable. He had trouble getting his fastball down in the strike zone for the first couple of innings, but was sufficiently effective and lasted long enough to be credited with the win in the Kernels' 8-4 win over Burlington. Berrios' fastball reportedly hit 96 mph early in the game, but one scout's radar gun consistently recorded it at 91-93 mph during his last two innings of work. However, it's possible that his breaking ball was even more impressive. It had a late, sharp break that buckled more than one set of Bees' knees. In the end, Berrios may turn out to be the biggest pitching story this season for the Kernels, but a number of his fellow pitchers are setting a high standard for him to meet. Tyler Duffey hasn't been able to repeat the seven-perfect-innings performance of his first start of the season, but he's continued to pitch well. Through 19.2 innings of work covering three starts, he's put up a 2.29 ERA, striking out 17 while walking only three hitters. He's also put up a 0.661 WHIP (walks + hits per inning pitched). Mason Melotakis has put up a 2.84 ERA in his three starts, racking up 11 strikeouts in 12.2 innings and Hudson Boyd, while struggling with control at times, has also managed to miss bats. He has struck out a dozen hitters in 14 innings during his three starts. David Hurlbut appears to be the pitcher bumped from the rotation to the bullpen to make room for Berrios (though that could change with the promotion of Taylor Rogers to Fort Myers this week). Hurlbut has put up a 3.00 ERA and a 0.933 WHIP in 15 innings of work in his four appearances (two of them starts). The weather situation has left Brett Lee, who started the season penciled in as the Kernels sixth starting pitcher in a six-man rotation, with just one start in the first three weeks of the season. He's made two other appearances in relief roles. Regardless of how he's entered the game, however, Lee has kept his opponents from scoring. He's sporting a perfect 0.00 ERA over eight innings of work, while striking out seven hitters without surrendering a walk. Steven Gruver has posted a 0.64 ERA in his four appearances, three of which came out of the bullpen, while the other came as an emergency starter. That start was necessitated by the weather forcing the Kernels to play seven games in a period of four days. Gruver has struck out 16 hitters and walked 2 in 14 innings. Gruver, along with Tyler Jones, Tim Atherton, Manuel Soliman and Chris Mazza, have anchored a very effective Kernels bullpen. Gruver, Jones, Atherton and Mazza have all struck out more than a hitter per inning of work. Manager Jake Mauer's group of Kernels are off to a very good start, made even more impressive by the conditions in which they've had to play and the effect the weather has had on their schedule. It will be interesting to see how things come together when the weather turns warm and the fans start to fill up the ballpark. SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Click here to view the article

In baseball's postseason, “every single pitch is so important; every at-bat, no matter what inning.” That was Cedar Rapids Kernels third baseman Travis Harrison talking after Monday’s regular season finale about the playoffs, which start for the Kernels Wednesday night in Davenport against the Quad Cities River Bandits. Harrison knows what he’s talking about, too. He was a member of the rookie level Elizabethton Twins team that won the Appalachian League a year ago.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HarrisonGoodrum.jpg Travis Harrison and Niko Goodrum are going for back to back championships Elizabethton won two “best-of-three games” series to claim the league title last year, but Harrison and his teammates will need to do that much this year just to earn a berth in the Midwest League Championship Series as the representative of the league’s Western Division. (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) If they can best the River Bandits in the first best-of-three series, they’ll take on the survivor of a similar series between Clinton and Beloit in another best-of-three challenge. The Championship Series between the Eastern and Western Divisions' representatives is a best-of-five games series that will decide who wears the Midwest League crown for 2013. Cedar Rapids has not worn that crown since 1994 and has not qualified for the league championship series since 1997. The Kernels finished the 2013 season with an 88-50 record overall. They secured a playoff spot with a second place finish in the first half of their season with a 40-28 record and then improved to a 48-22 record to finish first in the Western Division in the second half of the season. Their 88 wins equals the most wins for a Cedar Rapids team since joining the Midwest League in 1962. To provide context, if applied to a major league team's 162 game schedule, the Kernels' winning percentage would have them on pace to win 103 games. This playoff thing may be relatively new to Kernels fans, who haven’t seen their team play in the post-season since 2010, but almost half the Kernels' current roster were with the Appalachian League Champions in Elizabethton a year ago. In addition to Harrison, infielders Niko Goodrum and Jorge Polanco, outfielders Max Kepler and Adam Brett Walker, catcher Bo Altobelli and pitchers Brett Lee, Jose Berrios, and Hudson Boyd all saw playoff action with Elizabethton. Mason Melotakis, Dallas Gallant and Michael Quesada were also members of that championship team during the course of the 2012 season. Melotakis made two postseason appearances with the Beloit Snappers’ Midwest League playoff team at the end of 2012. A number of other players that spent time with the Kernels this season, including Byron Buxton and Dalton Hicks, were also members of the champions from “E'town”. Hicks hit a walk-off grand slam home run in the 12th inning of the deciding game of the championship series. Walker believes the postseason experience he and his teammates are getting is part of their development. “Going out there and having a series where everything’s on the line. I think it’s pretty important. It’s an exciting feeling to be able to get that experience.” With a smile, Walker added, “I know if you get in the big leagues it’s going to be a little bit different.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Walker1.jpg Adam Brett Walker lines a HR vs Clinton on September 2 It has been a long season for the Kernels players, especially those such as Harrison and Walker, who have both been a part of the Kernels since Opening Day, 138 games ago. That doesn’t matter, according to Harrison. “The playoffs are totally different. You just have to grind it out. If you’re sore, it just goes away. You’ve got so much adrenaline, you’re just ready to go. It’s a good time.” Quesada believes the Kernels are ready. “We’ve got all the confidence in the world, especially after last year. We’ve got the pitching, got the hitting. It’s all ready to come together at one time.” Walker remembers that championship feeling and is ready for more. “We know what it feels like. It’s a really great feeling to be able to go out there and win a championship.” Harrison perhaps summed up the feelings best. “First two years, two rings. That would be pretty cool.” SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

Ivan Arteaga is in his first year serving as the Cedar Rapids Kernels pitching coach, but he’s far from being a rookie when it comes to working with young pitchers in the Twins organization. After bouncing around the minor leagues for much of the 1990s with the Expos, Rockies and Mets organizations, the Venezuela native began coaching young pitchers for the Twins organization in 2001 and he’s been helping to develop the organization’s young arms ever since. Arteaga spent several years as the pitching coordinator for the Twins’ Venezuelan Academy and coached at both Rookie League levels before serving as the pitching coach for the High-A Fort Myers Miracle a year ago. This season, he and Gary Lucas (the 2013 Kernels pitching coach) traded assignments, bringing Arteaga to Cedar Rapids. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ArteagaMauer11.jpg Kernels pitching coach Ivan Arteaga and manager Jake Mauer share a light moment while watching a pair of Kernels pitchers work out. (Photo: SD Buhr/Knuckleballsblog.com) Several hours before game time, you can find Arteaga, often sporting a shirt with the word “ZONING” across the back, working with his pitchers in the Kernels bullpen down the right field line at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Recently, he agreed to sit down and talk about his work with the Kernels and the Twins organization. First things first. What’s with the ZONING shirt? “We’re trying to implement, as an organization, visualization, focus, concentration – actually throwing the ball to one spot without thinking how to throw the ball,” Arteaga answered. The secret to doing that, according to the coach, is visualization. “First, you know what you throw in certain situations and you know where you want to throw it, right? That should be how we pitch. Knowing your strengths and your weaknesses and how to apply that to the hitters’ tendencies. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Arteaga2014a-300x225.jpg Ivan Arteaga “So zoning is basically, we’ve been working for the last couple of years on having the pitchers visualize the pitch before they throw it. OK I have an 0-0 count, I want to throw a breaking ball, I don’t want to throw it down in the dirt, I want to throw it for a strike. So I’ll visualize the pitch how I want to throw it.” Arteaga was quick to point out, however, that it’s not a cookie-cutter approach to teaching pitching. “Everybody’s doing it for the most part, (but) everybody has his own way of doing it. Getting in to the process of thinking about pitching, and throwing the ball; not thinking about the process of ‘how do I throw the ball? My mechanics are off, or this or that.’ You throw the way you throw and it’s kind of hard for us to change that.” It’s not that pitchers don’t need to work on mechanics, of course, but those thoughts are ideally confined to the bullpen workout sessions. Pitchers can’t afford to be thinking about that kind of thing on the mound during games. “You shouldn’t and if you’re doing that, then something’s wrong,” confirmed Arteaga. While he’s an advocate for the Zoning philosophy, Arteaga doesn’t believe that simply subscribing to the approach will assure a young pitcher’s success. “I don’t think that success will be dictated by the Zoning or by how you run or by how you lift or if you sleep enough or how heavy you are or how skinny you are,” said the coach. “Success is a combination of all those factors, plus talent. Success is how you put together the whole package. Mental toughness and talent all together and you apply that in to the game.” Arteaga has been entrusted this season with a number of the Twins organization’s top pitching prospects. Some were high draft choices, others highly coveted international signings, but the coach sees similarities in what each of the pitchers on his staff must overcome. “Facing adversity,” Arteaga said. “Because that’s the main thing. The game is full of adversity. I’ve seen guys with a lot of talent, but they cannot get people out. And I’ve seen guys with lesser talent that are just great, because they’re mentally tough and they know how to apply their talent to the game and to the hitters’ tendencies. “So, to say that the guys that are pitching well are doing the Zoning and the guys that are not are not doing it, I don’t think that would be very smart on my part. I think that everybody’s doing it, it’s just that this is a level where everybody’s so young and so inexperienced. There’s a lot of things they’re working on at the same time. Holding runners. Getting in a routine. Playing every day. Some of these guys just worked on Saturdays or Fridays. Now they come to the ballpark every day.” While subscribing to the Zoning philosophy, in itself, won’t assure success, Arteaga believes there is one thing that a pitcher must develop. “As a pitching coach, if I have to pinpoint one thing that is going to make these guys succeed throughout the year, it’s mental toughness. Mental toughness is part of the Zoning. Mental toughness is part of who you are as a pitcher when adversity strikes. Adversity could be having a cold, you’re sick. Maybe homesick. That’s adversity. It’s just the way it is.” It’s hard sometimes to imagine that such things can enter in to the mind of a professional ballplayer when he’s on the mound during a game but, said Arteaga, “It’ll be there. But how do you set your priorities straight, being able to put all that aside and go and perform?” One thing you hear a lot about with pitchers spending their first year or two as professionals is that organizations try to limit the number of different pitches they work on in a given season. A pitcher who threw a variety of pitches in high school or college sometimes seems to focus on just a fastball and one variety of off-speed pitch early in his professional career. Do the Twins or Arteaga take that approach with the Kernels’ pitchers? There’s no one answer to that question, according to the coach. “Always depends on the player, always.” Arteaga also doesn’t believe there’s a single right approach. “If I tell you that there’s a philosophy out there that is successful, everybody would be doing it,” Arteaga said with a laugh. “So everybody’s different and as a coach you have to fluctuate, not only man to man, player to player, but day by day. There are some days that will be cold, some days will be rainy. You have to learn to adjust to that and as a coach you have to let the guys pitch and learn. “There are some days that the change up might not be there or the breaking balls won’t be there or they’re very good in the bullpen, but not so good on the mound. Or you see that they’ve had a bad week, headaches or something. And the day of the game, everything goes away and they have a great game. “So this is baseball. There’s nothing set in stone. There’s nothing for you to do every day and you’re going to be successful. There’s no guidelines for that.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ArteagaSlegers2014-484x600.jpg Kernels pitching coach Ivan Arteaga and pitcher Aaron Slegers (photo: SD Buhr/Knuckleballsblog.com) For Arteaga, that means treating every player as an individual. “As a coach, I’ve got to adjust to every single one of them and understand what they do and how they do it and how they can be successful by doing that. “Now, yeah, we want to establish the fastball in and out, throw the ball down. We want them to have at least ten per cent change ups every day they throw, the starters, and about 15 per cent the sliders or curve. That’s what we do. “It’s a very simple philosophy. Attack the hitters. Be athletic around the mound. Pitch inside. Throw the ball down and attack. Attack.” Treating each player as an individual must be a challenge, given the widely varying backgrounds that pitchers at the Class A level have. Some were still pitching for their high schools a year ago, some were in college and some have been working their way up through a couple of years of short-season rookie leagues within the Twins organization. Arteaga believes it’s important for him to demonstrate consistency in his approach, even as he works with players individually. “Number one, I am the coach so I try to be the same every day, regardless of the score or regardless of what happened. I won’t panic. I won’t get too high or too low. If they see that in me, they understand that I am under control. I’m fine with what they’re doing. “Now, if I pay enough attention, they will tell me what they need. Once I pay attention, and I get to know them and they get to know me, we establish a relationship. Then I can treat everybody in a different way. “For the most part, yes, you have a standard. That’s who I am. I’m not going to be different to you than I’m going to be to them. That’s who I am.” The individual approach enters during individual instruction, according to Arteaga. “Now, how do I teach you? How do I approach the teaching part of it? That is different. You have different needs as a lefty than as a righty. Different needs as a starter than as a reliever. Different needs as a long reliever than as a closer. So, yes, I have to adjust to each and every one of them.” Since Arteaga was working at the next level up in the organization, with the Miracle in Fort Myers, a year ago, he hadn’t had an opportunity to work much with this year’s crop of Kernels pitchers prior to spring training this year. That means they’ve had just a couple of months to get to know each other. Has that been enough time to establish those individual relationships? “Yes, it’s all about paying attention. It’s all about spending the time with them. When you’re on the road, this is your family. You’re spending 14 hours on a bus ride in this class. You get to know them a little bit. “I believe that they know me well. They know how I’m going to act and react and what I like and not only me, as a coach, but what the Twins want. I’m basically an extension of what the Twins philosophy is. Twins first, then yes, as a person, you put out your knowledge and experience and what you are and you try to teach them the way you teach.” The speculation in the media and among others who follow the Twins minor leagues has been that the Twins had Arteaga and Lucas swap coaching assignments this season because the Twins knew they’d have a number of significant Latin American prospects on the Kernels’ staff and they may find it helpful from a communication standpoint to have a Spanish-speaking pitching coach. Arteaga isn’t certain that was really a significant factor, however. “I don’t know if that’s the case,” observed Arteaga, concerning such speculation. “I guess that it’s got something to do with it. Obviously, the communication factor is important. “Yeah, I think that helps, but at the same time, I think I have one half (of the pitching staff) that were born in the United States. They’re college guys, some of them are very good prospects. So I have to be able to teach baseball. “Personally, I think that I can communicate with anyone. I’ve worked on my English for a long time and keep working on it. I prepare myself all the time to be able to communicate in both languages. Not only in baseball terms, but in life. Understand the culture, understand how Americans go about their everyday lives. I’ve spent half of my life learning that, because I was here, playing and coaching.” Speaking of top prospects, his Kernels staff has a lot of them. Does he feel any additional pressure to make sure all of the high-priced pitching talent with the Kernels this summer progresses the way the Twins want? “I feel motivation. I have a plan every day and I do my best every day so they can get better. I’m not pitching anymore, so I don’t have stress or sense of urgency because I do everything that I can every day to teach these guys how the game is, the game that we want them to pitch, the Minnesota Twins. So I have my own plan that I have learned over the last 14 years with the Twins. “So to have guys, regardless of how much talent they have, to be able to coach them every day, that’s my motivation. If not, I wouldn’t be here. That’s what moves me every day, to have the motivation to teach somebody and to actually help them with the game and with life.” Certainly, a coach like Arteaga must get a sense of satisfaction from seeing his pitchers succeed, though. “You do,” Arteaga confirmed. Yet it isn’t just seeing pitchers advance through the ranks that gives him satisfaction. “I think I get most satisfied when we make eye contact, regardless of the situation, that’s the best communication you can have with a human being.” “I can talk to you all day,” Arteaga continued, “but when you’re pitching and I’m coaching and you pitch a good inning or a bad inning or a bad at-bat or something, and you walk in to the dugout or I go to the mound and there’s eye contact, you should know what is what and how I feel. That’s the relationship thing you create with the player, regardless of whether he’s going to be here for one day or ten days or 25 years. Because you care.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ArteagaSlegersb.jpg Ivan Arteaga having a between-innings chat with Aaron Slegers (photo: SD Buhr/Knuckleballs) Arteaga understands that’s not an aspect of the game that many outsiders can appreciate. “People don’t see that. Fans don’t see that. Journalists don’t see that. TV cameras don’t see that. TV cameras will look at emotions and what is exciting for everybody. But as a coach when, for whatever reason, your team gave up 14 runs that night, then you make eye contact and you’re able to assure those guys, ‘you know what, it’s okay, it’s going to be fine, we’ll work on it.’” The night before Arteaga sat for the interview, two Kernels pitchers had been victimized for a combined 12 runs. Can he communicate that kind of assurance to those guys after that kind of night? “Of course, because that’s baseball, It’s every day,” assured Arteaga. “Because what if I overreact last night and I tell them that they’re not good enough? Maybe because I don’t feel well. That’s me, but it’s not about me. It’s about them. So what if I overreact and I tell them they’re not good? The next thing you know, I’ve lost all that the staff had for me because I overreacted. So maybe apologizing might not be enough after that. “So, I’m with them every pitch. Yeah, we lost a game, fine. Then today is a different day and make no mistake, these guys are going to work today to get better so they can pitch well tomorrow. It’s a 142 game season.” Through the first week or so of May, Arteaga’s work with the Kernels is beginning to pay off. Two Kernels starters (Aaron Slegers and Kohl Stewart) are among the top 10 Midwest League pitchers in WHIP, two (Slegers and Ryan Eades) are in the top 10 in strikeouts and two more among the top 10 in saves (Hudson Boyd and the recently promoted Brandon Peterson). Nine Kernels pitchers have ERAs of 3.00 or below. Click here to view the article

The Cedar Rapids Kernels opened their 2014 season with a split of their four-game series with the Clinton Lumber Kings. The weather over the weekend was tolerable, with highs in the mid 50s to around 60 degrees, but Thursday’s Opening Night was far from delightful, with temperatures in the 30s and occasional rain. On Friday, the weather forced the season’s first postponement. On Monday, the team boarded their bus for their first road trip. They’ll play six games in Michigan before returning Monday, April 13. Before they left town with their team mates, the Kernels’ three-man catching corps sat down for an interview. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/AltobelliQuesadaGarver1.jpg Kernels catching corps, from left to right: Bo Altobelli, Michael Quesada and Mitch Garver Bo Altobelli, Michael Quesada and Mitch Garver have several things in common. They are similar in age and each played some college baseball before starting their professional careers with the Twins. In addition, each of the three hails from areas of the country that you would assume allows baseball to be played in more moderate weather than what welcomed them to Cedar Rapids last week. Altobelli’s from Texas, Quesada went to school in California and Garver in New Mexico. They were asked over the weekend if they had any prior experience playing ball in conditions comparable to what they faced in their first week of Midwest League play this season. Bo Altobelli: It’s a little different, especially coming from Florida up here, so that’s the major change. But it does get cold in Texas. We have played games in sleet and snow before, so I’m a little bit used to it. Of course, you prefer the Florida weather, which hopefully will come here soon. Michael Quesada: Being from California, this is as cold as I’ve had to play in, but it’s a learning experience. You go up and down the (organizational) ladder, there’s cold places. Minnesota, for example. You’re not going to complain when you’re up there, are you? You might as well get used to it now. We’re not the only ones who are cold, everyone else is cold, too. So it’s something you’ve got to work through it and experiment with ways to stay warm. Mitch Garver: It’’s very similar (in New Mexico). We get a lot of wind. We don’t get a lot of moisture. There’s no snow and sleet and rain, but when it does rain, there’s always going to be wind to accompany it. So the cold is familiar, but you can never really get used to it. You’re always going to be playing in cold, so the first few months of the season, there’s an adjustment. A year ago, Garver was finishing up his college career at New Mexico. He was asked what differences he’s noticed as he enters his first year of full season professional baseball. Garver: It’s just different doing this every day. You have to learn how to maintain your body and how you prepare each day is based off how you feel. If you’re feeling a little down one day, you might have to do something a little bit extra to get going. It’s different from college because really baseball is the only thing you have to worry about. You have to worry about keeping your body in shape, showing up to the field on time, doing what you’ve got to do to prepare. Whereas in college, you had to take care of your social life, your emotional life, your school work and other factors that go in to it. It’s a more independent way of living and the competition obviously is better. So does that mean you have no social life or anything like that when you’re playing professional baseball? Garver: You’ve really got to balance things. In pro baseball, your social life is within the team. It’s kind of who you hang out with 24/7. Both Quesada and Altobelli spent time in Cedar Rapids a season ago. They were asked whether they were adjusting their approaches this year as they return to open the season with the Kernels, but clearly hope to be getting considered for possible promotions to the next level. Quesada: My adjustment is not worrying about it. I think I worried too much last year, putting pressure on myself with what to do. It’s a marathon, like Mitch said, it’s every day. I think I played pitch by pitch every day like it was my last pitch and I think you have to pace yourself a little bit. That’s the adjustment I’m making this year is pacing myself throughout the year. I understand it’s 140-some odd games, plus spring training. I’m treating my body a little differently, adjusting that way. That’s really the difference that I feel. After my first full season, I caught a lot last year and this year I’m trying to treat it as a marathon and not a sprint. Altobelli: Similar to what they said, you can’t worry about it because the moment you think you’ve got it figured out, you’ll find out you’ve got no idea what’s going on as far as what they think you’re going to do and what you think yourself you’re going to do. So you can’t think about it. You’ve just got to go out there and play. Play how you want to play and the rest will take care of itself. If the team wins, everyone’s going to be happy and, more likely, people will move up if you win. So just focus on winning and the rest will take care of itself. The Kernels roster includes 13 pitchers, leaving room for just 12 position players. Three of those spots are held by these catchers. That means Kernels manager Jake Mauer has to ration out innings behind the plate among the three backstops. They were asked how it works out, splitting time among the three of them. Altobelli: Every year of pro ball, we’ve had three catchers where I’m at, so it’s nothing new to me. But being here, we know Jake’s going to help us out the best that he can, DHing us, maybe getting time at first base, who knows. You’ve got to try and stay focused, take some extra BP if you need it. At least we’re catching bullpens if we’re not playing, so the ball’s still coming at us. So we’re still getting that feel down. It’s definitely difficult, but Jake does a good job of getting us in there and trying to keep us in a routine so credit to him for keeping us up to date with what’s going on. Quesada: All of that’s out of our control. It’s up to Jake and the organization. It’s not anything we have any power over. All we can do is go out and play the best we can. If they’re going to play us more, then they do. Jake, as Bo said, does a really good job of finding ways to get us in there somehow. He’s not going to shortchange us. Garver, on the other hand, was catching almost every game during his college season a year ago. Garver: Yeah, that’s right. It’s a long season. It’s longer than most people might think. It’s my first full season, so I guess I probably don’t have a feel for it like these guys do, but 140 games is a long time and if you’re really only using one or two catchers, it’s going to break down toward the end of the year. I think having three guys is going to be helpful. You can stay fresh. You can get some days off, get some at-bats at some different positions where you don’t normally play. It teaches you how to be a good baseball player. If you’re only playing one position, you’re not going to be as baseball savvy as you are if you can play multiple positions. They like to see how you can do at different positions and I think that’s a cool thing. Click here to view the article

Download attachment: Berrios_Jose_Landscape.jpg It's been a busy weekend, but a good week, and it might get quite a bit better. After having four straight games postponed by weather last week, the Cedar Rapids Kernels found themselves playing a lot of baseball in just a few days' time. The Kernels played back-to-back doubleheaders in Clinton on Saturday and Sunday. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] Midwest League rules prohibit a team from playing doubleheaders on three straight days, so they played a single game against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Monday night, despite having two games in Wisconsin postponed a week ago. Tuesday night, it was another pair of games. That's a lot of games to find pitching for. Manager Jake Mauer had planned to use a six-man rotation, but with postponements resulting in seven games being scheduled over the course of just four days, he and pitching coach Gary Lucas could have found themselves a couple of starting pitchers short. It could have been a recipe for disaster. There was one disaster among those games but, ironically, the disaster came on the one night that only one game was scheduled. Monday night, the Kernels got what Mauer called, "an old fashioned (butt) kicking." The Kernels dropped that game to Wisconsin 14-2. But the Kernels had swept Saturday's doubleheader in Clinton, split the Sunday twinbill with the Lumber Kings and wrapped up the seven-game stretch with a doubleheader sweep of the Timber Rattlers Tuesday night. After all of that, the Kernels found themselves a half-game ahead of Quad Cities atop the MWL Western Division standings. Byron Buxton also sits atop the League with a .474 batting average, a .556 on-base percentage and a 1.292 OPS. He has to settle for just the second-highest slugging percentage (.737) in the league. Buxton sat out the first game of Tuesday's doubleheader after taking a pitch off of his upper forearm in Monday night's loss. But he came back to get three hits (two of them in the Kernels' eight-run first inning) during the nightcap. Buxton's not the only Kernels hitter off to a hot start. In fact, Dalton Hicks was named the MWL's first Player of the Week for 2013. Hicks' slash line is .341/.426/.732 for an OPS of 1.157, good enough for third in the league through Tuesday's games. Hicks is also one of five MWL hitters leading the league in home runs, with three, and has also hit a MWL-leading seven doubles. Jorge Polanco has contributed a .317/.349/.463 line, with one home run and three doubles. As a team, the Kernels lead the MWL with a .759 OPS and have hit nine home runs. Not to be outdone, the pitching staff is also leading the MWL with a 2.56 ERA (though they do have to share that honor with the South Bend staff). That six-man rotation Mauer talked about before the season started hadn't exactly worked out the way he expected. The sixth man in that rotation, Brett Lee, didn't get his first start until the first game of Tuesday night's doubleheader. Until then, he'd been limited to a couple of one-inning "stay sharp" relief appearances. Lee came through big time, though. He threw six innings of shutout ball. Steven Gruver, who found out earlier in the day Tuesday that he would become the "seventh starter" in the Kernels rotation, likewise came through for the Kernels, throwing four shutout innings in Game 2 Tuesday. Tyler Jones and Tim Atherton pitched equally well in relief roles. Jones got his second save with an inning of shutout work in Game 1 and Atherton threw three innings, giving up a single run on two hits, to earn the "W" in Game 2. All told, in the 14 innings of work Tuesday night, the four Kernels pitchers struck out 12 Timber Rattlers and walked exactly zero hitters. How could things get any better? Well, we may be about to find out. The Cedar Rapids Gazette's Kernels beat reporter, Jeff Johnson, tweeted late Tuesday that starting pitching prospect Jose Berrios is expected to join the Kernels from Extended Spring Training on Thursday. If so, Berrios would likely meet the Kernels in Peoria for the beginning of a week-long road trip. SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. His alter-ego, "Jim Crikket," is a co-founder of Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

With just 40 games remaining in their regular season schedule, now seems like a good time to step back and take a look at the state of the Cedar Rapids Kernels. It's almost laughable to even question whether or not the affiliation switch from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to the Minnesota Twins has been good for Cedar Rapids. Of course it has, by pretty much every measurement. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] The Kernels have already qualified for the Midwest League postseason by virtue of their second place finish in the first half of the season. Tracking the improved play, fan interest is up, too. Attendance is up some, but even more telling, the fans who show up for games are enthusiastically engaged in what's happening on the field. The past few years, that has not always been the case at Veterans Memorial Stadium. It certainly didn't hurt that one of the Twins' top prospects, Byron Buxton, got off to such an incredible start this spring. He drew fan and media interest from well beyond the local community. But even after the inevitable promotion of Buxton to the Twins' High-A affiliate at Fort Myers in June, the Kernels have continued to win games. That may come as a surprise to those so blinded by Buxton's aura that they didn't notice the Kernels' roster included a number of other very talented players. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Murphy5-600x409.jpg Jonathan Murphy Of course, Buxton isn't the only Kernels player the Twins have rewarded with a bump up in playing level. This season, the Kernels have already seen about a dozen players, promoted to Fort Myers. The Twins, as an organization, have a reputation for being conservative with their promotions. They historically have preferred to see most players spend at least an entire season, if not more, at most minor league levels. No doubt Kernels officials were hoping that trend would continue. In past seasons, the Angels seemingly couldn't wait to promote players as soon as they demonstrated any level of productivity in a Kernels uniform. Among position players, Buxton was the only key offensive contributor lost to promotion, until J.D. Williams and Dalton Hicks were bumped up to Fort Myers about a week ago. It's not easy to replace players found in the top 10 of most Midwest League offensive statistical categories like Williams (on-base percentage, OPS), Hicks (home runs, RBI, slugging pct., OPS) and Buxton (almost everything), but players brought into Cedar Rapids by the Twins to replace the departing hitters have done well. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Kepler11.jpg Max Kepler Max Kepler joined the Kernels once he completed rehabilitating his injured elbow. He arrived four days before Buxton was promoted and he has hit for a .263 average. Thirteen of his 31 hits have been for extra bases. Jonathan Murphy is hitting .333 in the 17 games he's played since his arrival at the beginning of July and Joel Licon has performed well in a utility infielder role since he joined the team in early June. It's too early to know for certain how well Mike Gonzales will fill in for the departed Hicks, but the big first baseman has four hits in his first eight at-bats as a Kernel. Gonzales hit .289 and stroked 15 home runs for the Beloit Snappers in 2011. He missed much of his 2012 season in Fort Myers and after starting this season with the Miracle, a wrist injury has sidelined him for the past several weeks. On the pitching front, the Kernels lost Taylor Rogers before most fans even got to know him. He made three unimpressive starts for the Kernels before being moved on to Fort Myers. Jose Berrios, a supplemental first round draft pick in the 2012 First Year Player Draft and one of the top pitching prospects in the Twins organization, essentially took Rogers' spot in the Kernels rotation. The subsequent promotion of Tyler Duffey in early June left a much more significant hole at the top of the Kernels' rotation. Duffey carried a 2.78 ERA and a 0.943 WHIP through nine starts when he left Cedar Rapids. Josue Montanez initially worked from the Kernels bullpen after his promotion to Cedar Rapids in June, but has shown some starter potential since joining the rotation about a month ago. Perhaps even more critically, the Kernels have seen four important members of their bullpen earn promotions. Matt Tomshaw and Manuel Soliman had contributed a total of 59 innings of work over a combined 30 appearances before they were promoted. Last week, the Twins elevated Steve Gruver and Tyler Jones, who had combined to provide a formidable left-right relief combination late in games. Reliever Alex Muren has been relatively effective since arriving from extended spring training in early May, and the early returns from more recent additions Madison Boer, Dallas Gallant and Tim Shibuya are encouraging. But the bottom line in baseball is all about wins and losses. The Kernels were 44-28, for a .611 winning percentage, with Buxton on the roster. Since his promotion four games in to the second half schedule, the Kernels are 17-9 (.654) and they are leading the MWL West Division by three games over first-half champion Beloit. It's certainly too soon to know what effect losing the four players promoted last week will have on the team's fortunes. However, the Kernels have won five of the six games played (all on the road) since Hicks, Williams, Jones and Gruver got their well-deserved promotions. On Tuesday, the first member of the Twins' draft class of 2013 was promoted to Cedar Rapids when seventh-round pick Brian Gilbert was added to the Kernels' roster. Roster turnover is just a fact of life in minor league baseball. When the local team starts out winning a lot of games, it's probably because a lot of players are performing very well and players that perform very well deserve promotions to the next level. One way to measure the strength of an organization is to look at how a minor league team performs after a number of their best players are promoted. If the new players perform well and the team continues winning, that's a very good sign. So far, that's what we're seeing in Cedar Rapids. That bodes well, this season, for the Kernels and for the Twins in the long run. SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

Heading in to the 2014 season, everyone pretty much had expectations in check with regard to the Cedar Rapids Kernels. The team's fortunes would likely turn on the performance of a staff of young, highly heralded pitching prospects. The offense, meanwhile, could very well struggle to score enough runs to keep the Minnesota Twins' Midwest League affiliate competitive. As they near the end of the first month of the season, however, the Kernels are two games above .500 with a 13-11 record and the hitting is at least as responsible for that success as the pitching staff is. Infielder Tanner Vavra and outfielder Zack Larson are just two of the Cedar Rapids players making major contributions with their bats. Before Tuesday night's game with Kane County, Vavra and Larson talked about their season thus far. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/LarsonVavra2014.jpg Zack Larson and Tanner Vavra Vavra, the son of Twins coach Joe Vavra, spent a few days recently at the very top of the Midwest League's leader board in batting average and still leads his team with a .344 average. He's also reaching base at a .391 rate and carries an .829 OPS through Tuesday's games. While most fans may not have expected that kind of production out of Vavra, neither he nor his manager seem terribly surprised, either. “He’s a guy that really obviously has been around the game his whole life, with his dad being a professional baseball guy,” said Jake Mauer of his second baseman. “He’s got a lot of baseball instincts. He knows himself as a player. He knows what he needs to do and he plays to his strengths. He’s a guy that puts together good at-bats. He makes the routine plays. He’s definitely earned his playing time.” “I’m just trying to put good swings on (the ball) and help the team win,” said Vavra of his hot start to the season. “I’m just trying to stay with the same approach and kind of just get my pitch and get on base for guys like Larson here to drive me in.” Meanwhile, Larson's also got a pretty impressive early-season slash line, as well with a .307 batting average, a .351 on-base percentage and an .806 OPS. That's not a bad start for a 20 year-old in his first year with a full-season affiliate. “He’s really come on for a younger guy and made some adjustments.” his manager said of Larson. “He was having a little hard time with offspeed pitches, but that’s not the case any more. He's doing a nice job out in right field. He’s going to hit in the middle of our order and he’s getting even better in the outfield and that’s pretty encouraging to see.” Larson's just as humble as Vavra when asked about his contributions, too. “Like Tanner, I'm just trying to put good swings on it,” said Larson. “That’s my main focus, put a good swing on the ball and hopefully good things happen.” Both hitters have been particularly productive at the plate with teammates on the bases. In fact, both Vavra and Larson are hitting at a .400 clip with runners on base. Neither man claims they do anything special in those situations, though. “I don’t like to get out, so I try to take the same approach with runners on or runners not.” said Vavra, laughing. Added Larson, “Just barrel it up and put a good swing on it. I try to do that every at-bat; stay focused.” The two team mates may be making similar contributions to their team's cause this season, but they come at their tasks from very different backgrounds. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Larson2014-600x449.jpg Zack Larson Larson was drafted by the Twins in the 20th round of the 2012 First Year Player Draft out of his Bradenton, Florida high school. A 24 year-old from Wisconsin, Vavra played college ball at Valparaiso University before being drafted by the Twins in the 30th round of last June's draft. A year ago, top Twins prospects Jorge Polanco and Adam Brett Walker were manning the positions that Vavra and Larson are holding down this season. Both guys just smile when asked about trying to live up to the offensive legacy of last year's Kernels. “I think we all knew it was going to be tough to follow in the footsteps of the team from last year and we were never trying to do that,” said Vavra. “We're never trying to live up to what they did last year, because, let’s face it, that’s pretty special what everybody got to see with the number one prospect in all of baseball playing (in Cedar Rapids).” “With that being said, our goal is still the same,” Vavra added, “to get to the playoffs and put good seasons together individually and have a great team season. Hopefully take it one step farther and get that ring.” And maybe do enough to get a promotion to the next level in the organization? "Everyone wants that," acknowledged Larson, "but you can’t control that. You can only control what you do. Can’t worry about that." Larson shares the Midwest League lead with 10 doubles already this season, just one shy of his total two-baggers during his 55 games a year ago at both rookie league levels combined. Then again, he had five home runs last season and has just one as a Kernel. But don't expect Larson to feel disappointed with his results so far. “I’m not disappointed at all,” Larson explained. “I’m not worried about hitting home runs. I’m just worried about helping the team win and putting good swings on the ball and if I hit a home run, it’s cool. Whatever I can do to help the team.” “He’s young.” chimed in Vavra, about his team mate. “He’s still got a lot of manpower to come his way. This is his first full season. You never know, he might catch hot in July once the weather warms up and you’re going to see big things out of him.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Vavra1-600x456.jpg Tanner Vavra Vavra's complete story can't be told without mentioning that he's blind in his right eye, the result of a fishing accident at age three and a subsequent injury suffered playing football several years later. His ability to play baseball at a professional level with that limitation inevitably comes up during interviews. That could give a player a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but Vavra said questions about his eyesight don't bother him much anymore. “It’s kind of come and gone. That used to be the biggest concern.” said Vavra. “People doubted me.” “It irritated me for a while and it’s still a little chip,” Vavra continued, “but I’m just trying to get rid of the whole, ‘You’re here because of your dad,’ type deal.” “I haven’t gotten anything like that from the players, they’ve all been great. I haven’t heard that once. It’s from bloggers and those people that somehow send a letter to your house and tell you that you don’t belong. That’s my chip right now. The eye thing is always going to be there, but that’s my new chip.” While it's understandable that Vavra would be sensitive to suggestions that he hasn't earned his place in pro ball, having a father in the game has its benefits. “This offseason, I got to work with him for 5-6 months. That’s incredible. Going from usually working with him for three or four weeks over Christmas break to five months. It was definitely helpful.” While Vavra was spending his offseason working out indoors in Wisconsin with his dad, Larson was wintering in a much warmer climate. “Down in Bradenton, I give lessons at an indoor batting facility and my hitting coach is also there,” said Larson, of his offseason. “I hit with him and work out, try to get in the best shape I can before the season starts. Every day, hitting cage, doing something with baseball.” Larson arguably seemed to have an edge on non-baseball related activities. “I go to the beach. Beach is a big thing in Florida,” said Larson. “Just hang out with my friends. I don’t see them that often. They’re in college when I’m back at home.” Vavra, on the other hand, “did a lot of hunting and fishing. Different fishing though, dropping a line through the ice.” The look on Larson's face, hearing that, gave the impression he wasn't inclined to trade offseasons with his teammate. Click here to view the article

One of the top ranked high school power hitters at the time, Travis Harrison was drafted by the Twins with a supplemental first round pick (the 50th overall pick) in 2011. He signed a $1.05 million bonus to join the Twins organization and bypassed a scholarship offer to play baseball for USC. There's never been much doubt about Harrison's ability to hit a baseball. The question in many minds is what his ultimate defensive position will be. Right now, the Twins are working with Harrison to develop his skills at third base for the Cedar Rapids Kernels. Harrison is one of the top third base prospects in the Twins minor league organization, along with super-prospect Miguel Sano, who is currently playing for high Class A Fort Myers. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Harrison2.jpg This past Friday night, Harrison gave his Kernels team a dramatic win with a 12th inning walk-off single to beat the Kane County Cougars. It was the second consecutive walk-off victory for the Kernels, coming just one night after Byron Buxton's walk-off grand slam home run to beat the Burlington Bees. It was Harrison's second walk-off single recently. The first came when he hit what appeared to be a grand slam home run to beat the Lansing Lugnuts. However, his team mates mobbed him as he rounded second base and two of the runners ahead of him were ruled by the umpires to have abandoned their attempts to advance, leaving Harrison with a very long game winning single, rather than a home run. On Saturday afternoon, the day after his most recent game winning hit, Harrison sat down with me for an interview. SD Buhr: You're still learning to play third base. You had kind of a rough start to the season with something like five errors in the first 10 games. You seem to be looking a lot more comfortable out there lately. Are you feeling better out there? http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HarrisonMauerPregame.jpg Travis Harrison and Manager Jake Mauer Travis Harrison: Yeah, I've been feeling good. Jake (Manager Jake Mauer) has been helping a ton and he's also made me learn that I might have a couple of errors, but they're errors being aggressive. They (official scorers) are giving me errors on tough plays, but I want to be a big league third baseman, so that's fine. But I'm not worried about the errors, I'm worried about making plays for the pitcher, making plays for the team. Just like any other infielder, if they give you an error and you're doing the best you can do, you can't control that. SDB: You've made a lot of pretty nice plays out there as well. You probably feel better about those than you necessarily feel bad about the errors? Harrison: Yeah, I mean you always want to make the routine plays first, that's your number one goal, so you focus on that. You give 100 per cent effort and you're going to make highlight plays every once in a while and those are good for the team. But first of all, you want to make the routine plays. Those are most important. SDB: The Twins have, for years, had a little trouble finding a third baseman to stick at the big league level. Is that something that gives you some motivation? The flip side of that is there are a couple of guys in the organization above you that look like they could have the potential to stick as well. Do you pay attention to what everyone else in the organization at your position is doing or do you just go out and worry about playing your game? Harrison: I just go out and play. I want to be the starting third baseman for the Twins for a long time. I mean that's the goal. I know I can do it. I just have to keep putting in the hard work and I'll get there. Following the other people? No. I know the other guys because of spring training. I know Miguel (Sano), we worked out together. Miguel's a great player. I'm just going to work my ass off and whatever happens is going to happen. SDB: You look around the Midwest League and you would be leading a lot of teams in a lot of offensive statistical categories. Here, you're one part, though one very important part, of an awfully good day-to-day lineup. Harrison: It's fun to be a part of. We're all off to good starts. We're all hitting the ball pretty well and we're all pulling for each other. No one's concerned with who has the most RBIs or anything. We're all just trying to do a job. I gotta say though, Walker (Adam Brett Walker) is stealing a lot of my RBIs, isn't he? Every time I get up there, there's no one on base! (laughing) It's fun. Walker's obviously off to a good start, Buck (Byron Buxton) is off to a good start. Everyone in the lineup really is. And so we're all just having fun, doing the best we can. Stats don't really tell you anything in baseball. Nothing really. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Harrison1.jpg Travis Harrison SDB: There's a whole sabermetric community that doesn't want to hear you say that! Harrison: Right (laughing). It's true though, ya know. For example, they saw Niko (Goodrum) had an error last night. Niko had the best game he's had all year at shortstop last night! It's stuff like that. So, they get on you about numbers things, things like that. It's just not the story, so we don't worry about that kind of stuff. SDB: You've had, at least that I've seen, two walk-off singles. This one was a little different than the last time. Harrison: This one was a real single (laughing). Yeah, those are fun. The only non-fun part about it is getting drenched with ice in the shower. Buck had to go through it the night before and they got me last night, but yeah it's exciting. Just goes back to pulling for each other. Just trying to get it done. We're not a bunch of selfish guys, we're just trying to win for the team. SDB: You might be responsible for one lesson that the entire team has learned. After Buxton's grand slam the other night, everybody came to home plate and waited for him instead of chasing him around second base. So there's a lesson learned. I don't know if you're responsible for teaching it to them, but somebody did, right? Harrison: (laughing) Right, that was good. With Buck's, we were down by three so they didn't have a choice. SDB: You're not going to tell me those guys ran around chasing you because they knew it didn't matter if your run counted or not. You don't really believe anybody was thinking like that. Harrison: No, we were all just super excited. They weren't trying to steal anything away from me. I was excited, I was jumping up and down. It didn't matter. When they told me it was a single after the game, I wasn't really worried about it. SDB: Tell me a little about yourself in high school. Were you a mulit-sport guy or did you pretty much stick to baseball? Harrison: No, I stuck to baseball. I played with APD Academy all through high school. It's a big baseball academy out in southern California. I started at a really young age and I stuck with that. I played basketball in middle school. Never played football, even though I went to a big football school. I stayed away from that. It was all baseball. I tried to focus on that. I've always played golf. Golf's fun. I enjoy that. SDB: That was going to be the next question. Away from the ballpark, what sort of things do you enjoy doing? Harrison: I love playing golf. I'm a big golfer. I love playing the guitar. I like things that kind of take me away from playing baseball and things that I can just relax and just focus on that. I'm not a big video game guy. I've always gotta do something. So when I'm out on the golf course, I feel like I'm not even thinking about baseball. I'm just away from it. Like, sometimes if I'm going through a slump, I go out and play a round of golf in the morning just to reset. SDB: The coaches don't mind that? This is old school, but there was a time when coaches discouraged players from golfing because they didn't want it screwing up the player's swing. Harrison: Everyone tells me that. I think of it as two totally different sports. I've been swinging a baseball bat since I was three or four years old, so I'm not going to forget how to do that. I don't even think about that. They're both hand-eye coordination. I think if it gets in your head, that's when you might get screwed up. Once you get to know the golf swing, there's actually a lot of similar things that go on between a golf swing and a baseball swing. Obviously, the ball's down but it's never really bothered me, it's always relaxed me and it's got me focused again. SDB: I read somewhere that the Twins wanted you to show more power this year, rather than spraying the ball to all fields. That seems contrary to the Twins past hitting philosophy, in my mind. Is that what they wanted to see you do more of this year? Harrison: I think so. I mean they want me to hit the ball hard and hit the ball out of the park and hit doubles and that kind of thing. I don't go up there thinking, “try to hit a home run.” I think, “try to hit a hard line drive.” I know home runs are going to come. Home runs are about selecting a pitch you can drive out of the yard instead of taking one you can hit to right field for a single. And I'm learning that, slowly. I've hit some home runs this year and I've hit a lot of doubles and so that's going well. SDB: I think you've got the same number of home runs this year that you had all of last year. Harrison: Yeah, I should have more! (laughing) SDB: At least one! Harrison: (smiling) So yeah, it's going good. Post-script: Harrison hit a home run in Sunday's game and another in Monday's game. On Tuesday, the Kernels had a Charity Golf Outing. I can't say I know for sure, but I'm guessing Harrison participated. - SD Buhr SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Click here to view the article

One of the unique things about Class A minor league baseball is that the season is divided in to two halves. The format allows teams, such as the Kernels, who had strong first halves of the season to qualify for postseason play at the mid-point of the season. It also gives teams that struggle early a chance to start over with a clean slate for the second half. The format benefits teams that experience significant roster turnover which is common among Class A affiliated teams. Sometimes, it also allows players that get off to a slow start to start over and salvage their seasons, not to mention their prospect status in the eyes of the organizational scouts that will largely determine their futures in professional baseball. Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher Hudson Boyd is one such player who has benefited from the chance to demonstrate improvement and versatility in the second half of the Kernels’ 2013 season. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Boyd1.jpg Boyd was selected in 2011 by the Minnesota Twins as a supplemental first round pick (55th pick overall) in the First Year Player Draft following his senior year of high school at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers, Florida. He had a scholarship offer to play baseball at the University of Florida, but ultimately signed with the Twins for a reported $1 million bonus and reported for his first season of professional baseball in 2012 at the Twins’ spring training facility in his home town of Fort Myers. The right-hander weighed 275 pounds the summer after graduating from high school in 2011, according to one Fort Myers media report. The Twins made no secret of their feelings that Boyd would need to work himself in to better shape to survive the long seasons inherent in professional baseball and Boyd had already trimmed several pounds by the time he was pitching for Elizabethton a year ago for the Twins' Rookie level team there. This spring, Boyd was listed at just 225 pounds spread over his 6’ 2” frame when he opened the season in the Kernels’ starting rotation. The new look didn’t translate in to instant success, however. In the first half of the season, Boyd posted a 1-4 record for the Kernels in twelve starts, with a 6.56 ERA. Hitters knocked Boyd around to the tune of a .284 batting average. “Yeah, I think I got a little too obsessed with (dropping weight),” Boyd said in an interview over the past weekend. “I think I was a little too light. I noticed my fastball (velocity) starting to drop.” In his first start of the second half of the season, on the road against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Boyd went just five innings, giving up five earned runs on eight hits, while walking six batters and striking out just one. While Boyd was credited with the win as the Kernels topped Wisconsin 13-9, he was pulled from the rotation after that game and began working out of the Cedar Rapids bullpen. Since that time, in eleven relief appearances covering 21 1/3 innings of work, Boyd has thrown to a 1.69 ERA out of the bullpen, while striking out 16 hitters and holding batters to a .208 batting average. That turnaround alone would be quite a story, but the story doesn’t end there. With several of the Kernels’ starting pitchers nearing innings limits imposed by the Twins organization, the club’s pitching coach, Gary Lucas, has been faced with a need to pull some of the those pitchers from the rotation as the regular season winds to a close. That meant Lucas would need some members of his bullpen to replace those starters in the rotation. Boyd got the news a couple of weeks ago that he was going to be re-inserted in to the starting rotation. The news came as a bit of a surprise, according to Lucas, but Boyd has taken the switch in stride. “Whatever gives us the best chance to win,” Boyd said, “I was down with that.” His first game back in the rotation was a forgettable effort where he failed to survive the third inning, but since that game, he’s steadily improved. On Friday, Boyd threw seven strong innings against the Quad Cities River Bandits, the team the Kernels will be facing in the first round of the Midwest League Playoffs beginning Wednesday, September 4. Boyd gave up just three runs on four hits and a pair of walks on the night, while striking out four. Boyd seemed more comfortable than he was during most of his early-season starts. “I was able to get through seven, which was nice. Just trying to throw a lot more strikes than I was early in the year,” said Boyd. Boyd indicated he has also made some adjustments to his preparation process. “Being in the bullpen, I think I learned some things I didn’t really need to do. I kind of have a better routine and it hasn’t been that big of an adjustment to get back in to it.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Boyd1-480x600.jpg Boyd has been on the Kernels’ roster since Opening Day in April and, as has been the case with most of his team mates, he was quick to praise the local fan base. “It’s been pretty nice. The fans up here are great,” said Boyd. “They’ve been really supportive of our team all year, so it’s been pretty fun to see the big packed crowds we get. I’ve definitely pitched in front of more people up here than I ever have in my life. So it’s been a fun year.” Still, nobody could fault Boyd for being anxious for a promotion to the Class high-A Fort Myers Miracle. Everyone likes the look of the next rung on the organizational ladder, but that’s particularly the case when the next rung means getting to play in your home town. “Yeah, the next step up for us is where I’m from,” Boyd admitted. ”It’s where I live in the off-season. So, the next step up, I’ll just be going home.” Don’t look for Boyd to drop more weight as he prepares for next year, however. In fact, Boyd may look to put back on some of the weight he shed a year ago. If he does add weight, it will be, “good weight,” assured Boyd. “I’m more looking to put it on in my legs than anything - just trying to get a lot stronger in my legs.” This has been the 20-year-old’s first exposure to a full season of professional baseball, giving Boyd a sense of what his body needs to be prepared to endure. “Now, I know what it feels like in August, so I have something to prepare for,” said Boyd. It certainly has not been the kind of season a consensus top 20 Twins prospect might have been wishing for coming in to the season, but he’s accomplished at least one of his goals coming in to the year. Boyd’s fastball has always been highly regarded and scouts have rated his breaking ball as potentially a “plus” pitch, but coming in to the year, Boyd was determined, in his words, “to have a better change-up than I did last year. I feel like I reached that one. I feel like I’ve got a pretty good change-up now.” Adding an effective third pitch to his repertoire is important for any pitching prospect, but critically important for a pitcher with designs on being a future member of a Major League starting rotation. Of course, there are some goals Boyd hasn’t attained. Coming in to the season, he hoped to throw about 130 innings during the year, “but I don’t think I’m going to get there,“ Boyd conceded. “One of the goals I had was to throw a complete game,” added Boyd. “That’s still attainable.” But then there’s the big goal. “Hopefully, we’ll win the championship,” said Boyd. “That will be three rings in three years for me.” Boyd is among a number of Kernels players this season that were part of the Appalachian League championship team at Elizabethton last year. The year before that, Boyd’s high school team won the Florida state championship. Boyd pitched his team through the semi-final game and in to the championship. In the finals, Boyd found another way to contribute. “Won it on a walk-off. I had the walk-off,” Boyd said with a smile. So if fate found Boyd pitching for a National League team someday, would he look forward to an opportunity to swing the bat again? “As long as they only throw fastballs. I wasn’t too fond of those curve balls.” Boyd said he'd like to get a chance to start in the postseason, yet added, “but if they move me back to the bullpen, I’m comfortable doing that, too.” The first two rounds of the Midwest League playoffs are only best two out of three games. That means that a number of the Kernels' current rotation, including Boyd, won't get opportunities to start unless the Kernels progress to at least the second round. Jose Berrios and Brett Lee will start the Kernels' first two postseason games and Tim Atherton will get the call if there's a game three in the first round. Boyd will be back to bullpen duty in round one, but could still get a start in the second round if the Kernels advance. Click here to view the article

It may surprise some Twins and Kernels fans to learn that, even with the promotion of fan-favorite Byron Buxton on Sunday, the Kernels still have an outfielder in their line up that was ranked among the Top 10 prospects of the parent Minnesota Twins coming in to the season. The reason for the surprise is that few fans have seen that prospect on the ball field yet this year. Max Kepler was promoted to Cedar Rapids last week and arrived just in time to join the team for their trip to Appleton, Wisconsin to face the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. He had five hits in the four-game series and three of those hits were doubles. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Kepler1.jpg Max Kepler I ranked Kepler #9 on my list of top Twins prospects back on December 31, which was directly in between the #8 ranking he was given by mlb.com and the #10 ranking by Baseball America before the season started. He was expected to open the 2013 season as a member of the Kernels' outfield, but an elbow injury suffered during spring training resulted in Kepler being held back in extended spring training. Kepler is a native of Berlin, Germany, and was given an $800,000 signing bonus by the Twins in 2009, the same off-season that they signed Miguel Sano. That was the highest bonus ever given to a European player by a major league organization. Kepler was just 16 years old at the time of his signing and moved to the United States shortly after signin. He finished high school at the Fort Myers high school that adjoins the Twins' spring training facility. He has played for the Twins' short season rookie league teams the past three years and was expected to begin his first full season of minor league ball with the Kernels in April. I was covering the Kernels and Timber Rattlers series for Metro Sports Report over the weekend and I had an opportunity to interview Twins General Manager Terry Ryan before the Kernels game on Sunday. He shared some of his thoughts on Kepler. “Yeah, he’s had a bad elbow and it’s been frustrating for all of us because we can’t figure out what the problem is. Now he’s playing and he’s playing the outfield. He can play left, center and right. He can play first. He’s got a lot of life in his bat. We’ll wait for him to get up to par here, because he’s way behind everybody. But I think you’re going to like what you see in Kepler as the summer progresses.” You can read my entire interview with the Twins GM by clicking here. Kernels Manager Jake Mauer concurred with his boss. Mauer told me over the weekend, “Kepler's going to help us. He's going to be a pretty good hitter.” But just who is this young German outfielder? I had the opportunity to sit down with Kepler before Sunday's game in Wisconsin to ask some questions that may give fans some insight in to that question. SD Buhr: You were expected to open this season with the Kernels. Can you tell us what happened and what you've been doing the past couple of months? Max Kepler: I’ve been rehabbing. I’ve been set back three times and it was due to an elbow strain that happened during spring training. I made a throw to home and it just didn’t feel good in my elbow and I was taken out of the game right then and there. I got an MRI and got the results and it was said to be an elbow strain. We worked on it, but I’ve been set back a couple of times and that’s why I’ve been out for so long, which is unfortunate. But now I’m back! SDB: It had to be tough staying back in Florida while the guys you were training with and playing with in during spring training in March were going north to Cedar Rapids. Kepler: You know, it happens. Yeah, this is the same team we had back in E’town (Elizabethton, the Twins rookie league team that won the Appalachian League championship last season), so I missed leaving with them, but I’m glad to be back with them now. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/KeplerBrewerAutographs.jpg Max Kepler and Caleb Brewer sign some autographs SDB: I have to ask, you were growing up as a kid in Germany - why baseball? It’s not exactly the German national sport, right? Kepler: That’s true. I went to an international school and my mom’s from Texas, so she kind of got me in to baseball. I was doing like four to five sports at the time and it came down to soccer and baseball and I had to make a decision between either one. I just chose to go with baseball. I wanted to go to the States, go abroad. Soccer’s real big in Germany so I would have spent the rest of my life in Germany if I’d stuck to soccer. So, yeah, I went with baseball. SDB: You said you played four or five sports, what were the others that you were playing when you were younger? Kepler: I played soccer, baseball, I had a scholarship in tennis, I swam, played basketball and some minor little sports on the side. SDB: For a lot of the international guys, the down side to playing minor league baseball is that the family doesn’t get to watch them play a whole lot. Does your family find a way to follow you or get to see you play at all? Kepler: Yeah, you know the time zone is a lot different there so they’re up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning just getting to see the first half of the game. But they love doing it and they’ll be down pretty soon, a couple weeks. SDB: I saw you in your first spring training with the Twins three years ago and I saw this skinny looking guy on one of the back fields. That’s not you anymore and the difference showed up a bit in your power numbers last year. Kepler: Yep. I gained some weight (laughing). It happens. I put on some weight and learned to pull the ball better in those couple of years and it paid off! SDB: Do you have a particular hitting philosophy? Do you see yourself as a power hitter or are you just concerned about driving the ball and if it goes over the fence, fine? Kepler: I used to strictly see myself as a contact hitter. I came to the Twins as a contact hitter, just going (opposite field) all the time. Now, basically, it’s just a start to a new season, first couple games, just see the ball right now and hit it. But when I’m in a groove, I like it to go far, the ball to go deep. SDB: Off the field, in your down time, what sort of things do you like to do when you’re not playing baseball? Kepler: I like staying active. Last year, in E’town, we used to go out on lakes, go fishing. E’town didn’t have much to offer, but we found stuff to do. SDB: What about during the offseason? Kepler: I love working out. Just getting back with friends and family. Spending a good time with family. SDB: Do you go back to Germany in the offseason? Kepler: Yes, that’s very valuable to me. I only get like a month because they (the Twins) usually send you somewhere to play winter ball. I spend most of that time with family. Kepler will make his home debut at 12:05 Tuesday afternoon when the Kernels open their first home series of the second half of the season against the Burlington Bees. SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Click here to view the article

By the end of the coming weekend, the Twins will have reached the one-quarter mark of the season with 40+ games under their belts. It’s as good a time as any to reflect upon how some of the decisions made by General Manager Terry Ryan in building the team’s roster have turned out. As a team, the Twins have been hovering over the .500 mark most of the season and, after Monday night’s win over the White Sox, they are one game over the break-even point. Over the weekend, Ryan told 1500ESPN that .500 wasn’t what he was looking for out of this team, that he wanted them to be contenders. It’s great, of course, for your team’s GM to say that kind of thing, but I think most fans would have been pretty satisfied with the prospects of a .500 year out of this Twins team.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] This article was originally posted Tuesday, May 14 at Knuckleballsblog.com. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TerryRyan.jpg Terry Ryan (Photo: Knuckleballs/Jim Crikket) You also have to consider that those words were coming out of the same mouth that, last November, told TwinsDaily’s John Bonnes that the Twins would be pursuing one of the “pretty darn good” pitchers on the free agent market last season and then went out and made Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey the cornerstones of the team’s free agent class. In that same interview, Ryan also told Bonnes that he felt the free agent pitching market was, “thin,” when most of us felt there was a pretty solid group of middle-to-upper-half of the rotation arms available. Now, looking back over the first six weeks of the season, is it possible Terry Ryan was right? Back on November 20, I posted an article at Knuckleballs in which I shared my wish list of free agent pitchers for Ryan and the Twins to pursue. Other fans and writers were naturally sharing their own advice for the Twins GM about the same time. Let’s see how our suggestions have been panning out compared to the guys Ryan actually signed for the Twins. Not many of us were suggesting the Twins should (or even could) sign Zack Greinke, who eventually signed a six-year deal for $159 million with the Dodgers. Greinke was actually off to a decent start until he broke his collarbone (or rather, Carlos Quentin broke Greinke’s collarbone). Maybe Greinke will bounce back and pay dividends on his deal with the Dodgers, but I’m not sorry the Twins didn’t try to outbid the Dodgers for his services. I argued in my post that the Twins should go ahead and pursue not one, but two of the other big dogs among the free agent pitching class, Anibal Sanchez and Edwin Jackson. Sanchez is one guy who is putting up the kind of numbers you would hope for, so far, as his 2.05 ERA , 1.082 WHIP and 66 strikeouts in 52.2 innings would attest. However, he eventually re-signed with the Tigers (5 years/$88 million), so there’s certainly doubt as to whether he and his agent would ever have even considered a move to Target Field. Jackson, on the other hand, is not exactly earning his 4 year/$52 million contract with the Cubs. Yes, he’s striking out almost one batter per inning pitched, but otherwise, his 6.02 ERA and 1.569 WHIP are pretty close to what the Twins are getting out of Mike Pelfrey (6.03/1.689)… and Ryan is on the hook for about $48 million less than Theo Epstein owes Jackson. The third pitcher on my wish list was Joe Saunders. I felt the Twins needed another lefty in the rotation and while he wasn’t likely to be a headliner, Saunders looked to me like a good bet to be a solid middle of the rotation pitcher for the next couple of years. When he eventually signed with the Mariners for just one year and $6.5 million, I was pretty certain the Twins would regret not outbidding the M’s for Saunders’ services (though I recall there was some talk about Saunders not being interested in pitching for the Twins, regardless). Saunders has pieced together a 3-4 record despite a 5.51 ERA and a 1.521 WHIP. He’s struck out exactly as many hitters (20) as Correia has for the Twins, but has walked more than twice as many batters. Correia’s ERA (3.09) and WHIP (1.200) are certainly looking better than Saunders’. So maybe my ideas, outside of Sanchez, weren’t as good as I thought they were (and apparently not as good as the ideas Ryan and his staff were having at the time). But what about the other pitchers on the market last off season? With all of the talent we thought was out there, surely there must have been several pitchers that have turned out to make the GMs who signed them look smart. Many of the best options, like Sanchez, were re-signed by their 2012 clubs or, in some cases, had options picked up by their teams. But there were still a number of pitchers generating buzz among the Twins faithful. There was some chatter about Dan Haren, who ended up with the Nationals on a one-year deal for $13 million. He’s put up a 5.17 ERA and a 1.487 WHIP while striking out 27 batters in 38.1 innings over seven starts. That’s not real impressive to me, but hey, he does have a 4-3 record if that’s what you’re in to. Brandon McCarthy was also a hot commodity in the blogging world. He got a two-year deal from the D’Backs totaling $18 million. For that, he’s accumulated a 5.63 ERA, a 1.542 WHIP, and has gone winless. I’ve read that McCarthy has been “unlucky,” as reflected in a higher than average batting average on balls in play (BABIP). That’s fine. But if you buy that, you need to also give a couple of the Twins (such as Pelfrey and, to an even greater degree, Vance Worley) pitchers the benefit of the same doubt for their “bad luck.” Ryan Dempster got beat up a bit by the Blue Jays on Sunday, but I don’t think the Red Sox are doubting their two-year/$26.5 million investment too much, so far. He’s got a 3.75 ERA, even after giving up six earned runs to the Jays in five innings of work. His 1.146 WHIP is certainly competitive, but it’s his 61 strike outs in 48 innings that’s perhaps more impressive. Again, I don’t think there was ever any chance Dempster would sign with the Twins since he likely had more than enough suitors from among contending teams. Shawn Marcum, though, was certainly a guy that a number of Twins fans thought might be obtainable by the club. Marcum signed a one-year deal with the Mets for just $4 million. It turns out the Mets may have overpaid. Marcum has put up a nasty looking 8.59 ERA to go with a 2.045 WHIP. He’s thrown only 14.2 innings covering three starts and one relief appearance. Were you one of the fans touting Joe Blanton as a possible Twins rotation addition? If so, you might want to keep it to yourself. Blanton signed with the Angels for $15 million over two years and has repaid them with a 0-7 record covering eight starts. His 6.46 ERA and 1.870 WHIP would indicate his record is not terribly misleading. It’s starting to look like Terry Ryan’s assessment of the pitching market as “thin” might have actually been pretty accurate, isn’t it? But certainly there must be some success stories, right? Of course there are. If, while the rest of us were laughing at the absurdity of the Royals signing Jeremy Guthrie to a 3 year/$25 million contract, you were actually going on the record saying it was a shrewd move certain to pay dividends, give yourself a pat on the back. Guthrie is 5-0 with the Royals and while he’s not striking a ton of hitters out (30 Ks in 47.1 innings), he’s put up a 2.28 ERA and a 1.183 WHIP in his seven starts for the Royals. He’s gone at least six innings in every start and has one complete game shutout of the White Sox to his credit. Oh yeah, and the Royals are three games above .500 going in to Tuesday night’s games, 1 ½ games behind Division leading Detroit. Of course, Guthrie isn’t the only free agent pitcher making his GM look wise. Carlos Villanueva and Scott Feldman were among the pitchers Epstein added to the Cubs and it’s pretty clear that neither of them are primarily responsible for the Cubs being six games under .500. Villanueva sports a 3.02 ERA and a 1.007 WHIP, but has only one win in seven starts to show for his efforts. Feldman’s ERA is even lower, at 2.53 and his WHIP is a very respectable 1.148. He’s actually gotten enough support to put up a 3-3 record. Maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t recall a lot of wailing about Terry Ryan allowing Villanueva and Feldman to slip through his fingers. And before you credit Theo Epstein for being so much more brilliant than Terry Ryan, take a look at what Epstein and the Cubs are getting in return for outbidding Ryan for the services of Scott Baker this season. Baker’s next pitch in a Cubs uniform (if he ever makes one) will be his first. There are probably a few more pitchers worth checking in on that are escaping me at the moment. But from the looks of things, I’m starting to think Correia and Pelfrey weren’t such bad ideas after all. I’m not convinced Correia will continue to perform at the levels of his first few starts, but I do think that as Pelfrey continues to work out the post-TJ-surgery kinks, he may actually improve as the year goes on. Even with the benefit of perfect hindsight, I’m not 100% sure I’d jump for joy at those free agent signings, but I certainly like the way they’ve turned out so far a whole lot better than most of the other options. Click here to view the article

A little over a year ago, I sat in the Cedar Rapids Kernels dugout before a Sunday game and did an interview with then-Kernels infielder Jorge Polanco - the same Jorge Polanco that just spent the past weekend wearing number 11 for the Minnesota Twins. I’d been told that, of the Kernels’ Latin American players, Polanco was one of those most familiar with the English language. Since the only familiarization I have with a foreign language comes from the two years of high school French class that I nearly flunked out of over 40 years ago, it seemed like a good idea to interview a player who knew my language better than I knew his. (This article orignally was posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Polanco1.jpg Jorge Polanco as a Cedar Rapids Kernel Polanco was very accommodating. I approached him after the team worked out that day and asked if he had some time to talk. He said he did, but asked if we could do it after the brief chapel service players have on Sundays. After chapel, we met and sat in the dugout for the interview. The interview didn’t go particularly well and, unfortunately, I didn’t feel I had enough material to turn it in to something I could post at the time. I had only been covering the Kernels for a couple of months at that time and, frankly, my interviewing skills weren’t very strong. I’m not sure I’d say they’re particularly strong now, either, but I’m better at it than I was that Sunday afternoon with Polanco. I asked him what he felt the biggest difference was between his experience at Elizabethton (TN) with the Twins’ short-season rookie level team the year before and his season in Cedar Rapids. "More fans," Polanco responded. "A lot of fans." Neither of us knew then, of course, that just over a year later, he’d be playing ball in front of a crowd ten times larger than what he was seeing in the Cedar Rapids stands. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Polanco2.jpg Jorge Polanco We talked some about his home town, San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. A "good town to live there," according to Polanco, and about his favorite Major League player. "Robinson Cano," Polanco replied immediately. "I like the way he plays. I would like to be like him. He’s a good person." I also found out during the conversation that the then-19 year old spent his time away from the ballpark in much the same way other 19 year olds spend their idle time. "I like to watch TV and play Playstation3 video games," he said. Then he added, "I like to play pool." Asked if he was any good at it, he smiled and simply said, "Yes." Unfortunately, he added that he had not yet found a place to play pool in Cedar Rapids. I imagine that probably didn’t change much during the summer, since it might be difficult for a 19 year old to get in to most public establishments with pool tables around here. Toward the end of our conversation, we talked about the adjustments that he and other Latino players have to make to play ball in a place like Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The food, he said, was probably one of the most difficult adjustments, but we also talked about the language barrier. Polanco clearly was working hard on learning English and wanted to get better. "I like it because all the people here - most all the people - speak English, so I try to do it." That’s when I made one of those off the cuff comments that I may come to regret. I went back to the audio recording of the interview this weekend, with the hope that perhaps my memory of what I said next was not quite accurate. I told Polanco I was starting to try to learn some Spanish. I should have left it at that. But no, I continued with, "When you’re in Target Field with the Twins in a couple of years, I’m going to come to a Twins game and we’ll talk in your language. Is that a deal?" He smiled and said, "Yes, alright." Last week, just about 13 months after my conversation with Polanco, he was called up to the Twins, who found themselves in need of a versatile infielder after a series of injuries to their infield corps. Fortunately, those games were all in Anaheim, California, and Arlington, Texas, and not in Target Field. I’m using that technicality as an excuse to conclude I still have some time before making good on my poorly thought out promise to Polanco. (I’ve learned my lesson, by the way. I’m NOT going to promise any of this year’s crop of Kernels players from "down under" that I’ll learn to speak Australian before they wear a Twins uniform.) It turned out to be just four games in The Show for Polanco, including one start on Sunday against the Rangers, before infielders Eduardo Nunez and Trevor Plouffe came off the Disabled List on Monday and Polanco was sent back to the Fort Myers Miracle. I don’t think anyone would have been surprised if Polanco had shown some jitters during his time with the Twins, but from all accounts, he looked like he belonged there. He had two hits (a double and a triple) in five at-bats, he scored two runs and drove in three more. He turned three double plays and, yes, he had a mental lapse on defense in a rundown situation. He’s not the first Twins player to have a mental lapse in the field this season. He also handled himself well with the media, as is clear from a video clip the St. Paul Pioneer-Press’ Mike Berardino posted over the weekend (click here to view) after Polanco recorded his first Major League hit. Over the first season and a half of the affiliation between the Twins and Kernels, we’ve seen several players that have legitimate Major League potential and Polanco was no doubt one of those guys. Fans in Cedar Rapids couldn’t be happier for Polanco, as the first Kernels player since the new affiliation agreement to reach the Big Leagues. Still, it’s unlikely that anyone thought he’d get even this kind of "cup of coffee" with the Twins this soon. But as one of this year’s Kernels told me recently, "Baseball is a goofy game." Indeed it is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time for my next Spanish lesson. It seems I may need to accelerate my learning curve a bit. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Spanish.jpg [/hr]Twins beat the Royals on Tuesday so on Wednesday you can get a half price large or extra-large pizza at PapaJohns.com when using the promo code 'TWINSWIN'. Click here to view the article

Everyone who has ever played the game knows you simply do not anger the baseball gods. The baseball gods are a vengeful lot. Any kind of slight, whether real or perceived, can cause them to rain down bad karma on players, coaches, teams and even, apparently, entire organizations. Someone in the Minnesota Twins organization must have really ticked off those baseball gods back during spring training, because the Twins have had one calamity after another since March. That’s when arguably the top power-hitting prospect in the game, Miguel Sano, was lost for the season with a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), requiring Tommy John surgery. A couple of weeks later, the consensus top minor league prospect in baseball, Byron Buxton, injured his wrist in the outfield on one of the back fields of the Twins’ training complex in Fort Myers FL. In fact, the baseball gods must really have it in for Buxton because just days after he was activated by Fort Myers, they zapped his wrist again, sending him back to the DL. The Twins have had so many injuries at the major league level that they’ve routinely been sending out career infielders like Eduardo Escobar to play in the outfield over the past week. The Twins currently have four players on a disabled list of one kind or another. Others, including $23 million a year man Joe Mauer, have missed stretches of games with injuries despite avoiding a trip to the DL. However, the wrath of the baseball gods has perhaps been visited hardest upon the Twins’ Class A Midwest League affiliate, the Cedar Rapids Kernels. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Rosario2014a.jpg Randy Rosario - on the DL Cedar Rapids’ uniforms don’t have players names sewn on the back of their jerseys above the number. That’s probably a good thing this season, because the club may have needed to retain a seamstress full time just to keep up with the roster changes already during 2014. Roster turnover is not unusual in the minor leagues, of course. Players are promoted, demoted and even released at various points during the season, making it not at all unusual to see close to 50 different players take the field in a Kernels uniform at some point during the summer. A year ago, 49 different players (including Twins pitcher Mike Pelfrey on an injury rehabilitation assignment) put in time with the Kernels. But this year’s Cedar Rapids club is getting an unwelcome jump on the roster musical chairs game. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Pineda1-600x420.jpg Jeremias Pineda - on the DL On Tuesday, less than six weeks in to the new season, pitcher Jared Wilson became the 34th player to wear a Kernels uniform this year. Before the end of the first game of the Kernels' doubleheader Tuesday night, shortstop Engelb Vielma had been pulled from the game after coming up lame as he left the batter's box in the second inning and center fielder Jason Kanzler had been injured on a collision in the outfield. (UPDATE: After the 2nd game, Kernels manager Jake Mauer confirmed Vielma injured his hamstring and Kanzler likely has a concussion. Mauer said he expects both players to be placed on the disabled list and hopes to have replacements up from extended spring training in time for Wednesday night's doubleheader.) Of the 25 players who arrived in Cedar Rapids from spring training to start the current campaign, pitcher Brandon Peterson has earned a promotion to High-A Fort Myers, pitcher Miguel Sulbaran has been traded, pitcher Christian Powell has been released and seven original 2014 Kernels have spent some time on the club’s disabled list. If Vielma's name is added to that list, he would be the eighth. Centerfielder Zack Granite was hitting .313 for the Kernels just four games into the season when the baseball gods struck him down with a rotator cuff strain. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Larson4-450x600.jpg Zack Larson - on the DL About ten days later, catcher Michael Quesada fell to a right wrist contusion. Less than a week after Quesada was felled, outfielder Jeremias Pineda broke his wrist and pitcher Randy Rosario hit the DL with a left flexor mass strain. The game’s mystic guardians finally looked in other directions for almost two weeks before returning their attention to the Kernels with a vengeance and sidelining infielders Tanner Vavra (right ankle sprain) and Logan Wade (dislocated left shoulder), as well as outfielder Zack Larson (right hamstring strain), all during the first ten days of May. That’s an average of better than one player a week that manager Jake Mauer and his coaching staff have had to replace due to injury. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Wade2014a-600x449.jpg Logan Wade - on the DL So far, the nine players added to the Kernels’ roster as replacements from extended spring training have managed to avoid the DL, though Kanzler would break that string if he lands on the DL following his injury Tuesday. One replacement, Jonatan Hinojosa, was with the team only long enough to play in one game before finding himself suspended by Major League Baseball for having tested positive for a PED. http://knuckleballsb...5-3-475x600.jpg Michael Quesada - back from the DL Twins farm director Brad Steil must cringe every time his phone rings and he sees Jake Mauer’s name on the caller ID. Perhaps remarkably, Mauer has patched together line-ups that have managed to win more games than they’ve lost. In fact, with five weeks left in the Midwest League’s first-half race, the Kernels are right in the thick of the race for second place in the league’s Western Division and the automatic postseason spot that would come with it. The Kernels struggled through a tough six-game road trip during which they won just two of six games and they play just seven of their next 17 games at home, but both Quesada and Vavra have returned from their injuries. Even Quesada’s return, however, poses a peculiar challenge for his manager. The Kernels’ current active roster includes 13 pitchers and 12 position players, four of them catchers. Of course, at this level, it’s not unusual for catchers to play some first base. Which is good, because the Kernels’ regular first baseman of late, Chad Christensen, is likely going to be needed in the outfield. The arrival of JD Williams from extended spring training, where he’d been recovering from his own spring training injury (a broken thumb) has certainly provided a spark at the top of the Cedar Rapids batting order. http://knuckleballsb...14b-600x428.jpg Tanner Vavra - back from the DL After Monday night's doubleheader against Peoria was washed out, the Kernels were scheduled to play back-to-back doubleheaders against the Chiefs Tuesday and Wednesday. Going in to Tuesday night's games, Peoria sat in second place in the MWL West, just a half game ahead of Cedar Rapids. There were four more teams, however, bunched tightly together behind the Kernels and all of them have their eyes on the second Western Division postseason spot. (All photos: SD Buhr/Knuckleballsblog.com) [/hr]Because the Twins won yesterday, you can get a half price large or extra-large pizza today (Friday) from PapaJohns.com when you use the promo code TWINSWIN. Click here to view the article

A year ago, Jonathan Murphy was a 22-year-old 19th round draft pick out of Jacksonville University just starting his professional baseball career in the Minnesota Twins organization with the rookie-level Gulf Coast League team in Fort Myers. Today, Murphy is the primary leadoff hitter and center fielder for the Cedar Rapids Kernels. It’s not at all unusual for a second-year professional player drafted out of college to be spending time with the Kernels, but Murphy, the younger brother of New York Mets infielder Daniel Murphy, didn’t take the normal path to Cedar Rapids this season. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Murphy51.jpg Jonathan Murphy Murphy didn’t set the world on fire in his 52 games with the GCL Twins in 2012, hitting just .216 and reaching base at a .288 clip, so it’s probably safe to say that expectations for Murphy this season, based on last year’s results, were marginal, at best. Murphy started 2013 at extended spring training in Fort Myers while awaiting news of where he would be sent to begin his season. The rookie league team in Elizabethton, TN seemed logical or perhaps Class A Cedar Rapids would need an outfielder when Murphy was deemed ready to get his year started. But neither place was where Murphy found himself assigned. Instead, the High-A Fort Myers Miracle ran into a bit of bad luck with injuries and Murphy was dispatched across the parking lot from the back fields where the GCL Twins play to Hammond Stadium, home of the Miracle. "I was just in the right place at the right time. It had nothing to do with my own merit," Murphy explained during an interview over the weekend. "It just had to do with (the Miracle) had a lot of injuries and I happened to be the oldest guy, I think, running around in (extended spring training) so they decided to ship me over there." Regardless of the circumstances, Murphy valued the experience. "(Playing for the Miracle) was really a great opportunity for me. A great learning experience, too, just getting to go to a higher level like that and learn from some of those guys that have some experience and see what it's like to be a professional, with this being my first (full) professional season." Murphy indicated he definitely noticed the higher level of competition he’d been thrown into. "The game was moving pretty fast, but it was exciting. It was a challenge and an opportunity for me and I was appreciative of the organization for it." A few days after Twins top prospect Byron Buxton was promoted to Fort Myers, Murphy found himself assigned to the Kernels, essentially to replace Buxton in the Cedar Rapids outfield and, eventually, at the top of the Kernels’ batting order, as well. Was Murphy worried about replacing the top rated minor leaguer in America? "I was worried about him replacing me in Fort Myers," Murphy responded, laughing. "No, Byron’s a great guy and an unbelievable player. He’s got more talent than I’ll ever imagine having. To try to compare myself to him wouldn’t be real fair. He’s a great player and I’m just going to try to play the best that I can." Murphy certainly doesn’t see himself competing with Buxton. "Byron's a major league baseball player and I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt about that. He’s going to play in the major leagues. So, if I were to get caught up in trying to compare myself to him constantly, it would drive me crazy. "Basically, all I can do is show up every day and whoever is pitching that day, it's my job to compete against him and do the best I can. If I can do that every day and compete and be successful, then maybe I'll look up in a couple of years and find myself in the major leagues, too." Murphy knows there's no guarantee in his line of work, though. "Maybe (it will turn out) I’m not quite good enough. But all I can do is come out here and compete every day and as far as I'm concerned the pressure is taken off me. I have a job to do every day and however good I am and how much talent I have will dictate where I go as long as I put the effort forth." While not competing with Buxton, Murphy has filled in well for the departed star. Through the past weekend, Murphy was hitting .311 in his 23 games for the Kernels and had put up a .398 on-base percentage, while showing good range in the outfield. So, after spending a couple of weeks facing the Class High-A pitching, apparently Murphy is finding Midwest League pitchers relatively easy to hit, right? That question pulls a laugh from Murphy. "Not at all! You must not have come to many of the games! Oh, my goodness, no. There are still plenty of talented arms and talented pitchers. It’s been exciting, though, to have the opportunity to come here and get to play every day." http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Murphy1.jpg Jonathan Murphy goes through pregame baserunning drills as Jorge Polanco and Niko Goodrum wait their turns Murphy’s got one advantage that most minor league ballplayers don’t: an older brother who has already made it to the big leagues. Daniel Murphy is in his fifth season with the Mets and the two brothers are close. "We encourage one another," Murphy said. "We send each other texts. He had a day game yesterday and he had a real good day. I think he had like three or four hits. I (texted), 'I think you win today, I don’t think I’m going to be able to match that.' "Sometimes whenever we’re both going well, we'll try to encourage one another like, 'Hey, you got two today, I’ll try to join the party,' " Murphy added. "Then when we’re struggling, it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and he's always there for me when I need him. It’s a great tool and resource to have for baseball and for life. He’s just been a good role model for me." Asked what he likes to do away from the ballpark, Murphy gave an answer quite different than most ballplayers give. "I just got engaged, so that takes up a lot of my free time, in a good way. We’ve been doing some wedding planning." Murphy and his fiancé chose October 12 for their wedding. "Right after the season. Hopefully, the Mets won’t be in the World Series. I think we’ll be OK there." Picking that date was a little dicey with a brother playing major league baseball, where mid-October is right in the middle of the postseason. The Mets, however, are having just about as much success this season as the Twins are, which is to say, not much at all. The timing was questioned by at least one member of Murphy’s family, however. "My dad sent me a text, 'What if the Mets are in the World Series?' I said, 'I think this year we’ll be OK dad.' " Murphy then smiled and almost mumbled, “I might catch some heat for that one.” But Murphy is clearly looking forward to the event as the culmination of an exciting year. "My family will be there, we’re going to have a nice small wedding. I’m really looking forward to it and excited that God’s really blessing both of us and it's been an exciting time in my life. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Murphy8.jpg Jonathan Murphy "Getting to come out (to the ballpark) and do something I love every day and now I’ve found a wife I’m going to get to spend the rest of my life with. So, I’ve really been blessed here in the last few months." Kernels players who have spent prior years playing at lower levels in the organization, or at Beloit during the last season or two of the Twins affiliation with the Snappers, have expressed their enthusiasm for the facilities and environment in Cedar Rapids. Murphy, however, has a different perspective, having arrived in town after playing at the next level up in the organization. The Fort Myers Miracle, after all, play their home games at Hammond Stadium, the spring training home of the parent Twins. That said, Murphy's assessment of the environment in Cedar Rapids is much the same as those who’ve moved up the ladder to reach the Kernels. "It’s unbelievable. Fort Myers was good and it was exciting, but as far as crowds go and the fans, they’re way better here. Just numbers-wise and they seem to care a lot more," said Murphy. "When I go around town and I run in to someone and I say, 'I play for the Kernels,' almost every single person has said, 'Oh, yeah, I went to a game last week,' or 'I love going to the Kernels games every once in a while.' " Murphy indicated that was not necessarily the case in Fort Myers. "It's definitely more of a community here. It's been enjoyable and the fans really care a lot. It makes it a lot of fun to play in front of them. They’re passionate." Click here to view the article

Download attachment: TRyan2014c.jpg During a routine physical exam early this year, Minnesota Twins General Manager Terry Ryan asked his doctor to take a look at a lump on his neck. Testing found Ryan to have squamous cell carcinoma. Ryan had surgery in February and has undergone radiation treatment. In the meantime, Assistant General Manager Rob Antony has filled in as the interim GM for the Twins, though Ryan has been in regular contact with Antony and others in the Twins front office. During the past Cedar Rapids Kernels homestand, Ryan was in town observing the Twins’ young Class A prospects and sat down Sunday morning for an interview that covered a range of topics. In Part 1, we’ll cover his return to work, his view of the current state of the Twins at the big league level and his thoughts concerning the upcoming MLB First Year Player Draft that kicks off Thursday, June 5. [/hr] Originally published at KnucleballsBlog.com [/hr]Usually a regular presence at spring training and all around the Twins minor league affiliates during most seasons, Ryan has understandably not been making those trips to this point this year. So the first question anyone would likely ask is, how is he feeling? “I’m feeling OK. This is my first trip. I wanted to come here (to Cedar Rapids) so just in case I couldn’t handle it, I could just get in my vehicle and come back, but I can handle it. “I’ve got a lot of physical therapy and a lot of rehab to go still. I’m doing that. But I’m OK, I’m fine, I’m fortunate actually.” Ryan indicated, however, that there still is no specific timetable for his return to full time General Manager duties. “I’m going back for the draft after this game today (Sunday). That’s a huge piece to our year. It’s one of the most important days to our entire year – maybe the most important. So I’ll be going back for the draft. That’ll be a huge step for me, because I’ve got to get acclimated to the players. “On an everyday basis, I’ve certainly been participating. I haven’t taken any road trips but that’s about all. And when we’re home, I’m usually at a game up there. So it’s not like I haven’t been involved. “(Rob Antony) has done a nice job. He certainly knows what he’s doing, he’s been around it. He’s been around Gardy a lot and he’s been around the team a lot. We’re in good hands. “Ultimately when the time is right, I’ll take a road trip and we’ll kind of make a seamless transition again. I’m not sure when that’s going to be, but it shouldn’t be down in the future too far.” Asked if that meant we should expect to see him back in the GM chair before the end of the current season, Ryan responded, “Yeah, no question.” As Ryan indicated, he was headed back up to Minneapolis after Sunday’s Kernels game to participate in the organizational preparations for the First Year Player Draft. The GM wouldn’t tip his hand concerning who the team is targeting with the fifth overall pick in the first round, but Ryan shared what he’d like to see accomplished in the draft. “Where we’re picking, everybody’s always trying to get the best guy. Nobody cares if they take a pitcher or position player. “It’s like when took (Byron) Buxton. Everybody thought we were going to take a pitcher. We didn’t. And I caught hell up there. It was ‘pitching, pitching’. Well, the guy is named minor league player of the year. We’ll take the best guy there. “This has got a little more pitching flavor to this draft. There’s not a clear cut number 1. There are a handful of guys that could go 1. But at 5, we’re sitting in a good spot. We’re going to get a good player or pitcher, it doesn’t matter which way we go. We’re going to take probably the best guy.” Ryan was asked whether this year’s high number of “Tommy John” injuries among pitchers across baseball makes him feel any greater inclination to draft heavy on pitching. “I’m guessing we will. We did last year. We did the year before. We’ll draft a lot of pitching just because of the attrition. We need to make sure we have numbers and competition. “Actually the depth and some of the talent in our organization is starting to lean toward pitching. We’ve got some pitching in AAA. We’ve got some arms that can run it up there with some velocity now, which is good to see. “But we won’t have enough, so we’ll take a bunch more. “I’d like to see us take more left-handed pitching. That would be my preference. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the first guy, but that wouldn’t bother me either. “For me, left-handed pitching is a commodity that’s very difficult to come by. You’ve got to take it and hopefully develop a few of them and get lucky with a few of them. If we took a lot of left-handed pitching, I would be very pleased.” While his trip to Cedar Rapids was his first road trip of the season, Ryan has seen a lot of the parent club’s home games in Minneapolis. The Twins have hovered near the .500 mark through most of the season and just completed a rare series win over the Yankees in New York over the weekend. Ryan was asked for his impressions of the Twins’ performance so far. “We’re better. It didn’t help us when (Josh) Willingham and (Oswaldo) Arcia both went down at the same time. Although at that time, we were scoring runs. (Chris) Colabello carried us for a month, maybe more. We’ve had trouble offensively again this past month. “Our pitching is improved, our hitting went the other way. It was directly opposite in April. We’re a better club. We’ve got more depth. “We’ve had a couple of pleasant surprises, particularly (Eduardo) Escobar. He’s kind of emerged and looks like he might want to take that shortstop job. I think (Trevor) Plouffe has improved. (Kurt) Suzuki has been a good addition. (Phil) Hughes has been a good addition. Unfortunately, we lost (Mike) Pelfrey, again. But we’re better. “We’re competitive. We have not embarrassed ourselves, maybe a game here or there, but not too much. Unlike last year when we were out of games in the fifth (inning) a lot. “We do have some chemistry and character on this club that seems to mesh pretty well . When you go to the park, you feel pretty good. At least we’re going to be a competitive team in this game. That’s a big difference. “The one constant, our bullpen has been pretty good over the last number of years. (Glen) Perkins in the back side of that thing has solidified that. “We’ve got a handful of guys up there that people didn’t see last year, which is kind of neat. Between (Josmil) Pinto and Escobar and (Danny) Santana and (Caleb) Theilbar and Arcia, all those guys are 20-25 or so. “We’re getting there. We’ve got a ways to go. What we’ve done the last three years has not been good at all, but we are getting there. It’s going to take a little bit more.” Tomorrow, in Part 2, Ryan shares some of his observations concerning the Cedar Rapids Kernels and the challenges they’ve faced this season. [/hr]Twins beat the Yankees on Sunday, so you win today. Get 50% of a Large or XL pizza at PapaJohns.com when using the promo code 'TWINSWIN'. Click here to view the article

It's the top of the seventh inning and his team is leading by two runs. There are two outs, but the bases are loaded with opposing base runners. It's the kind of situation the best relief pitchers almost seem to relish coming in to face. Lefty Steve Gruver and right-hander Tyler Jones have been among the most reliable bullpen arms in the Midwest League this season and have presented a formidable lefty-righty combination out of the Kernels bullpen.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/JonesGruver.jpg Kernels relief pitchers Tyler Jones (35) and Steve Gruver ® Gruver was one of eight Kernels named to the Midwest League All-Star Game in June and on Friday night it was Gruver who entered the game with two outs and the bases loaded, determined to protect that two-run Kernels lead. Gruver would like to forget the moments that followed, as Tyrone Taylor launched a grand slam home run off a pitch that found its way too close to the middle of the plate and put the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers up by an 8-6 score. Gruver finished the final 2 1/3 innings of the game for Cedar Rapids and the Kernels scored once in the eighth inning, but it wasn't enough, as they lost to Wisconsin 8-7. (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) The next day, on Saturday afternoon, before the Kernels took on the Lumber Kings in Clinton, Gruver, who was drafted by the Twins out of the University of Tennessee in the seventh round of the 2011 First Year Player Draft, talked about the life of a professional relief pitcher. SD Buhr: Steve, this is your second year in the Midwest League and you spent time in Beloit last year both as part of their starting rotation and pitching out of the bullpen, correct? Steve Gruver: Most of the year, I started and then toward the end of the year, actually right around this time, I went to the bullpen. SDB: Was that primarily to limit the number of innings on your arm? I know they had a few guys that pitched in both roles last year. Gruver: There were a few, but mainly for me, my velocity started dropping a little bit and I had a few bad outings in a row. So I was just trying to get back in to not thinking and just trying to throw hard and get my velocity back up a little. SDB: Coming in to this year, did the Twins tell you that this is your role, working out of the bullpen, or did they tell you to be prepared for anything again? Gruver: It was kind of be prepared for anything. They don’t really let you know too much. They want you to be prepared for anything. They want you to be able to be versatile and come out in any role so I’ve kind of kept it open and like there was a chance to do anything really. SDB: Do you have a particular preference, now that you’ve done both? Is there one role you prefer over the other? Gruver: I enjoy both. I’m not too picky, as long as I’m pitching. I try to treat every inning as just one inning at a time, whether I’m trying to go six or seven that day or just one. I try and look at it the same, whether I’m starting or relieving. SDB: The preparation between games has to be a little different, though, right? Gruver: There’s differences in the preparation between the two and I try and keep that the limit of the differences. But there are definitely differences there. Starting, you have four or five days in between each start, so it’s a little bit more logistical, I guess, in how you prepare. You have a little bit more of a plan going through each day, on what you do each day in your bullpens in between when you pitch. When you’re in the pen, you kind of have to let it fly. You never know. You could pitch two, three days in a row sometimes. So you don’t have those days in between to throw pens and work out as much. You kind of have to have somewhat of a loose routine when you’re coming out of the pen, compared to a starter routine, which would be very strict and kind of a more day-to-day basis. SDB: As a starter, your pitching coach can work with you between starts, maybe work on a new grip for one of your pitches. How do you go about making those sorts of adjustments as a reliever when you don’t know whether you’re going to have to pitch that night or not? Gruver: You have to limit your pitches. You have to really be diligent in what you do and every pitch has to matter when you’re in a relief role. When you’re trying to get that extra work in, you have to use every pitch. I may only throw 10 pitches in my bullpen when I go out, but I try and make sure every pitch counts and I have a plan for each pitch so that every time I throw, I’m getting something out of it. SDB: What about the mental approach to relieving, as opposed to starting? Out of the bullpen, you have to be prepared to go in either to start an inning or with guys on base. Gruver: I enjoy that. I enjoy having that excitement, especially when you come in with guys on base. It’s a do or die situation and it kind of gets you focused, it gets you excited and it kind of gets your heart rate up a little bit. Starting is different. Starting, you have to be a little bit more under control. You’re starting the game and you know that you’re the one the team is counting on to get through the long innings. There are different approaches to it, but both are exciting in their own way. SDB: Which leads us to last (Friday) night. Bases loaded, you come in and second pitch didn’t go where you wanted it to go. At least it didn’t end up where you wanted it to end up. Gruver: No, it didn’t. The pitch didn’t go where I wanted it to go, either. I made a bad pitch and he got the best of me on that one. As a relief pitcher, that’s got to just disappear from your mind, because tonight they may call on you again in the same situation and you can’t go in there thinking about what happened last time. Even closer to the situation, I had to go two more innings afterward. I had to get out of that situation and tell myself we can still come back. I have to be able to put that behind me and keep going through the game, just in case we score. We were only down two and still had a chance to come back. If that was still on my mind, I could have given up two or three more runs the next innings and really blown it. You have to have a very short memory in those situations. SDB: You said you enjoy that aspect of being a relief pitcher, of always being ready. Is that part of it, too, knowing there’s a little bit of a mental challenge to have that short memory? Gruver: Yeah, that’s definitely something that’s tough for a lot of guys, but it is exciting. When you can push through that, you feel good even in a bad situation like that. You feel good coming out of it, knowing that you got through it. You really tell yourself it's not the end of the world. So next time, you might come in a little bit more relaxed and get out of that situation. SDB: There are some who believe that it takes greater mental fortitude to be a late-inning reliever, as opposed to a middle reliever. Do you look at it that way or does it really not matter when you go in to a game? Gruver: I try not to make it matter. I try and take every inning as the same. Really, you can break it down in to one pitch at a time, even less than an inning. I'm trying to throw that one pitch, whether you're up five or down five, you're trying to make that one pitch at a time. If you're coming in during the fourth inning, you tend to be either up a lot or down a lot, so there is a little bit less pressure sometimes. You can come in and try to pound the zone a little more, knowing that even if you give up one or two that you're still going to be in the game or you're not inherently affecting the game, where coming in in the eighth or ninth, a lot of times the game's on the line. But, overall, you try and look at it the same way. SDB: There's a perception that it may take a guy less time to reach the big leagues as a relief pitcher than as a starting pitcher, particularly for a lefty. Does that influence your preference as far as your role or do you even think about that kind of thing? Gruver: It's not my decision. I do what they tell me and I'm happy to be in whatever role, as long as I'm still playing. And If I'm moving up, it doesn't really matter to me what role I'm in. SDB: Tell me a bit about how you're finding the Cedar Rapids experience this year. Is there anything in particular about playing in Cedar Rapids that stands out to you? Gruver: I really enjoy the fans. They get behind us a lot. The games are always exciting in that way. It's always loud and the fans get in to it. When we're playing well, the fans let us know. It's fun to hear a loud crowd. When you're on the field and something good happens, the fans get in to it just as much as you do. SDB: Off the field, do you have hobbies or other interests? What do you enjoy doing when you're not at the ballpark? Gruver: I enjoy some movies. I enjoy being outside a lot. Anything I can. Playing other sports, but I really can't do that in the season. In the season, in the time I'm not at the field, I enjoy some movies. I enjoy reading a lot, especially with all the road trips we have and all the time on buses, I'm really getting in to some books. I enjoy that a lot. SDB: Do you have a favorite movie? Gruver: One of my favorites is “Shawshank Redemption.” It's a classic favorite. ************************************ Speaking of redemption... On Monday night in Clinton, In Gruver's first appearance since Friday's tough loss, Gruver entered the game in the fifth inning with the Kernels trailing Clinton 3-1. He threw three shutout innings, giving up just two hits and one walk, while striking out three Lumber Kings hitters, while his teammates came back to take a lead and earned Gruver his fifth win of the season. SD Buhr covers the Cedar Rapids Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. His alter-ego, Jim Crikket, opines about the Twins and Kernels at Knuckleballsblog.com. Click here to view the article

The big All-Star bash in Minneapolis is behind us now and by most accounts, it was somewhere between very successful and close to perfect. I saw the Futures Game/Celebrity Softball Game in person on Sunday and watched the Home Run Derby and ASG on the tube. My conclusion is that, while I wouldn't say it was all perfectly staged and performed, the Twin Cities and those from MLB and the Twins who were involved all did themselves proud. It was the kind of event that could make us feel proud to call ourselves Twins fans (and there haven't been many events like that over the past few years). A list of the things I didn't like would be short. Too much Jeter (but we knew there would be) and too little Gwynn (none at all, really). I also really didn't like the special caps for the ASG. That just seems like an over-the-top money grab by MLB to sell more stuff. I'd rather see the players in some version of their regular uniforms, including the cap. (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) The rain delay at the HR Derby on Monday sucked. But the rainbow over the Plaza almost made the rain delay worthwhile in itself. I'm sure there were a few people moaning about the lack of a roof, but I think most of us stopped listening to those idiots years ago. The new HR Derby format didn't exactly work the way people thought (or hoped) it would. Oh well, try something different next time. I had some family with me this trip and that meant visits to the Mall of America on Friday night and Saturday. I know a lot of people roll their eyes at going to MOA, but I've never been too averse to it. Walking around the Mall brings back some memories of visits there when our kids were young and it was a bit of an adventure. I tire quicker these days, of course, but I've never had trouble finding an open bar stool for a rest and I rested at the Sky Deck Grille and Kokomos for quite a bit of my time at MOA. Sunday, the family got in some pool time at the hotel before we hopped on the light rail to Target Field for the Futures Game. It was my 11-month old grandson's first venture in to a swimming pool and his first time at a Big League ballpark. So that was cool. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Jack1-300x171.jpg grandson Jack in the hotel pool We pretty much took over the first row of Section C in the Legends Club for the Sunday activities. Getting through a full Futures Game, a half hour or more "intermission" and a six-inning softball game with various interviews slowing things down between innings was a bit much for me, so I have no idea how an 11-month old endured it, but he did. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Jack2.jpg My grandson's first trip to Target Field. Kind of gave "Futures Game" a different meaning to me. I enjoyed watching Kennys Vargas and Alex Meyer and I was really excited to see Jose Berrios start for the World team. When the Twins announced their affiliation with the Cedar Rapids Kernels starting in 2013, I started looking forward to being able to see guys I'd been watching in Kernels uniforms play in Target Field. Berrios was the first of the 2013 crop of Kernels I got to see there and it just has me even more anxious to see the arrival of a few of his Kernels teammates with the Twins in coming years. All three of the Twins prospects did just fine in the game. Nobody "starred," but that's OK. Let's not forget, these three guys aren't the organization's top 3 prospects, but they held their own (or better). The future is bright for the Twins, if I can just manage to live long enough to see it. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Berrios-FG-2.jpg Jose Berrios, former CR Kernel, future Minnesota Twin The cramped rail-ride back to Bloomington was probably the worst part of the day, but at least I could collapse at the hotel when it was over. Monday morning, we packed up and headed back to Cedar Rapids, getting there well before the HR Derby's scheduled start. Of course, it turned out the actual start was delayed about an hour by rain anyway. The ovations for Justin Morneau and Brian Dozier were terrific and I thought the crowd did a nice job of showing appreciation for all the participants. I felt a bit bad for Yasiel Puig. I'm not sure if he just was too amped up or what. And did nobody tell him he should enlist his favorite BP pitcher to throw to him? Odd. Anyway, I suspect he'll do better in a future Derby. If I'm being completely honest, I was just really glad it wasn't Morneau or Dozier that got shut out. I watched the first couple innings of the All-Star Game itself at my favorite local bar. They had music playing, so I was spared the need to mute the TV. Of course, that meant I missed what most seem to think was a pretty good National Anthem (though FOX totally blew off the Canadian Anthem, which I thought was tacky on their part). Looked like a great flyover, too. I love those. I guess I have to give my thoughts on the Jeter-fest. I'd like to get a real good case of Jeter-hate up, but I just can't. Yes, I hate the Yankees and that's largely because of Yankee fans, so it's usually pretty easy for me to really dislike individual Yankee players. But I reserve most of my dislike for the mercenaries who grab the Yankee dough after spending their best years elsewhere. Jeter didn't do that. And, at least at the ballpark, from what I can tell, he's conducted himself in a pretty honorable manner through the years. I can appreciate that, even in a Yankee. Is he over-rated? Oh yeah, definitely. But playing for the Yankees isn't always easy, as others have found out, so maybe a guy who plays there and plays very well for 20 years should get a little credit for that. That said, I would agree that his career warranted an ASG send off closer to the one Chipper Jones got. It just wasn't realistic to expect that would happen. So, I thought he, MLB, the Twins and the Target Field crowd did about the best job that could have been expected of balancing proper appreciation with he inevitable ESPN/FOX overkill of the situation. I admit, too, that I was pleasantly surprised that Mike Trout got the ASG MVP award, rather than Jeter. Again, some bias there at seeing another former Kernels player out-do the "face of baseball." By the way, that whole "face of baseball" thing is a crock. First, there IS no face of baseball. This isn't the NBA and we don't need hyped up media megastars to survive. Trout is the best player in the game and he's only 22 years old (for about another month), but the media will never allow him to reach the hype level of Jeter - because he's not a Yankee. It's really that simple. There will be no more "face of baseball" hype until the next time there's a Yankee with the pedigree to allow Yankee fans, MLB and ESPN to bang the drum loud enough to proclaim him as such. Hopefully, that will take a REALLY long time. Like forever. It was good to see Pat Neshek participating. You can't help but feel just how important this unimportant game was to him after all he's been through. Sure, there were more deserving pitchers that could have been selected (but not as many as some people think), but as long as you're going to give the ASG manager some latitude on picks, you're going to get some picks based on his emotions and if that's going to happen, I'd rather see it happen to guys like Neshek than some others. I did think he could have done without the bit of Twins front office-bashing he did to the media over the weekend, but he probably has good reason to feel the way he does. Heck, I really wish I could complain that letting Neshek go was the worst decision the Twins have made the last few years. It's too bad Neshek got saddled with the loss. His 3B (I don't even remember who it was) sure didn't do him any favors with his defense on Trout's double down the left field line. The game was at least interesting. Plenty of stars performed well under the spotlight. Some did not (I'm looking at you Robinson Cano). All in all, as I said, it was an event Twins fans can be proud of. I took a few pictures on Sunday, so I'll share some of them here. - JC http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ClydesdalesFG.jpg Best thing about Budweiser beer http://knuckleballsb.../Meyer-FG-4.jpg Alex Meyer http://knuckleballsb.../Oliva-FG-3.jpg Tony Oliva with the first pitch before the Futures Game http://knuckleballsb...ivaVargasFG.jpg Tony Oliva threw out the first pitch to Kennys Vargas http://knuckleballsb...Vargas-FG-6.jpg Kennys Vargas http://knuckleballsb...eerMachines.jpg The self-serve beer machines seemed to really clog up the concourse. Not sure if it was the people using them or the people gawking at them. http://knuckleballsb...ingers-SB-1.jpg Rollie Fingers http://knuckleballsb...gerald-SB-1.jpg Larry Fitzgerald http://knuckleballsb...onPiazza-SB.jpg Mike Piazza and Ricky Henderson http://knuckleballsb...arsise-SB-1.jpg Zach Parise http://knuckleballsb...terson-SB-1.jpg Adrian Peterson Click here to view the article

Go ahead and underestimate Cedar Rapids Kernels outfielder Jason Kanzler. He’s used to it. Having to show people they’re wrong about him is nothing new. ”I think I’ve done that my whole life, pretty much,” Kanzler said. “I was never really at the top on anyone’s priority list. I wasn’t recruited out of high school. I tried to walk on at Northeastern University and I was cut after two weeks. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kanzler2014a.jpg Jason Kanzler "Then I went to Buffalo as kind of a recruited walk-on and I didn’t play. I guess my red-shirt freshman year, I got 10 at-bats.Then I platooned a little in left and right my sophomore year." That's not exactly the kind of start to a college baseball career that you'd expect for a guy with hopes of playing ball professionally. Things turned around for Kanzler his next two seasons at the University of Buffalo, however. "I started in center field my junior and senior year and won two Gold Gloves so I kind of shoved it up in everyone’s faces." If you think it sounds like Kanzler has a little chip on his shoulder over people underestimating him, you would be correct. Kanzler spent spring training with the Class A group, but got word the last week of camp that he would not be heading north to Cedar Rapids with the others. Asked how he felt about being one of the final cuts to the Kernels' roster as spring training drew to a close in March, he quickly answered the questioner and didn't hesitate to say exactly how he felt about it. ”I was the last guy,” he said. And he said it without a trace of a smile. “I was angry, I was really angry,” he admitted. “The coaches down in extended (spring training) told me to cool it and I’ll get my chance eventually.” You get the sense from Kanzler that "cooling it" isn't something that comes very naturally to him on a baseball field. In fact, in the game the evening after giving the interview, Kanzler was ejected for arguing a called third strike late in the game. In any event, he didn't have to cool it for very long this spring before he was given a plane ticket for Cedar Rapids. Four games into the season, Kernels center fielder Zack Granite was injured and Kanzler got the call. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kanzler2014c.jpg Jason Kanzler Granite rejoined the Kernels last week, but it wasn't Kanzler's roster spot he took. Instead, Ivory Thomas was given his unconditional release by the Twins to make room for Granite and Kanzler in the same outfield. At the Midwest League's All-Star break, the halfway point of the Kernels' season, Kanzler is hitting .293 with an .813 OPS. He has five doubles, five triples and one night after his ejection he hit his seventh home run of the year. He has also stolen 10 bases. Kanzler was utilized as a top-of-the order hitter when he first arrived in Cedar Rapids, but the power he’s demonstrated has resulted in a move toward the middle of the lineup. How could power go unnoticed? "I’m not a 'guy' really. Just an ‘extended guy’," Kanzler explained. "I was hurt for 14 days during spring training with a hamstring, so I really only got to play like ten spring training games." The pop in his bat may have surprised others, but not Kanzler. “I knew I had it. I think it makes me even more mad that no one else really knew,” he said. Kanzler has let his play convince others he’s more than just a defensive specialist and slap hitter. “I guess I could show it off in BP a little bit,” he said, “but they kind of figured I was just a speed guy with good defense and once you get pigeon-holed, it’s hard to kind of climb your way out.” Kernels hitting coach Tommy Watkins knows Kanzler has a bit of a chip on his shoulder and that the player uses it to his advantage. “I think that’s one thing that motivated him, being the last guy left off the team,” Watkins said. “From talking to him since he’s been here and in spring training, I think he’s been a guy that people have always told him he couldn’t do it, so he set himself out to prove everybody wrong. “If you tell him he can’t do it, he’s going to work 10 times harder to prove you wrong.” Asked about his goals for this season before the year started and whether they have changed at all with his performance in Cedar Rapids, Kanzler was thoughtful with his responses. "I think my goals are just to play my game," he responded initially. "I think if I play my game, everything will kind of work itself out. I guess my main goal is to play excellent defense and kind of be a spark plug. I kind of like to do a little bit of everything. So whether it’s hit a home run or steal a base or make a diving catch, I just like to play the game hard." Watkins thinks Kanzler's on the right track with that goal. "I think for him just to work on his overall game," Watkins said. "He’s a guy that has tremendous tools, all of them. He can hit, hit with power, he can run, he can throw. He’s got all the tools, it’s just fine-tuning all of them and have them show in the game." Of course, Kanzler has longer term goals, too. "My goal is to get to the big leagues, but that’s more like a dream than a goal right now. Still a few too many steps away to be a goal yet." A native of upstate New York, Kanzler added another potential goal before he reaches the Big Leagues, "Fill up the Red Wings' stadium." "Maybe my (short term) goal would be to make a post-season all-star team and help the Kernels win the second half and get in the playoffs and win the playoffs. "I like that. I like to win." http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Kanzlerslide2014.jpg Jason Kanzler goes in hard to break up a double play Kanzler and his teammates aren't accustomed to looking at the standings and seeing their team near the bottom. They don't like it much. "Yeah, I think especially because we have, I think, a lot more talent than a lot of the teams that are above us. We have so many games where we can’t put everything together. One or two things go right instead of all three." As intense as Kanzler can be on the field, he's capable of relaxing and enjoying his time away from the ballpark. Recently, that included a trip to a local music store with teammate and Cedar Rapids native Chad Christensen. "He (Christensen) bought a guitar and I bought a ukulele," Kanzler related. "So I’ve been practicing my ukulele a little bit. Ryan Walker has a banjo and it’s amazing. It’s an instrument I’d like to learn." How's that ukulele coming and does it sound good with Christensen's guitar? "No we haven’t tried that. The guitar is too loud and they don’t collaborate well I don’t think. "Chad’s been learning mostly country songs and I’ve been learning video game songs, like Mario and Zelda. That’s my kind of thing. Just fun little stuff." You get the feeling that all it would take for Kanzler to become the best ukulele player ever would be for someone to tell him he can't do it. Click here to view the article