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  1. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    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.
     
  2. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    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 a 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 in 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 team mates came back to take a lead and earning 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.
  3. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/WatkinsHarrison.jpg
    Tommy Watkins hitting ground balls to third baseman Travis Harrison
     
    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).
     
    (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
    Watkins recently sat down and talked about his role with the Kernels and more.
    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.
  4. Steven Buhr
    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
    Niko Goodrum
     
    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.
     
    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.
  5. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    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 Gary Lucas 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://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/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
  6. Steven Buhr
    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 the Twins 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 signing with the Twins. 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.
     
  7. Steven Buhr
    Cedar Rapids Kernels pitcher Mason Melotakis and first baseman Dalton (DJ) Hicks are roommates this summer, sharing the same host family during their stay in Cedar Rapids. Both players played major roles with the Kernels as the team qualified for the Midwest League Playoffs by finishing second in the league’s Western Division during the first half of the season and both could be candidates for promotion at some point this summer.
     
    Melotakis leads the Kernels pitching staff in wins with six and in innings pitched with 64 2/3 innings. Those six wins are good for the fourth spot among Midwest League pitchers. The lefty has been perhaps the most consistently reliable member of the Kernels’ rotation in recent weeks.
     
    Hicks has been one of the biggest power hitting threats in the Midwest League. He leads the Midwest League with 63 RBI in 66 games played for the Kernels and is third in the League with 12 home runs (just one home run behind co-leaders Renato Nunez of Beloit and Rock Shoulders of Kane County). Hicks is one of eight Kernels named to the Midwest League's Western Division All-Star Team.
     
    Melotakis was drafted in the second round of the 2012 First-year Player Draft by the Twins out of Northwestern State University. Hicks was the Twins’ 17th round draft choice the same year out of the University of Central Florida.
     
    On the final Saturday before the end of the first half of their Midwest League season, Hicks and Melotakis both sat down for interviews and reflected on their seasons, so far. (The interviews were conducted separately, but since similar questions were asked of each player, we’ve combined their responses here.)
    SD Buhr: DJ, How do you feel the first couple of months in Cedar Rapids have gone for you personally?
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Hicks11-442x600.jpg
    Dalton (DJ) Hicks
    DJ Hicks: I feel good. You know, baseball is a tough game. You’re obviously going to have some ups and downs. The thing is, you’ve got to be the same person day in and day out and I think that’s the key to success is not to get too high or too low, just stay the same.
    SDB: Mason, you’re one of the pitchers the Twins organization is looking at converting to a starting pitching role after spending most of your time prior to this season working out of the bullpen. How do you think things have gone with that so far?
    Mason Melotakis: I think it’s going well. I mean every day is a new day and every outing is a new outing. Different stuff is working for me on that day. It’s a lot of learning how to pitch and how to adjust as the game goes on versus as a reliever, you’d better have your good stuff right then and there. As a starter, you can kind of turn it on later on.
     
    Early in the year, I struggled in the first inning or early in the game, then it seemed like I settled in. Now I’m adjusting to starting off strong and continuing strong.
    SDB: DJ, you profile as a first baseman/designated hitter. That’s a similar profile to a couple other guys in the organization ahead of you, such as Kennys Vargas, for example. Do you pay attention to what other guys at your position are doing?
    Hicks: No idea, because that’s something I can’t control. I can’t control what they do. I wish them the best, especially a guy like Vargas. He’s an awesome guy. I got to work with him in spring training, great guy. But that’s out of my hands. I can only control how I play.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Melotakis4.jpg
    Mason Melotakis
    SDB: Mason, the ‘book’ on you coming in to the year was ‘hard throwing lefty, nice slider, needs work on the change up. Needs to develop his secondary pitches.’ Is that what you’ve been working on the past couple months?
    Melotakis: Absolutely.
    SDB: How do you feel that’s gone?
    Melotakis: I don’t think I’m ever going to stop working on that, honestly, because you can always get better and better. But we are completely doing it all over again. I’m throwing a new change up grip and a new slider grip. We’re going back to square one. It’s all about throwing strikes and keeping them (hitters) off balance.
    SDB: Are you doing that because what you were doing before wasn’t working or is it just a new idea, trying a couple of different things?
    Melotakis: It’s more of a better feel. When I was throwing my change up in a game, it seemed like I was not having a good feel for it. Same with the curve ball, I couldn’t really throw it for a strike. So, if you can’t throw whatever for a strike, then they’re not going to swing at it. So you’ve got to keep them off balance and be able to throw it for a strike.
     
    I really wasn’t throwing (the change up) for strikes or even close sometimes. As for my slider, this one I have a good feel for, so I’m going to throw it for a strike. You know, who knows? It could be two lethal weapons now versus just throwing them out there.
    SDB: DJ, I understand a couple of years ago, you had some health issues you had to fight through. A collapsed lung, I believe. What happened there?
    Hicks: I was in the Valley League the summer after my freshman year of college. I dove at first base. I think I hit the grass. I felt a little weird. The next at-bat I hit a double and was really out of breath, really fighting it.
     
    The next morning, I couldn’t breathe on my right side, waking up. I just couldn’t breathe. So we thought I cracked a rib or something. So I took maybe a week or two weeks off in the league. Then the playoffs started so I finished maybe a couple of games in playoffs.
     
    A month later, when I got to UCF, I felt a sharper pain again, so we saw a rib doctor, a specialist, and he said everything was fine. Then we saw just a regular doctor, they took an x-ray and they rushed me to the hospital.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Hicks12.jpg
    Dalton (DJ) Hicks
    SDB: How much baseball time did you miss with that?
    Hicks: A lot. I was in the hospital for like 16 days. I had to have a couple of different operations because the first one didn’t work. They kind of told me I was done (with baseball) from the beginning. Then they kind of said maybe like eight months to a year and a half, pushing two years.
     
    I couldn’t do anything for the first three months, I couldn’t even hold a backpack. Nothing. But at five months, I thought I was good enough to play. I want to say I played a weekend series and by Sunday it was hard to breathe. It was just too much, so we kind of laid off. I took the rest of the year off. That was my red-shirt sophomore year.
     
    I played a little bit in that summer, but it was still bothering me. Then when I came back, it was just trying to run again and get in shape again. That was definitely the hardest part. Trying to condition with the team and just the warm-ups and I was done.
    SDB: Mason, the perception is that, in many cases, for someone that can throw a mid-90s fastball, the path to the Big Leagues might be a little quicker for a relief pitcher than a starter, while a starting pitcher’s career could be more lucrative. Did any of that go through your mind when the Twins told you they wanted to make a starting pitcher out of you?
    Melotakis: Absolutely. It’s a good career path to be a starter versus a reliever. Right now, we’re developing me in to a good pitcher, as in pitching and not just throwing. Having three pitches I can throw for strikes versus just having the two and just blowing by fastballs.
     
    My fastball’s there, it’s ready, but it’s the other stuff I need to work on. Making me a starter will give me more innings and I’ll also have a chance to work with adversity, adjustments, learning to throw strikes.
     
    It’s just all about development this year. Who knows what my path is? But right now I’m enjoying where I’m at.
    SDB: DJ, You’re on Twitter like a lot of the guys are. Are you active on Social Media sort of things? Do you go out and read what people write about you, about the team?
    Hicks: Not at all, to be honest with you. I’m on Twitter. I like Twitter. I like to keep tabs on all my friends, former teammates, guys that aren’t playing any more. I use it for that.
     
    Of course, you’re going to run in to stories and see your name and stuff like that, but I really do try to stay away from that stuff ‘cuz that stuff just gets in your head.
    SDB: Tell me a little about your interests and hobbies off the field. What do you like to do when you’re not playing baseball?
    Hicks: I like to hang out with the family. I’m a big family guy. I’m definitely missing my nephews, my niece. My niece actually just beat cancer at nine months old so that was definitely a struggle. Obviously, we’ve been cheering ever since we heard the news. She’s a tough little girl.
     
    But other than that, I like to play basketball. I’m a big basketball guy.
    SDB: Do they let you play basketball?
     
    Hicks: No, not any more. Now I stick to video game basketball (laughing). Any kind of little activities, any kind of games. I like doing stuff. I hate sleeping in. Mason gets mad at me all the time, ‘cuz I’m always waking him up.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Melotakis1-433x600.jpg
    Mason Melotakis
    SDB: Mason, what do you like to do when you’re not on the pitcher’s mound?
    Melotakis: Honestly, I don’t really know, man. Whenever we have off days, we don’t do anything. We don’t know what to do with our lives (laughing). I work out, try to get better.
     
    I don’t really do video games, I’ve never golfed. I’m going to golf for the first time on Monday over the All-Star break. We might see how that goes. I’m not a big video game guy. I watch movies, I guess. I’m a big movie guy.
    SDB: What’s your favorite movie?
    Melotakis: My favorite movie’s got to be the Batmans. All the Batmans, even old Batmans. Those are the best, I grew up on that.
    SDB: Down the road, what do you think you’ll remember about playing in Cedar Rapids? Have there been particular highlights during your time here so far that you think will stand out?
    Melotakis: Honestly, just the guys. We’re all a pretty tight-knit team. Being in first place the majority of the year. I’m going to really remember that, just us winning more than anything. Just enjoying our time here. But when you’re winning, everything seems to be a lot better.
    Hicks: One, we have a great team. Obviously, when you win, that makes everything way better. When you’ve got guys like (Byron) Buxton bringing in crowds, just for him, that’s something special. You don’t see the kind of player he is every day. Guys like JD (Williams) , it’s been fun playing with him. He’s a different character.
     
    It’s a great town, great host family. I can’t complain about anything in Cedar Rapids at all.
     
    SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids.
     
  8. Steven Buhr
    Hall of Famer Paul Molitor was in Cedar Rapids over the course of most of the past homestand in his capacity with the Twins organization.
     
    Molitor was gracious enough to answer some questions last Thursday, the first day of his stay in Cedar Rapids, as well as a few follow-up questions Monday afternoon after the final game of the Kernels’ homestand.
     
    I used several excerpts from the Thursday interview in an article posted at MetroSportsReport.com last week, but there was so much good material that I couldn't fit in to that article. So, I'm sharing all of Molitor's comments here.
     
    First off, I asked Molitor to describe his formal role these days with the Twins organization.
     
    Molitor: Titles are overrated a little bit. Technically, part of the player development team. I’m the Minor League Coordinator for Baserunning and Infield Play. It’s an opportunity for me to travel around the system and help try to teach, along with the staff on each club and I do focus on those two areas but invariably get involved with some of the hitting aspects.
    Our hitting coordinator for minor leagues does an incredible job, considering you have to try to put a hit plan together for about 200 guys.
    One of the things I enjoy, in addition to the teaching is that a lot of these guys are transitioning from wherever their roots have brought them from and it’s a process of evolving from sometimes teenagers in to men and so there’s mentoring involved, too. Just how to help these guys develop an understanding of the professional life style. We try to do what we can to try to help them progress in those areas, too.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Molitor9.jpg
    Paul Molitor (4) observing Kernels C Jhonatan Arias (23) take batting practice
     
    I mentioned that a lot is made about players having to transition to using wood bats and asked Molitor if he thought that was toughest thing about transitioning to the professional game for young players.
    Molitor: Some of the collegiate kids have had a chance to play in wood bat leagues in the summer time.
    A lot of times it’s a big transition just from maybe never having left home, particularly maybe never left your country and you have to try to claw your way in to professional ball and learn a system that particular organization teaches.
    We don’t try to overwhelm them. We let them play a little bit in the beginning til we kind of get a feel for who they are and what they do, what they do well and what we need to improve on. But the transition can be tough, depending on the guy’s experience.
    The college guys are usually better at understanding how to carry themselves and how to go about their business day to day.
    Another change is that very few of these kids have played in seasons where there’s 140 games so it’s understanding how to maintain and prepare yourself to withstand the rigors of a professional season.
     
    I asked if playing baseball in the upper midwest in April was difficult for players entering their first season of “full season” professional baseball.
    Molitor: The guys from warm climates, whether its Florida, California, Texas or the Dominican or Puerto Rico, you throw them up here in April and it’s not only a culture shock, but the weather is something they really never had to play in those type of conditions.
    So that’s a process. We see a lot of guys that haven’t had that experience start a little bit slower, just adapting to the weather itself.
     
    I jokingly pointed out that Byron Buxton is a southern guy that didn’t seem to take long to adjust.
    Molitor: He’s just a rare individual with a skill set that’s off the charts.
    I saw him last year in instructional ball for a little bit and you could see the rawness of a high school kid, but somehow this winter I think he put a lot of time in to conditioning and preparation. He was much more advanced this spring than I expected him to be and he’s been able to carry it undoubtedly in to the first 9-10 weeks of the season.
    You know, he’s got things to work on I’m sure. I’m looking forward to seeing him now compared to even two months ago. Over the next five days. I’ll be watching particularly how he handles himself on the basepaths.
    On a professional grading scale of 2-8, he’s an 8 runner and I haven’t for the past three decades seen many players that can compete with him in terms of just raw speed. Now how he can translate that in to base stealing is going to be the key.
    Obviously, this year he’s had over 30 attempts. He’s been caught some, but he’s been fairly successful for a young guy and probably in some ways, in this league, he’s been outrunning the ball.
    There’s two parts of base stealing: The mechanical, finding the best way to get your body to accelerate from a standstill position; and then there’s the mental side of understanding how they’re trying to slow you down and picking good pitches, good counts, reading pitchers pick-off moves, all those type of things.
    A lot of times, when you get caught is when you should learn the most. Whether you didn’t get a good jump or you ran on a pitch out or you didn’t anticipate the guy going home or you were tentative.
     
    There’s a lot of ways to learn to get better. So it’s a process. The more you do it, the better you get at it.
    We’re glad to see he’s out running. At least not having fear in athat area to this point.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Molitor4.jpg
    Paul Molitor hitting ground balls to Kernels 3B Travis Harrison
     
    I asked Molitor for his thoughts on Kernels third baseman Travis Harrison, who is still somewhat learning the position.
    Molitor: Ive been around him some, mostly spring traning and instructional ball. I’m sure there’s some adaption for him going on.
    He has relatively good hands. I think his footwork is something that needs to be improved. Being so close in proximity to home plate, you don’t have a lot of time to react to get your body in position to catch the ball. The better he can get control of his feet and be in the right spot, his hands are going to be OK.
    Throwing, he’s had some issues at times with consistency. He’s a little bit mechanical, but I think he’s learning that if he doesn’t try to guide the ball and throws it, he’s better off.
    So those are areas where we expect young kids to make errors and just like the baserunning, when you make mistakes, you figure out why and hopefully you can make adjustments.
     
    I asked for Molitor's thoughts concerning the defensive progress at third base of Harrison, as compared to Miguel Sano (this was a couple of days prior to Sano’s promotion to AA).
    Molitor: I think that’s a fair question.
    We’re all hoping that Sano, who’s a little farther along in the organization and in growth, in terms of getting close to the Major Leagues. Not unexpectedly, he made a ton of errors last year, his first year of being a third baseman in a full season and it was a plethora of mistakes.
    It was misreading balls, it was rushing balls, it was throwing balls he shouldn’t have thrown. Trying to force an out when it wasn’t there.
    But having seen him twice already this year, he’s made maybe a dozen errors so far and a lot of them are similar things.
    But he’s been very diligent and asking for extra work and trying to correct mistakes.
    I’m hoping his future is as a third baseman.
    Travis, it’s a little bit early to see how it pans out. A lot of times, you can play three or four years in the minor leagues and then you get to the Big Leagues and there’s no room in that position and all of a sudden you’ve got to maybe transition. So you kind of hope that you get these guys a little bit more well-rounded. As far as their strength position, you want to try to see them develop that the most.
     
    After the game on Monday, a Kernels win that was broadcast back to the Twin Cities on Fox Sports North, I asked Molitor about his impressions after having spent five days with the Kernels in Cedar Rapids.
    Molitor: Well it was good to see them bounce back after three tough losses.
    I feel like we got some things accomplished with some of the infielders defensively.
    It was good to see (Candido) Pimentel back out there today. He had a better day. He still had one play where he got a little anxious about turning his back to the runner and he didn’t keep his eye on the ball and that’s kind of one of the things he’s got to work on is just catching the ball and understanding the speed of the baserunners on the play.
    And then with baserunning, we had some guys out working on their jumps today and they’ve been aggressive trying to steal, so I’m pleased with that.
    But yeah, I had a lot of fun seeing these guys and kind of seeing where they’re at at this point in the season and hopefully I’ll get a chance to get back and see them again.
     
    Since Molitor had indicated he would be working with Byron Buxton on his base stealing, I asked if we should blame him for Buxton being picked off first base during Monday’s game (yes, I was kidding).
    Molitor: You can blame me for that if you want. The (pitcher) did a nice job of holding the ball. I think he kind of built a little tension. The longer the guy holds it, you really have to concentrate on staying relaxed and he might have given him a little bit of a balk move, but that’s, again, learning time.
    A hitter can help your baserunner out when he’s holding the ball. Call a time out, things like that. But that’s how you learn.
     
    I asked for Molitor’s impression of Jorge Polanco, specifically whether he thinks Polanco can stick at shortstop.
    Molitor: You know, I’ve seen him a fair amount and his arm’s probably competent at short but I still think he probably profiles a little better at second base in the long run.
    Working on his footwork a little bit. He can get a little false step on his breaks to the ball and it seems like balls you think he might have a chance to get he comes up a little bit short. So we’ll try to improve his range a little bit and give him a chance.
    At 19, it’s certainly too early to close the book on any one position.
    Offensively, he’s just getting a little bit stronger and he’s got nice loose hands at the plate and being a switch hitter is generally to his advantage.
    But I keep trying to keep them versatile in the middle of the field and hopefully one of the positions will pan out. But I have a feeling probably second base in the long run.
     
    Since we had discussed third baseman Travis Harrison earlier, I asked if he had any final impressions of Harrison.
    Molitor: He’s got a great attitude about work ethic and he wants to get better.
    I think the main thing for him is going to continue to work on his footwork so his range is competent to stay over there, too. But his throwing’s improved. He’s a lot more accurate. I think he’s comfortable over there.
    He’s still feeling for positioning a little bit. Sometimes I catch him maybe not quite in the right spot. There’s a reason you are where you are on every pitch and I think he’s learning that and trying to take some pride in it.
     
    It was a pleasure to talk a little baseball with Paul Molitor and I appreciate him taking the time to answer questions. I think the thought he put in to his comments clearly demonstrates just how seriously he takes his work with the Twins’ young players and how much he enjoys doing what he’s doing.
  9. Steven Buhr
    I've never been someone that pays an enormous amount of attention to the MLB First-Year Player Draft. Most years, I would glance at a few writers focusing on who the Twins might draft in the first round, but the draft itself just held little interest for me.
     
    I suppose, like many people, it just seemed to me that it was going to be several years before I would ever see any of the young players drafted in a given year put on a Twins uniform, so there was little point in spending much of my time on the draft.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Buxton31.jpg
    Byron Buxton
     
    I'm coming around, though, and, yes, it has a lot to do with the Twins now being affiliated with my local minor league team, the Cedar Rapids Kernels.
     
    During their last several years as an Angels affiliate, it just seemed to me that the parent organization seldom sent many of their top prospects to Cedar Rapids right away (if at all). That may be unfair, I don't know. I honestly never looked up whether my perception of things was backed up by facts.
     
    But I do know this: Players drafted by the Twins in the 2012 First-Year Draft have played critical roles in putting the Kernels atop the Midwest League Western Division Standings with less than two weeks before the end of the first half of the season.
     
    How critical? I"m glad you asked.
     
    The newest Kernel, infielder Joel Licon, who joined the team from extended spring training just this week, is the ninth player drafted last summer to suit up for the Kernels this season. While Kernels fans haven't had a chance to get to know Licon yet, the other eight members of the 2012 draft class have made significant impacts. Consider:
     
    Byron Buxton (1st round)): .333/.435/.545 (.980) 11 2Bs, 5 3Bs, 7 HRs
    Adam Brett Walker (3rd): .270/.321/.530 (.851) 12 2Bs, 5 3Bs, 10 HRs
    Dalton Hicks (17th): .299/.376/.485 (.861) 17 2Bs, 7 HRs
     
    I'm not sure where the Kernels would be without those bats this season, but they'd have been a lot less fun to watch. But if that's impressive, check out these pitchers:
     
    Jose Berrios (Supp 1st round): 4-2, 39 IP, 2.54 ERA, 44 Ks, 1.28 WHIP
    Mason Melotakis (2nd): 5-2, 51.1 IP, 3.68 ERA, 42 Ks, 1.52 WHIP
    Tyler Duffey (5th): 3-2, 58.1 IP, 2.78 ERA, 47 Ks, 0.94 WHIP
    Taylor Rogers (11th): 0-1, 10 IP, 7.20 ERA, 10 Ks, 1.80 WHIP
    Alex Muren (12th): 3-0, 15.2 IP, 2.87 ERA, 10 Ks, 1.21 WHIP
     
    Clearly, anyone who might want a sneak peek at who is likely to be playing big roles for the 2014 Cedar Rapids Kernels should pay close attention to who the Twins pick with the 4th overall pick in the first round of the draft on Thursday and any college age players drafted in the following 15 rounds or so.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Berrios2.jpg
    Jose Berrios
     
    Of the nine players listed above, only first round picks Buxton and Berrios were selected following their senior seasons of high school baseball. The others all had at least some amount of college experience prior to being selected and signed by the Twins.
     
    The Twins’ brass have their work cut out for them to replace that kind of productivity with the Kernels from the draft class of 2012.
     
    Of course, most players drafted this week won’t wear a Kernels uniform next year. More will likely arrive in Cedar Rapids the following year during the 2015 campaign.
     
    Eleven of this year’s Kernels were selected by the Twins in the 2011 draft. That list includes third baseman Travis Harrison, catcher Tyler Grimes and eight pitchers who have toed the rubber at some point during the season as a member of the Kernels pitching staff.
     
    All together, 20 of the 32 players who have appeared in a Kernels uniform this season were drafted by the Twins in the past two years and several more could still arrive in Cedar Rapids this summer as promotions and injuries create roster openings.
     
    Of course, Kernels fans may not have to wait until 2014 to get a look at some of this year’s draft talent. Under the terms of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, players with college eligibility remaining must be signed by July 15. That's much earlier than under the agreement in place before last year, which makes protracted contract negotiations almost impossible.
     
    As a result, some of the players selected in this week’s draft may have an opportunity to be assigned to Cedar Rapids before the end of this season. Last year, the Twins sent a handful of pitchers from their 2012 draft class to their Midwest League affiliate, the Beloit Snappers, to help the Snappers during their playoff run.
     
    The first and second rounds of the 2013 MLB Amateur Draft will be broadcast on the MLB Network and streamed live on MLB.com Thursday evening, beginning at 6:00 CT. Rounds 3-10 will be streamed on MLB.com beginning Friday afternoon and rounds 11-40 will be streamed on MLB.com beginning Saturday afternoon.
     
    SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. Photos: SD Buhr/Knuckleballsblog.com
     
  11. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Harrison2.jpg
    Travis Harrison
     
    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.
     
    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.
     
  12. Steven Buhr
    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.
     
    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.
  15. 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 Kernels’ center fielder Byron Buxton, chosen as the No. 2 pick overall in the same draft by the Twins.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Buxton1.jpg
    Byron Buxton (Photo: SD Buhr)
     
    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.
     
    But thanks to a pitch that hit Correa in the hand a week ago and put him on the River Bandits Disabled List, 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 just 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.
  16. Steven Buhr
    The Cedar Rapids Kernels have ripped through nine straight wins as they head in to a two-week long road trip, but it hasn't come without a little drama.
     
    Take this past Saturday, for instance.
     
    Most of you have probably already read or heard about the strange finish to that night's 8-7 Kernels win, but for those who haven't here are the basics of what you need to know:
     
    Adam Brett Walker hit a game-tying three-run home run with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning to send the game in to extra innings.
     
    In the bottom of the 11th inning, the Kernels loaded the bases and Manager Jake Mauer sent Travis Harrison to the plate to pinch hit. Harrison had been the only Kernels player to have started every game this season up to that point and Mauer had told Harrison earlier in the game that he wouldn't be used unless the game was on the line.
     
    If you’ll pardon the quality of the video from my phone, I’ll share what happened next:
     
     
    [video=youtube;nGsS2lsjR14]
     
     
    Niko Goodrum, the runner on third base, trotted in to score the winning run, the other two runners, Dalton Hicks and Walker, apparently did not complete their advancement to home before peeling off and joining the celebration in the infield.
     
    It appears both eventually did make their way to home, ahead of Harrison. Whether Hicks and Walker crossed the plate in the correct order is certainly open to question.
     
    Great Lakes manager Razor Shines clearly is getting in the ear of the plate umpire by the time Harrison crosses home plate.
     
    In the end, the umpires ruled that while Goodrum scored the winning run and everyone else at least successfully advanced one base, Harrison and the other two runners abandoned their efforts to advance at some point. The result is that Harrison was credited with a walk-off RBI single, not a grand slam HR, and the Kernels won 8-7, rather than the 11-7 score that a couple thousand fans thought it was when they left the ballpark.
    Theark. The odd finish didn't seem to bother the Kernels too much as they went on to sweep a three game series with Lansing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, to lift their winning streak to nine games. If the Kernels start their road trip with another W, they'll earn a dinner in the nearby Amana Colonies, compliments of the Kernels Board of Directors. Even if they earn the dinner, they'll have to wait a while to collect, however, since their next home game isn't until May14.
  17. Steven Buhr
    Cedar Rapids Kernels outfielder JaDamion (J.D.) Williams is in his fourth season with the Minnesota Twins organization. He was drafted by the Twins in the 10th round of the 2010 amateur draft.
     
    After a very productive 2011 season at Rookie League level Elizabethton, where he hit .324, Williams hit only .237 for the Beloit Snappers a year ago and accumulated an on-base percentage of .311.
     
    In his second year in the Midwest League, Williams is off to a much better start for the Kernels.
     
    Hitting out of the ninth spot in Manager Jake Mauer's batting order, Williams spent most of the first three weeks of the season with a batting average approaching .300. Perhaps more impressively, he was reaching base at about a .450 rate. He's also hit four doubles and three home runs, leading to a slugging percentage sufficient to put his OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) near the 1.000 mark. Those numbers are almost certainly not sustainable, but they reflect a new, more aggressive, approach to hitting this season.
     
    Williams sat down for an interview over the weekend to discuss his first few weeks in Cedar Rapids and his role, thus far, with the Kernels.
     
    SD Buhr: This is your second season in the Midwest League. Is there anything specifically different about how you feel going in to this year as opposed to starting last year in Beloit?
     
    J.D. Williams: Just the fact that I’ve had a year here in this league and I’ve learned a lot more. A lot more of a mature player, mature of a hitter and fielder. Learning from different guys. Our hitting coach Tommy Watkins, this is my second year working with him. Guys such as (Twins minor league hitting coordinator) Bill Springman, those guys just teaching me not necessarily the athletic side of the game but baseball mentality. Just learning to be a baseball player, not just running around.
     
    SDB: Was it disappointing to find out you were going to be coming back to the Midwest League or was that something you were pretty much prepared for happening this year?
     
    JDW: I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but like they say, as long as you got a jersey on, somebody likes you. I didn’t do what I wanted to do here (in the Midwest League) last year, so it doesn’t bother me that I’m back here. I’m playing a lot better this year, so it is what it is.

    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Williams11.jpg

    SDB: Did the Twins give you anything specific to work on? Did they say, “this is what we really want you to work on going in to the season. That’s what you're going to have to do to advance.”?

    JDW: Basically, they wanted me to cut down on my strikeouts put the ball in play a lot more because I can run but you cant steal first base, like they say. So, I think I’m doing a lot better at that this year. I’m walking a lot more, not just going up there swinging at every pitch I see, opposed to like I was doing last year.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/WilliamsBuxton.jpg
    JD Williams watches Byron Buxton as he waits his turn for batting practice
     
     
    SDB: They probably don’t exactly encourage you to run a lot with Byron Buxton coming up behind you, though.
     
    JDW: (Laughs) He talks to me a lot. He tells me he’s going to give me a few pitches to run. We’ve got our little sign for when I’m gonna run and whatnot. So we work on that a lot, try to get each other a couple of bases.
     
    SDB: Growing up, did you have a favorite player, someone you wanted to be like?
     
    JDW: Growing up I liked to watch Brandon Phillips. That was back when I was an infielder and I’m an outfielder now. Of course, I like Denard Span and those guys. Michael Bourne, Juan Pierre, those guys that can run, get on base, steal a couple of bases. I want to be just like those guys.
     
    SDB: Is there anything about coming to Cedar Rapids that you've found different than what you expected it to be?
     
    JDW: Yeah, I love the atmosphere here, the stadium, the people. It’s a lot bigger than Beloit, obviously. Just a lot louder atmosphere. It’s fun playing here. Much more fun team this year, the guys, everything is different this year.
     
    SDB: You’re making a statement at the bottom of the order. There’s a cliché about the number nine guy being a second leadoff hitter, but that’s not just a cliché with the way you’re getting on base.
     
    JDW: That’s what Jake told me at the beginning of the season. He told me I was probably going to bat ninth and I told him that didn’t bother me at all. If Buxton’s doing a great job at the top of the order, I’ll score a bunch of runs batting in front of Buxton so I’m not gonna argue with that at all. Basically, like I said, we’re just having fun, man. I enjoy hitting in the nine hole in front of those guys.
     
    SDB: Is there anything that Twins fans and Kernels fans don’t know about you that you’d like the fans to know about you?
     
    JDW: I’m not sure what they know about me yet (laughs), probably not a lot, yet. I’m going to try to change that in the future though, you know? Let these guys know who I am. Not many people know who I am.
     
    Williams and his Kernels team mates are off to a very good start, leading the Midwest League's Western Division by two games over Quad Cities through the first 20 games of the year. If they keep it up, Kernels fans will be getting to know him much better.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Williams2.jpg
    JD Williams with some pregame stretching
  18. Steven Buhr
    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, the early attention on the field has been 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 over the Kernels 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 to assemble 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.
     
    Drew Leachman went hitless in five At-Bats on on Opening Night and spent the next couple of weeks on the Disabled List after banging up his shoulder in that first game. Leachman has nine hits in 21 At-Bats for a .429 average since being reactivated, with a double, a triple and four RBI in five games.
     
    In addition to Buxton, Hicks and Leachman, there are five additional Kernels hitting at .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, especially coming from the guy who's held down the #9 spot in the batting order most of the 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, but also gave up seven hits and walked a pair.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Berrios2.jpg

    Jose Berrios


     
    If Berrios, who will still be just 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 the first couple of innings, but finished strong 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 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 pretty 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 just 12. 2 innings of work and Hudson Boyd, while struggling with control at times, has also managed to miss bats. Boyd 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 during 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 weather forcing the Kernels to play seven games in a period of just four days. Gruver has struck out 16 hitters and walked just two 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 should be really 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.
  19. Steven Buhr
    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. 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, among its hitters, 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 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.
  20. Steven Buhr
    With Tuesday night's rainout in Wisconsin, the Kernels have five games under their belts. It's far too soon to draw any firm conclusions about this year's club, but those games were enough to make some first impressions. First of all, they've put up a 4-1 record, so that's a pretty good first impression, in itself.
    With the obvious “small sample size” warning label appropriately affixed, here are just a few more things that have stood out to me over the first five games of the season:
     
    1) Byron Buxton can play baseball.
     
    In an attempt to temper the extremely high expectations placed on Buxton somewhat, fans have been reminded that this is the Georgia native’s first exposure to full-season professional baseball, as well as his first time playing ball in chilly Midwest April temperatures, so we shouldn’t be surprised if it takes Buxton a while to become acclimated to Midwest League play.
    So far, I think he's acclimating well.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Buxton31.jpg
    Byron Buxton (Photo: Knuckleballsblog.com)
    Through the first five games of the season, Buxton is hitting an even .500, with a Midwest League-leading OPS of 1.515. His .950 slugging percentage was more than 100 points higher than anyone else in the MWL going in to Tuesday's games. He's hit two home runs, a triple and a double among his ten hits overall.
     
    The question that's already being posed almost daily is, "how long will Buxton stay in Cedar Rapids?” The Kernels management would obviously like to see him stick around all season and one of the selling points the Twins brass made to Cedar Rapids during their affiliation dance last fall was that they don't rush their prospects through their system. They cited Miguel Sano spending all of 2012 in Beloit as an example.
    But Sano had issues to work through last year, specifically on defense. Buxton doesn't have those issues. If he keeps hitting for average and power during the first half of the season, I won't be surprised to see him move up to Fort Myers some time near mid-season.
    2) The six-man rotation.
    The Twins are trying to find out whether some of the power-arms they have drafted the past couple of years can be converted from bullpen roles to starting pitchers and manager Jake Mauer's six-man rotation allows them to look at more starting pitching candidates. In addition, it helps them limit the number of innings the pitchers put on their arms over the course of the season and, in particular, during the cooler days and nights of April in the Midwest.
     
    Mauer asked for and received a 13th pitcher from the Twins as a replacement for Drew Leachman, who went on the 7-day Disabled List with a bum shoulder. Of course, that could leave the Kernels manager a little short on position players on the bench, especially considering that the team carries three catchers. But Mauer pointed out Sunday that Tyler Grimes, who’s in his first season behind the plate, would be available to play the infield in an emergency.
    As for their performance through five games, the Kernels' pitching has been impressive.
    How impressive? Consider this: a week ago, the writing staff at MiLB.com published their picks for the top offensive line ups in each affiliated minor league in the country. Their pick for the top line up in the Midwest League was the Beloit Snappers, the team the Kernels hosted in their opening four-game series of the season.
    MiLB.com specifically mentioned Snappers Matt Olson, Renato Nunez, Bruce Maxwell and Aaron Shipman as demonstrating the ”remarkable depth” of the Snappers offense and concluding, “This potent collection of youth and talent give Beloit the lineup with the most upside top-to-bottom in the league.”
    Kernels pitchers held that foursome to a .183 batting average with 23 strike outs in that series.
    Overall, through five games, the Kernels staff was leading the MWL in team ERA (1.80) and WHIP (1.022), while striking out 50 hitters in 45 innings of work.
    All 13 pitchers have made at least one appearance in the first five games and seven of them... Tyler Duffey, Tyler Jones, Taylor Rogers, Steven Gruver, Matt Tomshaw, Brett Lee and Tim Atherton... survived those games with perfect 0.00 ERAs.
    Obviously, the pitching can't keep that level of performance up forever, but so far both the rotation and the bullpen have been outstanding.
    3) Byron Buxton's not the only position player off to a good start.
    While Buxton gets most of the attention among the Kernels' position players, there were other impressive performances over the first five games.
     
    Dalton Hicks has started the season hitting .389 and getting on base at an even .500 clip. Add in his .722 slugging percentage and you get an impressive 1.222 OPS to start the season. Among his seven hits, he's belted out three doubles and a home run.
    J.D. Williams has also gotten off to a fast start, putting together a slash line of .385/.526/.462 for a .988 OPS. He's shown good plate discipline out of the #9 spot in the order, accumulating five walks against just a pair of strikeouts.
    In total, going in to Tuesday night, Cedar Rapids led the league in slugging (.450) and OPS (.797). Kernels hitters struck out 30 times in the first five games, the fewest in the league.
    There's at least one more Kernels player that I think warrants a mention.
    Coming in to the season, the perception of third baseman Travis Harrison was that he was another infield "project," along the lines of Miguel Sano a year ago. I'm no expert on all of the ins and outs of playing third base, but I saw Sano in an early-season series a year ago and I've now seen Harrison play three games at the position. For my money, Harrison is well ahead of where Sano was defensively a year ago. Harrison not only wants to get better, he wants to be good at the position, and he's putting in the work to make that happen.
    4) The no-hitter.
    I’d never seen a no-hitter at the professional level before Sunday. The closest I’d come was being present at the Metrodome a few years back when the Royals' Mike Sweeney broke up Twins pitcher Scott Baker’s perfect game in the ninth inning.Thanks to Tyler Duffey and friends, I can check “see a no-hitter” off my Bucket List.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Duffey2-441x600.jpg
    Tyler Duffey (Photo: Knuckleballsblog.com)
    Duffey was remarkable through his seven innings of perfect work. Between he and his catcher, Jairo Rodriguez, they had the Snappers off balance through most of those innings.
     
    That said, he got some pretty impressive defensive help behind him, as well. Just off the top of my head, I can recall outstanding plays by Harrison at third base, Williams in left field, Niko Goodrum at shortstop and Hicks at first base. I’m sure there were others, as well.
    It was tough for Mauer and pitching coach Gary Lucas to pull Duffey from a perfect game, but it’s April and this is Iowa and there’s no way they, or the Twins brass, would allow Duffey to go much beyond his allotted 75 pitch limit… nor should they.
    You can’t fault Josue Montanez, who arrived in Cedar Rapids the night before as the replacement for Leachman, if he was a bit nervous coming in to relieve Duffey in the eighth inning. He walked three and coughed up the shutout on a sacrifice fly, but he kept the no-hitter intact. Tim Atherton walked one hitter in the ninth inning, but struck out the other three batters he faced to put a pretty emphatic exclamation point on the no-hitter.
     
     
    SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com in Cedar Rapids. His alter-ego, "Jim Crikket," is a co-founder of Knuckleballsblog.com.
  21. Steven Buhr
    Whew! We made it!
     
    I know I can’t be the only person who wouldn’t have bet much money a couple of months ago on the chances of MLB even having a Postseason in 2020. It looked pretty bleak when the Marlins and Cardinals started things off with a bunch of postponed games.
     
    But here we are. The American League starts their first round on Tuesday and the National League gets going on Wednesday.
     
    And, yes, the Minnesota Twins will be participating in this rather strange endeavor, having squeaked through with a second consecutive American League Central Division championship.
     
    When I initially placed a bet on the Twins to win their Division, back in January, I bet in moderation. After all, back then, we still expected the season to be 162 games long and we all know anything can happen over the course of a marathon-like MLB regular season.
     
    But when the season was officially shortened to 60 games, I was feeling very optimistic about the Twins’ chances in the AL Central. So much so that I put a whole bunch more money on them to win the Division. How much? Well, I won’t go into those details, but it was the largest single bet I’ve placed on any event since legalized gambling came to Iowa.
     
    Suffice to say, I was not pleased with a week left in the schedule. Thankfully, the White Sox totally tanked and the Twins won just enough down the stretch for me to cash in.
     
    But that’s all in the rearview mirror now. It’s time to look at the odds that William Hill and Elite Sportsbook have issued for the 16 teams still playing baseball this week.
     
    Once again, I’m surprised how these two organizations diverge on some of these odds. There are some interesting opportunities, for sure, but first let’s check in on the Twins’ odds, where the two sportsbooks are almost in lockstep with one another.
     
    Both William Hill and Elite have the Twins at 10-1 odds to win the World Series and they differ very little on their chances to win the American League Pennant. Hill is at +425 and Elite at an even 4-1.
     
    At William Hill, you can also put money on the outcome of the Twins’ best-of-three series with the Astros (boooooo). But the Twins are such heavy favorites (that felt as weird to type as it does to read, trust me) at -170 that it hardly seems worth it.
     
    Bottom line, putting a little money on the Twins to win it all at 10-1 seems worthwhile. After all, if there’s anything that would feel better than the Twins winning the World Series, it would have to be the Twins winning the World Series AND cashing in a nice fat payday from a sportsbook.
     
    But once we’ve got that money down, where else should we turn?
     
    Forget the Dodgers. I don’t care how good a team is supposed to be, if the best I can do is get 3-1 at Elite (+275 at WmHill) to win a playoff involving 15 other teams, I’m going to pass.
     
    The Rays are getting just 6-1 odds at Elite to win the World Series, but you can get 10-1 on WmHill. So you might ask yourself if you like Tampa’s chances as much as (or even more than?) you do the Twins’.
     
    No? So, what about the Yankees? Yes, at WmHill you can get that same 10-1 line on the Yankees to win the Series (Elite offers only 7-1).
     
    Elite is also offering 10-1 on the White Sox, but you can get 14-1 if you move over to William Hill.
     
    Thinking 10-1 is small potatoes and want a bigger bang for your buck? We can do that.
     
    Let’s start by assuming you’re not interested in Miami (40-1 on WmHill, 33-1 on Elite) and probably only marginally more tempted by Milwaukee (40-1 on Elite, 25-1 on WmHill) and Toronto (nay, Buffalo) which sits at 30-1 at both books.
     
    Could you be teased into a Cubs bet at 15-1 on William Hill (12-1 on Elite)? Maybe you like the Cubs to win the NL at +750 on WmHill (+550 on Elite)?
     
    The Padres have been a trendy favorite and you can get 4-1 at Elite (+350 WmHill) for a San Diego NL Pennant or go crazy and bet them to win the whole shooting match and get 9-1 at Elite (7-1 at WmHill).
     
    Here’s one that has piqued my interest, though.
     
    Didn’t the Reds look to you like they could be capable of doing some damage? And the Twins didn’t even go up against their best arm!
     
    We can get 9-1 at Elite on the Reds to win the National League (+850 at WmHill) and a whopping 22-1 at Elite to win the World Series (17-1 at WmHill).
     
    Did anyone who watched that Twins/Reds series really come away from it thinking the Twins are better than twice as likely to win it all than the team that took two out of three from them?
     
    Just for comparison, Cleveland and Houston both carry 20-1 odds to win the World Series.
     
    And Cincinnati got a pretty good draw in that NL bracket, too. They’d only have to face one or the other of the NL favorites, since they’re in the opposite bracket from the Dodgers and Padres (yes, technically, Atlanta is the number 2 seed, but both bookmakers like San Diego more).
     
    I like the Reds in their matchup with Atlanta and then they probably get the Cubs (though I’m not THAT sure the Cubs couldn’t find a way to drop a couple of games to Miami).
     
    So, that’s where I’m landing. Obviously, I have to put some money on the Twins to win it all so I REALLY have something to celebrate when Maeda shuts down his former team to claim the top prize.
     
    But I’m also going to take a little flyer on the Reds. Clearly could be a combination of “recency bias” and steep odds, but heck, I’ve put money on stuff with less logic behind it.
     
    Let’s get this party started!
     
    (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.)
  22. Steven Buhr
    With Opening Day of the 2020 Major League Baseball season now upon us, I thought I would take a quick peek at what, if any, adjustments the sportsbooks I subscribe to have made compared to those I posted in Part 4 of this "Bet On It!" series earlier in July, as teams were making their way back into their abbreviated summer camps.
     
    It turns out, however, that my fellow betting subscribers have given the oddsmakers at William Hill and Elite Sportsbook very little reason to make adjustments to their MLB season odds.
     
    I was pleased to see that William Hill has again begun taking bets on the Division races and even happier to see that they've adjusted their line for the favored Twins, compared to what they were offering back in March when spring training was suspended. The Twins' line is now at -140, which means you have to bet $140 to win $100 on a Twins Central Division championship.
     
    That may not sound great, but William Hill hadn't offered better than -160 since I started checking in January and still held the line at -170 in mid March. I really like the Twins' chances in a 60-game sprint so I went ahead and put a little money on the -140 line... all while cursing myself for only putting $50 on the even money 1-1 line that Elite was offering as recently as the end of January. (Elite has not, that I've noticed, offered Divisional Championship lines since MLB announced they'd be resuming the season.)
     
    William Hill's dampened enthusiasm for the Twins is not reflected, however, in their odds on our guys winning the American League Pennant. In fact, those odds at William Hill have dropped from 7-1 when summer camps opened to 6-1 currently. That matches Elite's current line.
     
    Neither book has changed their outlook on the Twins winning it all. The Twins remain at 16-1 and 15-1 at William Hill and Elite, respectively.
     
    As for the odds for all of the other favorites we've been following in this series, both books have remained unchanged on their odds for teams like the Yankees, Dodgers and Astros.
     
    If you're one of those poor sick souls who follow the Cubs closely, though, there's been a little movement in the past few weeks.
     
    William Hill has moved their odds on the Cubs winning the National League Pennant from 10-1 to 12-1 currently. Elite is unconvinced, however, leaving their line at 8-1. So if you've been looking for an opportunity to throw your money away on the Cubbies, now might be the time to do it. I haven't noticed 12-1 being offered since the end of January.
     
    Interestingly, the opposite is happening if you're looking to bet on the Cubs to win the World Series. Elite has moved from 18-1 down to 15-1 on a Cubs championship. Not that it really should matter, given that you'll want to be taking William Hill up on their unchanged 20-1 line, anyway, should you be in the market for this bet.
     
    Finally, William Hill has added one additional interesting option - betting on which player will lead MLB in Runs + Home Runs. (At least that's what I think "MOST RS HR'S" means, I'm still kinda new at some of this. If that's not correct, oh well.) Mike Trout is the odds-on favorite at 12-1 odds, but I couldn't resist putting $10 on the "Bringer Of Rain." If Josh Donaldson comes through for me (and, of course, the Twins) over the next couple of months, I'll make a cool $800 on that bet.
     
    Make it rain, baby!
     
    This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.
  23. Steven Buhr
    When I posted Part 3 of this "Bet On It!" series back on March 8, it's unlikely any of us could have foreseen that four months later we still wouldn't have seen Major League Baseball's Opening Day.
     
    Within just a couple of weeks from the time that article was posted, pretty much all MLB bets had been taken off the board at the sportsbooks.
     
    Now, as we try to celebrate our nation's birthday, the two books that I'm a member of have begun to post some MLB baseball action, though neither William Hill nor Elite Sportsbook have a full range of options available yet.
     
    (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com)
     
    There are enough, however, that it's worth taking a fresh look at how the bookies are feeling about which teams are most likely to emerge with trophy hardware this season and, in particular, how they're feeling about the Minnesota Twins.
     
    To review, William Hill had the Twins at 12-1 odds to win the American League pennant and 22-1 to win the World Series before the club signed Josh Donaldson. After adding the slugger, betters at both William Hill and Elite have pushed those odds southward, to the point where, in early March, William Hill had the Twins at 7-1 to win the AL and 14-1 to win the Series. Elite was a little less enthusiastic about the Twins' chances, setting their odds at 8-1 (AL) and 20-1 (WS) in March.
     
    While William Hill has maintained their 7-1 line for the Twins to win the AL, their odds on winning the Series bounced back up to the 16-1 level they were at in mid-February.
     
    Elite, meanwhile, is liking the Twins more than they did in March, rather than less. They now offer just 6-1 odds on a Twins pennant and 15-1 odds on a WS trophy.
     
    Only William Hill has re-opened betting on team wins, setting the over/under at 35 wins for the Twins. Given the uncertainty of just how many of the scheduled 60 games will actually get played, I think I'll leave that number alone.
     
    Interestingly, though, William Hill puts the line at 33.5 wins for Cleveland and maybe even more interestingly, 32.5 wins for the White Sox. That seems high for Chicago, but I suppose it reflects an optimism based on them getting to play a significant percentage of their games against Detroit and Kansas City (not to mention the Pirates). Still, I'm going to have to consider putting some money on the under there.
     
    Here's something I'm still trying to figure out, though. The futures bets I placed during the offseason at Elite are still active, while those I booked at William Hill no longer show up in my account.
     
    On Elite, I booked the Twins to win the AL Central back when I could still get even 1-1 odds and took a flyer on the Angels to win it all at 35-1 odds. But I also booked the Twins to win the AL at 11-1 and to win the Series at 22-1 on William Hill and those bets are nowhere to be found.
     
    I've started combing through communications from William Hill concerning how they were going to treat MLB bets and all I've seen is that they would void bets on cancelled events (and I can appreciate them cancelling bets on team wins), but other futures bets would remain alive as long as a winner is eventually determined. So, yeah, I'd love to still have those 11-1/22-1 bets in play.
     
    Neither of my sportsbooks appear to be offering bets on MLB Division winners at this point and the only prop bet I found featuring individual players was at Elite, where we can put some money on who we think will be the MLB home run king.
     
    Mike Trout and Pete Alonso are listed at 8-1, while Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger are at 10-1. We can also get 10- on "the field" and that seems to be a choice worth considering, to me.
     
    Miguel Sano, at 20-1, is the sole Twins slugger among the 25 players listed. Think I'll pass on that, thanks.
    Revisiting a few of the other contenders, it doesn't look like either William Hill or Elite have significantly changed their views on the MLB big dogs.
     
    The Dodgers have overtaken the Yankees (barely) as the odds-on favorite to be the World Series Champion. The Dodgers are at +325 and the Yankees at +350 on William Hill. Both teams sit at 7-2 on Elite.
     
    The Astros have tumbled a bit, though, on both sites. The two books have always viewed Houston's chances very differently. In March, Wm Hill had them at 9-1, while Elite was more optimistic at 5-1. Now, William Hill has them posted at 12-1 and Elite at 6-1. I have to admit, if it didn't mean having to potentially find myself rooting for the Astros, that 12-1 offering would be tough to pass up.
     
    There's a lot of talk about how the 60-game season could open the door for mediocre teams to get hot, qualify for the postseason and then potentially knock off one or two better teams to make a run toward the World Series.
     
    So, maybe we should look for decent value bets along those lines. I like my bet on the Angels at 35-1 to win it all (if Trout decides to play, anyway), but are there other options, too?
     
    As much as I'd love to see it happen, it's hard for me to imagine anyone in the AL East finishing above the Yankees. The Red Sox are still sitting at a relatively inviting 17-1 to win the AL pennant, but they'd not only have to get hot enough to finish ahead of New York, but also top a pretty strong Tampa Bay team.
     
    I could see the Angels or Athletics topping the Astros in the AL West, but I already have money on Los Angeles. Elite is offering 12-1 on Oakland winning the pennant, though, so that's at least worth considering.
     
    Forget the AL Central. The White Sox are at 12-1 on both sites, but I just don't see them topping both Cleveland and Minnesota and then ALSO staying hot enough to nail down a pennant. They're at least a year from putting that kind of run together.
     
    In the National League, the Braves and Nationals will be tough, of course, but 10-1 on the Mets to win the NL pennant is worth thinking about, anyway. If you're feeling adventurous, William Hill is giving you 15-1 on the Phillies, but that probably has something to do with having to fight through a gauntlet in that division (and their cross-league competition in the AL East), just to get to the postseason.
     
    Like the Yankees in the AL East, the Dodgers in the NL West make it almost pointless to consider one of their Divisional rivals, but if you could hit on the Padres (20-1) or D'Backs (25-1) winning the NL pennant, the payoff would be healthy.
     
    That leaves the NL Central and there's perhaps at least one interesting option there. I don't see an obvious dominant team (the two books can't even agree on whether the Cubs or Cardinals are more likely to win the NL), so it wouldn't be beyond reason to imagine the Reds or Brewers riding a hot streak or two.
     
    Both teams are listed at 15-1 on Elite and either might be an option at that number. But over at William Hill, things get more interesting. They only give you 10-1 on the Reds, but they offer 20-1 on Milwaukee. That's tempting.
     
    That's enough for today, I guess. I don't know whether we'll actually see MLB play games this summer and, honestly, I'm still not 100% convinced they should be playing.
     
    But that won't keep me from keeping an eye on the betting lines.
  24. Steven Buhr
    It has been over a month since we checked in on the MLB “Futures” at the William Hill and Elite sportsbooks and with spring training now well underway, it seems like a good time to see how the betting odds for the Twins (and others) are looking.
     
    Of course, even if I see something really interesting, it won’t do me any good right now since I’m in Florida at least through the end of the month and the Sunshine State has not legalized sports betting, yet. So, while I can look up odds at the two booking sites I subscribe to, I can’t actually place any bets until I get back in Iowa.
     
    Then again, with my inability to accurately predict college basketball games, that’s probably a good thing.
    First, let’s take a look at an updated version of the chart outlining the Twins’ odds to succeed at various levels in 2020.
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Odds-Mar-8-scaled.jpg
     
    A couple of things jump out at us here and they’re mostly reflective of the folks at William Hill coming around to thinking the Twins might be better than originally thought.
     
    William Hill’s odds on the Twins to win the American League pennant and the World Series have continued to drop.
     
    Before the Twins signed Josh Donaldson, William Hill had the Twins at 12-1 and 22-1 to win the AL and World Series, respectively. Those numbers have improved to where they stand at 7-1 and 14-1 now. Interestingly, while Elite has adjusted their line on a Twins AL pennant from 10-1 to 8-1, they continue to see them as 20-1 longshots to win WS rings.
     
    Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about booking my bets on the Twins to win the AL at 11-1 and the Series at 22-1. Now, all I need is for the guys to actually, you know, win!
     
    Both books have increased the over/under on Twins regular season wins by one win since the end of January, with William Hill still projecting one more win than Elite does.
     
    A few other interesting notes, just glancing at the differences between the two sportsbook sites:
     
    Like everyone, they both like the Yankees to win it all. You get just a little above even money on the Yankees to win the AL pennant and a bit better than 3-1 odds on a bet to win the WS. There are so many other good teams that those odds don’t seem worthwhile to me. Let the Yankee fans feed the rest of us.
    If you think the Astros can overcome their issues and ride their “us against the world” mentality into a repeat championship, you want to look at William Hill where you can get 9-1 odds on a Houston title. Elite is offering just 5-1 on the ‘stros. Both are third on the list behind the Yankees and Dodgers (3-1 WmH & 4-1 Elite).
     
    In the last article, we saw a huge discrepancy between the two sites where the Red Sox were concerned. WmH had them at 12-1 to win the AL, while Elite had them at 5-1.
     
    Man, the people who took that 5-1 bet are kicking themselves. They’ve become 18-1 at WmHill and 12-1 at Elite.
     
    We also looked in on the Angels last time, when Elite was offering 17-1 odds on winning the AL and an almost irresistible 35-1 odds to win the Series (at least it was irresistible to me). That’s come down to 14-1 to win the AL and 30-1 on the WS now. The odds have remained at 10-1 (AL) and 18-1 (WS) at WmH.
     
    How about that pesky team in Cleveland? They were getting 7-1 at Elite and 14-1 at WmH to win the AL last we checked in. Today, they’re at 12-1 at Elite, while remaining at 14-1 at WmH.
     
    Looking at the American League Central race, while both sites have the Twins as favorites and the same predicted order of finish, there are some differences in the odds.
     
    Cleveland gets just +120 to win the ALC at Elite, but 3-1 odds at WmH.
     
    The White Sox get nearly identical lines (+350 Elite and +325 WmH). Of note, that puts Cleveland and Chicago in a virtual dead heat for the second spot in the Central, according to WmH.
     
    I had to check the Royals lines several times to believe what I was seeing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a discrepancy between the two sportsbooks like Kansas City’s odds to win the AL Central.
     
    Elite set the line at +750. That’s 15-2 (or 7 1/2 – 1). But WmH will give you 60-1 odds on a Royals division championship. Now, I don’t see any way in hell the Royals win the AL Central, so maybe the odds don’t matter. But, still, that’s an incredible difference and a prime example of why you always want to shop around. Imaging being the Royals fan who decided to put a few bucks on their favorite team at Elite, only to later find out they could have gotten 60-1 odds at WmH.
     
    The Tigers, of course, pull up the back end of the division, getting 125-1 odds at Elite and 300-1 at WmH.
    Interestingly, Elite has Cleveland and Minnesota both at 20-1 to win the World Series (along with Milwaukee and Philadelphia at the same odds, placing them tied for 10th on the list of WS favorites). WmHill likes the Twins twice as much as Cleveland, though. While the Twins are at 14-1, Cleveland is at 28-1.
     
    William Hill has set some additional prop bets that weren’t out there before, such as pitting two teams against one another in a race to see which will win 30 games first.
     
    For instance, you can bet on whether the Twins or Braves will reach 30 Ws first. Braves are even odds, Twins at -120.
     
    When you shift to Twins vs Astros on the same bet, the Astros are favorites at -130, while the Twins get you +110.
     
    The Twins are favored to get to 30 before the A’s. Twins paying -125, while Oakland gets +105.
     
    Are you tired of RBIs not being a meaningful offensive statistic? Put a little money on Nelson Cruz to be the MLB leader in ribbies at 15-1 odds. Or go crazy and take Josh Donaldson at 60-1. Eddie Rosario & Miguel Sano both list at 100-1.
     
    Jorge Polanco will get you 28-1 odds if he finishes as the MLB leader in hits.
     
    What will it take to lead the Majors in home runs this season? Is the ball still juiced or will it be deadened? The over/under is set at 50 1/2 bombas.
     
    Think Jose Berrios is going to become the ace we’ve been waiting for? Go get the 40-1 odds being offered on Berrios being the MLB ERA leader.
     
    So many options. How will I possibly be able to wait three weeks before I can throw my money away on them?
  25. Steven Buhr
    After the Cedar Rapids Kernels finished batting practice on a warm, humid July 4 afternoon, two of the most productive players on their roster agreed to sit down and talk about the season.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GoreDobnak070418-600x400.jpg
    Jordan Gore and Randy Dobnak go through Kernels pre-game workouts on July 4, 2018 (Photo by SD Buhr)
     
    One, an infielder, has been hitting over .300 with an on-base percentage around .400 virtually all season. (And three days after the interview, his bags were packed for Chattanooga, where he’d been promoted to join former Kernels manager Tommy Watkins’ Lookouts.)
     
    The other, a starting pitcher, is 6-2 on the season and leads the Kernels in innings pitched.
     
    Unless you’re a pretty serious student of the Minnesota Twins’ minor league system or a Kernels season ticket holder, there’s a chance you’ve never heard of either of them.
     
    Jordan Gore was selected by the Twins out of Coastal Carolina in the 17th round of the 2017 draft and Randy Dobnak never got a post-draft call at all after completing his college career at Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia. They made the most of their college days on and off the field, both making the Dean’s List regularly at their respective schools.
     
    Gore started his college career at South Carolina before transferring to Coastal Carolina in his hometown of Conway, SC, where he underwent Tommy John surgery and ended up sitting out the Chanticleers’ NCAA championship season in 2016. Having to sit out that championship season wasn’t as tough for Gore as one might think.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Gore062418a-600x400.jpg
    Jordan Gore (Photo by SD Buhr)
     
    “Honestly you can say so,” Gore said, “but I’ve said this time and time again. That was best group of guys that I've ever been around as far as pulling for each other, working hard, all around good personalities and good people. It was probably better for me to sit back and watch how they did it. They taught me a lot about how to play the game the right way.
     
    “I’ve got nothing but love for everybody at Coastal. I tell you what, it made me a lot better person and a player.”
     
    Dobnak pitched for Alderson Broadus University in Philippi, West Virginia, where he had a career 26-12 record and set a Great Midwest Athletic Conference record with 284 career strikeouts.
     
    You wouldn’t fault Gore, a shortstop by trade, if he had been more than a little troubled by the fact that he was drafted by an organization that also used the first overall pick of the 2017 draft to select a guy who plays the same position. But Gore says he wasn’t concerned at all at the prospect of trying to work his way up through the Twins farm system virtually in tandem with top prospect Royce Lewis.
     
    “Honestly, I was just happy to get the call because after my last (college) game it kind of hit me, man this could be the last time I lace my spikes up,” Gore said, concerning his draft position, “and Royce is a great guy. It’s great to be playing with him. It’s a lot of fun.”
     
    Gore didn’t exactly follow the draft moment by moment, waiting to hear his name called, but admits being relieved when it was over.
     
    “I tried to keep my mind off of it,” he recalled. “I tried to just stay away from thinking about it too much. When I finally did get the call, it was a lot off my shoulders because you can try not to think about it as much as you want, but it's always going to be there.”
     
    While Gore had to be patient on draft day, Dobnak wasn’t all that surprised that he didn’t get a call when the draft had been completed.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Dobnak062718a-600x400.jpg
    Randy Dobnak (Photo by SD Buhr)
     
    “Being in the mountains of West Virginia, there were a few teams that were talking to me or my coaches,” he explained. “But when they’d try and come see me play, we’d get rained out, snowed out. too cold. So, I didn’t really know what to expect (on draft day).”
     
    Not being drafted didn’t mean Dobnak was ready to call it a career, however. He used a connection made in his freshman year of college to land a spot on the pitching staff of the Utica Unicorns, an independent minor league team in a four-team league about an hour outside Detroit, Michigan.
     
    “I played there for like a month. I had played with (the manager’s) son. He was my catcher my freshmen and sophomore year (of college). After a freshman year tournament, we were all out to eat and his dad was like, ‘I want you come play for my team once you graduate.’ Three years later, I'm like, 'Alright, let's do this thing.'”
     
    A few weeks later, he signed with the Twins and he spent the rest of last summer in Elizabethton and Cedar Rapids.
     
    Dobnak put up a combined ERA of 2.43 and a WHIP of 0.96 in six appearances (four as a starter) at the two 2017 stops and has followed that up with a very solid first three months with the Kernels this summer. In 14 appearances (11 of them as a starter), he has a 3.74 ERA and has struck out 49 batters, while walking just 13.
     
    He has averaged seven innings of work in his last five starts for the Kernels.
     
    At the time of his promotion to Chattanooga on July 7, Gore was hitting .307 with a solid .770 OPS and had a .333 average and 1.044 OPS in the month of July. While splitting infield time with Royce Lewis, Andrew Bechtold and Jose Miranda, Gore has made 33 appearances at second base, 23 at shortstop, five at third base and even made one late-game mop up appearance on the mound for Cedar Rapids.
     
    On a team seemingly filled with very young talent, Gore and Dobnak have stood out as 23-year-olds and their manager, Toby Gardenhire, has appreciated the level of effort and leadership they’ve brough to the field, as well as the clubhouse.
     
    “He’s been great,” the manager said of Dobnak. “He grabs the ball and goes out there and does whatever you want him to do. He works really hard every day, shows up ready to go. He's the epitome of the guy that you want on your team. He doesn't say much, he just goes out there and does his job every day.
     
    “His skill level has been great, he's done a great job, but the big thing for us is that he's very professional with everything that he does. When you have this many young guys on a team like we do that you're trying to teach how to be professionals, then you need guys like him where you can say, ‘Hey you see how Dobnak does this? You see what he does? You see how he goes about his business? That's the way it needs to be. That's how you have to act.’
     
    “So, aside from the fact that he's doing great, which is all credit to him and how hard he works, he's just a great person. He's a great leader for us.”
     
    Gardenhire offered a similar strong endorsement for Gore.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Gore070418a-600x400.jpg
    Jordan Gore (Photo by SD Buhr)
     
    “Gore’s the same way,” his manager said. “He's ‘game on.’ He's funny, but the way he goes about his business, the way he goes out and gets it every day - when you put him in the lineup, you know what you're going to get from him. You’re going to get effort. Dives all over the place and will do anything to win baseball games.
     
    “You would think that with baseball players in professional baseball, you're going to have a whole group of guys that just want to try to win games, that will do anything for the team, but it's not always like that. That's a taught trait. You either have something in you that says ‘Hey, I'll do whatever it takes to win this game' or you have to learn that. He's one of those guys, he just has it. That’s what he wants. He wants to win and he'll do anything.
     
    “I always call those guys dirtballs. He's driving all over the place. You're not going to see him with his uniform clean for very long in a game. That's one of those things, again, when you have a whole bunch of young talented guys like we have, to have a guy like that who shows them the way. They see him diving all over the place. He's mad when we lose and he gets fired up. They see that and it starts to kind of rub off on them. That's what you want.”
     
    A couple of relatively unheralded players on a team stocked with highly-regarded younger prospects could be forgiven if they felt some pressure to perform well enough to get noticed by their front office, but neither Gore nor Dobnak sounded like that was the case for them.
     
    “I don't think it's pressure,” Gore said. “Speaking for myself, I come out here and want to work hard. This is fun for us! I mean it’s the best job in the world, right?
     
    “Yep,” concurred Dobnak.
     
    “I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to come out here and work hard?” asked Gore, “because when you work hard, you tend to play well. It makes it a lot more fun.”
     
    Neither player is concerning himself too much with what’s going on with the Twins’ affiliates at the higher levels, however.
     
    http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Dobnak070418a-400x600.jpg
    Randy Dobnak (Photo by SD Buhr)
     
    “I check out the scores and see how some of the guys I know are doing,” conceded Dobnak. “I just think if you prove to your coaches or front office that you’re good enough to move up, they’ll move you up. But all the guys, they work hard. They all work the same. You go out there and do whatever you’ve got to do. Compete.”
     
    “I try not to think about (promotions), I’ll be honest with you,” said Gore. “I’m around a great bunch of guys every day and it’s a lot of fun. It doesn’t really pop into your head much. We’re just out here trying to win and we’ve been doing that here lately."
     
    Given that Gore earned a promotion three days after those comments, his approach obviously worked for him.
     
    One thing that comes through in virtually every conversation you have with any of this group of Kernels is how much they enjoy their teammates. It’s a close group, but even in the tightest of clubhouses, there will be differences. Gore and Dobnak are not completely in agreement in one aspect of the game.
     
    Dobnak’s Twitter profile includes a reference to the hashtag #BanTheDH. Gore doesn’t sound ready to give away the at-bats he gets on days he DHs.
     
    “Let the pitchers hit,” said Dobnak.
     
    And why? “Because it’s more fun for the pitchers. When you grow up, you pitch, you hit, you play the infield!”
     
    It’s all about the pitchers, right Jordan?
     
    “No offense to the pitchers out there, but you’re probably giving up an out every time,” a smiling Gore responded.
    “I'm just kidding,” the professional hitter in the conversation added. “We've got a lot of good athletes on the (pitching staff), I’m sure they could probably pick up a stick and hit it.”
     
    (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.)
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