Steven Buhr

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php/2785-Kernels-Roster-Taking-Shape

There was no rain in Fort Myers on Wednesday. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it was pretty breezy and high temperatures for the day barely, if at all, reached 70 degrees. I know that sounds good to a lot of people, but I had to wear long sleeves much of the day at the ballpark and was a bit chilly eating dinner outdoors tonight! But I toughed it out, because I know my readers expect me to do whatever it takes to get the story. Today, that story comes from the minor league side of the Twins organization. Rather than watch the Twins and Pirates at Hammond Stadium, I fought the Daniels Parkway traffic toward the Red Sox complex to watch the Twins’ Class A groups take on their Sox counterparts. After the game, Kernels manager Jake Mauer shared some thoughts about the way his club is shaping up as they enter the final few days of camp. Mauer indicated that just a handful of roster spots are still unresolved. One player still “on the bubble” with the Kernels as final decisions are being made is Chad Christensen, who prepped at Cedar Rapids Washington High School before playing ball for the University of Nebraska. Christensen was drafted by the Twins last June and played last summer for the Twins’ Gulf Coast League rookie level affiliate in Fort Myers. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/P3260170-2-600x432.jpg Chad Christensen It sounds like the Kernels’ manager would like to bring Christiansen to Cedar Rapids next week. “Chad’s been working real hard and he’s somebody that gives us some flexibility. He’s played both (corner) outfield positions and both corner infield positions and I wouldn’t be afraid to put him at shortstop once in a while,” said Mauer. “We’ve got about six or seven guys we’ve got to make decisions on and he’s in that mix, but there’s no doubt that he’s somebody we’d like to take north with us.” Mauer knows his squad of Kernels is going to have to take a different approach than last year’s team, now that last year’s power hitters have moved up the organizational ladder. “We’re going to have to be real good at the small things right away,” the manager acknowledged. “We’re going to have to run the bases well. We’re going to have to be able to execute the small game, hit and runs, getting bunts down, doing things like that. Try to create runs that way.” According to Mauer, there should be five or six familiar faces for Kernels fans to welcome back to Cedar Rapids. Among the likely returnees are catchers Michael Quesada and Bo Altobelli. Said Mauer, “We plan on taking both those guys north, along with (Mitchell) Garver. We’re probably going to take three (catchers) to start, at least.” That means flexibility will be key among other position players because, according to the skipper, he expects the final roster to contain just 12 position players, allowing 13 roster spots for the pitching staff that will once again utilize a six-man starting rotation. It’s that pitching staff that many in the Twins organization, as well as their fans, are anxious to see. “I think we’ll be starter-heavy. We should have some quality arms, starting-wise,” said Mauer. “We’ve got a lot of young, quality arms. It just depends on how many we decide to bring up with us.” In particular, there are a number of pitchers that will push their fastballs consistently in to the middle-to-upper 90s on the speed gun, including young Dominican pitchers Yorman Landa, who was hitting 96 mph in Wednesday’s game, and Randy Rosario. In addition, the Twins’ first round pick in 2013 (and second pick overall) Kohl Stewart is a hard throwing 19 year old who is still on the Kernels roster as camp is drawing to a close. As Kernels fans know, however, the team’s success is not solely determined by the players that start the season with the club. Between injuries and promotions, it’s equally important to have talented players at the lower levels of the organization preparing to join the Kernels as the season develops. According to Mauer, there’s plenty of potential mid-season help available, as well. “You know we’ve got some young boys down there, too, (Lewis) Thorpe and (Stephen) Gonsalves. Kids that have some pretty good arms that we’ll probably see at some point throughout the year.” The Kernels will break camp on Monday. There will be a “Meet the Kernels” event open to the public at no charge on April 1 at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids and Opening Day is Thursday, April 3, when the Kernels host the Clinton Lumber Kings.

I found Pineda's inclusion to be interesting. He got off to a pretty pedestrian start in CR last spring, but made a lot of improvement in terms of making contact and finding ways to get on base by year's end. He' Got speed when he does get on base. Maybe a little bit like JD Williams' situation a year ago. I'd like to see him make a Williams-like improvement next year.

There was a fair amount of debate in CR this year concerning who the Kernels' MVP was. Buxton was by far the best prospect, but was only in CR half the season. Many felt Walker, by being in town all season, was the MVP with all of his power numbers. To be honest, I'd give Brett Lee a lot of consideration if I were voting for a Kernels' MVP. He was the most consistent pitcher the Kernels had (with a hat tip to Mason Melotakis, as well). I'll just say that the Kernels would have been a much poorer ballclub without Lee in the rotation all year.

Yep, rule #1: Don't feed the trolls.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=2306-Shut-Down-Joe-Mauer-Now

I think that nonsense is almost entirely "local." Every fanbase has a certain number of people who simply get off on being contrary and they'll chip away at the best player(s) on the local team just to get attention and try to impress people with how "smart" they are. Those with knowledge of the game, even BBWAA members, know better.

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

Posted in error. Administrator, please delete.

We saw what Berrios could do against the River Bandits line up 2 weeks ago. He lasted 4.2 IP and gave up 5 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks. His next start, against a bad Kane County team, was even worse. Mauer and Lucas absolutely made the right call on pitching assignments. The problem the last two nights was not pitching, it was hitting (or rather a lack thereof). As for the fair/foul shot by Walker, even the QC third baseman said it was fair. It really wasn't all that close IMO. It's quite possible Walker hit the ball too hard/far. Based on where it landed and how far it had blown to the left by a pretty stiff breeze coming in from CF, he probably couldn't believe a ball that ended up that far left of the pole had been inside the pole when it went out of the ballpark. Possibly cost the Kernels more than just the 2 runs, as well. CR ended up with runners on the corners with 2 out, but without Walker's eventual K, they'd have been at the corners with 1 out. The umpire in question has been a thorn in the Kernels' side all season. He's just not very good at his job. Despite how things ended, though, it's been a fun year with this ballclub. Classy guys from staff through the roster. I wish every one of them all the best in the future.

Frankly, if Mauer's career ended today (say, for example, due to a Koskie-like career ending concussion), it quite possibly would help his chances of being a first-ballot HOFer. Puckett proved voters will look beyond a shortage of counting-type stats for a player viewed as exceptional in some way whose career is cut short.

Indeed, James got off to a fantastic post-season start, with 4 hits in 5 ABs, including a double, an RBI and a pair of runs scored. Five Red Wings had multiple hits in the game. Hope they can keep up the good work and go deep in the AAA playoffs.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=2293-Several-Kernels-Shooting-for-Two-Rings-in-Two-Years

I'm excited to see postseason baseball in Cedar Rapids and it's great that the Miracle are also in the playoffs. There's a very strong core group of players between those two rosters that should move up through the organization together much the way a couple of other groups did in the 80's and late 90's-early 00's. But I'm REALLY happy for the fans in Rochester. Let's be honest, with the Twins struggling the past few years, the Red Wings have taken the brunt of things by seeing almost every player who got even a little hot elevated to Minnesota and they've had to watch some really bad baseball in Rochester, as a result. There's little doubt in my mind that, if they'd had any other reasonable choice, Rochester would have opted not to renew their player development contract with the Twins during the offseason and it would have been hard to blame them. Give all the credit in the world to Gene Glynn and his staff and the players who turned things around and gave their fans something to get excited about. Best of luck to the Red Wings, as well as the Miracle and Kernels, in the postseason.

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

The Red Wings have appeared to be doing all they can to avoid being in the playoffs the past week or two, but heading in to the final weekend of the year, Rochester is just half a game out of the wild card spot. It doesn't look like anyone could blame Beresford for the Wings' August swoon, though. In his last 10 games, James is hitting .342 and has four multi-hit games.

Lee had this to say after the game: “It was a little more difficult going that long now,” Lee admitted. “After going just one or two innings for the past couple of weeks. I definitely could feel it, especially with how hot it was. I had to come in here (to the clubhouse) between each inning. I would sit on the bench and I would literally be dripping.” My full game story can be found by clicking Kernels clinch 2nd half flag The rotation was set up to have Berrios pitch game 1, Lee game 2 and Atherton game 3, if necessary. Berrios has struggled his last 2 games so Mauer and Lucas were going to take another look this afternoon, then talk to their pitchers. Could stay the same, could see a different pitcher plugged in to game 1 or could see Lee pushed up to game 1. May find out tonight.

I respectfully disagree, clutterheart. First, Berrios is not and has not been the Kernels' "ace" this year. He's been inconsistent and he has looked worn down the past couple of starts. Not surprising for a 19 year old who started his season early in the WBC. You may not care about playoff results, but I assure you the players in that clubhouse do and they expect the coaches to put the guys out there that give them the best chance to win. Instilling that winning attitude (and remember, several of these guys were on the E'town championship team last year) is important. Sending Berrios out to get his head knocked in again and perhaps cost his team a playoff win in the process will do nothing to build his confidence. He has not oonsistently reacted well to adversity this season. The staff literally has seven starting pitchers to choose from right now and Berrios has been among the least effective the past two times through the rotation. Honestly, IMO, there are a couple of those other guys I think have as good a chance, if not better, of being good MLB starting pitchers as Berrios. Keep in mind, if the Kernels win 2 of the 3 game series against QC, they go straight in to the second round without a scheduled off-day (unless game 3 isn't necessary), so they would use three entirely different starting pitchers in the second round. Berrios could benefit from an extra couple days of rest and then match up well with the second round opponent's #3-5 pitcher and have a much better chance of success.

Boer has had a couple of clunkers, but he hasn't been consistently getting rocked at all. On balance, he's been pretty effective since joining the Kernels. Strikeouts running a bit under 1 an inning, about a .250 BAA. Walking less than half the number he's striking out. He's only been making about 1 appearance a week lately, though, and he just wasn't all that sharp last night. Grimes is hitting .300 since moving to 2B a couple of weeks ago. He's had multi-hit games four times in the past seven games he's played.

Not critical, since they clinched a playoff spot by finishing 2nd in the first half of the season, but it's worth noting that last night's win clinched first place for the Kernels in the MWL Western Division for the second half. They lead QC by 4.5 games with 4 to play.

Manager Jake Mauer indicated before Thursday's game that Kepler's finger is feeling good and he could be available off the bench and may be back in the lineup Friday.

There's a big difference between Kepler being out a week... or two. One week means he's back for the last regular season game and the postseason that starts Wednesday. Two weeks means He could miss almost the entire first two rounds of the playoffs. Personally, I expect him back for the postseason, but I haven't heard anything concrete, yet.