Steven Buhr

He's got a terrific sense of humor. He had me laughing through most of the interview Saturday.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1753-Q-A-With-Travis-Harrison

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.

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.

Actually, it was Beresford's defense that first got my attention when he played here in CR for Beloit a few years ago. He made one play in the hole to his right I thought there was no way could be made and turned a very acrobatic double play, as I recall. I think the Twins know he can handle SS at any level and Santana is getting the games at SS for two reasons: (1) Santana is seen as the higher prospect offensively and needs the work at SS (and that's really what the minor leagues are for... development); and (2) If Beresford can show enough improvement in extra-base hits to actually compete for a spot with the Twins at some point, there's no telling today what position that might be at, so they might as well move him around some to make sure he's going to play well no matter where they might need him. To me, it's far less important where he plays in the field right now than it is just making sure he's in the line up as often as possible and getting in his swings with the bat.

Meant to post this last night and just didn't get around to it, but I put up a little bit of video, including Goodrum's bases-clearing triple, over at Knuckleballs last night. Click below. Knuckleballs Kernels Video: Goodrum and Buxton

You think Tyler Jones will be returning to CR when he comes back?

Harrison also with his 7th. 3 for 4 on the day.

Nice article, Thrylos. Thanks for sharing. You have to suspect that it's not a coincidence that they're seeing what Colabello can do in the outfield.

Forecast is looking pretty iffy for this afternoon in Cedar Rapids. Looking at chances of very strong storms. In fact, this could be the day Iowa ends its record stretch of days without a tornado touching down anywhere in the state (currently at 359 consecutive days, I believe). Matt Tomshaw is scheduled to start for the Kernels.

For those accustomed to looking at Major League attendance figures, these numbers are going to look puny, but for the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the news is all good after the first 18 home dates. Despite only playing ball on 17 of those dates, because of a rainout, the Kernels have increased attendance by almost 48% over last season. April and early May are not typically booming months for minor league baseball attendance in the Midwest. Cold weather and the fact that kids are still in school are just two of the factors that inhibit attendance early in the season. So, while 30,031 in paid attendance over the first 18 home dates doesn't sound like a lot, it's only the second time since the current Kernels ballpark opened up that the Kernels have passed the 30,000 mark at this point in the season. The only other year they did so was 2005 and there were no rainouts in the first 18 dates that year. Last season, less than 21,000 fans showed up in the first 18 dates. I think it's safe to say the people running the Kernels organization are pleased with the early results of their new affiliation with the Twins.

I found this discussion interesting because I've actually been impressed with Polanco's athleticism. It's hard to steal a base already occupied. I went back through my scorebook to check, in the 11 games I've covered and kept a scorecard, how often he arguably could have stolen a base. In those games alone, of the 22 times he reached first or second base base, 14 times he had a runner blocking him from even attempting to steal the next base. Buxton and Pimentel get on base ahead of him an awful lot. Even when there's nobody blocking him from stealing, I can't think of any time when I thought it really made a lot of sense for the #3 hitter to attempt a steal with Hicks, Walker and Harrison coming up behind him. I doubt Polanco has the same kind of speed Buxton, Pineda, Williams and Pimentel have, but I don't doubt he could steal a few bases if he were playing a role that required it of him.

Beresford has been reactivated by New Britain and went 2 for 5 with a run scored in his first game back, raising his batting average to .341 on the season. Welcome back, James!

Video of Travis Harrison's heroics Knuckleballs ? Kernels Video: Harrison Walkoff Single Beats Cougars

I admit I had that thought when I saw him jump at home. Then again, I was just happy his teammates waited at home for him this time and the runners all crossed home ahead of him instead of having everyone tackle him as he rounded second base the way they did for Travis Harrison's grand slam "single" a couple weeks back. Lesson well learned, apparently.

I wondered about the reasoning behind Pineda's promotion, too. It's far too early to tell if he's ready to hit at this level or not, of course. He had a double down the left field line in his first AB tonight, grounded to 1st and struck out his other two ABs before being pinch hit for in the 9th. I heard Kepler is starting to at least DH in EST games, so he might be ready to come up by the time Buxton is promoted. Only Burlington and Beloit have seen Buxton for two full series, but between now and the end of the first half of the season (exactly a month from now), there will be several other teams getting an opportunity to adjust their approaches to Buxton. I think that's something the Twins want to see how he handles. One thing he has going for him that I don't believe Sano did a year ago in Beloit is that with so many legitimate hitters behind him, there's no way teams can really pitch around him. Until Vargas was activated last summer, Sano didn't always have that benefit.

Actually, the Kernels had four errors, rather than 3. All 4 spread across the 6th and 7th innings, leading to 5 unearned runs. I posted a video I took of Buxton's home run at Knuckleballs, if you care to check that out, too. Knuckleballs ? Kernels Video: Buxton Walkoff Grand Slam

It's hard to say, Seth, based on one night but Pineda can fly. He played CF in Game 2 while Buxton DH'd. Pineda let a ball get over his head in CF and you couldn't help but wonder if Buxton would have had it, but that's not really fair, either. If you haven't checked it out, you might want to read Jim Ecker's MSR story from last nights games. He focused on the team adding Pineda's speed to a pretty swift group already. Link is below, but here's a snippet: "I would like to see him, Pimentel, Buxton and Williams ... Put them all on the line and see who comes out," said Mauer, smiling at the concept. "If you ask J.D., he'll tell you he's the fastest. He'll tell you that all the time." Who's the fastest? "Of course I'm going to say me," said Williams, an outfielder from Florida. "Yeah, definitely. I'd get them at the tape." Pineda joins Kernels track team

You definitely saw the poorer of the two games. The Santos kid that pitched for Burlington certainly had no problem with the Kernels, striking out 10 in 5 innings.

I posted videos of admittedly dubious quality of Jorge Polanco's triple, Dalton Hicks' RBI double and Tyler Grimes' HR over at Knuckleballs this morning. Don't shoot the photographer. Knuckleballs ? Kernels Videos: Polanco, Hicks, Grimes Oh, and I sure hope new Kernel Jeremias Pineda finds ways to get on base because he's got serious wheels once he gets there.

Let me just also add this as my final comment on this subject: Just as I believe 1/4 of the season is long enough to warrant a look at how all of these FAs are faring, I also believe it is long enough for Ryan and the Twins to figure out that their rotation, as currently constituted, is not good. Whether it's from internal options at AAA (or AA) or by looking for external options, there's no reason to wait much longer to try SOMETHING to improve the starting pitching. If Ryan truly does believe that playing .500 ball is not good enough, then it really is up to him to do his part to improve on that record by continuing to try to fix the rotation.

I don't think it's at all contradictory to say it's too early to call TR's dip in to FA during the offseason a success or failure AND to say that so far his decisions look better than a lot of the other GMs who went fishing for pitching. Unless, of course, you choose to ignore the words "so far". With the exception of Marcum, I think all of the SPs mentioned have at least 7-8 starts under their belts. I don't think it's premature to at least take a look at how the various FA options have fared thus far. 1/4 of a season is not insignificant, especially considering how many of the pitchers signed one-year contracts. I do, however, believe it is far too early to cast any sort of judgment on the trades Ryan made. Obviously, Worley hasn't been good, but I don't know anyone who believes he was much more than a throw-in by he Phillies. It was May that was the Twins' primary target in that deal and, as with the Span trade, we won't know how Ryan fared on that deal until we find out what kind of Major League pitcher the prospect turns out to be. The point, and I'll stand by it, is that SO FAR it looks like Ryan may have been right about it being a "thin" starting pitching market and he certainly could have spent a lot more money without getting any better results during the first 1/4 of the season.

Kernels have announced Steve Gruver (2-0, 1.33) will start game 2 of their DH with Burlington tonight.

Looks like they're going with Steve Gruver.