The Beloit Snappers, Midwest League (low Class A) affiliate of the Twins, are making their last appearance of the season in Cedar Rapids this week with games Saturday night, Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon, and as I’m prone to doing, I’ve been out at the ballpark getting a look-see at the young future Twins.
Snappers in the field in Cedar Rapids
I saw plenty of offense out of some of the Snappers on Saturday night and Iowan BJ Hermsen survived some early struggles to squeak out a “Quality Start” in front of a packed house that included a fair number of Hermsen fans. Beloit won the game 10-5.
Sunday, the results were less favorable for the Snappers, as they gave up three runs in the first inning to the Kernels en route to a 6-1 loss.
But enough about the games. The purpose of this post is simply to give Twins fans a glance at the names and faces of a few of the young players who are toiling in the farm system as they work toward their dreams of playing Major League baseball. They work hard and know they face long odds… and they deserve some recognition. – JC
Jhonatan Arias donned the catchers gear on SundayDH Michael Gonzales was the picture of intensity at the plateSS Andy Leer takes his lead off 1BLF Derek McCallum gets his cutsRF Daniel Ortiz went deep with this swing... but foul3B Jairo Perez rips a line driveOF/1B Lance Ray checks signs before getting in the batters boxStarting pitcher Adrian Salcedo strides toward homeCF Daniel Santana watches a pitch sail wide of the plateRelief pitcher Sam Spangler delivers to the plate2B Reggie Williams readies on defense
As Span-watch continues, the Twins send an interesting line up out to finish off the series with Oakland this afternoon. Cuddy’s at 2B and Mauer is at 1B.
Gardy also shifted his line up up a spot, so we have Joe batting 2nd. At least he figured out that Nishioka has no business hitting up near the top of his order. (I still think “Nishioka” is Japanese for “weak ground ball”.)
I’m off to see some of today’s Snappers v Kernels game again, so I’ll be joining the GameChat later.
The Twins not only lost 2 of 3 to the friggin A’s but they are now 7 games behind the Tigers. Carl Pavano sucked again and the bottom of the Twins batting order sucked just as bad, if not worse.
The good news is that Denard Span is not a Washington National and will be rejoining the Twins in Anaheim. The bad news is that he isn’t a shortstop so he won’t be replacing the worst ballplayer in the line up. The other bad news is that Bill Smith apparently can’t multi-task and since he didn’t get a deal done with the Nationals, he didn’t get anything done at all before the trade deadline.
[EDIT] It’s official: Denard Span has been activated from the DL and Luke Hughes has been optioned back down to Rochester. Am I the only one who thinks there might have been better selections for a stint in AAA? – CB
Things are looking pretty bleak as the calendar turns to August.
As we all wait to find out whether Twins GM Bill Smith has totally lost his mind and will be trading away Denard Span yet tonight or tomorrow, the Twins themselves have another game to play in Oakland.
As I write this, it looks like Detroit’s going to drop their game to the Angels, so our guys can pick up a game in the standings with a win tonight.
I’m heading out to watch the Twins’ low Class A team, the Beloit Snappers, take on our local Cedar Rapids Kernels, but I’ll probably cut out a bit early so I can get back for most of the Twins game.
Well the guys missed an opportunity to pick up a game on the Tigers and White Sox, who both lost today. Blackie was not good and the offense wasn’t much better. I wish I could say it was an unusual performance for either one, but it wasn’t.
By the time game time rolls around on Sunday, the non-waiver trade deadline will have passed and we’ll know if Denard Span is heading to Anaheim Monday to meet up with the Twins there or whether he’s joining the Nationals, while the Twins get several young members of the Nationals organization. I still suspect Kevin Slowey my find himself packing his bags Sunday. He had a really nice performance on Saturday for the Red Wings.
Should be an interesting morning for Twins fans… not to mention their players.
This is certainly a different line up tonight. Danny Valencia and Tsuyoshi Nishioka have seats on the pine while the Twins field an infield of Mauer, Plouffe, Hughes and Tolbert.
Sure looks like the Twins could use Denard Span in their line up and Denard Tweeted earlier today that he expected to play his last game for Rochester tonight and then rejoin the Twins in Oakland. But, not so fast… Ron Gardenhire, who had previously been quoted as saying Span needed to play 3 straight games of nine innings for Rochester, now told reporters that he’d have to see Denard play 5-6 straight games.
WTF? Why?
There’s only one reason I can think of and I don’t like it a bit. It’s got to be the trade talk heating up.
If Span is healthy enough to be playing baseball, there’s absolutely no legitimate reason to keep him in Rochester instead of having him play those games for the Twins. None. Nada. Not when Gardy is throwing the kind of players on his line up card that we’ve seen the last couple of games.
A 12-hit attack with the top four in the order all having multi-hit games and a starting pitcher who gives 7 strong innings. Those are the results we expected to see this season… even if the line up wasn’t exactly what we envisioned.
Joe Mauer, Trevor Plouffe and Michael Cuddyer provided most of the offensive fireworks, but we do want to encourage Frankie to provide more performances like this one. He coughed up the early 2-run lead by giving up a HR in the bottom of the first inning, but that’s all the damage done. Liriano was definitely helped out of a couple of jams by inning-ending double plays, but all told it was a very good performance, earning him our BOD honors.
You saw that headline and I hooked ya. Now it’s time to reel you in.
No, I certainly do not believe the Twins need to trade Denard Span for Drew Storen or any other package centered on a relief pitcher. They’re seriously talking about trading him for relief pitching? REALLY? I wish someone could give me an example of when another organization traded away a guy of Span’s talents and contract status for a damn relief pitcher. I don’t care if someone is calling to offer me Dennis Eckersly in his prime, unless Eck is going to be used at the top of the rotation, I hang up the phone.
In fact, the more I look at this stuff, the more amazed I am that the Twins would even consider dealing Denard Span for anyone, really. They probably aren’t going to offer Delmon Young arbitration this offseason and both Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer are going to be free agents with no shortage of suitors.
Ben Revere, Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, and/or others among the Twins’ reputably talented outfield prospects may indeed combine in some manner to give us a “golden era” outfield, but I don’t believe for a moment that such an era is set to begin in 2012.
Denard Span... Twins need to trade FOR him, not trade him away
So yes, Denard Span needs to be traded, but the trade that needs to happen is one the Twins can implement all by themselves. Span needs to be traded TO the Twins by the Rochester Red Wings… and it needs to happen really, really soon.
Hey, I admit I’m no doctor and I would never, ever, advocate doing anything that would put a player’s health at risk. That’s particularly true when we’re talking about something as important as the man’s brain. If Span’s concussion symptoms are hanging around similarly to what Justin Morneau’s did a year ago, then sit him out until they’re gone. No doubt about it.
But he’s not sitting down. He’s playing baseball almost every day… in Rochester. If he needs a few extra days off, that’s fine. But when he does play, it should be while wearing a Minnesota uniform!
Look, if Alexi Casilla hadn’t pulled a hammie, a few days more or less of Denard entertaining fans at Frontier Field instead of playing for the Twins might not be a huge deal. But Lexi DID pull that hammie and he’s out for what the Twins witchdoctors say will be 2-3 weeks, which means we’ll be lucky to see him in a Twins uniform by this time next year, given the track record of the Twins’ medical staff (and I use that term loosely).
Did you see that line up Ron Gardenhire fielded in the final game of the Rangers series last night? Rochester wouldn’t be able to win an International League game with a line up that has Matt Tolbert, Ben Revere and Tsuyoshi Nishioka batting back-to-back-to-back in the 9, 1 and 2 spots, respectively… though I think I’d be OK with sending them down to let them try!
That may be being a bit harsh, I know. Tolbert actually got a couple of hits in his return last night, so the Twins certainly didn’t lose that game because of his presence. But as much as we all enjoy Revere’s approach to the game and appreciate the boost he gave the Twins when it was needed most, his performance at the top of the order has been really bad lately.
And then there’s Nishioka.
I am trying, for the life of me, to figure out why he’s still holding down a regular spot in the Twins line up while they are still considering themselves playoff contenders. Manager Ron Gardenhire has, as we all know, been known to stick with “his guys” through thick and thin (and thinner and thinnest), but I don’t recall many guys getting the level of patience Nishi has. Nick Punto, in his worst times, performed better than what we’ve seen this season out of Nishioka.
The man is a ground ball machine. You would think that just the law of averages would mean a few more of those ground balls would find holes in the infield, but they don’t. They aren’t hit hard enough to get through any but the most minute gaps and he’s not the fleetest guy from home to first base, so he’s not beating many of those infield grounders out.
Maybe I’m not seeing what Gardy is, because of everyone on his bench, he’s the last guy I would have moved up to the 2-spot in the batting order when Lexi went on the DL. As a matter of fact, since I’m advocating a “trade” with Rochester for Denard’s services, let me strongly suggest that it be Nishioka who gets sent to the Red Wings in return.
Tsuyoshi Nishioka... good chance he just grounded out.
The quotes from Gardy about this guy are consistently about how they still believe he can be a good ballplayer and they don’t want to destroy his confidence. I get that. It’s admirable. But do they think he’s an idiot and doesn’t see for himself that he’s hitting for sh*t? What’s more demoralizing for a player’s confidence, getting benched or continuously being overmatched by even the most mediocre Major League pitchers?
I keep hearing the excuses… the pitchers throw harder here, the strike zone is different in the US than Japan, he got a “star” level of respect from Japanese umpires and he’s getting “rookie” respect (e.g. none at all) from MLB umpires, his injury set back his learning curve. blah, blah, blah. I don’t care.
HE’S NOT HITTING THE BASEBALL!
I know the Twins have few other middle infield options. Matt Tolbert is barely replacement level, Trevor Plouffe would make the Jolly Green Giant leap to catch throws from SS, Luke Hughes doesn’t play short, and now Casilla is out of commission. At least Nishi is making the routine defensive plays at shortstop (and a few not-so-routine plays, as well), so I know there’s a case to be made that he’s the best of a bad bunch of options. But as long as we’ve still got a couple of days before the deadline, maybe Bill Smith can find someone with a spare AAA shortstop who occasionally will get the ball out of the infield. If not, I’d probably be fine with letting Tolbert or Plouffe get another shot, rather than continuing to watch Nishi flail away at the plate. It’s just too painful to watch and it has to be even more painful for him to experience.
The Twins are probably not going to get back in contention. I know that. And if they’re ready to throw in the towel, so be it. I can’t really argue against that, at this point. If that’s the case, then yes, let Nishioka keep trying to see, nevermind hit, American League pitching if we no longer care about winning games. Give Denard all the time he might need to get his game back together and be able to contribute 9 innings for 3, 4, 5 days in a row… whatever. Let’s get innings for Hughes, Plouffe and whomever else might warrant an extended look.
But, Bill and Gardy, don’t tell me you’re serious about getting back in to contention when you’ve still got Nishioka in your batting order, much less up near the top of it. It just makes you sound like idiots.
Let’s hope we get the “good Brian” tonight against the Rangers. It would really be nice to get back to the days when a starting pitcher gave us 6-7 decent innings. It wasn’t really THAT long ago, was it? Just seems like forever.
Rumors continued to swirl today about a possible Denard Span trade to the Nationals for a handful of magic beans (or something of approximately the same value). I have to say that if Bill Smith makes a deal even remotely similar to what’s being bounced around Twitterworld, I’ll be totally on board with everyone who wants to call for his dismissal. It’s almost like he’s telling us, “so you think that deal I made with the Nationals last year was terribly one-sided in favor of Washington? Let me show you how much worse I can let them rip me off!”
Ah well… the Tigers and Indians both lost this afternoon (in fact the Toons got no-hit by the Angels), so without even playing a game, the Twins managed to gain half a game in the standings on both teams. This has me thinking the Twins should just take the next 14 days off… maybe they’ll find themselves tied for first place by mid-August.
Well that’s the kind of game we were all wanting to see!
Five different guys with multiple hits, including three from Jason Kubel! Lexi had two doubles (although he did pull up lame on the last one and it sounds like he’ll miss some time with a hamstring issue… dammit) and we got another HR from Cuddy. And yes, finally, the Chairman yanked his first HR of the season in the first inning to start the scoring. The bullpen also did another nice job.
But the star of the game was Brian Duensing. The Twins got exactly what they needed from him. He went 6.2 innings, scattering 7 hits and giving up just one run. He walked just one while striking out 6. That badly needed quality start earns Brian our BOD award!
(Contest update: With Joe Nathan’s save Tuesday night, he needs just one more save to pass Rick Aguilera and become the Twins’ career saves leader… and that means you’re running out of time to submit your entry for a chance to win a set of Twins 1991 World Series DVDs!)
As has been written and said by many a professional baseball “expert” the last week or so, “This is when GMs earn their money.”
July 31, the non-waiver trade deadline, is just four days away. Some teams are clearly shopping for players that can help them in their push for the playoffs over the final two months of the season and some teams have absolutely no shot, so they’re looking to sell off veterans in return for prospects and/or payroll relief.
And then there are the Twins.
A few games ago, the Twins were only five games behind the AL Central Division leaders and all media reports indicated GM Bill Smith was shopping for players to help manager Ron Gardenhire make his team’s traditional late-season surge.
Since then, the Twins have not only been losing ground to all three teams ahead of them in the standings, but, despite Tuesday’s win over the Rangers, have looked pretty bad in doing so. I wasn’t sure they could play any worse than they did in April, but the evidence is shaping up to indicate I was wrong.
So I pose the question… if you were Bill Smith, what would YOU do?
To help you sort through the question, let me try to lay out the arguments on both sides. Let’s start with…
REASONS TO BUY
This is still the AL Central Division and as bad as the Twins look lately, nobody else is really, really good.
Seven games simply isn’t all that much to make up, even in just two months. The Twins have overcome bigger deficits in the past and all three of their Division competitors have histories of late season fades. In fact, reports are that the Sox GM is already waiving the white flag and is looking to sell players.
Two of the Twins most productive offensive players, Denard Span and Justin Morneau, should be rejoining the team over the course of the next month. Not many other teams will add two players with the potential to add comparable offensive stats.
The Twins’ rotation has been inconsistent, but that means they won’t continue to be as bad as they have been for the past week. Don’t overreact to one bad… very bad… very, very bad… week of starting pitching.
There’s no need for the Twins to slash payroll. Unlike many “sellers”, the Twins don’t have to worry about ticket sales falling off if the team doesn’t catch fire to stay in the race. They’re already guaranteed over 3 million in paid attendance. Sure, some fans with tickets may not show up, but they’re likely to sell their tickets, even if it has to be at a discount, so there isn’t likely to even be a loss in concession sales. There’s no risk of income falling off to the point where it can’t support not only current payroll, but a couple of extra relief pitchers and bench bats.
Even if you suspect the team won’t stay in contention, you don’t want to send the message to your clubhouse that this organization is going to establish a habit of giving up in July.
The non-waiver deadline is largely a faux deadline. Often, the first thing teams do on August 1 is send their entire roster through revocable waivers. Almost the entire roster goes through unclaimed. Worst case scenario, you get an indication of which teams might be interested in those players that DO get claimed. If things continue to go downhill, there’s still a good chance you can trade most of the players with any value before the end of August.
If you make a deal for a “rental” player that you like, you’ve got a couple of months to convince him that he should stick around and sign an extension with you.
Hey… the team COULD catch fire again and give us all another pennant race to get excited about. Stranger things have happened!
On the other hand…
REASONS TO SELL
It’s not just the seven games they need to make up, it’s that they have to pass THREE other teams. The chances of getting that hot again AND all three teams ahead of you faltering enough to pass all of them are simply not very good.
The core of this team has so many flaws that (a) it is almost impossible to imagine they could pass three teams in the standings over the last two months; and (b) it will take more infusion of new (and better) talent to regain competitiveness next season than can be done simply by tweaking around the edges in the offseason.
The top prospects in the Twins organization are either not good enough or not advanced enough (or both) to contribute at the MLB level by next season and now is the time to acquire some MLB-ready talent from other organizations.
Throwing in the towel on this season would allow the Twins to get their younger players two months of MLB competition and allow the decision-makers in the organization to evaluate them at that level. This is pretty much what the Royals are doing (but then again, it’s what they do every season at this time).
Even if the Twins catch lightning in a bottle again over the next two months and win the Division again, they’ve proven they would do nothing but embarrass themselves and their fans in the playoffs… again. It would be better to make some deals that could make the team a stronger contender in 2012 and beyond than to try desperately to pull one more miracle out of this core group of players.
Trading pending free agents like Cuddyer, Nathan, and Kubel would not necessarily preclude the Twins from re-signing them next season if the price is right.
A lower finish would give the Twins a higher position in the 2012 amateur draft than they have had in a while and would also likely mean they could sign other teams’ Type A free agents in the offseason without giving up their first round pick (the top 15 spots in the draft only lose their 2nd round pick when they sign a Type A FA).
Whether by trading veterans for prospects or through higher draft picks, there’s a better chance that the Twins will end up with a pitching prospect with true “ace” potential… something the team doesn’t have now anywhere in their organization and a team must have to be considered a serious contender for a World Series Championship.
So there you have it. Have I missed anything? What factors would guide you to making a decision to buy or sell if you were the Twins GM for the rest of the month? Let us know in the comments.
We haven’t had a contest here since early in the season and now, thanks to the good folks at A&E Home Entertainment/MLB Productions, we’re here to remedy that.
MLB Productions will be releasing two sets of DVDs in early August to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Twins 1991 World Series Championship and we’re here to help you get your copies now!
How can you win these terrific prizes? I’m glad you asked.
You may or may not be aware, but Twins closer Joe Nathan is on the verge of becoming the organization’s all-time leader in saves. His 253 saves as a Twin trails current leader Rick Aguilera by a single save.
When will he catch Aggie? And, more importantly for our purposes anyway, when will he notch the save that gives him the Twins record to himself?
In the comments section of this post (or any subsequent Knuckleballs post), give us:
The date that you believe Nathan will record his record-setting save (entries picking a particular game must be submitted before the official start time of that game).
For tie-breaking purposes, also tell us what you believe the total combined runs for the Twins and their opponents will be for that record-setting game.
If more than one person picks the correct game and are equally close to the correct total score, the winner will be the person who submitted the comment with their guess earliest.
An email address, so we can contact you if you are our winner (getting this up front precludes an imposter emailing us afterward, claiming to be you! We do not save, use or share email addresses without permission. If you prefer, you may email us your contact information rather than post it with your guess in the comment section).
Joe Nathan
If nobody picks the correct date, we will choose a winner at random from all entries submitted by game time of the contest in which Nathan breaks the record. Likewise, the winner will be chosen at random if, God forbid, the Twins or Nathan himself should fall on such hard times that the record is not broken by the time the Twins return home from the current road trip that ends on August 4.
If you don’t happen to win our contest, not to worry… you’ll eventually be able to purchase both sets of DVDs (not to mention your other Twins merchandise and tickets, of course) at www.twinsbaseball.com. Other Twins blogs may be running similar promotional contests, so keep your eyes open for those, as well! (As we become aware of other blogs running a similar promotion, we’ll update this post and add links to the other blogs here, so keep checking back!)
Get your picks in early… Twitchy could wrap up the record as early as Wednesday night in Texas! (Of course, that would require the Twins to stop sucking… but you never know, it COULD happen!)
Good luck… and Go Joe!
– JC
Prizes courtesy of A&E Home Entertainment/MLB Productions. To claim prizes, the winner will need to provide his/her mailing address to representatives of AEHE/MLBP and prizes can only be shipped to addresses in the Continental US. Knuckleballs is not responsible for delivery of prizes.
The last ten games have not been kind to our Twins and after Monday night’s fiasco, I’m not sure this countdown exercise is even worth doing any more, but we’ll give it one more shot.
With eight of the last 10 games coming against the two teams at the top of the AL Central Standings, they had an opportunity to make some real headway, but the lack of anything resembling MLB-caliber hitting in those series pretty much ended any chance of closing ground.
I still maintain that these series weren’t as critical as others made them out to be, but there’s no doubt it was an opportunity lost. And what’s particularly disheartening is just how flat-out BAD the Twins have looked in virtually every aspect of the game of baseball.
We started this countdown when the Twins had 100 games remaining to their season and trailed the Tigers by 10 games. The theory was that they need to gain one game every ten games through the rest of the season in order to win the division.
Once again, since I’m maintaining my stance that Cleveland will not remain in contention throughout the season, let’s check in on the REAL AL Central Standings with the Twins having 60 games remaining.
TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 60
TEAM
RECORD
GB
Tigers
54-48
–
BitchSox
50-51
3.5
TWINS
47-55
7
Not surprisingly, the Twins lost ground over the past 10 games to both the Kitties and the BitchSox. They’ve now fallen behind the pace they needed to set when we started this… gaining an average of one game every ten games played. They’ll need to make up some ground over the next ten games to get back on pace.
The Twins start a pretty important road trip tonight in Arlington, where the temperatures are reportedly above 100 degrees (and I’ve been there often enough to know it is most likely NOT a “dry heat”).
I think there’s a lot of angst among the Twins faithful right now and rightfully so.
It’s time for this team to quit screwing around and get serious about playing good baseball again.
Ben Revere gets his first night off in quite a while (and, frankly, it’s about time).
The thing we have to keep in mind after something like this is that it still only counts as one game in the standings. The Tigers lost to the White Sox tonight, so despite this abomination, the Twins actually lost no ground to the Division leaders.
And we did have the entertainment value of seeing Michael Cuddyer take to the mound! He loaded the bases but worked out of the jam, so despite a 3.00 WHIP, he escapes with a perfect 0.00 ERA! He hit 88 mph with his fastball, that had some late movement. That’s more than some of the guys in the Twins bullpen can say lately!
