Fred Clarke (1872)
Bob Skinner (1931)
Jack Lamabe (1936)
Chuck Scrivener (1947)
Dave Winfield (1951)
Dennis Eckersley (1954)
Jim Joyce (1955)
Daryl Sconiers (1958)
Darrin Fletcher (1966)
Junior Felix (1967)
Wil Cordero (1971)
Eric Munson (1977)
Infielder Chuck Scrivener was drafted by the Twins in the seventeenth round in 1966, but did not sign.
Jim Joyce has been a major league umpire since 1989.
We would also like to wish a very happy birthday to spookymilk.
I don't feel like it should be time for another birthday yet, but here I am. This was the year that I felt so old that I finally listened to some of the regulars at the other site and went hard after getting a game published. Here's to 36 being an important age.
great, now i'm gonna have about 5 tunes concurrently running in my head all day.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZki6TcY4w
Continue reading Martin Leung – Super Mario Medley
(2 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)
Loading... Tampa throws out starter Bob Alex Cobb while the Clevelander will start Danny Salazar. Delmon Young is the DH for the Rays and it batting 7th. I expect he will see 6 total pitches tonight.
Game is televised on TBS.
alternate programming: NHL on NBCSN, Buffalo at Detroit.
The Wild kick off their season against Los Angeles tomorrow night, and I thought maybe a look at the upcoming season was in order. Minnesota is coming off their first playoff appearance in a few seasons, albeit an appearance of the “blink and you missed it” variety as the #8 seed. What follows is a quick look at some of the factors that may determine whether they can improve on that result.
ROSTER
The Wild lost Matt Cullen (free agent), Devin Setoguchi (trade), and Cal Clutterbuck (trade) in the offseason, and picked up Matt Cooke and Nino Niederreitter. I liked the guys that are gone, but I don’t know that the loss of any of them is a huge impact. The Wild in the past have always struggled to find centermen, so the loss of Cullen could be a touch more concerning, but Coyle and Granlund (maybe Parise?) should be able to fill that role without too much of a dropoff.
The Wild moved their AHL affiliate to Iowa in the offseason, which, when combined with the fact that they are still a very young team, could have a big impact on the roster makeup. It will be a lot easier to pick up a skater from the minors on short notice, and I expect Mike Yeo to have a pretty fluid roster, especially at the start of the season.
I remember Nino Niederreiter from when he almost singlehandedly pulled off the upset of Russia in the 2010 Under-20 World Championships. It seems he hasn’t really established himself yet in the NHL (2 goals in 64 games), but he certainly seems eager to prove himself (rumor had it that he requested his trade from the Islanders after not getting a chance to make the team after the lockout last season).
Matt Cooke…. *sigh*. I hope he keeps his nose clean. That’s really my only hope for him. I really don’t want the Wild to have to deal with any multi-game suspensions.
Parise, Suter, Koivu, Heatley, Backstrom, Brodin are all back. The Wild are going to rely on young players again this season, but they probably have a solid enough core that, if they can avoid catastrophic injuries, they could be right in the playoff hunt again.
REALINGMENT
The NHL went from 6 divisions to 4 and moved the Red Wings and Blue Jackets to the Eastern Conference, while moving the Jets to the West. I feel like the new divisions really set up the Wild nicely. First of all, Minnesota has gone from 10th to 8th in alphabetical order in the conference, so if playoff spots end up being decided based on that, they’re in!
Perhaps more importantly, the Wild ended up in the division containing the fewest 2012-13 playoff teams.
The Central Division consists of: (* denotes 2012-13 playoff team)
Chicago*
Colorado
Dallas
Minnesota*
Nashville
St. Louis*
Winnipeg
Given that the NHL plays an unbalanced schedule (4 or 5 games against teams in your division, 3 against teams in your conference, 2 against teams not in your conference), that means that the Wild have only 40 of 82 games this season against teams that made the playoffs last year. That’s the lowest number (tied with Chicago and St. Louis) of any team in the NHL.
SCHEDULE
Minnesota opens with four of their first five at home (LA on Thursday, Anaheim on Saturday, then hosting the Jets and the Stars at the end of next week) before an east coast road trip (4 games).
Looking ahead, there are a couple of road trips that look like a bit of a trek (8 of 10 on the road at the end of March, 7 of 8 on the road in December), but they finish the season with 4 of 5 at home, which could be helpful if a playoff push is needed.
With that road trip at the end of March, I’d like to see the Wild in a comfortable playoff position going into the Olympic Break (Feb. 6-Feb. 27) in order to feel good about their chances of making another appearance in the post-season.
THIS WEEK
Los Angeles (7:00, Thursday)
Anaheim (7:00, Saturday)
@Nashville (7:00, Tuesday)
OTHER STUFF
NHL.com Wild Season Preview
Russo on Opening Night Lineups
Parise on the Season
More elimination tonight, everyone.
(A couple citizens need to revisit their spreadsheet answers: the first round is best of five, guys)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZUMqpDXMgc
Sir Elton tickles the ivories in the latest song of Piano Solos Week.
(2 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)Loading... Mike Dorgan (1853)
Eddie Murphy (1891)
Masayori Shimura (1913)
Maury Wills (1932)
Earl Wilson (1934)
Bob Robertson (1946)
Greg Pryor (1949)
Alan Newman (1969)
Matt Walbeck (1969)
Eddie Guardado (1970)
Scott Schoeneweis (1973)
Jose Morban (1979)
Aaron Hicks (1989)
Masayori Shimura was a pioneering baseball broadcaster in Japan.
The Battle of the Canadian First Basemen
4 swings and misses for Liriano in the top of the first inning. That's about what the average Twins SP had in a week, right?
I stole most of the idea from when Gleeman started his top40 list years ago (still unfinished right?) The below quote is his, and the rest is an exerpt from a book I put together 3 years ago. Some of it is outdated, but I’ve updated the list and stats through 2013 which includes the changes that were made last year to how different sites calculate WAR.
“The rankings only include time spent playing for the Minnesota Twins. In other words, David Ortiz doesn’t get credit for turning into one of the best players in baseball after joining the Red Sox and Paul Molitor doesn’t get credit for being one of the best players in baseball for the Brewers and Blue Jays. The Twins began playing on April 11, 1961, and that’s when these rankings start as well.”
I used a variety of factors, including longevity and peak value. Longevity included how many years the player was a Twin as well as how many plate appearances or innings pitched that player had in those years. For peak value, I looked at their stats, honors, and awards in their best seasons, as well as how they compared to their teammates. Did they lead their team in OPS or home runs or ERA for starters or WPA? If so, that got some bonus points. I factored in postseason heroics, awards (gold gloves, silver sluggers, MVPs, Cy Youngs), statistical achievements (batting titles, home run leaders, ERA champs, etc), and honors (all star appearances), and I looked at team success as well. If you were the #1 starter on a division winning champ, that gave you more points than the #1 starter on a cellar dweller. I looked at some of the advanced stats like WPA, WAR (as calculated by fan graphs and baseball-reference.com), WARP (as calculated by Baseball Prospectus), and Win Shares (as calculated by Bill James). For hitters, I also looked at OPS and the old school triple crown statistics like batting average, home runs, stolen bases, and RBI (and not only where you finished within the AL in any given year, but where you appear on the top25 lists amongst all Twins in the last 50 years). For pitchers I looked at strikeouts, innings pitched, win/loss percentage, ERA as well as ERA). If there was a metric that was used for all 50 years of Twins history, I tried to incorporate it. I tended to give more credit to guys who were starters instead of part time/platoon players, more credit to position players over pitchers (just slightly, but probably unfairly) and starters over relievers (and closers over middle relievers). There’s no formula to my magic, just looking at a lot of factors and in the end going with the gut in all tie-breakers. Up in the top10 I’m looking at All star appearances, Cy Young and MVP votes, batting average or ERA titles or top10 finishes, etc, and placement in the top25 hitting and pitching lists in Twins history as well. In the middle 100s, it’s more about who started a few more years or had 2 good seasons rather than 1 with possibly an occasional all-star berth or top10 finish in SB or strikeouts. Once you’re in the latter half of the 200s there are none of those on anyone’s resume, so its basically just looking at peak season in OPS+ or ERA+, WAR, Win Shares, and who started the most years, had the most at bats, or pitched the most innings. What the player did as a coach, manager, or broadcaster is not taken into consideration for this list, so Tom Kelly or Billy Gardner weren’t able to make the top 300 since they were poor players and Frank Quilici didn’t improve his status due to his managing career.
Continue reading One man’s opinion of the top300 Twins-updated with 2013 stats