Minnesota Twins
76-78, 4th AL West, 2 1/2 GB
1972 Outlook: Fresh off of two straight playoff appearances, the defending World Champion Twins slipped to .500 in 1971 and finished 10 games behind the A's. The team was getting old and the pitching in particular wasn't what it used to be. So... try again and try harder, right, guys?
1972 In Review: The Twins chose to retool rather than rebuild and basically treaded water in 1972. For a while they looked like they might have done better but this was a very, very up-and-down team. They were on top of the division and looking pretty solid through May - even by the end of the month they were 23-12 with the 2nd best record in all of baseball. Then they let the Angels pass them in June by going 14-15, fell apart in July with a 9-19, and then managed to climp out of 3rd place and 46-46 with an August that left them... well, fine, still in 3rd but now with a 63-58 record, 1 1/2 games back, and the only team in that trio who'd actually outscored their opponents. As you'll remember, they then lost 10 of 11 from September 5 to the 13th, a stretch that included a sweep at the hands of Texas and a 3-1 series loss to the A's (the other series in there was a sweep from the Royals). This dropped them to 67-70 and effectively knocked them out of the race, as cheap as the eventual win would have been.
1973 Outlook: The only thing, really, keeping the Twins from blowing it all up is a dogged insistence that the club is still basically the same team that won the Series in 1970. Well, that and the fact that the division is awful. That's two things. The Twins did outscore their opponents, unlike the A's and Angels: three. It's still a lot to do: bucking the tide and improving while hoping that the 3 teams who finished ahead of you all take a step back. It wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world for Minnesota to jump back in the driver's seat in this highly mediocre division but I would not exactly expect it at this point either.
Pitching
Chris Benavides
RHP No. 7
RR, 6'2" 201 lbs.
Born 1941-07-23 in Akron, NY
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 MIN MLB 18 14 0 2.61 41 41 15 313.2 272 108 91 96 222
1971 MIN MLB 19 17 0 3.25 41 41 8 295.2 309 119 107 87 178
1972 MIN MLB 14 19 0 3.02 41 40 10 294.2 274 111 99 105 185
Benavides won 20 games in 1969 and ever since then he's been the Twins' workhorse starter. He's probably put up better numbers if he wasn't asked/required to pitch 8 innings every 4 day but that's what the Twins have required of him and he'll do it without argument. In fact, he quietly led the AL in losses and only didn't get to 20 because Minnesota, by then out of the race entirely, held him out of the rotation for the final week of the season.
Benavides throws absolute gas. His K rate might be artificially low because of how often he's forced to pitch later in games without his usual great stuff but believe me when I say that his fastball can hit the mid-90s and is considered to be one of the hardest pitches to hit in the league when he's on. In spite of the riser being his out pitch, he gets a lot of grounders off of an elite level slider and a curve that drops as much as it sweeps. His 13 HRs allowed last year matched his career high, which should give you an idea.
Benavides, like a lot of power pitchers, has a pretty extreme windup that leaves him out of position to field grounders back up the middle and bunts. He's also had a better pickoff move in the past but all the usage has led him to concentrate more on the hitters to the detriment of stopping the running game. Runners attempted 29 steals on him in 1972 and were successful 24 of those times. As recently as 1970 those numbers looked like 28 attempts and 12 caught in 19 more innings.
Going forward, Benavides is probably the #2 starter on this team, which, ironically, if this allows him to put in fewer innings, could cause him to pitch like a #1 again.
Mike Larsen
RHP No. 24
RR, 5'11" 187 lbs.
Born 1940-03-03 in Highland, CA
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 MIN MLB 11 10 0 3.04 28 28 8 201.0 189 75 68 73 108
1971 MIN MLB 14 12 0 4.01 34 34 8 239.2 283 116 107 69 96
1972 MIN MLB 17 8 0 2.85 35 34 9 262.0 243 89 83 71 91
With Benavides getting ground down to averageness, it was Mike Larsen, a member of this team's rotation for an even decade now, who emerged as the team's #1 starter. Larsen is prett much the complete opposite of Benavides as a pitcher: he has a below average fastball but throws a wide variety of junk that manages to induce a lot of groundballs if not strikeouts. He led the AL in lowest HR rate in 1971 (0.3/9) and finished 3rd in that metric last season, a far cry from when he first entered the league and finished 4th in HRs allowed with 23. He hasn't even given up double-digit taters since 1966. He doesn't miss over the plate and he doesn't miss much outside of it either. He's a nibbler but he's a very good nibbler.
Larsen helps himself out with good defense in the field. He makes the plays he's given and knows who to throw to. He'll be one guy who'll be very happy with the new DH rule, as he hit just .107 last season.
Larsen finished the year 7-1 in 12 starts. Entering his 11th year in the league it seems unlikely that Minnesota will call on him to give them 300 innings the way they've asked Benavides to do recently but I guess you never know, especially if times start getting desperate.
Angelo Ramos
RHP No. 44
SR, 6'0" 198 lbs.
Born 1935-06-22 in Estelí, NCA
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 MIN MLB 20 2 0 2.41 29 29 12 224.0 210 66 60 40 152
1971 MIN MLB 13 19 0 3.95 41 41 11 302.1 331 138 133 69 199
1972 MIN MLB 11 12 0 4.01 30 30 5 208.2 213 103 93 53 106
The 9-time All-Star and 4-time 20-game winner Ramos was overworked in 1971 the way Benavides was last year and simply did not rebound with a lighter schedule. At the age of 37 he might have permanently lost a few miles out of his arm. He still gets into the low 90s with the heater but hitters have increasingly been able to get around on it and to make matters worse his once pinpoint control has now degraded just enough to where it's now merely above average, and he misses over the heart of the plate more and more. His 19 HRs allowed were the most he's given up since allowing 23 in 1959.
Ramos might be getting towards the end of his career. He currently carries a lifetime record of 229-145 and would need a major return to his dominant ways of the late 50s and early 60s to have a chance at 300. That being said, no pitcher has come close to 300 Ws. The lifetime leader is Andy Harmon, who pitched from 1946 to 1962 with the Giants and wound up with a 247-137 lifetime record. One more 20 win season gets Ramos, who as it stands is currently 5th all time in victories, atop that list (incidentally the #1 active guy in wins is Octavio "Papa" Vargas with 234, who was cut loose by the Mets at the end of September after a 2-4, 3.90 campaign as a long reliever and spot starter and is a longshot to return in 1973).
For 1973 he's got enough stuff to be a middle guy in the rotation. He's 2 wins away from being the only player in MLB history to win 100 games with 2 teams (Ramos was 131-88 with the Rodgers before they traded him to Minnesota in 1966). I looked this up and only one other guy came at all close: Jose Lugo, now in the Hall of Fame, who won 230 games overall, 135 with Cleveland and a mere 93 with the Red Sox in career that ran from 1946 to 1961 (he was 23 in the first year so probably didn't lose that much to history).
Rich Whetzel
RHP No. 42
RR, 6'2" 200 lbs.
Born 1945-01-31 in Lakewood, CO
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 EVA AAA 1 3 0 3.53 7 7 1 35.2 41 19 14 14 30
1970 MIN MLB 3 3 0 3.60 9 7 1 50.0 51 29 20 18 28
1971 MIN MLB 8 5 0 3.39 22 22 1 135.0 126 56 51 62 57
1972 TAC AAA 2 4 0 2.87 8 8 3 62.2 49 20 20 29 30
1972 MIN MLB 7 12 0 3.99 21 21 3 142.0 132 74 63 63 76
Whetzel at 27 is the youngest man in the rotation but is also a pure AAAA / back of the rotation type. Don't look at him to be any kind of a savior for the Twins. The man he's most similar to according to the game at age 27 is Brian Bruno, who is now a middle reliever for the Pirates. With his out pitch a split-finger fastball, he's a finesse-oriented guy who tries to get everyone to hit the ball into the dirt. His control is not the greatest in the world but, like his teammates, when he misses, he tends to miss low rather than high.
Somehow he got onto some top 100 prospect lists when he was younger, topping out at #47 in 1967. That looks like the year after he was drafted; he had good college "numbers" (which, with no feeder leagues, everyone does) and then played all of 3.2 innings before getting shut down for the year with back spasms. Anyway, I really, really don't see "top prospect" out of this guy at all. He's got #4 starter written all over him.
Travis Livingston
RHP No. 31
RR, 5'12" 183 lbs.
Born 1947-03-13 in New Port Richey East, FL
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 LOD A 2 2 0 1.10 10 0 0 16.1 13 5 2 12 30
1970 SLC AAA 2 0 12 3.12 32 0 0 40.1 40 15 14 10 33
1970 SD MLB 0 0 0 0.00 6 0 0 7.2 4 0 0 5 7
1971 CAL MLB 7 4 14 2.17 53 1 0 82.2 68 20 20 49 64
1972 MIN MLB 8 7 24 2.10 58 0 0 85.2 62 21 20 31 65
Livingston was a co-closer for the Angels in 1971 and the Twins liked what they saw enough to trade away middle of the order hitter Lou Morgenstern for him straight-up. The Angels had issues in the middle of their lineup and at left field but they still have to be happy with what they got. Livingston is not only one of the few actual young pitchers in this team's immediate future, he's actually pretty good, arguably one of the top 5 stoppers in the AL. He throws a cut fastball and a slider from the sidearm position and last year managed to fool lefties as much as he did righties (.206 to .205).
He did wear down a lot as the season progressed and had a 5.89 ERA with 3 blown saves and 4 losses in relief in September. That's an argument against using him the way Pittsburgh uses a Paz Lemus or Baltumore uses Montay Luiso. He's still young and his arm may still grow into it.
Victor Ruiz
RHP No. 51
SR, 6'1" 184 lbs.
Born 1937-09-17 in Guaynabo, PUR
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 MIN MLB 9 8 0 4.84 27 26 0 174.2 161 100 94 102 151
1971 MIN MLB 9 8 2 3.46 43 10 2 117.0 104 51 45 60 90
1972 MIN MLB 3 2 0 4.14 30 14 0 121.2 96 57 56 69 97
Ruiz has played for the Twins ever since they were the original Senators but at 35 it looks like his time on the team might be at an end. He's slipped into the role of swingman the past couple of seasons. The results in '72 were, to say the least, not great. As a starter he was more or less average but had a knack for leaving games before he could get decisions - he had 9 NDs in all. As a reliever... it's a good thing the Twins didn't use him in very high leverage situations because he was absolutely terrible - a 6.66 ERA in 24.1 IP with 5 of his 15 HRs allowed in relief. Ruiz still gets guys to miss on his low to mid 90s heater and a great slider but his control has really gone south since he adjusted his delivery to account for a sore back late in the 1969 season.
Ruiz is a good presence in the locker room who can still, surely, find a role somewhere as a veteran presence. That role's got to be somewhere other than the Twins.
(note: as a result of this review, really, and the fact that I need the roster spot, I've since cut Ruiz)
Ricky Rosas
RHP No. 38
RR, 6'1" 177 lbs.
Born 1942-11-02 in Santo Domingo, DOM
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl W L Sv ERA G GS CG IP H R ER BB SO
1970 CIN MLB 7 9 31 3.27 65 0 0 88.0 77 37 32 35 106
1971 CIN MLB 7 13 9 4.93 47 9 0 107.2 106 62 59 55 80
1972 MIN MLB 7 7 3 4.80 48 0 0 63.2 64 39 34 31 53
Baseball optimists figured that the 29 year old Rosas just needed a change of scenery; the skinny was that the sudden change in fortunes in Cincinnati had gotten to him. The Twins traded their own troubled closer, Pete Lynn for him and... things were not great. Rosas didn't lead the league in relief losses again but if anything he was worse in Minnesota than he'd even been his final year in the Queen City. He still showed all of that swing-and-miss capability with his 4-pitch mix that includes a low-90s fastball, but the homeritis that, frankly, has always been a problem but became a dealbreaker in 1971 was even worse in the smaller Metropolitan Stadium; he allowed 13 HRs in just 63.2 IP.
Although he largely pitched his way out of the highest of leverage situations with a 0-3, 4.91 (7 games, 11 IP) May, the chickens really came how to roost right after the All-Star Break, when the Twins decided that he could share the closer load with Travis Livingston some. He was 2-3 with one save and a 3.14 ERA as of August 15th; following a 12-5 loss to Cleveland where he was the primary reason - 8 runs, 4 of them earned, in 0.2 IP - he was 3-6 with a 5.40 mark. He recovered his season somewhat with a 2.63 ERA in September in relatively low leverage situations (1.08 pLi but given that Rosas was supposed to set up Travis Livingston, this should have been a lot higher). The results were... no.
Rosas has been bad for 2 years in a row now but only one with Minnesota and besides with Pete Lynn doing kinda well in Cincinnati, there's got to be some sunk cost fallacy involved here. He'll get a job doing short to middle relief until/unless he shows he can't handle it anymore.
Infield
Brad Reed
C No. 3
RR, 6'3" 201 lbs.
Born 1941-06-09 in Mukwonago, WI
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .238 121 433 53 103 27 2 18 66 66 101 0
1971 MIN MLB .239 118 398 41 95 18 2 12 54 55 85 0
1972 MIN MLB .216 118 379 35 82 10 0 10 47 49 82 0
Reed is a hit-first catcher who has been hitting less and less over the past 3 seasons. It's reaching the point to where the Twins should move on; the only thing stopping him, really, is a relative lack of decent prospects in the minors... but at that I've noticed the NATURE BOY Ric Flair in AAA who hit .242 with 10 HRs there. It's not exactly impressive but hey, it's better than what Reed's done the last couple years. Reed has long been a guy whose average was expected to be on the low side but who'd make it up to you with good power from the catcher position. He's a model of durability compared to most catchers, although at least some of that the past couple years has been due to the Twins choosing to never play him tired since he kind of doesn't give them a lot unless he's 100%.
Reed sloughs off at defense, which is not an attribute that you'd prefer out of a catcher. He's slow to track down grounders in front of him and he's got a bad arm that's slowly getting worse. Last year he threw out 26.2% of would-be stealers, his lowest rate as a starter and 3rd worst among AL catchers with at least 80 games started.
I don't think Flair has superstar potential, at least not on the diamond (the wrestling ring is another story WOOOOOOO); I still expect a heated competition come spring between those two.
Matt Theroff
C No. 23
RR, 5'11" 200 lbs.
Born 1941-02-24 in Bryan, TX
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .268 47 142 16 38 2 0 1 11 24 37 0
1971 MIN MLB .214 55 145 15 31 4 0 2 16 21 34 1
1972 MIN MLB .190 52 121 13 23 2 0 5 19 22 28 0
Whoever wins the catching competition, Theroff should be in line to be their backup. The team's starter in '67 and '68, Theroff has become a classic backup catcher: a bad hitter, strong defensive skills, and a solid guy in the clubhouse. Theroff doesn't seem to be one of those captainy "rah rah" types who has future manager written all over him, although who knows what the future will hold. There are rumors that he wants to be a starter again but Twins fans will remember the .178/247/215 splits he put up in '68 and know that that is just not a direction they need to take.
Angelo Martinez
1B No. 41
LL, 6'1" 203 lbs.
Born 1936-01-13 in Villarpando, DOM
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .276 156 642 99 177 28 3 35 96 59 99 2
1971 MIN MLB .268 154 616 86 165 24 2 23 91 74 90 1
1972 MIN MLB .251 149 561 72 141 26 1 36 98 71 95 1
Martinez is like a Timex watch: he takes a licking and keeps on ticking. That's not fair: Martinez, even as he approaches his late 30s, doesn't get himself hurt. He's transformed over the years from a line-drive hitter who was a constant threat to win a batting title in the 60s to a low(er) average power hitter. At that, his career high in RBIs came when he was 25 years old; still, 11 years later, those 98 ribbies were 2nd in the AL only to the great Ernesto Garcia.
It's probably time we started talking about Martinez' legacy as a hitter. He's the Twins' lifetime leader in homeruns with 413 and given that he's showing no sign of slowing down seems like a good bet to reach 500. He's also got himself 2,400 hits. The Twins had a guy in their history - Fernando Rohca - who came just baaaaarely short of 3,000 (2,916 overall, 2,903 of them with Washington and Minnesota... and this is a guy who'd have cleared 3000 for sure if the league recorded history before 1946) so even with 2,400 of his own he seems unlikely to break that mark (especially if the switch to pure power guy is complete). He's hurt by playing in the same era as Justin Stone and just after David Decker but let's be real here: if he eclipses 500 HRs, it doesn't matter if there were 5 great 1B who could be listed as contemporaries; Martinez is still going into the Hall.
For 1973, he's got an easy grip on the cleanup spot. He's nothing special in the field so expect at least some DHing for him but given how durable he's been (plus the fact that he's not a disgrace out there), I'd have to think he's got at least another couple years as the team's #1 first baseman before the team makes him take the first baseman's mitt off for good.
Daniel Gilmet
2B No. 21
RR, 6'0" 201 lbs.
Born 1937-12-26 in Napili-Honokowai, HI
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .291 85 351 59 102 18 4 5 33 31 16 23
1971 MIN MLB .300 84 333 38 100 16 2 2 19 24 25 14
1972 MIN MLB .321 133 542 70 174 21 12 9 60 42 34 11
One guy who is a really good bet to see a lot of time at DH is Daniel Gilmet. "Aloha Dan"'s 133 games represented the most he's played in a season since 1966 and even that included missing 3 weeks with knee tendinitis. When he did play he proved that he's still one of the best hitters in all of baseball, finishing 3rd in the AL in batting and hits, 2nd in triples, 6th in on-base percentage, and even 7th in slugging.
It's honestly not as though moving him to DH will lose the Twins all that much in the field. Gilmet has never been a great defender but his bad knees have made him a liability in the field. He's smart enough to mostly get out of the way of guys sliding into him at the pivot but long-term, is that what you want out of your second baseman? Speaking of his knees, Gilmet led the league in steals 3 times in his youth but is absolutely not that guy any longer. He's extremely smart on the bases but his 11 steals in 15 attempts feels about right for him going forward.
Fingers crossed, a move to DH will at least allow Aloha Dan to gete 130+ games again. Maybe cross all your toes too.
Pietro Palmarocchi
2B No. 29
RR, 6'1" 191 lbs.
Born 1943-08-13 in Ciudad Bolívar, VEN
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 TUL AAA .275 79 291 42 80 16 0 5 28 33 54 13
1970 STL MLB .147 11 34 5 5 1 0 0 0 4 7 0
1971 MIN MLB .273 86 260 33 71 10 1 3 26 23 41 4
1972 MIN MLB .263 59 118 12 31 5 1 3 16 11 28 2
When the Twins traded for Palmarrochi in October of 1970 they might have oversold his new role a bit. You can't blame them too much: who knew Gilmet was going to be so healthy this year? At the same time, Palmarocchi was a 3 year starter at 2nd for Pittsburgh (4 if you count the 62 starts he made for them in '69) and you can understand why the 29 year old would expect to get back to that kind of role, particularly since he appears to have solved some of the hitting woes that plagued him in his early 20s.
Right now the game plan is to give Pietro that starting gig he wants; the question is whether or not the Twins have already taken to long in handing it out. He's a great second baseman who, in sharp contrast to Gilmet, is completely fearless when it comes to standing up to runners on possible double plays. He didn't win any Gold Gloves because the NL had Brian Wilcox and Justin Henderson at the time but he's that caliber of fielder. Like I said earlier, he also got the rap for being a good-field, no-hit guy but there, too, he's hit very well for the Twins the past two seasons and even hit well for the Cardinals' AAA squad in his one season with that organization.
It's maybe not the common approach to just anoint a guy who's nearing 30 and has been a backup for you as the new starter at a position but the Twins are very, very thin in terms of middle infield prospects, at least in terms of players who are close. This team has a very deep minor league system as well and is content to give prospects time to develop. Palmarocchi should get at least a season to prove that the newfound ability to hit for contact is no fluke.
Mike Brookes
3B No. 34
SR, 6'2" 199 lbs.
Born 1938-11-28 in Houston, TX
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .267 151 510 102 136 27 3 39 112 140 87 3
1971 MIN MLB .275 112 400 73 110 22 2 27 72 73 61 1
1972 MIN MLB .204 106 362 39 74 12 3 13 34 68 76 4
If it weren't for Gilmet, I'd say that Brookes ought to be the team's new DH. Brookes, a 3-time MVP with the Twins, missed 49 games with a variety of back and elbow issues and looked like a shell of his former self when he did play. Brookes hit just .136 in June and from that point on skidded around the Timonen Line all season. More distressing even than the low average was his lack of power. Pitchers noticed this too and as a result Brookes, who was 2 walks away from setting the all-time single-season mark in 1970, actually struck out more often than he drew a base on balls for the first time in 6 years.
Brookes can still pick it at third base when he's healthy. He had a negative ZR in 1972 but, well, he wasn't healthy (also a lot of his ability as a 3B comes from good hands and as I've noted, something got screwy with the infield error ratings). He's never been a huge threat to steal but the 20 base thefts he got combined in 67-68 seems like a distant memory now. He's known for keeping the clubhouse light and - this is one good point in his favor - he doesn't get down on himself too hard.
Nobody wants a return to form more than Brookes. Frankly, he'd still be a fine third baseman if this was his new level of play but he's capable of so much more.
Justin Ramey
SS No. 26
RR, 6'1" 201 lbs.
Born 1939-05-24 in Montclair, CA
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 WAS MLB .275 125 477 66 131 24 2 10 58 74 87 16
1971 WAS MLB .222 9 9 1 2 0 1 0 1 1 0 1
1971 MIL MLB .246 13 57 12 14 0 0 2 6 2 10 0
1971 MIN MLB .263 32 99 11 26 3 2 0 4 20 17 1
1972 MIN MLB .247 139 493 55 122 17 1 10 49 69 86 13
The perennially cheap second-run Washington Senators cut Ramey loose early in the 1971 season and spread rumors that he had turned into a clubhouse lawyer. Nobody paid any special mind to this - Ramey's a quiet guy, completely not the kind of person to stand up in the locker room for any reason - and when the Brewers snapped him up and put him in their lineup, the Twins saw an opportunity and traded away false teenager 2B James Hong for the right to his services. Ramey promptly got hurt and missed most of the second half of the year but in '72 he was handed the shortstop job once again and held it from pillar to post.
Ramey is a plus fielder, although in a league that includes Oniji Handa he's never going to get a Gold Glove nod. Over past few seasons he's also turned into a solid contact hitter, hitting .280 and .275 in his 2 full years with Washington. He didn't do that last year and all the strikeouts indicate that he might not do that in the future but what he did give the Twins was nice middle-infield power and some really nice pitch recognition that led to his finishing with the 9th most walks in the league. He's also a really good bunter, finishing 10th in the AL in sacrifices and almost certainly will move up in that with pitchers no longer hitting.
The thing that really caused Washington to release Ramey is that he knows how valuable he is and reportedly negotiated a contract of close to $200,000 with his new club. For Washington, they had a guy they figured was just as good but younger; for Minnesota, even though the team as a whole fell short he was a great fit as a veteran presence on an already contending team.
Outfield
Jeff Franks
LF/3B No. 30
RR, 6'1" 200 lbs.
Born 1946-03-25 in Hollywood, FL
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 CHL AA .276 16 58 6 16 2 0 0 2 8 9 6
1970 EVA AAA .335 117 439 78 147 23 11 10 70 58 49 54
1971 POR AAA .349 58 229 42 80 15 6 7 44 27 20 13
1971 MIN MLB .352 46 162 20 57 11 3 6 28 12 17 9
1972 MIN MLB .276 94 352 63 97 12 10 14 50 33 45 22
Franks, who teammates call "Tarzan" because he loves to scream things like "AOOOOO LET'S GO" in the locker room and the dugout, finally got a chance at substantial playing time and showed himself to be a guy who can help you in a lot of different ways. He's showed batting-champ levels of contact in the minor leagues (also in 46 games in 1971); while long slumps in May (.206 average in 17 starts) and August (.190 in 18 starts) kept him from reaching those levels last year, a .276 average in 1972 is nothing to sneeze at. His speed was enough to finish in the top 10 in triples (4th) and steals (8th) in spite of not playing every day. And even his power proved to be pretty decent given everything else he does.
Franks came through the minors as a third baseman but could never quite figure out the position. So far, the move to outfield isn't looking much better. Franks works hard and is a smart player but in the field he just looks lost sometimes. You'd really think that speed would translate better in the field. It doesn't. He does get along with his teammates - you ask me, that whole Tarzan yelling thing would get old in a big hurry but I am not of the age where I'd find that amusing, I guess.
Franks is about to enter the prime of his career and, especially given the state of this Twins' roster, should really be starting daily from here on out. The Twins have no excuses.
Mike Grigg
PH/LF No. 14
RR, 5'11" 202 lbs.
Born 1933-12-09 in Columbus, GA
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .299 127 304 41 91 17 1 4 31 24 34 1
1971 MIN MLB .286 127 262 30 75 11 1 4 22 17 46 0
1972 MIN MLB .209 111 148 15 31 8 0 3 13 15 24 0
Griggs has excelled in the 4th outfielder/pinch-hitter/clubhouse leader role since expansion opened up a role for him in 1969. Unfortunately, as often happens with 38 year olds, he seems to have lost it. He can no longer play the field and hit just .200 as a pinch-hitter in 1972. Perhaps somewhere someone will want to try him out as their DH but Minnesota already has two guys they'd rather use at that spot and Griggs did nothing to suggest he could hit well enough to be a factor there.
Alejandro Cortes
LF No. 20
LL, 6'2" 200 lbs.
Born 1937-10-11 in Santo Domingo, DOM
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .259 117 444 76 115 15 1 24 70 42 92 21
1971 MIN MLB .218 83 266 34 58 15 3 9 32 31 39 8
1972 MIN MLB .247 56 146 16 36 8 1 3 15 16 28 3
Cortez is yet another guy on this team who has an interesting pedigree - in his case he won the MVP in 1966 by carrying a 96-win Twins team on his shoulders, and he's made 3 All-Star teams - who is getting up in years and isn't playing nearly as much as he used to. In Cortes' case this is not so much injuries - well, it's a little bit that; he missed 2 months with a sprained ankle and he's pretty prone to them now - as it was the team having different, younger options in left field.
Cortes is a .266 hitter who slumped to .218 in 1971. He's definitely not that bad but the .247 he worked out last season might be his true level of value as a contact hitter. He's shown the ability to hit for a ton of power in the past, leading the league in HRs (43), runs scored (122), and RBIs (107) in that lightning-in-a-bottle 1966 season, but he hasn't even gotten to double digits in the last 2 years. He's still got a lot of the speed that helped him finish in the top 10 in the league in steals 5 times in the 60s and he uses it well enough in the outfield. Although he's got a real cannon for an arm, Cortes has never played in right field in his career.
This is another guy who the Twins could trade for parts if they were really and truly interested in rebuilding. It's hard to say how much they'd get back but unless this division stays mediocre it's very unlikely that Cortes will be a part of the next contender in Minnesota.
Jose Villasenor
CF No. 12
LL, 5'11" 201 lbs.
Born 1945-11-14 in Fair Lawn, NJ
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .274 103 379 47 104 16 1 12 36 28 54 3
1971 MIN MLB .306 153 654 78 200 30 3 16 65 47 87 7
1972 MIN MLB .208 104 384 24 80 8 1 3 24 30 68 7
The 26 year old Villasenor was supposed to spearhead a new youth movement for this team. Instead, the same guy who hit .306 and collected 200 hits in 1971 had the kind of year in '72 that loses you jobs. It's really hard to prescribe what happened here. Villasenor suffered a complete power outage, not just HR power but he lost the ability to hit line drives into the gaps for extra base hits last year too. He was hampered over the first half of the season with a hamstring injury and didn't even hit above .200 for a full month until he hit .333 in August. That still only raised his average to .205 and the Twins had had enough at that point, handing most of the CF starts in Septemer to Ronnie Hellstrom (more on him in a second).
The other big issue with Villasenor is that he's not a good fit for center. When you're getting 100 hits or winning the ALCS MVP award 2 years running, this is fine; when you hit .208 it becomes a big, big problem. Even if the Twins give Villasenor another shot, it probably shouldn't be there.
Ronnie Hellström
CF/RF No. 2
RR, 6'0" 187 lbs.
Born 1949-02-21 in Malmö, SWE
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1971 EVA R .333 3 12 1 4 1 1 0 1 1 3 1
1971 QUI A .295 23 95 10 28 4 2 1 9 7 22 3
1971 SA AA .295 28 95 8 28 6 0 1 8 10 28 7
1972 CHL AA .286 23 91 14 26 1 0 2 9 7 12 5
1972 TAC AAA .230 69 269 30 62 9 7 7 22 30 41 11
1972 MIN MLB .304 64 257 43 78 12 2 10 23 24 43 8
A team as youth-starved as the Twins doesn't just push a guy like Villasenor out for no reason. They turned to the shifty Swedish goalkeeper Ronnie Hellstrom in midseason. He hit .304 in half a year and more importantly beat the pants off of Jose in terms of playing D. The scouts think Hellstrom can legitimately be a .300 hitter over a full season; I'm going to have to see that to believe it, although truth be told he's got a nice combination of speed and power that should translate once he gets his Ks down.
In the field Helltrom takes good routes to balls and that accentuates his already high-rated speed. Although he started 2 games in the majors at the position I'm not sure you'd want to stick him in right with his only-average arm but that's his biggest weakness out there. Hellstrom doesn't speak much English yet but he seems like a nice enough guy. Guys like this fail to make the grade all the time but then, they also just do great in their sophomore season and we never really talk about those guys in this context.
Ernie Griffin
RF No. 17
LL, 5'11" 200 lbs.
Born 1937-12-08 in Picayune, MS
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 LAD MLB .267 148 561 83 150 16 13 27 91 81 82 2
1971 LAD MLB .246 133 484 61 119 9 7 18 61 44 60 16
1972 MIN MLB .217 118 387 56 84 3 7 16 43 51 54 6
Griffin was brought in to replace Lou Morgenstern's bat in the lineup and provide some power from the right side of the plate. He was underwhelming, got hurt a lot, and now the Twins have yet another aging former superstar who can't stay healthy that they have to account for somehow. Griffin went 10-40 in April with 2 HRs. People figured hey, you have to start somewhere; who knew that this would be the highest monthly average would hit for all season?
For a guy with his level of plate patience, Griffin doesn't actually strike out a huge amount, which, you would think would cause him to hit into a lot of GIDPs but somehow that's not the case: he hit into just 5 last year and even that was way more than the *2* he hit into in 1971. That's about all the good that can be said about his contact. He's always had the ability to hit line drives into the gap and then leg those out for triples much of the time but last year Griffin got just 10 such opportunities. That power that saw him hit 27 HRs in 1970 and which had him hit 65 dingers between 1962 and his MVP season of 1963 appears to not really be around anymore, although he can still get around on the high fastball enough to hit 20 or so HRs if his shoulder allowed him to play for a full season.
The shoulder also seems like it's had an effect on his once-powerful arm (although if memory serves, OF assists trended waaaay too high in OOTP when I started this save). He used to be rangy enough to play center; Griffin is now, at 34, an average at best right fielder.
The Twins have an issue, perhaps, of having more bats than corner outfield spots. This isn't the worst situation in the world for Minnesota as a whole. It's not a great situation for Griffin, who will at best be managed heavily in 1973.
Kyle Ship
OF/1B No. 22
SR, 6'2" 199 lbs.
Born 1942-12-26 in Nashville, TN
Code:
Yr Tm Lvl Avg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB
1970 MIN MLB .240 55 154 15 37 5 0 5 21 8 11 2
1971 MIN MLB .227 70 110 14 25 6 0 0 10 8 17 1
1972 MIN MLB .232 84 224 26 52 6 1 3 20 18 33 8
Since coming up in 1969, Shipp has basically been the #2 pinch-hitter on the roster behind Mike Grigg. With Grigg looking like he's about done, logic would entail Shipp moving into that role. Instead, his me-first attitude and, perhaps more tellingly, a bat that's never shown the promise of a 1968 season in Charlotte where he went .312 with 15 HRs and 74 RBIs, is leading Minnesota towards not extending him a spot on the roster in 1973.
Ship has good speed and, it was thought in the past, the tools to be a good contact guy. In reality he falls in love with his warning-track power at times and tries to pull the ball too much. He does put the ball into play, which is a good attribute for a pinch-hitter to have, but the end result is a lot of fly outs to center field.
Ship is only 29 and still has good speed and solid corner-OF defense; you could see a bad team giving him a chance to play everyday if you squinted hard enough. The small chance he has of repeating past minor league glory comes with a cost. It's far more likely that Ship winds up as a cutdown somewhere next March.