Minnesota Twins Daily Clips

Monday, February 9, 2015

➢ Arcia homers and Venezuela beats Mexico 4-2 in the Caribbean World . Associated Press p. 1 ➢ New Twins coach Allen is schooled in pitching, life. Star Tribune (Reusse) p. 1 ➢ Careful mentioning Allen around St. Louis fans. Star Tribune (Reusse) p. 3 ➢ Twenty-five years later, is a bad dream. (Reusse) p. 4 ➢ Souhan: Koskie has found his niche after a career in . Star Tribune (Souhan) p. 5 ➢ Arcia’s HR rallies Venezuela past Mexico in . MLB.com (Sanchez) p. 6 ➢ Arcia’s refined approach at the plate already paying off. MLB.com (Sanchez) p. 6 ➢ What does new framing data reveal about Mauer’s catching career? 1500espn.com (Wetmore) p. 7 ➢ Twins 2015 outlook: Will win the job at ? 1500espn.com (Wetmore) p. 9 ➢ Al Michaels: ‘There was no question’ Twins pumped in noise in ’87 Series. Fox Sports Midwest p. 10 ➢ Meet the only high school to strike Joe Mauer. (Rosengren) p. 11

Arcia homers and Venezuela beats Mexico 4-2 in the Caribbean

Associated Press | February 6, 2015

Minnesota Twins a tiebreaking, two- homer in the eighth and Venezuela finished the first round of the Caribbean Series undefeated with a 4-2 win over Mexico on Friday.

Venezuela (4-0) faces Cuba (1-3) on Saturday in the semifinals.

Junior Guerra allowed three hits and one unearned run in five strong for Venezuela. The righty struck out seven and walked three. Amalio Diaz (1-0) got the win in relief, and Hassan Pena notched his first of the tournament.

Reliever Manuel Barreda (0-1) allowed two runs in two innings for the loss.

Puerto Rico beat the Dominican Republic 3-2 in the late game, breaking a 2-all tie in the ninth inning. The Dominican Republic (2-2) will face Mexico (2-2) in the semifinals.

Puerto Rico (1-3) was previously eliminated.

New Twins coach Allen is schooled in pitching, life

Patrick Reusse | Star Tribune | February 9, 2015

Bob Allen was driving home from his job as an elevator mechanic in the Kansas City area one afternoon in 1960 when he blew through a stop sign. He had blamed a couple of other incidents with his vision on weariness after long days of work, but this near miss caused him to visit a doctor. “My dad was told he had retinitis pigmentosa and that he would be legally blind within a year,” said. “You don’t think that will shake you? … Having a wife and four young kids at home and finding out that at best you’re going to see shadows for the rest of your life?”

Neil, the youngest of four kids, was 2 at the time. He grew up with a major asset as an athlete — a powerful right arm for throwing a baseball or football. His dad’s major interest was in baseball.

“I wasn’t very old when he taught me how to grip a ,” Allen said. “That turned out to be my best pitch. My dad would sit in the and help coach during games. He couldn’t see, but he could hear. If he wasn’t hearing the ball hit the ’s mitt on time, he would shout, ‘Tempo.’

“He thought it was very important for a pitcher to work at a good pace.”

Allen was a standout quarterback for in Kansas City, Kan., and was headed to Kansas State on a football scholarship. In the spring of 1976, his senior year, he was matched against Terry Sutcliffe, Rick’s younger brother, pitching for Van Horn High School.

“There were a bunch of scouts there to watch Sutcliffe, and I beat him 1-0,” Allen said. “All of a sudden, our phone started ringing, with teams saying they were interested in drafting me.”

The took Allen in the 11th round. Neil’s first inclination was to stick with football. His dad said, “It’s up to you, BUT …”

Neil Allen was sitting in a row of bleachers on a back field at the Twins minor league complex and laughed in memory of that conversation with his father:

“He said, ‘Neil, you’re not a rocket scientist and you don’t have the discipline to sit down and do the academic work. Plus, if you play football and get beat up and have your shoulder ruined, then you don’t have either … football or baseball.’ ”

Allen laughed again and said: “This was Kansas State before Bill Snyder. I probably would’ve had my neck broken.

“The Mets gave me $6,000; about $4,000 after taxes. Man, I thought I was Hugh Hefner. I went out and bought a 1976 Grand Prix with a T-top.”

Soon, Allen was home from a summer in rookie ball and the Midwest League, working a winter job on the docks in the “bottoms of Kansas City, Missouri.”

Allen found something on those overnights, loading 18-wheelers: motivation.

“Hardest job ever,” he said. “Every time I picked up a box, I thought, ‘I have to get to the big leagues.’ ”

Back to the big leagues

It took Neil Allen three years to get to the big leagues as a pitcher. He made his major league debut as a 21-year-old starter for the Mets on April 15, 1979, a 6-3 loss to the Phillies at .

It took Neil Allen 20 years of coaching to get to the big leagues as a pitching coach. He will be in a major league park in that role for the first time on April 6, when the Twins open the season against the Tigers in Detroit’s Comerica Park.

He will be doing so as a 57-year-old who has gone through alcoholism and family tragedy, and has come through it as a devoted parent to his 15-year-old son, Bobby.

The Twins broke up the 13-year tandem of Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson when Gardenhire was fired the day after the 2014 season ended.

Paul Molitor was hired as manager five weeks later. The immediate speculation was that Molitor wanted Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio, a former Brewers teammate, but the Cubs were intent on keeping Bosio.

Allen was the Class AAA pitching coach for Tampa Bay, and on the Twins’ radar because of the success the Rays had in pushing young to the big leagues.

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Surprisingly, neither Molitor nor General Manager Terry Ryan had a face-to-face with Allen before hiring him. There were strong recommendations for Allen, and lengthy phone conversations, but Molitor and Allen first met when they had a four-hour conversation on TwinsFest weekend.

“We want to start over with our pitching here, approach things a little differently, and I’m optimistic Neil will bring that,” Molitor said. “He certainly warrants the opportunity, after what he was able to accomplish in the Rays system.”

Staying with baseball

Allen started as a pitching coach for the independent Mobile (Ala.) Bay Sharks in 1994. “Butch Hobson was the manager, and called and offered the job,” Allen said. “I said, ‘Nah, Butch, I’m not a coach.’ He said, ‘Yeah, what else are you doing?’ He had me there.

“Making no money, taking long bus rides in the summer heat of the South, but I loved it. Loved working with pitchers and seeing them light up, the enthusiasm, when you gave them something that worked.”

The Blue Jays hired Allen for a job in the low minors in 1996. He spent one summer in Medicine Hat, Alberta, living in a room above a bowling alley, taking 17-hour bus rides to Ogden, Utah, and he still loved it.

Joe Torre, Allen’s original manager with the Mets, brought in Allen for the 2005 season as the Yankees coach, but then it was back to being a pitching coach — for the Yankees’ Class AAA team in Columbus, Ohio, and then for eight years with the Tampa Bay organization.

1994 was more than the start of Allen’s coaching career. It also was the year that his father, desperately ill, asked Neil to sit on the edge of the bed and said: “Please give up the bottle. Your drinking is killing your mother.”

Bob Allen knew how to strike a chord with his youngest son.

“My two brothers were also home to be with Dad,” Neil said. “There was a six-pack of Falstaff in the refrigerator. We sat at the kitchen table, drank two beers apiece, and I haven’t had a drink since.”

Two years later, he married Lisa, and Bobby came along, and life was great. In September 2012, Durham had missed the playoffs and Neil was home in Sarasota, Fla. He got home that night, Lisa was reading in bed, and she called out to Bobby to shut off the light and go to sleep.

“I said, ‘I got it, sport,’ flipped off Bobby’s light, and went into our room,” Allen said. “We talked for a couple of minutes, Lisa turned off her reading light, and then I heard a little gasp. Just like that.”

Lisa Allen, an excellent tennis player and workout enthusiast, had suffered an instantly fatal aneurysm at age 54.

“My instinct after the initial heartbreak for everyone was to quit baseball and to be a full-time parent to my son,” Allen said. “The person who talked me out of that was Bobby. He loves baseball. He knows I love it, too. He said, ‘Dad, you can’t quit. I don’t want that. And you know Mom wouldn’t want that.’ ”

Neil Allen squinted into the sun. He looked at a few early arrivals for on a nearby ballfield. He took a deep breath of cool morning air.

“So here I am,” he said. “Can’t wait to get started.”

Careful mentioning Allen around St. Louis fans

Patrick Reusse | Star Tribune | February 7, 2015

Neil Allen had a decent run as the New York Mets from 1980 through 1982, saving 59 games. He was having a terrible season in 1983, with a record of 2-7 and a 4.50 ERA, when the announcement came an hour before the June 15 trading deadline:

Allen and fellow pitcher had been sent to St. Louis for . In 1979, Hernandez had been the ’s co-MVP with Willie Stargell. In 1982, he had been a heroic figure in the Cardinals’ World Series championship.

Joe McDonald, the Cardinals general manager, offered this odd justification for the trade: “If Allen was not having a bad year, there’s no way we could have gotten him.’’ 3

The baseball world was shocked and St. Louis fans were outraged by the Cardinals’ modest return for Hernandez.

“I walked into the dugout around 7 p.m. right before the Cardinals’ next game and went over to shake hands with [manager] Whitey Herzog,’’ said Allen, the new Twins pitching coach. “He said, ‘I’ve been wanting to get you for a long time, kid.’

“And then I looked out in the stands, all those people wearing red, and there are signs everywhere: ‘We love 17,’ Hernandez’s number, and ‘Allen must go’ and nastier stuff than that.

“I said, ‘I don’t think the fans agree, Whitey,’ and he said, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it, kid. By the way, we’re putting you in the rotation, and your first start is next week against the Mets in Shea Stadium. Might as well jump right into it.’ ”

The Cardinals wanted Allen to throw a bullpen session that night to start stretching out for the start. Knowing the potential for boos, the Cardinals waited until the game was over and the fans were gone.

How did that start turn out? “Beat ’em,’’ Allen said.

Sure did. June 21, 1983: Cardinals 6, Mets 0, eight scoreless innings for Allen, 0-for-4 for Hernandez.

Twenty-five years later, Tinker Field is a bad dream

Patrick Reusse | Star Tribune | February 8, 2015

Glen Perkins was recruited by the Gophers to make a celebrity appearance in the Citrus Bowl parade in Orlando. On game day, Perkins found himself in a parking lot behind the stadium and next to the still-standing grandstand of Tinker Field.

“That place must have been a dump,’’ Perkins said during a conversation last week.

My first visit to Tinker Field for Twins spring training was in 1974 as a beat writer in St. Paul. Tinker was a subpar facility by the standard of that time and, by 1990, it was a bona fide dump.

The Twins departed for Fort Myers after that season, making this the 25th year of spending spring training in southwest . By coincidence, the Twins will mark this silver anniversary by unveiling the final results of a $48.5 million upgrade of the facility — complete with a corporate sponsor in CenturyLink.

The main ballpark, Hammond Stadium, now has a spacious entrance behind home plate, and a wide passageway for ticket-holders to move behind the grandstand. There are more restrooms and concession areas and a large team merchandise area. Throw in the boardwalk that debuted last spring and circles the stadium, and it’s no longer a facility with crowds of 8,000 trying to fit into an infrastructure built for 2,000. Across the way, there’s now a first-class dormitory to house a good share of the minor leaguers. There’s an upgrade in the minor league workout areas and clubhouse, and another “back field’’ — the fifth full field — for players at all levels of the organization.

In retrospect, training a big-league club at Tinker Field stands as preposterous. There was the main field, and there was a small field behind the right field line called “Iwo,’’ in honor of the rocks that U.S. heroes had to climb over to take Iwo Jima during World War II.

Minor leaguers were housed three hours away in Melbourne. There was no subtlety in this nickname: It was called “The Rock,’’ in honor of the field conditions.

Fort Myers was a remote location for playing an exhibition schedule — only the were nearby in 1991 — but now more than ever, it was a fantastic move for the Twins.

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Souhan: Koskie has found his niche after a career in baseball

Jim Souhan | Star Tribune | February 8, 2015

Corey Koskie is sitting in Agra Culture in Edina, looking fit, eating kale and salmon with massive hands inherited from his farmer father.

He wears a “Hockey Night in Canada” cap; lights up when talking about his favorite teammates; and, as we learned during his career as a Twins , juggles the deep thoughts that fight for front-row seats in his active brain.

Recently voted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Koskie steers the conversation away from his honor, toward youth sports, leadership, fatherhood, and the moments that defined his interrupted career.

He will enter Canada’s Hall on June 13, along with Carlos Delgado, Matt Stairs, Felipe Alou and baseball writer Bob Elliott.

Koskie says he doesn’t regret the concussion that altered his life. His primary regret involves the dimensions of .

“The one thing I do remember, from an individual standpoint, is my against Mariano Rivera,” he said. “The double that bounced out. By that much.”

That happened in Game 2 of the 2004 ALDS in Yankee Stadium. The Twins won Game 1.

They trailed 4-3 in the top of the eighth in Game 2 when Koskie fought back from an 0-and-2 , and sliced a 3-and-2 pitch down the left field line with Luis Rivas running from first base on the pitch. One run scored. If the ball hadn’t bounced over the fence, Rivas would have scored, too, and the Twins likely would have taken a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series to the Metrodome.

Instead, the ball bounced out, Rivas was sent back to third and the Yankees won 7-6 with two runs in the 12th.

“I thought we were going to the World Series,” Koskie said. “I felt it within our team dynamic.”

Koskie signed with after the 2004 season, and was traded in 2006 to Milwaukee, where he suffered the concussion that ended his career. For long stretches, he couldn’t stand to watch TV, or sit in a lighted room.

“It took me about 2½ years to get over it,” he said. “I went through an anxiety stage, then a depressive stage, then I guess you’d call it an obsessive-compulsive stage. If I left the house, I worried that I had left the oven on.

“I still find myself doing a systems check every time I wake up. I feel fine now, but I’d like to get past that.”

About seven years ago, Koskie was sitting in his home office when a friend of one of his sons asked what Koskie did for a living. “Joshua said, ‘I don’t know, he really doesn’t do anything, he plays some golf and sits on his computer,’ ” Koskie said. “I was 33, 34 at the time. Everything I learned about life and hard work and what it takes to be a success, I learned from my father. I have four boys. I needed to do something to show them how the real world works.”

Koskie tried to buy commercial real estate. That did not go well. “Those people know what they’re doing,” Koskie said. “So I spent a lot of money for a few years getting my education in the business world. I lost money, but I learned a lot.”

A friend eventually suggested a Planet Fitness gym franchise. “It costs $10 a month to join,” Koskie said, “and it’s a ‘Judgment Free Zone.’ I love that because if I go to the gym, I can be insecure, too, seeing what some of those guys do.”

Now he’s a Planet Fitness franchisee who coaches his sons in baseball and hockey. He’s an avid reader, always looking for expertise on leadership and youth sports. His studies have led to this conclusion: “We’re doing it all wrong.”

He sees youth coaches with massive amounts of information but no feel for leadership. He sees children forced to play sports year-round, turned into “robots” by incessant instruction. He sees the joy being leeched out of youth sports, and kids quitting before they reach the age of 14, “and from 13-18 is when kids need sports the most.”

“Youth sports isn’t a treat anymore,” he said. “It’s a job. The coaches don’t understand the dynamics of athleticism. They just have talking points. You’ll have a 16-year-old kid who’s been told how to do something six different ways, and all of those instructions are about how he’s doing it wrong. 5

“They’re playing under someone else’s structure all the time. Under a coach’s structure.”

Koskie grew up on a farm in Anola, Manitoba. His practice consisted of hitting rocks with a whiffle ball bat on a field constructed in his imagination, or throwing a baseball against a small trampoline, hitting it as far as he could … and then retrieving it and taking another swing.

“I later read, ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,’ and I did all of those things without knowing I was doing them,” he said.

Koskie said that he’s honored by the Hall of Fame election but that the real rewards of his playing career occurred long ago, when the Twins staved off contraction and became winners.

As the rare player who wintered in Minnesota, Koskie visited block parties and senior centers, and talked to parents who used batting averages to teach children math. “I saw the connection between fathers and sons, and families and the Twins,” he said. “I realized how lucky I was that my skills and abilities were able to bring joy into other people’s lives.”

Arcia’s HR rallies Venezuela past Mexico in Caribbean Series

Jesse Sanchez | MLB.com | February 6, 2015

Twins outfielder Oswaldo Arcia hit a game-winning two-run in the eighth inning on Friday to propel Venezuela to a 4-2 victory against Mexico and a perfect 4-0 record in Caribbean Series qualifier play.

Venezuela's Caribe Anzoategui will now take on Cuba's Pinar del Rio (1-3) in the second semifinal on Saturday night at Hiram Bithorn Stadium. Mexico's Tomateros de Culiacan will face the Dominican Republic's Gigante del Cibao team in the first semifinal in the afternoon. The Caribbean Series championship game is scheduled for Sunday night.

Arcia, who joined the team on Thursday, finished 1-for-4 in his first game.

"I was waiting for a good pitch, something in the middle of the plate, the entire game," Arcia said. "At 3-1, he threw me a and I was able to hit it. I was a little anxious at first, but I was able to calm down and put the ball in play." Rico Noel scored Mexico's first run in the first inning, scoring on a single by Eric Farris. Mexico would not score again until the sixth, when Farris charged home from third on a sacrifice by shortstop Jose Manuel Rodriguez to increase the lead to 2-0. But the resilient Venezuelan team rallied for two runs in the bottom of the frame, the first coming on a double by Padres shortstop Alexi Amarista that scored . Amarista scored on a double by Felix Perezto tie the game at 2.

First baseman Balbino Fuenmayor led off the bottom of the eighth with a single. Two outs later, Oswaldo Arcia's heroics proved to be too much for Mexico to overcome.

Arcia’s refined approach at the plate already paying off

Jesse Sanchez | MLB.com | February 7, 2015

The first pitch to Oswaldo Arcia from Mexico's Manny Barreda in the eighth inning on Friday was high and outside, and so far out of the that the Venezuelan outfielder didn't even flinch in the batter's box.

The next pitch was fastball on the inside part of the plate that Arcia swung at and missed.

Ball two was belt-high and just a tad inside.

Ball three was low and in.

Arcia has showed tons of raw power since signing out of Venezuela as a teenager in 2007, but now the Twins want their starting to be a complete player. That's part of the reason Arcia played Winter ball in his home country, and it's the main reason he is still suiting up for his Caribes de Anzoategui team in the Caribbean Series this week.

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Arcia missed some time this winter with some back issues, but he says that's no longer a problem.

"I'm trying to be more selective at the plate. That's really the only thing the Twins emphasized," Arcia said in Spanish. "They stressed being more selective, but not to lose my aggressiveness in the batter's box. It's no secret that the Venezuelan league is good, and it's allowed me to see some good quality pitching." Arcia's work in Venezuela appears to be paying off. He hit .270 with 30 and 19 walks in 138 at-bats in 38 games for the Caribes during the regular season. Now consider that he struck out 127 times and walked only 31 times in 410 at-bats with Minnesota last season. Arcia also hit 20 homers and drove in 57 runs for the Twins.

"I've been working hard at that," Arcia said. "The season is really long, and you have to be prepared for it. I'm going to give 100 percent all of the time."

Arcia worked the count to 3-1 against Barrera on Friday and smashed what proved to be the game-winning two-run home run in Venezuela's 4-

2 victory on a fastball near the middle of the plate. The home run came on the fifth pitch of the at-bat. Arcia beat his chest as he rounded the bases.

"He's shown the ability to hit left-handed pitching. He's struck out too much for anybody's liking, but he ought to be able to improve on those areas just on knowledge and things of that nature," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said. "But we need him to make those adjustments. He's capable of doing that and he wants to do that, which is just as important. It's not like we have to beg him to do anything. He'll listen. He's a competitive kid. I'd say he's one of the guys, just because of his maturity, he'll get better as he goes through this thing."

Arcia said a conversation with Twins manager Paul Molitor during Minnesota's FanFest was helpful. That's when he was told he'll be the club's everyday left fielder with the addition of veteran right fielder .

"We talk about having control of your emotions in the batter's box, on the bases, on the mound, in the and making the play," Molitor said. "I think he's an emotional guy -- that sometimes situations and things get away from him. Part of that is your judgment on when to try to make a play and when not to try to make a play. We all know there is a time to dive for a ball and a time when, okay, we'll give up the single, but I can't let this guy get a . But he's learning that. He works at it. He wants to be more than just a slugger."

Arcia played 100 games in right field for the Twins last season. He played 56 games in left field for the Twins in 2013.

"I know he had a difficult year defensively in right, and that's not normal for him. He's a better outfielder than he's shown up here," Ryan said.

"Some of that might have been, I don't know if he got intimidated by that overhang or just had trouble reading it. So we think he'll be better in left just because of that fact alone. But he's starting to get his feet on the ground up here. We just have to remind ourselves he's just a kid still. He has outfield skills, and there's no reason he can't become a solid defender."

Arcia's progress will be on display soon. Twins pitchers and report to Spring Training on Feb. 22 and position players report five days later.

"He's young, so we're just trying to make him into more of a ballplayer and not to make a cliché out of that, but there are a lot of things," Molitor said. "He needs to run the bases better. I think I got his attention the second half last year about that. We don't want him striking out 33 percent of the time, and we'll be patient with that guy. He's got a chance to be pretty good."

What does new pitch framing data reveal about Mauer’s catching career?

Derek Wetmore | 1500espn.com | February 6, 2015

In recent years, people interested in quantifying baseball have made strides in that arena. One area that has remained particularly tricky: catcher's defense. There are a host of problems presented by trying to track and compare fielding ability from one catcher to the next. That was especially true for attempts to track and measure pitch framing. Are some catchers better than others at getting called strikes, and if so, how much does that affect a game? Perhaps one of the biggest was an inability to control for pitchers or umpires - both of which undoubtedly play a part in whether a taken pitch is called a ball or a strike.

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Well, Baseball Prospectus may have solved that problem. In a post published Thursday, Jonathan Judge, Harry Pavlidis and Dan Brooks appear to have taken the next step in measuring pitch framing. Personally, I've wrestled in the past with the idea that we could accurately gauge how good or bad a catcher is at getting calls for his pitcher from an umpire. I've talked with players who didn't put much stock in the readily available framing data. I had a reader once present me with framing numbers that they said showed Josmil Pinto was not much of a step down defensively from Kurt Suzuki, and I thought at best that assessment was incomplete and at worst it was inaccurate and misleading. If veteran umpire C.B.Bucknor happened to be behind the plate and ring up a batter on a two-strike pitch that misses the strike zone by 10 inches, who should get credit for that? The pitcher for "earning" the call? The catcher for "framing" the pitch? Or should Bucknor be blamed? Should the batter somehow be blamed? So I was skeptical of our ability to track and measure this stuff. Consider me a converted skeptic. I can get on board with this new approach. Maybe it's imperfect, but it's a big step in the right direction, in my opinion. The people at BP are called it "Called Strikes Above Average," or CSAA. I'll spare the long version of their method, but in short, they've attempted to factor in umpires and pitchers and batters into the called-strike calculation. If you're into the numbers, the whole thing is a pretty interesting read. I'm excited about the new direction this appears to be headed. If you don't want to read the whole breakdown, here are a few Twins takeaways: -- A.J. Pierzynski had one of the best pitch-framing seasons ever recorded. The data only goes back to 1988, when pitch counts were first officially tracked. Still, in that 27-year span, Pierzynski's final season with the Twins (2003) ranks fourth in runs added by pitch framing. Their model estimates he added 29 runs to the Twins' 2003 campaign. -- Joe Mauer's 2006 season was pretty great, too. According to their data, Mauer added 21 runs in that season, good enough for the top-20 on the list of catcher framing seasons, pre-2008. (I'm still curious about the impacts of having Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano and on that pitching staff, but BP took care to smooth out exterior factors to catcher pitch framing like pitching staffs and umpires.) The cut-off for that list was 2008, because that's when PITCHf/x data became available. -- From 1988-2014, Mauer ranked as the 16th best catcher at framing pitches. Again, the reason the data doesn't go further back than 1988 is because pitch counts were not consistently recorded before then. Mauer's value at the plate during his catching days was fairly obvious. His value behind the plate -- specifically with pitch framing -- may have been less obvious. -- Josmil Pinto was among the bottom five catchers at pitch framing in the Majors in 2014, although he wasn't quite as bad as the old models suggested. Pinto was 1.8 percent worse than average at getting called strikes. Hank Conger had the best 2014 season at framing pitches, according to the data. He was 3.7 percent better than average at getting called strikes. Former Twins catcher Rene Rivera held the second spot on the list, behind Conger, and he was 3.6 percent better than average. The full board wasn't immediately available, but I'll be curious to see where Suzuki ranks. -- I'm curious to see what, if anything, this data reveals about home plate umpires. If there's an umpire who is shown to be particularly terrible at calling balls and strikes, would MLB consider moving him out from behind the plate? Many have wrung their hands this offseason over the in baseball games. If we wanted to speed up the game and lived in a baseball utopia, having a correctly interpreted strike zone enforced accurately and consistently would be a good place to start.

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Twins 2015 outlook: Will Danny Santana win the job at shortstop?

Derek Wetmore | 1500espn.com | February 7, 2015

Shortstop might be the most interesting position battle for the Twins during spring training. Danny Santana will try to lock up the starting job after a rookie year in which he burst on to the scene, mostly playing in centerfield, away from what he calls his natural position. Manager Paul Molitor has said publicly that he thinks Santana will be the shortstop. He's also tried to be sensitive to Eduardo Escobar, who had something of a breakout season of his own in 2014 while playing a lot of shortstop for the Twins. I've been told the starting shortstop job remains an open competition, presumably between Santana and Escobar. More on that competition later in this post, but first, a snapshot of Santana. -- Danny Santana didn't play winter ball this year. He was in Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, working out his legs, his body and perhaps most importantly, his swing. The same swing that he used to hit .319/.353/.472 on his way to being an easy choice for Twins rookie of the year. Now there are two primary questions Santana faces as he enters spring training a virtual lock to make the club: will he continue to produce at the plate; and will he be the starting shortstop? In an attempt to make an educated guess, let's explore what got him to this point. Bursting on the scene The Twins recalled Santana in early May with the door ajar for him to find playing time. He knocked the door off its hinges, and hit so well in the Majors that the Twins decided it was better for him to play out of position (in center field) than to take his bat out of the lineup. Minnesota put itself in a tough spot and was awfully thin on Major League-ready center fielders by that time. So Santana's emergence was a major blessing. It was mostly blue skies for Santana, even in center field. He was not an especially good fielder, but his speed and strong arm sometimes made up for confusing routes or bad reads of balls off the bat. His bat certainly was worth the defensive tradeoff in 2014. His biggest setbacks were injury-related. Santana had a bad bone bruise on his left knee, believed to be suffered while he was running the bases in a late-June game in Anaheim. He missed about three weeks and by the time he returned he was the everyday center fielder pretty much the rest of the season. His other injuries were minor in comparison. He cut his eyelid on his helmet while sliding on the basepaths -- he still has the scar -- and strained his low back in September, but he only missed two games for each of those injuries. By all accounts, it was a promising year for the 23-year-old. Now, a year older and with a season of MLB experience under his belt, will he move full-time to the ? Shortstop Paul Molitor spoke one-on-one with Santana and with Eduardo Escobar during TwinsFest in January to explain to each player where he stood with the Twins. Based on what the new manager told them, it sounds like the Twins view this as a position battle during spring training. So Molitor's public comments that the job is up for grabs would appear to be more than lip service. A reporter asked Santana during TwinsFest if he was looking forward to a possible move to shortstop, to a position he knows more intimately and at which he probably expected his big league career to take place. "I'm excited about that. I always wait for that," Santana said, in his improved English. "I always wait for that position. I love shortstop, it's my natural position. I like centerfield, too, but I'm more [of a] shortstop." He made it clear he thinks he needs to compete for the starting job -- he mentioned Escobar and Eduardo Nunez as his primary competition -- but added that he knows he has the tools to win the job. "I need to show that," Santana said. "They know what I can do as a shortstop, but not in the big leagues." Several questions loom inside the seemingly simple question of whether or not he'll be the shortstop. If he's the best at the position in spring, will that be good enough? What if he's clearly the best shortstop, but Escobar plays well at short, too, and the Twins can't find a suitable option in center field? Would they still entertain the idea of playing Santana in center? Will the Twins be more concerned with winning games this year, or are they willing to perhaps make a small concession in the name of developing a shortstop? 9

Will they move him back and forth between the positions, or will they prefer to pick a spot and stick with it? What if Escobar wins the job? Would Santana be relegated to backup infield duties? Or would they move him to center to get his bat in the lineup? And that's to say nothing of the questions surrounding his own game. Keep it up Santana surprised me in 2014. He way outperformed what I would have expected based on his minor league numbers. And despite not always looking great in center field, he was better than I would have expected for a player who hadn't seen much outfield time since A-ball and who had been groomed as a shortstop in the minor leagues. The Twins had a much more detailed scouting report and understanding of Santana when they called him up, but I still have to imagine they were similarly surprised by Santana's remarkable season. Santana would have had Rookie of the Year buzz if it wasn't for White Sox slugger Jose Abreu, who ran away with the award. Santana's strong arm and his speed are perhaps his two biggest strengths. Both attributes play well at shortstop and in center field, but there's more to fielding than being fast and strong-armed. It'll be interesting to see this year how Santana handles the glove, regardless of which position he plays. If we compared his offensive numbers with , he'd be near the top of the list -- right up there with Hanley Ramirez, and ahead of players like Starlin Castro, Ian Desmond and Jose Reyes. Compare his numbers with center fielders, and he's not quite as high on the list, but he still acquitted himself well among that group. It'd be fair to consider his season at the plate in the same tier as Carlos Gomez, who was deservedly being talked about as an MVP candidate early in the season. Two factors work against Santana possibly repeated his 2014 batting line: luck and strike zone control. Typically, hitters who put the ball in play see roughly 30 percent of those batted balls fall in for hits. Put another way, most hitters are going to hit right around .300 in the long run once they put the ball in play. Santana hit .405 in those instances last year. That's higher than any other player with at least 400 plate appearances, and it probably involves a great deal of luck. Stats people will suggest that batting average will start to come down this season, because he's unlikely to keep hitting so much better than other players when he puts the ball in play. But his batting average might not crater, say, 100 points because of a drop-off in batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Santana's incredible line drive rate (26 percent compared to the league average of 20.8 percent) and his good speed should help him keep that BABIP number higher than a lot of players. Line drives fall in for hits more often than any other type of hit; and his speed helps Santana beat out infield singles that might be groundouts for a slower player. Santana struck out 98 times in 430 plate appearances. That's a in 22.8 percent of his trips to the plate. He walked in just 4.4 percent of his plate appearances, which adds up to one of the worst strikeout-to-walk ratios among players with at least 400 plate appearances. Sure, there are successful hitters that appear at the bottom of that list -- Adam Jones, Juan Uribe, Yan Gomes -- but it's worth monitoring this season because it's fairly rare to see a hitter have sustained success with such poor strike zone control.

Al Michaels: ‘There was no question’ Twins pumped in noise in ’87 Series

Fox Sports Midwest | February 6, 2015

Cardinals fans of a certain age have clear recollections of the . And except for utilityman Tom Lawless' classic bat flip as his three-run homer snuck over the left-field fence in Game 4, no memory is more vivid than that of the home team winning every game.

The Twins had four home games, the Cardinals three, so that was the end of that.

Only now there's a notion that the Twins had an unfair advantage in those four home games at the Metrodome -- not unlike the recent allegations that the Atlanta Falcons were piping fake noise at the Georgia Dome.

Longtime broadcaster Al Michaels, who called the '87 World Series for ABC, said in an interview Wednesday on NBC Radio's "Pro Football Live" with Mike Florio that he's certain the Twins pumped in crowd noise that October.

"It was ridiculously loud," Michaels said. "I'll never forget Scott Ostler was writing for the L.A. Times, and he described the crowd as 54,223 Scandinavian James Browns.

"I'm going, wait a minute. This is a baseball game. Nobody is screaming like this when the fifth inning starts. ...

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"To me, there was no question" that the live crowd wasn't making all that noise.

The Twins contend otherwise. Club president Dave St. Peter told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Thursday that Michaels' comments were "comical." Maybe so. Whether or not Michaels' allegations are true, however, Cardinals fans aren't laughing -- not even 28 years later.

Meet the only high school pitcher to strike out Joe Mauer

John Rosengren | Sports Illustrated | February 6, 2015

Paul Feiner isn’t one to bring it up. The 33-year-old digital marketer loves talking sports, just not about himself and not about that day. His boss at Go Kart Labs, a digital agency in Minneapolis, didn’t learn of his employee's claim to athletic fame until Feiner had worked there six months, and then teased him, “That would have been the first thing out of my mouth when I shook your hand:

‘I’m the guy who struck out Joe Mauer.’”

Lots of guys can say that now, especially with Mauer, the longtime Twins star, coming off a season in which he whiffed a career- high 96 times. But Feiner is the only one with the distinction of striking out Mauer in high school, when the St. Paul prep s tar batted .567 and whiffed exactly once in 222 at-bats.

It happened in the second game of the 2000 Minnesota state high school tournament, Feiner’s senior year, when his Elk River Elks played Mauer’s Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. It wasn’t expected to remain such a big deal then but once Mauer made it to the major leagues in 2004 and started winning batting titles (he now owns three), people began mentioning Feiner’s accomplishment.

Instead of parlaying his newfound sliver of fame into free drinks and a unique pickup line, Feiner displayed Mauer -like humility and went mostly mum. He has given few interviews on the subject, turning down requests because he had ambitions to be known as something other than “the guy who struck out Mauer.” Feiner lived in Gemany for a year and a half teaching English to busines s people. He worked in finance. He got married. And he’s back in Minnesota, where in addition to his day job he runs a website called "I Love Minnesota Sports." These days he’s more willing to indulge those who ask him about that day. “I don’t shy away from it any more when people bring it up,” he says.

Feiner had never faced Mauer before that game, but he knew who he was. Everyone in Minnesota did. Even as a high school junior, Mauer was already legendary, an All-State football and basketball player in addition to being a top baseball prospect. “He was a presence,” Feiner says. “Different than any other player.”

So when Mauer stepped into the box for his first at-bat, Feiner lobbed an Eephus pitch. It missed wide. Mauer cracked a smile and smoothed the dirt with his foot. Then he lashed a single.

His next time up, Mauer lofted Feiner’s pitch over the leftfield fence to give Cretin-Derham its first run.

The score was knotted at 1-1 entering the sixth inning. The game had become a pitching duel between Feiner and Mauer, a wundekind not only with his bat but also with his arm. Though Mauer says now that he was “more of a thrower, not a pitcher,” he was nonetheless undefeated in five decisions that season and offset his 92 mph fastball with a curve and a . Feine r hadn’t managed a hit off him, though did reach on a fielder’s choice.

Mauer came to the plate again with two on and two out in the top of the inning. Feiner, caught up in the competition, wasn’t intimidated to be facing the nation’s best young hitter in a pressure situation; instead, he cruised on the adrenaline of th e moment. With a 2-2 count he reached for his best pitch, a 12-to-6 curveball, which he had been throwing since before it would have been recommended. He delivered it perfectly, and it broke down to Mauer’s shoetops. Mauer swung -- and missed.

Mauer’s teammates, who had never seen that happen, asked their star if he was feeling okay. They were only half -joking.

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Feiner ran off the field to the cheers of a couple hundred Elk River fans above the first -base dugout. He exchanged high-fives with his teammates (which included centerfielder Paul Martin, now a defenseman with the Pittsburgh Penguins) and thought, Yes! We can win this.

Mauer helped make sure that didn’t happen. He went back to the mound and kept the Elks from scoring again, finishing with 13 strikeouts. The Raiders’ offense then rallied for six runs in the seventh and advanced to the next round with a 7 -1 win, eliminating Elk River.

Forgive Mauer for letting the memory of that at-bat go fuzzy -- he has tallied almost 7,000 professional plate appearances since and made six All-Star teams -- but he, too, has had people bring it up to him. Feiner isn’t one of them, as the two have never met. “If I were to run into him I’m sure we’d have a couple laughs about it,” Mauer said last season. “I’ve he ard he’s a nice guy and doesn’t like to talk about it a whole lot.”

Feiner's baseball career ended that day 14 years ago, after pitching one of the finest games of his career. He hasn’t played competitively since. Mauer, of course, has carved out a career that could very well end in Cooperstown. But for one at-bat, one pitch, Paul Feiner created a memory that he'll never forget.

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