Reviewing Twins Position Players on the Mound

Experts claims that getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing. I really wouldn’t know, I don’t take many chances. I mean there’s a girl on Twitter and I could just say ‘Hey, you’re cute.’, but do I? No, of course not. It’s out of my comfort zone. So, I keep sitting at home every night without anyone to cuddle.

Twins resident old man, utility infielder proved on Monday night that he is comfortable outside of his comfort zone.  The 39-year-old came into the blowout loss and was the best pitcher the Twins sent out to the mound all night, throwing a perfect nine pitch inning.

Carroll is not the first Twins position to take the hill and probably won’t be the last. In fact the Twins have had seven position players total pitch for the squad, including once each of the last three seasons.

2012 marked the pitching debut of Drew Butera who pitched a 17 pitch inning against the Milwaukee Brewers in a 16-4 loss on May 20. Butera notched a strikeout in the appearance while giving up no hits and one walk.

The ultimate utility man, Michael Cuddyer, pitched an inning for the Twins on July 25, 2011 in a 20-6 loss against the Texas Rangers. Cuddyer threw 16 pitches while giving up two hits in a walk, but nobody touched the plate.

The last position player to take the mound for the Twins before Cuddyer was outfielder John Moses in 1990. Moses actually had three pitching appearances for the Twins between 1989. In Moses’ only appearance in 1989 he allowed no runs in a 11-2 loss against the Boston Red Sox. 1990 was not so kind, Moses’ first appearance was again against the Red Sox and this time he let a run score in a 13-1 loss. Later that summer, Moses gave up two runs to the Angels in a 13-2 loss. Moses finished his career with a 9.00 ERA.

1989 was the year of the position player pitching, being the only year the Twins had two position players take the mound. Danny Gladden also took the mound that year in the second game of a doubleheader at Cleveland, the Dan Man gave up a run in the 12-1 loss. Gladden also pitched the year before in a 16-7 loss against the Angels, Gladden threw a perfect nine pitch inning in his major league pitching debut.

Back to 1968 for the Twins before Danny Gladden and that honor goes to César Tovar. This was a game that César Tovar started at pitcher and proceeded to play every position on the field. Tovar walked one and struck out one. His strikeout victim? Reggie Jackson.

The first ever Twins position player to take the mound was in the franchise’s first year of existence as the Minnesota Twins. On September 10, 1961, Julio Becquer took the mound and gave up four hits and three runs in one and a third innings. Those runs really didn’t matter at the Twins had already given up 10 runs en route to a 13-1 loss to the Kansas City Athletics.

It’s really been a mixed bag of position players getting out of their comfort zones and onto the mounds. In the 10 occurrences, the Twins only managed to win once, but if you are having your <insert the other eight positions here> pitching you are probably not in a good spot to win any way.

I commend these men for stepping out of their comfort zone and opening themselves up to failure. Maybe one of them can talk to that cute girl on Twitter for me. 

Twins simply do not have enough juicers

We have all heard about the “Twins Way”. The team from top to bottom is supposed to play solid defense, have some solid pitching and win the game by manufacturing runs. We can all see how great that is currently working.

On Monday, the news of the Ryan Braun suspension came down the line and made me realize what the Twins have been missing... a whole lot of PED use. That’s performance enhancing drugs for all you kids out there.

While alleged PEDs and positive PED tests have tainted MVP seasons and Hall of Fame careers for players all around baseball, the Twins have barely been touched by the dirty stuff.

On May 2, 2005 it was announced that Juan Rincón had been suspended for ten days for a failed drug test. Aaaaaannnndddddd that it…. the Twins biggest name to ever be connected to PEDs is Juan Rincon.

You know what Juan Rincon is doing right now?

He’s currently pitching for the York Revolution, an Independent League baseball team founded in 2007.

Fun fact: Anthony Slama also just signed with the Revolution earlier this month (#freeAnthonySlama).

The Twins have so many problems that we could spend a whole fort week listing them all and trying to solve it, but we never bring up the fact that the Twins just don’t have enough guys that are juicing. 

A look at Joe Nathan's Hall of Fame chances

Last night we saw the obvious future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera be the set-up man for former Twins closer and current Texas Ranger Joe Nathan. Now Rivera was in the game in the eighth inning to secure him appearing in the game, but is it possible that we saw a one-two punch of future Hall of Famers?

It's tough to break into the Hall being a relief pitcher, but Nathan might just have right amount of saves at the end of his career to punch a ticket to Cooperstown. Nathan currently sits at 328 career saves which is the 13th most saves in the history of baseball. Nathan has 30 saves so far in 2013 and once he reaches 44 he will pass Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers for 10th all-time.


Nathan is currently 38 years old and probably doesn't have more than two or three years left in his arm, at least as a shut-the-door closer. So father time is sure ticking fast for Nathan to bolster his career saves total. Let's say Nathan reaches the 345 career saves mark this year (47 saves on the year) and do some math from there.


In years that Nathan has been healthy (and a closer), he has never saved less than 36 games in a season. Let's say Nathan notches 35 saves these next two seasons after hitting the 345 mark this year. That means Nathan will end the 2015 season with 415 saves with would be good for sixth all-time and be one of only six men to save over 400 ballgames.


Not even Dennis Eckersley saved over 400 games. The problem is that, at the moment, no one else with 400 saves is also in the Hall. Granted, Mariano and Trevor Hoffman will be in the Hall but that's after a career that saw them chalk up 600-plus saves. This puts Nathan in a group with Lee Smith, John Franco and Billy Wagner. Franco is already off of the Hall of Fame ballot, Smith is probably not going to get in after his highest voting percentage was 50.6% in 2012 after dropping to 47.8% this year and Billy Wagner is not yet eligible for the Hall.


For the sake of Nathan, Wagner better get enshrined. The two are very comparable: Wagner had seven All-Star appearance and Nathan has six, Wagner pitched 16 seasons and if Nathan pitches two more he will have pitched 15 seasons. If Nathan can have a big couple years, he could easily pass Wagner in all of these categories.


This debate will obviously clear-up in a couple years when Wagner become Hall of Fame eligible and Nathan probably hangs it up, but until then it's a fun debate to have. Joe Nathan is clearly a great closer, now the question is will he be enshrined where the greats go for eternity.

Let's Not Forget... Mauer Is A Projected HOFer

At work today I was clicking around Baseball Reference’s website and I stumbled across an interesting section of the website that I have never explored before. If you scroll to the bottom of a player’s profile page you will see a section titled Hall Of Fame Statistics, which is a bunch of sabermetrics designed to project if a player is a Hall of Fame candidate.

Amongst the multiple equations there is one that is entitled JAWS which stands for Jaffe WAR Scoresystem, the system was designed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness and easily compares the players. The main components to the equation are a player’s WAR (wins above replacement) and his 7-year peak WAR.

Not a whole lot of Twins are high up on any of the position lists. Take Justin Morneau for example, he is currently ranked 105 on the list for first basemen. This puts Morneau just six spots above Aubrey Huff, five behind Mike Sweeney or 10 behind John Kruk. That’s pretty tough for a guy who won an American League MVP award just a handful of years ago.

What really caught my eye was where hometown boy Joe Mauer was ranked. Mauer, a 10-year MLB veteran, is currently ranked 14th all-time amongst catchers. Mauer is in great company trailing seven current Hall of Famers and already ahead of six other members of the Hall.

The catchers that Mauer is behind are the following from first to 13th: Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlton Piazza, Mike Piazza, Yogi Berra, Joe Torre, Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, Ted Simmons, Gabby Harnett, Thurman Munson and Gene Tenance.

All of those players are retired and have no chance of moving up or down the list. The closet active player is the Detroit Tiger’s Victor Martinez who is ranked 33rd. Granted, Joe Mauer could move himself down the list since the JAWS system is based a lot on a player’s WAR, but we have no reason to believe that Mauer will turn sour anytime soon.

The scary thing is that Mauer has a good amount of years left in his major league career; at least the Twins hope so since he is signed thru the 2018 season. It’s more than likely that Joe Mauer will move into the top 10 if not the top five before he hangs it up someday.

What really hit me is that while the Twins wallow in dismay and are on pace for their third straight ninety-plus loss season, the Twins have a catcher to that looks to be a Hall of Famer and when it’s all over there shouldn’t be much question about it.

So while you are laughing at what the MLB All-Star game festivities have become and pondering what really is Ron Gardenhire’s job status, just sit back and remember that we are watching a future Hall of Famer every night behind the plate… unless it’s a day game after a night game.