Recap: The Twins started their magical season strong (14-6), got pulled down into mediocrity for a little bit (14-15 in August), then ended strong (18-11 from Sept 1 onward). They then took down a depleted Yankees team 3 games to 1 in the ALCS and somehow dispatched a heavily favored Reds club in the World Series.
History: This was the 1st ever World Championship for the Twins in Minnesota; the franchise had previously won in 1950 as the Washington Senators. This Twins team has also won 92 or more games every season going back to 1963; with the advent of divisional play, they're the only club now to win two division titles.
Outlook: Look for more of the same in 1971. This team might be the most talented team in the AL, it's hard to say, but they're certainly the most talented team in the AL West by a large margin. The one thing they aren't is particularly young. This is very much a team in the middle of a window.
Rotation
Code:
Pitching Age BT W L WL % ERA G GS GF CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB IBB SO WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9
Benavides, Chris 28 RR 18 14 .563 2.61 41 41 0 15 6 0 313.2 272 108 91 12 96 3 222 1.173 7.8 0.3 2.8 6.4
Ramos, Angelo 35 SR 20 2 .909 2.41 29 29 0 12 5 0 224.0 210 66 60 10 40 3 152 1.116 8.4 0.4 1.6 6.1
Magdaleno, Ricardo 32 LL 8 16 .333 4.78 31 27 0 2 0 0 186.1 221 111 98 16 53 1 99 1.470 0.8 2.6 4.8
Larsen, Mike 30 RR 11 10 .524 3.04 28 28 0 8 4 0 201.0 189 75 68 8 73 1 108 1.303 8.5 0.4 3.3 4.8
Ruiz, Victor 32 SR 9 8 .529 4.84 27 26 0 0 0 0 174.2 161 100 94 21 102 0 151 1.506 8.3 1.1 5.3 7.8
Whetzel, Rich 25 RR 3 3 .500 3.60 9 7 0 1 0 0 50.0 51 29 20 6 18 0 28 1.380 9.2 1.1 3.2 5.0
Lewis, Bryan 25 RR 0 0 .000 9.64 1 1 0 0 0 0 4.2 10 5 5 2 1 0 3 2.357 19.3 3.9 1.9 5.8
If there's a reason at all why
Angelo Ramos won't win the AL Cy Young Award, it's that he missed a month and left the Twins in the lurch. While he was healthy, though, he led the leage in ERA, winning percentage, and BB/9 and even with all that time missed he still managed to clear 20 victories, good for 6th in all of baseball. Even as the Nicaraguan enters his mid-30s, Ramos has a mid-90s fastball taht he pairs with a nifty forkball to generate plenty of strikeouts and weak ground balls. He's won 205 and while it's hard to make big predictions for anyone, you have to think he's at least going to get to 250, right?
Chris Benavides was the team's workhorse this year, especially when Ramos was out. He also only went 18-14 in spite of a 2.61 ERA, due in large part to 7 tough losses (I had to calculate those by hand and I didn't make a leaderboard). He had the same quality start rate as Ramos - 76% for both.
Mike Larsen had 6 tough losses himself. For clarification's sake, a tough loss is a loss you pick up when you pitch a quality start (6+ IP, 3 ER or less). Larsen was, then, an above average pitcher who only looks average due to the wins and losses. As you all saw, he had a pretty awful first start in the playoffs but then settled down.
Ricardo Magdaleno somehow didn't show up in my statistical report at all (actually, he was in there but only for 2 games in relief). That is... really, really annoying. The numbers above, I pulled from his player card. Anyway, he was really, really bad in 1970. It's not often you see a starter on a division champion go 8-16 but Magdaleno managed to do it. At 33, his 27 starts last year were also a career high. I would be surprised if he gets anywhere close to that again. One arm on the rise is the Cuban 23 year old
Santiago Serrano, who struck out 198 men in 175 innings in AAA last year. His control still needs work but he could walk into the rotation next year as a guy who could be in the middle of the rotation for most teams.
Bullpen
Code:
Pitching Age BT W L WL % ERA G GS GF CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB IBB SO WHIP H9 HR9 BB9 SO9
Lynn, Pete 24 RR 10 9 .526 3.33 60 0 49 0 0 18 94.2 83 42 35 6 40 5 93 1.299 7.9 0.6 3.8 8.8
Melena, Melvin 37 RR 2 1 .667 3.67 35 0 17 0 0 1 41.2 50 24 17 2 16 1 25 1.584 10.8 0.4 3.5 5.4
Eason, Pete 30 RR 1 3 .250 4.26 33 0 19 0 0 1 38.0 43 25 18 4 13 0 35 1.474 10.2 0.9 3.1 8.3
Theisen, Todd 30 RR 7 1 .875 2.98 27 3 15 1 0 4 54.1 55 19 18 5 12 0 42 1.233 9.1 0.8 2.0 7.0
Murry, Cameron 25 RR 0 0 .000 3.63 12 0 4 0 0 1 17.1 18 8 7 0 13 0 9 1.788 9.3 0.0 6.8 4.7
Kenner, Bob 26 RR 0 0 .000 4.91 5 0 1 0 0 0 7.1 8 4 4 2 4 0 10 1.636 9.8 2.5 4.9 12.3
Zamora, Manny 26 RR 0 0 .000 0.00 1 0 0 0 0 0 2.1 1 0 0 0 3 0 1 1.714 3.9 0.0 11.6 3.9
Marceau, Jim 29 RR 0 0 .000 13.50 1 0 1 0 0 0 2.0 4 3 3 0 0 0 2 2.000 18.0 0.0 0.0 9.0
Colletti, Marquise 26 RR 0 0 .000 5.40 2 0 0 0 0 0 1.2 2 1 1 0 1 0 1 1.800 10.8 0.0 5.4 5.4
The Twins went into the year hoping to manage both
Pete Lynn and
Todd Thiesen, whom they'd acquired from the Indians in the offseason. Note that I didn't say "platoon", as both are right-handed. In any case, Thiesen tore a flexor tendon in his elbow and threw his last pitch in 1970 on June 30th. That left Lynn, a pure power pitchers whose two big pitches are a 4-seamer (which can reach the low to mid 90s) and a 2-seamer (that's a couple miles slower), to fill that full-time role he'd filled in 1969. The Twins used him a ton down the stretch and he was... volatile. He wound up blowing 8 saves last year for a subpar 69% save rate. It may be a while before Thiesen gets back but the Twins will look to him when he comes back.
The back of the 'pen, at least as of right now, stands to include
Pete Eason, a 3rd round pick way back in 1958 who's gone from back of the rotation starter to his current role in middle to long relief. He's still only OK in this role and you usually expect this to be filled by younger players so his time with the team may be close to an end. Also there, and perhaps with a less tenuous grasp, is old man
Melvin Melena. Melena's opponent batting average climbed 20 points, and he'll need to work on that, but he also stranded 18 of 23 inherited runners, making him a great person to bring in from the 5th to 7th innings.
Catcher
Code:
Batting Age BT G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS DP BA OBP SLG Pos
Reed, Brad 29 RR 121 433 53 103 27 2 18 66 66 101 0 1 13 .238 .337 .434 2*
Theroff, Matt 29 RR 47 142 16 38 2 0 1 11 24 37 0 0 7 .268 .369 .303 2
Brad Reed was solid and unspectacular as a catcher and that's just fine for the Twins. He does lack athleticism and isn't super fantastic at handling a pitching staff, but the Twins have a veteran team and so this isn't as big of a deal compared with other teams. He finished 2nd among all catchers in HRs and tied for 1st in RBIs (although OOTP's stat tracker says he had an obviously-wrong 53 so maybe I'm missing someone else). The HRs and RBIs were also a career high. His backup
Matt Theroff, the team's former starter in 1967 and 1968 who lost the job because he couldn't hit, quietly seems to have overcome the hitting issues (I mean, no power whatsoever); he's an excellent defensive replacement as well as a guy who can deliver a clutch walk.
Infield
Code:
Batting Age BT G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS DP BA OBP SLG Pos
Martinez, Angelo 34 LL 156 642 99 177 28 3 35 96 59 99 2 0 18 .276 .339 .492 3*
Barnes, Jon 30 RR 63 62 6 17 2 0 3 9 8 13 0 0 1 .274 .361 .452 /3
Samuels, Brandon 39 RR 13 19 1 3 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 .158 .200 .211 /3
Gilmet, Daniel 32 RR 85 351 59 102 18 4 5 33 31 16 23 4 7 .291 .336 .407 4/6
Pellot, Danny 35 RR 77 214 18 55 8 4 3 25 18 45 2 1 7 .257 .307 .374 46/5
Malphrus, Nate 27 RR 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 /4
Brookes, Mike 31 SR 151 510 102 136 27 3 39 112 140 87 3 5 10 .267 .432 .561 5*
Sladewski, Chris 31 RR 38 90 8 15 4 1 2 10 9 27 1 0 4 .167 .250 .300 54/6
Mendel, Marty 27 RR 124 471 49 120 23 1 0 38 33 48 10 0 9 .255 .311 .308 6*/4
Park, Dong-hak 29 LR 55 156 14 31 2 1 1 12 15 24 1 0 5 .199 .269 .244 64
Baek, Jun-ho 31 RR 10 22 4 4 1 1 1 6 5 7 0 0 0 .182 .333 .455 6
The 1969 MVP
Angelo Martinez won't repeat in 1970 - well, probably; I haven't actually run the numbers yet but even on this team I think Mike Brookes has a far better case - but he was still an excellent hitter on a homerun-happy team. One thing that the Spanish/Dominican should get more credit for is the availability stat: in the last 7 seasons, dating back to 1964, he's missed a total of 38 games.
Jon Barnes is a career organizational soldier who was called up to be the Twins' primary pinch-hitter and theoretical sub for Martinez. It's a good thing he's a ham-and-egger who doesn't yearn for a starting job of his own because he's not going to get one, and there are worse things in life than being a key role player for a World Series winner.
Daniel "Mister X" Gilmet is a guy who isn't able to stay healthy and at this point in the 32 year old's career, this is something they have to take into account. He's also maybe not quite the top-flight player he was in the early 60s when he won the ROY (1961), MVP (1963) and made the All-Star Game 3 times ('63, '64, and '65). He's still pretty great when he's not suffering the now-perennial back injury.
Danny Pellot has done a nice job filling in for both Gilmet and Mendel at shortstop over the years, although he reportedly wants to start somewhere (or in Minnesota, but that's no happening). He used to be an All-Star level middle infielder with the stick; that has not been the case since he joined Minnesota in 1965 but, should the Twins make his dreams come true, he can still be league average or better at short or second while getting the job done with the glove.
I kept forgetting to look at this, but in 1955 Henning Rasmussen had 3 walks in the postseason, giving him 145 for the calendar year.
Mike Brookes had 140 for the regular season, so technically Rasmussen still holds the record, but 7 after the regular season ended. While that isn't the highest total ever - the Mets' Joshua "Superman" Waltenbery walked 10 times last year and 3 other players, including Minnesota's own Brad Reed last year too, walked 8 times in a postseason - it is in fact enough to vault Brookes into the #1 slot for a calendar year. There is of course no place to track that in the game but STILL. Pitchers were very wary to pitch to Brookes, and he took full advantage. Even when they did give him stuff to hit, he led the league in HRs, RBIs, OBP, SLG, and my own favorite 80s era stats, RC and RC/27 (that's runs created, a multiplicative value similar-ish to WAR, but only for offense, not adjusted for position, and compiled at a level similar to RBIs - Brookes had 133.6 - and runs created per 27 outs, which is essentially how many runs per game a lineup composed of 9 <player>s would score per game - Brookes had 9.2). His caddy, at least the past couple years, is/was
Chris Sladewski. Sladewski is a decent fielder who has basically nothing else going for him except for an awesome name (I hear "ska-doosh" in Jack Black's voice whenever he comes to bat).
Marty Mendel is a guy who'd probably get himself replaced if he didn't happen to be the shortstop of record for 2 playoff teams. He "knows how to win". He also has zero power whatsoever and will hurt you in pretty much every lineup position outside of 8th. He also missed 38 games last year and that led the Twins to try a couple of Korean nationals -
Dong-hak Park and
Jun-ho Baek at the position (Park also played a good amount at second). Neither of them hit at all but Park at least was useful enough to see time in the World Series as a backup middle infielder.
Outfield
Code:
Batting Age BT G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS DP BA OBP SLG Pos
Cortes, Alejandro 33 LL 117 444 76 115 15 1 24 70 42 92 21 5 4 .259 .323 .459 7*
Grigg, Mike 36 RR 127 304 41 91 17 1 4 31 24 34 1 0 13 .299 .349 .401 79
Maldonado, Guillermo 28 LL 3 3 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 .333 .500 .333
Villasenor, Jose 24 LL 103 379 47 104 16 1 12 36 28 54 3 4 4 .274 .321 .417 8/9
Dempsey, Zach 26 LL 90 236 25 55 11 2 5 25 30 59 7 3 6 .233 .318 .360 8/79
Acosta, Ricky 24 RR 8 9 2 1 0 0 0 2 1 3 0 0 0 .111 .200 .111 /8
Dees, Brian 31 LR 8 5 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 0 0 .200 .429 .200 /8
Morgenstern, Lou 31 RR 129 510 77 122 24 11 19 72 77 113 2 3 6 .239 .338 .441 9*/8
Ship, Kyle 27 SR 55 154 15 37 5 0 5 21 8 11 2 3 2 .240 .273 .370 9/783
Alejandro Cortes has a profile that makes you think he's a platoon guy but nope, he's a regular who just gets hurt a lot. In fact, last year he hit .257 against lefties in 144 at-bats, although nearly all his power came vs. RHPs (20 of 24 HRs).
Mike Grigg was both his backup and the team's main pinch-hitter. If anyone remembers the 1987 Twins, this guy was basically Randy Bush, except from the right side. Technically I guess he's more versatile than Bush was - IIRC Bush was a pure left fielder - but to be fair Grigg has the range of a guy who should probably only be playing in left field.
Jose Villasenor has surprisingly average speed for a center fielder. If only it was better, and if he was a little bit better at pitch selection, he could be a leadoff guy. That's just not his game, though. He is what he is: a slap hitter who can put a pitch into play from anywhere in the strike zone and who occasionally will drive a ball out of the park. I usually use Daniel Gilmet in the 2 hole but he's kind of the protypical #2 hitter the more I think about it. For a guy who puts so many balls into play, too, he has a surprisingly low amount of GIDPs: just 8 in two-plus seasons in the majors.
Zach Dempsey got a good deal of PT last year for the first time ever and fairly well established himself as a below average hitter who plays good D in the outfield. Somewhere else, he'd probably get asked to play 150 games and people would complain that he doesn't work hard enough and will never come through on his potential. In Minnesota, he's a 5th outfielder.
Lou Morgenstern was the team's leadoff hitter in 1970. He lost 57 points of average compared to 1969 (.297) and while BA isn't everything for a player like this, it did mean that the walks he draws made him roughly average at getting on base rather than one of the better in the game. He did set a career high in HRs but did so at a cost: not only were 113 Ks also a career high, they were 29 more than his previous high. The Twins would be ecstatic if he went back to the 8-10 rate he'd established the 3 years prior if it meant a corresponding rise in average (which, in '67-'68 he hit .251 and .239 so perhaps that's asking too much). Arguably, he no longer has the speed to lead off either, although in practice who on the Twins does?