Some Good Players Made Their Marks With Yanks and Twins
ALSO: ALL-STAR VOTING IS ANOTHER FARCE PERPETRATED BY MLB
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Max Fried’s 13 strikeouts for the Braves in a 7-inning stint at Fenway Park Tuesday night were a career high . . .
Atlanta’s Fried, Chris Sale, and Reynaldo Lopez are all strong All-Star candidates . . .
Fried, a 30-year-old left-hander, will almost certainly be the top pitcher on the free-agent market this fall . . .
San Diego starter Joe Musgrove, idled by a bone spur, is likely out til August and could require surgery if the injury doesn’t heal . . .
Add Cristian Javier and Jose Urquidy to the list of front-line Astros pitchers likely lost for the rest of this season with injuries . . .
Baltimore pitchers John Mean and Tyler Wells are in the same boat . . .
Pinstripe whack-a-mole: as ace Gerrit Cole progressses in rehab, fellow Yankee starter Clarke Schmidt will be out 4-6 weeks . . .
Víctor Robles is more likely to help Seattle’s outfield depth than its anemic attack . . .
Minnesota finally gave up on under-performing second baseman Edouard Julien, a serious victim of the sophomore slump, returning him to Triple-A.
Leading Off
The New York Twins (or Something Like That)
By Paul Semendinger
As a baseball fan, I love to look at rosters of teams. I enjoy seeing what players played for each teams and such. This probably comes from my days collecting baseball cards as a kid and spending far too many hours reading the backs of the cards. (As a young student of the game, I found that the smaller the print, the better, because it meant that there was a lot more to learn.)
This information helps me when I try my hand at the Immaculate Grid, but I don't play that often.
Of course, I am a Yankees fan, so much of my research centers on the Yankees and the players that played for my favorite team.
A few weeks ago, I became a grandpa for the first time. But, I didn't become just a grandpa, I became a grandpa of twins - of the most wonderful little babies ever. (We all say that, I'm sure, and, for all of us, it is also so very true.)
This made me start to think about the greatest players who played for both the Minnesota Twins and the New York Yankees.
I decided to see if I could make up a team of players who played for both teams. Now, one could expand this and make this team of players who were also original Washington Senators, since that team became the Twins, but for this exercise, I decided to stick with just the Twins.
Here then is a roster of players, a starting nine, a few others of note, a complete five-man rotation, and a bullpen made up of some of the best players who played for both the Twins and the Yankees. Included are some relevant lifetime stats and brief facts about each player.
You know, this would be a pretty good team!
C - Butch Wynegar: .255 (2-time All-Star, runner-up for Rookie of the Year, 1976)
1B - Doug Mientkiewicz: .271 (Gold Glove)
2B - Chuck Knoblauch: .289 (4 time All-Star, 2 Silver Sluggers)
3B - Graig Nettles: 390 lifetime homers, 6 time All-Star (Led AL in WAR as a position player two times)
SS - Roy Smalley: .257/163/694 (1-time All-Star)
LF - Cesar Tovar: .287, 226 stolen bases (MVP votes in 5 consecutive seasons)
CF - Robert Kelly: .290 (2 time All-Star)
RF - Dave Winfield: 3,110 hits, HALL OF FAME
DH - Gary Ward: .276/130/597 (2-time All-Star)
Also: Chili Davis: 3 time All-Star
Don Baylor : 1979 AL MVP
Josh Donaldson: 2015 AL MVP
SP - Jim Kaat: 283 lifetime wins, HALL OF FAME
SP - Luis Tiant: 229 lifetime wins (led the league in ERA two times, 3-time All-Star)
SP - Joe Niekro: 221 lifetime wins (1-time All-Star)
SP - Scott Erickson: 142 lifetime wins (Runner-Up Cy Young Award, 1991)
SP - John Candelaria: 177 lifetime wins (Led NL in ERA, 1-time All-Star)
RP - Jeff Reardon: 367 saves (4-time All-Star)
RP - Ron Davis: 1 time All-Star (Once struck out 8 consecutive batters)
RP - Dave LaRoche: 2 time All-Star
RP - Steve Howe: (Rookie of the Year, 1-time All-Star)
RP - Phil Hughes: (1-time All-Star)
Did I miss anyone who should be on the team? Was a better player left off my roster?
(I'm wondering if one day I'll have to look up all the players who played for the minor-league Binghamton Triplets...)
Dr. Paul Semendinger, a proud grandpa, is the author of 365.2: Going the Distance, From Compton to the Bronx, The Least Among Them, Scattering the Ashes, and more. Paul runs the Yankees site Start Spreading the News. You can find Paul on Twitter @DrPaulRSem
Cleaning Up
Don’t Encourage Fans To Vote For All-Star Lineups
By Dan Schlossberg
Like a banana republic election, Major League Baseball is once again telling its fans to vote early, vote often, and pick their favorites for the 2024 All-Star Game.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
Any fair election should involve one person and one vote. But All-Star voting allows one fan to vote five times on any given day and cast votes every day the balloting continues.
Does Rob Manfred not remember 1957, when Cincinnati fans stuffed the ballot box, electing every Reds starter except first baseman George Crowe, who somehow couldn’t usurp someone named Stan Musial.
Astute Commissioner Ford Frick voided the fan selections, executed an executive order replacing Gus Bell and Wally Post with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, and stripped the fans of the right to vote.
No wonder Frick’s in the Hall of Fame — and has an award named after him too!
This year’s computerized ballot is sponsored by something called BuildSubmarines.com, which has more to do with the U.S. Navy than a BLT hoagie. But the whole concept is more likely to sink rather than swim anyway.
Fans invariably elect players whose names or teams they recognize, meaning that players from teams on both coasts have huge advantages.
On the plus side, the ballot designers were careful enough to exclude such injured stars as defending NL MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr., who tore his ACL and prematurely ended his season on Sunday afternoon, May 26. The leading vote-getter last year won’t be an All-Star this year.
On the minus side, the ballot lists the batting averages of the players — including sub-.200 marks for NL outfielders Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, and Michael A. Taylor.
No one doing that poorly deserves to be rewarded with an All-Star berth, though there is precedent. Davey Lopes was once elected the National League’s starting second baseman with a .169 average and Reggie Jackson limped into the American League lineup with a .199 mark.
If either of them had any integrity, he could have declined the invitation. An honorable man would do that but wait! Some contracts contain provisions awarding bonuses for things like making the All-Star team!
The main point is that All-Stars should be the players performing like All-Stars, not players of past renown running on fumes.
Mike Schmidt, to cite one example, was once elected the NL’s starting third baseman after he retired! Ditto Luis Aparicio, a deserving Hall of Fame shortstop who had name recognition but little else left when the fans foolishly annointed him.
The good news is that the current voting system is complex, allowing athletes and coaches to have their say too (June 27 is the cutoff date for the fan vote, thankfully.)
But it isn’t like the Good Old Days, when players, coaches, and managers were the exclusive selectors of starting All-Star lineups. They were barred from voting more than once or voting for teammates.
That system was fair. But perhaps it was too simple to attract a sponsor willing to waste money on a worthless promotion.
Sadly, for Baseball 2024, All-Star Voting is just another revenue grab.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ notes that Hank Aaron was an All-Star 25 times, including 21 years in a row — both major-league records. Schlossberg’s latest book is Home Run King: the Remarkable Record of Hank Aaron. Email comments to ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: Remembering HRs in First At-Bats
"Power is fine as long as it's consistent.
— Whitey Lockman after homering in his first at-bat on July 5, 1945
Gary Gaetti hit more home runs (360) than anyone who homered in his first at-bat . . .
When Yankees rookies Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge both homered in their first at-bats on Aug. 13, 2016, they became the only teammates to do so in the first games of their careers . . .
Cuno Barragan homered Sept. 1, 1961 in first AB and never hit another . . .
So did future Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm, a pitcher for the 1951 New York Giants whose career lasted 21 more years . . .
Future manager Chuck Tanner also homered in his first at-bat . . .
Of the 138 major-leaguers who homered in their first at-bats, 80 were National Leaguers, 57 were American Leaguers, 31 did it on the first pitch, 22 never homered again, four connected with the bases loaded, four others did it with one team after breaking into the majors with another, and two did it for teams in the defunct American Association.
Extra Innings
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.
Good point about All-Star selection; as a fan, I have found my vote is actually meaningless, especially given the ability to literally “stuff” the ballot box. I would be happy to throw it back to the teams themselves as a reflection of how they view the most deserving players. For us, you could devise some other way (with corporate sponsorship) in which we could feel engaged.