Twins All-Time Team v.2012
Today we're taking a look at the Twins All-Time team, version 2012.Last year's inaugural squad can be seen here.
As mentioned before, the Twins' roots go back to the Washington Senators; one of the eight original AL teams (moving to Minnesota in 1961). Because of that, there's a lot of history, making this team one of the best we've put together.
In addition to our normal review, we had to add an infielder and two starting pitchers to last year's roster.
Utilizing Mickey Vernon as an infielder (moving him from DH to 1B/IF), allowed us to add any position player we wanted - which proved to be helpful in the selection process because we didn't have to focus on any particular position; we needed one player to add to last year's lineup.
Scouring comments from last year's team, we immediately considered Paul Molitor, Earl Battey and Bob Allison, with Allison emerging as the favorite (the others not having enough tenure to warrant serious consideration). In addition to those names, we added some names from the great Senators teams of the 1920's and 30's, namely, Joe Judge, Buddy Myer and Goose Goslin, with Goslin standing out. So ultimately, it came down to Bob Allison and Goose Goslin.
Allison spent his entire 13 year career in Minnesota, posting a 127 OPS+, winning rookie of the year honors in 1959 and compiling a WAR total of 31.3 in a Senators/Twins uniform. Goslin, the Hall of Famer, spent twelve seasons as a Senator, winning a batting title in 1928 (with that Murderer's Row they had in NY, this batting title meant something), posting a 131 OPS+ while compiling 40 WAR... we went with Goslin but we should note that Myer, Battey and Allison were all tremendous players that spent significant time with the Senators/Twins.
Choosing two starting pitchers was fairly easy for us in this case. We considered Frank Viola, Camilo Pascual and Jim Perry but settled on Johan Santana (who owns two Cy's as a Twin) and Jim Kaat (who ranks second in team history in wins behind the Big Train, spending 15 seasons with the franchise, earning 12 Gold Gloves and two all-star appearances).
With three first basemen on this team (Killebrew played enough third for us to use him there), it's safe to say that you won't find many All-Time teams in our database with more pop than this one.
C - Joe Mauer
1B - Kent Hrbek
2B - Rod Carew
SS - Joe Cronin
3B - Harmon Killebrew
IF - Mickey Vernon
OF - Kirby Puckett
OF - Sam Rice
OF - Tony Oliva
OF - Goose Goslin
SP - Walter Johnson
SP - Bert Blyleven
SP - Johan Santana
SP - Jim Kaat
RP - Joe Nathan
Won't find many teams with more pop? Just about every AT team with any kind of history has more pop than this one. Outside of Killebrew who do they have? A bunch of guys who may or may not hit 20 hr/year. Yankees have Ruth/Dimaggio/Mantle/Gehrig/Berra (and fine I guess ARod)Giants have Mays, Ott, McCovey, Bonds.. Braves have Aaron, Mathews, Murphy, Jones, etc, etc. Maybe the Phillies.. but Schmidt/Luzuiski, Howard, Allen are still going to provide more power than this bunch. The Twins all time team would have to win games by counting on luck, scrappy play, and pitching Walter Johnson every single game.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Cap.
ReplyDeletePop might have been a bad word to end with but you can't focus on home runs with this team this team because they would have hit a lot of doubles...
I think that what you have here is a team that would compete with most teams because they don't really have a weak spot. Who would you attack? Maybe Hrbek but his OPS+ is higher than Lazzeri and Maris, whom we chose for the Yankees AT team. They might not have an All-Time great (aside from Rod Carew, who I would rank up there) they DO have guys that can wins game by playing scrappy and this team boasts a lot of borderline HOF'ers (a very underappreciated team).
Thanks again, Cap.
Cap is only looking at the Home Run power and not the batting titles this team has. Mauer,Carew, Vernon, Puckett , Rice and Oliva, Very strong lineup.
ReplyDeleteI like Joe Judge over Kent Hrbek. Also would take Brad Radke over Jim Kaat.
ReplyDelete