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Twins’ Sano Seems a Trade Prospect

Posted on May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 by David Shama

Enigmatic Miguel Sano is back in a Twins uniform after missing the first 41 games of the season with a right heel laceration, and it’s worth speculating whether he will finish the year with the organization.

Before being recalled yesterday, Sano had played in 10 games on his rehab assignment. The goal had been 20 games but an injury to catcher Mitch Garver forced an early recall of Sano, who with Single-A Ft. Myers, Double-A Pensacola and Triple-A Rochester, hit .316. He had two home runs and nine RBI.

The Twins lead the AL Central Division with one of the best records in baseball, 27-15. In the first quarter of the season the club has excelled in various ways including hitting home runs, a Sano specialty. Minnesota is on pace to break the club record for homers in a season, 225.

Sano has teased both the fans and the front office with his power and potential since signing with the team for a reported $3.15 million bonus as a 16-year-old in 2009 while living in his native Dominican Republic. However, in four seasons with the Twins the 6-foot-4, 270-pound third baseman has struggled with his weight, injuries and consistency. In 2017 he made the AL All-Star team and hit a career high 28 home runs, despite only playing in 114 games.

The Twins have thrived this spring without Sano, who fell back in his production last year hitting just .199 with 13 home runs in 71 games. When multi-positional newcomer Marwin Gonzalez plays at third he gives the Twins a better fielder than Sano, and since May 2 he is hitting .372.

It’s conceivable that because of new found success without him, Sano might not become a full time starter and centerpiece with the Twins like in the past. He seems likely—at least initially—to be in and out of the lineup while playing third base, first base and filling in at Designated Hitter.

During an interview yesterday, Twins GM Thad Levine wouldn’t single out Sano as someone the club is targeting for high expectations this season. Rather, he said it’s a “big season” for a core of younger players who have been around for awhile, including Jose Berrios, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Garver and Sano. “I think we feel like his (Sano’s) future bears a lot of promise,” Levine said.

Sano’s achievements and perceived potential should have value on the trade market if the Twins want to part with him. “I think it’s our responsibility to at least listen, but right now we’re not in a position where we’re looking to trade Miguel Sano,” Levine said.

Levine didn’t label any players in the organization as untouchable regarding trades, but he said there are individuals the Twins “would never make a call to another team” about, and bring up their names. He didn’t say who the players are, and whether Sano is included in the group.

Sano is 26 and in the last year of his contract. The Twins could look at Sano as having too much potential to cast away, or they might have seen enough during his spotty career to take the gamble of sending him to another organization either for immediate help or prospects.

In addition to Gonzalez, the Twins can play Ehire Adrianza and Willians Astudillo at third base. With Polanco playing at an All-Star level at shortstop, the Twins might be looking to eventually move top minor league prospect Royce Lewis from short to third base. It seems Minnesota has quality options at third base if the club chooses to move on from Sano.

Levine is impressed with the total performance of the team so far— offense, defense, starting pitching and relief pitching. “There is no glaring need as we see it but I think we’re going to continue to monitor the markets and evaluate the team,” he said.

Levine sees it as his responsibility and that of chief baseball officer Derek Falvey to both recognize the “window” the Twins have this season to be a contender for a division title, while also continuing to strategize the building of the club for the future. Player acquisitions in coming weeks could fit into either of those goals.

Despite the club’s impressive start, Levine recognizes there are a lot of games ahead on the 162-game schedule. “…You kind of use April and May to assess your team, and then the remaining months to make the adjustments you feel necessary to improve it,” he said. “I would say we’re still very much in the assessment stage of the season.”

Worth Noting

The 2019 Twins’ roster is probably the most versatile in franchise history with so many players able to perform at multiple positions. Monday night against the Angels the Twins made use of all three catchers on the roster, with Jason Castro catching, Astudillo playing third base and Garver filling the DH role.

Yesterday the Twins drew a surprisingly large crowd for a home spring game in May. The 31,919 announced attendance for the day time game is indicative of growing interest in the team. Twins president Dave St. Peter said that there is a lot of ticket buying interest including for the June 15 date when Joe Mauer’s jersey number will be retired. The Twins will play the Royals June 15, likely in front of a sellout crowd at Target Field.

ESPN college basketball authority Fran Fraschilla has followed Alihan Demir, the 6-9 forward and grad transfer from Drexel who is the latest member of coach Richard Pitino’s Golden Gophers 2019 recruiting class.

“I expect him to be a solid role player up front,” Fraschilla told Sports Headliners this week. “Not a star, but just a good role player for them. Someone that gives them power inside. He shoots the three but that’s not really his game. He’s more of a banger, plays with toughness. Very good passer.”

Demir, a native of Turkey who averaged 14.8 points and 6.4 rebounds while making third team All-Colonial Athletic Association last season, joins a newcomers group that also includes 2019-2020 freshmen Sam Freeman (Dallas, Texas), Isaiah Ihnen (Boeblingen, Germany) and Tre’ Williams (Dallas, Texas).

Minnesota’s freshmen class is ranked No. 37 in the nation by 247sports.com.

Jeff Goodman, writing for Watchstadium.com last fall, interviewed coaches and then wrote an article ranking the best to the most difficult men’s basketball coaching jobs in the Big Ten. Criteria included tradition, national TV coverage, game atmosphere, facilities, budget, and geographical recruiting base.

Minnesota ranked No. 10—and surprisingly behind No. 9 Nebraska. Ahead of the Gophers and Huskers were (in order of No.1 thru No. 8), Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, Maryland, Purdue, Illinois and Wisconsin.

The Gophers softball team, a No. 7 team in the NCAA Tournament and host of the Minneapolis Regional, will play North Dakota State Friday night with the 8:30 p.m. home game seen on ESPN 2. Senior Maddie Houlian realized last weekend there is a lot of interest in her team.

“I’ve already been getting calls, ‘Can we get tickets, can we get tickets,’ ” Houlihan said in a Gophers news release last Sunday. “It’s going to be a blast. I think this state is going to get behind Gopher softball.”

Congratulations to Bill Robertson, men’s WCHA commissioner and former Minnesota Wild executive, who was among the inductees into the Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame Monday night. The Robertsons are the only family to have three members in the St. Paul shrine, with Bill’s brother Mike and dad Norb having previously been honored.

Sad to report that former Timberwolves executive Rob Babcock passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer.

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U Prez Maybe ‘Home Run’ for Athletics

Posted on May 12, 2019May 12, 2019 by David Shama

Joan Gabel takes over as University of Minnesota president July 1 and her tenure will be interesting on many fronts including athletics.

Former Golden Gophers football player Mark Sheffert was a member of the presidential search committee, and he is a shrewd evaluator of people and organizations. It didn’t take him long during the search process to become an admirer of Gabel.

Sheffert has over 40 years of business experience and in 2014 was inducted into the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame. He is former president of First Bank System (now US Bancorp) and now he is founder and CEO of Manchester, a renowned Minneapolis-based firm providing financial and advisory services to organizations. A reserve football player for the Gophers in the 1960s, he is a passionate but sometimes critical supporter of the University on multiple issues including athletics.

Sheffert has long insisted that high profile U sports like football can and should be more successful, and do so on a consistent basis. He told his colleagues on the academics-heavy search committee he wanted the U to hire a person “that understands” the value of Division I sports in this marketplace.

The athletic department reported to Gabel at South Carolina where she is provost. She has been exposed to big-time sports at South Carolina, including the football-crazed South Eastern Conference environment. Her experiences should be beneficial to the U Athletic Department and Gophers fans.

“I love sports—I’m a huge fan,” Gabel said in a 2015 story about her on the University of South Carolina website.

“She is a supporter of athletics. She loves athletics,” Sheffert agreed. “She thinks we can do better in athletics, and I love that too. She said during the interview (process), ‘I think there are a lot of opportunities at the University of Minnesota that haven’t been capitalized on, and we’re going to do that.’ ”

When Sheffert and others on the search committee looked at Gabel they saw a candidate with not only interpersonal skills, but a balanced blend of administrative, academic, law, finance and business backgrounds. “She started off as a commercial litigator. Commercial litigators are the true professionals of the legal field,” Sheffert said. “She was also at Missouri (as) head of the business school.”

Gabel will become the 17th president of the University and the first female. Sheffert is pleased to have Gabel, who quickly earned his confidence, make history at Minnesota. “She did her homework (on the University),” he said. “She knew more about us coming into the (interview) meeting than we knew about her. As soon as I read her resume, I said to myself, ‘This is going to be our next president.’ “

Over the years the University has employed many presidents who shorted athletics in vital ways. They failed to recognize and passionately support the notion athletics do represent “the front porch” of a major University’s image, and the resulting goodwill and financial windfalls that can occur. Not only didn’t many of those presidents make athletics a priority at Minnesota, but their indifference and lack of expertise resulted in mediocre (at best) hires of athletic directors and coaches.

Gabel will soon have the opportunity to not only be the first female president but perhaps one day be judged as the best ever for both academics and athletics.

Worth Noting

Vietnam veteran Tom Sakal, a superb defensive back on the 1967 Golden Gophers 1967 Big Ten champions and one of the great captains in program history, will be interred Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery. Tom was a wonderful friend and he lived a life that blessed so many others including his many years as an insurance executive.

Twins home attendance has been on the rise since last week’s popular $5 “flash” sale. In their last three games at Target Field, the club has announced crowds of 26,789, 28,840 and 20,724. As of last Thursday, the Twins ranked No. 23 in MLB attendance, averaging 16,843, per ESPN.com

Twins’ fan Scott Buss writing on Facebook: “In June they should have regular price tickets and $4 beers and $2 hotdogs all month. By July, people will be scalping tickets if they keep playing the way they are.”

The Twins, with the best record in the majors, are 12 games over .500 at 25-13 going into today’s series finale at Target Field against the Tigers. Minnesota’s starter, Martin Perez, is 5-0 with a 2.83 ERA after restarting his career coming over from Texas.

Baseball legend Willie Mays, who played for the 1951 Minneapolis Millers and is considered by some authorities to be the greatest player ever, turned 88 last week. Mays played his early MLB career with the Giants in New York when the club eyed a franchise move to Minneapolis. Instead, the Giants moved to San Francisco after the 1957 season and Mays played most of his career in windy Candlestick Park instead of home run friendly Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

An NBA source told Sports Headliners new Timberwolves general manager Gersson Rosas was effective in 17 years working for the Houston Rockets front office but not visible to the public. “There weren’t five paragraphs written about him in the newspapers,” the source said.

Rosas’ work as assistant general manager for the Rockets was appreciated by Kevin McHale, the former Houston head coach and once the Timberwolves basketball boss. “Great hire by the Wolves. Gersson is a good blend of analytics and basketball. He values high IQ and skill in players, along with chemistry. Gersson will make sure the team can produce high value shots from three, in the paint and from the line. He is a good person and will fit very nicely in Minnesota.”

Among Rosas’ challenges will be extracting more production from over compensated Andrew Wiggins. A suggestion: switch Wiggins from small forward to big guard. NBA game strategy is often about exploiting mismatches and at 6-foot-8 the athletic Wiggins has the potential to do just that, including near the basket.

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Flexible Ticket Pricing Now Twins Way

Posted on May 9, 2019May 9, 2019 by David Shama

The Minnesota Twins offered the deepest single game discount on tickets this week that sources could recall.

Tuesday the club offered thousands of outfield seats for each of the 12 remaining home games in May at a price of $5 per ticket, and by Wednesday afternoon the inventory was gone. Then Wednesday night the organization did a second $5 flash sale for May offering entry to Target Field for games but not a designated seat, and now that inventory is also gone. This afternoon a Twins news release said that 20,000 outfield seats were sold via the first sale and 12,000 ballpark access tickets in the second.

How fast the Twins sold out the $5 allotment speaks to its popularity. “In my memory, I don’t remember anything this deep affecting so many tickets for this long a time,” said WCCO Radio talk show host Dave Mona who has followed the Twins franchise since its inception in 1961. “They’ve still got a substantial part of May remaining. I think that they (Twins executives) looked at it and said, ‘We need to do something dramatic to get people into the ballpark,’ and this was pretty dramatic.”

It’s been a rough spring for weather but the Twins have been playing some of the best baseball in the majors and the organization’s marketers want to get fans to Target Field so they can sample the product. “…I am sure they are as perplexed as others at how much of the decline is weather related because it truly has been a terrible spring for baseball,” Mona said. “They’re hoping people come to the park, like what they see and come back even after the promotion ends.”

The Twins attracted less than two million customers to their games last season. That was the lowest head count since 2010 when they moved into their new home, Target Field. This spring empty seats have been everywhere at the downtown ballpark.

Team marketers are using flexible pricing to counteract attendance problems. For the last couple of years the club has sold an inexpensive spring ballpark pass, and this season the Twins offered ticket plans at $49, $99 and $149 per month that gets you into Target Field for all but two games, Opening Day and Joe Mauer Day. Single game buyers can purchase inexpensive tickets, and then at the game use apps on their phones to upgrade to a better and more expensive seat for minimal costs, paying something like $20 for a $50 seat.

Getting people to fill seats has benefits, even at drastically reduced pricing. Bargain paying customers may return later to Target Field for other games and some will buy more expensive tickets to improve their seating in the ballpark. Fans also purchase food, beverages and merchandise inside Target Field, contributing to franchise revenues.

“A sea of empty seats” is not the desired image to project to fans watching games at home on television, or to sponsors who have invested millions of dollars to be associated with Minnesota’s big league baseball club. A former front office executive in Major League Baseball likened the Twins’ attendance situation to the image of driving by a restaurant at 6 p.m. “If the parking lot is empty, it might not be a good place to eat,” he said about giving off the wrong impression.

There are many reasons for the Twins’ slide at the gate. The poor weather of the last couple of springs is a painful reminder for both the ballclub and the public of failed efforts years ago to build a new stadium with a retractable roof. Target Field is a terrific outdoor ball park but it offers no solution for rain, extreme cold and bad baseball. Since Target Field opened the Twins have had four seasons when the club lost more than 90 games. When teams lose their emotional ties with patrons, it can be difficult to get customers back in the ballpark.

The Twins sold 25,000 season tickets in the first season at Target Field but estimates now have that number at around 10,000. That means the club has the challenge of selling roughly 28,000 seats via group and single game tickets for each home date.

And there are 81 home dates to sell, more than any other major sport in America. That’s a lot of inventory for customers to commit to on a season ticket basis, or even partial season tickets. The commitment involves money, time and emotion. In a busy, even glutted marketplace, with so many sports and entertainment options, there is fierce competition in Minneapolis-St. Paul to command the attention of consumers.

Despite their 2019 success on the field, as of today the Twins ranked No. 23 in MLB attendance, averaging 16,843, per ESPN.com. (The small market Milwaukee Brewers with a retractable roof stadium are No. 8, averaging 33,079).

The Twins are not alone in their challenge to attract customers. Earlier this spring USA Today’s website reported 12 of the 30 Major League teams were down in attendance, with a 17 percent overall decline.

The length of games has for years been a common complaint among lukewarm fans. Typically games will take three to four hours. Add in time going to and from the ballpark, and that totals a lot of hours for customers—no matter the cost of tickets.

Gophers Baseball Notes

Spring weather often does the baseball Gophers no favors, either. John Anderson has led the program for 37 seasons. “The last two years have been really challenging (springs),” he said. “No question.”

During Minnesota’s Big Ten schedule poor weather has resulted in the Gophers having to play five unplanned doubleheaders in recent weeks. On Wednesday, the Gophers had to cancel a home nonconference game with Omaha because of rain.

The Gophers had to play their first 21 games on the road this season, with indoor U.S. Bank Stadium unavailable to them because of preparations to host the early April men’s basketball Final Four. The road dates, combined with bad spring weather, have cost the team a lot of practice time and slowed player development, resulting in a “crazy year,” Anderson said.

Minnesota, though, is 11-7 in Big Ten games (22-23 overall) and playing some of its best baseball of late. “We’re trending in the right direction,” Anderson said. “Our pitching has really improved, has been consistent and stable over the last three weeks or so.”

Anderson hopes the Gophers can excel in their last two Big Ten series of the season and then impress in the Big Ten Tournament that starts May 22. “If we’re going to make a run here at the end, it’s going to start there on the mound,” he said.

Anderson turns 64 on May 16 and has another year remaining on his contract. He plans to continue coaching for awhile if the University of Minnesota wants him beyond 2020. There shouldn’t be any doubt about that considering Anderson is a college baseball legend with over 1,300 career wins.

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