My All Time Favorite Twins 25 Man Roster By remsteel on Jul 16, 2021, 11:11pm EDT 1
Apologies in advance for the poor layout of this post. I was going through the rabbit hole of old Twins highlights today and wanted to put together a roster of my favorite Twins I ve enjoyed in my lifetime. I would love for you to share your lineup to full roster in the comments as this is purely based on my fanboi heart instead of stats. I was born in 1987, 3 weeks after our first world series title and have no strong ties to that team but grew up watching the recap video of the 91 series win. My roster is very biased towards the 90 s and 00 s teams so I expect will be very different than the old timers.
Two openers, two very different results 2001 & 2011
Share this story
Coming into the 2001 season, the Minnesota Twins were largely the laughingstock of Major League Baseball. Eight consecutive 4th-or-worse finishes in the AL Central and struggling to seat a million fans per season will do that to a franchise. This was the time period from which our digital domain derives its spongy food-cake moniker.
By ‘01, though, the Twins had acquired and developed a solid amount of raw, young talent thanks to the shrewd wheeling-and-dealing of GM Terry Ryan and the on-field generalship of Tom Kelly. Of course, there was much to be proven after such a prolonged fallow period. That redemption began at Comerica Park its concrete still setting after a 2000 christening in front of 40,000 Tigers faithful.
Luis Arraez should be Twins’ best utility man since César Tovar
Share this story
Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
Defining “utility players” is much more difficult in 2021 than it was 15 years ago.
No longer are we limited to talking about bench guys like Denny Hocking or Nick Punto. The super-utility era that was ushered in a little over a decade ago and led by Tampa Bay’s Ben Zobrist has adjusted the definition of a utility player. Or, at least the way that the role is perceived.
Now, teams often have two “utility” players on their roster. The 2019 and 2020 Twins, for instance, had Marwin Gonzalez, who primarily played the corner spots and some second base. Ehire Adrianza was the backup shortstop and the preferred glove to Gonzalez in every other role.