Minnesota Twins Daily Dip: A journeyman’s best year

Pitcher Freddie Toliver of the Minnesota Twins confers with an official during a game.
Pitcher Freddie Toliver of the Minnesota Twins confers with an official during a game.

Minnesota Twins Daily Dip, February 3rd, 2018

Welcome to the February 3rd edition of the Daily Dip, your daily piece of news and notes here on Puckett’s Pond, offseason edition. You’ll find the most recent news of the Minnesota Twins organization, stories from around the game, and links to any information you may want to know about the Minnesota Twins or baseball as we work our way through the hot stove season!

Minnesota Twins Organizational Scores

Australian Baseball League Update
Brisbane’s games against Melbourne have been cancelled due to weather this weekend.

Caribbean Series Update
The Caribbean Series is played each year with the winning team from each of the Venezuelan, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Mexican Winter Leagues in a five-team tournament with Cuba participating as well. The series opened on Friday night.

In the first game of the series, Puerto Rico defeated Mexico 7-4. The Twins didn’t have any players in the game. Outielder Anthony Garcia was the star of the game, with a pair of doubles among 3 hits for Puerto Rico, driving in 2 runs.

Cuba won in the second game, defeating Venezuela 6-4. The Twins had one representative in the game, left fielder Willians Astudillo for the Venezuela team, who went 0-4. Outfielder Yurisbel Gracial drove in 3 runs with a double and a single.

Player Stats:
Willians Astudillo, 4 PA, .000/.000/.000

Minnesota Twins news and notes

Berrios has high goals for 2018
Jose Berrios talked with MLB.com reporter Rhett Bollinger about his plans for 2018, and he has very high goals, including making the All-Star game!

Healthy Duke ready to contribute to Twins
Coming off of Tommy John surgery in 2017, Zach Duke wasn’t quite himself, and he is excited to show that he’s back to 100% this season. Duke also had some very positive things to say about the atmosphere and environment he experienced in talking with Twins’ brass this offseason.

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Notes from around baseball

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One Last Thing

Freddie Toliver celebrates his 57th birthday today. Toliver was the definition of a journeyman arm, playing seven major league seasons for 5 organizations, overall spending 15 years in organized baseball across 7 organizations.

Toliver was acquired before the 1988 season for a minor leaguer and worked his way into the Twins rotation with a 4.24 ERA over 114 2/3 innings, posting a 1.47 WHIP and a 52/69 BB/K ratio. That season would prove to be Toliver’s most innings in the major leagues, nearly half of his entire career total of 270 1/3 innings.

Schedule