Weird year. Weird board. Weird old age (mine). So we're starting off with a weird Patrick Reusse column, and one where he makes me incredibly uncomfortable by writing the phrase "car crash caused by roadside bandits." Could be utterly true, but somehow seems kind of racist when Reusse says it.

In any case, I'm ready for Willians. I don't care if he doesn't have a position (Garver and Castro seem secure there) as long as he breaks camp with the team and I can go into every scheduled Twins game of 2019 expecting Willians Astudillo to come in and do something interesting. 5'8" 240 lbs. guy scoring from first on a double? Sure. Coming in to pitch? Sure. Picking off a runner from first with a no-look throw? Yes, please.

The one thing we know we won't see when Astudillo plays is a lot of strikeouts. Seeing a genuinely weird skillset seems increasingly odd in a game that stops and starts so frequently that it's rather simple for smart coaches and managers to carefully control for the most likely outcome hasn't exactly made the game boring, but it has made it much less weird. In a game that's embracing a three true outcomes approach even on the defensive end with shifts that assume batters really only put well-struck balls into play in small parts of the field, having a guy who literally had the same number of homeruns (three) as strikeouts (also three) in his 97 MLB plate appearances is truly odd. He's actually had a shockingly strong track record for contact since his minor league days (Phillies and Braves system) but the power is relatively recent. It's not a ton of power, obviously. But it is:

a)way more useful when it comes to considering him a real contributor to a winning MLB roster
b)even stranger than a slappy spray hitter who doesn't strike out much

He swings, incredibly often, and makes hard contact incredibly often. That's extremely rare in 2019, and combined with his Bartolo-esque frame and willingness to play just about anywhere makes a player who is actually... fun.

Which is important because 2018 wasn't very fun. I'm good with bad teams, but the thing that always loses me is the sense of redundancy in certain types of losses. Starter gets whaled and is relieved before five innings. Relief holds on for two or three of those before the wheels come off. Lacking any true power bat, offense struggles to capitalize on nascent rallies. Twins lose, 7-2.

The team needs a Buxton and Sano breakthrough more than it needs Willians Astudillo to get 300 plate appearances. But I need both of those things, and my interest in talking about this team pretty much depends on both of them occurring. So here we go. This is the 2019 Twins post. Have opinions.

http://www.startribune.com/willians-astudillo-had-fame-flamboyance-in-venezuelan-league/506034802/

Willians Astudillo had fame, flamboyance in Venezuelan League
By Patrick Reusse FEBRUARY 19, 2019 — 8:27AM

The Venezuelan Professional Baseball League dates to 1946 and the eight-team league survived another season this winter, despite runaway inflation and oppressive poverty that has strapped all of the teams financially.

The schedule is drawn up as a 63-game round robin, with the eight teams playing one another nine times. There were several cancellations for reasons other than weather, including three days of mourning in early December after Lara players Luis Valbuena and Jose Castillo were killed in a car crash caused by roadside bandits.

The regular season started on Oct. 12 and wound up on Dec. 30, with Magallanes in first place at 33-25 and Caribes in sixth place at 27-29. Magallanes had the league’s MVP in Delmon Young, who hit 17 home runs, and Caribes had the MVP runner-up in the Twins’ Willians Astudillo.

Six teams make the playoffs and Magallanes and Caribes played in the first round. The series was tied at two wins apiece, and Game 5 was tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the eighth.

Astudillo came up to face Magallanes’ Deolis Guerra. You remember Deolis as one of the pitchers that was supposed to make Twins’ fans eventually feel better about the Johan Santana trade to the New York Mets on Feb. 2, 2008.

It didn’t work out that way, as Guerra left the Twins as a minor-league free agent six years later without having pitched a game for Minnesota. He saw brief big-league action elsewhere.

If you are among the Twins loyalists to have become a student of Astudillo’s adventures, you have seen what happened next:

Astudillo took a hack and hit a high drive that was sailing near the left field line. He could have pulled a Carlton Fisk and started waving “stay fair,’’ but instead Wondrous Willians was slightly off-balance, so he just went down to one knee, rested his right arm on top of a bat stuck in the ground, and waited a couple of seconds.

It was a fair and a home run. Astudillo went nuts as he started to circle the bases. His teammates joined in the hysteria, as did the home crowd in Puerto la Cruz, in a stadium named after a great White Sox shortstop, Chico Carrasquel.

Another great Venezuelan and White Sox shortstop, Ozzie Guillen, nicknamed the 2006 Twins the ‘’little piranhas,’’ and he might have gotten the idea from familiarity with Caribes – Spanish for that type of feisty fish – in his country’s winter league.

Caribes was able to protect that lead in the ninth, and then two nights later, it held a 7-4 lead going into the ninth at Magallanes’ stadium in Valencia. Stu Cliburn, the pitching coach for the Twins’ Class AAA Rochester team, also had that job for Magallanes and had a suspicion what might happen when Astudillo came to bat in that half-inning.

“Willians had a couple of hits and had driven in two runs,’’ Cliburn said. “Plus, there were some players who weren’t happy about the way he watched the home run, and then the celebration, in the previous game.

“Pedro Rodriguez was our pitcher – a good reliever for us, but he wa steamed. And he stuck a fastball in Willians’ ribs.’’

Allegedly, there was also a fastball thrown at Astudillo’s head. Asked about it when he arrived in Twins’ camp late last week, Astudillo nodded “yes,’’ and made the motion of a pitch going past his head.

“I don’t think so,'' Cliburn said. “Rodriguez just hit him in the side and Willians went to first base.’’

Caribes won the game and the series to advance to the second round. But wait – with only three winners, another team was required for the semifinals, so Magallanes hosted a wild-card game vs. Aragua, another series loser. Magallanes won and also advanced to the second round.

Magallanes then lost to Lara and Caribes lost to Caracas. Astudillo was drafted by Lara and that team – the one that had lost Valbuena and Castillo in the December tragedy – won the Venezuelan championship.

Cliburn was asked for a scouting report on our old friend Delmon Young, now 33, after watching him for three months.

“He was strictly a DH, but he was driving the ball,’’ Cliburn said. “There are a lot of scouts there from Korea and Japan. I think he was hoping to get a job over there. Korea’s his best chance, I’d guess.’’

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"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad