Minnesota's Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Minnesota?
Issue #86
This is the third article in a new series I’ve started where I’m creating all-time dream teams for players born in each of the fifty US states. I’ll be publishing each write-up on the anniversary date that the particular state joined the union. In late April I did Maryland and Louisiana, and next up is Minnesota, which was the 32nd state admitted to the union on May 11, 1858 (according to Wikipedia.)
[Note: I’m creating these all-time dream teams based on the birthplace data available at baseball-reference.com. I realize this might mean some players will appear for a state’s all-time dream that seems odd, e.g., a player who was born in one state but lived there only briefly, while then spending most of his youth, or especially critical years playing baseball in high school in another state. So I’m giving that caveat to this 50-article project at the outset.]
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Minnesota:
Prior to researching this article, if I had been asked to name major league players born in Minnesota I could have named off some of the star players here, such as Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Joe Mauer, and Kent Hrbek. I didn’t know that Roger Maris was born in Minnesota, but perhaps that is because he went to High School in Fargo, North Dakota.
In all there are four Hall of Famers on this roster: Winfield and Molitor, plus two of the starting pitchers, Chief Bender and Jack Morris. Winfield and several of the other outfielders primarily played RF, and really none of them primarily played CF. Because of that I’ve listed Winfield as the top CF, even though he only played 223 games there, spread across eight seasons (he played 1,883 games in RF, 465 in LF, 419 as a DH, and even 8 games at 1B and 2 at 3B.) That allowed me to give the starting RF spot to Roger Maris, and then for LF I went with Jim Eisenreich in a close call over Rip Repulski (they will platoon in the lineups below.)
Paul Molitor is the top player in the infield, though he of course played more games as a DH (1,174) than anywhere else: 792 at 3B, 400 at 2B, 197 at 1B, 57 at SS (early in his career), and even 50 in the OF. The infield position with the most depth is 1B, where clearly Hrbek is the starter, with Chick Gandil, Ike Davis, and Joe Mauer as reserves (Mauer is naturally the starting catcher on this roster.) Gandil is widely considered the ringleader of the 1919 “Black Sox,” so some fans might not want to include him here—but for this project I’m including all players, including those banned from the game.
Aside from Molitor, the middle infield spots of 2B and SS were very lacking in candidates, with really no one born in Minnesota who was primarily a shortstop. So I’ve listed Gene DeMontreville there, who played from 1894-1904 for eight different franchises, getting into 511 games at 2B and 379 at SS. He had a .303 career batting average and stole 20+ bases seven times, with a high of 49 in 1898. Jack Crooks’ career overlapped with DeMontreville’s, as he played eight seasons spread across 1889 to 1898. He too stole bases pretty well, with five seasons of 20+ and a high of 57 in 1890. He only batted .241, but had a good eye and so walked a lot, including twice leading the NL with 136 in 1892 an 121 in 1893.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Paul Molitor 3B (R)
Joe Mauer C (L)
Dave Winfield CF (R)
Roger Maris RF (L)
Kent Hrbek 1B (L)
Ike Davis DH (L)
Jim Eisenreich LF (L)
Gene DeMontreville SS (R)
Jack Crooks 2B (R)
Against LHP:
Paul Molitor 3B (R)
Joe Mauer C (L)
Dave Winfield CF (R)
Roger Maris RF (L)
Kent Hrbek 1B (L)
Terry Steinbach DH (R)
Rip Repulski LF (R)
Gene DeMontreville SS (R)
Jack Crooks 2B (R)
These lineups are pretty straightforward. Paul Molitor most often batted in the leadoff spot during his career, so he seemed like the natural to do so here. The 3-4-5 power hitters could be re-arranged however you like. And then I saw two platoon options, in LF and DH. Amongst the bench players on the roster, I went with Ike Davis and Terry Steinbach for the DH role, as they each had a 30-HR season during their careers.
As for pitchers, you could debate the order for the top three, but I went with Chief Bender, Jerry Koosman, and then Jack Morris. Morris certainly had his great moments, but overall I think he was a very questionable Hall of Fame selection, while Koosman is relatively underrated.
Rounding out a five-man rotation I went with Rube Walberg, who pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics a decade after Bender did, and then Bullet Joe Bush who also pitched for the Athletics, overlapping just a bit with Bender, but coming before Walberg’s time. Bush was one of the earliest to throw the forkball, and he was a relatively good hitter, batting .253 over his career. As for the nickname “Bullet Joe,” his entry at the SABR BioProject states that Bush credited the nickname “to teammate Eddie Collins, who applied the label after observing a letter in the clubhouse that was addressed to ‘Joe Bullet’ Bush. The nickname stuck for the rest of his baseball career.” His real name was Leslie Ambrose Bush, so I can see why— especially as a pitcher famed for his fastball—a nickname like “Bullet Joe” was desired.
After those top five, you could again debate the order for the others I included. Gullickson and Goltz each won 20 games once, while Sele and Johnson were each All-Stars twice. Johnson’s career was significantly shorter than the other three, cut short by Tommy John Surgery at age 29 that he wasn’t able to come back from.
The bullpen for this dream team begins with two recent closers in Brad Hand and Glen Perkins. Tom Burgmeier pitched for 17 seasons and was sometimes used as a closer, including in his one All-Star season in 1980 for the Red Sox when he posted 24 saves and a 2.00 ERA.
All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites. The state map, flag, flower, and bird images are from Wikipedia.
Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.
