The Story of the Spreadsheet

Every off-season, I create a spreadsheet to keep track of the goings-on of the Twins roster. I started doing it just to keep track of who left and who was added, because by the the time the season started, I could never remember that stuff. As the years have gone by, I've added more info and kept it current throughout the season. This is kind of a huge deal for me; I'm afraid of spreadsheets.

This year, I added disabled list and call-up transactions to the mix. I'm glad I did; I learned a lot of interesting stuff. Of course, I picked an interesting season to start doing this.

Some stuff I figured out (not official and subject to my errors in tracking or calculation, which shouldn't surprise anybody):

• The Twins used the DL 27 times
• 16 different players landed on the DL
• 11 players were on it twice
• A total of 888 days were lost to guys on the DL
• That's an average of 55.5 days per guy
• Denard Span was on it for the most total days at 91
• Joe Mauer's 1st time on it was the longest single stint at 65 days
• Tsuyoshi Niskioka was the first one actually put on the DL on April 8, but on April 9, Kevin Slowey was put on it retroactive to April 5, so he's technically the first one
• Jose Mijares was the only one on it for no more than 15 days
• Of the 25 men who were on the Opening Day roster, four were sent down to the minors (non-rehab): Slowey, Matt Tolbert, Jeff Manship, and Dusty Hughes
• There were 20 guys who started the season in the minors who were called up at some point during the season
• Ten were called up more than once
• Luke Hughes and Rene Tosoni were each called up four times
• Three were strictly September call-ups: Joe Benson, Liam Hendricks, Chris Parmelee, and Kyle Waldrop

So, crunching these facts pretty much tells me that the Twins were injured too much and that put a lot of strain on the minor league teams. Shocker, huh? Oh, and Luke Hughes and Rene Tosoni should get some frequent flyer miles -- they probably won't, but they should.

Now I'm about to make a new spreadsheet for this off-season going through next season. I'll start with the published 40-man roster that's on the Twins website, and I'll go from there.

As of Friday, there are four guys who won't be added to my shiny new spreadsheet because they were designated for assignment: Matt Tolbert, Rene Rivera, Anthony Slama, and Jason Repko. I'm not sure if that means that any of them become minor league free agents or not. The whole minor league option thing still confuses me. I'm sure someone will explain it soon enough.